EP 13: The Out Of This World Story Of Granger Taylor - Part 2

[00:00:00] - [Nina]
In late 1980, a mechanical genius from the Duncan area had been talking about aliens in recent months. He had been communicating with them through dreams, and they wanted to abduct him for his expertise. Then he disappeared on an incredibly stormy night, the exact type of night he predicted his alien abduction would occur. What happened to him? This is Episode 13, The Out Of This World Story of Granger Taylor Part 2.

[00:00:33] - [Nina]
Content warning for this episode. There will be brief discussions of drug use, death, and suicide.

[00:00:40] - [Cassie]
Welcome to mishaps and mysteries. I'm your host, Nina. And I'm your host, Cassie. Our podcast explores stories of misadventures in the wild landscapes of British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for being here with us today.

[00:01:02] - [Cassie]
So we're back today to finish telling you the tale of potential alien abduction and the genius Granger Taylor. If you haven't listened to part one of this story yet, check out episode twelve first. We know we left you guys on quite a cliffhanger last week, and you waited and you came back for part two. Thank you. And please let us know what you guys think of two parters.

[00:01:26] - [Cassie]
Do you like them? Or do you prefer a new story each episode? We'd love your feedback either way. So where we left off.

[00:01:34] - [Nina]
Granger Taylor, a highly intelligent mechanic, and unique, shy, and gentle person had been having dreams about communicating with aliens and about the aliens wanting to abduct him. This was something he was excited about. He said that they would come during a massive storm and he predicted this would happen in late November nineteen eighty. There were some concerns about his mental health and drug use at the time. And then on the night of 11/29/1980, a storm that Granger could not have predicted hit the Duncan area.

[00:02:11] - Nina]
It wasn't just typical November weather. No. This was the storm of the century. The wind blew powerfully, knocking down trees and power lines. Rain poured sideways.

[00:02:23] - [Nina]
There was thunder and lightning. Ranger was last seen leaving Bob's Grill at 06:30PM. Remember, it was a small town. So at the diner, he told those that were there he was going to space. Now people knew him to be eccentric, so they just laughed it off.

[00:02:41] - [Nina]
He wasn't wearing a coat, which the waitress found odd given the weather. The last known place he went was to the Keller House to say goodbye to his young friend and helper, Robert, and his family. He told them he was going to space. Now Robert knew all about this, having spent so much time with Granger. And essentially, the day had arrived boarding to Granger.

[00:03:05] - [Nina]
Robert asked if he could go with him. Granger told him he couldn't because he wasn't invited by the aliens. He also said that Robert had too much to accomplish here on earth.

[00:03:16] - [Cassie]
Now picture the Duncan area the next morning. The storm has ended, and there's debris from the wind everywhere. Fallen tree branches, people's stuff blown about. The community members are out clearing up their yards. Grainger's mother, Grace, was away on vacation in Hawaii.

[00:03:37] - [Cassie]
It wasn't until the afternoon that his stepfather, Jim, noticed the letter taped to his bedroom door. It read,

[00:03:45] - [Higgsfield AI narrates Granger's letter]
Dear mother and father, I have gone away to walk aboard an alien spaceship as recurring dreams assured a forty two month interstellar voyage to explore the vast universe, then return. I am leaving behind all my possessions to you as I will no longer require the use of any. Please use the instructions in my will as a guide to help. Love, Granger.

[00:04:09] - [Cassie]
So he leaves a note. He leaves behind all his worldly possessions.

On the other side of the note was a hand drawn map of Waterloo Mountain, about 33 kilometers east of Granger's home. And curiously, he had made two very important changes to the wording of his will. He changed the word death to departure, and he deleted the word funeral. The will was written in June 1980, about five to six months before his disappearance.

[00:04:42] - [Nina]
His family searched his room for clues. They went up and down logging roads, asked local hospitals. His mother arrived home the next day. RCMP searched and searched. They had helicopter scans of the forest too, at least expecting to find the big pink Datsun.

[00:05:00] - [Nina]
They asked ferry workers if they had spotted him or his truck on the sailings after his disappearance. The only way off the island really, and no one had. The registration expired in 1981 and with still no signs of the vehicle, so they assumed it was somewhere off the road. At the time of his disappearance, constable Mike Demchuk with the RCMP said, quote, you don't just get rid of something that large without someone knowing about it, end quote. With no answers, everyone that loved Granger was left to wonder.

[00:05:35] - [Nina]
Was he abducted by aliens as he had predicted? Had he simply run off, or had he met a terrible end? His mother always hoped that he would return. His parents left the door unlocked at home in case he came back. On late June of nineteen eighty three, forty two months after his departure, his stepbrother Douglas, who was in the Canadian Coast Guard, sat on the deck of his boat late in the night watching for any signs of granger in the night sky.

[00:06:07] - [Nina]
Forty two months, after all, was the very specific timeline that Granger had given for his return. Eventually, he had to turn in for the night with the heavy realization that he may never see Granger again.

[00:06:28] - [Cassie]
Six years later, something was finally found up a mountain. Way up off of a work road in a remote area of Mount Preveau, the mountain that sits prominent right by the city of Duncan, work crews were clearing brush when they came across a blast site. It was said to be roughly a 180 meters or 600 feet in diameter. It was massive, and yet no one had ever come across it before. There had apparently been reports in the area of a loud boom on the night of November 29, the night that Granger disappeared.

[00:07:07] - [Cassie]
The RCMP and the family did search the Mount Prevot area, but no one connected the sound of a blast with Granger going missing. Most wrote it off as thunder on that stormy night. At the blast site, there were two fragments of human bone and pieces of a vehicle found. The blast had been so great that a wheel piece was found up in a tree. The truck was confirmed by the RCMP to be Granger's.

[00:07:35] - [Cassie]
They said that the serial number matched Granger's. But a sticking point for at least his friend Robert was that it was a blue 1966 Datsun. The pieces found at the site were blue. But as we said, Granger's truck was famously pink. Had the blast and the six years that had passed caused the pink paint to all chip away?

[00:08:01] - [Cassie]
Robert insisted that the Datsun was brown when they painted it pink. Granger's brothers said that it had been blue. So there's much debate here. They also found pieces of clothing, and his mom confirmed that they were from a shirt of Granger's that she had sewn. The coroner's office made the connection that the bones for Granger's, but it's unclear how.

[00:08:28] - [Cassie]
They didn't use DNA testing back then as it wasn't widespread yet. It was quite a new technology in 1980, and it was not available to local RCMP. It just seems that the connection was made by the serial number matching his truck and the clothing fragments belonging to a shirt of his. And, of course, at this point, he had been missing for six years. And now today, in 2026, the bone fragments and other evidence that could have been tested these days have been lost in the decades that followed.

[00:09:03] - [Cassie]
This does happen sometimes. Things get lost in the shuffle, especially in the times before modern technology to keep things organized. This is really unfortunate that they were lost, and they may never be able to be tested to definitively say that those bone fragments did belong to Granger.

[00:09:22] - [Nina]
We should dig into this more in an episode one day. How common was this? How does evidence just go missing?

[00:09:29] - [Cassie]
Yeah. For sure. With the information that they did have, Granger was declared dead that same year. After the discovery of the explosion site, his family had to petition the supreme court to have Granger legally declared dead. The cause of death was listed as massive injuries due to the consequence of explosion.

[00:09:52] - [Cassie]
They never had a funeral. He didn't want one after all. Remember, he had struck the word from his will.

[00:10:04] - [Nina]
So with the limited evidence at the blast site, there's still more questions than answers forty six years after Granger's disappearance. Let's discuss some theories. The first and most captivating theory that he was abducted by aliens. Without definitive DNA proof, the bone fragments belong to Granger. And with the discrepancy of the paint color of the vehicle pieces found, there is some doubt the blast site had any clear connection to Granger.

[00:10:35] - [Nina]
Robert believed that he was indeed picked up by the aliens that night. But the fact that Granger hadn't returned after forty two months was because of Einstein's theory of relativity. To briefly explain what this is, it's the idea that space is stretchy, so to speak, elastic. That time and distance can bend depending on speed of travel. Because of this, Grainger had said he would not actually be gone forty two months on Earth, but it would be forty two months to Grainger.

[00:11:10] - [Nina]
To this day, Robert holds firm in his belief that Grainger was abducted by aliens. There seems to be stories that Grainger had said that the dynamite would be required for him to propel up to meet the aliens or to indicate to them where he was, and it was set off early accidentally. The second theory is that he had had an accident with the dynamite. Grainger was experienced with dynamite and explosives. Many think he would not have had an accident.

[00:11:40] - [Nina]
One of his brothers interviewed and said that he knew he had taken the dynamite from the farm. The question for this theory is then why was he driving out on the mountain in the storm? And further, because of his experience, he would have known how to prevent an accident. And he would have needed a lot more dynamite to achieve the explosion as was described. Also, given the debate, with no DNA evidence linking him, could it just have been another vehicle blown up, unconnected?

[00:12:15] - [Nina]
And interestingly, those who made a CBC documentary called Spaceman, a Buck Ranger, were unable to find the blast site.

[00:12:24] - [Cassie]
And this goes to our third theory. And just a reminder on the content warnings, we're going to discuss suicide briefly here. This is the most likely of the theories, it seems, that he committed suicide. And there's two likely versions of events here. Either the alien story was a way to soften the blow on his loved ones, or the alien thing was part of delusions from a mental health break, potentially spurred on by the ongoing use of LSD.

[00:12:58] - [Cassie]
Or, of course, there's the idea that it could have been a combination of both of these, And he chose a remote location and an explosion as a way to attempt to ensure that he was not later found. Remember, he had said that he didn't want anyone wasting their time looking for him. A counter argument to this theory is that he was happy leading up to the abduction, that he was excited about the aliens coming. However, as many of us know, a sudden happiness in an otherwise previously depressed person can be a common occurrence when they have decided that they will end their life. Further, if he never seemed depressed or suicidal, it doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't.

[00:13:45] - [Cassie]
Some can hide it very well. Were the drugs weighing on him affecting his mental health? Some research has found that half of those with mental illness will also have a substance use issue. Regarding his final goodbyes, he didn't only have a final goodbye with Robert. One of the days leading up to his disappearance, he had had a heart to heart conversation with his stepfather Jim, where he thanked him for being such a good dad.

[00:14:16] - [Cassie]
And if he knew that he was never coming back, did he intentionally do it when his mother was away in Hawaii in an attempt to make it easier on her or even on himself?

[00:14:29] - [Nina]
And some final less popular theories are that he was kidnapped by the US government to go work at Area 51. Remember we talked about the worker who was living on a farm and supplying Grainger with LSD and potentially taking financial advantage of him? Well, some online theorized that he may have tricked Granger with alien abduction stories and killed him. Finally, we did read about a theory that he went to Columbia in the Times colonist article about Granger Taylor, but couldn't find any further information on why this was a theory. The family doesn't believe any of the conspiracies.

[00:15:12] - [Nina]
Like we said, his brother believes he took the dynamite from the farm. They believe he died that night on Mount Prevot. Whether it was intentional or accidental remains a question. His parents left the door unlocked at home just in case he came back. While Robert is steadfast in his belief that Grainger was abducted by aliens, as he said he would be, Robert still shares his theories of this time with Grainger and his thoughts on what happened to this day.

[00:15:44] - [Nina]
While Robert knows he won't see him again, he doesn't believe he died that day. He said that Granger was definitely not suicidal. He said, quote, Granger was the most intelligent, down to earth, wise man that I've ever met in my life, end quote. But would you tell a teenager the truth? There's a good chance instead he wanted to protect him and all his loved ones with the alien story.

[00:16:11] - [Nina]
And the attempt to annihilate any evidence with dynamite and a remote difficult to find location for his final moments. The family has been hesitant on certain things like documentaries because media and the public can really sensationalize the story.

[00:16:29] - [Cassie]
Robert also didn't like how once the alien story was shared, Grainger is seen as, quote, a nut. Because Granger was so intelligent and otherwise acted normally. Let's talk about what's happened in the years that have followed his disappearance and the discovery of the blast site. No matter what actually happened, the idea that he went to space with aliens has been kept alive, and that's clearly what Granger wanted. For all those who knew him, no matter what they believe, neither knowing or not knowing what ultimately happened is tough, sad, and difficult.

[00:17:12] - [Cassie]
His parents have passed away. The farm is now owned by his sister, Grace Reynolds. She just didn't wanna let it go from the family. She continues to keep his room intact all these years later. And remember the kitty hawk he fixed that was on display in the Duncan area?

[00:17:32] - [Cassie]
Well, until it was eventually purchased by a private collector for $20,000, or that's over a 165,000 in today's money. But it was sold after his disappearance, and his family put the money in his bank account. The BC Forest Discovery Center in Duncan houses some of Granger's restored machines, like his cars and trains. Nina and I are actually hoping to get down there soon and check it out, and we'll update you if we do. If you go and see Granger's machines at the Discovery Center, please be sure to let us know.

[00:18:10] - [Cassie]
Remember too that Duncan UFO sighting that we talked about in part one of this story? Well, in 2023, a coin that depicted the famous sighting by the nurse at the Cowichan Hospital was produced by the Canadian Mint. But then also in 2023, a man from Victoria came forward. He said that what people actually saw that night was floating devices that him and his friends had built for fun. They weren't trying to prank anyone.

[00:18:40] - [Cassie]
They were just using the hospital parking lot so that the building could block the wind that night. When they saw the newspaper reports coming out in the days following, they decided to stay quiet. Not sure why. Maybe they were just embarrassed at what a phenomenon it had become, and they didn't wanna draw attention. But then after the mint coin was announced in 2023, now an old man, he decided to come forward.

[00:19:06] - [Cassie]
Still, those who were witnesses that night and remember it like it was yesterday, say this just doesn't add up with what they saw. Either way, it's a really interesting discussion to watch come up again and unfold in our modern day. We'll include some of the articles to this ongoing discussion, in the show notes. So was or is there something to be said about interstellar visits in the Duncan area, or is it all just sensation from a couple of strange occurrences? We may never know for sure.

[00:19:43] - [Nina]
Our safety tip today is not about backcountry or adventure skills, but about mental health. While we don't know for sure if Granger was having a mental health crisis, there's certainly a chance he was. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the BC Mental Health Line at 310-6789. That's 310-6789. We'll include this number in our show notes also.

[00:20:12] - [Nina]
Check on the people you love. And if you yourself are struggling, don't hide what you're going through. Remember that there's always help out there available to you. If he was still with us, Granger would be 78 years old today. I wonder what he would think of how his story has carried on and just how widespread it has become.

[00:20:31] - [Nina]
I wonder what he would think of our modern technology of cell phones and artificial intelligence and drones and of all the advancements in our understanding of space. In recent years, there's been new statements about the potential for alien life out in the vast universe and recent findings in 2025 of potential biological life, albeit molecular. There's evidence that scientists believe statistically that there is other life in the universe and that there's been leads that the discovery of alien life could happen soon. Ranger impacted many people in his community, in his time on Earth. And still today, legacy lives on in the projects he completed and the stories told about him since his departure.

[00:21:19] - [Nina]
While Ranger's case is now almost forty six years old, you never know if something new could come to light. If you have any information, please contact North Cowichan Duncan RCMP at (250) 748-5522.

[00:21:36] - [Cassie]
Thank you for joining us for this episode. New episodes are out every Tuesday. Come back next week for a new survival story. You can reach out to us at info@mishapsandmysteries.ca

[00:21:52] - [Cassie]
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave us a rating and a review. It really helps new people find us. Also, share with your friends. Be safe and never stop exploring.