r/HighStrangeness • • 20d ago

AMA Multi-Subreddit LIVESTREAM AMA — Dr. Jim Segala, Paul Hynek, and Host Leslie Kean — Sunday, October 4, 2026 @ 1:00 PM ET / 10 AM PT

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14 Upvotes

Multi-Subreddit LIVESTREAM AMA — Dr. Jim Segala, Paul Hynek, and Host Leslie Kean — Sunday, October 4, 2026 @ 1:00 PM ET / 10 AM PT

The Anomalous Coalition - the moderators of r/Aliens, r/Experiencers, r/HighStrangeness, r/InterdimensionalNHI, r/UFOB, and r/UFOs - are excited to announce our next multi-subreddit livestream AMA featuring physicist Dr. Jim Segala and Paul Hynek, hosted by investigative journalist Leslie Kean. Heads up: this one is on a Sunday!

This conversation is about citizen science in support of experiencers, built on objective data. Paul's father, astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, joined the Air Force's UFO studies in 1948 as a skeptic. Over two decades of Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, the caliber of the witnesses changed his mind. In 1973 he founded the Center for UFO Studies so people could report what they saw without fear. Paul is carrying that forward with what he calls a verifiable evidence protocol, so experiencers can have better conversations with scientists. Jim is building the tools to gather that evidence. His platform, MUPAS Worldwide, pairs environmental and biometric sensor data with experiencers' own accounts, and offers peer support from specialists who are experiencers themselves.

What's a "verifiable evidence protocol"? Paul and his brother Joel, an Academy Award-winning visual effects artist, are developing a protocol that sits on top of their father's Close Encounter system and rates the evidence from an encounter, not just the encounter itself. Today most people report an experience after the fact. Paul's idea is to go in prepared: if you meet an entity that seems to have far superior intelligence, ask it for something no human could know but anyone can check later, like a random number only you know, the answer to an unsolved math problem, or a near-future event. The results are rated as convincing, compelling, or curious. Paul says it applies to any "meta-terrestrial" encounter, whether with a craft, an entity, or in an altered state, and he describes it as a work in progress.

🗓️ When: Sunday, October 4, 2026 — 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT
📺 Livestream (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/live/uVpKDXAZtFc?si=9zNGruIvSM5gpRb0
🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/theanomalousc
🎮 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theanomalouscoalition

How to Participate

To help us organize questions across multiple communities, we gather them in advance:
✅ Please keep it to ONE question per comment.
✅ Want to ask more than one? Make separate comments (one question each).
✅ Keep it succinct if you can. Short, focused questions are easier to read aloud on the stream, so we can fit more of them in.
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Participating subreddits include: r/Aliens, r/Experiencers, r/HighStrangeness, r/InterdimensionalNHI, r/UFOB, r/UFOs, and r/AnomalousCoalition.
We will be providing a written transcript after the event has concluded as well as a summary for the community within a few days. Any feedback or suggestions for process improvement please go to r/AnomalousCoalition.

Short Bios

Dr. Jim Segala
Physicist, engineer, and Chief Scientist of MUPAS Worldwide. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and has more than 30 years of experience designing advanced experimental systems, including over a decade as a senior researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin. His current research focuses on the reported medical and physiological effects of human contact with UAP. He has appeared in Season 1 of History's The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, Nat Geo's UFOs: Investigating the Unknown, and Discovery's Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.
MUPAS Worldwide: https://www.mupas-worldwide.com/

Paul Hynek
Son of astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, scientific consultant to the Air Force's Project Blue Book, founder of the Center for UFO Studies, and creator of the "Close Encounters" classification. With his brother Joel, Paul is developing a verifiable evidence protocol that builds on his father's Close Encounter scale, to help experiencers bring scientists evidence they can evaluate. He is a Wharton MBA, an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, and a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He and Joel also consulted on History's Project Blue Book. He wrote the foreword to the reissue of his father's The UFO Experience and is the author of the upcoming Signalarity: Consciousness Comes Home. As of early 2025, he was Chairman of the Advisory Board of MUFON and CFO of the Hollywood Disclosure Alliance.

Leslie Kean (Host)
Investigative journalist and author known for high-credibility reporting on UAP and other anomalous topics; bestselling author of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. See more at https://www.lesliekean.com

Recommended Reading / Listening / Watching

Dr. Jim Segala

Paul Hynek

IN CASE YOU MISSED OUR PREVIOUS AMA'S ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS

Watch all of our past events on our never-monetized channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAnomalousCoalition

Drop your questions below — ONE question per comment, and keep it short if you can!


r/HighStrangeness • • 2h ago

Simulation The lunar wave. Did anyone else record it

89 Upvotes

Yes someone else did I remember Crow777 on youtube did. What is this phenomena? Why does it look like digital. Do you think the moon could be fake and why would it be? I have seen many "oh gosh there are two moons!" videos in the past and the second moon always looked blurry or rather dark for its phase. What is going on here?


r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Fringe Science They're trying to warn us!

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819 Upvotes

​

One of the most famous and talked about crop circles to ever exist was the crop circle that was formed in a wheat field in Roundway Hill, Wiltshire, UK on July 23 2011.

This crop circle clearly depicts the chemical structure of the melatonin molecule. See link and image attached.

This isn't a coincidence, this is the exact chemical structure of melatonin, like, it's exactly how scientists depict the molecule. Every atom perfectly fits the structure of the melatonin molecule including the indole ring and the ethylacetamide side chain. It's literally a textbook depiction of the melatonin molecule.

When cultivating wheat crops, it is common practice to use a herbicide called glyphosate (commonly known as roundup) to kill weeds. It's also a very common practice to use a technique called crop desiccation to ensure the whole crop dies at the same time so it is uniformly ready to harvest without wasting any of the wheat. These techniques leave us with glyphosate residue in most of the wheat we consume.

Glyphosate was designed to inhibit the shikimate pathway in plants. That's how it works. But we also have the shikimate pathway in our gut microbiome. When we're exposed to glyphosate, it essentially disrupts the shikimate pathway. In humans, when the shikimate pathway is inhibited in our gut, it prevents us from being able to produce tryptophan efficiently like we usually would.

It just so happens that tryptophan is vital for making melatonin, and also serotonin. The shikimate pathway is one of the main ways we're able to get these neurochemicals into our bodies.

Melatonin is a hormone molecule that is absolutely necessary to have inside the human body, It's not only the neurochemical responsible for sleep, but it also regulates the body's ability regulate oxidative stress and cellular repair since melatonin is the body's primary mitochondrial antioxidant.

Just think about the irony of this:

A flawless chemical blueprint of melatonin—the molecule responsible for human sleep, circadian rhythm, and cellular repair, was physically stamped into a wheat field. And that exact crop is routinely treated with glyphosate, a chemical scientifically proven to disrupt the biological pathways we need to create that very same molecule.

I don't think this is a coincidence that they showed us this specific chemical structure inside a field that commonly uses glyphosate. It can't be a coincidence.


r/HighStrangeness • • 22h ago

Personal Experience I used to see smoke

34 Upvotes

When I was in college, around 19–21, I became interested in meditation. It only lasted about a month because I would always end up feeling scared and becoming extremely sensitive to sounds and my surroundings. I’d get startled easily by noises, and I’d sometimes feel like something was there with me, watching me or simply sharing the space, even though I was completely alone.

Then, something even stranger started happening. I began seeing what looked like faint white smoke coming out of my skin, mostly from my palms. Sometimes it was barely visible, while other times it was more noticeable. Imagine the smoke that comes off a freshly blown-out matchstick, except much fainter and quicker to disappear. I had to really focus to see it. I would just sit there watching the smoke seemingly come out of my skin and slowly fade away. It was such a strange thing to witness.

This happened multiple times until I eventually stopped meditating altogether. It just became too scary for me. I never experienced the smoke again after that.


r/HighStrangeness • • 17h ago

Discussion How you ever thought about the sheer impossibility for yours or I's existence?

9 Upvotes

For you or I to exist based on scientific theory, we had to basically roll a dice with a number that's basically impossible for us to imagine. We had to do this over the course of 4 billion years. dating back to the primordial soup eras of life. Components for life had to come together in very specific formations at very specific times. When our great, great, great, great+ ancestors were just single celled organisms, even they had to reproduce with the right organism to eventually create us.

You are perceiving the world as you are now, from your point of view, out of your eye balls and reading this post with your brain. You are not your brother, sister, or friend. You are you. For you to be "you" just from the odds of the conception of your parents is infinitely small. The right sperm had to fertilize the right egg in two VERY specific individuals. One pregnancy can produce an infinite number of possibilities as mutations and chromosome distribution are random. You had a 1 in an incomprehensibly large number chance of being "you" from just your mother's and father's pregnancy. This also was dependent on your mother and father meeting.

A woman goes through between 300 and 500 eggs in her lifetime. A man goes through between 525 million and 1 trillion spermcells in his lifetime. For you to be born, a very specific sperm had to fertilize a very specific egg, had to undergo VERY specific genetic mutations while you were developing. Not only that, it had to be with a very specific two people. (your mother and father) for you to be a conscious person reading this reddit post right now.

Now you need to extrapolate that information over literally 4 billion years. Before the first single celled organisms even evolve. Specific single-celled organisms had to be created through the primordial soup that preceded all life, they had to be made in a very specific way. Those single celled organisms evolved over millions of years, reproducing with specific other single celled organisms and rolling the specific genes to create the earliest human ancestor.

Then those early human ancestors had to mate with specific humans, at very specific times, and the mutations had to form for your specific great, great, great+ ancestor to be born. Each chain in this event that culminated in you as an individual had to be perfect. A specific ancestor had to meet another specific ancestors and had to reproduce an ancestor with a very specific gene sequence of which there are a nigh-infinite number of between two people. If any one of these variables failed over billions of years, you would not exist. And you also just happen to exist at a pivotal and notable moment in human history.

Your existence is basically impossible by the way science explains it. This is an inarguable fact. I'm not saying our existence is necessarily esoteric or supernatural, it could be something we're missing without understanding of how human life is conceptualized or a misunderstanding of what consciousness is altogether.

You existence basically depends on the same odds of winning the powerball 1,000,000 times in a row, for billions of years without ever failing, and even losing one of those tickets (a specific ancestor not meeting a specific ancestor, an ancestor dying early, an ancestor having even one wrong genetic variable via conception) would mean you never exist. Yet here you are.

Whenever you shuffle a deck of cards, you're likely getting a unique deck no one has ever gotten before. A lot of people will use this as evidence that your existence is nothing special. However, when you extrapolate that across 4 billion years with trillions of decks of cards - with a nearly infinite number of cards in the deck - needing to be shuffled in the right order - it's very obvious that there's something missing from our understanding on how people come to exist. Whether that's esoteric or a scientific misunderstanding, I think that's up for debate.

But you or I should not be here. That's an inarguable fact. If any one single event in this chain spanning billion of years had gone any differently. You would not be you.


r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Cryptozoology Montana's Lost Cave of Dragon Bones

124 Upvotes

An 1894 tale of an impossible fossil skeleton leads down a rabbit hole of actual miners, a mysterious cavern, an underground river, and a forgotten geyser in The Treasure State's limestone hills.

Hardy's Dragon ©2026 American Strangeness (Artist: Bat Sada)

By Kevin J. Guhl / American Strangeness

Eighty feet below the Montana frontier sky, prospector J. P. Hardy squeezed down the narrow corridor of natural limestone and found his way blocked by rocky debris, washed down from the crater above. His fingers scrambled at stones and dirt, shoveling pebbled limestone and parched dust in fans of filth past his elbows. As the opening gaped wider, Hardy sucked in his breath and yanked himself into the gulf of blackness on the other side. He sensed he had entered a spacious void and was able to stand. Hardy lit a candle and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the meager light. He stood in a vast underground cavern. It was lined with natural columns, formed by water dripping through limestone and extending gracefully from floor and ceiling. Hardy cautiously wove through the pale stalagmites, moving a few hundred yards deeper into the seemingly endless cavern. The flickering flame illuminated what appeared to be a line of white barrel hoops standing upright, extending into the darkness farther than his one candle could shed its rays. Hardy's mind assembled the parts of what he was seeing, and he soon realized he was standing amidst one of the grandest sights ever beheld by him or anyone else. Lying there within that glorious cavern was the petrified skeleton of an enormous reptile, perfect in every detail from head to tail... the silent remains of a dragon.

This isn't a passage from some knock-off Jules Verne novel from the 19th century. It was a discovery reported as fact in a Montana newspaper in 1894. The setting, a hopeful little mining community named Townsend. And Mr. Hardy, candle wax dripping down his fingers, flame and shadow painting the outlines of an impossible beast, had just wandered into... American Strangeness.

As told in the June 29, 1894 Townsend Messenger, Hardy was a well-known miner who had ventured up into the mountains about five miles west of town the previous week, hoping to uncover valuable minerals. There he encountered a curious, circular hole in the solid limestone that was about three feet in diameter with an unknown depth. The opening was known by Townsend's prospecting crowd and had long been regarded as the crater of a prehistoric geyser. Hardy had dared to enter the crater and navigate the narrow tunnel that led to the massive cavern. He now stood there, taking careful note of the sprawling skeleton before him:

"The bones of the head showed plainly that the monster was well equipped for aggressive warfare. Curved fangs hinged to the upper jaw, eighteen inches long, lay in place in what was once a huge mouth, which could open easily four feet, judging from the articulation. The monster lay in a nearly straight line, and Mr. Hardy found upon pacing it off that it measured upwards of 120 feet. About fifty feet from the head lay a number of bones that appeared to belong to the skeleton and which Mr. Hardy concluded were the remains of wings. Further examination disclosed the presence of legs though only one of these was in good condition. "

After returning to town, Hardy consulted Judge Weston, a self-educated expert on prehistoric animals and fossils. Weston, in startling fashion, proclaimed that the remains represented "probably the only perfect specimen of a Dragon in existence." Aside from the judge, Hardy attempted to keep the story quiet and protect his find, but word trickled out. He received an offer of $20,000 for the skeleton, but stated he would accept nothing less than $50,000. The Smithsonian Institution was informed of the find and a representative was expected to arrive in Townsend within a few days. The Messenger, reporting on the discovery, opined, "We think that Townsend should not permit this wonder to be sold, but should purchase it and keep it in its present form on free exhibition. Who will move in the matter?"

Let us pause and consider the sheer size of Hardy's dragon. If intended to represent a prehistoric flying reptile, the creature's reported dimensions bear little resemblance to any pterosaur presently known to science. The Messenger claimed that the skeleton measured more than 120 feet from head to tail. By comparison, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, from Late Cretaceous Texas and regarded as the largest known pterosaur (and largest flying organism ever known), had a reconstructed wingspan of about 32 feet and stood roughly as tall as a giraffe. Montana's own pterosaur record offers a considerably smaller comparison. Infernodrakon hastacollis, an azhdarchid recently identified from the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana, is known from a single neck vertebra and has been classified as a medium-sized member of the group. Thus, nothing presently known in the pterosaur fossil record suggests a flying reptile approaching the extraordinary dimensions attributed to the Townsend “Dragon.”

Life restoration of Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Artwork by Jfstudiospaleoart, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

So, is this yet another tall tale of the Wild West, one more entry in the late 19th century newspaper genre of "American Dragons" that included the likes of the Tombstone Thunderbird, the Salt Lake Dragon and the Elizabeth Lake Monster (all of which I've written about previously)? Or could there have been some degree of reality to this fantastic yarn? You might be surprised to learn that this story is constructed on a foundation of truth.

Joseph P. Hardy was born in 1862 in Wisconsin and resided for several years in Bozeman before moving to Townsend in the 1890s. He and his wife, Tillie, resided there for 28 years, becoming beloved members of the community. Joseph and Tillie shared the same birthday (Oct. 14, 1862) but Tillie would live to be 103, affectionately called "Granny" by townsfolk. Hardy was a prominent entrepreneur in Townsend, operating two ranches, partnering in the Townsend Land and Livestock Co., owning several properties in Deep Creek, and eventually opening the town's first silent movie theater. His nickname was "Boss" Hardy because, according to the Townsend Star, "he always had a deliberate conclusion how things ought to be arranged and his close associates never cared to interfere with his ideas because they were always good ones." Tillie was a practical nurse who operated a maternity ward in their home. Hardy also held a sustained interest in mining, one of his claims being the gold and quartz-producing Black Hank Mine. In fact, Hardy was planning a trip to tour a mine with a friend on the morning he died suddenly in 1921 following a bout of pneumonia.

Judge James R. Weston, dinosaur expert, was born in Onondaga County, New York in 1824 and graduated medical school in 1846. Moving to Bolivar, New York the following year, Weston worked as a doctor, opened a drug store, served as postmaster, and engaged in other mercantile pursuits during his 12 years in the town. An adventurous spirit then took hold and, in 1863, Weston and his wife, Adelaid, joined a train of 70 wagons bound for Montana. Weston was chosen as captain of the expedition. Once out west, he prospected in Bannack and Last Chance Gulch for a time before operating a hotel in Diamond City. He then relocated to Radersburg and finally moved to Townsend in 1883, where he opened another drug store. Weston was a 32nd degree Mason and served as Grand Master of the jurisdiction at the time the first Masonic Temple was dedicated in Helena, serving as master of ceremonies. Upon his death in 1904, the Townsend Star eulogized Weston as "eccentric in disposition, fearless in thought and expressions, and tireless in his efforts to assist a friend."

The so-called "geyser" in the limestone hills was described in detail by the Townsend Tranchant newspaper on May 1, 1889, five years before the dragon story emerged. The reporter wrote of spending a few days in the Thompson district, "situated just east of Indian Creek in the picturesque limestone hills just opposite on the west and in sight of Townsend." They traveled six miles in a Concord stagecoach over a smooth trail via Raymond's Ferry and across Radersburg Road. A switch-off on the right led them up through the scenic "Geyser Canyon" and on to their destination of the cabin and works of the "Old Faithful" iron mine. There, manager I. N. (Naylor) Thompson—who made a name for himself mining silver in the same district in 1882 (arriving around 1877)—was leading a force of men prying iron ore from the site.

Wrote the Tranchant, "Anyone visiting this mine will miss a genuine curiosity if they fail to visit the defunct geyser which is situated about 350 yards east of the mine along on the same hillside, and which consists of a regular circular crater, leading down from which to a depth of 85 feet is a smoothly worn, round hole through nearly solid rock, about the size of a flour barrel, at the bottom of which is a 10x12 nearly square chamber, leading off from the east side of which is a ten-inch hole evidently running through into another larger chamber, and all showing that at one period there had been an active, first-class flowing geyser for many years in operation. The main shaft, or nozzle, of this now mute wonder was descended by means of a rope several years ago by Mr. Thompson and a companion, who furnish the particulars of what is underground—the balance being plainly visible from the surface." This account dovetails remarkably with the structure of the geyser shaft described by Hardy, who perhaps explored a previously inaccessible larger chamber. It is unclear if he had permission from Thompson to do this.

Another curiosity in the Thompson district noted by the Tranchant reporter was "the wonderful 'Paint-pot,' a shaft sunk upon a big vein and many tons of pure ochre or mineral paint of a useful color, thrown out." It was located very near the geyser, with both features discovered by Thompson around 1876. The miner claimed that a Native American chief had taken a liking to him and showed him the Paint-pot, claiming "it was the source of [paint] supply for all the Indians West of the Mississippi River, and had been for centuries." Thompson learned that Indigenous people traveled thousands of miles for this paint, which they used to decorate themselves while on the warpath. He noted that trails led from the paint mine out in all directions, supporting the assertion that this was a central destination. Indeed, Townsend residents would cart home the ore, pound it into powder and mix it with linseed oil to create fence paint, producing a few different colors such as "a rich old gold" and maroon. 

While the Paint-Pot might seem like a colorful story, it's not as implausible as it may sound. Naturally occurring deposits of ochre have long been commercially mined for use in the manufacture of paints and pigments. Ochre consists of earthy forms of the iron oxides hematite and limonite, often mixed with clay. Hematite generally produces red ochres, while limonite produces yellow or brown varieties. 

Thompson and his team completed the tedious and expensive job of opening a cut into the Old Faithful mine by the end of May 1889. But it paid off, as they uncovered an immense body of good iron ore and began rapidly removing and hauling the lode to cars for shipment.

In 1894, the Townsend Messenger described Thompson as "that veteran old timer and prince of Good Fellows... whom everybody knows and likes." The paper jocularly added, "In those early days Naylor did not possess his present circumference; you see he had not lost sight—[of] his feet, and bid them an eternal fare-well..." Thompson partnered in business with Weston, the pair signing a contract in October 1895 to pump water away from workers sinking a well for fire prevention purposes in Townsend. Thompson was also a mining partner of Hardy's, the men having located and claimed the "Hopeful" quartz lode on June 24, 1894.

The Townsend Messenger continued its coverage of the geyser cavern and its petrified "dragon" skeleton almost a month later on Jul. 20, 1894. There is no mention of a visit from the Smithsonian, and the massive bones seem strangely like an afterthought. The focus is more on the business potential of the cavern itself, perhaps unsurprising when you consider the mining entrepreneurs involved.

According to the Messenger, Hardy invited well-known and trusted mining expert Angus McQueen to visit the "Geyser" and view "the wonderful skeleton of a dragon that is lying in the upper cave." McQueen told the newspaper, "If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed there could have ever existed such a monster as that; the fact is I did not want to go at first to see it but Hardy insisted so much that I could not refuse."

Yet strangely, the dragon was not what Hardy most wanted McQueen to see. After viewing the skeleton, Hardy urged McQueen to follow him as there was something else he wanted to show him. Hardy led the way behind what appeared to be a "petrified waterfall" and into a passage that seemed to have been recently enlarged. They walked the passage a short distance until arriving at a hole similar to the one above, from which hung a rope ladder. The men climbed the ladder down about 50 feet to an inclined floor, which they followed about 40 yards until entering a chamber. It was much larger than the one above but different, having a smooth, sandy floor. Through it ran a river of black, silent water which Hardy stated was 30 feet deep and 55 feet across.

"'There,' said Hardy, 'What do you think of that?'" recalled McQueen. "I admitted of course that it was wonderful, grand, etc., when he asked impatiently, 'What do you consider that worth?' I looked at him to see if he was joking, but as he appeared to be serious, I asked, what do you mean? He said, 'I will tell you. At the rate that water is flowing, there is not less than 50,000 inches of water, which is high enough to wash all the placer ground between here and Helena, and which I can take out by a tunnel of not more than 2,000 feet.'"

"I knew and everybody knows that the placer ground he mentioned was as rich as could be found in Montana," said McQueen. "In fact, I have several locations myself on it, so I said, 'Hardy, if you can do that, this water is a much bigger thing than that skeleton up above.' Hardy also told me he had caught some blind or I should say some eyeless fish, but as I am a mining man, I did not care for these things. The water interested me, not the fish, so I asked him if there was any other country rock to go through except the lime, in running that tunnel, and he said, yes, and that is the rub; there is about 1,500 feet of iron ore mixed with a kind of flint, all run together like slag from a furnace, the hardest formation I have ever seen; he said in drilling one hole in this hard formation 20 inches, he had dulled just 11 drills, so I think myself it must be hard.

"An assay of this hard formation, Hardy said, showed that it would go $16.00 in gold [presumably per ton of ore-Ed.] with a small percentage of lead and copper. He thinks some plan may be found to work it with tools and predicts that within two years, he will have the water tapped. All the placer ground that this water will cover has been taken up for years, so there is no need of any rush to take up claims. I looked after that myself. I will assist Hardy in forming a company of choice people to open this tunnel for which I am to have some of the stock. No, I don't know what the stock is worth, but I know I would not take a dollar per share for mine, even if I needed money."

Indian Creek Water Trussell near Townsend, Montana. Photo via Montana Main Street.

McQueen was a colorful character in Montana's late-19th-century mining world. Born in Skye, Scotland, he emigrated with his father to Canada and grew up in Ontario. Around 1879, he headed south to seek his fortune, leaving behind his fiancée, Margery Hamil of Harwich. McQueen refused to marry until he could provide her with a home. He spent eight largely unsuccessful years prospecting in Montana, returning to Canada twice and each time finding Margery still waiting. Increasingly discouraged, McQueen urged her not to waste her life on him, but she remained steadfast. His luck finally changed in 1888, when his mining ventures made him about $50,000. Rather than immediately returning home, McQueen invested half his money in a Butte mine that proved highly profitable. When he finally went back to Margery, however, he concealed his success and again insisted she deserved better. She replied that she cared nothing for wealth and trusted him simply to earn enough for them to live on. The couple quietly wed in Charing Cross, Ontario, on Jan. 16, 1889, and departed for Montana. Only after they arrived in Butte did McQueen reveal to his new wife that he had struck it rich. 

The Anaconda Standard once wrote, "Everybody knows Angus McQueen. He is one of the oldest mining men in the camp and for 19 years has buried underground every dollar he could earn... nobody in town has more friends than Angus McQueen." Among McQueen's various mines was the prosperous Queen Bee, which had a 24-foot gold-quartz vein and was considered one of the best properties in the Diamond Hill District of Jefferson County. He also owned the adjoining Gold Coin claim, the nearby Silver Wave mine, and the Mattie, a rich copper prospect in High Ore Gulch.

Like so many weird stories of the Wild West, the trail on this story goes cold. Did Hardy ever extract the "dragon" bones from the cavern? Did he and McQueen succeed in accessing the subterranean river for mining purposes? If the answers are out there, I haven't yet found them. However, we can follow some investigative paths suggested by the original news articles...

The Smithsonian's annual records do not reference the acquisition of any fossils matching Hardy's “dragon” for that time period. The Report of the United States National Museum for the Year Ending June 30, 1895, covering the year immediately following the alleged discovery, states that its vertebrate-fossil collection increased by about 65 specimens, including the noteworthy acquisitions of Zeuglodon bones, a fossil bison skull, a Portheus molossus skull and an Ichthyosaurus specimen. But there is no mention of Hardy, Townsend, or the enormous fossils of a flying reptile from Montana. Nor does any corresponding record appear in the Museum’s annual reports for the previous or following fiscal years. This absence does not establish that the Smithsonian was never contacted, only that it is unlikely the museum acquired Hardy's dragon, if it existed.

However, there IS record that Hardy managed to succeed in a water diversion project. According to the 1977 book "Broadwater Bygones," published by the Broadwater County Historical Society, Hardy and Helena financier Jacob Yung held interests in the Townsend Land and Livestock Co., with several holdings in the Deep Creek area. According to the book, "Hardy was the ramrod for the company and ran the Job Thompson ranch and started the development on the sand hills east of Townsend to bring water by ditch from Deep Creek to water the arid hills and also fill a lake in one of the swales. Trees grew and alfalfa was planted and a bumper crop ensued. It wasn't feasible as the water sank in the sandy areas—it was deserted and went back to its native state." Did this water actually come from the limestone hills west of town? Did Hardy switch plans to utilize the water source for his ranching interests instead of mining? Or was this a different project altogether than the one described by McQueen?

There was certainly skepticism regarding Hardy's dragon among contemporary and later readers. Soon after the discovery was reported, the Daily Leader in Great Falls, Montana wrote, "From Townsend comes the news of a wonderful discovery made five miles from that town a few days ago by J. P. Hardy, a mining man, which sounds like the average sea serpent story so often sprung on the Atlantic." Montana newspapers rediscovered and reprinted the original article in 1948, one headline reading, "Old Timers Had Good Imaginations, Files of Ancient Newspaper Reveals."

But the strangest refutation came from the Townsend Messenger itself. It printed a short notice on Aug. 24, 1894, in which the newspaper appeared to be weaseling away from its original reporting in a manner both vague and blithe, probably because the story had gained legs outside Montana. "A special to the Minneapolis Journal gives a full account of the remarkable find of the huge skeleton of an antediluvian dragon, recently discovered by Mr. Hardy, while exploring an extinct geyser, near this place," wrote the Messenger. "As for the facts in this case, we are wholly at error, as the alleged discovery was made previous to our arrival at this point. However, we will state that we never saw anything like it, not even in our most boisterous days." 

The Messenger continued this jocular attitude a week later, writing, "On Wednesday last, Mr. L. M. Potts came into our sanctum and exhibited a queer looking specimen of antiquity which very much resembled a fang of some gigantic reptile of antediluvian existence. As it was a rather singular shaped concern, dark and streaked, and resembling the sad remains of an ill spent life, Prof. Stout claimed it was a mole from the petrified cheek of a delinquent subscriber; however, many were of the opinion that it is a tooth from Mr. Hardy's dragon. Notwithstanding the conflicting opinions in regard to its originality, we are fully convinced that it is the only relic of the kind in existence."

So, just what was going on here? Was Hardy's dragon skeleton just a creative prank on behalf of the Townsend Messenger, bolstered by quoting well-known mining men of the locality? Or did Hardy and McQueen both claim that the fossilized remains truly existed and a reporter from the Messenger wrote down the story without checking it out for themselves?

It sounds like Hardy and McQueen were well-respected businessmen, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the dragon story was an attempt to gain investors for a mining or irrigation project in the limestone hills. It would be unsurprising if Thompson, who had a claim on the geyser site, was involved, as well. Mining fraud was sufficiently common in the late 19th-century American West that investors were routinely warned about stock manipulation, “salted” mines and outright false advertising. Newspapers and telegraph services could amplify such schemes by carrying reports of purported discoveries and promising developments to investors far removed from the properties themselves. In 1880, the Engineering and Mining Journal complained that information circulated in “press dispatches” had led Eastern investors to purchase mining stocks “of but little value,” while another article that year warned that promoters could create a “movement” in their stocks and use the reputations of successful mines “to float worthless property.” In such an environment, publicity surrounding an apparently spectacular mineral discovery could have financial value quite apart from whether the discovery lived up to its billing. But perhaps a dragon skeleton was a step too far, and they all backed away from the story.

However, the people and places in this odd tale are remarkably consistent with reality. All the main actors are attested in Montana history. The extinct geyser, whether that's what it really was or not, is supported by a detailed account of the site years before it became attached to the dragon tale. One possible location for Hardy’s “geyser” is the general vicinity of Graymont’s present-day Indian Creek limestone quarry west of Townsend, which has operated there since 1982. The 1894 account placed the opening about five miles west of town and described it as occurring in “solid limestone.” Today, Graymont operates its limestone quarry approximately 4½ miles west of Townsend on Indian Creek Road. (I tried contacting Graymont, who did not respond to my admittedly unusual query about whether there is or ever was a geyser hole or paint-pot on their property.) 

The limestone hills, a natural topographic formation encompassing about 16 square miles, are situated a few miles west and southwest of Townsend. They are composed of pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, per the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A 1950 USGS study noted marine fossils throughout the formation, but did not mention any vertebrate remains. According to the report, the limestone hills were probably submerged during all of Mississippian time, but were above sea level during the Triassic and part of the Jurassic era.

The most outlandish element of this entire story seems to be the massive size of Hardy's dragon. But what if that was the only exaggeration, and the miner really did stumble across the ancient remains of a large pterosaur or dinosaur inside the limestone hills? Hardy was much more interested in the mineral and hydration potential of the site. If there were no takers for the bones or they were too difficult to remove, he might have given up on it as financial folly. Could that mysterious cavern and its massive "dragon" skeleton still lie hidden beneath the limestone formations west of Townsend, or have they long been obliterated by more than a century of mining and quarrying activity? You just never know what monsters lie dormant beneath our feet in America's darkest recesses.


r/HighStrangeness • • 2h ago

UFO THE WOMAN FROM ANDROMEDA: The most controversial diary in UFO history

0 Upvotes

Heads up before anything else: I used AI for the visuals and the narration in this video, so if AI content isn't your thing, this one probably isn't for you.

This is based on UFO Contact from Andromeda, a book built from the private diary of Professor R. N. Hernandez and later translated into English by Wendelle Stevens.

According to the book, Hernandez was a scientist who didn't believe in any of this. Then a pale, very tall woman dressed in black started showing up in his life. First at the back of his lecture hall, then in a restaurant, then outside his lab. When they finally spoke, she said her name was Lya, that she was around nine hundred years old, and that she had come to study life on Earth.

What she told him next is the strange part. She took him up in a ship and showed him a pink belt forming around the planet, warned him about nuclear testing and the ozone layer, and then started explaining where humanity really came from.

This is part 1 of 3. I'd love to know if anyone here has read the book, and what you make of the ozone warning considering it was written down in the 70s.

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtIyrPXgrXE


r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Discussion Why would disclosure be "ontological shock" to the public?

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242 Upvotes

everyone here probably heard of it. for some time now people with supposed inside UFO knowledge have claimed or implied that the general public wouldn't be able to stomach the truth. and thats apparently why disclosure hasn't happened yet. but what about the truth could be so disturbing? I'm sure people would be surprised but "ontological shock"? I'm pretty sure a lot of people believe extraterrestrial life exist somewhere in the universe. even if they have no opinion on the UFO phenomenon itself. if the truth is that UFO are interdimensional entities or that consciousness is separate from physical matter... billions of religious people believe in worlds beyond the physical, and souls. some strands of Christianity already believe the UFO are demons. reincarnation? its big part of the two of the biggest religions in the world. none of those ideas are new and many people believe in them.


r/HighStrangeness • • 17h ago

Fringe Science Stanford research paper from Korea war era about aviation “gremlins”?

1 Upvotes

Not sure on my statements. Coulda been other college/research body? But anyways, was an institution that looked into weirdness that happened around the aviation industry…. Anyone know the final
Verdict that that body published? Or maybe it was a “fake leak” or something?? Prank?


r/HighStrangeness • • 10h ago

Other Strangeness The giant of Afghanistan from 2002 including US servicemen interviews

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In 2002, deep in the mountains of Afghanistan, a U.S. Special Forces unit allegedly encountered something straight out of ancient mythology.
A 12 foot-tall, red haired giant with six fingers on each hand, double rows of teeth, and a stench of death. According to the legend, the creature emerged from a cave, impaled a soldier with a massive spear, and was eventually killed in a hail of gunfire.

The body was reportedly flown out of the mountains aboard a Chinook helicopter before being transferred to a C-17 Globemaster and transported back to America under extreme secrecy. After that, it disappeared from public view.

Some believe the creature was a remnant of the Nephilim, the mysterious race of giants mentioned in biblical texts. Others connect the story to ancient legends of giant, red haired beings said to inhabit Afghanistan’s remote mountains and caves.

But here’s where the story gets even more interesting.

Two American military veterans have come forward with accounts of the incident. One claims he was present when the giant was killed. Another claims he was involved in flying the body out of Afghanistan, involving the aircraft that supposedly transported the remains back to America.

Their accounts have helped keep one of the internet’s strangest military legends alive.
This is the story of the Kandahar Giant, a modern military urban legend blending alleged eyewitness testimony, ancient mythology, and claims of a government cover up.

To be clear, this is a conspiracy theory being shared for discussion in a conspiracy theory group. I am not claiming that every detail is 100% true, nor am I presenting the story as established historical fact. The incident remains unverified, and the accounts surrounding it are disputed.

So, did American soldiers really encounter a giant in the mountains of Afghanistan, or has this story grown into one of the most fascinating urban legends associated with the U.S. military?

Included are the two interviews with the American veterans who claim to have been involved and decide for yourself.


r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

UFO Deep dive into the secret X account linked to the disappearance of Gen. McCasland Body:

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r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Non Human Intelligence Nick Betts Recounts Alleged Area 51 Reptilian Shootout — Liberation Times

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r/HighStrangeness • • 3d ago

Discussion What do you think of this advise by Terence McKenna?

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682 Upvotes

McKenna said people should trust their personal direct experience over external authority. I guess basically shrooms and contact > gurus. anyone follow him on this?


r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Futurism Blade Runner, Gnosticism, and the more than human

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r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Consciousness What if consciousness is older than life itself? It most likely is

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102 Upvotes

r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Other Strangeness Nemesis: Forgotten Newspaper Reports Reveal the Search for a Second Sun

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r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Discussion High Strangeness Reading List

55 Upvotes

I am looking to buy another Audiobook on Audible. Currently reading the Mothman Prophesies. I've already read Ross Coulthart's, Elizondo's books and everything by Jacques Vallee...

What are some that you can recommend?


r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Discussion my belief on pluralism, simulation theory, and metaphysical architecture

0 Upvotes

i believe that every belief system (religion or non) is 'correct' and everyone will go where they want to if they want to. there is no one true way. there is me and my perception and that for everyone. whatever walk of life you have and thing you determine for yourself is your truth. that truth is a projected simulation from an infinite computational architecture of some kind within space in a different dimension that is not detectable with the tools we have or will ever be able to create. there is no designer of the architecture, but there are controllers that can be inserted into it.

a buddhist who believes in reincarnation, gets it. a hindu who believes in escaping that recycle, gets it. a christian who believes in the afterlife of heaven, gets it. a satanist who believes in going to hell, gets it. an athiest who thinks their life ends when it does and that's it, gets it. a wicken who believes they'll reach the summerland and eventually reincarnation, gets it. a person who believes in multiple religions at once and determines their version of a 'best' outcome, gets it. etc.

all of these simulations are possible to be projected by our relative computer, a server node in the greater architecture. the belief creates the outcome and if one is not created, the 'best' outcome is determined by the serving node. whatever people believe is true, is true, and the belief itself is streamed to your consciousness from the node, the perceptual ingestion of consciousness stops at end of life and the memory is gathered by the server, like metadata of a given program outputting a file, then that information is served to whatever other computer that projects the simulation of what happens next for you. an AI-like mechanism judges the 'best' fit per the file contents. once transported, you may or may not be recreated, but if so your consciousness changes to its environment overtime than how it was in the past environments. Pieces of you persist in the metadata within the server and are used for other purposes to generate the next ideas that convince another human into a belief system or be used in the construction of a new belief system, in addition to the influences of society on earth that do so. who you were here, might not be you there. these nodes of existence exist in dimensions from what we can never detect.

with this, it is difficult to know what to believe in. you are regardless served by the architecture. but i guess it comes down what you think gives you the 'best' outcome (whatever 'best' means for you). the measure of devoutness is relative. in some sense, this aligns with the unconditional benevolence idea found in various religions, that something is supporting us in a 'positive' way, but not necessarily. whatever you believe now is 'positive', is positive for the system as well. it's a variable definition whose memory persists to the next node. what we want to happen after our time here, can happen, but we define those variables now within or out of alignment with our belief system. it is either us making the decision of what happens next now or the AI doing it.

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given all that. what is your big picture?


r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Consciousness This paper gives a coherent philosophical breakdown of what consciousness really is

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16 Upvotes

r/HighStrangeness • • 1d ago

Personal Theory CE5 & Orb Activation

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r/HighStrangeness • • 3d ago

Ancient Cultures The Bible was mistranslated – The Horror Game inspired by the Theory of the...

432 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I'm happy to announce that the official trailer for  In Vino Veritas, a first-person psychological horror game for PC, is out now!

The story is inspired by Elohim theory, which claims that the Hebrew word "Elohim" (later translated as "God") is actually plural, and that the Bible speaks of multiple deities rather than a single god.

Your wife disappeared after a police search of an abandoned cathedral, and apparently the authorities have no jurisdiction there, so it's up to you to go looking for her before it's too late.

The game is played in first person and there's no combat.

- Explore the cathedral and its foundations
- Solve environmental puzzles to progress
- Hide from or escape creatures that want to kill you
- Drink wine made from the blood of a renegade Elohim to find out what happened to your wife

I'm not a studio, I'm making the whole game by myself.

The demo is already available! It would really help me to hear what you think!


r/HighStrangeness • • 2d ago

Paranormal Something very odd happened to me last night...

0 Upvotes

In bed by around 12....asleep almost immediately....

woke about 3 to see a 7ft tall dark figure stood at the end of my bed....just a shadow...like it was hooded...just stood there kinda looking relaxed if that makes sense....like it was slouching against the wardrobe...

woke up a little more...lying in bed....kinda rubbed my eyes and could clearly still see a shadow stood there...no movement...kinda 'felt' familiar tho...didnt feel threatening at all.

For context - Tho i have very specific personal spiritual, verging on gnostic, beliefs i don't and never have believed in 'ghosts' 'spirits' or the 'afterlife' as such. i basically believe we're all part of a single consciousness and we all 'become one' when we 'die'....i also dont believe in 'evil' as an internal human thing...i think it's like a virus we can catch...but anyway my point is I'm not in fear of anything paranormal....i believe we manifest our thoughts...and so i dont really do 'fear' as such...i've never had a specific paranormal experience before outside of weird unexplainable synchronicities etc...i've always fancied spending the night in a 'haunted' house to see if anything could actually scare me.

so i didnt freak out at this shadow....i turned the bedside light on, nothing there....turned it back off again and could still this thing there as my eyes adjusted and i then kinda mentally challenged it to do something as i drifted back off to sleep.

my sons at uni...so just me at home at the moment...nothing has changed or been moved in my bedroom for a few days so this wasn't just a new shadow of something that had been moved.

wake at 7ish....sat in bed reading the news....phone rings....it's my ex-wife telling me some sad news. After a short battle with lung cancer her Dad had passed away during the night....estimated time of death around 3am.

WTAF.

Took me a few minutes to recall what had happened in the night....i've not said anything to my ex....or our son...as obviously they're in bits at the moment. maybe i should tho....idk. idk what to think about this.

This has really shook me....freaked out is the wrong expression...more like it's challenged my world view and made me consider things from a fresh perspective.

I'm sure i didnt manifest this....it's not the sort of thing my mind would throw at me; it wasn't sleep paralysis as i turned the light on and off and didnt feel like i wasn't in control.

was it my ex-father in-law saying farewell? just typing that makes me feel naive and stupid...that sort of thing is so far away from my base beliefs that I'm struggling to process this or make sense of it.

we weren't especially close but we did have a bond i guess....but why would i be worthy of a 'visit' if no-one else was? this sounds wrong but it's not like i was in bits about his condition...i've been thru this with my grandfather and that process was pivotal in my thoughts surrounding death; but i wasn't 'upset'..so why if that was him would he make himself known to me? i didnt need any comfort.

i have had 2 dreams / visions about meeting and talking to my own departed grandfather who i was very very close to that felt very very real but that's within me....it's not some apparent external manifestation.

idk man.....can't rationalise this at the moment. googled 'shadow figure death' and the fucking grim reaper popped up! was kinda like that...just no scythe or face.

anyone else had similar experiences?


r/HighStrangeness • • 3d ago

Cryptozoology In 1884, an Iowa newspaper reported that an enormous, 81-foot creature emerged from the Skunk River near Oskaloosa, devoured a 300-pound hog, attacked a horse, survived thousands of gunshots and was finally killed with a cannon loaded with railroad spikes.

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260 Upvotes

r/HighStrangeness • • 3d ago

Fringe Science Was Tesla’s 1926 Inertial Space Drive patent removed from the patent database in 1956? Same year antigravity was being advertised?

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r/HighStrangeness • • 3d ago

Request Just started reading about the phenomenon/encounter experience. Need book recommendations.

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82 Upvotes

See topic.

I've been enjoying this read and would like to build my library.

Im looking into getting a book on the Jinn, Mimic, Communion, and a Jason Jorgani book.

Any other recommendations?

Im into paranormal, non-ordinary reality (I've read almost all of Castenada), extra terrestrials, and just the peculiar in general. I like the idea that these manifestations are originating from some single entity or essence proposed by John Keel and now Nathan Gillis (and I'm sure others) So, any recomendations along those lines would be appreciated.