Freddie (Jonathan Reed)

File:Freddie head front Reed examination.pngPhotograph of Freddie's head taken during Reed's home examination, October 1996.

"Freddie" is, according to American contactee Jonathan Reed, a small humanoid non-human intelligent being — described by Reed as a genetically engineered biological probe of an off-world civilization placed toward the Orion or Andromeda region of the sky (and, in a later account, from Earth's own future) — that Reed said he encountered on 15 October 1996 in a forested area near Snoqualmie Pass, Washington. By Reed's account the being killed his golden retriever Suzy during the encounter, after which he struck and incapacitated it, carried it home, and placed it in a chest freezer, where it revived and over roughly nine days developed telepathic contact with Reed before disappearing.

Widely known as the "alien in the freezer" case, Reed's encounter is among the most circulated claims of a physically captured non-terrestrial being, notable for the relatively voluminous surviving media evidence — video, photographs, and audio of the being, documented immediately after the encounter and over the following days at Reed's home. Reed's friend Gary Withington took part throughout, helping handle the being and coining the name "Freddie" after remarking that the creature reminded him of "one of his old bosses"; the spelling "Freddie" follows Reed's book LINK: An Extraterrestrial Odyssey. Reed said that individuals posing as MUFON investigators confiscated part of the physical evidence through the very channel to which he had reported the encounter — in the case's shadow government reading, agents who located him that way — and that the surviving material remained only because he had handed over just a portion of it. He has since reported more than 100 further encounters from 1996 onward, with as many as 30 to 40 other people present on some occasions, and says several associates have described later sightings of the being.

Freddie's existence and the authenticity of Reed's video, audio, and photographic evidence are disputed. The Seattle UFO-Paranormal Group, in an investigation commissioned by MUFON — the same network Reed had first approached for help — concluded the case was a fabricated hoax, though MUFON never published the findings; the television program Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files found the footage could be reproduced with practical effects, and attorney Daniel Sheehan said one of his investigators had caught Reed privately admitting that he was deceiving people. Reed has consistently maintained the encounter was real, attributing the absence of corroborating records to the confiscation and erasure of his evidence and credentials by the parties he says later removed the being; observers who questioned him at length generally found him sincere.[citation needed]

Origin and nature

Reed described Freddie as a "genetically engineered worker" — a biological probe built for planetary survey, comparable in function to a Mars rover but composed of living tissue and engineered to operate in Earth's atmosphere. Reed and associates — including Robert Raith and Daniel McEvoy — took the being's civilization to lie toward the Orion or Andromeda region of the sky, an inference drawn from star maps Freddie was said to have conveyed through telepathic imagery; in a 2008 update Reed raised the alternative that Freddie came from Earth's own future rather than from another star system. As Reed came to understand it, the being's purpose in the forest on the day of the encounter was the geological monitoring of the area.

Biological analysis presented by Jaime Maussan reportedly indicated Freddie possessed 46 chromosomes with additional sequences linked to dolphin and turtle DNA, together with nanotechnology devices in the brain tissue that Maussan speculated may have enabled the being's recovery from freezing. A separate genetic analysis at a university clinic in the late 1990s reportedly found portions of the DNA that were not recognized as terrestrial. These findings come from a single televised presentation by Maussan and from clinics Reed did not name, and have not been independently replicated; Reed has attributed the absence of published results to the deaths in 2000 of the University of Washington researchers Rodger Haggitt and Michael Wessels, whom he identified as members of the team analyzing Freddie's tissue.[citation needed]

Physical description

Reed described Freddie as standing approximately 3 to 4 feet tall, with a later account placing the height at 53 to 56 inches and the weight at approximately 50 pounds, which he found surprisingly light for the being's size. The being wore a one-piece seamless black suit covering the hands and feet, with no visible seams, buttons, or zippers, described as "totally rounded" with a turtleneck-style collar and a notably long neck. Freddie had no visible hair or ears, large dark oval eyes approximately two inches across, and a small mouth. The being's blood was red, which Reed speculated indicated an oxygen-based physiology using hemoglobin similarly to humans. Freddie reportedly emitted a persistent pungent odor resembling rotting fruit that did not diminish even after days in the freezer. Some commentators have drawn parallels between Freddie's physical appearance and accounts of Ant People or subterranean beings, and have speculated about connections to cross-species genetics and interdimensional existence.[citation needed]

The encounter (15 October 1996)

Main article:

Jonathan Reed forest incident

On the afternoon of 15 October 1996, Reed was hiking with Suzy approximately 60 miles east of Seattle along Interstate 90 when, by his account, the dog came upon Freddie and the being's suit extended a pseudopod-like appendage that killed Suzy. Reed struck Freddie in the head with a tree branch, fracturing the skull and leaving a two-inch hole in the back of the head. He wrapped the incapacitated being in a thermal Mylar blanket and transported it to his home in Seattle, where it was placed in a chest freezer in his garage.

Days 1-3: revival

On approximately the third day after the encounter, Freddie revived inside the freezer. Reed opened the lid and found the being had unwound itself from the thermal blanket, stuck its head out, and begun screaming (see Audio recording of Freddie (Jonathan Reed); home video). A third party later noticed that in the home video filmed during this period, Freddie appeared to blink its eyes and move facial muscles — details Reed himself had not observed during filming because his viewfinder was a one-inch black-and-white display.

Days 3-9: communication and trust-building

After the initial screaming subsided, Freddie's vocalizations shifted to chirpy, squeaky sounds resembling those of a bird or dolphin. The being began voluntarily exiting the freezer, sitting outside the unit and rocking back and forth in a fluid motion while making eye contact with Reed. Reed described talking to Freddie as he would a family member or a dog, attempting to calm the being and establish trust.

Freddie reportedly communicated through telepathy, transmitting imagery, geometry, and visualization rather than words. Reed described the experience as "like a fire hose being squirted into my brain," stating that the volume and speed of information caused intense migraine headaches and that he could only spend ten to fifteen minutes in Freddie's presence without pain. Over time, Freddie learned to moderate the intensity of the transmissions. In recorded audio communication sessions (see Audio recording of Freddie (Jonathan Reed)), Reed can be heard saying "hurts my head" and "I don't know what this means" while the creature's vocalizations occur simultaneously, consistent with concurrent vocal and telepathic communication. During one session, Freddie threw a cup, prompting Reed to repeat "no more" to calm the being.

Reed came to believe that Freddie's attack on Suzy had been purely defensive — the suit's expansion a reflex mechanism rather than an intentional act — and said he had apologized to Freddie for striking him. He concluded after one early communication exchange that "this was not any wild animal, this was a life-form or missing link from some as yet unknown place in the universe" and "may very well be my intellectual superior." During a later session, Reed reported that Freddie's eyes shifted to a deep purple hue and that he experienced a paralytic telepathic vision in which Freddie appeared to be assimilating his memories — childhood scenes, a philosophical revelation about human unity, and imagery of stars and space.

Departure and confiscation

In the first days after the encounter, unsure where to turn and by his account violently ill, Reed had Withington telephone several UFO organizations — the Seattle group of MUFON among them — asking where someone who had "found something" should go; most, Reed said, dismissed the inquiry. People reached through the Seattle MUFON group presented themselves as supportive investigators and offered to store the physical evidence so it would not be lost or stolen; Reed handed over a portion of his photographs and videotape while deliberately keeping the rest. By his account the individuals never returned the material, and MUFON later stated that no such members had contacted him — leading Reed to conclude they were impostors, and, in the shadow government reading advanced within the case, agents who had located him through the very channel to which he had reported. Because he had surrendered only part of what he held, a large body of video, photographs, and audio survived — the evidence for which the case is principally known.

After approximately nine days, Freddie disappeared from Reed's home along with the obelisk. Reed alleged the being was retrieved during the same period in which agents of an organization he called "The School" targeted him — ransacking his home and seizing much of his remaining property — in the sequence of events he links to the Shooting of Jonathan Reed. Reed has emphasized that he documented the being — on film, in photographs, and in audio — through days in which he was, by his own account, violently ill and in shock, producing the unusually large volume of media on which the case rests.

Subsequent appearances (1998-present)

In April 2000, Reed described Freddie as "extremely gentle" and stated the being had continued to visit him since the original encounter. The Seattle UFO/Paranormal Group, directed by Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson and working with MUFON Washington State Director Kathleen Andersen, investigated the case and concluded it was a fabricated hoax, finding among other things that Reed had no verifiable college degree and that his claimed girlfriend stated he was allergic to animals and had never owned a dog. The inquiry had been commissioned by MUFON — the network Reed had first turned to after the encounter — but MUFON never published its findings. Reed rejected the report's conclusions, and a pro-Reed compilation disputed the allergy claim with photographs said to show a picture of Suzy at his workplace.[citation needed]

Reed eventually claimed more than 100 additional encounters with Freddie since 1996, with 30 to 40 witnesses present across various incidents. Between 1998 and 2020, Reed said that multiple witnesses saw Freddie materialize in private settings. By Reed's account, several associates connected with the case — among them individuals who had seen the body, the Link bracelet, and the teleportation demonstrations — reported that Freddie had appeared to them sporadically in their own lives since the original incident. Reed stated that Freddie is still alive and that the being intermittently appears to him, engaging in telepathic exchanges during sporadic, unannounced visits.

The television program Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files examined Reed's video evidence in 2010 and concluded it could be replicated using practical effects. Reed maintained that the ability to reproduce comparable footage did not establish that his own — which spanned video, photographs, and audio taken over several days — was staged.[citation needed] Attorney Daniel Sheehan described the case as an example of deliberate fabrication, stating that one of his professional investigators had caught Reed "reporting to some friends of his how he was bullshitting everybody." Across more than two decades of interviews and public retellings, Reed has consistently denied fabricating the case, and observers who questioned him at length — including Art Bell — generally regarded him as sincere.[citation needed]

Documentary evidence

Freddie is documented in video, audio, and photographic evidence produced by Reed in the days following the encounter:

• Jonathan Reed forest video — footage of Freddie lying incapacitated at the encounter site, filmed on the day of the incident.
• Jonathan Reed home video of Freddie — footage of Freddie on an examination surface in Reed's garage.
• Audio recording of Freddie (Jonathan Reed) — recordings of Freddie's vocalizations and four communication sessions between Reed and the being.
• Photograph of Freddie's face — still photograph derived from the home footage.

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