Somewhere in the Skies - David Jenkins: People of Earth

Episode Date: July 24, 2017

On episode 15 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by David Jenkins. Jenkins is the creator and executive producer of the hit television series, PEOPLE OF EARTH, on TBS Network. The show is a gentle and modestly pleasing comedy about a support group for alien abductees, but as we learn in this interview, it's about much more. Jenkins explains the inception of the show, his thorough research into the UFO and abduction phenomenon, and where the show is heading with its second season premiering tonight! Jenkins doesn't do podcast interviews often, let alone a UFO one, so it was a huge honor to have him on the show. It's also very clear that although the show may be considered a comedy, the heart and compassion brought forward by the creative team behind PEOPLE OF EARTH is palpable, and no matter your beliefs on the alien abduction phenomenon, this is a show worth watching, and a topic worth discussing as we continue to reach further and further out into the cosmos.  Guest Bio: David Jenkins received undergraduate degrees in political science and philosophy from Boston University, and an MFA in acting from New York University. While working as an actor in both New York and Chicago, he began writing plays, eventually founding a theater company called "Human Animals". PEOPLE OF EARTH is his first television project. Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Email: [e-mail] Order Ryan's Book: HERE * All sound clips in this episode courtesy of TBS Network. For promotional purposes only.    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

Ordinary people are seeing extraordinary things in our skies. But how has it changed those involved? From author Ryan Sprague, Somewhere in the Skies, a human approach to an alien phenomenon, is a personal journey that also weaves together a story of stories, furiously pumping new blood into the heart of these mysteries, one experience at a time. Now available on Amazon in paperback and e-book.

For more information, visit Somewhere in the skies.com. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan's. Next stop. This is Ozzy Graham reporting on StarCross, a support group for people who believe they've been abducted by aliens and meet in a Catholic church for some reason. Just to be clear, we're all of you abductees? We very much prefer the term experiencers to abductees. It just gives us a little more agency. Reptilians live amongst us.

Almost every U.S. president was a reptilian. This is off the record, right? I'm the VP of a major tech company. I'm a homemaker, okay? I moved to this retirement community after my husband died. Yeah, and I hated it at first, but... The sex here is amazing. And what can you tell me about your alien experience?

Oh, it was pretty late. And I thought I'd just go to bed. But for some reason, I just kept waking up. I saw this dark shape in the corner of the... of my room, but this time it wasn't my ex-husband. I'm sorry? I went down to the kitchen for late-night snack, and I sensed this presence behind me.

We can't help you unless you let us in Ozzy. When we woke up, we were in some kind of examination room. I will never forget. They looked me. Right in the eyes. You will never believe what he said. You are special. Okay, he's looking right at me.

I know my frigger job, Jeff. Oh, eat a dick. It's not like he's going to remember any of this. We're just going to wipe his mind telling me special and send him on his way like all the others. Welcome to another episode of Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprigg. Having spent years diving deep into the UFO phenomenon, which inevitably leads to the abduction and experiencer community, I found a special place in my heart for those who claimed such events in their lives,

no matter what actually did or did not happen to them. In fact, their stories took up a good portion of my book. It wasn't so much what happened to these people, but why? I focused on the individuals and how the events affected their lives moving forward. And that's exactly what today's guest has done with his hit television show, People of Earth. Now, People of Earth admittedly gave me pause when I learned it was a comedy. But as I watched the show, I realized this wasn't an attempt to exploit the alien abduction controversy, nor those experiencing it. It was a character exploration with compassion.

heart, and most importantly, understanding. Today, I speak with the creator and executive producer, David Jenkins. David received undergraduate degrees in political science and philosophy from Boston University and an MFA in acting from New York University. While working as an actor in both New York and Chicago, he began writing plays, eventually founding a theater company called Human Animals. People of Earth is his first television project. David and I talk in depth about how the show came to be, how he conducted his thorough research into the alien abduction phenomenon, and what we can expect in season two, which, if you're listening to this upon release, is premiering tonight, Monday, July 24th on TBS Network.

So, without further ado, here's our conversation with David Jenkins. David, thank you so much for joining us today on Somewhere in the Skies. Sure, thanks for having me. When your show first came around, you know, us in the quote-unquote UFO field, we were a little hesitant. You know, these topics of alien abduction are often handled, not in the best of light. I mean, granted, it is an extremely fringe topic to begin with, but you're always hesitant when you hear about a new show or a new documentary and how they're going to handle it. But your show is, it's one of the most human and heartwarming alien abduction experiences I think we've ever encountered on mainstream television. Oh, well, that's nice.

That's a really nice compliment. Absolutely. And I was so excited to hear that it got picked up for a season two. So we will definitely talk about that. Okay, cool. I kind of want to start with. You and I have an eerily amount of stuff in common. Like we mentioned earlier, we both live in Queens.

We're both, we were playwrights. We're both obviously fascinated by the whole alien abduction phenomenon. Yeah, that's weird. It's very weird. That's a lot of crossover. That's more than just a little bit. good a crossover. You hear that your doppelganger is, you know, usually in another country or continent, but we're literally blocks away from each other. We might be in an orphan black situation.

I don't want to get, I don't want to get too deep into it, but let's just put it out there now that this could be an orphan black situation. Absolutely. Yes. We'll leave it at that. So, David, you, like I mentioned, you're a playwright, and that really caught my attention. You even founded your own theater company. Could you tell us some of that? little about that theater company and how that all came to be? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it's, I grew up in Chicago where a lot of people have their own space. A theater company would have their own space and have people. It would be a place they rent and they'd show up and they'd put plays on. In New York, it's kind of different where

you almost, you just, you're creating a name that you're going to put plays up under. So the name of the company was human animals. And then we would rent theater space. I would produce my own plays through that. So it was just kind of like a banner or something that I could use to produce my own work and hire my friends and work with my friends. And my wife directed all of my plays. So it was, it was, it was, it almost felt like a garage band or something, you know, when you, when you do theater in that way. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I've, I've, I've, I've been down that same road. A lot of people don't realize here in the city, you know, obviously we have Broadway. We have off Broadway. But there are so much.

many artists making their own work and I think that's most important. Oh yeah. In that dark and dingy world called off off Broadway. Yeah, times five. Yeah. Yeah, out of many off what. Yeah. Sealing is leaking in the middle of a play. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You can be in a basement somewhere and it's still off off Broadway. That's a big category. That covers a lot of different, uh, experiences of making theater. Yep, and that's where you get your street credit. I think that's right. I agree with that.

I mean, it definitely is where you get your kind of grit and making something for no money. And it's almost like you're starting a little restaurant in your basement or something. It's quite an undertaking for the amount of money that you're basically losing to do it. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Now, one of your plays, I've actually heard of this one, it's called Middlemen. The premise of this was really interesting to me. Would you mind giving us a brief synopsis of what this play was about?

It's called Middlemen. It's about these two guys who work in an office building. And the building, we find out it's a very white-collar job. And we find out they're in kind of an Enron situation where there's been some kind of a malfeasance at the company. And for whatever reason, these two guys really didn't get the memo. So they're kind of like Go-Go and Deedy from waiting for a good-eastern. They're trying to figure out why they're there, what happened,

why no one else showed up to work that day. And they have this sneaking suspicion that they might be deeply involved in some kind of, in the malfeasance that maybe brought this company to its knees. But it really is like, I think somebody described my play at some point as existential freefall. I think that it's fun for me to put two characters into a kind of an existential free fall. and all they have is each other. It's a two-hander to kind of try to figure out what's going on, why they're in this situation,

and maybe question, why did they take an office job to begin with? What does that mean? What does it mean when you sign up for something like that? And it's a comedy. I guess you could call it a comedy. I like when you can take something like an office play, and it's something that we all know,

and you can abstract it a bit too. To me, that's a good mix. of things to put something very abstract up against something very square and recognizable. So yeah, we produced that, God, I think we produced that in like 2010 at Soho Reps space, old space now. And yeah, it was my, it was my first play. I'd been acting for a long time and finally decided that I'd try to write some plays. And that one, for whatever reason, did pretty well.

They performed it in a bunch of countries, and it's been translated into a bunch of languages and that was kind of the first piece of full-length writing that I did. And I think to produce it and see it all the way through from writing it to actually making it and getting reviewed and doing all of that was, that was a big deal for me. I can imagine. I mean, it's terrifying. You know, it's one thing to write the piece, but then to actually let go of it and let others, you know, interpret it, judge it, critique it is a whole other beast. So, yeah, yeah, it is, isn't it? I can only imagine how that is multiplied for you? Well, it's funny. It doesn't change that much. I thought it would because this is that with like a nuclear warhead strap to it, just, you know, the TV show, just because

there's more money. But the feelings don't change. I mean, in a weird way, it feels less personal because there are so many more people involved. I think when you're doing a scrappy little piece of theater, there's like five of you. And, you know, you've all lost. weight because you're stressed out. You're, you're, you know, it's such a small group of people. With the TV show, it's, to me, I don't know. It's kind of, it feels a little abstract to see a poster of something that you made, you know, in Times Square.

Right. It's exhilarating, but it's also kind of like, oh, oh, yeah, I guess I made, I made that. I have some, I have something to do with that, I guess. It's, it's maybe too abstracts to feel that, uh, kind of, I guess, totally blown away by it. It's just kind of like, oh, huh, I'd see that show. Right. It's almost like an imposter syndrome of sorts. It's like, wait, what? I was, I, I, when did this happen? Where was I? Yeah, yeah, it's very, it's very strange. Well, I mean, you know, sort of focusing on that idea, David, of, you know, an existential crisis or digging deep into a character. We got, I got to ask you

this, because this is one of the most existential questions for a lot of these people in your show. How did the idea of people of Earth come about? What made you want to cover the alien abduction topic? Yeah, I don't, you know, I, again, I think what you said is right. Like, it's a really good way to talk about existential thoughts and people struggling with something that for most people isn't real, but to them is very real. And so you're constantly asking yourself, geez, did this happen to them? Did it not?

We know what happened to them because the aliens are on the show. But I read an article about John Mack, who is the famous kind of PhD who started writing about experiencers and people who had these. And it was pretty interesting to read about it from his perspective because he's a guy who was a neurologist and wasn't into this phenomenon at all. And then he actually got drawn into writing about people who believe they had alien experiences and he was just trying to describe, he was trying to explain the neurological thing they were going through. Why did these people think this had happened to them? And the more he wrote about

them, the more I think he started to believe that there could have been something actually that happened to them that we don't understand. In reading the article about this guy, I thought it was fascinating. I thought he was a fascinating character. And I thought the other people in the article were great because they were just normal people. One of them was a realtor and she sounded like a grounded normal person you'd meet, except she swears that she was taken up in a beam of light and very open about talking about it. And to me, something about that kind of, I found it very moving that there are groups of these people that would form a support group and talk to each other about something that no one else would ever believe had happened.

That seemed like a really interesting setting for something. And immediately, I kind of imagined myself, if I were one of those people, how deeply unfair it would feel to have had this thing happen and really not be able to tell anyone about it. Or they'd look at you like you were crazy. I think most of us feel like we're a little crazy to begin with. So maybe that's why this is a,

a good show. It taps into that. A lot of people, I think, where it's people are looking for community and we're looking for people we can share our experiences with. And then these folks have very normal lives and they've had something kind of fantastical

happened to them. I don't know. The whole, the community, I think, just kind of made my heart leap in terms of, I hadn't seen them portrayed that way in TV or film.

Every time you see an alien thing, it's like fire in the sky, really, really messed up by it as one would be. But in the article, it just seemed like, oh, no, they lose their keys in the couch, and they buy groceries, and not here to make fun of them. They're just fascinating people because if they're right, the universe cracked open to them in some way. And then they're having to deal with it while holding down a job and trying to meet someone. to me that seemed like a pretty fascinating mix of things absolutely that's a great point i mean i talked to one gentleman who was on his way to a military base uh he was you know starting his service

and he had a UFO sighting and i asked him i'm like well did you go anywhere tell anyone he said no i i had somewhere to be like i had to get there on time so he had this life altering experience and but life goes on and you have to sort of integrate that into your your existence. I've interviewed so many people. They're everyday people. Priests, you know, doctors, everything you could think of.

Yet they've had this one, like you said, incredible, hard-to-believe experience, but it's there and it's real to them. Yeah, and what are you going to do? I mean, that's right. I mean, you had to go to work or something. I mean, it's, in the movies, it's like, ah, aliens.

And now we must fight them. and I'm going to put everything on pause. And I think that's what I like about the original Ghostbusters. You know, you get a sense, it's like, oh, yeah, these guys, this is just like a means to an end for them. You know, they're into this stuff, but it's also just kind of like a job that they do. And I think if you're really going to fictionalize something like this and go super fantastical, we have a lot of, like, sci-fi and fantasy stuff that isn't grounded. To me, to really ground it and to really make the characters believable and to really honor them in that way makes the sci-fi of it more interesting.

You found a good mix with the people that you, your creative team and the people that you've involved in the show. And I remember you once described the show as Greg Daniels-style human comedy mixed with J.J. Abrams's Magic Box Show. Now, you have to please decipher this for me because I'm fascinated by this description. Well, I wrote this script on spec, and I was very lucky that all of these people found me. But when you write something on spec, it means that, you know, no one's paying you to write it. You just write it. And, you know, for people like you and me who were just writing plays and we're broke, you know, that's not on spec. You're just writing.

So I had this idea for this show and thought, geez, you know, this could be really, Like anything that's interesting to me, I kind of feel like, oh, this could be really bad. I better see if there's actually a show here and if the tone is right. And then I wrote the entire thing and on the back of it, I did like a one page just explaining about like what happens in the show. What is this thing you just read? What does each episode kind of look like? Just very breezy and fast. But when I was writing it, you know, I was thinking I was writing a half hour and I'm a huge fan of the British office and the U.S. office.

and I really like the idea of the, I love the U.S. office because, you know, like the British office, it's very grounded. It feels real. I guess it's mockumentary style. I mean, it is. And it's a style that's been done to death, but it's almost something that has been done so much that you don't really have to explain it anymore. The way I describe that as a Greg Daniels human comedy, the thing that's funny in those office scripts, and actually a great thing, to do if anyone is listening to this that is going to write a half hour of TV and they like that stuff, you can find those office scripts online and you read them and they're very spare. They're very economical and there's not a ton of like, hey, jokes in them. But at the same time, they're very funny. So all of the comedy is actually coming from behavior. It's not that, like Michael Scott says funny stuff, but it's more.

the stuff that's going on inside of him while he's saying it that's that's the genius part of Steve Carell's performance or it's the stuff he's thinking and not saying that makes Steve Carell so funny on that show so I described what I had written like I like those qualities to me that tells me those people are real so I had described the scripts that I had written in that one-pageer is a Greg Daniels human comedy mixed with a j.J. Abrams magic box show and the j.J. Abrams part was you set up a mystery, and the mystery is the aliens that we see at the end of the pilot and the deer and all these things that you can't quite explain, but they're really interesting. And they kind of hook you in and you say, oh, wow, this guy's seeing deer. What the hell?

His boss is kind of weird. What's going on? At the end of the pilot, his boss turns out to be an alien. Oh, my God. And those are all the things that are very fun to me in terms of making me want to watch a show and making me want to watch another episode, that if you can pepper those things into a comedy and really honestly do them and also make the characters believable and not just a bunch of people you're making fun of, I think that's a cool show.

So to my mind, that is mixing a Greg Daniels human comedy with the JJ Abrams Magic Box show. That is a wonderful pitch. And I know, you know, it's also known that the minute Conan O'Brien got a hold of your script, like he said, I want to make the show. That was crazy. Yeah, he read it and really liked it. Yeah, that was, that's one of the most, I mean, the fact that Conan read it and really enjoyed it and that Greg, you know, liked it so much that he agreed to do it is, is humbling. I mean, it is, it is a, it just, I'm, I'm like stuttering talking about it. You know, it's an amazing thing. In terms of your research, where did you start? I mean, yes, you mentioned the article on John Mack, but how did you even begin to,

view the abduction phenomenon. Had you had any interest in this beforehand? Was this happenstance? What were your personal thoughts on the topic before you even began to write this spec script? You know, I didn't think that much about it. And I remember, I do remember, fire in the sky was on HBO a lot when I was a kid. That's a terrifying movie. Yeah, I watched it a few nights ago. I haven't seen it in years. Did it hold up? You know what? The practical effects in that movie are incredible. We can always look back on that.

But my girlfriend described it as a lifetime movie meets a horror movie. So there you are. I just think of the scene that the only scene, the scene I really remember is when he's under the kitchen table and he's freaking out and he knocks the bottle of syrup over. and the syrup drips on his face and he has that flashback. Yeah, yeah, man. Wow, like what a cool moment. I mean, to me, that's a very Steven Spielbergy moment. Like early 80s Spielberg, Close Encounters has that too,

where just filmically it's like very grounded, feel very real, people's homes feel real, the characters feel real, and it's almost less about the aliens than it is their experience, the experience of them seeing what happened to them. Absolutely. I mean, it's maybe, if you look at that film as a whole, there's maybe 10 minutes of the abduction experience, and that's it.

It is a very human story. Well, after 10 minutes, I guess you kind of have to go to, like, they have to start talking or something, you know? It has to be like, hey, we got this guy. I think, like, the thing that I wasn't, I kind of was aware. of this stuff and was, you know, I guess it was on the periphery, I was kind of peripherally interested in it. And then I had read this article I really liked. And then I remembered that there

was this book Communion that was written by Whitley Stryber. And so I picked that up and I read that and I thought that was fantastic. I think that's just an incredible book. Yes, that book definitely changed my entire perspective on the abduction phenomenon, even as a UFO researcher, you know, BS meter is there when we need it. And there are many cases where it is clear. This person is either delusional, they are making this up, or something genuinely happened to them. In the case of Wittly Stryber, I believe that something happened to this man. You know, whether or not it was in the physical realm as we view it, who knows, but that book changed my life. I agree. Yeah, I felt that way too, that something had to have happened to him just because of the details that he put

in the book are weird if you're making it up. You wouldn't put those details in. I often say the more bizarre the cases, the more I actually tend to believe it. It's not so prototypical, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I think he's an incredible writer, just period, even if he was making it up. His prose is pretty damn strong. He's very good at telling you, walking you through what his just mental processes while these fantastical things are happening to him. And then the details that he puts in are details that would be like on the periphery or you would leave out if you were just kind of BSing. And he's able to tell you where he is emotionally when these things are happening and it feels

credible. It's like, oh, yeah, I'd try to maybe do something like that at that moment. So that book, you know, I guess I agree with you. I guess I'd say it changed my life too. It's a piece of writing and just a kind of like, how do you really ground something fantastical and make you credible instead of just some kind of empty video game experience. It's a wonderful point. And I mean, the front cover of that book will forever haunt my mind as well. And we, you know.

Which, what was the cover? Which cover? It was the tanish gray alien. Yep. Yeah, just staring at you. Yep. Do you have that? I do.

I've got a few copies of it, actually. I need to track that down. It's funny you say that because that, me too. I remember seeing that in a supermarket when I was a kid. And that was the one that stuck with me. And it really was like, oh, geez, that's, that's an arresting image. And I mean, so many people after that, after seeing that covers, you know, came forward saying, that's what I saw, that's what I saw.

So you do have to wonder. Is that your reaction when you saw it? I mean, I've never had, I can never pretend to claim I've had an abduction experience of any sort. But when I first saw that cover image, it was so captivating. I briefly looked at the abduction phenomenon. I saw sketches that people had drawn in, you know, local newspapers and whatnot. But it just something about it just grabs you and it's so iconic. And now we have that gray alien image all over the place.

Every product you can think of uses it. It's just so culturally iconic now. Yeah, there was something about that image, though. You're right. And it's funny. I hadn't thought about that book until I started thinking about doing this. And it came back immediately. It was like, oh, yeah, I should finally, I shouldn't read that.

A great thing about that book. The last thing is there's really good interviews or interviews. They've transcribed, he's transcribed, alien abduction support group meetings. And they're just fantastic. They're so good. I mean, it's reading those the entire thing is like, oh, yeah, this is, this is a show. This is very interesting. There's your script right there, yeah. Kind of, yeah. I can only imagine. Well, let's sort of touch on that, David, the alien aspect. No, we're skipping ahead a little here, but you have three major alien races, I would say, in your show. Would you mind briefly running us through these? Because these are ones that we, in our field, as it were, quote unquote, we hear about all the time. And you've done a wonderful job of not only

creating these three races, but giving them very specific personalities. And I thought that was really, really interesting. Well, I'm nervous now because you know what you're talking about. You'll know where I've deviated from Canon. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you'd be surprised. Just when I think I know something, it sounds like. So I went with a reptilian and a gray. And, you know, you know. and Nordic or a white. And I like those three because they seem to be the most prevalent, kind of in inexperience or culture. And I think with a show like this,

it's very easy to get to a place where you're like, ooh, and then there's like a purple alien. And he cries blood and he flies. And you get into, you know, you're just kind of, you're dead at that point. I like the idea of using things that actually exist. And kind of, I guess, I guess tropes or races that exist and keeping it to that because it gives a show a kind of shape

where you just can't go out there into bonkers land. So the reptilian I kept is, you know, somebody who's, I guess, what we might call Machiavellian or at least very adept at kind of manipulating people and kind of has an ability to almost hypnotize people and get what they want and rise to the top. of hierarchies. I have to say that TV show V is something I've been thinking about quite a bit. That was a big show for me when I was a kid, where they're all wearing human skins, and they were actually lizard people. I thought that a reptilian's great, because you get to talk about so many things. If you're talking about reptilians, you get to talk about a lot of the same

things you talk about when you talk about the Illuminati, and people's idea of, oh, the system's rigged and there's actually a superior race at the top of it. So I thought that's why that would be fun. Nordics, I like the idea of one of these aliens just being benevolent, just being very good, superhuman in their ability to be an empath and be very open and kind of following that line, taking it to its comedic place. It's like, oh, yeah, they're so open that they're almost childlike, in a way. Hi there, humanity. My name is Don.

I'm an alien, but don't worry, we come in peace. You don't speak for us. I definitely don't come in peace. Exactly. A peace happens, then fine. Then what should I say? You know what? Tell them we come in peace and then they won't be expecting an invasion.

Tell them we come in peace. And then the gray, you know, I never really knew what to do landing on a characteristic for that. I was like, oh, gray's never really have any personality. If you read the Whitley Stryber book, they're all like, they're not robots, but it's like, I think he has them all using one brain that's controlling all of them. It's like a drone situation almost. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It's like they're all linked up to the cloud or something. But I thought for the show, like, it would be good to have the gray be the one that's got, he's, you know, at first I started thinking he'd be the banal face.

of evil or something, but the more we looked at it, I think he turned into somebody who's just very work, very, he's a workaholic. He's really concerned about the mission, you know, he's a pretty defensive fella and I kind of feel for him because I think that he's somebody who would like to be laid back but can't pull it off. He's a very uptight little alien. John, we gotta finish those reports. Don! Did you hear me? When you're done pretending to be a human,

I need you to be an alien up on this freaking ship and do some freaking work. But yeah, I think it was just, you know, after getting those types, it's like, oh, what three personality types would kind of wind each other up in an office somewhere? Right, this interstellar office that you've sort of created, you know. Yeah, I like to think that it's kind of like an office park in, in Omaha or something. Except it just happens to be a spaceship. In terms of the people back on Earth, David,

you've got one character that I found really fascinating. And this is a struggle that we in the UFO field come up with time and time again. We have the field of uphology. You're looking at it scientifically, very nuts and bolts. But many people argue that ufology is nothing but religion. It's belief, that's it. And you have this character of five. Doug, played by Oscar Nunes.

And I thought he was just such a wonderful addition to the show, because you've captured this idea of this struggle between faith, belief, and this extremely French topic of alien abduction. Do you believe in aliens? All these many years, we really don't have solid. I don't really want to get into the discussion because I don't want to alienate the Star Cross people. They are a support group.

They meet here, and they are up. abductees or experiencers, as they preferred, of UFOs. I personally feel that they are going through some sort of trauma or traumatic experience or trying to figure things out in their life. They could be loud at times. There's a neighbor, Mr. Eskadeer, he lives across the street. He's 86 years old. He's deaf, completely deaf. And he's complained twice about the yelling.

So it's very controversial. It's a hot potato. But again, if these people are hot potatoes, then I will wear the oven mitts of the Lord and cradle them and hold them because they're their lambs. And I am the shepherd. What are your thoughts on that,

how religion ties into this whole alien question? Is there something, is this like something you'd want to continue exploring on the show? Yeah, I love that. I mean, to me, that was kind of my way in. And I think it's, Father Doug is not in there. as much. I mean, we have 21 minutes to tell a story. But when I was going to write this initially, I was going to write it as a play. And I like the idea, if you do it as a play, that, you know,

if it's in the basement of a church, you've got the support group, maybe we don't know what they're talking about. And slowly it becomes apparent, you know, that they're talking about their alien abductions. But I think the reason that I had it in a church basement is that, yeah, I view it as a kind of religion too. I mean, they're talking about something we can't see. They're corroborating each other or arguing about each other almost the way that people would argue about religious canon. And they all have to lean on each other and form a community of belief, essentially. And I really liked the idea of somebody like Father Doug looking at what they're doing and being uncomfortable with how much it's like theology. And actually being a little drawn to.

to it in a way. And I also love the idea of a priest having to defend an alien abduction support group using a community space and kind of getting into trouble for having these people there with the church because they feel a little offended. They feel like it's somehow on some level a little blasphemous. But to me, the idea of trying to understand something bigger than yourself trying to you know I don't know how different it is to me it's like okay I mean I there was a burning bush that talked to me I don't know is that that different than I was brought up in a beam of light there's a good Carl Sagan clip from the 60s on YouTube you can find it it's probably around the time he was working on Project Blue Book and he was talking about how aliens

are a very modern way to have religion and science too. And I think at that time the fear was in some way science is going to kill religion. And I guess we still feel that way in some way in this culture. But he was saying that aliens in a way are a lot like people's conception of God. And you can believe they're very benevolent and they really care about us and they're really interested in us. And in a way, we think that about God, too. So I think they're linked. I think if you push on it not so hard, you're going to get to a point where it's all

a way that we're trying to understand why we're here and what's out there beside us. Whatever is out there besides us. I want to ask you, David, what do you think would be their motivation? This idea of missing time and screen memories that you bring up in your pilot episode was awesome. Right off the bat, you know, seeing the, you know, the deer head and everything. Like, people have actually claimed these sorts of things where they see a four-foot owl outside their car before they're abducted or, you know, stories of this. Like that they're seeing something that they know isn't real, but it's there and this, that, this, that. And then they have no memory of what happened.

They black out and this and that. What do you make of these topics of missing time and screen memories? How did you come about your research in that? I don't, you know, I just find it fascinating. I mean, or reading about the Betty and Barney Hill incident, and they lost time. And I think the thing that appealed to me most is they seem like glitches or like a workaround, where it's like, really, what benefit would you have to showing somebody a four-foot-tall owl? That's not going to do anything.

That's not going to help you. How does that help you cover up a memory of being abducted? But for whatever reason, I like the idea that it makes absolutely no sense. But they still, for some reason, you have to explain why they have to use these things. And to me, it just seems like, oh, their technology is imperfect. They can't wipe a memory completely. They have to, you know, they have to have some weird hack. And in a way, I think in this show, most of the, the time we see aliens, they're totally in control and they know what they're doing. And that's maybe

a little bit of our God fantasy too. So the idea of a bunch of people wondering what happened to them and they have a conspiracy theory and then we see the perpetrators of the conspiracy and they're just as clueless and frustrated as the people on Earth, it seems fun to me that they're like, oh yeah, we have to do something to this person's brain and we'll use a deer this time. Yeah, okay. good, good, put that in there. They're kind of like shucking and jiving, trying to figure out how to cover their footprints, but they can't do it.

You are special. Bo. What is this? The attitude. Oh, my God. I'm trying to do my job, all right? Because we often think that these aliens are, you know, vastly more intelligence,

centuries ahead of us. And maybe they are technologically. You know, they did travel this far to find us. for what purposes, you know, your show is exploring and we continue to in the abduction field, I guess. But this idea that they're not perfect. You know, everything doesn't go according to plan. And there's many actual documented cases where people are like, why the hell did they try to trick me? Like, it's clear that a four-foot owl does not exist.

Like, I know this. Now you're just making me remember this more. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I love the law of unintended consequences with stuff like this and the fact that, you know, really, if they do exist, they're all on these little ships together. There's got to be beef. Yeah, right. You know, inevitably. I mean, I don't care how elevated the living being is. If you're confined to a small space hurtling through the galaxy, someone will have, like, declined to do the dishes. you know, someone will be eating something that smells bad.

Like, these things are probably constant throughout the universe. I can only imagine, yeah, what that would be like. Well, in terms of being on set, are there any interesting stories you'd mind sharing with us from the set about any of the actors or crew members? Did any of them ever come up to you and say, dude, don't tell anyone, but, like, I saw something when I was a kid or this or that. Has this at all, this whole experience, opened the floodgates with other people that you've

creatively been involved with on this? You know, I thought it would. And actually, no, there haven't been, there was one grip that was on last season. And he was very upfront about it. It wasn't embarrassed at all. He was like, yep, I saw a spaceship. And it was like, oh, oh, cool. Well, tell me about it. And he was, it was in, we shoot in Toronto. And he said, said what street it was on. It was on a busy street. He was driving down the street and he saw a ship. It was cigar shaped and there were porthole windows.

And then he said he was on another shoot like seven years after it happened. And he was telling somebody the same story. And the person went, oh, yeah. And he gave him the guy, the other person told him, were you at such and such street and such and such street at this time? And the guy was like, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, yeah, I saw that too. That was kind of, that was pretty fascinating. Right.

And I'm sure it will only, people will get more comfortable as the show goes on, maybe hearing about their experiences. I mean, we have people like, and I'm not ripping on actors, but only an actor would say this, David. Kurt Russell is now coming forward and saying he is the reason we all know about the Phoenix Lights incident, that he was the pilot who first reported this, having seen it. Really?

He did, yeah. This is maybe a month during their, like, press junket for, Guardians of the Galaxy 2. He was in England, and he just out of nowhere spilled his guts about having seen the Phoenix lights and having been the first person to report it. So, fascinating. That's interesting. Why not?

Why not? I guess, you know, we had someone come in once who was a writer who actually had very detailed memories of what he said were several encounters with aliens. And that went on for quite some time. That was like an hour conversation. That was the only one that was a little like, whoa, this is far out. Everyone else is very matter of fact about it. But no, I thought I'd be overwhelmed with people.

I mean, the thing I was really worried about the most was people in the experience or community being upset by the show or feeling like judged by the show. but that that really hasn't happened so i'm very happy about that well i can attest to that everyone i've spoken to and i'm talking hundreds of people have all had nothing but positive things to say about the show you know oh that's cool that's great you know a respectable representation of something that could easily be laughed off or ridiculed uh yeah i think you guys have done an absolute wonderful job uh in terms of that so you've got the ufo communities backing for whatever that may be worth it's great no it's worth a lot to me i mean if you're going to make a show like this it's really important to you know we we're lucky we have really good writers and gregg is a really good just kind

of ideological head for something like this where you know if you're writing about people like this and they're kind of low-hanging fruit if you want to make if you want to make shit out of people you know you could write about a bunch of goofy wacky people that you're just kind of like ah you're But I think to write about people in a way that have had this experience and you're kind of trying to be their lawyer in a way. You're the character's lawyer. That's the thing that people used to say when you act. It's like you're not there to judge the character. The character is doing what they think is right.

And your job is just to kind of honor them, whether their decisions are right or wrong, that's up for the audience to decide. But I kind of feel that way with the experiences in the show where, You make them in a cartoon characters. That's not so interesting. And I think the writers do a really good job of just kind of honoring them and taking care of those characters. Absolutely. Well, I mean, have your beliefs or thoughts on this entire issue or topic, have they changed it all? David, throughout the course of creating the show?

Yeah, I don't know. This is a really boring answer, but no, I don't think they have. Yeah. I don't think they have. I don't, in terms of do aliens exist or in terms of what? Yeah, I mean, I guess not even the alien abduction topic, but what are your personal thoughts on just is there life out there? And if so, could it visit us?

Yeah, I think so. Why not? I mean, it seems strange that there wouldn't be. And I don't know. I believe stuff, you know, something could have visited us. I think it's unusual that there are, there is enough overlap in people's stories that make me believe that something had happened. Someone might have been in touch at some point. And then I think there's, we cross over with a lot of Cold War stuff that was actual, you know, actual U.S. Air Force intelligence stuff that they were testing things and trying to cover it up.

So I think those things have an unfortunate overlap. But yeah, why not? I think so. I've always felt like, why not? It seems stranger to think that there wouldn't be anything. That's chilling when you think that there wouldn't be anything, and it's just us. Soarily depressing, to say the least. Yeah, God.

Like, we're it? Geez, I hope not. Like, come on. There's got to be something else up. For the love of God, please. Well, in terms of the show, what can we expect the show? This is going to air, actually, the day that this season. season two premieres.

Oh, cool. Yeah, it just so happened to fall that way. So I'm really excited about that. What can we expect in season two, Dave? What do you got coming up for us? Well, season two, we have a new cast member, Nassim Kodd, who was on Saturday Night Live, and she's excellent and really funny. She plays an FBI agent that kind of gets sucked into this, thinking she's investigating

one of the main characters for insider trading in a white collar for. fraud kind of a thing. And she comes to town and finds to her horror that there's something unusual going on here that she can't explain. I think that we left a lot of cliffhangers in the season finale. So we get to find out what happened to Jerry. He gets abducted at the end of the first season and we see what's gone on there. The aliens have a new visitor on their ship and we get to see what that is and it's a new character and kind of see how they deal with that. I think they're in a bit of trouble after the first season because they've kind of let the invasion go sideways. So they have to answer for their sins in that way. And the group members all know they've been abducted and they

know that they've been abducted together. I don't want to spoil the finale for anyone that watched it from last season, but they know a lot more about their situation. So it changes the show of it and that, you know, the first season they were less aware of what happened to them. They knew something had happened, but they couldn't put their finger on it. This season, they have much more of a focal point in terms of, yes, aliens are probably among us. And yes, we have all been up on this spaceship and we remember a decent amount of it. And they're trying to figure out what to do about that.

That's fascinating. And I'm sure it'll only add a whole new level to, you know, yes, maybe they have that closure with each other that this happened. But now what? What's the next step? I can only see that going in a million directions. That's really exciting. Thanks. Well, where and when can we find season two of the show?

It's on TBS on July 24th at 1030 Eastern. Awesome. Guys, please check out people of earth. Again, David, creator, executive producer of the show. I can't thank you enough for coming on, man. Telling your side of the story. For those who may not have seen the show, I highly recommend it. Check it out, endorsed fully by the UFO community.

And thanks again for joining us. Thanks, Ryan. All right, that is it for this week's show. Again, thank you to David Jenkins for joining me. And be sure to check out People of Earth on TBS Network and at TBS.com. For any of my Canadian listeners, I will be speaking at the East Coast Paracon in Liverpool, Nova Scotia on Saturday, August. 12. I'll be joined by friends and colleagues, Micah Hanks, Greg Bishop, Chris Stiles, Paul

Kimball, and various others, all talking about the strange and weird. I'll personally be talking about my research into the Bermuda Triangle and other mysterious triangles throughout the world. So I hope, if you're anywhere in the area, come join us for the weekend in the beautiful small town of Liverpool. The conference runs from August 11th through the 13th. All other relevant information and tickets can be found at east coast paraconference.ca. I also want to take a moment to thank those who've donated to the show. Your contributions assure that the show will continue and only get better in quality, and yes, quantity. More on that in the near future.

If you care to donate to the show, go to the website somewhere in the skies.com and click on the donate tab. If you haven't already, please consider rating and reviewing the show on iTunes. It helps gain new listeners and moves us up in the featured podcast sections. That's all I got this week, guys. Thank you again, and I'll see you next Monday. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies. This has been a third kind production.

To learn more, visit thirdkind productions.com. I forgot to read my messaging time, and now it's gone. Then you just reset the speculator. It's a Snapchat, Kurt. It's gone. Let's just do one together. The whole point is disappears. You see, you can only see it once.

Two, one. And you'll put notes.