[Music] [Music] I [Music] [Music] on the night of January 6th 1976 three women from Kentucky 44-year-old Louise Smith 35-year-old Mona Stafford and 48-year-old Elaine Thomas decided to celebrate Stafford's birthday by driving to a restaurant in Stanford Kentucky which is sit situated nearly 30 m away from Liberty Kentucky the area in which all three women lived at the time after leaving the restaurant in Stafford at about 11:15 p.m. that night and beginning their journey home to in Smith's 1967 Chevrolet the three women who were all sitting in the front seat suddenly found themselves in a jackpot situation with the UFO according to an article published in the Casey County news from Liberty Kentucky back in February 1976 uh the headline reads it is still a mystery trip home was longer than usual Casey County woman describes experiences with UFO that article starts off with a quote it says it has a force we don't have we have nothing to fight it God is the only one who could save us from it with its intense heat and light it can do whatever it wants to do when Mona Stafford tells you she and two other local women saw and perhaps came under the power of an unidentified flying object early last month it's difficult not to believe her her voice still trembles when she talks about the incident and the swollen dark area around her eyes gives evidence she hasn't been sleeping too well recently the day that was to end in a night of horror for Mona and her two friends was January 6th it was Mrs Stafford's birthday and Louise Smith and Elaine Thomas wanted to treat her to a night out at the Redwood restaurant near Stanford I don't get out much remarked Mrs Stafford these two girls just wanted to do something nice for me the trio of Casey countians dined at the Redwood and left the restaurant at 11:15 that evening Mona recalls they drove through Stanford past the city cemetery and then the drive-in theater and into the open Countryside the three ladies were not too far out of Stanford when they saw something that appeared to be fire coming down from the sky Mona who was sitting up front between her two friends told the driver Louise to drive faster toward the falling object it was several hundred feet ahead and I thought it might be an airplane crashing said Mona as they neared the area where they had seen the fire Mona says an object as big as a house and shaped like a blimp or football started coming down the road toward them she said the object had red lights all the way around it and the lights were rotating it had a light on top that was bluish white and more brilliant than anything I've ever seen noted Moda the object came across the road to the right of the auto the ladies were riding in made a half circle and came in behind the car Mrs Stafford remarked she said they turned to look at the object but the intensity of the lights gave all of them headaches all of a sudden the trio realized they were no longer in control of the automobile they felt like something was pulling back on the car the speedometer on Louise Smith's car showed that they were traveling at 85 mph but how could that be she didn't even have her foot on the accelerator Mrs Stafford said it felt like we were crossing those grooves they have in the road to slow you down when you're approaching a stop sign Mona recalled then all of a sudden the women found themselves in houstonville however they were shocked because none of them could remember traveling the area between the two towns it was like something had picked us up in Stanford and set us down in houstonville Mona recall houstonville by the way is about 8 miles away from Stanford Mrs Stafford says that when she arrived back in Liberty at Louise Smith's house they saw it was 1:25 a.m. it had taken the women more than 2 hours to travel to liver from Stanford normally a 45-minute trip another strange thing the women noticed was that the two of them Louise and Elaine had burns on the backs of their necks it resembled a real bad sunburn Mona recall the woman got their neighbors out of bed to see the burns and tell them about what they had seen the neighbors advised them to separate and draw what they had seen Mrs Stafford's drawing showed a blimp shaped object with the row of lights around it in addition many red lights she said there were was also one yellow light that was flashing I think that it was a window because it was dimmer than all the other lights she explained the women reported their sighting to Kentucky state troopers and to the armed services but for Mrs Stafford the ordeal did not end with that I don't feel like the same person not Mona this has just taken my mind over I was worried about all kinds of other problems before but this is something I just have to get a better understanding of Mrs Stafford who says she can see the object now is plain as she did on the tfield night in Lincoln county has been living with her parents since the incident occurred and of course though that wasn't the end of the story because uh some months later the Tabloid newspaper the national Inquirer uh they wanted more information about this and so they arranged to have the three women hypnotized and here was an article that was published in October 1976 in the National Inquirer and uh this article also notes that there were uh some UFO researchers like uh the late UFO expert Leonard Stringfield uh who who said at the time that this is one of the most convincing UFO cases on record and uh Dr Leo sprinkle was brought in sprinkle was uh he was a UFO investigator and he also uh did some uh did some regressive hypnosis sessions with many people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens so uh and this is what he said at the time according to the article that appeared in the National inquire he says it is is very difficult for people to lie under hypnosis uh and when three people in separate hypnotic sessions all agree on the essential Parts in their account the chance they have lied is beyond all reasonable possibility the three women Elaine Thomas Luise Smith and Mona Stafford have lived in and near Liberty Kentucky most of their lives two are grandmothers and the third Mona Stafford is a mother of a 17-year-old they were returning from a late supper in Stanford 29 mies from home when their nightmare began at 11:30 p.m. last January 6th suddenly a mile west of the city a large disc-shaped object hurdled into view it was big as a football field we called Louise who was driving it was metallic gray with a glowing white Dome a row of red lights around the middle and three or four red and yellow lights underneath the UFO stopped ahead of them then circled around behind their car suddenly the auto picked up speed Lise found that she could not control it the spe speedometer registered 85 M hour the others screamed to slow down but I held my foot in the air to show them it wasn't even on the gas pedal Louise said then some awesome Force began dragging the car backward and at that point came the 80-minute Gap in the Trio's memories their next conscious memory was of seeing a street light as they entered houstonville 8 miles from where they'd seen the UFO the frightened women immediately drove to Louise's home in Liberty they should have arrived around midnight but it was 1:25 a.m. an hour and 20 minutes maybe longer was missing time we couldn't account for Louise said Louise's neck hurt so she asked Mona to look at it Mona found a strange red mark like fresh burn like a fresh burn that hadn't blistered 3 Ines long and an inch wide ela's neck had the same Mark and so did mine so all three women had the same marks on their necks the same red marks the terrifying women summoned the nextdoor neighbor and he told him him and they told him this their story he sent them into separate rooms to draw a sketch of the UFO the drawings were almost identical the red marks vanished 2 days later but the hour and 20 minutes they' lost continued to puzzle them until the Inquirer had them hypnotized on two separate occasions in July now let me just stop here for a second now you would think a story like this uh I mean really uh these ladies weren't lying back then but why is it the national Inquirer tabloid newspaper you know regularly posting Sensational stories a lot of them filled with falsehoods throughout the years but this story here a lot of UFO stories that was the one good thing about tabloid newspapers especially throughout the 1970s the 1980s this at least they gave it some Credence they saw this was something that would sell their papers this is the kind of stories when people were walking uh out of the grocery store they would pick them up because they said would see these headlines and it was just you know this is fantastic news and it should it should be big it should have been bigger news it should have basically because it was own stories like this were only appearing uh in uh Publications like the quirer uh people don't you know they didn't really take them seriously as they should I mean this you know if the New York Times or the Washington Post if they were publishing stories like that then uh people would take them more seriously but the the the mainstream news Publications as long along with all of the uh mainstream news outlets always uh back then particularly were treating all of these stories like jokes and they didn't believe them and of course the scientific Community was uh not on board at all at the time either only only some people only some uh small group anyway according to the article says during the hypnotic sessions all three vividly recalled what had happened to them from the time their car was pulled backward until they reached houstonville Elaine Thomas remembered lying on her back in a long narrow incubator like chamber while beings dark figures small looked about 4 feet high kept passing by and looking in at her she said a blunt instrument was pressed hard against her chest causing considerable pain at the same time something was encircling her throat and each time she tried to talk she was choked into silence Elaine cried softly at times under hypnosis something is pressing on my throat like hands all over all around I see shadows as they pass by pressure on my chest they won't let me breathe I can't get away Louise Smith said she was in a hot dark place and something was placed over her face she begged the beings to let her see them and once she was allowed to look but quickly closed her eyes because whatever she saw was frightening even under hypnosis Louise can't remember what the beings look like oh yes I've been there I know what it's like to be afraid to look I me that was very that's that's how my experience was somewhat back in 1977 I had the blanket over my head I knew there was something standing there I knew it wasn't human but there was no way I wanted to look at its face and I did not dare pull that blanket down to look at its face I did not want to look at it I did not want to see it I mean when these kind of things are happening to you I I can tell you right now the last thing you want to do is is be face to face with something an alien creature or what I thought at the time was something right straight out of hell you don't want to look at it you really don't the women did though remember what the creatures looked like as time went by uh during your initial hypnosis sessions they they couldn't really remember but uh Louise Smith actually did remember and she actually added to uh was more than just Silhouettes what she saw uh she she saw many forms but she was so frightened that she you know she didn't keep her eyes open long enough to remember any details but in some months later she was able to form a picture of her captors of their appearance at the same time identical to the humanoid seen by her companions she was able to add that their hands were indented or serrated like the ends of a bird bird's wings and if you there's an image there was a drawing that she drew that shows this weird hooded creature with these slanted eyes and these hands that have Jagged uh looks like the ends of a jagged bird wing that's what it looks like reliving her experience hypnotically Louise gasped out help me Lord please she was sobbing it's so dark I'm scared get that off my face let go my arm I want to get up but I can't at one point she cried out please I can't do no more I'm so weak I want to die please don't she was crying don't touch me and later she said said under hypnosis can I go home now I'm going fast so fast I see a light I it's a street light by this point under hypnosis she was smiling she was happy to finally that the whole ordeal was coming to an end Mona Stafford remembered lying on a bed in what seemed to be an operating room her right arm pinned down by some invisible force while three or four figures in white gowns sat around her bed she doesn't recall their features that's probably a good thing Mona believed she was being tortured she said that once her eyes felt as though they were being jerked out of her head at another time her stomach felt as if it were being blown up like a balloon my head hurts my eyes hurt so bad she said I see an eye it's kind of like Crystal it just burst out into light or something my hand feels like it's tied down it's hurting it's numb at one point she screamed oh he's coming at me oh they're pulling at me they're pulling my feet my feet are being bent backward Twisted I can't take no more the women were given lie detector tests by detective James Young Senior polygraph examiner for the Lexington Kentucky police department and vice president of the state polygraph assoc Association afterward young said an assigned statement it is my opinion that these women actually believe they did experience an encounter and then of course Dr sprinkle who hypnotized all three women twice he said it is quite obvious these women have specific Impressions which indicate to them that they were being observed and handled by strange beings in my opinion it would be very difficult if not impossible for these women to fake their Impressions The Impressions during the loss of time experience are similar to those of other UFO Witnesses who apparently have experienced abduction and examination and of course this story I'm going to end that there there's more to this article I'm going to leave links uh I want to say thank you to Jeff Knox uh who on his regularly post uh historic UFO cases on his Twitter feed I will leave a link to this he has numerous articles there uh from different people one from Leonard Stringfield uh some another one from the uh Pro uh so there's numerous reading reading material on this case it's an amazing case obviously these three women experienced something they weren't lying it's not something that they you know they made a lot of money on like some people might try to claim this they made nothing on this uh they had this strange experience they with the UFO they lost time how many times have we heard stories like this and it's just another case that shows that proves uh you know you look at this story you these women were not lying they were this was something that that really happened they couldn't understand how they lost a time when they were hypnotized they all remember the same thing very similarly to other cases if you think about the Allagash 4 for instance uh this is something that is real it's something go that's been happening for for for decades and uh it's time that we like I said like I've been stating in a lot of uh my podcasts recently that this is something that we need to begin to take seriously we need to stop pretending that we don't know whether it's real or not it's real anyway I want to say thank you all for joining me until next time [Music]