Somewhere in the Skies - ESOTERICON Live!

Episode Date: May 28, 2018

On episode 58 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by fellow speakers, Micah Hanks, Walter Bosley, and Aaron Gulyas, to discuss their recent trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the 2018 Esotericon. The event was a series of public presentations by some of the world’s foremost researchers into the world of the paranormal and esoteric. It was hosted by Paul Kimball, Halifax filmmaker, author, and host of the paranormal television show, Haunted. The four discuss their topics of choice, including audio from several of the presentations, including that of the Godfather of Ufology and keynote speaker, Stanton T. Friedman. This is exclusive audio from the last ever presentation by Friedman who recently retired at the age of 84. Guest Bios: Micah Hanks: Micah Hanks is a writer, podcaster, and researcher from North Carolina whose books include Magic, Mysticism & the Molecule, Ghost Rockets, and The UFO Singularity. He also hosts The Gralien Report and Middle Theory podcasts. To learn more, visit: www.gralienreport.com Aaron Gulyas: Aaron John Gulyas is a historian, educator, and author, whose books include Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist, and The Chaos Conundrum. He also hosts the podcast Saucer Life. To learn more, visit: www.saucerlife.com Walter Bosley is a former FBI and AFOSI agent. He is an investigator of historical occult mysteries and author of books such as Empire of the Wheel, Latitude 33, and ORIGIN: The Nineteenth Century Emergence of the 20th Century Breakaway Civilizations. Follow him on Twitter by CLICKING HERE Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Closing song, "Shape of my Mind" by Neon Dreams SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment   Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. Well, last weekend was an absolute whirlwind as I headed northeast to the maritime province of Nova Scotia. Halifax, to be exact. I gave a presentation at the inaugural Esotericon, hosted by local filmmaker, author, and all-around amazing Nova Scotian, Paul Kimball. Kimball wrangled together a group of UFO paranormal. and esoteric misfits to give our thoughts on what the hell is going on in this crazy world we call home. We even got to see Stan T. Friedman, the father of Euphology,

give his last ever presentation before his official retirement from the lecture circuit. It was a memorable, emotional, and plain fun ride, compliments of our northern neighbors. The weekend consisted of talks ranging from flat-earthers, consciousness, mysticism, mythology and UFO lore, witness and experienceer stories, ghosts, demons, and even some sea monsters. That last one was actually an inside joke to anyone who attended the event. Apologies to the rest of you. But fear not for those who weren't in attendance, because today I have three of the speakers on the show as we sit down after the conference has commenced to chat about the weekend's offerings,

what we talked about, what we learned, and where we may be heading in the world. weird world of Esoterica. My guests include Micah Hanks, Walter Bosley, and Erring Gullius. This conversation was originally recorded by Micah for his wonderful show, The Gralian Report, but that didn't stop us all from sharing the fun across all of our podcasts. So sit back, relax, and pop open a Labat-Blue or Moulson Canadian, and hear all about, oh, sorry, all about the 2018-sotericon. Sorry to all my Canadians out there, I couldn't resist.

And I've got to tell you, it was wonderful being up here, not just the weather, not just the cuisine, but the company as well. And I have a few of these fine fellows right here with me right now for a bit of a roundtable discussion. We will go clockwise starting to my right, my friend and companion of many ages, I think. We've done a lot of traveling over the years and had some adventures. Mr. Ryan Sprague of the Somewhere in the Skies podcast. How you doing there, man? Awesome, man. It feels so good to wrap things up. You know, the nerves get to you.

You never know what to expect when you get through these things. But I have noticed the past, my last two conferences have been in Nova Scotia, and you could not ask for a better crowd of open-minded people. Although I will say, with all the walking we've been doing the last few days, I got in today and first thing I said, boy, my dog's tired. You know, I don't think I could have walked anymore. But anyhow, getting back around to those on the table here with us, on the table, the panel, the discussion, Mr. Aaron Gullia,

also joins us, The Saucer Life. This is a new podcast that you're doing, man. You've written so many books. But when I saw that you were getting into podcasting, too, I thought, boy, we've already got a lot to talk about. Add that to the plate, too. Yeah, I've been doing it since August. I think I'm about 34 episodes. Wow.

Wow. It's pretty consistently around every 10 days now. Of course, once school starts back up in the fall, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to maintain that. But, yeah, it's been great to be out here. It's been great to meet some people at the thing this weekend who listened to the show, which is always weird. When you meet people in real life that, you know, Jordan Bonaparte of the nighttime podcast, he's like, I'm hoping to be out there. I'm like, that'd be cool. Yeah.

So, yeah, great to be out here. Great to meet you three in person. The other guys on the show. I've met all of them. It's just you guys and Holly Stevens I haven't met before. That's right. It's great to meet you guys in person. new connection. Speaking of people, I had never

met you before, Aaron, although you've been a guest on the Grayley Report in the past. And of course, you know, Ryan, you've been on many times. Another guy who had been on the show in the past, too, I was very eager to meet, and I'm still Jonzen because he's sitting right next to me. Now, Walter Bosley right here, one of my favorite guys, and now I can say we've actually shared some space.

Yeah. Enjoyed a few fine beverages as well, so I hope you've enjoyed the weekend as much of the way. Oh, yeah, I just realized seriously, a few moments ago, just dawn on me. Today's Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it just, and when you go to these things. It's like, you know, if you go to Vegas, you're in the casino, you don't know what time of day it is. When you go to events like this and you're hanging out and you're doing the event,

you forget what day it is. I just remembered a few minutes ago, oh yeah, this is a Sunday. The weekend's over. I've always heard those stories, you know. And it's a good sign. It was a great event. Well, that's been something that's been on my weekend or on my mind all weekend is, you know, time, literally because it came up so many times in different discussions with people. You know, Ryan, you and I've been riffing on this a little bit back at the venue. Holly, as she was driving us back, Holly and I were talking about human perception of time and the idea of experiencing in the moment an event or occurrence that 50 years from now will be a memory. I tell you, there were some memories in the making this weekend as we were seeing off

here in his sunset years professionally and otherwise Mr. Stanton Friedman, talk about a career 84 years old and he got up and gave another just an incredible lecture. Another thing we had are physical trace cases. You know, police look for fingerprints and footprints. We euthologists, that's euphologists, not you foolishists. Look for physical trace cases. Guy named Ted Phillips in Missouri has collected several thousand physical trace cases from at least 80 countries.

These are cases in which the saucer is seen on or near the ground and after it leaves, one finds physical changes. The equipment of burn surface burn rings, landing here marks. This is one in Delphos, Kansas. The soil has changed down about 10 inches. And the soil in the ring, I measured, had the composition measured of the soil in the rain from the surrounding area. A higher level of soluble minerals.

Definite physical traces associated with the presence of a fine saucer. It was so neat to be in the company of all you guys, you guys, but seeing Stanton kind of winding things down just was almost surreal for me. Absolutely. I mean, well, I was just going to add to that. You know, full circle, this was the first lecture he ever gave.

UFOs are real. Oh, is that what it was? I'm sorry, flying saucers. I apologize. He's always, he's old school. He's always stuck with the flying saucers nomenclature. So that was his first lecture. That was his first lecture ever, and it was

the one he gave to us in Halifax this weekend. That makes it even, wow. What I like is, you know, he's got this good energy about him and a good sense of humor, you know. He just real relaxed about the subject and just, he just was going along, you know. You know, he's had some of the most famous detractors over the years, no less among them, Philip J. Class. And he's always remained in such good humor about things like that. I've had only 11 hecklers in my entire career.

And then Tim Bonal, who's not here with us at the moment, but he may come walking in at any time now. like that. Yeah, exactly. I don't think he even slips. He might have been in the trunk of our car. Yeah. Or he was hanging on underneath at Big Troubling Little China style.

Bonal is a creature. I think, you know, if anyone wants proof that alien life exists, go no further than banal. That's why they call him the banal of America. I'd say call him banal of the universe. But speaking of universal subjects, again, I think something that we all kind of share in common is UFOs. Although, of course,

you, Ryan, and you, Aaron, were talking about UFOs. Walter, you were kind of talking about the investigative processes that you apply to your own research. Yeah. Yeah. And I was looking, again, at altered states of consciousness and mysticism and the idea of altered states in relation especially to mirrors. So we brought a diverse array of topics together. But UFOs, I think, are fundamentally a subject that we all really share an interest in all of us. Paul Kimball, of course, our kind host who brought us all up here for the esotericon. Let's start with you, Aaron.

Yeah. You gave, I got to tell you, I got to pay you some compliments right here while we're talking. Your lecture knocked my socks off, man. Thank you. For folks who don't know a little bit about Aaron, let's get some background because you are a professional history teacher, a professor, educator, and an historical researcher. And this all comes into play with your UFO research, which I love. Yeah, I teach history at a community college in Flint, Michigan. And so... How's the water up there, by the way? The water is not great, my name. How is that even possible at this point? It is not possible for me to get started. Yeah, that's a long, yeah. But yeah, so I teach history. Generally, I've been teaching a lot of world history lately,

but I'm switching back to U.S. because I'm getting burned out. I'm the senior person so I can pick my schedule first. So I'm like, ancient world is getting a little dull. I'm going to switch over to modern. Oh, come on, does it never really get dull? Wait, we haven't gotten to that part of the conversation. We'll give back around to that later. Sorry, go ahead. It gets doll covering 15,000 years and 15 weeks.

Sure. That's a grind. So I teach history for a living, and I write on the side mostly about four books on paranormal-type subjects, one book about on history education topics just to prove it wasn't off-lying south. I want to read that book, actually. I like it. That's the book. I like it. Yeah.

Yeah. Again, you're looking at my... Macrofilm, looking at visual... Looking at industrial films and educational films that were shown in school. Things like What to Do on a day. And teaching history through these things. Instead of a primary source that students would read about, you know, how kids lived, they would watch a film. I say, you know, young college students, your age, were shown this film as part of the curriculum in their college health and wellness class.

And what does this say about gender roles in 1952? What does it say about race? Not much because everybody was white. That's actually tangent here, but it's interesting because students, this last semester, students did point out, like, we've watched a bunch of these. And they had to choose one of their own and write a paper about it for an assignment. They said, why are there no non-white people? And I said it ended up being practical. there were some companies that did film

these films with a multi-racial cast companies that were located in northern states did that but they found that southern school systems refused to purchase films for the classroom that had non-white cast members and so rather than have

one group of films for one part of the country and one group of films for another it was more it was more economical to and honestly speaking of economical, if you watch some of these things, anything by cornet, you'll notice that the same three, like, 30-year-olds play high

schoolers. And I notice Ryan's laptop has the mystery science theater silhouette. And I've got to say that if you read the book, what you notice is that most of the film, most of the shorts I watched, I picked ones that I could

watch the MST3K on the track version of place for more entertainment and qualities. But there's some additional cultural commentary, I'm sure, that comes there too. I got to carry this over into the discussion of the contactee era because you looked at a broad area of history spanning the last several decades

in your talk today about UFOs. One thing that you definitely noticed, you brought to the attention of those present today Ashtar, this particular character. But a lot of those contact, the alleged alien beings from the contactee era, again, once

you really look at them in the cultural context, is it really a big surprise to you that most of these guys are, again, Caucasian, blonde-haired, blue eyes, you know, this. That same sort of thing was reflected, I think, also in the fringe culture of that area, as much as it was in like you described, you know, videos, educational videos, and otherwise. You know, you can take, you can take some of the contactees, and they're, in a lot of ways, just as much a distinctly observable 50 subculture as the beats, for example.

You can sort of, you can, here's a category. And just like, just like the beats, there are. there is more variation than we sometimes think. As far as race and contactees, the musician's son rock had contact experiences that he talked about. There is Elijah Muhammad in the nation of Islam. There are things there. Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali. Yeah. And so there's variation. But the variation didn't work for the talk I was giving. So that's, you know, this is sort of thing like, I want to talk about everything. Oh, see, that's why I'm asking you about it now because, I mean, again, there's so much that could be discussed. Now, again, one of the focuses of your talk, Karen, had to do with this very unique memorandum. Was it, correct me if I'm wrong, 1954?

Yeah, a letter. Yeah, sort of a letter from a guy named a metaphysical researcher named Gerald Light to another metaphysical researcher named Mead Lane who ran the Borderland Sciences Research Associates. And it detailed Light's account of a meeting at, Murat Field, Edwards Air Force Base in February of 54, between President Eisenhower and some what white called Ethereum's, which was sort of the BSRA's sort of... I thought it was a kind of cryptocurrency, right? I knew one.

How's that going? What goes around, comes around. Yeah, the Ethereum's really dropped in value. The Ethereum's were, it's hard to explain. They weren't from another planet. They weren't from another dimension. They were from another world that existed alongside ours, but at a different density. It is sort of the way they explained it.

And this idea actually emerges slightly before the flying saucer stuff. Always knew we earthlings were kind of dense. So there's this description of a meeting with Eisenhower and the aliens. And this letter gets picked up decades later by conspiracists like Bill Cooper and Phil Schneider. and then gets picked up by some disclosure guys and it becomes sort of this idea of there was a treaty between the U.S. and the aliens becomes part and parcel of the whole thing.

This resonates with the story my dad's had told me for decades that he was told about what crashed at Roswell and who they were and then the fact that it had happened again according to his story in 1958 of which he was part of the retrieval. And so what I'm thinking is whatever Sciop or disinfo was the origin in this letter

if it was such, if it was disinfo, might have been the same sources what my dad and those guys were told. Kind of like the go-to lore or legend they were using to cover something else. Well, it gets really confusing at times because again, you know, there's the one half that we all are hopeful for, which is some reality behind the phenomenon. Then there's the recognition

and I think the acceptance, truly, and the historical precedent for an element of disinformation. And also, and the whole time I was listening to your talk, and I'll get over to you here in a moment, too, Walter. But, you know, Aaron, in your talk today, I'm seeing this progression of myth that begins with letters and correspondences between friends that involve Eisenhower,

aliens touching down, and then the promulgation of that and its manifestation, some might say, regurgitation, and reappearance later on in MJ12. During the 1980s, three things emerge in the flying social subculture that was shaped it for decades to come, right? Until the present.

Each of these things could be a whole talking themselves, and so I'm just going to sort of summarize them. But first is there the appearance, revelation, a collection of documents discussing a group called MJ12. If you were here for Stan's talk last night, you heard about Majestic 12, MJ12, this think tank control group of scientists and military and intelligence personnel

who were supposedly overseeing the flying saucer mystery, managing American contact with ET. The second thing that emerges and becomes prominent in the 1980s, emerges earlier, becomes prominent in the 80s, is the abduction of power, which sort of gives rise to a popular image of alien contact that's often violent and invasive. And the third was a disin, you heard about this yesterday too a bit,

a disinformation campaign waged against New Mexico was an man named Paul Adams, who, um, according to those who investigated like Frye Bishop in Project Theta. Benowitz had seen what he thought to be possible UFOs, more likely some sort of secret Air Force experimentation, equipment, weapons, technology. Agents, according to the research done, agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, but not Walter.

Embarked on a mission to lead Benowitz away from from what he really saw toward an explanation that was more suited to their purposes. And one of the people involved with this was a man named Bill Moore, a U-Govern investigator who had gotten wrapped up in this. In the 1992 interview, I think with Greg in Excluded Middle Magazine, more outlined the elements of the disinformation campaign, the disinformation that Benowitz had encountered. It included, quote,

the whole story of governing alien involvement, treaties with aliens, underground bases, a plot to take over the planet, implants two different races alliances, aliens, one hostile, one friendly, etc. All the product of, quote, counterintelligence people for the purpose of

discrediting venerance, and quote. That is where we come up with the son. Who's that guy? Anybody know? John Lear. Son of William Lear, who invented the Lear Jet. John Lear emerges in the late 1980s with a statement in 1987,

initially uploaded to, I think, to be Parenthood Millenmore system, sort of a proto-internet sort of thing. And in this, he reveals what he says is the truth about MJ12 and that this is far more frightening that anybody had known. For example, quote, during the period of 1969 to 1971, MJ12, representing the U.S. government, made a deal with these creatures. The deal was that in exchange for technology that they would provide to us, we agreed to ignore the abductions that were going on and suppress information on cattle nuplations.

The aliens assured MJ12 for the abductions were merely the ongoing monitoring of developing civilizations. In fact, the purposes of the abductions turned out, being the insertion of a 3-millimeter implant inside the nasal cavity for monitoring, tracking, and control of the abductee. Implementation of a post-cognetic suggestion to carry out a specific activity during a specific time period within the next two to five years. I read that right, I read this document for the first time right at the edge of that two to five-year window. Like, it's like, oh my gosh, we're writing.

It could still happen. So as far as origin stories go, Ryan saw something. I read John Lear saying the aliens are going to switch on all the abductees in the fifth column to Congress. That was my introduction to the field. And the termination of some people so they could function as living sources for biological substances. Along with Lear, quote, we cannot deny weather modification in the spraying of our skies.

It's really all you need to do is look up in the sky. to know that something is very wrong. We are also dealing with the Fukushima disaster, geoengineering, genetically modified foods, false flags in the news, media control, mind control, possible fake alien invasion scenarios, possible fake ascended master scenarios, and the threatening control collapse of the economy,

martial law, FEMA camps, and the chipping of civilians. Wow. That's pretty much all of it. That's every significant conspiracy trend of the last, 30 years in one paragraph and it's all true. The 1954 IZan hour meeting is a great example of how UFO culture used and reused a story. Altering details and timelines to suit various individuals purposes over the decades. Those purposes,

being cynical, I acknowledge that, those purposes are often gaining notoriety of differentiating themselves from other people who are telling them nearly identical stories, but I saw it first or I saw the document that wasn't disinformation. You fell for the 1953 treaty, but I know

it was the 1950 the treaty. You know, the 1953 treaty, I saw that document too and I know from the fact from when I was in the Navy that that was pure disinformation. I have secret knowledge that makes me better than you.

That makes my book better than you know. that makes my appearance at a conference better than your appearance at conference. It's a very competitive capitalistic industry of ecology, which makes it fun. You know, an American mythos in the making and people borrowing from one theory, one conspiracy to another, but at the root of a lot of this, there really is the intelligence community, you know, and the role that government plays in this.

Now, Walter, you've got a background in that. And, of course, I know that, you know, some have even seen you as being strange, though it may seem to, us knowing this wonderful guy. I love talking with Walter. I like to talk with you before I met him, but now I really like him. But you... Oh, odd.

But people hear you, and they say, hold on, you used to work for the Air Force. You were a special agent, and they're immediately suspicious. Now, how does that feel? What's interesting is, you know, some of the people that would be immediately suspicious of me would embrace, you know, Louis Elizondo and Kit Green and all the guys at TSA. You know, it's like, wait a minute. How does this make sense? And, yeah, you know, I've got that being an ex-OSI guy because there's very few of us in this field.

So, you know, naturally, you know, you get some ire because there's people out there that think that OSI are the hand behind, you know, keeping all the secrecy. We're the ones blocking the truth from the people, specifically the Air Force OSI. This one military branch's investigative unit, you know, there's the CIS. I, NSA, there's all these others, but the OSI, relatively little OSI, can be the one who blocks the truth. Yeah. You know, your personal experience, though, in so much of this. Now, you talked about what your father told. You even wrote a book about your dad and his experience and what he told you in an early age.

Tell us a little bit about that. Well, the book is shimmering light, and for a few decades, my dad had told me this same story about being briefed on what happened at Ross. and then being told, you know, the reason you guys, he and the guys he was working with, the reason you guys are being told this is because it's happened again. Now, this was 1958, and they said it happened again in eastern Arizona, and according to my dad's story, they were then flown to Arizona and were part of this retrieval operation. And, you know, he had told me this for years, and I finally decided, well, you know, a couple of years. He passed away 10 years ago now this summer.

this June next month and I finally decided you know what I really need to take a look at this and there was his version you know there was what was really going on in history there was all sorts of stuff in the mix

and what I did was I just kind of looked at all of it as objectively as possible like an objective investigator and that's what the book does it says look here's what my dad told me but here's possibly why that was a planted narrative because this was the MK Ultra era.

When they were really digging into that, it was the CIA, and it was classified, and the military branches were being allowed to observe and maybe use some of this, and it really turned the Air Force on. M.K. Ultra did. The Air Force of all the military branches

really, really liked the M.K. Ultra stuff. Really? And ran off and started doing their own. And this was the context in which my dad was in the Air Force, you know, and having this, this experience that he was relating to me. So I had to, as fun as my dad's story is,

I had to consider that what he remembered was this fake narrative put in his memory using the MK Ultra technology, so to speak, to suppress a classified operation. And the book gets into the details. As fun as his story is, it might simply not be the truth. Well, and even further, whittle it kind of down. I mean, it would take even less than mind control or the reality of a CIA program like that to instill in the minds of somebody a false narrative, which is interesting because, you know, that's

what Bill Cooper always claimed. Bill Cooper's claim had always been that the government lied to me. They've lied to everybody. I was led to believe MJ12 was real. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm the first to tell you, I'm wrong. Yeah, right. Like, as you pointed out earlier, it's the very last to tell people. He's the very, I want to get back around to Bill Cooper a little later, too. you know, Ryan, we've got to talk for a moment about your fine lecture that you gave today because, again, I told you this before, and with the background and broadcast myself, I mean, you know, I see what you do as being

fundamentally the role of a journalist. You ask people, and with Ryan's lectures, they're always fun because he gets the people who he's talking about to film videos of themselves, telling the narrative, explaining their stories, and so it was really great, and I had no idea. none whatsoever that so many people and people that we knew

you and I both, that they had all seen sea monsters. Okay, sorry. Full disclosure, folks. So Paul Kimball's been given this poor young man hell all week because he absolutely he had been led to believe Ryan Sprague that he was going to come up here and talk about

UFOs. But all along, Ryan, Paul had had another idea. Yep. And it involved a election on sea monsters. Apparently. Hey, you know what?

Whatever gets me here on Mr. Kimball's Dine, I'm fine with you. I'm going to talk about... That's right. Well, that's what I said. I'll take one for the team here, Ryan, and I'll give a lecture on sea monsters. But doing his due diligence, Ryan gets up there to give his UFO lecture and makes a phony opening tile with sea monsters on it. But I'm interested in sea monsters too.

But what you actually had to talk about had to do with people's personal experiences more in relation to UFO experiences. I loved seeing the late John Mack come up in the lecture and his discussion in a while. Let's talk about that incident that he was investigating and also the testimony of the children

from South Africa who he'd interviewed and talked with about what they saw. Yeah, absolutely. So this was back in 94. This was in Rua, Zimbabwe at the aerial school. Oh, I'm sorry, Zimbabwe. I said South Africa.

Oh, yeah. And 62 children were on the... the playground and some of them noticed some shimmering lights, Mr. Bosley, in the distance. They saw some flashes and suddenly this disc-shaped craft lands just outside the school yard behind some trees. A bunch of the children go over to check this thing out and they see two beings in front of the craft. Now, these kids had never experienced anything like this before. I would assume. Some of them approach and actually made eye contact with these beings.

Some claim to have had messages downloaded almost telepathically. Some said that the beings, you know, were translucent, shimmering. Some said they were gray with black, wraparound eyes. So an interesting, you know, diversity of witness accounts. But again, these were 62 school children. and no adults were at the site when this happened. So the kids freak out, they go inside, tell their teachers, the teachers try to calm them down.

This thing, you know, before they went in to see the teachers, shoots off, disappears. And yeah, that's kind of the case in a nutshell, and that's when Mr. Mack got involved. Yeah, John Mack goes and he interviews a number of these school children, which is interesting because it was only certain age groups that saw this. There was a fence, an actual physical fence that separated some of the other kids who were outside of playing,

none of whom actually saw this experience. One of the defining characteristics in the testimony given by the children, the drawings that they procured, had been the large, again, egg-shaped eyes, black mostly. Some of the children described either, you know, what might be viewed as a white pupil of sorts, almost ovoid, I guess, in shape,

or possibly a reflective kind of a certain. on the exterior of this large black tear-shaped eye. And many of the children were describing this as being frightening to them. They were afraid. You know, one thing does come to mind. You know, I'm sure there will be people who will be upset at me even asking this. But as John is talking with one of the kids in one of the videos, he's asking, how did that make you feel? And the child says, well, I don't know.

He said, did it scare you? Yeah. Why did it scare you? What scared you? And I did almost feel a little like you might be able to say that there was some leading in the question. That's interesting to bring that up. Did you notice it all, sir? I, that was the one moment where I think Mack may have slipped in his consoling of these children is he, even before this, he was such a respected psychiatrist.

Absolutely. You know, worked at Harvard, medical school, had written Pulitzer Prize winning books. It's incredible what the man is done. Now, a gentleman asked me after the talk, was he a child psychiatrist? and no, he was not. He was not used to dealing with children. And I was trying to catch him in a leading question throughout those interviews.

And that was the only time where I'm like, ooh, he slept a little there. And that's a very crucial question. What is? And the reason why is because the result of the line of questions comes back around to, so you felt threatened by this. What did the threat feel like? And the child ultimately ends up saying,

I felt like they wanted to come and take me away. He says, so you felt like, like they were going to come and try and capture you and take you. Which kind of leads back into this abduction narrative. Now I'm not saying that abductions don't happen or that they do. I'm merely saying, though, that we have to be very careful, even with someone as respected and renowned as John Mack, in terms of how we interpret testimony,

did the child say these creatures were coming down and trying to take us away? Or is the psychologist, you know, again, a renowned psychologist in this instance, are they the ones who are kind of driving that narrative? Which kind of brings us around to, even though he's not here right now, supposed to be meeting us for dinner, but our good friend Greg Bishop and his idea of a co-creation hypothesis, I do wonder sometimes what role does our belief in all this stuff play in how we perceive the phenomena? And guys, I mean, even if we take away the idea of, well, we're feeding into it in an energetic way and creating tulpas and all this kind of stuff, no, no, bring it down to pure

sociology. What you think the phenomena is colors the way that you perceive it. I mean, what would you say about that? I think it was Greg who talked about. sort of the science of what our brain interpolates into the actual visual information that we receive. So just on a basic physiological level, what we see, what our brain tells us we're seeing might not be precisely what we're seeing or what another person would see. Because we might see those things

in different ways. So physiologically and neurologically, that's certainly a thing. depending on what your interests are somebody sees some two people see something weird in the sky one person one of us for example might think UFO and the other person's brain might not jump to that conclusion immediately and might come to some other conclusion

just based on on what they they might not even notice anything strange somebody looking up the sky would see that light's not moving the way it should and somebody else would be like lights whatever So I think there is, I mean, just on a basic practical, mechanical level, there are things we bring to it. Oh, absolutely. You know, Walter, something that you and I've talked a lot about over the last couple of days is synchronicity.

And I wrote it up in my lecture in the context of, you know, Carl Jung having coined that term. And again, the idea here is the apparent connection between two events that are not causally related. But I know in your own experience, and I hope you can talk about this a little, you know, you've experienced. but we might, for lack of a better hearing, called synchronicities. Does that play into this in your mind? Certainly, because everything we're talking about has to do with that greater fabric of reality. And from my view and experience, the things we're calling synchronicities, these weird experiences we're having, these are threads in the fabric of reality.

And when you get to the point where you're experiencing the synchronicities, and I think Paul Kimball would agree with this, you know, because he's been having these experiences. as he discussed today, when you get to that level where you're noticing the synchronicities, you've gotten down to that base, again, I use the word fabric, that base level that really runs through everything and might even be from where, you know, it emerges and either manifests into what it is or engages with your subconscious and, gives you a perception or an image to grasp an attempt to interpret, you know, in your own way. But when you get on to this level that we're talking about, it gets, you get into the purple in trying to.

Yeah. Because here's the thing. It's intended to be experienced, and it's intended to be experienced by an individual, for the most part, ultimately on an individual basis, through individual interpretation is where you get the meaning from it. it doesn't mean the things you're seeing aren't real but when you begin to see the the synchronicities you've gone in deep

you're in there and again Paul was talking today about you know when you get into something you get into this greater world we're talking about and really it's interesting how UFOs are the things that really each one of us individually that's what you ask hey what got you interested in all this weird stuff for most of us it starts with

well it started out with interest in UFOs. But when Paul was talking about, you go into this thing, be it paranormal research or UFOs, and you get so far in that you feel like you can't get out, it's that's another, in

my mind, what I was thinking of is that aspect of all this where you're in there and you're seeing things you didn't see before you stepped in. And once you step in, there's no getting out because there's nothing to you, you are, you really

in a way we're always in. What's happened is your eyes have been open. The veil has been lifted. And now you can't unsee the things that have been revealed to you. So there are actually, I would say to Paul now, if you were here, I'd say, well, you can't get out because

there is no getting out. No. We're always in. But now you see more. Does that sound vague? See, I said it was perfectly. Let me just get really personal for just a second because it's a weekend. I've just been not quite in the days, but I keep kind of stepping outside of my own little reality

and looking back at everything from a few feet outside sort of a detached kind of a perspective where disassociative stage you might see, not quite an out-of-body experience. But I mean, again, when I get around people who think like this, and we share these kind of experiences and this kind of general outlook on things, I can't help both feel elated but also more perplexed than ever.

And it's everything you were just describing, Walt, which is why I think, you know, again, And for me, I come back to the idea of synchronicity. I mean, there's some who look at it in the purely psychological sense of, well, it's important because you assign that meaning to it. But I had this funny little mantra going on the other day where preparing the lecture actually that I was going to give up here at the esoteric on. This word simulacra keeps coming to my mind. And it led me to this science paper from the 1990s that actually posits a very innovative idea in my mind, which is that everything in our world, we humans, is so deeply rudiment. in symbolism and the symbolism and the symbolic interactionism to borrow a sociological term,

you know, we look at a chair and we know that a chair serves a functional purpose and we have a word for it. So there's a language component, there's the cultural context, and there's inherently a symbolism with them and that everything in our environment is so symbolic that we are shielded from the actual reality, evolutionarily, linguistically, and otherwise. And it really gets me thinking that, again, you don't have to live in a simulation to recognize that we perceive a simulated sort of world, an augmented reality as a result of our evolution. And for me, in that capacity, we functioned based on our ability to associate with and identify symbols, which makes synchronicity all the more important.

And Young, of course, had been someone who had always raised this question, what if the flying saucers play some sort of a similar kind of a symbolic and synchronistic role? Now, to be clear, again, he had also said, well, you know, the radar traces are pretty convincing. There must be something tangible too. But I still can't help but wonder if, for some of us, seeing the flying saucer, so to speak, whether or not it's actually a saucer or even flying, isn't representative of a deeper symbolic kind of interaction in our minds. What does the saucer mean to us and to each of us?

Ryan, what does it mean to you? To me, I, you know, after interviewing so many witnesses and having had it, citing myself, um, I often question the motivation of whatever is behind it. And there's probably no singular answer or controller of the quote, unquote, UFO phenomenon. Um,

but what I keep coming back to is that word meaning, like just finding meaning, whether it's, you know, through culture, through society, um, or your experience.

I think whatever lay behind some of these UFO events, what they, want is to see how you interpret what they did. Maybe that's their way of communicating. If they can't do it on our level in terms of words or even symbolism, just to see how

we interpret what they're trying to do with us. Do you think that language can exist on a level deeper than or apart from actual language communication as we know? I should say not language. Can communication exist on that level? I think so. I think, you know, again I think emotion

plays a very big role in this. Maybe they're able to, again, that they is a big question, but maybe they're able to know what we're feeling and want to see how we react to their presence. I don't know, but I do find emotion, feeling, impact, and aftermath extremely important in all of this, paranormal UFOs, esoterica, everything. To know the heart of the UFOs, to know the mind of God.

Aaron? Aaron, what does it mean to you? Well, I gotta be honest, to me personally, as my personal life, not a lot. Apart from my quite orthodox religious beliefs, I've had no supernatural experience of any kind in my entire life. And I've looked at like everything that could have possibly been weird. No, that wasn't weird, actually.

What it means to me is it's another, the experiences people have are another lens through which we can examine the human past. And others, like anthropologists and sociologists are looking at the human present, or should be looking at the human present through these lenses. But I think it's, to me, I love the stories.

That's what got me hooked, are the stories and the possibilities of what might be hidden, mostly on a very sort of prosaic, mechanical, political level, what might be hidden, rather than deep philosophical things. But I've had no experiences. I've never sought any out because I don't trust the idea of seeking it out because you sort of, I'm going to go find something weird. And then you're like, well, that was weird enough.

Okay, I got it. So, you know, people, you can fool yourself into, like Holly was saying about the Ouija board today. You can unconsciously sort of do things. Sort of unconsciously, consciously do them. But I think it's the entire tapestry of the saucers, and I still call them the saucers, is it's one of the greatest untapped sources for interesting stories that's still out there.

Because we've only scraped the surface of people's experiences, and we've only scraped the surface of what these experiences might mean because they're still trapped in a lot of ways in this nuts and bolts paradigm. that's been sort of imposed on the subject. So I think to me what it means is unlimited storytelling potential. I've said in the past that, you know, for me, whether or not flying saucers, as we termed, them, exist is irrelevant. Because the fact that the idea alone exists is influential on our culture, society. And frankly, perhaps, our evolution.

I mean, it's just as effective, even if it's an imaginary concept. But what about you, Walter? Are they imaginary? What do they mean to you? Well, I think there's multiple manifestations of these things. I think the nuts and bolts, flying saucers, so to speak, exist. And I have less of a problem with the nuts and bolts manifestation than I do with the, what's the word for? The religionizing of the whole UFO thing.

The whole Space Brothers are going to... Right with that guy. I'm the guy who raised his hand to question Stanton Friedman. You know, the only, yeah. Yeah, I think, I think, and this is one of questioning this. Well, this is one of my peeves is the, because they have this technology and they can travel across space and visit us, they're given this moral superiority. And humanity is so bad, so bad, so bad. You know, I'm not come from that perspective.

I totally recognize that there's dark. elements of humanity. I mean, I was in law enforcement, okay? But I don't see humankind as this just this unworthy, you know, unshorn primate and we're so primitive and they, they are so advanced and wonderful. I just, that just bugs me. Doesn't it become cult like almost in that way. Yeah, it's scary to think like that. It's because I think there is human as we are, so to speak. I think these civilizations, you know, just because they can come here, you know, like look at us, for instance, we went to the moon, just say hypothetically that there's a civilization not as advanced as we were in 1969 on the moon, and they would see us, we know us, will we that morally superior as beings in 1969?

No, we only thought we were. Yeah, well, everyone thinks they are. Every civilization. But no, we could build a machine to go to the moon. And that's the way I see these extraterrestrials is they can build these machines in cross space. So what? They have their jerks. They have their evil ones. They also have their great ones.

I think for the most part, we're fine. We're good beings. I'm not a human defeatist and, oh, we're so bad than that. No, no, no, no, no. We're supposed to be up on our feet looking up, not cowering down on our knees and beating the hell out of ourselves over perceived sins and stuff. But the UFO thing, you know, there's the nuts and bolts reality of them, I believe.

I'm convinced there is definitely the, there's some mystical thing going on with a lot of these experiences. I mean, that's what Jung got into. If you look at ancient Egyptology and hieroglyphs, there is a symbol that looks very much like a classic flying saucer. You've seen it? It's got the saucer shape and even the little dome, the dome thing. And it's the netter or the keter or something. and it has to do with the underworld, which look at the underworld as the subconscious,

and the subconscious is where our archetypes and all that. So that brings you by way of ancient Egypt to Jung again, in our modern vernacular on this. And so, you know, there's something going on right there that's a reality with UFO. So it's a multi-faceted manifestation that we've been dealing with since the beginning. Yeah, and in fact I think it's perhaps psychologically, and maybe in the sense of the human soul, whatever that may or may not be.

It's a deeper part of ourselves than we realize. Sotericon, 2018, we've been talking with Ryan Sprague, UFO researcher, Aaron Gullius, history teacher, and also a UFO researcher and historian. Mr. Walter Bosley, a guy with a background in government and an interest in the esoteric. And, of course, I'm Micahanks. It's been good talking with all you guys. Real quick, before we wrap up and head off to dinner with our comrades, why don't we get information on where everybody is. can find everybody's work. Ryan, start with you? Absolutely. Everything I do is at

Somewhere in this guys.com. You can find the saucer life at saucerlife.com and all the usual podcast outlets. All my books are print-on-demand at lulu.com and you want to talk to me personally. I'm at Facebook. I'm at Twitter. You can find me out there.

Excellent. That's Ryan Sprague. Aaron Gullias. Walter Bosley and I'm Micah Hanks and we'll wrap this up. And guys, I think it's about time to enjoy a bit of the wonderful Nova Scotia cuisine. Yeah, I need some seafood, man. Let's go. I'm going for sushi. All right, that is it for this week's episode. Again, a huge thank you to Paul Kimball for having me at the 2018, SOTERICON.

I took tons of photos over the weekend. You can view all of those at the official Somewhere in the Sky's Facebook group and on Instagram. Follow us at Somewhere Skies pod. We're also on Twitter at SomewhereSkies. All past episodes, articles, news, and contact info can be found at Somewhere In The skies.com. Please rate and review the show wherever possible. It helps more than you know. If you'd like to help the show grow in quality and quantity and receive bonus episodes and rewards, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today.

To learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. This week, I wanted to leave you with a song appropriately by Nova Scotia band neon dreams. This is the track called Shape of My Mind. I hope you enjoy and remember, keep your feet on the ground but never stop searching. Somewhere in the skies. Somewhere in the skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association

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