0:03

Have you ever felt a chill down your spine

0:05

that you couldn't explain? Seen

0:07

an ominous shadow in the corner of your vision, or

0:10

heard a whisper on the wind that seemed

0:12

just a little too clear? Then

0:15

you'll love Sightings, a new weekly

0:17

show from Reverb and Cucode. Sightings

0:20

takes you inside the world's

0:22

most mysterious supernatural events, from

0:24

classic legends like Bigfoot to

0:27

lesser-known phenomena like the Polaroid

0:29

Ghost Rider. Each

0:31

week, you'll be transported into a

0:33

thrilling first-person story that puts

0:36

you at the heart of

0:38

ominous creature encounters, eerie alien

0:40

abductions, and spine-tingling hauntings. Today,

0:44

we're bringing you a special presentation

0:46

of Sightings that will take you back to

0:48

1950s Kentucky, where

0:51

one rural family faces an invasion

0:53

from intruders not of this world.

0:56

And stick around as we unravel

0:58

the truth behind the story, revealing

1:00

how it inspired one of the biggest

1:03

pop culture phenomenons in history. From

1:07

Roswell to Amityville to Loch Ness

1:09

and beyond, Sightings is

1:11

your passport to the extraordinary.

1:14

Click the link in the show notes and

1:16

follow Sightings now to never miss an episode.

1:25

Imagine you're at home with your family. It's

1:27

a quiet night, a normal night, until

1:30

suddenly it isn't. There's

1:33

strange glow outside your house.

1:36

Shadowy figures move across your

1:39

windows. Strange

1:41

sounds echo in the darkness. Something

1:44

is out there. Something

1:46

not of this world. And

1:49

it's coming for you. Welcome

1:52

to Sightings, the series that

1:54

takes you inside the world's most

1:56

mysterious supernatural events. I'm McLeod

1:58

Andrews. And I'm I'm Brian Sigley. We're old

2:01

friends who live for good stories, especially

2:03

ones that push the boundaries of the

2:05

unexplained. So we created this

2:07

series to highlight the encounters, the

2:09

abductions, and the terrifying bumps in

2:11

the night that have become legend.

2:13

So in each episode, we'll dive

2:15

headfirst into an infamous supernatural incident

2:17

that will take you anywhere from

2:19

Roswell to Loch Ness to Amityville

2:21

and beyond. Now you've probably heard

2:23

of some of these before, but

2:25

trust us when we say you've

2:27

never heard them like this. McCloud

2:30

happens to be one of the best narrators

2:32

in the business. Brian, you said we wouldn't

2:34

do this. Well, it's true. You've done some

2:37

of the biggest audiobooks in the world. And

2:39

that's why I'm so excited that in each

2:41

episode of Sightings, McCloud is going to bring

2:43

to life a brand new, mind-bending

2:46

story of a supernatural incident that

2:48

puts you, listener, at the center

2:50

of the action. After

2:52

that, we'll investigate the facts and the

2:54

legends that inspired the story and

2:57

figure out just how far down the rabbit hole

2:59

we're willing to go. For

3:01

our first episode, we're taking you back to a

3:03

quiet summer night in 1955, where one family

3:07

in rural Kentucky encounters terrifying

3:09

intruders intent on invading their

3:12

home. Do they

3:14

run? Do they hide? Or

3:17

do they stand their ground and

3:19

fight? Find out on

3:22

this first episode of Sightings. My

3:53

name is Lucky Sutton. I'm

3:56

25 years old, Kentucky born

3:58

and bred. Not

4:00

to tell you straight off, I ain't never seen anything like

4:02

this shit that's gone down here tonight. I'm

4:05

talking the kind of shit you'll read about in the big papers

4:07

tomorrow. Like Hollywood movies shit.

4:11

Like we're lucky to be alive shit. And

4:13

I mean that, swear to God. Being

4:18

a detail is likely important, and I'm still

4:21

trying to work it all out in my head. I suppose

4:23

I ought to start at the beginning. Set

4:25

the scene, as they say. And

4:28

that scene, at least for tonight, is our farm. I'd

4:32

be lying if I said it was nice. I mean, it's decent

4:34

and all. But

4:36

it sure as hell's got no bells or whistles like shutters

4:38

or even a ripe barn or anything. You

4:40

can find it in Kelly, just off old Madisonville

4:43

Road, and a few miles north of Hopkinsville. Three

4:46

acres of tobacco, some old maple trees, a

4:48

shitbox house I've been telling Ma to fix

4:50

for years. But now that JC's in charge,

4:52

that's a whole other

4:54

story. Anyway,

4:56

speaking of people, there were a bunch

4:58

of us hunkered down when it all started. There

5:01

was Ma and me and Vera, of course, and

5:03

my brother JC and his wife Elaine, and Elise's

5:05

brother OP, plus my friend Billy Ray and his

5:07

wife June, and then the little

5:09

ones Lonnie and Charlton and Mary. That's

5:13

eight of us adults plus the three kids, which

5:16

probably sounds like a lot for these three rooms,

5:18

but you know, it's not normally like this, and

5:20

even if it was, you ought to keep your

5:22

judgments to yourself. Point

5:25

is, it's a farm with good

5:27

fields, plus the house, some pigs,

5:29

goats, too many cats, and a

5:31

whole lot of people. Otherwise,

5:33

they're in a damn thing remarkable about it

5:36

at all, which

5:38

is why it's amazing that of all the farms

5:40

in Kentucky, all the farms on God's Green, this

5:42

is the one a little space bastard decided to

5:44

visit. And you know what?

5:47

Screw them all for doing that. It's

5:52

probably worth knowing. It all started out

5:54

as a pretty normal evening, as far as evenings go,

5:57

since it's been hot as hell all week and the

5:59

skeeter's been. We were all inside trying to make

6:01

the best of it. That meant mostly

6:03

shooting the shit, sometimes playing cards, and I

6:06

ought to say that none of us were

6:08

drinking, at least not more than

6:10

one beer, from me and JC and Billy Ray.

6:13

Now I emphasize that because the first thing people

6:15

will say is that we were fully drunk and

6:17

made this all up, or aren't reliable narrators or

6:19

the like, and they'd be dead wrong, all of

6:22

them. Because I seen this with my

6:24

own eyes, and I guarantee you, I wish I had

6:26

been drunk, so I could have better coped with all

6:28

of it. Yeah,

6:31

as I was saying, it

6:33

must have been about seven when it all started.

6:35

We were all doing our thing, and Billy Ray

6:38

went out to the well for some water. Then

6:41

came running back with some poppycock story

6:43

about seeing a real live flying saucer.

6:46

Course, we all thought it was a load of shit. Billy

6:48

Ray was known for spinning tails. Guess that's what made him

6:51

such a charming bastard. But tonight, we

6:53

were having none of it. Even when Billy

6:55

Ray swore the saucer was sitting in the gully on

6:57

the far end of our plot, we just laughed it

6:59

off. Speaking personally, it

7:01

sounded me like the fool had seen a shooting

7:03

star. I even cracked some

7:05

joke about it, which just about threw Billy Ray

7:08

right off the deep end. He was damn set

7:10

on getting someone to go check out the gully

7:12

with him, but none of us budged an inch.

7:15

And being the hothead he is, he

7:17

seemed brought ready to storm out or throw some

7:19

kind of tantrum, because no one believed him. That's

7:24

when the dogs started barking, not

7:27

just barking, mind you, but

7:29

some kind of infernal fury. We'd never heard

7:31

the thing make before. I never heard any

7:34

dog make this sound before. I

7:36

got up to go see what the trouble was,

7:38

but Billy Ray thought that was his chance to

7:41

show me his flying saucer. And before I could

7:43

even brush him off, he shoved JC's .22 rifle

7:45

in my hand and grabbed the .20 gauge for

7:47

himself. In hindsight, that

7:49

might be the smartest thing Billy Ray's ever done

7:51

in his life. So

7:54

now that I was armed and all, I figured

7:56

the least I could do was follow him out and see

7:58

what all the yapping was about. But

8:01

the moment we stepped outside, the damn dog came

8:03

running at us like a bat out of hell.

8:06

We scanned the horizon to see what spooked her, but hell, if

8:08

we could find the problem, it was pitch

8:10

black out there being a new moon and all, and we couldn't

8:12

hardly see a thing. So I

8:14

turned to head back inside when Billy Ray suddenly

8:16

grabbed my shoulder. He told

8:19

me to look back out at the fields, and

8:21

I'm not exaggerating when I say he

8:23

sounded downright petrified. When

8:26

I saw why he was scared, and

8:29

swear to God, I just about

8:31

shit myself too. A

8:35

strange glow was coming from the far end of

8:37

our field. It was

8:39

kind of silvery like, and damned if I'd ever seen

8:41

anything like it before, but it wasn't the glow

8:43

that scared me. It

8:46

was the thing walking out of it. At

8:50

first it looked like a little man, no taller than

8:52

our fence posts, so maybe three and a half feet

8:54

on a good day. As

8:56

it got closer, I could make

8:58

out a big head, far too

9:00

big to be human, with yellowish

9:02

eyes and arms that nearly reached

9:04

the ground. The

9:06

whole thing, creature, whatever you want to call

9:08

it, was wearing some kind of silvery metal

9:11

that gave off that strange glow. Now

9:13

Billy Ray, big dumb brick that he is, up

9:16

and hollered at the thing, causing it to freeze

9:18

in place, and I tell you, it just stood

9:20

there, staring at us with those

9:22

God forsaken eyes for a good minute or so.

9:25

Maybe because we were too scared, too

9:27

confused, I don't know, but we stared

9:29

right back at it, and it started

9:31

moving towards us again, and it lifted

9:34

its arms up, and that's when I

9:36

saw its fingers were talons. Actual

9:40

goddamn talons. So

9:42

I yanked Billy Ray back into the house

9:44

and slammed the door. Everyone

9:47

else was in the living room laughing about something, but

9:49

Billy Ray and I didn't say a damn word. He

9:52

just aimed back out the wind at that

9:54

thing, which was still on the move, claws

9:56

still reaching for the sky. I

9:59

told Billy Ray to... hold tight until it was

10:01

closer, because even though we're both pretty good shots,

10:03

I wanted to make damn sure we hit the

10:05

bastard. So we

10:07

waited, and I tell

10:09

you, it was excruciating,

10:14

because the thing moved weird and

10:16

kind of slow, but it kept

10:19

coming, sure and steady.

10:22

And once it was about 20 feet away,

10:24

we finally fired.

10:28

And then, all

10:30

hell broke loose. We

10:34

must have clipped the thing, because it

10:36

screeched like some crazy banshee and scurried

10:39

away into the darkness. Meanwhile,

10:41

everyone else in the house went ballistic,

10:43

because there we were shooting like idiots

10:45

into the night. We

10:48

herded everyone back into the living room,

10:50

shut the doors, and had JC and

10:52

OP grab their rifles in case we

10:54

needed to reacquaint ourselves

10:56

with whatever was out there. We

10:59

were about to start explaining what the hell was going

11:01

on when I saw something out of the corner of

11:03

my eye. Another thing

11:05

was at the goddamn window right

11:07

behind little Mary. Ma

11:10

saw it too, and started screaming, but

11:12

JC thought quick and shot right through

11:14

the window screen at the thing. Just

11:17

like the other one, it screeched something

11:19

awful and disappeared into the dark. Of

11:22

course, now everyone in the house was screeching

11:24

just as loud, and I hollered at OP

11:26

to shut them all up while JC and

11:29

Billy Ray and I went to finish the

11:31

thing off for good. But

11:33

the moment we stepped out into the

11:35

night, everything went

11:37

ungodly quiet. Even

11:40

the crickets picked right then to stop

11:42

singing. We

11:45

stepped silent as we could around the

11:47

window JC shot through, hoping to find

11:49

a body or the like. But

11:52

there was nothing. No blood, no

11:54

tracks, none of it. We

11:56

even circled the house three times and couldn't

11:58

find a trace of the damn. them things we

12:00

shot at. Truly, it's

12:02

like they were never even there. And

12:05

you know what? That didn't make one lick

12:08

a sense. Once

12:16

we got back inside, we hunkered down real

12:18

good. The women and kids

12:20

were still a mess, of course, but we men

12:22

knew we weren't going to let anything happen to

12:24

them. At least,

12:26

that's what we hoped. Problem

12:29

was, we had no radio or telephone in the house.

12:32

The damn doors didn't even have locks on them. But

12:34

we knew our guns did at least something to keep

12:36

them at bay. So I

12:39

suggested we hold our ground until

12:41

these things found another farm to

12:43

terrorize. Course,

12:45

right then was the time JC found convenient to

12:47

pick a fight with me, because he thought it

12:49

was a better idea to pile everyone into our

12:51

two cars and drive to the sheriff. Problem

12:54

was, he didn't think about what we'd actually

12:56

tell the sheriff when we got there. I

12:59

mean, seriously, would anyone believe spacemen were attacking

13:01

our farm? Unless we had

13:03

some shred of physical proof, we'd be the

13:05

laughingstock of Christian County. And

13:08

JC tried to push back and get his way. Of

13:11

course, this being his farm and all he likes to

13:13

think, he's the one in charge. Here's

13:16

the honest truth. Thinking you're

13:18

in charge doesn't put you in charge.

13:21

So everyone's eyes turned to me. And

13:25

I tell you, I wasn't keen on hiking those women

13:27

and kids to the end of the night while those

13:29

things might still be out there. So

13:32

I looked everyone over, and

13:35

I made my decision. We'd

13:38

make our stand at the

13:40

farmhouse. So

13:43

this is what happened. We

13:46

turned this place into a fortress. We

13:49

barricaded what we could, shut off all

13:51

the lights inside, and flipped on the

13:53

outdoor flood lamps. While

13:55

the women and kids huddled in the interior, us

13:57

men posted at windows on each side of the

13:59

house. was

16:00

creeping around on the roof. You

16:02

could just make out the tapping sound on

16:04

the corrugated metal. We

16:06

followed it across the kitchen where it suddenly

16:08

stopped in place. We

16:11

waited. Listen. Wham!

16:16

The thing pounded on the roof so hard the

16:18

glasses and the cupboard rattled around, and

16:20

after that there was this ungodly scraping

16:22

sound, almost like it was trying to

16:24

claw its way inside. Then

16:27

it suddenly went silent and didn't

16:29

seem to move an inch. OP

16:31

aimed to fire his rifle right through the

16:33

ceiling, but I stopped him and pulled him

16:35

and JC and Billy Ray towards the back

16:38

door. We were

16:40

going to surround the thing, and

16:42

this time we were going to take

16:44

it out. We

16:47

opened the front door as quiet as we could.

16:50

I was first out then JC and

16:52

OP and finally Billy Ray. We

16:55

were all huddled on the porch beneath

16:57

the awning to keep the thing up

17:00

there from seeing us. I

17:02

motioned for OP to go left and

17:04

JC to go right, and

17:06

I had just turned to tell Billy Ray

17:09

to follow me when I saw it. A

17:12

clawed hand was reaching down from

17:14

above Billy Ray. The goddamn

17:16

thing was on the awning right over us.

17:19

Its taloned fingers were just about to reach Billy

17:21

Ray's mop of hair when I did the only

17:23

thing I could think of. I

17:25

jumped out from under the awning and fired at

17:27

the bastard. But just as

17:30

that was happening, JC and OP started

17:32

hollering, and I turned to see another

17:34

one of the things in the maple tree by the fence.

17:37

We all opened fire and it fell

17:39

from the tree. Rather, it

17:41

floated from the tree and

17:44

landed on its feet, looking

17:46

totally unharmed. So

17:48

we fired at it again. This time

17:50

we must have hit it because it

17:53

screeched something wicked and disappeared into the

17:55

weeds. I

17:57

was about to run after it when Billy Ray pulled

17:59

me back just as a another one of the things

18:01

rounded the corner of the house. So

18:03

I aimed right quick and shot

18:05

that bastard point blank in the

18:07

middle of its goddamn body. For

18:11

a moment, it sounded like I shot

18:13

a metal bucket to claim that impact

18:16

made. But there was no blood,

18:18

no holes, no wound at

18:20

all that I could see. So

18:23

I figured my best bet was to

18:25

shoot the thing squared between its yellow

18:27

eyes. But

18:30

it was the damnedest thing. Before

18:32

I could pull the trigger, it retreated

18:35

faster than I've seen anything living ever

18:37

moved before. And even though

18:39

Billy Ray, and OP, and JC got some

18:41

more shots off at it, it disappeared into

18:43

the darkness. That's

18:46

when I knew guns were doing nothing but spooking them. And

18:49

surely, they'd soon enough wise up to

18:51

that fact and push their way inside the house and

18:53

find the women and kids, all of them. Of

18:57

course I wasn't about to let that happen. So

18:59

I made the only choice I thought we had

19:01

left and ordered everyone to retreat to the cars.

19:05

So there we were doing one big, terrified migration

19:07

with Billy Ray, and JC, and OP, and I,

19:10

keeping a lookout as the women and kids made

19:12

a run for the cars. And

19:14

as soon as we were all inside, we

19:17

sped into the night. It

19:25

took us all of five minutes to reach

19:27

the police office in Hopkinsville. Whole

19:30

way Billy Ray kept yammering about how we should

19:32

have believed him. He was right,

19:35

and it was my bad. I'd put

19:37

the entire family in danger, and I'm not sure I'll

19:39

ever forget myself for it. At

19:42

the station, we found Sergeant Pritchett sitting at the

19:44

lobby desk. He's a chubby

19:46

fellow. He usually looks like he's bored out of

19:48

his mind, so I don't think I'll ever forget

19:51

the look on his faces. All 11 of us

19:53

come running in, pale as ghosts. And

19:56

since everyone around town knows, we aren't the type

19:58

to run to the police for help.