← Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:01]
Vanessa Richardson
On the Crime House Original podcast, Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, we're diving into the psychology of the world's most complex murder cases.
- [00:09]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
From serial killers to cult leaders, deadly exes and spree killers, we're examining not just how they killed, but why.
- [00:17]
Vanessa Richardson
Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Or is it something deeper? Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House Studios Original new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday Friday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:42]
Heidi Wong
This is crime house. Glowing orbs shooting across the night sky. Owls that warn of alien abductions and thousands of people going missing. These otherworldly events might seem like they're straight out of a science fiction movie, and depending on what you believe, you might think every story about aliens is completely made up. But after today, I guarantee that you'll be asking yourself, are we really alone? Welcome to Twisted, A Crime House Original. I'm Heidi Wong. Every week I'll take you deep into the true stories behind horror's biggest legends. From vengeful ghosts to bloody slashers to alien encounters and more, these real life accounts are guaranteed to keep you up at night, but scary stories aren't any fun if you're telling them alone. If you've ever had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. The creepier the better. Crime House is made possible by you. Follow Twisted Tales and subscribe to Crime House on Apple Podcasts for ad free early access. Today I'm digging into the 2009 sci fi horror film the Fourth Kind. The movie follows a psychologist investigating a string of disappearances and strange occurrences in the remote Alaskan town of Nome. Before it begins, the Fourth Kind presents an opening warning that everything you're about to see is based on real events. What comes next blurs the line between fact and fiction. It presents fake archival footage as real. It claims to show actual interviews with abductees. It's a pseudo documentary that uses every documentary technique to make it seem like everything you're watching is true. That's not quite the case. The movie itself is made up and none of the footage is real. But the stories that inspired it. Some of those are 100% true.
- [02:42]
Collars Co. Advertiser
I have to admit that one of my style pet peeves, especially when layering, is when guys shirts bunch up under sweaters and it gets all wrinkled and bulky, it can look slim, slightly haunted. That's why you have to check out Collars Co, the makers of the original dress collar Polo. These shirts are honestly a game changer they're four way stretch, buttery, soft polos, but with a firm dress shirt collar built in so you get that clean, polished dress shirt look with the comfort of your favorite polo. You can wear them under a sweater, throw one on with a blazer, or wear it solo as an elevated polo seriously works for any occasion. They're perfect for the office, the golf course, or a night out. And there's a reason this brand is exploding. They went viral on social media and even landed a $1 million shark tank investment from Mark Cuban and Peter Jones. Plus, the collars actually stay sharp all day. No flopping, no spreading. And it's not just polos. They've got great sweaters, quarter zips, pants and outerwear too. If you're looking for a performance dress shirt or polo that looks great all day, check out collars and co.com use promo code HEIDI for 20% off any purch of $100 or more.
- [03:54]
Carvana Advertiser
Hey, Sal. Hank, what's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.
- [04:17]
Heidi Wong
Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. In this episode, we're heading north to Alaska to explore the secrets, legends, and strange disappearances that no one's been able to explain. And we find out why. To solve Alaska's mysteries, some people look to the stars. In 2009, Universal Pictures released the fourth kind. And even before it came out, the studio wanted you to believe what you were about to watch was real. They put out fake newspaper articles using the names of real Alaskan publications like the Gnome Nugget and the Fairbanks Daily News Miner that all talked about the characters in the movies like they were real people. And the movie leans into this illusion, too. The opening scene involves the lead actress, Milla Jovovich, addressing the audience directly, not as her character, but as herself. She tells the audience that everything they're about to see is based on real events that took place in October of 2000 in a small Alaskan town called Nome. The movie features recordings of therapy sessions, police interviews, and eerie home videos that seem like legitimate archival footage. In the end, none of it is actually authentic, but the movie itself is insanely creepy. The story follows psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, who's investigating a series of disappearances in Nome. As she hypnotizes her patients, they each begin to recall similar terrifying, strange, otherworldly beings, Missing time, and a white owl that breaks into their locked doors and windows. The deeper Abigail digs, the more she begins to wonder whether her patients might actually be victims of alien abductions and that she herself might also have been abducted in the past. Now, the fourth kind was hardly the first movie to use the whole based on a true story element. Storytellers have been blurring the lines between fiction and fact for decades. The Texas chainsaw massacre did it in the 70s. They kicked off their film with a narration that said it was based on one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. But it wasn't a true story. It was just inspired by several horrific crimes. Even before that, Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast of the war of the worlds Was supposedly so realistic that it convinced thousands that aliens were actually invading New Jersey. The fourth kind didn't spark the same level of hysteria as the war of the worlds, but it definitely fooled some people. Plenty of viewers genuinely believed that it was based on true events. And in a way, it kind of was. Because while the movie itself was fiction, Part of it were inspired by strange real life events that took place in Alaska. And at the heart of all of those stories, the remote little town of Nome. Nome, Alaska, is a very real town that sits on the edge of the Bering sea. Think frozen coastline meets endless stretches of tundra. There are no roads connecting Nome to the rest of the state, no ferries bringing people in. The only way to reach it is by plane or during the summer, by barge, if you're lucky. It's not a place you stumble upon. You have to want to go there. In the winter, temperatures can plunge to 25 degrees below zero, and the sun shines for only a couple hours a day. Fewer than 4,000 people live there year round. Everyone knows everyone. Which means that when someone goes missing, it's noticed. And since the 1960s, roughly two dozen people have disappeared from Nome, and several nearby villages just vanished without a trace. The cases piled up for decades, and locals began to wonder if something darker was happening. Maybe a serial killer was living among them. People felt like they couldn't trust their neighbors, and paranoia started to creep in. But not everyone believed this theory. There were whispers that the cause was maybe related to something even stranger. In other parts of Alaska, there were mysterious lights over the tundra, Strange objects in the sky, and one area in particular where disappearances just like in Nome were piling up. Everyone's heard of the Bermuda Triangle, you know, the patch of ocean in the Atlantic where ships and planes are said to vanish without any explanation. If you want to watch a horror movie that has to do with the Bermuda Triangle, the movie Triangle is also pretty good. So there's that. But Alaska has its own version. The Alaska Triangle. It spans a massive section of Alaska covering miles of harsh, untamed terrain. Thick forests, jagged mountain ranges, icy lakes, and swathes of wild, open land. There are very few settlements within its borders. And over the decades, thousands of people have vanished inside the Triangle. The most famous of these disappearances happened on October 16, 1972. That day, U.S. house Majority Leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Alaska Congressman Nick Begich boarded a twin engine Cessna 310 airplane in Anchorage. They were headed for the city of Juneau on a campaign trip along with an aide and their pilot. And somewhere along the way, the plane vanished. No distress signal, no wreckage. It was just gone. When word reached Washington, D.C. panic set in. The disappearance of two sitting U.S. congressmen triggered one of the largest search and rescue operations in American history. 40 military aircrafts and 50 civilian planes searched over 325,000 square miles of wilderness, looking for any sign of the Cessna. They all came back empty handed. After a month, the government had no choice but to call off the search. It wasn't the first time a plane vanished in the area, though, and it wouldn't be the last. Two decades earlier, in 1950, a US military aircraft traveling from Anchorage to Montana disappeared under similar circumstances. 44 people were on board for the routine flight, 41 service members and three civilians. About two hours into the flight, the crew reported some turbulence, low visibility and ice on the wings to air traffic control, all typical for flying in Alaska. But half an hour later, they missed a check in and they were never heard from again. Their plane was never found. Just like Representatives Boggs and Begich 20 years later. Sensing a disturbing pattern, after the Boggs and Begish disappearance, Congress passed a law requiring all U.S. civilian aircraft to carry emergency local transmitters so rescuers could track missing planes more easily. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the disappearances. Since 1972, more than 20,000 people have gone missing in the Alaska Triangle. That's more than twice the national average for disappearances anywhere else in the United States. And it's not just planes disappearing. Hikers, tourists and locals alike have all vanished, both in vehicles and on foot. So it's not hard to see why. Some people started wondering if there Was something supernatural happening in the Triangle? Some say the answer lies in the land itself. There's one theory that massive energy vortexes exist within the Alaska Triangle. According to believers, these vortexes are swirling magnetic fields that can distort human emotion. Supposedly, clockwise vortexes create feelings of peace and euphoria, while counterclockwise ones induce confusion and anxiety. Okay, it's giving hypnotism. It's giving the same dream. It's giving White Owl. That's what it's giving. And there is evidence of something truly unnatural in the area. Search teams in the Triangle have reported their compasses suddenly being off by more than 30 degrees. Some have even described feeling disoriented and hearing strange sounds. But skeptics and scientists say it's just the result of natural magnetism. Compasses can get off kilter because magnetic north shifts slightly over time, and any strange symptoms probably aren't caused by vortexes. The search teams are likely just feeling the effects of exhaustion and isolation. But others believe there's something more to the Triangle and that maybe the people who vanish aren't getting lost at all. Maybe they're being taken. Fourteen years after those congressmen vanished inside the Alaska Triangle, another mystery unfolded in the Alaskan skies. This time, it wasn't a missing plane. It was something even stranger. An incident that would become one of the most convincing UFO sightings of all time. It happened on November 17, 1986. Captain Kenju Terauchi was piloting Japan Airlines Flight 1628, a Boeing 747 cargo plane traveling from Paris to Tokyo with a scheduled refueling stop in Anchorage. Captain Kenju wasn't just any captain. He was a former fighter pilot with more than 10,000 hours of flight experience under his belt. In other words, this was not a man who was rattled easily. He'd seen everything the skies could throw at him. Or so he thought. At 5:09pm the Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control center radioed in and asked his crew to adjust their course 15 degrees to the left. The CO pilot made the correction, and that was when Captain Kenju saw them. Out of his left window, just below the plane's altitude, two bright lights appeared. At first, he figured they must just be military jets. Alaskan airspace was full of them. Maybe they were doing a training exercise. But minutes passed and the lights didn't peel off or change formation. They just stayed there, following him. Captain Kenju called Anchorage Control and asked if they had any other aircraft on their radar near his plane. The controller checked nothing. According to their radars, the sky was empty except for Flight 1628. And that's when things got even weirder. The lights began to move. Darting, weaving, changing position in ways no conventional aircraft could. And then Captain Kenju realized they weren't just lights. The mysterious aircraft now flew just ahead of his plane about 500 to 1,000ft above and in front of him. His stomach dropped. There was no way any man made machine could appear right in front of a 747 trying to traveling at his speed and stay there without colliding. And then a third ship joined the party. A gigantic craft that dwarfed the 747 that he was piloting. To him, there was only one explanation. UFOs. But back in the control center in Anchorage, there was still nothing on the radar screen. The staff couldn't see what Captain Kanju was witnessing. He and his crew tried various evasive maneuvers to lose the UFOs. But no matter what he did, the mysterious ships mirrored his movements. He couldn't shake them. For nearly half an hour, they shadowed his every move. Inside the cockpit, tensions were rising. Captain Kenju and his crew couldn't stop wondering why the UFOs were doing this. And the Anchorage air traffic controllers were getting alarmed. They offered to send out a military jet for support, but Captain Kenju told them no. He was worried that sending in armed planes might provoke whatever was following him. Someone else joined the group though. A United Airlines passenger jet was flying nearby, entering the same airspace. The air traffic controllers asked the United pilot to see if he could get a visual on the UFO. But the moment the United plane got close, the UFOs vanished and didn't come back. Captain Kendrew and his crew were shaken but unharmed. They continued towards Anchorage where they landed and gave full accounts of what they'd seen. News of the incident spread quickly. The idea that a Japanese cargo jet had been chased by UFOs through Alaskan airspace was just too juicy a story. Reporters flooded the Federal Aviation Agency offices in Anchorage, demanding details. Soon, all the flight recordings, radio transmissions, radar logs, everything were shipped to John Callahan, the FAA's division chief for accidents and investigations. Callahan was used to handling crash data and emergency reports, not UFOs. But as he listened to the tapes, he realized there was a discrepancy. The Anchorage control center said again and again that nothing appeared on their radars. But there was also an Air Force base operating in the area. And their radar recordings did show something. They picked up multiple unknown targets moving at incredible speeds, performing maneuvers no known aircraft could replicate. Oh, and remember how the UFO'S supposedly disappeared when the United Airlines flight approached. According to the military radar readouts, that wasn't quite true. Unbeknownst to both the United pilot and Captain Kenju, the UFOs had tucked in out of sight behind the United flight and began following them. When Callahan took his findings to his boss, it set off a chain reaction. Soon he was in a conference room presenting the data to representatives from the FBI, the CIA, and even members of President Reagan's scientific advisory team. As they peppered Callahan with questions, he went through everything step by step, convinced they were about to launch an official investigation. But when he finished, the room went quiet. Then someone from the CIA spoke up. He told Callahan that this meeting they were at never took place. They were never there, and Callahan could never speak of it again. Callahan didn't understand why the government would want to bury such extraordinary evidence of UFO activity. But the CIA men said that it was for everyone's safety. If the American public knew there was an unidentified flying object out there, they would panic. So for more than a decade, Callahan said nothing, as ordered. Then, in 2000, 14 years after the incident, he finally started speaking out. He gave interviews, presented his own copies of the radar tapes, and told the world what he'd seen. And suddenly, the legend of the Alaska Triangle had a new chapter. Because if UFOs were really stalking 747s over Alaska, then maybe all those people who seemingly vanished into thin air weren't victims of bad weather or broken compasses. Maybe they were victims of something else entirely. Something that was still up there, watching and waiting. The locals of Nome, Alaska, hated the fourth kind. When it came out in 2009, they found the marketing distasteful, especially the fake newspaper articles that used real Alaskan outlets. And for a lot of the people in the community, the movie felt like it mocked the memories of those who had actually disappeared. Because for them, it wasn't just a spooky story. It was personal. It's true that Nome has a long history of both missing people and alleged UFO sightings. But for the missing persons cases, most locals didn't buy into the alien abduction theory or even the idea that there was a serial killer. The explanation was a lot more tragic and a lot more ordinary.
- [20:22]
Vanessa Richardson
What drives a person to kill? Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Unbearable jealousy? Or is it something deeper? Something in the darkest corners of our psyche?
- [20:36]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Every Monday and Thursday, the Crime House Original podcast, serial Killers and Murderous Minds dives deep into the minds of history's most chilling murderers. From infamous serial killers to ruthless cult leaders, deadly exes, and terrifying spree killers. I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls, a licensed forensic psychologist. Along with Vanessa Richardson's immersive storytelling full of high stakes twists and turns, in every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, I'll be providing expert analysis of the people involved, not just how they killed, but why.
- [21:12]
Vanessa Richardson
Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a crime House Studios original new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:27]
Heidi Wong
In 2005, the FBI actually sent a team into Nome to investigate more than two dozen disappearances and suspicious deaths dating back decades. They wanted to be sure that nothing sinister was going on. When the investigation wrapped, the FBI concluded there was no evidence of foul play, no serial killer, no alien abductions. The disappearances were the result of something far more human intoxication, exposure to the elements, and the brutal Alaskan wilderness. Of the bodies that were found, none showed signs of trauma, only hypothermia. The sad truth is the Alaskan terrain is so vast and the weather so punishing that an entire plane crash site can vanish under the snow within hours. So imagine how quickly a single body can disappear. And when you live in a state that's more than twice the size of Texas, with most of it uninhabited, it's just not possible to search every square mile. In that version of the story, the quiet, tragic one wasn't nearly as scary as the idea of alien abductions. And that's the version that filmmakers of the fourth kind decided to tell. For them, the real life disappearances and the region's reputation for strange lights in the sky made gnome the perfect backdrop. And in blending the two, the fourth kind hit on something that audiences couldn't stop thinking about. The idea that aliens were actually abducting people from the most remote corner of the planet. In the film, the psychologist's patients all report seeing a white owl watching them, a recurring eerie image of what feels like straight out of a nightmare. That idea wasn't invented from thin air. It was actually pulled right out of real life paranormal lore. Some people who claim to have experienced alien abductions provoked report seeing owls before, during, or after their encounters, as if the birds are a kind of psychic messenger. A UFO researcher named Mike Cleland even wrote a whole book on it called the Owls Synchronicity and the ufo. He collected hundreds of stories from people who said they seen owls right before bizarre experiences, and many of them saw those encounters were linked to aliens. He once put out a call on his website asking people to Share their own owl stories. And he was flooded with responses. Dozens of people had similar experiences. Either they saw the birds perch outside their window at night, or owls followed them down empty roads. Many even had them show up in their dreams. Whether you believe there's any truth to the owl sightings, the image of the owl became one of the fourth kinds but most frightening motifs. But owls weren't the only strange thing in Alaska for the filmmakers to tap into. In the 2000s, another mystery began to attract harp. Spelled H A A R P. It stands for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. It was a massive US Military defense project based in the tiny, remote village of Gakona, Alaska. The population there was barely more than 200 people in 2010, and HAARP made its mark on the area, building out a massive array of antennas in the middle of the forest. Officially, HAARP was supposed to study the part of Earth's atmosphere that helps transmit radio waves. But from day one, conspiracy theories swirled around the site. The lead scientist behind HAARP had previously studied the idea of weather modification. So naturally, critics claim the project was secretly an experiment in environmental warfare or even mind control. People said HAARP could cause earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, even disrupt global communications. But that is just a conspiracy theory. And with a $300 million budget, many wondered what was really going on in the facility. The military insisted it was just research. And despite reports of legitimate experiments, HAARP's massive antennas and strange humming equipment didn't exactly calm everyone's nerves. Even when the military officially shut down the project in 2013, questions and conspiracy theories still swirled. People were scared that they were still operating, but this time in secret. At the end of the day, the conspiracies about HAARP remained just that. Conspiracies. But they fed into the idea that the government was hiding the truth from the public, just like they had with UFOs. Maybe there was something really going on in Alaska that they didn't want the rest of the world to know about. And that brings us to one of the strangest conspiracy theories of all. The Dark Pyramid of Alaska. According to some, there's a massive underground pyramid hidden somewhere between Nome and Mount Denali. The supposedly ancient structure is said to be twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza, completely buried beneath the surface. And this pyramid generates some kind of electromagnetic energy. The story first surfaced in July 2012, when journalist Linda Moulton Howe shared it with on the late night conspiracy radio show coast to Coast Am. She had interviewed a man named Doug Mutchler. He was a retired US army officer who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the site. Mutchler said he first learned about the pyramid in 1992 after a seismic event near China was picked up by US Sensors. When the data was analyzed, it revealed a massive geometric structure beneath Alaska's surface, one that emitted unusually high levels of energy. According to Mutchler, the US Military quietly moved in, set up a perimeter, and classified everything about the discovery. But he claimed the pyramid wasn't just an archaeological site. It was an ancient technology, possibly from another world, and it was being studied in secret. Now, there's never been any verified evidence of a pyramid under Alaska, but that hasn't stopped people from believing. Because in Alaska, where planes vanish, compasses fail, and UFOs fly through the sky, it's easy to imagine something ancient and powerful hiding just below the ice. And that's what makes the fourth kind so terrifying. It took all of that lore and tied it into one scary story. A story that asks questions humans have been fearing for centuries. What if there's something else out there? And what does it want with us? Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted, a Crime House original. I'd love to hear from you. What did you think about today's stories? Anything you're dying for me to COVID Leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in. And be sure to follow Twisted Tale so we can keep building the same community together. I'll be back next week with another unbelievable true story. Until then, stay curious and remember, there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it. Crisp, refreshing and unmistakably tasty. Ice cold Coke, Zero sugar. It's the only drink with real Coca Cola taste and zero sugar.
- [29:02]
Vanessa Richardson
What drives a person to murder? Find out from a licensed forensic psychologist on Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, A Crime House Original Podcast. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.