Somewhere in the Skies - Chris Cogswell: MUFON and the Mad Scientist

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

On episode 44 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by the newly appointed director of Research for the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), Chris Cogswell. Ryan has been pretty vocal about his thoughts on MUFON in the past, and with news of a new Director of Research, he opened the floor to listeners and beyond the put Chris to the test. How did Chris get involved with MUFON? What are his credentials? And just exactly what are his plans to completely overhaul the way MUFON handles its research and investigations? His answers were extremely invigorating and refreshing to a MUFON skeptic.  Ryan and Chris also discuss some very ambitious theories on UFOs and how these theories can be applied to the future of UFO research both in and out of MUFON. They then dive deep into Chris's own show, THE MAD SCIENTIST PODCAST.  Guest Bio: Chris Cogswell is a PhD in Chemical Engineering, host of The Mad Scientist Podcast, and the newly appointed Director of Research for MUFON. His research focused on the use of nanomaterials for sustainability improvements to existing systems. He hopes to bring MUFONs methods and ideas into the 21st century, and be critical of the ideas and theories floating around UFOlogy today. You can follow his podcast at www.themadscientistpodcast.com. 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 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 Skies 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 somewhere skies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. For those who follow my social networking habits from day to day, you know that I have been very vocal about my opinions on UFO research organizations, but particularly the that of the Mutual UFO Network for Mufon. For those who may not be familiar with this organization, I will let the executive director describe it in his own words. My name is Jan Harzan. I'm the executive director for Mufon.

We are a scientific research organization that basically collects citing reports from the public and then goes and investigates them. Our mission statement as an organization is the scientific study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity. and we have three primary goals. We investigate UFO reports. We promote research into the UFO subject,

and we educate the public on our findings. This mission by the mature UFO network is very sound and concise, you know, on target. But how do you investigate a phenomenon that refuses to ever play within the strictures of organized science and investigation? Well, you don't. Being a civilian-run organization,

Mufon boasts. chapters in countless cities, states, countries, and even continents. In every single one of those chapters have their own approaches, opinions, and theories on how to tackle this deeply mysterious topic. So findings are often scarce, and conclusions are rarely, if ever, made. And those in and outside of the organization often find this frustrating. But when it comes to UFOs, when we not frustrated. Well, I'd say it's when we turn that frustration into passion. And that's exactly what our guest today has done with his newly appointed position of Director of Research for Mufan. Chris Cogswell is a PhD in chemical engineering, host of the Mad Scientist podcast, and the newly

appointed director of research for Mufan. His research focused on the use of nanomaterials for sustainability improvements to existing systems. He hopes to bring Mufon's methods and ideas into the 21st century and be critical of the ideas and theories floating around ephology today. I look forward to discussing these very topics and issues with Chris in this interview. So, without further ado, let's talk to Chris Cogswell. Chris, thank you so much for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Oh, no problem.

I'm a huge fan. as you know, as you know, and excited to be on here. Yeah, man, the same could be said. I've been listening to your show for a while. I love the topics you choose, the approach you take. And we're definitely going to get into that in this conversation. But before we even get to move on, I have to ask you, because we've never actually personally discussed this with one another.

Where and when did your interest in UFOs? Where did it stem from? Yeah, so actually, my family background, I go into this on the show a bit, but my family background is pretty interesting. We're kind of, so my mom's family is originally from Italy, from a really small town. Or it was a small town. Now it's a relatively large town, but from Boddadi in Italy. And so my grandma is originally from Yugoslavia, from Zagreb, which is now in Croatia.

And so my grandma, my Nona, always had these stories growing up about people in her family, being able to, you know, see the future in dreams. and kind of, we've always sort of had, I guess, this backdrop of esoteric, you know, paranormal-esque stuff in our family history. And so, you know, so my, one of my cousins, Liz actually did a lot of research during her master's degree in, in witchcraft and stuff and kind of like the history of witchcraft and which sightings and all that kind of stuff. So anyways, when I was a kid, then, you know, that kind of stuff was like, was always kind of in the mix for my family. and I just kind of fell in love with Chariots of the Gods by Eric von Daniken. I absolutely loved that book when I first read it, and I just thought it was fascinating, and it kind of led me to reading more about how ancient cultures kind of grew and how they built these monolithic structures and sort of, you know, getting more interested in, like, the anthropology

and stuff. But over time, it just kind of continued to be a love of UFO stories specific. And so probably the first really like serious UFO study book that I read was probably probably the interrupted journey. Yes. I want to say. And it's one of my, it's one of one of the ones that I like, I don't, I didn't remember it really all that well. But I absolutely loved it when I was a kid. I remember having the book and looking at it and stuff and being being into it.

Right. And just kind of being like so afraid about what. is this? What happened right to these people? And just kind of it all stemmed from there, you know, just being interested in loving the topic and stuff and just kind of trying to find all of that, all the info about these cases that I could. And eventually it led me to, you know, I've always been of a scientific viewpoint. And so it kind of led me almost naturally towards scientific skepticism, right? And so looking at the stuff by, you know, Michael Shermer and all these, you know, Michiocaku and all these big names in physics, talking about kind of the fringes of where science and physics is headed,

but then also talking about where this stuff is being misused potentially. So that's always been kind of my take on it, I suppose. Right. And I mean, that led you on the path to actually become a scientist yourself. Am I correct? Yeah. So my love of science kind of blossomed and took over, I'd say in high school, I definitely wanted to be in a punk band. That was like, I know that feeling. Yeah, I was like, I'm going to be, I'm going to be in the biggest ska band of all time, which like was not a high bar necessarily to set for myself. But, you know, I was excited about it.

And then like, you know, like all good ska band kids, I figured out that people didn't want to hear trombones with their punk music all that much. And so I should probably get another day job. So I originally did chemical engineering as an undergraduate student at the University of New Hampshire. I did that in philosophy, actually, as a second degree. And then I had the opportunity to get my PhD in chemical engineering at Northeastern University. And so I went and did research on nanotechnology. And, you know, always though had in the back of my mind this philosophy stuff and this love of these questions. questions about, you know, why do people believe certain things? Why do people, why do people believe

certain, you know, non-scientific ideas? And then why do some scientific pieces of evidence find a hard time getting their way into the public mind? Or, you know, why do people seem resistant to some scientific ideas or theories or whatever, whereas other ones seem to have a really quick, you know, easy time to latch on? That is a great point. And I do want to touch on the philosophy aspect, Chris, with you a little bit later in the show. So keep that on the back burner for sure. But moving forward, the real reason that I wanted to have you on the show today is because of your new position that you're now doing with Mufon, the mutual UFO network.

I have to ask, you know, wanting to be in a scobed and then changing to being a scientist, what led to this next decision on your career path of working with Mufon? Yeah, so I have always, I think like a lot of, I think like a lot of people that are interested in this subject, right? Like Mufon always held like a special, almost like a mystical place for me, right? Because it was like, it was this, you know, it had a cool acronym and every case I was reading about it was like, and then Mufon showed up, right? And I was always, you know, I always viewed it as having almost an air of, an air of seriousness to it that other, you know, if Mufon was there, something was really going. going on, right? And as I got older and learned more about Mufant and how to get involved in stuff, I started to realize that, you know, well, this is an organization just like any organization.

It's full of, you know, real human people. And like any human endeavor, it has, you know, politics and problems and whatever. It's just, you know, it's a, it's a group of people like anything else. And so I sort of, you know, I sort of was skeptical for a long time and very critical. And I wasn't sure what they were doing or what they should be doing. And then when I got my PhD, I started doing the podcast and my co-host was like, well, you have a PhD now. Like, people will just assume you know what you're doing. Right. Right. So like, why don't you try to get involved more? And, you know, I just, I decided to go for it. So I always knew that I wanted to be involved in talking about science and skepticism and investigation in this realm of stuff, but I didn't really know how to go

about it. And in talking to Mufon and just kind of getting involved, they were really open to my ideas. And I found a lot of people that were thinking a lot of the same stuff that I was. And so, and so, you know, it just seemed like a no-brainer to, you know, as opposed to kind of, I guess, from the outside, trying to find, you know, I'm the kind of person that thinks if you love something you should try to work to make it better, right? And Mufon has always held a special place for me, like I said, in these investigations and the history of UFO studies. And, you know, I felt like there was, there's a lot of good that Mufon has done and a lot of, a lot to be saved, right? So I wanted to kind of try to fix things from the inside. Exactly. Yeah. I mean,

what better way to sort of, you know, I guess I could use the term take something down is by joining it and taking it down from within. I love it. Well, it's kind, yeah, it's You know, it's kind of funny. Like, when I, what, so this is going to kind of sound silly. What actually finally made me want to join was, was hearing on last podcast that Henry Zabrowski had joined, right? When Henry Zabrath, like, when he joined, I was like, you know what, screw it, I'm going to do it too.

I was like, I'll join too and I'll see if I can make things better, right? And I'm going to try to really get out here and see what I can do here. And it's been, I mean, it's been awesome so far. Yeah, yeah. It seems like, I mean, just before we started recording, you're out. talking to members of Mufon to get their opinion on what can change. I think that is incredible. I mean, you've only had this position for what?

A few weeks now? And you're already making more progress publicly, and that is another thing we're going to get and do later, than most Mufon investigators or, you know, the higher-ups have done in many, many years. And I know that sounds critical, but again, we are going to get into that. So that's very exciting. You know, the fact that you're willing to share that with, the public at large already that, look, we hear you, here's, here's what we're going to do.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thing because coming from academic science, you know, in science, you're sort of, you're like begging people to listen to what you're doing, right? You're sending out these abstracts to journals to publish your paper and you're talking to friends at conferences and saying, you know, well, hey, can I come give a talk in front of your group? And, right, like, academic science, if you're not telling the public what you're doing,

then you might as well not be doing it, right? And that's kind of the view that I've always had with any kind of research, right? I mean, if you're not, like, who cares if you're compiling thousands of pages of data if you're just going to share it to your friends? Right. Right. Like, you should be able to, you should want to be shouting this from the rooftop. Look, it will be found, right?

And so, and I think partially that's because Mufon has had a sense of members wanting to be secret and wanting to be quiet about what they're doing for fear of reprisal or for fear of mocking or whatever. And also a sense of kind of like, you know, move on not wanting. I think we just didn't know how to be that organization that talks about this kind of stuff in that way for a long time because it is humans. It is people that have had their lives changed by these experiences, right? So it's a little hard to like get it out to the public. But yeah, one of, I mean, listen, again, I think that if the great stuff that's happening at Mufon, we should be telling it to the public. So I'm hopeful that that's one thing that I will be able to change is at least putting it out there. So people,

like, you know, if people want to see what we're doing, they should be able to. For a lot of my listeners, I know I have many Mufon members who listen to the show, even though they know I've been pretty critical as of late, with some more ancillary reasons, I would say, within Mufon. But in terms of that, Chris, we have Mufon members. who believe that there needs to be an overhaul, a reform of sorts. And I have some questions from listeners specifically about how you plan to do this. So I guess sort of really diving into what you plan on doing with Mufon. What do you plan to do as director of research in terms of overhauling the organization?

There's a number of things that I think we could do a lot better than we do now. And so one of those is actually coming out and giving definitive. Whereas definitive as any research study can be, giving definitive answers on either individual cases or general ideas. And that's one issue that I think, you know, Mufon has almost two roles. It's taken on two roles. It's still the research organization that it has been since its inception. But it's also in some ways these local chapters are a place for people who have had scary experiences or experiences. or experiences that they can't explain,

this is a place for them to come together and in some ways support each other, right? And I use the analogy of sort of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, right? In the sense of if you went to an AA meeting and someone said that, you know, the reason I drink is because I had a bad childhood upbringing, you wouldn't then want someone to come in the next week and say, well, actually, I investigated and they had a great upbringing.

Like, you don't want that to happen. And so in many cases, there are people coming in and saying, listen, I don't know what happened to me. I had a scary experience. It has affected my life negatively. And so for the next week, an investigator to come back and say, we looked into it, we think that they are lying or we think that they are just mistaken. Right. That doesn't have to be lying. They can just be mistaken. That might not, that's not a good way to support these people. Right. And so we need, we almost need an overhaul of putting these things into. their own baskets, right? We can be a supportive community and we can be a place for people to talk about their experiences, but we can also be a group that actually investigates these things and comes to some conclusions. So that's the first general thing that I have to say on that. In terms of actual concrete steps that we're taking, we are first off opening up the Mufon books to scientists and to the public. So if you

want to join Mufon right now, you can. If you are academically trained in some way, so it doesn't matter what your degree is in. But if you have an academic degree at a master's level or above, you can send me an email and I will get you limited access to Mufon so that you can see what we're doing and you can try to make things better with me. That's the first step that I'm, that I was able to kind of get going here. The second one is we are creating a, a internal critique board, kind of a review board. And so what the point of this review board is going to be is every week, Mufon gets sometimes hundreds of UFO reports. And those reports are being investigated by people. They're being investigated by our field officers. After that process

happens that they're investigated, those field officers then will write a report, we'll give their own conclusions on what they think is occurring, will say whether or not they think that we should have a follow-up, and then we'll upload all of that onto our servers. Now, after that point, because it's personal information, the public doesn't get to see that stuff. What I'm hoping to do here now will be, as those reports come in, we have a group of people who are going to be reviewing these cases, who will be providing critiques and follow-up questions, and some kind of idea of, you know, well, do we think this is a, do we think that this is a case worth following up on? And then on those cases that we find to be of public interest, on those cases that we feel are worthy of public

discourse, we will write our own write-up, a white paper of sorts, kind of an academic style analysis of the case and the evidence. And then that will be reviewed internally by Mufon. And then I am hoping that we will be able to find some external reviewers who will really put it through the ringer. I do not want it to be easy to convince the public that we found something of interest. It has to be hard. Otherwise, anything is a UFO, right? It has to be hard. So I am hopeful that we will be able to find a group of reviewers who are willing to look at this stuff. And they don't have to be involved in Mufon necessarily. If you're in Mufon, you'll be part of our internal review process. But those articles after they're done being reviewed will go out to the

public and will be available to the public. So trying to create a more transparent investigative method and really being able to come out and say on the cases of interest of that year this is what we found and this is what we think this is how we think it plays into the whole phenomena see again man like this this is more than we've heard from mufon in decades in terms of transparency so again i think that's extremely exciting and like you said challenging the organization Again, people, I think even myself, I fall victim to this a lot of times, thinking that just like the government, that Mufon is this huge, you know, solid single organization where everyone has one thing to say, one opinion, and one stance. But like you said, there are small chapters in every town, every city, and people have different thoughts, different opinions, different investigative approaches. So I think it's really, really cool that you're willing to look at it from all different levels and from all different people.

Right. It's not, you know, and that's something to say here actually, right, that I am speaking for myself, right? I do not represent the views of all of Mufant, right? And neither does anyone who says that they do, right? It's, it is a giant organization. I mean, it's, it is kind of funny, though, you say, you know, I had that same view, right? When I, when I first, like, I was like, okay, I'm going to go in. I'm going to ask these tough questions.

I'm going to get some answers really quick, but they'll probably fight me on it. And, like, you know, I was really expecting, like, a long, drawn-out fight. And so I wrote this, like, I wrote this really long email, basically saying, like, you know, these are the issues I have. This is what I would, like, answered.

You know, what do you think? I got a phone call from the, the executive director of Mufon, like, the next day. You know what I mean? And he was just answered my questions and being super transparent. Like, Mufon seems really intimidating. But ultimately, it is a group of,

of people who are, you know, I think earnest and well-meaning and for the most part, hoping to find the truth, right? And so, again, it's just a matter of putting it, putting that stuff out there. In terms of that, I want to get a bit into some recent things that have been going on at Mufant Chris. Now, again, I know you're not involved directly with these things, but these are questions and concerns that some of our Mufan members and listeners have. And one of those is that your predecessor, Robert Powell, he quit Mufon in protest. Now, that's a big thing for a guy who's been doing this for a while. And that was because of the symposium this past year about the Secret Space Program. You had speakers such as Corey Good and Andrew Bessagio. I have to ask,

where do you stand on the issue of Mufant going in the direction of possible, I guess, sensationalism at times instead of science? First off, let me, let me, let me, me just say, I also was, that was one of the reasons why I decided to kind of join, like, one of the things that eventually made me say, listen, I got to try to get in there and change this sort of stuff was the symposium and the topic and some of the talks that were given there. I personally do not believe that Barack Obama went to Mars. I don't have, I mean, I guess I don't have any evidence that he didn't. Right. But I don't have any evidence they did either, right? It's interesting, right? At the last local meeting that I went to, they actually played

Basiago's talk again, just to kind of get some, you know, people that didn't see it and whatever. And afterwards, I kind of went on like a mini tirade, I guess. You know, and so one of his arguments or one of his stories is that his father was, not to, you know, get into the story too much, but one of his stories is that he was in a car with his father and his father was clean shaven. And then his father went into a gas station and then came out with a full beard and his father was like, I just went to a conference through time. Right. And he was like, my dad was clean shaven when he left and he had a full beard when he came back and that's evidence of time travel. And, you know, a lot of people in the crowd like when he said that, they kind of gasped almost.

And it just made me, I mean, livid. Because, you know, he didn't travel in the past. He didn't happen. You didn't travel in time, right? I mean, if you can travel in time, then you have infinite time to do anything. So why wouldn't you take the couple of extra minutes to make sure that you come out clean-shaven again? Right? Like, it doesn't make any sense.

I mean, and so, okay, so here's the issue. Mufon is, of course, also an organization that represents the views of many different people. And there are going to be Mufon members that just heard what I said that'll be angry. Right? There are going to be Mufon members who think that, Andrew Bacago did travel through time. And, I mean, that's okay. You can believe what you want.

But at a certain level, it is Mufon's responsibility to make sure that the people at these conferences, the people at these local chapters, the people at these places are being given good information, right? It is our responsibility that they are not being taken advantage of. It's just like if, you know, the way I kind of looked at it, or this is kind of something that I explained to someone earlier to. today was that, you know, there's a difference, a distinct difference between a conference of the American Medical Society on heart disease and Dr. Oz on daytime TV saying that you shouldn't eat bacon, right? There's a difference between those two things. Maybe you shouldn't eat bacon. But Dr. Oz is not necessarily looking out for the best interest of his patients. He's trying to make money. And so I think that Mufon has to be very careful about exposing its men. members to people that potentially are acting in bad faith.

And that's not to say that anyone is specifically acting in bad faith. There's a quote from a philosopher that I often bring up, but it's not really a direct quote because it's a translation, but it's wherefore one cannot speak, therefore one must remain silent, right? And there's different ways of saying it with more wherefores and therefores and whatever. But it comes from Ludwig Wittgenstein. The basic idea is that in instances where one, cannot make in cases where there is only the subjective experience of the person that is the

evidence, then there is really no useful reason to talk about that because you can't disprove someone's belief and you can't prove it. So perhaps Andrew Bacciago believes that he traveled through time. Well, we have no evidence of that at all. And so really, although it's an interesting question and potentially an interesting story and maybe he's making it up, maybe he's telling the truth, until there is some evidence, there really is nothing more we can say about it. Right? And so by running in circles and talking about all these other things, we kind of get ourselves, you know, knotted up into ropes, so to speak, right? Or we kind of, we just kind of muddle the conversation.

Now, I have made my position on these topics very well known to the functional directors and the board of directors, right? When I took this position, I had to go through a pretty rigorous interview process and one of their questions was, you know, what are your biases or what are your opinions on certain topics, right? And I said, you know, I am a, I am a skeptic. I'm not someone who is really what someone would consider to be, I guess, a true believer, right? I believe in this stuff. I do think there's something out there. I think this question is worthy of investigation. But I have no direct evidence personally that, you know, there are aliens in these craft or that they are a conscious manifestation or whatever.

But I am open to the idea. And I think that these people that have had these experiences are deserving to be heard. I think that it's a hard question to say, you know, what cases do we take to be, the question of what counts as evidence is one that gets brought up a lot. And so it's hard to, and that's actually one good point that I think Andrew Baccio does have, is that if you were in a court case and maybe there's no video evidence of someone robbing a store, but you have 12 witnesses who say that, oh, that guy robbed that store, that has taken as good evidence, right? And so in some ways, we should maybe be doing the same thing with these claims of UFOs or whatever, right? We have all these people claiming that something's there. Well, why do we discount it if it's 10,000 people versus

if it's 12? This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Ronda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer, Gina Carano, and the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavy weight in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lins. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carano. Live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

That's really good point, Chris. I mean, my book in specific is solely about witness testimony. Yeah. And, you know, of course, I'm under the, I'm definitely my mind. mantra is facts first, you know, data, evidence proof. Yes, obviously. But it's hard, man. There's that delicate line between what do we take as witness testimony? How important is it when we're, when we get a report or when we go out and investigate? I know some of my fellow colleagues, they don't care about the witness testimony. Like, oh, if there's no video, no photo, no data,

no radar tracking, uh, it didn't happen. So right. It's hard. Man, it's such a delicate line for sure. Well, and that's why, though, we apply real, I mean, listen, science doesn't care if you're making up a story or not. Right. Right. So, you know, if we are able to apply good statistics and good analysis to this stuff, then we should be able to figure out whether or not there are non-random links. Right. If there's one, one aspect I think is very fascinating is if we expect that there is in either case, right?

So we can both assume that UFO stories are completely made up of whole cloth. We can assume that they are completely true. Or we can say that they're somewhere in the middle. So somewhere in the middle might be there is a psychological or sociological explanation for people having these sightings that is not based on there really being UFOs or aliens and crafts or whatever. But is an explanation that we have not yet determined or found out. In either case, if it's either completely true or if it is partially true, we should be able to find some evidence in the statistics of the reports, right? We have 10, let's say we have 10,000 reports in a year. Then if we're able to find clear trends in that of markers that we may not really consider, then potentially there might be something interesting there.

Now, you know, correlation does not imply causation, right? We can't say that, you know, there's a really good one out there. It's like the number of pirate ships decreased in the global temperature increased. So to fix global warming, we've got to bring back more pirate ships, right? But there is something to the idea that, you know, if in all this data we're able to find something that looks like, say, the average profile of an abductee or the average profile of what a real siting, a genuine siting that we believe is a good siting would look like, then potentially we can work. off of that to then cut through some of these less verified or less, I don't know if believable is the right word, but some of these less solid sightings. So I think that there's something to be said about that, about looking at this from an anthropological,

a psychological, sociological, like there's, there are things that the hunt for UFOs can give us that is, that is outside of the question even fully of whether or not a UFO really has ever visited the earth. And I think it's part of Mufon's job to help spread that message and ask those questions as well. That's right, Chris. I mean, like you and many others, we see this entire subject from a very sociological or even cultural lens. We aren't the first to do this, obviously. Valet comes to mind first and foremost for me, but it seems to always be one of the most alluring approaches to this topic of UFOs. Now, I have to ask, I've heard you in other interviews mentioned this, do you think there's a way

to sort of work that into your research or into the overall approach that Mufon takes with the reports? 100%. I mean, there are, there are so many, this is such a, listen, if we found tomorrow that an alien came to Earth and, you know, an alien lands on the long. of the White House. And it's just like, you know, where did I park? Right?

Whatever. Whatever he or she or they say, if tomorrow that happened, it would be tremendously world changing. And there are questions that that would then ask for us or suggest to us that are philosophical, that are sociological, that are anthropological, that are, just for example, right? whether or not an alien exists, whether or not aliens exist, whether or not UFOs are really visiting the Earth, we can think about how would the ability to travel cross-planet change our society. We can think about what would potentially having people in some kind of stasis to travel through the

stars. What would that do to family relationships? That would be extremely detrimental potentially or extremely reformative. I mean, if you have family living on Mars and you're here on Earth or even farther away, right, what does that mean for societies? What does that mean for cultures? What does that mean for education or parental roles? Like, there are huge questions that can be asked. And there are also, I think, very interesting questions about, say, the timeline of UFO cases.

I mean, this is a topic that I think we share a lot in common in terms of being interested. in is, you know, the very fact that UFO reports have changed so much over time is to some people evidence that whatever, this whole thing is a conscious phenomenon. It's not a physical one. But to other people, it's a sign that some of these cases we can just discard away immediately. I mean, if you think that, you know, I say this a lot. I think that if we had contact with a UFO, if we had contact with an alien being, it would be more similar to Lovecraftian horror. than a meeting with a guy from France, right? Like it would be,

because it's not just their culture that's different. Their consciousness is different. That's one thing I think, I think it came from the Gulf Breeze. It's one of the Gulf Breeze books, but they say that it's almost like, or maybe not the Gulf Breeze ones, maybe whichever book this is from,

the idea is that having a UFO kind of, you know, hover over you. It's like having a blue whale, look at you in the ocean. This thing is so different. It is so massively just in terms of size, in terms of lifespan, in terms of communication,

it is so different, but to have it actually, you know, apprehend you know, apprehend you with its gaze, right, to have it actually look at you and recognize that you are another thing. That is in itself frightening. That is in itself a changing,

a way to kind of change your perception on the world to have that happen to you, right? So I think that, I think that there are cases where, you know, I mean, for instance, one of my favorite cases is the Betty and Barney Hill case, right? And Betty in later life would claim that the aliens, you know, basically asked her to hang out and talk and, you know, asked her all these kind of like interesting questions, right? About, you know, well, what's, what was the one? About Barney's dentures in particular, right? I thought Barney's dentures were fascinating, right?

That to me, you know, there might be a little bit of both a real experience and a psychological way to explain what happened to her, whatever it is. I mean, but anyways, that kind of takes me off track a bit. The point I'm getting at here is the fact that these cases have been so, have changed so much over the years from the 50s where there were aliens coming down and telling people supposedly that, you know, you got to get rid of your nuclear weapons, you know, to the 60s where it was kind of Venusian ladies and bikinis coming down and partying with dudes and the 80s and 90s of kind of, you know, more scary, surgical, whatever kind of abductions. The fact that these have

changed so much over the years to me is indicative in some cases of, you know, either fabrication or someone kind of trying to, again, psychologically make sense of a scary thing that happened to them. But in any case, that is good information. That can be useful for investigation. I mean, think about this. If, let's say you're a biologist. And you were trying to tell if there is a new species of, I don't know, whatever, a new species of butterfly in the Congo or something, right? If you had evidence that that was really existing, then you would expect that those reports would be consistent over the years. In other words, the fact that this thing existed, this butterfly does not care about our culture or our view of technology or whatever. So the butterfly, like those reports would be pretty much the same.

But if in the 50s the butterfly was, I don't know, listening to Billy Holiday or something, right? And then in the 60s, the butterfly was coming down and with pom-poms on and, you know, talking about how groovy Venus is, you'd be like, that doesn't make any sense, right? Why would the butterfly change based on what we as humans know? And it gets a little bit more tricky, though, because, of course, there is always the assumption here that these things are conscious, that they are, you know, we're not just dealing with. another species or a biology or something, we're dealing with another consciousness. And so that makes things a little bit more tricky in that sense. But still, I think there's definitely something to that idea. I mean, for instance, one that always comes to mind for me is the idea that in the distant past, there were nuclear explosions in India. That to me is a

argument from, almost from a lack of imagination. If we have the ability to travel through space, why in the hell would we still use nuclear weapons? We would have such, you know, it's kind of, did you, you saw the new Star Wars, right? I'm sure you did. Oh, absolutely. Okay. A few times. So, yeah, so the, so the point where Laura Duren's character just travels, you know,

she just shoots her ship through the main, the main empire ship. It's like, why weren't they doing that the whole time? That's a super good way to do it, right? And it's kind of the same thing with this, with this alien. stuff, right? We never, or this ancient alien stuff, we never back in the 50s or the 40s or 30s or whatever before we had nuclear weapons, looking at the stories in the Bagada Vita, looking at those stories, we never would have said, oh man, they used a nuclear weapon. It's only up to humans putting that kind of film on stuff that we think that, right? And I bet in 200 years when we've developed

laser weapons or some other kind of way to kill each other, we'll be saying that there's evidence for that in the ancient Hindu texts. Right. You know? So it's almost a challenge of trying to find stuff that fits with the way we look at things now. It's a fascinating journey. And I think that's where, you know, even the idea of philosophy, it shows that it's not dead, that we can continue to reshape the way we think about these things.

That's such a fascinating point. In terms of, I guess, just the alien question in general, Chris. Yeah. A lot of people have also criticized Mufon for taking a very pro-ET stance with all of this. And, you know, while of course this may be a strong possibility, I'm sure one of many, do you plan on looking at this in different ways in terms of what these UFOs could be, what these possible contact and experience? what they might be other than alien, I guess, is the way I want to put it.

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a huge, there is a huge amount of wiggle room there, I guess, in the sense of this question is so huge that to really be able to say with any kind of certainty that it is a species, another conscious species of intelligent life from another planet traveling here by ship, You know, that requires a lot of, a lot of leaps of, it requires a lot of, not necessarily leaps, and it requires a lot of assumptions to be made, right? Just like any of these ideas about what is in these craft or what these craft even are. So it's, it's kind of a funny question because this is almost a, this kind of question, right, about what is Mufon's stance.

It's almost a really good way of seeing the view of the person asking the question, almost better than what Mufon actually says on the subject. right because like I have some people who will say to me you know well well move on move on you know you guys are open to all kinds of crazy ideas right you you hardly ever investigate what the ships are anymore and then I have people saying you know well I'm sick and move on all they want to do is talk about nuts and bolt stuff we never get into the consciousness side right like it's kind of you know we're kind of like a really good again I think because of our own

lack of kind of coming out and saying what we do believe or what we have found over the years you know it's easy to kind of put any kind of view on Mufon that you want. Anyways, that's a whole other tangent, I guess. But yeah, I absolutely do plan on looking at other stances, right? I mean, listen, I have, you know, I come from a family that's very, I don't know if I would call my family very religious. I come from a family that is very Catholic, like Roman Catholic, right?

I know that feeling. Yeah, and specifically like a New York City Roman Catholic. Oh, yeah. Right? So, like, you know what I mean? like, you know, Easter, Christmas, you go to church until communion and then until confirmation, and then you might go once in a while, but, you know, it gets a little iffy later on. But, you know, I think that this idea of, you know, I say this on the show, too, on my own podcast,

this idea of almost what consciousness is and what the limits of consciousness are, that has a tremendous and very, very well-researched and well-reasoned scholarship behind it, right? I mean, some of the brightest minds of all human time have pondered this question of consciousness, and what are the limits of consciousness? And so to out of hand deny what a philosopher would call non-materialist conceptions of reality, I think is a silly thing to do. I mean, Mufon is supposed to be a scientific organization. And in some ways, or at least it aims to be a scientific organization.

And in some ways, science has become since the time of sort of, you know, the logical positivists, has sort of become synonymous with materialism, right? The view that everything in nature is the sum of parts that are atoms and the things that we can't explain with atoms and particles and and physics are, you know, frivolous or outside the realm of science. And in some ways, that's probably true, right? Science is about measuring and analysis of data. But on the other hand, though, we cannot deny that a tremendous part of human experience, and in some ways, the most important parts of human experience, are by that definition

of science, non-scientific. So I think that we definitely have to consider all possibilities. I think we need to consider both the, you know, one theory that I recently came across that I actually think is very fascinating is that the ship, you know, we have a craft that we see up in the sky. Perhaps that's not even a craft. Perhaps that is the entity itself. That's actually a really fascinating idea. You know, it's not that there are things on the ship. It's that the ship itself is some kind of consciousness or biological entity or something.

Right. And even that on its own is an interesting thing, right? Why do we assume that these things will be biological when they get here? Right. What is our definition of biological mean? Right. Does that mean that it's made out of carbon and has a DNA structure made out of, you know, these specific proteins and amino chains and whatever? You know, and I'm not good at biology, so I'm sure I just sounded like a moron for all the biologists out there. You know, or does it mean that we, you know, or can biologists. or intelligent or whatever mean that, I don't know, they pass some kind of Turing test or something, right? There's, again, all kinds of fascinating questions to ask that are completely separate from the idea, you know, Mufon can be both a truth and investigation group. But Mufon also can be a very, I think, and I hope it will become this, a very effective on futurism group, right? asking these questions about, you know, okay, well, listen, we are investigating UFO reports and seeing how those are going. But another question that we can ask is, you know, what do we think, if we were to travel to another planet, how would we do it right now? Right? How would we support ourselves in a craft for years?

How would we deal with a society say that, you know, does not need, does not need. to consume anything for energy, right? I mean, that's one of my, one of my favorite little tidbits of the, you know, regardless of whether or not you think that these stories are true, these stories about, you know, the Eben, right, the extraterrestrial biological entity that supposedly the government had access to right after the Roswell crash. Whether or not you think that's true, the question of this thing potentially being more like a plant than like a human, right, so that they take an energy via photosynthesis, trying to imagine how we would even, how do you even talk to an entity like that? And I'm saying literally like, okay, we both have

language. We both have verbal communication. And let's say even we both speak English. Their language has developed without, maybe has developed without the idea of what it means to possess something, right? Because why would you need to own anything yourself if the only, the only, you know, source of life that you've ever had, you know, energy, whatever, food for us and water, for them is simply freely given by the sun. Like, that's a fascinating question that we can talk about in a way that's interesting and really get interested academics and philosophers and people in public involved in that does not require you to have ever seen a UFO or even necessarily believe in them existing. Right? There's an interesting place for, I think, serious

academic discourse inside of Mufon or with Mufon's, you know, help that does not require necessarily the extraterrestrial hypothesis to be our stance. I love that, man. And again, it's exciting to hear someone on the younger side and who's also a scientist look towards the future and look at what else it could be and what potential I could have. I think that's really interesting. And it sort of ties in to my next question. I don't know about you, but I have noticed that there seems. I'm to be a growing amount of younger people being interested in UFOs, you know, not necessarily as being a researcher or the history of uphology, but just the topic in general. How do you think that we can get younger people involved in the topic, maybe even into researching it and

becoming a member of Mufon? Yeah, I mean, so again, like, I would love if everyone would join move on with me and, you know, help me with all these research projects I have in my head and really, you know, be involved in whatever. But, you know, obviously there are going to be people who are hesitant to join a group. They're going to be people who think after hearing me talk that Mufon isn't for them. There's going to be people who think that I am completely off base. The important point is to create a healthy discourse. Now, I think that a lot of shows, a lot of I mean, honestly, I think podcasting is done a lot for this field. You know, shows like your own.

Shows like, shows like, you know, last podcast on the left and the Joe Rogan shows and all these really great, all these really great podcasts that talk about this stuff in a serious way. I think that there is a lot of good that can come out of this. And I think that in some ways it's shown the success of shows like this and the success of shows even like ancient aliens, which I think has been less than beneficial for the UFO community, just the success of those shows have shown that there's a huge public interest in this subject. Now, in terms of how young people can get involved, I mean, listen, Mufon meetings are open to the public. You don't have to be a Mufant member to go to a Mufon meeting.

Some chapters charge like a $2 fee to come in to pay for the coffee and cupcakes to give out or whatever, right? But, you know, for the most part, these are people who are interested in this stuff who enjoy talking about it. And I mean, listen, like it any group of people, there are going to be there's going to be a range of opinions, right? So I remember my first Mufon meeting I went to, I left and I wrote a very strongly worded email to some of the people that I have been talking to within Mufon, basically saying, you know, this is all ridiculousness. I can't believe I wasted my time on a Saturday. You know, all this stuff. And they were like, well, they were like, you know, listen, like, no, like give it a chance.

You know, we really, we really want your input. We'd really, you know, we love having you as a member. We'd really like to see this continue, whatever. And so, you know, you might go to a local Mufon meeting or you might find a local chapter that is not necessarily talking about stuff that you find to be credible or stuff that you are interested in. You might, you might go to a local Mufon meeting and find out that the complete opposite is true.

That they are talking about stuff, they're talking about stuff in a way that seems to suggest that the stuff you believe is incredible, right? There's a huge range. I mean, there are chapters that are full of physicists and PhDs and stuff. And all they want to talk about is, you know, zero point energy and propulsion systems and whatever. And then there are chapters that are full of people who are philosophers and people that are interested in more of the metaphysics or the consciousness part of this whole question, right? So you're going to get a range. What I would say, though, is that we are in the process of both improving kind of what,

we hope to be presented to members and also trying to kind of wrangle in that discussion a bit so that it's fruitful. So if you want to become a part of that, right, a huge part of that process is going to be getting more local members interested and invested and getting people at these meetings that will challenge some of the stuff being said. It is extremely important in any group not to have a cohesive view, right? I mean, otherwise, like, democracy doesn't work if everyone believes, I guess it kind of works perfectly if you want to look at it that way, I suppose. If everyone believes the same thing, then there's no point in having discussion. And so I would hope that what I'm trying to do at a certain level here is at every local

chapter, we will have a science panel or someone there who can give to the public. Well, actually, look, this is the way that this science works. And so our local chapter in Minnesota, we're very lucky to have a lot of really, really smart people there who are, I mean, better at the stuff that they were studying at school than I am at the stuff I studied. You know, I mean, we have a number of people who help develop different aircraft propulsion systems and worked in the military or, you know, worked on physics and all these big companies around here. Like, it's amazing really the membership that you'll meet. But what I would say is that at every chapter, I would like to have, you know, a group of people

who would consider themselves to be skeptical. I would like to have that group of people. And honestly, if you don't want to be a part of Mufon, but you want to get involved, start a podcast, contact people in your local area, you know, write a blog post, you know, send an email to myself or, you know, send an angry email to Ryan. It'll be great. You know, I mean, there are, there's ways to get involved in this stuff that is, you know, both, I would say, protects your privacy if that's what you are concerned about and also allows you to get involved. more interested in this stuff or more information about this stuff in a way that you can then frame it. So I don't know though. I mean, it's a hard question. You know, it's a very, it's a tough, it's a tough question because I want move on to be a success. But I know too that there are people

who are still going to be resistant. And, you know, I mean, listen, what I want is for this field to be healthy, not just one group, right? So it's important to be get all viewpoints together. Yeah, I think the altruism of this topic alone speaks more volumes than when organization ever can. I think that's a really good way of looking at it. Well, I think we put you enough through the ringer, my man, in service of Mufon. I want to get to you, if you're cool with that. I want to get to what you're doing. One more question, though, before we get off of Mufon is, I got to ask your opinion on this,

because I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't. Tom DeLong, to the Stars Academy, Pentagon Story. What are your thoughts on this, man? Do you think that this will either benefit or hurt the work being done by Mufon, having this very visible figure and story, sort of overshadowing the work of many civilian UFO researchers? What do you think about all this? What I would say is that, again, this is kind of coming from my background in academic science, right?

there are some fields in academic science that are what we consider to be niche fields right there are people working on so for instance my research my own research was on a very specific type of material and there are even niches within that one niche where you can get smaller and smaller right so in my field there are probably maybe a thousand people in the world researching my material and then you can get even smaller right there there are my material can have all kinds of different metals put into it. And there are some groups that only focus on one type of metal. And so the beauty of science is that there are applications then that kind of open up that door. So my material was used for carbon dioxide capture. So, you know, we would publish in journals on CO2 capture or the environment or material

science or whatever. But there are some fields where they have their own journals. Right. So there's like a, there's like, I'm sure there's some out there where it's like, you know, the journal of dental implants. Yeah. Right. That's a very small subset of science that has its own small community. And in a lot of those cases where it's just one or two labs working on stuff, you miss a lot of the vibrancy of, you know, kind of what competition brings to a field.

Or if there's a lot of people working on a thing, then the chances of you finding a really good idea or the chances of everyone else getting better in that strong field increase, right? So I'm of the opinion that it's better for UFO research in general for there to be more groups out there. It's better for there to be more people trying to make these claims and investigate this stuff because it forces the rest of us to be better. At the same time, though, I would say that there's always a risk with, there's always a risk with there being one vocal proponent or one face of a movement, right? I mean, again, I can go back to my science time. I did research on climate change. I did research on capturing carbon dioxide and changing that molecule into other molecules

so that we could then make the capture of carbon dioxide economically viable for industry. So you can kind of think of it like recycling. I basically was working on a material to recycle carbon dioxide into ethanol. Now, my research, though, in conversations with people, most notably members of my own family, often get shadowed by the annoyances of Al Gore. Right? And so they can then throw in my face all of the failings of this one very popular person or this very public person.

They can then come at me with stuff from their own failings that have nothing to do with the work I'm doing. So I am optimistic about To the Stars Academy in the work that Tom DeLong is doing. I am hopeful that they will be able to kind of use some of their experts and their expertise to really get some interesting stuff out there. But at the same time, there's always a risk on hanging an entire field's hat on one person because if that person slips up, it makes the whole field look bad. So I think there's promise, but there is, of course, challenges. And so I think that's why it is important for, you know, groups like Mufon or investigators such as yourself even to really make your work above reproach, right? That's why we need to have strong critique and strong debate about the stuff that we do and the stuff that we put out to the public.

Because if we have a record to say, look, this is all the good stuff we did. We did our own due diligence. We investigated this case as thoroughly as we are possible. as we are capable of doing. And this is the conclusion we came to. You can disagree with us still in our conclusion. But so long as the process itself is above board, then, you know, you help to insulate yourself from questions of impropriety or, you know, unethical, whatever, you know, movement

or however you want to say it, right? I think that's a great, a really great point, man. I mean, people have said, you know, Tom DeLong is now the face of euphology. and maybe to the overall public, that might be true. But when you do your work, right, I like the old saying of, you know, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. So I often go back to that time and time again. Do your work, do your research, be ready to answer hard questions and be debated. And then, you know what?

It should be a breeze from there. You know what I mean? Just do your own work. make sure it's to the standard that any, you know, scientist would want in the rigor of their work. And there you go, man. I think that's a really good point. Well, in terms of you, Chris, as the mad scientist. Oh, finally we get to talk about me.

Get to do it now, man. I know. I know you've been waiting for this, you're narcissists. This is how I found you, man. I found you through the Mad Scientist podcast on iTunes. It popped up, you know, with other shows I've been listening to. I said, oh, this is a really cool logo. I'm going to check this one out.

By two episodes, man, I was hooked. Now, you don't just cover UFOs, which I think is extremely refreshing as a eophologist. But please tell me, the Mad Scientist podcast, you, Marie Mayhew, what is the show about? Yeah, so the show is a skeptical look at, and then skeptical, I don't want to get that out there, too. I keep calling myself a skeptic. I am a hopeful skeptic, right? I am not a debunker, so to speak, right? I am not going out there hoping to prove everything false.

If anything, I'm hoping to have my own experience. You know what I mean? Like, I want to be able to come out of this saying, I found something here that I cannot explain, right? I would love to be able to come out of this whole thing saying that I finally found something to myself that proves all this stuff true. So the show is a look at the hard science and the philosophy. and history of science, topics around different paranormal or fringe or 40, and however you want to

call them, claims, right? So, you know, we've covered topics like vampirism and Frankenstein's monster and, you know, of course, certain UFO cases and ghosts and all these different things. And so the show is sort of a comical but serious take on these topics. And we try to give as much, you know, we try to, we're trying to teach people science. teach people sort of philosophy through talking about these things in an entertaining way. That's awesome. And I mean, you've covered many, many different things, but of course I was gravitating towards some of the more euphological ones. Betty and Barney Hill come to mind. I loved your two-part series on that. You had some stunning audio from both of the individuals

involved with that, which I'd actually never heard before. So that was actually really cool. Oh, my goodness. The tapes of the tapes that were made in Dr. Simon's office are terrifying. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like, it's the, I actually distinctly, I distinctly remember the first time I heard them. I used to sleep in the basement of my, my mom's house because I was a really cool teenager. And, you know, I remember those days. Oh, yeah. So I remember, I remember being on my, my old kind of clunky desktop computer.

and being on, I don't know, it must have been like something awful or whatever, one of those websites. And I remember finding a link that was like, you know, the tapes from a real UFO abductee. And I clicked on them and they were the recordings of Betty, of Barney specifically. His are probably the most frightening. And I remember listening to them and getting so afraid that I had to go up and sleep in the living room with all the lights on. Oh, man.

I just remember being like, oh, no, they're so. scary. Yeah, I've heard many of those tapes throughout my time investigating from abductees. Yeah. You know, in my two years of, you know, researching for the book and speaking to hundreds of abductees, hearing some of their hypnotic regressions or just their testimony in general. Kept me up at night. No matter what I thought happened to them, something happened to these people or they firmly believe it did. And it can be very unsettling, man. It changes your entire worldviews sometimes. So, I mean, I have to ask, in any

of your other UFO shows that you've done, do you have any favorites that really, really stuck with you? And you thought, there is definitely something to this. Honestly, the Betty Barney Hill case is one of my favorites of all time. And it's one

that I definitely, there are parts of that story that are not. Again, it comes down to, if you listen to those tapes, they are so, Barney is so sincere in his fright. This creature, this leader is telling me something. He's telling you, filter. How are they getting it to you?

I can see it in his face. Yes. Clips aren't moving. Yes, go on. He's telling you. And he's looking at me. What did he tell you? Stay there and keep looking.

Just keep looking and stay there. and just keep looking. Just keep looking. Could you hear him tell you? Oh, I got to pull these binoculars away from my eyes. Because if I don't, I'll just keep staying there. Could you hear him tell you this? Oh, no, he didn't say it.

You felt he said it. I know. You know he doesn't. Yeah. Just stay there. He's saying to me. It's all right. I'll think of my head.

Pull up a doc. God, give me a stress. All right. Pull it down. What is it? Holy men. It's like, God, give me a stress. I got to get away.

Oh. Oh. I'm driving. I'm going to get away. The reason originally that they went to Dr. Simon was because Barney and Betty were having, or Betty in particular was having nightmares. But they were both having signs or showing signs of distress. in their waking lives, right?

Where, you know, Barney's ulcer was acting up and really starting to bother him and just from the stress alone and neither of them were really sleeping all that well. And that aspect of it kind of really affecting them negatively led them to seek hypnosis just to try to alleviate some of these symptoms, right? And then Dr. Simon even afterwards would say, you know, in his writings on the case, that, you know, he did not think that they had necessarily been abducted by aliens. just thought that something, that's what they believed in something traumatic had happened to them, right? But you listen to that tape and it is hard to, it's hard to separate what you hear on that

tape from kind of the facts on the ground, right? Or the improbability, say, of anyone being abducted. I mean, those tapes are really, really chilling. Now, that being said, part of the reason why I really like that case is because I personally still don't know where I stand on hypnosis, right? as a piece of evidence. I mean, American Medical Association, I believe, they've come out and, or some most reputable medical associations come out strongly against the use of hypnosis for remembering memories, right? They say that it doesn't give you higher recall as they thought it once did. It doesn't really make you able to remember things any better, but it does allow you to kind of potentially relive things that did happen to you. However, the chances of implanted implantation.

memories are so high and the chance of doing real damage is so high that, you know, it's, it's not something that they really suggest anyone do outside of a medical doctor's or a psychologist's office. So that's actually one of the methods that I hope move on will, that's one of the methods I hope to really investigate. It's probably one of the first ones I hope to investigate. But that being said, again, I think like what you said, regardless of what you think happen to these people, right?

that tape is so unsettling and it seems so obvious that they are convinced that something terrible happened to them that night, even though again, Betty's recall of it is vastly different than Barney's.

That, and vastly different, not in their particulars, but in their tone, I should say, that that case is one that still, you know, leaves me scratching my head.

I got to say that I think one of my favorite cases ever is one that I am certain wasn't real, but, or at least, I can't say certain. One that I believe wasn't real, but it is one that I find fascinating because of a personal connection to it. Oh, give it to me.

So this case was, what's it? So this is from Claremont, New Hampshire, right? And so now actually, since then, I've, since then we've had more, we've had more information on it and stuff. And I've actually had people from the town talk to me now about, you know, they've seen something or are they able to. believe that, you know, they believe that something has really happened to them. One of my favorite cases is one that we have yet to cover on the show, but we're going to in the future. This plan for this season. It is the story of John M. Maloney and his wife in Claremont, New Hampshire. Now, the reason I love this story is that I lived on the farm where a lot of these sightings took place, or on the hill where a lot of these sightings took place. And a lot of this story happened in the town of Claremont, New Hampshire. So John M.olone is a, was a UFO investigator for a period of time, kind of in the 70s up till, you know,

maybe from 60s to like the 80s, let's say. But, but has really lost a lot of, he's fallen into ill repute in recent, not recent years even. Towards the end of his life, he fell into ill repute with kind of the investigative committees and bodies of the time period. And even to this day, I would say his story has definitely looked at as kind of a case of, you know, he was involved in a lot of investigations. and then his later life kind of taking the turn that it did almost made those later

investigations that he did almost made those look less truthful or less, you know, less solid in comparison, let's say. Now, this guy, so John Maloney lived down the hill from my wife's grandmother for a long time. And actually, so when I first started dating Katie and her parents heard that I like this stuff, they were like, oh, he's got to meet the guy down the hill. They were like, he's got to talk to this guy. And so actually, I can't remember if he was, I can't remember if he had passed away at the time yet or not. But anyways, his story basically was that there was a sighting in Claremont, New Hampshire.

And then his, he met a woman in the town who claimed to be basically like an alien human hybrid. Right. And it kind of gets, it gets more intense from there. it, you know, they talk about, they talk about communicating with him telepathically and whatever. And it's all, it's really an interesting, it's an interesting book. But the reason why I find it so fascinating is that this story actually, you know how sometimes, even when someone is, is maybe off the mark on certain things, they're telling the truth in other ways. Yeah, definitely.

So, so when I started investigating this book more, because again, I knew I was doing this podcast, it was like, I got to tell this story in some way. I started talking to people in the town. And it turns out that a lot of the stuff he said in the book happened. Right? So, like, there was a mass siting in Claremont, New Hampshire that really wasn't talked about because this guy was the one to investigate it. There was a siting on the farm where Katie's family now, Katie's grandma, now owns land.

There was a siting on that field, right, that happened. So this is, like, a field that I was in every day messing around. And you know what I mean? So kind of, like, that personal connection for me makes it one that I really enjoy. And really, what I'm hoping to do, is, again, through Mufon, is create local historians or a local history board or something. It depends on how many people I can get interested. But a local group of people, local researchers who can collect these stories, right?

I mean, there are, Mufon has only had a computerized database for, you know, a relatively short period of time, right? There are case files from the early days that are not online yet. And then that's just because of people either, you know, having them and haven't been part of the group or they don't want to talk about it or whatever. It would be a huge shame to the UFO community if those pieces of info were lost. And so one of the goals for me at Mufon is really finding and creating teams that can go out and collect these stories or even just put them into large anthologies for the town or for the area

that they're in. You know, because again, I would have never heard about this story unless I was in this area of New Hampshire. Right. Right. But it's just a treasure trove of interesting cases that were never reported to move on. So it's super interesting. This is really like, this is really the story, the case or the number of cases that made me start going out of my weekends looking for this stuff. So, you know, my wife, it's like the, you know, this is the, this is the turning point in the marriage. Right.

This is where the divorce proceedings will begin. Yeah. But, you know. We hear this in every biography of every. UFO researcher. There's the turning point for the significant other where it's like, okay, I love you, but I've had enough. I hope that will never happen. Oh, I don't think so, man. No, I don't think so. Katie's very supportive of my hobbies, so to speak. Good. Good. That's very important. Yes. Or a deal breaker. Well, that's awesome. I really look forward to, you know, whatever you end up coming up with in terms of that episode.

I will be listening religiously to what you unravel this whole case. It seems really cool. Where can we find the show, Chris? Where can we find out what you're doing? Give us Mufon's information. Hit me with it, man. Yeah, so you can find the podcast through Audio Boom and through all of your normal podcast listening apps. So the show is called The Mad Scientist Podcast.

You can tell us by our logo. It's the one with the jackal lantern face. Love it. So it's pretty easy to find. Through Mufon, you can actually send me direct emails. My email for Mufant is Director Research at Mufon.com. So that's all one word. So D-I-R-E-C-T-O-R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H at Mufon.com.

You can shoot emails that way, and I will answer them as soon as I can. And, of course, I mean, you can find out more about what I'm doing through Moufon. dot com through the website. If you want to get involved, so one thing that I thought was really important was finding a way for, you know, lowering that barrier to membership for Mufon. You know, so we actually have a coupon code out right now. It's join 25. If you put that into the checkout when you actually become a member, you'll get 25% off

your membership. It's like $6 a month or $60 for the year. Or if you have, again, like I said, a master's or Ph.D in any field, email me and I can get you into the group so that you can get a taste of what we're doing and figure out if you want to be a part of it. And of course, if you just have any questions or you just want to go to a local meeting or something, that's always available. And I am happy to answer any questions about what we're doing, what I hope to do and any concerns or comments you have. You know, I'm really, like I said, I think transparency is super important. So it is really the really one of the major things that I

hope will be, you know, part of my tenure, so to speak. That's awesome. And I mean, I couldn't think of a better person to take on this responsibility and consider me sold on rethinking the way I look at Mufon and what they are capable of. It's people like you coming into the organization that I think can really shake things up and move it in the right direction. So, buddy, from one researcher to another, I am wishing you all my very best with the position, with your awesome podcast, and I have to thank you again for coming on somewhere in the skies today. Man, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the kind words. I hope that we can, you know, live up to your faith in us. That is it for this week's episode. Again, you could find Chris at the mad scientistpodcast.com

or reach him through Mufon by emailing Director Research at Mufon.com. If you haven't already, please take just a few moments to subscribe, rate, and review somewhere in the skies on iTunes or wherever you may listen from. It helps tremendously. Our Patreon campaign is growing as well. We're almost up to 50%. If you want to help the show out and receive tons of bonus content and to learn more, visit patreon.com backslash somewhere skies. We're on Twitter at SomewhereSkies and Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod.

For guests or topic suggestions or to share your own personal sighting, encounter, or story, use the contact tab on the website. Somewhereinthes.com. I'll see you here next Monday. and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching. Somewhere in the skies. Somewhere in the skies is produced by third-kind productions in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network. To learn more, visit Entertainment One Podcast.com.

Ashley, do you know why feet and only feet keep washing up on a beach in the Pacific Northwest? You know, Christy, I can't say that I do. Well, neither do I, but I have a theory, and anyone who wants to hear it should listen to our podcast. It's called That's Weird. And we talk about all kinds of weird shit. It's not just feet. I'm so glad we don't just talk about feet. Right?

That would truly be the weirdest. So, yeah, if you like weird topics, feminist rants, and the occasional F bomb, you should listen to us. We post new episodes every other Monday. Find us online at that's weird.org. And subscribe to That's Weird on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.