Cisco Grove UFO Encounter
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Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. My name is Aaron. The other host joining me is Daniel Sun. Hello. Now, before we start today's episode, we do have a quick announcement to make. If you would like to support the show, you can do so by joining our Patreon. For just $5 a month, enjoy weekly Patreon-exclusive episodes and access to our extensive back catalog of over 205 Patreon episodes that are all ad-free.

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Also, remember, our content is entirely human-made, no AI was involved or harmed in the process. And that is the end of the announcements. So with that being said, let's get into today's episode. In the early 1960s, an individual located in a remote and rugged region within the mountains of California experiences one of the most bizarre and terrifying encounters ever to occur.

Strange lights and unearthly crafts circulate through the wilderness, eventually leading to robotic humanoid figures appearing and hunting down the individual in the forest below. Was this encounter merely a trick of the light? Or were there really extraterrestrials scouting out forests to capture unsuspecting humans?

In this exploration, we embark on a journey into the depths of this mysterious encounter, seeking to uncover the truth of the unknown. This is the Cisco Grove UFO Encounter. All right. So this alien encounter that we are going to talk about today happened in Cisco County, California in 1964.

Now, this incident is pretty bizarre. It's about three hunters who decided to go bow hunting, and one of them gets separated from the other two and then ends up having a weird encounter that lasts pretty much all night. And when we say weird, it's pretty weird. Yeah. Now, we don't want to spoil the story for you, but before we get into it, let's talk about the individual that this entire story revolves around, Donald Shrum.

Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

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So Donald Shrum was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1938 to Edgar Shrum and Imogene Dillard Shrum. His family would then move to Sacramento area and that is where Donald would attend San Juan High School in Citrus Heights, California.

Now, when Donald was born, he had a physical disability. He had scoliosis, which if you don't know what that is, it's where your spine is curved. And this would cause Donald not to be able to join the physical education portion that required by his school for him to graduate high school, which is kind of a dick of a move on the high school's part. Yeah. But, you know, this was back in the 50s.

So instead of Donald graduating from high school in 1958, he would leave school to start working a job at Pacific Coast Insulation. Now, at the same time, he was actually drafted into the United States military in 1958, but was rejected due to his scoliosis.

One year later, in 1959, Donald would get a job as a welder for the Aerojet General Corporation at the factory located in Sacramento, California, and he would work there for almost seven years, and then he ended up quitting in 1966.

Now, Aerojet designed and built the rocket engine called the Titan. And these engines were used during multiple space missions, such as the Gemini space program, the Viking Mars landers, and the Voyager probes that went into, you know, the outer part of our solar system. If you believe in space. Yeah.

Now, the other thing that the Aerojet company did was provide the U.S. Air Force with its Minuteman missiles, which in the 1960s, this was an important part of the nation's missile defense system. So needless to say, Donald worked for Aerojet and helped construct missiles for the U.S. military. So fast forwarding a little bit, Donald would end up getting married to a woman named Judy, and together they would have a little baby girl named Donna.

Donald ended up having this alien encounter in 1964. And after the encounter, him and his wife, Judy, would end up keeping this encounter pretty much under the radar. They wouldn't tell anyone about it for a little while. And this was because Donald was afraid of him losing his job because how he worked for Aerojet, who was building pretty much building missiles for the United States military.

Also, this was due to the fact that they were struggling financially. And let's say Donald did start talking about this encounter. The military finds out, talks to the company, and they're just like, hey, we have a crazy man working for us building missiles. He no longer has a job, can't support his family. Yeah, exactly.

However, they did end up telling some investigators about his story and they would tell his story in like bits and pieces only if the investigators promised to keep Donald's identity anonymous.

Finally, 50 years later, Donald and Judy would talk publicly about what Donald had seen and what he had to do during the night of September 4th of 1964 in order for him to survive in the wilderness while he was being hunted by alien creatures.

Nice. So we do have a photograph of Donald Trump in September of 1964 holding his daughter. And if you want to see that photo, you can go to our website, theoriesofthethirdkind.com. Click on today's episode and that photograph will be right there for you to take a look at. Looks like your typical...

Caucasian male in the 1960s, I would say. No facial hair, regular haircut, normal looking dude. Same as every other white guy I've seen in my entire life. Yeah, I can agree because I'm only half white. I can't say much more. All right. So that right there gives you an overview of who Donald Shrum is. Now let's get into the story of the Cisco Grove UFO encounter.

Alright, when Donald was 26 years old in 1964, he and two friends, Vincent Alvarez and Tim Trueblood, badass name. His real name was Tim Trueblood? That's what they say. Damn. Badass name. The best. You think he could get, uh, pussy? Hell yeah, he could. I was gonna say, do you think he could get royalties off that vampire show, Trueblood? My God.

Alright, so the three of them decided to go bow hunting in the Tahoe National Forest near Cisco Grove, California. And since it was September, hunting deer with firearms was not in season yet, but bow season had already started. Now they were all avid bow hunters and outdoor enthusiasts, but this day and night would bring an experience that Donald could have never prepared for.

So the three of them would set off from Sacramento, driving around 70 miles along Route 40. They would pull over in Placer County in the area of Cisco Grove. They would park, grab their gear. They would set up camp about three miles south of Route 40, which is located near one of the three small lakes, which we do have a picture of.

Where Route 40, which I think has now been replaced by Route 80. So it's historical Route 40. But the little white dot shows how far off the road they were. Seems quite a bit of ways. I did the measurements on it in like Google Maps. And for some reason, it seemed like it was longer. But then again, it's not. That's what she said. She always says that. All right. Like Dan said, we'll have that map up on our website for anyone that wants to look at it.

All right, so continuing on, the three individuals had made it to this area, and since the sun wasn't going to be setting for another couple hours, the three of them, Donald, Vincent, and Tim, all decided to grab their hunting bows and head out for a bit of some evening deer hunting. Now, they all agreed that they would head in different directions to hunt.

And depending on how far they went, they were all cool with setting up and sleeping wherever they were if they couldn't make it back before sundown. To me, that seems kind of weird. Like, we're going to build base camp, but if you go too far, just go ahead and camp wherever you're at. Why not just carry your camping stuff? Yeah. So that is exactly what happened to Donald. He ventured a little too far down one ridge from camp and realized that the path he took ended with a sheer drop off.

So he would have to turn back and retrace his path and go around to be able to make it down to the bottom. And by that time, it was starting to get dark. Donald was quoted saying, I got down in this real brushy country. I really got tangled up. And by the time I got out of there, it was dark. And that is when he would realize that he would just have to settle down somewhere for the night and wait till sunrise so he could actually see his way back to base camp.

And I know I kind of said settle down, but he actually settled up because he decided to climb back up the ridge and he found a tall ass pine tree and decided to sleep in that tree for the night. Now, the reason why Donald went to sleep on this tree is because he wore a safety belt. And with this safety belt, he could secure himself in a tree without worrying about falling off in the middle of the night and hitting the ground.

So he figured, you know, this would be the safest bet. Never knowing what type of animal may try and get him while he's, you know, snoozing on the ground in the middle of the woods. He figured, I don't want no snakes on me. I don't want no centipedes. I don't want no snapping turtles trying to bite my butthole. I'm going to go up the tree and I'm going to latch myself to it and I'm going to go to sleep.

I mean, in recent reports, he did hear that there were bears in the area. Bears can climb trees. That's what he said. Because, you know, it'd be bad sleeping on the ground. You get attacked by a bear. But if you're at least in a tree, the bear has to try to make its way up to where you have a little bit of time to react.

Even though I don't know what you're really going to do when you're in a tree trying to fight a bear. And you're strapped to the tree. And you're strapped to the tree. And you have a bow. So he figured at least being up the tree provided some kind of protection or gave him some time to react if anything dangerous may happen, which meant he would still actually have to stay awake throughout the night. So he's not really sleeping. Yeah. All right. So as Donald was looking around the area, he ended up finding the perfect tree. It was a big old pine tree.

Now, the bottom of the tree to the very first branch was around 12 feet off the ground. So he's like, you know what? That's perfect. Plus, there was two other little branches that came out of it at an angle. So he ended up using those branches to pull himself up. He got way up into that pine tree. Then he secured himself into it. Now, once he secured himself, it was around 7 p.m.

And the sun was starting to set in the horizon. And he was like, damn, I couldn't have done it any better. Tonight's going to be a good night. I'm going to get some rest in this tree. It's going to be great. Or so he thought. Yeah. After two hours, it was 9 p.m. And he was, you know, chilling in a tree, somewhat getting comfortable, you know, about to fall asleep. But that's when he would see a strange light appearing in the sky a good distance away.

It was high up, but yet it was below the mountain range, moving from east to west. Donald noticed the light zigzagging through and above the trees at a low altitude and heading west in his general direction. Donald would go on to say, and we quote, it looked just like a flashlight or a lantern at first, bobbing up and down, but it was below the horizon.

I saw it go up over a tree and then down. And I thought, you know what? That might be a helicopter. I thought maybe my friends have gotten a helicopter from the Forest Service and figured they were coming out looking for me. Jesus, Donald. Yeah, so Donald thought that his buddies, Vincent and Tim, had gotten worried and just like, well, shit, Donald hasn't come back to camp yet. He might have gotten lost in the woods.

So they alerted the Forest Service. They started a rescue party to go out and find him. But that didn't really happen, did it? No, he thought this light was possibly a helicopter. But even though he thought it was a helicopter, he jumped down from the tree. He lit three little fires down below the tree and was like jumping up and down, hollering like, hey, I'm over here. I'm over here to let the helicopter know where his location was.

It's kind of dumb of him. He already talked to his friends and they said, hey, you know, sleep where you stop at. Why would he think that a helicopter was coming? That I do not know. Well, after he ended up lighting these fires and jumping up and down saying, hey, I'm over here, I'm over here. He's sitting there watching that light, assuming it was a helicopter.

But at this point, the light would stop zigzagging through the trees and it turned and it started to head towards Donald while he was waving his arms and jumping up in the air. And it was at this point that Donald was like, you know what? I can't tell the shape of the craft because it's too dark. And there was no sound coming from this craft. So it probably not a helicopter because I can't hear it and I can't really see it that well. I don't know what it is.

Of course, he originally thought that it had a single light attached to this helicopter. But as it got closer, he could definitely tell that it was no longer a helicopter. That there were three panels of either lights or possibly windows on the side of this craft. Donald described it as a spherical but cigar shape, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen before and he felt like a sense of danger coming from it.

So we do have a little image, a little drawing of the craft, and we'll post that on our website for anyone that wants to take a look at it. It's just like a spherical object with big old windows. Big old windows, and you can see like a little circle for a little light. Yeah. So as Donald watched this craft float in between the trees, he again noted to himself, man, there's no sound coming from this, and there's only a single light at the very front of it.

He pretty much knew at that moment that whatever this was, was not a human manufactured craft. This had to be something extraterrestrial. Yeah. And Donald would go on and say, and we quote, I thought maybe it was just a little dinky thing because I couldn't see anything behind it. I thought of a flying saucer then, but I thought it was just a little tiny one. I thought it might be something from outer space, but all I could see was an eight inch glow. So I thought it was just a little tiny flying saucer.

Now, like we said at this time, it was just the headlight that he had seen and not the entire craft coming towards him. So at this point he was like, it's not a helicopter. It's not a human made craft. So he was like, I got to get back up into that tree and I need to strap myself onto the tree and get my bow out and somehow shoot down this craft. If it comes towards me, I got to protect myself. So that's what he did. Climbed up the tree, strapped himself to it and got his bow out like Turok.

You know, I never played that game. I played that game a lot. It was fun. I think I got scared. Played it on N64, baby. Now, Donald would say, and we quote again, I had camouflage clothing on from head to toe all the way, hat and everything. And after I got up in that tree, I just froze. Just sat as quiet as I could. Thought maybe they couldn't see me because it was dark in the tree. And of course, he's wearing camouflage. Duh. Yeah.

So as Donald sat there in the tree, the craft made a large sweeping 180 degree turn to the east and flew past Donald over a canyon and onto the south side of the ridge. Now this unknown craft was now about 50 to 60 yards away from Donald's tree where of course he was hiding.

Now we do have a sketch of the UFO path that, uh, Donald ended up drawing afterwards. And, uh, we'll provide this on our website for anyone that wants to look at the flight path of the UFO. I'm going to mention this path thing a little bit later, just cause it kind of doesn't make sense to me, especially with two other people with them, not really with them, but in the same area. But yeah, moving on now, when the craft came to a stop on the ridge,

The moon was shining out and it was able to illuminate the craft just enough to make out the rectangular shapes on the sides of it. You know, those little windows, which Donald did draw another sketch of the craft once he actually remembered it. And he estimated the measurements for us as well. That is a horrible drawing, by the way. Yeah. It just looks like somebody scribbled everywhere. Scribbled. I mean, the first one I think was way better than this one. Yeah.

So if you want to see these scribbles, go to our website, Theories of the Third Kind. It'll be right there for you. All right. So according to Donald's sketches, he estimated that the light at the very front of the craft was about 50 feet from the first set of the panels that were located on the side of the craft. So adding it up, that means that the UFO would be around 150 feet in total length.

And to kind of give you some perspective of how big that is, you take a football field, right? An American football field. And from end zone to end zone, you take that and then you cut it in half and that's about 180 feet. So about half of a football field from end zone to end zone. Yeah. That's how big the craft is. It is a pretty big UFO.

Now, the panels on the side were all evenly spread across, and the way he describes the light emanating from the panels, like you would take aluminum foil and shake it, wiggle it against the fire, and you would see the glistening, shimmering effect on the foil, which is a weird way to describe it. Okay.

So as Donald sat there strapped to the tree and armed with his bow and arrow, he would watch the craft cautiously. And he continued to stare at it for the next four to five minutes as it just remained stationary in the air hovering over the little canyon. Now, Donald said at one point, the spaceship ended up speeding off into the distance like a star. And then all of a sudden, it was back in front of him within a second.

He said that it was extremely fast and silent. Now, on the other side of the ridge, we have Vincent, Donald's hunting buddy. He was actually able to see the supposed same UFO light that Donald was experiencing. And Vincent said, and we quote, I also saw the light as I was working my way through the canyon to camp, but I also got lost that night. Way to go, Vincent. Yeah. That's what happens when you travel in the dark. Yeah.

Anyway, back to Donald. So Donald's just sitting there in his tree, observing the craft. And as he did, he noticed that something started to happen. The second panel, which is pretty much the second shiny window panel, had something come out of it. And all he could see after that was a flash as something shot towards the ground. Now, it was a dark object that fell down into the canyon and then disappeared into the darkness.

That's kind of scary. Donald soon realized that it must have been, you know, another smaller UFO that came out of this bigger craft, which he referred to that one as a scout ship. And then the next thing he knew, the scout ship zoomed past him in the tree and stopped at the top of the hill above where Donald was hiding. When it landed on the ridge, I could only see part of the top, but it had a little light on it. And it looked like the top of a flying saucer that I'd seen in pictures.

Sort of like a dome. So this one looked like a generic UFO that you would see in like movies and such. Yeah. It was a little baby UFO. That came out of the mothership. Now, as he watched this craft hovering, he started to hear some rustling noise come from the mountainside down below him. It was just like a moment later, Donald spotted it. A short, stocky being, which he said looked humanoid to him, started to approach his beautiful pine tree that he was hiding in.

So Donald stated that this humanoid being stood five feet tall and was dressed in a tight-fitting light-colored uniform. Now, from where Donald was at, he could not tell if the uniform was white or silver-looking at the time.

But what he could tell is that the entire uniform was just one piece. It wasn't like multiple different ones like t-shirt pants. It was just one single suit. What are those called? Like unitards? I don't know. Unitards is what the ballerinas wear, right? I think so. Damn ballerina aliens. Ballerina aliens, man. Then Donald will go on to saying that the being's head was covered by either a tight-fitting hood or a helmet, causing him not to be able to see their face other than these two large circular eyes

That made him think that they looked like they were wearing goggles of some sort. So as Donald watched this being down below, he noticed it started approaching him. Also, he noticed a second humanoid was following not too far behind the first one. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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as I felt. And get an inside perspective from the experts closest to the cases. I really appreciate platforms like this that are there for the victims and to give them a voice. Listen now to the Crime Door TV podcast, your home for true crime analysis. All right, welcome back. So as Donald watched this being down below,

he noticed it started approaching him. Also, he noticed a second humanoid was following not too far behind the first one, and it was dressed identically to the first one. Now, Donald would say that the being stopped about 100 feet from him, and it seemed to be studying the plant life in the area. Like it stopped and said,

Look at these plants. Damn. That's a beautiful flower. Yeah, that's a nice hibiscus. Yeah. Now, as he watched them quietly, he noticed that the one that was looking at plant life had stopped and made its way towards his tree. Then the second one would join the first one, and they were standing at the base of the tree that Donald was hiding in. And it was at that exact same moment, both of the beings, little humanoid guys, looked up directly at Donald and just stared at him.

And all Donald could say was that their eyes looked like silver dollars just staring at him. So big old eyes. Big old eyes. Donald then stated is that these beings just continued to stare at Donald in the tree, which at this point, it allowed Donald to pretty much get a good look at these beings because they were just staring at him. Now, other than the eyes, Donald said that the being seemed to have a nose that was extremely flat and was located much lower on the face than a human.

These little humanoids just staring up at him. Donald believed that they were confused on what to do at the moment and looked like they were listening to some sort of communication device in order to know what was going on next. To try to get like some instructions. Yeah, they're just like, hey, we just found a guy sitting in a tree. What do we do? So shortly after that, Donald heard some strange cooing or hooting sounds. He stated that they were similar to that of an owl.

But this noise was not coming from an owl. It was coming from the humanoid beings down below him. And it was also coming from the bigger ship with the windows. So Donald would say, and we quote, At the time, I thought that the humanoids turned their heads towards the mothership every time they heard this noise. They would look up at the sky. So I thought at the time that this was their way of communicating. Every time this noise would come from the ship, they would do something else.

I just connected it. The sounds with the creatures actions. It might have been some owl someplace, but I connected it. All right. So as Donald watched these humanoids, you know, sitting there trying to communicate with whatever it was, he noticed that they continued communicating and then started walking around, possibly collecting samples or analyzing the plant life in the area.

pretty much not paying attention to him anymore like not even looking at him or anything they're like screw this guy in the tree we're gonna collect plant life so as donald watched these humanoid beings he stated that at least two more had joined the first two in searching around the area now at the time it didn't seem like they were interested in donald anymore but that was until it

Came out of the bushes. It? It. Uh-oh, like the clown? Pennywise? The dancing clown. But no, not like a clown. He said this being was different and he described it as two big eyes coming just like two flashlights hooked together. So I guess take two flashlights, tape them together and that's all he saw at first?

Now, it was at this moment that Donald saw this being coming out of the bushes that would pretty much be the image that haunted him for years and years and years. Now, he ended up referring to this new being as not like an alien humanoid creature, but as a robot. Now, we do have a drawing that Donald made pretty much showing what this robot creature looked like. And what's that movie?

The Iron Giant. The Iron Giant is exactly what this robot looks like. I mean, especially the head. Yeah. That looks exactly like the Iron Giant. Now, as he watched this robot, it came up right to the bottom of the tree. And as it stood there, it looked straight up and started to stare at Donald for a while. So it was standing right at the bottom of his tree. It was standing right at the bottom of his tree staring up at him. I would have pissed on it.

Then it turned and went to one of the fires that Donald had lit earlier, which most of those have already went out. So there was just like a little bit of embers left. The robot then brushed the remaining embers of the fires off the cliff to get rid of them. And this made Donald believe that, you know, this thing didn't like fires, that the robot was like, ooh, fire bad. So with it clearing these embers, Donald was able to get a good look at the robot's hands. He was quoted saying,

It was in joints, but it was like a hand, fingers and everything. Like a medieval metal gauntlet. I could see the face fairly plain because of the eyes lighting up. I couldn't see much detail from the neck down though. It was just a general shape. That's all.

Now, at the time, Donald stated that these beings, even though they were different, an alien and a robot, he stated that they all seemed to have the same type of mission, that they all wanted to collect samples and survey the area. However, that would all quickly change. So once these entities were done collecting their samples of the foliage in the area, Donald stated that is when he became their prime target.

The robot had walked away, but then it made its way back to the base of the tree and looked up towards Donald. And then it moved its jointly hand or whatever towards its metal looking jaw. And then the hand did something that caused a cloud of white vapor to spray out of its mouth. And it quickly formed a cloud that moved upwards towards Donald in the tree. Vaping tricks, dog. He's vaping. So Donald would go on to say, and we quote,

It put one hand up to its mouth, it as in the robot, and some kind of white vapor came out. He was upwind from me. So it just came up through the tree and acted like nitrogen would, just like gas. I never did smell anything. There was no smell of any kind, but I just kind of gasped for my breath and then I blacked out and fell across my bow. Of course, he was still strapped to the tree, so he didn't fall out of it.

Whatever the vapor was, it was odorless and immediately took effect against Donald, which knocked him unconscious. This was just the start of the attacks against Donald that night, and it would be pretty much a volley of attacks one after the other.

So the gas didn't keep Donald unconscious for long because around 11 p.m. and midnight, he would end up waking up from it, which he believed he only had blacked out for a few minutes. But when he did wake up, he ended up dry heaving and wasn't really feeling well. And he stated that dry heaving was from the vapors. He assumed it was. Now, when Donald woke up, he was in a fight or flight mode.

And there was no flight for the fact that there was nowhere for him to escape since he was tied to a damn tree. So it was fight. And all he had with him was his bow. Now, he had a large 60-pound recurve bow with a 28-inch pull, which, no, that does not mean it's, you know, 60 pounds itself. Pretty much the 60 pounds is the drawstring, which means the required force to pull the bowstring back to fire the arrow.

So that's how badass of a recurve bow he had. Not a compound bow, a recurve bow, which those I think are actually harder to use because once you pull it back, you have to keep holding it there. Unlike a compound bow, you pull it back and it just kind of rests there. Now you do have a photo of Donald, right? Yeah. So here we have a photo from 2005 with the same exact bow that he used to defend himself.

All right. So like we mentioned earlier, Donald had just woken back up in the tree from getting knocked out from the vape, vape clouds, right? He was a little bit of nauseous, right? A little bit of dry heaving, but he went into fight or flight mode because he realized, shit, these robots and aliens are down below me and I got my large 60 pound recurve bow. I'm about to light these muckas up.

So the robots and two alien slash humanoid beings were underneath Donald at the base of the tree. Donald looked down at him, analyzed his targets, and figured, you know what? I could probably take out the humanoid ones with the arrows, especially at, you know, close distance. But they didn't make any aggressive moves towards him. Now, in Donald's own words, let me quote, I really thought that with an arrow I could have penetrated the humanoids.

But then I figured they'd probably zap me or kill me for sure. And they weren't really a threat to me though. For some reason, I did not want to shoot them. They weren't causing any problems and I was kind of afraid of shooting them. Plus, actually the robot was the only one that was creating havoc for me. So I tried shooting the robot with my bow. I just pulled it back as far as I could and hit him with the arrow the first time.

So the arrow that Donald first fired hit the robot in the chest. And immediately after that, all he saw was a big, bright flash of light, sort of like a big old arc flash. And it happened right in front of him. So upon being hit with the arrow, it pushed the robot back about two feet. This kind of made the robot be like, oh, what the hell? I wasn't expecting to get attacked. So it stepped back an additional 10 feet.

Now, this didn't damage the robot at all. And in fact, it bent the arrowhead that Donald was using. So robot was just sort of startled, like, oh, I just got hit with an arrow. Then Donald will go on to say, and we quote, I had a 60 pound bow, which is a very high velocity bow. And seeing how the robot was the only thing that was causing me harm, I shot the chest area.

It has the velocity of a rifle at that distance because the robot is only seven or eight feet from me. When I hit the chest of the robot, sparks would fly like an arc welder kind of. That robot backed up and it almost knocked him down. He kind of fell back against the rock. Dwayne Johnson. The two humanoids at the bottom took off and headed for the brush and stood out there about 30 feet from me.

After that happened, Donald then proceeded to fire his bow two more times, each striking and causing another bright flash, and it sent the robot retreating backwards a few steps each hit. Even with the arrows hitting, he was not causing any damage that could be seen to the robot, and after each hit, the robot would just slowly walk back towards the base of the tree. Sadly for Donald, he only had three arrows, and they did literally no damage at all. They just sort of startled the robot.

Now, it was able to scare off the smaller humanoids, but the robot didn't seem to be bothered by the assault. And of course, with no arrows left, the only thing that Donald had was a bunch of matchbooks. The paper matchbooks. Yeah. Now, he did remember earlier that the robot put out the rest of the dying fires that he had lit when he first thought he saw a helicopter. And that right there made him think that, you know, they might be scared of fire.

So Donald lit one of the matchbooks on fire and threw it down towards the robot, which actually caused the robot to move back away from it. So with that happening, Donald realized, hey, I might need a bigger flame instead of, you know, just a small matchbook. He ended up taking off his hat and lighting it on fire. And he believed that the oil from his hair must have amplified the flame because it caught fire fast. And he threw his hat down towards the robot.

He actually said that. He's like, the hair oil must have made the hat catch on fire faster. And I'm just like, nasty bitch. Go wash your hair. Use some L'Oreal. Now, he did notice again that the robot backed away even further now, about 50 to 75 feet away from the tree. It didn't want to be near that nasty ass hat that was on fire.

But at that same exact moment, though, he noticed off in the distance, the mothership had actually moved even higher into the sky when he threw the blazing hat down to the ground. Now, the little humanoid beings, they actually stayed away from the fire until it went out. And once it did, they moved back closer to Donald, who was still in the tree. Now, Donald had to light something else on fire because he wanted these little things to get away from him.

He thought about, hey, maybe having a brush fire, but yet there was no big brush around that he could, you know, light on fire. Just a bunch of small ones scattered around. So Donald decided to search his body to see what else he could find. He found a bunch of paper out of his wallet and all that. So he started lighting all those on fire and trying to toss them towards any brush that he could.

He used everything. He burned his driver's license, his hunting license, pretty much everything. None of that worked. So he ended up resorting to tearing bits of his clothes and he ended up using all of his jacket, setting those on fire and trying to toss them to catch the brush on fire. Needless to say, he failed.

So all that he was left with was only his t-shirt, jeans, and shoes. Well, at least he didn't catch those on fire and throw them sitting up there butt-ass naked. It was starting to get kind of cold. It's like mid-thirties. Hmm.

So since Donald was unable to cause any big fires, the beings kept getting closer to the tree again and again. So Donald decided to move up into the tree even higher and use his belt to tie himself to a higher spot in the tree. Now, if the robots gassed him again, he wouldn't fall out of the tree because just like last time, he was tied to it.

Now, he noticed that a second robot being had joined the first one down at the base of the tree, with both of them just up staring at him with their flashlight eyes. And little did Donald know, this would actually be the final attack phase that these beings would launch at him.

And it was at this moment that the two humanoids decided to join in on the attack, and they used each other to try and reach the first branch so that they could pull themselves up on it and begin climbing the tree. Now, every time they would get close to the branch, Donald would shake the tree from the top, making it sway back and forth, scaring the humanoids away from the tree.

Then Donald, of course, was launching anything that he could find and get a hold of down at them to stop them from climbing. He would break more branches off. He said that he has like random coins in his pocket. So he was throwing like pennies and shit at him just to keep them from trying to climb the tree again. He said it was literally a continuous battle of back and forth between him throwing things at him, them trying to climb, them gassing, just over and over.

So like Dan said, he would throw things at them. They would retreat. They would come back. He would shake the tree, throw more things at them. They would retreat. They would come back. And then eventually they would gas him. He would black out. He would then wake up dry heaving, still, you know, just chilling up in the tree. And this would repeat over and over again.

And at one point, Donald stated that he saw the humanoids collecting all the coins that he threw down there at them. Sort of like they were collecting samples again, except it was human currency. United States currency, to be exact. Abraham Lincoln's pennies. They're just like, ooh, money. Yeah. Now, from what Donald said, he believed that the beings thought that he would be unconscious for a long time.

Long enough for them to climb up the tree, grab him. But unfortunately, the gas wasn't working as planned because he kept waking up. Now, with this going on, it got to a point where Donald was just like, damn, I'm going to get captured. Maybe I should in my own life before they take me alive. Oh, Jesus Christ, Donald. So it was at that point, you know, he thought that for a little bit and he's like, you know what? I'm going to continue to fight on. I'm not going to give up.

So he began yelling and screaming while he shook the tree to try to scare them away. But it really didn't work. After a little while, the two robots decided to try a different tactic against Donald. They faced each other and all Donald could see was a bunch of arc lights going back and forth between the two. So it's like they started conjuring up something. They got closer together and just like lightning was going back between them.

That's when Donald said that he could see vapor start rising into the air, but this time it seemed thicker and he believed that it was like double the strength because as soon as he saw it, he ended up passing out.

And of course, when he woke up, the sun was already out. So obviously he was out for quite a while. Everyone was gone. All the robots were gone. The humanoids were gone. The ships were gone. Everything cleared out. He was just chilling up in the tree with barely any clothes on. Barely any clothes on, hanging on the tree with a belt, passed out. Yep. So it was at that point when he realized that, hey, there's no crafts in the area and it's daytime.

This scary experience is finally over. The long battle that happened throughout the night had finally come to an end. Now, there were a couple other things that were still on his mind during this period, such as how the hell am I going to make it back home? What the hell happened to me while I was unconscious? Did I get probed? He was worried that maybe these beings could have like got him while he was in the tree, while he was unconscious. And you know, what happened to him?

However, he didn't stay up in the tree worrying for too long because he unstrapped himself. And after he looked around a little while and made sure the area was safe, he ended up climbing down. And that is when he noticed the items in the area that he threw down were gone. So pretty much any item that he threw down that caught the being's attention of anything of interest,

mostly the coins, had all disappeared. It's like they went around collecting all the money and then just disappeared. Yep. So after he looked around the area for a little while is when he started to make his way back to camp. He would walk for around a half a mile before collapsing of fatigue

He ended up curling up on the ground to stay warm since it was around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And all he had on was his, you know, ripped up shirt, jeans, and shoes since he threw everything else down there. Or he ripped it off, caught it on fire, and then threw it down there. So after Donald passed out, you know, five minutes later, he awoke to hearing the sound of whistling.

It was his buddy Vincent. Vincent had decided to go out and look for Donald. And when he found him, he saw Donald curled up in a ball on the ground. So he ended up helping him up and got him back to camp. Vincent would fix Donald some hot soup and got him, you know, to rest in his own little tent, which Donald ended up sleeping for about six or so hours before waking up again. When Donald got up, he told his two buddies that he was fine.

But they needed to turn on their little portable radio to see what the news was saying about the light in the sky and if there was anything else weird that was being reported in the area. And of course, Vincent and Tim did that. But then Vincent did say that, you know, he heard earlier when he was listening to the radio, the news reported on something about a light in the sky. Now, when Vincent and Tim asked Donald what the hell happened to him, why was he, you know, just wearing shirt and jeans and shoes?

That's when Donald told him what the hell happened. He explained the events that transpired that night. And after telling his buddies what happened, they would leave and head back home, where Donald would go back to his home in the Sacramento area with his wife Judy and daughter Donna. So Donald ended up going into his home and sitting down in his kitchen. There in his kitchen, his wife would end up coming across him and saying, hey, nice to see you back home, honey. How was your hunting trip?

And as she looked at him in his face, she noticed that Donald looked completely exhausted. And she said, hey, I'm kind of worried about you. Is everything okay? He proceeded to tell his wife what had occurred at Cisco Grove the night prior. And during this moment of him telling his wife what had happened, he would shake and be frightened and sort of like freaked out as if he was reliving it all over again.

And it made his wife pretty much believe him because she was like, whoa, you got f***ed up. He never acts like this. Yeah. Now, after Judy listened to Donald's story, she decided to contact her father, Albert H. Legg Sr. Her father had served in the Air Force for 30 years and was stationed at the nearby Mather Air Force Base before he retired. Now, Judy's father was a master sergeant and a drill instructor during his time there.

So he was the highest ranking non-commissioned officer. So you could pretty much say that he has connections with the top guys at the base.

So as Judy was talking with her father on the phone, she ended up telling him about Donald's story and what had happened the night prior. And she asked him, hey, can you look around or ask around and see if there was anything going on in that area during that time? Something's wrong with Donald. He's acting weird. He's not lying about this. I need to know what really happened. So her father was like, you know what? I'll take care of it.

So, Judy's father, Albert, gave his former colleagues a call and asked if the base had been conducting any kind of maneuvers in the area where Donald had his encounter. They told him that there were no maneuvers at all during that day or night in question.

So that pretty much led Donald and his wife to a dead end since the Air Force had no involvement in what had occurred the night prior from what they had said. You know, they still could have lied, but according to Albert Legg, they didn't.

Now, it was at this point that Judy's mother, Beatrice Legg, had the idea of contacting an individual at the Astronomical Observatory of Sacramento City College, an individual named Victor W. Killick. Now, Beatrice, Judy's mother, ended up calling Killick and explained the story of what had happened to Donald. And Killick was just like, now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break. This is our last one, so don't go nowhere. All right, welcome back.

Now Beatrice, Judy's mother, ended up calling Killick and explaining the story of what had happened to Donald. And Killick was just like, let me talk to Donald myself. I need to verify all that he saw that night. That led to Killick writing a letter on September 9th, 1964, which was addressed to the commander of Mather Air Force Base.

Now, the response letter that he got was actually from McClellan Air Force Base, which was one of the bases that was involved with Project Blue Book, which was the top secret operation of the government studying unidentified flying objects, which began in 1947. Now, Killick never states what was in the response letter.

But he was able to arrange a meeting between Air Force officers and Donald and his wife, which we will get more into that during Strange Facts and Findings. So interestingly enough, despite its dramatic and unusual details, the Cisco Grove incident did not receive the same level of media or public attention as other UFO cases from the same area.

It remained a relatively obscure incident for years until more detailed examinations were published in UFO literature. And pretty much Donald keeps his story tight-knit between him and his family and for years, for decades. They did talk about it a little bit here and there to other investigators, but they never released the full story to anybody. Yeah. And I think there was one like very small little newspaper article about

And it talked about an anonymous person seeing something, but that was really it. Yep. Like we said, he did do interviews with journalists, but would say, hey, keep me anonymous. Yeah. But anyway, so that right there is the Cisco Grove UFO encounter. But just like every week, our story does not stop here.

Because as we were researching it, we ended up coming across a lot of strange things, which leads us into our next part, which is our strange facts and findings. So Dan, would you like to start it off for us and tell us our first strange fact and finding? Of course. So our first strange fact and finding is about the Air Force interview with Donald Shrum. So like we said earlier, Killick was able to schedule a meeting with Donald and the Air Force to discuss the encounter.

Now, the Air Force sent two officers that would be representing the Air Force Logistics, which, you know, was in charge of the UFO investigations, a.k.a. Project Blue Book, and the previous project names Project Sign and Project Grudge. Now, these Air Force Logistics individuals met with Donald on September 25th, 1964, which was about three weeks after Donald's encounter in Sisko Grove.

Now, the place of the meeting was to be held at a private residence, not at the Air Force base or at Donald's home. Now, when Donald went to this meeting or this interview with the Air Force, his wife, Judy, tagged along. You know, she didn't want him going by himself. She wanted to be there and support him like a good wife should. You know, props to her. Mm-hmm.

She described the house that they were meeting at, though, as cold and lifeless, which Judy said, and we quote, We were taken inside this house. They have off-base housing. What I noticed about this house was that it was very bare. There were no personal items of anyone's, no pictures or anything. We sat at the kitchen table.

The Air Force officers that showed up were one captain and a sergeant, and they introduced themselves, but the captain called himself Cloud at the time, which was very weird. What? Yeah, Cloud. But come to find out from the documents, his name was Captain McCloud, and the sergeant major was R. Barnes, according to the USAF documents.

Now, most of the questioning was done by the Sergeant Major Barnes while pretty much the Captain McCloud stood off to the side, you know, just watching them. So they recorded the conversation using pretty much an old tape recorder. The officers told Donald and his wife, Judy, that they wanted additional information about the sighting that had been reported to them by killing. So they would talk to them for two hours.

And it rubbed Judy the wrong way. She felt like they were not receptive to her husband's story. She felt most of the questioning was done by someone not believing what they were hearing. So I guess you could say kind of like sarcastic. Like, oh, did you see that? Oh, I thought they'd be more like speculative. Like, are you sure you had seen that? Just making sure his story was right, not being sarcastic. But I don't know. Hmm.

So Donald would go on to say, and we quote, they tried to disillusion me in every way they could. They even took the arrowhead, the main one, and said, we'll get back to you and you can have this back as soon as we get through with it, which they never did. Damn, he took his arrowhead. So this arrowhead was supposedly the first arrow that he shot and it ricocheted off of the metal robot.

And when he found it, it had like a 45 degree bend in the tip of it. And it actually had like some melted metal on it. Yeah. Because Donald stated when he hit the robot the first time with the arrow, it made like a big arc, right? Yeah. Okay. So he said that it had some type of melted metal on it and that the arrowhead itself had like a bluish tint. When you light it on fire, it gets like a bluish tint to it. Hmm. Okay.

So later on after that, Donald would ask for the arrow back, which the Air Force stated that they never had the complete arrow, only the tip of it. Also, an analysis was supposedly never done on the arrow tip. So they just kind of held on to it for a little while. So you can kind of see that they didn't really believe it. They just didn't take it seriously. Yeah. But as we fast forward to 1968...

A Major James H. Aikman of the Air Force Relations Division in Washington, D.C., wrote a letter in which he stated, A formal investigation was conducted by McClellan Air Force Base on September 25, 1964. Mr. Shrum provided the Air Force with an arrow tip, but not with a complete arrow. The tip was not subjected to any laboratory analysis. It has been loaned to the University of Colorado UFO Study Group and as yet has not been returned to Mr. Shrum.

We have an image of that letter written by Aikman. You know, if you want to look at it pretty much, it's kind of just like, I don't know, beating around the bush. Yeah.

So another thing that happened during the interview that Donald stated was that he gave them a detailed map of the area and that the Air Force used that map to actually go to that site and collect slash cover up, well, at least what he thinks, cover up whatever evidence was remaining there from that night. Yeah, he said that.

They waited about two or three weeks where Donald and his brother Bill decided to go back to the scene of the incident, you know, where the robots attacked them. And there they discovered that the place was picked clean. He said that you could see that the ground had been raked in an area circumference of about 50 feet away from the base of the tree. Wow.

Now, Donald was able to recover one arrow from the area because it was hidden in a bush and that an inexperienced bow hunter wouldn't know what to look for. Yeah, he literally said, there's like, I found this there because, you know, they're inexperienced and I knew what to look for. Damn. And he shot the arrow and he knew where it went.

Now, the only thing that the Air Force told Donald was that the beings he saw probably weren't aliens. They were more than likely. This is what he said. God, the Air Force stated to Donald that, hey, these weren't alien. More than likely, they were some Japanese people. Because, you know, during World War II, we had trouble with the Japanese. So it's probably them. You probably just saw some Japanese guys.

Swear to God, that's what they told him. Air Force? Racist. Yeah. But, like, literally, that's what they told him. They're just like, it was probably the Japanese, you know, the humanoids that were, like, only five feet tall. Definitely Japanese because, you know, aliens don't exist, and we had trouble with the Japanese during World War II. Damn. Well, that right there is our first strange fact and finding. Now, our next strange fact and finding is about Donald Shrum's health evaluations.

So the encounter affected Donald so much that he was actually unable to return to work for a while. He had to take at least a week off from work before he could actually go back and, you know, perform at 100%, if that.

So Donald ended up going to the doctor because he believed something was wrong with him because his nose wouldn't stop running and he had bad chest pains. Come to find out, since, you know, he had to strip down and fight aliens from a tree at nighttime, it ended up causing him to get a cold. Then his chest pains that he was so worried about were actually from the bruising that was caused by him shaking the tree back and forth.

which made it hard for him to breathe. But then it was something that I don't know why it came into question. They started to worry about radiation poisoning, which Judy's brother, who was a nuclear physicist, gave them a rundown on what to look for, which reading this part, it was very vague, I think. Yeah, her brother, who was supposedly a nuclear physicist, was quoted saying, Dawn will start breaking out in blisters. Then the hair starts falling out.

The end. That's literally it. Well, at this point, they really weren't too familiar with the effects of radiation poisoning and what to expect. I mean, they kind of knew, but it wasn't as common as nowadays. Yeah.

Yeah, his hair would start falling out. He would become nauseous. Depending on the dosage, he would have blood changes. It would be a bad two to three weeks for him. He would probably end up dying if it was a fatal dose. I think that's what the brother said, too. He's just like, yeah, you just got to wait two weeks and see what happens. Good luck. That's pretty much it. There's nothing you could do. He's like, hey, good luck. Well, after Judy's brother told her that, she tried to find a facility that would actually check him for radiation poisoning.

which he contacted the military, the Air Force again, but they wouldn't do it because Donald was a civilian. And I think that would give Donald's story a little bit of credit, which seemed like they weren't trying to do that. But other than that, a normal physical he took came back normal and there was nothing wrong with Donald physically other than, you know, scoliosis and bruised chest. Yeah, but his mental state was absolutely destroyed.

Because for years, and I mean years after this ordeal, he would have nightmares that would happen almost nightly. And if he ever heard the sound of an owl, it would sort of like trigger him because it's kind of like PTSD for him, you know, because that's the similar sound that the humanoids communicated with their ship was that owl sound. So whenever you heard an owl, you'd be like, oh shit, they're back.

And he'd run up a tree and try to latch himself to it. And Judy would be like, God damn, there he goes again up a tree. And then the neighbors would be like, yeah, there Donald goes up in the tree again. Somebody call the fire department. Dang, it only took him 5.2 seconds that time. He's getting faster. But seriously, though, yeah, his mental state was not good at all for years. And like we said earlier, he only worked at Aerojet for like

Are there two more years after that? Yep. Seemed like he kind of just gave up. Mm-hmm. So that right there is our second strange fact and finding. Let's get into our next one. Our next strange fact and finding is about the area where the encounter occurred.

So, Sisko Grove is located in the Tahoe National Forest, which is located around the Sierra Nevada Range, which this area has yielded many other mineral treasures over the years other than the gold back in the mid-1800s during the gold rush. Now, one of those other minerals that you will find in the area is uranium. Uranium.

Now, this is quite interesting from many UFO investigators' perspectives due to the fact that rich mineral deposits have supposedly been associated with some UFO sightings around the world. You got minerals, UFOs are going to show up. You got nuclear weapons, UFOs are going to show up. You got a butthole, UFOs are going to show up. Probing time.

So yeah, Donald would say in his story that beings from the UFO seem to be in the process of doing like a site survey and studying the local flora and wildlife before they pretty much started attacking him. And the only thing I could really connect to that is the Anunnaki loving gold.

Well, the Anunnaki, they didn't really love gold. They needed gold. Supposedly to rebuild their atmosphere. Yeah. I mean, other than that, I'd try to find some connection with that. But this is honestly like the first time I've heard that UFOs show up around rich mineral deposits. Well, it makes sense if, well, I'll save my theory for the end. Save the theory. Save it. Yeah. All right.

So let's get on to our last strange fact and finding, which is about other encounters. So as we were looking into this story, we decided to see if other individuals around the world had encountered robotic aliens. And to our surprise, there were actually quite a few. For example, in December of 1957, in Old Sabro, Connecticut,

A woman named Mary Star reported that outside of her home there was a glowing elliptical shaped UFO hovering in the sky. Mary also stated that the UFO had windows on it and as she stared at it, two robot-like beings with squarish heads peered through the windows looking at her. After a few moments, the UFO zoomed away at a high rate of speed. Hey, what are you doing lady? What you doing? Oh, she saw us. Fly away.

La Pampa. La Pampa. Another example of robot aliens occurred five years later in May of 1962 in La Pampa, Argentina. Now, a woman and her husband living there in Argentina reported seeing a robot-like being come out of a UFO.

Now, when this robot ended up stepping out of the UFO, it kind of looked around and it ended up seeing the woman who was straight up staring at it. It said, whoa, turned around, ran back to its UFO, got in it and took off at tremendous speeds. Are these robots like afraid of women? Like, oh, another one. Interesting. Yeah. Now, that was not the only robot like alien that was spotted in Argentina in 1962.

because only two months later, in July, a similar encounter occurred. A 17-year-old boy named Ricardo Ramirez was riding his motorcycle, just enjoying his day, when suddenly he saw something in the road in front of him. Standing in the dirt road was a six-foot-tall, strange-looking creature that began moving like a robot away from Ricardo. And as he was moving, he was leaving deep tracks in the dirt.

Ricardo sat there watching the strange being as it moved. And then suddenly the being ran away. Now, Ricardo watched it run away and then noticed a bright white glow low in the sky in the direction that the creature, aka robot, was running towards. So he's like, oh shit, I gotta go. That's my ship landing. So he was walking away and then all of a sudden he just hauled ass. Yep. It's kind of funny.

Then now only two years after that is when the Shrum case occurred where Donald was fighting robots from the tree. Then four years after that, in September of 1969, another robot-like creature was spotted in New Zealand. A woman named Terry Inchiman, who lived in New Zealand, reported that she had witnessed a UFO land near her. Terry watched in amazement as an entity came out of the UFO and started walking towards her.

She stated that the creature looked like a robot and came up to her and said, hey, come inside my UFO with me, baby. He didn't say that. But Terry stated that the robot came up to her, took her hand, and then guided her into his UFO. There, inside his UFO, the robot alien ended up having sex with her. Okay, then. So the robot had a penis. I assume so.

Or maybe it was a girl robot and they scissored. I don't know. No judgment from me, you know? No judgment. All right. So what happened two months later, Dan, after that woman ended up scissoring or getting banged by the robot? What happened after that? The robot got rust. Oh, gosh. Well, two months later, in November of 1969, another robot alien encounter would take place thousands of miles away in Brazil.

So in Brazil, a security guard reported coming across two tall robot-like creatures that began communicating in strange electronic tones. A week later, a large metallic UFO was seen in the same area that the security guard had seen the robot-like creatures. Then, three years later, in April of 1972, in New South Wales, Australia, six teenagers were driving along in their car, just enjoying the back roads and each other's company.

All of a sudden, they encountered what looked like a 10-foot-tall robot humanoid. During the encounter, the teenagers heard thumping noises on the roof of their car, and then suddenly, their car caught on fire. After that, the robotic creature vanished without a trace. Jeepers Creepers have been that bitch. That robot humped the top of their car.

Only a year later, in October of 1973, another encounter would take place in Anthony Hill, Tennessee. Three teenagers reported seeing an egg-shaped UFO, and as the teenagers stared at the UFO in disbelief, they witnessed a hairy robot walk out of the spacecraft with its hands up in the air. After this was reported, an investigation took place and imprints from what appeared to be landing gears of the UFO were uncovered at the scene.

Now, that same month in October of 1973, one of the most famous UFO incidences occurred in Mississippi. Now, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker were both fishing at night on the river when they heard a whizzing sound and saw two flashing blue lights and then observed an oval-shaped object.

Both of them were paralyzed and then levitated into the UFO craft by entities that they described as robotic wrinkled creatures. Robotic wrinkled? Wrinkled, baby. Both Charles and Calvin were examined by the creatures and then afterwards were returned back to the area where they were fishing. They ended up reporting on what had happened and their story became super popular and is known as the Pascagoula Abduction.

Which, by the way, we cover the Pascagoula abduction in super detail on a Patreon episode that we published back in September of 2021 titled Alien and UFO Encounters. So if you want to listen to that episode, you can go to Spotify, type in our podcast name, Theories of the Third Kind,

Click on the exclusive episode tab and sign up to get access to that episode along with 200 additional episodes that are all ad free for just $5. Just $5? $5 a month. Can't beat that. Dang. So that right there is our last strange fact and finding, which were multiple other robotic encounters throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s.

So now we are going to hop into our next section and talk about some of the theories surrounding this entire story. All right. So our first theory that we have is called real. Now, this is the most straightforward and most popular theory amongst individuals who look into this case. This theory states that the entire encounter was real.

that the beings that Shrum encountered were of extraterrestrial origin using advanced technology to attempt to capture him, possibly for study or examination. You think they would have better advanced technology rather than just vaping and blowing some smoke up at them? I figure if it was a robot, sure, we'll vape, knock them out. Then why don't they just like tear down the tree?

Why didn't they just tase him out of the tree? Yeah, I don't know. You know what? I saw a video the other day of a guy climbing a tree. He was way up. And he had like a branch with him that was on fire. And it had smoke on it. It wasn't on fire. It was just smoking. And he was using it to get the bees or wasps to go away. Oh. And then he dropped it all the way down. And he was way up.

Right when he dropped it, those bees ended up swarming him and he had to slowly climb down the tree as the bees were just, it's gotta suck. That's gotta suck. Yeah. Maybe that's what they view us as just animals as bees. They were like, oh, let's smoke them out. Let's calm them down. The other ones within the, within the cities where all the lights are at, they smoke all the time and they're really calm.

Maybe this smoke will help. I wonder what type of gas it would be. So he said that the two robots looked at each other. There was like some arc lights going on between them and then vapor came up. Mm-hmm. Trying to think what kind of vapor that would be. Like burning metal. They probably sent out one of their drones to go and study us. And they're like, damn. A lot of these creatures, aka humans, they smoke marijuana and they're really calm afterwards. Yeah.

Let's create a device and make it billion times more potent. And that's what they did. They, when was reefer madness around this time? Okay. Yeah. All right. So let's get onto our next theory, which is called made up. It's pretty much the opposite of the last theory. So this theory states that Donald's hunting companions did not witness the encounter and the physical evidence was minimal.

making the story rely heavily on his own personal testimony. Also, there was little to no corroboration from other sources. Due to this, many believe that this story was entirely made up by Donald. So that right there is the made-up theory. I don't know. Vincent did kind of corroborate it a little bit.

Supposedly he sounded like an affidavit saying that, but all he saw was a light in the sky just go across. Yeah. He didn't actually see a UFO. He didn't see no robots, no humanoids, which this right here would be the theory that I bring back up the UFO path. If you look at the UFO path map, it shows that the UFO was above where the camp was and they all traveled in different directions, which mean the camp is the base camp.

So they could all travel almost like probably the same distance away. If it was at the base camp, they all should have seen it, I think. Yep. Now, only that Vincent saw it, that this light...

But Tim, Tim would never speak of it. He never brought it up, never. That's the lover. You think that's the lover? That's the lover, man. Donald and Tim lovers. Donald's over there looking. That's why Donald got so depressed and so mentally messed up. It wasn't because of the UFO encounter. He made that UFO encounter up in his mind, that entire alien battle. It's really a battle for what was going on in his mind. He couldn't accept that he was in love with Tim.

Tim Trueblood. Damn. Damn. Solved it. Lover squirrel. All right. So let's talk about our next theory, Dan. All right. So our next theory is called misinterpretation of military or experimental technology. This theory states that what Shrum encountered could have been a misinterpretation of military or experimental technology. You know, military aircraft, secret aircraft.

Many people point to the fact that during this period of the Cold War, various experimental technologies and aircrafts were being tested. So it was probably possible that Shrum might have witnessed one of these being tested. The use of gas and robots might have been part of a military experiment unknown to the public at the time. Maybe the U.S. Air Force picks people out of these companies that work for them to target them. Easy list to follow.

So yeah, maybe they were just using that list of all the, like the contractors and such. Remind me to come back to that during my personal thoughts and theories, because I just remembered something that was happening during that period in 1964 that could connect to that and explain all of this. Okay. All right. But before we get into our own personal thoughts and theories, let's continue on with our next theory, which is called psychological or hallucinatory experience.

So this theory states that the entire incident was a hallucination or psychological episode. Individuals point to many factors that could play a role in this theory, such as isolation, fear, and the stress of being lost and alone in the wilderness at night.

Those factors could potentially trigger vivid hallucinations or a panic response, leading Donald to believe that he was experiencing an encounter with non-human entities. Or he just climbed up into the tree, was scared, fell asleep, and dreamt of the entire thing. But it doesn't explain as close. All right, this is what happened. The three of them, Donald, Vincent, and Tim,

They all say that they were going hunting. They were going bow hunting, but they weren't. They were going out there to do some LSD or shrooms, some psychedelics, and Donald ended up having a bad trip. Now, Vincent and Tim...

Didn't want people to find out that they went out there to do, you know, some psychedelics and all that. Their friend, they're doing it. They're like, yeah, we're tripping good. And all of a sudden Donald's like, I'm freaking out, man. He just takes off running into the woods. They're like, where'd he go? He ends up stripping off most of his clothes, throwing shit everywhere. His shirt's ripped because he's running through the woods. He got caught on like branches and such.

Vincent finally gets a hold of Donald, brings him back to camp, feeds him, tries to sober him up, let him sleep it off. Then he wakes up. And then that's where they told him, Donald, you fought off some aliens and some robots. That's what happened. That's why you're missing your clothes and all that such. And that's what Donald believes because he was tripping balls. And his brain filled in that missing part. Filled in the missing part, except for the parts that he blacked out from the vapor. Yeah. Damn. And that's when...

Donald went home, told his wife and his wife, Judy, kind of believed him, even though Vincent and Tim, which I think Tim didn't want to go along with it too much because he never said anything. He never signed an affidavit. And actually, out of everybody, Tim is the only one that has not kept in contact with Vincent and Donald.

They believed he moved to like Hawaii. So he got away from it. So something else happened out there. So maybe, hey, LSD and then some, you know, Brokeback Mountain. Jesus Christ. Maybe that. Or it could be our next theory, which is my favorite. Oh, what's this next one? So this next theory is called other dimensional beings. So this theory states that the encounter did truly happen and that these beings that Donald encountered

was from another dimension or reality, which this dimension or reality intersects with our own, but only under certain conditions. For an example, during certain occasions, other dimensions or reality intersect with ours, and some of those creatures from that other reality cross over into our reality.

Maybe that is what ghosts are, just beings from another dimension that are bleeding over into ours.

Maybe that's what Bigfoot is or Loch Ness or any other mythical creature that has been spotted in history or hell, it could even be UFOs that we see in the sky. They are all just things, beings, entities from other dimensions that are bleeding over into ours. Now, with that being said, some say that the creature that Donald encountered was not a robot.

but was maybe an elf. An elf? Yeah, it was maybe an elf, or maybe the humanoids was an elf, and that the robot was kind of like its helper. Now, why do we mention that? Well, there was a book written in 1836 by Anton LaRue de Lince, and the book is called L'Elevé de l'Égence. Now, in this book, it talks about elves, and in one paragraph, it states, and we quote,

If a mortal being dares come near them, as in the elves, they open their mouth and you are struck by the breath which escapes from it. The imprudent fellow dies poisoned, end quote. Now, some people point to that paragraph and they say, hey, you remember the bizarre effects that Donald felt and how the being opened up its mouth and smoke came out?

Well, those effects that happen to Donald are consistent with the sudden deprivation of oxygen. Maybe this robot or these humanoids were not alien entities or a robot, but actually elves from another dimension with the ability to cause people to pass out from the smoke that comes out of their mouth that deprives the oxygen in the area. I can kind of see it. Let's say that they were elves and that their breath

poisons and kills people. Let's just say that they had a hard time getting up that tree to get to him. So they released their breath. Donald slumps over and they can't get up this tree to him. They're just looking at him like, well, he ain't moving. And he keeps waking up. They keep doing it. Okay, let's keep trying. Let's keep trying. They're like, oh, he's awake again.

And then they keep trying, keep trying. Oh, he's awake again. Then after a while, they're like, damn. And then they double up on dosage. Yeah. And he stops moving. And they're just like, no, no, no, wait, wait. Before the double up, they go, they come together like, hey, we got to like combine our powers. But our powers combine. So they do the little arcing between each other. And then they go up one last time. But it's the double.

And they think that finishes Donald off, but it just puts them to sleep even longer. And they still can't get up the tree. And after a while, they're like, fuck it. We're leaving. That's the only way I see that working out. If they were elves. Yeah. I just don't know why they have such a hard time getting up that tree. They got the technology to travel the stars, to deploy a drone, to...

do pretty much anything and yet they can't climb a simple pine tree. You got these five foot humanoids and then you got these big ass robots.

Yet these humanoids were smart enough to try to use each other to climb up on one another to reach the branch. Why didn't you just get the robot to lift your little ass up? Yeah, why didn't you climb on the robot? Why not just shoot the son of a bitch out of the tree? Why not the robot take one of those humanoids and launch them up into the tree? Exactly, like a dart or something. You have one of the... Yeah, it's like... Imagine the thing coming at you. Little big old silver dollar eyes. Oh, man. Yeah, I don't...

I don't really see that one. Neither do I. But I guess if you think about it, he is in a national park missing 411. Some people do say like there's elves or I remember it was a pixies or something. Fairies or pixies that go in between dimensions and they kidnap people. Yeah, I've heard that. I don't know. Maybe this could have been one of those missing 411 cases that failed. Or maybe it's the next one, which is our last theory.

which our last theory is called cultural influence and expectation. So when this encounter took place, there was a huge interest in science fiction and space exploration. There were tons of movies and books being published about UFOs and aliens. Even news stations at the time were reporting on UFO alien encounters pretty much every week. So due to that, this theory states that those movies, books, news reports had influenced Donald Shrum's perceptions and interpretations of his experiences

And he assumed his experience had to be a UFO alien encounter since it was happening all over the world at that same time. I can kind of see it. I can kind of see it, but it's in connection with something else. If I had to go on my own personal theory, which do we transition now to our own personal thoughts and theories? Well, let me say this about it first. Okay. If this was one of those things where he wanted people to know what he experienced before

Why would he just release like little bits and pieces of it and want to stay anonymous, but then like 50 years later actually come out and tell his whole story? Like it's kind of a long time to wait to do that. Yeah. Or maybe he was, you know, throwing out little, like a little bit of bait. Like here's part of my story. You really want it? Offer me my money. He did write a book on it. Yeah. So I guess that rolls us into our personal thoughts and theories. Yep.

You ready to hear mine? I'm ready to hear yours. I think I solved it. You solved it? Uh-oh. All right. So this took place in 1964. Okay. Now, there was a top secret mind control program that was happening from 1955 to 1965 called Operation Midnight Climax. I remember we talked about this. Where CIA agents were dosing men with LSD and observing their reactions to it.

Now, these men didn't know that they were being dosed with the LSD. For an example, that one individual who worked for the government was secretly dosed by the CIA and he jumped out of the window and died. Oh, yeah. Now you have his connection working with missiles and working with the United States military. He goes out there to the woods to bow hunt. His friend Trueblood secretly works for the CIA and says, perfect time to go

Run an Operation Midnight Climax test. Let me secretly dose him. Well, all three go in separate directions, but in reality, True Blood's going to hang by and watch him at a distance, right? Watch Donald at a distance. So Donald gets dosed before he goes out there, right? Gets a little drink or something. Starts walking out there. Goes down the ridge. Decides to come back up. Now, he climbs up into the tree, and that's when it starts kicking in, the LSD.

Now, not fully yet, but it starts kicking in. So he climbs back down, decides to light the three fires, climbs back up into the tree, and he's sitting there, and that's when all hell breaks loose, and he hits the peak. Now, he states that he keeps passing out because of the smoke, but the smoke's not from the creatures. These bushes are now morphing into humanoid figures. Nearby trees and bushes look like robots moving,

Lights flashing are actually stars. The smoke that he's seeing coming up into his face is from the three fires below. And he's just tripping off LSD right now, passing in and out of consciousness, not really knowing what's going on, freaking out, taking his clothes off, trying to understand everything. Next thing you know, he passes out and wakes up and it's morning time. He's groggy. He's tired because he just tripped freaking balls comes down from the tree.

Walks back to the camp. And that's why True Blood kind of keeps his distance from the entire thing. And he, as in Donald, just had a really bad trip at nighttime in the woods all alone on LSD as part of Operation Midnight Climax that happened in 1955 to 1965. Really happened. The CIA was secretly dosing people with LSD and he was part of it. Solved.

I mean, you did have Tim Trueblood. Like, is that really a real name? Come on now. Tim Trueblood. That was probably a fake name, fake identity. After all that happened, he stuck around for a little bit and then he disappeared to Hawaii. He's probably still in California working. Yeah. So there you go. That's what I truly believe. Now, I think the reason why Donald had seen aliens and robots and

was because, like we talked about on our last theory, it was being talked about all the time in news. You always saw alien reports, UFO reports, and that played a role in his perception of what he had, quote-unquote, seen during his trip. He had really heard an owl at the time. And he assumed it was the freaking spaceship and the humanoids communicating, when in reality it was just an owl. And I was like, man, that dude down there is f***ed up.

I mean, you think about it. He did. Donald did state that, you know, it could have been an animal somewhere, but I connected it still. Like he thought I could see that. That's what I'm going with. A hundred percent. That's what I think it is. What do you think? I don't know why, but I'm just thinking they went out there, not really hunting. I don't think they really separated. I think they were just out there and I think someone had a very bad trip. I don't know why I believe it. I just feel like they have a very bad trip. You have,

Vincent being like, oh yeah, I saw that light too. Yeah, I saw that. So you don't think it was Operation Midnight Climax, but instead it was just three friends going and experimenting with psychedelics in the forest and using hunting as the cover story. I think so. And with Donald having a bad trip and then Vincent going along with it, Tim, on the other hand, he didn't like what was going on because afterwards, you know,

Donald's going around telling this story that he saw he fought with aliens and such and Tim's just like this guy's kind of crazy and then you got Vincent going along with it he's like you know what I don't want to be a part of this no more I'm going my own way I don't want to be a part of this because Donald's going around telling his story and he's also contacting the military and getting interviewed by them I don't want any part of that and Tim I don't know if Tim worked at the same company Aerojet because they might have been all co-workers I just know that they were friends

Maybe he didn't want to lose his job. So he stopped being friends, stopped hanging out with them. And later on, he moved away.

fits. It's I mean, it just it just seems like a bad trip. Regardless if it was a planned trip or non-planned trip by the CIA. It was a trip. It was a trip. Somebody was under the influence of something psychedelics. Hell yeah, brother. Now, I was trying to look it up. I think it's like the Metzela Bush or whatever. This type of bush. There's like a

different like subspecies or species of this bush. And I was trying to see if like, if any of these, if they burned or something would cause anything. Cause well, no, cause he saw the light and stuff before he started burning the dry bushes. Yeah. He had to been dosed with LSD. He had to take it or secretly been dosed. One of those two. It's like a, the hangover right before they go out, they all like take a shot or whatever. It's like, all right guys, see you. See you later. Yeah.

Now, the reason I'm not going with actual aliens is because of the way they interacted. It doesn't make sense why they would keep putting smoke up there. I mean, they're supposedly an intelligent species with super hyper advanced technology. Why would they do that? Why would they have difficulties getting an individual out of a tree? Makes no sense. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. And honestly, I would have taken that small UFO, the scout ship, and fucking rammed it right into the tree. I would have kept it. I would have stuck it down my pants. Think so?

Yeah. I would have took it home with me. I don't know that. Yeah. I don't, I can't believe that this is aliens. It sounded interesting. Cause I didn't know that there were actually so many different robot aliens being seen. Oh, there's a ton. Cause I mean, we did talk about the one that was like in the UK. Yeah.

But there's a lot more. Yeah, there's way more than I thought. And then obviously they do have intercourse. Didn't know that. Yeah. Well, if you or a loved one have taken LSD and went into the woods alone and fought off robots or...

If you or a loved one have had intercourse with a robot, please send us an email to Aaron, A-A-R-O-N or Dan, D-A-N at theoriesofthethirdkind.com. We would love to hear from you. And we mean robotic entity. Yes. Not something you built. All right. Well, that is the end of today's episode. I hope everyone enjoyed it. And if you get time and you want to, no pressure.

Go check out our merchandise at theoriesofthe3rdkind.com and then click on our shop button. You can check out our t-shirts as well as our mugs, cups, tumblers, coffee cups. We got new stuff in stock. Check it out. Fast shipping times. We streamlined everything. Good to go, baby. That's right, brother. That's right, brother.

So with that being said, I want to thank you for joining us. And again, thank you for your support. You are all amazing. Every single one of you. So with that being said, Dan, you want to roll us out? Sure will. It's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts. Because you are not alone. Boom.