The Nevada Triangle

25,000 square miles. 2000 missing people and planes. Failures from the largest search and rescue missions in history. The arid region between Las Vegas, Reno, and Fresno sees roughly 3 disappearances a month. It’s called The Nevada Triangle, and Bermuda’s got nothing on this. Keep up with Conspiracy Theories! Instagram: @theconspiracypodTikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@conspiracy.pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Octubre 2008. Preston Morrow and his dog are hiking near Mammoth Lakes, California. Looking up the beautiful mountain trail, they spot something odd: a wad of $100 bills. Preston counts $1,000. Next to it, ID cards, all belonging to Steve Fawcett. Preston tries to return his find. Maybe this Steve Fawcett guy is nearby. On second thought, the name actually sounds familiar, but Preston doesn't find any local hikers with that name. He tells the authorities, "They say Steve Fawcett vanished a year ago without a trace,

• 0:51Speaker 00

  until now." Fawcett's disappearance made headlines. He set off for a leisurely solo flight in Nevada and never returned. The largest search mission in United States history couldn't find him. But after Preston found the IDs, a new search recovered pieces of Fawcett's plane and even two bones. Why weren't they found before? It's not like authorities didn't scour this area. They flew over it 20 times. The answer may lie in the location. A metaphysical conundrum where 2,000 people, hikers and pilots, vanished into thin air.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Sometimes, like with Fawcett, evidence suddenly pops back into existence. The ones that remain missing, however? They may be trapped in Area 51, the land of the dead, or even in a time warp, all of which are said to be within the Nevada Triangle. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We'd love to hear from you, so if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. Stay with us.

• 2:17Speaker 00

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• 4:01Speaker 00

  September 3, 2007. Steve Fawcett entered his sleek, single-engine plane, the Belanca Super Decathlon, the aircraft equivalent to a millionaire's Bugatti. Billionaire, in Fawcett's case. When the 63-year-old wasn't making a fortune in finance, he ruled the skies. He was the first to complete a solo global flight around the world in a balloon. Then he was the first to do it in a plane without stopping to refuel. In February 2006, Guinness awarded him another record, the world's longest non-stop flight. That one wasn't easy.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  He flew non-stop for 76 hours, only sleeping for 10 minutes at a time. During the nearly 26,400 mile flight, not only did his fuel tank leak, but his ventilation system broke. He unexpectedly had to burn through his water supply to cope with the resulting 130-degree cockpit. During landing, the plane's tires burst hitting the runway, but Steve still walked out of the aircraft, safe and sound. Suffice it to say, once Steve was in the sky, he fought immeasurable odds to stay there. Despite his skill, he usually wore his Breitling Emergency Watch while flying.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  It's a consumer wristwatch that contains a small transmitter that can pinpoint your location in the case of, say, a plane crash. But on this fateful September day, he did not wear his watch. He likely didn't think he'd need the Breitling for this flight. It wasn't one of his death-defying stunts. It was just a short jaunt, setting out from a Nevada airstrip and circling the Sierra Nevada Mountains. According to his wife, it was his equivalent of a Sunday drive. He was expected to return to the takeoff site by 11:00 a.m. However, by about noon, the airstrip crew began to worry. Fawcett took off six hours ago,

• 6:07Speaker 00

  and his plane only had a flight endurance of five hours. Where was he? The Civil Air Patrol was called in to do a search. They're a civilian offshoot of the military that handles aircraft emergencies. The airstrip crew likely only called them as a precaution. This was Steve Fawcett after all. He knew the limitations of his small flyer. He probably got carried away with his joyride, noticed the plane was nearing its limit, and landed to refuel. The thing is, no one received any kind of message from Steve. Even though he didn't have his emergency watch, his plane should have sent a distress signal.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  So there was nothing saying he was in danger, but nothing saying he was safe. And the rescue mission didn't bring any answers. Soon, hundreds of volunteers and officials joined the cause, high and low across the Sierra Nevada mountains, an area double the size of New Jersey, a massive investigation. In fact, this routine flight did manage to break a record like his others. According to the San Diego Air and Space Museum, it resulted in the largest air and ground search in American history. And yet, Fawcett was nowhere to be found. He just vanished.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  The weirdest part is, this wasn't unheard of. In fact, during the Fawcett search, rescue teams discovered eight planes that nobody knew even crashed. It doesn't stop there. Those eight planes, Fawcett, they're just a fraction of the disappearances around here. In an area that spans Vegas, Reno, and Fresno, 2,000 planes and people have gone missing, which is why this area has become known as the infamous Nevada Triangle. Now, you may be rolling your eyes, "Oh, what's the Nevada Triangle? The Timu version of the Bermuda Triangle?" I know, I did too.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  But believe it or not, Bermuda's Pythagorean theorem has nothing on Nevada's. The Bermuda Triangle, which, by the way, when I was a kid, I thought this was like the scariest place in the world. I didn't know if it was real or magical. And it's an area spanning Puerto Rico, Florida, and of course Bermuda, and it is probably the most infamous stretch of ocean. According to some counts, about 20 planes and 50 boats have disappeared in its vortex since the 1800s. Those 2,000 Nevada Triangle disappearances, those all happened in the last 60 years, about three a month. And that's just what we're aware of. Remember those eight crashed planes that weren't reported until the search for Fawcett?

• 9:01Speaker 00

  There could be more out there. Speaking of, those eight aircraft prove that Fawcett's rescue team conducted a thorough search. They sifted through the Sierras' rugged mountains, terrain, wildlife, and didn't find him. On October 2nd, about a month after he vanished, the search was called off. About six months later, Fawcett was declared dead by a Chicago court, a victim of the Nevada Triangle. But he wasn't lost forever, at least, well, a small part of him wasn't. A year after Fawcett vanished, hiker Preston Morrow stumbled across Fawcett's ID and a wad of hundred-dollar bills in the Sierras. He's the hiker from the beginning of the episode.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  The hiker's discovery initiated another search. Soon, pieces of Fawcett's plane and two large human bones were found. The bones were tested and matched Fawcett's DNA. The rest of his body, though, was still lost. As for why he crashed... The National Transportation Safety Board inspected the wreckage and found no signs of mechanical issues. So the crash was likely due to the Sierras' notoriously high winds pulling Steve into a mountain. He would've died on impact. Mystery solved. But not quite. People question the discovery.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Fawcett's plane was found only 65 miles away from his takeoff site. Again, this is the man that flew more than 26,000 miles in a single flight through an electrical failure, through turbulence that almost broke his plane apart. The man knew how to get himself out of trouble. Plus, why were pieces of his clothes, cash, and ID scattered? Shouldn't they have remained in the wreckage? Some say the rest of his body was dragged away by animals. I guess they also took the cash and IDs out of his wallet and sprinkled them around the mountain? The plane itself was found somewhat intact, but in no way whole, with no signs of a fire

• 11:13Speaker 00

  that would supposedly burn away the missing pieces. So, what, the animals also dismantled the plane? I feel like you would need opposable thumbs for that. The whole thing just didn't add up. But for the Nevada Triangle, Steve Fawcett's tragedy is just the tip of the iceberg. Because like we said, he's one of 2,000. To name a few, there's Lieutenant Leonard C. Leiden's military plane in 1941, then a B-24 bomber in 1943 called the Lucky Lee, along with one of the rescue planes looking for it. Lieutenant David Steves in 1957, Charles Ogul in 1964, Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 in 1969, Major Ross E.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Mulher in 1986, the list goes on. And some of these disappearances are even more unexplainable than Fawcett's. Let's revisit Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 in February 1969. It was transporting 32 passengers from Nevada back to California. The round-trip flight was specifically for high rollers, hence the plane's nickname, "The Gambler's Special." Midway through the short flight, the plane's communications dropped. It had vanished. Rescue teams searched the Sierra Nevada Mountains through hail and rain. According to some accounts, these weather conditions caused two rescue aircraft to crash. Five rescuers even died.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Six months passed before the wreckage was finally found on the top of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the Sierras. Like with Fawcett, an investigation revealed no aircraft malfunctions. Let's go back even further to July 2nd, 1957. A man walked up to a campsite in California's Kings Canyon National Park. He was disheveled, a bit gaunt. He told campers his name was Lieutenant David Steves. The odd thing is, 23-year-old Lieutenant David Steves was supposed to be dead.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  Fifty-four days earlier, his T-33 training jet left Hamilton Air Force Base and disappeared. The military searched for him and his plane, but they came up empty. So they mailed his mother a death certificate. But now that he was suddenly back and alive, David recounted his story. During his last flight, part of his plane exploded out of nowhere. Luckily, he ejected himself before it fell out of the skies. Unluckily, when he landed, he sprained both his ankles. With no way to call for help, Steve's had to crawl throughout King's Canyon for 15 days.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  He found an abandoned cabin with some leftover food and hunting supplies. Thanks to those, he was able to survive until he was strong enough to leave and find those campers. A heroic tale that the US Air Force found fishy. When David's plane never turned up, they accused him of selling it to enemy forces. Now, due to a lack of proof, he was never charged. However, he was forever deemed a traitor. He spent the rest of his life looking for the T-33 wreckage to clear his name until he died in 1965 in a plane crash.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Steve's might still be considered a traitor if it weren't for some Boy Scouts in 1977. They found his cockpit while hiking around King's Canyon. Now, that's just the cockpit. As for the rest of the plane? We couldn't find any reports that it was ever found or identified. Now, one more while we're at it, even stranger than the last. In 1941, Lieutenant Leonard C. Lyden was flying over the Nevada Triangle. A malfunction compelled him to parachute out of his aircraft. As he soared down to safety, he watched his plane go down into King's Canyon National Park.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  He knew where it landed, but when he or officials went to that spot to retrieve the plane, it was gone. Never to be seen again. So these aircraft either disappeared for years, like Steve Fawcett's plane, or they vanished for good. Now, sure, maybe animals could have dragged Fawcett's remains around the Nevada Triangle, but they probably wouldn't do that with crashed planes. They can't exactly eat metal. So where do all of these disappeared planes go? Why do some suddenly appear even after thorough and professional searches deem them lost?

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Some believe it's because smaller aircraft can't handle the area's high winds. Extremely high winds. Up to 400 miles per hour. One professor at the Desert Research Institute has said, quote, "Trying to fly over the Nevada Triangle in a small plane is like trying to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel." And once they crash, the mountains and wild vegetation essentially hide the planes from rescuers. However, that explanation is a bit too convenient. It doesn't explain why experienced daredevil pilots like Fawcett can't seem to escape. Plus, what about the military men?

• 16:50Speaker 00

  They were in advanced fighter jets, not small hobbyist aircraft. And then there's the Nevada Triangle's neighbor throwing a wrinkle into any logical explanation. Area 51.

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• 18:08Speaker 00

  The Nevada Triangle is a 25,000-square-mile zone marked by the cities Fresno, Las Vegas, and Reno. Within it are vast, rugged, beautiful terrains like the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite, and Kings Canyon National Parks. Scattered across these landmarks is something just as jaw-dropping, but for the wrong reasons. 2,000 mysterious disappearances and plane crashes. And that number may be a bit conservative. Though, is it the triangle's fault? Or are these planes actually being brought down by something else? Like whatever lies in Area 51.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Since the Nevada Triangle isn't an official set of coordinates, Area 51 is either next to it or within it, depending on who you ask. In either case, the association can't be ignored. Officially, Area 51 opened in 1955. During the Cold War, the US needed a testing facility for spy planes. The roughly 39,000 acres in southern Nevada fit the bill. Large enough for takeoff lanes, good weather all year long, and, most importantly, remote. No one would see what they were up to. And today, Area 51 remains a military aircraft training site.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  Officially. What actually happens inside Area 51 has fueled decades of sci-fi stories and past episodes of this podcast. We do know that they've tested surveillance planes, nuclear weapons, and even reverse-engineered captured Soviet planes, all to keep America one step ahead of its enemies. To achieve that step, secrecy is necessary. So Area 51 is a no-fly zone. Anyone who did fly over might see what the military was working on and spill the beans. Now, Steve Fawcett's plane was found about 100 miles from Area 51.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  What if Fawcett accidentally got too close and saw too much? Would Area 51 officials have taken action against him? Well, terrifyingly, Area 51 may have the legal right to do so. By 2007, the time of Fawcett's disappearance, two presidential decrees seem to give Area 51 carte blanche. President Bill Clinton exempted Area 51, quote, "from any federal, state, interstate, or local provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information."

• 21:04Speaker 00

  In September 2003, a memorandum from President George Bush Jr. stated that Area 51 is free from "the subject of litigation from any applicable requirement for the disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location." That was a mouthful. Basically, the men at Area 51 don't have to answer to law enforcement if they do something illegal to keep their secrets. Now, on its surface, this all seems to be relating to disposing hazardous waste and chemicals from military experiments. However, if you're conspiracy-minded,

• 21:48Speaker 00

  you may wonder how far that law can be stretched. How far can they go to keep a secret?

• 21:57Speaker 00

  That said, despite its secrecy, Area 51 isn't a place that anyone could unknowingly enter. You don't take a wrong turn and suddenly see military secrets. The surrounding land is filled with warnings not to get too close. They even have road sensors that detect metal objects coming towards it, i.e. your car. But let's say you're filled with curiosity and decide to check it out. The base is heavily guarded. The second you get even remotely close, helicopters and white trucks will appear, watching you from a distance. They hope the sight of them is enough to intimidate you to turn around. For most, they probably do.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  If you don't heed that warning, well, then you may find yourself being interrogated by armed guards. Best get on your way at that point. All of that, however, is if you're on land. According to writer Caitlin Johnson, a rogue plane flew over Area 51 in 2009. The Air Force noticed and reportedly chased the intruder for four hours until they landed safely. It's unclear what happened after that. I assume a real strict talking to. And there's also the case of Gabriel Zeifman in 2020. Intrigued by military Air Force bases, Zeifman requested special permission to fly to Area

• 23:27Speaker 00

  51. A bold ask for a civilian pilot. I can imagine the conversation. "Hey, can I see the super secretive Air Force base?" "Why?" "I think it's just cool." Yeah, so his request was denied, but Zeifman went looking anyway. Technically, he stayed in public airspace. He flew along the restricted area's border. Armed with a camera, a zoom lens, and bravery, he snapped aerial photos of Area 51. He even posted them online, on Reddit. If you do a quick Google, you can find his Google Drive link containing 346 photos. While it mostly looks like boring buildings, there are a few odd craters.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  You'd think that Ziefman would have been punished, abducted in a parking lot by angry CIA agents with a bag over his head. But as far as we can tell, he didn't receive any legal repercussions. The point is, Ziefman and the 2009 rogue pilot weren't shot down just for getting close to Area 51. So why would the missing Nevada Triangle planes be any different? Well, maybe we're just looking at times Area 51 was being nice. Around October 2014, a YouTuber named Kenny Veitch left a comment on a video about Area 51.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  He wrote about finding "an odd cave in the Mojave Desert near the notorious base." He called it "The M Cave," since its entrance resembled the letter. Now, Kenny was an experienced desert hiker who'd explored caves before. But the M Cave was different. When he approached, his body vibrated, an overwhelming sense of fear washed over him. Kenny ran away from the M Cave without getting any proof of it, which is important, because other commenters responded with one of the internet's favorite phrases: "Pix, or it didn't happen."

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Egged on, Kenny and his vlogging camera went back to the Mojave Desert. Kenny retraced his steps to the vibrating cave, detailing the adventure with wide-eyed positivity. He then uploaded the hike to YouTube on October 18, 2014. Yet, to the viewers' dismay, the video ends with him unable to find it. It just wasn't there. If you watch Kenny's videos, you can sense his overwhelming, good-natured spirit. I'm sure he was disappointed to let his viewers down, so he promised to go back and try again. His followers were excited, hoping they could see this mysterious cave.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  But one user wasn't as excited. In a now-deleted comment, they wrote, quote, "No, do not go back there. If you find that cave entrance, don't go in. If you do, you won't get out." It's unknown if Kenny saw this ominous comment. If he did, he may have brushed it aside as a troll. In either case, in November 2014, he set out to find the M Cave once again. But a new M Cave video was never posted, because Kenny was never seen again. Search teams, tracker dogs, a helicopter, all stops were pulled to find Kenny,

• 27:07Speaker 00

  but the dogs couldn't even find his scent. No trace of an animal attack, or any kind of foul play either. Kenny simply vanished. The theories about what happened to Kenny are vast. Maybe he purposely went off-grid? Maybe he ran out of water and died from thirst? Or maybe he stumbled into Area 51 and paid the price? Some people believe Area 51 may have entrances disguised as caves throughout the desert. Remember those white trucks that suddenly appear out of nowhere if you get too close? Well, maybe they come out through the caves.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  If you're watching the video, you'll see what some people think is evidence of hidden caves. Now, we do know that Area 51 employees don't just walk through a door into work. Many take Janet Airlines, a private military air service that takes employees in Vegas to the base. Some believe the name stands for "Just Another Non-existent Terminal" or "Joint Air Network for Employee Transportation." According to the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame, it was actually named after an Area 51 commander's wife. And get this: after official search teams failed to find Kenny, civilians that followed the mystery online started their own investigation.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  A YouTuber named Sean retraced Kenny's steps, and shockingly, Sean may have actually found the cave, except the M-shaped entrance was filled in by rocks.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Here's the thing. Kenny's final video, where he can't find the M cave, shows this same cave filled with rocks. Going off Sean's video, some people think Kenny did find the M cave again. He just didn't recognize it, because the entrance was blocked off. And here's what's even weirder. In Sean's video, when he's near this cave, his stomach turns. He's nauseous. He vomits, as if he's experiencing the same weird vibration Kenny reported. Now, these symptoms align with carbon monoxide exposure. There could be a natural vent

• 29:35Speaker 00

  in visibly leaking carbon monoxide or other toxic gases in this area. But that's not the only explanation. Because it's a known fact that the military has weapons that can invisibly impact the human body. For example, the Active Denial System, or ADS. It's a non-lethal heat wave used to deter people from locations. Reportedly, if you're in its approximately seven football field shooting radius, an encompassing heat, like an oven, will attack your nerve receptors. There are also infrasound weapons that, while perceivably silent,

• 30:18Speaker 00

  use frequencies that attack our inner ear. This can cause nausea and other symptoms, similar to what Kenny and Sean felt. So if Kenny found a secret entrance to Area 51, maybe he ignored the physiological responses from the deterrent system. His body went into shock, and it killed him. Or worse, since he was sharing the information online and wasn't deterred by the defense system, maybe those presidential orders I mentioned earlier gave officials permission to stop him. Permanently. Now, the government's number-one mission is supposed to be to keep Americans safe. But the truth is,

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Area 51's perimeter is lined with signs saying point-blank that deadly force is authorized for trespassers.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  And at least one person saw that firsthand.

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• 32:22Speaker 00

  On January 18th, 2019, Nikilo Dwayne Graves reportedly approached an Area 51 checkpoint and asked the guards if there was a gas station nearby. When the guards told him he needed to leave the property, Graves replied, "What if I don't?" Then he drove through the checkpoint. The county sheriff's office chased after him, and they're the ones in charge of protecting that particular spot. After eight miles, Graves ended the car chase. He stopped, exited his car, and was shot dead by the sheriff. In a wrongful death suit, Graves' mother insisted he may not have even known why he

• 33:06Speaker 00

  was being chased. As of 2025, no verdict has been publicly announced.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  We know that Graves did not have a weapon, and his car was low on gas. Was he really trying to storm the secret base unarmed in a car running on empty? Or was this road rage gone wrong? It doesn't seem like the guards asked questions before they fired. And maybe they didn't ask questions if YouTuber Kenny Veach got a little too close to Area 51. Or if aviator Steve Fawcett was flying overhead. Though, in Kenny's case, there's another theory. The caves he went exploring may lead to somewhere even more elusive than a military base:

• 33:58Speaker 00

  the land of the dead. You see, there's a Paiute legend surrounding Death Valley. Yes, that's the California desert, not Nevada, but stay with me. The tale talks of a widowed chief who missed his late wife so much, he decided to try to bring her back from the afterlife. With the help of spirit guides, he found a large underground cave system that led him to Nirvana. He entered the afterlife to find a city with meadows, a dance hall, and a princess. She warned him, to bring his wife back to the land of the living, they'd both have to run out of the spirit world without looking back.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Once the chief found his wife, they rushed to the cave between worlds, but the chief looked back. Suddenly, the city and his wife vanished. He was alone. He later recounted the journey to his tribe, and named the afterlife Shin'Alav, roughly translated to Ghostland. It's a myth, but not everyone thinks so. During the 1920s to 40s, modern accounts of an underground Death Valley city started to emerge. One man digging a mineshaft claimed he fell into it after the ground gave way. He saw catacombs adorned with gold,

• 35:28Speaker 00

  and eight-foot-tall mummies in modern leather suits.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Other people reported similar caves and some even encountered living people speaking an unknown language. The tunnels reportedly stretched across Death Valley and into other parts of Nevada, into the Nevada Triangle. A few expeditions were launched, but nothing could be entirely confirmed. Still, there's a chance Kenny and others who went missing in the Nevada Triangle found this underground society. And either they decided to stay there or weren't allowed to come back.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  But there's one more explanation for why the people who disappear into the Nevada Triangle are so hard to find. And why those eight planes were found before anyone even knew they were missing. The planes weren't hidden by rocks or vegetation,

• 36:31Speaker 00

  but by time itself. I'm sorry, what was that Carter? Well, bear with me here. It sounds wild, but some of these dots really connect. Okay, so back in November 1989, a Las Vegas news station aired an interview that changed UFO lore forever. Scientist Bob Lazar claimed to have worked in a secret Area 51 lab. This lab, S4, reportedly housed nine flying saucers from outer space. His job was to reverse engineer these craft. Take its advanced technology, figure out how it worked, and implement it into US planes.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  We previously covered some of this in our episodes on reverse engineering, but here's what you need to know in relation to the Nevada Triangle. The technology Lazar worked with included extraterrestrial propulsion systems. According to Lazar, flying saucers didn't use jet engines to soar through air currents like our planes do. Instead, they used some kind of anti-gravity reactor. It literally bent spacetime and, in effect, our reality. Rather than the UFO traveling to a destination, it brought the destination to the UFO.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  It's the reason why UFOs reportedly seem to travel at extreme speeds, making turns and maneuvers that our aircraft can't. They're not just zipping around, they're making the area zip to them. It sounds like science fiction, but spacetime distortion is a real field of scientific study. It comes from Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Essentially, spacetime distortions are all about how the gravity of massive objects—planets, black holes, etc—affect the fabric of our reality.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  They literally warp space around it, causing anything close to it to move faster. But to do this, the objects need to be, well, like we said, massive. Which is why the engines on Lazar's spacecraft are so remarkable. They're small in size, but can affect spacetime like a planet. And Bob Lazar was reportedly working on these spacetime distortion engines in the 80s. Assuming this is true, it's possible the technology has significantly advanced by now. Perhaps to the point that it accidentally—or intentionally—zaps nearby aircraft through spacetime.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  That's why Area 51 employees have to arrive by a special airline, and why Steve Fawcett's ID and plane appeared years after the area was thoroughly searched.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Now, some people accuse Bob Lazar of, hmm, well, making everything up. And his stories are hard to prove. But he's not the only person reporting potential spacetime warps in the area. There are multiple accounts on the other end of the Nevada Triangle, in Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is a beautiful wilderness area, about 1,200 square miles of famous waterfalls, giant trees, and mountains over 13,000 feet, almost as high as Colorado's famous 14ers, and plenty of areas for people to go missing.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  One of the most well-documented disappearances in Yosemite is the case of Jean Hesselschwirt. In 1995, she and her boyfriend were on a hike and split off to different trails. This was the last time her boyfriend saw her alive. When he went back to meet up with her, she wasn't there. Or anywhere. A massive search ensued. Like Kenny, search dogs were unable to pick up Jean's scent. She was gone. Until, months later, when fishermen saw a body floating down one of Yosemite's creeks. It was Jean.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  The thing is, this was three miles away from where she disappeared. In an area that was inaccessible for amateur hikers like her, no one understood how her body got there. One park spokesperson even said that the creek is fairly choked with debris. So it didn't make sense for the water to carry her to this spot. And, bear with me here, because the explanation that's been offered gets, um, weird. Hikers in Yosemite report seeing something big in the skies. Something that doesn't belong. Not a UFO, but a large, winged creature. Something that looks remarkably like... A pterodactyl.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Yep, I said it.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  In the documentary Mysteries at the National Parks, researcher Jonathan Whitcomb suggested that a pterodactyl slipped through time, picked up Jean, and then dropped her into the hard-to-hike area, killing her. And theorists think she's not the only victim. Their creature could cause the plane crashes, too. If 2022's Jurassic World dominion is any indication, a pterodactyl could attack a plane's engines, sending it into the mountainside. Now, that's Hollywood, but if we're accepting a time-travelling dinosaur, well, the theory's going full sci-fi.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  I mean, dinosaurs attacking planes, slipping into our timeline and picking hikers off like prey, aircraft sliding through the doors of time, disappearing from the modern day, then snapping back into it later. Well, probably, not likely. But then what happened to Jean? What happened to Steve Fawcett? Something strange is happening. Something that causes people or their planes to vanish in one location and reappear after a couple of years in another, even though those areas were thoroughly searched. The dots are a bit out there, but you have to admit, they line up as well as anything else.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  At the end of the day, the Nevada Triangle is a bizarre, dangerous area that even the most experienced people never come out of. Maybe a supernatural, time-travelling, alien-fuelled explanation brings comfort to the ones left behind. Because some people, like Lieutenant Steves, do reappear alive and well after falling victim to the odd vortex. The evidence that something paranormal is going on, something that they can potentially survive, is better than them being lost forever in a terrible accident. And if you're fascinated by these strange metaphysical mysteries,

• 43:58Speaker 00

  you may be compelled to investigate. But be careful. Remember, on average, three people a month go missing in the Nevada Triangle. And if someone as experienced as Steve Fawcett couldn't survive...

• 44:14Speaker 00

  What chance do you have?

• 44:20Speaker 00

  Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram @TheConspiracyPod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. For more information on Yosemite National Park and time slips, amongst the many sources we used, we found the documentary Mysteries at the National Parks extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  This episode was written by Brandon Rizzuto, edited by Maggie Admire and Pete Ritchie, researched by Maggie Admire and Brandon Rizzuto, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video edited, and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.