It’s July 8th. This day (July 7th actually) in 1947, two ranchers stumbled across a downed flying object in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the discovery of the “mysterious” object (it was a weather balloon) and why it tapped into a rising tide of conspiracies about UFOs and alien visits.

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.

If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com

Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod

Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices