Remember when we talked about the Long Prairie Cans? Remember how I said that there were two stories—one of which was the one about the cans—and how I picked both? This was the other one. In hindsight, I should have covered this one before I posted the Gargantuan Globulous, Kinnula Humanoid and Arboreal Abomination write-ups. The only reason I didn’t was I thought this was perfect for one of the final stories. Oh well, no harm, no foul.
Anyways, today’s story is known as the Giant Space Brains of Palos Verdes. With a name like that, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that it’s not only the craziest extraterrestrial story I’ve come across, but it’s also truly one of the most insane stories I’ve ever come across, period. So come along, it’s finally time we talk about these… things.
The Big-Brained Story
You can find today’s story on the usual suspects that I call “sources”. The ObscUrban Legend Wiki has an article on it, and the Cryptidz Wiki has not one, but two articles on it; the latter of the two is once again a case where the primary article has just been lifted from an article by Cryptopia, though the Cryptidz’s Wiki article does have some additional information that I’ll be using later.
Anyways, the reason for the two articles is simple: this story has two names to it. Some call it the “Space Brains of Palos Verdes”, while others call it the “Giant Space Brains of Palos Verdes”. Why do some not refer to them as “giant”? I have no idea, the brains seemed pretty large to me, but I guess some associate “giant” with things that are well over 10 feet/3 meters in height. Whatever the case may be, I thought I would make note of that since it perplexed me at first, and I thought there may have been two stories that involved brain-aliens that coincidentally happened in Palos Verdes.
Now then, onto the story. Like with the Kinnula Humanoid story, I’ll be citing Cryptopia’s article, and using it as the basis for how the story will flow. As such, all credit more or less goes to them, and I encourage you to read their stuff if you’re at all into cryptids or UFO/alien stories. Anywhoozle: on August 17, 1971, in Palos Verdes, California (which is located a mere 38 minutes from Los Angeles), John Hodges and Peter Rodriguez—two young men who were in their “late twenties” (I can’t for the life of me find their specific ages)—were leaving the home of a mutual friend, who resided on Dapplegrey Lane. It was around 2:00 A.M., and they were in John’s vehicle (with John naturally being the one driving it).
As the car roared to life and the headlights were turned on, things immediately took a turn for the weird. No, we didn’t even have to leave the area where the story begins; things just went to Crazy Town right then and there. I’m honestly shocked, but whatever: less writing for me to do. Anyways, the weirdness came about because the duo could see something—or rather some things—in the road. They were large brains, one of which was described as being “the size of an overgrown softball” that were blue. This has led some to call the story the “Palos Verde Blue Space Brains”.
Although the creatures appeared to just be giant brains that were for whatever reason blue, they certainly weren’t just inanimate props that might’ve fallen out of someone’s truck. No, they were much more than that. John and Peter later stated that the brains had a peculiar vapor around them, that one had dimensions akin to that of a human’s torso, and both were cycloptic; a red eye of sorts was on the center of each brain’s frontal lobe.
If this description seems a bit different than what’s depicted in the header image for this write-up, and you’re wondering why the heck the duo didn’t state that there were limbs that presumably helped these creatures to move: don’t worry, I’m wondering too. It appears that, aside from showing them as being considerably larger than an “overgrown softball”, there are multiple depictions of what these creatures looked like, none of which showcase the supposed “human torso” dimensions of one of them.
Monster-Man-08, whose art I’ve shown in a few write-ups (such as the Ririe Carjackers and Dade City Flower Alien Encounter), depicts them as appearing like regular brains, but with small legs. He also strangely gave them green eyes and not red ones. Meanwhile, another depiction shows the creatures as looking like large tumors protruding from the ground, which is honestly rather unsettling to look at. The reason for these variations is something I’m sure of, but there may be an explanation to it, which we’ll get to later in the write-up. For now, let’s get back on track.
Both John and Peter stared at the brains for a bit before deciding that it was really scary, and they should get lost. As such, John put the pedal to the metal and sped off, passing the large cerebral cortexes and making their way home. Lucky for the two friends, they lived close to each other (Peter, John, and the unnamed mutual friend all resided in the same neighborhood), so their destinations weren’t going to take long.
First, John dropped Peter off at his home. Then, John himself went to his house. All told, this would likely be a trip that would take around 10 or so minutes. However, upon entering his humble abode, John realized that it was 4:30 A.M.; it had taken him a whopping two hours to get from the driveway where he and Peter had seen the brains, to entering his house and looking at the clock.
After this, Cryptopia goes into detail about the concept of “missing time”, and how it’s heavily associated with seeing aliens, UFOs, and/or being abducted by said aliens. Usually, the person (or people) who see the ET or UFO look at it for what feels like 10–30 seconds, maybe longer depending on if they’re paralyzed with fear (like if you were to be stared down from by, say, a bear or mountain lion). However, when the entity or object is gone, and the person/people look at their watch or phone, they find that 30 minutes or multiple hours have gone by. In the most extreme (and rarest) cases, days may have gone by, and a search party is out looking for them.
The concept of missing time is controversial to say the least, and I would like to take time in the future to write about it in-depth since there are definitely some puzzling and rather eerie tales involving it. However, for now, all you really need to know is that John central experienced it, and it’s really messing with him.
Or at least, I assume it messed with him. Honestly, I thought that both men had experienced missing time, but as far as I can tell, only John did. So sadly, there was no dual-abduction craziness going on, but at least we’ve still got an abduction story to discuss. So with that said, although the missing time might’ve been gnawing away at John, he didn’t cave to his curiosity until 1976—five years after he and his friend saw some weird blue alien brain things chilling on the road.
In order to find out what happened that night, John underwent something known as “hypnotic regression”. Cryptopia briefly mentions what this is, I want to take a moment myself to go over what this is since I don’t think I’ve ever truly gone over it in any meaningful detail. It… is a ridiculously controversial process that’s dang near universally considered pseudoscience and outright tomfoolery. Essentially, someone (usually a psychologist) puts you into a trance and you can then recall repressed moments, thoughts, and other things that you’d typically not be able to access while conscious. This can be anything from a traumatizing event, past lives, or alien abductions—which I think is the most common thing that this process is used for.
Yeah, to say that hypnotic regression divides people would be like saying that the ending to The Mist was controversial. Some people believe it to be legitimate, while others think that it’s way too easy to implant thoughts and ideas into the person’s mind, thereby getting the results that you desire. Whatever your stance is, one thing is for certain: the process is likely one of the only reasons that the concept of alien abduction has any semblance of a basis in reality. Then again, that on its own divides people very heavily.
Ehh, whatever; let’s move on before I begin repeating myself like a broken record. Once John had entered the trance, he began remembering things. The first was the larger of the two brains communicating with him via telepathy; it said:
Take the time to understand yourselves. The time draws near when you shall need to. You shall not remember this incident until we meet again.
At this point, John awoke, and the psychologist morphed into a brain. It then ran out of the room and stole a nearby motorbike, speeding off into the sunset at Born to Be Wild played. Then the credits rolled, and we found out that Steve Buscemi was the one directing the whole of reality, and that we were all played by Kevin James.
Except not really, that was just how I wished this story ended. No, instead, things went off without a hitch after that. John peeled out of the driveway, sped by the brains, and let Peter out at his home. After that, he went back to his place, and found that the space brains from just before were waiting outside of it. This really brings into question the statement of “you shall not remember this incident until we meet again”, given that John met the aliens right outside of his home. Maybe I’m overthinking things, but that’s extremely bizarre and bothers me greatly. Like, if he were to remember the whole thing the next time they met, shouldn’t he have remembered it given he met them a second time outside of his house?
Whatever, let’s continue on before I digress any further. After meeting the brainiacs outside of his home, John went unconscious. After regaining it, he found himself in what he described as a “control room”. Within this room were things you’d expect: a bunch of computers, the brain aliens, Soulja Boy, and a small group of Greys.
These Greys were a bit different than your typical Greys. John described them as being 7 feet (2.1 meters) in height and had six webbed fingers and toes. Although the height isn’t abnormal for the typical Grey, the inclusion of webbed appendages isn’t normal. Perhaps it is in some cases, but as far as I’m aware: Greys aren’t known for sporting these types of fingers or toes.
Moving on though: John stated that the aliens told him what the brains actually were. I’ve gone back and forth on how to word this because it blindsided me; I thought about quoting Cryptopia, I thought about wording it in a tongue-in-cheek manner, and I thought about just being upfront with it. In the end though, I’ll just play it straight. According to the aliens, the brains were organic machines that acted as translators for the aliens. Through them, the aliens could telepathically talk with humans, regardless of what language they spoke. So presumably, these brains had a database for every single word on Earth in every language, and everything the aliens said could be translated instantaneously into whatever word was needed. Quite impressive if you ask me.
After being told what these freakish brains were, the Greys then moved onto their next presentation, which was giving John a message: nukes = bad. Through a collection of holographic images, John was shown pictures of nukes exploding. At least, I’m guessing they were pictures; Cryptopia’s use of the word “images” makes me think they were photos and not moving images. Regardless, these pictures/videos/flip books weren’t the only thing John was shown. Alongside this groundbreaking presentation, there was also a screen akin to that of a television, which had a bunch of dots on it.
Ahem, anyways, let’s get back to being serious since I want to pause here for a moment. You see, I believe the whole talk of aliens warning us about nuclear weapons deserves its own explanation. Unfortunately, it’s an explanation where I feel the need to simply ask you to trust me, since I can’t immediately go out of my way to find various stories related to what I’m about to convey (primarily due to time constraints; I’m deeply sorry). Throughout the years, there have been a lot—and I do mean a lot—of alien abductees who claim that the aliens (be they Nordic, Greys, or some other type of ET) have told them that nuclear weapons are awful and that we humans must destroy/get rid of them at any and all cost, lest we destroy ourselves.
Why exactly the aliens care so much about us and are looking out for us like guardian angels varies heavily depending on who you ask (assuming they believe in these stories). Some will say that aliens have a deeply vested interest in our survival because they helped advance us back during the time the pyramids were built. Others say that aliens are actually angels of some sort. Others say that we have direct contact with them via our higher ups and that because they aren’t listening, aliens have taken to abducting regular people and trying to have them lead us to a brighter future.
Whatever the case may be: encounters like this truly aren’t anything novel and I would like to do something in the future where I cover a series of them in a similar format to that of the Prehistoric Sea Creature Brigade. However, I’d need to find the stories again and I’d need to make sure I can craft a narrative around the stories and not make it some sort of compilation for the sake of a compilation. Still, just trust me that stories like this are true and that I’m not making things up for the sake of making things up.
Anywhoozle, let us get back to the topic at hand. These images were given context by the aliens via the larger of the two brain-translators; the dots on the TV screen were areas on Earth that had “too much power”. I don’t really know what that means, but I’m guessing they were likely areas where various nations (probably the United States and Soviet Union) housed their nuclear weapons. Though for all I know, they’re the locations of Walt Disney’s clones. You cannot take this away from me; Kingdom Hearts shall be opened!
After being told what the dots on the map meant, John was then shown pictures of another planet. What this planet looked like and where it was (or is) located, I have no idea. What is known is that the planet was the site of a terrible cataclysm on account of it having “too much power”. Presumably, this means it had endured a nuclear conflict, which wiped out most (if not all) life. Though to once again digress: I want to believe that this planet’s lone survivor was Tim Cain, and that he arrived on Earth in some sort of pod or ship, and that’s why he created Fallout.
After this, Cryptopia states that John was warned that, should humanity not quit abusing its “power”, that it’ll face dire consequences. They also compare this to an event known as the Ariel School UFO incident. This is a very famous UFO/alien encounter, and one that you may have heard about if you watch unsolved mystery YouTube videos. Although it may break the flow of the write-up, I want to just go explain what this encounter was about since it may help to expand upon what I said earlier about “aliens warning humans about the dangers of nukes”.
The Ariel School encounter took place on September 16, 1994, in Ruwa, Zimbabwe. I’ll keep it very short: a whopping 62 school children at Ariel School, between the ages of 6 and 12, saw a UFO land in a field. After that, an alien reportedly communicated with the kids via telepathy. They naturally got scared out of their minds and ran away, and the alien presumably took off afterwards.
Later, all of the kids drew similar pictures of the UFO and alien (they did so separately so as to not influence each other) and claim that the ET issued a warning. For the sake of brevity, I’ll simply mention what’s featured in the Wikipedia article (which is hyperlinked above if you want to do more reading). For starters, there’s this quote from one 11-year-old girl:
I think they want people to know that we’re actually making harm on this world and we mustn’t get too technologed [sic].
Another child—a fifth grader—stated that something was “going to happen” and that “pollution mustn’t be”. Meanwhile, another child stated that the world was going to end on account of us not taking care of Earth.
The other children more or less stated similar things, and the event has since become very well-known in the UFO community. However, not all are convinced of its legitimacy and think it may have been a case of mass hysteria. I’ll one day write about it, but I’m admittedly lazy. Still, stern warnings from aliens are by no means something new. Just like a strict parent, our alien overlords care about us so much, they threaten us with annihilation when we don’t behave. Don’t believe me? Well, John stated—in his hypnotic state—that the aliens outright admonished him and every single other human, saying:
Take the time to understand yourselves. The time draws near when you shall need to!
Cryptopia posits some theories as to why the aliens would be issuing this warning. They range from the extraterrestrials being deeply concerned for our well-being to them wanting to take over Earth and are trying to get us to disarm so that we won’t have a fighting chance. I’m not going to get into this aspect today since I think there are better stories out there, which feature more details about the behavior of the abductors. Also, I really don’t think it matters for reasons that’ll be apparent in a little bit.
Besides this theory, the article also goes into detail about something known as the Zanfretta UFO Incident—also known as the Zanfretta Alien Abductions or Zanfretta’s Aliens. Although I would rather not linger around on something another article states (in spite of having done that above with the Ariel School story), I want to pause because there’s something really peculiar with this comparison. Though before I elaborate on that, lemme give the briefest rundown of this story.
Over in Italy, a security guard by the name of Pier Fortunato Zanfretta was abducted numerous times between 1978 and 1981. It became a sensation of sorts over there and nowadays is considered one of the most infamous alien abduction stories ever. If you ever get into those stories, odds are you’ll hear about Zanfretta within a few articles or books. Anyways, one thing that makes his case unique is that his hypnotic regression sessions were also broadcast on Italian television. This admittedly led him to be ostracized by some folks, but that’s beside the point.
The reason for the digression from the space brains is, as far as I know, Zanfretta’s encounters with the aliens never led to any warning for humanity. I read through Cryptopia’s article (though I’d heard of this story long before I did this write-up) and the closest thing to a warning doesn’t come from the aliens. Rather, it comes from Zanfretta himself as he tells his abductors:
I know you are trying to come more frequently… no, you can’t come to Earth, people get scared if they look at you. You can’t make friendship.
Maybe I missed the statement in the aforementioned article, but it doesn’t appear they ever warned us, or made some sort of prophecy. Unless Cryptopia is interpreting something that Zanfretta said as a warning, but whatever. I’ll cover this story in full someday, but I have some really strong opinions on it and I feel if I keep talking about it here, I’ll begin to speak my mind.
Anyways, enough lingering on that story, and enough trying to expand upon other articles and instead get back on track—once again. After all was said and done, John said that he could feel a “buzzing” feeling course through his body. Next thing he knew, he was back in his car. No Greys, no giant space brains, no total nuclear obliteration, and most importantly: no digression from yours truly.
After this, John presumably awoke from his trance and that was that—sort of. After this, both John and Peter were asked by someone (not sure who; Cryptopia doesn’t state it, nor does any other article I can find, but I’m guessing it was the psychologist who performed the hypnotic regression) to draw the brains. Cryptopia states that John drew a “globster-like” alien with a red eye. Globsters, for those who don’t know, are things that wash up onto shores and resemble giant masses of flesh/muscle/tissue/ickiness. They tend to resemble sea serpents, but are usually decaying whale corpses. In this case, I’m guessing that John’s drawing was the one that made the brain look like a tumor.
Interestingly enough, Peter’s drawing of the brain[s] was said to have depicted them as being “smaller”. I sadly can’t find these sketches/drawings, but if anyone out there knows where they are: I would greatly appreciate it. If I had to guess though, Peter’s doodle was likely showing them in a similar manner to the whole “overgrown softball” description that I mentioned way, way earlier.
With that though, the story takes a really bizarre turn. As is, it’s already weird, but everything after this part enters the realm of Nancy Lieder territory. If you aren’t familiar with her: she’s the lady who helped to popularize the whole Nibiru fiasco.
At a later point—I can’t find a specific date for any of what I’m about to convey—John stated that he believed the so-called “control room” may not have been real. Rather, he speculated it may have been a “holographic projection”. His reasoning behind this sudden revelation is that he recalled the area behind him was “all black”. He also suspected the aliens may have implanted something he called a “translator cell” in his brain so that they could remain in contact.
Weird as it may seem, brain implants (or implants in general) by aliens aren’t something novel, though it’s rather odd to imagine aliens wanting to stay in contact like your school friends over summer vacation. I must ask why he didn’t just get a scan of his brain to see if there was anything in there. Also, when exactly would this “cell” have been implanted? If it was before he realized he was in the “control room”, then why did he say the alien spoke via the larger of the two brains? If it was after he was done being scolded by the ET, then… okay, I feel it might’ve been easier to have just implanted it first, then scolded him.
Digressing is becoming a serious problem with these write-ups; let’s get back on track yet again. John’s claims wouldn’t stop at just mere speculation as to whether or not the room was real or if he had a chip in or around his brain. No, they evolved into full-blown predictions. According to John, the aliens telepathically told him that—at some point in 1983—a major war would break out in the Middle East, and that it would rapidly spread into Europe, leading to the use of atomic weapons.
Good to see that the aliens predicted the Modern Warfare series decades in advance.
Predictions about World War III (at least, I’m guessing it would be World War III, it sure sounds like it) weren’t the only fantastical things that John predicted. He stated that, after we’d turned Europe and presumably the Middle East (and other nations) into country sized equivalents of Chernobyl, the aliens would decide that only then would it be worth making themselves known so we could have diplomatic relations. Good to know that aliens have their priorities straight (unless they’d reveal themselves to us so they could chastise us for being so callous).
Though why speculate? These predictions, naturally, didn’t come true; 1983 has long since come and gone, and I have no idea if John Hodges is still alive, let alone Peter Rodrigeuz. Even then, it doesn’t appear that John made any other predictions; at some point, he just went silent, and nothing ever came of his supposed encounter. Well, sort of. There have been some interesting things in the time since the encounter of the Giant Space Brains of Palos Verde.
At the start of this story, I mentioned that the second Cryptidz Wiki article mentioned some fun little trivia. While it doesn’t have to directly do with the story itself, I can’t resist just listing it off. The first thing is that, in 1957, a film named The Brain from Planet Arous was released. In it, an extraterrestrial terrorist, along with a brain-shaped monster, invade Earth and attempt to take it over. The film wasn’t very well-received by critics, but it’s since become a cult classic and has garnered a following of sorts.
Yeah, it doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but I think it’s pretty neat. The trivia section of the Cryptidz Wiki states that the brains “bear a striking resemblance” to the space brains that John and Peter saw. Just take a look at the image from the movie below.
Anyways, the second bit of trivia is a bit harder to prove. If the wiki is to be believed (and that’s extremely hard for me to buy into given wikis are public access and anyone can just make things up if they want), then the space brains were featured on the television show Futurama in the episode The Day the Earth Stood Stupid. Personally, I doubt they were featured given that the concept of “killer alien brains” is more likely to be traced back to the aforementioned film. Still, even if there was no inspiration for the episode’s villains, the title itself is a reference to the classic 1951 science-fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Beyond that, the only other thing I see worth mentioning in regard to these creatures is something that I found while researching the story. I found that a user on the website Etsy named YouArePlayerOne created 3D printed versions of the Giant Space Brains. Unfortunately, they are sold out, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t want some myself. They look adorably weird and would make for a nice nightstand piece.
With all of that now said and done, the story comes to an end. I honestly have no idea what to make of this; it’s truly one of the most bizarre and surreal things I’ve ever stumbled across. Though in spite of that strangeness, there are a fair number of theories. So let’s check them out!
Theories
1. It was a real alien encounter
The first theory we have posits that the entire story—every aspect of it—was legitimate. The space brains, the missing time/abduction, the prophecies, all of it was real.
The theory itself really hinges upon your belief in alien abductions. To call the concept divisive would be underselling it. There are staunch believers in UFOs and extraterrestrial contact/sightings who are ardent naysayers when it comes to the concept of our ET friends whisking us up into their ships to do things with (or to) us.
Though even with that, I’m sure there are people out there who—while they do believe in alien abductions—will probably find the whole “prophecy” aspect to it hard to buy into. As such, you can certainly divide this theory in two and separate it by those who believe all of it, and those who believe in most of it, but disregard the prophecy portion as John seeking attention (or potentially having an undiagnosed mental illness).
Whatever the case may be, let’s focus on the idea of it being real. The theory is relatively straightforward; I mentioned that at the start. In fact, it’s so straightforward that one can simply repeat everything they’d state when talking about any sort of alien abduction story. The person claiming it did get abducted and things went down. Where the more complicated/controversial part would come in is the aforementioned prophecies that John made.
No matter what your belief of them is, the idea here would be that someone—likely some high ranking official[s] in the US government (or some other nation’s government)—got wind of what John said and from there, they heeded the call to prevent the war from breaking out. This is what Cryptopia’s article states and as such, I’m running with it. There are also other ideas that one can likely work with, such as the aliens themselves working with us, timelines splitting off, or something else that would lead us into the realm of conspiracy theories.
Of course, for skeptics who would want evidence to back up this theory: you’re not going to get any. Even ignoring the typical explanations (such as the crisis being averted by those in power), John’s claims of a chip/translator implant have never been backed up. As stated in the story segment, it doesn’t appear he ever got a scan or x-ray of sorts of his brain. Nor does it appear that the aliens ever appeared after his initial abduction. As such, we have to rely on the word of John and John alone. I could get a bit opinionated right now, but I’d rather not, so let’s simply move on.
1b. Most of it was real, but the prophecy angle was due to an undiagnosed illness
The first of two subtheories, this one simply posits that John had an undiagnosed mental illness at the time and created the prophecies during an episode of some sort. I, admittedly, conjured this theory up on my own because it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I read about said prophecies. They felt very out of place compared to the rest of the story, and it doesn’t appear that he made any others after a certain point. So I half wonder if he got medication. Though it’s entirely possible my own speculation is total nonsense. Either way, I wanted to make note of this in some fashion or form since I would no doubt kick myself for omitting it.
1c. Most of it was real, but the prophecy angle was John simply desiring attention after he’d gotten some due to the initial reported encounter
Same as the previous subtheory, only instead of mental illness: John simply wanted attention because hey, lots of people crave attention after they even a bit of it. However, after a bit, he stopped. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps after the date came and went, John didn’t want to look like a fool again, or maybe he just moved on with his life after people stopped paying attention. Not much to really go over here, I once again just wanted to make note of it since I would’ve likely kicked myself for not bringing it up.
2. It was a hoax
For our second theory, we have one of two theories that skeptics abide by. In this case, we have the theory that everything was a hoax. It wouldn’t be an extraterrestrial story if at least one person was calling shenanigans, and while this story doesn’t really have much going for it in the way of debunking, there sure is a basis for it.
To call the story as a whole really absurd would be an understatement. While absurdism isn’t inherently bad (plenty of true crime stories out there are quite absurd), it tends to make encounters with cryptids, aliens, and/or paranormal entities very hard to believe—unless you already are an ardent believer in one, two, or all three of those things. With this story, I don’t believe any skeptic would give even a nanosecond of thought to this story before immediately disregarding it.
With that said, what evidence is there to back this story up? Well, as is the case with anything related to ETs: there’s the fact we have no proof that they exist. However, even with that, there are more problems than just “no proof for aliens”.
For starters, it doesn’t appear that anyone prior to John and Peter noticed the brains. I can’t really determine where they were located in relation to the road, but the fact it seems this was a residential street really begs the question as to how nobody else noticed these things. Even though it was 2:00 A.M., you would think that at least someone would’ve seen them. It isn’t uncommon for someone to be awake at that hour; people do work night shifts, get home late, or simply stay up late for one reason or another. Also, this was in August; school was still out for vacation. Surely someone would have either been out—or been up—late.
Though hey, maybe the aliens only appeared shortly before John and Peter left. If that’s the case, there’s the problem of the drawings both men did not being similar. Granted, I cannot find the drawings either man did (or at least the one Peter did), it’s rather hard to ignore that they can’t be deemed “similar”. As such, it could be indicative that one, or both, men had carefully crafted the story at a later point and one (or both) forgot what the brains were said to have looked like
However, this could also have been due to fuzziness in their memories. If we’re to excuse that, then there’s a third issue: the failed predictions. If you’re a skeptic, you’d likely see this as a smoking gun; whenever someone’s prediction of a monumental event fails to come true, the one who made the prediction has egg on their face. In this case, John would’ve had enough egg on his face to make a few dozen omelets.
Although you can argue that the predictions don’t mean the rest of the story was fake, it sure does call into question the veracity of the rest of the story. After all, hypnotic regression is generally laughed at by a large number of skeptics (and other scientists/psychologists), and it’s hard to really to take someone seriously after they make something as major as a prediction for an all-out war (complete with the use of nukes) because the aliens that allegedly abducted him said there would be one.
Because of this: yeah, some folks think this was all made up. Whether it was a joint effort, or if Peter simply went along with it for some inconceivable reason, I don’t know. Though at the very least, there are people out there who believe this story is nothing more than some absurd hoax done for some unknown purpose. Maybe they were bored.
3. It was a drunk/drug induced trip
Or it could be related to the third theory. For this one, we have the idea that both men were either drunk out of their minds—or had done some sort of controlled substance that made them hallucinate two weird creatures.
Yeah, when you get drunk, you can potentially see something. If you do certain kinds of controlled substances, you can also go on a bad trip. Regardless of which you, the story remains the same: while it wasn’t a hoax, the event didn’t happen. Rather, John and Peter hallucinated the brains, they got the heck out of dodge, and when John himself got home, he blacked out in his car for a bit.
Later, at the hypnotic regression session, he either had a predetermined mindset that led to him sort of “fabricating” the memories, or he was deluded into envisioning the abduction. Afterwards, he drew what he saw the creatures as; the reason the two drawings came out differently is because both men—although they agreed upon what they saw—weren't identical because, well, hallucinations aren’t always the same.
So in short: young adults did young adult things because young adults are prone to doing said things. It was also the early 70s, I’m sure there are other stories out there where people saw weirder things because of excessive liquor or drug use. The only question I have to ask is: if they were drunk, how on Earth did they not crash? Man, they got lucky.
4. I have no idea at this point
The whole of the latter 20th century was on crack; I think everything weird that happened between 1960 and 1999 was just one giant hallucinogenic-induced trip. This was just a part of it.
My Take
Honestly, in spite of how absurd this story is: I’m a little torn. On one hand: I can totally believe that some sort of alien machine went to Earth for whatever purpose. That is anything but absurd to me. The fact two people saw it also doesn’t strike me as odd; I think it would only be a matter of time before someone stumbled across it. In a world as large as ours, and by the law of probability, at least one person would eventually find one (be it on purpose or by accident).
Where the story loses me is with the alien abduction area. I am heavily skeptical of those stories. There are a few which I find very hard to dismiss (such as the abduction of Travis Walton), but this one comes across as being way too unusual. Yeah, the whole “nukes are bad” message is something that I’ve heard before, but there’s something about how the whole encounter supposedly went down that rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because the aliens chose some nobody as their person of choice to convey this message to everyone (which, honestly, is nothing new when it comes to alien abductees).
Though it’s because of that skepticism that I really do wonder if this was the result of a drug trip. I honestly doubt alcohol had anything to do with it because I feel that two heavily intoxicated people speeding away would’ve ended with both of them dead. Though even then, I think that driving away at high speeds while on a hallucinogenic would have also potentially ended badly. Still, it’s really hard for me to not ponder if this was the root of this entire cavalcade of madness; alien machines, aliens, prophecies, and anti-nuke messages acting as a bow on top! Yay!
Oh well, whatever. I guess if I had to pick a side to take, I would say I think it was likely a drug trip. I say that with hesitancy since I can’t really prove that though, I can only go off of what I know young adults to sometimes do. Given that I can’t find any confirmation that John or Peter had never done anything of that sort though, it feels like a safe-ish bet. If I’m wrong, do let me know. Until then though, it’s where I (loosely) stand on things. If absolutely nothing else, I do firmly believe that the supposed prophecies were absolute nonsense, and that John likely did it out of a desire to get some level of attention—or that he’d developed some sort of mental illness. I cannot, for the life of me, believe they he was genuine or serious about them.
Conclusion
Braaaaains. See you all tomorrow; stay happy, healthy, and remember to protect your braaaaains.
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