In 1996, Jonathan Reed said he went hiking in Washington’s Cascade Mountains with his golden retriever, Susie.

What he claimed happened in those woods would eventually become one of the strangest UFO stories of the 1990s.

Reed said he encountered a small humanoid creature, discovered a mysterious black object hovering nearby, and came away with something most extraordinary encounter stories never have: photographs and video.

But that was only the beginning.

Two years later, Reed’s story reached a massive late-night audience through Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM. And once people began looking more closely at the man, the evidence, and everything Reed said happened afterward, the case became much more complicated.

In this episode of State of the Unknown: Fragments, Robert Barber tells the remarkable and deeply disputed story of Jonathan Reed.

What happened in those woods?

And how far would you go to prove you’d seen something impossible?

Topics: Jonathan Reed, Jonathan Reed alien, Jonathan Reed UFO, Jonathan Reed alien encounter, Dr. Jonathan Reed, Art Bell, Coast to Coast AM, UFO encounter, alien encounter, extraterrestrial encounter, UFO evidence, alien photographs, alien video, Washington UFO, Cascade Mountains, black obelisk, UFO hoax, paranormal, unexplained mysteries, unexplained encounters, extraterrestrials, aliens, UFOs, UAP

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Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

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🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at contact@stateoftheunknown.com or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Philip K. Dick spent his career writing about unreliable memories, artificial people, altered realities, surveillance, and the uneasy question of whether the world around us is really what we think it is.

After finishing the full Philip K. Dick episode of State of the Unknown, host Robert Barber kept researching. What he found only made Dick more fascinating: a writer whose ideas spread far beyond the page and whose work became deeply woven into modern popular culture.

In this episode of State of the Unknown: Fragments, Robert looks at who Philip K. Dick really was, why his imagination still feels so relevant decades later, and why the questions he was asking in the 1950s and 1960s can sound surprisingly familiar today.

And then there’s 1974.

Something happened to Dick that changed the way he thought about reality for the rest of his life.

That story is told in Episode 65: Fringe Theories: Philip K. Dick | “We Are Living in a Computer-Programmed Reality.”

So was Philip K. Dick simply an extraordinarily imaginative writer who was decades ahead of his time?

Or was he somehow seeing a future the rest of us hadn’t reached yet?

Topics: Philip K. Dick, science fiction, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, artificial intelligence, AI, simulation theory, altered reality, false memories, surveillance, paranormal, unexplained experiences, 2-3-74

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at contact@stateoftheunknown.com or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Philip K. Dick spent his career writing about false memories, alternate worlds, and people discovering that reality wasn’t quite what they thought it was.

Then, in 1974, something happened to him.

Join host Robert Barber as we follow Philip K. Dick’s 2-3-74 experiences — a series of strange events that left him questioning memory, time, and the nature of reality itself.

Three years later, at a science-fiction festival in Metz, France, Dick would tell an audience:

“We are living in a computer-programmed reality…”

What happened to Philip K. Dick in 1974?

And how did those experiences lead him toward ideas that would later be compared to simulation theory?

This episode of State of the Unknown explores one of the strangest chapters in Philip K. Dick’s life and the mystery behind his belief that reality might not be as fixed as it appears.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at contact@stateoftheunknown.com or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.