The Why Files: Operation Podcast

The Why Files covers mysteries, myths and legends. We tell stories and seek the truth in a fun and lighthearted way. Our content is heavily researched; we don't release an episode unless we're sure we can bring something new to a topic.

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20 episodes
Updated Friday

Episodes20

Newest first

Friday · 37 min
The Hunter Who Became the Hunted | Carl Higdon Abduction
-Get 15% off OneSkin with the code WHY at https://www.oneskin.co/why #oneskinpod -Download Cash App Today:https://click.cash.app/ui6m/4je4423a #CashAppPod As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Bitcoin services provided by Block, Inc. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -Go to https://brooklynbedding.com and use promo code THEWHYFILES at checkout to get 30% off sitewide. Carl Higdon went hunting for elk in the Wyoming mountains and never fired a shot that landed. A stranger stopped him first, and nothing about the rest of that afternoon made sense. Hours later, a search party found him soaking wet and shaking, unable to remember his own name or recognize his wife. His truck sat three miles from where it should have been, stuck in terrain it had no business reaching. A bullet in his pocket had been fired, yet it never left the barrel the normal way. Doctors examined him and found changes in his body they couldn't explain. What happened to Carl Higdon on that mountain still doesn't have a clean answer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Monday · 3 hr 41 min
The Basement: John B. Alexander | Roswell, MJ-12, Skinwalker: The Colonel Who Was There
Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. Colonel John Alexander commanded Green Berets in Vietnam, briefed the White House, and evaluated the Pentagon's strangest programs. He was the first person to spend the night on Skinwalker Ranch. For 79 years, the strange kept showing up in the middle of his official duties — and he wrote it all down. He brought the files. And the bent forks. This conversation goes places I didn't expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 20 · 4 hr 6 min
The Basement: Jeremy Corbell | Betrayal, Surveillance, and the Secret Higher Than Nuclear Weapons
-Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/BASEMENT Jeremy Corbell has spent years chasing the biggest secret in modern history, and it's cost him more than most people realize. He built his reputation filming the footage governments tried to keep hidden, from Navy warships tracking objects no one can explain to whistleblowers risking everything to speak up. Corbell talks about the years it took to earn a source's trust, the moment a supposed ally tried to steal his work in front of Congress, and what it's like knowing your phone might be tapped. He also opens up about his friendship with journalist George Knapp and the partnership that helped change how the public sees this whole story. This is the story behind the story, from the person who has been closest to it the longest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 18 · 46 min
Prophecy of the Popes | Saint Malachy's Countdown
-Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/whyfiles. #ad -Try QUO for free and get 20% off your first 6 months at https://quo.com/why -Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at https://greenlight.com/why to teach your kids real-world money skills. In 1139, an Irish archbishop knelt in Rome and saw every pope who would ever sit on the throne of Peter. He wrote the visions down as 112 short phrases, then the manuscript vanished for 450 years. When it resurfaced, historians checked the list against history. Pope after pope matched. The list ends with a name no pope has ever dared to take, followed by the destruction of Rome and Judgment Day. Francis died in 2025. A new pope took his place, and the city kept standing. But hidden inside the original Latin is a second countdown, one that points to a specific year: 2027. We trace the prophecy from a candlelit chapel to a four-hundred-year-old forgery, and ask why it keeps landing on the truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 15 · 3 hr 12 min
Human Evolution and the Power of the Mind: Science Compilation
Huge thanks to Jesse for hosting this compilation! From rewriting the blueprint of life to radioactive creatures defying biology, this collection pulls back the curtain on some of the strangest scientific mysteries we've covered. A forgotten fungus may have reshaped the human brain in record time. Meaningful coincidences might be more than chance, and a maze experiment from a century ago still can't be fully explained. Hidden signals shape decisions without your knowledge, and one scientist's radical theory cost him his safety for challenging what we think we know about memory. Six stories, one question worth sitting with: how much of reality are we still missing? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 14 · 2 hr 57 min
Human Hybrids and Interdimensional Creatures: Cryptids Compilation Vol. 5
PDS Debt is offering a free debt analysis. It only takes thirty seconds. Get yours at https://PDSDebt.com/files. Thanks PDS Debt for sponsoring this video! Human Hybrids or Interdimensional Creatures: Cryptids Compilation Vol. 5 Cryptids exist in the space between known and unknown—creatures reported for generations but never officially acknowledged. From Mothman's glowing red eyes to ancient predators beneath Antarctic ice, from Australia's deadly Yowie to interdimensional beings along New Jersey rivers, witnesses describe encounters that defy explanation. Underground electrical anomalies connect these sightings across continents. Cave networks form impossible geometric patterns. Physical evidence vanishes into government storage. Some reports trace back thousands of years through indigenous cultures. Modern technology captures footage mainstream science won't examine. These aren't isolated stories—they're pieces of something larger. Something watching. Something waiting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 13 · 4 hr 18 min
The Basement: Thomas Campbell | This Sound Frequency Unlocks Out-of-Body Travel
-Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code BASEMENT at https://mudwtr.com/BASEMENT! #mudwtrpod -For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://Mengotomars.com. A physicist with a background in missile defense and NASA spent decades learning to leave his body at will. What he found changed how he understood reality itself. Thomas Campbell built the first lab with Robert Monroe to study out-of-body states, and helped invent a sound technology that's still used today to alter consciousness. Then he spent 33 years turning those experiences into a working theory of physics. This conversation covers entanglement, the double-slit experiment, artificial intelligence, and what actually happens when we die, all explained through a lens that makes the strangest parts of quantum mechanics finally make sense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 11 · 51 min
Stories That Still Haunt the Internet: The Soup Room, The Masked Feast, The Station That Isn't There
-Start therapy with BetterHelp and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/whyfiles. #ad -Make your summer wardrobe easier—go to https://quince.com/thewhyfiles for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada. -Let Rocket Money help you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and lower your bills—join at https://RocketMoney.com/thewhyfiles. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. 📲 Download Raid https://pl.go-ga.me/f1zgvmcl Use my link to get 3 Limited-Edition Legendary Champions and 3 Epic Champions! A man sits alone in a blank room, sobbing into a bowl of soup while two grinning figures rub his back. A masked woman eats king crab in silence while a man's voice gives orders from off camera. A commuter boards her last train home, and the train never stops where it should. Ninety minutes later, she steps onto a platform that isn't on any map. Three strangers. Three recordings. Three stories that spread across the internet and refused to make sense. For years, people slowed down the footage, decoded hidden messages, and traced accounts back to their source. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 6 · 2 hr 58 min
The Basement: Danny Goler | The Laser Experiment and the Code Inside
-Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/re0kp2pw #CashAppPod As a Cash App partner, I may earn a commission when you sign up for a Cash App account. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Bitcoin services provided by Block, Inc. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. Danny Goler built a career on physical risk: parkour, stunts, national television. Then he pointed a cheap laser through DMT-altered vision and found something he wasn't looking for. Symbols. Structure. A language he now calls the code of reality. Thousands of strangers around the world have since aimed the same beam and reported identical shapes, without ever comparing notes. AJ pushes past the viral story into the parts most conversations skip: what Goler actually felt, what changed inside him, and where the science ends and the mystery begins. Goler walks through a vision that reshaped his understanding of divinity and free will, along with the encounter that convinced him something real is on the other side. This conversation goes further than most guests are willing to go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
July 3 · 41 min
Project Chronos | Hitler's Last Weapon
-Sleep cooler this summer with 20% off sitewide at https://bollandbranch.com/whyfiles using code WHYFILES. Exclusions apply. -Go to https://zenni.com/podcast and use code PODCAST15 for 15 percent off your first order. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. By spring of 1945, Hitler was surrounded on every front, but one project inside a secret mine kept running until the end. It was called Die Glocke, The Bell, built on mercury, fire, and a design borrowed from a thousand-year-old Indian text. The scientists who built it vanished, along with the man who ran the entire project. Decades later, the same technology resurfaced in a US Navy patent, and nobody could explain how it got there. This is the story of a warning written a thousand years before World War II, the men who ignored it, and the strange thread connecting an ancient king to modern spaceflight. Some of it is real, and none of it is finished. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 29 · 1 hr 59 min
The Basement: Dave Paulides | Missing 411 and Cases the Government Won't Let You See
-Head to https://Superpower.com and use code BASEMENT at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpod -Go to https://nicnac.com/whyfiles and use code WHYFILES for 20% off, or use the store locator to find Nic Nacs near you. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. David Paulides spent his career as a detective. Then two park rangers knocked on his door and told him something that didn't add up: people are vanishing in our national parks, and nobody's talking about it. Search dogs that won't track. Hunters who walk back with stories that shouldn't be possible. A bullet that hit nothing. AJ sits down with the man behind Missing 411 to ask the question the Park Service won't answer — where did they go? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 26 · 44 min
The Asteroid Behind the Bible's Most Famous Disaster
-Try QUO for free and get 20% off your first 6 months at https://www.quo.com/WHY. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/why. In 1650 BC, a city on the Dead Sea burned so completely that nothing grew there for six centuries. The destruction happened in a single morning, and the evidence left in the ground points to something falling from the sky. Three artifacts from three different countries describe the same event. A clay tablet from ancient Iraq. A bronze disk pulled from a German hillside. Melted pottery from the Jordan Valley. Scientists spent fifteen years excavating the site. What they pulled from the ground included glazed pottery, shocked quartz, diamond dust, and skeletons frozen mid-step. The same fingerprint shows up at confirmed impact sites worldwide. The story doesn't end in 1650 BC. The debris field responsible has a return date, and astronomers are watching the calendar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 22 · 3 hr 11 min
The Basement: Andrew Gallimore | DMT Didn't Take You Somewhere New — It Unlocked What's Always There
-If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/WHY -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -The Basement: Andrew Gallimore | DMT Didn't Take You Somewhere New — It Unlocked What's Always There Dr. Andrew Gallimore has spent 30 years studying the world's strangest molecule — one your body already produces. As a neurobiologist and pharmacologist, he's built a scientific case that what people encounter on DMT isn't hallucination. It's contact. In this conversation, Gallimore walks through the neuroscience of how DMT hijacks the brain's world-building system, and why that distinction matters enormously. He also shares his recent collaboration with consciousness theorist Don Hoffman — work that produced a mathematical model of the DMT state that Gallimore calls one of the most profound moments of his career. From machine elves to the Barrow Scale, from near-death experiences to the nature of alien intelligence — this one covers ground most conversations never reach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 19 · 38 min
Canada's Most Documented UFO Case | Falcon Lake
-The Why Files releases video episodes on Spotify every Monday and Friday. And when you become a Spotify Premium subscriber, you get fewer ads – that means more story, less interruption. -Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. -Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at https://greenlight.com/why to teach your kids real-world money skills. -Elevate your summer wardrobe—go to https://quince.com/thewhyfiles for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns (now available in Canada). -Sign up for therapy and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/whyfiles . #ad In May 1967, a Polish immigrant named Stefan Michalak was hunting for silver in the Canadian wilderness when two glowing objects dropped out of the sky. One landed nearby. He sketched it, approached it, and ended up in the hospital. His burns were documented. His weight loss was documented. His radiation-like symptoms baffled more than a dozen doctors, including specialists at the Mayo Clinic. The Royal Canadian Air Force launched an investigation. So did the RCMP. So did the US Air Force. Nobody could explain what happened. The government eventually sealed the file. The same government, fifty years later, minted his story on a coin. It glows in the dark. This is the Falcon Lake Incident — Canada's most documented UFO case, and it's still unsolved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 13 · 3 hr 4 min
The Basement: Bryce Zabel | Disclosure Day, Dark Skies, and Hollywood UFO Deals
The Why Files releases video episodes on Spotify every Monday and Friday. And when you become a Spotify Premium subscriber, you get fewer ads – that means more story, less interruption. Discover how to move your IRA or 401k into physical gold and silver — with no taxes or penalties. Get your free portfolio review and free gold & silver guide from GoldenCrest Metals: visit https://GoldenCrestMetals.com/thewhyfiles or call (888) 949-9172 now. The Basement: Bryce Zabel | Disclosure Day, Dark Skies, and Hollywood UFO Deals Bryce Zabel created five primetime TV series, ran the Emmys, and spent his life writing UFO fiction — until the people behind the curtain came knocking. A postcard at his home. A stranger at his party who'd read scripts that never left the building. A vial of moon gold and an invitation to a cemetery at midnight. Was it disclosure, disinformation, or a game built around him? He's still trying to find out. Welcome to the basement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 8 · 2 hr 46 min
The Basement: Joshua Cutchin | Fairies, Bigfoot, and the Connection Nobody Saw Coming
Get 25% off Cowboy Colostrum with code WHYFILES at https://cowboycolostrum.com/WHYFILES. Josh Cutchin is a researcher, author, and musician whose work occupies a rare space between rigorous scholarship and genuine open-mindedness. Josh Cutchin is a researcher, author, and musician whose work occupies a rare space between rigorous scholarship and genuine open-mindedness. Over eight books he has built a unified argument that Bigfoot, fairies, UFOs, near death experiences, and ghosts are not separate phenomena but facets of the same ancient, shape-shifting presence. His 2022 masterwork Ecology of Souls is considered by peers to be among the most important books in ufology in decades, and was included in Rice University's curriculum for first year PhD students in religion. His footnotes are legendary. His thinking is genuinely original. A trained tuba player who studied under Canadian Brass legend Fred Mills, Josh brings the same obsessive attention to detail to paranormal research that he once applied to music. And his central argument — that everything weird points back to the same door — is impossible to dismiss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 6 · 45 min
Parallel Universes Are Real — And People Fall Into Them
Sign up for therapy and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/whyfiles . #ad Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://hims.com/THEWHYFILES to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. Gather round, because this happened. A woman drives through her hometown and the cemetery is gone — replaced by a dirt lot. A man is found behind a fast food restaurant with no name, no history, and no record of existing for twenty-one years. A woman wakes up to discover her boyfriend never existed and her own life has been quietly rewritten. These are three real accounts from real people. None of them involve UFOs or hauntings. They don't fit neatly into any category. What they share is stranger than any single explanation: the sense that reality shifted without warning, and that the world kept moving like nothing happened. Each person was left holding a version of events that no one else could confirm. These stories don't have clean endings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
June 1 · 2 hr 53 min
The Basement: Joseph Matheny | The Man Who Hacked Reality Before the Internet Existed
For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://Mengotomars.com. Get 25% off Cowboy Colostrum with code WHYFILES at https://cowboycolostrum.com/WHYFILES. Joseph Matheny invented something in 1989 that nobody had a name for yet. He called it a story. The internet called it the first alternate reality game. The Navy called him to ask how he did it. He turned them down. Tonight he's in the basement explaining how he built an early AI, game-mastered Robert Anton Wilson at Esalen, and why QAnon looks so familiar to him. Some things are better understood when you know how the trick works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
May 29 · 40 min
The Forbidden Theory of Morphic Resonance
Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/why Start your risk-free Greenlight trial today at https://greenlight.com/why Find support and have someone with you in therapy—sign up and get 10% off at https://betterhelp.com/whyfiles . #ad Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at https://RocketMoney.com/thewhyfiles In 1920, a Harvard scientist put rats in a water maze. It took 165 tries before they learned which exit was safe. Thirty generations later, rats were solving the same maze in 20 tries. Rats on a different continent — with no connection to the original colony — started at 25. The knowledge had spread. No one could explain how. A Cambridge biochemist named Rupert Sheldrake spent years studying cases like this — rats, birds, crystals, dogs, and humans — all showing the same pattern. His conclusion got his book called the best candidate for burning in modern scientific history. Then someone stabbed him for it. The evidence is stranger than it sounds, and the implications are hard to ignore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
May 27 · 4 hr 50 min
The Basement: Luke Caverns | LiDAR Is Revealing Ancient Cities the Amazon Was Hiding
Go to https://nicnac.com/whyfiles and use code WHYFILES for 20% off, or use the store locator to find Nic Nacs near you. Get your free, 30-second personalized assessment TODAY at https://PDSDebt.com/BASEMENT The Basement: Luke Caverns | LIDAR Is Revealing Ancient Cities the Amazon Was Hiding Luke Caverns is an anthropologist and explorer who's mapped over 80 ancient archaeological sites using LIDAR — sites that don't appear on any map. His grandfather found and lost seven gold mines in New Mexico. Luke found them again. Now he's planning the largest LIDAR scan ever done in the Amazon. We also go deep into Alexander the Great's missing body, the Were Jaguar cults of the Olmecs, and the Minoan civilization that may have been Atlantis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

The Hunter Who Became the Hunted | Carl Higdon Abduction

The Basement: John B. Alexander | Roswell, MJ-12, Skinwalker: The Colonel Who Was There

The Basement: Jeremy Corbell | Betrayal, Surveillance, and the Secret Higher Than Nuclear Weapons

Prophecy of the Popes | Saint Malachy's Countdown

Human Evolution and the Power of the Mind: Science Compilation

Human Hybrids and Interdimensional Creatures: Cryptids Compilation Vol. 5

The Basement: Thomas Campbell | This Sound Frequency Unlocks Out-of-Body Travel

Stories That Still Haunt the Internet: The Soup Room, The Masked Feast, The Station That Isn't There

The Basement: Danny Goler | The Laser Experiment and the Code Inside

Project Chronos | Hitler's Last Weapon

The Basement: Dave Paulides | Missing 411 and Cases the Government Won't Let You See

The Asteroid Behind the Bible's Most Famous Disaster

The Basement: Andrew Gallimore | DMT Didn't Take You Somewhere New — It Unlocked What's Always There

Canada's Most Documented UFO Case | Falcon Lake

The Basement: Bryce Zabel | Disclosure Day, Dark Skies, and Hollywood UFO Deals

The Basement: Joshua Cutchin | Fairies, Bigfoot, and the Connection Nobody Saw Coming

Parallel Universes Are Real — And People Fall Into Them

The Basement: Joseph Matheny | The Man Who Hacked Reality Before the Internet Existed

The Forbidden Theory of Morphic Resonance

The Basement: Luke Caverns | LiDAR Is Revealing Ancient Cities the Amazon Was Hiding