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- [00:00]
Narrator/Ad Voice
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home in auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:19]
Brian Sigley
This is a real good story about.
- [00:20]
Andrew (United Pilot)
Bronx and his dad Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.
- [00:24]
McLeod Andrews
We were returning home and one of.
- [00:26]
James McKenna
The flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kath and Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat.
- [00:32]
McLeod Andrews
I grew up in an aviation family.
- [00:33]
James McKenna
And seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
- [00:37]
Andrew (United Pilot)
That's Andrew, a real United pilot.
- [00:39]
Brian Sigley
These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain.
- [00:44]
James McKenna
Allowing my son to see the flight.
- [00:45]
McLeod Andrews
Deck will stick with us forever. That's how good Leads the Way Some.
- [00:49]
Andrew (United Pilot)
Stories keep you awake at night. Others follow you into your dreams. Scary Shorties is your weekly dose of bite sized horror. Hosted by Drew Grimm, each episode of Scary Shorties is under 30 minutes. Perfect to listen to on the way to or home from work, but don't let the length fool you. These tales pack enough chills to haunt you for days. From twisted original nightmares to terrifying fan submitted stories, every word is crafted to sink into your mind and stay there. Quick scares, lasting nightmares, and the kind of stories you can't shake no matter how many lights you leave on. Think you can handle it? Then press play. Scary Shorties is waiting for you. New episodes drop every week on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Tune. Tune in now before your courage runs out.
- [01:45]
James McKenna
Hidden beneath the red mesas of New Mexico lies a facility the government swears doesn't exist. A place where deep underground, soldiers once fought a battle no one was meant to survive against something not of this earth. How far will those in power go to keep the truth buried? And more disturbingly, what still lurks in those tunnels? Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. Each episode brings you a thrilling story that puts you at the center of the action, followed by a discussion that dives into the accounts that inspired the story and our takes on them.
- [02:25]
McLeod Andrews
I'm McLeod and I'm Brian, and this week we're heading deep underground for what may be the craziest story that we have ever tackled here on Sightings. Even I have a tough time swallowing whether this may have actually happened. But the story is just so incredible that we had to bring it to life right here for you guys. Now.
- [02:42]
Brian Sigley
It truly is pulse pounding and very entertaining.
- [02:47]
James McKenna
So journey with us to Dulce Base, a place in the New Mexico desert that may or may not exist. But if it does, you might want to make sure you're ready for battle. Find out why on this episode of Sightings.
- [03:23]
McLeod Andrews
This is an ad by BetterHelp. Hey, sightings listeners. Even though spooky season is over, the days are still getting darker and colder, and it can be a tough time for many. But this November, BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out and check in with friends, connect with loved ones and remind the people in your life that you're there. It may feel a little hard, but you'll ask yourself, why didn't I do that sooner? And that is often what BetterHelp hears about therapy. BetterHelp makes it easy to match you with the right therapist so you can focus your time on your goals. They're all fully licensed in the US and work according to a strict code of conduct. And if you aren't happy with your match, you can switch at any time. So this month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. And right now, sightings listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com sightings. That's betterhelp.com sightings. Thanks, BetterHelp, for sponsoring this episode.
- [04:34]
James McKenna
Okay, okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Can you tell I'm shaking? I've been on the road a couple days and I'm in, what, Boise or outside Boise? Near Boise. And if you're listening to this, that means either I got this out in time or I'm already dead. Preferably the former. And now I'm rambling. Anyway, it's just. The name is James McKenna. M C, K, E N N A big M, big K. Master Sergeant. Retired, Currently on the run from. Well, I'm not sure who exactly, if I'm being perfectly honest, but I'm running. And now I'm talking, too, because this will not end with me. I need you to understand that. They already got Phil Schneider. Now they're onto me. And there are countless others, too. I'm sure. It's been two weeks since Phil Schneider died. They said it was suicide, but that's a lie. And I know that because I know how Phil looked when he left that site in 1979. He didn't have the fingers to tie anything, let alone not a catheter hose around his neck. But Phil just wouldn't shut up. You know, he started giving lectures, showed off his scars, told the story of that mesa, the base and the battle, and now it's all public, or most of it is anyway. And, well, someone's cleaning house. Just heard another guy from my unit died. No explanation at all. That's four. Now, that's just what I know of. All because of Dulce. That's D U L C E base Dulce base in New Mexico, 1979. And if you didn't know that already, put this down and give it to someone who did, because I'm about to corroborate everything Phil said and more. So start taking notes. I wrote some of this down just to keep track of it all. But right. Summer of 79, I was a master sergeant with a Green Beret attachment at Fort Carson. We mostly handled security details for hush hush construction projects, so when the Dulcie assignment came in, it didn't raise any eyebrows. Now, Dulce wasn't really much of anything, just a tiny town surrounded by reservation land in the absolute middle of nowhere. But the order said they needed security for an underground construction project on the Archuleta mesa. Next morning we were driving down there in a convoy of a few trucks. It wasn't too long until we hit New Mexico and soon enough we were in Dulce proper. We stopped at the only gas station in town for some grub and the attendant looked us over, uniforms and all, and asked if we were there about the cows. I didn't know what he meant, but one of the guys asked what cows? And the man said that ranchers all over had been finding them butchered out in the field. Or not butchered, but mutilated. That's what he said. Mutilated, perfectly clean, like surgery. Then this woman, another local I'd guess, piped up and said maybe we were here for the lights. Weird ones apparently, moving through the sky like nothing they'd ever seen before. None of us asked for further explanation. We just figured we were already stepping in a big pile of something we weren't supposed to touch. So we just shut our mouths, got back in our trucks and rolled right out of there. A bit later we reached the construction site, way up on this dirt road so remote you'd never suspect anything was out there. There was fencing, guard towers, armed patrols, all of it. Clearly this was something above my pay grade. Inside there were civilians everywhere, I assumed engineers, but none of them wore badges and none of them gave us the time of day. And I'm not gonna lie, the whole place just had this feel. It just felt off. And as soon as we set up our tent, my CO told us our primary assignment was to protect one guy, just one engineer from the dozens we'd already seen. And, yeah, you guessed it, his name was Phil Schneider. No, I don't need notes for this. Cause Phil wasn't the kind of guy you forget easily. He was intense. He talked a mile a minute, always thinking, always working. But something had him nervous. You know, the job was behind schedule and his drills were hitting resistance that he just couldn't explain. Not rock, he said, but something else. After a few days, it reached the point where Schneider wanted to see it for himself. So I was told to accompany him on a trip down to inspect the blockage. Now, that's almost a thousand feet down. Just me and Schneider, plus my sidearm and a radio on this flimsy platform suspended by a crane. This is where. This is where things get a little crazy, okay? Because at about 900ft, we hit the bottom. And I quickly realized we weren't in that 10 foot shaft anymore, but some kind of cavern, a huge one, with impossibly smooth walls that shone like glass. Schneider seemed surprised, too, which surprised me. He ran his hand across the wall and said there was no way it was natural. I held my light for him as he took samples of this strange residue and just, you know, kept spouting off scientific jargon, geological terms that I'm not familiar with. That's fine, though, because my job wasn't to listen, but to keep him covered. And right then, that's when I saw a movement in the shadows. At first I thought it might be a trick of the light, but then it stepped forward and I realized it was some kind of thing. It was tall, too tall, with gray skin, a thin body, large head, and its eyes completely black. I guess you could say it kind of looked like an alien. Like the little gray men things, I guess. Only this was not little. It was huge and way more frightening. Especially because this one was holding some kind of weapon. And Phil saw it too. And he made this sound, not quite a scream, more like a gasp, like. And the thing advanced again, and I opened fire. Three shots. Two in the chest, one in the head. And the thing went down. And I wish I could say that was the end of it, but there were more of them who appeared behind it. They emerged from passages I hadn't even noticed. Two of them and three. And Phil was panicking, backing up toward the platform. And I Was trying to cover him, trying to process what I was seeing at the same time. Because even though I was hitting them, I'm a good shot. I know that for a fact. I was hitting them. They weren't falling the way they should have. Instead, they. They folded and then reassembled. And then one of them raised its weapon, and the chamber exploded in blue light. It was like a pulse or something, I still don't know what. And it hit Phil dead center. And he just crumpled, screaming, as the air filled with this ozone smell. And I tried to pull him back to the platform, but they just kept coming. And before I even knew what was happening, we were on the platform. And it was going up. As those things let us go, they disappeared back into the dark. But we weren't out of it yet. Phil, he was going into shock. And I looked down, and I saw most of the fingers on his left hand were gone. They weren't cut off, just gone, like they'd been vaporized. Part of his left foot, same thing. And I remember thinking to myself, well, at least he's not gonna bleed out. And I just tried to keep him talking, looking at me, until we breached the surface and were swarmed by medics and officers and everyone shouting things I could barely hear because my ears were still ringing from whatever just happened, whatever that pulse was. And someone grabbed me and pulled me aside, trying to ask questions. What did I see? How many of them were there? What kind of weapons, things like that. And I realized, clearly they knew something was down there and they'd sent us in blind. But I couldn't protest. I kept my mouth shut until I was sitting in a tent with the site commander, who looked entirely unsurprised by everything that happened. He told me Schneider was alive but critical, and that it was a mistake we were allowed to go down there at all. Because what those drills broke into, that was no natural cave. It was an existing structure. I asked what kind of structure, and he said it was above my clearance. But he did say I was to rejoin my unit at once, get some food, get some water. Because in six hours, I was going back down there. Because, as I'd soon find out, this was war. All right, I'm back. Same motel, new tape. So where was I? Right. Preparation for our second incursion into the cavern. Schneider has lost his fingers. Right? So I've got six hours to eat, rest, process what I'd just seen, which was impossible, of course, but orders were orders. Focus on the mission. Soon more trucks started rolling in. I recognized Delta Some seals, but there were others, too. Men in black uniforms, no name tags, no insignia at all. Everyone avoided looking at them, so I took the cue. And I avoided looking, too. Then we were all called into a briefing where they told us there was a structure beneath the mesa. Multiple levels, multiple hostiles, but zero explanation of who or what they were or what they'd done to Schneider. Just hammering home the mission. Secure the first level, contain the situation, and shoot anything that moved and wasn't human. We loaded out heavy M16s, grenades, one guy with an M60. I mean, we looked like we were about to invade a country, not explore a cavern. But everyone just kept their head down. Even as we started back down that drill shaft, I was among the first to hit the bottom. I don't know why, but the cavern felt colder than before. We all fanned out, weapons ready, but the place was empty. No sign of the creatures I'd seen before. No bodies, nothing. Just that smooth, glassy wall stretching into the dark. As we fanned out, things began to feel more wrong. I realized smaller passages branched off from the cavern, all at perfect angles. And as we kept going deeper and deeper, I realized this place wasn't just huge, it was built. We proceeded about a quarter mile in when we found the first room, if you could call it that. And in there was equipment, I suppose, or technology, but not like anything I'd ever seen. It was weird and curvy, like it was. Like it was organic almost. And all connected by these veins or cables, potentially. I couldn't tell which. And, yeah, here's where things got messy. I was just bending down to take a closer look at what this stuff was when someone shouted contact, and they came out of side passages that for some reason, we hadn't even seen. 5 of them then 10 of them. It was those same gray figures with black eyes and strange weapons. And the firefight erupted instantly. Instant chaos. And those blue pulse weapons they had, when they hit somebody, they didn't just die, they vaporized. And, I mean, we were losing guys fast, but we had numbers and we had firepower. And that M60 opened up and pushed back anything that moved. And these creatures, they tried to fall back in an organized way, but we were just pouring it on. And down another tunnel, we found more chambers. And if this whole thing wasn't already disturbing enough, that was when things got real bad. There were exam tables in there, containment units of some kind. Tissue samples or, I don't know, biological parts in containers. Stuff from cows and stuff from people. One guy bent over to vomit. And I wanted to tell him to pull it together, but I couldn't find the words because I was trying to hold it together myself. So we just kept on moving. We had to. There was no other choice. And we pushed our way through three more chambers, encountering light resistance, until we reached what looked like a dead end. Except it wasn't. There was a stairwell, but it was wrong. Like, the steps were too tall, the angle too steep. Now, one of the black uniformed guys I never did see his rank ordered us to seal it. Nothing comes up, and no one goes down. So we start planning charges. But one guy stops and he says he hears something. And then I feel it. This faint vibration, subtle at first, but slowly rising up through my boots. But then, before we could react, bam, they were on us. Just a swarm of them rushing up that insane stairwell. And we're suddenly in a melee. We're fighting point blank. I empty a magazine into one of them, and it still just keeps coming until someone hits it with a shotgun blast. But even more were coming, so I threw a satchel charge down the stairwell as hard as I could and then yelled for everyone to take cover. And the explosion is massive. Debris goes everywhere. And then the stairwell just collapsed in on itself. For a moment, there's just dust. Silence. Our ears are ringing. All of us are just catching our breath, checking for injuries. Then the radio crackles. All units fall back to the surface. Thank God we did not argue. We started making our way back through the tunnels, dragging our wounded, leaving our dead what little was left of them. Less than two dozen of us made it back to the surface. Out of more than 80 that went down. But as I looked around, I realized there was a whole new team prepping to head down there. Not combat troops, though. These guys had equipment, like construction gear, like they were planning to set up a permanent presence down there. So I found my CO and asked what was happening. And he just said, your part's done, soldier. Everything was under control. He said, as far as you're concerned, this never happened. They moved us out the next morning. No medals, no after action report, not even a word of acknowledgement. Just papers to sign and orders to new assignments. And for a while there, I tried to just carry on and just forget the whole thing. But there's no easy way of forgetting something like that. Especially after I heard that someone was out in public talking. And, yeah, you guessed it, that someone was Phil Schneider. Turns out he survived after all. And at first, I thought he'd lost his mind. I mean, the things he was saying underground bases all over the country, alien treaties, government conspiracies. It sounded crazy even to me after what I had seen down there. And I tracked down a video of one of his talks. I watch him stand up there and show his mangled hand to the audience, telling them about his encounter with those creatures. And, yeah, he was mixing in other stuff, stuff I didn't have a clue about and couldn't verify. But the core of it, the battle at Dulce that happened, I was there. Sometime after that, I came home and I had a message on my answering machine. It was Phil. And he sounded frantic. He said they were following him, that I was the only one who would understand. And he gave me a number to call, but I didn't. I was just too scared of getting pulled back into all of this. And then a few weeks later, I heard he was dead. Suicide, they said, but I knew better. And then I heard about others, men I'd served with. They were dying out there out of the blue, just in training. Accidents, car crashes, heart attacks. They were cleaning house the way they always do. I don't know what's happening at Dulcie Base now. I don't know if those things are still down there or if we drove them deeper or if some kind of arrangement was made. But I do know dozens of men died in those tunnels. And not for nothing, it seems, because we were protecting something or protecting everyone else from something. The question in my mind is what? And who decided it's worth keeping secret at the cost of even more lives?
- [22:35]
Narrator/Ad Voice
I don't know.
- [22:36]
James McKenna
Maybe Phil's death really was suicide and everyone else was an accident. Truly, Is that possible? Yeah, I have to say, yeah. But I don't think so. And honestly, I worry about what that means for me. This is James McKenna, Master Sergeant, retired, and if you're listening to this, I'll contact you soon. Or let's hope I'm not dead like Phil. Either way, I hope we blow the lid off this thing. Over and out.
- [23:11]
McLeod Andrews
Sightings will be back just after this.
- [23:23]
Brian Sigley
Welcome back to Sightings. Whoa, Brian. I am excited to dive into this one because, holy cow, I am assuming that you had to have Hollywoodized this because it sounded like a Hollywood movie.
- [23:39]
McLeod Andrews
It did feel like a Hollywood movie. And I wrote pretty much the way the story allegedly happened.
- [23:45]
Brian Sigley
Who allegedly said it happened this way?
- [23:47]
McLeod Andrews
Keyword being allegedly? Phil Schneider said it happened this way, in fact.
- [23:52]
Brian Sigley
Oh, so Phil Schneider, the guy that my character James went down the tunnel with first, who got his fingers blown off and hit With a blue ray. He's an actual guy.
- [24:01]
McLeod Andrews
He's an actual guy, and he is kind of the source of this story to an extent. There have been other people who have kind of corroborated, but we're gonna. There's a lot to dive into on this one. Let's just get that out of the way right now.
- [24:13]
Brian Sigley
Sure.
- [24:13]
McLeod Andrews
And I'll just say right now as well, that I think the skeptical gecko is gonna be strong with this story.
- [24:19]
Brian Sigley
Okay. But the fact that there's a lot to dive into means that there's actually something there. You know, sometimes these wilder stories, it's sort of like we don't. There's just somebody who said it happened, and this sounds like there's. So I'm excited to hear that there's more to this than just, you know, one kind of thin account.
- [24:37]
McLeod Andrews
Uh, yes.
- [24:38]
Brian Sigley
So there might be just one thin account. Gotcha. All right.
- [24:43]
McLeod Andrews
You trip me up right off the bat, McLeod.
- [24:45]
Brian Sigley
I just have a way of cutting to the quick now.
- [24:47]
McLeod Andrews
But just to piggyback off what you were saying, Phil Schneider was a real guy. The story he started telling in 1995, I guess, 16 years after this allegedly happened, is wild. You know, he just started randomly going around to all of these UFO conferences, giving lectures about his experiences in building underground bases all around the country, I guess.
- [25:09]
Brian Sigley
Okay.
- [25:09]
McLeod Andrews
And having this one battle with aliens in 1979.
- [25:12]
Brian Sigley
Yeah. Were his stories consistent across all these different conventions?
- [25:17]
McLeod Andrews
They appear consistent in that he told them mostly the same way, it seems. The question of the validity of them, obviously, is the big one. And there's a lot of things that have straight up just been disproven for what he did say. Okay. But there are lots of lingering questions, though. So, for instance, he said he was a former government geologist and structural engineer. He claimed that the United States has 129 underground military bases all over the country, which doesn't seem like a stretch. Yeah, necessarily. But he does claim that all of them are connected by a maglev train network.
- [25:49]
Brian Sigley
Yeah.
- [25:50]
McLeod Andrews
His key claim obviously involves his skirmish with these aliens beings at Dulce. He says that he was working with a drilling team, like we heard in the story. For clarity for everyone, though, I made the character you read up. There were Delta Force and Navy SEAL people involved in this whole thing.
- [26:06]
Brian Sigley
Or at least according to Phil, they were Delta Force.
- [26:09]
McLeod Andrews
And, yes, valid. But I wanted to give the story perspective that wasn't Phil's. Sure. So that's why I wrote it from that perspective.
- [26:16]
Brian Sigley
Okay, so some questions about Phil Seems like it'd be imminently verifiable that he was or was not missing fingers. Was he actually missing fingers?
- [26:26]
McLeod Andrews
Yes.
- [26:27]
Brian Sigley
Okay. He was missing fingers.
- [26:29]
McLeod Andrews
I'm. I'm kind of smiling here because if the story wasn't crazy enough, this is where it is absolutely bonkers in the sense that there's a lot to unpack here. This is what I meant. So Phil said everything that we've told in the story, basically, there are videos and there are transcripts of him doing this. There are videos of him showing off his hand, which has no fingers. The question is, where did he lose the fingers if not at Dulce Base? He apparently had a history of mental illness. Okay. Including schizophrenia potentially. And he was investigated by the FBI for making wild claims way back in the mid-70s. And apparently the FBI report said that Schneider had a penchant for self mutilation. And that report said that he had mutilated two fingers and a thumb during a psychotic episode. Yikes. This report was written before the events at Dulce Base theoretically happened.
- [27:19]
Brian Sigley
Okay, interesting. That was, that was because obviously, like my sort of, I guess my Believer Beaver version of this would be like, well, that could be the government working to discredit him. But it sounds like this was before he even.
- [27:36]
McLeod Andrews
I didn't see the documents myself, but the reporting on this says that the FBI was investigating him before, in the mid-70s, which was before the Dulce Base incident.
- [27:46]
James McKenna
Gotcha.
- [27:47]
McLeod Andrews
So I have to believe that that means that that all happened then. And new listeners, by the way, you've heard us mention what, the skeptical Gecko and Believer Beaver, they're just our unofficial show mascots.
- [27:59]
James McKenna
Yeah.
- [27:59]
McLeod Andrews
So if you are a die hard, I believe that there were aliens under this space. Great, you're a believer beaver. If you're like, I need a little more information, then, you know, you're a skeptical gecko.
- [28:09]
James McKenna
Yeah.
- [28:09]
Brian Sigley
It was this happy accident that we. That we came across, and it's become the shorthand for like, whether we believe something or don't believe something.
- [28:16]
McLeod Andrews
And McCloud generally is a little more of a skeptical gecko than I am, I think.
- [28:20]
Brian Sigley
But again, I don't think a critical eye makes these stories less fun.
- [28:23]
McLeod Andrews
Absolutely not. I love this story. Even though I will say straight up, I do not think this probably happened.
- [28:28]
Brian Sigley
Right.
- [28:29]
McLeod Andrews
And here's why. Number one, Phil never produced any documentation. There are no photos, no files, no affidavits from other witnesses that say that this happened.
- [28:38]
Brian Sigley
Is there anything to verify that he ever did actually work for the government in any Capacity or that he even was a geologist.
- [28:44]
McLeod Andrews
That was exactly what I was gonna. No, there is not. He does not apparently have a degree in geology or engineering. There is no record of military service. There are records of him having blue collar jobs in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s. Gotcha. But not anything involving the military. So like I said, you know, there's. There's no evidence on this. There is no corroboration of his involvement in any capacity other than him standing in front of groups of people showing off his missing fingers, passing around weird pieces of metal. Apparently he would do that and say that they were fragments of some alien technology which no one ever verified.
- [29:25]
Brian Sigley
So he is a thoroughly discreditable source. Nevertheless, you know, I'm concerned. Did he meet the unfortunate fate described in the story?
- [29:35]
McLeod Andrews
Yes, he did. Six or eight months after he did this huge around the country tour, he ended up committing suicide. He was found dead in his house with a rubber catheter thing wrapped around his neck. There was no suicide note. Very interestingly, there were a bunch of lecture notes, photographs, notes for a book that he was writing were suspiciously missing.
- [30:01]
Narrator/Ad Voice
Okay.
- [30:02]
McLeod Andrews
It is worth noting though that he also was reportedly severely depressed and dealing with some pretty bad medical issues. I think he was in a wheelchair at that point.
- [30:13]
James McKenna
Oh, wow.
- [30:14]
McLeod Andrews
But still, to me the timing does seem at least a little more suspect than not, you know.
- [30:21]
James McKenna
Right.
- [30:22]
McLeod Andrews
But again, is there other ways for the government to do this rather than, you know, killing him in some capacity? I don't know, assuming that that's what even happened.
- [30:30]
Brian Sigley
I mean, my, my kind of general feeling about like UFOLOGY in the United States and as it concerns the government is that since there's so many supposed leaks and whatever, and certain actual stories I've read, like, I think I read one, the Atlantic, where it was like, sometimes the UFO explanation or story actually serves the government's interests in like keeping up plausible deniability for other stuff that's less supernatural that's actually going on. And like they're just like, sure, we can let people believe in aliens.
- [31:04]
McLeod Andrews
Absolutely. And we're actually going to get there because like I mentioned, this rabbit hole goes pretty deep. And there's a really cool story that probably merits its own episode.
- [31:13]
Brian Sigley
Okay.
- [31:14]
McLeod Andrews
About that kind of deception by the government. Ok. Involving Dulce.
- [31:19]
Brian Sigley
Oh, specifically involving Dulce.
- [31:21]
McLeod Andrews
Yes. Not the whole alien thing, but the theory that there is a base at Dulce. So yes. Okay, so I guess that leads us. Let's step aside from Phil for a moment because again, you either believe what he said or you don't. Were there aliens under the base? I don't know. But here's some information that I think might color your perspective on the concept of weird things happening in Dulce at large. So there allegedly were a bunch of cattle mutilations in the 70s in Dulce, New Mex. They were thoroughly investigated by a rancher and a sheriff. Plus, there were a ton of reports of strange lights in the sky in Dulce around that time. This is all documented. But again, all those documents and all the narrative basically is very much from the perspective of that sheriff and rancher. And they never really could explain what was happening other than saying something weird is happening in Dulce. There's also reports of a businessman in Albuquerque who randomly started intercepting these strange radio signals and came to believe that there was a secret base and that the lights in the sky that are being seen over Dulce were communicating in some fashion with this base in Dulce, New Mexico. And the messages were all kind of scrambly and like, not English or even human sounding. So he very much came to believe that there is alien stuff going on in Dulce. And this all happened before, obviously, Phil started telling his story. So whether this all influenced Phil is another question altogether. But this businessman that I was mentioning, who was getting all these radio signals, he was really going at the government being like, something is going on here. And he would take to them, be like, what is going on here? Like, you should be aware of this, in case you don't already know, like, are they scouting your base? Are they doing whatever, so on and so forth. And the government started leading him down a rabbit hole, basically to the point that, like, they put him in a helicopter, they flew him over this stretch of desert where there were these vents and things like that built into the ground, which is indicative of an underground base being there.
- [33:20]
Narrator/Ad Voice
Sure.
- [33:21]
McLeod Andrews
Whether or not there actually was a base or whether they just put vents there on the ground to make it look like there was is another question. Sure.
- [33:28]
James McKenna
Yeah.
- [33:29]
McLeod Andrews
But there was a giant misinformation campaign because they were like, if we get this guy to believe that there are aliens flying around, then what we're actually doing here in the Southwest is safe, which is secret technologies, things like that. You know, top secret aircraft, radar experiments, things like that. And there are former military officials who have come forward. Again, I don't know whether this is entirely true or not, but we have to take them at their word and say that, yes, I was the guy who was leading this guy down this rabbit hole for years. Because we didn't want him getting too close to what was actually going on. So kind of cool that that that also happened. And then I guess the only other thing related to this all is there was a guy named Thomas Costello who piled on after Phil started going public with all this and said that, yes, I was a former Dulce based security officer. He described this whole story about human and alien cooperation and experimentation at the base. He said that there were firefights. So there is a corroborating account, I guess is the point of this. And there are reports completely independent of Phil or anyone else that suggests that there are weird things happening in Dulce, New Mexico. But again, the meat of the story obviously is world war underneath this base. And I don't know, where are you at on this?
- [34:54]
Brian Sigley
I stand on this is an awesome story. Like this is a very fun piece of fiction. I think I'm pretty hard skeptical Gecko on it.
- [35:03]
McLeod Andrews
Yeah.
- [35:04]
Brian Sigley
As to whether or not there could be an underground base that's plausible. Sure. I can't say I believe there is one. But the concept of there being underground bases. Sure. The concept of them being like, you know, top secret black sites or whatever that we don't know about, more of a stretch, but plausible. I mean, sure, I'm sure the military has stuff that they don't want the public generally to know about.
- [35:35]
McLeod Andrews
Yeah. And again, I think, is there a world in which this has all absolutely happened? Phil Schneider was preaching the gospel, you know.
- [35:44]
Brian Sigley
Yeah, you know, sure.
- [35:46]
McLeod Andrews
But I think this is a really cool instance of how stories like this kind of can take on their own life. So in Dulce, New Mexico, for instance, we have a situation where in the 70s we've got all these cow mutilations, we've got weird lights in the sky, we've got people talking about it, you know, and then we've got this other guy who's intercepting these weird radio signals, he's put in a helicopter by the military and shown, oh look, there's an underground base there, there. So then you've got the concept of aliens in an underground base associated with Dulce, New Mexico.
- [36:15]
Brian Sigley
Yeah.
- [36:15]
McLeod Andrews
You can see how the pieces of this story can kind of start being assembled into what it ended up being.
- [36:22]
James McKenna
Yeah.
- [36:23]
McLeod Andrews
But again, like I think you mentioned, it's a really cool story, which is why I was so excited to do it because take it or leave it, you know, this show isn't about debunking or validating these stories. The show is about enjoying these stories and figuring out why they're cool and. And, you know, obviously, are they believable or not to us. That's fun to talk about, but the gist of it is, like, what made these become part of the popular canon of the supernatural and the unexplained. And this, this is a poster child for that. If anything, you know. Cause it's probably the most audacious out there story we've ever done on this show.
- [37:02]
James McKenna
Yeah.
- [37:02]
Brian Sigley
And I'm here for it.
- [37:03]
McLeod Andrews
But listeners, I have a sneaking suspicion that none of you have any evidence about Dulcie Bass.
- [37:10]
Brian Sigley
So instead, just tell us, like, how you feel about story. What interested you about that?
- [37:14]
McLeod Andrews
I would especially like to know if. If you believe hardcore that this happened. We want to know why.
- [37:20]
Ad Voice (Experian)
Yeah.
- [37:21]
McLeod Andrews
Because I'm having a little trouble right now. Yeah. So tell us why. Hit us up on Instagram itingspod. Leave us a comment on Spotify. We'd love reading those. And we're getting so many comments on our one of our more recent episodes, McLeod, the bumps in the Night. Oh, my gosh. So many people have either A, loved the episode or B, are recounting their harrowing experiences with creatures in their bedroom late at night. And my goodness, I feel for these people, so.
- [37:55]
James McKenna
Oh, that's so nice.
- [37:57]
Brian Sigley
Well, I was gonna say it's so nice to hear. Not that people are having these experiences, but it's so nice to hear that people are really engaging with that one. I kind of had a feeling that one might resonate because I think all of us, as I said in that show, all of us have experiences with sleep paralysis is a thing that many people have experienced. So I'm not super surprised that people were lit up by that one. But I am happy. So, without further ado, Brian, can you give us a hint as to what story we get to tackle next week?
- [38:29]
McLeod Andrews
We're going to head back into kind of more paranormal land in the sense of we're going to do a super fun ghost story. And I'm not going to say where, but it is one of the. Of the best documented poltergeist tales out there. Okay. And it's a doozy. I think it's really fun and I look forward to bringing that to life with you next week.
- [38:48]
Brian Sigley
Sounds terrifying.
- [38:49]
McLeod Andrews
So, listeners, we will see you next week, same time, same place, right here on Sightings.
- [38:54]
Brian Sigley
As always, thanks for joining us.
- [38:55]
McLeod Andrews
Bye. Sightings is hosted by McLeod Andrews and Brian Sigley. Produced by Brian Sigley, Sigley, chase Kinzer and McLeod Andrews. Written by Brian Sigley. Music by Mitch Bain. Mixing and mastering by Pat Kickliter of Sundial Media Artwork by Nuno Cernatus. For a list of this episode's sources, check out our website@sightingspodcast.com Sightings is presented by Reverb and Q Code. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you're first to hear new episodes every week week. And if you know other Supernatural fans, tell them about us. We'd really appreciate it.
- [39:41]
Ad Voice (Experian)
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- [40:08]
James McKenna
Experian.