Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Vigelin, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout

history. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers

Podcast.

In the early morning hours of August 24, 1953, a former aviation engineer named George Van Tassel claimed to have been awakened in the middle of the night by an extraterrestrial visitor.

Six years earlier, Van Tassel had moved his family to Landers, California, a sleepy little town in the southeastern corner of the Mojave Desert.

Van Tassel had some impressive credentials.

He had once worked for some of the most prominent aviation technology firms in the U.S.,

including Lockheed, Douglas Aviation, and Howard Hughes' aviation firm.

But along with his technical know-how, Van Tassel had a deeply spiritual side as well.

It was this spiritual side that caused him to move his family to Landers.

That's because of the town's proximity to giant rock.

A massive seven-story high desert boulder that was considered sacred to Native Americans.

Van Tassel would meditate for hours in the rock shadow, during which time he believed he began communicating with the spirits of ancient

American Indians. But then one night in 1952, Van Tassel claimed that he came into telepathic

contact with someone else, not with the spirit of some long-dead Indian chief,

but with an alien visitor from the planet Venus.

This entity's name was Ashtar,

and over time he and Vantassel became close friends.

By the following year, Vantassal was claiming

that not only was he in telepathic contact with these aliens, but that they had traveled to Earth for an actual in-person meet and greed.

The captain of this spaceship was named Solgonda, and he appeared human.

He was white with perfect blonde hair and skin.

...