A flashlight, three discs over a Missouri ranch, and a ray that cured fifteen years of back pain. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli follow Buck Nelson from Ozark farmer to saucer celebrity — and to a twist that isn’t funny at all.

https://youtu.be/iP2GwjYOUfk

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

Links for this episode:

• Buck Nelson, My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus (modern paperback): https://amzn.to/3SygFit
• My Trip to Mars, the Moon, and Venus (free PDF of the 1956 booklet): http://gratisenergi.se/buck1956.pdf
• “The Ozarks Spaceman: Buck Nelson in 10 Facts,” Springfield-Greene County Library: https://thelibrary.org/post/the-ozarks-spaceman-buck-nelson-in-10-facts
• Ozarks Alive feature on Buck Nelson: https://www.ozarksalive.com/stories/2iepyyzyl2rk6jkohdpf633ftjaaoc
• Buck Nelson (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Nelson
• Sue Hubbell, “Buck Nelson and the Little Men,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 29, 1977: https://www.newspapers.com/search/?query=Buck+Nelson+Little+Men&dr_year=1977-1977
• Dale Freeman, “Out of This World,” Springfield News-Leader, February 26, 1956: https://www.newspapers.com/search/?query=Buck+Nelson+Out+of+This+World&dr_year=1956-1956
• “Trip to Venus Talk Packs Sunday School,” The Spokesman-Review, March 23, 1956: https://www.newspapers.com/image/568434786/

• Please spread the word about the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Purchase the books and other material from this and other episodes at the Mysterious World Bookstore.
• Join the conversation at the Starquest Facebook page and the Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World Facebook page.
• Be part of the StarQuest Discord community at SQPN.com/discord
• Send your feedback or comments to feedback@mysterious.fm or send a tweet to @mys_world
• You can also leave a voice message on the Mysterious Feedback Line at (619) 738-4515

Chapters:

• 0:00:12 – Intro
• 0:00:47 – Cold open: The Ozark Spaceman
• 0:01:50 – Today’s Mystery: The UFO Contactees
• 0:02:58 – Mountain View, Missouri
• 0:04:57 – Ozark Caves and Karst Country
• 0:06:00 – Who Was Buck Nelson?
• 0:08:11 – July 1954: Three Discs and a Flashlight
• 0:09:44 – The Healing Ray
• 0:10:28 – The Saucers Come Back
• 0:11:54 – Bucky, Bob Solomon, and Big Bo
• 0:14:04 – The Spacemen Tour the House
• 0:18:01 – The Twelve Laws of God
• 0:19:53 – At the Controls
• 0:22:03 – Mars
• 0:24:10 – The Moon
• 0:27:00 – Venus
• 0:29:21 – Home After Three Days
• 0:29:37 – What the Space People Were Like
• 0:33:26 – Atlantis and the Pyramids
• 0:35:01 – Christmas with Bucky
• 0:37:24 – Thank you to Patrons
• 0:37:56 – Sponsor: Rosary Army and School of Mary
• 0:38:38 – Sponsorship opportunities
• 0:39:26 – The Lecture Circuit and the Booklet
• 0:41:46 – The Spacecraft Conventions
• 0:45:16 – The Men in Black
• 0:47:50 – Trouble With the Government
• 0:48:49 – How the Story Ended
• 0:50:44 – Reason Perspective
• 0:52:46 – Faith Perspective
• 0:53:50 – The Twist
• 0:57:18 – The Civil Rights Backdrop
• 0:58:53 – Racism Is Evil
• 1:03:02 – Bottom Line
• 1:04:11 – Further Resources
• 1:04:43 – Mysterious Feedback: #419 Zombie Marriage, Holy Roman Emperors, Jesus’ DNA, and More Weird Questions
• 1:11:10 – Your mysterious feedback
• 1:11:46 – Thank you to Oasis Studio 7
• 1:11:51 – Jimmy’s YouTube channel
• 1:13:13 – Thank you to Craig Hart
• 1:13:18 – Next Time: Auras
• 1:13:38 – Share the show, write a review
• 1:13:50 – Get your Mysterious merch
• 1:13:58 – Show notes
• 1:14:05 – Become a Patron
• 1:14:12 – Sponsor: The Grady Group
• 1:15:03 – After the Credits: 1956 School Lunch Menus
• 1:17:15 – Outro

This Episode is Brought to You By:

Rosary Army. Featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, Rosary resources, videos, and the School of Mary online community, prayer, and learning platform. Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at RosaryArmy.com and SchoolOfMary.com

The Grady Group, a Catholic company bringing financial clarity to their clients across the United States. Using safe money options to produce reasonable rates of return for their clients. Learn more by visiting GradyGroup.us.

Want to Sponsor A Show?
Support StarQuest’s mission to explore the intersection of faith and pop culture by becoming a named sponsor of the show of your choice on the StarQuest network. Click to get started or find out more.

Direct Link to the Episode.

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You are sitting with someone as they die, and the room fills with a light that is not from this earth. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine shared death experiences — the cases where a perfectly healthy bystander sees it too.

https://youtu.be/PzqqyTz9HfU

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

Links for this episode:

• Raymond Moody and Paul Perry, Glimpses of Eternity (Guideposts, 2010)
• William Peters, At Heaven’s Door (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
• Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick, The Art of Dying (Continuum, 2008)
• Sir William F. Barrett, Death-Bed Visions (Methuen, 1926)
• Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson, At the Hour of Death (Avon Books, 1977)
• Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Podmore, Phantasms of the Living, vols. 1–2: vol. 1; vol. 2
• Daniel Bourke, Apparitions at the Moment of Death (2024)
• Shared Crossing Project
• Peters, Kinsella, and Williams, “Shared Death Experiences: A Little-Known Type of End-of-Life Phenomena Reported by Caregivers and Loved Ones,” American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 2021
• See also: Pope St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues (especially Books 2 and 4)
• IANDS Fact Sheet on Shared Death Experiences

• Please spread the word about the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Purchase the books and other material from this and other episodes at the Mysterious World Bookstore.
• Join the conversation at the Starquest Facebook page and the Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World Facebook page.
• Be part of the StarQuest Discord community at SQPN.com/discord
• Send your feedback or comments to feedback@mysterious.fm or send a tweet to @mys_world
• You can also leave a voice message on the Mysterious Feedback Line at (619) 738-4515

Chapters:

• 0:00:12 – Intro
• 0:00:41 – Cold open: Have you ever sat at a deathbed?
• 0:01:33 – What is a shared death experience?
• 0:03:04 – What bystanders actually perceive
• 0:04:38 – SDEs vs. crisis apparitions and deathbed visions
• 0:06:18 – Raymond Moody coins the term
• 0:06:59 – The first case: Dr. Jameson and her mother
• 0:10:48 – Moody’s own shared death experience
• 0:13:16 – William Peters and the Shared Crossing Project
• 0:14:57 – Peters’ four modes of SDE
• 0:17:31 – Dana’s shared life review
• 0:20:37 – Veridical content: the yearbook photographs
• 0:21:34 – The mist and the soul leaving the body
• 0:24:46 – A whole family sees the light
• 0:26:59 – History: how far back do these go?
• 0:27:16 – Pope St. Gregory the Great’s Dialogues
• 0:28:16 – St. Benedict and St. Scholastica
• 0:29:56 – Benedict, Germanus of Capua, and Servandus
• 0:32:55 – Romula, Servulus, and Tarsilla
• 0:37:51 – The Society for Psychical Research
• 0:38:41 – Phantasms of the Living: little Isidore
• 0:40:40 – Fanny seen in Shanghai and in Wales
• 0:43:08 – Sir William Barrett’s Deathbed Visions
• 0:45:31 – Osis and Haraldsson: At the Hour of Death
• 0:47:11 – Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick
• 0:48:01 – Peters’ cases: the stairway of light
• 0:51:51 – Scott Taylor and Nolan
• 0:53:04 – Hospice nurse Julie McFadden
• 0:54:14 – Who has SDEs, and how common are they?
• 0:56:18 – Why SDEs matter for surviving death
• 1:00:13 – Thank you to Patrons
• 1:00:46 – Sponsor: Rosary Army and School of Mary
• 1:01:08 – Sponsorship opportunities
• 1:02:13 – Eight theories
• 1:03:43 – Reason Perspective: Fraud
• 1:05:48 – Coincidence
• 1:07:50 – Confabulation
• 1:09:32 – Bereavement hallucinations
• 1:11:30 – Chemical signaling from the dying body
• 1:13:12 – Expectation and cultural script
• 1:15:31 – Brain entrainment
• 1:18:50 – A genuine glimpse: the positive case
• 1:21:19 – The state of the evidence
• 1:23:07 – Faith Perspective
• 1:25:30 – Bottom Line
• 1:26:58 – Further Resources
• 1:27:43 – SpiderMail bumper
• 1:27:53 – Mysterious Feedback: #418 Skeleton Lake
• 1:28:03 – Feedback: “a historical” vs “an historical”
• 1:31:37 – Feedback: supercells, hail, and elevation
• 1:37:38 – Feedback: human sacrifice theory
• 1:39:35 – Feedback: bodies moved by freeze and thaw
• 1:41:05 – Feedback: why no animal skeletons?
• 1:41:36 – Your mysterious feedback
• 1:42:13 – Thank you to Oasis Studio 7
• 1:42:24 – Jimmy’s YouTube channel
• 1:43:09 – Next Time: Buck Nelson, the Ozark Spaceman
• 1:43:24 – Get your Mysterious merch
• 1:43:40 – Show notes
• 1:43:47 – Become a Patron
• 1:43:55 – Sponsor: The Grady Group
• 1:44:49 – Outro

This Episode is Brought to You By:

Rosary Army. Featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, Rosary resources, videos, and the School of Mary online community, prayer, and learning platform. Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at RosaryArmy.com and SchoolOfMary.com

The Grady Group, a Catholic company bringing financial clarity to their clients across the United States. Using safe money options to produce reasonable rates of return for their clients. Learn more by visiting GradyGroup.us.

Want to Sponsor A Show?
Support StarQuest’s mission to explore the intersection of faith and pop culture by becoming a named sponsor of the show of your choice on the StarQuest network. Click to get started or find out more.

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download