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This week on The Gralien Report, as 75% of the US population is set to suffer below-freezing temps this week, we look at other winter-themed news, which includes how retreating arctic ice has exposed a landscape unseen for 120,000 Years. Also, while it’s tempting to think so, aliens didn’t create a weird swirling disk that recently appeared in a Maine river. Finally, this brings us to one of our favorite kinds of cold-weather phenomena: cryoseisms, or the so-called “frost quakes” that tend to occur around the first of the year, especially where there’s freezing.
Elsewhere, a team of divers believes they may have discovered part of Amelia Earheart’s plane… Micah tells us why he doesn’t think Earheart’s famous disappearance is particularly “mysterious”, before getting to a few listener emails, including one that tells of a curious “disappearing” photograph, as well as an update on a young man who went missing in a National Park in Georgia.
This brings us to the main discussion for this program, which involves the rescue of three-year-old Casey Hathaway, a young boy who managed to survive for 48 hours alone in freezing temperatures. The near-miraculous circumstances have captured the minds of people across America, particularly since Casey said he wasn’t alone: the boy told family members and law enforcement that his “best friend,” a bear, had been with him while he was missing. We look at this unusual statement and the ways that psychology could help us to understand what the boy meant by this, along with historical examples of similar incredible cases of survival.
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Thanks for mentioning the story of Haley Zega, and her similar reporting of a “protector” during her ordeal while lost in the Arkansas Ozarks wilderness when she was a 6-year-old kindergartner. I was a teacher at her school, and my children went to school with Haley, so it’s been part of our community experience, and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to see Haley grow into a talented young woman, thanks to her brave rescuers. I shared with her mother about your retelling of her story during this broadcast. Her response: “That’s so cool!!! Sometimes I marvel at how current her whole experience continues to be. 🙂 Thank you for telling me!” Thank you for telling her story in a positive and respectful way.
Hi, Micah,
I wanted to weigh in on the “bear” question. I realize a lot of people pooh, pooh the possibility of a bigfoot protecting this child but it wouldn’t be the first time a child has said he/she has been protected, helped, saved by a bear or monkey or monster. Now, you and I both know that a bear would be more likely to kill a child and eat it than cuddle and keep a child warm. A monkey would be more likely to do this but it would be smaller and this child would have more than likely have called it a monkey. But suppose this animal was really huge possibly blurring the childs perception of bear vs monkey. Many examples of female bigfoot taking care of lost children have been reported throughout the bigfoot mythology. It’s been reported that bigfoot are especially enthralled watching children play.
Why hasn’t someone taken a picture of a bigfoot and a bear and asked the child if either one of these was what kept him company? That would settle the question and would possibly give credence to the bigfoot phenom. Adults make too much drama out of things. It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out how to settle this question.
I’m open minded about the question of bigfoot. There is way too much written by witnesses to be a figment of someone’s imagination. If just 1/10th, hell, if just 1/50th of what has been reported about a big, hairy biped is true, we have something out there that is not in the biology books.
Thanks…..