What happened to Bill Thompson during his military SERE course?

Bill Thompson told Joe Rogan he went through an advanced Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape course that taught lock-picking, escaping a car trunk and changing appearance on the run. During the evasion phase in the Appalachian mountains, after days with little food, he met what seemed to be hikers on a log near a trail shelter. In the morning there were no footprints and no log, and he still does not know whether they were real. The course doctor told him he had heard similar stories many times.

• Thompson says the evasion covered roughly 12 or 13 miles while instructors and local police pursued students.
• Thompson describes hours in a narrow cement cell with jarring violin music during the detention phase, where he saw worms and snakes that were not there.
• Rogan and Thompson discuss why sleep deprivation and stress distort memory and perception.

▸In their words

“I'm pretty sure it happened. I'm 80% sure it happened” Bill Thompson · at 58:29 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Joe Rogan Experience (2026-10-21). Read the whole episode summary →

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