On Sunday night, July 27, 1952, Cement Batch Plant Operator Truman Bethurum took a little snooze during his break while working the swing shift on an Asphalt Mixing Plant project near Mormon Mesa, Nevada. He awoke to hear unintelligible murmuring from eight to ten small-sized men who had surrounded his truck. Initially startled by the diminutive beings who all seemed to be wearing uniforms, what would really make Truman's heart pound with excitement was that they appeared to be the crew of an enormous flying saucer that had landed just a few yards away. He described the ship as about 300 feet in diameter and six yards deep at its center, with something akin to a burnished stainless steel finish. Bethurum went aboard to meet the female captain of the ship and was able to ask her questions, to which he often received cryptic yet intriguing answers. One visitation like this would be enough to question one's reality and sanity, but Bethurum was able to meet and converse with these interplanetary visitors on ten more occasions. Unable to keep this earth-shattering secret to himself, Bethurum would end up talking about his close encounters with his coworkers and his bewildered and soon-to-be long-suffering wife, correctly suspecting there would be derision and concern for his mental well-being. But even imagining how his life would turn upside down from his claims, he felt these exchanges were too important and wonderful to keep to himself. So if this was all just a made-up story in the style of 1950s era SciFi to gain some notoriety and maybe sell some books, why would a seemingly clear-headed, hardworking man with a good job and family risk losing everything to become viewed by most as a "Saucer Seer" kook? Was there something about Bethurum's personality that was unsound or foolish and unknown to his closest associates? Perhaps he became an unwitting target of a government operation or a contactee of a broader metaphysical phenomenon that tailored his experience to his comprehension. Join us for part one of a roundtable discussion with a couple of our closest associates, Rob Kristoffersen and Rich Hatem, as we follow Truman Bethurum aboard a flying saucer.

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