Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

Hi, everyone, it's Carter with Thanksgiving just a week away.

[00:00:04]

It's the perfect time to tell you, our listeners, just how thankful we are for your loyalty and support, because without you, none of this would be possible. I'd also like to take this opportunity to let you know we'll be taking a break next week. But don't worry, we still have something very special lined up for you. Stay tuned. In the meantime, from all of us here at Sparkasse, thank you again for listening and have a happy Thanksgiving.

[00:00:33]

This episode includes discussions of abduction and torture that some people may find offensive. Listener discretion is advised, especially for children under the age of 13.

[00:00:50]

The recruits at Fort Benning, Georgia, were accustomed to being in their bunks by early evening, but the night of September 1st, 1977, they found themselves crouched on the damp, hard earth underneath their barracks.

[00:01:08]

The soldiers huddled together for shelter and comfort, though it was claustrophobic inside, outside lurked a much worse threat.

[00:01:18]

Uncertainty. These were the lucky few who'd escaped the attack, blinding lights, loud noises and sudden bouts of full body paralysis had struck. The troops assembled outside. Those inside whispered fiercely to each other, trying to figure out what to do.

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A new recruit.

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Twenty five year old Private John Vasquez huddled under the bunker with the others. Vasquez felt rattled. If it weren't for a friend rescuing him, he'd still be frozen in place out on the field.

[00:01:56]

Suddenly, a high pitched howling broke through the soldiers murmuring. The men fell silent as the shrieking drowned out all other noises.

[00:02:06]

It sounded like electronic animals wailing in pain.

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Vasquez peeked out from his crawlspace to find the source. He was shocked by what he saw. It wasn't beasts or machinery making the noises. It was the remaining soldiers outside.

[00:02:25]

They were all screaming as they faced a blazing orb floating in the sky.

[00:02:30]

Vázquez and the recruits looked on in horror. If they lived through the night, they'd never forget what they were seeing. But just hours later, they returned to their barracks, disoriented, nauseated, and they didn't remember a thing.

[00:03:03]

Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify original from podcast, every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth on Carter Roy. And I'm Molly Brandenberg. And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious.

[00:03:26]

Don't get us wrong. Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

[00:03:33]

You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from Cast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:03:43]

This is our first episode on the incident at Fort Benning. One night in 1977, as many as 30 100 soldiers reportedly witnessed what may have been a UFO at the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia and the aftermath. They somehow lost their memories of the event. Today, the few who experience flashbacks wonder if the U.S. military is responsible for their memory loss.

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This week, we'll explore the official story, or at least as official as it gets. We'll dive into the only recorded versions of the event, the first person accounts of Private John Vázquez and Command Sergeant James Norton. We'll also follow the two soldiers on a mission to recover their missing memories through hypnosis. Next week, we'll sort through the different theories to explain. That night, perhaps aliens really did invade Fort Benning and the government sought to repress these soldiers memories.

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Or maybe the answer is slightly different. And the military carried out a memory alteration experiment gone wrong. Or maybe there was a terrible disease circulating the base that caused strange rashes, fevers and hallucinations of alien ships. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. Fort Benning is located far from city lights and deep in the southern forests of western Georgia, its skies are dark and always full of glimmering stars in the summer of 1977.

[00:05:30]

The base welcome newcomers for training from all branches of the country's armed forces that July 25 year old John Vasquez was one of those transplants.

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After basic instruction in the National Guard, Vasquez enlisted in the Army. He was sent to Fort Benning for boot camp and to train as a military truck driver.

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A month and a half later, Vasquez felt settled into life at Fort Benning. The Army had placed him in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Infantry.

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Vasquez knew the routines, expectations and guidelines of the base well. So on September 1st, he was surprised to hear that there would be a mandatory assembly after dinner. This was unusual, but Vasquez reasoned it was probably for something important.

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At 730 p.m., the Alpha Bravo, Charlie and Delta companies left the mess hall and marched to a field in the middle of the fort. Thirteen hundred recruits, officers and maintenance workers stood at attention, awaiting a message from the captain.

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The minutes dragged on as the troops stayed in formation.

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Vasquez noted the time they had been sitting there for at least 30 minutes, just as the hour past 8:00 p.m., a muffled sound of confusion spread amongst the troops all around.

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Vásquez soldiers were looking up at the sky. Puzzled, Vasquez asked the soldiers next to him what was going on. They told him to keep his eye on the brightest star on the horizon. As Vasquez stared at the glowing point, it slowly began to move.

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Rather than falling like a shooting star. The object traced smooth circles in the night sky. It periodically blinked in and out of sight as it flew. Suddenly, the light disappeared. This time, it didn't pop back into view. Minutes passed as the men waited for it to reappear.

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A drill sergeant called the men to attention. The briefing was finally going to begin, but when their captain approached the podium, chaos erupted.

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Vasquez felt a sudden gust of wind break through the formation. He turned and came face to face with a bright, glowing light. A giant, luminous orb hovered just above the heads of Charlie Company, the next squad over.

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At first, Vasquez tried to make sense of what he was seeing in his head.

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He reasoned that it must be the headlights of a helicopter or other vehicle.

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But the more Vasquez examined it, the less certain he became. It didn't look like anything a human had made.

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Down below the brilliant blaze, several members of Charlie Company started to run. Others remained frozen in place, staring at the light.

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Vasquez himself was transfixed by the glow after struggling for a moment, he tore his gaze away to ask what was happening. But when he turned to the man next to him, Vasquez found the soldier completely unconscious.

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The recruits stood at attention. His chin was tilted toward his chest and his eyes were shut. As he looked at the man, Vasquez could feel himself slipping into the same sleep like state.

[00:09:10]

When Vasquez awoke, his chin was locked to his chest, whatever unusual presence had taken control of his neighbor's body had now paralyzed Vasquez, too.

[00:09:22]

He remained rooted to the ground as his senses rushed back to him. He could hear troops shouting to take cover. In his peripheral vision, he spotted a friend running away in the mass exodus.

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Vázquez led out a strangled cry for help.

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The scream was just loud enough to catch his friend's attention. Without hesitating.

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The man bounded over, picked up Vasquez and carried him a few feet. According to Vasquez, his own report, after leaving the spot he'd been frozen to, he regained the mobility to run on his own.

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The two recruits fled the roving, paralyzing glare. Desperate to find a hiding place.

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They followed a line of other soldiers into a crawlspace under one of the barracks.

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Vasquez and the others had barely hidden themselves before they caught sight of a sergeant signaling them from outside. He ordered them to stay quiet and remain hidden.

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The sergeant ran into another building across from the barracks.

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Terrified, Vasquez watched as a second ball of light glided over to the roof. It was smaller and quicker than the large orb still floating above the field. The men fell into a horrified silence as they witnessed it swoop inside the building.

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The sergeant was hiding in several loud crashes and thumps came from inside.

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Vasquez and the others became worried about the sergeant's safety, so they sent one man out to check on him. Minutes later, the soldier returned to say that the sergeant was unconscious, terrified. The men under the barracks began to whisper. Some declared it must be the Russians attacking, though they couldn't agree why the Soviets would target Fort Benning. Others insisted it must be an elaborate part of a drill. Their commanding officers were obviously testing their training in the face of chaos.

[00:11:26]

But the angry whispers died on their lips when a new sound came from outside. At first, the men under the barracks were confused. Vazquez stuck his head out to get a look and the rest of the men followed. What they saw was frightening. The frozen soldiers were the ones making the terrible shrieking noises.

[00:11:48]

Horrified, the recruits realized the paralyzed men were screaming one particular word over and over Mommy.

[00:12:00]

Vasquez wanted to free the men, but the others didn't want to leave, as one person pointed out, the unlucky soldiers in the field were already as good as dead.

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The group retreated from their hideout and darted inside the barracks, hoping to distance themselves from the sound. But as Vasquez maneuvered his way in, he caught sight of another massive, luminous ball moving towards them.

[00:12:27]

As it approached the structure, its bright rays pierced through the darkness, lighting up the building as if it were midday. It floated in circles around the barracks, searching for its prey. When it cycled closer, the orb illuminated the distraught faces of Vasquez and the other men.

[00:12:47]

It had found them. Next, the soldiers encounter extraterrestrial life.

[00:12:59]

Hi, listeners, here's a show I think you'll enjoy when it comes to love. Every story is unique. Some play out like fairy tales seemingly meant to be. Others defy the odds to achieve happily ever after.

[00:13:14]

In our love story, the new Spotify original from PA cast, you'll discover the many pathways to love as told by the actual couples who found them every Tuesday.

[00:13:27]

Our love story celebrates the ups, downs and pivotal moments that turn complete strangers into perfect pairs. Each episode offers an intimate glimpse inside a real life romance, with couples recounting the highlights and hardships that define their love. Whether it's a chance encounter, a former friendship or even a former enemy, our love story proves that love can begin and blossom in the most unexpected ways.

[00:13:56]

Follow our love story free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now back to the story. The night of September 1st, 1977, commanding officers ordered thirteen hundred army recruits into formation on the parade grounds at Fort Benning. Soon after, bright floating orbs of light descended on the camp, forcing many of the soldiers into terrifying trances.

[00:14:33]

25 year old John Vasquez and some other recruits found shelter in a barracks building. But soon after they darted inside, they realized a luminous floating sphere outside was stalking them.

[00:14:48]

In his book incident at Fort Benning, Vasquez likened its movements to a searchlight. As the light came to a stop over their hiding place, Vasquez felt a cold sensation building in his forehead and in the light of the glowing ball, he heard a woman's voice. It was reassuring him that he was safe.

[00:15:12]

Now, maybe Vasquez's physical experiences weren't actually caused by the glowing ball. Perhaps he was suffering from stress and was hallucinating.

[00:15:22]

But in his book, Vasquez felt the light and the woman's message were very real.

[00:15:29]

He describes the timber of the woman's voice as metallic, inhuman even. But the words she spoke were calming and personal. She told him that everything would be OK.

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Vasquez was pale as a ghost when he turned to the other men looking for answers. But when he relayed what the woman had told him, the other soldiers reacted with confusion. Vasquez was stunned to discover that he was the only one she'd spoken to.

[00:16:01]

Again, the voice sounded in his brain.

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It made Vasquez feel safe and relaxed. It told him to come out of the building and into the light.

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Vasquez was helpless to say no, despite his peers protests. He left the barracks and walked towards the blinding glow. As he got closer, Vasquez claimed his hands became invisible. He could still feel the earth beneath him, but he could no longer see anything beyond his wrists. By now, he had completely exited the barracks and was on top of a grassy mound. He gazed at the blazing orb, trying to see its center. But a bit of movement below the light caught his eye.

[00:16:47]

In the left corner of his vision, Vasquez saw a tiny, amorphous creature scurry into the sphere.

[00:16:55]

It sounds like it was difficult to see into the light. So maybe Vasquez mistook another soldier for an alien being.

[00:17:03]

Or perhaps he did see a visitor from another planet. In any case, after it disappeared from view, Vasquez felt something hit him squarely in the shoulder. Then another blow struck him from behind, a real from the impact before losing consciousness, Vasquez awoke.

[00:17:24]

Sometime later, he was lying on his back, flanked by two other troopers. At first he couldn't tell where he was, but then his eyes were drawn up to a bright light directly above him.

[00:17:38]

It was the same intense glow as the orbs. Vasquez blinked and realized it was shining through a small door in the bottom of a ship. Slowly, he noticed the shine was pulsing and growing in size. He and the other two soldiers were floating gradually upwards toward the ship's hatch. It was as if the white hot rays were lifting them upwards.

[00:18:04]

The strange vessel was beaming them up.

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The next thing Vasquez remembered was something securing him inside what he described as a spaceship. Almost immediately, the same woman's voice spoke again in his mind, asking if he was OK. She assured him that she would take care of him and that no harm would come.

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Vasquez lost track of time as he stared up at the white ceiling of the ship. Unable to move. He didn't know whether he had been there for seconds or hours. Eventually, he regained the use of his muscles and was able to turn his head. Once again, he saw that he was now in a strange medical facility.

[00:18:51]

When he looked left and right, row upon row of soldiers came into view. They laid unconscious on hard slabs with sheets covering their lower bodies. They looked like specimens ready for examination. The woman's voice once again spoke clearly and vásquez his head. But this time he sensed. The speaker's standing nearby, he turned and laid eyes on an alien creature, she was a tall humanoid figure with long fingers and beady eyes.

[00:19:26]

She telepathically ordered Vasquez to sleep and immediately he fell into a deep slumber when he next opened his eyes.

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Vasquez was sitting up on his slab and two more of the extraterrestrials were looking at him. They poked and prodded him with their long fingers, as if they were examining him.

[00:19:49]

After a few moments, the alien beings noticed he was conscious and commanded him to look into their faces.

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Gazing deep into their dark eyes, Vasquez began to see visions. First, he was alone in the middle of a calm ocean. Then he found himself in a large bear room with a singular window. When he looked out at the view, he saw distant planet burning as if under attack.

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When later asked about the world he saw, Vasquez reported that it was not Earth but the aliens home planet. They were showing him that their world had been destroyed and now they saw a new place to live.

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From the tone of these visions, Vasquez sensed that these aliens were not hostile. They merely wanted to communicate with him. As the last images faded before his eyes, he slipped once more into a serene sleep. When Vázquez opened his eyes, he was back in the field, the infantry all stood at attention in their original formation at the front.

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The captain was behind the podium once more, though Vasquez and his fellow soldiers had just been through a life altering experience with extraterrestrials. It was as if nothing had even happened.

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Vasquez himself couldn't remember a single moment, but now his watch read 740 p.m., roughly 20 minutes earlier than the last time he had checked.

[00:21:29]

It all seemed like a dream when he couldn't quite remember. But Vasquez couldn't shake the feeling that something strange had, in fact, occurred. He asked his neighbor for the time.

[00:21:42]

The soldier reported 330 a.m., but another comrade, Close-by, said his watch read for 45 a.m. before the soldiers could discuss the time discrepancy.

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The sergeants dismissed them back to their bunks for the night.

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As they took their first steps, hordes of soldiers were caught off balance and fell to the ground.

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Nausea and body aches plagued the whole infantry as they hiked back to their barracks. Many of the soldiers darted to the restrooms to vomit. Several were running fevers and some broke out in blotchy red rashes. They all wondered what illness had suddenly struck them. The men also tried to figure out why it felt like they were missing time. The whole night seemed blurry in their minds. Vazquez and the others couldn't even remember if the captain gave his intended speech. As they began undressing for bed, the recruits noticed that someone or something had fastened all of their clothing in correctly.

[00:22:49]

Shirts were buttoned unevenly, shoes were tied with unmanageable knots. The state of their uniform should have been cause for infraction. But none of them remembered how their clothes had gotten that way.

[00:23:02]

Nor had their superiors seemed to care when they settled down.

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The company hoped a good night's sleep would help remedy their confusion, but most of the men had terrible nightmares and awoke screaming in the darkness. It was weeks before any of them recovered. Many of them suffered from a mysterious illness and still couldn't remember what had happened.

[00:23:26]

On September 1st, however, the soldiers had trouble discussing their health concerns.

[00:23:32]

With higher ups across the base, commanding officers had seemingly abandoned their charges.

[00:23:39]

In fact, procedures became so relaxed and mismanaged around Vasquez's battalion that it worried them on the morning of September 2nd, 1977. The next morning, after this strange event, some of the soldiers rose around 10 a.m. much later than their usual wake up call. They nervously dressed, expecting punishment for missing breakfast, however, when the men dashed out of the barracks, they found no one waiting for them. After locating their leaders, the day simply proceeded as usual, no reprimands and no punishments.

[00:24:17]

The soldiers still didn't feel normal, though they couldn't remember what happened to them. But most agree that something strange occurred the night before.

[00:24:28]

Still, the military did all they could to avoid discussing September 1st. Whenever the men tried to get help, their officers sent them to the medics and all of their other concerns, like their missing memories or their reports about time discrepancies were dismissed out of hand.

[00:24:47]

It wasn't just the military's behavior that made the troops apprehensive. In the days that followed, the soldiers encountered more strange repercussions around the fort.

[00:24:57]

On September 6th, Vasquez remembered sitting by the window in his bunk and watching the camp's electric lights mysteriously blink on and off. He and the rest of his barracks monitored the unnerving power surges as they increased in speed.

[00:25:15]

By the end, Vasquez wrote that the electricity around the base was strobing like a disco ball. Of course, no one from leadership intervened. In fact, it seemed like they had all abandoned their posts. Eventually, the lights calmed down on their own and returned to normal.

[00:25:34]

The mysterious occurrences didn't stop there. Soon after, a sergeant sent Vasquez and a squad out into the woods alone for some menial tasks.

[00:25:45]

It was atypical for the army to commission a platoon without any commanding officers and dangerous to leave new recruits alone in the wilderness. Still, Vasquez in the group completed their tasks and headed back to the fort, but their journey took longer than expected.

[00:26:04]

At noon that day, the squadron passed by a campground filled with men from another battalion as they left the site.

[00:26:13]

The soldiers saw what looked like the exact same trees up ahead of them. So somehow they were both leaving the campsite and arriving at it. It felt as if time was instantly replaying itself only in this instance when they walked by the location of the camp, it was empty.

[00:26:34]

Not a soldier or tent in sight. Vasquez looked down at his watch in confusion, though several minutes had gone by, it's still read exactly 12 noon.

[00:26:47]

After pausing and confusion and re-examining their maps, the group set off again. But it wasn't long before they found themselves approaching the camp once more. This time, its original residents and their gear were all back in the same place. And although Vasquez and the other recruits were confident they'd been in the woods for hours, their watches still indicated it was only noon. Vasquez decided to question the men in the camp, but they responded in confusion. They thought Vasquez's troop had lost their minds, and he was beginning to suspect they were right.

[00:27:29]

The soldiers felt themselves slipping further into madness, they couldn't explain the strange time loop in the woods, and they still knew nothing about what had happened on September 1st, the night that started it all together, they attempted to stitch the missing gaps of the evening into a cohesive picture, but all their efforts were in vain.

[00:27:52]

They simply couldn't remember what happened.

[00:27:56]

Meanwhile, the military leadership punished those caught theorizing or discussing the strange events to the soldiers. It was clear that Fort Benning wanted to keep them in the dark.

[00:28:08]

Then, on September 7th, 1977, a secretive female lieutenant arrived at Fort Benning, according to Vasquez's account. It was strange enough to have a woman on the base, let alone one flanked by bodyguards, and the soldiers soon discovered she had taken up a permanent position. Rumor had it she was a special kind of psychiatrist.

[00:28:35]

Supposedly select members of the infantry were being called in for mandatory sessions with the new counselor, and curiously, they were all from among the 13 men who had been on the field that fateful night.

[00:28:54]

Next, the infantry loses what's left of their memories, now back to the story.

[00:29:09]

Following an encounter with extraterrestrials in September 1977, the recruits at Fort Benning, Georgia, suffered from lasting physical pain, foggy memories and time gaps. To make matters worse, a new military psychiatrist appeared on the base to purge their minds of incriminating evidence.

[00:29:29]

After several days of the lieutenant's mental health inquiries, 25 year old John Vasquez noticed a pattern.

[00:29:38]

The men who spoke with her often returned dazed, confused and with worse memories than when they went in, intending to avoid whatever mind games the Army was playing.

[00:29:49]

Vasquez refused to see the psychiatrist, but on September 9th, the mysterious woman sought Vazquez out in the base's recreation room. She cornered him and ordered him to come along for his evaluation. As they walked down the hallway to her office, she brushed up against Vasquez. He felt a sudden, sharp pricking sensation like she had given him a small injection. Vasquez immediately felt disoriented and confused in the haze, he wondered if she drugged him soon enough, he lost control of his limbs and the lieutenant's bodyguards had to have dragged him into her office.

[00:30:35]

As the interview began, Vasquez's defenses were down and the lieutenant was fully in control. She probed for information about the night of September 1st. It soon became clear that Vasquez couldn't recall, much like she had to be sure.

[00:30:53]

After her interrogation ended, the lieutenant began repeating messages like mantras for Vasquez to learn. She told him to leave behind his memories of that night. She insisted the only way forward was to let go. Then the lieutenant grabbed onto his temples. Vasquez later claimed she used some unknown technique to forcibly clear his mind. After the interview, Vasquez left the office as much a robot as those who'd come before him at the mercy of the Army and programmed to forget perhaps the higher ups at Fort Benning thought they'd closed the case for good, that what they'd done to the soldiers minds was irreversible.

[00:31:40]

And for a while it was for the next 12 years, John Vasquez lived with the ambiguity of his time at Fort Benning, but eventually that wasn't good enough for him. In 1989, the now 37 year old Vasquez often woke up in cold sweats from nightmares about the troops at Fort Benning. He'd begun to see glimpses of his memories in his dreams, and he wanted to know what he was missing.

[00:32:11]

Vasquez read all the Fort Benning military records from 1977. He didn't discover any write ups about the attack he was seeing glimpses of in his dreams. The only tangible documents Vasquez found were reports of a rubella or measles outbreak at the base in the late summer of 1977.

[00:32:33]

As far as the record keepers were concerned, the only incident at Fort Benning that year was an infectious disease. However, measles or any illness would fail to explain the paralyzing lights, the missing time and the military leaders secrecy. The Vasquez had lost most of his memories. He knew there was something more insidious than a rubella outbreak.

[00:32:58]

Unsatisfied, he found a hypnotherapist to help him recover lost memories. He hoped that this guided technique would uncover some answers.

[00:33:08]

Soon, Vasquez started to recover memories from September 1977. He recorded his sessions on tape to listen back to and memorize. Since he would not get any physical evidence of the event from the Army, Vasquez wanted to create his own records.

[00:33:26]

In 2000, Vasquez transcribed his tapes into a book titled Incident at Fort Benning.

[00:33:33]

Whenever he promoted the book on radio shows and during interviews, he candidly admitted that he still didn't know the full truth of what had happened at Fort Benning. Vasquez didn't know how much of his recovered memories were actually real, and he certainly didn't know what the original event meant or who had orchestrated it.

[00:33:55]

His only conviction about that night was that something strange had in fact happened. But for an event that supposedly involved around thirteen hundred other people, the lack of evidence made his story appear fairly unbelievable.

[00:34:11]

It would be over a decade until Vasquez's account earned credibility from another witness in 2011. Command Sergeant James Naughton, an infantry leader at Fort Benning, discovered Vasquez's book and mission. After watching Vasquez's various media appearances, Norton felt inspired to share his own account of that night.

[00:34:36]

In his quest for truth, Norton also sought out the help of a hypnotherapist. With their guidance, he discovered a wealth of buried memories. And when Norton went public with his findings, it brought a new layer of plausibility to Vasquez's original story.

[00:34:53]

For one, Norton was a command sergeant, a high ranking position in the platoon and a lot of ways his status, greater credibility to his account. Also, he was still working on reserve for the Army when he first shared his memories. So many admired how Norton risked his career to speak out.

[00:35:16]

His testimony had considerable overlap with Vasquez is.

[00:35:20]

The most striking similarity was that they both remembered a chaotic attack perpetrated by brilliant floating orbs.

[00:35:28]

Norton also vividly remembered leaving behind recruits who appeared paralyzed or asleep. He recalled that his men suffered from fevers and other symptoms in the aftermath.

[00:35:40]

But strangely, Norton asserted the attack happened on September 14th, not September 1st. This is often dismissed as a simple mistake, considering the otherwise parallel nature of the two accounts. Even so, it is the key difference between Norton's story and Vasquez's.

[00:36:00]

From the beginning, Norton asserted that higher ups had informed them that a joint attack weapon system or Jaws test would occur during their assembly. Such a demonstration would have used the firing an attack system on the base. On the other hand, Vasquez did not remember the announcement of a.

[00:36:20]

George test on September 1st, he claims he hadn't even heard of the drill at all until he began searching through the military's official records, Vasquez said the military gave him the runaround, trying to find proof that the Jaws test actually happened. But after multiple requests, they sent Vasquez a document confirming that it did occur. And it had been on September 1st, 1977, the date he had already given for his story.

[00:36:51]

Later, a major general rescinded his office's approval of the documents regarding the test. He completely denied their validity.

[00:37:00]

But whether the Jaws test happened or not, there were still pieces of evidence that asserted something extraterrestrial occurred at the base on the Kevin Smith radio show in March 2011.

[00:37:14]

Norton insisted that he possessed a piece of debris from one of the alien ships that attacked Fort Benning.

[00:37:22]

He claimed he recovered the hunk of metal shortly after the attack and that the object was like nothing he'd ever seen.

[00:37:30]

Norton said the material was impossible to destroy. He tried cutting, bending and burning it, but it was impenetrable. He also emphasized that the piece contained writing in an unknown language.

[00:37:44]

Curiously, even though Norton's piece of debris would unequivocally prove his account to be true, he has never let anyone see it. Perhaps he fears retribution from the military, or maybe it never existed in the first place.

[00:38:01]

Regardless, Norton's story certainly appeared to anger the U.S. military during his second appearance on the Kevin Smith Show in May 2011, Norton revealed that he'd been detained and reprimanded at Fort Benning following a recent interview.

[00:38:18]

The threats didn't stop there. Norton spoke to a National Security Agency supervisor who ordered him to cease all public statements about Fort Benning after that night. Norton claims suspicious cars and strange men followed him on the street, sadly, just a few months later in November 2011. Norton was found unconscious at his post in Fort McClellan, Alabama. He died in the hospital days later from a combination of cancer and hepatitis C..

[00:38:53]

Norton's untimely death raised red flags.

[00:38:56]

For those who believed his story in their minds, his death may not have been so natural. As it appeared, many speculated the National Security Agency, or NSA, killed him as part of a cover up.

[00:39:10]

Or perhaps he was simply a sick man. Some believe his death was a tragedy, but it wasn't the result of a conspiracy.

[00:39:19]

The truth is a tricky thing to pin down, especially in the case of the incident at Fort Benning. The stories that both Vasquez and Norton wove are ones of mystery.

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While it was clear that the two remembered an extraterrestrial encounter, they both admitted that they were unsure that they had actually lived through an alien attack. Maybe something else could explain the strange memories they'd recovered. Next week, we'll delve into three conspiracy theories that look to uncover what really happened at Fort Benning conspiracy theory.

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Number one, aliens did, in fact, invade Fort Benning and examine the infantry.

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In response, the government chose to forcibly repress the soldiers memories through psychological manipulation, conspiracy theory, no to the military intended to experiment with its members recollections at the base.

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But something went wrong, leaving men like Vasquez and Norton with implanted, underdeveloped memories of an attack and conspiracy theory.

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Number three, a measles outbreak on the base caused soldiers to develop rashes, fevers and experience wild hallucinations.

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But perhaps more frightening than aliens, spaceships or infections is the question. Can we actually trust our own memories?

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Thanks for tuning into conspiracy theories, we'll be back Wednesday with a new episode you can find all episodes of conspiracy theories and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify.

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Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story, and the official story isn't always the truth.

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Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify original from podcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler Sound Design by Anthony Vasek with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Isabella Minichiello with writing assistants by Molly Quinlan and Ali Whicker and stars Molly Brandenberg and Carter Roy. Remember to follow the newest Spotify original from podcast, Our Love Story every Tuesday catch an intimate glimpse inside a real life romance with couples recounting the highlights and hardships that define their love.

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Listen to our love story. Free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.