Phoenix AZ 1947 - The Forgotten UFO Case

Welcome to the Shadow Signal, The Frequency of the Unknown. I'm Josh Rutledge. And I'm Stephan Gearhart. Together we dive deep into high strangeness, UFOs, cryptids, the paranormal psychic phenomenon, and the hidden truths that echo just beneath the. Surface, somewhere between reality and myth. Wise, the Signal can

you hear it? Tune in. The Shadow Signal is live and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another monthly fantastic episode of The Shadow Signal with Josh and Stefan. I am your host, Stephan Gearhart, and I am joined as always by my non abducted friend,

mister Josh Rutledge. Thank you for not. Being abducted this episode so that we could have you on. Well, how do you know I'm not I'm not doing the episode. From the craft from the Mothership.

Yeah, I mean they had a podcast room specifically constructed for my usage, for your usage. I mean could be but say you wouldn't have been abducted, you would have been invited. Yeah. They made it look like my office and everything. But on the other side of the camera that you

can't see is three mantits scowling at me right now because I read secret yep. And because you're a you're a male and they just want to rip your head off and impregnate your body. Yeah, I'm sure that's what it is. Anyway. Anyway, we got a really cool episode tonight. We're

gonna be talking about two topics tonight for our main topic. But before we get into that. Let's go uh and move straight into psychic Word. Of the Week. The psychic Oh oh. All right, Psychic Word up the Week is brought to you by the Encyclopedic Psychic Dictionary by doctor June G.

Blets their PhD. Rest in peace, honeybear, I loved you, but I never even knew you were you kneude you. Anyway? Okay, what te so I flipped through the pages and what jumped out at me is one that you and

I are very familiar with, as well as Santash and a lot of others. But the word is psychic shield. Psychic shield. Interesting is that when I push you in front of me. No, that's when I push you in front of me because I knew it was going to happen.

Ah, Okay, okay, okay. Psychic shield is an atmosphere of electrical energy built around a person by oneself or another that affords protection from low quality or negative vibrations, high quality verbiage, positive introduction, dushions or prayers cling to the person according to the intensity of the emotion behind them. To build this mental

atmospheric wall, it utilizes the law of like attracts like and offers protection Accordingly. It is used for one before opening psychic doors, two before entering a crowd. Boll I've done that a million times. Three before going to work or driving the car. I have done that a bazillion times four as a reminder

that the soul mind only accepts psychic information that is for its highest good when in an alpha state of consciousness or hypnotized. Can be built mentally telepathically by a concerned person for his or her friend who may be doing something dangerous. Believed that the CIA put a psychic shield around President Ford and Henry Kissinger, so mind reading

experts from communist countries could not pick their thoughts. That's an example. It was believed that, yeah, the CIA put a psychic shield around the President and Henry Kissinger. Well, you know what they say. You can pick your friends, and you can pick your thoughts, but you can't pick

your friend's thoughts. Yeah, you can't pick your friend's thoughts unless you're super psychic. Right, dang man, there's like three pages of psychic I guess the psychic dictionary would have three, four, five, six pages of psychic. Words with psychic. You know what? What was interesting? What

you read? Two things that I picked up on that I had had not really thought about before, But I guess, Yeah, is the projecting a shield around somebody else. Yeah, I'm sure I've done it before, but I just yeah, thought about it. I mean, I've I know that I've raiki people who

are going into tough situations before. But and I guess in a way, that's like a shield. I mean, it's positive thoughts and positive intention. The other thing that kind of I thought about is I mean, if like, if you really wanted to, you know, you could make your shielding exercise be as simple as you know, I'm whereber,

you're glue, whatever bounces off me and sticks to you, you know, something like that, And it can make it fun as long as the intention is. About using that. But yeah, you're right, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I love shielding. I've been using it since my early days of energy work. You know, there so many unintentional

psychic vampires out there that I want to drain you. That shielding is just I and you know it's it's always good to think about, you know, sometimes the hardest of since you could think of enveloping you and I always think of being a comic book nerd. I always think of ad mantium or adamantium.

So and your admim is what they put in Coca cola. That is what makes it so good. Yeah, not a sponsor, not a sponsor. But if they want to spot you know, we will plug coke zero because you and I are both uh, we both prefer coke. Yep, that's a fact because pepsi is trash. Sorry, we

just lost you as a It's uh. You know, if I wanted to drink flat battery acid, if I want to drink flat coke, I'll drink pepsi. Yeah, the diet pepsi tastes like battery acid. So I'm just saying that that was in the psychic dictionary. I didn't you've had battery acid before, have you?

Well? Yeah, I was abused. Your honey, have some water. There, you go little little little people know that the scene from Signs where she's putting you know, pine saal in the girl's soup, that's that was a that was

based on a true story. For you, for me, for me, it's said anyways. Also, my wife, when I was editing last month's episode, pointed out that since we do a monthly show, it should be a psychic word of the month. No, but I expect everyone to be looking up their own words weekly.

Oh okay, yeah, it's homework. It's homework we gave you. I have specified a thousand times the name of this book and the author for you to go to aid Books or go to thriftbooks dot com and find this book since it is out of print.

Yeah, I found that at a half priced books one time. I didn't buy it. I should have bought it. I should have bought it. Let me check right now, I'm going to check Amazon. If it's on there. You do that.

I could feel everybody's like anticipation. Yeah, I know, psychic. Oops, I can't even do it. In the cyclo, the Cyclo Pedic Psychic Thoughts, Psychic it was out of print. Okay, here it is.

I used copy for like four hundred dollars. Yeah, used copy for thirty seven dollars and as zero seven cents. There's another copy for thirty three dollars and four cents, So there's two copies. Right now on Amazon. There is a hardcover version, which would be nice to have.

That one's ninety two dollars and sixty three. I mean when this episode goes down in a few days, those copies may be gone, sure, unless unless someone has psychically listened to the episode already. So, uh, the. Version then, I don't know if it's the first version

or a second version, but it says the Downing International Encyclopedic Psychic Dictionary. Interesting, I don't know what that means. Yeah, that's the same book. I'm still waiting for Bletzer's family to reach out to us. Yeah, put out put out psychic shields for their family right to protect them. So, uh,

come find us, we we want to talk. Yeah sounds good. Bet this psychic shield to death. Or our psychic word. Of the day, so of the hour of the hour. Anyways, Well, let's move on to our fun topic, uh, which is interrupted transmissions. Interrupted transmission, so I don't have

anything which is disappointing, but it's been a crazy month for me. Yeah, I'm just busy and so I haven't paid attention. So what about you. Have you had anything going on? I do, so you know this. But recently last week I was in Kentucky and back in the good old

home state, if you will, which I quickly realized that I do not like the humidity and was so glad to be back in Phoenix even though it was one hundred and eleven on Monday, it was a dry heat. Well it was funny because as soon as you left, it was like the humidity dropped. It was nice and

cool on Sunday and like it was Wow. Yeah, maybe I'm just I'm full of hot air. That's what it is. Yeah, it's true. So while I was there, I got together with the high school friend and we were just talking about all

the kind of you know, stuff that's been going on in the world of UFOs. It seems like, you know, every so often he messages me, you know, a text message or something, just to see my thoughts or something on whatever is going on. It is.

Yeah, it is mysterious. J and uh. Anyway, so I was out of his house and we were just kind of hanging out and talking about stuff, and so we decided to go outside and play the UFO or UAP whistle that you know, the Skywatcher group came out with like about a year ago, and so you're playing that.

He was in what point? He was like, you know, hey, how do people call these things in? You know, I suppose you know meditation and stuff. And he's like, well, I don't know whatever. You were probably like yeah, I mean I was excited, but but yes, And so I uh setting down in one of his patio chairs and

I led him through a meditation guided meditation and he had a phenomenally amazing experience that I don't want to share a lot of details about because it's personal to him, but I'll just say that it was a putting moment for me. And the last time that we were together, like two years ago, I did Reikie on him because

he was having a panic attack and he was like that all the all the anxiety just like pushed out of his body. And so that was a putting moment for me as well. So it's like, you know, when I when I need reassurances, I have to go see the Mysterious Jay so that I can do the things

that I do for everybody else and get some you know, kind of instant feedback. But yeah, it was an amazing experience. I haven't heard from him since the experience, so hopefully he's you know, he's not stuck himself in a closet pulling his hair out because he can't. He's got you know, every window in his house is covered in aluminum foil.

But yeah, I mean, it was a great experience, and it was a great experience to have with him. And then it was just a you know, a really good, like I said, pudding moment. And for anybody who's like putting moment, what do you mean, Stephan you came up with that, what does pudding moment mean?

Nope, that was Santosh, But oh uh, it won one of us. But the proof, the proof is in the pudding is the saying, and we just turned it, shortened it up to putting moments. There you now. Prior to that, prior to that visit to the Kentucky area, about a week and a half prior,

I had been out to a friend, my friend Shane's house, for our friend Shane's house for a they could get together with some people. The mysterious Shane No. Dave Scott him the Beard of Knowledge. The Beard of Knowledge.

I liked that. I liked so. But anyways, and we didn't really see much that evening when we were all together with the group. But the next morning or like during the day, like eleven o'clock in the morning, I saw my first like full bodied not orb in the sky, but like full

bodied UFO off from the distance that it was really weird. It was like a totally blue sky. There was this lone cloud out over the Superstition Mountains and I saw this white what I'll describe as you know, tic tac type thing moving across the cloud and I I immediately we get a lot of air traffic, you know, being

this close to the Mason Gateway airport, so I immediately thought it was an airplane. And so when it was moving, you know, by in front of the cloud, I waited when it got to the other end of the cloud. I expected to be able to see it clearly because it would have been a white speck on a blue sky,

But when it got to the end of the cloud, it. Disappeared hmmm, interesting. And I checked, you know, I went ahead and checked all my tools to see if, like, you know, there was a plane out there and for some reason I just couldn't see it. But there was no air traffic

transponding in that area of the sky at the time that I saw it. And I validated the time because I went to the ring camera in my backyard to look and see when I had run outside to say, oh my gosh, I think I just saw a UFO. So I validated the time and look at like, you know,

five minutes prior and five minutes after to validate that there was no air traffic and it has to be transponding because it's within so many miles of an active airport. Yeah. So yeah, I think I saw my first bona fide solid tic tac UFO. That's better than a boner fiede one. So moving on.

To move on to our main topics. Done main story. That's right, folks, if you missed out at the beginning, I said main topics. We're going to cover two topics. Tonight, and not in like a top five type way.

We just got two things that we really really wanted to talk about and we couldn't figure out which one, so we decided to talk about both. Tell like when you have two kids and you can't pick a favorite. Well you can, you just don't tell the other one.

Okay, So yeah, we just won't tell one topic which one is. More important important, That's right. But so to begin, the first thing is, so, if you didn't hear, Josh was in Kentucky and I was heading to Ohio, and so we had a small window to go watch the new

Steven Spielberg film, Disclosure Day. So we ended up getting advanced tickets the night before it was out and got together and went and saw Disclosure Day. So we wanted to talk a little bit about our thoughts on this movie. Now. I will say that we will try very hard not to spoil any spoilers.

So not to talk about the third act. However, if we if we accidentally do, since this is recorded and edited after the fact, I will cut it out. So just so you know, just put a big you can speak freely, all right. So yeah, Disclosure, I mean I feel like the movie was like really hyped, not

just for being a Spielberg movie, but like even within the UFO community, it was really really hyped as being like this is the you know, this is Spilbird breaking disclosure and and you know, the film should be it should be watched with an understanding of you know, uh, it's it's going to bring about disclosure for for everybody.

And there's theory, well, because there's there's conspiracy theory and law behind close Encounters of the third kind that you know that there was government involved, and that he knew things, that the government knew things, and they allowed him to show certain things, YadA, YadA, YadA, And so this had even more of that surrounding it, right.

And the fact that I mean the film by itself, I mean, just at face value is about a government conspiracy so and in an attempt to cover up the truth. So it adds to then the mystery of you know, is s Pielberg somehow in the loop and is he you know?

Right? The craziest, the craziest theory that I heard prior to Disclosure Day coming out was that the clicking noise that you heard in the trailer was subliminal, subliminal messaging put into the film by the deep State to cause us all to fall for a false flag event.

But what's interesting is we found out I did. I found out through a little research that. The lead actress. What is there Emily Blunt yep, correct that she was just told to improvise something and she did that on her own. She just made or did she no? I

think she did. I think she did because she's an amazing actress and she was just kind of told to make something up and she did that. I think they said there's a full two and a half minutes of her Journey movie that's on the cutting room floor of her just making up that clicking noise.

And I just lost your audio and you're and you're breaking up. Did I'll lose you or did you drop all together? I guess we shouldn't have talked about the clicking and h are you back? I still don't have your audio? Okay, are you back?

You don't have my audience? I do now, Okay, Yeah, I don't know what happened and disconnected and reconnected. That's because we're talking about the clicking. That's what it wise. Leave that in, Okay, Yeah, let's. Go ahead and leave that in.

So if you just heard we started talking about the clicking and the false flag event and all that stuff, and all of a sudden my. Headset went wonky. So yeah, that was wild. And you froze too, like like you dropped internet connection. Yeah, you froze on me too, But yeah, I noticed

my Internet dropped down to one bar. Interesting, very very interesting. Interesting. Needless to say, let's kind of go back to this. I just to even just say I loved this movie. I loved it. And what's interesting is I felt as an experiencer myself,

it really spoke to me. It triggered a lot of things. I cried a lot. It really got me. And then as the UFO nerd in me, there were all kinds of like little cameos like Kecksburg and Rod as well of course, and things like that that you know,

us UFO nerds know about. That was kind of meat as as a thing to see. But yeah, I think it really I honestly, because like the reviews that I see are really split. I don't see anybody. Going, yeah, it was pretty good.

No, it's either I loved it or meh. Right. Yeah. Most of the men that I see are like nuts and bolts type people or people that don't haven't had any experiences, or non paranormal people. They're just kind of like, eh, whatever. But like all of the people that you can tell

are experiences or people that have seen stuff or been through it or have just you know, gotten lost in this. They love it. They absolutely love it. You know what's really interesting, And I shared I shared my experience with Shane again. Shane heard and he shared a similar experience that when I first sat down for

the movie, I had like an uneasiness about what to expect and what my reaction was going on, like almost like a weird kind of sense of dread of you know, did I really want to watch you know, this movie? But by the end of the movie, I mean I had I had none none of that was was remaining.

And it's weird that, like, like I said that, our friend Shane also had a similar experience the first time he watched it. Yeah, so, but I mean, yes, same. I cried a few times, we did. I mean, my wife was sitting next to me and she was like looked over at me and with a weird look on

her face because I was crying in a c in this movie. But but I also cried an et. You know, so because you know, I was going to ask, because your wife said into this kind of stuff, what did she think of the film? I think, you know, I asked her about it, she

said it was a pretty good, you know movie. She I don't think she does. She doesn't really have the experienceer side of, you know, the interest. So for her, it was just it was just a movie. You know, it was just a spoke bird. But but I think I think she for the most part like it. For her,

I think it was our movie. Uh As the individual that was on the other side of her in the movie theater was not a good movie attendant, Like he just he was distracting or whatever, kept clearness road and I don't know what, I can't remember what all she said. But so she didn't really like she didn't.

Fully was he was right next to her instead of like giving a space between right, I mean, when there was no one on the. Other no one on the other side. Yeah, it's like it's like when you, you know, as men, when you go to use the urinal and there's like all these

other urinals, but they stand right next to you. Yeah, like they don't want to be lonely or something. I don't know. But anyway, so yeah, bottom line, if you if you're listening to this and you haven't seen it, you should definitely go see it. If you're an exp answer, be prepared for, you know, an emotional ride. I'm triggering,

you know, aspect of it. Not necessarily triggering in a negative way, I don't think. But yeah, but just like a I don't know, an awareness of a happiness if you. Will, sure, And you know, it's interesting. I saw an interview with Spielberg on TikTok and he was talking about the question he asks, have you ever

seen a UFO or seen aliens? And he says no, And I'm pissed about it. I'm like their biggest fan and their biggest supporter, and yet I've never had an experience. So I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, hey, Steven, if you're

listening to this and you want to get together and go out and do a conscious contact meditation with me, yeah, I seem to have a pretty good track record to help people have experiences though yep, yep, you do you do so anyway? Yeah? I again, yeah, I highly recommend.

I would say, also, you know, to the to the common around, will this usher in disclosure sooner? Sure? I think And this was my position before the movie came out, and it stands my position today. Is that what this movie brings is the possibility for people who

are either like staunchly against the topic or are on the edge of the fringe of being able to, you know, willing to consider that it may be possible if they go see this movie with a friend who is let's call them an initiated, they may come out with a different perspective and it may spawn some additional deep conversation

and they may leave you know, the movie as well as you know, the conversation with their friend with a different viewpoint of the topic. Yeah. I just know, I stayed up most of the night thinking about it and the next day thinking about it, and it is it's a possible path to what disclosure

could actually look out since look like, since we are in the middle of a time of some sort of disclosure. I mean, you know, war dot GUV is releasing a lot of new files and things like that. It's not necessarily disclosure. But the last ten years have we've seen more, yeah,

than we've ever seen you know. Well, that's you know, that's been my argument really over the last probably four years. Anybody who's listening to me on any of our shows or anybody else's shows, is probably tired of hearing it. But because we haven't really defined what disclosure is, how can we really know if

we're you know, how far along towards disclosure we are, because your idea of disclosure may be different than mine. And so until we define it, you know, milestones or something, come together as a community and kind of all agree that this is what disclosure is, then how we can't possibly know if we have achieved it or if we're

still one hundred years away from it. Yeah, I just man, And maybe this is spoilery or not, but the house is that spoiler? What's that. Her dreaming about a house? Yeah? I mean, yeah, it's kind of key to the.

Okay, then I won't I won't talk about it anymore, but I just you know, I brought it up to you that my my own experience involved a house as well. So yeah, very very interesting the way that it was put forward. And also, I don't think this is a spoiler because

it's in the trailer, but your own experience also involved animals, and animals are a key aspect of this movie in the later scenes. So just you know, And I've talked to a lot of experiencers who have also had animals be a key aspect of their experience, So it's like, I would love to talk to whoever the researcher was.

That helps Spielberg pull all this stuff together because it's clear that they spent time either talking to experiencers or at least reading experience or reports. Yeah, him or David kept because you know the writer, the screenwriter. It's like the two of them.

You know, he took He took Spielberg's shorts, not short story, but his his treatment, his idea and turned it into that. It's like I want to know, I want to know the Yeah. So I will say and I don't think this is the spoiler at all. But for me, the breakaway character

that I did not expect to fall, you know, kind of in love with her character as well as what she had to say was Nune. Oh yeah, the. The nun. And she's in the trailer so that's not giving you either,

but yeah, the nun. And I loved that touching on because the biggest thing you always hear in terms of why the government hasn't shown us is that we fear mass panic and that especially with religion, and this touches on that idea of what. What religion would think about it.

And I think it gives a really good response. So yeah, I agree, absolutely agree. I mean even as a non religious person, it gives a really good response. So yep, absolutely so all right. Well thanks for your censored review of Disclosure Data. And

uh again, if you haven't watched it, highly recommend it. You know, if going to the movie theaters, you know, not financially available yet you and wait, but when it comes out for stream or for rent or something, I highly recommend you watch it. Yeah, I highly recommend it as well. All right, well

let's move on to topic number two. Topic number two is the roads UFO photographs. What in tarnations is the roads UFO photographs? And why are we tying it in with disclosure Day. Yeah, well, so it's a couple of things. Number One, it predates Roswell by one day.

Nothing predates Roswell, not even Kenneth Arnold. So and it's really interesting because what was observed flew off towards the east, which would have been in the direction of you know, New Mexico from Phoenix, which is where these were photographed. So basically, you know, the gist of it is is that on July seventh, nineteen forty seven,

William Rhodes, who was a creative. He was a professional musician, He was an amateur photographer. He was a radio operator and an electronics enthusiast. And he was a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, specifically the North Phoenix area. Hey, that was my neck of the hood yep. Late afternoon, July seventh, nineteen forty seven, he kind of hears an unusual noise, so he goes

out in his backyard and looks up in the sky and he sees this gray elliptical object spiraling downward. He estimates it to be around twenty to thirty feet across and traveling around four hundred to six hundred miles per hour. And he says it descended roughly from around five thousand feet down to two thousand feet in a tight spiral.

So he grabs his Kodak Brownie one camera and he takes two photographs, one dream descent and one is the object accelerates upward at a forty five degree angle. And these are among the earliest UFO photographs ever wildly published. Yeah, I mean he contacted the local newspaper the next day and then they ran, you know, his article of his sighting,

including his pictures. And for me, I'll jump in real quick and say for me, anybody who's gone back and listens, listened to the very first episode where I was on the podcast, you know, back when it was just Fear Escape, it was a radio show, you will have known that I give an account of a dream that I had

a week prior to recording the first episode, in which I was standing my grandparents' farm in or front field and this UFO kind of hovered above me in the field. And I always tried to describe this UFO as being kind of oval shaped with like a notch missing out of the back of it. And when I was researching

this case a couple of years ago that you know, somebody had mentioned to me, a friend had mentioned to me, I came across these pictures and I was blown away because the picture that was taken is the exact craft that I saw hovered above me at this tree right. And you know, hopefully we'll have a similar picture, if

not the same thing on the thumbnail. But if you don't, just go to Rhodes. Ufo photographs at Wikipedia. It's right there. I mean, it shows both pictures and I'll phenomenal. Anybody who's watching this on YouTube, I'll be putting up

the images, you know, as part of our discussion. But yeah, if you're listening to this as the audio podcast version, like Steffan said, just google it in there it is. Yep, it's it's it's it's incredible. I mean, it's an incredible picture for nineteen forty seven. And it's what's interesting about it is that it's different than everything else you saw,

because you know, most of those early UFO flying saucer pictures can be hi high plates, yeah, you know, plates or pie pans, but this is something different, yeah, you know, and it's completely different when you when. You actually read the Kenneth Arnald account of what he saw, not the you know, not the the news public you know,

the news publication that named it a flying saucer, where you think it's perfectly round, But when you read the Kenneth Arnald description, it also kind of describes, you know, a craft that is kind of notched in the back. So it's possible even that what Rhodes photographed was the same type of that Candeth Arnald had observed, you know,

in Washington, just a month prior. Yeah, and it's interesting there's that small hole in the middle of it. Yeah, right, it's like, is that a hole or is it a light or you. Know, is it something to do with the propulsion mechanism? You know?

You know, well, I guess we'll probably never know unless it comes back. So one of the really important things I think with this is, like I said, it was, it was viewed in Phoenix, flew off towards the east, and then the very next morning, uh, it's estimated estimated the next morning that the Roswell event occurred. Yeah, so

you know, is this even potentially the craft that crashed in Roswell. Well also so so if you go back starting of course, after Candeth Arnold, there was a lot of other flying saucer objects airborne being sighted and things like that. But what's interesting is that in Arizona.

There was By the second week of July, there were several sightings published as well. On July seventh, there was a story published in the Arizona Republic about a Tempee resident, Francis Howell, who reported seeing a circular object about two feet in diameter floating to the earth near his home. According to Howell, when the approached the object, it slowly

went into the air at a forty five degree angle and headed in the direction of Phoenix. And then on July eighth, the Arizona Republic reported two silvery balls in the skies north of Phoenix. The paper estimated that the objects were to be about twice as large as an airplane. Wow.

And then you add in the roads UFO photographs that were published the very next day. It's just wild. You know, it really starts to paint the picture that you know, there's something about Phoenix. Yep, there's something about Phoenix. And I've always said that.

Yeah, ye. So what's really interesting, it sometimes gets overlooked, is that the Air Force took an interest in Rhodes photos. And the Air Force contacted the newspaper within twenty four hours of the publishing of the article and the photos and requested copies of the photographs. A multi agency investigation was launched, which included the Air Force, several intelligent offices,

and the FBI and the Air Material Command at Wright Patterson. And they gave it a serious inquiry. You know. Investigation began almost immediately and it eventually became a part of Project Grudge. And then later a Project bluebook. If you look up the file on the what is it

the Congress depart of the Library of Congress, Library of Congress, you would look for Incident forty. That's the way it's phrased in the Incident forty and yeah, I mean so the government was very interested in it. On August twenty ninth, nineteen forty seven, there was an interview conducted by a CIIC Special Agent George Fugate Junior an FBI special Agent Brower.

They said that they initially introduced only as representatives of the US government and did not immediately identify themselves, requested Rhodes surrender his photos and negatives. Rhodes turned over his photographs, but he said he didn't have his negatives at home, and so he would deliver them the next day, and he did. He was apparently told that he would likely

not receive these back. But you know, some time later he wrote numerous letters and those are all captured in that Incidant forty file in the Congress Library, requesting his original photos and negatives, and there are many responses from the government, seeing we don't have any record of ever receiving this stuff from you. All we have record of

is receiving the two photos that we got from the Arizona Republic as a part of our initial enquiry. So the question kind of floats around out there is did Rhodes was this same men in black situation where they confiscated his photos and his negatives and it was not necessarily the US government. So, you know, there's a lot

of investigation of the witness, you know, Rhades himself. They look, they started looking at his credit history, his personal life, family background, his political affiliation, uh employment status, what his neighbor's opinions of him were, you know, they wanted to know was he trustworthy, was he patriotic because apparently being patriotic makes you a good UFO witness.

Could he be today? Yeah? Could he be a hoaxer? You know? And neighbors generally described him as intelligent, community minded, and an excellent neighbor. Yet investigators continued searching for reasons to discredit.

Him, of course, of course, so we kind of are. Left with some conflicting conclusions. You know, there is there is a very strong support for the case. Obviously, there's no you know, astronomical explanation because it was daytime you know, it couldn't have been venus. And I don't know if you know this or not, but Phoenix does not have swamps. Yeah,

the similarity to Kenneth Arnold's descriptions were also kind of a keynote for investigation and really one of the most important early UFO cases. But the same reporters also warned that it could have been entirely fabricated. I don't know how you would fabricate the picture that he took, you know, like you said, it's not a pie pane or or

a hubcap. It's not perfectly round. And you know, I think a lot of people call it a question that mcmanville photo because it does kind of look like it could be a hubcap. But you know, this is something, you know, not like anything that's really had been photographed up to this point. You know, they they questioned whether

or not it could be the result of an excitable mind whatever that means correct, and that it basically needed, you know, reinvestigation. You know, the evidence was considered highly compelling. The witness simultaneously viewed h you know, with suspicion as well as credibility, and really this is just sets the stage for that kind of pattern that's repeated throughout UFO history.

So Heinek's assessment when he first got into it was to look at you know, X astronomical explanations, conventional explanations, and when he did, he couldn't come up with any explanation that was evident. Incident forty's placement was placed as a Category three evidence offered no explanation a parent so it was a you know what, what's the the v

the Heinich Valet classification system C three, So you know, Heinech apparently considered this case significant, uh, and it remained unexplained despite the lengthy investigation. So you know, the big mystery today number one. I mean, the mystery of what was it obviously stands. But the bigger kind of mystery of it is is what happened to the negatives and

the photos that the government has no record that they ever received them and cannot you know, it's one thing if they would have written back and said sorry, oops, we destroyed them, right, but their claim is that they never received them. And apparently there was a based on the documents that are reviewed as a part of it

of Incident forty documentation, you know, they spent a lot of resources trying to find these negatives and photos so that they can return them to me. But the last kind of sign off was from Wopelt, which, as you remember, was a big part of the project right as well as Project blue Book, and he just basically claimed that

his office never had them. Yeah, well, and then did you hear the I found two other explanations as well for this, the simplest when being wind blown debris, which, according to Wikipedia says The Air Force stated in a report that it consulted four expert for photographers about the photographs, and they had disagreed

with each other as to the possibility of filming such an occurrence under the conditions described. Considering that the object was gray is described and at a distance of two thousand feet, it seemed unlikely that it would appear pure black on the print. The report also noted that Rhodes referred to himself as the chief of staff of a laboratory,

the specialties of which included photography. Yet the negative was carelessly cut and faultily developed. It was covered with streaks, and over a period of six months, has faded very noticeably. Finally, the report stated that doctor Irving Langmore studied such photographs or these subject photographs, and, after learning of the prior passage of a thunderstorm, discounted the photographed object as being

merely paper swept up by the winds. And in view of the apparent character of the witness, the conclusion by doctor Langmore seems entirely probable. That's that's the wind blown debris. One of my favorite one. Which I mean I have seen out here with the dust devils and thumbs. I've seen them pick and of

course whatever comes, you know, whatever goes up must come down. But the thing for me that makes a distinction is that when it got to two thousand feet, it accelerated it at a forty five degree angle eastward. Wind Blown debris doesn't float down. I mean, it could float down in a spiral, especially if it was in a dust level,

but it doesn't when it gets to the bottom of its arc, then accelerate away at a forty five degree angle. Right, especially you know, considering the other sidings within days of each other, and roswell and all those things. But my favorite, my favorite explanation is the potential hoax of the Soviet craft. So it so is on the same

day that Rhodes claimed to have taken his photographs, it was reported that the FBI was investigating a letter received by the Los Angeles Examiner asserting that the flying discs that had been widely cited. Were atomic powered Soviet craft. The newspaper consulted a top flight atomic scientist, who assessed

the letter as not all nonsense and recommended that it be given to authorities. And one historian argues that Rhodes faked his photographs, using the story of the Soviet craft as a model. He said, the similarities between the images in the Roads photographs and the touted Russian invention are fairly marked.

The alleged Russian. Device was said to be only eighteen inches thick and of a kidney shaped outline with the pilot in the prone position while guiding its flight. Generally this match is rhades U shaped object with a non protruding canopy. Thus it was thus was it an accident that the first

good Saucer photo compared so well with the supposed Communist design. This could confirm the Russian rumor, or it could mean Rhodes faked Historian pictures, since the Soviet missives saw print the same day as the claimed Phoenix UFO flyby. It also could be that people saw this weird thing in this guy and said, it's the Soviets.

You're right, especially back then. I mean, I mean, I know, it's forty seven, so it's really early in the Cold War. I mean, we're just a year or two in, but still it was there. But the thing that wins me over is is I think as a UFO community, most of us pretty much look at Kenneth Arnald as someone

who was telling the truth, right, I'd say so. So, I mean, it's and it's unlikely that he observed a flock Bernold. According to Kenneth Arnold, he was shown the roads photographs and he said that he considered them very authentic. So I don't know, you know, this is a guy that

we're pretty sure saw what he saw, and here's a guy saying that looks like what I saw. So I got a couple of I guess we'll call them discussion questions, if you will. Do you think that photographic evidence still holds value today? No? Why because AI and photoshop and everything else.

I think that at the face value, that the public is expected to react to photographic evidence it doesn't hold value as an investigator though, you know, getting a photo and being able to look at all the metadata, like I can tell you if it's created by AI or if Photoshop was used to edit it. But you know,

as a you know, our our seven second kind of attention spans. These days, no one has the time to to listen to someone explain why a photo is authentic, so they make their snap reaction to it either is or it is it and think it tends to follow on the lines of the people who are believers where

where the the the UFO topic and the the some of the things that come along with it. They almost treat it as like a almost like a faith based thing where you know, uh, they believe it regardless, you know. But then there are people who are skeptical that still see things. I mean, you you and I at Santas,

we share stuff to each other all the time. It's like, what do you think? And you know that we approach things still from a skeptics perspective. But with the vast majority of the people there are seven second times you know attention span, they're not doing that same credible check and so they're either just you know, they're believers and

they're saying, oh, yeah, that's one I saw that, or they're dismissing it all together and moving on. But yeah, you know, people just either they're either going to accept it and like it's like one side of the pendulum or another. It's they're either believers and nothing can come their way that they won't believe, or except or they're

you know, they dismiss everything. You know, who was the biggest believer the roads UFO photographs, No, our buddy Ray Palmer. I don't know if I if that makes me feel good or not. He used these photographs in amazing stories in his Flying Saucers.

I mean he used these over and over and over and over. Even in his magazine Fate he reprinted the photos. He said, this is proof positive that these objects were flying discs of an aeronautical design, unrecognizable by experts. He loved this, and he even used it as evidence in his book The Coming of the Saucers, the one he

wrote with Arnold. So again, I'm not sure that I should be comforted by his enthusiast interest in the pictures, knowing what we know about and great birth. So the other question I have is is, do you think if this same thing happened today in today's climate, do you think it would

be the public reaction would be any different? Right now? I think people are desensitized, so I think they would just say, oh, it's another one, because I don't even think it would make the news. I think it would just make a History Channel special, yeah, you know, and not even a special, it'd be a segment on the

William Shatner one popular right now. Right well, I mean, you know, incident forty, this case was pretty much overlooked for a long time because the Roswell incident happened the very next day and that hit all the papers, and so, you know, only only after the fact that really people started looking at this and realizing, hey,

this was a pretty big case and it deserves its own credible investigation from the public or interest in the public. So I wonder how many of these other cases that are like that that were published in small newspapers. I mean, Arizona Republic wasn't small, but the Republican you know, that were published in small newspapers that never really got their

you know, day in the eye of the public, so to speak, on these experiences or even photographs that people had, right, makes me want to get like a newspapers dot com subscription and just comb through old newspaper to see what else is out there, you know, like John Keo when he was writing his books and people would send him

all these newspaper clippings from all over the country. So yeah, yeah, you can send us links to to sightings and stories. Leave please. You can email us at the Shadow Signal Podcast at gmail dot com, or you can just drop a comment

on you know, our socials on Facebook or YouTube or whatever. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah, turn us on to things that we may not know about, haven't talked about, you know, after doing this for gosh, going on going into our seventh year, we've talked about a lot of things, but I'm sure there's also a lot of cases and things we haven't talked about.

So ye, yeah, I agree. All right, Josh, Well I think we've I mean, we could probably keep talking about this, but it's we've reached our pinnacle about an hour, so I wanted to wrap things up. Yeah. I appreciate all the work done into this, and again

I just want to say to our audience, go see disclosure Day. I'm curious to see what you all think about it. Do it? Do it? Do it? Do it now, do it now. But let's go ahead and get out of here. My friend. We are see we are in June, moving

into July. So we're hitting two hundred and fifty years for America. So should be interesting. Should be the anniversary of Roswell coming up in just like thirteen eighteen days something like that. Yeah, something like that. And the anniversary of the Roads photographs. Yeah, there you go.

Yep. Next year will be uh what seventy or something like that, something like that, eighty. I don't know. I don't matter. I'm a theater major. All right, let's get out of here. Thank you guys so much.

Yeah, thank you guys so much for tuning into the shadow signal. This has been Stephan reminding you to stay in the shadows and listen for the signal. And this has been Josh. The truth is now. Good night. Everybody will see you next month. Good night,