F L A U N T
America, I’m speaking to you today from a place of great strength. I was fortuitous enough to represent this nation that I love; have loved; will love for the remainder of my life, and I’m humble enough to admit that I must depart from it. Though I no longer feel as if I can be of service to the country’s magnificent populace, I am confident that my successor will realize the privilege to its fullest.
It is in times of trepidation such as these that we must come together as a nation and recall the foundations upon which we built this tremendous edifice. Sacrifice. Freedom. Justice. I implore you, the American people, to remember: each of you are the arbiters of democracy.
And, for the love of God, I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but my departure has nothing to do with the CIA Area 51 leak.
I am proud to have been granted the honor of working within the American minutiae. During my tenure as your president, I woke up every morning with t—
No, no. No.
I understand that the leak is a matter of concern for some of our constituents, especially these relentless headline hounds over here! Ha, ha…
Though I find it to be a negligible event—a mere blip on the stupendous timeline of the American project—I suppose I must acknowledge that the unfortunate timing of my departure happens to align with the largest data leak in our country’s history. I assure you that when the American government removed all media pertaining to extraterrestrial encounters and stored all remaining copies
in locked file cabinets and on space-age computers in Lockheed Martin’s warehouse that may or may not be located in…that area…we were doing so in good faith. You, my fellow citizens of this country, my fellow denizens of God’s Green Earth, must understand that the hysteria surrounding “privacy concerns” and “constitutional violations” is mere static. You have nothing–absolutely nothing–to be worried about.
I have fulfilled my duties as commander-in-chief. Aliens aren’t real. God Bless America.
Podcaster 1: Welcome back to CRIME LOVERS CENTRAL, where we, college-educated people who love to hear ourselves talk at length about subjects for which we only have speculatory information, plunge into stories that many have tried to solve, but couldn’t. There are many podcasts in the world…but ours? We’re the most esoteric. We’re the most culturally informed.Last week we gave a new, insightful analysis of BRAT (but
in a way that nobody else has ever thought about it). This week, we dive into Reddit’s favorite new theory—thousands of chronically online people have been uniting on the crowdsourcing forum to draw a common thread between a series of disappearances across the United States. The police are puzzled by these cases, but we think these missing persons may have interacted with alien life forms.
Podcaster 2: As intrepid investigators, we want to get to the bottom of it all. This week, we ask: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OR ABSURD CRIME? Tune into Spotify, Patreon, Apple, or wherever you find your podcasts!
P1: Hello friends. Like any extraterrestrial investigation worth its salt, this one begins on a farm in Nebraska.
P2: I’m from there. Did you know that?
P1: I thought you were from Bushwick. All podcasters are.
P2: Nope. Didn’t you hear? It’s cool now to talk about your humble midwestern roots so you can act like
you’re morally above the coastal elite bubble to which you belong and actively participate.
P1: Ok whatever. Back to Nebraska. Let’s read the Reddit post, shall we?
P2: Ok. r/alienabduction. Last week. “M35. My neighbor down the road tends to a small plot of land complete with a handful of barn animals and steeds. Last weekend, he woke up to find his son, his ranchhand, and all of the barn supplies missing. He thinks there may have been a heist, but here’s the catch: there aren’t any tracks in the dirt next to the gated entrance. There is no evidence of tampering aside from the missing equipment, and no possible way that anyone has left the farm with all of the supplies without a truck. Reddit, was this an alien abduction?”
P1: Was there anything left behind?
P2: According to the police report, only an eclectic assortment of denim, sunglasses, the farmhand’s hat and boots, some cleaning supplies…
P1: Hmmm…Nebraska, you say?
P2: I think we know what really happened here.
P1: Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
P1 + P2: The son and the ranch hand are obviously deeply in love, and both scratching the surface of the Berlin techno scene! They’re converting the farm’s storm cellar into Nebraska’s first underground DJ creative space and have been down in the basement, making techno and using farm supplies for the past week!
P1 + P2: Jinx!
P1: God, we’re so smart. Case closed.
r/crimeloverscentral
iloveviolentcrime: hey guys! I’m a huge crime lovers central listener!! I love listening to your podcast on my long commute after a stressful day, or when i’m taking a relaxing bath, or right before bed as i drift off to sleep. huuge fan. i actually have a submission for your alien abduction week!
Two weeks ago, an esteemed male actor who had recently made big to-do of abandoning a certain “lowbrow” movie franchise in favor of dignified Oscar buzzy roles disappeared from a prestige movie set, only to reappear on the ComicCon stage to announce his 100 million dollar reunion with the aforementioned commercial movie empire.
Am I crazy to think he was replaced by an alien? Why would someone in the upper echelons of cinema stoop that low again, after all that hard work? He must have been replaced. Saw an interesting thread on r/aliensamongus if you’re interested in getting more information.
r/aliensamongus
dontbelieveinanythinganymore: My girlfriend is a gaffer for a bunch of big time movies. She says actor extraordinaire abandoned the set of Yet Another WWII Remake Movie But This One Is Somehow More Serious and More Gory and Also Somehow Told from a Different Perspective and appeared at the ComicCon debut for: COPPERMAN RELOADED: PART 1 OF 45. The actor, normally stoic beyond reproach, has been spotted participating in TikTok challenges. There is NO way he’s the same guy as our token Oscar Chaser.
The crew of WWII Remake found a series of items the actor left behind before reappearing for COPPERMAN RELOADED: PART 1 OF 45. Read this at your own liberty and let me know if you think it’s suspicious…
1) Dog-eared book with a bunch of nonsensical scribbles in it. Looks like he was pretending to read it and put notes in it—why would he leave this behind? He was so endearingly pretentious before…does he no longer need his comfort Pynchon novel?
2) A vape. Who in their right mind allows their nicotine to leave their person at any point?
3) A note that says: “Don’t come looking for me. I’m going with them!” He couldn’t possibly have been referring to them as in the SUPERHERO franchise… it had to be aliens. Just had to.
Subsequently, the crew of COPPERMAN RELOADED: PART 1 OF 45 report the actor has been behaving strangely:
1) This actor has gone on record saying he’s in Hollywood for the craft, not for the money or the fame. Yet has gone around talking about how “Anyone would do anything for a 100 million dollar check, so how could you blame him?”
2) Despite his partnerships with PETA and other vegan endorsements, he’s been literally inhaling hot dog wieners on set without taking a breath. PAs say he’s slurping them down, swallowing them whole, the same way one eats an oyster…
EDIT: Coming back to my original post to say that this guy might just be an asshole who abandoned his Hollywood PR persona after realizing
he would never have to work again after this movie. I mean did an Alien possess him, or is he just another run-of-the-mill theatre narcissistic?
@crimeloverscentral: Alien Week Continues! We’re posting the police report from the case we’re discussing in this week’s episode. Feel free to peruse before it comes out this Saturday, wherever you get your podcasts :)
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT REPORT:
Case Number: 2025-0789
Date: October 10th, 2024
Time: 01:15 AM
Location: The Loveshack Suites, Room 62, 86 Alta Mesa Dr, Joshua Tree
Incident Type: Missing Person
Incident Summary: At approximately 01:00 AM on October 10th, 2024, officers received a call from Ms. Malia Savoire, who identified herself as the secretary of Mr. Finn Ortiz. Ms. Savoire, 23, reported that Mr. Ortiz, a 45-year-old businessman, was missing from his room in the Loveshack Suites.
Details: Ms. Savoire stated that she had not been in a romantic relationship with Mr. Ortiz. She explained that Mr. Ortiz had asked her to book him a room at The Loveshack Suites in Joshua Tree for a few days, but had instructed her repeatedly not to come. This was strange, she reports, because she usually accompanies Mr. Ortiz on business trips of this nature.
Ms. Savoire claims that Mr. Ortiz left behind critical financial documents at the office, compelling her to drop them off at The Loveshack Suites. When she reached the room at 12:30 AM, Ms. Savoire found it empty and discovered that Mr. Ortiz’s belongings, alongside many undergarments, were still inside.
Ms. Savoire appeared distraught at the scene, and insisted that Mr. Ortiz “must have been brainwashed.”
“There is absolutely no way he would run away without a word…there has to be a mistake…” she told SAN BERNARDINO SHERIFF. “Where is he? This is so unlike him. I know him quite well…in a professional capacity, of course…”
Evidence Collected:
1. Room Key: Room 62 key was found in the lock on the inside of the door.
2. Personal Belongings: Mr. Ortiz’s briefcases and personal collection of women’s jewelry and wallets were located in the room. Ms. Savoire reports this as normal and “not strange at all.” Ortiz reportedly “loves women’s items and is always generous with who he gives them to.”
3. Glasses that appear to be filled with liquor, but upon inspection contain a Jell-O-like viscosity and taste neither sweet, sour, or, salty, with a smell that can only be described as human belly button innards
4. Security Footage: A preliminary review of the motel’s security camera footage shows Mr. Ortiz entered the motel at approximately 8:00 PM on August 30, 2024 At check-in, Mr. Ortiz interacted with a pale, tall employee just outside the camera’s periphery. No footage of Mr. Ortiz leaving the motel or any unusual activity was reported.
Next Steps: Further Investigation
1. Contact Mrs. Ortiz. Appraise items. Find Ms. Savoire “new man,” as per her frequent requests
2. Review Employee Schedule: No employee matching physical description was on call at the time of Ortiz’s check-in. To be determined…
Dear Crime Lovers Central,
I want to start off by saying I’m a huge fan. I’m penning this letter from my dorm room. As a woman, I think it’s only right to stay informed about the state of the world, and by “informed about the state of the world,” I of course don’t mean to imply that I stay abreast of bills that could be passed through local and state governments that, if properly sanctioned, would directly harm me and my sorority sisters. I also don’t mean that I do any sort of community organization work. I also don’t follow the news… too depressing!
No, by “informed about the state of the world,” I mean that I listen to extremely brutal and hyper-specific cases of psychotic body horror enacted against a very small demographic of women…and I EAT IT UP! Your podcast is TEA!!!! I’m actually writing to contribute to your “Close Encounters or Absurd Crime” week. So, I’ve been seeing this guy. He’s a pledge. Every time I come over to the house, we hang out in his bedroom, which for this semester, is the crawl space under the stairs. Every time he comes out from his room he has been instructed to sing, in loud announcement, “BABY BOY WANT STICKY JOY!!” in which his fellow pledges slap his bare ass with different flavors of jam, despite him being allergic. This actually visibly enlarges the zipper area of his five-inch inseams I come over whenever he tells me to, which is once every 6-14 business days. We’re super casual, but there’s something electric about the air when we’re together. I think it actually might be a case of faulty wiring, but who’s to say?
It’s been over three weeks since we last spoke. Normally when he doesn’t respond to my texts, he at least likes my Instagram stories. When I go over to the house for parties, he’s nowhere to be found. His brothers shrug and say that they don’t know where he is, and that “he must have gotten beamed up.”
His crawl space has been cleaned out entirely. The only thing in there is a chair made out of stapled-together raw hot dog wieners accessorized with seatbelts and bungee cords that give a kind of straightjacket effect, surrounded by industrial-grade space heaters. There’s also this mysterious viscous liquid all over their house that smells disgusting, but for some reason reminds me of my lover…
I’m actually starting to get worried, because I get the sense that they genuinely don’t know where he is, and that they don’t care. Also, I’m starting to get the sense that they actually believe aliens exist? And it’s possible that these boys really believe he got beamed up?
Crime Lovers Central, is this a missing persons case? Is this an ALIEN case? There’s definitely something strange over at Kappa Alpha Theta, but is it inhuman, or inhumane?
-Distraught Delta Gamma
Podcaster 1: Hey loyal listeners. We’re recording outside of the studio today, putting our respective journalism degrees to use. We’re here to do some digging. Literally.
Podcaster 2: We noticed that our engagement has gone down this week—not sure if that’s due to the fact that this pseudo-paranormal stuff pales in comparison with our usual slate of horrific violence, or if the algorithm has changed, but let me be transparent: WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
P1: So, for our last episode of this series, we wanted to do something BIG for you all. We’re following a lead left on our anonymous tip line. Apparently, there’s an energy void about 300 miles away from our studio. It’s in one of the most crime-heavy counties in the tri-state area. Supposedly, the root source of these crimes is a deeply ancient evil, one that only beckons spiritually sick, ethically weak, criminally inclined—of both this world and the next—to this exact spot.
P2: So, obviously, we had to go check it out. The energy void in this here has to be explored. It’s too tempting to resist, girlies!
P1: We’re not sure what our goal is tonight, but we want to get down to the root of it and report back to our loyal listeners. This is a special episode, so it’s only going to be behind our paywall on Patreon, so if you’re listening to this, you’re a real one. Tonight, we mapped out the exact coordinates given to us by our anonymous tipper, which led us to this small gravesite set amidst a vast, empty field. Spooky!
P2: So, according to our anonymous tipper (who, by the way, has a really melodic, tantalizing voice. If you’re listening, Mr. Tipper, just know we are, like, entranced by you) there is an ancient, sinister evil of mythical proportion that draws all of its likenesses to this very spot. So, special listeners and patreons, we’re here tonight, in this starless, still darkness, to sit and wait to see if anything particularly evil comes around.
P1: Yass.
P2: Yes.
P1: Yes. [Eighteen minutes of silence on tape]
P2: There is nothing wicked about this stillness, Stacey.
P1: Nothing at all. Nothing. [Rustling of third entity audible in the grass]
P1 + P2: This darkness is nothing to be ashamed of. Let us venture into it. [Static on tape]
Photographed by Ian Morrison
Prop Styling: Priscilla Lee
Illustrations by Jess Suttner, Lia Liao, and Alix Pentecost Farren
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