Somewhere in the Skies - 2018 International UFO Congress with Alejandro Rojas

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

On episode 40 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with Alejandro Rojas, the Master of Ceremonies at the International UFO Congress. The event holds the Guinness World Record for the largest UFO conference in the world. It features presentations by scientists, academics, authors, researchers, experts, and those who have experienced paranormal or anomalous phenomena from all over the world. It also provides a forum to discuss experiences and findings. The event has over twenty speakers, a film festival, and scores of vendors. Alejandro gives us a sneak peek at each and every speaker and what they will be talking about. He then announces big news about a very special presentation that will take place over the weekend at the Congress. (Hint: Pentagon UFO Program...) To learn more, and to get your tickets, visit: www.UFOcongress.com Guest Bio: Alejandro Rojas is Director of Operations for Open Minds Production, the host for Open Minds UFO Radio, editor and contributing writer for OpenMinds.tv, and emcee for the International UFO Congress. He is also a blogger for the Huffington Post. For several years Alejandro was the official spokesperson for the Mutual UFO Network as the Director of Public Education. As a UFO/Paranormal researcher and journalist, Alejandro has spent many hours in the field investigating anomalous phenomena up close and personal. Alejandro has been interviewed by media organizations around the world, including appearances on Coast to Coast AM. He has been featured on the Travel Channel, Syfy, National Geographic, and E!. To learn more, visit: www.OpenMinds.tv Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Closing Song, "Wars Among Galaxies" by Caleb Hanks SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume, but it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only growing. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a business.

patron. To contribute and to learn more, visit www. www. patreon.com backslash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan's Bread. I have the master of ceremonies. My good friend, my colleague, Alejandro Rojas here to talk about the 27th annual International UFO Congress and Film Festival, which runs February 14th through the 18th at the week Resort and Conference Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. Alejandro, thank you so much for coming here today, my man. Oh, I'm happy to be here.

Always a pleasure to talk to you, Betty. Always. I mean, last year was my first ever public speaking event on UFOs, and that was at your Congress. I mean, talk about like trial by fireman. I'd never done it before, and I went up there in front of all those amazing people that you guys have come every year. It was a blast.

was so much fun. And not many people know this, but I also volunteered for many years before that because I just loved the work you guys do. And I loved coming out there every year from New York City. So this is the conference of all conferences. It brings people from all over the world. So before I blabber about it and fawn over it, why did you maybe tell some of our listeners what exactly the UFO Congress is? All right. Well, it's the largest UFO conference. It's, In fact, we have the Guinness World Record for it. There are some others that are kind of more alien-based that are getting pretty big. Alien con, like that one's big for ancient aliens.

But we focus on much more. In fact, ancient aliens people, a lot of them will say, I'm not a UFO researcher. I'm into something else. So that's what it is. We feature investigators, researchers, for the most part. So people that are actually doing something out there like yourself. So, I mean, I was, I thought you did excellent. It was great to have you there, and I knew you would do a good job.

Sometimes you're rolling the dice with some people, but I think you did better even than I expected. I was laughing. It was a lot of fun. Oh, well, thank you. Not laughing at you with you with me. I appreciate you making that right there. Yeah, there's a big difference for sure. But the crowd was so welcoming, and you guys, you know how to treat your speakers and your guests,

and it's just such a professional conference from the minute you're. get there to the minute you leave. It's just an enjoyable experience. And you learn something, which is the most important part. Everyone can learn something and benefit from something like this because you bring speakers about all different types of topics, whether they're scientists or academics or researchers, whether it's the alien abduction phenomenon, UFO, space and technology. It brings all these people together who have a passion for these topics and just want to hash it out, you know, have conversations. And, um, you guys do a wonderful job, too, with having panel discussions. It doesn't just end with someone telling you what to think. It's let's ask

questions, let's debate, which I think is very important as well. And, uh, have a good time while we're doing it. So, um, I will definitely, I can tell you this right now that, now that I live in Los Angeles, I'm hoping to get out there for at least a couple days this year. So, um, that'll be really exciting. I'll be back on the other side now in the audience, so that'll be great. But, yeah, before we go any further, let's maybe go through some of the lineup you have here. I'm looking at the guest list, and it is pretty jam-packed, my man, with some really amazing people. Let's see, who do we got? We've got Linda Moulin-How is coming. She's going to be talking about military whistleblowers. That's pretty interesting. How long has it been since she last spoke? It's been a few years. I think it's been maybe I actually, I think she was at the first one we brought here, 2011, and that was probably the last time she's spoken at the Congress. So it'll be interesting to hear her again.

I just heard her. I've been to a couple of places where she's been, for instance, I think I was at a Mufron Symposium before and then in Roswell last year. So, yeah, people love to hear from her. She's been doing this for a long time. So, and it's kind of interesting that she's speaking. of whistleblowers considering, you know, what's going on this year and everything. But, um, so we'll see what happens there.

Absolutely. I look forward to that. I mean, she's one of the, you know, no matter what you think of Linda Molinow, she's one of the most hardest working journalists, investigators out there. Another one that really hit close to home for me was Cheryl Costa from Syracuse, New York, my hometown, my newspaper that I grew up reading. She works for them. And she has a UFO section on their website, which is incredible.

For those who don't know, she wrote an extremely extensive book this past year that, you know, blew up was all over the media. You know, yes, we had a recent New York Times article about UFOs, but Cheryl had one earlier this year as well. So I was really happy to see that she'll be there too. Yeah, I think what she did was pretty extraordinary. I mean, the book was a huge effort. I interviewed her.

I'm sure you did for the last couple of years as she's been working on it. And it's taken a long time to compile all of that information together. But once the book came out, the other side of things, the other thing that she did that was really important, I think extraordinary that she needs to get a lot of credit for it. She went out there and marketed her book. And she did what we all should be doing with our, with information is, first of all, what she has is credible. but getting out there and talking to those media outlets, making them understand why this is important. And then luckily she had success in New York Times and many, many, you know,

I put up these headlines practically every day of UFO stories in the news. And all over the country, even in some other countries, there were stories about her book. And one of the reasons why is they can open it up and look at it and say, okay, Mesa, Arizona, what sightings were out here, and they can find that out. So it's a great handbook. It inspired a lot of very credible discussion around the country about this topic, you know, prior to the New York Times recent article.

And so she did something very important, I think. And I'm really proud of her, and it's going to be fun to have her back and talk about that experience. Absolutely. She is a very passionate journalist and speaker. I actually met her for the first time at your conference when she was speaking. And I had no idea she was from my hometown. So, I mean, we're like best friends now. She goes to my parents' house to have, like, coffee and tea.

It's amazing. And talk UFOs, something my parents never had a keen interest in. And now they're in, man. They are all in. So we've got some converts over at the Sprague household, for sure. How cool. So another really interesting thing you got going on this year, is the Travis Walton panel.

Now we've got Don Walton and Chuck Ellison, two members of this case that really haven't spoken that much about it publicly. So could you tell us a little about what to expect with this one, Alejandro? Yeah, this one's really exciting. We're going to have, you know, it'll be kind of like a panel, but they each get to share their experiences because they both had an important part of this case. So Travis is one person we have back almost every year, which is rare because we usually like to wait every three years or so before we have someone back,

which forces us to have fresh new speakers all of the time. However, these people related, like you said, have not spoken. Really, they've only spoken once before. So Karen, the owner of the Congress, she ran a conference for Travis, a 40th anniversary conference, and she did a lot of work to find people who had never spoken before or hadn't been out about this occurrence. And she found a lot of people. And the two that she was able to get to come and talk, who hadn't spoken before, was Chuck Ellison and Don Walton.

Don Walton, of course, is Travis' brother. He shared incredible experiences of what their family went through, even having to almost get in a fight with reporters and stuff like this. So very cool stuff to share. And Chuck Ellison was amazing. He was the police officer who was first on the scene. So when those guys couldn't find Travis and they're freaking out, They called the police and the police said, okay, meets one of our officers in this parking lot.

And the person they met was Chuck Ellison. And none of these guys had seen Chuck Ellison for 40 years since the event occurred. They were for the first time met him at the conference. And Travis had never met him because, you know, he was not there. So they had no idea what he was going to say. And to me, this adds to the credibility. they didn't care. I mean, they weren't worried or afraid of what he would have to say.

And what he had to say was incredible. The Q&A, the way he answered the questions, if you're a subscriber to the UFO Congress video portal, or if you came to that conference, then you will have seen how incredible a moment it was. So to have him back and to share this with this audience, a bigger audience is really cool. So, yeah, I think this is only the second time

these guys have gone on stage to talk to audiences about this. And they're in for a treat, that's for sure, because it's really good stuff. Absolutely. And like you said, I mean, the guy hasn't talked about this in 40 years, like you said. That's amazing. There has to be a reason that he is publicly speaking at UFO conferences now. He must firmly believe that what happened to Travis happened and that there is something to this. This wasn't this. This cover up of a possible murder of Travis as many claimed back when it happened. So I'm interested to hear what that, what comes of that for sure. Well, what was cool about last time also when he did this is a lot of people have questions. Why did the police do this? Why did the police do that? And he's

able to answer the questions. And it makes sense. And there are great questions that people ask and that, you know, as someone not in law enforcement, we wouldn't understand. So I think that that our audience will do the same, ask some great questions, and Chuck will give some great answers. So this is going to be great. I'm so excited about this. Absolutely. And what I think is really cool this year, Alejandro, is a lot of people always think that the UFO field is wrought with, let's just, let's be honest, it's a boys club. But I was really excited to see the list of female speakers you have this year. I mean, you've got Yvonne Smith, Jennifer Stein, Alice Duffel, the daughter of Anne Duffel, am I correct?

That is correct, you know. And I, you know, I've always strived to do this to bring, make sure they're that, so I'm cognizant of the issue of that there are too many men that speak at most of these conferences. And so I do my best. But Karen, having Karen involved now, she can do better than I can. And there is a different perspective. You know, there is a different set of interests, I think, between the sexes, the genders. And so we do have a larger representation. And I think as long as Karen's involved, we will have that.

And so that is a positive because I think there has to be that balance. So, yeah, we have a lot more female speakers. Yeah. Nancy, you have Nancy. You have Susan J. Palmer, which is one I'm really, really looking forward. to. Now, I know last year you spoke about aliens and religion, and this seems like a really cool one. She's going to be talking about the contact D movement and cults, the case of rail, prophets of UFO religions. This is a sociological perspective of the alien phenomenon that not

many people are familiar with. So this is one I'm really looking forward to hearing, hopefully, in person. Again, fingers crossed. Are you excited about this one as well, having spoken about what you did last year? Yeah, I, you know, my talk was about religion. You're right. And so she speaks on UFO religions, and she had seen my talk, and she had sent me a note and said, I think you would think, you know, this stuff I'm working on is really interesting. And so I brought her on the podcast, and she was really interesting because even though she,

she literally embedded herself with the railie and she joined their group and got to know them. and she also uncovered other interesting organizations based on UFOs or aliens. And I think that's really important to look at the sociological aspect. And I think people will be surprised. She isn't academic. She's a professor in Canada. But she isn't going to just poo-poo or be negative. She's actually a very positive person.

And she likes to try to understand people. And I think that what she's going to share is going to be very, interesting. I find her work really interesting. So I hope people really like it. I think they will. I think so too. It's definitely like a portion, a subset of the topic that you don't hear about often. So that's really cool. You have Michael Carter, who's going to be talking about the spiritual transformation of the experience. Or Michael was a big part of my book, was a big part of my lecture last year at Congress. So that's really cool. I know he sort of took a break from talking about this for a while, but he's back. It looks like. he's ready to bring some new revelations about what he's learned. That's really cool to see him on the list. Michael Carter is interesting too. Yeah, again, it is kind of religion and euphology, but he's more about the Bible. And he is kind of more about ancient aliens. That's why he's on the television show,

which is something that I don't have as strong of an interest in as many. However, even though we don't necessarily share the common interests. And on that respect, there are many other things we do. And he is just such an incredible person. Whenever I interview him, I feel so, I feel better. I feel like a counseling session. I just feel happy and positive. And he is just an absolute wonderful person.

He's a great guy. And so I think that the audience is going to love him. I have no doubt. Yeah, he took a break. and so we weren't able to get him, I think it was last year or the year before, as I've been trying to get him. And so finally, it's working out this year. And I'm really happy about that. I'm just happy to have his energy at our conference because, you know, he's a positive force with a big smile all the time.

And I know if I ever feel down, I'm going to be able to go talk to him and just feel great. So, yeah, and the audience, a lot of people have an interest in the ancient alien stuff. And so, you know, David Hatcher, Childress, luckily lives nearby. We have him a lot, and he'll probably be passing by at the conference. We get to luckily, you know, mingle in the same circle so we get to hang out with him on occasion. But Childress is always very popular when he comes to the conference. So this will be a lot of fun. I'm so happy to have Michael.

Absolutely, man. And then, I mean, you've got some veterans that, you know, never let us down. You've got Mr. Bassett's going to be there. Got William Burns. He got Don Schmidt. That's awesome. I can't wait to see what these guys have been up to, you know. Don's taking some heat.

We all know this in the past couple years. So it's refreshing to see him coming back with something as interesting as talking about J.L. and Heineck. Did he know the truth about what he was investigating? That's a question we've all had. You know, we had a wonderful book that came out about Heinek this past year. We've got this new Blue Book television series premiering. I think this is a perfect time for what Don's doing. I agree.

Heineck is a really important figure and one that I always try to focus on and remind people that he existed because he's essentially pretty much the grandfather of uphology, at least civilian UFO research. So he's very important. Many people don't know how close Don was that Don worked for him. He was an actual investigator for him. And so Don is the perfect person to talk about this. A funny little side note is that Don Schmidt was working with Heinek and Kufos when the Roswell incident. became popular and he thought it was silly. He thought they'd be able to go to Roswell for the weekend and debunk the whole thing. Little did he know it would begin to encompass his life, you know, like it has now and that's what he's known for. So that ought to be great. Bassett, of course, is always so high energy and a lot of fun. He's the biggest cheerleader.

You know, people get so excited and they get so jazzed up. It's almost like I would imagine like it is going to some evangelical church. People just so excited. So of course, that's going to be great. He's been gone. He's been out of country for a while. So it's going to be cool to hear what he has to say when he gets back. And who is the third person you mentioned?

Oh, Bill Burns. Bill Burns. Bill Burns rarely does conference appearances. And, you know, luckily, it's the importance of keeping open contact with people. Luckily, I do keep in contact with Bill Burns. I was able to write a review about his newest book, Edison versus Tesla and the ghost phone type of thing they were working on on the Huffington Post. And so we've kept in contact. And I've been trying to get him at our conference for years.

He just doesn't do conferences, really. And so I'm super excited to have him, his wife, Nancy, who I've never met. I've talked with will be coming. And I'm excited to meet her. and he is he's got always got some very interesting perspectives and so I don't have any clue

what he's going to talk about but I know it will be controversial and I'm sure people are going to love it at first I didn't think it was real I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported

to another place Pluto TV then I heard a voice come with me if you want to live there were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is ours. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free

streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe, Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. Well, that's the trust he put in someone like Bill. I mean, he's going to bring something to the table that are going

to leave people arguing for the whole week, and that's what we need. Exactly. One of the things you guys do, there Alejandro, is bring people that we haven't heard from before. And many people may have read some of his books, but he hasn't done many lectures. And that's my friend and colleague Robbie Graham, who I recently did some work with on a new book, UFOs Reframing the Debate.

And this is pretty cool. You've got him and Bryce Zabel, two guys pretty well known, one in Hollywood and one who talks all about Hollywood and UFOs. So that is a great duo right there. Yeah. So this is a lot of fun. Bryce Zabel, of course, is he's a good friend. He's a Hollywood guy.

He used to be in charge of the Academy Awards. He's making movies and TV shows, but he's really into UFOs. In fact, he's working on a Betty and Barney Hill movie right now. And Dan Aykroyd said he's interested and said the script was amazing and is trying to help him to get Spielberg to direct it. So I don't know if that will happen, but this is something. some recent news that Bryce was able to share with us. So Bryce is going to be great. He's high energy.

Last time he spoke was a few years ago, and it's still to this date, the best PowerPoint I've ever seen. And I know this PowerPoint he's working on is really, he uses the AV stuff in it really well. And so I think, you know, just for the PowerPoint alone,

I thought his talk last time was amazing. So I know he's going to be great high energy this year, too. We put him right before the speaker, banquet on Wednesday night because that way we have this good high energy going into it. And then Robbie, speaking of controversy, Robbie Graham wants to be very controversial. And so this ought to be interesting. And what the heck, like you said, controversy is good.

It gets people talking. It's kind of his first and last talk in uphology. He says that he might get out of UFOs altogether. We'll see if that happens. People have said they're going to get out and they haven't before. Oh, yeah. We've all said that. Yeah, we've all said that here or there. I've said it probably dozens of times.

Yeah. But so he's going to be great. I'm really excited. I don't think he's the type he'll really offend people. And it's funny because sometimes people like him who are professional, they feel like they're going to be harsh, but they're not as harsh as, you know, others who are less professional are. Absolutely. So it comes across as just thoughtful.

And he is a very thoughtful. intelligent thinker. And that's what's great about Robbie. So this is going to be exciting. Absolutely. The British accent doesn't hurt either. That it softens the blow. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to me, hopefully meeting Robbie in person for the first time. So that's great. We've got a few more names here before I want to get to some prime ones that I know both you and I discussed. We're really looking forward to. We've got Haktan Akhtogun from Turkey. That's pretty awesome. Have you seen him talk before or anything? I've never heard him talk, but I've read several articles pertaining to what he's doing, which I think is amazing.

Again, we think of this as a very Western phenomenon to see that these things are happening all over the world and being investigated. That's extremely important and very exciting. That's really cool. Yeah, we've got Dr. Bob Gross, who you've got, who's going to be talking about Kexberg. That's pretty cool. He's a scientist. You have an aerospace engineer. T.L. Keller is going to be the...

talking about the what what the hypothetical you know propulsion that these craft might be using yeah essentially he's and he's going to be talking about could you know he's going to be speaking about could you know some of these things be top secret uh military aircraft and or are they not and that's kind of what he's going to be exploring and he's a an engineer an aerospace engineer so he's definitely the type of person who is qualified to speak on that topic. I would say so, for sure. I mean, and you could even connect Susie Hansen, who you have speaking as well, in terms of alien technology.

She seems to be looking at more as a consciousness thing, which I think is pretty cool, too. We hear more and more about this. The past X-Files episode, this new season, dealt with this as well, you know, uploading a consciousness to something. And this is how people can communicate and travel if they're body has moved on. These are things that are extremely fascinating and things we don't necessarily always connect to the UFO phenomenon. So that's pretty cool too. Again, getting different perspectives is what I think is important in what you guys do best. Exactly. And they are very different

perspectives. For instance, especially these two you brought up, Dr. Gross is going to be debunking essentially Kexberg. But he has a very compelling information. And he's got a, and he's found some other interesting things that he wants to share. Now, he is a UFO investigator. He believes very strongly that this phenomena is a real deal. But like the rest of us, when we investigate cases to kind of demonstrate that they're genuinely mysterious and then we find out otherwise, we also get excited to share that information. So I think that he'll be controversial.

And of course, Susie will be controversial because he's going to be talking about speaking with aliens and alien abduction and stuff like that. And she's all the way from New Zealand, so it's a rare treat for people to get to meet her personally. But she has worked with scientists such as Dr. Rudy Shield on her theory. So she's been careful. She's tried to kind of bring that credibility to what she's doing. That's great, man. And I mean, look, you got New Zealand, Turkey, England.

You guys are really going international this year. And I think that's, it's in the name. It's there. And I'm really excited for that. I'm also very excited about two of your speakers. Now, one of them is in the film biz. One is not. But this film, this TV special, scared the living day when I was a kid.

I thought it was real, man. I thought it was real. And now I'm learning that maybe it was at least based on a real event. This is Dean Aliotto. He's going to be talking about his famous alien abduction found footage film. and the conspiracy behind it. How did you get in touch with this guy? He got in touch with me, which is a really cool.

And he said, hey, I'm the guy who made that, you know, this film. And I would like to, I've never talked about it. People are always talking to me about it. I know there's this conspiracy theory that it's real. And I want to clear the air. And I've got this whole idea of how I want to do this and talk about it. That'll be a lot of fun. And would you be willing to have me do that?

And of course, I was just like, that's a no-brainer, of course, because I'm like you. That show, it was found footage first person like Blair Witch many, many, many years before the Blair Witch. And it was scary. Now, I didn't think it was real, but I was kind of like, is this real? Is it not? And watching it by myself at night, I was a few years older than you. So I think I was a teenager by then.

And it was really, really freaky. And what, but here's, you know, once the show was over, it, they had credits. And in the credits, you saw Alien 1, Alien 2, Alien 3. So that confirmed my suspicions. But there are a lot of people. I guess even at the Congress, years before we had it, there was a couple of people who came up and did a whole lecture about how this video is real. And so that's one of the reasons he thought it would be funny to come to the conference and say, Look, guys, this is my student project.

However, like you said, he wants to share that this is, I didn't just make this up, obviously. It's because I'm interested in the topic. And he's going to be sharing his, you know, his whole background and how this all worked in it. And he shared some of that with me and it's really, really interesting. And I think it's some insight into, you know, in this case, a filmmaker who brought his passion, which was his interest in UFOs and aliens into his work and just kind of the really weird situation that it created. I can't wait to hear about that.

That's so cool. As a fellow filmmaker, I love to hear the process. And when it comes to the alien topic, even more. So that's really cool. Sort of the last guy I want to focus on here, Alejjo, is Alan Holt. This is really cool. A retired NASA project man. manager. What is he going to be talking about? Yeah, this is really cool. So Alan Holt has been around,

and you know, people don't know this because he's been kind of behind the scenes. He's been a consultant for Mufon. He's worked with a lot of the other names, big names in this field that we would recognize, but he's always worked in the background because he's been working for NASA for decade. Well, he's finally retired. And again, this is someone that Karen was friends with Karen found. And he hasn't really wanted to come out and talk about his interests and his discoveries, but she was able to talk him into it. Now he's more willing to do it now that he's retired. So finally, for the first time, even though he's been in the background for a while,

he's going to come and share his thoughts. So really, his title of his talk and his description is a little enigmatic. You know, it's a little vague. And I think that that is purposeful on his part. But I'm very confident. That his talk is going to be really interesting. And I'm just hoping that. And I believe that he'll be continued now that he's retired to be more involved with

this field. He's going to be a great asset for us all who are doing some serious research. So, yeah, this is great. This is really, really good. This is going to be another one that's going to be terribly interesting. Awesome. Again, can't wait. If I can't make it to that one, I would definitely be getting the DVD of that one.

Or people can go to the video portal and for just a few bucks, you can have access to all those videos and past videos. That's right. Including yours. Yes, yes, I completely forgot about that. Yes, that from all different years as well, am I correct? You are correct, yeah. Now, we have, I believe I mentioned her, but we have Jennifer Stein talking about crop circles. Always great to hear from her amazing documentarian.

And then we have our two regulars. We have Ben Hansen and Yvonne Smith. Yvonne will be doing the experiencer sessions, I assume. Yep, you're right. Yep, which is always cool. I've sat in on a few of those. You know, the press is not allowed into these events. It's very personal.

That's where you get to hear people talk about their experiences, whether it's an abduction experience, a close encounter. It's a safe place for people to come together and talk about it. Really cool. Yvonne's an amazing, amazing person. And if I were ever to have an abduction experience, that is the person I would want to talk to. And then we have Ben Hansen doing the Night Skywatch. Yep.

Yep. Always awesome. As usual, yep, we always have him doing that in a bond. Then also moderates the abduction panel that we host. We have one every year for the abduction researchers to get together and kind of talk and to be able to answer questions. And that kind of gets back to your other point about having the panels because we always tell the speakers they're like, I would like to answer some. questions from the audience. I tell them that's fine, but you've got to put it, make that room in your talk, and they never do. Never. They take up the whole time. So we like to do the panels

because that's where a lot of the panels are Q&A from the audience. So that's where they can ask their questions. I love it. I love the way. And then Ben's awesome. And of course, the night vision stuff is so fun. And of course, if you're in the market for some night vision equipment, he can advise you and even sell it to you. It's so cool. And you could to test it too. And no matter what, you are going to see something. That is a given. What that's something might be, of course, that always remains, you know, enigmatic, but you will see something. So definitely check that out if you can. So before we get to the big news of the conference, Alejandro, I want to talk a little bit about the film festival. Now, this is what I helped with every year.

I helped run this. And it's so much fun to see all these amazing films about aliens, UFO, So I'd love to hear what do you got for us this year that you'll be screening at the conference? We have a lot of films. And I haven't had the time. And I'll get this up hopefully tomorrow, a list of the films that we've got for, because we do have them finalized at UFO congress.com. So we've got like seven short films and three long form films. And the production value is really high on the films this year. About half of them are narratives. So they are fictional movies, but they're really interesting. And then the other half are documentaries. Documentaries typically do better at the conference, so we'll see what happens. But some really interesting entries. And I think there's only one person in our list of films that has submitted a film before.

And that's a lot of fun because a lot of times we have the same filmmakers coming back. But these are all new people. So really good stuff. We've got, you know, documentaries on Secret Space Program, on consciousness and ET, contact, on disclosure, on a lot of different things. And some comedies. We do have a couple people, Joshua Warren, who's a well-known paranormal researcher. He submitted a short film. And then also Oliver Marshall.

I don't know if you remember him. The guy from England has the accent, the younger. guy kind of a I think he's bald and he would come and uh to the conferences all the time and and he actually shot a film and finished it he's been working on this for years used to go to all the UFO conferences and so I'm really excited for him that he's finally finished this and you can tell he put a lot of work into it and I think especially you as a filmmaker for a first film I think it's impressive so uh this ought to be a lot of fun I'm just I always get excited to see what the reaction that people have to the films will be.

Absolutely. And again, it's bringing new people into the field. And also, these films can be distributed worldwide. So that's just getting the message out even more. Even if it's fiction, there's something to be gleaned from that always. You know, we live in a field wrought with half-truths and trying to decode what might be in that fiction. So no matter what, I have no doubt that it's going to be an awesome set of films. And I look forward to seeing who gets up there with the alien statue this year, the EBE Awards.

Always love that. It's like our version of the Oscars, right? Yeah, and it's a lot of fun to award the people with them. And it is. It's going to be fun. The big news that you dropped on us this week at your website at open minds. TV was that and UFOCongris.com is you got the one and only man. responsible for this, I mean, not the only one, but definitely the man behind the Pentagon

Secret UFO program. Tell us how this happened. Yeah, this is definitely the man of the hour. So I can't reveal all of the way that I received. And that's what's funny about all of this. So, for instance, I just interviewed Leslie Kane for my podcast. There's a lot that she can't share. There's certain things that Louise can't share. I've been talking with Tom DeLong. There's certain things he can't share. But really, luckily, I've been talking with Tom. And it's kind of through that relationship and through some sleuthing on my own that I was able to get a hold of him. But what was really cool was, you know, I asked him if he would want to be involved with the conference.

And it was a no-brainer for him. He was so excited. He wanted people to know that people that research UFOs are and are into this topic were an inspiration. to him, that they could sacrifice or, you know, jeopardize their reputation and their relationships to be into this field and to investigate it. And he says that inspired him to bring, you know, what he's brought to the public, this whole revelation that the Department of Defense has been taking UFO seriously and researching them for years. And so he is a very, very humble person. He is just really cool. So he was very excited.

to speak with the conference. There have been some gatekeepers in place, and so it was great when we could finally connect because he had told me that he had expressed to people that he wanted to be involved with the conference, because I've been talking to Tom and some of his people for a while now, and I've been told, and that's why we've kept the Saturday open. They keep telling me, yeah, well, we want to do something. We haven't figured out what. And they keep telling me that and telling me that. And of course, the New York Times story blew up, probably bigger than even they expected. So they have been really busy. So luckily we were able to arrange this. Now, unfortunately, he was planning on being there in person because he wanted to answer questions

from the audience. And he's like, I don't want, you know, nothing held back. I want everyone to ask any question. He's like, I know there's people with fringe ideas, but we don't know that they're not right. He's like, I don't know that. Just because they're talking about wild things, what I know is what I know and I can share that, but I don't know that these people are all wrong. I'm open to the possibility that some of these people, the most crazy idea, could be the one that we discover is a truth. So he's very open to all of the different ideas people have. But unfortunately, a personal situation caused him to change his schedule and there's something he just cannot miss during the weekend of the conference. So he has said, no problem, we can get together and film an interview with him with questions.

that we get from the public. And so people can send their questions to Alejandro at UFOcongris.com. And we'll be able to answer the questions. And the other thing is, you know, luckily I have some relations with some of the people in the group, like Leslie Kane and Tom, who can vouch for us and say, hey, you know, these guys are pretty cool. So I have that helped. That's incredible, man.

The opportunity to ask the head of this program, what he did, what he thinks is going on, and what possibly they discovered in their time investigating it. That's a rarity. So everyone, I urge you to send your questions to Alejandro. Can you give us that again? Yeah, Alejandro at UFOCongris.com. And Alejandro is spelled, because some people are probably like, how the hell do I spell that?

It's A-L-E-J-A-N-D-R-O at UFOCongris.com. And most likely many of you have been like me. You've watched these media interviews, but they're not versed in this field. They're not asking all the questions. They're not asking the right questions. You know, they're only asking three or four, and half of those are just off topic or in the wrong direction, I feel. So finally, we're going to be able to ask him the questions we all want to ask.

And I told him, you know, I want to ask questions that may be difficult, but what are really people are looking for. And I tell people often, I'm not doing this in the spirit just to get at you, but to make sure that, You know, you're, we get the answers to the tough questions out there. And he's like, are you kidding? He's like, you ask me whatever. No problem. Some things I won't be able to get into. And I'll tell you that. But yeah, ask me whatever you need to ask. And so, um, this ought to be great. That's awesome. And we have to remember that the reason Luis left the program is because of the secrecy behind it. So, you know, the fact that he has brought this forward means he wants to talk about it as truthful as possible. So, I think that's amazing. Hopefully this will be a springboard as Tom and to the stars continue to do what they're doing. For all the flak we've given DeLong throughout all of this, you know, the guy is producing. So we have to keep that in mind. He really is.

And I've gotten so much crap this year for giving him that award a year ago, researcher of the year. Although I have not second guess that at all. For me, it's still a no-brainer that he received. that award for the reasons we outlined in that video for the award and luckily it's there's been a lot of validation because i've had a lot of people come to me and say okay we gave you a lot of crap about the long but he did come through and uh and so that's that's been nice he sure did and it's only beginning from what he's telling us so we'll see yeah yeah absolutely oh my gosh man i am like hyperventilating at all these people you got this here who you're

really what you really hit it out of the park i uh i'm excited to see what comes of this give us the information on where we can get tickets and when this is happening once more if you will yeah no problem so you can go to ufocongris dot com to get ticket and you'll want to go there as soon as possible because the uh rates will go up in just a couple of weeks so after january 27th the rates will go up. So in order to get a major discount, go get your tickets right now at UFOCongris.com before January 27th. So it's going to be a lot of fun. And just so people know, we have a host of hotels around because really our conference is kind of like a Comic Con or something. You know, we fill up the host hotel before we even list the speakers. So this year, they filled up in

August. But luckily, there's a number of hotels around and we're able to work with many of them to get discount. So some of the room rates are really low. In fact, some of the room rates, you can get to low room rate, rent a car for just a few bucks a day, and you'll come out ahead. You'll save and you'll be able to have a car so you can go places if you need to. Still very affordable and great places around that people can stay at. And you can go to the lodging page to see that. Perfect. And that's at UFO congress.com. Guys, make the trip. I flew from New York City. every year to do this. You can do it. It's amazing. It's worth the week. Take a vacation. Do it. Learn something. I cannot speak enough praise for what you guys are doing over there, Alejandro. I look forward to seeing you,

hopefully in a few weeks. And best of luck with everything, my man. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I look forward, very forward as usual, to seeing you again.