Gauge Illumination - Horror, folklore, and strange signals from the road.
Oct 2, 2026 · 19 min · 10 segments
Thom Bray has spent most of his life around trucks, highways, emergencies, and the assorted poor decisions people make while traveling between one place and another. Before retiring from J. J. Keller…
I wanted to kind of also, just on a completely different note since you're a first responder, I actually have proposed on a number of occasions that we change the names of hurricanes to actually make them monsters from Godzilla movies.
That if, in fact, people were told that Mothra was going to make landfall or that Ghidra was going to make landfall, people might be more inclined to evacuate.
Okay, the reason I ask that is not to set your bona fides, but to kind of ask you the question, too, so that when you get out there and you drive on the roads— And, you know, look, when you drive as long as you did, you have strange roadside encounters.
You see strange things.
You're running into odd things.
And I was kind of wondering if, in fact, from watching all that TV as a kid, from steeping yourself in comic books and movies and late-night television, if it, in fact, changes the way you perceive the road at night, if, in fact, you get where I'm coming from.
So sometimes you see fleeting images out there that's, did I just see that? And what was it? And you're looking back in the mirrors, hopefully, you know, somebody else lights it up for you to figure out what it was.
But, you know, that sure looked like, you know, something that wasn't normal, wasn't human or wasn't animal.
So you sit there for a little bit trying to figure out what did I just see? What was back there? What was that that I just caught on the edge of the headlights? So that was that was not an unusual thing.
And of course, you know, I'm kind of a Skeptical believers, the way I like to put it when it comes to these things.
Okay, did I believe it? Is it something I can explain? If I can't, well, then I've got to put it in this other category.
I wanted to kind of also, just on a completely different note since you're a first responder, I actually have proposed on a number of occasions that we change the names of hurricanes to actually make them monsters from Godzilla movies.
That if, in fact, people were told that Mothra was going to make landfall or that Ghidra was going to make landfall, people might be more inclined to evacuate.
Okay, the reason I ask that is not to set your bona fides, but to kind of ask you the question, too, so that when you get out there and you drive on the roads— And, you know, look, when you drive as long as you did, you have strange roadside encounters.
You see strange things.
You're running into odd things.
And I was kind of wondering if, in fact, from watching all that TV as a kid, from steeping yourself in comic books and movies and late-night television, if it, in fact, changes the way you perceive the road at night, if, in fact, you get where I'm coming from.
So sometimes you see fleeting images out there that's, did I just see that? And what was it? And you're looking back in the mirrors, hopefully, you know, somebody else lights it up for you to figure out what it was.
But, you know, that sure looked like, you know, something that wasn't normal, wasn't human or wasn't animal.
So you sit there for a little bit trying to figure out what did I just see? What was back there? What was that that I just caught on the edge of the headlights? So that was that was not an unusual thing.
And of course, you know, I'm kind of a Skeptical believers, the way I like to put it when it comes to these things.
Okay, did I believe it? Is it something I can explain? If I can't, well, then I've got to put it in this other category.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
