The UFO Abduction Witnessed By 23 People In Manhattan

This week, we’re heading to Manhattan for one of the strangest alien abduction stories we somehow had never heard of: the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction. In 1989, Linda Napolitano claimed she was floated out of her 12th-floor apartment window by gray aliens, taken into a glowing craft over New York City, and returned with missing time, injuries, and a possible alien implant in her nose. Totally normal apartment stuff.

Then the story gets bigger. Budd Hopkins calls it the “Case of the Century,” 23 witnesses supposedly saw it happen, a UN diplomat may have been involved, and two mysterious men named Richard and Dan enter the chat with letters, kidnappings, beach houses, foot inspections, and some deeply upsetting vibes.

We dig into the witness claims, the handwriting controversy, Carol Rainey’s criticism of Budd Hopkins, the missing implant evidence, and why this case still sits in that uncomfortable UFO zone where something may have happened… but maybe not the thing everyone says happened.

Links mentioned:

• Netflix: The Manhattan Alien Abduction
• The Why Files: The Brooklyn Bridge UFO | The Weirdest Story You'll Ever Hear

Transcript

Cold Open And Show Welcome

Travis 0:03

Ao Yes, but maybe no. Hello. Anybody listening? Hello? Welcome back to the show. This, of course, is Aliens Yes, but maybe no with Josh and Travis. I'm Travis. I'm Josh. And this is an Otherworldly podcast as ambiguous as our title. Yay! Yay! Another episode in the can or doing another episode. We are. That's exciting. And we just released another episode.

Josh 0:45

We just dropped an episode today.

Travis 0:47

We might be doing another episode after this.

Josh 0:49

Hopefully. It just keeps going. We'll find out at the end of the episode. I don't know what's going on.

Travis 0:54

Yeah, they keep making alien stuff and we just keep podcasting about it.

Josh 0:57

That's

UFO Fest Highlights And Panel Favorites

Josh 0:58

true. We went to Oregon and met up with Travis, Jordan and I, Jordan our researcher, and we went to UFO Fest.

Travis 1:07

Yeah.

Josh 1:07

It was awesome.

Travis 1:08

It was a lot of fun in McMinnville, Oregon, the McMeneman's UFO Fest in McMinnville. That's a fun combination of uh names of letters put together that were just yeah, got a little confusing, especially uh as we got into party mode at the end of some of these panels.

Josh 1:27

That's true.

Travis 1:28

Yeah, it was a really good time. Not what I was expecting. I enjoyed, I think her name's Rebecca Charbonneau. I think she was my favorite panelist, um, researcher at SETI.

Josh 1:40

Yeah, she was amazing.

Travis 1:42

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, incredibly knowledgeable, and has a way of communicating these big ideas in a way that are very comfortable and make you feel like, oh yeah, I I do know about gamma rays and you know the deep deep space physics. I've and it could have just been like you heard about it in a conversation at another panel, but she made it all she made it seem like we were all in this together and all in the inside.

Josh 2:14

Yeah. We also saw Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp.

Travis 2:17

Oh boy, yep. George Knapp, I wish he had a bigger role in that panel.

Josh 2:23

Yeah, he was lounging, lounging tough.

Travis 2:25

Yeah, so he came out. You know, of course, Jeremy is a big showboat of a person and comes out with his big personality and a beer and sits in a chair and then introduces everybody. And George comes out with his like very professional stack of papers and then sits, and you're just like, oh shit, George was gonna drop some shit. He came out here super prepared. Yeah. Seriously, like big stack of paper, right? And he was just holding it the whole time.

Josh 2:56

Yeah.

Travis 2:57

I don't think he ruffled through it, maybe during his intro.

Josh 3:00

Yeah, he pulled out a piece of paper and read like the sponsorship intro.

Travis 3:05

Yeah.

Josh 3:06

But it was still exciting to see that. Jeremy and George were interviewing Dylan Borland.

Travis 3:11

Dylan Borland, who was on that in that congressional hearing with uh Gorsuch. And who else was on that? Oh, George Knapp was an oh he was also on that committee panel.

Josh 3:22

2025 congressional hearing.

Travis 3:24

Yeah. Yeah. Nailed it. Good job, cool guy, Jones.

Rooftop Friends And Sticky Travis

Travis 3:28

Anyway, we also met some people for the first time in person. Shout out Vince. Shout out Chrissy.

Josh 3:36

Yeah, we met some acquaintances that have become friends and then officially became friends.

Travis 3:41

Real life friends. And that we had to do a friendship right that involved some blood. Up on top of the rooftop bar.

Josh 3:50

Yeah, and on the rooftop bar, you got a new nickname.

Travis 3:54

I didn't really want to talk about this.

Josh 3:56

Yeah. One of the new friends, her name is Chrissy. She was introducing herself, and Travis went to shake her hand, and he said, sorry, my hands are sticky.

Travis 4:05

I had been drinking a there needs there needs to be some backstory here, Josh, before you get all caught up in this nickname. Those drinks were very sticky, and sometimes the ingredients spilled out over the side of the cup. And I'm just raw dogging two old fashions. Yeah, my hands, my hands get a little sticky from the ingredients. Chrissy, as she's making her introductions, goes around and I was like, hey, what's up? I'm Travis. Uh, very cool to meet you. Uh I would shake your hand, but my hands are sticky. And then she says, Oh, sticky Travis. Yep. Sticky Travis. The only one there that got a nickname.

Josh 4:41

Yeah. And you said, No.

Travis 4:43

Yeah.

Josh 4:44

It wasn't supposed to be like this. That's not how nicknames work.

Travis 4:47

You have to do it yourself. It's that's the only way nicknames work. This one's gonna, ah, it's gonna follow me forever.

Josh 4:53

Well, I'll try to push Cool Guy Jones.

Travis 4:56

Okay, I'm still working on that one. That one's uh that one's gonna be a uh a hard hill to climb, I think.

Josh 5:02

Yeah, especially with Sticky Travis.

Travis 5:04

Uh, cause sake, I'm not cool and my last name is not Jones, but uh, you know, I do like to give high fives

Why The Brooklyn Bridge Case Hits Hard

Travis 5:12

and do finger guns.

Josh 5:13

Oh, yeah. Well, last episode we talked about the duel say base.

Travis 5:18

Super deep underground, super deep. They have a zoo level. Some wild shit happens in there. Yeah, they call it the zoo, where they work on alien human hybrids. Uh uh, don't like it. No bueno. No, it's like an underground island of Dr. Moreau.

Josh 5:35

Yeah, but that was really good. You guys should go listen to it. This episode, this one, I don't know how I didn't know about this, but the Brooklyn Bridge abduction.

Travis 5:45

So, Netflix, in the manner of a Netflix documentary, this is very polished, I felt like a very polished telling of the story. Yeah. It starts off with like really cool establishing shots of Manhattan and uh New York nightlife. They have some footage from right after Linda, our main character today, right after this incident had happened. It was documented by Bud Hopkins. And Netflix knows what they're doing when it comes to documentary. So it's very well polished. I didn't get all the way through it. But Josh, why don't you tell us a little bit about how that ended? Did it end with a big explosion and a bunch of information just flooded your brain?

Josh 6:27

Yeah, uh basically Independence Day happened. No, no, it's still, I mean Welcome to Earth. I'm not I'm not gonna spoil anything. I'm not gonna don't pawn that out on. Spoil it a little bit. I mean, it it still just leaves things up in the air. I'm still a little torn about who and what and how everything happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah.

Josh 6:48

When we took the quiz last episode, I was not prepared for what this was all about. It's loops and turns and kidnappings and uh everything. It's insane.

Travis 7:00

So the story, as Y Files tells it, pretty fucking upsetting. That being said, I wanted to get out in front of this right at the top of the episode and say, I believe women. And I think it's time for us to maybe just shut up and listen.

Josh 7:18

Listen to women?

Travis 7:21

Mm-hmm.

Josh 7:22

Yeah, oh I'm good. I'm an ally.

Travis 7:24

So I think the rest of this episode in solidarity is just going to be silence.

Josh 7:30

Okay. Did I ruin it?

Travis 7:33

Mm-hmm.

Josh 7:34

Shit.

Travis 7:35

Well, let's let them do that on their own. Why don't you listeners just pause the podcast right now for a good hour of reflection and solidarity with women? Yeah.

Josh 7:46

Okay.

Travis 7:47

So yeah, right at right at the top, it's a it's a pretty messed up story, like Josh was saying. It weaves in and out of all types of wild things. It's there's uh love and stalking and vans and beaches and feet. And feet and marriage. Oh, it has it all. It does. Yeah, what a

Linda’s 3 A.M. Bedroom Encounter

Travis 8:11

story.

Josh 8:11

So this episode takes us to the Lower East Side Manhattan in 1989 at around three in the morning. Apartment buildings, bridge traffic, late night taxis, people still awake all over the city. A woman named Linda Napolitano claimed she woke up in her 12th floor apartment and saw aliens inside her bedroom. Minutes later, she said she floated through a closed window and into a glowing craft above the New York City skyline, and 23 people saw the event unfold over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Travis 8:40

So as part of that documentary, they did talk to and I don't know if those were eyewitnesses to this event, and I don't know if that's covered later in our hot dos, but people thought it was like a movie being filmed in Manhattan.

Josh 8:53

But before we get into what may be the most famous abduction story, let's rewind it back a year when Linda was on a trip with her husband in the cat skills. Have you been there?

Travis 9:03

No, I don't know. I I don't even know that the cat skills exist. It does sound like rich people stuff. And I'm always I'm always curious, like, why it's called the cat skills? What are they doing over there? And that is seriously where that meme would be appropriate, where it's the cat in overalls looking over a wall of snow. What are they what are they doing over there?

Josh 9:24

So Linda went to bed one night, then woke up the next morning in a daze, standing in her nightgown with a terrible nosebleed. Sometime later, after reading a book by Bud Hopkins, she felt compelled to write to him at once. His book, Missing Time and Intruders, basically wrote the rule book for what we think as alien abductions today. Stuff like medical experiments, implants, gray aliens, and memories that feel like they've been messed with.

Travis 9:51

Interesting.

Josh 9:52

Hopkins was intrigued by her letter and invited her to join his support group for alien abductees, which she began attending shortly thereafter. It was during her time working with Hopkins and undergoing hypnotic regression that Stranger Things developed. Stranger Things? Oh, Stranger Things theme song. After noticing a painful lump, she had a medical x-ray taken. Doctors took some scans and apparently found a tiny spiral-shaped thing stuck in her nose.

Travis 10:19

Okay, that was a wild part of that documentary, but she spent, I felt like an obscene amount of time talking about this lump in her nose and how it was going to affect her face.

Josh 10:31

Yeah.

Travis 10:31

She's like, it's right in the middle of my face. That's where my and I was like, Yeah, that's where your nose is. That's where your nose is. Like, I mean, it sucks, but that little squiggly thing was wild. What is that? What was it?

Josh 10:43

I don't know. So she then showed the X-rays to Hopkins, who famously took the X-ray on tour as a radiological smoking gun, proving that aliens put implants in humans, just like how our researchers tag animals and then release

The Nose Implant And Missing Evidence

Josh 10:58

them back in the wild. However, this is just the tip.

Travis 11:02

Oh shit, call back to Keksburg two episodes ago.

Josh 11:06

The case is about to get way weirder and more complicated.

Travis 11:10

Side note, did you know that this took place on my 10th birthday? Ooh. Yeah. Freshly faced 10-year-old Travis Wright was alive during the and I don't I don't know anything about what I'm learning about all this. Well, where were you then? For the first time. I was probably at home. I think it was even like a Saturday or Sunday. I remember waking up and thinking this is my favorite birthday ever because I'm a decade old. Do you have people that can vouch for you? That I turned a decade? No, that you were Yeah, my mom. I think she listens. Hi, mom. Well, write in. Let us write. Right in. Prove that you're my mom, mom, and tell everybody that I was 10 years old in 1989. Just turned.

Josh 11:55

It was you. You did all this.

Travis 11:57

And it was me. So Linda Napoli Tano, on the night of November 30th, 1989, lived on the 12th floor in an apartment on the Lower East Side, which Josh was very kind to establish for us.

Josh 12:07

I just wanted people to know.

Travis 12:09

You did. And now we're gonna double know. Yep. Just like my cool new nickname, Sticky Travis, people are now gonna associate my birthday with this, I'm sure. Okay, so on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, when she had one of the most famous abduction experiences known. She said she woke up around 3 a.m. on November 30th, 1989, good year, only to find small figures standing in her bedroom. They were those classic gray aliens, short with huge black eyes, thin bodies, and smooth gray skin. Suddenly she couldn't move. She comes the alien spoke to her telepathically, just telling her to keep calm and quiet. So at about 3 15, so 15 minutes later, she was lifted off her bed in a beam of blue light and floated right toward her bedroom window. How would you feel if that started to happen? Like you suddenly started floating. Would you feel like things are going right for me right now? Or you'd be like, oh shit, oh shit, what if I keep going up? That would be my thought. Is that once I get outside, I'm gonna keep going up?

Josh 13:08

Well, also, if the windows are closed, like am I gonna smush into the wall?

Travis 13:12

Yeah, is this force that's moving me towards the window? Is it gonna just continue to push me? And then if I make it out, yeah, am I just am I done forever up? Yeah. What happens when I run into a building? Yeah. I'm in Manhattan now.

Josh 13:25

It sounds as though she wasn't able to move or speak. So I mean, that would be my reaction is not moving, not speaking, but I would be terrified.

Travis 13:34

But I think this is a terrifying thought that I have every once in a while just like being sucked up somewhere or like gravity just quitting. Where was I? So at about 3 15, she was lifted off her bed in a beam of blue light and floated right toward her bedroom window. But one of the most discussed details in the case is that the window allegedly had burglar bars installed. I don't remember that.

Josh 13:59

I think the Wi-Fi's mentioned it. I don't think they mentioned it in the Netflix documentary.

Travis 14:03

So that's a kink in the story. Didn't work. No, it didn't work. Well, I mean she was unburgled, I guess.

Josh 14:10

Well, she was burgled.

Travis 14:11

No, I guess she was burgled.

Josh 14:12

Yeah.

Travis 14:13

Uh Linda claimed she passed directly through the sealed window structure while curled into a fetal position. She described rising high above the street, heading for the Brooklyn Bridge, with three gray aliens floating right next to her. Next thing she knew, she was inside a reddish-orange craft that looked like lava and a clam opening to swallow her up around 5 a.m. So this is like a two-hour round trip.

Josh 14:38

Yeah.

Travis 14:38

Around 5 a.m. she was back in bed. Linda's husband, Steve Napolitano, was in the apartment the whole time. He remembers Linda waking him up completely freaked out. Some stories say Steve also recalled seeing a weird light or sensing a strange vibe in the apartment that night. Still, he never actually claimed to see Linda floating through the window herself. He mainly confirmed that Linda was physically hurt and emotionally wrecked right after the incident. Good job, Steve. He sounds like a pretty supportive partner.

Josh 15:06

Yeah, I think he nailed it. I mean, I think he stuck with her. He supported her in this, and yeah.

Travis 15:11

It gets a little murkier as we continue with the story, but Oh yeah, we're still skipping along the sidewalk right now.

Josh 15:18

We haven't jumped in traffic.

Travis 15:19

Yep. Haven't even gotten to the shaft.

Josh 15:22

What?

Travis 15:25

The shaft of the story, you know?

Josh 15:27

The the yeah.

Travis 15:28

The tube the tube part.

Josh 15:29

Yeah.

Witness Letters And A UN Diplomat Claim

Josh 15:30

So as Bud Hopkins kept digging into Linda's story, he became totally convinced this abduction was the big case he'd been waiting for. And honestly, that theory only got stronger when more witnesses supposedly started calling him out of the blue. One of the first big names to pop up was a woman named Janet Kimball. Hopkins said Janet reached out through letters after hearing about the case. She claimed she was near the Brooklyn Bridge early that morning on November 30th and saw this glowing thing hanging over the city. She even said she watched a woman float up into the craft with a group of small humanoid figures. That is wild. Spooky. Yeah. So to Hopkins, Janet's story was a big deal because it seemed to back up Linda's narrative perfectly. You've got Linda saying she was levitating over the city, then you've got another witness describing the exact same impossible scene from a totally different spot. But here's the thing. The more people looked into Janet Kimball, the harder she was to actually find. What? Dun dun dun. There was never really any solid proof of who she was. Her whole role in this case was just based on letters and whatever Hopkins told people. No interviews, no press conferences, nothing. Even UFO researchers at the time were scratching their heads trying to figure out if Hopkins had actually vetted her. So as people got more skeptical, Janet's story started feeling less like a smoking gun and more like just another confusing piece of a really messy puzzle. Then, the story got even wilder. According to some letters written and tape recorded by guys known as Richard and Dan. Don't like these guys. The witnesses in a limo that night included a high-ranking international diplomat. Hopkins eventually decided this was none other than Javier Perez de Cualar. De Quala?

Travis 17:12

Qualer? If I remember right, it's De Qualer.

Josh 17:16

The Secretary General of the UN.

Travis 17:18

Let's pause and just say apologies for our inability to say people's names. I mean, this is a Secretary General of the UN, a very popular person. Uh we should probably know it, but we don't because I don't know anyone's name in the UN.

Josh 17:36

That's why.

Travis 17:37

Exactly.

Josh 17:38

Yeah.

Travis 17:38

How often do their names come up? Not that often.

Josh 17:41

Yeah. Well, first, why was he there? That seems just crazy.

Travis 17:45

The diplomat? I mean, it's New York City.

Josh 17:47

Three in the morning?

Travis 17:48

Oh no, man.

Josh 17:50

Come on. What are you doing? Nothing good happens after midnight.

Travis 17:54

That's New York City, man. It's a city that never sleeps. If you want to do anything at any time of the day, it's available to you. And especially during the 80s, man. This is like the dark times in New York City. Well, I I don't like it. So who knows? And he had two security guys that were with him. They weren't up to anything bad or or not good.

Josh 18:12

Well, Hopkins claimed the diplomat was totally rattled by what he saw. Supposedly he admitted it happened in private through some middlemen, but he wouldn't go public because, well, imagine the chaos if the head of the UN said he saw an alien abduction.

Travis 18:28

Chaos. I mean, that's the whole point of the story, though, is us just imagining that case. Ugh. I can't. Imagine. It would be chaos.

Josh 18:37

It would. The idea that the UN Secretary General was a secret witness became the most sensational part of this whole case. But just like with Janet, this part started falling apart under a microscope too.

Travis 18:48

I hate it when they fall apart under a microscope.

unknown 18:51

I know.

Josh 18:52

Like stay together. Yeah, stay together. Come on, guys. So Perez de Queiler never said a word about it publicly, and there aren't any UN records to back it up. Everything we know comes from anonymous letters and Hopkins' own take on the private messages. Then the handwriting issue emerged.

Travis 19:10

Holy shit, there's more?

Josh 19:12

There's more. The New Jersey trio investigators, Joseph Staf Oh my gosh, names. Joseph Stafula.

Travis 19:19

Stefula? S T E F U L A. Pronounce it however you want.

Josh 19:24

Yep. Uh Richard Butler and George Hansen, those three people, began examining the witness letters closely. They noticed similarities between Linda's handwriting and certain signatures appearing in the Richard and Dan letters, particularly the recurring H signature pattern. This became one of the most damaging points in the entire case because What is the recurring H signature pattern?

Travis 19:46

What does that mean?

Josh 19:47

They have uh Ask that when I'm done reading those. Okay. This became one of the most damaging points in the entire case because the Richard and Dan testimony served as the strongest support for Hopkins' claim of multiple independent observers. If the letters were fabricated or influenced by Linda directly, the witnesses might not even be real.

Travis 20:10

Hey Josh. Yes? What does a recurring H signature pattern mean?

Josh 20:15

The H's in the signatures looked identical to the signatures of Linda's in letters and stuff that she wrote. So it's kind of weird. Just the H's, though? Yeah, there I mean it it all looked a little close, but the H's were exact, which is a pretty big tell.

Travis 20:35

I don't know. I'm not a handwriting doctor. So an H doctor? I definitely don't specialize. I'm not a handwriting doctor, and I definitely don't specialize in H's.

Josh 20:43

Yeah, that'd be pretty niche.

Travis 20:44

Yeah. I mean, my parents would be really disappointed. They're like, why did you focus so much on one letter of the alphabet? You know you're never gonna make any money. And I'm just like, I don't I don't love you anymore.

Josh 20:56

This would have been the case that blew all the cases out of the water for you.

Travis 21:00

Sure. This would have been my famous case where I gotta showcase the letter H. The H guy. Yeah, they're like, okay, we brought in a specialist. It's the H guy. Here he is. Travis Wright, cool guy Jones, as he's known in some circles, sticky Travis in other circles. Yep. Tell us about the H. And I'm just like, well, it's the 11th letter of the alphabet. Eighth. Of course, I know that. Uh being the H specialist, eighth letter of the alphabet. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the problems with the X-rays.

Handwriting Doubts And The New Jersey Trio

Travis 21:28

Uh oh. Yeah. So the issues with the implant story, and this is a call back to the thing on her face, the little curly cue that they found inside of her nose. The doctor who handled the first x-rays was actually Linda's cousin. Cousins can be doctors.

Josh 21:44

No, that's a bot. That is legitimately not all doctors are not cousins.

Travis 21:49

Okay.

Josh 21:49

That is a fundamental truth.

Travis 21:51

Uh the object looked just like a basic electronic part you could find at any gadget back in the 80s. I don't know if that's true. I don't I don't know what that means. Uh, right before anyone could test it in a real lab, the object suddenly vanished. Linda said the aliens came back and took it out themselves, leaving her with some messed up cartilage and a lot of pain. Without the actual object to look at, the whole implant story was just based on what people said, some photos and guesses. This kept happening throughout the investigation. Every big piece of evidence seemed to exist right up until the moment someone tried to prove it was real. How wild is that? Uh-oh, sorry, dog ate my homework. Too perfect. Yep. The dog licked the thing out of my nose.

Josh 22:31

It's uncomfortable. Yeah, it looked like the spring and a pen and then stretched it out a little bit.

Travis 22:37

I was gonna say like the spiral wire on a notebook, like a spiral-bound notebook.

Josh 22:42

Yeah, it looked like that. Just a short little piece, like two spirals spread out.

Travis 22:46

Yeah. Yeah. So by now the case was so famous and it gotten so out of hand that people started getting suspicious that Linda might not be telling the truth. A group called the New Jersey Trio, Joseph Stefula, Richard Butler, and George Hansen, started digging into the details. There were a mix of former cops, forensic experts, and science-minded skeptics. Philip Klass, a huge name in the UFO skeptic world, also jumped in to challenge Hopkins' take on things. The trio started with the logistics. Linda lived in a packed Manhattan apartment building with 24-7 security. The investigators talked to the guards, but nobody saw any weird lights, crowds, or a woman floating outside in the middle of the night. They also took a very close look at the letters from witnesses. Uh, here we go. One major problem was the handwriting in the Richard and Dan letters. Critics pointed out that some of the signatures looked a lot like Linda's own writing, especially a specific way she wrote the letter H. The witness accounts themselves also conflicted. Janet Kimball reportedly claimed the craft ascended upward over the Brooklyn Bridge. Richard and Dan reportedly described the craft plunging downward into the East River. Investigators argued that the two groups observing the same massive aerial event should have shared at least basic positional consistency. That's true. These contradictions also started breaking apart the appearance of a unified witness narrative.

Josh 24:05

Yeah.

Travis 24:06

So yeah, but I mean, like those two things can exist within each other. Like planes have to go up and then they also have to come down.

Josh 24:12

Yeah, depending on when they saw it.

Travis 24:14

And it was like a two-hour experience. Exactly. I guess when they saw it, maybe. Maybe it was, you know, different time. Yeah. Anyone that has an experience with a UAP, they talk about how fast it moved.

Josh 24:25

Yeah.

Travis 24:26

And how weird it made them feel.

Josh 24:28

Yeah, I they can. It just seems, you know, when they're saying the same time. I mean, it's it's fishy. It's a little fishy.

Travis 24:35

Well, I mean, all of these every witness account that we've covered on the show is fishy. Every single one of them, it's and they're not ever reported like immediately after. And there's usually something that causes them to speak out, you know, for whatever reason they they felt compelled to tell the story.

Josh 24:54

But with the aerial school, if the kids all said that the alien or the ship showed up at different locations or was moving differently, that would be that would be your smoking gun. You'd be like, no, no.

Travis 25:06

Sure. But that cool guy that smoked cigarettes at the beginning of that documentary, he laid it all out for us.

Josh 25:12

He was he was a cool guy, Jones.

Travis 25:13

He yeah, he's like one of those guys that you think, oh, he peaked in elementary school. No, he peaked in junior high. The guy is still peaking.

Josh 25:20

Oh yeah.

Travis 25:21

He there's no top to what that guy can do.

Josh 25:23

And he knows it.

Travis 25:24

Yeah, he knows it.

Carol Rainey On Bias And Hypnosis

Travis 25:25

Yep.

Josh 25:25

So now we're gonna talk about Carol Rainey and the kind of internal collapse of the whole case.

Travis 25:32

So Carol Rainey, that's the person that brought all of this information. Like she was the the filmmaker, right?

Josh 25:38

For Bud Hopkins, yeah. She was the filmmaker and former wife of Bud Hopkins.

Travis 25:43

Oh, former.

Josh 25:45

Well, he passed away.

Travis 25:47

RIP, a real one.

Josh 25:48

Yeah. She later spoke publicly about the investigation to describe major concerns regarding Hopkins' methods. Rainey argued Hopkins became emotionally invested in protecting the case and cherry picked supporting evidence. According to Carol, Linda eventually made additional claims involving organized crime figures being kidnapped, whole family abductions, and even alleged experiences connected to September 11th attacks years later. Well Yeah, she kept adding. Carol also criticized the use of hypnosis in abduction research.

Travis 26:21

Good for her.

Josh 26:21

Critics of hypnosis regression have long argued that investigators can unintentionally shape memories through suggestion, repetition, and reinforcement. And she knew because she was filming. I mean, she filmed I don't know how many. I mean, she filmed everything.

Travis 26:36

But like hypnosis as a means to get information out was very popular in the 80s and early 90s. People thought that it was a not even woo, it was like part of science. You would go to hypnosis shows, and people would be afraid to go on stage because they were worried that something weird was gonna happen to them and they were going to like live out some of their repressed memories. Most of these hypnosis shows were all done past 10 o'clock, you know, adult audience only type situations.

Josh 27:09

Yeah.

Travis 27:10

But I think a lot of that is just like when you feel like you are under hypnosis, your inhibitions go away and you just feel like you can do whatever you want because you can just lean on I was hypnotized, I had no control over it. So I've I've never thought it's I don't think that it's a very reliable way of getting or extracting information.

Josh 27:29

No.

Travis 27:30

Brains are weird and complicated, and I don't think this is the way to unlock information.

Josh 27:35

Yeah, I do believe hypnosis is real, but just like you see, if you go to a show, it is very suggestive.

Travis 27:43

If you go to like a hypnosis therapist or whatever, for whatever reason, you know, quit smoking to stop having sex with your hand or whatever, you know, the classics, you are committed to wanting to change that.

Josh 27:59

Right.

Travis 27:59

And so this is like that last barrier. It's it's all in your in your head anyway. Not all in your head, but I mean like you're ready. And it doesn't matter, it you're just now looking for kind of a support system.

Josh 28:11

So Carol, just in the Netflix documentary, we saw maybe 10 different hypnotic regression therapies filmed. So she was around it a lot. She just didn't believe in that. Carol believed Hopkins also sincerely believed he was uncovering a hidden truth. She argued his investment in finding the case of the century compromised his ability to recognize inconsistencies.

Travis 28:34

Oh, he's a fame chaser. He wanted to etch his name in stone. That's really what it is. So let's talk about why this case still matters, Josh.

Why The Case Still Matters

Travis 28:44

Yeah. Even after decades of criticism and controversy, the Brooklyn Bridge abduction still holds a unique place in UFO history. Very few abduction stories attempted something on this scale. This case placed an alleged UFO operation directly above one of the busiest cities in the world. It involved diplomacy, intelligence agents, public witnesses, agents and kidnappings, medical evidence, hypnosis, and media attention all at once. For believers, the sheer complexity of the story still feels difficult to dismiss entirely. The emotional conviction of Linda Napolitano remained consistent for decades, but Hopkins defended the case until the end of his life. For skeptics, the case represents how investigator bias, psychological reinforcement, and social momentum can create a hallucination of consensus. And sitting between these positions is the uncomfortable reality that strange experiences do happen to people. Sleep paralysis exists. False memory formation exists. Psychological contagion exists. Unexplained encounters and genuinely bizarre human experiences also exist. The Napolitano case became one of the clearest examples of how difficult it is to separate extraordinary experience from constructed narrative. So this brings up a lot of the things that we talked about on this podcast a lot is that something happened, you know, with Linda, something happened with Travis Walton, something happened with Betty and Barney Hill. We don't know exactly what that was, whether it was a you know unexplained phenomena, whether it was something spiritual or something physical, and they just didn't want to talk about it. But one thing that we do bring up a lot on this is like not having the vernacular, the like the ability to define these extrasensory or extraterrestrial or spiritual things in a way that makes sense. And so we use grounded language, things that make sense to us, kidnapping, assault, and and and things like that to describe. And I'm not saying that like every alien experience is an assault, or everybody that has assault happened to them is an alien. I'm just saying that people use that language a lot to describe something that happened to them, traumatic emotional experience.

Josh 30:57

Yeah, it kind of like going into the kidnapping thing, though.

Travis 31:01

We didn't really talk about that in this show. So maybe this is a good opportunity for us to talk about what uh the Wi-Fi's

Our Verdict And What We Believe

Travis 31:07

discussed. I don't I didn't like I didn't like that at all. Yeah. These two guys, Richard and Dan, those were the security detail for this UN ambassador, and one of them got weirdly obsessed with Linda.

Josh 31:20

Yeah.

Travis 31:20

Would like follow her around and their partners.

Josh 31:24

And they both saw the abduction.

Travis 31:26

They both saw it and they both dealt with it in their own way, said it was very scary and they didn't know who else to talk to. I think that their account is at least which one was it? Richard is the more grounded one. And I think Dan was the one that had this weird fixation on Linda, would follow her around, film and watch her all the time, uh, kidnapped her.

Josh 31:50

And while this was all going on, he was writing letters to Buddha. To Bud.

Travis 31:54

Yeah.

Josh 31:55

Yeah. Explaining his feelings and emotions behind it all.

Travis 31:58

So imagine being Linda, this woman. She had had this experience, and then on top of it, these two men show up and they demand an audience with her, and maybe they like her story and maybe they don't, but now you are in their orbit, and now that's gonna overly complicate these things. And then somebody, the the one of these guys catches his feelings or whatever, and becomes very obsessed with her. He thinks she's an alien, but he also wants to marry her and tried to drown her in the sea. Yeah, and said they're gonna run away together and see her feet. Oh, that was creepy. Yeah, it demanded her take her shoes off.

Josh 32:35

Take her shoes off because they wanted to see, because they had an experience on a beach. I don't even know how that all worked out.

Travis 32:42

They had had a later experience on the beach, and it it was, I think, kind of leading us to believe that these two guys had had an encounter before the Linda Manhattan Bridge encounter, and so they knew that aliens didn't have toes or whatever, and so they wanted to see Linda's feet. Nowadays, that would cost thousands of dollars.

Josh 33:04

That's true. I mean, there's so many ins and outs, and they they kidnap her multiple times, they take her to a safe house on a beach, she runs away and gets away. It just gets wild. But on the Wi-Files, he was saying that all that kidnapping, all those stories is scene for scene from a book that she read because she was a huge sci-fi fan.

Travis 33:26

I don't know. I don't I don't know either. I don't know. I I believe something happened to her. Why would you like we've talked about before whistleblowers? Why would you want this kind of attention, this negative attention? Like, what does it serve? What purpose are you getting out of it? Like, there's there's no net gain for Linda to say these things and hope to benefit from it.

Josh 33:46

There's well, I mean, she got no benefit.

Travis 33:48

Famous, infamous.

Josh 33:51

She was on talk shows, she was on news, she set up a deal where she would get 10 to 25% of his book. They were gonna make a movie, that ended up not happening.

Travis 34:03

I think that that's that's fine. Like if this thing actually happened to her and people were going to profit off of it, why wouldn't you want a piece of that pie? If something were to happen to you and somebody wrote about it and you are, you know, living a struggled life in New York City, the city that never sleeps, and yeah, and she came from humble beginnings.

Josh 34:22

Sure.

Travis 34:22

But I mean, living being a human being is hard, and any help helps.

Josh 34:28

Why didn't you say that about the aerial kids?

Travis 34:30

Those kids are a bunch of fucking degenerate, degenerate. No, they're children. Except for that one guy. No, they're not. They're grown up now. They are grown people.

Josh 34:39

Well, now they're grown.

Travis 34:40

Yeah.

Josh 34:41

And they still have the same story.

Travis 34:43

Well, the thing with Linda happened at she was 40, like a grown-ass woman.

Josh 34:47

So the Brooklyn Bridge abduction is still one of the most famous alien stories out there, even though we hadn't heard of it, which is wild. That's okay. We're still babies. We're on our own path. We are. But it's also without a doubt one of the most argued about.

Travis 35:01

Sure. We just proved that point.

Josh 35:03

There's zero physical proof. The witnesses are still debated. The supposed alien implant vanished into thin air. The political connections stayed private and were never confirmed. And the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger over time, which only made the original claim harder to believe. But this case has all the classic UFO stuff packed into the story: missing time, medical procedures, telepathy, secrecy, government interest, unreliable memory, psychological influence, and that unsettling possibility that something genuinely strange unfolded in the middle of an ordinary life. Classic story. What are your final thoughts? What do you think?

Travis 35:40

I think, I mean, like I said at the top of the show, I believe Linda. I believe something happened to her. I don't think that all the players in this story are telling the truth. I wish, I don't know, I wish there was more information. The handwriting analysis seems a little fake or doctored, like some people write H's the same way, I would know, as being a master of the eighth letter of the alphabet. So that doesn't that if it's just an H thing and they're like, well, this proves our point that Linda wrote is the author of these letters, I think that that's a pretty soft, sandy foundation. I don't really like it. I do believe that something happened to Linda. Was it this? Probably not, not the way it was recounted, but I do feel like something happened to her. And maybe it was like it could have been an assault. I mean, she was definitely assaulted, if you believe some of the other testimonies from this, by these two guys. And so maybe this is just like her way of trying to bring attention to something traumatic that happened to her. I mean, why why don't we have I I wish we had more documentation on the 23 other people that saw this event, because it was in, you know, New York City, 23 people and probably more. If 23 people saw it in New York City, probably more, but they just didn't report it. And we talked about this earlier off mic, uh, how important it is to report these kinds of things that happen to you because it it helps validate everybody else's experience.

Josh 37:11

Yeah, it could be you're a small part of something big. This whole thing, it's I've gone back and forth, back and forth. I don't know why. I normally don't have this feeling, but I can feel it in my chest, even though my mind is nagging me, saying, like, you know, there were 23 witnesses, that's a lot. There was a lot of letters, there was documentation. I mean, it's all documented. I just feel like it's all made up, which is really weird. Like, all of it. Like, she was a sci-fi fan, she read all of his books, she knew exactly what he wanted to hear, and she could come up with a good story. She was really, really good in front of the camera, like spot on. She just seemed like a type of person that wanted to be the headliner of anything.

Travis 37:58

I'm not gonna fault anybody for that, though. Like, we all want to be the stars. In fact, we are all the stars of our own story, and so what if she like played it up a little bit? I just I don't I don't think that's fair for anybody to throw out her testimony because she was also looking for a little bit of attention. That's like a way to define all whistleblowers. But some people frame this narrative because she's a woman and had this experience as like in the same way that they call an assertive woman who is in a position of authority bossy, but they wouldn't say that about a man. Like, if there was a guy that was like very vain and involved, we would say, like, oh what that guy came prepared. He showed up and looked good because he knew he was on camera. But with this, I feel like people are framing this narrative around this woman who, like, so what? So what if she wants a little bit of fame? That isn't I don't I don't feel like that is the issue here.

Josh 38:55

Yeah, I I don't think that's the issue either. I don't think her being a woman has anything to do with my thought. It's just the the evidence itself. It just seems really sketchy. Knowing that she was an avid reader of sci-fi and she read his books, even her regressive hypnotherapy was a little off. She didn't go deep. She looked pretty, like just laying there, just talking. She didn't go into that regression hypnosis.

Travis 39:23

Well, I mean, nobody here is a hypnotherapist. I think it seemed rehearsed, but I feel like if you're not susceptible to hypnosis, that's probably gonna be the case. You're just going to assume you're in this hypnotic state.

Josh 39:37

Bud was a hypnotherapist, and Carol, his wife, filmed all of it, and she's the one that said it was very suspicious.

Travis 39:45

Okay. It's all it's all woo to me.

Josh 39:47

Well, I think I'm just gonna land on I don't think this is real at all. And I don't want to. I want this to be real. I mean, not shitty parts.

Travis 39:56

I don't want this to be I don't, yeah.

Josh 39:58

I I want her to be telling the truth, I should say.

Travis 40:01

Yeah, I believe something happened.

Josh 40:02

So that's me. I say aliens no.

Travis 40:05

Okay. I also say aliens no, but I will say it with a caveat that I think something happened. But no, it doesn't move the needle for me as far as aliens.

Josh 40:15

Okay. We didn't go crazy deep. There's a lot of other stuff about this. We didn't want to do a five-hour episode.

Travis 40:22

Yep. But Hopkins, a writer, his wife a documentarian. There's so much information. We just tried to give you guys like the Cliff's Notes version of it, and I'm sure we will link some of these stories in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Yeah.

Travis 40:38

Really, really would suggest if you guys don't already subscribe to the Wi-Fi's. I feel like that is a huge resource that we use. We don't call out that YouTube channel enough.

Josh 40:50

No, we don't. All

Fan Mail And How To Write In

Josh 40:52

right. We have fan mail.

Travis 40:54

Oh man, I love this portion of the show.

Josh 40:58

We just have one.

Travis 40:59

Great. Is it about how I suck at trivia or is it trivia related?

Josh 41:05

No, this is a real one. This isn't one that you sent or that I sent. Okay.

Travis 41:10

Yeah, man. Good. I was sweating for a second. I was like, how am I gonna respond to this?

Josh 41:16

So this person says, hilarious episode, guys. I agree. The Kexbert incident sounds like it was military. Yeah. I wanted to save Josh time and let him know I don't own a Geiger counter. Because I am known for asking people if they have a Geiger counter.

Travis 41:34

Yeah, you want to ask everybody you know. And so you don't have to ask this person. I mean, I don't have one. I don't even know what it looks like. I do. I have a z I have a z oh, does it look like this? Joke's on you. I have a I have a Geiger counter. Just kidding, it's not.

Josh 41:50

Um well, good. I'll mark that down. I keep a a very long spreadsheet.

Travis 41:57

Yep. Yep. I like that they said uh hilarious, was that?

Josh 42:01

Yeah, I was just thinking that. Hilarious.

Travis 42:03

Good. I don't care if people think I'm smart. I just wanted to think I'm funny. That's it.

Josh 42:07

That's it.

Travis 42:08

That's the most important thing to me in the world. Yeah, I don't care if I'm smart. Yeah. Look at me. Look at me. No. I'm uh I'm a fart stacked up. This is Sticky Travis. I have to be funny. Otherwise, what else do I have?

Josh 42:23

That's true. Can I say that's true, or is that only you can say that?

Travis 42:26

That's fine. You can say it's true. I gave you license to say that's true.

Josh 42:30

Okay.

Travis 42:30

So if you guys want anything read, send it to us. Like uh your sci-fi fan fiction about us. Us. Yeah, sure. We'll read it. We'll do the voices.

Josh 42:42

Oh yeah. Well, that is gonna get us into our quiz.

Bigfoot Quiz And Score Reveal

Travis 42:48

Oh no, it's quiz time. I'm starting to sweat really bad. Every time you play that, I just like uh oh, a little bit of poop dropped out.

Josh 42:56

That's why I do it.

Travis 42:57

You're just keeping me regular. That's great, Josh. I appreciate you. You're always worried about my butt health.

Josh 43:02

Yeah, I care about you, man.

Travis 43:04

I care about you too. Thank you. There it is.

Josh 43:06

I got it. Uh oh, hell yes! Let's see here. Oh this is exciting! This is exciting.

Travis 43:15

Oh man, regional.

Josh 43:17

This is uh very cool. Okay, let's get into our quiz. Our quiz. Bigfoot.

Travis 43:24

Are you gonna do the noise again? You make me do a little poop.

Josh 43:28

I'm excited for this.

Travis 43:30

Oh, this is gonna be this is gonna be fun. I I love I think our cryptid episodes are some of my favorites.

Josh 43:36

Yeah, and I know a good amount about Bigfoot, and I'm still torn. So I'm I'm curious to like actual dive in. You know, I've watched documentaries and TV shows and stuff like that.

Travis 43:48

All right, we're gonna do Bigfoot. This is fun.

Josh 43:50

Yeah. So, first question The word Bigfoot became widely known after track discoveries in Northern California in what year? The A 1890. 1997, B 1924, C 1958, or D 1973.

Travis 44:07

Oh man, what a question. I'm gonna say 58. 1958? You think that late? But it could be 1897. I don't know. I'm gonna say 1897. I'm going earliest is the burliest. And we're talking about Sasquatch. It's pretty burly.

Josh 44:21

That's true.

Travis 44:22

I made it rhyme. That makes it true. You did. Earliest is a burliest.

Josh 44:27

All right. Next question. The term Sasquatch is an anglicized version of a word from which cultural language tradition? A Cherokee, B, Inuit, C Algonquin, or D Coast Salish?

Travis 44:41

So I know Algonquin is an Eastern tribe, like an Eastern Coast tribe.

Josh 44:46

Okay.

Travis 44:47

I'm ruling that out. I don't know what Coast Salish is. I'm gonna say Inuit. Actually, I'm going back to Cherokee. Inuit an Alaskan tribe. Yeah.

Josh 44:55

Which I mean, there's probably Bigfoot in Alaska.

Travis 44:58

Yep, so I'm I'm going to Cherokee also.

Josh 45:00

All right. Next one. What is the name of the Bigfoot video? Yes, I mean that one. Shot in California in 1967. Is it A, the Patterson Gimlin film? B the squatchy strut film. C the Bluff Creek film. Or D the Athabasca landing film. I don't know what that means. I'm gonna say A, the Patterson Gimlin film.

Travis 45:24

Okay. I already locked that in.

Josh 45:26

You did? Cool.

Travis 45:27

I did. We're in this uh boat together, Josh. Ride or die, buddy.

Josh 45:32

Okay, next one. Oh, here we go. Good. In Cherokee tradition, Seul Kalu is best known as what? A the Lord of Game, B the Warrior of the Forest, C, the Foot of the Bear, or D, the hairy ice giant.

Travis 45:48

I like one and two, Lord of Game, Warrior of the Forest. I don't think it's gonna be Warrior of the Forest. I'm gonna say Lord of Game.

Josh 45:57

I'm gonna say the foot of Bear.

Travis 45:58

The foot of the bear, sure.

Josh 46:00

Yeah.

Travis 46:00

You're probably right. I don't I don't know. I mean, we're defining this creature by the size of its foot.

Josh 46:06

That's true.

Travis 46:07

That also could be misleading to get you to answer that question.

Josh 46:10

It's probably misleading.

Travis 46:11

Yeah.

Josh 46:11

All right. Next one. Which early explorer recorded large bipedal tracks in Athabasca Pass in 1811? Is it A. Theodore Roosevelt? B, David Thompson, C, Grover Krantz, or D. Mereweather Lewis? I think it's Theodore Roosevelt.

Travis 46:30

Well, Josh. You are so wrong. It's Meriwether Lewis. Meriwether Lewis was given a manifest from Thomas Jefferson, who was president of the time, to move west. Lewis and Clark, man. Meriwether Lewis. Theod Roosevelt wasn't president until the 1900s, like 1904.

Josh 46:52

Well, I already locked it in.

Travis 46:53

Okay. Next question.

Josh 46:55

So you're saying Meriwether Lewis.

Travis 46:57

Merriweather Lewis, yeah.

Josh 46:58

Okay. Last question, actually. The Bauman account published by Theodore Roosevelt in 1893 involved what disturbing detail? A, a cabin was lifted into the air. B, a hunter's partner was killed. C, a glowing red dome vanished into the sky, or D, a message was clawed into a canoe. Well, I guess 1893. That doesn't work on that last one. Damn it. I mean. I thought he was timeless.

Travis 47:28

He is like, he's the one president. If I could go back in time and just like hang out with the president, it would be Teddy Roosevelt.

Josh 47:35

If you could go back in time and shake any president's hand with your sticky hands.

Travis 47:40

Yeah, it would be Teddy Roosevelt. Thank you for bringing that back up, Josh. I appreciate that. Uh never forget. He's also credited with I think having helmets in football. His son played college football, like a very different version of it, but it was very brutal.

Josh 47:56

Well, and he also did the National Forests. Yep. Did he do the Hoover Dam?

Travis 48:00

No, that was Herbert Hoover, who was president much later.

Josh 48:05

Dude, I don't know what's going on.

Travis 48:06

No, you're totally fine. Teddy Roosevelt, though, he got shot during a speech and still continued on with the speech. He was a big time adventurer. I think he went down to the Amazon. Sounds like you love him. I do. He's a fucking badass. He's pretty cool. Well, what do you think the answer is? I don't know. Cabin was lifted in the air.

Josh 48:29

Hunter's partner was killed, glowing red dome vanished in the sky, or message was clawed into a canoe.

Travis 48:34

I don't like the cabin was lifted into the air. Um, hunter's partner was killed. That probably happened all the time.

Josh 48:40

I'm gonna say a glowing red dome vanished into the sky. I don't know why.

Travis 48:44

You convince me. I don't I just don't like any of the other options.

Josh 48:47

Yeah.

Travis 48:48

A message was clawed into a canoe. Okay, prove it. What was a message?

Josh 48:52

Show me the canoe.

Travis 48:53

Yeah.

Josh 48:54

All right, I'm gonna submit. We're gonna view our accuracy. Oh. Boy, bad. Okay. Shit. So the word Bigfoot became widely known after track discoveries in Northern California in what year? I said 1958. You got it right. That's correct.

Travis 49:10

I said 1897. I got it wrong.

Josh 49:13

The next one, the term Sasquatch is an anglicized version of the word from which cultural language tradition.

Travis 49:19

Yeah, we were all in on Cherokee.

Josh 49:21

It's Coast Salish. Okay, next one. What is the name of the Bigfoot video? Yes, I mean that one shot in California, 1967. I said the Patterson Gimlin film.

Travis 49:31

So did I.

Josh 49:32

And that is correct. Got it right. Those are probably the guys that shot it.

Travis 49:36

Yeah, probably the guy. Maybe he's got a hyphenate name. I don't know.

Josh 49:38

Or the guy and the camera that he used?

Travis 49:41

Yeah, you know what? We're gonna find out next week on the show.

Josh 49:44

That's true. All right. In Cherokee tradition, Sue Kalu is best known as what? I said the foot of the bear.

Travis 49:52

I said Lord of the Game, and I was right.

Josh 49:55

Yeah.

Travis 49:56

Foot of the Bear, classic misdirect.

Josh 49:59

Got me. All right. Next one. Which early explorer recorded large bipedal tracks in Athabasca Pass in 1811?

Travis 50:06

This is the one that I'm most disappointed about because I was like, dude, come on, Meriwether Lewis, Lewis and Clark. Not Theodore Roosevelt. Yeah, some nobody, David Thompson. What a fucking boring ass name.

Josh 50:18

Yeah.

Travis 50:18

How many of those are in the phone book? Probably thousands.

Josh 50:22

Next one, the Bauman account published by Theodore Roosevelt in 1893 involved what disturbing detail? I said a glowing red dome, you said a glowing red dome, vanish in the sky.

Travis 50:32

Yeah.

Josh 50:32

A hunter's partner was killed.

Travis 50:34

Yeah. By Bigfoot? Like the most common answer on here.

Josh 50:39

But was it by Bigfoot? I guess, like you said, we'll find out. Well, cool. This is gonna be really fun.

Travis 50:45

Love it. Give me some more of those big feet.

Josh 50:49

Thank you guys for listening.

Thanks And Awkward Sign-Off

Josh 50:50

Like we said, reach out. We love to hear. That's our favorite part of life.

Travis 50:54

Yeah, otherwise, we're just screaming into a microphone in a room by ourselves. It's nice to feel that people are out there listening.

Josh 51:03

Yeah.

Travis 51:03

That's fun. That's what makes this whole thing worthwhile.

Josh 51:06

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. And thank you, Jordan. Again. We'll thank you forever and always.

Travis 51:12

As always.

Josh 51:13

Well, we will chat at you next episode. Okay. Bye. Bye. I don't have the song loaded.

Travis 51:19

Oh, this is embarrassing.

unknown 51:21

I know.

Travis 51:21

So now what do we do?