You are now listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode
of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have
a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive
into the unknown. I'm your host, Dave, joining
you once again, and joined as always with me,
if I fucked that up. But anyways, hey Sarge,
what's up, man? What's going on? No longer Brother
Sarge. We're not going to be talking about Jesus
on this episode. We're going to be talking about
Jesus on this episode, so buckle up and grab
your communion wafers. It's going to be a hoot.
We're not going to be talking about Jesus, but
fuck, dude, I fucked that intro. You know, I
was gone last, I'm rusty. You're rusty. I think
that's what it is. And that's okay. Yeah. You're
a rusty trombone, but we can keep going. Just
want to say, before we start, I want to say thank
you to Sarge and Maynard and Laura for holding
it down while I was gone. I was, I was, I was
looking at dinosaurs. You weren't looking at
dinosaurs. You were in a pilgrimage to disprove
Genesis and the Bible. Yeah, I got real autistic
with it, too. I was so fucking hyped when I went
there. It was bananas. You can't help it. Everybody
has their thing. My son has trains. He's very
into trains. I have Lego. And if this camera
were to pan around the room. you would see that
I've wasted much of my life, but I enjoy it.
And that's the important thing. We went to, it
was Edelman's Fossil Park and Museum. Oh, cool.
It's in New Jersey, and it's behind Home Depot,
which is fucking wild. So you're mostly just
finding the fossils of mob victims. No, it's
like, apparently where we were, they discovered
a fucking new species of dinosaur, and there's
a quarry you can go in and... Not a new species.
It was new at the time that they discovered it.
Right, right, right. I know what you mean. Yeah.
There's like a core you can go in and you can
like dig for fossils. Unfortunately, we didn't
realize that when we went, because we went opening
day, but apparently that doesn't start until
May. It's like May through October. You can actually
go in. But luckily we got a membership. So we're,
we can go whenever we want. Yeah. Um, but it
was really cool. I learned a lot about, uh, apparently
the Moses, there's like Moses or that they found
in there. Like the big, do you get to keep the
fossils that you find? Do you have to like turn
them in at the end? I think you, I think you
can, as long as it's not like groundbreaking,
you know what I mean? Like, yeah, which is fine.
Yeah. If you, it's like the Indiana Jones, like
if you find like a little something you can,
but if it belongs in a museum, they're probably
going to be like, you can't. I'm like, all right,
look, if this is groundbreaking, I just want
you to name it after me. yeah dude it was so
they have like obviously they have like some
like full skeletons and stuff like that they
got bones all throughout but it's mostly just
like a museum as in like they do like um it's
like statues not statues i don't know what you
call them paleontology art where it's like just
dinosaurs and shit uh exhibits yeah it's an exhibit
of a dinosaur and the first thing you see when
you walk into like the exhibit Is like a big
sauropod, whatever they're called, brontosaurus.
Oh, very cool. And it's like there's like a T
-Rex or something on the ground. Like, oh, cool.
And then you look closer. The fucking sauropod
is fucking crushing the T -Rex's neck with its
foot. That's even better. That's so awesome.
What is happening here? And then there was. I
got to see T -Rex poop, fossilized T -Rex poop.
That was pretty cool. Nice. Was there corn in
it? No, but I found out about meat buoys. I think
I sent you that. Yes. Basically, a dinosaur dies
on the beach. It gets washed out into the ocean
where it just sits there, bloats, and then it
sinks to the bottom of the ocean. And they showed
that they showed like a decomposing T -Rex that's
supposed to be like underwater with a bunch of
like sharks eating it. And then at the base of
it, there was like it's it's severed leg was
on the ground with a bunch of crabs all over
it. It was a wild exhibit, dude. It was pretty
cool. This is the eight year old me's dream visit.
Like there's no better museum for the eight year
old version of me or honestly, frankly, the slightly
older decrepit version of me that I currently
inhabit. Oh, yeah. Almost 40 year old Dave was
like a child there. It was. I would have been
in the gift shop immediately. The gift shop,
not going to lie, this is the best part of the
museum. This one sucked, dude. There was nothing
good there. I did get a book, though. Give it
time. Give it time. Maybe that gift shop will
get better when you go back in May to dig up
more fossils. I learned that hiccups are an evolutionary
thing from when we had gills and lungs, and that
they would close off their lungs so they could
breathe underwater when they went, you know what
I mean? Yeah. And it's still in us, and it just
randomly triggers. So it's from when we used
to have gills, like when we came out of the...
Holy shit! I hated that fact. I was not a fan
of that. I don't know how to feel about that.
Yeah, it made me feel a lot of things all at
once. It was not great. Yeah, I don't like that.
Yeah, no. If anyone's ever in Jersey, definitely
go check out Edelman's Fossil Park. It's really
cool. it's nice not a sponsor but could be yeah
it's behind the home depot it's right off the
jersey turnpike too like it's where it is i was
like there's no way i thought like my gps was
fucking with me i was like there's no way i'm
going past this this shopping plaza with a home
depot and a target and then as soon as you're
done you just go into home depot pick up a couple
of hinges and some one by eights you made a day
of it dude I definitely made a day of it. It
was fucking really cool. I was pissed though.
Cause the next day I have, cause I follow him
on Instagram. The next day they had the Jurassic
park Jeeps there. And I was like, fuck dude,
you couldn't have done that opening day. That's
insane. Yeah. That's insane. It was awful. Anyways,
how you doing Sarge? Sorry to just go off on
that. No, no, that's okay. I'm good. I'm, I'm
a, I'm a busy beaver at work. My job is crazy.
I now have a work cell phone. Oh shit. Yeah,
I've really moved up, but only because people
keep getting promoted and then there's no one
else to do their job. So I'm like doing that
too. Yeah, moving up because everyone else is
moving up and I'm staying right where I am. Right
here. Well, maybe, you know, maybe it's just
a matter of time, you know? Yeah, I know it's
a matter of time. Like my boss has made that
very clear, but time is moving and I'm not. Time
is money. Money is pizza. I can't complain too
much. I work from home most of the week, so I
go to the office once a week. I really can't
complain. Yeah, you're fine. Sarge, this episode
got away from me. Just like last episode got
away from me. I get it. Do you want to just go
into it? I feel like we've caught up enough.
Yeah, let's just dip our toes in it. All right.
So for this week's episode, I figured we would
try something a little different and cover something
that I've wanted to cover for a long time now.
But I never really found the right like stepping
stone to add it into our rotation of cryptids,
aliens and conspiracies. But I think I may have
found the perfect story to bring the topic into
our fold of like weird shit that we would normally
discuss. Again, it got away from me and I might
have bitten off more than I can chew. But anyways,
today we are going to be covering a 1950s. doomsday
cult led by a 54 year old housewife called the
seekers. Are you? Yes. I love the seekers. I
mean, I don't love them cause they're horrible
and problematic, but I love the story. So the
seekers were a 1950s UFO doomsday cult. Um, and
so you, so you are familiar with the seekers.
Very loosely familiar. I couldn't give you like
a ton of facts, but I'm, uh, I was very fascinated
when I read about them. Okay. Now, There's a
lot. It's fucking weird. But before we can really
dive into the Seekers, their beliefs, the prophecy
that they had, and their massive influence, not
only on the culture at large, but also in psychology,
which we'll talk about that when we get to it.
I think we need to talk a little bit about the
UFO craze of the 1950s to really understand how
they went from what they were to what they became
eventually. Technically, the UFO phenomenon really
kicked off in 1947 with the Roswell crash. We're
all familiar with that. I'm not going to go into
detail with it. But in that same year, a pilot
named Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw nine
shiny objects flying near Mount Rainier. He described
them to a reporter as moving like, quote unquote,
a saucer skipping across water. And the journalist
he was telling that to completely misunderstood
what he was trying to say and quoted him as saying
that they were that they were saucers. And that's
where the term flying saucers came from, which
I thought was a little cool fact. I didn't know
that. And then Uncle Sam got in on the whole
UFO thing with the Air Force launching Project
Sign in 1948, which later became Project Grudge,
which then became Project Blue Book in 1952.
So it's safe to say that by the 1950s, by the
time that came around, UFOs and aliens were very
much part of the mainstream, very zeitgeist,
I guess. I don't really know what that word means,
but I think I used it right there. No, I think
you did. I'm pretty confident. Zeitgeist, it's
a word. Yeah. German. And I think it means stuff.
So I think you got it. All right. Zeitgeist kind
of sounds. kind of racist i feel like i feel
like it doesn't it sounds like a it sounds like
a slur for jewish thought or something like that
well given its proximity to poltergeist i i feel
like it was more like you know like a derogatory
term term for like an ethnic ghost a zionist
ghost zeitgeist All right. That's probably problematic
to say, but you know what? I'm keeping it in,
keeping it in Sarge. But yeah, but the public
was eating this shit up around this time. So
sightings spiked across the country and the world.
Like people were seeing saucers, triangles, orbs,
cigars, fucking parallelograms, whatever, whatever
shape UFO there is, they were seeing it left
and right. And the media ran wild with it. Newspapers
ran stories about mystery discs and Hollywood
at the time was pumping out movies like. The
Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth vs. the Flying
Saucer, and Invasion of the Saucerman, which
is an awesome Lillington song. If you don't listen
to them, you really should. Actually, no, you
shouldn't. Their singer said Nightmare. Okay.
So take all that, and then you underline all
of that with the fear of communism, nuclear devastation,
the uprising of the tinfoil hat conspiracy community,
and that basically brings us to where our stories
begin. So are you ready to learn about the secrets?
And also present day, actually. It kind of is.
it's wild how time cyclical man just comes right
back time is a flat circle so like most cults
it didn't start out that way obviously they never
do in 1953 darls charles darls dr charles a laugh
head i think that's how you pronounce his name
i did not look at this how l -a -u -g -h -e -a
-d How would you pronounce it? I mean, I wouldn't.
I never heard anyone say it out loud. I'd be
like, Charles, Dr. Charles. Yeah. Not saying
that name. So anyways, Dr. Chuck and his wife,
Lillian, helped to organize a small group of
like -minded UFO believers that would meet in
a non -denominational church in East Lansing,
Michigan. There, the group would share and discuss
contactee messages, theories, abduction stories.
It was basically like a UFO. study group slash
book club like they would just read a bunch of
shit and it wasn't just about like ufos it was
about like the what's the word i'm looking for
meta meta the metaphysical that's the one like
shit like that behind yeah yeah um now around
late spring early summer of 1954 dr chuck read
a piece in a ufo newsletter about a woman by
the name of dorothy martin Dorothy was a 54 year
old housewife in Oak Park, Illinois, who was
gaining some underground attention for her claims
that through the act of automatic writing, which
if you don't know what that is, yeah, it basically
means like you kind of just turn off your brain
for a minute and another entity will write for
you. We call that chat GPT. Through the act of
automatic writing, she was receiving messages
from an advanced and benevolent race of extraterrestrials
that she referred to as the Guardians. And they
hailed from a distant planet called Clarion.
You good so far? I mean, I'm as good as I'm going
to get on this. Pretty much. Now, intrigued by
this claim, Dr. Chuck reached out to Dorothy.
And it's unclear how or exactly when they like
actually like linked up. It was either through
letters or like a UFO event. I don't know. But
the first face to face encounter with Dorothy
likely happened later, like that year when they
made the drive from Michigan to Illinois and
they immediately hit it off. They kept in contact,
visited regularly, and eventually what followed
was a merging of circles like. So his group.
Out in Michigan, linked up with her and her weird...
They was like peas and carrots. Yeah, so basically
this loose network of believers converged into
a single group that they dubbed the Brotherhood
of the Seven Rays, but they were more commonly
referred to as the Seekers. They don't really
say... It's like Truth Seekers, I assume, is
what that name came from. Or it could have been
the Who song of the same name. they call me the
seeker i wasn't i didn't leave you hanging there
i was taking a sip of beer no you were taking
a sip no i there was you sounded so upset that
you brought that up no you sit in your shame
sarge all right they're fine sorry it could be
i mean honestly dude is i wait for the 50s where's
the who wasn't around oh the who were the 60s
so no yeah i don't know now at first like a good
cult should they kept a low profile but not too
long after the groups merged into one dorothy's
messages from the guardians started to escalate
so through her automatic writing she got a call
from an entity that i guess like this is an entity
that she was like in frequent communication with
i guess and uh that that entity's name was sananda
got it Sananda. Sananda, who was essentially
alien Jesus, or at least that's how Dorothy kind
of equated them. I don't know. Anyway, so alien
Jesus warned her that on December 21st, 1954,
the United States would be ravaged by a great
cataclysm. The prophecy described a massive earthquake
and a colossal tidal wave that would annihilate
most of North America and all life in the infected
area, starting in the Midwest, which I don't
know how. Yeah, how do you, the tidal wave would
have to be very big. Well, the Great Lakes are
huge, man. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe.
But anyway, so following that initial destruction,
further worldwide calamities would occur all
the way into 1955. So you got earthquakes, tsunamis,
volcanic eruptions, and eventually just a mass
extinction of everything on Earth bringing about
the end times. Well, that's sad. Well, don't
be sad for too long because luckily the Guardians
didn't just bring a message of doom. They also
offered salvation. They told Dorothy that there
was a rescue plan, but only for those who truly
believed. Gotcha. They told her that in the final
hours before the disaster, flying saucers would
descend to safely evacuate the faithful and transport
them back to their planet of Clarion. Basically,
it's an alien rapture. Gotcha. It's that alien
Jesus, all that stuff. That's a little picky.
Don't you think? What do you mean? You know,
isn't that true? Like, well, you got to believe
in us or we're going to, you can go fuck yourself.
Like that's petty. Is that not how religion works
though? Has that, that's the, isn't that the
whole point of the rapture? Yeah. It's all petty.
It's bullshit. Well, yeah. If we know anything
about God, he's, he's pretty petty. Yeah. He's
kind of a douche. Yeah. No. Also, I just realized
this and I don't know. It's not mentioned, but
wasn't December 21st also the 2012? I think so.
Yeah. Wasn't that? I think so. Yeah, it was the
winter solstice. But isn't 2012 like the whole
Mayan calendar thing? Yeah, it was supposed to
happen, I think, on the winter solstice. That
was the plan. Yeah. So is that just like a thing?
Like, is that just like a doomsday thing? I'm
asking you, like, I don't know. I think it added
legitimacy if you were just like, oh, it's March
12th. Like the minds didn't have March, but everybody
had a solstice. True. But also I feel like a
random day to me would probably be better than
like a solstice. Yeah. Yeah. People like people
look forward to the solstice. Solstices. Yeah.
I want a cataclysm when I least expect. Surprise
me. Surprise me. Is it really a cataclysm if
you're expecting it, though? Yeah, if you're
waiting for it, then it's really just, you know.
Bad news. All right. Now, by December, which
is only a few months, if that, from when the
warning was given, like this is all happening
within the same year, within months of them joining
up like. Which is kind of wild. But anyways,
by December, the group was fully committed at
this point. Followers quit their jobs, dropped
out of schools. They gave away belongings. They
distanced themselves from friends and family.
And they started gathering daily at Dorothy's
house awaiting new messages from Clarion. And
after like a little back and forth, they finally
got it. The Seekers received word that on December
17th, a flying saucer would land in Dorothy's
backyard at 4 p .m. sharp to start evacuations.
You all right? I was just thinking, like, this
is just an alternate version of Wizard of Oz.
How so? Oh, Dorothy. God. All right. It's not
a UFO. It's a tornado, you asshole. I mean. If
this wasn't the Midwest, I could, yeah. This
is like Kansas, Nebraska. Everyone hurry up.
The tornado's coming to take us away. June, get
over here. She's immediately impaled by a fence
post. A weather vane just fucking smashes through.
So December 17th, flying saucers. They're going
to land in Dorothy's backyard in the middle of
suburban Chicago, which is hilarious to me. But
there's one catch. The followers couldn't be
wearing any metal. So watches, jewelry, belt
buckles, zippers, bras all had to be removed
because they could interfere with the energy
fields of the rescue ships. So on the 17th, everyone
assembled metal free faces to the sky and they
waited. And they waited, and they waited some
more. And then by 5 .30, everyone realized it
just wasn't happening. So dejected and bummed
out, they eventually just went back inside the
house. Then, just as all hope was lost, another
message came through. Sarge, Sarge, Sarge. It
was all a test. All right. This was just a drill
to make sure that they would be ready when the
real evacuation would happen. Classic. Yeah.
And it was totally still happening. In fact,
it's going to happen in a few hours, pretty much.
All right. 1 .30 a .m. of the 18th. Be outside.
Be ready. Like you're waiting for an Uber. So
on the morning of the 18th, the Seekers once
again gathered in the yard, metal free, and they
waited. And they waited. And they waited some
more. And then by 3 .30 a .m., nothing. But,
hey, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge. Hey, chin up. I'm losing
faith here. Chin up, bud. All right. The Guardians
again sent another message that this time they
repeatedly emphasized that they never air or
arrive late. They're basically Gandalf. They
arrive precisely when they need to. So the implication
of this being that the schedule may be beyond
human understanding, but the plan was still on
track and the believers must stay vigilant. Now,
by December 20th, the eve of the apocalypse,
the group was still fully committed, but a little
emotionally exhausted from all this. I've been
there. I've been there. I've waited for flights
before. I get it. Yeah. The final instructions.
were that a visitor from outer space would come
at midnight and escort them to the awaiting craft
before the cataclysm struck. So once again, they
cleansed themselves of metal and they waited
and they waited and they waited some more. And
at 12 .05 on December 21st, the living room clock
showed that the magical hour had passed and there
was no visitor. But hey, Sarge. Sarge. Yeah.
Wait, hold on. Hold on. Someone noticed that
another clock in the house showed the time as
being 1155. So clinging to hope, the group agreed
that it wasn't truly midnight. And so they waited.
Gotcha. And they waited. They waited some more.
And then the second clock struck midnight. All
right, this is bullshit. And nothing. Now, when
it became. Pretty much undeniable that no saucer
was coming from for like for them at all. The
group was pretty much devastated in the early
morning hours of December 21st. The Seekers sat
together in stunned, agonized silence by 4 a
.m. with Don and the foretold fucking disaster
fast approaching. Some members were pretty much
they were they lost it. There's some were weeping.
Some were like throwing like they were. not okay
yeah all their sacrifice throwing a fit yeah
and so pretty much all their sacrifices and certainties
teetered on the brink of collapse then at around
4 45 a .m martin she perked up she had received
another divine message from the guardians now
according to dorothy the guardians delivered
astonishing news this cataclysm this this promised
apocalypse had been called off. The earth was
spared at the 11th hour by the innervation of
a higher power. And the reason for this, Sarge,
can you guess what it is? I'm just relieved that
it's not happening anymore. But what happened?
Well, it's because the faith and devotion of
this little group gathered in Dorothy's home
had convinced God to postpone the apocalypse.
Oh, so it wasn't about the apocalypse. It was
about the friends you made along the way. Yeah,
so pretty much in other words, their vigil of...
like belief had averted this whole disaster.
It's a Christmas miracle. This sounds like an
Alex Jones thing. It really does. Yeah. It's
always on the verge of something. And then, you
know, well, we, we stopped it because we believed
in it so much. Yeah. Our people got involved
and they took care of it. Yeah. So, yeah. So
according to the message, the group's faith has
spread enough spiritual light to convince higher
powers to call off the destruction. The apocalypse
has been canceled. It was a stunning twist, a
complete reversal of expectations, but it was
also like an instant relief valve for all the
emotional pressure that had been building for
months. Like, imagine, like, you're planning
this. You're convinced that, first of all, you're
home. Everyone you know, everyone you ever loved
is going to die. And then at the last... And
you were going to have to evacuate and leave
them behind on a fucking... Right. You know?
But at the last minute... It doesn't matter anymore.
Like that's that had the weight that has to be
lifted off your shoulders in that moment must
feel so fucking good. But then like maybe 20
minutes later, you're like, oh shit, I don't
have a TV anymore. That's a car. I'm wearing
this stupid rope belt because they told us we
couldn't have metal. Yeah, I don't. He would
think that a. an advanced race could figure out
the whole metal interferes. Are the ships not
made? I don't know. None of this works. The ships
are made of plexiglass. Apparently one thing
I forgot to mention is that so all these meetings
were held in secret, of course, quote unquote,
but I mean, eventually it gets out. It always
does. So like around, I think it was like mid
October, mid December. Like they had like, There
was like reporters and stuff like in a group
of skeptics. Every night would just come like
hang outside the house in hopes of seeing something
happen. So you would think that like when nothing
happened, that the group would just like slink
away in shame, try and like hide from the media
and all that stuff. I mean, they were celebrating
internally, but externally you'd think they would
try and like, no, dude, little embarrassing.
No, they kind of made a weird pivot and it was
kind of in the form of like. evangelism, if that
makes sense. Join our cult. Yeah, so they pretty
much doubled down. Join now and get a free rope
belt. Yeah, so within hours they began calling
newspapers, reporters, everything. They were
telling the world that their beliefs had saved
humanity and that what had seemed like a failed
prophecy became a triumph. They weren't wrong.
They were just the saviors of humanity, which
is fucking crazy. Can we just look at the glaring
correlation between this kind of behavior and
the people who follow the current government?
Yeah. No, see, what happened? No, see, no. We
fucked up horribly. I mean, we fixed everything.
yeah so yeah so on the afternoon of december
21st literally hours after the failed prophecy
dorothy martin and her followers began like i
said they were they were contacting media outlets
inviting people to hear their story um again
before this was all they were like pretty much
shunned publicly because like i said the the
newspapers had already known that they existed
and they weren't really yeah taken lightly to
it america loves a good people to ridicule Pretty
much, yeah. And in the 1950s, this is like...
This is out there. Yeah. But now they actively,
like, the Seekers courted this. Like, they wanted
the world to know that a catastrophe had been
averted and why it had been averted. So over
the next couple of days, the Seekers granted
interviews to newspapers and anyone that would
listen, proclaiming that divine -slash -alien
intervention had spared Earth due to the group's
unwavering faith. But yeah, so buoyed by this
narrative, they also held a firm that their alien
benefactors might still arrive eventually. Of
course. So Martin announced another gathering
for Christmas Eve 1954. This time, not a private
one, but a public demonstration of their continued
readiness for contact. And she even distributed
a press release about it, which is a crazy thing
to do because I feel like that's how you get
riots started. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Or at least
people like me to stand on your front lawn and
just point and be like. where's your god he didn't
show up yeah it can't be good uh so yeah so on
december 24th 1954 the remaining seekers again
uh i say remaining there's just a small handful
there wasn't a lot to begin with but after the
first failed like i would have been gone after
the first after the first ship didn't didn't
arrive yeah like all right guys i gotta go buy
back my i think i don't remember i think at most
i think it was just like a couple dozen people
like it wasn't a lot to begin with but i feel
like now we're just it's That was like seven
guys. This is a bare bones cult. It's not, it's
not Jonestown by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah. So they, they assembled outside, uh, Dorothy's
house in the evening. Um, just ruining everyone's
fucking Christmas tearing up the lawn. Yeah.
They, they sang Christmas carols on the sidewalk.
Um, I guess they wanted to. Bring aliens Christmas
joy. Oh, I forgot. It's alien Jesus. Maybe alien
Jesus and regular Jesus. Their birthday is the
same day. I don't know. Maybe they're bros. It
could be. Sananda sounds like a girl. Yeah. Name.
So maybe, maybe it's Jesus's sister. Maybe. Space
sister. Spister. The spectacle drew a large crowd.
200 people showed up. That's a lot of people
for a suburban neighborhood. The police were
there. But I mean, again, after a while, no one
showed up. So everyone's just like, whatever.
Just a waste. A waste of resources. Yeah. So
following this fiasco, failed prophecy. the the
seekers disbanded within days many members especially
like the fringe groups like because there was
like a group of like firm believers and there
was like people on the outside who were kind
of like oh this is kind of cool they just went
back to like their their normal lives yeah like
you do even some committed believers lost face
after the christmas eve no show only like a core
few um pretty much Martin and a couple of lawyers
clung to the notion that their faith had saved
the world and the guardians might still come
in the future. Now, importantly, the group's
high profile activities on December 24th had
angered the local community and attracted negative
attention from authorities. The caroling gathering
became unruly at one point due to the large number
of gawkers. Police were needed to. So she really
she literally did start a riot that night. Amazing.
Amazing. Oak Park's police chief, Thomas Kieran,
considered the entire episode a public disturbance.
And in the immediate aftermath, he weighed charging
Dorothy Martin with inciting a riot and contributing
to the delinquency of minors because neighborhood
children had been exposed to her fantastical
predictions and lost sleep from fright. Amazing.
And on December 26th, warrants were reportedly
prepared for the arrest of Martin and Dr. Chuck.
on those two charges uh but they did avoid legal
action uh dorothy's husband who had not been
involved in the cult i don't know how he just
let this shit slide uh he intervened and he agreed
to have dorothy undergo psychiatric evaluation
and care outside of illinois persuading authorities
to drop the charges. So essentially, Dorothy
was sent out of state, temporarily institutionalized
instead of being prosecuted. Dr. Charles faced
his own reckoning. He lost his university job
after the affair, and in early 1955, he was briefly
taken for psychiatric examination as well. Amazing.
It's just so good. But they found out that he
was not legally insane, just intensely mistaken
in his beliefs. This case is wild. All right.
So you want to dive into what really happened
after this whole thing? Yes. All right. So in
the fall before this whole UFO is going to come
and kill everyone type thing, three researchers
had. secretly embedded themselves within the
group in the fall of that year. Oh, God, yes.
Leon Festinger, Henry Riken, and Stanley Schachter.
And in 1956, the three researchers published
this book called When Prophecies Fail, which
was a groundbreaking book that chronicled the
entire saga of the Seekers. Now, their goal wasn't
just to, like, document a strange UFO cult. It
was to understand how people deal with being
wrong when they've gone all in on belief. And
their key takeaway was that when people make
major sacrifices for a belief, like giving up
jobs, friends, social standings, they become
deeply invested. And when the belief fails, instead
of abandoning it like they should. Like a normal
person. Yeah, they're more likely to create new
justifications that explain the failure without
letting go of the core idea. And this became
the foundation of Festinger's theory of cognitive
dissonance. This group invented the theory of
cognitive dissonance, which is the psychological
discomfort we feel when we hold two conflicting
thoughts or when reality contradicts what we
believe. So to ease that discomfort, we either
change our beliefs or bend reality around them.
So the seekers bent realities. Their faith had
saved the world. Their narrative allowed them
to stay committed without having to admit that
they were wrong. The seekers are the reason that
the cognitive dissonance theory even exists.
This makes me so happy. That's wild, right? That's
fucking insane. Imagine failing so badly that
your entire belief system becomes the example
of failing badly. Dude, it's fucking wild. Incredible.
Yeah. But I feel like the Seekers are like, this
is not a story that a lot of people know. And
it was pretty fucking wild. There's a lot that
I left out, obviously. Now, the Seekers might
have faded into obscurity, but when prophecy
fails ensured their place in history, like that
book and the theory of cognitive dissonance,
like that's really going to make sure they stay
around. Yeah. So their story became one of the
most important real world examples of belief.
perseverance and cognitive dissonance. And we
see echoes of it today in politics, conspiracy
theories, social movements, even in like our
personal relationships, people defend what they've
invested in. Yeah. Even when reality says otherwise,
the more they've given up for a belief, the harder
it is for them to let go of that belief. And
so while the aliens never came and the world
didn't end, the seekers left something. behind
far more enduring which is insight into how the
human mind works when confronted with failure
belief and the desperate need to make sense of
it all and so with that sarge that is the story
of the seekers kind of got fucked up in the middle
because i ran out of time that's okay that's
okay These were different Seekers. These aren't
the Seekers I thought they were. What Seekers
were you thinking of? Harry Potter, the ones
that get the snitch, right? No, there was like
an org in the 60s and 70s and 80s. They were
somehow loosely connected to the CIA. There's
like a whole thing. It sounds like a CIA thing.
Yeah, they're fucking weird. Maybe this was a
PSYOP. Who the fuck knows, dude? Yeah. What was
interesting is that they were also a cult. That's
why I got brought in. Oh, really? I feel like
the Seekers, that's too good a name to not be
a cult. There's also a 1950s doo -wop group called
the Seekers or something like that. The Seekers
were everywhere. And a song by The Who. And a
song by The Who. Hell yeah, dude. What do you
think? Were you expecting them to be the reasoning
behind cognitive dissonance? No. I love stories
like this. It absolutely makes my day. Yeah,
it was crazy. I learned about the origin of cognitive
dissonance and I learned where hiccups come from.
So this has been a very productive afternoon.
If you learned if there's two takeaways from
this episode is where hiccups originated and
where cognitive dissonance. But yeah, but so
embarrassing. So very embarrassing. Cognitive
dissonance explains so much of this. This story
is so much. about now that it's yep bananas like
i can't just overwhelming evidence of failure
yet still people like no everything's working
great this is awesome all right uh but yeah so
that's that's uh i wanted to introduce cults
into the into the show somehow i fucked up but
i think i think this is fine that's right we've
got so many more cults to cut our teeth on there's
so many weird cults i almost did like lord royale
in the rail that's a good one I tried to watch
a documentary about it. It was all in French.
I said, fuck that. I do not have the mind power
for that. I mean, don't get me wrong. I watch
a lot of stuff for the subtitles anyways, but
I was just like, I can't. You have to be in the
mood. You have to be in the mood for a subtitle
situation. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong.
I watch shows in English with subtitles on, but
it's mostly because I can't hear over myself
chewing on chips. Same. Same. Yeah. The exact
same problem. Yeah. So there's that. But yeah,
I mean, I thought it was fun. It's a good. dip
our toes into it. If you know, let us know what
you guys think. If you think we should do more
cult stuff. I mean, it's fun. I think, um, I
have fun with it. Yeah. I follow someone who's
like a, like a religious therapist, like a, you
get out of religion, religious trauma. Yeah.
Yeah. And I was like, well, maybe one day we
can get like one of those people on to like,
talk about. cult thought cult belief because
i don't think they'll be willing to laugh at
it as much as we are i think they're fine i think
it'll be good i think it'll be fun to find um
but let us know what you think if you want to
hear more about weird cults that are kind of
extraterrestrially uh there's not really any
cryptic cults there's some like new age stuff
that like they believe bigfoot is like a thing
but like i don't have whatever interdimensional
being yeah uh all right so Yeah, that's the episode.
Thank you so much for listening. Sarge, you got
anything you want to plug before we sign off?
Just a coloring book, sargesupernormal .com,
$9 .99. It'll make you feel a little bit better
about how terrible America is right now. Will
it, though? We're going to have to eat it. We're
going to have to start eating your coloring book.
Yeah, we're going to have to start making fires
with it because the heating costs will be too
expensive next winter. Exactly, exactly. All
right, so yeah, sargesupernormal .com, grab his
coloring book. You can follow us on Instagram,
Crypto Cocktail, TikTok, Crypto Cocktail Party.
You can follow Sarge. Just Google Sarge the Destroyer.
You'll find him. I'll show up eventually. All
that stuff is also in the link in our Instagram.
Leave us a rating and review, please. It definitely
helps the show. I've got a really interesting
one a few weeks ago. Which was the nexus of Christian
Cocktail Party. I think next week, uh, next week
we got, uh, a listener story that we can, that
we're going to tell. I'll, I'll, I'll delve.
If anyone does a false on Instagram, I'll let
you know about the whole Christian cocktail party
thing next week. Um, I think that's it. Uh, Patreon,
uh, you can follow, you can subscribe there,
support the show. Um, I think that's it. I don't
really got anything to plug really. I think that's,
yeah. Yeah. I think that's it. That's good. Oh,
yeah, and sorry for all of you that got fooled
by the eyes of the Mothman. I got so many messages
about that. Dude, I made it sound too real. Arrogance
it. We made a case for it. Come on, arrogance
it. Yeah. Don't make a case for us. I made it
sound too real. People got real bummed out about
it. Even my brother was like, fuck you, I'm following
you now. I'm so disappointed. All right, Sarge,
with that out of the way, as usual, would you
like to say goodbye and love you to the audience?
Goodbye. And I love you.