Kaney's Weird Files - Issue 5 Volume 3
Thank You, TIKTOK Rabbit Hole, Weird Weather, and Book News!
Weird /wird/
adjective: weird; comparative adjective: weirder; superlative adjective: weirdest
suggesting something supernatural; uncanny.
"the weird crying of a seal"
May Update 2025
WI, USA, Earth
Salutations Humanoids!
Hope everyone’s May has wrapped up nicely. Are your flowers representative of the April shows you might have experienced? Hopefully so. Our garden is looking nice. We had quite the storms.
In this issue, I have some BIG book news and reveal insight on my next book project. I am also taking a hard look at a recent rabbit hole I went down on TIKTOK. Other bits of strangeness are mixed in as usual. Just a reminder, you are invited to share your stories of weird and strange via this form.
Hopefully, you might even get something out of it.
As always, thanks for reading!
Tim
Top ‘Weird’ News
‘Expedition Unknown’ Host Josh Gates Toured OceanGate Titan Sub in 2021 - TheWrap
Liquid mercury discovered beneath Mexican pyramid - DailyMail
Engineers Suggest a New Theory of Pyramid Construction - Newsweek
Military jet was struck midair by an orange-white UAS - NYPost
Who Knew? Sun Causing Starlink Satellites’ Early Demise - YahooNews
AARO personnel requesting case management system - DefenseScoop
Tracy Lawrence reveals link to paranormal - AmericanSongwriter.com
Cryptid Sighting Reported by Father and Son in Michigan - MSN
Thank You!
First up is a general statement of extreme gratitude and a word of ‘thanks’ to all of you - followers and subscribers - of the weird and strange. If it weren’t for you, this would likely dry up and blow away. I started this Substack to share stories I have of the weird and strange and to disperse news and articles on the same topics. I never thought we’d be this many issues later and with this many readers. One more time - thank you! If you know of anyone that would enjoy these as much as you, please share into your networks.
Just for your information we are at 29 Subscribers and 43 Followers! Let’s get to 30 and 50!
TikTok Rabbit Hole - Part 1
Ever had a hearing test in school with weird headphones in the 1990s? I distinctly recall this as a kid. In elementary school, I was pulled out of class on more than one occassion and taken into a strange room with two strange men, sometimes it was only one. They indicated this was a hearing test. We were to put these old, crusty, dorky-looking gray headphones on. I was instructed to listen to the tones and raise a hand that corresponds to the side of the headphones a tone was heard. I always thought they were standard mass tests and that everyone did them. I also thought my mom knew about them and possibly had the results. I recently found out that both those statements may not be true.
The headphones might have looked something like these above. I remember them being huge, bulky, cold, and ancient looking.
Now, before we go any further, you need to know how I got to that point. There is a current trend on TikTok right now that I accidentally came across one night while scrolling the usual creeping dread away in bed while my wife peacefully slumbered. I listened to the first video, which had old audio. I saw the images. Then I was hooked. Down the rabbit hole I went. If you are strong in mind and spirit, I invite you to pop open TikTok and search up ‘GATE Program’ in it and see what happens.
I was first ‘triggered’ by one user’s post that featured an image of those headphones. It was like someone walking over my grave. Ok, maybe that is an embellishment, but I definitely got a weird vibe from them. And, like true PTSD fashion, I went back to that time and relived getting taken out of class and being given the ‘hearing’ test. The memory was so vivid. The tones used were still so audible and unnerving.
What I remember is distinct audio tones in each ear gradually fading in volume, making it harder and harder to hear. Eventually, I would guess at which ear the sound was supposed to be in. At one of the lowest tones I felt them more than heard them. The memory fades a bit after that each time. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I have some foggy memories that don’t make sense. Like a dixie cup with some odd goo in it. A game or activity on a sheet of paper. That’s it though. They are very jumbled. I do recall a sense of anxiety experienced as an out of body sensation during those times.
As I watched more and more videos, I was awestruck. So many people were having those same memories and experiences. Many talked about something known as the Gifted and Talented Education program and that they remember being part of it. Hey, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? No. Our schools and educators providing a program and tailored curriculum for those kids as standing out in their early development, intelligence, aptitude, creativity, etc.? Awesome. Kids are getting extra opportunities to learn non-standard materials and skills? Perfect. Or was it?
The theories and memories of these folks often talked about how GATE was in fact a front for government run secret experiments on children. Often the goal of which was to see which kids tested higher or showed more capabilities in fringe topics like empathic abilities, precognition, extra sensory perception, and remote viewing. Some posters and commenters brought up having to guess shapes on little cards. Of course, anyone who has seen Ghostbusters knows what those are - Zener cards.
There are so many people my age, younger, older out there posting about this stuff. Many of the folks are writing how hearing sounds or recordings shared by the groups are triggering them. Memories being unlocked while hearing them are common. People feeling traumatized also while experiencing the process of reliving the experiences. Some people even write about being taken to dark rooms and or basements or ‘backrooms’. Finally, there are people talking about being given a pink liquid or something. It is really quite insane to me, all this stuff coming out. All these people posting. All of them having common memories.
As for the GATE program…I didn’t recall that ever being a thing in my school. I did remember something called OM or Odyssey of the Mind. Were you ever in OM? Gate? What we did do in that is more like extra projects. I think I did a report on the Peregrine Falcon.
I checked online. There is a website you can see here about the GATE program in Wisconsin.
I checked into doing a FOIA request to find out if there was any validity to any of these claims. If you all do not know what one of those is, it is a ‘Freedom of Information Act’ request. One can file a request to receive public documents on any topic from government agencies as long as they are not classified. A couple of days ago I did submit one. However, to understand how all of this might tie together, I need to speak on another topic. More on that soon...
A couple of days ago, I also submitted a public records request to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. I must give them credit for I received a personal response within a day, I think. It was not very long. The only bad thing was they indicated they held no records responsive to my request. I asked if that meant there were no records or that I asked for the wrong records. I got a further response, thankfully, that the State does not hold records types for which I was looking and that I should check with the school district in which I was enrolled in as a youth back in the 1990s. The respondent did tell me ‘they’ - meaning each district - are not required to keep files indefinitely. Ok, fine. I thanked them and moved on. When I was looking into the school district, I noticed there was no way to simply ask for records. They appeared to only have a phone number to call in order to request any records.
I still have to make that call, which I will do later today or tomorrow and leave a voicemail. I will update you all on that once I get an answer.
I am still waiting to hear back on the FOIA request. I will update you all if and when I hear back on that as well.
My mom was over the other night and I asked a couple of questions. This is where it gets a bit interesting. One was if she had ever known or remember me being enrolled in or approached by my school regarding the GATE program. I was careful to word it not with the abbreviation, but with what it was known as at the time. The Gifted and Talented Education program. My mom was an educator in an adjacent city, so she would know and remember if that had ever come up. She was always a very involved parent with our teachers, so I had faith in her knowing if that ever came up.
Right away, she responded with an emphatic ‘yes’. She relayed a brief story that she and the principal had conversed about me being in it and had plans for it to begin at some point. However, my mom said that right before anything could happen, the funding for the program had been eliminated either in the district municipality or at the state level. That meant there would be no GATE program to go into, and that OM was the next best thing for us kids. Confirmation received that I was considered for that program.
If you google anything about hearing tests in schools, the AI overview these days will tell you it is generally not an accepted practice in public schools. But, if you specify the 1990s, it does tell you it was more common.
Next, I asked my mom if she remembered me having that hearing test I described. I told her how I was taken out of class, put in a room with someone I didn’t know, was asked to perform these tests, etc. Her reaction was not all that surprising. She was livid and didn’t know it had ever happened. My ask was going to be if she had any results of those tests or if she knew who had administered them. Since they (school) never told her she wouldn’t have any information.
The plot thickens…
So far we have some insight into what happened. But I think my own exploration of being involved with the GATE program has created more questions than answers. Like what year did this all happen? Where the public records of the testing and what exactly was it? Who performed these tests and where are their records? I know they weren’t any teachers I recognized. Are these related like others are thinking?
One theory I am working on may show how it could logically tie together based on some recently revealed and declassified government documents and their research into the paranormal.
Stay tuned for next issue and part two of this piece of research.
I am curious if any of you out there were in the GATE program, had these strange hearing tests done, or what you recall. Please feel free to share, comment, etc.
Oh, and as for how the headphones, hearing tests, and GATE all relate: people on the TIKTOK thread for this claim it was a guise for administering psychological conditioning in order to induce hypnotic or meditative states of being to facilitate the free flowing use and access of certain para-abilities such as extrasensory perception and - even - remote viewing.
Interesting, no?
Weird Weather
This piece is pretty simple. The weather out there right now is whack. Did you see the pair of dust clouds covering parts of the US this past weekend? One from the sand of the Saharan Desert floating aloft across the Atlantic and drifting inland from the Gulf of Amer…I mean Mexico. Another drifting down into the midwest from the latest wild fires of Canada. The sky looks so strange again. Very eerie. Finally, the Sun sent a fresh G4 solar storm rocketing at us and we should get some nice Aurora tonight and maybe tomorrow. Not to mention the unstable and extreme weather patterns across the plains and tornado-prone areas and the sublte shifting of the traditional Tornado Alley this season a bit more east. Pretty wild stuff if you ask me. It’s getting strange, if you ask me. Take a look at this satellite image of the area impacted by the dust clouds. Finally, we have Alvin in the Pacific winding up or fizzling out I can’t really tell down near Mexico and Southern California.
Oh, I almost forgot. I read an article / post about how the polar vortex is shifting more south. So we got that going for us, also.
Read more about it here.
NUFORC Update
NUFORC posted a new article on their site May 11th on an oddly shaped UFO. Check it out here. There are new reports to review on their databank here as well. Looks like several hundred in May, 2025.
May in UFO History
Typically I post many historical UFO stories or news articles in this section. However, there are so many I will only post a few here. Be sure to Like and Follow the CUFOS Facebook page for more like these. These are shared directly from their page posts and I do not claim any original credit for them. Just sharing for knowledge.
ON THIS DAY IN 1909. May 19, 1909. 12:00 midnight. A Mr. Chatten, grocer’s assistant, is cycling home to Tharston, Norfolk, England, when he is dazzled by a bright light with a bluish tinge overhead. Read more here.
ON THIS DAY IN 1980. May 9, 1980. 9:00 p.m. A woman is driving home with her daughter in Bargersville, Indiana, when bright red flashes of light illuminate the inside of her truck and the surrounding area. The flashes are caused by red balls of light about the size of lemons in the empty fields around them. The balls blink on and off in succession, climbing up one telephone pole, moving down, and crossing the road to perform the same motion on another pole. Read more here.
ON THIS DAY IN 1958. May 14, 1958. 7:00 p.m. Artur Berlet is passing by a farm on the outskirts of Sarandi, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, when he sees a strange light about 500 feet away. He approaches and sees a landed disk about 90 feet in diameter. Some figures appear and a light hits him, whereupon he loses consciousness. Read more here.
Book News!
My memoir - 3:43 AM: Awakenings of an Experiencer - has been updated and republished. It is now the Revised edition and is available in Paperback and e-book. If we get more interest, eventually, I may publish the hardcover.
Click this link to read more and locate your own copy today.
Thanks! I am very excited about this. I finally feel I can leave the book be and move on.
Also - had to share that people have picked up 100 copies of it (e-book and paperback). Pretty cool!
What does this mean? I am ready and willing to begin the next leg of this journey. I likely will spend the summer of 2025 on research and writing for my next book or research project.
I may write a follow-up book featuring my unedited hypnosis transcripts, the Galactic Federation, Council of 8, our universal consciousness theory, a research project on a local UFO event, or creative writing on the topic.
What do you think?
Stay tuned!
Keep reading and keep looking up. Remember, the truth is still out there.
Sincerely,
Tim Kaney
Kaney’s Weird Files
Want to Support my Writing and Research? Buy me a Ko-Fi here.