ALIEN: Alien Implants

In 1995, podiatrist and Ufologist Dr. Roger Lier was introduced to two patients who claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials. And both had evidence to prove it – small, seed-sized implants that had been left inside their bodies. Not only did Dr. Lier remove these implants, he sent them to Los Alamos National Laboratories for analysis. And their best scientists confirmed – the foreign objects did not contain materials from earth.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  I want you to imagine something for a moment. It's a cold February night. You're driving home from a friend's house down a dark, winding road. When you see what looks like headlights blocking the street ahead of you. But as you get closer, you realize those lights aren't in front of you. They're above you.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  When you look up, you expect to see the spotlight of a helicopter. Only, the object emitting this light is perfectly silent. You can still hear the trees rattling in the wind. And that light, whatever it's attached to, isn't moving either. It's fixated on you, waiting for you. And then, just like that, it's gone. You check your car radio. Moments ago, it said 11:00 PM. But now it says 1:00 AM. How could that be? How do two hours pass in the blink of an eye? Perhaps you're tired, you think. Let me go home, splash some water on my face, and go to bed.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  You try to forget about it, for months, maybe even years.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  But then, one day, you're at a doctor's appointment. They need some X-rays. They want to take a closer look at that hairline fracture.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  But the images stop the doctors in their tracks. "Do you know you have a tiny, foreign object in your leg?" the doctor asks. "One that seemingly left no scar. One that you can't, for the life of you, remember how it got there." I know this sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. But it's not. Dozens of people have found themselves in scenarios like this after their encounters with UFOs. Which is why we need an entire episode to discuss one very hot-button topic. That aliens might not just be visiting us,

• 2:08Speaker 00

  but experimenting on us as well.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  I'm Ashley Flowers. This is So Supernatural.

• 2:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Welcome back to another wild episode of So Supernatural. I'm Rasha Peque Raro.

• 2:34Yvette Gentile?

  And I'm Yvette Gentile, and today we're diving into one of the most frightening topics within ufology: alien implants.

• 2:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  An abduction experience alone has to be terrifying, but many have also reported feeling watched or followed afterwards. They talk about losing hours of time in just a few seconds, and strange pains and symptoms.

• 2:58Yvette Gentile?

  All things that could technically be explained away, except there are some who have concrete evidence to show for it, like advanced alien technologies that have been inserted into their bodies.

• 3:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Those who've studied these devices think they might be keeping track of human subjects, but others say they might fundamentally change the ways our bodies work, alter our brains, or maybe even give some abductees psychic powers.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect...

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Stop. This is Simply Safe. Police are on the way.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com/truecrime.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 4:06Yvette Gentile?

  Here we go, y'all. Aliens, aliens, and aliens.

• 4:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Obviously. I know we both love all things extraterrestrial, but I've never had an encounter. But Yvette, I remember you telling me about an experience that you had before I was even born.

• 4:23Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, this was in 1976, and it was the year that my grandmother, Jimmy Lee, passed away. And we had driven to Reno to pick up all of her stuff, and then we were going back to LA. So we were in this U-Haul and it was my stepfather, Billy, Mom, and Aunt Dolly. And Aunt Dolly had gotten sick, so we had to pull over to the side in this remote area. And it felt like, you know, I was probably six years old. I don't really know where we were. But it felt like we were near like a open air force base or military base of some kind. And as we got out of the car, you know, everybody was worried about Aunt Dolly.

• 5:04Yvette Gentile?

  But then all of a sudden, something strange happened and I can't put my finger on it because I was so young. But whatever it was, it terrified like everybody. And I remember Billy and Mom saying, "Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car." It was almost like there was these bright lights. I wish I could go back so I could figure out what had actually happened. But I think from that day on, it always left me wondering, what else is out there? Or what else is up there? You know? It was really bizarre.

• 5:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  I feel like a nighttime sighting, like the one you had, Yvette, or even a daytime sighting or a telepathic encounter, that's one thing. But a sudden and paralyzing kidnapping? Well, no matter how cool that flying saucer is in the air, that would be terrifying. For some reason, when we think about alien encounters, we just kind of tend to picture an incredible sighting in the sky. The kind we'd be lucky to stumble upon for ourselves. Something that would leave us with an unmistakable sense of awe. And like you said, Yvette, wondering what else is out there that we just don't know about yet.

• 6:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  But today, we're here to talk about an alien encounter that's far darker and more sinister in nature. The kind that begs the question, what in the world do they want from us and why? Like an alien standing before you in the flesh, taking you up into their spaceship and running all sorts of experiments on you before implanting something into your body.

• 6:43Yvette Gentile?

  It sounds horrific, I mean, no doubt, but if you're thinking it's too far-fetched, think again. Because there aren't just a ton of people who've survived these encounters, there are also plenty of researchers and whistleblowers who've come forward with some shocking information. And it's thanks to one man in particular, a podiatrist named Dr. Roger Lear, that we know a lot more about these alien implants.

• 7:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Roger's fascination with UFOs started in July of 1947 when he was about 12 years old. He was sitting at the dinner table when his father walked in and slapped a newspaper down in front of him. He told Roger the US government had captured a flying saucer.

• 7:29Yvette Gentile?

  The front-page article was referencing the famous Roswell Incident. And y'all, we have talked about Roswell on several different cases, and these stories always tie back to Roswell in one way or another.

• 7:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, Roger could never forget the look on his father's face, how excited he was about the discovery. From that day on, he wanted nothing more than to relive that sense of wonder by finding proof of life on other planets. Roger kept up this passion well into adulthood, and a lot of people respected his opinions about it. I mean, he wasn't just some conspiracy theorist. By most accounts, this was a credible guy. Roger understood science and had even built a successful career around it. For decades, he worked as a podiatrist in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and he spent his career on the cutting edge of medical technology, exploring different ways to use new scientific discoveries to help his patients.

• 8:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  But everything changed for Roger when a friend reached out to him and asked him if he wanted to attend a lecture held by the Mutual UFO Network.

• 8:37Yvette Gentile?

  So we've talked about MUFON before, but if you're new here, MUFON is a group that's all about researching and understanding UFOs. They do their own studies and they also give lectures and classes to the general public.

• 8:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  As you can imagine, Roger was happy to be a plus one and he loved the experience. It was everything he'd been looking for. A community that was scientific and had a well-researched approach to UFOs and aliens. So Roger quickly became a regular at MUFON's classes and lectures. And eventually, he joined the organization himself.

• 9:14Yvette Gentile?

  Fast forward to June of 1995, when Roger's 60 years old, still working in podiatry and still going to different MUFON seminars. And around that time, Roger learned there's going to be a huge UFO conference in Los Angeles. He agrees to go as a representative of the group, knowing it will be a great opportunity to learn from other enthusiasts. But what he didn't expect was for this conference to change the course of his life.

• 9:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  That was all thanks to one attendee named Daryl Sims. Daryl was an expert on alien abductions and he was there selling books and other memorabilia. But he had something else at his table, something very unique. A bunch of X-rays from a handful of different people. Roger began browsing the display and there was one X-ray in particular that caught his eye. An image of someone's foot with two little metal shards inside. Almost like someone had inserted something into the flesh. Roger asked about it and Daryl said the X-rays came from a woman he knew. He also claimed this woman had these images taken after an alien abduction experience.

• 10:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  So according to Daryl, the woman barely remembered anything. She just remembered that it felt like some kind of procedure. So he handed Roger a copy of her medical records. And when Roger flipped through them, they looked totally legit. Like, real doctors' names, and nothing seemed forged or suspicious. So if this was all a hoax, it was a really convincing one. Plus, right there, in black and white, the note said this person had never gotten foot surgery. And yet, her x-rays bore all the signs of a previous operation. An operation that no hospital ever recorded or requested. And all of this felt really strange to Roger, who, again, was a podiatrist.

• 11:14Yvette Gentile?

  Daryl said the woman still had the implant in her foot to that day. And she wanted to get it removed. But the procedure was way too expensive, and she didn't have health insurance to help cover it. And that's when Roger realized seeing this x-ray at this seminar wasn't a coincidence. It was fate. For years, he'd been looking for hard evidence that aliens were real. And here it was, right in front of him. So Roger asked Daryl if there was any way he could put him in touch with the woman. He was willing to remove these objects from her foot for free. And Daryl was more than happy to introduce them. He knew she would be thrilled about Roger's offer.

• 11:58Yvette Gentile?

  But Roger didn't have to stop with her. Daryl knew of several other people who had the same experience. If Roger was open to it, he was sure they would want to meet him, too. And Roger didn't hesitate. He said, of course, he'd help. So shortly after, Daryl called Roger with another contact. A second person who wanted to have their implant removed.

• 12:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  But there was one catch. And it was kind of a big one. This patient had something implanted in his hand. Roger was a podiatrist, not a hand specialist. But that didn't matter. He needed to know what was really going on. So he decided to put together a team. He called up a hand specialist that he knew, brought in a few trusted nurses and operating room professionals, and a film crew to record the procedures. Because Roger knew that if what he was about to uncover was real, it could change the world.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect... Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 13:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  I fell in love with Chime watching my beloved WNBA Portland Fire play this season because Chime is their VIP sponsor. A bank who supports women's sports instills confidence in my eyes. Most of us picked a bank when we were 16, got used to random monthly charges, overdraft penalties, and minimum balance requirements, and just accepted it as a part of life. But life adds up fast. That is where Chime comes in. Chime is completely changing the way people bank. Chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking with no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and no minimum balance fees. Plus, you get 5% cash back on your Chime card in a category of your choice.

• 14:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/supernatural. That is chime.com/supernatural. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chimes Bank Partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 14:48Yvette Gentile?

  On August 19th, 1995, Dr. Roger Lear had scheduled two surgeries. First, he'd be removing two implants from the foot of Daryl's initial contact. Then he would assist with a second, removing an implant from another man's hand. And a video crew would be standing by to capture it all. Roger was operating at his own private practice just outside of Los Angeles, and by mid-afternoon, everything was set up and ready to go. Now, it was just a matter of getting the abductees under the knife.

• 15:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Roger's first patient was a woman named Patricia. She lived in rural Texas alongside her husband and their two sons, and she was convinced that she'd been abducted by aliens. Not just once, but multiple times. And it didn't seem to matter where she was. Whether she was at home or on vacation, they always found her. The first encounter was back in 1969, when she was just about 23 years old. But Patricia's memories of this abduction were honestly kind of a mess, like her mind was trying to block out whatever happened. While she didn't remember much, she did remember where it took place, by an old Civil War site while she was on a camping trip with her family.

• 16:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  That night, they set up their tent, lit a campfire, and were winding down after dark. Her kids were playing with flashlights when they spotted something strange overhead. A light, one that was way too bright to be a normal star. And when the boys flashed their lights at it, it blinked back at them, almost like it was trying to say something.

• 16:27Yvette Gentile?

  Patricia was more worried about the kids' bedtime than anything, so she told them to pack it in for the night, and then she cozied up in her sleeping bag and dozed off herself. But later that evening, her husband woke her up in a panic. He claimed he'd seen something lurking near their campsite. He didn't get a good look at it, but whatever it was, it terrified him. So Patricia woke the children and loaded them into the car. They drove off in the middle of the night, leaving all their things behind. But as they were racing down the road, they saw more lights, and these seemed to be following the car, getting closer and closer. Then, a second later, the lights just disappeared.

• 17:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  At least it felt like it was only a second later. But Patricia noticed that suddenly, the car was facing the opposite direction. So when her husband hit the gas again, he ended up driving back toward the campsite rather than away from it. He was too freaked out to realize what was happening or to turn around. He just kept speeding until their tents came back into view. That's when Patricia saw that their campfire had burnt out. Even though there should have been enough wood to last all night, it was like hours had passed in the blink of an eye.

• 17:44Yvette Gentile?

  Then a year later or so in 1970, Patricia has another similar encounter. This time, she wakes up around 3:00 AM and sees a strange green light shining into her bedroom. She's frickin terrified. She starts screaming, but somehow, her husband just sleeps through her cries. Which felt impossible. I mean, it's almost like something was preventing him from waking up. She tries to run away, but that's when she realizes she's paralyzed. She couldn't move at all. Then, in an instant, Patricia found herself in an unfamiliar room. Again, she had no recollection of how she made it there from her bed.

• 18:28Yvette Gentile?

  But this time around, she's strapped to some kind of table in what appeared to be a laboratory. The area was full of machinery that she didn't recognize or understand. And the next thing she knew, she was back in her bed with her husband at her side.

• 18:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Not long after that second encounter, Patricia went to the doctor for something completely unrelated. A splinter in her foot. But when the x-rays came back, they revealed something she never expected. Two metal implants embedded under her skin. There was no doubt in her mind, these implants were a direct result of her alien encounters. She didn't know exactly when they'd been placed there, but she was determined to get them out as soon as possible.

• 19:16Yvette Gentile?

  And I'm guessing that's how she eventually connected with Daryl. He was well-known for his research into alien abductees and UFOs. So he might have seemed like the only person who could help her.

• 19:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  And that's probably how the second patient, a man named Peter, found Daryl too. Because he had a very similar story. Peter was six years old when he had his own bizarre encounter, and this was back in 1954. He remembers waking up in the middle of the night and feeling like he wasn't in control of his own body. He gets up, walks out of his room, and goes outside. And there, he watches as a bright light descends from the sky. It was so blinding that he couldn't make out many details. Only that it was a sphere, and it was making some sort of hissing sound. This glowing ball of light lands about eighteen feet from him.

• 20:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  And as he stares, it just spins around at these impossible speeds. Finally, Peter starts regaining control of his body and runs away. As far as Peter remembers, he never went into the light or boarded any kind of ship. But as he was booking it back into his house, he did feel a sharp pain in his left hand. Now, I have no idea if he told his parents about what happened to him that night. But 11 years later, in 1965, seventeen-year-old Peter has another encounter with a UFO. This time, it flies right over his car one night while he's on a trip with some friends. At first, they just assumed it was a plane, but something about it felt off.

• 20:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  So Peter and his friends decided to follow it, whatever it was, to get a better look. But this thing wasn't moving like any plane they'd ever seen. It was darting around and weaving through the sky. At one point, it even hovered right over their car. And then, out of nowhere, Peter and his friends were completely frozen. They couldn't move, they couldn't speak, they couldn't even drive. It was like someone hit pause on the entire world. Even the plants around them went completely still, until the craft finally moved on.

• 21:30Yvette Gentile?

  Again, Peter didn't have any memory of ever setting foot on an alien craft, let alone undergoing any type of surgery. But years later, in 1971, he was getting a medical exam when his doctor noticed something had been implanted in his hand. The problem was, they couldn't figure out what it was, or how it got there.

• 21:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  So now, finally, in 1995, Roger and his colleagues were going to give Peter and Patricia the answers they'd been waiting for. Not only was Roger going to remove the implants, he also ordered all kinds of tests to try and figure out what these things were made of. But getting Patricia's first implant out was way harder than Roger expected. What should have been a super quick procedure dragged on for nearly an hour. The implant was barely visible, even though the x-ray made it seem like it should have been really easy to find. And just as Roger was getting close to it, Patricia actually started to wake up. His team had to up the anesthesia before they could finally remove the strange object from her foot.

• 22:37Yvette Gentile?

  At first glance, they couldn't tell what this thing was made out of. It didn't seem to be metal. In fact, it was surrounded by some kind of coating or casing that looked like biological flesh. But at the same time, it was also gray and shiny. And when Roger tried to cut it, the thing did not give to his blade at all. It was basically indestructible.

• 23:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  And remember, Patricia's x-rays didn't just show one implant, it showed two. They showed up in the original scans and in the new ones Roger ordered right before her surgery. But when Roger tried to remove the second one, he couldn't find it. He looked at the x-ray, then went back to the foot. He cut into the area where it should have been, but nothing was there. So they adjusted her foot and tried again. Roger started to wonder if maybe the x-ray had thrown them off, like if it had captured her foot at a weird angle. And that made the implant seem like it was somewhere it wasn't. So they repositioned Patricia and tried again. This time, he found it. And get this, it was near her toe.

• 23:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  But when he pulled it out, it wasn't anything like the first implant. This one was about the size and shape of a pumpkin seed, but with strange, tendril-like strands coming out of it. They sealed both implants in specimen jars to examine later. Then it was time for Peter's operation.

• 24:08Yvette Gentile?

  Only his was tricky too. Just like Patricia's, they had a hard time finding the implant. When they first cut into Peter's hand, there was nothing there. They even double-checked the x-ray to make sure they were looking at the right area. It took a while before Roger and his team finally found the implant. And when they did, they removed an object that looked similar to the pumpkin seed one from Patricia's toe.

• 24:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  Roger couldn't make sense of these things. He didn't know what they were, what they were supposed to do, what they were made of, anything. So he sent them to the Los Alamos National Laboratories, hoping they could make sense of them.

• 24:47Yvette Gentile?

  And y'all, this is a big deal. We're talking about a major, government-run facility that's always on the cutting edge of scientific research. This is literally the very place where the first atomic bomb was designed. But Los Alamos also had a deal with a UFO researching group, one of MUFON's partners. So they agreed to do tests on different materials and technology that could potentially be alien. Roger's research fit the bill to a T. And if anyone could help get these people some answers, it was them.

• 25:25Rasha Pecoraro?

  But when the results came back, their technicians were absolutely baffled. Los Alamos told Roger that these three implants were made of a blend of a bunch of different common elements. Think iron, copper, aluminum, and calcium, as well as small amounts of rare elements like ruthenium. There were 11 different elements total, but it wasn't the same blend for each implant. They were all made up of a slightly different collection of materials. Here's the other wild thing. The combinations of the materials in these implants, well, they're pretty rare here on Earth, but they're super common in meteorites.

• 26:06Yvette Gentile?

  Roger was stunned. In his mind, this was proof that implants must have come from space. From there on out, he built a whole career out of removing implants from alien abductees. Each time he performed a surgery, he wrote an article about it or did a press interview. Soon, he was pretty famous for the operations, at least in the UFO circles. And it wasn't long before people started writing him letters and approaching him at all the different conferences. Abductees from all over were coming out of the woodwork, begging him to remove their implants, too. In total, he performed surgeries like this

• 26:46Yvette Gentile?

  on 17 different patients. And Roger continued this work for 19 years, right up until he died in 2014.

• 26:56Rasha Pecoraro?

  I actually want to take a second to talk about Roger's death, because honestly, the circumstances around it feel pretty strange to me. At the time, ironically, he was actually dealing with some foot issues of his own, so he checked himself into the hospital. Everything seemed fine. A little while after he got settled into his room, Roger got up to use the bathroom. Right there in the hallway, he had a heart attack. He collapsed and died. In a hospital, surrounded by doctors, and somehow, no one could save him. I mean, come on!

• 27:31Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, in fairness, Roger was almost 80 years old. And we haven't mentioned this, but during our research for this episode, we learned that he also had a chronic health condition. So it's not that hard to believe that he'd have a sudden fatal heart attack. In fact, he was in very poor health for years before his death. But he pushed through it to perform his life's work, removing as many implants as possible.

• 28:00Yvette Gentile?

  Before his death, Roger and his final patient even agreed to participate in a full-length documentary. It covered their journey before, during, and after the operation. This doc is called Patient 17. Like the other abductees, the film's subject only had hazy memories of his alien encounters. He knew the incidents began back when he was a child years ago, and that over the course of several nights, strange beings had come into his bedroom when he was trying to sleep. At first, Patient 17 was frozen or paralyzed during these encounters. But then, like Peter, he regained control of his body.

• 28:43Yvette Gentile?

  But unlike Peter, Patient 17 fought back against the creatures. That was all he remembered, though. He suspected the aliens must have erased his memory. The patient also didn't remember them implanting anything in his leg, and like the others, the implant was a seed-shaped device surrounded by flesh, and its origins didn't seem to come from Earth.

• 29:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  But Patient 17's journey wasn't over even after the implant was removed. He just couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been horribly violated. The patient didn't know what the aliens wanted from him, but he still felt "used", "objectified." During the documentary, he explained, quote, "We don't have control over any of this. We're just being herded like cattle and tagged, and who knows what they're doing."

• 29:38Yvette Gentile?

  Patient 17, like so many survivors, still doesn't know why. Why have they been chosen, and what did these aliens want from them? Which is why they keep searching for answers. And recently, someone else has been looking into their cases, namely, the US government.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables. It's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 30:36Yvette Gentile?

  A lot of what we know about alien implants today comes from a man you might have heard of before, especially if you've been following the UFO-UAP congressional hearings in the US. His name is Luis Elizondo, and he's a very accomplished, respected, former government employee. In the early 2000s, he worked as an intelligence officer for the US military. He was very focused on the war on terror, which was going full speed ahead at the time. So Luis spent a lot of time in Afghanistan studying terrorist groups and handling extremely high-stakes, high-pressure situations.

• 31:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  But one day in 2009, Luis got called into a meeting with someone from the Department of Defense. His colleague, James Lakatsky, who, by the way, was a literal rocket scientist, wanted to talk about a job opening. But James was being weirdly vague about what the job actually was. Then halfway through the conversation, he suddenly asked, "What do you think about UFOs?" But Luis honestly hadn't paid them much attention. To him, UFOs weren't a national security threat, so they weren't worth his time. After Luis made a dismissive comment, James simply replied, quote, "Don't let your own personal bias get the best of you, because what you learn here may challenge any preconceived notions."

• 32:05Yvette Gentile?

  As it turned out, this job opening was for a particular government program. It allegedly recovered downed UFOs, collected technology from the crash sites, and reverse engineered it. This is all wild, but if you want to learn more about reverse engineering, go give our episode on Hangar 18 a listen because it'll explain a lot. While Luis remained skeptical, he still accepted the job. Then he rose through the ranks until he was ultimately running the division.

• 32:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's worth mentioning that the Department of Defense has publicly announced that Luis was never a part of this program. According to them, he didn't even work for it, let alone run it. They also say that this division doesn't have anything to do with UFOs.

• 32:53Yvette Gentile?

  But when Luis wrote his autobiography years later, the Department of Defense demanded to read it before it could be published, and they redacted huge chunks of it. So you gotta wonder, if Luis was making all of this up, why bother censoring him? To me, it sounds like the Department of Defense wasn't telling the whole story. It reminds me of everything we just covered on our recent Apollo 20 episode. I mean, as we know, government officials can be experts at disinformation.

• 33:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  1,000%. And let the record show, I totally believe Luis. He said he was with the program for eight years, until 2017. And during that time, he saw wild, unexplainable things. Wrecks with advanced technology that didn't seem like it originated on Earth, and bodies that seemed human-like but weren't actually human.

• 33:52Yvette Gentile?

  Then one day, Luis got a call informing him there'd been a wave of abductions. Many of the victims were in the military, and after the encounters, many of these enlistees have found strange things in their bodies: alleged alien implants. On one occasion, Luis actually got to speak to the doctors who performed one of these surgeries, and he got to see the implant they extracted. He heard how each time they got close enough to grab it, the frickin' thing moved. I don't mean they were bumping it or pushing it around. I mean the implant was moving on its own.

• 34:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  And in Luis's opinion, there was an intelligence to this movement. He thought this tiny piece of metal somehow knew the doctors were trying to remove it. So it was burrowing deeper and darting around to prevent them from getting at it. Even when they did finally remove it from the host, the object was still wriggling around on the medical tray. One of the doctors put it on a slide and stuck it under a microscope. But then, a sense of horror washed over him, and he freaked out. He got a feeling that this whole situation was not right. He couldn't even stand to look at the thing. The good news was Luis had a lot of experience with alien technology by this point.

• 35:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  So he examined the implant for himself. Luis thought it looked like a microchip, except it had a biological casing, like if microchips could grow their own flesh. And the object was about as wide as a knuckle.

• 35:33Yvette Gentile?

  It's wild how many parallels there are between Luis's story and Roger's accounts. Because both men saw the implants somehow evade the doctors who wanted to remove them. And you remember how difficult it was for Roger to get the devices out of his patient's hand and foot. Because Roger had also noted that the implants appeared to be coated in a flesh-like casing.

• 35:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  And that wasn't the only thing their patients had in common. Turns out, UFO researchers have noticed a weird pattern in abductees. They tend to love salty foods. Like if you put a bowl of popcorn or potato chips in front of them, they literally can't resist it.

• 36:14Yvette Gentile?

  And we're not just talking about a love for salty snacks. Because y'all, if that's the case, I'm definitely guilty as charged.

• 36:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  Nope, we're talking about an insatiable desire for salt. One that's way beyond your snack cravings or mine. Some even reported routinely dumping a ton of salt on their meals, way more than normal. Plus, whenever these people get surgery, they have odd, unexpected reactions to anesthesia. Sometimes they need way higher doses than usual, like what happened with Patricia. Other times, they have allergic reactions, even if they've never had an anesthesia allergy before. And a lot of them have an irregularity in their brains. One region that's slightly larger than average, it's called the caudate putamen.

• 37:04Yvette Gentile?

  This region is in the middle of the brain. It's responsible for a lot of different things, including muscle movement, which is pretty interesting, given how many abductees say they can't move during their alien encounters. It makes you wonder if extraterrestrials are intentionally doing something to that part of their brain.

• 37:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  And remember how Peter and Patient 17 seem to gain some kind of resistance to the paralysis? They were abducted again and again, until finally, they were able to move enough to run away or fight back. Maybe if Peter or Patient 17 had larger caudate putamens than the average person, they also had some kind of immunity.

• 37:46Yvette Gentile?

  Or, if you're really into conspiracy theories and paranormal research, you might know that this region is important for another reason. It's said that people with an enlarged caudate putamen tend to have psychic abilities. This is especially true among those who can perform a feat called "remote viewing." That's when people can allegedly see and hear things that are happening in far-off places, by transporting their consciousness. Just imagine this, if you were sitting in your bedroom and able to spy on a conversation that's happening in the next house over, even with the doors shut and the blinds closed.

• 38:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or even better, imagine sitting in an army base in the United States and being able to watch and hear Russian generals talking about their plans on the other side of the world.

• 38:38Yvette Gentile?

  Needless to say, remote viewing could have massive military implications, assuming anyone actually has that ability. That may be why the CIA studied remote viewing and other psychic abilities in a program that ran from 1972 to 1995. It changed its name a bunch of times over the years, but these days, most people know it as Project Stargate. If you want to learn more about Stargate, Ashley did a whole deep dive episode on it. We'll drop a link to it in the show notes for this episode. But it's worth mentioning that Luis Elizondo claims to have been trained on remote viewing during his time with the government.

• 39:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Ultimately, the Stargate scientists determined that remote viewing doesn't work. At least, that's what they said officially.

• 39:31Yvette Gentile?

  But one part of that story has been verified and corroborated. Those Project Stargate tests really did happen. The CIA truly was interested in learning about remote viewing. And I've got to imagine visitors from other planets might also be interested in human beings with remote viewing capabilities, or anyone with psychic abilities for that matter. It's said that people with an enlarged caudate putamen tend to attract UFOs.

• 40:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or maybe these people started off with a normal-sized caudate putamen, and somehow, the implants made that brain region grow.

• 40:13Yvette Gentile?

  If that's true, maybe these extraterrestrials are trying to trigger psychic abilities in their subjects. So the question becomes, why are they giving us these powers? It's hard to believe that they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. After all, these abductions and implantations are traumatic for so many of those who've gone through them.

• 40:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  I mean, I keep thinking about what Patient 17 said in that documentary. He felt like he was being herded like a cow. Almost like he and other abductees were nothing more than livestock in the eyes of these aliens.

• 40:49Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, that's exactly how tag and release programs work. There are plenty of programs that study animals by catching them and placing a tracker in them before releasing them back into the wild. This, as we know, helps researchers follow their migration patterns, track their population size, you know, that sort of thing. Even big wild animals like lions can be chipped and released, and then scientists can monitor their every move from afar.

• 41:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which I'm sure is terrifying for them, especially when they don't understand why. But even if you and I aren't on board with this kind of thing, it's helpful to remember that researchers only track and tag animals because they want to help them. So as the eternal optimist that I am, I have to say it. Maybe the aliens want to help us too. Maybe they're giving us some type of psychic abilities so we can become a better version of ourselves.

• 41:45Yvette Gentile?

  I think that is the best-case scenario for sure. But for now, it seems the answers we need are just out of our reach. Locked away in repressed memories, buried so deep in our psyche.

• 41:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or hidden in mysterious advanced machinery lurking just under the skin.

• 42:15Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at @SoSupernaturalPod and visit our website at so-supernaturalpodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all-new episode. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

• 42:40Speaker 03

  I've been having a hard time trying to explain what Midnight Burger is. How about I let them give it a shot?

• 42:46Speaker 05

  Your podcast is amazing.

• 42:47Speaker 06

  It's such an amazing show altogether. You guys have actively ruined all other audio dramas for me.

• 42:53Speaker 07

  You can't get people to understand the humaning that happens in this damn show.

• 42:57Speaker 06

  Keep doing what you're doing, because it's awesome. You might not think it, but you are far more important than you realize. Thank you.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  At the nexus of all things, there is a diner. Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app, or just go to weopenat6.com.