February 26, 1997: Project S.T.R.A.T. UFO's - John Shepherd | Mel's Hole Update
Shepherd recounts the childhood sighting that set him on this path, his grandmother's willing investment of her life savings into the project, and early experiments that appeared to attract unexplained aerial objects. He describes building custom capacitor banks from glass plates and hand-wound magnetic coils, blowing up equipment in spectacular high-voltage failures, and the constant struggle to fund his obsession.
The episode opens with a stunning final fax from Mel Waters announcing he has leased his property to an unnamed party in exchange for monthly payments, immigration funds for Australia, and the promise that his remains will someday be disposed of in the hole. Art reads the farewell message as Mel's Hole passes into what Mel himself calls urban mythology.
Key Moments
Mel takes the deal: 100-year lease, 5% gross, body in the hole: Minutes before air, Mel faxes a 'Final Hole Report.' He leases the property for monthly payments over 100 years, gets immigration money for Australia, 5% of any commercial revenue from the land, no drug-manufacturing charges, and - at his request - disposal of his remains down the hole upon death.
Dexter-Ann Arbor sighting and a mysterious witness: Shepherd traces Project STRAT to the 1966 Dexter-Ann Arbor sightings - the quilted oval seen in a farmer's field that glowed and lifted off when the son said 'look at that awful thing.' Days later he watches a star-like object cross the sky, sees a speck drop out of it, and the next morning a babysitter in town independently describes a glowing ball descending and dissipating at the same hour.
ULF transmitter: 40 Hz to 25 kHz at 100,000 volts: Shepherd lays out the technical core of Project STRAT: audio-frequency band from 40 Hz to 25 kHz, dipoles 18 feet up, fed at 60,000 to 100,000 volts to compensate for impossibly long wavelengths - a Tesla-style impedance match. The choice of band is driven by reports that UFOs home in on 60-Hz power lines.
Grandma signs off on the lab; her own psychic moment: After his grandfather dies in 1980, Shepherd and his grandmother pool their life savings into a 38-by-16-foot shielded addition to the house. He notes she had latent psychic ability and once 'remote viewed' a faulty aileron on a plane at the local county airport - which led her to back the project.
85,000-volt blue plasma arc blows the capacitor bank: Shepherd describes pushing 85,000 volts across glass-plate capacitors he scavenged from a glass company and old TV sets. A blue plasma arc forms between the screens, and within three seconds the glass explodes across the lab - the kind of incident that, if his neighbors had heard it, 'they probably would have thrown me out of the neighborhood.'