Faeries, Ghosts, and High Strangeness in the Vietnam War

Summary

Haunted Cosmos: Faeries, Ghosts, and High Strangeness in the Vietnam War

Episode Release Date: March 5, 2025
Hosts: Ben Garrett & Brian Sauvé

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Haunted Cosmos, hosts Ben Garrett and Brian Sauvé delve deep into the enigmatic and supernatural occurrences that plagued the soldiers during the Vietnam War. Titled "Faeries, Ghosts, and High Strangeness in the Vietnam War," the episode explores the eerie intersections between warfare, folklore, and unexplained phenomena in the dense jungles of Southeast Asia.

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Encounters with the Unknown

The episode opens with a vivid narrative set in the heart of the Vietnamese jungle, where six soldiers from the 101st Airborne find themselves behind enemy lines. Amidst the oppressive humidity and the unsettling sounds of the forest, the soldiers encounter mysterious, bipedal creatures referred to as "rock apes."

"The forest dripped with stifling humidity...six men sent to die for their country in the black jungles of Vietnam" ([01:06] Ben)

As tensions rise, the soldiers witness these creatures uncoiling like snakes, glowing with an unnatural light, and exhibiting behaviors both menacing and sorrowful. Despite relentless gunfire, the entities remain unharmed, retreating only when the soldiers cease their attack.

"None of the creatures fell. They merely seemed inconvenienced...they retreated back into the thick and darkest parts of the forest" ([13:45] Ben)

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Historical and Cultural Context

Garrett and Sauvé contextualize these encounters within the broader landscape of the Vietnam War, highlighting how the dense, ancient forests of Vietnam have long been shrouded in mystery and folklore. The hosts reference the Ngoy Rim, or "People of the Forest," from local oral traditions, suggesting that these beings may be rooted in ancient legends that predate the war itself.

"These rural tribes never lost their stalwart belief in this race of creature...it wasn't just a forgotten animal thus far missed by mankind" ([05:20] Ben)

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Scientific Investigations

The episode transitions to discuss efforts by both military and scientific communities to investigate these unexplained phenomena. Professor Voi Koo of the Vietnam National University spearheaded an expedition to uncover the truth behind the rock apes. Initial findings, such as unusual footprints wider than human yet smaller than known apes, sparked scientific curiosity but ultimately led to dead ends as sightings continued without concrete evidence.

"After these comments and others like them, the men glanced at each other, turned, and continued their march deeper into the wilderness" ([08:10] Ben)

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High-Strangeness Phenomena

Further unsettling accounts include glowing, floating beings witnessed by U.S. river patrol boats and marines near the DMZ. These entities defy conventional explanations, prompting theories ranging from advanced extraterrestrial life to spiritual manifestations tied to the intense human suffering of war.

"They seemed to take little heed of the approaching American patrol, instead maintaining their posture of upright and pointed up towards the heavens in some sort of salutation" ([12:30] Ben)

The hosts explore the possibility that these phenomena are manifestations of a deeper spiritual battle, intertwining the seen and unseen worlds, and reflecting the chaos and moral dilemmas faced by those involved in the conflict.

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The Unseen Battle

Garrett and Sauvé delve into the theological implications of these supernatural events, drawing parallels to biblical narratives where spiritual forces influence human affairs. They suggest that the strangeness encountered during the Vietnam War may be manifestations of an ongoing spiritual warfare, where demonic forces seek to undermine human goodness and faith.

"Behind the raging of human warring and human conflict...there are spiritual forces that are at work" ([19:55] Brian)

The episode references scriptures such as Daniel 10 and Ezekiel 28 to illustrate how spiritual entities have historically interacted with human conflicts, reinforcing the idea that the supernatural plays a pivotal role in earthly wars.

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Conclusions and Reflections

In wrapping up, the hosts reflect on the enduring mysteries of the Vietnam War and the countless unexplained phenomena reported by soldiers. They ponder the lasting impact of these encounters on the soldiers' psyches and the broader implications for understanding the nature of reality and faith.

"The more we see, the more likely it is that the events they're all taking place within the realm of something massively important...a battle for the soul of creation itself" ([21:15] Ben)

Garrett and Sauvé invite listeners to consider the possibility that the high strangeness of the Vietnam War was not merely a backdrop for conflict but a stage where profound spiritual battles unfolded, leaving scars that go beyond the physical and into the metaphysical.

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Notable Quotes

• "The forest dripped with stifling humidity...six men sent to die for their country in the black jungles of Vietnam." — Ben Garrett ([01:06])

• "None of the creatures fell. They merely seemed inconvenienced...they retreated back into the thick and darkest parts of the forest." — Ben Garrett ([13:45])

• "Behind the raging of human warring and human conflict...there are spiritual forces that are at work." — Brian Sauvé ([19:55])

• "The more we see, the more likely it is that the events they're all taking place within the realm of something massively important...a battle for the soul of creation itself." — Ben Garrett ([21:15])

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Haunted Cosmos masterfully intertwines historical events with supernatural lore, providing a haunting exploration of the Vietnam War's hidden layers. Ben Garrett and Brian Sauvé encourage listeners to look beyond the conventional narratives of war, inviting them to ponder the profound and often unsettling intersections between human conflict and the mysterious forces that may lie beneath the surface of our reality.

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For those intrigued by the blend of history, mystery, and spirituality, "Faeries, Ghosts, and High Strangeness in the Vietnam War" offers a compelling journey into the unknown realms that shaped one of the most tumultuous periods of the 20th century.

Transcript

[Ben]

It.

[Brian]

The forest dripped with stifling humidity. It was midday, but the thick canopy of leaves above gave the world beneath it an eerie feel as of a bad dream. Forest creatures grunted occasionally in the distance, and branches randomly rustled overhead from birds bouncing across them. In that dark place, though, the birds did not seem like lively things, and their songs did not lighten the hearts of the men on the ground. They seemed instead like stalking shadow figures lingering just outside of one's field of vision, informing other stalkers of where they could find prey. The men sat ragged and pouring sweat in the damp soil. Six men all leaning back onto each other and facing outwards, rifles at the ready as always. They'd been hauling their rucks through the dense jungle for two days already, behind enemy lines and free from any spot where they could make safe contact with their outpost if they needed to. Six men from the 101st Airborne. Six men sent to die for their country in the black jungles of Vietnam. For all the tension that hung as an ever present threat in the air, the forest then was peaceful for the men, but it was a deceptive peace, and they knew it. Hence the tension. Each soldier felt as though he walked through an ancient and overgrown temple of pagan worship to a wicked deity who always lusted for blood. They had walked for miles with the heavy packs and would have preferred to keep walking, but the rest was necessary. So they sat uneasy and vigilant, constantly wiping sweat that pooled around their eyes into that quiet. A clatter started to rise from a thick grove of brush some 50 yards up the hill in front of them. They leapt to their feet and spraying for what little cover the trees and deadfall could offer them. Once hidden, they glanced at each other in confusion. The Viet Cong would not make such a noise, but the Northern army would make far more noise. What, they wondered, was this new devilry? And then, almost in slow motion, something sprang from the brush towards them as if shot from a cannon. It was dark like everything else, with patches of pale making it traceable through the air. The last thoughts of girlfriends and wives and children fled the men's minds, and they watched this thing land now 15 yards before them. It uncoiled itself from its landing like a snake, and soon stood tall, bipedal and robed in thick black hair. The feet, the knees, the hands and face were all just bare skin, and in that face, the men swore they saw something more than mere beast. Perhaps not a man, but perhaps not too much. Less the look of premeditated aggression. A face of vengeance was enough to tell them that this was not just a forgotten animal thus far missed by mankind. And as they each processed this in the moment, the sounds of coral whooping rang out from the darkness behind the creature. And more of the same things as this other one flew from the brush to join him in staring down the soldiers. What followed was the chaos of pure terror. Each man, seeing this team of foes for what it was that they had to be standing before them, simultaneously formulated the same plan of action. Open fire. Their rifles sang their rhythmic beating, and hot steel plunged through the still air like a swarm of bees attacking these strange guests. Thuds of bullets hitting flesh joined the cacophony, and the beings began to flinch ever backwards in pain. They yelled and whooped more in high pitches, shrieks. And so the soldiers thought. Some of the creatures looked to his mate next to him with pitiful expressions, as if longing for pity and help. It was all too uncanny. Too human, but yet not human enough. Still, despite the storm of bullets continuing to pour on them, none of the creatures fell. They merely seemed inconvenienced, comparatively, in the way a stubbed toe might inconvenience a toddler into thinking his life's journey is over. They retreated back into the thick and darkest parts of the forest as the gunfire ceased and echoed its last booms through the trees. All was especially quiet now. No more birds above, no more animals afar, no rustling leaves, only branches softly bending or snapping beneath the feet of the soldiers as they marched forward, still withdrawn weapons, to examine where the strange beings had been. There they found nothing but drops of blood here and there, and the tracks of what could have been dragging feet. Not many words were shared. Some spoke of Vietnam not having a known ape population. Others responded to this, that whatever those things were, they were not ordinary apes. But after those comments and others like them, the men glanced at each other, turned, and continued their march deeper into the wilderness. But if no more words were said, it was not for lack of thought given. Each man pondered over the event time and time again, wondering occasionally aloud but under his breath, what those things could have been, how they were not dead, where they all came from so suddenly, and where they all went to more suddenly still. But this was just one encounter among the many that soldiers from every side of the Vietnam War had with the so called rock apes in the Vuquang Mountains. Those places in the world which lie far to the east tend to also lie in a conceptual place of shadow. To us in the west, they are dense, forested places, dark places, places battered like toys by the wars of the 20th century, but places with untold histories of violence from ancient days that have been forgotten. There are places which spark a kind of claustrophobic and helpless imagination. Make no mistake, the beauty these countries contain Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma is indescribably vast. But their mystery at least equals their beauty. Where you see an ocean of green untouched by industry, you also see a world of unknown below the trees, a world full of legends waiting to be discovered if we dare. Where we see ribbons of blue and green and gray, left to their courses since the dawn of time. You also see peril and primordial memory that has not been whitewashed by the modern, rational man. And so, while they are and seem lovely places to observe from afar or from the comfort of the resort, here and there they become treacherous places that feel inhospitable to man once he is up close to them. For outside of the pictures and outside of the walls of the resorts, they are wilderness. Man was meant to tame wilderness. But we're out of practice. Where better men might have seen a playful challenge to win glory for God and country. In the darkness, we tend to only see threat, and we tend to only respond with retreat and unease. And one place encapsulates and maximizes all of these feelings at the same time. Tucked into an almost complete, unknown corner of the earth, upon the borders of Cambodia and Laos, sits the western mountains of Vietnam's Kon Tum province. Inside of it, we all sense are wonders beyond reckoning and perils beyond prediction. But what if I told you that this place, this alien place, holds some secrets that we in the west are far too familiar with already? What happens when lore repeats itself the world over, and in ways to the people of that place, does it then become something a bit more than lore to us? For generations before the latter half of the 20th century, the few rural families who lived in the remote region of Khon Tomb spoke in whispers about a strange group of entities they called the Ngoy Rim, the People of the Forest. Their oral traditions told of how they had been found by the first people to dwell in the mountains. How they vacillated between friend and foe and something somewhere in between. How they were neither human nor beast, and how sometimes they seemed to stretch the limits of what a thing ought to do in a purely seen world. These rural tribes never lost their stalwart belief in this race of creature. How could they deny what they had seen themselves? But it wasn't until the Vietnam War that the rest of the world started to listen to them with more sincerity. The story which opened this show, as we said, is just one among many that recount the terrible interactions soldiers on all sides of the Vietnam War had with these creatures. When the war began, patrols and entire squadrons were forced to map and subdue areas of the forest there, which had seldom been touched by any human being ever. It meant finding new things and new fears to guard against in the midst of war. Then there was also the opportunity to explore the edges of the world and to push man's knowledge of his home to new limits. So when soldiers came back from the forest with shaky voices telling stories about hairy ape men attacking them in the mountains, both sides decided that the proper response was to press further in. A professor named Voi Koo of the Vietnam National University was sent into the Kon Tum wild for an investigation with a small team to assist him. For days they made slow progress through the dense growth, through rivers and over high ridgelines, looking for signs of the elusive Ngoi Ru. They never knew if they could do anything to attract the beasts. They never knew if maybe they were already being stalked by them the entire time. The dense, still air of those forests is already uncanny. It's not a leap for a traveler through them to think himself not alone. But their perseverance eventually paid off. After a morning of heavy rain, they walked near to a riverbank in the afternoon. When Kwi found a single footprint between the water's edge and the layer of scree that led to the trees, it was akin to the bare footprint of a large human. At first glance, of course, the few villagers that still lived in those forests tended not to have people that were very large in stature. And so Kwie made quick work of casting the footprint in plaster before more rain could come to wash it away. Upon returning to the university, the footprint was analyzed by a team of higher level scientists still led by Quie. It was found to be wider than the human footprint, but still smaller than the print of an ape, any known species of ape, at least. After this, the trail of actual data went cold. Despite sightings by soldiers and locals continuing to take place, there eventually came to be a stark contrast in how the eyewitnesses though of these creatures and how the scientists saw them. The witnesses continually attributed a level of terror to these things, which seemed to the more rational interested parties to outpace what the creature would warrant if it was actually real. The scientists wondered how scary and angry and strong and tall a chimpanzee really could be. But they had not seen them. They did not really know. In 1982, more prints were discovered. And 10 years later, a man named John MacKinnon discovered three new mammalian species in the mountains around Kontum. These findings gave new life to the scientific possibility of these so called apemen. And yet, the eyewitness account tells a different story. Not a different one, mind you, but a deeper one. What if, like our own Western Bigfoot, there is more to these creatures than first meets the eye? In December of 1964, an American PBR, that's a river patrol boat, sped through the glassy waters of the Mekong Valley in the fog of early morning. It was the dawn patrol, something the men were familiar with, but were not ever very excited about. The Mekong was like a house of mirrors in the morning fog. One could never tell how quick the next turn may come into view, or how fast. The boat would have to stop at a dead end of some tributary delta. Additionally, the thick forest that began right at the water's edge, like the moon's albedo, could always be hiding a Viet Cong force ready for a breakfast fight. The men were therefore on high alert with guns at the ready. And everything which seemed even slightly out of place caused at least one of the men to excitedly jerk his head toward it. A bird flying fast off a branch left bouncing a fish top water feeding a swirling wind that gusted the fog before the boat into spirals like a portal drawing into some devilish world. All the while, the sun was still shrouded behind light gray clouds. As they journeyed, one man started to squint his eyes and lean ever so slightly forward, as if to see something far off in the haze. A small light, or so he thought, not unlike the bright lamp that was attached to the top of his own boat, was shining above the water some hundreds of yards ahead. Without looking away, he slapped the man next to him and pointed. His friends stared keenly too, and saw the same thing. One by one. As they approached, the rest of the men studied this now almost pulsating light that was still veiled ahead of them. But after only a few seconds more, they broke out of the densest fog and were able to see more clearly what they actually raced towards. The thing or things were off to their left on the water before a small clay cliff that rose up to the forest floor at the river's edge. They were not standing on some stones, though. The things were floating about a foot above the river's surface. Three things or beings that appeared in the forms of hulking men between 7 and 8ft tall, covered in thickly matted black hair everywhere save the face, hands, knees and feet, they seemed to take little heed of the approaching American patrol, instead maintaining their posture of upright and pointed up towards the heavens in some sort of salutation. Their glow became brighter as the boat drifted closer, pulsing with increasing luminosity and blinding the men, forcing them to close or shield their eyes. What monsters were these? The men had already heard of the rock apes, but they had not heard of them flying and glowing and being quite as tall as these ones. Panicked, the men on the boat opened fire on the three creatures, finally forcing them to look in their direction. The bullets sliced through the lights and slammed hard into the fey flesh. The thumping sound of the impact between bullet and beast was almost surreal, like the meeting of metal that was less than real, absorbed into muscle that was somehow more than real, all encased in a sea of light still pouring from the creatures that was thick like syrup and brilliantly golden. The creatures, apart from looking at the boat, merely flinched with each shot that hit them. Their flat faces showed no emotion, but their jewel like eyes turned from mammalian to reptilian, sparkling with the new colors and turning upright in their sockets. The Americans took this from malice and kept firing at will. But nothing else happened. Finally, the soldiers stopped their attack and found, once the smoke cleared, that the beings still floated before them in the same aura of light. But then, as if marshaled by the thought of the creatures, they watched in horror as more of the same things, monsters walked to the edge of the forest to see them. Everyone glowed like that first three. Everyone was at least a full head taller than the tallest man they had on the boat. The driver didn't wait for orders. He turned a hard 180 degrees and raced back into the fog from whence they'd come back to their docks. In the fall of 1967, deep inside the jungles on the eastern border of the Vietnamese dmz, another six man reconnaissance group began the end of their mission by turning near the border of Laos to head back west. Despite days in the deepest parts of the jungle, they had encountered no Viet Cong guerrillas or North Vietnamese special forces. Consequently, they felt relatively fresh for the return journey, still having plenty of rations remaining and no wounded men to tend to. Unfortunately, they felt too easy. They started the day early and plodded steadily through the trees, lashing through the undergrowth and pouring sweat that soaked deep into their heavy rocks. As the day wore on, the forest became more alive. Deafening bugs rattled their calls out from all over, and the canopy only made the sound echo again and again around them. This masked their own noisy marching enough to have them walk up on a family of snub nosed monkeys and later, even a black bear. Both ran off right away. But it was shocking to the team that all six men had been able to see both marvels. Animals that normally kept far out of the range of anyone, especially soldiers. The men even had to raise their voices slightly to speak with one another over the deafening sounds of the bugs. Birds called loudly overhead. They felt for the first time that they were seeing the forest as it is. When war is not near at hand. It lightened the mood all the more and gave the team a sense of security. But that security was not to last. After crossing a river and walking another hundred yards or so into the ridge of the opposite bank, the entire jungle went eerily quiet. In an instant, gone were the bugs and birds. Gone even was the sound of the rushing water they felt sure they could have heard a few yards previously. It actually made the men stop dead in their tracks in unison. The collective instinct made it clear to each part of the group that something was terribly wrong. Furtive and soft steps waded forward, and when the leader brushed the next leafy branch away from his sight line, everyone understood why the silence had fallen. Standing in a small clearing, shadowed heavily by the forest roof, there stood a sort of humanoid thing. It stood on two legs comfortably and held its face upturned to the sky, as if it alone could see the sun and blue and clouds beyond the black ceiling. When the final man stepped through the corridor of brush, the being slowly turned his face down to face the men. He was glowing. A soft but incredibly rich, almost pastel gold. The light was coming from the thing, and it seemed as though bits of the light itself could be seen floating just off the hair that covered the creature, like a sort of pixie dust. All six men marked the uncanny image before him. This eight foot tall hairy monster that looked like a man. The tall face stretched thin like taffy, with large beady black eyes at its top. But then the image faded into disarray. The leading man raised his rifle in a flash and fired a single shot right at the surrealist's face. And all watched as the bullet ripped into the side of the creature's head, spraying a slimy and glowing blue blood onto the foliage around it. Yet the creature seemed unbothered. He merely turned and ran, not in a panic, but not slowly either, into the deeper trees until the shadows took him. Why? The men felt compelled to look up where the Creature had been staring, none could say. But they did. There, through a hole in the canopy through which little sunlight came, each man was able to describe three orbs flying high in the heavens, dancing in and out of one another in quick patterns of stop motion. The men looked until each orb darted off into the vastness of space, away from them, and they were alone again. The noises slowly returned, and not a word was shared by the team until days later, they were back at their headquarters. Only two of those men made it back to their homes. Join us in this episode of Haunted Cosmos as we make our own walk through the dimly lit wilderness of Vietnam, wondering and investigating. Why is this such a strange place? And why, it seems, did this nasty war fought there bring so much strangeness out of the cracks into the visible light of our world?

[Ben]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos season finale.

[Brian]

Let's go.

[Ben]

Season four finale.

[Brian]

What a freaking season finale.

[Ben]

We got Vietnam. Like, spooky Vietnam.

[Brian]

One of my favorite subjects. I want weird stuff that happens in Vietnam. I don't know why it's that specific, but it legitimately is.

[Ben]

I like it because it gives me the opportunity to say Nam as much as constantly.

[Brian]

When I was in Nam, back in Nam. You know, my favorite thing, Ben, that this episode already taught me is that Americans solution to almost any problem is shoot it in the face. I mean, here you have this glowing, like, magical creature, and they're like, shoot it in the face.

[Ben]

What color is its blood?

[Brian]

The creature is like, am I a joker? Like, why would you do that? I'm gonna move on.

[Ben]

Yeah, please stop.

[Brian]

Literally every time in none of the stories did the Rock apes do anything to them.

[Ben]

Yeah, they just constantly shot them. Now, granted, in the first one, they raise a bit of a. Bit of a ruckus.

[Brian]

They scared him.

[Ben]

They scared him.

[Brian]

Let me be honest. I would have started blasting.

[Ben]

And them. Them grunts back in Nam, what are.

[Brian]

They going to do?

[Ben]

They're used to, like, Viet Cong f. You know, flying from tree to tree.

[Brian]

Or whatever they did with punji sticks in the tunnels.

[Ben]

You know what they used to do with the punji sticks?

[Brian]

I don't want. Don't say it.

[Ben]

What, no pee on them? No. They would put their poop on them to make them poisonous, I guess. Like infectious.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

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[Brian]

Hey Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant?

[Ben]

Maybe it's Grandma's Butter recipe. Or maybe it's Gray Toe Tallow.

[Brian]

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[Ben]

So say sayonara Sammy to kitchen experiments and say hello to healthier skin. Great o Tallow Trusted by Skin Envied by Great Grandma's Butter Recipe.

[Brian]

For more information and to get a sample package, check out graytoadtalo.com don't forget to use the code COSMOS15. That's all caps COSMOS15 for 15 off your order. Ben, do you know what's weird?

[Ben]

The fact that Gobekli Tepe contains advanced technology far beyond the time period in which it was made.

[Brian]

Okay, nerd, I was thinking more in the vein of health and wellness in this cold and flu season.

[Ben]

Oh, well, were you actually thinking about how God gave us amazing small native berries called elderberries that actually carry all kinds of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and antiviral compounds that our bodies crave.

[Brian]

And that Trevor and Autumn at the King's Ridge grow and produce the freshest elderberries and elderberry syrup known to mankind.

[Ben]

Okay, so I'm guessing you were talking about that, but did you also know that they're running a special for haunted cosmonauts? That's right. If you use code HAUNTED ALL CAPS HAUNTED, you can get 10% off your first order@tkr farm.com dude, absolutely the best.

[Brian]

News I've heard today.

[Ben]

Brian, I got bad news the other day. I was using one of the big box soap products to wash myself and I got this weird urge to go buy a Stanley cup and fill it with iced coffee and it Started to feel a little cold in the house. I just wanted to wrap myself up in, like, a heavy wool blanket. And then also I started googling ticket prices to Taylor Swift concerts.

[Brian]

Ben, what are you doing? Don't you know that these big box soap companies just jam all their soaps full of hormone disrupting chemicals? They're probably turning you into a girl.

[Ben]

Well, I know that now, but what am I supposed to do about it then?

[Brian]

You ignorant Normie? All you've needed to do is go to Indigo Sundries soap and support a great Christian family business that's making all sorts of soaps that are completely free of hormone disrupting chemicals and other nasties.

[Ben]

Okay, I am literally going to indigo sundrysoap.com right now. Tell me what to buy.

[Brian]

Ben, what I would recommend doing is clicking on bundles and then selecting the.

[Ben]

Best one for you.

[Brian]

You could get the men's six pack. You could get my favorite, the clay bundle.

[Ben]

Ooh, I like the pipe and jug bundle. That seems cool. Or a men's six pack, because that'll make me feel like I have something that I actually don't.

[Brian]

So true King. And you know what else I hear? Because they're such good friends of the show, Indigo Sundry Soap Company is offering 10% off your order if you just use all caps, discount code haunted Cosmos, no spaces.

[Ben]

Wait, Brian, you're going way too fast. I didn't get all that. Is that information in the show description?

[Brian]

Ben, you ignorant Normie. It's always in the show description.

[Ben]

Okay, so I'm gonna go to indigosundrysoap.com I'm gonna pick the men's six pack bundle, and I'm gonna use code Haunted Cosmos at checkout. All caps, no spaces. And if I forgot all that, it's in the description of the show.

[Brian]

Of course, Ben. And if you just do that, then you will stop wanting to do all of those girly things, and maybe you'll, I don't know, maybe want to buy a classic car to restore or something dignified. Here's the thing, though. America. Like, I'm with the. As an American. As a U.S. american.

[Ben]

Yep.

[Brian]

Who, like, doesn't have maps, like, such as the Iraq.

[Ben]

Yep.

[Brian]

I would say that my instinct whenever I am faced with something that makes me slightly uncomfortable, is to start blasting.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

So I can identify.

[Ben]

Now, this episode's gonna so segue into that said, this episode's gonna be interesting because. Dude, stop.

[Brian]

Okay, with that said.

[Ben]

Stop saying with that said, this episode is gonna be interesting because America and I Don't know if you know this viewer. America wasn't exactly the hero of the Vietnam War.

[Brian]

Listen.

[Ben]

And so American interactions with some of the strangeness is. I don't know, it's. It's worth some discussion, maybe because the.

[Brian]

Vietnamese Fae were like, you shouldn't be here.

[Ben]

Legitimately, unironically. I did have that idea.

[Brian]

I knew it. See, I knew that Ben had had that thought.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Unironically. And so I wanted to vocalize it first.

[Ben]

You know how I am about headed off. You know how I am about forests.

[Brian]

I know how you are about the forest Fae protecting the land from invaders.

[Ben]

Like, what do you think a rock ape is?

[Brian]

Like, what about Lake Baikal?

[Ben]

They glow.

[Brian]

The swimmers.

[Ben]

So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Spooky Vietnam War with a specific eye towards how should we try to interpret if these stories are true, how should we interpret them and their relationship to how they interact with America actually being there? So it's gonna be just a tad bit of history. Mostly just fun stories, though.

[Brian]

And not just. I mean, already in this opening story, it's a hybrid. That is a classic hybrid in the high strangeness world, where you have a cluster of phenomena that does not seem logically to be connected at all.

[Ben]

Right.

[Brian]

A cryptid type of thing that might even just be. I mean, it's a jungle. Legitimately, there could be. Could just be a race of primate. But then all of a sudden, they're 8ft tall and glowing and looking up in the sky.

[Ben]

And then there's orbs up in the sky.

[Brian]

The orbs.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And they're like fricking floating above the water.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Like Super Saiyans.

[Ben]

When I was writing. When I was writing this, I was like, these are the rock apes. Between the first story and the second story is like Dwight Schrute's second life in the office, where everything is the same, except they can fly.

[Brian]

The rock apes were like, everything's gonna be the same, but we're gonna be capable of flying.

[Ben]

I would change nothing about my life, except I can glow and I can fly. And also I'm communicating with, like, celestial beings.

[Brian]

You know what it was? It's that. That's the Rock Apes. They. They started living next to one of those 5G cell towers, and they got the EMFs.

[Ben]

Oh, you mean they started attending an American public high school. Okay, but before we get into the rest of the stories and some of the commentary, we have just two, I think, major points of housekeeping. One, with this being the Season finale. We are about to go into an off season. Now here's what we're gonna do in that off season to the public. We're gonna be releasing bi weekly episodes of the Dusty Tome, but this time on YouTube. They will be filmed as in Brian and I are going to be reading them live. There's gonna be some fancy footwork with the video like Martina McBride likes to do.

[Brian]

Clipart are gonna be soaring through the footage.

[Ben]

Even if they have nothing to do.

[Brian]

With the story, it's not gonna happen.

[Ben]

And there's even gonna be a little bit just brief commentary at the end of each episode between Brian and myself. So hopefully that's gonn you over, man. Yeah. An even better offseason experience for you guys.

[Brian]

And just so you aware if you're new, if, if, if our thumbnail drew you in and then our handsomeness drew you in further. And this is your first haunted cosmos which happens. Which happens all the time. You have to understand that the Dusty Tome is a special podcast that we make just for our supporters over on Supercast and it is about a 40, 30 to 45 minute show that is in the style of Aaron Manke's lore. It's probably the closest thing if you're familiar with it. We have something like 100 episodes of it at this point or 80 or something.

[Ben]

I think at the time this releases It'll be about 97 episodes. Yeah.

[Brian]

We're coming up on our centennial of the dusty tome, 100 chapters in. So sign up. Not only do you get all the we release them weekly, but you will get access to that whole back catalog and we cover everything in that from Haitian zombies to flipping crazy cryptid stories that someone in our own church experienced. Horse lady coming out of the ocean.

[Ben]

Anybody that also with helicopters also then transformed into dude. It genuinely. I forget what episode that is. It's a crazy story.

[Brian]

So sign up for the Dusty Tome, support the show and. And Ben, explain why we are going to be making our supporter experience coming into this next season better than it has literally ever been in the history of mankind. And I'm talking ancient Persians, ancient Greeks, Roman Empire, Germanic pagans converting to Christianity, medieval Christianity, Renaissance, US founding all the way moon landing. Did it happen all the way to today?

[Ben]

It's like in terms of storytelling, myth, art. Hesiod.

[Brian]

Hesiod is Homer.

[Ben]

Virgil Dante us Hana Cosmos above all of those, Hesiod walked so that we could run.

[Brian]

Homer stumbled blindly running into things around so that we could walk normally without running into things.

[Ben]

And yes, I am Extraordinarily humble about this. Now, here's what we're gonna do to make the supporter experience amazing during the off season, we are going to produce an entire season of the Haunted Cosmos. In other words, you won't see episode one of season five until we done with the entirety of season five. And as we finish those episodes in the off season, we're going to be dropping them to our supporters, our top two levels of patron support on supercast.com.

[Brian]

Well, haunted cosmos.supercast.com supercast.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Is that what it is? Haunted cosmos. Martina McBride. Yes. Okay. Haunted cosmos.supercast.com it's going to appear floating right here.

[Ben]

Yes. Thank you. So what that means is that the public will not see episode one of season five until our top two tiers of patron [e-mail] has access to all of the episodes. It's going to be a seven episode season. It's going to be seriously, we're stoked. It's going to be killer.

[Brian]

We've already filled population us.

[Ben]

Like serious. I mean, dude, no flipping doubt. It's like Rip City. Like, you take that jacket off, it's Rip City.

[Brian]

That's what I'm saying. So also, Ben and I are both working out a lot.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

So by the time you see us in that last episode of next season, we're both going to be ripped. We're going to be probably repping, like, I want to say 405 on the bench.

[Ben]

I'm going to be. I could be able, like, but with my pointer finger and thumb, I could pick Martina McBride up.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

By the toe. Yeah.

[Brian]

You know, I'm going to be able to.

[Ben]

I won't do it.

[Brian]

I'm going to be able to take a rock ape in each hand and force them to fly me places while.

[Ben]

Holding on like an iron man.

[Brian]

Like iron man.

[Ben]

I have long, I've long believed this about myself, that if I really, if I really gave it my all, like gun to my head, laser beam toward earth, I could do a backflip, a standing backflip. I firmly believe that right now, 100%. At the end of season five, we'll.

[Brian]

Probably be doing it.

[Ben]

I'll believe it even more.

[Brian]

Hey, I just had a theory about the rock apes. That's our housekeeping. Coming back to our topic here, I was just thinking, like, in terms of what the rock apes actually could be and I had a thought and it was just, what was your mom doing during the Vietnam War?

[Ben]

When did the Vietnam War start? Do you know the date.

[Brian]

I'm so sorry.

[Ben]

No, I'm trying to think. Was my mom alive?

[Brian]

When did the Vietnam War begin?

[Ben]

Okay, we've done our research.

[Brian]

November 1, 1955.

[Ben]

All right. My mom was not born yet, but she was born by the time the Vietnam War ended, which was sometime in the late 60s, early 70s.

[Brian]

April 30th, 1975.

[Ben]

Okay, 1975. So mid-70s. Yeah. Anyway, my mom could have been there as a baby.

[Brian]

Yeah, easily. So real quick, let's orient everybody. Like, this is a smooth transition. Butter on a muffin. Let's orient everybody. Vietnam War. The reason that America's there.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Is because we believe this theory of Communist spread. Remember, during this time, it's Cold War. We've got Soviet Russia, Red Wave, attempting to basically take over the world with communism, which we saw. We've talked about in our previous episode on the weaponized ticks and germ warfare.

[Ben]

Which America actually subsidized at the end of World War II by giving Russia an incredible deal and access to the entire world. And so kind of, we were like.

[Brian]

Would you like most, at least half of Europe? Here you go.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Stay safe. Mask up. Get the vax. Don't take unnecessary risks. Be careful. We've been coddled, smothered in warnings, trained to fear and avoid risk. We've been taught to play it safe and be on our guard, and not just against a scraped knee or a failed endeavor. No. We've been taught to censor our speech, our words, even our thoughts. Don't think those dangerous thoughts. Don't notice. Don't speak out. If you do, we're coming for you. Who's coming for you? It almost doesn't even matter whether it's the HR lady at your company of either sex, weaponized church courts, the social media censors, or even those you once considered allies. Watch out. Take care. Play it safe. But was it always this way? Have we always lived under this kind of stifling, wet, blanketing panopticon? Is this the spirit of our Christian forefathers? Of the men who founded our nation in blood and in faith, willing to face down all the might of Britannia and her Redcoats? There was a time when Americans didn't shrink from risk, when they would rather die than bend. Our Christian forefathers knew what it was to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard. They knew what it was to set sail for the unknown. They defied tyrants. They built, explored and dared great things. Who settled this land? Who built one of the greatest nations ever to be who settled the west and covered the continent from sea to sea with the Christian people who searched out glories, crisscrossed the plains with railroads and fought off usurpers and invaders on all sides. Risk wasn't a bug, it was a feature. Without it, our fathers knew there was no greatness. And now we're supposed to trade boldness for bureaucracy. We're supposed to tremble at the unknown instead of mastering it. We're supposed to bow and scrape. Not even before bullets, but before hr. Ladies, we don't think so. It's time to remember who we are this year. Join us here at New Christendom Press for our annual conference. Safety. Recovering the American will to greatness. Four days to forge new friendships, build coalition and work to recover what was lost. It's time to reclaim the spirit that built this nation. To break free from fear, to risk, to build, to lead. The future belongs to the bold. So at this time, communism is ascendant, or seen as. Ascendant. It's spreading. It's becoming clear that the battle is going to be between communism and basically everyone else. And the communists are attempting to win many other countries around the world. So they got Cuba, they've got a bunch of Eastern European countries, and what they're trying to do is establish their communist utopias in Korea and then in Southeast Asia.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

So America believes this theory, or the American military leadership is persuaded of this theory of the domino effect, that if we allow enough of these small countries to become communist, that's going to be a foothold through the world. It's going to spread like a disease. And pretty soon we're going to. It's going to be America versus the rest of the world and it's all communist.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

So the idea was, let's start intervening all around the globe militarily and attempt regime change in countries that are headed in a communist direction, or straight up go in and declare war and try to topple communist leadership. So we're doing somewhat of a proxy war with the Soviet Union in America, where we're fighting over these small countries over basically, will they become communist or not.

[Ben]

Yeah. It's the same reason for the Korean War. In the Vietnam War, you had the Northern Vietnamese kind of communist uprising regime that was sponsored by both China and Russia. And then in the southern Vietnam, you had the ideals of republic and democracy, even though there's no democratic country in the world. And of course, America comes in and supports that. The big thing, though, is this ethical question of whether or not America should have been there. And there are legitimate answers on both sides. Some people believe that the domino effect was prophetic and was absolutely going to happen. Therefore American or Western intervention was not only good, but necessary to save the world from this red wave. There are others that believe that Vietnam is a sovereign nation. They should have been able to do what they wanted to do, even if it was a usurpation of a kind of a revolutionary regime, which is what Northern Vietnamese communism would have been. So whether or not America should have been there on a ethical level, on a diplomatic level, that's a whole question. But the fact is they were there. They went, they were there. And if we're being just totally above board, some of the things that America did while there was not great. Let me give you two examples.

[Brian]

Shooting a rock ape in the face that was peacefully glowing and levitating.

[Ben]

Okay, let me give you three examples. Okay, there's one of them, there's one, two. Napalm of civilians. Not great.

[Brian]

I would say on a list of things one should not do. Yes, napalming civilians would be on that list.

[Ben]

It's one of the most. You've probably actually seen the photo. If you're an adult, it's horrible. If you're not an adult, don't look it up. But it's of like these children running down the road. Some of them don't even have any clothes. Like they're impoverished children or they were shocked or something and they're covered in burns and like screaming because their city just got napalmed, like Apocalypse Now. So that's not great. The other thing was this nerve agent called Agent Orange, which the US would spray over agricultural fields and even over forests because it would take the leaves.

[Brian]

Off of the trees, is a defoliant.

[Ben]

Yes. Giving America the ability to see into the forest and hopefully thwart some of the Viet Congs guerrilla warfare tactics or just cutting off supplies of agricultural goods for the country. But one of the side effects of Agent Orange beyond that was it basically led to children being deformed adults too. But it was kind of this rising generation that came after the Vietnam War ended of children who suffered insane physical abnormalities. And it led to reduced lifespan and it kind of hamstrung Vietnam's ability to sustain itself for a couple generations. So anyway, these things have ramifications. And the reason that I'm even bringing that up is to say that that actually might keyword might have bearing on some of our conclusions from these stories that we're about to explore. Through the rest of this episode.

[Brian]

Yeah. Because one thing you note, and in the future we'll do an episode. I'm just gonna call our shot and hope that this is true. Lord willing, we'll do an episode at some point. More of these connections between sometimes questionable military activity and high strangeness. Because one example would be uap, UFO phenomenon over nuclear sites.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Which is a. It's a known connection. We see this all the time messing with nuclear sites, you know, weapons that are designed to kill, Mutually assured destruction, literally hundreds of millions of people with absolutely no discrimination between civilians and combatants. Whatever your view is of that tactic to maintain world peace. It's an objectively horrible idea.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

But what you find is that when you have war and extreme human suffering, as you certainly had in the Vietnam War, often you get this inexplicable connection of just strange things cropping up. And it makes us think, when we see that kind of thing, that the world is not just the scene, but that behind the raging of human warring and human conflict and thrones and dominions and rulers and kingdoms, and there are also spiritual forces that are at work behind these thrones and behind human activity, sometimes motivating them, sometimes running plays of deception in the midst of them, sometimes I think, just glorying in the horror and the suffering of them. Because the demonic world hates the image bearers of God. It hates humanity, it hates the good, the true and the beautiful. And so it glories in death and.

[Ben]

Sometimes in the unseen. The forces of light trying to actually thwart the plans of the seen and.

[Brian]

Unseen with angelic hosts.

[Ben]

Yeah, so some biblical examples of this. This is in Daniel 10, when the angel goes to Daniel and he says, well, I was stopped for 21 days or 14 days by the prince of Persia, which all commentators agree, all orthodox commentators agree is an angelic or demonic fallen angelic throne or dominion over Persia. In other words, it was a demon that was given leave to rule in an unseen way. Persia, as they rebelled against God. And then the archangel Michael had actually come and defeat the prince of Persia so that this angel could bring the vision to the prophet Daniel. Another good example of this type of thing being explicitly confirmed in scripture is Ezekiel 28, where the prophet Ezekiel is talking about. He's talking about Edom, I think. No, Tyre. He's talking about Tyre. And he draws a distinction between the prince of Tyre, who appears in all senses to be the earthly ruler, and the king of Tyre, who is described as a cherub who is walking in the garden, who is and Some people think that this is actually Lucifer being given leave to rule over the kingdom of Tyre as they rebel against God. And then you also see this motif outside of scripture play out in history as well. Not in brute fact, like a history textbook, but in the motifs of myth. So the Iliad is the best example of this. The Iliad encapsulates in a single myth the human motif, the fallen human motif of war. The Iliad is the pinnacle of war. And what do we see all through the Iliad? Well, we see that the affairs of men are being perhaps not all the way governed, but interacted with.

[Brian]

They're certainly intertwined.

[Ben]

Yes, yes. Yeah. In the same tapestry by the pantheon of fallen gods over both Greece and Troy. And one of the things that we talk about often on the show is that that's not just a fictional story. There actually is something deeper going on. Whether it's all historically true or not, it's kind of beside the point. It reveals this understanding that we have as human beings, that there is always more than just what you can see and touch and feel.

[Brian]

Yeah. The gods are at war in the wars of men.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

And when we say the gods, we don't mean capital G competing with the. The creator God who created all things through his son, Jesus Christ, but the lowercase G, gods, these spiritual beings that demanded and often manipulated worship from fallen men and governed the affairs or intertwined themselves into the affairs of men. When men are warring, you often see gods at war as well. And when the gods are warring, you often see men at war as well. So the question is something like, is Mars a real being? And, yes, and our answer is, yes, he is a real being. Is Moloch a real being? And the answer is, I believe, yes. Now, sometimes, maybe these are the same beings pretending to be multiple characters. There's lots of things we don't know, but I think this is one of the things that we can discern as we read the scriptures. And, of course, Christ has triumphed in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension and enthronement, and is currently at work subduing the nations and all of their gods under his feet. God is making the world a footstool for the sun, and so demands that the nations kiss the sun. The kings of men, as well as the spiritual realities of the world will all be made to kiss the sun, lest he be angry, and they perish along the way. So the message of all of this, even rock apes in Vietnam, is, repent of your sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and be Saved.

[Ben]

Yeah. And just say this is not really on topic per se, but if you want some good reading material on this, you can look at Athanasius on the Incarnation. So good. He talks a lot about this as an early church resource. And then also, surprisingly for some people, John Calvin, in his commentary on the first book of Moses in Genesis and in Exodus, he exposits how a large population of the reformed fathers, and therefore a lot of the scholastic medievals as well, saw the saw the fallen angels being given a job by God nonetheless, and that job was to exercise tyrannical rule over wicked nations. You see this hinted at in even psalms like Psalm 95, where it references God being the God above all gods, the great King above all gods. Psalm 82 is another resource for that as well. And then, you know, spurts here and there in Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy. Wow.

[Brian]

Two psalms that will be on the upcoming album Awake the Dawn by the musical artist Brian Sauvey.

[Ben]

Wow. Be on the lookout.

[Brian]

When is this episode releasing?

[Ben]

In two weeks, two weeks from today. So March 5th.

[Brian]

March 5th. It won't quite be out yet, but keep your eye out for Awake.

[Ben]

When does it come out?

[Brian]

I don't have a date yet, but probably mid March. Ish.

[Ben]

Okay, that's super helpful.

[Brian]

Yeah, coming out real close. It's gonna include settings of Psalm 82, Psalm 95, Psalm 37, 111, Psalm 100, Psalm 112, Psalm 43, Psalm. What else? Some other ones, the Lord's Prayer and an old hymn that was originally written by Martin Luther that I re adapted a little bit called Dear Christians One and All Rejoice. But legitimately, this is one of the reasons I love singing the psalms. We sing psalms in four parts in our church every Sunday is because this stuff, these themes are scattered throughout the Bible, but they are especially present in the Psalms.

[Ben]

And it reminds you of what Paul's talking about in Ephesians 6 that we write. Russell not this is the thing Paul says, I was thinking about this yesterday.

[Brian]

Hey Ben, can you pass me the butter?

[Ben]

Yeah, sure, man. Do you want the White Camel butter or the Golden Cow butter?

[Brian]

No, not that butter.

[Ben]

Well, what other butter is there?

[Brian]

I'm talking about Design Butter, who specialize in digital product design. Whether it's a mobile or web app, David at DesignButter can help make sure your product is best on the market. DesignButter helps you identify by problems your users are having and makes the experience better, which results in more sales, return customers, and a level of trust that Makes your brand memorable.

[Ben]

Dang. Design Butter. I can't believe it's not actual butter. Cause it's so dang smooth.

[Brian]

Sounds like they need to head to designbutter.com for more information.

[Ben]

Brian, do you want to know what I've been drinking more of lately?

[Brian]

I actually woke up this morning and thought to myself, I want to know what Ben's drinking more of lately.

[Ben]

Coffee. Can you believe that?

[Brian]

Unbelievable. I thought you were into tea.

[Ben]

No, no, I'm into coffee now. And you know who makes the best coffee in the world?

[Brian]

Who?

[Ben]

Is it Squirrely Joe's Coffee.

[Brian]

Oh, are that. Is that that thoroughly Christian business that doesn't hate you in everything you believe in?

[Ben]

Yes. Not only that, but they also love their neighbor by donating many of their proceeds to a worthy cause called Operation Underground Railroad Man.

[Brian]

Everybody should check out Squirrelly Joe's [e-mail].

[Ben]

That'S right. Squirrelly Joe's Coffee. Share coffee. Serve humbly. Live faithfully.

[Brian]

Man, Ben, I knew we were handsome, but I didn't know we were that handsome until I saw our recent Haunted Cosmos thumbnails.

[Ben]

Yeah, Your skin looks so velvety smooth.

[Brian]

I mean, it's unbelievable. Chris at New Dominion Design Company did an. An absolutely fantastic job, not only on those thumbnails, but on our recent book cover as well.

[Ben]

Yeah, exactly. And if you need some design work from Chris, you should go to newdominiondesignco.com. get started there. And he'll serve you right, man.

[Brian]

He will make you look 50% as handsome as Ben, guaranteed.

[Ben]

We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We wrestle against the cosmic powers and principalities in the heavenly places. In the heavenly places? Yeah, yeah. That means that there are cosmic powers and principalities in the heavenly places that are opposed to God in Christ's victory, that we as earthly saints actually fight and war against through the means that God has given us of the armor of faith and all these things. But here's the thing that doesn't mean that wrestling against flesh and blood is invalid. Like, we still have to live in this world that God put us in. And so people should, you know, be Christian statesmen and all these things. What Paul is saying is that the Source is actually the unseen.

[Brian]

The ultimate war is actually over the cosmic rule of all things and everything beneath that will be ordered either according to the order of heaven and the Creator, or it will be ordered in alignment with death and chaos in accordance with the fallen unseen. That's a key point to understand.

[Ben]

So Christian Listener or viewer, do you want to do better than the villainous America did in the Vietnam War, or do you want to help defeat the rock apes if they were evil? Go to church, partake of the supper, rejoice in the communion of the saints, glorify the Lord your God.

[Brian]

And read the last section of this book and you'll get more information.

[Ben]

Yes. And read Hana Cosmos junior Duty in a world that's not just stuff.

[Brian]

Okay, I do want to say one thing, just to clarify, because I can. I mean, people have a hard time with this historically. When you say, particularly about ourselves, this is a difficult exercise. America sinned in these ways in the Vietnam War. What people can tend to hear is, we love communism.

[Ben]

Right. Wow.

[Brian]

The other side was great. To be clear, communism is, in my view, the greatest political evil in the history of the world.

[Ben]

Yeah. I would agree.

[Brian]

It caused more human suffering than any political movement in the history of the world. So America was not wrong to think communism is evil and to look with pity even upon the Southeast Asian peoples and upon the Koreans and upon the. Even today, Chinese and the Soviets. Most of the people involved under the iron curtain of communism were victims.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

Even though they were brainwashed and politically brainwashed to believe that they were basically striving for utopia, freedom, Antichrist, anti God. Read Solzhenitsyn and you'll understand how evil communism was. So the point isn't like, yay, communism. Oh, America stinks. It was, wow. We want to be able to say we shouldn't have napalmed women and children and communism is evil at the same time. These are complex, difficult decisions. I'm glad I wasn't in the executive chair in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Difficult time. But some of these sins, there's a connection between the seen and the unseen.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. We're saying that there's implications for the broader unseen battle going on that manifest themselves in the seen battle. One of the reasons, and just to piggyback off that, totally agree with Brian. Hate communism so much. It's difficult to describe so much. And it hates you too.

[Brian]

But.

[Ben]

But one of the reasons it's worth critiquing the means that America used to try to thwart the spread of communism, particularly in the Vietnam War, is because America lost.

[Brian]

Yeah. Demonstrably what we attempted, even if it was noble, and that's questionable.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

It did fail and it did bring more suffering.

[Ben]

Yes. And so there's just another reason to say, yes, the goal of thwarting the spread of communism is a noble goal. But were the means effective. And in this case, the answer is just a flat no, they weren't. And so we have to be willing to take a sharp critical look at that so that we don't repeat that in the future.

[Brian]

I have a proposal for the flow of this episode because I think there's something that we can connect and that's to move into the next story, add another layer to this strangeness that surrounded this period, and then talk a little bit more about the cryptid supernatural connection. And then with this new layer, love it.

[Ben]

To that, I would say a hearty yeet.

[Brian]

Yeet.

[Ben]

I think with that I'll go into this.

[Brian]

Yeah, take us to the next one.

[Ben]

Beginning in 1954, the United States tested and flew its first truly high altitude reconnaissance missions using the U2. Before the U2, commercial jets would cruise between 10 and 20,000ft. And recon missions flown by the B47 would hardly ever break a 40,000 foot ceiling. But once the U2 went up to 60,000ft to cruise for hours and hours on end, things began to change. Yes, other denominations of aircraft, such as commercial liners, started to fly higher. But more esoteric things changed as well. You see, beginning in 1947, the US Air Force embarked on an effort called Project Blue Book. The project was intended to receive and analyze claims of UFO sightings from government agencies and even individuals with compelling stories. For the first handful of years of its existence, Blue Book, with a few exceptions, didn't produce anything particularly exciting or unexplained. But then the U2 started flying, and as we said, everything changed. Once in that region of 60,000 or so feet, the heavens came alive. Pilots started feeding account after account to Blue Book of totally anomalous aerial phenomena. Once the floodgates of U2's missions opened, they never closed. Thousands of Blue Book's most compelling accounts came courtesy of U2 pilots up to the project's closure in 1969. Indeed, at the time of its closure, Blue Book had recorded over 12,000 UFO sightings cases. And it still had over 700 of those that remained unanswered and importantly, unanswerable. The sky is a myth in itself, one teeming with something too close to what we call life to be described by any other word. And when the proverbial swords and shields of men and their nations clash, the signs tell us that the sky becomes even more alive. Alive still. That is, if the stories are to be believed. On January 6, 1969, an American army command base in Da Nang was working tirelessly to coordinate ground defense of the Chu Lai sector about 40 miles east of them at the coast of the Pacific. The command base was receiving an almost constant stream of observation reports from a system of observation towers around the area that were tasked with noticing any threat to the Chu Lai defenses trying to come from the air. Of course, these reports are largely uninteresting to us today, since they were either of no importance whatsoever or were quickly dealt with by the Americans. There is one report, however, that defied explanation then and has continued to defy explanation to this day. At 1:52am a report came in which read the following Tower 72 reports object flying into their area about 700 meters in front of them. Object came in slow and landed. When object moves, it has a glowing light. It is about 15 to 20ft across. It is shaped like a big egg. Control tower reports their data did not pick anything up. Object also does not seem to have any sound to it when it moves. The only follow up up action reported was to notify the duty officer of the anomaly, but the trail abruptly ends after that. Just imagine it coasting in over the waters of the ocean and into the mainland of Vietnam. An object emitting a glowing type of light from within itself landed silently before also taking off and away again also silently. All of this while also being shaped like a big egg. No, no aircraft from any major country fits anywhere close to this description, and all attempts at other conventional explanations fell flat the moment they were put forward. Tracer rounds and flares can be described as glowing, but neither really land. A flare may appear to float to the ground, but it then will definitely never take off again. What's more, neither of these things are egg shaped and neither of them are 15 to 20ft wide. Apart from that, some have wondered if the sighting may have been a drug induced vision from a soldier. But the observation towers were manned by at least two soldiers at all times. The odds of two soldiers being on drugs and hallucinating the same thing are virtually non existent. Hence the remaining mystery. In the spring season of 1968, Marines stationed near the Vietnamese DMZ became acquainted with a UFO of an another sort. Almost every night, these Marines reported seeing hovering orbs of light that weaved in and out of one another north of the DMZ and even out into the ocean near to the coast of Tiger island far to the east. The lights were of various colors, mostly golden, yellow and green, and were apparently silent as they moved. Of course, the initial guess was that these orbs were the lights attached to helicopters running Supplies and munitions between the island and the mainland for the Northern Vietnamese Army. But it's not so simple. For starters, the motion of the orbs was entirely erratic on the surface. But the motion was also impossible. Turns on a dime, flashes of speed in one direction, followed by what would be a breakneck stop and continuation in the opposite. Lights were would fly far into the dark night in a flash, only to disappear or almost dissolve into the black. But moments or minutes later, the same light that vanished would come back from the same point they dissolved into. It was as if the strange things, maybe even strange beings, were walking back through a door or portal in the atmosphere. Multiple reconnaissance missions flown during the day came back with no findings of helicopters or helipads anywhere near the areas where the lights were seen. What's more, the intelligence apparatus for the American army at the time knew that Northern Vietnam had very few helicopters to begin with. The Soviets had given them a handful, and those were known to be stationed far away at the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Others also wondered at a much more basic level why, if they were merely helicopters, they'd be flying with their lights on right next to the line of American and Southern Vietnamese forces. It would mean giving away their operations and making themselves into potential targets for really no benefit at all. Ultimately, the mystery unearthed by the Marines went unsolved then and still is unsolved today. Most settled for the explanation that it was either a strange form of St. Elmo's fire or something perhaps less conventional. Some wondered if unseen forces were signaling something to both sides of the conflict near the dmz. Of course, what that signal was, none have ever ventured to say. And really, who could ever know?

[Brian]

First of all, crazy.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

But what this makes me wonder about is in the days of advanced satellite imaging capabilities, where we have incredible technology, low altitude, high altitude satellites that are capturing continuous imagery, probably with capabilities that are still classified, that we don't know about. How much more of this stuff is there than what we know about?

[Ben]

Yeah, like how much are we not hearing?

[Brian]

There's gotta be a lot.

[Ben]

This is why disclosure is such a big topic right now. I mean, you have whistleblowers that are coming out periodically that are hinting at how much we don't know. And even a few, you know, starting a few years ago, the CIA was releasing videos of Tic Tacs and stuff.

[Brian]

Like that over in the Navy, over Navy destroyers.

[Ben]

It really does make you wonder, though, especially when we've already said on this show that we believe in. It's entirely possible and in fact, probable that the government is in contact with extraterrestrial beings that are just actually demonic and posing as that. Yes. And so one would expect that we have seen a lot and maybe even have toyed with some of the technology.

[Brian]

I think that there are probably men in government, probably in more of deep state, unelected bureaucrat type of roles within both the military and the military industrial complex, complex world, that are in contact with some of these beings and who are attempting to stage manage some sort of disclosure, but not realizing that they're the ones being staged, managed by what are actually supernatural beings, not extraterrestrial beings from another planet traveling here with advanced technology, but actually spiritual beings that they. That are actually attempting to deceive.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

And one of the things that you see over and over in these conversations is that government officials have speculated endlessly where they're worried about what it would do to the spiritual, to the religious communities of their. Of the nations if they had disclosure of these things. So there's theories that people have slowed down disclosure because, whoa, it would cause chaos and it would, you know, upend the religious landscape of the world. And I'm like, you're partly right, but you don't realize that you're actually being deceived to attempt to do that very thing from some of these CR published works.

[Ben]

It's like that hideous strength. It's all there in that hideous strength.

[Brian]

It's all in that hideous strength.

[Ben]

But there's also. There really is another layer to it, because, Louis, that story is so localized that it doesn't really deal with as much with the religious implications that the nice are trying to anticipate. Two good movies about this are Contact and Arrival.

[Brian]

I haven't seen them.

[Ben]

You haven't seen either of those?

[Brian]

I'm not a big movie watcher.

[Ben]

You would really like Arrival. I think, genuinely, it's a great movie. Contact is a little bit more like, here's the thing.

[Brian]

I only watch films when I'm on a plane, and I only exclusively use the terrible headphones they give you for free with the little screen. So that's literally the only way I ever see movies. I get about 30% of the movie because the headphones are so bad that you almost can't hear what's happening. So it's a whole different experience. But maybe next time I'm on a plane, I'll try to catch that flick.

[Ben]

You viewer or listener. Maybe you should check those out. Contact deals with the issue of the religious side of things really poorly by Caricaturing Christianity into these crazy doomsday people that are more cultic than anything else. And it literally offers no other religious explanation for what could be going on.

[Brian]

They didn't consult us.

[Ben]

No, they did, clearly. Jodie Foster, one of Jodie Foster's biggest L's.

[Brian]

If there was an elite team that was gathered by the governments of the world to manage disclosure, we know we'd be on the list.

[Ben]

We'd be managing it.

[Brian]

We'd be at the top of the top of the table, dude.

[Ben]

We both know that.

[Brian]

Thank you.

[Ben]

You don't even have to say it.

[Brian]

It goes without saying, arrival, from what.

[Ben]

I'm remembering, deals with the problem by not really addressing it at all and instead giving it more of the. More of basically a Christian and name only type treatment where they're like, no, of course we should be open to these other beings created by God, maybe their other image, but, you know, garbage like that. So I don't really know why I'm actually recommending those two movies to you, except from the fact that I like them.

[Brian]

What would really happen, though, and we know if they came, based on what we've already seen in this episode, is that Americans would start shooting them in the face. Shoot them just this directly.

[Ben]

They actually try.

[Brian]

No provocation in arrival.

[Ben]

But it doesn't work.

[Brian]

Of course it doesn't work.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian]

Like the aliens are like bulletproof and come on, I want to see what happens to an alien if I put like 17 rounds of plus P9 millimeter through its 10 ring.

[Ben]

Dude, get some 300 blackout, you know what I'm saying? Right in the eye, some of that.

[Brian]

Right? Each eye.

[Ben]

Right in the eyeball.

[Brian]

If it has them.

[Ben]

Oh, it. Oh, it does.

[Brian]

It's thin little mouth, it's got that big head.

[Ben]

What do you think about this? What do you think about this?

[Brian]

Sniper's dream.

[Ben]

So one of the things that we've seen more, and probably a lot of hoaxes, maybe all hoaxes, is kind of image capturing UFOs on social media. People who live in wherever there's turmoil or looking up in the sky and they're like, wow, there's this weird thing. Could it be angels?

[Brian]

Well, I think some of it's angels.

[Ben]

Yeah. Like, we want to be clear, we're not ruling out the possibility that sometimes a ufo, especially ones that are just kind of there and they're not like abducting people and sending a message that is clearly contrary to the scriptures, could actually be a herald of the heavens warning people of woe. Or judgment to come as a reminder. I mean think, like seriously think of where we live. We live in an apostate Western. We've never lived in a post apostasy world before in the New Testament era. And so it's worth wondering what could be being sent to us as messages when we were a Christian people, a Christian nation that are falling away and have fallen away. I mean, we see prophetic heralds and even angelic heralds. Look at Ezekiel to the nation of Israel when they apostatize in the Old Testament.

[Brian]

So true King.

[Ben]

So anyway, it's just as a possibility.

[Brian]

Okay, I wanna connect a few dots here. First of all, so true King. Secondly, I wanna connect a few dots here between phenomena we've got. Tell me if this reminds you of anything.

[Ben]

Okay, dude, it doesn't.

[Brian]

We've got weird bipedal, hairy, tall, ape like creatures.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

Who impart a feeling of dread to people who see them. Sometimes have weird glowy floaty powers.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Brian]

Are associated with and seem to be in league with. Question mark. Orbs. Orbs, orbeez. And then you get a high degree of UFO UAP activity. Dr. Thomas Winterton. Well, Thomas Winterton and I. Thomas Winterton and I went down to the jungles of Vietnam. Thomas Winterton and I went over to.

[Ben]

Mesa in Nam, but we couldn't see anything through the trees.

[Brian]

Can you imagine if Dragon were there when he saw those rock apes? First of all those stories, any of them could have been Dragon.

[Ben]

He would have said. He would have said, said, no digging.

[Brian]

He would have said, not today.

[Ben]

He said anywhere. Anywhere that America is digging right now. Stop it.

[Brian]

He's like, were you guys digging before these apes showed up?

[Ben]

And then, and then he would have a change of heart and he'd be like, at all costs, we have to.

[Brian]

Dig within one season.

[Ben]

If y'all haven't seen the secret of Skinwalker Ranch, then this reference is entirely lost to you and we apologize.

[Brian]

We would like to accept the acceptance of the invitation that we are now issuing to Brandon Fugal to come on our show like the 5th. Let us interview you. Our people will call your people, but let's just say that maybe our people don't know how to get in touch with your people. So have your people call our people.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

Yeah. I imagine that if Brandon wanted to get in touch with me, he could find a way.

[Brian]

Yeah. I mean, his net worth is like $400 million.

[Ben]

Yeah. Like money sometimes does just open doors.

[Brian]

I imagine that if your net worth is $400 million, you can get in touch with like a random guys whose email addresses are literally publicly on the Internet in various places.

[Ben]

No, I think that it's good to connect those dots because it links threads that we've really been laying from the beginning of this show. And I think part of what the conviction that I'm coming to is the more of these kind of coat hanger strange events, UFOs fairies, because that's of course what the rock apes are and other supernatural activity that we'll get to and then other kind of maybe not, maybe not unseen, but just uncanny stuff that we'll talk about in the following story. The more of these things that we see, the more I think likely it is that the event they're all taking place within the realm of is a massively important event with huge ramifications for the rest of mankind in the world. We see that with the Vietnam War, but the ramifications are also, they also do go beyond the scene. They go beyond just the socio political climate of the globalist stage and they actually do start to press on what I like to call the unseen battle for the soul of creation itself. That's what I like. I call it a battle because Christ has actually already dealt the winning blow, but the battle is being fought to its very end. And so it's not a war, it's not a new war, but it is like the closing fight. And what we see with Vietnam is again, I think, noble desires to see communism destroyed and eradicated from the world, but the noble desire being acted upon with oftentimes unjust methods. And so it's sort of like, yeah, you've. Well, in this case we didn't win the war, but let's say we did. Yeah, you've won the war, you've accomplished your noble cause, but at what cost? It's actually cost you part of the soul of your own country. You even see this, okay, you even see this in the civil unrest that was taking place in America during the Vietnam War. Now the opposition to the Vietnam War was by no means virtuous. It was a bunch of like no good hippies. I sound like such a, such a Nami.

[Brian]

Wow.

[Ben]

A bunch of like no good people that they're hippies, Bobby. If those kids could read, they'd be so mad. But nonetheless, like elite show the fact that we entered into this thing with so much disunity in our own. I don't know, I'm just wondering if these things really do matter more than just, than just what you read in the pages of A history book.

[Brian]

Yes. No, I agree. And I think some of it is we see through a veil. And so it is important, like we talked about earlier, to know, like, what are my duties? Oh, that's right. How do I engage in this spiritual war? And we know how to do that. We're not left in the dark wondering. But then at the same time, being able to see through the plots and not be shifted from the sure foundation because of all of this roiling, like, wow, what if this extraterrestrial theory, what if it's really gonna all of a sudden upend everything we know and. And it's gonna turn out like materialist Cope.

[Ben]

Yeah, no, indeed.

[Brian]

See through the plan. I do. I think we should go to the next story because it's gonna bring in. This one's fascinating to me, I think, in the connection between the strangeness, but also, like the human psyche. And it's just a very. I don't even know where to fit this one in categorically. But it's just a wild story from this period.

[Ben]

Yeah. Just to tease it. I mean, is it. Is it pure human psychology and psychosis? Is it possession or demonic manipulation? Are those things oftentimes overlapping with each other? We don't know. Maybe. Those are questions we'll explore.

[Brian]

Tell us in the comments. The theater of war in Vietnam was hell. When the modern mind is asked to imagine the purest brutality of combat, hordes of bodies crawling over one another in the bloody mud of the Somme or Verdun tend to be the first things pictured. But the perils of Vietnam were, at the very least, scratching at the heels of the Great War's horrors. Admittedly, though, the perils of the jungle were of a very different type. The flashing red of burning navel palm against the leaves of green trap doors with layers of feces cake, punji sticks hidden beneath them, tight tunnels men of both sides were forced to crawl through both sides praying they would find nothing within. All of these dark things, and many more, were an everyday occurrence at the height of that nearly forgotten war in Southeast Asia. The legion of terrible things, experienced collectively almost as a lived myth by the generation of men in World War I, were distilled into individual fear. Unspeakable dread of what may be behind the next tree. For the frontline soldiers in Vietnam, the psychological damage it caused to the men, sometimes even before said man saw any of the terror for himself was a weapon. Perhaps neither side fully anticipated the strength of pure fear, apprehension, the world of over circling back forever on them and bearing down Like a weight on the chest when you wake up from a nightmare. It made men see and hear things that maybe were not there to shoot at phantoms made by their minds and to feel crippled or frozen or otherwise given over entirely to the darkness. An apocalypse of man's condition. And yet there are stories of things that so many want to chalk up to fear induced hallucination that simply can't be. Not because we know for certain they happened, but because so many swear they all saw or heard it happen at the same time and together. Do people hallucinate in groups? See? After Vietnam, some wondered if they might. That, they reckon, would be better than the alternative. It would be better than these stories being true. A small patrol of American commandos were marching through the night and through the density of of the rainforest due west of Saigon late in the war. All were veterans of the green inferno. All had seen unspeakable things behind and before enemy lines. All walked with a quiet confidence that was nonetheless still tinged with underlying doubt and uncertainty. Their faces, painted brown and dark green with grease, contrasted sharply with their white eyes like headlamps in the moonless night. But they dared not close their eyes. Eyes they hardly liked to blink. They were deep in the territory of what the intel told them was a labyrinth of Viet Cong tunnels. Every drop of rain on the leaves felt like a threat. Every larger drop that rolled off of larger leaves above and on to the pudding mud before them was miniature alarm to whoever was closest to it. If a man in the front stepped on a stick, the men in the back jumped at the sound of the whispered cracking. All heads were on a swivel, but all heads stared into the utter blackness ahead. That was until the rain finally stopped. When it did, the soldiers realized how much they had taken its white noise for granted. Not only did it cover their march, it also covered the sounds of the forest. It was a bittersweet parting, and the coming of the moonlight through clearing clouds was a bittersweet meal meeting. Yes, it let them see, but it let them be more easily seen. They marched on all the more carefully, almost timidly, to whatever end they were headed. In the pre dawn hour, just before their planned rest, the patrol stepped into a clearing of trees big enough for every man to stand in and see one another. It was a floor of slippery red mud fenced in by thick forests around the whole perimeter, but it was big enough to see at least 10 yards or so clearly to the opposite, opposite side. The men thought little of it and simply pressed on slowly before all feet froze in place at the leader's sudden signal to stop. Something just wasn't right. A quietness that didn't fit. Or even the forest had stopped making its sounds. Every man felt a disquiet, as if it was no longer just them and whatever else was there was watching them from the dark. All at once, the patrol heard the sound of laughter. It started as a giggle, a very genuine giggle that grew into the sound of a hearty belly laugh from some other group. And then from the wet earth before them, there rose bodies, a dozen men, Viet Cong, rising from the mud and through the fog that had formed in the humid air. All men were laughing as they rose, and they kept laughing as they walked torturously slow toward the Americans. They all had weapons, but the weapons were slung on their backs as they laughed. And as they stepped closer, they rose their hands before them in surrender. The moon sent a silver shaft into their clearing and its light glistened off the men's wide, bulging eyes, making them appear lit by bulbs somewhere inside of the guerrilla fighters. They just laughed and laughed. They laughed until they could not breathe. And then they breathed and kept. Kept laughing more. All the while, they closed the distance to the Americans, still with their hands up. For their part, the Americans genuinely did not know what to do. Their nerve was barely holding, barely remembering the rules of engagement that they were bound by law to uphold. Their guns were up and pointed, and their fingers were putting pressure on the mil spec triggers under the their fingers. The dozen Viet Cong shuffled forward until each stood right in front of an enemy man. They just stood there, laughing hysterically, hands raised up and refusing to even blink. The Americans stood frozen and bewitched. But then the bewitchment broke. All at once, as if telepathically coordinated, the American soldiers broke those triggers and kept pulling them, firing magazines of ammunition into each Viet Cong man until the ground of that country was made muddy anew by the blood of its own sons. The uncanny counter patrol of Viet Cong fighters fell in tatters of flesh before the Americans, who, unsure about the reality of such a thing, merely marched on into the COVID of the forest.

[Ben]

So that's pretty crazy.

[Brian]

Here's the thing, Ghost. Horrifyingly depressing.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah, it is creepy, though. Like, admittedly, I'm not saying that they should have just. Once again, I'm not saying they should have just massacred.

[Brian]

I. Yeah, every American stereotype.

[Ben]

At least the Americans are staying consistent.

[Brian]

Verified. Yes, but.

[Ben]

But like, try to put yourself in those shoes.

[Brian]

No, it was terrifying because you gotta be Thinking, like, all this noise is gonna draw enemies, too.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Like, they're behind enemy lines.

[Ben]

Yeah. And so they're laughing up a situation.

[Brian]

Maybe they just heard a really good joke, though.

[Ben]

The one thing, though, is, like. And this was kind of a. I don't know if I did a good job. I don't think I did a good job communicating this in the story. But the report that I heard, it was ambiguous as to whether or not those Vietnamese soldiers were real.

[Brian]

Okay.

[Ben]

Like, there was a sense in which it seemed kind of ethereal. It felt. I don't know. It felt even more uncanny than just a group of laughing Viet Congs.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Which. That, to me, I think it's just Viet Cong laughing.

[Brian]

Vietnam with the S on the end.

[Ben]

That makes a lot of sense.

[Brian]

I think it's like, sheep. You can have a sheep or you can have sheep.

[Ben]

What is a group of Viet Congs? Is it like a gross. Or.

[Brian]

144 of them would be a gross pod. I would say it would be like a rice bowl.

[Ben]

What's a murder of crows?

[Brian]

It's a murder of crows.

[Ben]

A murder of Viet Cong comes at you in the middle.

[Brian]

It's a sushi of Viet Cong.

[Ben]

I'm just.

[Brian]

That's not even Southeast Asian. It's literally Japanese.

[Ben]

A calamari. What do they eat? Crickets. What's cricket of Viet Cong?

[Brian]

When I was in Cambodia, I ate frogs. I ate dog.

[Ben]

You went to Cambodia?

[Brian]

Yeah, I spent a couple weeks there.

[Ben]

How was dog?

[Brian]

Dog was, like, really tough beef. It was red meat also. It was horrible. And I wouldn't recommend eating dog. And now I wouldn't if I were, like, an adult, Brian. I was, like, 17 at the time.

[Ben]

What were you doing in Cambodia? Was it a mission trip?

[Brian]

Of course. You know what I was doing there?

[Ben]

Mission trip.

[Brian]

I grew up in an evangelical church.

[Ben]

Yeah. Yeah. My mission trip was way better, dude. I went to Naples, Italy.

[Brian]

What? That's not a mission trip.

[Ben]

Oh, you. And you know what's funny?

[Brian]

You go, like, I'm gonna eat some gelato.

[Ben]

You know?

[Brian]

Oh, for the glory of a God.

[Ben]

We literally ate gelato, everybody. Every night.

[Brian]

Oh, I will go to the Vatican.

[Ben]

Oh, we even. I was 15, so we had wine. We could have wine at dinner, like, every night, dude.

[Brian]

I was like, literally, I got infections on the bottom of both of my feet from playing my tiny guitar in the mud while it was pouring rain. Ukulele is what is my youth pastor. And this is classic youth pastor behavior. Pushed me into a swampy drainage ditch. As a joke that I think was full of human excrement.

[Ben]

Well.

[Brian]

And I end up with golf ball size infections under my feet.

[Ben]

Dude, you literally.

[Brian]

You were freaking.

[Ben]

Literally.

[Brian]

Gelato job.

[Ben]

No. So this is.

[Brian]

This is Mario sounds.

[Ben]

This is actually the most kind of like, smooth brained mission trip, like, American Protestant thing that we did. We went over there and we were like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna evangelize to the Roman Catholics. Okay. Let me tell you.

[Brian]

You're Go get the Pope.

[Ben]

Let me tell you what happened.

[Brian]

Yeah. What happened?

[Ben]

And now, of course, this makes a lot of sense to me. Here's what happened. We would find a Roman Catholic, which is just everyone in Italy, and we would say, hey, have you ever heard a Christian share the gospel? And they were like, yes. And so we. So we would go about. We'd be like, you know, like, do.

[Brian]

You want to hear it again?

[Ben]

The Lord Jesus came to this earth, struggled and suffered and died for you. And they're like, yeah, yeah. Like, I believe all that.

[Brian]

They're like, yeah.

[Ben]

We're like, I have faith in Christ. And we're like, yeah, yeah. But so I was like, they send.

[Brian]

High schoolers out to do this.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Brian]

Like, that's a good thing.

[Ben]

What they shouldn't have done is that.

[Brian]

But you got to go to Italy.

[Ben]

What they should have done is said, we're gonna go have some. You know, maybe we'll call it internecine dialogue, because we all affirm the ecumenical creeds with the Roman Catholics, in which case high schoolers are not the ones to send.

[Brian]

No.

[Ben]

But I did get to go to Rome for a day. And let me tell you something. If you've never been to Rome, it's way better than you think.

[Brian]

Very cool.

[Ben]

One of the cleanest capital cities. Unbelievable. History is beautiful. Yeah.

[Brian]

When I was in Italy, I drifted out to sea.

[Ben]

Really?

[Brian]

Yeah. You went to rubber dinghy? Yeah, I went to Italy. I went to like 12 or 13 countries in Europe before we moved from England to Utah.

[Ben]

It's crazy. Actually, you can track Brian's travels and see that right when he leaves a country, it begins an immediate decline. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian]

It lost its greatest jewel.

[Ben]

You're the secret. Anyway, back to Vietnamese horrors beyond comprehension.

[Brian]

Wow. Thank you for listening to that. Also, I really don't know what to make of this story other than war sucks. And maybe those people were out of their minds. Maybe. I don't know. What do you think?

[Ben]

I mean, yeah, I think they were out of their minds. I also Think a lot of the American soldiers were out of their minds.

[Brian]

For obvious, like half halfway gone.

[Ben]

Yeah, like we know that because they came back and there was a huge problem with that. But if what we've been kind of positing is true that there's oftentimes unseen forces at play all the time, but especially in these huge terrible events, then demonic influence is not out of the question.

[Brian]

I have a theory. They weren't real, dude. Demonic apparitions calculated to force the Americans to do something horrible as psychological warfare against their souls.

[Ben]

Dang. You see what I'm saying?

[Brian]

You see what I'm saying?

[Ben]

Dog and Maid.

[Brian]

This is a mind tuned by 50 episodes of Haunted Cosmos to be perfectly prepared to speculate about weird Vietnamese incidents.

[Ben]

This is the 40th episode of Haunted Cosmos.

[Brian]

I don't even see. I don't even know how many episodes I've done.

[Ben]

That's how many. That's how many.

[Brian]

How many deep I am.

[Ben]

So that's just another kind of wrinkle to this whole story. But. But as we go into the close.

[Brian]

This is the craziest one.

[Ben]

Yeah. There's actually, I think a discussion that we should front load the clothes with, which is, spoiler alert. The close is a ghost story.

[Brian]

Yeah.

[Ben]

What happens? I just slammed the mic into my face.

[Brian]

Calm down, calm down.

[Ben]

What happens when there's an apparent ghost encounter, but literally only good comes of it?

[Brian]

Here's the thing I want you to ask yourself as you listen to this story. Could the Roman soldier be an angel?

[Ben]

In 53 BC, the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus marched east from his homeland. Homeland towards the dust bowl of Carrhae at the modern day Syrian Turkish border. With him marched legions of Roman soldiers, killing machines 42,000 strong. And the foe poised to meet him in Carrhae was a force of 10,000 Parthians, 6,000 of whom were horse archers, led by the dreaded Parthian commander Surena. The Parthians, having the advantage in desert warfare, drew the Romans into an ancient ancient flood plain where they would be fully exposed with no high ground to press their advantage of quick mobility and formation change. The legions used to decisive victories over Gauls and the Black Forest of Germany, were themselves decisively slaughtered by the Parthians. Over against minimal loss from Surena's army, Crassus witnessed the killing of 20,000 of his men, the capture of another 10,000, and the flight of 12,000 more back to Rome. Rome. In the midst of the defeat, Crassus appealed himself to the statesmanship of Surena and sued for terms of peace. The Roman Triumvirate was so desperate for a stop to the carnage, he mounted up and rode himself to the feet of Surena to parley. Surena, however, would have none of it. He bound the Roman general in chains and in a twist of irony for the richest man in Rome, poured molten gold down Crassus throat until he died of drowning and burning. Which came first is lost to history. The general's death marked the end of Rome's first triumvirate and led to the eventual civil war between Caesar and Pompey that ended Rome's republic and began her empire. But that's the story for another day. What concerns us is the fate of the 12,000 legionnaires captured alive by Surena after the battle. For a long time nobody really knew what came of them. Most assumed they went to live lives of exilic servitude in all regions of Parthia, where they withered away and died hopeless and homeless. However, their fate does not appear to have been so simple. Reports within the Parthian government later emerged which told of how the 10,000 Romans had all been taken to live on the far eastern border of the Parthian Empire, near to the Ganges river in modern day India. However. However, some believe that the strange city of exile given to the soldiers went even further east into China and even Vietnam, circa 36 BC. Reports from the Han dynasty of China tell of a tribe of mountain dwelling and battle hardened mercenaries. The Han referred to their dwelling place as legion, a word very phonetically similar to legion. These mercenaries would wore armor akin to Rome and fought in what they called the fish scale formations. That could be referring to the Roman Testudo formation. Eventually the Chinese became so impressed with the resilience of this band of mountain dwellers, they invited them to become an official part of their own empire. The mercenaries allegedly accepted. And after this, some tribes in China started producing offspring with features more alike to European myth men than to their own Far Eastern population. All of this is simply to prove the possibility of Roman legions being long term inhabitants of the world east of the Great mountains in the Hindu Kush. Maybe Rome left its mark even on the coast of the South China Sea in Vietnam. Maybe that forest so old and unknown to the west was first trod by the west long before the Americans came to know it. There was an American grunt who flew over the Pacific in 1966 to join the 1st Cavalry Division on the front lines and beyond of the Vietnam War. By 68, the hardened man had made a name for himself among his troop as one of supreme courage and competence, with not the least bit of loyalty to his comrades to round out an honorable frame. One early morning morning when his platoon was on a recon mission in the hills outside of Pantayt, this man was woken by the previous watchman and was told to give him relief. He knew it was coming and so he forced his legs to lock beneath him. In the chilled morning air of the Vietnamese winter, he hobbled, rifle in hand, to his post on the border of their patrol and sat nestled between a tree trunk and a lump of wet but very hard mud. It was 4am he sat still and quiet, wide awake from a sense of duty and ready to ambush any Viet Cong that tried to make way down the little valley. He looked into the pre dawn watches were notorious in Vietnam. They were either the most quiet or the most shocking. It all depended on how the enemy chose to treat that particular part of their country on that particular morning. For hours nothing happened. The mist formed off the ground as the sky grew a pale blue and the sickle moon still looked down with ample light for him to see a good ways before. But then, all at once, and just before dawn rose, the man saw another form of a human in the mist. He knew it could not be a real man, for it hovered some feet back from the edge of the cliff that he looked over. But he also knew he wasn't asleep because he couldn't make himself wake up. For a few minutes the homesick soldier in this shade of some other world stared at each other in complete silence. And for the lengths of those minutes, the grunt wondered if what he was seeing was real. The ghost was a soldier. There was no denying that. But it wasn't a soldier from his own time. He was robed in tattered rags like long johns. He wore a leather helmet down over much of his face with strands of pluming red coming from its top. In one hand he bore a bent and broken bronze shield, and in the other he held a sword dripping with blood. The scabbard on his side was leather and and he could tell had seen much abuse after too much time. The apparition seemed to walk on the air towards the watchman until he stood just feet in front of him. From there it looked him right in the eye and said something the man could not quite make out. He thought it sounded something like meant to marry. After saying this, the apparition vanished into the morning breeze and the warm light of dawn kissed the watchman's face. He didn't understand what he had seen. And for this reason, he could never forget it. The man eventually survived the war and returned home to attend college, courtesy of the GI Bill. In college he met his sweetheart at a Methodist church. The two became married. The man felt a calling to the ministry that was confirmed time and time again during his additional time of schooling in seminary and then in seminary. In a closed door meeting with one of his advisors that he trusted, the man finally divulged for the first time the story of the ancient ghost he had met in Vietnam. Shaking slightly at the thought of the cool air that morning, he recalled every detail up to and including the odd message the ghost gave to him. Meant to marry. The professor, with a look of interest and even slight disappointment, quickly replied that he was wrong, that that was not what the ghost said. The man, of course, was confused at such a quick reaction. He bit the urge to bite back at the professor and instead asked what the ghost had actually meant. The professor's reply changed the would be minister's life forever. The ghost was apparently Latin, said the professor. What you heard was memento mori, Latin for remember you must die. The man went on to complete his divinity schooling. For the rest of his days he served in the Methodist church as a stoic but not uncaring minister. He remained married to his college sweetheart, who eventually died a happy woman. They had four children together, all of whom deeply loved both of their parents. Sa.