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Cassie
Vermont's Lake Champlain has carried stories of strange encounters. For centuries, people have claimed to see unexplained things in the water, encounter mythical beings along its shores, and in some cases, vanished without a trace. Beneath the lake's surface is the legend of a serpent known today as Champ. Though long before it became a modern cryptid, the Abenaki people feared and respected the creature as gittiskog, warning early Europeans not to disturb the lake unnecessarily. And some descriptions of this creature are genuinely terrifying. In 1819, Captain Crumb claimed he watched a massive beast rise nearly 15ft out of the water near Bulwaga Bay. He estimated it was around 187ft long, with the head of a seahorse and only three teeth, eyes the color of a peeled onion, a white star on its head and a red ring around its neck. Over the years, there have been countless reported sightings of Champ. So many, in fact, that in 1873, a circus showman offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could bring him the creature's hide so he could display it as part of his exhibition at the World's Fair. Champ was never captured, but the sightings never really stopped. More than a century later, in 1992 alone, roughly 180 people claimed to have seen something in the waters of Lake Champlain that they believed was Champ. But without a doubt, the strangest story ever tied to Lake Champlain unfolded on August 7, 1968, at a girls summer camp along the lakeshore. Around 8, 10 that evening, two camp counselors walked down to the dock expecting an ordinary summer night by the water. Instead, they would later claim they encountered something hovering above the lake that changed the course of their lives forever. Many people have heard of the alleged abduction of Betty and Barney Hill. But what happened on Lake Champlain that night could make even the biggest skeptics believe in extraterrestrials. Welcome to National Park After Dark.
Danielle
Hey everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle.
Cassie
And I'm Cassie.
Danielle
And you're doing an uno reverse. I thought we were going Nessie route.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Nope. I just had to bring up Champ since we're going to Vermont. Oh yeah. Champ is hard.
Danielle
Champ, not Nessie.
Cassie
Some realm.
Danielle
Yeah. I don't want to disrespect, but I'm super excited. We're doing an alien story and I feel ashamed I've never heard of it. As a New Englander, I was so
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
excited I had never heard of this either. Because everyone focuses on Betty and Barney Hill.
Danielle
Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And this one's crazy.
Danielle
I don't know. Up. Literally, one thing about this, I love
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
that, because I would expect you to know about it and you don't, which is more exciting.
Danielle
I've been off my game. But speaking of Betty and Barney Hill, by the time this comes out, I would have gone to. This is a shout out to your local historic societies. Please check out the events that they do, because the Portsmouth Historical Society had an exhibit about Betty and Barney Hill. And just about a week or two ago, I went on their tour of their Betty and Barney Hill exhibit led by a curator.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So cool.
Danielle
So look at. You never know what your local historic society is up to.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And if you're listening and you're like, I have no idea what Betty and Barney Hill was and what you're talking about. We did a whole. We did a whole episode on it, and it was an alien abduction that happened in northern New Hampshire.
Danielle
And the reason the Portsmouth Historical Society is doing it is because Betty and Barney Hill were from Portsmouth or lived in Portsmouth at the time and were
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
on their way back to Portsmouth when they got abducted.
Danielle
Well, tell me another abduction story. Em, I love that you do. Well, you don't do every alien episode. I guess I did Travis Walton. But I like that you take the reins on these because it just makes it so much more enjoyable for me, selfishly.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Well, I. I feel like I kind of have to. There's, like, a pressure, I feel like,
Cassie
for me, because you're well versed in
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
this world and I am kind of relatively new to it since we started the podcast, I'm like, I have to catch up and I need to know. And I do think that they're super interesting. And this one in particular, when I found out it happened in Vermont not too far from me, I was like, wait a second. Why isn't there more information about this? When you go to places I don't know, you go to Roswell, New Mexico, or even if you're in Death Valley area or something. There are alien UFO stuff everywhere. And talk about sightings, but I've never
Cassie
even seen an alien sticker somewhere around Lake Champlain.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And there's this crazy abduction story that happens there.
Danielle
And are you going to. Sorry, remind me. This happened in 68.
Cassie
Yes.
Danielle
So just a couple years after Betty and Barney Hill.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, it was really close to it.
Danielle
Okay, I'll check.
Cassie
There are a lot of links.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
There are so many links to Betty and Barney Hill in this. It's crazy. So. And it's way less known, which is Also crazy. And there was actually a book that I used for this, and I can't think of the title of it right now, but I'll put it in the show notes because I found it online, and it is actually.
Cassie
It's more of, like, a scientific research
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
paper book about this whole event, but
Cassie
it's a rare book, and you can't
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
really find it anywhere. So it's way less known than Betty and Barney Hill, but it's very, very much happened. So before we dive into this real quick, I did want to mention that Vermont. I mean, we do have one national park, the Marsh Billings national park, but the story does not take place inside of a national park. And I know that you guys don't care about that at all, and you've made that pretty clear, But I found a national park tie in that I thought I would share with you guys anyway, just in case someone out there is like, this isn't a national park. I don't care.
Cassie
It's still not.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
But there is a very, very, very small tie to the National Park Service.
Danielle
I don't know why we feel so traumatized about this.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like, whoever has ever traumatized us
Danielle
about it, I know we made it up in our minds, and we're just, like, really afraid that it's gonna be not well received. But go ahead. I appreciate the effort of the tie in.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Okay, well, get this. Lake Champlain is part of the Champaign Valley National Heritage Partnership, which is a federally designated national heritage area connected to the National Park Service, and they help preserve the region's natural and cultural history. So, basically, there's a subset of the National Park Service that helps Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership decide how they preserve history here in the culture.
Danielle
Okay, I'll accept that.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And this partnership is managed by the Lake Champlain Basin Program, which works to protect the Basin's environmental, historic, and social resources while expanding recreation access and cultural heritage education throughout the region. And then, if you've never heard about Lake Champlain at all.
Cassie
Lake Champlain stretches more than 120 miles between Vermont, New York, and Canada.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Bordered by the Adirondacks on one side
Cassie
and the Green Mountains on the other, it's one of the largest freshwater lakes in the United States, with hundreds of miles of shoreline, dozens of islands, deep cold water, and history that stretches back thousands of years. Indigenous communities traveled these waters long before Europeans arrived. Revolutionary War battles unfolded here. And for centuries, people have tied the lake to strange sightings, disappearances, lake monsters, and unexplained encounters.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So if aliens Were going to show up anywhere in Vermont. Lake Champlain kind of feels like the place.
Cassie
So let's dive into the story. In August 1968, 16 year old Michael Lapp, a blonde haired, blue eyed teenager
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
working at a girls summer camp on
Cassie
the shores of Lake Champlain in Colchester, Vermont, spent his days running boats, helping campers water ski and taking care of the equipment at the camp which sat tucked along the edge of the lake about 14 miles north of Burlington. On the evening of August 7th, Michael was sitting on the dock with 19 year old Janet Cornell, A college student working at the camp as a water ski instructor. The camp was unusually quiet because the campers had traveled into Burlington for swim meet. So the two spent the evening talking and getting to know each other. They chatted about their families, relationships, hobbies, just normal conversations as the sun started setting over the lake. And that is when they noticed something strange in the sky. A glowing cigar shaped object hovered over Lake Champlain. Then three smaller objects emerged from it and began moving through the sky in strange patterns. Moments later, the larger craft and two of the smaller objects suddenly shot away, Leaving one of them behind. And that one started slowly moving directly towards them. As it got closer, Michael could make out figures inside the craft. Beings he believed were communicating with him telepathically. Then the object hovered directly over the dock. Terrified, Michael and Janet dropped onto the wood planks beneath them. Michael could never clearly remember whether they fell, crouched or were forced down somehow, But Janet appeared to either lose consciousness or slip into a kind of trance. And then there was a gap. Michael couldn't remember what happened next. His memory simply stopped. The next thing he recalled was hearing car doors slamming and kids laughing. As the campers returned from the swim meet, he looked up and saw flashes of light moving rapidly towards the camp before the object suddenly ascended and disappeared into the night sky. Afterwards, Janet was exhausted and went straight to bed. The two barely spoke about what happened before the summer ended and eventually they lost contact entirely. But Michael never forgot that night on Lake Champlain. Before the encounter, Michael had been a pretty typical teenager. He ran track, played football, skied, wrote poetry and played guitar. But after that night on Lake Champlain, the people around him noticed a shift. He started experimenting with marijuana and became deeply interested in spirituality, consciousness, meditation and mystical ideas about the universe and human existence. He dropped out of college three separate times and drifted from place to place, Taking jobs in Hawaii, California and New Mexico, Always seeming to search for something he couldn't quite explain. Michael tried not to dwell on what happened that night. On the dock. But over time, fragments of disturbing dreams began surfacing in them. He was being taken somewhere against his will, surrounded by strange figures and unable to stop what was happening. The dream would come for a while, then suddenly disappear, only to return again months later. Michael couldn't shake the feeling that whatever was happening in those dreams was connected to that night on Lake Champlain. About five years after the encounter, Michael wrote a paper for one of his classes recounting what had happened at the camp. Not long after, the dreams became even more vivid, shifting into detailed memories of being inside a craft. That was the point where he decided that he needed answers. He started trying to reconnect with the other people who had been at the camp that summer, including Janet and several other counselors. One of them, Patrick, who had also allegedly witnessed these UFOs in the sky. That night he tried to contact, but when he tried tracking him down, he learned that Patrick had since been confined to a psychiatric hospital and was reportedly unable to communicate with anyone. Then one day, Michael came across an article in Playboy magazine that mentioned J. Allen Hynek and the center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Illinois. The very next day, he called the center, searching for help. And that call eventually connected him with Walter N. Webb, who was a Boston astronomer and member of the nicap, or the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Webb had studied under J. Allen Hynek at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Hynek had served as a scientific advisor
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
on UFO investigations for the US Air
Cassie
Force and later became one of the most prominent names in UFO research. Webb had also been the first investigator to interview Betty and Barney Hill following their alleged abduction experience in New Hampshire in 1961, a case that would later become one of the most famous UFO stories in the United States.
Danielle
There it is.
Cassie
There it is.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So he gets connected with the same person, which is crazy. And to backtrack slightly to the book that I mentioned a little bit, Walter
Cassie
Webb is the person who wrote the
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
book about this specific UFO abduction, which is also why I think it's crazy that this is so, so not known
Cassie
as much as the Betty and Barney Hill incident, because it's the same investigator
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
on both of them. And when we get into the nitty gritty of this, there's so many parallels to that story.
Danielle
I'll have to do some boots on the ground investigative work this year, because if I'm around, we tend to always be gone in September. Like, we always pick that month to travel, but usually there's an annual UFO celebration like event festival that Exeter New Hampshire puts on, and they have a ton of lecturers, guest speakers, things like that. It's not just like, oh, let's all get together and you can buy alien stuff. It's actually kind of like a quasi conference type of thing. And one of the years, Betty and Barney Hill's niece spoke. So I wonder if there's any programming that will come up or has come up in the past about this incident. Because it's more of, like, a local event and this is a New England story.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So, yeah, I'd be so curious. Cause even when researching this, outside of the book, there definitely are. There were a couple resources that I found that have covered and talked about the story.
Cassie
But if you look up Betty and Barney Hill, there's hundreds.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
There's books. There's like. There's so much about Betty and Barney Hill and this. There was like, five or six resources that kind of talked about it.
Danielle
Well, I'm glad you found them and made an episode out of it because,
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
well, outside of this book, that goes into, like, the full, full detail of this whole thing, which is crazy, because it was like, oh, my God.
Cassie
There's.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Everything I need to know is in this. In this.
Danielle
Well, just watch. Okay, so now here's an experiment. We'll see if, after this episode airs,
Cassie
if more people start covering it.
Danielle
Yeah, we'll know, we'll know, we'll see it.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
No pressure, no pressure.
Danielle
It's fine. Spread the word about aliens, please.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
But, yeah, in this case, put Lake Champlain on the map. Lake Champlain is actually really cool. I really like it up there. It's beautiful. If you guys haven't gone listening, you
Cassie
guys, if you're looking for a lake
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
place, it's just such a cool spot in Burlington School. And they have a causeway and you can ride your bike across the lake pretty much. And I don't know, it's so. It's so beautiful. Okay, but going back into the story. So we found out that Walter Webb
Cassie
has worked with Betty and Barney Hill. And Webb was known for being careful about the cases he investigated and focused on reports he believed could contribute meaningful
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
information to the study aerial phenomena. So he wasn't just accepting anyone who was like, hey, I think I saw a ufo.
Cassie
It had to be substantial. After looking into the Lake Champlain encounter, he eventually wrote a book about the case.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Oh, I have it right here. That he called Encounter Buffledge a UFO case history. And it's fairly rare now, like I mentioned before, there's only a few copies that are circulating And I found a,
Cassie
a version online where you can read it right online.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And what's also interesting about it too is there's illustrations in it from what was witnessed here.
Cassie
So you can see the hand drawn
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
illustrations from Michael in here of what he saw.
Danielle
That reminds me of the Allagash abduction story. Oh, I guess I've done two alien stories. Yeah, it's hard to keep track nowadays, but yeah, when they were under hypnosis, all of them drew what they saw anyway. Okay, keep going.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So basically what I was getting into is that even though Webb did eventually
Cassie
take on Michael's case, he was pretty
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
reluctant at first because he wanted to verify that this was actually real and worth his time.
Cassie
In fact, when 26 year old Michael Lapp called him up, he was skeptical and considered sending him away with the
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
usual UFO questionnaire, which was basically like, oh, you saw a ufo Here, fill out this form and I'll get back to you.
Cassie
At that point, Webb was only investigating CE3s, which were known as Close Encounters
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
of the Third Kind. That's a reference to the Hynek scale,
Cassie
which means a close encounter of the
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
first kind is only observing a UFO visually.
Cassie
The second kind is getting physical evidence of a ufo. The third kind is actual up close personal contact with an alien life form.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So that was the only thing that he was willing to research at this point.
Cassie
And in his book about the Lake Champlain story, Webb wrote, one does not and should not enter lightly into a CE3 investigation. Webb warned Michael over the phone that the investigation would involve an intense witness credibility test. He would make sure Michael hadn't been
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
reading a bunch of sci fi novels.
Cassie
He'd do character reference checks, put him through a polygraph and psychological tests to
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
make sure Michael wasn't just out of
Cassie
his mind or making anything up.
Danielle
Okay, I have a. I get it, I get it. I understand why that is part of the process. But what if something happened to me tomorrow that like, legitimately I had an encounter of some kind? And they're like, yeah, well, like, have you read about aliens before? It's like, well, yeah, but it still happened happened.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
That's so valid. I think that maybe during this point in time too, he was a little
Cassie
bit more iffy about it because aliens
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
weren't as, well, as much. There was kind of like a craze going on as aliens during this time. So I think he was just trying to make sure he wasn't obsessed with it and then making up an encounter that didn't really happen or whatever it was. So he was just trying to. And I think he was also trying to scare Michael where he was like, if you want to go down this road, if you really think that you had this, this encounter, this is all the work that I'm going to do. Are you sure you want to do it?
Danielle
Yeah. He's like, don't piss me off.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, don't waste my time.
Danielle
Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
He's like, I am going to do a deep dive on you, Your life, your family, everything that's ever happened to you, I'm going to learn about. Are you in? And Michael was like, yeah, I'm in. I have nothing to hide. And also, Michael seemed sincerely baffled by what he experienced and express interest in contributing to the scientific understanding of UFO encounters. He was basically like, I don't know what happened to me. I don't, I know it was a UFO encounter. I don't really understand why. I want to learn more. I want to help contribute to this research that you're doing. So he agreed to go under hypnosis to try and remember because remember he is missing a lot of stuff. He's just having these really detailed dreams that he's connecting back to this time and he remembers an aircraft and he remembers being spoken to telepathically, but there's a lot of gaps in his memory at this point.
Cassie
So Webb decided to invite Michael to meet in person. Four days later, Michael hitchhiked 230 miles from northern Vermont to Boston to see
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
him because he didn't have a car. So he just hitchhiked from here to Boston. It's a far ride, it's like three
Cassie
and a half hours. On his arrival, Webb discovered that Michael
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
was a ruggedly handsome young man standing
Cassie
about 6ft tall with long blonde hair. And this was after all the late
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
70s, so not surprising he had long hair. Michael had just graduated from the University
Cassie
of Vermont with a degree in religion. He didn't have a job yet, but planned to get one as a ski instructor that winter. They sat down and Michael told Webb his whole story, or at least what he could remember of it. When Webb first heard Michael's story, parts of it almost sounded too stereotypical to believe. The cigar shaped craft, the telepathic communication, the missing time.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It sounded like something straight out of
Cassie
a science fiction show. But from an investigative standpoint, the case had one detail that immediately caught Webb's attention and that was that there were two witnesses who had never really discussed
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the experience with each other after it had happened.
Cassie
And that was pretty rare in most multi witness UFO cases. The people involved spent hours comparing memories and unintentionally influencing each other's recollections. But Michael and Janet had barely spoken
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
at all after the night on the dock before eventually losing contact altogether.
Cassie
Webb asked Michael if he thought he could track Janet Cornell down. Michael had heard through the grapevine that
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
she was living in Atlanta and working
Cassie
for an Ivy League university, so he agreed to try. Months passed before Michael finally got back in touch with Webb, this time with a business phone number and mailing address for Janet. Webb wrote her a letter introducing himself, explaining his background and credentials, and telling her he was investigating an encounter involving
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Michael Lapper, someone who she had obviously
Cassie
worked with at the summer camp back in 1968. He asked if she would be willing to share her side of what happened that night on Lake Champlain and assured her she could remain anonymous if she chose. As soon as Janet got the letter, she called him back. Over the phone, Janet told him what she remembered. It wasn't too much. She remembered the strange lights and Michael
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
getting really excited about them.
Cassie
She remembered tumbling onto the dock, but couldn't remember how she got there. In her memory, it all happened in about 15 minutes or so. She hadn't been sure why Michael seemed so much more affected by the event than her, but looking back, she recognized how odd the experience had been. And she was also perplexed by the time caps in her memory. Webb was careful not to give Janet any details for Michael's version of events. He wanted to see what she remembered on her own, without influencing her recollection in any way. From their conversations, Webb found Janet to be intelligent, grounded and articulate. She came from a well educated family, one of five children and the daughter of a doctor. After her time at Buffalo summer camp, she graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in psychology. By the time Webb contacted her, she was 29 years old, married to a doctor, and living what appeared to be a completely normal life. Janet told Webb she was willing to cooperate with the investigation, and with that, Webb began seriously digging into the Buffledge case. He started digging through newspaper stories to see if anyone else had reported seeing unusual lights over the lake. He even filed formal record requests, trying to obtain police reports and any official documentation connected to the sighting. He started trying to track down other counselors working at the camp at the time as well. And he took a trip to Buffledge with some special equipment so he could make estimates of distances. Michael met him there and walked him through exactly what he had seen from the dock that night using a sighting Compass and a homemade inclinometer, a device used to measure angles and elevation. Webb worked to map out the UFO's approximate position and movement across the sky. Webb estimated the object had appeared and disappeared at roughly 195 degrees and about 25 to 30 degrees in elevation.
Danielle
You know, when people are like, geometry is such a waste of time to learn. In high school.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah.
Danielle
Except right now in ufology. So think about that.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
That's the only time you need it. During this, he also took photographs, recorded compass bearings on nearby landmarks, and sketched
Cassie
the horizon from the dock where the encounter had taken place. Then he visited Michael's family home and met his parents and siblings. The day after the UFO encounter, Michael had actually hitchhike home to tell them about what he had experienced. His mom was a social worker and figured there must be a perfectly simple psychological explanation for what Michael experienced. She kind of blamed the liberal arts
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
college Goddard that he ended up attending.
Cassie
But his dad and one of his sisters believed his story completely. Webb asked if he could visit Michael's bedroom because he wanted to look at his bookshelf and make sure he didn't
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
have any novels on the shelf that
Cassie
could have inspired his story. But he didn't see any red flags. Michael's high school sweetheart also talked to Webb. She remembered him coming back that night ranting about a UFO encounter, how he'd been so wild in his telling of
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the story that it had actually made her cry. All of this, she was just. She said it was just so overwhelming. She was like, you're being crazy. I don't know what's going on. And it, the whole thing. She just burst into tears. And Michael actually said that it kind of hurt his feelings. He was like, what?
Danielle
It's like, stop talking this about you.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Like, this is about me and my UFO encounter. I was just abducted by aliens. Why are you crying?
Danielle
Right? It's like, don't gaslight me right now, okay? I don't need this.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Like, this is why she's now his ex girlfriend. But all of this gave Webb more confidence that Michael was actually telling the truth. You know, he's not finding all these novels that he was researching aliens. He's seeing the location he's detailing. He's. He's kind of getting. Getting an image of, like, how this could have occurred. And then I think also seeing his family members com hearing that they completely doubted his account and that he came back so quickly and told them about him, about them. It was all kind of verifying that he should investigate this.
Cassie
Webb also noted that 1968 was what he called a wave year for UFO sightings across the globe. There were 19 incidents of people reporting
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
that they had been abducted.
Cassie
Many of them were automobile related in
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
which car engines failed to work in
Cassie
the presence of a spacecraft. Lots of them were in South America, Spain and Canada. In fact, up to that time, 1968 was the fourth highest year of UFO sightings. Before he left town, Webb visited the local library and discovered the date of the swim meet that the campers had attended, which he found to be August 7th. And now that he had figured out
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
that exact date, because previously Michael was like, it was like the seventh or the eighth. Like, he wasn't sure. He just knew that there was a meet that happened and a swim meet that happened when he was out on the dock and kind of explained it that way.
Cassie
And as any good ufologist knows, he needed to try to make a good faith attempt to explain the events through natural causes first.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So let's get rid of all of the UFO stuff and what else could have happened here.
Cassie
He tracked down descriptions of the weather
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
and checked to see if Venus had been present in the sky that night. Maybe the bright lights had just been
Cassie
a really intense planetary event.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Webb was an astronomer, after all, and so he verified that, yes, Venus had been out that night, but far from
Cassie
where the UFO had been in the sky.
Danielle
I'm telling you one thing, I'm never mistaking Venus for a ufo. If there's one thing about me that's not ever gonna happen, it's like if
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I see a ufo, it's gonna be real.
Danielle
Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I come out and tell you I saw one.
Danielle
If somebody approached, their first reaction to my story was, are you sure you just didn't see Venus? I'd flip out.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
As you should.
Danielle
Don't insult me, please.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Don't insult my intelligence, please.
Danielle
Can I pick Venus out right now?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Absolutely not. However, do I also know that I don't see any UFOs in the sky right now? Not that I know of. So with all this information, Webb moved forward with the hypnotist approach to conduct interviews with Michael and with Janet.
Cassie
One thing that's always a little funny
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Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
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Cassie
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Cassie
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Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
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Cassie
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Cassie
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Cassie
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Cassie
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Cassie
The first hypnotist Webb brought in was a man named Harold, who had extensive
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
professional background and was already working with
Cassie
local police departments and hospitals. He had multiple certifications in hypnosis and ended up conducting five separate sessions with Michael for Janet. Webb hired a female hypnotist with similarly impressive credentials. Janet underwent three sessions of her own,
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
some which became unusually long. One reportedly lasted more than three and a half hours. Michael's sessions were shorter, usually around 90 minutes.
Cassie
But he entered into a hypnotic state much faster and more deeply than Janet did. During Janet's first session, she struggled to relax and seemed almost too determined to remember every detail. But once the hypnotist guided her into a calmer state during later sessions, her recollections became much more detailed. While the witnesses were under hypnosis, Walter and Webb conducted the interviews himself. He was extremely careful not to lead either witness or reveal what the other person had already said. In the encounter at Buffledge, a UFO
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
case in history that he wrote, he
Cassie
included long sections of these interviews and throughout them you can how cautious he was to let both Michael and Janet describe events entirely in their own words. Over hours and hours of testimony, Webb slowly began piecing together a fuller picture
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
of what might have happened that night on Lake Champlain.
Cassie
And what stood out most to him was how many details in Michael and Janet's accounts overlapped. So here's the story Webb ultimately pieced together from their testimony. Both Michael and Janet remembered lazing around by the water that evening beneath an unusually clear sky. Visibility was so good they could see nearly 10 miles across Lake Champlain all the way to South Hero island with its orchards and marble island, home to a small yacht colony. As the sun began to set, Michael noticed a bright star like object about a third of a way up the southwestern sky that he initially assumed was Venus. But then Venus started moving into an arc to the right towards another long object hovering nearby. Michael remembered turning to Janet and saying
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
he thought Venus was falling.
Cassie
The object burned bright white above the Adirondacks, roughly 10 miles away. Then suddenly, three lights along the bottom illuminated one at a time before reversing direction. Moments later, three smaller objects began darting around the sky. They zigzagged upward, fluttered downward like falling leaves, then spiraled perfectly back into the air. At one point, the objects clustered together in a triangle formation before splitting off in different directions again. And at this point, Michael could hear something, though Janet later said she didn't remember Any sound at all. He described it as a strange humming noise, like thousands of different tuning forks being struck at once. Soon only one object remained in the sky, emitting this wavering mix of tones and pitches. And by that point Michael was terrified. He couldn't believe what he was watching happen over Lake Champlain. Michael asked Janet to touch his face because he needed to know if this were actually happening or if somehow he was dreaming. The two reached out and touched each other just to confirm that they were both seeing the same thing. Michael later said they did this several times, though Janet didn't remember that part the same way. Michael wanted to get away from the dock, but Janet seemed drawn to whatever they were watching and wanted to stay. Along the edge of the craft. They could see a pulsating band of light flashing in rhythms with strange sounds coming from it. Then suddenly, according to Michael, the object shot straight up before plunging down into the lake with almost no splash at all. At the same moment, he remembered hearing dogs and cats nearby erupting into frantic cries while tree branches cracked violently in the wind. The object stayed underwater for a couple of minutes and then reappeared. This time it started moving towards them, glowing in a brilliant white. Michael noticed that Janet became very quiet and spaced out, staring straight ahead. Janet didn't remember any of this. As Michael watched, the top of the object became transparent like a window and he could see two figures inside who appeared to be driving. The UFO stopped in front of them and Michael could see the figures in more detail. They appeared child sized and their movements seemed childish too. But they had large bald heads and their skin looked greenish blue. They wore skin tight uniforms the same color as their skin. And they had frog like eyes that bulged out from the sides of their lima bean shaped heads like goggles. Their nostrils were two slits and Michael remembered their mouths as non existent or very small. Their necks seemed extremely long and skinny.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Kind of feel like that's the typical alien description.
Danielle
There's gotta be truth to it, that's all.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I think that's what everyone's seeing.
Danielle
I know, and it's like I get the argument of okay, well that's what everyone says it's like.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
But maybe it's because that's why everyone's seeing.
Danielle
Right? That's what I'm saying.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Well, Michael called out to them and he said, what do you want? Are you gonna hurt us? And that's when they answered telepathically to
Cassie
him and he heard them say in
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
his mind that they were not here to harm him. So then Michael asked Again, out loud. He goes, what are you doing here? And then they told him telepathically they
Cassie
had returned to Earth after their first
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
atomic bomb had exploded. And from here, he has this telepathic communication with them where they say that
Cassie
they wanted to help humans protect themselves from themselves. They said that they also came to obtain some kind of energy to help them in a civil war, that they were fighting against an evil group of their own kind.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Then Michael thought to himself, I wonder what it's like on their ship.
Danielle
And intergalactic war is happening.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah.
Danielle
Okay.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Big deal.
Danielle
Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's not just here on Earth.
Danielle
It's everywhere. It's not just like just checking in, seeing how it's all going. It's like, actually, that shit's going down back.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like. Yeah, it's like, this is a strategic mission. We're here for a certain energy you have on this planet to help us fight.
Danielle
And also just a wellness check on you. Yeah, we saw that atomic bomb happening.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like. That was kind of fucked up. Yeah. You guys doing. You're going to explode the whole planet, and we need this source that you have here. So can you chill the fuck out?
Danielle
Yeah. Basically, it's like you're going to ruin everything for us.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like.
Cassie
And yourselves.
Danielle
Stupid idiots and that. Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So then Michael thinks to himself, I wonder what it's like inside their ship. And instantly the disk maneuvers directly overhead. He felt like he could jump up
Cassie
and touch it, it was so close.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And he shouted to them. He actually said, we don't want to go. But it was too late.
Danielle
Well, you caught it.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like you wanted to see it. Get on up here.
Danielle
We heard you. Get on up in here. It reminds me, you said it kind of had like a translucent top or something.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah. That you could just see into.
Danielle
I could get a Tesla out of my mind. Because don't they have that, like, translucent roof?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Do they?
Danielle
I've only been in a test.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I've never been in twice.
Danielle
And I'm pretty sure the whole roof is clear.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Really?
Cassie
I was picturing the Jetsons.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
You know how they have their little cars and it's just the little glass thing.
Danielle
Yeah. I think Tesla copied that.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Does that.
Danielle
I don't know Tesla. People can let us know. I've clearly don't.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I've never been in one. I've just seen them from afar. So I have no experience, but I could see it. I could picture that. I've never seen it from the outside. Is it just translucent from the inside, I think.
Danielle
I think it's like an optical illusion. I don't know what's happening. It's too futuristic for me. I don't. I know. It's kind of like if cars and vehicles are moving in this direction, I don't know. I'm gonna be one of those people that just holds on to my forerunner forever.
Cassie
Yeah, I'm all for more sustainability in cars.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I think that that's great, but are they super sust.
Danielle
I don't.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I don't know.
Danielle
Or a cybertruck. Are so our cyber trucks?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, I think so. Cybertrucks are crazy. Cybertrucks are UFOs. Like, what are you guys doing?
Danielle
And people don't talk about them enough.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, I saw one that was outfitted with, like, a camper on the back the other day, and it blew my mind.
Danielle
No, I swear was like that.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Now that it looks like a Humvee, slash, ufo, slash.
Danielle
I've never been paper airplane.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I don't know. Yeah, me either.
Danielle
Okay, but back to the actual ufo.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Ufo, alien objection that's going on here. So he yells out, saying, we don't want to go. Like, we don't want to go. Don't take us. But it was too late. A beam of super white light came down over them. He grabbed Janet and pulled her down to the dock.
Cassie
Janet only vaguely remembers much of these
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
events, but she did remember hitting the dock.
Cassie
Meanwhile, Michael felt himself start to lose consciousness.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
He prayed to Jesus for protection as
Cassie
everything around him became increasingly disorienting. This portion of his memory only surfaced after multiple hypnosis sessions. He remembered the sensation of floating, followed by what felt like his entire life flashing before his eyes. Somehow, he believed the beings were learning every detail about him telepathically, absorbing memories, emotions and moments from his life all at once. Afterwards, he described feeling strangely connected to them, almost as if they had become familiar to him because they now knew everything about him. Then came what he described as a powerful, booming rush of sound and flashes of intense color exploding through his mind. Michael became convinced he was dying. He remembered feeling an overwhelming sadness before suddenly finding himself moving through space with the Earth far below him. At first, he felt completely alone. But then one of the beings, which
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Michael later thought of as kind of
Cassie
a guide, appeared beside him and touched him. He described the creature's skin as wet and clammy, and Janet described it similarly, saying it almost felt like touching a rubber glove. Next thing Michael knew, he was inside a huge spacecraft. He remembered entering an enormous white circular room. The Ceiling of it was transparent with
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the night sky above.
Cassie
And then he saw Janet spread out on a table in her bathing suit, and aliens were gathering around her, examining her. They were using instruments to scrape her skin along the collarbone and limbs and put these samples into glass containers that emerged on an arm from a hole in the wall. They shined lights into her eyes and touched her long black hair in astonishment. They laid something on her head, testing her brain. Janet remembered eventually this in hypnosis, they lifted and dropped her arm, checking her reflexes. Nothing felt painful. She said she felt like a specimen under a microscope. It all felt very scientific. And the eight or ten aliens around her were doctors. In a later session, Michael recalls that a machine descended from the ceiling above Janet's table. It had tubes that they used to
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
collect saliva and vaginal fluid samples from Janet's body.
Cassie
As the machine sucked at her body, it caused her to shake on the table, and the image disturbed Michael deeply. Janet never remembered these details of the exam herself, so she just remembered them kind of looking at her and not feeling pain or scared where Michael was
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
like, no, whatever they were doing to you was really intense.
Cassie
Intense, yeah. Janet only began remembering parts of the examination after several hypnosis sessions. Unlike Michael, she recalled being covered by what felt like a hospital sheet or gown rather than lying exposed on the table. More than anything, she remembered the beings acting calm and strangely gentle. One of them seemed to be assigned specifically to comfort her, communicating telepathically to keep her relaxed throughout the entire examination. The aliens conducting the exam seemed female to Michael, Although there were no physical features to give him that impression. Janet thought of them with no gender at all. Both Janet and Michael independently remembered one particular being serving almost like a recorder, silently documenting everything that happened without writing anything down. At one point, Michael asked why they were performing tests on them. The being he thought of as his guide responded telepathically that they were spawning consciousness in order to transplant it elsewhere into the universe.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Oh, like you're going. Oh, galaxies away.
Danielle
Oh, my goodness. Now this is. The plot thickens.
Cassie
Michael also asked where they came from. He later recalled hearing a long multisyllabic
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
name he couldn't pronounce or recognize.
Cassie
Along with the explanation that their planet was far too distant for humans to detect.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's basically like, I could tell you, but you're never going to understand.
Danielle
First of all, no one will ever believe you. And second of all, there's no way to. To.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
You don't even have a map to point this out.
Danielle
Yeah, I don't know. Did you see you've been off social media?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I have been.
Danielle
God bless you. But I posted this thing there was, over the last like month or so they released this kind of like 3D, three dimensional, I hate to say map, but it is kind of a map of what we know of the universe so far. And it was this multi. Like there's many different countries and scientists working on this. It wasn't just from one program. It was like, it took years and it was a pretty collaborative effort. And it's really cool to see because it's so mind boggling how large the known universe is. And this woman did a really cool job. It was like a minute and a half video explaining it and all that and whatever and I just reposted it and I was like, anyone who doesn't believe in extraterrestrial life needs to get out of my face.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like, look how big this place is. It's just. And we're one tiny little dot, a
Danielle
speck, not even a spec, whatever is smaller than a speck is what we are. So I just. Yeah. At this point in 2026, with all of the information that we've had, I mean, I feel like back in 1968, even though there were clearly people who were in the camp of, hey, we are trained scientists and astronomers and we understand that they're is probably life out there in some way, shape or form. But I think they were more fringe at that time. I truly don't think that believing there's extraterrestrial life is a fringe belief. Right now.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I feel like it's, it's like if you don't.
Danielle
Kind of embarrassing to say you don't believe.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, it's like, what do you mean?
Danielle
And I'm not saying you need to ascribe to this exact description, like abductions and yeah, like, and the description of, you know, they all look like this and yada, yada, yada, the big eyes and the, yeah. Weird wet skin or whatever you just said. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just saying just life doesn't have to equate to this description of an organism. It could be anything.
Cassie
So you don't believe Michael?
Danielle
No, I believe Michael. I'm just saying you as in, I'm trying to like make everyone else feel better. But I believe Michael. I believe Michael from the second you started.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I didn't even need to know anything about him.
Danielle
I believed him. Especially after you said. And I think again, it could be a coincidence. And I think it is not that unbelievable that after this experience he had this sort of awakening into different realms of like, religion and whatever he said, spirituality and just kind of like searching for what I think is. He's thinking of, like, what is the meaning of life? What is our purpose here? What is all of this? Plenty of people do that without having an abduction experience totally. But I'm just saying it aligns really well.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
For sure.
Danielle
I follow.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Well, jumping back into the story. So basically they're from a place that we can't even comprehend. In Janet's final hypnosis, Webb tried to help Janet look at the faces of aliens.
Cassie
She still had only described them very vaguely, and she realized she had been trying very hard not to look at
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the faces of her abductors because she
Cassie
said that they were so ugly she
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
didn't want to look at them. And in his. In Webb's famous investigation of the Hill couple, Betty had also refused to open her eyes during the abduction.
Cassie
So Webb surmised that both women had
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
been traumatized by the creature's intense strangeness. But now, during the hip hypnosis, Webb
Cassie
prodded Janet, asking if she'd peek now
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
and then, and she had.
Cassie
She described their eyes sunken in, not
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
bulbous as Michael had said.
Cassie
But she did notice slitted nostrils, a large lima bean shaped head and thin mouth.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Like Michael, she also noticed that when they spoke to each other, it was
Cassie
in a shrill, rapid voice, like a
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
tape recording on fast forward. And Michael described it more like a whine.
Danielle
Oh, so they actually heard them audibly speaking, not just telepathically?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, it was like they were telepathically communicating to them, but they were audibly
Cassie
speaking to each other.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Okay.
Cassie
Michael, on the other hand, didn't remember
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
undergoing any type of physical examination.
Cassie
Instead, he recalled what felt more like some type of training.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
While Janet was being examined nearby, he
Cassie
remembered being reclined back on a slanted surface while a helmet like device with small prongs was placed against his head. In front of him was a wall filled with glowing screens. Whatever information was shown to him, he
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
couldn't consciously retain any of it afterwards.
Cassie
He later described the experience as feeling like multiple versions of himself were absorbing everything all at once. Around him, the beings appeared pleased with whatever was happening, expressing excitement in a way Michael interpreted as similar to clapping or celebration.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So it's like, yay. Like I just picture like a bunch of alien beings being like, it's working. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Cassie
Throughout the experience, Michael became convinced that he was dying. But the being he thought of as his guide communicated telepathically that what he was experiencing would only resemble death and that he would survive it. Then came an overwhelming burst of brilliant white light that Michael described as strangely cool, almost like being submerged in water. Later, based on testimonies collected through nicap, Walter Webb noted that experiences like this training appeared surprisingly often in alleged abduction cases and frequently resemble descriptions from near death experiences.
Danielle
It's all connected. I'm all. That's all I'm saying. It's so cool. It's so cool.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So interesting.
Danielle
I. Oh my God. Sorry. I have so much to say. I'm just trying to like tell the story, please. But this morning, so I don't do. I don't listen to it all the time, like every week, but there's a YouTube channel and I follow their Instagram that I believe it's called Coming Home. Don't quote me, but I think it's something like that. But it's all just interviews about people's near death experiences.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Oh, interesting.
Danielle
And I listened to one this morning about a man who was on the telephone that got struck by lightning. Oh. And it. He's like, the last thing I remember is like going to hang up the phone and then just feeling like immediate I was just outside of my body, like I wasn't aware that I had died type of thing. And anyways, what I'm trying to get at is all of their experiences, almost every single one has similarities similar to what we were just talking about with abductees having like. Yes, their experiences have nuance and they're different because they are different incidents. But there are threads that are similar throughout every single one. And it's the same thing with near
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
death experiences that's so interesting. Like the out of body seeing thing, like seeing visual.
Danielle
And also this like sense of. Not always is it like the sense of peace and things. Like a lot of times they're like, I was confused. I didn't really understand what was happening. But there was always this 10 tendency of them saying in one way, shape or form. Like this guy today, he's like, I remember just not wanting to go back. And I understood that I was feeling that and also recognized like I liked my. I loved my life. I had three kids, I had a wife, I loved my life. It was great. But I just all of a sudden was just like, yeah, I didn't want to return.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Like this is much better.
Danielle
Like this is my home. I was waking up, you know, it was. And it's always interesting like that. Which is so. Just crazy.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So crazy.
Danielle
Anyway, okay, so
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Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
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Danielle
I forget what was happening.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So we were talking about the near death experiences. But towards the end of the experience,
Cassie
Michael remembered suddenly feeling as though he was flying directly into the wall of
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
screens while images flash rapidly around him. One of them showed Janet and himself
Cassie
lying back on the dock at camp.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
As this was happening, he heard a voice in his mind telling him that
Cassie
even if humans feared them or viewed them as evil, that they were actually friends.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
In another hypnosis session, Michael also recalled
Cassie
the beings telling him that they loved
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
him, cared about him, and saying goodbye before the encounter ended. So he heard all of these voices from the aliens being like, we love you, we're your friends.
Cassie
At the same time he was seeing
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
this image of the dock back in Burling, back on Lake Champlain. And then suddenly he was back for Janet. She just remembered a poof and she was back on the dock. When she woke up, she thought she'd taken a strange nap and woke up feeling zonked. They both heard the sounds of slamming
Cassie
doors and kids voices, Campers returning from
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the Burlington swim meet and noticed that they were back on the dock.
Cassie
Above them, the UFO still hovered overhead. Two 15 year old girls, Susan and Barbara, saw the glow and ran across
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the bluff to see what it was. Later, Webb reached out to these women
Cassie
and they substantiated this description of events.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
The UFO shot several beams of light
Cassie
at them and then went dark.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So there were other people who saw this UFO as well. Then the UFO disappeared.
Cassie
Michael and Janet stumbled into the dining
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
hall after that, both reportedly feeling very exhausted. But Michael's friend Patrick, who I mentioned at the beginning of this that he reached out to when he was first having all these dreams, he tried to reach out to him to be like, hey, do you remember that time on Lake Champlain and. And found out that he had actually been committed to a psychiatric ward and he wasn't in a state of mind
Cassie
to speak with him.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
This is what happened right after his friend Patrick rushed up to him and asked him.
Cassie
He said something really strange happened to you on the lake, didn't it? Because Patrick had actually seen the whole
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
thing from the window of the building. He saw the UFO come in and he saw them get scooped up.
Danielle
No.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah.
Danielle
And he just. I don't want to, I don't want to assume. But now he's in a psychiatric ward.
Cassie
Yes.
Danielle
Do we know why it didn't go
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
into details of that, like, and I don't know why.
Danielle
He's definitely been having a mental crisis.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It could have been so many other things because it was years later.
Cassie
But yes, and he actually.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So Patrick wanted to report a UFO sighting to the Plattsburgh Air Force Base. But Michael tried to talk Patrick out
Cassie
of the idea because he didn't want
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
people to think that he was crazy. It's like, this sounds wild. I know what you just saw. I know what just happened to me, but no one's going to believe us. I don't want to report it.
Cassie
But Patrick called anyway and asked them
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
if they'd seen anything flying around. Michael can't remember exactly what the Air Force had told Patrick, but Webb didn't find any articles in the local paper
Cassie
that anyone else had seen strange lights that night.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And then after that call and that conversation and kind of looking into, kind of just faded. Faded out. For whatever reason, Patrick dropped the conversation.
Danielle
Well, who knows what the Air Force base said to him or. No, I'm just. I don't know. This is also amidst the time of all of these scientists going missing or being killed. You're also off social media, so I'm not sure if you're aware, but there's like a whole like conspiracy thing right now that's very much in the news. And like the administration has even commented on it because it's so wild. And people are like, hey, what the hell is going on? At this point, I think there's. In the last year there's been 15 scientists who have had top security security clearance and have been working on a plethora of different top secret government projects that have to do with some pretty intense things about space and nuclear and all that. And it's like, oh, she went missing on a hike and was never seen again. He ended his own life even though he said he wasn't going to, or, oh, he was found shot death or what. And it's all of these people.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like, okay, something's going on here.
Danielle
Yeah. And people are starting to put the pieces together and are starting to question the administration. And we all know they're never gonna own up to anything.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
But yeah, I'm even gonna get into it a little bit here with how the government at the time that this was going on kind of handled these type of circumstances. So we are gonna jump into that a little bit soon. But after all this happened, he talks to Patrick. It's the end of like that encounter that day. He goes back to his room and he Just takes a really long nap. He's like, oh, my God. I don't know what just happened.
Cassie
I need to sleep.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
When he woke up, he tried to
Cassie
go talk to Janet, but she was still asleep.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And her roommate wouldn't wake her up because she said that she was feeling unwell.
Cassie
So Michael went to a cabin called
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
the Playpen that was on the summer
Cassie
camp, and all alone, he got drunk
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
for the very first time in his life. After that, he was up all night throwing up, and he didn't get up
Cassie
until noon the next day.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So that same evening, after he's hungover all day, Michael borrows a friend's car
Cassie
and drove home to tell his parents and three siblings what he believed had
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
happened to him, or at least the parts he could remember. And we kind of talked about this earlier, but most of his family didn't take the story seriously, except for one of his sisters, who was willing to listen. And then, of course, he went to his girlfriend's house, who didn't believe him and cried on his recounting the day
Cassie
after the abduction, Janet didn't understand why Michael suddenly seemed so distant and aloof. She couldn't shake the strange feeling that
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
something important had happened and that she
Cassie
was somehow being excluded from it, even though she couldn't fully explain why. Unlike Michael, Janet didn't remember the same vivid details of the the encounter at the time. She only remembered fragments and strange feelings she couldn't make sense of.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Neither Janet nor Michael brought up the experience with each other after that, and before long, summer ended, and they went their separate ways. And then that's where it all circles back. Five years later, where they talk to Webb.
Cassie
After Webb was finished with the hypnosis sessions, he wrapped up his investigation. Janet and Michael still hadn't ever talked
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
to each other about what they had endured together.
Cassie
And so Webb finally agreed to let them meet. Janet was going to be in the area one more time before moving to the West Coast. So Michael promised to hitchhike to a halfway meeting place, which was a bus station. Webb and Janet drove to meet them
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
through driving in rain.
Cassie
They waited a few hours, but Michael never showed up. So Webb and Janet drove home. On the drive back, Webb told Janet the details about what Michael had seen happening on the exam table. How the aliens had invaded her body, how they were taking all those samples
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
and were really doing invasive procedures. She didn't talk much afterwards, and she actually, after trying to remember what he was talking about and listening to that,
Cassie
she came down with a really, really
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
bad headache, which Was very uncommon for her.
Cassie
She never really experienced bad headaches, and
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
especially not like the one she got during this conversation.
Cassie
That evening, Michael called and said he had to turn around when the rain
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
got too bad for cars to pick him up.
Cassie
So instead, Janet and Michael talked on the phone for a long time, Swapping their stories for the very first time after all these years, they were amazed at the similarities of their experiences and their drawings of aliens and their spacecraft,
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
because they both drew aliens and like what they saw and they kind of talked about it, and they drew almost the same images, except for the eyes
Danielle
seemed a little different, Right?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah. And this was actually the start of a lifelong friendship. Over the years after the investigation, Michael would periodically call Janet up out of nowhere. He said he just wanted to make sure Janet's life was going all right,
Cassie
and he needed reassurance that what they
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
had experienced had actually been real.
Cassie
And Michael had a pretty good reason
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
to doubt himself and these hypnosis sessions and believing if they were real or not, because in 2024, the Pentagon released a study in which the US government
Cassie
concluded that there were no signs of alie life from any of the numerous reports going back decades, including the buffledge incident at lake champlain. A PBS news article about the report said the study from the defense department all domain anomaly resolution office analyzed u. S. Government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that that any
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
of them were signs of alien life
Cassie
or that the US Government and private companies had reverse engineered extraterrestrial technology and were hiding it.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So they basically just said all of that research, all of those recordings, all those documented sightings and abductions were fake, and we find no evidence of alien life.
Cassie
Another study published in the Harvard gazette
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Found another explanation for UFO abduction stories. Like Michael and Janet, they say that
Cassie
these experience happened during times when they were dreaming with their eyes opened.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
What?
Danielle
Yeah, I do that a lot.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
It's like I get sleep paralysis. But what it's like they said that the human body experiences sleep paralysis during sleep, the researchers explained. But sometimes people wake up during a
Cassie
dream before the paralysis has lifted.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
People can experience vivid hallucinations that feel like real life, Such as flashing lights,
Cassie
lights flying through their bedroom window, or strange beings hovering over them in bed.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
When they go to a psychiatrist for
Cassie
help, they are encouraged to recover memories through hypnosis, and that's when they supposedly
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
remember getting transported to a spacecraft and subjected to medical and sexual experiments. So they basically Just say it's sleep paralysis and hypnosis is contorting your memory.
Danielle
Okay, valid. I guess. An isolated incidents. I can see a world in which that is an explanation for somebody's experience. But two people. Two people. There's other witnesses. There's this whole. No, no. And going back to the government thing. I don't think I need to really speak on that because we all know where I stand. But I think that's a load of horseshit.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah. And there's no aliens. Don't worry.
Danielle
I truly believe that if the government revealed what they know about extraterrestrial life, whatever that is, I think collectively as the human race, we would absolutely lose our shit.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
That's fair.
Danielle
And I think that it's a protective measure. I really do. Like, do I think that we have the right to know? Yeah, sure. But I think that there's also a very real argument for saying, hey, we're not going to disclose this information because it will totally shatter what you know about life and how you live your life. And we don't want worldwide chaos. Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
So I could see that. I could also see a world in. Where they don't understand it. And they've had. I think that the government has definitely had UFO experiences.
Cassie
I mean, there was a.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Recently Obama did that interview where he came out and he was like, yes, I do know of alien forces. However, they are not at. What is that? Alien 50.
Danielle
What is Area 51?
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Area Alien 51. Area 51. He's like, however, they are not, from my knowledge, being hidden away at Area 51 is what he said.
Danielle
Yeah. And also, I think it's pretty common knowledge that if one of the reasons that the government is not disclosing what they know is for military purposes. Like, they're reverse engineering a bunch of stuff and studying it for military operations and that. Like, they're not gonna be like, yeah, we know all this stuff.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I know to specifically be like, we are not using this information for reverse military operations. It's like, that sounds like you're using it for.
Danielle
It sounds like you're reverse engineering alien technology.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
But that's what I hear. Like, I didn't even ask you if that's what you were doing.
Danielle
But we're not. It's like, okay, we all know you are because you're killing people who are associated with that work. But not to put a target on my back, but that's what.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I don't think we're targets. We're just talking about it. You know, we literally know nothing. We Know zero things except that they exist.
Danielle
I'm just kidding. But to cover the bases, I have no intention of owning, ending my own life.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Same.
Danielle
Okay, go on.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
On that note,
Cassie
it's hard to say
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
what happened that summer day in 1968,
Cassie
but in his book, Walter Webb makes a truly unsettling case using detailed calculations and in depth research that these two
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
people experienced something unimaginable on that dock.
Cassie
So if you go visit Lake Champlain, keep your eyes peeled, you never know
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
what will rise out of the waters and grab you.
Danielle
Oh, oh, wait. Circling back to your intro, I almost responded and I'm like, oh shoot, it's not my time.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah, Champ.
Danielle
Okay. The description by Captain Crumb, or yeah, Captain Crunch, you said something about like. It was so descriptive in such a weird way. It's like it had a peeled onion,
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
a star on its forehead.
Danielle
Like that's. I have never described something so detailed in my life. I really saw it, especially for something that was fleeting.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
Yeah. Fun fact. Something for Danielle and I, when we were on Lake Champlain a few months ago, we learned that Champ is a protected cryptid and that you can. They have federally protected cryptid, so. So if you see it, you can't hunt it. You'll go to jail.
Danielle
Yeah, straight to jail.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
As you should.
Danielle
Well, thank you so much for sharing. I was, I really enjoyed that. Not only because I love aliens, but because it was just so fresh. And I just think the whole time I was just like. And that's what I've been saying is that tracks.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
There's so many similarities to all of the stories we've ever covered on this podcast about aliens. From the journey dreams, to being experimented on, to having these out of body experiences and telepathic communication that's going on. But I think what's adds to this one is that there's outside witnesses who saw this UFO craft, which I think just all of the other ones we've talked about, it's only been the people involved who are talking about it where this one, it's like no other people who had nothing to do with this saw this craft in the area.
Danielle
It adds additional layers of credibility or at least validates their experience to some degree.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
And it happened right here in Vermont.
Danielle
Yeah. Look up in those skies. You never know they're out there. What's happening. Yeah, super cool. Well, thank you for sharing. Loved it. Let's do it again. Yeah.
Guest or Co-host (possibly Cassie or Danielle's friend)
I was stoked to do something in Vermont. I was just thinking, I'm like, I know there's not really a bunch of national parks here or anything but but since I live here it just felt like we've done White Mountain National Forest stuff. I had to bring it to Vermont and aliens were the way to go.
Danielle
Love it. Well, thank you everyone for listening. We will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view but watch your back. Bye Bye.
Cassie
Thanks for joining us for another episode. We hope you learned something new and have another location to put on your list. If you want more MPID content, make sure to follow along with our adventures on all socials at National Park After Dark.
Danielle
For more stories just like this one with the added bonus of exclusive content, you can join us on Patreon or Apple Subscriptions. If you prefer to watch our episodes, head over to our YouTube channel and if you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. Foreign.
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In this chilling and thought-provoking episode, hosts Danielle and Cassie explore the lesser-known but mesmerizing story of an alleged alien abduction that occurred on the shores of Vermont’s Lake Champlain in 1968. Blending folklore (the legend of lake monster Champ), regional history, and investigative detail, the hosts revisit both the specifics of this event and its connection to broader UFO lore—drawing special parallels to the well-known Betty and Barney Hill abduction. The episode examines the credibility of abduction stories, government responses, and the psychological and cultural impact of unexplained encounters within America’s wild places.
On the Encounter:
Skepticism and Government Secrecy:
On Physical Descriptions:
Philosophical/Reflective:
| Timestamp | Segment Description | |:----------|:-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:04 | Introduction to Lake Champlain lore and Champ | | 08:24–09:14| Detailed recounting of the 1968 abduction event | | 13:02 | Connection to Betty and Barney Hill & Investigator | | 16:40 | Webb’s rare book on the case, “Encounter at Buffledge”| | 18:18–19:50| Webb’s rigorous witness verification process | | 32:23 | Start of hypnosis investigation | | 34:47 | Both witness’ memories under hypnosis | | 43:41–45:22| Michael and Janet’s experiences aboard the craft | | 58:23 | Testimony of additional witnesses | | 66:05–66:54| Pentagon’s 2024 report and government skepticism | | 68:12 | Discussion on government secrecy and disclosure | | 71:49 | Champ’s status as a federally protected cryptid |
The hosts emphasize the ongoing allure of both cryptid and UFO lore, and the importance of keeping an open mind while respecting skepticism and scientific inquiry. They highlight that abduction stories—regardless of explanation—have profound psychological and cultural implications and invite listeners to visit Lake Champlain, remain vigilant, and “enjoy the view but watch your back" (73:36).
“You never know what will rise out of the waters and grab you.” (Cassie/Guest, 71:06)
| Person | Role | Experience | Current Status (as of airing) | |---------------------|-----------------|-------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------| | Michael Lapp | Camp worker | Saw/met beings, deeply affected, vivid dreams | Spiritual seeker, remains impacted | | Janet Cornell | Water ski instr.| Partial/fuzzy recall, confirmed key details | Married, moved west, lifelong friendship w/ Michael | | Patrick | Counselor | Saw event from afar, reported to Air Force | Later suffered mental health decline | | Susan & Barbara | Campers | Witnessed the lights/UFO from afar | Substantiated the event |
This episode stands out for its sensitive storytelling, attention to investigative rigor, and earnest contemplation of one of New England’s most fascinating unsolved mysteries. The blending of historical context, skepticism, and wonder makes it not only instructive for UFO enthusiasts but also a thoughtful meditation on why we seek meaning—and the unknown—among America’s wild places.
For more engaging tales of the mysterious and wild, follow National Park After Dark on your favorite platform.