Somewhere in the Skies - Comedians on UFOs: Part 1

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

In part 1 of Comedians on UFOs, we are joined by Rhys Darby, Kumail Nanjiani, Aisling Bea, Dave Foley, Steve Berg, and Moshe Kasher! UFO accounts can sometimes reminds us of a playful world. A humorous world. A species looking for structure and pattern and constantly being bombarded with both chaos and ridiculousness. And that if most definitely UFOs. And it's also comedy. Comedy gives us a communal experience full of confusion and raw emotional release. It makes us feel more human than ever. So when we're faced with something possibly non-human, we can choose to run away from it or fight it. Or, we can embrace it and sometimes, laugh about it. In this series, Ryan digs into the archives of Somewhere in the Skies to bring you a collection of interviews he's conducted throughout the years with comedians. And, as you'll see, a common thread starts to weave its way through these conversations. Why are comedians drawn to UFOs? How can we use it to both accept and possibly even understand UFO phenomenon. Please take a moment to rate and review Somewhere in the Skies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Book your Cameo video with Ryan at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Official Store: CLICK HERE Buy Somewhere in the Skies coffee: https://bit.ly/3rmXuap Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryansprague51 Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Copyright © 2023 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. 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

Choice Hotels get you more of what you value. Comfort in. It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Book direct at storesotails.com. The Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is free to listen to every week. But if you would like to help support the show, we have a very active Patreon page,

where you give what you think the show is worth. In return, you'll get early access to the main show. show, bonus episodes, and priority to ask our guests your listener questions. Your support truly makes the show continue and grow. So to learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan's Bread. Welcome to a special two-part series we're calling comedians on UFOs. One of my biggest inspirations in the world of the weird is John El Tenney. He's been studying UFOs for decades, and something he's said on several interviews always stuck with me when it comes to the questions of life. Are we alone? And what does the

anomalous truly represent? Here he is talking about it on the Project Human podcast. In the depth of my own mind, I talk about life and reality and consciousness and the universe as being a game. we're just playing. And when I say game, I don't mean the type of game that we as adults understand games. As adults, we understand games as games having a winner and a loser. I'm talking about games when we're children and we're told to go outside and play. There's no expectation of winning or losing. There's just spinning around in circles until you fall down and laughing and climbing a tree

and fashioning a sword out of a stick. You're just having fun. You're just playing. And it really seems to me that that's what this reality is about. It's just having fun. It's just playing. And it's giving you obstacles and it's giving you challenges. And it's giving you easy rides and slow dives and really high peaks.

If you were born on a planet of flat glass, you would beg for a mountain to get in your way. To me, the anomalous, or more specifically, UFO accounts, remind us of a playful world, a humorous world, a species looking for structure and pattern and constantly being bombarded with both chaos and ridiculousness. And that is most definitely UFOs. It's funny, or at least it can be funny. Many UFO experiences and discourse subjectively is not fun. But when you strip away the government involvement

and the dark narratives painted by those who choose fear, you find phenomena that pushes every single single, boundary we've set for ourselves, in our societies and in our scientific understanding of the world around us. UFOs make us think. They sometimes make us laugh, but most importantly, they make us reflect. And so does comedy. Comedy gives us something we can't readily explain, a communal experience full of confusion and raw emotional release. In the end, it makes us more human than ever. So when we're faced with something possibly non-human, we can choose to run away from it or fight it, or we can embrace it and sometimes laugh about it. In this special two-part

series, I dig into the archives of somewhere in the skies, to bring you a collection of interviews I conducted or was a part of that involved comedians. And as you'll see, a common thread It starts to weave its way through these conversations. Why are comedians drawn to UFOs? How can we use it to both accept and possibly even understand UFO phenomena? In part one, you'll hear from Reese Darby, Kumel Nanjiani, Ashling B, Dave Foley, Steve Berg, and Moshe Kashir. I hope you'll truly listen and try to thread that needle of absurdity, we call euphology. and I hope it makes you think.

But again, most importantly, I hope it makes you laugh. Reese, thank you so much for joining me today for the very first time on Summer in the Skies. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan, for having me. I'm a big fan of your show, avid listener. So, yeah, very pleased to be here. Thanks, man. Well, I really appreciate that. I mean, hey, we were supposed to meet up at contact in the desert,

which is supposed to be this summer. But such is life, the world has kind of fallen apart. But hey, man, hopefully next year we'll be able to chat in the desert. Yeah, that would be great. Here's hoping. Yeah, here's hoping. I know. I know.

It's almost over. I hope. I hope. But, hey, we're here to talk UFOs. And before we even get to that, you know, I want to talk about the podcast, everything you've done for euphology and the paranormal. But I have to ask you, I just learned this recently. I did not know this about. you, you served in the New Zealand Army. Is this something you're willing to talk to us about?

What got you into that? And how did you transition from that to acting? Yeah, sure. It's an interesting one. See, I was very dedicated and still are to a certain degree, but certainly in my youth, to the ways of the military. Now, I was a air training corps cadet. Now, the air training Core or ATC, as we call it, in New Zealand, and I believe it's a Commonwealth thing, is basically a unit for kids from the age of about 10 through to 15, 16, that has an emphasis on the Air Force and the ways of flight, but also basically takes kids who want to do something like scouts, but it isn't scouts. When I discovered that, I signed up immediately because as a kid I used to watch a lot of war films and I was just into that kind of stuff, the sense of order.

By the way, I answer questions usually sort of like it takes me 20 minutes and then I'll spin off into some tangent just to give you a warning. You know, this is my improv styles and about 15 minutes and we'll be talking about something really weird and we'll go, what was that question again? Why are we here? We're already there. We're already there. But just long story short, then I joined the Army cadets. And it was a once a week thing that my mum would take me to after school. And you had a sense of order.

You would iron your uniform and you learnt discipline. You would march. And sometimes you'd gone these camps and do some really good military training with the actual army. You'd do some weapons training. you'd get some adventure. It was a lot of fun. And then I joined the regular force. I went to the regular force cadet school.

The last year, it was in existence in New Zealand. It then closed down, not due to lack of interest, but I think it was a cost issue. It was a million New Zealand dollars to train each soldier. Yeah, so that was me. I was fully trained. I was like one of the elite, went into the actual army, from that point. And it was a signaler for four years in the Royal New Zealand Signals course.

So as a communications electronics operator, I was also one of the last of the Morse coders. So I learned Morse code and I used to be able to do it at 40 words per minute, which is essentially that kind of speed. And I would be writing down in my tent, you know, what these codes were that were coming through and then giving the results to the officer that was waiting. I used to drive Land drovers, put up massive antennas, loved it. But then in that same time, also then started getting interested in girls. I was a late bloomer, if you will, which is a great thing to have, I think, for a boy. But then I started going, oh, gosh, I'd like to have a girlfriend. And then I started going,

oh, am I going to be a soldier for the rest of my life? And then I got into trouble a lot because I've got a wicked sense of humor, as you know, and it's not ideal for the military. So I was, they said to me, my commanding officer said, you know, you should, you should try something else, maybe go to university. And I always thought, yeah, I always wanted to be a journalist. I always wanted to, one of my, one of the few skills I have was writing and creative writing. And, uh, you know, all about that. And so I thought, I'd give that a bash. So I left. at that point, but I've never left the love of what it did for me, self-discipline-wise. I still have friends that were in the army with me during those times.

And yeah, it's something that will always stick with me for the rest of my days. Wow. See, it's amazing the different lives we can lead in one lifetime, Reese. I mean, we've all been there. I was an athlete growing up. I thought I was going to be a pro baseball player. And then UFOs and the theater world took over man. and the rest.

I don't know if my dad is proud of, you know, the transitions I've made or not. That's yet to be seen. But, hey, man, I can chat with him over a beer about UFOs for hours. So I think I've done my job. Yeah. But, okay, so that's amazing. And now it's kind of come full circle. So now you're like interviewing former Navy pilots and stuff like that.

So it's, again, it's all connected somehow. But let's talk about the origins. story, you know, the Peter Parker getting bit by the spider. How did you, how'd you get interested in the UFO topic? And I'm sure you've answered this a million times, but for our listeners who might not know, yeah, how'd you get interested in all this stuff that you ever had an experience? Yeah, give it to us. Okay. So for me, those people that know me know that I'm definitely 100% creative. And with creatives, we have an imagination. We like to think outside the box. We don't run by the mill nine to five mindset. We wake up in the middle of night and have

ideas and write them down. Still do, always will, whether they are alien downloads or not. I'm not sure. But as a kid, I, and if you really want to go to the roots of it all, and some people might like this because they might feel they're the same way, I was a mistake. So my family, there was four kids and then nine years later, I arrived at the wrong end. My parents split up. I really wasn't supposed to exist. And I've always felt that kind of love of the other and the unknown and why are we here? Why am I here and what else is here? What do we not know? And I kind of searched for anything that wasn't supposed to be here as well. And that's where cryptids came in and that's where UFOs and aliens came in. So for me, they kind of made sense to me

because I felt like that. I've always felt like that. And so as a kid, I would look through these books on monsters and things, the unknown, and I would get excited about it. And for me, it offered an excuse for me being here. It seems weird, but I think some people may be able to relate to that. And I've always had that in my heart going through life. And I've always had an interest in what else is out there that isn't run of the mill. And will we ever solve it? I'll solve why I'm here because it was obviously a night of passion at some point where, you know, but still I kind of, I love the fact that I'm a mistake because I'm always

searching for something bigger. And that's led in a lot of ways to my success because I'm not going to take anything for granted and sit back and relax. I'm always on the adventure. So, yeah, in terms of my own personal experiences, I would love to say I have seen cryptids, but I haven't. but I have had a feeling of them. Ghosts, unfortunately, which are my least favorite of the paranormal things.

I have had kind of experiences with, and I can go into that a bit later. Uphology, I've seen UFOs twice, possibly three times, but unfortunately only, as I call them, astronomical ones, which are up in space. And that's through looking through night vision goggles and seeing anomalies that are moving in a really weird direction contact in the desert and prior to that I've also seen them at Loch Ness which was a cool place to see them. I've been there three times looking for Nessie and once I was with my wife and I and my kids were staying with some hippies next to the lock and they invited us out to the backyard after this very raw, what was that, raw, not raw meat, raw food diet dinner.

Yeah, something like it was all put through a blender and we had to eat it. Anyway. As the Krispy Chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful.

I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet? No. Crispy, saucy and $4? dollars, very, only at 7-Eleven. Valley through 62326,

participating stores only while supplies last the app for full terms. And then, but it was obviously very good for you. And then sort of way after that, they talked about, oh yeah, because I was obviously asking about Nessie. And this couple said, by the way, the wife, I could do a bit more research on it right now, but we haven't got time.

But I remember using my memory abilities, that she was an ex-supermoder. or something like that, or she was an ex-Miss-universe-type lady, a quite interesting, interesting past. The guy, I'm not, can't remember what his deal was, but then, you know, you can figure me there if she was an ex-Miss universe, you know, I probably had my mind more on on what she was talking about. But the next thing I know, we're in the backyard, and we're looking up at the stars.

You said, like, the cushions were already there. This is something we do all the time, she said. And we're looking up with the binocular. my son was there too, my eldest, and he would have been, gosh, he must have been about six or seven then. The little one, I don't think was, I think he would have been cuddled up with mum somewhere inside. But we looked up and with the binoculars and we're just looking at the stars and then she said,

just keep an eye, just keep looking and you'll see some of the lights that move in a weird pattern. And I'm thinking, oh, this could be satellites or anything like that. I just kept looking, we kept looking. and then all of a sudden into the binoculars came a light that moved in a squiggly fashion and then shot off in a weird direction. And there was no other excuse for that other than I said to her, oh, I think I've seen one. And she said, did it move like this?

And I said, yes. And she's, yep, that's them. We see them all the time. And then when I saw them again in that same fashion in contact in the desert last year and the year before, because I've been twice now, you know, it made sense to me. And the most exciting one was last year when I put the night vision goggles up. If you ever get to go to contact in the desert listeners, there's usually some dudes hanging around either selling or at least just giving people a go with these amazing, very expensive

tech night vision binocular systems that are really an absolute must if you want to be a UFO spotter because these things are fantastic. And as soon as I put them up, almost like I willed it to happen, this thing just came straight into my field of view, did it like, almost like if it was a hot rod, a donut. It was like, did a little circle and then did a squiggle and then darted out. And I'm like, okay, so that was not. satellite. That was, that was, and, and it happened immediately. And that kind of spooked me out a little bit. But unfortunately, that has been my only, I haven't seen anything close. I haven't seen, you know,

and I'm very envious of that driving along and the power of your car running out and all of a sudden there's a light. So, but yeah, a believer, of course. Well, hey, I mean, look, for every close encounter, there's incredible things going on just beyond our atmosphere that we, just can't explain it. Sometimes for me, that's just as exciting as if it were alien or something like that. You know, it's science we haven't discovered yet. It's anomalies out there that we just don't know. So, I mean, the fact that you saw anything is huge. And like you said, you know, I want to get your opinions on this later, like willing these things to happen. That's kind of a big part of, I think, where a lot of this UFO stuff is heading. But we'll talk about that. All right. So my next question for you is the X-Ex.

Files. I'm a huge fan. So I'm sure you knew this is going to come up at some point in the interview. How did it happen? It's by far my favorite episode of all what, 11, 12 seasons that they've done. Oh, God, man. It was brilliantly written and performed by everyone involved. But this is one of the biggest listener questions I got. What was it like working on the X-Files? How did it come to be? And yeah, give us maybe the rundown of all that and how you got to wear the? the Colchack, the Nightstocker. Oh, yeah. Hat, yeah.

So I guess we can start off by saying, I willed it to happen. And there was an alien download in the middle of the night. And I went, I mean, I don't know. I just think, I mean, I obviously, I have a good agent to get through this one real quick, but also give as many details as I can. You know, I have a good agent. And so I do get good auditions. And I don't get many, but I get interesting ones.

and for some reason this came up and it kind of made sense to me. So in I go. Now, another interesting thing is that when the X-Files was in its most, oh God, I hate it when I can't come up with the words, popular stance in the world in the 90s. I was in the Army, so I didn't see a lot of it. I had to catch up with it in later years. Now, what I did see with it was mainly a drama show. So here's me now getting an audition for this, for this, the new, the comeback season.

I think, what is it, 20, 20 years later, something like that. And I'm thinking, oh, here we go. Okay, here's a chance for me to, to act dramatically. Because anyone who knows me, I'm a comedic, improvised actor. And that those are my skill sets. although I like to think I could do a good job in a drama, but now maybe I'm getting my chance. So I go along to the audition.

Now, the sides were very minimal. So when I say that, I mean the little bit of script they give you to do your audition with, because I didn't want a very top secret at this stage. It was a really big secret that this, well, it wasn't so big. I think as soon as it leaked out that this phenomenal show was coming back, everyone started talking about it. but yet the ideas for the episodes, and of course,

you know, they were very, very top secret. So I got these, like half a piece of paper to look at when I went in there. And, uh,

I delivered these lines. And by the way, the lines in this audition, it was certainly not comedic at all. I think I had to give a little part of the monologue about, uh, the fact that I was a human for the first time.

It didn't make much sense to me. Um, and I just did the job. I thought I could as if it was, uh, if I was delivering a dramatic performance. And it was very brief, and I walked away, and I was called back before I got to the car.

The runner came through, and he said, hey, listen, can you, are you available for these dates? Just checking, you know. And when you get the old, are you available for these dates as an actor? Your ears prick up and you think, oh, here we go. I've got a good chance here. And then I got a call on my way home about the moustache. I had a moustache at that point.

And are you willing to lose the moustache? And, you know, for a split second, you think to yourself, oh, no, there's no way I'm going to lose that. Sorry, we were so close, guys. But of course, yes, what moustache? I'm already shaving it as we're driving. But I said, yeah, of course, that's not a problem. And then when I got home, I got another call.

This is where I'm already driving home thinking, oh, I've got this. I must have this part. This is amazing. Got another call when I got home saying, hey, listen, we've just had a chat to Darren Morgan, Chris Carter, who, by the way, when I did the audition, we're both in the room, though they're only two guys and this, you know, assistant. And they said, you don't need to lose the mustache. And I'm thinking, well, hang on, you're telling me, I've got.

this. And I think I don't even can't remember then. I was so excited with what was going on in my head getting this massive role, possibly, that I can't remember whether I think that phone call finished. And then I had to be had to get the official one from the agent, uh, from my manager saying, uh, that it's yours. But I already knew at that point. I mean, they're checking the dates and the, and they're shaving my mo and then and then bringing it back. Um, so yeah, I got it. Now, I later found out. that of course, of course I've got that because the role was for someone who was a human for the first time, someone who is sort of naive to the ways of being a human, someone who comes across with empathy, but also you could imagine is possibly from another world or inhuman in some ways. And that pretty much sums me up. That's how I've always felt about myself. So long story, even longer. I do the show on the day, right up to this point of the first day of acting. By the way, you know, having seen the show, you know that my character has a really long monologue in the graveyard with Dukophony.

And I was very nervous about that. I normally, with my roles as a comic, as a comedy actor, you know, the script is, there's less writing involved. And you can play around with it. Now, this writing was so great, obviously, that I couldn't play with it. and I was too scared to even ask if I could. So I just had to really learn it. So I remember, I think it was Vancouver and I was walking around for hours getting it all into my head. A lot of people who haven't been involved in acting always think, how do these actors remember all of these lines?

And I often think that as well because, you know, I'm not, I'm not a great memory guy in one air, out the other, as my mother always used to say. But for this very, very big role, this is the most, and I've done a few, you know, big role. in my life, emphasis on the few, but they have been rather big some of them. But this, for me, personally, was the biggest because I love the subject matter, obviously, and to be part of this phenomenon, to be part of the X-Files meant more to me than anything. It's my jam, baby, as my mother always used to say. It's nice having you on the screen, because I can see you laughing. At the moment, when I'm just looking at me, I'm like, what am I doing?

It's, yeah, what I talk about you. But I'm also used to just talking to myself, so it's not too bad. I get to the graveyard and we start doing the scene and I'm dramatying it out. I'm like, well, watch Darby act. Look at this guy. And then Darren goes, Rees, you know, just be yourself. Be, you know, you don't need to. Because sometimes if you're acting, like you can tell with some people are acting,

oh, that guy's acting. Look at the way. Oh, what an actor. But if you, but you've got to look. lose all that to actually be a good actor. And so, but I didn't think, because by the way, the scene was about me wanting to kill myself. You know, it was a pretty, pretty horrific kind of idea. And the viewers at the time aren't sure what this guy's about.

Why is he trying? You know, it's so brilliantly written this episode that it unfathoms, unfails. And you help me out, Ryan. It's, uh, yeah, yeah, it's, unfurls. There we go. Unravel. Unravel. I'll take that one.

It unravels throughout the episode that, you know, why he is the way he is. And in fact, he, you know, he's, he wasn't human first. He was, he was lizard first and then, or reptilian, I should say, and then became something he didn't want to be. So when I got the, when I got the note from Darren to have more fun with it, old Recy came out. And then the personality came out. And then Dukoffney, you know, was reminded of Flight of the Concords and was, he was a little bit starstruck. I'm starstruck by him, obviously. He's a little star struck by me.

We're getting that both stars are striking and magic is made. Wow, man. Well, that sort of existential question in the episode is what really resonated with me. And it kind of followed you throughout your work. I mean, you have this podcast called Aliens Like Us. And that kind of dips into, you know, these questions in this X-Files episode of who are we? Why are we here? What makes us human?

And what, you know, we've all asked these questions in our life. You know, why do I wake up every morning and go to work? What could I be doing? What should I be doing to make the world better? And, you know, especially right now, I think a lot of us are having a lot of us are having a lot of time to self reflect in our lives, you know, because we have the time to do it. So, I mean, there's no better time to go back and kind of ask these questions. And with your podcast, first of all, I got to ask, like, where the title come from?

The different meanings you can give to the title of your show is what really struck me. So I guess let's kind of dive into that. Yeah, you know, moving away from the X-Files, what made you want to do this podcast? You know, I'm into the subject matter. And just even though we're moving away from the X-Files, I'll say one more thing about it because you brought it up there when you're talking about the existentialism of the episode and how it kind of makes sense.

And it's like a, it's very relevant right now for our lives and how we're thinking. An interesting, I guess, part of that, the show that was happening for me at the time was that I was questioning my, character was questioning his life, questioning what it means to be a human, and he did not like it. He didn't understand why he had to go to work. He bought the dog, Daegu, because he felt that that's what you're supposed to do, and that gave him happiness, which is why people get pets.

And it's, it really, but here's the weird thing. The synchronicity part that freaks me out is that my character, if you remember, his job, he worked at a cell phone. store. Okay. So that was his now in real life back in New Zealand for many years and I've recently done it again. I was the face of a cell phone campaign in real life. So this this kind of reality meets fiction blur was happening in front of my eyes. And of course also in my early years watched the X-Files and had imagined meeting Mulder and Scully. And there I am meeting them, you know, in a porta potty. You know, and so for me, with the imagination I have,

and I cross between what is real and what isn't all the time in my head, particularly when I do my stand-up, and we can go more into that if there's any questions about that. But I've done stand-up for, you know, over 20 years now. And with the stories I tell on stage, they're a mixture of reality plus my imagination extending into unreality to make things funnier than they really are. And I confuse the audience quite often on, you know, did this really happen? How much of this is true? They always walk away and sometimes question me. Did that really happen? I mean,

that's a thing with a usual thing with stand-ups. But for me, it can be way more mystical because I'll be talking about mermaids or jet packs. And there's like, I think, you know, knowing Reese, maybe that did happen. And so and and some of it to a certain degree has, you know, and these kind of occurrences. But here I go again with this 20 minute going off in a different direction thing. Love it. But but to pull it back, to pull it back, I will say that, yeah, the, the synchronicity, the universe making these decisions for me, putting me in that character position, putting me in that show. And for that. And for that. that show to be a fantastic episode, which, you know, they are hit and miss. And for me to be

luckily in one that was historically, you know, it was going to stand up, was just out of this world, which is a cool thing to say on your show. And of, you know, I knew we'd make it in there so much. There's your sound bite. Well, I have to, first, I have to agree with you. I mean, I think, you know, people love or hate the, the reboot of the X-Files. But I think that, um, I think that episode you guys did. It probably saved that entire season. And I think the same could be said for the following season with their Darren Morgan episode in that season. Those are what people like. That's what they crave. You know, Monster of the Week. Exactly. Literal Monster of the Week. So, no, I think it's, it's amazing. I love how it kind of leads into different parts of your life.

And it kind of reminds me there's a quote. I used to. to always go back to with John Keel. And it's something, I don't know it verbatim, but he says, if you stare far enough out into the sky, you'll eventually see the back of your own head. And I always like- Yeah, I know that one, yeah. That always blew my mind, because I think it's right,

the more we search for answers and get involved with this UFO thing or the paranormal, the more we're looking for our own importance, our own answers in all this. I mean, I told people, you know, there's that altruistic sense of, yeah, I want answers for the public on what UFOs are and whatnot. But honestly, I want those answers for myself, first and foremost. I want to know what happened to me or why I saw this or what it all means. And I think that's what it always comes back to us, like you said.

I like that. It's always putting that mirror back on us. Yeah. It is. And the answers that you seek and hopefully you find, are the answers that are personable to you. And so, you know, will we, will we ever solve this mystery? Well, maybe, maybe not as a, not as humanity, but individually, we might be able to

solve it for ourselves in our own head, what we think they are. And, you know, I just from reading, I've been reading your book, Ryan, I've got it here with me, obviously. Great book. And, and it's thought provoking because of the personal touches that you, uh, deal with in here because rather than the nuts and bolts kind of what is this thing, what was the speed, what was the height. It's our own personal thoughts, these eyewitnesses, what it means to them.

And it gets you thinking because what do we have if we don't have the answers already inside our own brains and we just need those doors to open up and that's where we feel that the mysteries can possibly be solved? Absolutely, man. Well, I appreciate you saying that, and I have to agree. I mean, that's why I wrote the book. I, of course, I care about what they saw in detail because, you know, we want to figure out what it was. But end of the day, like, how did it impact them?

How did it change them? And we'll talk later about, you know, that capital D disclosure. But I think, you know, every person who sees something or experiences something, that's a personal disclosure for them. So, yeah, I appreciate your outlook on that. and kind of tying it back to to the podcast. Can you tell us how it? Oh, yes.

Yeah, how it would be. Look, man, we will get there. Baby, yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew there was something. There's something. There's a reason more here, I guess. Yeah, aliens like us. Who did you do this with?

Yeah, give us the origin of that. Okay, so cool. So I have this, previous to that, I have a podcast called the Cryptid Factor. Right. And I've been doing that. that since 2008 with my friend Leon, who was known as buttons on the show because he pushes all the buttons because he's the tech, he's the producer on the day, pulling cables,

setting the levels and of course editing the whole thing. So he's kind of the brains of the network. And we started off with David Ferrier. And then in later years, we have, the band has changed. We've got Dan Schreiber. Now, that's. that podcast, you know, that always has and always will be until we actually get some cash coming to us, a hobby. And we love it. Now, we've got, you know, busy careers. So it was really just an excuse as we started off to get away from the wives for an hour on a Saturday. Now, I can tell you the whole crazy history of the cryptid factor, but we probably don't have time, but to transition forward in time to now recently Spotify coming to me and saying,

hey, would you like to do a podcast? We need a comedy podcast, but also I hear you're into weird stuff. I said, yeah, sure. I mean, I can do, I haven't done one on, particularly on aliens or euophology. I've done stuff on cryptids, but I could, I'm very interested in, and I'm sort of, I was sort of mid, not transitioning more into that field, but certainly opening my own paranormal field up to include uophology more than I had in the past. So I was excited about that idea.

And I said to Spotify, I won't put any, I won't give any specific names. I'll just call the people Spotify. I said to Spotify, I said, listen, spots. I've got a friend that I work with that I really need to bounce off.

I've got to have buttons. And so Spotify is like, all right, I suppose so. And then they connected me up with another chap at American, Ethan. And so next thing you know, we've got our team and I came up with the name. It was up to me.

It was my show. So I thought about it for a long time. One of my favorite movies was spies like us. You remember that? Oh, absolutely. I needed a catchy name. And, of course, I love wordplay. So aliens like us just made total sense to me.

When it came, I thought, oh, that's it. Because not only do aliens actually like us, hopefully, aliens are like us. And also, of course, buttons and I were aliens in America, aliens by proxy of our position in the country. So it just made total sense. And then it came down to, yeah, getting it done, 10 episodes, getting – now Spotify came on board very hands-on with regards to needing templates, needing almost not so much scripts, but certainly a lot of a lot of paperwork of what we were doing. Now in the past,

as I've already told you today, I'm very lucy-goosey. The most I've ever done with buttons in terms of organizing things by writing things down was he would do a pie graph in his book and he would go right. So we've got 80% of the show will do this, then we'll do this.

And then the only other stuff we really concentrated on was recording funny stings to cut in between the segments. So I wanted to maintain that we did that in the show. And Ethan's good with music and has some friends that can do a bit of, have got some gnarly keyboard skills. So we thought we could throw a bit of that in there. And really, the difficult thing was to make a podcast that has comedy, is silly, but also deals with a subject matter that is important.

but regardless, some people still think is kooky and, you know, and ridiculous. And yet I wanted to pull in my audience and also through comedy and get them to open their mind up and also believe that there are stuff out there that is happening. And it just so happened that, you know, in the last few years, the world was transitioning from it being a subject that people didn't really bother. to take seriously to now, thanks to all the major news articles and the proof that's coming out about the existence of UFOs to be something that is real and that we actually do have to go, oh, okay, oh, oh, heck. All right. The joke's over.

Yeah. Yeah, the jokes over. So kind of, yeah, exactly. So it was good timing on all those, with all those elements. And but the other important thing that would I, in which I will be forever thankful for Spotify for, for ensuring is that we, you know, we got some good quality guests, some of the, some of the top people in the field to, who, by the way, you know, have a sense of humor and who are, who may, may know me. They didn't all know of my, what I've been up to. but a lot of them, you know, were fans of a certain degree and they were willing to come on board and say their stuff.

And so that's how the show came into being. Yeah. And I mean, that's a really good thing to bring up, Reese, is that balance. I think, you know, at the end of the day, we're talking about the weirdest shit in the world. Like if we can't have fun with that, what's the point? I mean, I'm, and I know I'm drawing back to my own personal experiences, but I did a panel discussion with Kumal Nangiani, who was in your episode of X-File. Out in L.A., I did a panel with him all about UFOs, and I'm going in thinking, like, they're going to be bashing me the whole time. Like, this is just going to be like, but I was ready.

I was ready to, like, do it. And, dude, I mean, I got there, and they could not have been more serious about it. it, which I super appreciated, you know, that like you said, this is a topic that deserves a legitimate study, and it now is by the government and governments around the world. But at the same time, like, come on, when you're talking to, and I do want to ask you about the contact email box in a minute, but we're dealing with some crazy-ass stuff. And if you can't laugh about it, what's the point? And a lot of these experiencers, they fully recognize how crazy their story. sound, you know. So I think that's a big part of it too. It helps if they have a sense of humor because if you, it's got a few bad reputations in the past from people being so super serious about it and that they're, yet they're talking about things that are so weird that it almost became a little inhuman not to question yourself and have a little joke about the fact that I saw this crazy thing and it didn't make any sense.

And so I feel, as an aside, that humor in general connects us together. And I've traveled around the world and done gigs and been in countries where I cannot speak the language, and that's pretty much all of them that don't speak English. And yet I've been able to connect through humor. And so that's really, it's really important. Absolutely. I think that humor and comedy brings us closer together than pretty much anything in the world and these profound questions we ask with UFOs too. So I want to talk about a couple of these

guests you've had on. Now, this one really surprised me when I first heard the episode, Pako Tariichi, the first guy to go public about the Tick-Tac UFO event. Like, how did you get this interview? And what did you make of his story? It's incredible. Well, he was super cool. You know, he was a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, um, X, I believe. but he was willing to come in. He had a book. He was promoting as well, which always helps. And then it comes down to,

that's another good thing about being attached to Spotify, was that you've got people in the admin realm who are pulling strings for you and organizing things, which is something once again that buttons and I, especially me, it's not my area of expertise. I'm not going to get on the phone to people and go, Hey man, can you get on my show? I'm sure you do, Ryan, but, you know, it's not my, you know,

I don't want to say I've got people to do that for me, but, you know, I've got people to do that for me. So we got him. And it's really, there's nothing beats the horse's mouth. And when you hear someone who's, first of all, that as, as boys on this podcast, we're in awe with because the guy was a fighter pilot, he's flowing Tomcats and things like that. And by the way, I told you at the start, I was in the air training corps as a 12-year-old.

My dream was to be a fighter pilot. So I'm already sitting here fizzing going, wow, you're what I wanted to be. I couldn't be it because I was no good at physics. I'm an idiot. I can barely do maths. So why you have to be great at that kind of stuff to be a fighter pilot? I don't know. But, you know, you do.

And I'm glad you do because these guys are super smart. You know, they're not just, they're not me. They're not leaving school. and jumping in a jet plane and traveling at those speeds. And they have super lightning fast reactions and their brains work really super fast. So I think to and us regulars can't quite even fathom that, just pilots in general have got to be really onto it. But these ones that fire these supersonic things up in the sky and they,

when they see these things and they talk about these things that they see, you know, they're not making that up. And so we have to respect that. And I respected what he was saying and the fact, but also being ex-military myself, I could connect with the idea that it's definitely a bit of a boys club. And we rib each other. And, you know, there's obviously it's men and women.

But as in general, and the women are the same, they're tough. We're tough, tough customers. And we like to mock each other and stuff. in the military and we kind of this competitive nature. And so if you were to say something like, I saw a UFO, you know, people are going to laugh

and they're going to, yeah, there's that sort of, it's, they're tough characters. And so for that to then become truth and to be an accepted truth in that institution to begin with is a real solid advancement. 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 net. Yeah, absolutely. I think the, we have to stress that point, too, that these are trained observers. And like you said, that ridicule factor has been in the military for a long time. You don't report these things. Same with commercial pilots. I mean, I go back to, you know, the, the Japan Airlines case where the pilot reported the UFO when he got to the ground. And then he was put on desk duty for the rest of his career. Like, that's so sad, man. He reports one UFO. They think he's not. nuts and he never flies again. So I mean, I totally get why a top gun pilot would not report a UFO

because like you said, all the other pilots are going to be like, oh, wow, you couldn't outmaneuver that or you couldn't think quick enough or you're totally, it was a glare in your, you know, the dome of your plane. Or worse, you're looking for attention. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? Yeah. In fact, you know what I just had an idea there? I would love for this to happen. I don't think it will. you know the new Top Gun that's that's coming out, which I think I'm excited about. Wouldn't it be great if there was a UAP in there

that Maverick catches out the corner of his eye or something or there's a tick-tech? It was such an amazing reference. I don't think they would do it, but that would be great. I remember, I think it was my English class in like middle school where I wrote a sequel to Top Gun. And it was like, it was Maverick going to hunt down Saddam Hussein in a, what do you call those? The stealth fighter.

Oh, yeah. So when I saw that this new one was coming out, I'm like, oh, there goes my plan. Well, you don't know. That could be the plot. You could have, I hope you didn't leave that script lying anywhere. I know, my teacher probably gave it to him, man. But hey, no, that's a good point. I mean, you know, the fact that this could be making its way more into the mainstream. I mean, every time I turn on the TV, someone's talking about like the TikTok UFO or this. or that. And it's not a world I ever thought we'd live in where, you know, the U.S. government would be seriously investigating this, which we'll get to. But the next guest I want to talk to you about is, okay, so this book, the book cover is just burned into my memory,

terrified me as a kid. And that's communion. So I got to ask you, what was it like interviewing I mean, probably the most famous UFO alien abductee of all time, Whitley Streber. And what do you make of his whole story? I mean, it continues even up until this day. So, yeah, what do you think? It was fascinating. So that one was hands-on, buttons and I in contact in the desert in a small room, you know, actually sitting right at a table with Whitley.

And he, you know, as you know, from the interview, we got to feel. feel the back of his ear where this bump was, where he had this implant, which I believe it's still in there. And he freaked us out with the point of where it moved. And what I found fascinating with his story was that he was not saying that they were aliens in a sense, that he didn't know what they were, but that it was ongoing. And that there's that whole point of, and people will argue against this with the will of wanting it to happen. His wife had passed away, if I remember correctly. And then the idea that he'd written science fiction books up until that point.

And so you've got that thing whereby people are like, oh, come on, this is just the next level of his imagination. So that plays in the back of your mind when you're talking to the guy. but I've spoken to a lot of people, as you have as well, and there's nothing better than actually being face to face. Over the phone, you know, you can't tell. But when you're there, and I read people for a living as a comic, because I'm on stage and I have to read audiences and I have to fathom how they're feeling

and whether my stuff's going to come across, and when the room is different, when there's too many drunks or when there's the lights aren't good enough and the mic's not quite right, I have to adjust my performance and and I have to be able to and I take a little bit of pride in the fact that I'm a good judge of character in terms of that. I think, I think performers have to be in a way because otherwise you misjudge what you're doing and you know, you're going to bomb or you're, you know, you're, you know, that is essentially is my job is to, is to be great and to be able to do that as an entertainer. I have to, I have to read.

and so I'm sitting here reading this guy and, you know, it's genuine to me. And Buttons is always, he's full of joy and very, we're both a couple are kind of young, well, young, I say young, you're getting on a bit now, but young in the head, which I think is a very healthy thing. You know, always open, open for fantastic tales, want to be astonished. But we're not so loopy that we're not grounded. You know, Buttons as a CEO of a huge company. And, you know, well, you know what I do. I'm an actor.

I'm a comedian. So that's not really grounding. But I, yeah, so I really, I believed what he was saying. And it was spooky. And by the way, communion, yeah, the book and the movie really, really, really. spooky stuff like that kind of stuff it gets you the hairs on the back of your neck standing up because

there's a sense of evilness to it that that's the worry and we don't want that but that is part of alien law is that you know we're not sure how much of it first of all is true but secondly

if it is how much of it has bad intent and whether what they're actually doing to us and manipulating us in certain ways. And so all of that was coming into play when we spoke to this guy. And feeling the thing behind his ear, dude, it was like next level. I've done some pretty cool things in my life.

But that was one of feeling someone's implant. I mean, I highly recommend it. Like I said, I gave it a little tickle. Yeah, you had to. See how it reacts. I completely agree with you. You know, for the book, I interviewed hundreds of people. And maybe there's like 40 in there.

I don't know how many, but there's nothing like being face to face with these people. And like you said, I always get asked the question, well, do you believe everyone that you write about? And my, I guess, safe answer is I believe these people believe what happened to that. Yeah. You know, and some might find that passive. But at the end of the day, like, I wasn't there. I wasn't there when Whitley Streeper had these experiences. I can't say if that happened or not.

But look, I mean, these are supposedly mentally stable. individuals as, you know, someone like John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist who looked into alien abductions, he did a huge study. And he said these people were not, you know, this wasn't abuse as a child. This is not a fantasy prone individual. Like, these are stable individuals who have never had an interest in UFOs or aliens or any of that. And they're reporting these things. So I have to agree with you. Yeah, like the judgment of character is a big thing. The other thing I'll say is that, you know, nobody wants to be ridiculed. You don't set yourself up in life to go,

I can't wait to get ridiculed from this. And it's not about selling books because, yeah, yeah, he's already a successful bookseller. And you're not going to, you know, there are other things you can do, putting yourself out there to have people poke fun of you. And I've been, I've been ridiculed many times as a, as a, as a little bit of bullying.

Or, you know, I was the class clown. but I've been made fun of, and it's not fun. You don't want to set yourself up for that. But when there's something inside of you that is true, that is burning inside of you that you need to get out, and you're helping other people who have experiences as well, then you know, you've got to do it. And I take my head off to anyone of these experiences,

contactees that have gone on the table and have spoken about their experience, that's an outstanding thing to do. And you've got to respect that. Yeah. The first thing I learned when I got into this crazy world of UFOs is to have empathy, for sure. Like, you don't know this person's life. You don't know their history. You can't come in with these preconceived notions because, like you said, you know,

just being face-to-face changes everything. I remember, you know, watching a woman break down in tears with her husband when she was retelling me her story of a quote-unquote abduction experience. And I'm like, I'm sitting there like, man, like, what the hell am I doing? I'm like sitting here hoping I'm going to hear a really cool alien abduction story. But this event traumatize this woman. That's a good one because that makes you. Yeah, it opens it up for you and you realize. So, you know, it's not just for my and other people's entertainment.

This is fully affecting some people. And so that, you know, it's cool to that end that I still managed to get those contactee mailboxes into what is essentially a show that has a lot of comedy in it. So I think the roller coasters, if that's a term, the roller coastersness of it is. of listening to that show, um, yeah, speaks volumes because you're like,

you're shocked, you're laughing, you're upset and then that's the credits. Yeah, right, man. Yeah. Good point.

I mean, and it is a whiplash, you know, which I appreciate about, uh, your show. Like you mentioned, the,

the contact email bag is where people can, uh, submit their stories. Am I correct on your show? Yeah. Yeah. So an interesting thing there was my wife dealt with all of those. so and that was basically they left a message i think she spoke to them um but it was it was set

aside from the three of us guys who were who were functioning as hosts and we would then and grab it and so often when we listened to the contact email box the first time was when it was put into the show and so that that made it it helps with these types of shows if we can and I learned that from the cryptid factor is that if we can spook each other out, it's great because we're all like we're kind of on the same level as the listeners. And we're like, whoa, okay. So sort of the last episode I really want to cover with you, Reese, of your podcast is your interview with Dr. Michael Masters. Now, I know this is kind of a running gag in your show with your co-hosts about aliens being us from the future.

And this is, this, like, this concept blew my mind when I first heard about it. I think one of the dudes from the, the Rendosha Forrest incident might have talked about this. But what do you make of what this doctor's brought forward that aliens could be us in the future. Yeah. So this has really grown on me. Now, when I first heard this and to be honest, Buttons was the first one who brought this theory to my attention a few years ago. And I always mock him. We're best buddies. So we're laughing at each other. And I'm thinking, yeah, right, it's us from the future. Come on. And he would say that millions of years.

So we've evolved to this point. That's why we look the way we do. And, you know, it was, it started to make sense in some, in some ways. But the real issue I had with it was if time travel became a thing, then we would have it now. It's that whole dichotomy of, you know, when, when does it happen? And if it does happen, then surely it's going to happen constantly. Look, I'm no scientist. I've watched back to the future a few times, but that's about my experience in it. Now, fast forward to Dr. Michael P. Masters, and he really has some good things to say about it.

He delivers a great interview. He does lectures on this. Buttons in him have been talking many times. They're both big fans of the concept. And I've got to say, you know, they swayed me towards it because this concept has been brought up. And certainly in recent years. And it's becoming more and more believable. And so, yeah, I kind of, I don't want to.

I'm not 100% in on it, but I'm kind of, I'm sort of. way towards it because let's be honest, we're running out of, uh, of answers and we've been trying to answer this, this big mystery, um, since, since the, since the 40s. And who knows, even before then, when people didn't know what to call these things, whether they'd be called, uh, angels or goblins or fairies, it's the other. It's where they're coming from. And so, yeah, I think, um, it's got some, it's got some truth. Yeah, I'd have to agree. I mean, again, like, and who's to say we're dealing with one thing?

It could be interdimensional. It could be, you know. There isn't one answer. There is not one answer. And I think my answer would be is that there is so many different concepts that could be the answer. And that there's definitely more answers than one. And I was thinking today about the things, the orbs, the things that the lights, just the simple lights that people are seeing. they're not seeing anything behind the light, you know, maybe because it's too far away

or there's a series of lights. There's got to be more than one answer. And one of those answers is it could be us from the future. It could be us traveling in different timelines. Interdimensional is a big one for me. I'm really a believer in that. But I'm also a believer in the fact that some of these objects could just be organic themselves. They could be spirits. They could be returning from another dimension that it's not an actual physical object. It's just, it's an energy and it's watching you. The fact that people have recurring experiences that they see one and then a few months later or years later they'll see one again or they'll see and it keeps following them

throughout their life means it could be connect, it's got to be connected to that person. So it's got to be maybe in the family line. It's got to be a spirit from another dimension that is coming back and messaging you or keeping an eye on you. So, and you talk about, so that the spiritual nature of that, and as I say, I'm not into ghosts, but there's got to be a connection there. And yet that, so that has a strong kind of weight behind it. And then you've got the metallic craft, which is a completely different scenario.

But yet those things are real as well. So, and then you throw tic-tacks in the mix and you think, what the hell is that shape? What does that signify? and there can't be anything inside it because, well, if there is, it's certainly not human at those speeds and those velocities and what they're doing. So if there is, have we advanced this far in the millions and millions of years in the future that we can withstand that?

Or is there some sort of energy within side the tick-tac that enables us not to feel it? But think about it, we've already started not flying in things because we've got the drones. We're now going to have the next few battles are going to be drone versus drone. that a dog fight recently with, I think it was the F-16 versus the drone F-16, and the drone kicked its ass. So that's now. It's 2020.

And, you know, I'm talking about jet fighter pilots and how I would love to be one. That job's going to be running out. I think, so when you think about it that way, there is, if it is future us, we're not in those things. We've just sent those back. and maybe that particular shape is something that goes through the rift in the time space continuum. Who knows? And the fact that they're squiggly. They move these squiggly things.

And when I saw one up in the space through the binoculars, it did the squiggly moves. Like I said, you're like a hot rod doing a donut spinning around and then squigglying out. I was like, what's with the squiggles? That's your number one question, yeah. But when you get something in your eye, and I was shot as a kid, where my mate had one of these little, we used to make guns, we used to use the rubber fingers from a rubber glove and we'd attach it to, you know, a little plastic canister, like a tube, and we'd put little little monkey apples in there and we'd, or bits of chalk. and I got shot by a bit of chalk. We were crazy, you know, what young boys are like, and we'd run around, and this is before I joined the army,

but I was heading towards that way. We'd run around in the forest and would shoot each other. I got shot in the eye with this little tiny bit of chalk, and to this day, there's still a thing that's in my eyeball that moves around, and when I'm looking, it sort of squiggles about a bit. And very similar movements to the UFOs that people sometimes see. And I'm thinking to myself,

maybe that's what it, maybe the, maybe the earth is just one big giant eyeball and there's a few squiggles, there's a few things that are being shot at it and they're just sort of floating there and then they disappear. I don't know, that's pretty out there. But I think, hey, it's just as plausible as any other theory out there when it comes to this topic. Trust me. Yeah. Well, you did mention, you know, 40s, the 1940s. And I want to get your opinion on this. Let's take, for instance, the famous Roswell UFO incident, 1947. We're now hearing from the New York Times that the Pentagon has been briefed on off-world vehicles, they're calling. Yeah, right. Yeah. What do you make of this, man? Our own government saying there's possibly

materials out there from something, not from this Earth. And do you think these things have actually crashed on our planet and that we have, I don't know, Bob Lazard them, have a reverse engineered these things? Have these crafts actually crashed, is my question, I guess. Yeah, I think so. I think we kind of, I believe the Roswell crash.

I think something of that nature, something so huge in our human folklore, has got to come from a truth base because it's still there, we still talk about it, and it hasn't been debunked.

And, you know, and of course, it's also very difficult to debunk. it's 947 and but the debates will go on and on till the cows come home as my mother used to say but uh so i think if you're going to be in this subject matter you know you you can't can't be in this realm of our of our belief that we and the things we chat about without saying that you believe in that i mean we can't we can't have ufo podcasts and go but you know what roswell was a step too far uh so we so from the very base level you know that that is that is that is a definite happening. And then if you believe that, then of course, you've got to believe

reverse engineering. You've got to believe, and I'm in the, and I know you are too in the Bob Lazar camp because it just, I just, part of it is because I want to believe, X-Files. And also, and also because I think it's, and I'll be honest with you, it's just exciting for me. And I think I love the unknown and I love that, and I trust knowing that I was in the military, my and that, you know, there are secrets that are kept in governments. I was, I had top secret vetting when I was a signaler. So I was privy to, you know, things that weren't allowed, that were beyond classified. It was top secret.

And there was, by the way, before you ask, there was nothing too exciting to reveal there. This is New Zealand. But, you know, I had to sign a lot of stuff, and they did a lot of background searching on me and stuff. And it probably did freak them out when they realized, hang on, you were. a mistake. You weren't him supposed to be born. But that's on your birth certificate. Yeah, maybe that's why they led me in. I'm like, I'm like, but what was I saying? You know, me, Ryan. Yeah, what were we saying? Oh, UFO crashes. Like, oh, or reverse engineering. Like, we, we have that hunger to continue believing it because that's what keeps us going. It's taken this long for

them to kind of admit it now. And with the off-world vehicles, there's your admission right there. And this disclosure that we're currently in with the small D, as Richard Dolan likes to say, big Richard Dolan

fan, by the way, I think if you're going to be in Uphology, you know, to have someone of his taking the history of it and taking the complete knowledge of all the cases and stuff like that he does, is so important. in our field. And I know there's a few dudes like that, but I like that guy.

It gives so much legitimacy to this thing. And I think I'm excited about next year. I hate this year because everyone does. It's 2020 and it's shit. But the things that have come out of it from us sitting on our asses trapped in our houses has been positive in some ways for the mind because we're, but to that degree, there's been a lot of negativity in conspiracy theories and people spending way too much time on the internet and getting really unhealthy. And I feel sorry for those people. I don't know about you, but like we've all lost or know someone who's lost a friend

because of their beliefs over the, over this year. And we go, what? I didn't know you. And so we go, oh, I can't talk to them so much anymore. And that's been happening because of the goddamn internet. And you've got to be really careful what rabbit holes you fall down. And I even felt that, I know I'm spinning off into more tangents now, but I think the listeners are getting used to it,

is that that's one of the things with euphology is that there are dark rabbit holes there that you can fall into. And even when you go to conferences like contact in the desert, that there's some people that, you know, aren't legit or they're springing forth cultish type references and storylines. And for one of a better word, bullshit that are suckering people in. People like me who want the unknown, who feel they don't belong, who are looking for weirdness. And so you've really got to have your head together. And you've also got to have friends and keep your people close.

and springboard each other with, what do you think about that? And like, that's why I have buttons, and I have, like, guys that and Dan Schreiber and Farrier that we kind of, if I might be thinking about something and I'll spring it to them and I'll go, oh, now that's, I don't know about that. And you've got to, and then do a bit more research. But when things start to go dark, that's a good sign that you should pull out a bit. And as a comic and as an entertainer, I love to keep things light

because I think we need to talk about this, but we need to, we need to be happy, especially in these times. I'll just say that kind of stuff. I think it's important. It's very important, and I'm so happy you brought it up. I mean, I get emails every day from people's, you know, whether it's anti-vaxxers or Q and non, or all this complete and utter bullshit, and I'm not afraid to say that, it's dangerous.

You know, these are the type of people who shoot up pizza shots. and drink bleach and, you know, to cure viruses. And look, we talk about UFOs. Of course, we believe there are conspiracies. But when it gets to the point where people are dying because of these unsubstantiated claims and disinformation, that's a problem. So I'm glad to hear you say that.

I always promote critical thinking on my show, which a lot of this conspiracy theory lacks nowadays, when once it was a way to like, you know, exercise your thinking skills and your common sense and your critical thinking. And now it's become the complete opposite of what it once was. And look, I understand people are scared. You know, we live in uncertain times. And there are people who will take advantage of that and tell you believe.

And you will pay them for that information. So I agree with you. You know, I always struggle with these UFO conferences that I go to where you've got a military pilot up they're talking about a TikTok UFO that's documented. And then you have someone who says, I've met 183 races of aliens. Yeah. And they're, you know, this. And I struggle, you know.

And don't get me wrong, because there's a, there's a fun part to that. And as an actor and as a guy who loves Mork for Mork, you know, I'm excited about that kind of thing. But you've got to take a strong bag of salt with you, not just a grain. And you've got to flick it over your shoulder every five minutes. Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good point, man. Well, I'm happy to hear you say that because it is something I think that has drastically affected the United States in particular when it comes to politics and how we're dealing with things going on in the world. But that's a whole other rabbit hole we won't go down. But I do want to get to some listener questions here if you're game for that. Yeah, sure. Awesome. Awesome. And it's up to you how in depth you want to get with.

brother. I know you're a busy man, but let's start with this one. It kind of ties into what we were just talking about, about cultish figures and whatnot. Tor from Patreon asks me, the narratives people go by in uphology very greatly, like we talked

about. We've got Tom DeLong and everything this guy's doing, talking about UFOs are a potential threat. And then on the other side, you've got these individuals like Stephen Greer, who I'm sure you're familiar with. Yep. Yeah. saying the antithesis, you know, aliens are peaceful,

and they're here for good reasons. So how do we decipher between these two narratives and is the answer somewhere in between, or what do you think personally about these extremely drastic extremes that we see in the UFO field? I think the answer definitely is somewhere in between, and it's important to have both ends of the spectrum. And you've got to remember that the United States,

as formally and right up in two, recently, I believe, you know, I mean, this is an argumentative position, but, you know, being the biggest superpower in the world, always is on the front foot with defence and they have to, they've got to keep their big walls of Rome protected so it doesn't implode. And, you know, lately, you know, it has been. And I think that's why they're on the front foot, rightfully so, defense-wise, on what are these things and are they a threat? And of course, that makes total sense. Now, if this was New Zealand, and it helps having me, you know, I'm from the Shire,

I'm from a little, you know, island in the South Pacific set of islands, I should say. But we wouldn't be, you know, as worried, defense-wise about these things. Because, you know, what are we protecting? A lot of sheep and cows and some great. visual effects artists in Wellington. But, so I can understand that threat part of it. And that, that's good because, but here's my, here's my other thoughts on that. If it was, if they were truly a threat, we'd all be dead by now.

Or they would have already taken over. Come on, let's be honest. 1947 was the first crash landing. You know, it's not going to take them. How much recon are they doing? You know, and this comes back to my old military days. I know what it's like to go on a recon. You do one.

You get all the stuff you need. And then you return that night in the dead of the night and you invade and you win. So the fact that that hasn't happened makes me believe that we can shift things slightly more towards the Stephen Greer idea that it's a consciousness that these things, we just need to. And I love this idea that we can all connect through meditation and that we are all one. Now that it could have been, what's the James Cameron movie? Avatar. It could be that I'm a big Avatar fan, but they talk about that there.

And it makes total sense because all living things, you know, the old adage of, you know what your pets are thinking. When you come home, your dog's excited to see you. We connect with other sentient beings without, you know, community. communication. And that's through the mind and through the head. And the more we advance ourselves, the more we're going to open up those extra parts of our brain that are going to enable us to mind-read each other. Now, you know, we can then go into technology trying to help with that, i.e. Musk, you know, chuck a, chuck a thing on a pig. And next thing you know, you're fast forwarding your memories. I mean, that's people. I know people are freaking out about that. But there is something to be

said about not needing that. And look, I'm not a big Greer follower. I mean, I know what he's, I know what he does. And look, I've barely meditated in my life because it's just not who I am. But I'm willing to understand it. And I know, I know about the DMT stuff. And I mean, look, I've done magic mushrooms. It was an accident. No, it wasn't. But I nearly ate, I nearly ate my shoe. I thought it was made of chocolate. Look, that's another story. So yeah, just to answer the, the question to round things up. I think it's definitely in the middle there, but I can understand both ends of the spectrum,

and I think we should be more concentrating on the, yeah, the thought processes of our brain and what and how we can connect to these things via things like telepathy and extreme meditation and things like that. But at the same time, haven't done it, too scared to do it, I'd rather just write jokes and act in. You know what I mean? But I'm interesting. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft.

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Yeah, totally. I'm, I'm terrified of, of taking anything to alter my perception. A, because I don't think personally, physically I could handle it and be, like, I'm, there's always that fear of, like, what if I can't come back? Yeah, what if I can't come back? Exactly. So, no, I think you're right, though. I think, you know, remaining open to the possibility. I mean, I had a woman on a couple of weeks ago who talked all about the consciousness aspect of all this. and the U.S. government using remote viewers to get hostage out of Iran. Yeah, man. I believe it's real.

Yeah. And I think, again, like, it's stuff I'm willing to entertain the more I realize how not set in stone the world is in front of me. So, yeah, we'll see. I do agree. I think the answer is somewhere in between both of those. But we don't know what it is. So, of course, our military is always going to look at it as a potential threat. So I think that's important too.

You know, it'll always be there. But hopefully they're going to come save us soon, if anything. But all right, here's our next one. Bigfoot Society. This is another really popular podcast in the Sasquatch Realm. He asks on Twitter, what's the one guest you want to interview if aliens like us gets a second season? We'll get to that. Who would you want to interview?

And who's like your dream person? Well, I wanted to get, I mean, I've, I tom DeLong, definitely in my, my kid was one, you know, but from other than, other than his perspective, which is not, he's just, you know, really, he's in deep and he's got so many contacts. And with, to the stars, they've got made such a great institution with gaining so much intelligence and, and putting it out there, you know, unidentified as a show that. it's opening people's minds up and it's advancing us through into disclosure, which is, which is exciting. And so anyone involved in that show any of those gentlemen that I see on TV that seem to be connected with a bit more knowledge, a bit more classified stuff. But of course, you know, will they reveal it?

You know, what are they willing to say? And a lot of these guys that are retired, the other thing that comes to my mind is eyewitnesses who are really getting on a bit, who are ex-military, who have retired and who can reveal truths, testimonials that I've read, and I think it was unacknowledged that book. Yeah.

Some of those, some of those testimonials are fascinating and are from retired generals and high-ranking, high-ranking people that just give so much legitimacy to the field that I would I would love to talk and I like talking to older people. I just think I've always respected older

generations as we really, really should, being ex-military as well because of the people who have fought in wars and things like that. You know, so as young minds, I think we need to hear the wisdom of older

folk. So I would go down that direction for sure if we did go get another season. Awesome, man. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, the first person I interviewed when I was 13 years old was a Vietnam vet. He had a UFO sighting over the Pacific and he didn't talk about it ever to anyone. Yeah. I got in touch with him and like talked to him for three hours, maybe five minutes was about the UFO sighting, but the stories this guy had to tell, I agree with you. Like, what a, what an amazing life that a lot of these people have led. And like, let's respect that. Let's, let's build off of it and let's ask new questions. So yeah, totally. I think that's an awesome, awesome way to go about it. And I can't wait, hopefully to hear some of those. Awesome.

Violetta on Patreon. She asks, all right, we're going back to the X-Files, Reese. Did you ever get into any in-depth discussions about UFOs with Dukov? Or, anyone on set. Did that ever happen? Good question. No, but Dukofny was reading that book, I think it's called Humanoids or Humanoid or Hugh, yeah, you know, it's, I'll have to check on what is, but it was, it was about humanity. And, and, so he, he's into the, into the subject matter. So he's just not acting. he is you know he's a he's a believer um and so i found that really cool um but yeah um short answer is we yeah we there wasn't a lot of standing around the fire um yarning it was more like me and my trailer going over those difficult lines dude you had some heavy material there

heavy material man only then i had to get like someone really iconic to try and stab me to death with this glass bottle. And, you know, it was one of those, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, um, a theater glass. So it was like, wasn't proper glass, but we, he, I got him to sort of poke me. And then he actually made me bleed. I got a little scar in my, in my fingers because even if it was like, it's like candy glass. It's like glass that you use in TV that when you smash it, it's not a real glass, but it's

kind of like made of candy. But it still, it still managed to make me bleed. And so I'll always have that memory, a permanent souvenir from the X-File. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, hey, you know, I mean, we've heard in the past that X-Files had people on set from intelligence communities and actual FBI investigators who looked into weird stuff. So we know that a lot of inspiration from the show came from real life, which is really cool.

So, hey, that's all we can ask for in a show, you know, covering this topic is go to the people who actually. actually know about it. So yeah. Yeah. Give. Yep. All right. Moving back to Hollywood.

Jason on Facebook asks, what percentage of people in Hollywood and entertainment that you know have talk about these things, UFOs and stuff? I mean, you're very visible and out there on the topic. But do you ever get shit from people in the entertainment industry about being into this stuff or anyone you can think of who you're willing to out on the show who's really interested in this stuff. Yeah, we're getting scandalous here. Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of thing you can't, you can't do unless they are out with it, you know? But in that degree, I, first of all, I don't get ridiculed within the community of Hollywood or anything like that with my beliefs. And I get away with it, obviously, because I'm a comedian, I'm weird. I talk about weird stuff. I do weird things. I predominantly play weird characters from other realms. So that's okay.

And in this day and age, now that it's more and more acceptable, the stigma is not attached to it. It's, or at least it's slowly getting released. It's still there in some ways. But for me, because of the field of entertainment I'm involved in, I'm not, yeah, no one points a finger or says anything behind my back. At least not that I know of. If I was in politics, it would be a different story. If I was a lecture of some sort of I was dealing with way more serious subject matter about certain things. And then I had this as my hobby or had this belief.

People would go, okay. Because then they worry about you. And that pisses me off because it doesn't matter what you do. If you believe in this kind of stuff, that's okay. And that should be okay. And you have to sometimes separate it from your actual job, particularly. if you're in some sort of really serious kind of position. But in my position, which is not serious,

it runs hand in hand. So yeah, now do I, does it come up much in green rooms or in trailers? Of course, now and again. And it's actually, because people know I'm into it, they'll get the courage to bring it up or say, I'm into this or I've seen this. What do you think, Reese? and I'll have a discussion with them.

And I think that's really cool. So that's one of the reasons I actually am quite open about it because it is the unknown. No one's really got the answers, apart from some people who, like contactees, who may, who strongly believe that they've seen these certain things or have had these certain experiences. You know, that's a different thing again.

I'm not one of those. But all I can do is chat and hypothesize and theorize. And I think that's one really, fun thing. That's the coolest thing about this field is that it's just it's just folk talking. It's like and it's and it's getting our brains moving and it's opening the little doors in our brains and zapping each other with these ideas and through that finding some sort of disclosure as well. Or not. I always I always think the journey is much more rewarding. I almost don't want the answers. I mean, so I think we're going to be like disappointed if we do figure.

out, you know. And it's actually us. It's actually, and that it's, that it's out, that it's, yeah, I know. But us from the future is still going to be exciting. But you still, when you, when you, when you see these. And one of the things that's got in the way is pop culture in a major way. And I'm partly to blame of that, obviously, but I, but it's when you think back to the little green men and things like that, the movies of the 50s, the source of men from

Mars, that kind of stuff's, it's, it's muddied it all up. And then people are picturing. those things. And then when they think they see things, they're seeing those things as well. And so it's the, it's the, that mixed with the reality of the fact that maybe they, there are these beings with the almond-shaped eyes and stuff, because they are so, they're so prevalent in people's visual memories and things. So it's, it's a muddy old river, isn't it? Isn't it right? It is, man. There's days I wake up and I'm like, why, why am I doing this? But hey, conversations like this where we can really stretch out.

And like you said, hypothesize. You know, anytime one of these UFO people says they have the answers and they know what's right and what's wrong, that's what I run for the hell. I'm like, come on, man, or woman, let's be honest. And those are the ones you sometimes see at those conferences as well they do stand in front of a massive crowd and I say, right, well, this is what's the story is. I've been in contact with these aliens. I've done this. I've worked on these products. with them, you know, and that's, and that's, you know, Bob Lazar's not quite at that later.

He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's not, uh, admitting, working with aliens or things like that. Uh, he's, he's technology, technology based. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, there's such a thing as there's the want to believe and then there's that, that, that, that personal want to be, to be, to be too strong. So you've got to pull your want back because if you if you start sprinting towards that finish line with that big want tattoo on your forehead, you know, you're going to hit some false finish line and fall over and start opening the champagne and then people are going to be around you going, dude, you came down the wrong track. That is the perfect analogy. There's interview over later. There we go. Awesome. Just a couple more here, my man. Oh, this is bringing us

in New Zealand. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. Amanda on Facebook says, do you know about the airline pilot, Bruce Kathy, and his theories on the world grid? Yeah, is this guy, have you heard about him in your neck of the woods? The world, it rings a bell, but no, I'm not sure. Yeah. Okay. Bruce, I have to look it up. Yeah, yeah. He's got some, I've never heard of him either. So, like, you're not alone in this. Okay. But world grid. Okay. She gave some information here. His central thesis was that he could use mathematics to describe a grid-like pattern on Earth that powers flying saucers and controls the dates and places where nuclear bombs can function. That's interesting. We hear a lot about UFOs being cited over nuclear facilities and whatnot. So this dude in New Zealand apparently thinks there is a grid that these UFOs are following

when it comes to our nuclear capabilities. and maybe it's powering the flying saucers. Yeah, what do you think about that? That's interesting. I mean, when it comes to grids and the earth, I'm into the magnetic situation and negative magnetic anomalies throughout the planet where people see paranormal activity.

And I think there's a big, there should be more focus on that situation. For example, things like Skinwalker Ranch where there's a lot of magnetic situations going on there. And then there's a cesspool of paranormal activity and not just UFOs, but cryptids and things like that, which gets me so excited because I love to involve multidimensional creatures and things like that, not just lights in the sky. Because, A, it's more fun, and B, there's got to be a connection there. And being into cryptozoology, you know, I like the idea of Sasquatches and various other creatures like Nessie and P. things that have been seen and why are they seen and are they really there or are they just

appearing from another dimension because of a time shift or because of the magnetic anomaly in that area that at a certain time a day or a certain, the way that the earth has placed at that particular time, a vision happens and it could be not even of the now. It could be of a different timeline, could be of the past, but it's a, because we're in a, we're in a, living in a multi-dimensional universe, it is here, but it's not here. And so there's that kind of, that kind of talk, which, which, which I think is fun. Yeah. So the gridline stuff, I'll look into that.

I also really like the idea that the extraterrestrials always come in contact with us around the nuclear situation and that they are protecting us or, you know, and then there's the footage of the, of them zapping the, the nuclear missile that was up in space and things like that and just the contact around around bases. Rendlesham Forest falls into that one as well, I think, in some ways, although that's another mystery again, because what the hell was that craft just sitting in the forest for for no apparent reason? By the way, didn't have little dudes in it.

So I'm still, as we're talking here, I'm still thinking more and more like there isn't little dudes in these things because why would they need to, why would they need to, why would need to be. Why would they need to be in there looking through the wind, looking through the windshield, looking down, going, okay, just checking on, oh, we've been seen, quick, get out of here. And I just don't, it just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem right, but it's still worth talking about, because then people who have, who have had experiences, you know, swear to all they're blue in the face that they have been taken up and have been, and have talked to these beings through their, through their mind and what have you. So, you know, get that bag of salt and join in on that discussion.

Everywhere, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Salty up, baby. Salt me up, make me salty. That's such a good point, though, the whole idea of, you know, maybe it's their version of drones. We send unmanned things to other planets. Why would you risk one of your beings' lives or, you know, look at our fighter jets. These things cause millions of dollars, so we're not going to risk putting a pilot in there and it crashing on another planet until we're sure that we're going to be safe.

And look, if Roswell taught us anything, they're not safe. They're crashing. But I was just going to say, that's where when Roswell comes in and then you think, well, okay, so there was creatures inside there, if we go with the focus. Supposedly, yeah, yeah. That kind of

spins that out of a little bit of context, out of the focus on what we're trying to get to. So it's once again, the river's muddy, you know. Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, for sure. Every time we think we've solved it. All right. The Zignals on Twitter asks,

Love your work, Reese. Can you tell us about your favorite UFO case of all time? Rindlesham, for sure. Is it? Okay. Yeah, Rendersham Forest. just because, you know, it's out of the states and there's so many in the states. And I know there's ones in all over the world.

But that one for me, it's got a, you know, heavy American involvement. Obviously, it was those two American bases that were in the UK at the time. But I love it because there's so much going on with it. And the craft was right there. They actually went right up to it and they touched it. It had like hieroglyphic signs on it. It's just got so much Stephen Spielberg's sort of George Lucas aspect to it. Yet I believe it.

It is definitely real. And then there's the whole issue with the, if you read into this case, with the one of the chaps getting the download, writing all those binary codes in his notebook. And then the translation of what that came out to be, which does feature forth the hypothesis of us from the future, things like that. It's just the mysteries that are,

the unraveling of that one is really cool because there are so many cases, and a lot of them are just sightings or being chased by something or a light in the sky or a, you know, the Phoenix lights is a really cool one because it was just the amount of eyewitnesses and you've got those boomerang shaped craft and there is no kind of, I find not believing in that one to be hard. You know, it's not a bunch of flares. There was, there was just, anything that's stacked with a lot of evidence, first of all, are the greatest cases.

But anything that is more than just lights in the sky, is that a tangible kind of physical effect on people really pricks my ears up and makes me even more excited. So, yeah, Rendlesham's up there for me. I would have to agree. I mean, you even had Nick Pope on your show as well, the former MOD Molder, as it were. And physical effects, too, man. I mean, one of those guys had, like, heart failure

that they discovered came from being around radiation at this UFO event. And then the government paid his health bills and said it was directly connected to this UFO event. So that's insane to me, you know, that this guy's being covered by, the VA and because of a UFO event. Like, it just blows my mind. The danger that comes with the negative, magnetic negative energy and stuff that we get

from these things that's time and time again brought up is really scary. And you think, the effects that these things have on you. So when, and I often think about that, when I think, oh, I'd love to see one of these things up close or whatever. And then you think, well, hang on, people who have done that, have had really bad effects for the rest of their lives and stuff. So there's that. That's what the potential threat comes in, you know?

Right, yeah. Yeah. And it might not even be their intention. They just don't know. They come through with energy that we can't suss out. That's not good for us. Maybe that's why they're not coming to us more readily. Because they know that they will have.

a diverse, adverse, I should say, affect on us as humans. Yeah. I think, yeah, again, I think it comes back to us having more to do with it than we think. It's the same with our pilots, you know, if these UFOs may not potentially be malevolent, but how our pilots react to them or how they deal with the situation in the moment could be a threat. Like, you know, they could set off a world war if, you know, they shot at one of these things that was just there to be like, Hey, we're just checking out. Like, we've got the cure for cancer if you want it. Or you could just blow us up.

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting. So here's our last listener question. Reese. I think you'll like this one. If you could visit the location of any UFO flap, siting, landing, what would it be?

What's your dream case other than Rendell Shum? I know we just covered that. If it's Rendlesham, like, that's your answer. But yeah, any other dream cases you wish you could be personally involved with it? I would love to. and I know there's an expedition that's underway in the planning stages, and that's off the coast, Catalina Island, where there is supposedly a USO base under the sea.

I believe there could be something there, the amount of sightings that we have off the coast, California here, that seems to be centered around that area, and I think they're going out with a research ship. I'm a big fan of research ships from Jacques Cousteau. and the life aquatic. I want to be on one of these things. And so I think that's something I'd like to do,

is to go out to sea. Because I think some of the big answers that we haven't grasped yet are under the oceans. Because what a place to hide. There's more down there, I think. That's a mystery than up in our skies, for sure. I think so.

And things are coming out of the sea. And when you were out at sea to any extent away from land, you can see the absolute vastness of the ocean. And to see a little bloop come out, no one would notice it. You know, these tiny things that might come out to survey to these, these orbs, these craft, whatever they are, a perfect place to hide.

And so I wish a lot of money went into creating some sort of, Nemo type submarine submersible research craft that could go on top and underneath, or both. Yeah. And search our oceans for not only Atlantis,

but the U.S.O. bases that might be underneath the seas. That would be super cool. Well, hey, full disclosure, man. I am one of the media reps for that expedition. you're talking about. So I will put you in touch with those people and hopefully we can get you out to Catalina Island. I mean, you're not that far away if I'm mistaken. Well, I've got the binoculars, man. So, uh, dude, you are ready to go. I'm ready to go. I'll grab your scuba gear. I get my

scuba gear and my drink bottle and my flippers and I am there, my man. Oh, love it, love it. We're going to make it happen for sure. Well, wrapping things up here, Reese. Man, thank you so much for all your time. We've been almost going for two hours. I really appreciate this. Tell us a little about, you've spoken about it throughout the interview, but the cryptid factor. I know you're going to be having some exciting stuff going on with that soon. What is the cryptid factor? Who do you do that with?

And yeah, give us a little rundown of that. So that is my podcast with Buttons and Dan Schreiber. And it is about cryptozoology first and foremost. But because the stories, eyewitness reports, and, news relating to that subject matter isn't coming in thick and fast every five minutes. We also deal with weekly world weird news, which is one of our big segments. So we talk about anything weird or paranormal that is happening on the earth on a weekly basis. And we don't discuss things before we get together.

The three of us are in different continents presently. and so like Dan's in the UK, Buttons is in New Zealand, I'm here in L.A. at the moment. And we get our stories and then we surprise each other with the headlines. And then we kind of outdo each other with the spookiness. And then we chat about where we think these stories are going. And first and foremost, you know, we have a great laugh. and it's entertainment, but we do what we have done on the aliens like us,

and that is hypothesize, and, yeah, just try and answer the mysteries of the world. So that podcast has been going since 2008. It actually started on the actual radio in New Zealand. We were on a dance station called George, and we were on Saturday mornings. So people would be coming off a high listening to Un-Sulles, Unst-unst music all night, and then all of a sudden our theme tune would come on and would be discussing Sasquatch in theories.

And we'd get a lot of people texting us saying, stop encouraging this bullshit. And that kind of became our motto. So we've been encouraging BS since then. And it went to different radio station. We got fired from George. We moved to another radio station, a student one. And then we moved from that to another station that was. in the middle of a shopping mall.

And we were, the three of us, this is when Farrier was on the show, would be in this shopping mall with these microphones, people would be walking past with their bags and stuff and ice creams. And we'd be have our headphones on, you know, talking about UFOs and things. It was just, we just love the bizarreness.

We have matching berets and t-shirts that we wear. And it's kind of like the Ghostbusters on heat. And so it's just a lot of fun, but also, yeah, it's a passion. And so that podcast, which in itself was encrypted because we would only be able to do it when we could get to do it. Sometimes it would be once every third week and we'd put it up online and people would go, oh, we've discovered another one of your show. But as of lately, we've got back together and it is now weekly. And so this is the best we've ever done with it.

And I think it's because the world's a bit screwed and we're all kind of, well, we're out of work, let's be honest. And so that's one positive that's come out of 2020. And so it's on all the networks. It's on Spotify and it's on SoundCloud and iTunes, I think. And we're trying to, and by the way, it's not monetized with a complete hobby. So, yeah, that's where we're at. we've actually tried to turn into a TV show a couple of times. I think it would be great.

But one of the ones we did, we did it for Discovery. And they were like, someone really loved us. And then the upper management, when they saw the pilot, they just went, you guys are just mad. No one's going to watch this. And so we kind of took that as a badge of honor as well. Because, okay, I guess your audience is not for us. But it's, you know, it really is.

the it is the choo-choo train that never stops. So that's the cryptid factor. Awesome, man. Hey, encouraging BS since 2008. There's the T-shirt right there. I'm in. Let me know when it's available. But no, I've recently started listening to that one as well. I love it. Here's another project I'd love to throw to our audience, especially our New Zealand audience. Big in Japan. Can you tell us a little about this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What brought this project about?

And what was your experience like going over to Japan? My girlfriend lived there twice now. Speaks pretty good Japanese, but I am terrified, man. Culture shock is not my thing. So what was it like? Yeah. Total culture shock. Yeah.

So basically, that was a really awesome experience. It came about because of the supposed 2020 Olympics being held in Japan. So the idea was to make a show for the Australasians, the South Pacific, where I'm from down under, to give them a little bit of a culture woo-hoo about what Japan's like. And so I was sent over there on assignment, if you will. And there I was. I'd never been there, always on the top list of places I want to go.

and it usually is for people because it is so different and so interesting and so many cool pop culture things come out of Japan that that encourage and construct really cool things in the Western world that we end up, you know, the original ideas are from Japan. Also, I'm a big robot fiend, so it just made sense for me to be part of this. The other thing I'll say is that it was possibly the last travel show created because I did it this year and I was in Japan in January through to mid-February for five weeks. Wow, right before the world. COVID struck while I was there.

So the last week and a half, my wife was like, you better get out of there. You know, because there's a close part of the world to where things were really kicking off. And so I finished up with it, wore a mask heavily in the last week or so. and then got out, you know, but what a time. My kid, my eldest boyfriend, takes Japanese school. He's getting real good with the language, loves the culture. It was very jealous. I was over there.

So I was thinking of him a lot and I was getting to do some good groundwork so that I could return there with the family because I know he really wants to go. Of course, you know, then the world turned upside down. And then the Olympics didn't even happen. And so, but we managed to get the show out. So it was called Reese Darby. Big in Japan. It hit the New Zealand television screens,

and I believe it's going to Australia next, where it's just called Restarby in Japan. They've dropped their big. Turns out I wasn't so big. Not so big. Yeah, it was great. You know, I got a couple of recognises there. I was in a very geeky part where all these figurines and comics and stuff like that.

I'd go to those places quite a bit. I forget the Japanese word for it, but I got recognized from the X-Files when I was in this figurine and comic bookstore. And so that was really cool. These Japanese fans were very excited. I saw this rock band that the audience was, this can't be right,

but I'm thinking it was like 10,000 people in this audience. It was called Baby, like baby rock or baby anyway some of the listeners will know the name of this this rock band and yeah I said that was just a couple of these great exes I also trained to be a samurai

and I created this mascot and walked around and went to a snow festival a fire festival I really almost clocked Japan in five weeks it was a fantastic fantastic trip yeah

That's awesome, man. Yeah, they're big on their mascots there, I've noticed. We've got Hikonyan, which is the samurai cat all over our apartment back in New York City, because that was the, every small prefecture has, like, their own mascot. It's so cool. Yeah, they call it the Yurikara. And it's a really cool thing because Japanese people are kind of shy and there's not, and to their credit, they're not touchy-feely, which is great in this era.

But they do, but they do. but they do like, they do really connect with inanimate objects of, of, of characters and things. And so I think that was really cool. And a lot of other countries, they would, they would more likely to mock the idea of a mascot or, you know, what we can tend to be like. You'll, you'll, you'll push it or something like that. I've been a mascot in New Zealand in a parade where someone's just kicked me, you know, but that stuff would not happen in Japan. It's all hugs and, and photographs. and it's a really good, really good energy to the people over there and a very disciplined culture.

So I really loved it. It sounds like it was an amazing experience. And hey, look, the day will come when we're all able to travel again. I know. I know if everyone, you know, pulls their way. But, man, this has been amazing. Again, while the world kind of falls apart, there are things to look forward to. and the fact that I got to get you on here today. Huge honor.

I'm a huge fan of everything you do. Yes, I'm going to fan boy out right now. But the fact that you have these interests only makes you that much cooler in my eyes. And I'm sure many other people are. So I got to thank you for coming on. Is there anywhere that our listeners can find you on your social media to ask you some more questions?

Yeah, I'm on Twitter. Don't do it much at the moment. The last few things I've been doing on it is just, I've discovered what I want to do with it, and that's just put out little poems every now and again, just to make people smile or whatever, because I don't like to have opinions on things or whatever. There's enough of that going on, and a lot of Twitter is negative. I'm also on Facebook, I have a fan site on that. You can just find me there and Instagram as well.

So it's normally either R-H-Y-S-I-E-D-R-B-Y. Recy Darby is one of the one of the hooks I go with. Other than that, you know, Google me, find me. And if I'm, if I'm, if I'm not working out on the Peloton or writing jokes, I'll, I'll answer you. You're going to keep it, man. Hey, look, there's the crypto factor symbol at the back there, see? Oh, love it. That's so cool.

I can't, do it. Oh, there it is. So, yeah. We'll have to get you in aliens like us one made next. But, um, dude, again, thank you so much for coming. somewhere in the skies today and uh we'll talk soon yeah man and thank you keep up the good work a great show and uh keep fighting a good fight i'm with you all the way the somewhere in the skies podcast is free to listen to every week but if you would like to help support the show we have a

very active patreon page where you give what you think the show is worth in return you'll get early access to the main show bonus episodes and priority to ask our guests your listener questions. Your support truly makes the show continue and grow. So to learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. So the connections both in Hollywood and in the UFO subculture have always been ridiculous. And that pretty much sums up how I connected with today's guest. I was researching Roswell for a television special I was hosting. And in my deep dive, I came across an awesome segment by today's guest on Comedy Central, highly entertaining show he was on called Drunk History. And I did what every podcast host does. I bombarded our guest on his social networks,

and he was kind enough to answer me back. And then I saw he knew my good friends, Greg Bishop and Tim Bannol, who I know are properly listening. So I learned that his UFO knowledge was much more comprehensive than just Roswell. So I'd love to take a deep dive today with him and also talk all about his awesome new podcast that he's a part of called Voyage to the Stars. So Steve Berg, thank you so much for joining me today on Summer in the Skies. Why, thank you for having me on, you man. I'm happy to be here. I know we were talking off air for a little while here, so I know this is going to be a super fun one. And that's what I have been striving for with somewhere in the skies is, you know, we have times, dates, the history of UFOs. But, dude,

we're just going to deep dive today. Good. That's where I like to live. Deep, deep, deep, deep under the water. Awesome. So, well, let's start with, you know, the origin story. How did you get interested in UFOs to begin with? Wow, that is a great question. You know, like the exact, I don't remember a moment. Like, well, I remember this. So when I was, like, I think four or five years old, my mom took me to get a library card. And this is kind of more her story. She remembers it more than I do. But she told me, you know, check out as many books as you want. And so I looked around and I was like four or five, probably really couldn't even read that well by then, if I even could. But I came back with a book about magic and a book about UFOs.

And from that point on, I was obsessed with getting like these, my library had this like Billy Myers picture book. Oh, nice. And for me, as a young kid, I was like, oh, my God, those are real. I can't believe this. Why isn't anyone talking about this? So honestly, my kind of gateway drug into UFOs was Billy Myers picture books when I was really, really little. Yeah, but I've kind of like thought about this deeply. Like I'm like, why did I get into UFOs?

I've never, you know, didn't have an experience or anything like that. I've never seen anything. But I think I grew up in a family with like no religion. Like I never went to church at all. I mean, we celebrate, you know, the holidays, but like not really. And I think maybe I got into UFOs because I was like looking for something as almost as a religion replacement. Mm.

That's just doing like a deep dive, like almost like doing self-reflective. therapy on myself. Oh, absolutely, man. UFOs, they are a belief system in many different layers. And at the kid, I just, like, would believe everything and anything just because I wanted to know, it was so fun. Yeah, but that's kind of, you know, I didn't, it's a pretty generic way in. I just, I thought it was something that, like, I couldn't believe that not everyone

was interested in it as a kid. He kind of continued to feel that way, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. How boring, Steve. God, you weren't abducted when you were 10 years old. No, no. Not that I know of. Maybe I was. It'd be great. I wish, man. It sounds awesome.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's pretty cool, man. Like, I was sort of the same way. I did have sort of an initiation experience as a young boy. But I did the same thing. I went that deep dive into my public library. I ended up keeping most of the books and they never got them back. Me, too. That's what I would do. I was actually so funny. A lot of my books are from the Omaha Public Library. Okay, okay. I just never returned to my poor mom probably had to pay a hefty fine for that.

Yeah, exactly. I know. I feel like I probably own the library by now with how much I owe them. But, well, that's pretty cool, man. I love hearing how people got into this. And everyone comes at it from a different angle. And like I mentioned in the intro, I saw you on, I've seen you, I should say, in TV and movies and everything. And I was really surprised when I saw you pop up on a show.

my girlfriend and I religiously watch drunk history and you cover the case. You covered the case, the seminal case in Uphology of Roswell. And, you know, I had my brush with that recently with a case going out to the actual crash site going to the Roswell Daily Record

and meeting Jesse Marcel's granddaughter, which was awesome. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, man. Like, we really tried to strive to do something new and get stories out there. And I'll be honest, you know, when I was approached to do this television special. I didn't want to do it. I was like, Roswell, what the hell is left to say about

Roswell? What can I say about it? Yeah, that's the challenge. Yeah, man. So, I mean, but coming out on the other side of it after doing it, my mind was completely changed on the entire incident. So I want to ask you, having covered it on TV and researching it and everything. Yeah. What are your personal thoughts on the record? Well, you know, I mean, that's interesting. Howie you said your mind was changed on after doing a deep dive into it. Because I feel like the more I've learned about Roswell, I guess for the last 20 years, the further away I get away from thinking that there was any kind of non-human intelligence involved. But, you know, but that I don't, you know, like I just, it's so hard.

You know, it's such a tough case, I think, to really like draw any kind of like conclusion on. Because while I would say that, you know, it's hard, it's almost impossible to rule out any kind of terrestrial origin of it. Unless there's something I don't know. But, I mean, obviously it's an interesting case because it's kind of like the, it's really one of the, you know, cornerstones of the UFO mythology of the 20th century. And so that, you know, whether or not anything happened there, it is an important case because it's such a big thing in UFO pop culture. almost like, kind of like, you know, you can probably obviously tell I just read Diana Walsh's, Walsh Basilico's book. Yeah, yeah.

Because I love so many of the things that she talks about just really resonated with me in terms of just, you know, like whether or not something's true, it doesn't matter, you know, it doesn't make it any less important. Just kind of like creating like new mythology is kind of that a whole Carl Young type thing, like, where it doesn't matter if it's true enough people believe this and maybe we're making it true, you know? Like, it's crazy. I know I kind of maybe drifted a little way from Roswell, but, you know, in terms of doing it for drunk history, I'll just explain, like, how that came about.

I had done a couple of the narrations and done some of the reenactments. Derek Waters is an old friend of mine. We used to, we both started out Second City in Los Angeles doing a sketch. And so we met there and just became, you know, great friends. And, you know, when that show, he got that show, he just, you know, asked me to be a part of itself. Absolutely. I can drink beer and be on TV. It sounds like.

It doesn't take much convincing, yeah. No, it doesn't. But, you know, I kind of started begging him from the beginning. Oh, dude, let me do some kind of UFO episode. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of hard because there's not really a conclusion. And I'm like, good point, you know. And then they were doing an episode specifically on the state of New Mexico. The one season they were kind of focusing on regions and states.

And so I was like, Derek, Roswell, dude. I know there's no conclusion, but let me do it. Like, dude, fine. And he knew, they end of loving the episode. It was actually kind of like a popular segment for him. But yeah, it was fun to do. And I kind of came to the conclusion that, like, Project Mogul seemed like the most likely explanation for me. Okay.

Which is not popular. I got, like, actually some shit for that, you know. But, yeah, I mean, to me, it's just impossible to say, what the fuck happened? I'm sorry. Oh, dude, no. We're all about the fuck. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Fuck all you want. Fuck all my wants. All right. So, yeah. But it's, you know, obviously a very important case. Whether you're into Roswell or not, you can't deny it's importance. Well, I will admit here, and I even brought this up in our investigation, I tend to err on the side of human when it comes to Roswell.

I would agree with you that I think it was some sort of top secret project. My investigative partner and I sort of came to the conclusion that there was most definitely a cover-up. You can't deny that. Yes. No, there definitely was. I mean, even the press release, that was, they were being very unclear and weird about it. So that makes it interesting, too, you know? They spoke more with the cover-up than, you know, than anything else in terms of, you know,

retracting the story the day after. But we, it was really interesting, man. When we were off camera, we were getting ready to go to another location. This dude, this local in Roswell comes up to us. He's like, what are you guys doing? and obviously, you know, we're like, we're filming. He's like, oh, I wonder what it's about. Yeah.

So he goes on to tell us, you know, my relatives worked at the 509th bomb group, and they told me the stories about what happened there. And he went on to tell us one of the most, like, disturbing stories ever, which kind of related back to all the work Annie Jacobson had done and all these stories about, like, high altitude balloon experiments, where, they were sending children up in these things, you know, discarded children, disabled children, super dark, man. And, you know, they were seeing how high they could get these,

these humans into the air before, like, bad shit started to happen. So, for us, man, it's so dark and it's way more disturbing than a UFO cover up. Yeah.

So we didn't even go there in the special, but it's kind of what we, we alluded to at the end of our thing is there's so much more to look into. This could be way more disturbing than any of us thought. And maybe that's what they wanted all along. Let the public think it was aliens. Meanwhile, we're going to kill all these kids that no one cares about and start the space race. It's insane. It's insane. That is really insane. It almost reminds me of it. And I never read the book, but I've read, you know, Nick Redfern wrote a book about Roswell. Yes. That was very controversial and very people

like you're like mad about it. But is that sort of what the history, wasn't that kind of his theory that they were doing like testing on like, you know. Yeah, it was Japanese P-O-W. And like he got a lot of flack for that. But I'm telling you, as soon as we got to Roswell and we spoke to several locals, they all sort of had similar stories to tell.

Now, whether it was Japanese or, you know, just runaways or unfortunately, like, mentally disabled and physically disabled people that community, you know, society sort of shuns aside. It's, it's disgusting, if any of it's true. But, oh, yeah. Welcome to the world of conspiracies. Oh, we're deep in it.

Oh, God. Well, you know, sort of connecting to Roswell, Steve, I got to ask you, we lost Stanton Friedman recently, you know, the guy who basically brought Roswell to the public. So did you follow any of Stent Friedman's work? And what did it mean to you if he did? Well, I mean, yes. I mean, I don't think you can, you know, be a saucer buff and not have been influenced by a state and freedom in either directly or indirectly. As a kid, he was, you know, for me, the face of uphology, I guess, you know, if you will.

Like, because he was the one who was on like the legitimate, you know, he would seem like the, you know, unannointed spokesperson for ufology in like the 80s and 90s, kind of when I was a kid growing up. because he would be the one on Larry King eloquently speaking about the topic. And also kind of had, you know, he had a background to prove it. He was a nuclear physicist, Stanford, la, la, la, la. You know, but, like, he, for Stephen Freeman was the guy, man, you know, like, he really wasn't. And I think sort of at a certain point in my, you know, UFO personal, you know, like looking into the topic, I maybe stopped caring about some of the stuff he was talking about, like, in terms of, like, you know, the government, like, government and UFO stuff is like, while it's interesting to me,

is not that important to me, because I actually tend to believe that the government maybe has more evidence of this stuff, but has no clue what it is. Like, I really believe that for some reason. I feel like I need to be proved wrong on that until I would think anything else. But, yeah, Stan Friedman is a, you know, larger in life, luminary of the field, man. I love the guy. Actually, the only run in I ever had now, I was a kid, probably, 13 or 14 at a UFO convention in Lincoln, Nebraska.

And Stan was kind of like, you know, he was the big closer of like the weekend, you know, and I'm like, I'm going to see Stan Freeman. So my mom dropped me off like an hour away from Omaha where I'm from in Lincoln, Nebraska. And I spent it, you know, spent a couple days and going to these lectures. And I was just floored. It was incredible. But I remember waiting in a long line to, you know, it was like a book signing for

Stain Freeman. And I didn't have a book, but I just wanted to wait in line and shake his hand. So I get in the line and shake his hand and he's like, what? No book? And I'm like, no. And he goes, next. Oh my God. She's so, like, disappointed.

I was like, sorry. I'm a kid. Oh, man. That's cool. I think, you know, but he like, it sounds like from what I heard, like he, he went out doing what he loves, man. Like there was no, you know, like, he was like literally like on tour or like going to a speaking or something like that.

I mean, that's how I want to go, you know, like doing what I love, still still having passion inside me. And, yeah, man, I think that's a life well-lived. I would have to agree, man. I mean, like you said, like, he sort of preached the same thing for over 50 years, but, like, there was something to it. Yeah, I'm concerned what he was saying, but yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And he had his little soundbites. So, yeah, he was the one they would put on TV because he knew how to work the media. And he knew how to, like, make the most of the time he was given to talk legitimately about UFO. So, you know, we have so much to thank you. him for in terms of that, I feel. No, 100%. I mean, I used the term gray basket for like things all the time.

Gray basket, yeah. I was actually talking to one of my managers about sitting up a couple ideas I was working on and she was asking me about one of my ideas. I just kind of toss at one of the gray basket for now. I love that. She has no idea what that's referring to, but yeah, you know.

Yeah, well, what's that other one? He had noisy negativists. She had a noisy negativist. Yeah. He's got a couple, man. He's got a couple. like buzzwords that are pretty great. But I mean, how, like, I feel like that's going to catch on like right now because, I mean, we're just swimming in a world of noisy negatives, negativists right now.

Yeah, I know, man. Dark times. Stang Friedman knew more about the world than just UFOs. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. But like you said, he went out doing what he loved. He was on his way home from giving a UFO lecture. So what else?

What more can you ask for? I mean, I think that's, I think it's kind of beautiful. Obviously, you know, like maybe his family would have preferred to be around him. But like, I'm sure they were like, you know, no, he was doing what in love? I mean, what more can you have for, you know? Yep. Well, getting back to, you know, some of your brush with all these UFOs and Hollywood and everything, man. This is a bit more on the paranormal side.

Sure. And I know it's a little, it's a little sorted history for you, but I have to ask. Sure. In Walker Ranch, the film that you've done, found footage film. Is there anything you're willing to share with us about your research? search into Skinwalker and the process on that project. I, well,

you know, like a lot of, especially independent movies where you're getting, you know, when you're kind of like somewhat at the, with any, look, with anything in Hollywood,

you're sort of, at the end of the day, someone at the mercy of who is giving you money to do this. Yep. You know, I'm well aware. I,

you know, live my life as it's kind of like idealist, you know, uh, I still think Hollywood it can be about art and, you know, like doing something exactly what you want. But you're not paying for it. It doesn't turn out that way most of the time.

Anyway, so I had gotten fascinated with the Skinwalker Ranch. I think maybe hearing George Knapp talk about it on a show. It wasn't with Art Bell probably at the time. But either it was, you know, he was host in the show. But anyway, he did this show years ago, probably 10 years ago now about Skinner Ranch. And I was like just, holy shit, captivated. And I remember going out and getting his, you know, book about it. about Skillwalker Ranch and reading it in one sitting.

And then like reading it the next next week. And I just done this indie movie that was shot in Utah. And it was a really, it was a fun little movie. And so I kind of became, you know, buddies with the guy who financed it, the executive producer.

And I pitched him this idea. My friend, well, not myself, this, Devin McGinn, who was my partner in this project. And he did,

you know, most of the directing of it. He really, I was kind of just more of a quality control guy in the set. But, but we pitched him this idea literally just on a car ride. We had no material.

And he was like, I love it. I'll give you guys this much money to do it. And we're like, what? And he was like so serious. Like set up an account for us, like started paying us to develop it. And we're like, oh my God, I can't believe that was easy, you know?

Yeah. But I mean, we felt like it was such a good idea. And we had kind of a way in. You know, my pitch was it was kind of like a, more of a psychological thriller, not a horror movie. It was not intended to be a found footage movie for, you know, it was more like Poltergeist

set on a ranch. to me that sounds really good more of a psychological movie you know but uh you know that when it was coming out the found footage trend was uh reemerging in a big way so we at the last second kind of got pressured to turn it into a found footage movie

and you know that's life yeah that's love yeah that's how it would live I don't like hate it or like shun away from it it's just not the movie I intend to be a part of you know what I mean like it was I look back guy and say like, hey, it was a job. I made some money. Moving on. You know, like, yeah, I was going to say you got to research Skinwalker Ranch, which hadn't really been done that much

at that time, you know? Not really, yeah. No, and I did, dude. I mean, like, I still love Skinwalker Ridge. I think about it all time. I always, I'm always like, trying to convince my wife, like, on our next vacation, hey, what if we took a road trip through Utah? Yeah. And she's like, I don't know. It sounds great to me. But eventually I do what I, you know, I'm actually have a couple buddies who were like, you know, mildly interested in this stuff. And I'm trying to convince them to take a road trip with me there and, like, camp. And I love fly fishing. So I'm like, well, fly fish on the way, man.

It'll be great, you know? Nice. So, but yeah, it's still a pilgrimage I need to make. He's always gets to get a hotel like in Gorm and stay there and it's like bullshit with locals and, you know, drink beer to hockey talk. So this sounds fun to me. It sounds awesome. Did you happy to see that recent documentary on Skinwalker Ranch? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw it as soon as it was available. the, the, I can't remember his name, he's got a long, Jeremy, Lockerbie, Corbell's film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I watched that in Air 51. And look, I mean, because here's what I will say. I felt very gratified to see, like, more pictures of the property and some, but I feel like I don't, you know, without saying anything, like, you know, like, you know, I don't want to, like, rip it apart of any effort to do something about

Skimark Ranch, I applaud. But, uh, it, I think it left a little something to be to the, hired for me. I think it's just his style of directing and maybe crafting a documentary is not for me. You know, a lot of people have said that and Jeremy's a friend of the show but you know when you

make films like it is out there for the public to either rip apart or praise and you know I think he's still finding his footing. He's getting his voice out there but at the end of the day like you said how do you cover Skinwalker Ranch in like an hour and a half it's impossible.

It's an impossible task. That's why like I say like I applaud him. Like, I love that that dude's out there doing what he's doing. Like, I know he's sort of a polarizing figure, and that's fine. You know, like that almost makes him more interesting to me. But yeah, it's really like, and that's what I kind of thought when I was going to watch. I kept my expectation somewhat low because I'm like, how do you really cover something that really isn't documented that we know of?

I mean, maybe there's like, you know, secret videos and secret pictures and stuff like that. But, you know, it's, you know, like, I don't know. I feel like it's an impossible task. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I watched it twice. So it's not like I didn't like it. You know, like I would not go back the second time. But I, just to be able to see more pictures of the actual property to me was, I felt so, it felt so good.

You know, because like I could look at just like mundane pictures of that property all day. Like for some reason, it just excites me to no end. Well, I feel the same way about the area 51. The Bob Lazar film he did too. You know, I've always. been very on the fence about Bob Wazard and I went to the LA premiere of that one and

I'm gonna, I'll tell you right now man like I left definitely like a little changed feeling more like I believed Bob Lazzar at least that he saw what he says he saw. Now whether or not that was all bullshit or disinformation like I'm completely open

to that but I left being like holy shit like I actually believe this dude I don't know it's tough it's no Look, I actually, if you know, if you had to, if I had to make a choice, I agree with it. I think you said something very important. The whole thing that I believe that he believes what he's saying and what he believe. You know, I believe that he believes what he saw.

And I think that is very popular. It's the same thing with like Whitley Streber. It's like he has no real evidence. But I believe that Whitley Streber experienced what he thinks he experienced. Whether or not it was actually what it was, who knows. But, you know, like, so I feel like you had, you kind of hit the nail on the head. head that that what you just said I think applies to a lot in this field it is the mantra I believe they believe this I and and that's important you're really important actually you know so that that's

it's you know it goes I mean I'm not trying to tangentialize too much but that's kind of that you know it's like almost jacquillet is it just goes back the whole thing where he said he you know he believes this topic is way more complex than aliens coming from another planet you know and it I don't know I feel like the more and more you look into this stuff, and then the more and more you reject the lay, you're like, how do you not subscribe to a lot of what he's saying? Right. And, dude, I mean, there are nuts and bolts, euthologists out there, and that's, we need that.

Like, that's the stuff that's going to make it to the mainstream, data, radar, trace evidence. And that's awesome. And it's, like, we need it. But at the end of the day, like, I'm the kind of guy who I want to interview witnesses and get their testimony. And sometimes that's all we have to rely on. Yep. But I think these stories are very important. You know, I really do. And I agree with you.

Like, I am probably, I'm more turned on by listening to experiencers, contactees, or people who have even secondhand knowledge of high strangeness. I will always be interested in people's stories. Will I always be interested in, like, the Navy's involvement in the TikTok incident? I mean, you know, like, it's, frankly, I find it all very boring. you know, like, you know, if you want to get into all that, but like, I follow it, sure, but like, you know, almost at an arm's length a little bit, just because I feel like it's, I find so much redundancy in all this stuff. And I don't understand why people are so excited right now. I understand.

The fact that, like, Washington Post is like writing articles. That I will agree, of course, is exciting whenever, like, a mainstream media sort of like that covers it, you know, but. Let's, yeah, let's, uh, let's touch on that, Steve, because, actually. Actually, you know, that that is what is in the zeitgeist right now. And, you know, we have this new show coming out by Tom DeLong to the Stars Academy. I sent my TV hour just before we get on. Nice, nice. Hell, yeah.

It's a good show. I've seen the first episode. But that being said, like, there's no arguing that what these dudes are doing and how the mainstream media is covering UFOs right now is, it's big. And it's out there unlike it's ever been. before. So, I mean, not getting too deep into, to the stars or the Navy or anything like that. What do you think about this being a new sort of era of disclosure? I mean, my fucking parents are texting me being like, oh, we're going to watch that show tonight. Oh, your aunt's coming over. Like, they can't believe this. Like, oh, they're just on Good Morning America. Like, it's crazy.

The amount of attention this is getting right now. And is this all a marketing ploy for this TV show? Or is this a new way to disclose? I think it is. Do you? Oh, I do. I do. I mean, like, just knowing how Hollywood likes to market. And look, at the end of the day, you know, history channel doesn't give a shit if they're disclosing real information. They care about numbers and ratings and how much they can charge for ad dollars.

So the more they market this, the more they get my, I mean, it's just like when you do, when I, when I do even like my podcast, a month, they send me out to do press before it even comes out. So this, you can look at it as like, look, I don't think. Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert is that interested in having people from that show to be on, you know, so they have to market it somehow. So to market it as kind of like this like, I mean, I'm not trying like, you know, this sounds like I'm trying to like, you know, take the air of the tires. But I do believe that this is, I mean, if you don't believe this is marketing, then I don't think maybe you understand how TV works.

This is definitely, I mean, it's definitely you can see this is their marketing campaign before the show comes. out. And that's fine. And like, it's really cool that like Good Morning America is taking interest in this stuff. But I just have to go back to one thing that I think it's really funny is that, you know, so many people in the UFO community for years and years and years have been like, never trust the government, never trust the word they say. They're lying to us about UFOs and this and that, blah, blah, blah. And now when the government comes out and tells them that, yes, UFOs are real and this is, you know, this is what it is. Everyone was like, absolutely, the government's right.

We totally believe them. I find it's so hilarious. It's so funny to me. Oh, man. The irony. Yeah, and then in like the Tick-T-Tek video, you know, I remember seeing that 10 years ago. It's not, it's not. Oh, the Tick-Tac video came out.

Like, it was released a long time ago, like in 2010. Yeah, I mean, I've heard rumblings of that and people have seen it. I personally had no knowledge of it. But again, like, I wasn't really chasing UFOs that closely back then. but that's interesting. So you knew about the TikTok event much earlier? Yeah, all it looked like to me at the time when I saw it was like, yeah, that looks like some radar footage that I have an airplane. You know, cool.

I have a little thing that, you know, is flying around. So it wasn't that exciting then. But I guess it got more exciting when you heard the story behind it and you heard some of the testimony and they started talking about it. How it was like going in and out of the water and all that stuff. That is all. Yeah, I find that stuff interesting too. but I'm just a little like skeptical of how all this is being rolled out. I feel like to buy this whole cloth and just like buy into this whole situation is a little weird,

especially when an entertainment production company is the one. You know, like I'm not sure I'm disparage. It's like good for, I'm glad this is all happening. But, you know, I think a lot of my friends, like, yeah, like you too, because everyone, you know, a lot of people who know me, you know, for more than two days, know I'm into this stuff. So people are like, dude, what about all this stuff? They're forwarding in the earth. I'm like, yeah, it's cool, man, you know, I guess.

Like, I found the Chicago O'Hare incident way more exciting than all this stuff, to be honest. Totally, man. Well, you make a good point, too. Like, we have to, we got to remain level-headed when it comes to this. There's people who are super, super pro tom to long and to the stars. And then you have the people on the complete opposite side saying, like, oh, this is all just a whole disinformation campaign. all over again. We've seen this, you know, throughout the decades in UFO.

Some Rick-Dody stuff. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So I'm kind of still somewhere in the middle. I'm with the efforts. I think it's making UFOs cool. And dude, like, you and I both know how long we've strived for the UFOs to be cool. It's been an albatross around my neck.

You know many, like, like, shows. I spend time developing and pitching about, like, UFOs and paranormal and all this stuff. It's a tough road. But I feel like now, oh, my God. Now it's my time. I have a chance. Well, that's actually my next question, man.

I know for a fact, there are a ton of UFO shows coming out after this history channel thing. You know, I'm guilty. I'm part of one of them. But I got to ask you, in pitching these UFO shows to networks and all that, what kind of UFO show would you want to work on or watch on TV, I guess? Well, mine would be more of something where it's not about like finding the truth, but it's more about the people and the characters.

I'm really fascinated with 1980s UFO culture. You know, because I think it was such the wild weather. And I didn't really experience it, but I, you know, like Red Jacques Valet's like his journal, book journals about the 80s. and like, you know, just like all the William Moore stuff going on, the Benavit stuff going on. It was like such a, I would feel like a TV show based off Greek Bishops book Project Beta. Oh, my God. Yeah.

It's just a show I want to make. Like, I talked to Greg about it multiple times, but I either want to make that into a movie or a hour-long sort of like, not comedic comedy show, but like sort of a dramedy. Because I feel like a lot of this UFO stuff, especially with the people and just the culture of it, is, absolutely hilarious. Not in a way of making fun of people or their beliefs. It's just that, you know, I remember hearing one story about Adam Greightly in one of his books,

Happy Trails to High Strangeness, wrote that he went to some, like, weird UFO conference in Nevada, and one of the, I think Jordan Maxwell was selling rotisserie chickens, like, before. And I'm like, that is what I want to make a TV show about. When I read that, I'm like, nothing's funnier to me. Nothing's funnier to me.

Like, you know, I'm like, I would probably want to do something that was a little bit light and funny because, like, I don't really want to try to compete with, like, all the, you know, the serious, like, X-Files, like, governments, you know, hiding secrets from you. That type of stuff is becoming a little boring to me, I guess, my old age. Yeah, it was my dream. I would do a project bait at the TV show. That is, like, a pitch that so many people can get behind.

I thought that for so many years after I read it the first time. I'm like, holy shit, this is a movie. This is a movie right here. It is. It's a movie. I even think you could stretch it out to six seasons of TV. You know, like, you know, I have to like take some liberties with, you know, some narratives and stuff like that. But just to base it off project beta and then, you know, kind of tangelize and go off from there. Oh, what a great palette to work from. Absolutely. Well, let me get your opinion on this. Are you, uh, are you pro or anti-project Blue Book, this history television show? I tried to watch. It just wasn't for me. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's another one where I'm like, all right, they're making Heineck this serious, like, staunch believer and, like, almost like an action hero.

Meanwhile, you've got this rich history of the guy who literally, on the way to going to investigate a case as it's happening, his car breaks down with his other, like, government officials. So they're waiting for another government car to show up. And Heinek is like, fuck you guys. He hitchhikes, like, 50 miles to the, where it happening. And he gets there before everyone else to investigate, be the first one on site. And that's the kind of shit I want to see, man.

Yep, yeah, dude, I'm with you on that. I think they kind of, they had a huge opportunity with a show like this. And sometimes I feel what happens is they get these great opportunities or someone has a great idea, and then they hire a writing staff that has no interest in this topic at all. And so they're just kind of a very surface story. It's so true, man.

I had David O'Leary, the head writer, the creator, I should say, on the show when the first episode aired. And you can tell this guy is so passionate in trying to do so much justice to Heinek. And he knows his stuff. My God. But like you said, man, once the execs get involved in these people who have no history with the topic or care whatsoever about, you know, this niche and info community, it's got to be tough. I can't imagine the struggle that O'Leary's going through right now with the pressure of a season two, you know? It would be, it's very tough because so much of the stuff with the UFO topic that I love, I think to an outside audience would be considered mundane. Right.

You know what I'm saying? Like the idea of like Hinech-Hagging. I would love that. You would love that. But the execs, they'd be like, why? No, that takes five pages of the script. Cut that. You know, like, so it's like, honestly, a lot of the good, like, nuggets, I bet that this guy wants to tell.

He's struggling up against, you know. But again, like, I like that it's out there. You know, it's just not really probably... I think, you know, when a UFO show comes out, they really try to target people on an almost like a 101 level. If it was a college course. We are, I mean, not to be like, you know, this is nothing to brag about.

It's maybe something to not brag about because, you know, potentially maybe waste a lot of time. We're looking at a master's level. You know what I'm saying? Like, so the stuff I'm going to want to see is probably not what 98% of, you know, people would want, who would watch this show. That's what I say by even like Project Beta. Like, I want to make a Project Beta TV show.

I don't know. I think it would be a tough pitch. People would be like, so you want to make about UFO culture in the 80s? Excuse me what? What are the aliens? I have no aliens. And they're like, oh, okay. It's so true, man.

Like, I got ripped apart for my Roswell special just because all these UFO vets are like, this is everything we already knew. And I kept telling him, guys, this is the CW. These are like 14 year old girls watching this. They have never heard of Roswell. So it really, I understand marketing and demographics when it comes to television. It's a business at the end of the day. It's a business.

Yeah. So like you got to realize when it's when it's straight up television and when it's like a documentary, they're completely different things. So yeah, I totally agree with you. Yeah. And I'm sort of like, I can't. really talk about too much. Not that it's like, should be secretive, but it's just like, because I really shouldn't. But I am, I am myself developing a half hour sort of doc series on the UFO

topic and other weirdness. But it is an uphill battle because, you know, like I had to, I'm trying to make a show that I think people can find humorous, interesting. And then my goal is to have like people like you and Great Bishop and Tim Bernal say, that's a good show. Cool. Cool. Well, but that's a hard balance man. It is. It's like almost the hardest thing I've ever tried to, like, develop, to be honest with you. So, but if I, you know, I hope, hopefully I get a chance at least shoot a pilot. So, you know, we're all in your corner, for sure.

Well, look, going back to the UFO community, Steve. You know, we've heard some of the most incredible stories and some are just borderline crazy. Like, let's, let's be honest here. And I love, and I love them. And that's why we love this field. And they come from people telling them who, I don't, I hate singling people out or alienating people, but they gain these huge followings, almost like a cult like mentality. So why do you-

Maybe someone like, Corey Good. Okay, you said it. I didn't say it. But why do you think that is, man? Do you think there's like a place for people like this in the quote-unquote UFO community? Absolutely. Now, I would, when you said, we started even saying this, I looked over my bookshelf and I saw, and this is a synchronicity. But messengers of deception, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books about the UFO topic really lays out, like, really lays out, it's almost predicting people like Corey Goode and David Wilcock.

And I'm not judging them. They're doing what they're doing, and that's fine. But they have taken this angle of not, or not UFO researchers. people who know the truth. And if you listen to us, you are going to find out what the truth is. And that is basically sort of the same thing as a cult leader or any, you know, every religion started as a cult. Even Catholicism, it was all a cold.

You know, originally it was probably just eight dudes going, hey, how do we control people? You know, and I largely feel like if you read, if, God, messages of deception is such an important book to reread right now. I can't even say that enough. But Jacques Valet warns about these types of people coming into this field and, you know, co-opting the UFO topic into a metaphysical, I've got the answer. Listen to me, you know, if you give me, you know, $20 or something like this. I mean, it really is, you know, like, and so I mean, I find all that stuff deeply fascinating, too. You know, people's like just need to believe in something incredibly sensational, you know, like.

And so UFOs as religion is definitely a thing in my eyes. Yeah. You know, it really is. And it's a new religion. And Carl Young, he wrote, you know, what's it? I read his book that he wrote about UFOs towards the universe life. I can't remember the title. But he talks about this, you know, like this is a mythology for the 20th century.

So it's really fascinating because I feel like a lot, you know, not a lot of these guys, but, you know, a handful of, and it's usually always white men, of course, who are like these types of you have. We're like these types of UFO, like, culty luminaries. But, uh, yeah, I think, like, you know, it's, it's really, it's, it's funny to me to watch it. That's another good TV show I did too. Absolutely. Oh, like, but a gory good type guy. But, uh, I mean, like, honestly, like, yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of all ridiculous.

But I, for some reason, I like that it's in the field. It's funny to me. It kind of keeps me compelled. I check in with what those guys are doing every once in a while. I like the weird stuff, man. I can tell. man but you're so right the the UFO lore or mythology or feel i don't know what the fuck to call it anymore

that being said um it repeats itself over and over again you have the contactees you have the abductees in the 80s and 90s now we have these dudes claiming you know they were working with obama on mars in a secret soldier program absolutely and you know what right it's like it goes back even further in that when you re when you're you read, you know, the works of valet and stuff, like passport to McGone. It's like these patterns of like, you know, abductees, contactees. And it's undeniable when you read the work of belay that this stuff has been going on for a long, long time, like thousands of years, probably before man, you know, like, so it's almost like these patterns that they, it just

alters itself as we evolve technologically, you know, it's, it's very strange. It's very strange. Pasoca all over again, man. It really is. And who, I mean, like, even you, you know, read, You know, you deep dive into Dino Walsh's book and a valet's book, and you're like, how many religions that are still around today were started by potentially UFO incident? Maybe. I don't know, you know, it's, but it's food for thought, for sure. It's food for thought. And, you know, the idea of deception, I struggle with it because, like, I believe that there's 99% of alien abduction, testimony and everything is either, you know, regressed memories of trauma or delusion. or straight up just bullshitting.

But then there's like, dude, there's always that 1% where I'm like, holy. Oh, yeah. I believe. Oh, no. I'm with you. See, I totally agree. Like, I mean, like, you know, like even like looking at like the Travis, you know, some of the big, big, you know, no abductee case like Travis Walden, Willie Striever.

I actually believe, like you said earlier, I believe that they believe. So that is enough for me to be really interested, you know, in a weird way. Because we'll never know for sure. You know, like, it's not like, you know, Travis Walton's going to produce, like, concrete evidence at this point or Whitley, for that matter. But the way they did talk, I mean, it's, I find it very compelling. So I don't want to throw out these cases, you know, and I'm actually, I love the John Max book, Abduction back in the day, it scared the hell out of me as a kid. Yeah.

That was a very powerful book. And I think it's like, you know, whether or not any of it's true, it almost doesn't matter to me anymore. You know, like, it's just interesting. It really is. And I feel like there's just something going on that's non-human. You know, like, that's all I know. That's the only conclusion I can make of all this stuff. It's like, I believe there is a phenomenon.

I believe we have no idea. And we're probably not even close to an answer. And we probably never will be. That's going to be the opening buffer for the episode. I'm marking it. I'm marking it right here, actually. None of these things I'm saying is original thought at all. It's just, you know, it's really probably, it's pulling from your show,

pulling from Greg Show, Tim's show, and all the books I've read. So it's just, you know, it's weird because I kind of, I sort of like refound the UFO top because I'd grown up loving it. But there was like this like kind of lag period, I think, around like 2008 or something like that. I'm like, oh, I'm just tired of reading the forums. Nothing's new. And then I started hearing like Greg's show. And people started to talk about Jacques Valet and Junkiel.

I was like, ooh, hold on. Yeah, yeah. This stuff isn't dead yet, man. It's Dracula, dude. You take the stake out and you're. start all over again. Exactly. I'll always be interested in this stuff, man.

I root for it. I want more information. I hope this disclosure thing is the real deal. And maybe we get like, you know, some more light shined on this and we can get maybe an answer or two would be really cool. Or even just, you know, they would elaborate more on maybe some of the patterns that they've found with these objects that are flying around the sky. I would love to know because that would be, that would be incredible. Even that they're like, we've noticed a pattern with these things. I mean, like, that would be so cool to know.

But beyond that, I just don't think it's going to bear the fruit that everyone wants. I would have to agree. I don't think we're ever going to fully know the truth. But, you know, there's people like you and Greg and all the UFO researchers, no matter what their belief system are or their approach. Like, we're all just stumbling along on the journey. I think that's way more important or rewarding than, like, actually finding that one answer because there probably isn't one. No, I just don't think they're really. is an answer in like in the way we perceive answers being answered.

Exactly. That is such a weird, like garbled weird thing to say. But like I just, you know, like it's, it's, I don't think it's an answer something that we could even perceive as an answer. Yeah, I believe that there's something going on. So I just, yeah, it's, it's such a hard thing because like, you know, like, I'm sure you run across this thing. And like, I do all time when people are like, oh man, you love the UFO stuff. I totally believe aliens are real. I'm like, sure.

I believe there's aliens out there. And then I told me, but I don't think, you know, necessarily that they've ever visited Earth. In fact, I don't. You know,

I don't believe that a biological alien has, intelligent alien has ever been on this planet. I just don't see any real evidence for that. And they're like, wait, what?

And then that totally confuses that. And I'm like, oh, boy, do you have like two hours for me explain what I... So it's a tough topic to talk about. It is. That's why the show is a real treat.

Oh, yeah. Thanks, man. Well, I mean, it is. It's that constant struggle of trying to separate E.T. from the UFO. And we try to

yell that from the rooftops. Like, we're talking about UFOs. We're not talking about aliens and little saucers. Maybe, but that's not what we're trying to get across. Yeah, and I'm not saying that's not it either. Yeah. I just, but there's, but I think

it's funny that that is really. And I think it's actually people of minds are being opened up quite a bit more these in the last year or two with like, because now here people say, like, well, maybe they're interdimensional. And these are people just kind of like who are into the topic. I'm like, okay, well, at least another option is getting out there for people, which I think is good, you know. So.

Totally. But yeah, it's funny that, you know, I guess probably goes back to Kenneth Arnold and Roswell, the Roswell era that people just, you know, we were kind of in the whole, you know, was launching into the whole space race thing. And, you know, that was what was in the Zichist at the time. So people are like, oh, well, they're obviously from space. Yeah, it all started with Kenneth Arnold and Roswell. God damn. Or God bless them. Or God bless them, yes.

They seemingly started into religion without meaning to. Exactly. Well, what, are there any cases, Steve, that you really, when you do have those friends who are like, dude, UFOs, like, when they find out you're into this sort of stuff. Right. What cases do you turn them to where you're like, this is what shows there's a core phenomenon. It's a credible thing. Like, are there any that really come to mind? Oh, boy.

You know, like, Paul Kimball, I think, sure, Paul Kimball, and the guy, what was it, UFO's best evidence? I mean, Paul Kimball. You know, the top 10 cases years ago. And I thought, I thought he kind of hit on probably a lot of the mainstream ones. God, I'm really drawing a blank on those. No, that was fine. I know it's like, like, Randall Schum and, yeah.

Kexberg. Yeah, Reynoldssham is very interesting. Kexburg. I mean, you know, I think something happened. I don't think it was a UFO. I actually went out to the site. My wife is from close to that area. Okay.

Yeah, there was not much there. But I did see the acorn statute, which is cool. Yeah. But I can tell you that it's funny because, like, I don't really have go-to cases that I point to as like, dude, see, see? But I have ones that I think about a lot myself. Oh. And the Herbert Shimmer one, Ashley Nebraska. Dude, I just covered that.

Oh, no way. I, uh, dude, see, I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, and Ashland is like 25 miles away. So that was always kind of like a really important case just kind of, you know, sort of happened in my backyard. Actually, over Christmas, I went to go, uh, meet with somebody from the library who gave me, who let me see the police report. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I went to like a restaurant to try to talk to some old timers and they were like, oh, yeah, we knew him.

And then people ran him out of town, you know, you know. Yeah. very sad case. And that would be all kind of said. He goes, he was kind of a sad guy. And I was like, oh, man, that's, it has a really unhappy ending, you know? Yeah, he cheats. He cheats.

It really ruined his life. In covering it on the show, like, I had the amazing opportunity and resource to get some, some audio from him, like, recounting everything. Oh, cool. And it's a little creepy. Again, it's one of those cases where I'm like, what the hell did this dude have to gain from coming out with the story? She ruined him. It ruined him. I mean, to the point where, like you said, he changed his name, he moved out of state.

He lost his job at the police department. Yeah, I mean, it did nothing. He benefited, I mean, it just took everything from him. But he stuck to it till, like, his dying day, which to me is like, all right, either this dude, like, was so delusional that he started to actually believe his own story or something truly strange happened to him. I tend to think that he, again, going back to what you said earlier, I think it's so important, man, I'm going to keep up bringing up. I believe he believes what he saw. I do.

I've, like, looked into this case since I was a kid, and, like, there's not a whole lot to read about it, unfortunately, other than what, you know, you can easily find on the internet. Yeah. But, man, I just don't see that he made this up. You know, like, in terms of just, like, pulling that out thin air, I think either, you know, he had some kind of delusional episode or some kind of fugue state or he would have to something truly anomalous. And we have to remember, too, that he did go under hypnotic regression, which can be very detrimental and very contentious.

Dude, yes, it's crazy. It's actually weird. Hypnosis is getting big with just general therapy in Los Angeles. Is it? I have a friend who's, he goes to, you know, everyone in L.A. has a therapist. And one of my friends is going to like a really like, you know, prestigious, like expensive fancy therapist who's like really credited. And he's in this therapist is putting him into hypnosis. And I'm like, whoa, buddy.

Be careful. And he's like, I love it, man. It's like, I'm getting in touch with my inner child. I'm like, okay, but, uh, just, you know, be careful. Yeah. If you hear the word like alien abduction come up. Right. Or three gray staring at my window.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just call me first. Yeah, exactly. We'll hash it out before you talk to the therapist. I've never talked about UFOs so intensely at this time of day. Yeah, I know, right. So it's a night, you know, after maybe a bong rip and a couple beers with some buddies. Isn't weird?

Yeah, most of these shows and everything are always like coast to coast. You know, it's like two in the morning. But, no, I work an evening job. So, like, unfortunately, the mornings are always like the best. me and everyone always says the same thing like it's too early to talk about this shit no i love it this gets the day started up right i'm you know buzzed on coffee and uh this is fun yeah awesome dude well that's good to hear for sure so what other cases could you turn us to man well for modern the the the case that blew me away and got me so excited i think was the that's happened last

20 years would be the o'hare uh international the chicago airport case absolutely That is so fascinating because there were so many witnesses, pilots, people who worked for United Airlines, people who were just in the airports, they all described the exact same thing. And it was really, it's really weird. Right? And like, whatever it was, it literally like pierced a hole through the clouds and like took off. Yeah, I mean, it's that case, that, I'm always so saying, I remember, do you ever hear the rumor that Dan Eggroyd supposedly paid like a, a million dollars for like footage of it. Yeah, that would not surprise.

I heard that years ago, but I, you know, I've, you know, yet to see anything, uh, come out with that. But I, I'm still hoping if I ever see Dan Eckward in L.A., man, that's the first thing I'm going to ask him. Yep, yeah, I know. Give me the O'Hara goodies, please. Supposedly there is video footage. I've heard that from several services.

But again, who am I? Like, they could be totally making that shit up. But yeah, I mean, but there's got to be. One produce one. my God, I mean, I just thought that was such a crazy case. And I remember, you know, like, even like, I think to this day, it was the most hits the Chicago Tribune had ever had. Oh, yeah, shut down their website. Yeah, you like broke their website.

Like, there, I mean, there's some great, like, footage of the, the new, the local, like, newscasters, like, off camera talking about it. And they're like, holy shit. I'm so bad. That was hilarious. It's crazy. It's so funny. I love it. I actually, in terms of maybe it's not, you know, on the surface, a UFO case, but

Jacques Flay kind of convinced me otherwise that the Thadema incident to me feels like one of the exciting potential UFO cases. Can you imagine like these these kids or whatnot? And then eventually a lot of people were thinking they're having like a miraculous experience. Meantime it's like a being from Zeta reticulite. Yeah, exactly. Maybe it's 12. Who knows?

It's both, dude, like I think, well, it's also weird. It's like, you know, what's interesting, there's a chat. in one of Valet's books where he writes about the year before on the same day, these kids actually saw these beings. Really? So it was like, this was not like an isolated incident. But the Fatima one just got a lot more buzz and press and they had a lot more witnesses. But this had happened the year prior.

Wow, I had no idea. Yeah. It's, I can't remember what book it is. I think it might be, I don't know if you've read Jean Valet's Forbidden Science series where it's just as journals. That's the only one I have not read. Yeah. So, yeah, he's got.

got a volume one through four, and I've only read one through three, but man, they are so important to read into this stuff. I feel like it's almost like my favorite UFO stuff is his journals, because it's like, it is deep and it is personal, and it is really like, he is really trying to hash this stuff out. Yeah. And it is so deeply fascinating. My God. Yeah.

It's interesting to have seen the trajectory valet has taken, you know, since he started all this. And now he kind of has not turned to his. back on UFO studies, but at least on the UFO field and community. And a big part of me does not blame him one bit. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. It's sobering to say the least.

But he's done. He's done like proposing these theories and getting his information out there. In turn, you have these cult leaders and these charlatans just like sucking off the valet test. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it is. I mean, I think like, I don't.

even know where this field would be. Imagine it without that guy. You know, like, it really is hard to imagine the UFO field that Jacques life for me because without the work of his work, I would not. I probably would have lost interest 10, 15 years ago, to be honest. Same. When I kind of rediscovered him, you know, 10 years ago, it was, I all of a sudden I had never been more interested in UFOs.

Yeah. You know, like, it's just he's going to places where I feel like it's just, I, I, I, I, The one disappointing thing is, is that I wish more people would follow us lead and kind of like go down the paths that he's lighting for all of us. And like you are and like Greg is. And by I wish it still feels like a small faction of us, uh, jacquillaid devotees. You know, like I always kind of term like, you know, people who are into the jacquillet stuff like, you know, Greg and like red pill junkie and those guys in the punk rock of UFO. Yeah. You know, like absolutely, man.

going against the norm. Yeah. We should start the valet cast, I think. Dude, I'm so in. I'm in. I look like a card care member, yeah. Because that's really where my interest lies is in all these thought experiments and just try to take the topic as far as you can, you know, like.

Because when the one problem with when people get to, I think, attached to all the, you know, the government stuff being the answer and, you know, the conspiracy stuff. It's just, it's almost like you've made up your. mind and just said, I want to stop learning. The government knows and until they give me the answers. You know, it's like, I'm like, yeah, but you're not really learning anything new. And it just seems like also

such a negative, like, kind of like, I'm really not, I'm really not a big conspiracy theory guy. Like, I find it so, I find it very toxic, especially nowadays where people take them so literally. I mean, go bored. How boring, man, like, trust, or not trusting, but how boring

would it be to accept the answer by the government about UFOs? Like you said, they've been probably lying for a really long time and not lying about like being in cohorts with the aliens or just like lying that they, they're in control of it or that they know what's going on. They don't know anything. They don't. And that makes me really be sympathetic to their situation. You know, if you think about it, if they were to come out in 1950, saying like, look, there are these crafts that appear to be physical and they're control. by a non-human intelligence and we can't do anything about it.

Anyways, you know, anyway, here's Wonderwall. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, no kidding. So you can kind of like see how, you know, not that I'm one of these people like, oh, we came out with the UFO knowledge, like, you know, society would completely collapse. I don't think that would be the case.

Yeah. But I do think it would potentially be, you know, hurtful to the government and military if they you know, admitted that there's something that's out of their control. They are a control system and when a control system admits they're out of control, the control system fails. Perfect. Yep, I couldn't, I couldn't summarize that any better, my friend.

Well, okay, so moving to sort of your current work, which we can connect to UFOs, absolutely. This is what I was really excited to get you on, other than talking about it over an hour about UFOs. I've waged to the stars. This is so

cool man how did this come to be how did you get involved give us sort of the uh the origin story of voyage to the stars right okay cool yeah well voyage to stars is a uh science fiction uh it's a science fiction improvised podcast that kind of plays upon like all the you know big science fiction tropes balustar galatka star trek yada yada yada yada kind of plays with all those and flips them around and uh turns into a sort of a dark comedy so i got involved uh i for you years and years and years and years kind of made my bones in the improv and sketch comedy stages in LA. And so I got approached by the creator Ryan Cople to do this show. And, you know, because he knew I was an improviser and also kind of knew that was into space stuff, I suppose.

Geek, geek, the geek world, whatever. I don't know. But so anyways, yeah, we got together and it's, you know, Colton Dunn, who was a legendary improviser and on the show's Superstores on it. Felicia Day, who is a great improviser and also just kind of like, you know, a internet queen. She is a very large figure. And then Jenna Barney, who is another wonderful comedian on a lot of TV shows and stuff like that. And yeah, so it just kind of, luckily it all worked out so none of us had ever really improvised together.

So, yeah, we, it's kind of like a curbinger enthusiasm type situation where we get like a brief outline of what the episode is, the story we need to drive forward, and we just kind of go up and around and improvise the dialogue. That's really cool. Again, like, it's not really, in my opinion, really been done in the podcasting world. It's like, yeah, you have these scripted stories that have the whole thing outlined and planned for the beginning. But, like, you guys are, like, discovering, like, the story on the way. That's really interesting.

It is fun. It's, you know, it's a fun way because you have to really be on your toe. So it is like, you know, it's like playing music where you really have to be present and really, really listen because it's not like we're doing like an improv show like on stage where it's like you know we get a suggestion of orange peel and create a 40 minute show off that this we're actually having to tell a very somewhat complicated narrative while improvising dialogue so it is it is quite challenging to be honest like even though i've been improvising for over 15 years and it's still probably the hardest thing in the improv realm that i've ever had to do but it's been a ton of fun man so it's

been great. And we're doing, you know, we're doing quite a few live shows around L.A. in San Francisco. And I'm actually going to Nashville today to go, we're going to go do some shows this weekend. And, uh, yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. The live performing is really the most fun for me, because that's kind of what I grew up doing. So it's, it's interesting how well a podcast works live. I was very skeptical of working, but I'm shocked. Yeah. Because it really is just like you're just doing a live show, like a live comedy show. Cool. And you know what? It really is, I think, the wave of the future when it comes to both comedy and radio.

It's like mixing these two worlds together that may not have I mean we've had comedy radio shows since the dawn of the radio but at the same time like this idea of podcasting it's it seems old at this point but it's actually still

fairly new and the fact that like the comedy world is tapped into that and taken advantage of that it's super exciting I could not agree with you more. I think I think this is like, well, it's here to stay, whether we like it or not. I mean, and I can tell you just from like, I mean, I know, like, all these production companies out in L.A. are now developing podcast productions off sheets.

So they are, it really is a race to monetize podcast right now. I think so. And vice versa. You know, a lot of TV and movies now are based directly off of podcasts. I mean, absolutely, totally. It is a cycle for sure. Yeah. But I think they're great, though, because it's like, you know, largely free content.

And then, you know, obviously with anything like TV, movies and podcasts, you have to kind of like weed through some crap to get to the good stuff. But when you find a good podcast, man, like yours, I mean, you know, it's something I look forward to. It's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, when a new podcast comes down, I'm really excited about it. You know, especially because I've spent a lot of time my car living in L.A. So, I find them, I'm very grateful. for the podcast world. Me too. I mean, obviously.

Yeah. It's great though, man. Like, your show is important, you know, and we may not be able to hear it if there wasn't a podcast. So it's, uh, damn, man, I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I really appreciate that, dude. And like I said off air, like,

you don't realize when you start this podcasting thing, how much you can actually affect people or how many people actually listen. Like, every week I'm like, oh, cool, it did okay. But then you have, you know, I had a guy say he had just, gotten through a divorce and he was depressed and he said like I listened to your show every week and it really kept me going or if I could keep people distracted from the horrible shit in their lives or the boring stuff in their lives. Yep. Like that job well done. The fact that people may actually get something from the show,

that's all I could ever ask for. Well, I think that should be, it'd be great if all artists felt that way. You know, truly like I'm not trying to sound like this altruistic, you know, like, oh man I'm just doing it for the art but like I do believe that as well like the only reason I you know gravitated towards entertainment is because like how can I like not the only reason obviously a lot of it's self-serving but like I feel like this is the way I can help society a little bit I'm not you know I couldn't be a doctor I couldn't be a lawyer I couldn't do a lot of things but I feel like you know I can make people giggle and maybe forget over the problems for a minute or two so I love it it sounds like oh man how pretentious but like it is true like you said

Like, it's cool when you find out that a podcast you did or any kind of piece of art you did affected people. That's kind of the goal, right? It is. At the end of the day, like, we all are striving, like, to connect with one or another. And if we can evoke a reaction out of someone or a complete stranger, like, job out done. I couldn't agree more. And that's why I feel like music and all. Music and art is like the only, like, like, positive thing left in the world right now.

And man, so we have to hold onto it tight. take care of free uh expression so yeah we laugh because it's true we laugh because it's true man it's uh yeah i was reading the paper before uh i got on with you i'm like jesus christ oh my god let's forget that and let's talk about yeah please god i'm just waiting for ryan to call me pull me out of this muck well steve it has been such an honor man i'm so happy i was able to get you on. I've got to ask you before we go, are you working on anything UFO related right now?

Or you said you're heading to Nashville right after this. My God, get packing. Like what do you got coming up? Well, I'm, you know, a lot of podcasts stuff this summer festivals and all the whatnots and comedy.

I always do like a lot of comedy festivals in summer anyway. It's just fun to do. The summer is typically slower out here. It's, people get lazy in Hollywood or taking vacation. So right now, Honestly, I'm working on a show, an animated show on Netflix called Hoops. Awesome.

Yeah. And so, you know, kind of a regular character on that. And so that's really, I've been most of what I've been working on last month or so, it's been kind of dedicated towards that. But it is going to be, I feel like, I feel like it's the funniest thing I've ever been a part of. So I'm really excited about it. I've been kind of like really wanting to get on a really good animated show.

It's been kind of a big dream of mine. So I feel like, oh, man, I feel like this is the right one. I love it. The writing is bananas. It's so, so, so, so good. And, uh, yeah, so that's, that's kind of what I'm working on the next, like, month. And then after that, I'm going to just kind of take some vacations and, uh, do some writing. And then back in the fall, I'll be, you know, I may be returning to this show and, uh, you know, back to auditions and back to, uh, back to the, looking for work. Back to the grind, man. To the grind, man. Yeah. And, and also, I like that summer is a little slower, though, because it's like January, like May has been just

insane for me. So I'm like ready to slow it down a little bit. Maybe do a little fly Yeah, well, well deserved vacation. I can't thank you enough for coming on today. Where can we find out what you're up to and where to find voyage? Yeah, I don't do like social media a ton, but I'm trying to get

better at it. So if you want to follow me on those things, my handle is Bergmaster 5000 on Twitter and Instagram. So you can probably find out any kind of show I'm doing or whatnot. But if you live in Nashville and you're a time traveler, come to the show this weekend. I'll get your free ticket to say you're a friend of Ryan's.

Oh, I love that, man. Got to love those deals. Steve, thank you so much for joining me on somewhere in disguise. Buddy, any damn time, I had an absolute blast. This is so fun talking with you. You get it. You get it. Hey, guys, Ryan here.

If you listen to the podcast on Apple, there's a very simple way for you to help out the show. Just click the Apple Premium Subservoir. subscriber button at the top of the feed, and you'll instantly become a premium member where you get all the same rewards as our Patreon members do, early access to all main episodes and bonus episodes and content. Join our Apple Premium subscription today, and thank you for your support. Ladies and gentlemen, we're live at the UCB Franklin Theater for another episode of the Hound Tall Discussion Series. Say hi, everybody. Hi! Tonight we're talking about UFOs.

Do they exist? Well, our guest expert definitely says that they do, and we'll find out for ourselves right now. Put your hands together for him. He is the author of Somewhere in the Skies. Ryan Sprague, ladies and gentlemen. Put your hands together for him. Here he comes.

And our guest comedic panelists, Ashling B, Emily Gordon, and Kumail Nanjiani. There they go. How exciting. Oh, wait, Ryan, no, come sit next to me. Kumail, you go away. Okay. Sorry.

I'm trying to get Kumail back down to Earth since his Academy Award nomination. What about Emily? I also was nominated for an Academy Award. You were also nominated for an Academy Award, but you do not have the problems with ego that Kumail does. And I therefore do not need to bring you down to Earth. It's really not a big deal.

It's just an Academy Award fucking nomination. I wish you'd stop bringing it up all the time. Well, you know what? Actually, I thought this would be a cool opportunity because it's probably the last podcast you'll both do before. the awards, right? And I just thought, why don't you go ahead and just do your speech just for us right now? Because we'll never get to do it. No, no. No, you're going to win an Oscar. This is the last podcast we're doing, period.

I literally, you asked me to do it. I was like, and you were like, Camille already said yes. And I was like, Camille, you're doing podcast again? She needs, she needs the help. I'm grown. I like the idea that you're doing, that you're doing, that doing them again. I just love the idea of Kamail coming home all death of a salesman style, putting his briefcase down. God damn it, Emily, that's the last podcast. People are like, we need you as a guest. Oh, I'm too old for that shit. Yeah, classic death of a salesman reference, Camille. I was doing a different reference. I don't know what you're talking about. Who are you up against? You are these other prints? We don't want to talk about it.

Nobody. It's a real nobody. No, she met who are you up against tonight on this podcast. It's Ashling B, ladies and gentlemen. There she is. That's her Deltzit Irish tones. Ashling, are you a believer in UFOs? Big time. Just only between like 9 p.m. at night and 3 o'clock in the morning. So like ghosts, vampires, aliens, crystals. You start to believe in crystals finally.

We all believe in crystals. Gems of all kinds. Beware, beware, beware, beware, children. She's showing a nice. necklace, ladies and gentlemen. We believe that necklaces. Emily, you and Kamel are big X-Files people. Are you guys also

Are you believers? Are you not? Are you not? No, I'm a absolute believer, and it's the only thing I'm frightened of. Why are you afraid of them? Because I don't get them. And I watched a lot of unsolved mysteries as a kid, and the whole idea is that you don't know, they could be taking you over on a nightly basis, and you

just don't know. So I was like, how do I prove that I haven't been taken in the night, and then they wipe my brain. And then that tied me into knots for like nine, nine, the ages of nine to like 12 or 13. It was the nosebleed. If anyone in school got a nosebleed like, you've been taken by aliens. There's no other way of no, like, and I had a lot of neglect. What a quaint country Ireland is. No, we murdered a lot of children and we were embarrassed by it. Looking back, we thought X-Files was a documentary and nobody told us and we're embarrassed,

but we moved on. Kumail, what about you? You believe her? I think so. Yeah. Of all the, the, the that, like, I don't believe in ghosts or vampires or Bigfoot or... UFOs is the only one of that whole group that I think that there's a very real possibility. Ryan, do you resent the idea, like everybody's been framing this already from, I don't believe in ghosts, specters, poltergeist, but I kind of do believe in. Does it stick in your craw that it's even categorized with those things? It's tough because the way I look at it, the UFO or alien phenomenon could impact the world in many different ways, whereas I don't think many people feel threatened by a ghost. What do you talk? That's the primary characteristic of ghosts.

They are very threatening. They say boole and you shit yourself. They have unfinished business. They came up with a three-letter word for I am threatening you. But I take your point though, Ryan. You're saying essentially that because of how potentially real this is, it feels like it more could fall under the category of possible science rather than supernatural. I think so, yeah.

I mean, if you think about an alien civilization from somewhere else. Whoa. Oh, my God. Oh, shit. What the fuck. Still not scared of ghosts? Oh, ladies and gentlemen. Science.

speaks for itself, man. Science speaks. Listeners at home, I don't know what to tell you, except that, as he said, ghosts aren't scary, ectoplasm fell from the sky. I am now a believer.

A ghost sneezed on us. But it's abu. Thank you for laughing. It did not deserve it. It didn't deserve it. I thought it deserved a bigger laugh. That was pretty good. I don't think it did.

I'm not joking. I think it did. Ryan, before we get into the science and the possible changing of the world that UFOs could bring about. I read your book, or I read a good portion of it, and it starts off with your... Well, it's difficult to get through everything.

No, it's... No, not the book is very good, easy to get through. It's a page turner. I just... I'm busy. Anyway... Ryan, you start the book off with your own personal experience of a UFO sighting, and I wondered if you could take us through what happened. Just tell the story. Fuck yes. That wasn't even Kumail.

That was the specter that has appeared. Yeah, so I was 12 years old. I was 1996. I had a bloody nose. Yeah, I had a bloody nose. And I was fishing off a dock. I was away with my parents at camp. What part of the world were you in?

This was in upstate New York. Okay. Right on the near the Canadian border, actually. Upstate New York. And I was fishing, and I looked up, and I saw three white lights in a triangular formation. and completely silent. I didn't see like a structured craft, if you will, but I could not see like the stars or anything behind it,

and it was coming down. Is this at nighttime? Nighttime, yeah. It was coming down over the water. Fishing at night, you say. This story's starting to fall apart. No, okay, so it's nighttime. All of a sudden you look up,

there are three lights, to quote Captain Picard, and that's a deep cut. And you can't see past the lights. Correct, yeah. Yeah, completely silent. All I could hear was, like, the water hitting the dock where I was fishing. Wait, you were still fishing at this point? That's a committed fisherman right there.

Absolutely, man. It's aliens, but these bass aren't going to catch themselves. It was perch. Okay, sure, sorry. You fucking idiot. It's upstate New York, dude. They don't have cats in upstate New York, dude. Yikes.

Maybe you should have finished the book. That's the last chapter. That was like page two. Chapter 42, it was perch. Mystery solved. Okay, so what happened? Are you scared? Are you, you're 12 years old?

You're terrified. I was fucking terrified, man. Yeah, I screamed for my dad to come out. He was inside our camp. Wow, that's kind of weak up you the other way. He was 12 years old. All right? So you screamed for your dad.

Did he come? He came out. He came out. He saw the tail under this thing. as it floated silently over the water towards Canada. Whoa. Smart aliens, huh? We're going on that away.

They're like in 20 years, some shit's going to go down here. We don't want to be here for it. To-Turo and beyond. Question, what your dad saw, is it, did he see enough of it to be like that was crazy? Or is he like, I don't know what I saw. I saw something. Yeah.

So, again, he saw like the tail end of it. to him, he thought it was a plane. It could have been. It could have been anything. I saw it directly over me. It was huge, whatever the hell this thing was. And it just floated silently. And that's the thing that really got to me. Like a Prius. Like an Uber coming to pick you off.

But this is 96. Hump the horn. We are pre-Prius. Yeah. So couldn't have a Prius. Were you a kid at that point who was prone to believe in you? Were you like sort of the kind of kid who was like looking for UFOs and that kind of stuff?

No, not at all. That's the right answer, Ryan, by the way. That's the one I wanted from me. Yeah, I was really leading you. Did you watch Unsolved Mysteries growing up? I did see it on occasion. The music scared the shit. Yeah, the music was terrifying.

That one episode with the arsonist and the guy watching, anybody, oh, forget about that. That's a scary. Also, did you, we were talking backstage, the Time Life books? Oh, I had those. Yeah, did you have those before

after this incident? Oh, man. I'm trying to figure when this came out. What were those books? This is like straight up white privilege 101 right here. I know you had the books for sure. Now, did you get the books before or after your UFO experience? No child did not have those books.

Yeah, they come with your white card. They do come with your white card. Do you remember those commercials, Emily? Yes, 100%. It would be so, like, the stories would be so incendiary. It'd be like, and then aliens came down, grab the man. What happened next? Read the book.

to find out. And I stole them from the library, but they had gorgeous art. Okay, you got your street cred back. Yeah, got that street cred back. They had gorgeous artwork, so sometimes I would just steal pages out of them after reading them.

What a monstrous thing to do. Yeah. To prevent others from solving the crimes. Yeah, that's right. That's why the mystery stayed unsolved. Yeah, it's me tearing them out of the time. All the clues were on your... You're like a young hip Jessica Fletcher.

I'm going, they'll never work out of me the whole time. That's exactly right. That's how I refer to myself. So far, we've referred to death of a salesman, Unsolved Mysteries, lethal weapon, murder, she wrote. I think we're doing a really good job here today.

We're old as hell. You'll get yourself a piece of toast. So Ryan, Camel, you had a question? Go ahead. Keep going. I just want to know more about... Yeah, tell us more of what was happening to you physiologically at the time that you saw this.

Because it was more... I don't want... Would your dick get hard, or what was going on? Bro, bro. Look at me. Bro. You'll get... Dick get hard?

I mean, tell me about that 12-year-old. Yeah, so it was always hard. that's what he was fishing with. This whole... A line in the end? That wasn't no line. But you do describe your physiological reaction to seeing these lights. Because I don't want to paint a picture that, like, in the book it really struck me how intensive an experience this was for you.

It was more than just seeing three lights in the sky. You were, you felt a vibration in the air. Tell us more about what it felt like physically. Yeah, I could like... Maybe it was adrenaline, something like that. I was definitely scared. I felt threatened. I felt this vibration throughout my whole body.

My hair was sticking up. My hair was sticking up, sorry. And it just... Your hair was sticking up. My hair was sticking up. Wow. How did you know your hair was sticking up? You're like, better get my fishing mirror.

Sticking up! Okay. Or did you just, could you feel the spikiness of your... Oh, your hair and your arms. Oh, your head. I was... Did you get bumps. Okay.

which is also a great series of books from our era because somebody wanted to reference another thing from... Now, did you have the, like, all right Hitler haircut at the time? Oh, Tomo! I invented this haircut. I invented this haircut.

It's a good-looking haircut. Michael Moore did. No, Hitler did. But after that, it was me. No, I used to have the haircut. No, but I just do like the image of you. It's very funny to think of Hitler's hair standing on it.

Anyway, whatever. The little mustache goes up. Whatever. Okay. So, Ryan, what else? And then as it disappeared into the skyline, what are you thinking? Do you think I just saw an alien craft or what do you think? What's your process? Yeah, I mean, at that time, like, I mean, I was only 12, but sort of my limited knowledge

of aviation, I knew that what I was looking at was not like a plane I'd ever seen before. I knew that whatever it was, it was silent, there was no, like, propulsion to it. And I was just confused. I had no clue what I was looking at. And for my father to say, like, it was a plane, it was a plane to try to calm me down. Like, that helped in the moment. But I just, I became so curious after that that I wanted to keep, you know, pursuing whatever. So did you, like, tell your friends about it?

Did you, like, think about it for weeks and weeks? Like, what happened? And how did the people around you take it? Yeah. I didn't tell anyone for years and years. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

I, uh, I, I went, I would go to the library. and take out book after... And there were pages we're missing. Emily! Sorry, guys. I'm white trash. White card reliance, yeah. And yeah, I became obsessed after that.

I mean, stacks of books I would take home on, like, UFOs, locked this monster, like, all this crazy shit. Because sort of this door was open for me that whatever was happening out there, whatever we were being told was happening, wasn't the whole story. And I'll just say that I When you sent me a bunch of material to look at

And when I got the material I would say that I was probably a pretty heavy skeptic I believe in alien life because it just seems pretty obvious At some point there's going to be alien life out there But in terms of UFOs visiting Earth Wherever they may or may not have come from I would say I was a skeptic By the end of looking through the material you sent me

I don't think it's really up for debate That there has been some something has come to this planet Maybe it came from this planet maybe it came from somewhere else. But let us, so let's go back in history and just get to our modern understanding of, like the military and the government's involvement in a cover-up of whatever the craft that has been seen may be. It started when. I mean, what are some of the early sightings that we refer to?

You were telling me about one that happened even before Roswell, right, that happened here in Los Angeles, right? Yeah, yeah. One of the first, I guess, recorded ones in modern UFO history, we call it. is doing silent physical comedy on a podcast right now. That's my brand. That's why I'm invited on so many podcasts. She's doing the reenactment.

My mime skills. She is doing the reenactment. That would be a great podcast. I'm going to need that. The mime cast. I'll be you seeing the alien. Very cool. Put your hand up like this, though.

Okay, Ryan. Yeah, so before Roswell, you were telling me there was actually a documented UFO visit here in Los Angeles, right? In 1941, it was called the Battle of Los Angeles. Oh, I know this. Yeah, Battle of L. Not the movie with Rihanna.

Oh, fuck, I don't know about it. So, um... That movie was from 1941. It looks good. Rihanna is ancient. Black show crack. Yeah, so it, um, this huge cylindrical object, bright is all hell. was seen over Los Angeles.

The Army actually got really scared about this, and they started firing on it. They mobilized and sent planes into this guy. Absolutely. And this is a documented thing that happened. This is documented. This is, you know, in every... Did they bring it down? So they shot at it, and

whatever was up there, completely... It just disappeared out of sight. Shell casings actually fell back down and killed people. So this was actually like a pretty deadly event. Are you sure that the Army didn't just shoot a bunch of people and then make the story to cover. Oh, there was a UFO we were shooting at.

It fell back down. Oh, my God. These protesters were just standing under the UFO. A spacecraft came down and piloted by George Soros and self. That's legit scary, though. That is very scary. And one of the ongoing themes of these different stories is that the idea that the craft not only are larger than any craft you could ever imagine, that they also move at a pace that is unimaginable.

That doesn't match any technology. And they change direction too, right? That's another. Certainly not. Weather balloons. Yeah. It's like certainly not technology that we have now, but definitely not that we had in 1941 or 47,

which is when Roswell happens. What happened in Roswell? I honestly don't know the story of Roswell. So tell us that. This was early July of 1947. Something crashed in the desert in Roswell, New Mexico. A rancher found a bunch of, wreckage on his ranch. He reported it to the

local airfield, and they came out to investigate. Immediately, they started gathering everything up, putting it on their trucks, and sending it back to their base. And they were told the rancher never to talk about what had happened there. The next day, the newspaper said that they had found a flying disc. And the day after that, the story was retracted, and they said that they found a weather balloon.

I mean, that's what most people know about Roswell. It was just a weather balloon. It was just a weather balloon. But there's been, I mean, countless witnesses in the military who've come forward and said, that was a cover story. Like, we don't know exactly what it was, but it definitely was not a weather. So what I'd heard about Roswell was like that's, like people saw the grays, like the little guys with the big eyes that give me all of the nightmares.

So is that a cockamamie part of the theory? Or is it we just don't know what they saw? We don't know what people saw. What's the gray's thing at Roswell? Well, the grades are just, that's what the aliens are that have the dead eyes. I know, but I didn't know that people saw those aliens in Roswell. There are many witnesses who claimed to have seen bodies. So what those bodies were, we don't know.

They might have been dead human bodies. It could have been a test, you know, by the government, some sort of flight test. This was the very early days of aerospace, of, you know, trying to get as far up as we could. It could have been some sort of test pilots. The whole body thing has always been a, Before this, because you know the way when you see aliens in all movies, we don't seem to be able to really

stretch away from an alien look. Like even, what's that Amy Adams movie? Arrival. They have... They look still a bit like the blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's always like, octopuses. We can't imagine anything weirder than an octopus. Octopuses are absolutely mad. Eight legs, no one can understand them. I'll eat them, but I don't

understand them. To be fair, octopuses look fucking fucked up. They love mad. They're insane looking. Guys, are we all just, I mean, just not all get our heads around octopuses. what aliens are. But you know, say after the film The Truman Show, there's, after the film The Truman Show, in the sort of book

of mental health, there is now a sort of disease where people think, and I think it the whole time, like, oh, I'm in a movie, they've cast those extras really bad because I saw him running around two years ago, and they'd just reuse the budget for the extras. Like, there's a, it made us thing.

Yeah, where you think people are replaced by doubles and that, yeah. Exactly. And so you start looking for the filmic or the connections in your life. I wonder, say with aliens how much, and you could maybe answers, how much Hollywood has to answer for what we see matching or when

we think we see something, matching what's so delivered to us as this octopus-looking thing. But I think the octopus-looking thing is not the standard image of the alien. But the grace is, it's those big eyes that even ET fits into arrival. Those are more. But your point is well made.

The question is always begged when we talk about UFOs is did we begin to believe in UFOs because the science fiction movies showed them to us or did science fiction movies take from the human consciousness what was reported exactly like the chicken and the egg just like that. Another unfinished question, we'll get to that later. So what do you think?

I mean, you're a believer, so it's a difficult question to pose to you when we, and by the way, I want to point out that Ryan's specialty is not necessarily alien visitation it is UFO. It's spacecraft, people that have seen spacecraft, right? We're going to get more into the beings, but even the spacecraft, the imagery that we see when we see the spacecraft, we used to see flying saucers, and now it's maybe modernized a bit. Like, to what, to what degree do you think we have been in, by the way, you would admit that

most UFO sightings are total bullshit, right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, 95% of... Oh, yeah, but yours was real. That's what everyone thinks. 95% of them are prosaic explanations. They're conventional aircraft. They're misidentifications.

They're birds. I don't know. But there is always that like 5%. They're flying octopuses. Flying octopuses. Oh, those guys? And that we can't explain. Right.

Simply can't explain. And that goes for the government. That goes for science. You know, we've had astronomers look into this, which I'm sure we'll get into. Did you hear about, did you read that news story that came out a couple months ago about the guy who worked in the Pentagon? Oh, we're getting there, Kuma. All right, all right. Hold your horsey.

Before we do get to the Pentagon, because I think that is part of what was so striking to me in looking through this stuff. It's like the government has been involved in some sort of cover-up. I don't know if it's for alien spacecraft or if it's just because they're covering up their own technology. But the government's been involved since 1947, right? And Roswell was the... By the way, that is the year that Pakistan became a country. Anyway, keep going. I'm just trying to teach you something.

That's fucking awesome, man. Are the two things connected come on? You're back at. I don't know. I was fucking spaceship crashes in New Mexico and a month later. we have a new country. You tell me. I mean, well, that is another question that comes up, actually, is

how much of the concentration of UFO sightings is based in the United States, or how international phenomenon is it? It is definitely a worldly phenomenon. We often see it through Western eyes, however. All the big cases you think of,

Roswell, Rendellsham, which was in England, but was on an American military, base, which I can get into later as well. But most of the cases have happened here. And so the ones that are reported in other countries, are they similar images? Very strikingly similar. There's many patterns to be made in terms of what they saw. The thing I've noticed, though, is that other countries, they take this topic very seriously.

Where here in the United States, it's very ridiculed at times. Is it because we've made so many movies about it, maybe? Possibly. There's a lot of. A lot of, like, the chicken and the egg thing is which came first, the bug-eyed aliens in the movies or the... The bug-eyed aliens fucking me up the ass with their instruments. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Kumil, you grew up in Pakistan.

Tell us about that. No. How much of the movie is true. Spotlight Freddy. No, but what was the cultural consciousness as a kid in Pakistan, like, do they talk about... What's the understanding of UFOs in Pakistan? Oh, I mean, I remember us all of everybody talking about... about it. I was obsessed with UFO since

I was a little kid. I had all the books and stuff. Time life? Not time life, but other ones. But I remember looking at a picture of like the checkerboard radiation burn thing and being like, oh, wow, that's, I want that. But like if you, I don't know if you can speak to it

now because you've been gone for so long, but if a person had, one of the things that I noticed through your book and through this documentary that I watch is that people when they come out, there's a lot of pretty regular people and a lot of very high ranking people. They're immediately ridicule and they made to be sorry that they ever talked about what they saw. Is the same kind of ridiculed in Ireland or in Pakistan?

Does it feel as Lambasset and Lampooned in the other countries that you guys grew up in? Yeah. I'd say so. I mean, the thing is, I think you'd be more ridiculed for an alien than a ghost in Ireland. Because I think if you've a very religious country, any really religious country, you're naturally saying, I believe in something higher as long as it's not higher than Jesus. Right. Like, or Allah or whatever it is.

Oh, we've got something higher than that. I see your Allah and I raise you a Jesus Christ. You call them wee little spirits, is that right? A wee little spirit and not a-uh, no, we really don't. But I think there's the belief in something higher than you, but the alien science side of it, I think you would. Fair enough, because to some degree,

an alien sighting flies in the face of a religious subject. Exactly, exactly. It feels more grounded in science. I think, I mean, mean, the idea of God and why we have it, it's for all of our psychology and it's for all of our insanity. It's what we have to explain things that we don't have any words for at the moment we don't have any science for. And that's why we have it. And whether it's real or not, we don't know. Actually, is it Jesus? Oh, Jesus. Literally. Is it not Jesus? Who is it? Oh, God.

The object is interesting. This religion provides comfort, whereas aliens provide discomfort. Extreme discomfort. Why would we want to believe that? But I think, I think the idea that we are alone is so solipsistic, it's so the idea that we are at the core of our own universe. I've always said it was solstic. You are motion. It's classic motion, to be honest. But the idea that we are the only planet that has managed to, like, get enough heat and bacteria together to develop into whatever these little bags of meat we are are is absolutely ridiculous.

That said, I don't know about how far in advance. For example, all of the alien space. Base crafts we have are a version of airplanes. So we can't even imagine something that doesn't look like even when people... It moves as a vapor. Yeah, we don't know. Even like the Hindu gods are Jesus. They all look like men.

You're saying that the sightings of UFOs match aircraft that we've seen in actual conventional... They match some idea of a helium balloon, of a balloon into the sky of an octopus. Is that true, Ryan? That for me is... That's the bit that I'm like a trip of sightings. That doesn't feel like it tracks with your book. Like, is that true that the sightings? of alien spacecraft fit conventional aircraft ideas?

I wouldn't say they directly mirror our aircraft. They always seem to be a little bit ahead, at least from what I've gathered, from decade to decade to report. I mean, you look at the early 50s, you had saucers. You look at the 60s and 70s, 80s, you had... Just weed leaves, right? Just floating weeds.

I just saw a Tesla three flying around the other day. I'm sorry Oh God What Spring Hill Jack Do you know what that is? You don't know what that is I think that's a murder thing isn't it? No but there was

I've read these books And now I'm getting like little flashes But in London there was like a crepe There was like a sighting And then this creature was seen jumping around for it This was like in the 1800s So are there like some You know what those like old paintings

Where there's like a disc flying and stuff What's that about? Yes Great question, Kamau. Yeah, that's tough. I mean, again... That would get me more that pre-the idea of an airplane or people flying.

There's something. What I was trying to say there was the idea that there's aliens, of course, of course we're not the only bloody planet. Like how classic hashtag human is it of us to imagine like, no, we're the only ones. We're the most advanced you could ever be. What about crock shoes then? That's disgusting.

Like, clearly we're not the most advanced people in the world. That's your proof that we're not alone in the universe? Crocs, guys. don't. But that we can't even imagine something a little, like you were saying about sightings, they're a little bit further on than a spacecraft. They're not

an unimaginable thing. You're just a little bit further. But I think in the past, like what you were saying, Camille, about those things in the paintings, you're like, that is, that is no. Are there a lot of sightings before, like, the 1900s of it? Oh, yeah, I mean, there's there's sightings back to recorded history

from what I can gather. I mean, I look a lot at the modern UFO era from like Roswell on. But yes, I mean, you look at like Nostradamus's predictions of 9-11 or whatever. You're like, oh, that's weird

because they are, that he couldn't even have imagined a building that high. So something that, that, that to me is like, whoa, that's a, you know, perfect. You work real hard to bring 9-11 into this. Always, always. That's kind of my brand.

Never forget. So, yeah, so getting back to the modern understanding of the UFO era, which I think these questions are good. And what you're saying is that there are recorded, instances of these sightings but it doesn't actually hit its fever pitch until to your point, Ashley, we do

get it to the modern era. So there is a kind of kind of confirmation bias question about it all. But as we get into later on into the history... I want to say it makes sense that as we have more science that these sightings would stand out more because back then you see something flying and you're like, fuck, we don't know anything.

So that's fine. But now we're like we know most things. What the fuck is that? So they wanted to figure out whether it was real. When we got to this exactly what you're saying, to this era of scientific exploration, and in fact to this era of really being afraid of our skies being compromised, our national security being compromised after World War II, and aerospace being a secured, the thing that needed to be secured, we start seeing government involvement and trying to figure out what these things are.

So tell me about Project Blue Book, and what was that, and how did it affect the discovery and the exploration of UFOs? Yeah, so Project Blue Book was the government's first official. acknowledgement that there was a UFO phenomenon. By the way, they coined the term UFO unidentified flying object to downplay the danger of what these things could possibly be in our skulls. Yeah. We just don't know. We just don't know.

We just don't know. So they coined this term UFO. They started looking into it. They hired the world's most prominent astronomers to look into this to debunk it very much like sculling. And when was this? This was in 1957 when Project Bluebell. book started. Pakistan had been around for 10 years. So what was happening beyond what was happening in Pakistan, which we've all been very curious about, what was happening between 47 when they confiscated all the equipment at

Roswell and the beginning of this Blue Book project? What was the government doing and what was happening in this space? No pun intended. Yeah. So, I mean, if these things were crashing in the skies and they weren't supposedly ours, like clearly it was a threat, you know. So I think that was the point where they had to say, okay, we have to look into this officially.

They hired Dr. J. L. and Heineck, again, the world's most prominent astronomer at the time, to say it's just swamp gas. It's just natural phenomena. Oh, I hate swamp gas, man. That's a bad night, you know? And he couldn't do it. He spent years investigating these cases,

going out, you know, boots on the ground, like looking at these things. And eventually he came to the conclusion that whatever these things were, they were not ours. And it was pretty interesting. He started his own organization after that. After Project Blue Book ended in 1969, the government said it was not a national security threat.

Everything's cool. We're done investigating this. What was he investigating, though? Was he investigating, like, parts of the scrapescrafts that he found, or people's reports? Reports. Yeah, so he was, like, the first responder when people would report these things to the government.

so they would send him out there to interview the witnesses and to look for any trace evidence. You know, had a craft supposedly landed, they'd go out there with Geiger counters looking for radiation in the area. And did they find radiation in the area? Oh, yeah, on many occasions. In fact, like, it was in that documentary,

like Harry Truman, who was president at the time, was talking about it. This isn't like... This is not a classified project. No, no, this was completely open to the public. Right, it wasn't. And at the time, the conversation felt a lot of, more dignified. It felt a lot less ridicule-based and more like where they were actually

trying to figure out whatever the phenomenon was that people were seeing whether or not it was a real phenomenon. And Harry Truman himself was like on talking about it and trying to get to the bottom of it. So in other words, the government hired a scientist to try to disprove the existence of UFOs and he could not. He could not. No. To the point where he became a believer. I think that's what's so scary about the whole thing. It's not just aliens, at least when it comes to America. It's the fact that it feels like our government has been working their off to keep whatever it is from us. And I think that's the thing that's scary.

It's not only like, not only are there beings coming from other places, but like, oh, the government knows everything. It's spending millions of dollars keeping it from you. There's something definitely bad going on here. It kind of speaks to a scarier like, oh, there is, there is something for sure. And the people who are in charge absolutely don't want us to have any part of it. Do you think it's getting harder and harder? Like, do you remember when Osama bin Laden was caught?

Oh, my God. No, but it's, nine. Queen of 9-11 speaks again. It's right. I just want some answers. Do you remember there was a guy who tweeted about seeing the helicopters and so they were trying to do like a private mission but there was a guy who's like,

I can see these helicopters outside my house and all of a sudden you, for example, had no access to the internet, all he could do is go, Dad! Him at the time. But now, like people... The people around can go, guys, what the hell is going on?

Here's a picture. Everyone else can see. this. So at the time there was this guy just in his house going, it is weird for this time of night for these helicopters to be floating about. So that would fall into your 95, 98% of cases that are bullshit,

that are people thinking they're seeing something in the issue really there. I don't mean it like that. I mean it more that at the time what would you do to call the government? You'd call a government and get through to a hotline weeks later as someone would come with a white coat and go beeper-bib-bib-bib-bib-bib. Whereas now people have

connection to communities and you can take photo very quickly you can just take it you know like you like you were saying about um technology we have sort of access to go that is weird because there's so much stuff I can take a picture of it or but then also all the stuff is it's harder to believe because exactly yeah yeah that that is the biggest conundrum we have in uphology as we call it is we live in an age where anything could be faked you know every UFO photo every video that comes out you know so then I get sent on a weekly basis it's bullshit it's bullshit it's bullshit So in a weird way, these older sightings and these older cases are a little bit more helpful to figure out if they're real than people saying that they see them now.

I think so. I mean, it's sad to think that, you know, we have to look back at 1947 to see an authentic UFO. Right. So Project Blue Book was shut down in 1969. Why did they shut it down? Because they decided there was no credible threat, whether that was true or not. They shut it down and they said... Or did they find it enough to realize that they'd start hiding it?

the way, I do want to say that the government secrecy around it. I understand that and I support it. What do you think that is? I think if they were like, oh, we don't know this. Spacecraft coming and going, we have no idea. That would be horrifying. I would have. What would happen?

What do you think would happen? In a world where we're living in a reality that's terrifying on a daily basis, like what would really happen if the government was like, yeah, there are UFOs? It wouldn't even move the needle. Yeah, no, but that's from... We elected Trump. It's all good. That's now. I'm saying like before that.

No, I agree with that. And I think that the era that these craft came out, that's post-World War II era, people were really paranoid about the end of the world nuclear weapons. Now, we just accepted that it's definitely going to happen and it's not a big deal. So it doesn't, so it explains why they covered it up in the first place. It doesn't explain why they continue to do so today if it is in fact a cover up. And I think the evidence shows that it is in fact a cover up whether they're covering up their own technology or not. We don't know. But what happened when they happened when they're. they shut down Project Blue Book. Did they stop researching UFOs? Apparently. That was their official statement on it. A story came out, you know, maybe a month ago, where we learned that that certainly was not the case. What was that story? So this happened about a month ago. The New York Times came out with an article about a secret Pentagon program that had been going on for about five years where they were secretly investigating UFOs. You mean, the last five years, there's been a program at the Pentagon

study of UFO. This was from about 2000 yeah about 2008 or so to now so a little longer than that. Did they discover anything? This is what you were talking about Camille. Yeah it's really great stuff. Yeah it was I mean for like euphologists who were screaming you know for vindication that these things are real

and by the way to your point Moshe this story came out and it like did not move the needle exactly everybody's just like what did Trump tweet yeah there's alien life here right now but what about Trump though? Did he fuck Stormy Daniels? But do you think that's why certain things take off

because they kind of capture a mood? Like there are certain times when collectively, humans are more like bees. Like we all sort of are afraid of the same things at the same time, whether it's terrorism or UFOs at the time or mad cow disease or whatever it's going to be, we all get afraid at the same thing. And it takes attention away from something else.

At the moment in the world, aliens are the least of our fucking problems. So we're like, oh, come and bomb us or do something, it'll be better than what's going on now. But tell us to what the Pentagon guy. Before you do that, Ashley, speaking of terrorism, just real quick, what's your favorite terror attack? Oh, I don't know. I mean, the IRA had some real doozies during the 80s.

No, I wasn't trying to distract from what you were saying. I was just saying, in terms of it going quiet, it's because the fear has been sort of pushed somewhere else. So I'm not surprised there was no big, like kind of like hitting the news about it because people are so overwhelmed by everything else that's going on. But also, a rival came out right after the election and I sobbed like a baby during that movie.

So what was the Pentagon story? What did we learn from that? So the head of the program, his name was Luis Elizondo. He'd worked for the Department of Defense for a really long time. He was hired to head this project by, I believe, was Senator Harry Reid. Yes, it was. Harry Reid.

He's the one who got the money to do that. What are you, a hip-hop hype man? The super... Harry Reid! I just mean, it's not a crazy guy. It's a guy we know. Well, that's what I kept coming to with the stuff that you sent me. It was like, yes, there are crazies out there that are like, you know,

saying that they were getting alien anal probes. But a lot of the people that are cited in your book and in this documentary are like, you know, Air Force General, Majors, Air Force pilots. Jimmy Carter, right? Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Harry Truman. So what? Will Morris Day. Morris Day and the Time.

Time life books, pages missing, etc. I'm getting too old for the shit. So Harry Reid had hired this guy. Yeah, he hired this guy, and he got the funding to do this project because Harry Reid was very interested in the topic. And so it was something like $22 million, which to me seems like a lot. But in terms of government funding, it's nothing. And I think that was the purpose was it was so lowly funded that it was under the radar.

So, you know, they could do this secretly and keep. investigating UFOs. Wasn't he involved with another guy who was like an entrepreneur? Yeah. What's that? So Harry Reid was directly involved with Robert Bigelow. This guy is an entrepreneur. He started the budget hotel suites.

So this dude's a billionaire, and he's had a strong interest in UFOs for many, many years. He is convinced that we've been visited by something otherworldly, non-human. and he had been helping to fund this project as well. So any information that was going into this Pentagon story was then getting funneled to Robert Bigelow. Wait, so this is a private citizen that's funding a Pentagon inspection unit? And was he legally getting the information or was the guy just passing it to him? See, that's where it gets very much.

Supposedly, Bigelow has wreckage from UFO craft in his possession. It's being one of those. Budget suites. It's crazy. And he has a brother named Deuce who's actually a male Gigolo. I don't know people know about that. But just looking for a joke. Camille, all right, I see your disappointment.

Did you find one? Did you find one? Did you find one? Did you find a joke? Yeah, when are you going to find it? Yeah, let me know when you find a joke. You know what? The joke is out there.

Okay, so in the 60s, so we move into the 60s and 70s, right? And now things start to get a little bit wonky and weirder because with psychedelic drugs and with the kind of hippie movement, the UFO, to your, point actually the UFO movement sways into the cultural forces that are present at the time. What's going on in the 60s and 70s in terms of the UFO sighting? Yeah, so I mean you're looking at the

decades when like we're very anti-war, we're all about peace and you start to see this movement within uphology that almost these religions start to pop up around it. And a lot of people believe uphology is religion. It's a belief system

whereas I look at it more as fact-based, evidence-based. Wait, people believe, what do they believe, what are the tenets of this religion, that there were beings that came and set up our civilization, and that's why they're coming back? Because that was one of the questions I kept asking myself is like, I can understand an alien visiting. I can't understand aliens visiting sustained over and over again for 60 years, and what are they doing? How are fucking interesting, what are they doing? Are they just jerking their little 12-year-old dicks to our, you know, like, porkies looking through a thing? Why are they here so much?

Lottery, probably. Yeah. What's that? They're just playing the lottery every time they come back. They're like, we're going to get it at some point and then we can go. Maybe it's like a cruise ship for them. Like they're paying money. Go, go, check out Earth.

Oh, look at these idiots. Do you think it's an element of it? Again, I just don't, again, I believe that there are probably aliens. It's just at certain times that psychological zeitgeist or what it taps into is sort of prevalent around the world. For example, fear or the idea that we're alone or that we want to go somewhere else. So I believe a lot of religions come from, God, imagine if this is all we is, if this is all we are. Imagine if this is it. That would be too terrifying to get our heads round.

So let's just really believe there's something else. But that's sort of point. That's kind of an argument against actual UFO. No, no, no, against, not to say some of the sightings, but like you're saying, like in terms of tapping into the psychology of why we have this need to believe. Or what needs UFOs kind of take, what need they fulfill for us? Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And that's why I'm curious, what, in euphology, what is the current thing of what aliens are doing for us, like that we is, what's in the culture?

In other words, why are they coming here? Or what do they do at them? No, no, not actually. It just, I'm more interested in how we, we interpret them coming. So if we know that already. No, but like literally right now. So if it's gone from like, oh, they might be a threat. Oh, they're peaceful, loving beings.

we should build a religion around them. What is it now? Have they come to take us away from this bad... Yeah, is it a rescue mission at this point? Well, if in the 60s was it that there were religions around UFO? Yeah, I mean, there were religions popping up. There were cults popping up. What was the basis of those religions?

Like, are we going to be saved? What is the idea behind us? I think it was this whole idea of they are going to impart knowledge on us. They're going to come here to save us. So we were searching for, like, in other... to save us because we weren't, you know, saving ourselves. And that's exactly how we've interpreted phenomena. We don't understand it.

It used to be like, oh, it's raining because this goat, we should kill this goat. You know what I mean? And so seeing UFOs, we're just putting on, I don't know why you guys laughed at that. That's real shit. But we're seeing something we don't understand and we're coming up with different reasons to explain. I just had a thought if all the butt probing of the 80s was a result of like STDs and like suddenly like that and homophobia.

And homophobia and that being a thing of the culture that that's what we're responding. Yes, Jessica Fletcher. Thank you. So, well, exactly. What happened in the 80s and 90s is that they started, they moved from being our like loving brothers into being people that are coming to like

stick shit in our, yeah, buff fuck us and give us space aids. So what, have you encountered people that were abducted that claimed to be abducted by aliens and what, like, do you buy that? Do you buy that? kind of stuff? It's really tough.

And I was extremely skeptical when I got to the alien abduction part of the book and essentially interviewing people who claim this. I had to meet them face to face in order to hear them. Or ass to ass, as the case may be. It's funny how

that all probed. Like that was like one case. It's really one case? No, it's definitely been more than one. A few. Yeah, but listen, it's the steel dossier. We don't talk about all the other shit. We talk about the fucking piss on the, with the Russian hooker. I mean, so it's salacious. If you're probing as a scientist,

there's only so many holes in a human. One them's going to be, like, it's like two nose, two ears, one mouth or a butt. A badge. There's only... Wait, you missed a very important hole. I forgot about my main one. You know, when it comes down to sex, it's an ass, two nose, nostrils, an ear, and I guess

you're done. I don't know, what else is there? When I lose my virginity, I'm going to know all about the last one. You really are, Irish. But no, it's not that mad to think that you go up one of them, wouldn't it? Like, it's your nose, your ears. Did you ever conduct an interview with a person that had been abducted that made you feel

like this is something happened here? Yeah, so there were a few. I mean, I met with a woman face-to-face with her husband, and she's recalling this event that had happened to her, that she'd been taken aboard this craft, that they'd experimented on her, and she's, like, gripping her husband's hand and just crying. And he's, like, they're, like, trying to calm her down. Now, whether or not, that's the whole thing that I've. come to the alien abduction phenomenon

is whether or not that physically happened. If it really happened, if aliens actually took this woman, I can't tell you. But you think she believed that and that's all you can get at. Most of these people, they firmly believe that these events happened to them. I can't say they did or they did not.

I'll take down the story. I'll be a listening to you for them. But do you believe? Like you can always, of course you can't, but when you go into those rooms, is there an element of belief or is it just sort of like pity and sorrow for whatever this person feels viscerally like they're going through. I wouldn't say pity. I'm definitely open and compassionate. I think that's essential when you're interviewing someone on such a sensitive issue. Just to hear them out is almost

like confirmation enough for them. Someone's willing to listen. But are you? Without enabling them. They do studies of people like if you write down while someone's telling you about a trauma, if you are writing something down versus not, the people who are being listened to by someone writing something down feel better than the other people because they feel like it's going where official. And now it means something. I read a thing that's a theory is that a lot of these abduction memories are actually

dissociated memories of abuse. Oh yeah, yeah, I run into that. Somebody just snapped like we were at a poetry slam over here, I swear. You're like, dissociated memories of abuse right there, boy, yeah. They have a bingo card. Talk about it. Check that. Oh, yeah.

Why one? They have their hound-tall bingo card. But that it's someone a visitor in the night, you know, all that. Oh, yeah, I mean, there are theories of, you know, abuse or trauma as a child or sleep paralysis, you know, things like this. These are a lot of the times the explanations for abduction cases, but there's a gentleman that I used to speak to. He passed away a few years ago named Buddy Hopkins. He was fucked to death by an alien, wasn't he?

I knew it. I knew it. I've been proven. This is a real person? Oh, is your friend? Yeah. Collie. Collie?

A colleague? All right. He was fucked to death by an alien. He had a family. I know. It's a fucking tragedy the way he went out. You're going to have to bleep his name. Go ahead. He interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people

who claimed it had been abducted by aliens. I'd say about 98% of them. He found absolutely no evidence of any sort of trauma. But what about the 2%? And this is what I would say to you as well. Nobody's saying 98% had no abuse of trauma, so only 2% were the ones

who were easily debunked. Exactly. So what did he no, rather, what did you feel? Because again, you're saying you've a lot of sensitivity and everything and you clearly are a caring person. Were there any of them that you were like, fuck man, I think

this might have happened to you when you were talking to these people? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I am, I've been interviewing this guy for years now. His name is Travis Walton. They made a movie about him. Early 90s, I want to say, called it. Oh, that I seen is awful. Oh, that I seen. Yeah.

Oh, what is it called? It's called fire in the sky. What happens in the... Isn't that the movie that first scared you about... From aliens? No, E.T. was the first fucking movie that scared me about aliens. That guy looks like a penis. Sorry.

I'm not scared of this. You're not scared of him anymore. Somebody's upset. You just got the opposite of a poetry slam snap on that. You fucking say E.T. looks like a dick, motherfucker? Uh-uh. Take it back. He wrote a bike and it was cute. Are you terrified of E.T?

No, I'm terrified. Oh. Oh, God. Hey, I'm right here. Yikes. Yikes. Take it out. Put a blanket on and see if we all love it.

You know, in 1947, Pakistan began, and the alien dick phenomenon has never been the same. Now, okay, so we're going, I want you to answer that question first. Is this person, what were you saying? You interviewed this one person. Oh, yeah. I mean, this was back in, like, 75, it happened, but, like, six. He was part of a logging crew that went out to do a project, a tree-thinning project. They see this craft.

He gets out, this guy, Travis, he looks up at it. It shoots a beam down, hits him. And the other dudes, you know, they just bolt. They get out of there. They think he's dead at that point. Many hours later, they come back. Many hours later. Should we go check on Claude?

Male friendships are awful. Male male. If that was a girl, be like, get the fuck down, you piece of shit. go on, Mary, you get up there. I'll stand on my shoulders. We'll get him back. But men are like, run. We'll come back in a few hours and see if he's okay. Yeah, I've noticed how supportive women are of each other all the time. So they all saw Taylor being abducted.

Travis. I called him Claude, and I feel like it should stick. Yeah. We'll let it go. I'm sure what about me. They saw him be hit by a beam. They saw that. They saw it. They all saw it. He gets hit. They leave.

They report it to the police. what happened. They go out with the police to try to find the guy. They can't find him anywhere. So for weeks on end, everyone thinks that this guy's been murdered and that this is this like story of a UFO was a cover up for it. By the loggers. They think the loggers thing. Wow. That they, you know, maybe something happened out there. They made up this elaborate story. A few weeks later, he shows up. He's found on the side of a road and they are able to, you know, get him talking again and everything. He recounts the same exact event. that happened with the beam coming down. And then he recounts this crazy story about being taken aboard a craft and being experimented on. He picked something up, tried to hit one of the aliens at one point.

That's a logger for you right there. You get a comedian up there. It's just fucking submission, you know? I'm turning over. I'm like, it's back here. This is the only one I have. At least it's a story. Two nostrils.

It's a one-man show. I got 10 new minutes. One-man show coming soon. There's not the difference between men and women again. I like that. You get kidnapped by an alien and you get ten new minutes out of it. That is at least a one-man show. It was like, no, no, no, go back to the other stuff.

That's all I got on that, actually. Motion talks fast. Anyway, I'm married now, so it's, you know, that's a trip. Anyway. So this gentleman remembers it, and is he still around? Oh, yeah, it's still around. And what's weird is, like, he hasn't, it looks like he hasn't aged a day since this happened.

Oh, take me up there. It's kind of cream. He and the other loggers were put under countless, like, polygraph test, and they all passed with flying colors. Wow. It's fucking crazy. Did you talk to the other loggers? Yes.

I've spoken to several of them on several occasions. They all have the same. They all have the same story. Are they all friends still? No, no. Yeah, sure. How far away? They're like, you run away.

Taylor's still a little looks all young and fuckable. We're all old-ass loggers over here with our leather skin. Travis. But yes. I went from Claude to Taylor. I'm getting closer. How far away was he found from where he was taken, presumably? I think it was something like 20 miles or something like that.

What do you think? So that's when you believe, like, you feel like, I mean, that's a case where I'm like, they had everything to lose and nothing to gain with this story. They made no money on this. Unless they were like going out with each other as an orgy or something. And they were like, guys, if we all say, we saw him alive. They all fucked each other and then he hid for two weeks. Homophobia is deep.

It's like, I'll be in this log cabin for two weeks. It's also an anal probe situation. Well, that's the thing. I know people personally who are normal, sane, normal people, people who have seen UFOs. And I know a group of three friends who'd seen it. And one was telling people in the other two, like, don't tell people it. makes this look weird so he doesn't... I know multiple people who've seen it.

There are cases where like a whole town in Texas saw something, you know? That's right. They don't gain anything from. Or in a town of Texas in Phoenix, Arizona. There was one case in Phoenix, Arizona that so many people saw it. The governor of Arizona saw it. And he came out and said, I saw these aliens. Yeah.

What did they see? They saw a... You tell us. Yeah, this was the Phoenix Lights incident of 1997. It's a great title. which boomerang craft was seen over the city of Phoenix thousands of people saw this reported

it they sent out fighter jets to try to find this thing they couldn't find it this is 97 you're at graduated high school so because if you remember that was a crocodile dundee was really huge then

so that's why people were seeing giant boomerang that's not an alien spacecraft it's an alien spacecraft so so what is that long ago for a whole time to see something it's quite like... Well, there's another... One of the stories that, to me, was the most substantive and really

was sort of breathtaking was the story of the air base in England, where the U.S. Air Force Base in England. Tell us about that, what they saw and what happened. Yeah, so I've been in direct contact with the key witness to this event. This happened in 1980. It was called Rendelsham Forest. This was a forest between two joint military bases owned by the United States in England. This is during the cold war, you know, so tensions were high. We were over there just in case anything happened. So one night,

this craft is caught on radar. Everyone's seen it coming in, land in the forest, and about 60 officers were sent out to investigate whatever the hell this thing was. Because they thought it was maybe a sort of foreign actor that was coming in to do some nefarious something.

Absolutely. And what's interesting is at the time, we were secretly housing nuclear ordinance under these bases without England's knowledge. We were able to sneak them in. So, of course, it's highly sensitive at this point if something had incurred, you know. So they scrambled like 20 military police or whatever to go? 60.

60. Okay. And they all ran towards it. They all had to go. That was, they didn't know what they were walking into. They were just told to go out there and see what, you know, what they can do. The base commander, this is caught on audio as well. You can hear this.

I heard the audio. It's insane. It's pretty scary. Yeah. and the base commander is recounting what's going on as this is happening, and he said that this craft was directly over the nuclear ordinance and disabled it. It got shut down. And the other thing is that these 20 military police went to the woods,

and they all saw something that they universally reported as beyond any kind of possibility of being crafted on, at least technology that any of these people in the fucking Air Force knew about, right? So this is all the way from high-ranking military officials down to military police. All were reporting the same thing. And then, to correct me if I'm wrong, they called in somebody else, once again, to debunk the thing. They called in a higher-ranking military official who came in and saw the exact same thing. Yeah, there was activity for three nights on the base. You know, once this thing landed and supposedly shot off, strange lights were seen over the base for two more nights.

And they could not explain what was going on. And they told all the officers. There's never to speak about it. This story only came out about 20 years ago or so. It's interesting. And this was not like a traumatized yokel, you know, just going like, I saw something in the sky. These are high-ranking military officials. And also, after that, the governments of England and France have come out, and Belgium have all come out with full disclosure on their UFO programs, their UFO observation programs.

and they all report that there are at least some substantial cases of UFOs that they cannot explain and that were sightings that can't be explained. So other countries have come out and admit that they've like found stuff. Almost every country you can think of who has ever investigated UFOs, you know, whether publicly or secretly have come forward and said, look, we've looked into it. We don't know what's going on, but here's our files. We're such assholes. We're such assholes.

Like, why are we the ones Are like, no, no, no, we'll keep this Because we're the ones talking to them Do you think we're actually talking to them? I mean, you look at contact To the movie contact You know, that's what SETI says is I love that film.

It's so good. It's really good. I have a, I don't know if there's a funny story But it's an odd story. I saw contact And I was so taken with it I was like, wouldn't it come out? Like, 94?

No, it was later. It was like. 97 or so. I was just like in awe of it. the film. It really got my brain going and I'm like, I gotta get in my car and drive into the hills to look at the moon. So I did. I got into this like 93 Saturn and I drove up into the Oakland Hills and I didn't bring any shoes because I was like, it's like two in the morning. I'm just going to go ponder the cosmos, right? And I'm up there, I'm sitting on the hood. I'm just having like a moment

with God and the moon or whatever. And I have no shoes on. I'm way up in the Oakland Hills and I pull, I'm like, okay, well, I've looked at the moon for a while. And I pull out, I start the car and pull back and the car pulls up over a boulder and I'm stuck I like can't move the car I don't have no cell phone this is pre-cell phone times

no shoes and I had to walk three miles down a winding Oakland Hill Road barefoot to this hotel where I walk in at like four in the morning barefoot like do you guys have a pay phone you guys seen the movie contact

they're like yeah people come here all the time I've been pondering. Yeah. Yeah. We got another shoeless contact fan. It's been happening for 10 years. The movie's only been out for two.

Ryan, tell us... Did you see the video that came out a month ago? That was another one of those videos that came out with the Pentagon guy that they released one of the videos with it. Yes. I mean, the big part of that Pentagon story was video footage that came officially from the Department of Defense. And these were two videos that were from the gun gun. camera footage from the fighter pilots who were sent to investigate these UFOs.

And you're listening to them and these pilots are like completely out of character. They're like, what the fuck is that? That's not how you talk when you're flying. I don't know what it is. Yeah, it's... It was pretty freaky and the footage itself is extremely startling. Really?

These objects are moving. You know, zipping around at breakneck speeds that no human could survive. It's just, and that's what's really interesting. And these videos were leaked by the head of the program. He left the program. He left the program

so he could talk about this, right? He quit so he could be like something's happening. It's like every other country in the fucking world, it seems like, except for ours. Isn't B.182 involved in this somehow, too? Yeah, that guy's like, he pays money.

DeLong? So, yeah. Maybe all the small things was about that. All the small little men. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the information about UFOs that's come out has comes from very wealthy people.

If you have money, you're able to get the information. So Tom DeLong, all through his time in Blink 182, had been investigating UFOs, researching the topic. So whenever they were touring, you see, oh, they go to Roswell all the time. It's a great cover. Can you imagine marrying someone from Band and going, oh, it's great, he's got so much money.

They'd be like, do you never believe what he spends it on? Oh, God, I have to do all the child support. He spends on alien investigations. What a waste. My girlfriend goes to do that almost. Oh, my babe. She's here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Wait, you're in Blink 182.

With that haircut, you're close. Tell me some more of the, like, tell me one more of the stories, the anecdotal stories from your book or from the people that you've talked to that really, like, what are some of the most spine tingling stories that you've heard? Like, one are just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to refuse. What's that? The ones that are hard to refute, you're like, I mean, so many people. Right.

So the ones I find most interesting is when there's more than one witness. I mean, you have cooperating everything at that point, you know what I mean? And there was one where a mother and her two daughters, they witnessed a triangular craft. This is in Michigan. And so it's floating above their house. And one of the daughters is outside with the mother. The mother is like staring up at this thing. She thinks it's amazing.

She's in awe. She feels euphoric. And the daughter's right next to her, like covering her ears and saying how unbearably loud it is and how it's like going to kill them. And the mother couldn't hear anything. Oh, God. I don't like this at all. Whoa. What do you take from that?

That one really mystified me. I mean, they're clearly looking, I think, at the same object, but having completely different perceptions. Because you know your ears up until the age of 18 can pick up sounds that an adult can't. That's right. So maybe she was, that's right. They tried to drive kids away at malls. Yeah. Because at malls, sometimes they play these sounds to stop kids loitering.

Is that true? Yeah. Until the age of age of age. 18 is a frequency you can hear. Oh, that's so funny. I don't count. That's the end of the show. Very good.

Well, that's a good point for us to, are there any questions from the audience? Let's take a couple questions before. Are there at the people who don't believe? Wow, I want to go. Yeah, here, we have a question here. Are any of you more convinced of UFOs now? After hearing?

I was already pretty convinced, but I would say, I'm more convinced than I was. and also we'll have to take a lot of medication to sleep tonight. Yes. I still, I've always believed in aliens because I think it's ridiculous not to. The UFO is saying, I still,

I think I have a question over our mass hysteria and psychologically what we actually do as groups, even things like looking up before airplanes or even the start of airplanes. Did we ever look up as much as we do and how much do we? I think that's fair enough. What refutes it to me is like, is 12 military police on an Air Force base and a major

seeing a spacecraft right in front of them doesn't feel like to me maybe there's mass hysteria in the military but it just feels like aren't they the opposite of mass hysteria? For me it's more like why in a military area you're like oh maybe there is some kind of from another country or something going to a military area why in that particular that's those are the questions of them like gravitating towards nuclear weapons and stuff

right just that happens a bunch of times. Absolutely, yeah. The Rendlesham one we mentioned. There was one in Montana where it went over the base and shut them down again. There's one in Germany where it turned them on into... Oh, yeah. Yours turned you on a little bit too, right? I remember that. Because it makes sense that they would

go where our technology is best, right? If they don't want to learn about us. Like I was saying, we always put it something to our perspective. So whether it's language or it's military or it's war, we put it within our perspective. So they would go to a military base. And for me, that's a really human connection

No, but if they're going to a place If they're attracted to radiation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, but if they're looking for, like, good technology, our most advanced technology, it would make sense that they would go to places. That's, again, it has to be to do with technology. Alien life, we always have to go,

oh, it has to be with technology. It wouldn't be an organic matter. We can't even imagine something. No, but they do everything. They're, you know, anal probing, but also they're going to... That's organic. There's a lot of...

There's a lot of organic matter inside of an asshole. So, we have a question up here? So, grab it, grab it, boy. Hey, so you've looked at so many of these cases. You guys are talking about, you know, oh, there's topic over military bases and stuff about technology. You've looked at so many of these over time. I mean, are there any particular, like, odd details or recurring details that are just like, what could that possibly be? Like, why would this happen so much?

Like sort of strange things. Yeah, I think for me, at least, it's the way it impacts people, actually. It's not even, like, the data or the evidence. of the thing happening. It's how it actually affected people afterwards and sort of opened them up to the possibilities. Yeah, you're wanting a euphologist badge right now. It really did

a number on you. Is there anything that doesn't connect with what we see as aliens? So again, like the spacecraft, the gray men, whatever it is, is there anything that people have seen that have felt something that just doesn't connect with the sort of the cartoon of what we think are UFOs, the triangles,

whatever it is? Yeah, I mean, there's the narrative of, you know, the flying saucer, the little gray aliens that we see over and over and over again. But there's so crazy bizarre cases out there of like, you know, seven-foot-tall Nordic aliens, you know, Nordic-looking, there's no lizard. That's hot.

There's politicians that are... Like, what do you want? An octopus or seven-foot-tall Nordic men? It's hard to not feel threatened by that because there are a few people who are less seven-foot-tall Nordic than me. It's just the flavor she's been having for a while, so it's like, you know, it's

an exciting other, you know what I mean? Right, no, because I always, I love chocolate, but every now and then it's like, let's try a seven foot tall and a quarter of it. Is there anybody who came tonight who didn't believe who now thinks that it's possible that it's... Oh, yeah, all right.

Let's hear from you. Why? Oh, just all of the military examples you were bringing up. It sounds pretty legit, and I want to do some research now. Yeah, because our military would never a lie. And then again, I leave. That's actually a really good point, man. The fact that I don't, I don't personally believe the government is ever going to tell us the truth about what they know, because honestly, I don't think they know a lot about what's going on. You know, they don't, they don't control what's happening in our skies, but they can control the information that

they give to the public. You want to project confidence. Absolutely. And I don't think disclosure, as they call it, is ever going to come from the government. So, like, if you see something, just it's like, you know, the subways. If you see something, say something. You know, there's 100,000 UFO reports a year on average. You would recommend people report UFO sightings? It seems like every person that does is ridiculed and like it becomes a mistake in their lives. I see that changing.

You don't have to call it like, I see an A, like the nice thing about unidentified flying object. You're literally like, what the hell is this? Well, Dennis Kucinich in that presidential debate, they asked him if you see the UFO and he's like, well, yeah, but it was in his presidential campaign was over. They were just like, we're down here, so, bye, Dennis. But you'd still say, do it. Why do you think it's important to report these things?

I think it's extremely important because it gives us something to work off of instead of, you know, these cases from 1947 and stuff like that. I think the more people, the more credible people, military or academics or scientists that come forward, or everyday people, you know, just see something when they look up. If they report it, that's more things that we can look into

and bring it to the government and be like, Tell us what you know. Are the reports going up, given that we all have video cameras in our pockets at all times? That is a really good question. To my knowledge, the amount of UFOs reported hasn't changed. Interesting. But, yeah. That to me makes it less the fact that we can capture the images now.

And we're not. And we're not. No, but it's... That's the kind of the point I'm making earlier on about the... I think there's more videos, but not more sighting. Is that what you're saying? Is that what you were saying? I think so.

And it's tough because that is the biggest conundrum. I think in today's, you know, technological world is that we have the technology to just look up and take a picture and we don't. But for me, and this might seem like a jump. But if you look at what's happening with race in America, so much stuff is getting captured. Finally. 9-11. Yeah. No, 9-11.

But like, people are like the nation of the Pakistani state. How does that connect? Well, Pakistan is a country classically depopulated. of seven foot tall fuckable aliens and I just think it's time for us to talk about it. Let me finish my point is that what most people are saying the incidents aren't new. What's new

is that we can finally capture them and go this is happening can someone finally be held accountable? But they're also less credible because we can You can manipulate an image. Yes that is true but at least things are being captured so we're seeing more stuff so it's something where for years

you're like it was only witness reports because how else would you do it other than a witness report. Now there's all the technology to capture stuff, and yet people aren't capturing anything. Why is that? But there is audio and there are pictures and there is video or there is not?

Oh, yeah. It's out there. But like you said, it's disseminating the truth from the fiction at this point. Like, there's apps that you can insert UFOs into your pictures. Right. Like, where do we go from there? Right. I guess up?

Yeah. Is there anybody with a burning question, one final bird? Yes, all the way in the back here. So is Scientology real then? Let's do one more question. Yeah, we've got another question to go. We're right across the street from those motherfuckers. You can talk aliens in the government all night long,

but don't you ever impugn Scientology? Ladies and gentlemen, that's our show. Thank you so much. Give a round of applause for Ryan Spray, Kamal Najiani, Emily Gordon, Ashling Bee. Thank you very much. And come back and see us again on the Houndtel discussion series here at the UCB Theater

of the second Wednesday, every month. Good night, I love you, goodbye. Welcome, everyone, to another very exciting episode of Somewhere in the Skies. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but for the very first time on the show, exclusively, we have with us today. Dave Foley. Dave, how you doing, my man? I'm very well. Thank you.

Thank you for having me on. It's a delight. I've been a long time listener, first time guest, I guess. That's, I'm extremely honored, man. I did feature you a panel that I did with you and Jeremy Corbell and UFO Jane on the show at one point. But this is the first time you've actually been my guest. And, of course, I had to have my co-pilot here, a fellow Canadian like yourself to come on here. I've been enjoying your new collaboration.

You guys, you're the Nichols and May of UFOs. We're trying. We're trying. We're trying. Good to see you, Jay. Nice to see you. Christy's definitely brought, she came guns of blazing. I mean, she was the one to get me Elizondo and Chris Mellon after their big article came out. Yeah, that was a great interview.

It was great. Yeah, yeah. So we have heard of thank for that. We just dropped another big story, an exclusive interview, about Canadian UFO files, which I want to get your thoughts on. Oh, I had. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to read that. I was going to go through that.

Oh, no worries. We can definitely give you the Cliff Notes version. But let's do the origin story for our viewers, our listeners who don't really know. I don't know how they couldn't know who you are. But you're dive into the world of UFOs. How did this start? How did you first get interested? What made you start to take it seriously?

Yeah, well, I think it's been less of a dive into is more of a fluctuating obsession throughout my lifetime. I would say. Where, I guess, I mean, as a kid, I was definitely very interested in you. I mean, I was a child, the TV series UFO was on the air. Terrible show, by the way, by the guys who made Thunderbirds or Go. They're a first live-action show. And if you watch it now, it's a fantastic wardrobe.

But other than that, it's pretty awful. Yeah. Yeah, and there was also the Roy Thinness, series Invaders was on at the time. So it was all, you know, and I loved all the sci-fi movies, like the Earth stood still. I loved the sort of utopian vision of aliens. Of course, a child, big breeder of Ray Bradbury as a kid, so. So all those things were interested.

But it came, in terms of seriousness and attentiveness, it's gone up and down, and it took a big jump up around the time of the Phoenix lights. Oh, really? Yeah, because that was one, I mean, before that, I mean, I never bought the Roswell story, the cover-up story. But when the Phoenix lights happened back in 97, I think it was. That was one where I just kept looking at it and then heard the ridiculous, you know, it was Flair's explanation. And again, how quickly, I mean, you go back to Roswell, where basically you could just say, you know, It was, you know, it was a balloon. And people go, oh, yes, yes, the only nuclear wing in the world would mistake a balloon for a UFO.

Right. Everyone have a nap now. And so the Phoenix light seemed like exactly the same thing where, you know, the government comes out and says it was flares. And all the media who were covering it a day before ago, no, I knew it. So that got me thinking, oh, this is ridiculous. And I guess just after that, the French Cometta report came out. Oh, right. Which was the French government's, well, it was a joint thing.

It was the military science academy and government all working on a report on UFOs. And at the end, they just came out and said to the whole world, oh, the UFOs are real, and our best bet is they're extraterrestrial. And again, this is a pretty established Western government saying this, a pretty strong, you know, scientific nation. And again, no one cared, you know. Right, right. And then correct me if I'm wrong, didn't they shut down Kometta after they came out with that conclusion?

I think, I'm not sure if they did. I can't, I don't know now. I think it was within like months or something. They said, yeah, most, possibly the most, what would you say? The biggest answer to it is probably extraterrestrial. And then they're like, nope, program over, done, done. Yeah, yeah. Well, they got their result.

Yeah. Exactly. Arguably, that's what you do with the program. That's true. They get their result and you shut it down. Yeah. But you think you'd follow it up with some other studies. And I'm going to assume they have.

You know. I mean, I do think the French have a better sort of reporting system than we've had. I don't know if it's still extent. But yeah, so those are things. That got me really going on again. And then years later, watching out of the blue. James Fox's movie I remember watching that and that was the first

I think it was the first really good documentary about the subject because it was very well produced and it was dealing almost entirely with extremely what's the term not unimpeachable credible

mostly dealing with extremely credible sources and witnesses and looking at data. And I thought that was like the first really great. And that went really just that. And then watching the follow up, I know what I saw. So I went, okay, all right, this is, yeah, I got to take, this is a pretty serious issue for our time. Yeah, right.

And then, I mean, were you one of these people, too, when the whole New York Times thing came out and everything, were you all in at that point? Or were you kind of with the rest of us like, huh, what's going on here? Oh, I was all in. In fact, I was in enough that when the New York Times story came out, I knew what was being left out of it. All right. I mean, at that time, I already knew from some of my friends about AWASAP. You were in the know.

Yeah, and knew that the larger program was ASAP. and that A-Tip was just sort of an offshoot of Allsap within the Pentagon. So I knew the things that, you know, recently everyone's going, well, we should have, you know, these, you know, we weren't told the truth by the New York Times. I mean, I knew that they just, they just weren't able to tell it at the time because the head of Allsap hadn't come out, hadn't agreed to go public yet. How did you surround yourself then within the UFO community, Dave? Like, how did you, like, find yourself, like, embedded in this group of people that now have all this

Intel, right? Yeah. All this Intel, because it's, we all find our way in in different ways. Outside of being interested in it, you find yourself into, surrounded by people in the community. Well, it started because I was going to do it. I was going to go on my friend Joe Rogan's podcast to promote my own podcast. And, and I, so I remember texting Joe late at night saying, Joe, you're going to be so excited. I'm full on into UFOs again.

And, and, and, and I was starting. to get the text back from jail. That's all bullshit. I'm out of that. Right. What the fuck? How can you be out of it now? And so, and there's one of the things where I started talking to him about,

I talked about James Fox's movies. And I also said, you know, I said, you should also, you should watch the Bob Lazzar documentary by this guy, Jeremy Corbell. And I said, there's a lot of really interesting, compelling stuff in that. And then, so after I mentioned Jeremy's movie, Jeremy reached sort of gave me a shout on Twitter and so we became Twitter friends and and you know and then we became real life friends a little later. I actually remember staying staying at Joshua Tree and reached sort of tweeted at Jeremy saying look I'm out

in your your end of the world what should I do when I'm out here because he was he used to live out in Joshua Tree. So so that was yeah so we became friends over. for just like, you know, telling me what restaurants and what tourist sites to see. And then we actually started meeting up and talking about UFOs. So we've been friends since then. We know that Joe is the person that got you in. Or you've got Joe back in, I should say. Yeah, I got Joe back.

Yeah, you've got Joe back in. Well, back in the Phoenix Lights days, we used to talk about it all the time. And also, I mean, I used to argue because Joe was into sort of the, some of the ancient alien stuff that I thought was kind of crazy. and I would argue with them about, you know, like when Joe was convinced that pyramids were built by aliens, and I kept, and I was firmly opposed to that idea, I just kept saying, it's Stone Age technology, Joe. It's Stone Age. It's actually just stone masonry. I said if the aliens, I believe the aliens built it if there was one electric light bulb in there.

Right. Right. Hey, and you're talking to the guy who's on ancient aliens, but I can say, publicly, like, Dave, I'm with you, man. Like, we forget the ingenuity and the innovativeness of different cultures throughout the world and what they can accomplish. And the pyramids of Giza weren't built

like just, let's build this. There's hundreds of years of progress. You can watch the progress. You can travel around Egypt and see it. It starts with burial mounds. Then it starts with stepped earth pyramids. Then it starts with stone-stepped pyramids. Then it started.

eventually gets to the smooth walled pyramids of Agiza. I mean, but it took hundreds of years for them to figure it out. And you can actually walk around Egypt and see it. You can see the progress towards the pyramids. So that's, well, that, yeah. But could it be? Could it be? No, I'm just kidding. No.

We won't go there. We won't go there. That, yeah. That, that, the Nazis, the Nazis got the V2 advice from aliens. That's the other one that makes me crazy. Why would Nazis? Why would aliens show them how to build rockets? They have gravidic propulsion. Why would they, if they want to help the Nazis, why would they say, here, here's how you defy gravity.

Yeah. Yeah. Take our trash. Take our, you know, thermodynamic rockets. Yeah. And good luck with that. Yeah. No, the aliens have showed them how to use thousand-year-old Chinese technology.

Exactly. Exactly. Let's move to, I mean, a lot of the stuff you brought up that got you interested is through documentaries and kind of the entertainment industry and how they have handled this topic, whether it's through mainstream media or through Hollywood. You're saying I'm not a reader. That's what you're saying, isn't it? No, I'm not saying that. No, that's fair. What's your favorite UFO? I'm dyslexic, so I'm not a great reader.

Leslie Kane's book I really loved. I read that. And I finally got around to, no, that I'm not being cynical anymore. Nice. Yeah, that's a fantastic book. I finally got around to reading the day after Roswell, which I guess I had kind of dismissed. Yeah, Philip Corson, which I'd dismissed for years. And finally read it and went, oh, it's so much more rational than it's made out to be. It's so much, you know, he's like, none of his claims seem outrageous.

You know, when you actually don't, when you're not reading the people describe. his claims. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I haven't made my way through the entire book yet, but you're right. A lot of the stuff that he says, there could be some truth to it. And, you know, unfortunately, like everything else with Roswell will probably never truly know. But, yeah, but it's not like he was saying, he was not like he was saying we got all these technologies from UFOs. He was saying he, he, his job was to find areas where people were doing research in various material sciences. where some of the materials recovered might have helped

push that research forward. You know, it's not saying, yeah. He's not saying he said, here, here's some fiber optics. Go ahead and make a billion dollars. Good luck. Yeah, exactly. I actually spoke to Paul Heller about that.

Yeah, I spoke to Paul Heller before, like years before he passed, about two years. And he read that book, and that's what got him into the story as well. And he actually looked at his background because he was the Minister of Defense. And then he was also going to be writing to be the prime minister against Trudeau.

And that was Pierre Trudeau, not R. Trudeau now currently. But he then read that book when he was on vacation and someone gave it to him. And then that's what brought him in. But his parallel timelines said that it made sense for him. So when he read it, he went, I know he knew the Kennedys. He knew everything that was related. So for him, it made sense. And you get, you know, anybody that's in defense saying that their timelines match up with what the book says, you kind of have, you know, and he obviously knew more intel than we would ever know at that point, too.

Yeah. And then he just had a full course. He was so highly connected, you know, and so highly respected. And as I said, and even you read the book, it's a very, seems like it's a very pragmatic account of how we took. I got this stuff. I got it. I'm supposed to hand it out. That's my job. And he lists all of the, you know, all of the. of the key players that he was in contact with and that he dealt with. You know, so he's pretty detailed in the, you know, in the, you know, the personnel that he cites. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Christy, why don't we, we head into the entertainment territory? Because I know this is, you know, kind of what you guys chatted about on your show with Dave.

But I'd love if we could expand on that conversation a little bit in terms of the entertainment industry. And, you know, I know Dave is, you've done some stuff on television. I'm a professional. You are. You are. You've done just a few things that people need me. But yeah, Christy, please take it from there. Yeah, we talked a lot about misinformation to Dave and ridicule.

Because I know that you started in the community and there was a lot of ridicule around it. Have you seen, like, what examples in entertainment that used ridicule that you thought maybe was creating misinformation? within the entertainment industry, and then obviously led to mainstream. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I think every, I think from the, I mean, when was the decision made by the Pentagon to begin publicly ridiculing and undermining the credibility of witnesses that was like early 50s, right? Yeah, yeah, back Project Blue Book days, yep.

Yeah, so they went from a stance of, all right, let's investigate this stuff to, let's make it seemed crazy and make everyone who talks about it seem crazy and condition the public to that. And so, um, so I'd say like going back from the earliest, you know, I mean, television, radio, uh, it was sort of the atmosphere was created that all of the people who believed in UFOs were, you know, the lunatics who hung out in the desert, uh, waiting for them to come down for, you know, to save us. Um, and, uh, you, and, uh, and so, they, uh, so comedy, uh, especially in those days, there was a strong, uh, tendency towards what I would used to call public domain comedy, uh, you know, which is like, you know, every,

every, every, every comedy show would do a scene where I, and a drunk guy see something crazy and then takes the flask out of his pocket and goes, oh, boy, you know, so everyone, everyone, everyone would do the same joke, right, in those days. I think we've, we've evolved a little bit from that. We've made comedy a little harder now. But at that time, yeah, so you'd go for the low-hanging fruit, the easy laugh. So if there was a story about UFOs in the news, everyone in comedy would tell their jokes, you know, whether it was Bob Hope or later, whether it was Johnny Carson, or later Saturday Night Live. And it just all went on.

That smart, intelligent people immediately mocked the story, immediately mocked. immediately mocked any witnesses, derided them, disparaged, and disposed of them pretty quickly. Are you hearing these alerts on my computer? No. No. Then I'll ignore them. But, yeah, so I think there was just, so comedians became an unwitting ally, I think, to the government in creating the narrative that all. UFO encounters are the product of deranged minds and and and and forwarding the

stereotype of the yeah you know of the of the the the the Hick and his camper in the middle of the woods you know uh with his bottle of moonshine see in a UFO you know yeah and and I got to say to to to a certain extent I mean that that that social conditioning is one of the things that has amazed me most since, I guess, even since, particularly since the New York Times article is the profound effect that the social conditioning has had on the population, that even now when you've got the Pentagon coming out and saying, yes, they're real, you know, no, we don't know what they are. The response to the public is still largely, right, that stuff's crazy. I don't even want to talk about that crazy shit.

You know, and just going on with their day, well, whatever, whatever, freak, you know. And I know, and this is from, particularly from intelligent people who actually are, as I said, I have friends who I know read the New York Times from cover to cover. But when I asked them about, you know, these UFO revelations from the New York Times and the three famous videos that came out along with it, people I know read the New York Times, people I know read the New York Times. What are you talking about? When was this? This was in the Times? I didn't see that. And you realize it's the social conditioning that literally, not only did they not read the articles, they didn't register that they had seen the articles because they were so conditioned

to just block out anything to do with UFOs. Even if it's on the front page. Yes, even if it's on the front page. And you know there's no way they missed it. But they did. Smart people. that I know, I could talk to them about everything else that was in that issue of the New York Times, you know, and people that, people that, you know, friends of mine that are comedians that are extremely tied into the culture. Just zero awareness of the fact that the story had broken and that the Pentagon had confirmed it. And that, that's startled me. And I kept thinking, wow, it. It really is a larger danger to be aware of, which is how susceptible we are to having our, I guess, our field of view narrowed by social conditioning. Yeah, and through media and entertainment, I had the same thing, too.

I had a friend where I was visiting them in L.A., and we were all chatting, and I said, I'm like, yeah, we have like a UFO office and you could watch their mind just like, like just explode and they're like what? I'm like yeah. I'm like we haven't been catching out. Apparently you don't watch any of our work, but that's fine. You know,

I've mentioned it a couple times on social, but whatever. But no, and I could see her mind just expand and she's like, I need to know more. And it was great because I'm like, okay, well, great.

Like I've opened up your mind and the door now to learn her more. But for her, it was like, okay, now this is acceptable. So interesting to see. her perspective and then and now what she'll probably teach her kids and everything else that are that's going to happen in the years to come right so yeah i know and i mean because it's because it's it is i mean i do keep coming up against this where where you you just talk to people and

you said i used to have a friend in high school who joined a cult and the cult he was in they was largely based on meditation and but they had him conditioned that if you questioned any of the the beliefs of his cult that he would he would lapse into a trance so you'd basically you'd ask him a question about his cult and you'd be sitting on the bus talking and having a fine time then you'd ask him a question he didn't like and you'd go and he would just stay that way until you backed off and and it struck it is just unbelievable that you could condition someone to to respond that way to information that they don't like oh wow yeah that's exactly the response to I'm seeing from the people I would consider to be my peers in the world,

which I would say are, you know, the smart, left-wing intellectual sort of crowd that I wrongly believe I'm part of. And that crowds, when it comes to UFOs, are the same thing. As soon as you present them with these ideas, they don't want to hear us. you know, they go into the trance of just not listening, not hearing. You can see the eyes glaze over. And it's a chilling effect. And none of us should ever think that we've escaped it. Even if we've escaped it maybe on this one subject,

there are probably numerous other subjects in which we've been totally shut down from thinking about things. Obviously, religion's great at doing it. at shutting down thought and politics adherence to any sort of political party or philosophy can do it as well but for us I think it's

the most susceptible group in the world I think are people who consider themselves to be intellectuals and I think you know even I think it was as I said like Noam Chomsky in manufacturing consent. I talked about how, you know, that you don't need conspiracies in the left.

All you need to do is create an environment in which it's not acceptable to think about certain things. And the left, the left-wing intellectuals will adhere to those rules. Absolutely. And you will not shake them off of those rules about what you are and are not to think about. Interesting. Yeah, you do, I think, tend to. see a lot of more right-leaning people in this topic of UFOs, this sense of a distrust in the government and whatnot. And again, like, I'm not here to, you know, say what's right or what's wrong in terms of

where people lay. Yeah, that's your job, Dave. Yeah, you're the one who's going to alienate our audience. Not me. No, no pun intended. But yeah, you're right. I think, you know, as a Also, a, and my viewers and listeners know this as a more left-leaning person, they always ask me, what, how is it dealing with a community who's mostly, a lot of them don't have the same beliefs as you? And I'm like, hey, look, if this one topic is the thing that I can like have a civil discourse with them about, so be it. Maybe that'll open the door to other things. Or maybe it'll make it worse. I get to see any results from that. But I don't know.

I don't know. It's such a profound topic. You would hope it could transcend all of that. You would hope. I hope so. It should. It certainly, I think, and again, I think that's part of why the left dismisses it. Because, you know, again, it's part of the cliche.

You know, the crazy red necks in their, you know, in their prepper bunkers. You know, so that, you know, it all gets lumped into one thing as opposed to, you know, maybe these people, with their mistrust of the government, at least left them open to hearing this information. You know, it may have closed them off from hearing a lot of other important information, you know, you know, like about vaccines and stuff, but at least it opened their minds to this bit of information. Whereas the left, by and large, you know, our minds are closed to this subject, you know, and our heroes, our scientists. are mostly close to it's changing now it is changing um was i just watched oh i'm trying to remember the name of the it was a podcast uh eric it was eric weinstein and hal put off we're on a podcast

recently with i guess a guy who's sort of uh i don't know if he's like a protege or student of erics uh i don't know but i forget the name of his podcast it's pretty good uh but it's mostly a podcast about science and mathematics but he's moved into the UFO discussion and dragged Eric Weinstein into it still kind of kicking and screaming but even Eric Weinstein is

accepting the reality of UFOs now and he's still he's at a place where I think I was a little while ago where he's accepting reality of UFO phenomena but absolutely dismissing any possibility of of like the abduction phenomena

which I got to admit I feel bad I actually dismissed that as well for a very long time which logically doesn't make sense because if you accept the UFOs are here and there's a strong possibility that they're extraterrestrial it would seem kind of stupid if they weren't abducting us

it's you know it is it's hard it's hard day for someone who has spent half my life interviewing experiencers and claimed abductees you know I can't even pretend to be closer to an answer of whether these abductions are happening in the physical realm as we know it, or if they're happening at all.

All I can do is, you know, continue to ask questions of these people and at least listen to them. You know, I think it's everyone deserves to at least be heard when it comes to these topics. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems absurd to dismiss it once you've accepted other, like once you accept one premise. in fact, I remember Eric Wynastan, this podcast was all upset about the idea. You said, well, you know, just because we accept this doesn't mean we open the door to everything. You know, just so we accept that the UFOs, these ships are existing, doesn't mean we open the door to, you know, abductees.

And it's good, why isn't it? You know, once you've... At least, yeah, keep the door a jar. It starts. Yeah. Right, yeah. And you can start the conversation. Exactly. You know, I think we're dealing with right now, the mainstream now accepting UFOs exist, like just that question.

You know, with the United States government saying, yeah, there's a physical phenomenon happening. We still don't know what it is. But yeah, it's real. We're going to, we want people to report it. We'll look into it. It's a lot to ask them to then believe in abductions. And by that, I mean, the mainstream public. But, you know, maybe there will come a time where we get there. It's just not frightening. now. Yeah. And there's like this counterculture group that's rowing. You know, there's apps now that if you're in that community, you can go and talk to people and share conversations and the ridicule is not. It's still there for, I think, for, you know, adeptities and like contactees, but they feel, I think, a little bit easier and lighthearted that they can

come out and talk about it more freely. And so you're getting more of those people happening. So I think once we start figuring out what's going on here, we'll probably, there is no choice for that discussion not to happen, but it's probably going to take, I don't know, another five years, I would imagine. I might be wrong, but I think it's going to take a little bit longer. And also science will have to catch up to that too. I hope so. For the basis, just for the, out of empathy for the people who have had these experiences, and just the sheer volume of people who have had these experiences, it just seems closed-minded and condescending to just dismiss it all. You know, I mean, let's, but obviously,

probably most of the accounts are not true. And there's certainly a certain amount of mental illness involved in the phenomena. But there's a certain amount of mental illness involved with everything. Right. So we don't dismiss everyone who believe something just because some of the people who believe it are crazy. You know? Which cases, Dave, may I ask, do you buy into when it comes to abductions? I get asked that a lot.

And, you know, I kind of always turn to the quitt essentials, you know, the documented ones and whatnot. But, again, I've spoken to hundreds of people. So I'm going to have a different answer. Which ones would you say? Obviously, I think the Travis Walton one is one of the most compelling, you know, in terms of just, you know, the amount of, well, the amount of documentation and corroboration. And the fact that he's stuck with the story all these years. and, you know, and I think Betty and Barney Hill is pretty compelling. And I also, you know, also I'm friends who have had abduction experiences,

and I believe them now, and I didn't at first. So it's, but I would say, yeah, probably the two big famous ones are probably the ones I know the best. I've also, you know, I've also read some of David Jacobs books. Oh, right. Yes. And, of course, Harvard psychiatrist, psychologist. Oh, yes. John Mac.

John Mac. Oh, John Mac. Oh, John Mac. Right. Yeah. Both went to Harvard. You weren't far off. Right.

He was like, yes. It's like, they're a guy. We're teaching Harvard. Right. He did a great documentary years ago about Experiancers that was pretty kind of chilling and compelling. He brought it into the mainstream too, with Oprah

and so many other people talked about it because of John Mack. And for him, you know, he shed a lot of light on it. And he almost sacrificed his career for it. Yeah, you're right. I know. They tried to get rid of him. It's crazy. I know.

I think it came to like a lawsuit at one point. But it's crazy to me to think, too, like, Mac was one of the first people on the ground at that Zimbabwe case back in 1994, I believe it was. And now, like, who knows what kind of preserved evidence we would have had had he not gone there and, like, interviewed all these kids who had this crazy close encounter experience at their school. We probably never would have really known about it had he not been there. and Cynthia Hines, the investigator who actually originally investigated that case, we really have heard of think. But again, John was like, yo, I'm on a plane, I'm getting to Zimbabwe, I got to interview these people.

Like, that says something when a Harvard psychiatrist is worth willing to do that. And I'm trying to think, has that documentary come out yet? I know there was a documentary in the works. Not yet. I know they're supposed to come out. Yeah, I think it was supposed to come out this year or last year, but they've been holding on to it. Yeah.

I'm excited. The footage that James Fox has in his documentaries from John Mack. Yes. Yeah. The Zimbabwe kids is pretty, you know, pretty amazing. James is working on another documentary, too. Oh, he is. That has a similar, I'll just say appeal from what I've known and what I see on his Facebook that he's sharing.

But it's, I think that's going to be, I don't know when it's going to be released, but it's going to be exciting too. I think it has a very similar feel to the phenomenon, but more in depth than something similar to the aerial school event. So, yeah. And I'll say, for one thing, documentary that I don't think a lot of people, there was the secret history of UFOs,

which is a Canadian documentary. And I'm forgetting the name of the filmmaker, because I'm old. I've never watched that one. It's amazing. I find some people had trouble getting to watch it because they found like the, the production style of it felt outdated.

You know, where James talks of stuff seems modern. But, you know, and but his was a very sort of casual chatting. And he's a guy who used to do a documentary work for the Fifth Estate, which is Canada's 60 Minutes and the nature of things. So he was like a serious documentarian and journalist. And he did basically a really solid overview of the whole modern history of UFOs. But on top of that, he also, on Amazon, you can also find the addendums to it, which I think there's three addendums to it.

and they're all at least two or three hours long. And it's just the raw interviews, you know, with people like Bud Hopkins and David Jacobs and, you know, and like all the people that they interviewed for the movie. So I recommend watching the addendums, just watching their raw interviews is pretty amazing stuff. Well, you know, since we're talking about Canada, Chrissy just had on our show,

Vice contributor Daniel Otis, who just obtained over 20 years of Canadian government UFO files. Insane. Of course, you know, the story would break now in the middle of like another pretty crazy time in our history. This seems to be a running theme when it comes to breaking UFO stories.

But this is pretty stunning. The Canadian government gave him all of this. You know, he's been working. on it for a really long time. So that's pretty cool. But, you know, Chrissy spoke to him, Dave, about this idea of the reason he was able to obtain a lot of these files from the Canadian government is because a lot of it is not classified like it is here in the United States because they're not pinning this threat potential to it, which will automatically increase the chances of something getting classified and never release. So, you know, Daniel spoke about... In Canada, we don't worry so much about threat is, will they like us?

Exactly. Well, that's my question for you. Why do you think it is, you know, in Canada, there's this, you know, A, it hasn't been as big of a thing as it has been here in the United States. And B, is it because they don't take that threat kind of narrative that we are getting more from the Canadian government than we would from the United States? United States. But the weird thing is we're getting it now, but for all these years, no one's bothered to ask, I guess. The weird thing about Canadians is, it's just never, like, you know, all these, you know,

people in the, you know, the U.S. who are doing constant freedom of information act requests, it never occurs to Canadians to ask, you know. you know oh it's just oh don't he'll think you you're being rude don't ask the government something that might be secret um so Canadians are uh you know we tend we tend to we tend to not to not just to get as involved i guess in and in that sort of thing um yeah but definitely but definitely i don't think yeah we we aren't a a nation that thinks in terms of threats all the time even though we live next to one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Yeah.

And I was just going to say to... I was going to say to Daniel Otis tweeted today, and I brought it up, it says today, and this is movement, and it's probably because of Daniel's article that put some pressure, along with what's happening in the states and the news media. But he wrote, today, Parliament member Larry McGuire, MP, asked the government to prepare a written report an identified aerial phenomenon and insecurity. at Canadian nuclear facilities and to share the data with the new UAP program.

So that's huge. Yeah, it's huge. And I tweeted, Daniel, I was like, that's probably because of you. You know, and like it, you know, your article with Vice,

and he's been doing a lot within the Canadian system, and I have a lot of respect for him as a journalist because he's, he literally said, he's like, I just asked, and yeah,

nobody's been asking. So he just asked the right questions at the right time he said. And I'm like, you know what? I'm glad you did. And like, And he's a really wonderful journalist.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, as I say, Canadians, we have a tendency to not, we're only now taking looks at a lot of the very dark parts of our history. Yeah. And 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that was unheard of. We didn't, you know, Canadians didn't really, you know, we were too embedded in being lovely, nice Canada to be very self, I guess,

to examine ourselves very much. But it's also a big transition for Vice as a publication, since they were pretty derisive of the New York Times article and of the UFO story in general for the last couple of years. So it's nice that they're kind of, I guess, changing their stance and actually looking at the evidence. I was just going to say, too, I'm like, Do you think that news media then is influencing politics?

Because we're kind of seeing that. I'm going to say it's not 100% that Daniel Otis stuff is, but it kind of makes sense. You know, he comes out with an article and then a couple days later or not even a week later, this happens in Canada. So do you think that news media is affecting politics? And it could be around the world, or especially in the States. I think it is. It's gradual because the news media is, it does tend to have such a herd mentality. So it's hard to get people to take on the story that nobody else is covering

because there's just an assumption, well, if no one else is covering it, it mustn't really be a story. So getting people to just sort of turn that ship around is slow. But definitely the media, I know I don't live in Canada, so I don't see as much of it, but I'll see clips online of Canadian reports on UFOs. and they're gradually one by one, they all seem to be not playing the X-Files theme anymore. And that's my real gauge of the seriousness of the media is when finally we never hear the X-Files theme again

unless we're watching the X-Files. Exactly. Right. Because it's automatically, because it's almost like a, it's almost like, you know, the Manchurian candidate where there's the trigger word, you know, to set the Manchurian candidate off. The X-Files theme was the trigger to turn off everybody's brain whenever watching a story about UFOs. You know, this is silly. Oh, sit here till it ends, though.

Oh, it's over. By Frank Spotnitz or whatever his name was, yeah. Yeah. Christy, I have some really good listener questions for Dave that we got. So Kevin on Twitter asks, have you ever thought, yeah, oh, really? I already got a bad feeling about this fellow. Go on, go on. Come on, Kevin.

All right, I guess we'll read it. Yeah, give me first, Kevin. Have you ever thought of doing a UFO ET abduction themed comedy similar to say something like People of Earth on TBS, the show that unfortunately, got canceled too soon. But yeah, have you ever thought I'd doing anything like that? Yes, but then they made people of Earth, so I stopped thinking about it.

And then people of Earth failed, so now I can't sell it to anyone else. Which, yeah, it was a really good show. I liked it a lot. And I would have loved to have done a show like that. I would have loved to have been a guest on that show. But apparently me hinting about it didn't do any good.

But no, it's hard. I mean, I would definitely like, you know, to do something. on the theme, yeah. I also really interested in doing something non-comedy on the theme too. Right. Exactly. I would say a lot coming from

I think someone like you who's known a lot for comedy, but I've, of course, like any artist, like there's other sides to everyone. And I think, you know, this topic is starting to be taken more seriously. There was a short-lived show I think on ABC or CBS that was about like wreckage that fell to earth from a UFO craft. Yes, yeah.

Then it immediately got canceled after like six episodes. Oh, did it? I didn't even know it got canceled. I was watching it. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Yeah. What was it?

Debris. There we go. Debris. Yeah. I was an interesting take on sort of the material sciences avenue of the UFO story. Yeah. I really wanted to see where it was going, but alas, hey.

Hey, there's always Netflix or, Amazon or Hulu or endless streaming services it could go to. Well, here's another comedian who we love near and dear to our hearts here in the UFO community. Dan Aykroyd. No, he did not ask this question. I wish. I wish. I've never talked to Dan about UFOs.

I would love to some time. That was the question. Oh, have I talked to Dan Aykrat? No, I have never talked to Dan Aykwright, although one of my very good friends is a man named Dave Thomas, who was one of the stars of SCTV. and who wrote a Dan Aykroyd movie called Spies Like Us and is brilliant comedian

to me, like one of the guys who inspired me most is a youngster but I have talked to him about UFOs and he's talked to me a bit about some of Dan's you know views on UFOs and I've certainly seen Dan's public work about UFOs over the years

but I've never had a most of my conversations with Dan Ackroyd involve me trying to get him to remember that he's met me before. So it never usually goes beyond that. It's always a lot of... We have mutual friends. Dan, we've met before.

And it's not... Oh, sure, sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Excellent, excellent. Good work, good work, good work. Yeah. Have you tried my, what is it? Like, Crystal Skoll vodka.

Yeah, yeah. He's an encyclopedia when it comes to UFO stories. I couldn't believe how many he knows. I remember watching his Joe Rogan interview and I'm like, what? I never knew you knew so much about UFOs, Stan. I knew he'd love the topic, but I didn't realize he

could spit off almost every story. Like he just, and I make sense. He's a storyteller. You know, he makes sense that he loves them because UFO stories are really great or abduction stories are really great. Well, and I believe he's kind of a spectrumy genius

for, you know, he has a tunnels in, whatever he takes an interest in, he tunnels in and learns everything. He's one of those guys who just has this intense focus on whatever he's doing at the moment. Right. So you can see where, you know, that he would just plow into it. And he's one of those guys you know would, he just never care what anyone thinks about him, about anything. So, you know, he was, so he was obviously way out ahead of the curve of popular, of big figures in popular culture. Oh, for sure.

talking about these things. Absolutely. What about your friends over at the kids in the holiday? Like, do you know about your fascination with this topic? What do they think about it? Have they ever brought enough to you or have you? I think they mostly politely ignore it, you know. I think Scott Thompson's probably a little bit interested in it more than the other guys.

You know, Kevin's more interested. interested in soccer. But yeah, I don't think, yeah, I don't think, yeah, I don't think any of those guys are particularly into the subject. Scott, a little bit. But that's about it, I think. That's fair, right? Eric, yeah, Eric on Facebook asks, what is your all-time favorite sketch from kids in the hall? Nice.

That's hard. And all the time, I would say, I would, I don't know if it's my favorite sketch, but it's a sketch that kind of sums up the whole attitude of the group. It's a sketch called Comfortable, which is a sketch about two couples having a polite dinner conversation and after dinner, the one of the husbands gets up and starts obviously trying to seduce the other man's wife and everyone just comfortably goes on and got, you know, Surely you don't mind me doing this. You know, we're such good friends.

And it winds up with Scott picking up my wife, played by Kevin, and having sex with her on the dining room table. Well, I explained to his wife that, you know, that this is fine because I'm impotent anyway. It's a gaslighting sketch. Yeah. I remember that one. Yeah. I remember that one fondly.

Yeah. So that's, I guess, that's kind of, to me, almost a quintessential. kids in the whole sketch. Yeah, if you can make an American blush and uncomfortable watching sketch comedy, then I think you've done your job, Dave, and I definitely was when I saw that one. And then, yeah, because you also have the other layers of it being, oh, that's really two men on the table back there, not a man and a woman. Right.

So there's all layers. I mean, yeah, the kind of the gender blurring that we did back in those old shows was right was a big part of what i've what i i love about the kids in the hall was that we kind of kind of kind of once you bought into the show itself you kind of all notions of gender kind of just flew out the window gender and sexuality where all all just became an amorphous cloud yeah i love it i love that i love that um dallas on facebook says you're one of my favorites day from kids at the hall and news radio all the way up through it's so Joey Sunny in Philadelphia.

Such a big fan, super excited for this. Have you ever heard of things like the Big Phone Home? And have you ever considered the possibility of being a part of this kind of thing with your celebrity status of trying to pressure either the U.S. or Canadian governments into taking this topic seriously? Well, we were on the Big Phone Home together, weren't we? The podcast, the live podcast. Luis's podcast. Was it the first time you were?

Is that? I think so. With Jeremy, Jeremy was on there. Oh, yes. That was with UFOJ. UFO Jane. Yeah. UFO Jane. Yeah. So I'm definitely aware of it. And have had a little bit of involvement in it, but I'm not, I can't say that I'm deeply involved with it. That's fair. That is fair, my man. All right. Let's see here.

Oh, Brian on Facebook asks. what are your thoughts on UAPs as technological devices, either known terrestrial devices, extraplanetary, or as Terrence McKenna referred to them as, other tenants in the building yet to be revealed? What do you make of these UAP, Dave? What do you think they are? Well, I think, my main thing is I think we can't think of it as being one thing.

I think it's unlikely that all the UAP are one thing or that there's one source for all of the UAP phenomena. I think some of it is nuts and bolts craft. I mean, first of us, let's just like eliminate, like put out all of the misidentifications and, you know, and frauds. Ignore all that. The stuff that we can pretty much agree are interesting cases. Some of it's nuts and bolts craft. some of it might be

some form of conscious entities in terms of like the spheres that people are seeing and the light spheres and also just some of the abduction experiences

might be less physical although I do think most of the abduction phenomenon seems to be a very physical event that happens in real time to people in the real world

where they actually do go missing. So I think it is a real physical event. But yeah, but maybe you know, I guess Jacques-Fallet has long said that this may have more to do with consciousness

than technology. Yeah. But I tend to think that at least a big component of it is technological and I think I think I mean, the press and I guess the mainstream

society still keeps clinging to the idea that, that, well, you know, unidentified doesn't mean alien. And it's probably, you know, you hear all these people coming out with zero reason to say it, saying it's probably dark projects. And certainly some dark projects may lead to some misidentifications. But I take the U.S. military at its word that these are not ours, these craft that they're seeing. and they are not Russian, they are not Chinese, and also people often will cling to the word drone. They go, well, these are drones.

Sometimes the military will say they seem to be drones, but by that they mean unmanned, whether by aliens or humans, that the craft seem to be often too small to have anyone inside them. So they refer to those as drones, but that is not an explanation for what they are. So people will go,

well, you know, I heard, heard they said those triangles were drones. And yes, they did say that, but they also said, we don't know whose drones, where they're from. They don't function in the way that any drone that we know of can. But they believe they were drones simply because of what they perceived the size of them to be. So I'm rambling on. But so I think, so I think some of it is nuts and bolts. And the notion that any other country has this technology is ludicrous. Because I think we're seeing right now with the Ukraine how limited we are and how we can respond to the challenges of the world we live in, that basically if a nuclear armed nation decides it's going to do

something, we now kind of are looking at the fact of how impotent are, our traditional military equipment is in the face of a nuclear-armed belligerent. And of course, people can say the same about us, but here we're seeing the tragic outcome of not being able to fight, not having the tools to battle, because we're afraid of unleashing nuclear weapons. And so as a result, we're allowing a large country to invade. in a small country and murder its citizens and and flatten its cities and we can do nothing about it. So if we had this technology, this wouldn't be happening in the Ukraine right now. And if the Russians had this technology, they wouldn't be invading Ukraine right now because they would have already taken over the whole world.

Yeah. Same thing is if the Chinese had this technology, we don't, you know, we would be living under the hegemony of either the Chinese or the Russians if they had this technology. And if we had this technology, everyone would be too afraid to move. Yeah, I am aligned with that. You know, I agree the stuff that's going on in Russia, or so the stuff that's going on in Ukraine with Russia is a prime example of, you know, we know Russia. doesn't have that tech for sure.

You know, I'm still look at China. You know, I'm still, they have a lot of stuff that's coming out in their defense side with planes. You know, they have something that's similar to like an SR 72 or SR 71 that's been coming out. I think just recently they released it. And the tech is something that I don't even think we have that we know. So things are happening on that side. But I agree with you. If they had it, they would be, they would be ruling the world already by now.

You know, there are, China's going that way economically. So yeah and everything including like all all black projects that have become public throughout the modern era. Everything that's that's gone from being top secret black money projects to publicly admitted has has only been incremental increases in technology. Nothing revolutionary has ever come out of a black project. Only slight incremental increases in this. abilities, you know, whether it's jets, you know, going from prop planes to jets, from jets to

supersonic jets, we're still looking at a source of propulsion and lift surfaces and control surfaces. And essentially, there's no difference. There's no fundamental difference between the best jets we're flying today and what the Wright brothers put up in the air. the physics are exactly the same. We're just better at, we're just better at manipulating the physics than the Wright brothers were. So,

so to think that we said that somehow there's a black project that absolutely, uh, eliminates inertia and, uh, and defies the, apparently defies the laws of, of physics and, uh, time and space.

Um, and you have to assume that that's what the data is showing. So if somebody had that, there would be no reason to spend all the money that we're spending on pumping jet fuel out of the back of a glider, which is all that everything is. Everything we have is basically just a paper glider with a better engine. Well, let's wrap up the listener questions here, Dave,

because we've got just a couple closing ones. here. All right. If you hate your listeners, that's your business. Let's see here. A.I. Yeah, A.I. McC. asks through email, Dave, why do you think these mother efforts keep casting you for your voice rolls when your face is clearly the golden ticket? Best question ever. I don't know. Well, first off, I don't share your fondness for my face. And I've never understood, I've never understood people's fondness for my voice.

I've always, like most people, I think, I hate the sound of my own voice. And when I hear it recorded, I go, my God, why would anyone hire someone that sounds like that? But I've come to realize over the years that apparently I have a distinctive voice. And I learned years ago that it's a very, I'm almost impossible to impersonate. Oh, wow. Which is interesting.

Because I remember Disney at one point tried to hire someone. to impersonate me for the Bugsland at California Adventure. They tried to hire someone, and my friend John Lasseter, the genius John Lasseter, heard this recording of somebody trying to sound like me and went, that's not Dave, what's what? And I got very mad at them and insisted that they hire me to do it. Which makes sense. Yeah.

Why she hired the original person? I remember you telling me a story, Dave, about you doing an audition for it. And they were like, you're like, you already got it. And you're like, or are they something to the extent that you were like, let's do this. Yeah. Can you tell the story better? It's your story. Yeah, it was one of the things.

Well, first of, I got, I originally I was going to audition for the part of the stick insect that David Hyde Pierce played. But I got bumped the day of the auditions because Carol Burnett came in. And, you know, they said, do you mind Carol Burnett's here? And I said, of course, I'll be, yes, Carol Burnett. she's she's she's she's yeah she's royalty of course you take carol burnett before you take me and so i had to go back to work at news radio and then they felt guilty about bumping me because that's what kind of people uh you know the Pixar people are and so they let me come in to read for uh the the flick character instead and i think they were just doing it to be nice

uh but they liked what i was doing so much as we were talking they started reshaping the character and going yeah well the way he's doing it we had the character could do this and this and this based on based on what I was doing in the audition and at one point I had to stop them and say guys you haven't hired me yet and they went right right yes well we'll be getting back to you right you know you know when they're yeah when they're molding the character around you during an audition that's a good sign they were rewriting the script I mean insert Dave Foley's face now and voice. And that's my whole,

my whole history of that company is that they just, they don't function like other companies. They're just all about the art and all about just pursuing whatever ideas excite them. Which is, you know, and it's good to hear. The fact that they've made billions of dollars doing that is pretty remarkable.

Yeah, it definitely says something. Well, Dave, hope. Hope for the future. We all need it right now in so many different ways. but especially with the UFO topic. What do you hope for in 2022 when it comes to this topic of UFOs, UAP? We've come a long way in the past couple years, but there's still a long way to go.

What do you hope? And what should we focus on? I'm hoping to get to the point where whatever it is that Lou Elizondo clearly wants us to know he knows, but that he can't tell us. And then he keeps hinting it. I'm hoping that that we get to the point where we can hear what those facts are. And I've also heard of Hal put off intimate, that there's some really much,

there's some really big stuff that we don't know yet, that that is known. So I would love it if those knowns, because it's still going to be a mystery, I think, but I'd love to have those knowns, those unknown, those known, those things, that someone knows be something that we can all know. And then on the negative side, I think we also have to look at Ukraine. And for the people who think that the phenomenon is here to save us, you can look at the Ukraine and go pretty clearly that's not something they're interested in doing. Because we're standing by and watching this because we have nuclear weapons

and because they have nuclear weapons. and because we're all addicted to oil. And so those two things, our addiction to oil and our fear of nuclear war are forcing all of us, NATO allies to basically sit on our hands and wave a finger at Russia. And the aliens aren't going to stop it. History yet to be written. Well, I mean, on a brighter note, I, you know, hopefully there's things we can look forward to.

While, you know, there always should be, and we hope humans can be resilient enough to do such. But in terms of what you are doing, my man, you are helping to legitimize a topic that has been delegitimized for a very long time. By my people. By your people alone. Comedians. Comedians have done a huge amount of damage. Yeah, yeah, but it's never too late to rebuild, and I think we're on our way when it comes to this topic. And I got to ask before we go, when can we expect to see the kids in the hall and everything else you're up to, man, if you don't mind teasing?

Well, the new Kids in the Hall season, this is how we're referring to it, is season six of the Kids in the Hall. It's going to start on Amazon in May. I don't know the exact date, but it's going to be sometime in May. there's also going to be South by Southwest and just I guess just in a matter of days now we're going to

south by Southwest because they're going to premiere a two-part documentary that's going to be on Amazon as well called I think it's called Kids in the Hall Comedy Punks Nice

Yeah although I like the original title better that Amazon wouldn't go for which was the kids in the hall Hard to Kill which is a reference to of our very early sketches where we had a line about a guy easy to beat up hard to kill. Right. But yeah, but it's called comedy punks now.

And it's a two-part documentary on the history of the kids in the hall. That's awesome. I'm looking forward to that. Me too. Me too. Awesome. Dave. Well, before we go, is there anywhere people can reach you to chat UFOs or just have a,

Have a good old conversation with you? I guess really just Twitter, I guess really. I'm on there a lot. But I'm trying to think there's no, I guess there's nowhere else really. Mostly Twitter. I'm on Instagram, but I rarely look at it. And Facebook never. I only have Facebook so my Oculus works.

Yeah, I know the feeling well. Yeah, it's amazing how quickly Facebook has become a relic. Now in the age of Twitter. And speaking of my Oculus, here's a little tip for people out there. And like the, if you're out there in one of them sort of chat areas in virtual reality and you run into someone like me, don't say you're old as shit. Really? Yeah.

You know, as we get, oh, man, you're old. You're old as shit. And I go, yeah, yeah. I said, well, I was pretty honest with my avatar. You know, I wasn't trying to hide it. I got my, my avatar's got gray hair. Have some manners to be our people. Yeah, well, we'll see in the metaverse.

That's where we're going to see you next. Yes. That's where we're heading. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we can touch on simulation theory. Right. We didn't go there. We'll have to have you back to talk about it.

We've been more than gracious with your time, my man. So once again, Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on Somewhere in the Skies today. Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, I continue to enjoy both your work separately, and it's really fun to see you guys working together. That's awesome. Thanks, Dave. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One podcast network.