Somewhere in the Skies - Fire in the Sky: A Podcast Crossover Review

Episode Date: December 23, 2018

On episode 88 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, we ring in the holidays with a fun review of one of Ryan's favorite UFO-themed movies, Fire in the Sky. Joining him is NYC-based comedian, podcast host, and graphic-novel creator, Andrew Sanford. What did Andrew think of the film adaptation of the Travis Walton incident? How did it compare to the actual story? And did Travis Walton really ride his motorcycle on the sidewalk!? This and so much more awaits you on this very special Christmas Eve episode of Somewhere... in the Fire... in the Skies! Guest Bio: Andrew Sanford is a writer and comedian holed up in New York City. He has written a published the graphic novel, Gwendolyn, and was twice featured as a writer in the ABC Discovers Showcase. Now you can hear him every week on his successful comedy podcast, Half White Son of a Black Man, available on all podcast apps. For the month of December, 50% of book sales, merchandise sales, and Patreon subscriptions will be donated to The Women's Refugee Commission. Please consider supporting the show and helping this wonderful organization. Learn more, CLICK HERE Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening and Closing Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca 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

Season's Greetings, everyone. I'm Ryan Sprague, the host of the Somewhere in the Skies podcast. And at this time of the year, I have a tradition to give to an organization that I firmly believe in. And that is the Women's Refugee Commission. The Women's Refugee Commission improves the lives and protects the rights of women, children, and youth displaced by conflict and crisis. They research their needs, identify solutions, and advocate for programs and policies to strengthen the resilience and drive change in humanitarian practice. There are currently more than 66 million persons forcibly displaced worldwide. So let's help make change this holiday season.

For the entire month of December, 50% of new Patreon subscriptions, book sales, and sales of any somewhere in the sky's merchandise will be given to the Women's Refugee Commission. I'm so excited to have increased both the percentage and opportunity to help this amazing organization. And by supporting the show, you will too. So head on over to Patreon and become a member at patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Buy this Somewhere in the Sky's book on Amazon.

Just search for it by title or by name, Ryan Sprague. All Somewhere in the Sky's merch is available at tpublic.com. That's teepublic.com. And search for the Somewhere in the Sky's store. Thank you for helping. And I'm wishing all of you a very happy holiday season and a bright new year. And now, on with the show. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies.

I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. This week, I decided to catch up with an old friend of mine, Andrew Sanford. Andrew is a writer and comedian holed up in New York City. He has written a published graphic novel and was twice featured as a writer in the ABC Discovers Showcase. Now you can hear him every week on his successful comedy podcast, Half White Sun of a Black Man. Today, we sit down to discuss one of my favorite UFO cases turned movies, Fire in the Sky.

What did Andrew think of this adaptation of the highly controversial case of Travis Walton? Tune in right now to find out. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Ryan, what's up, buddy? I'm glad to finally talk about fire in the sky, a movie that I saw. A movie that you saw, that's the quote we're going to put on the marquee. This is a movie that I saw. Dot, dot, dot, time.

It was, I got to give, I got to hand it to you. So, Ryan, that you brought this movie to me. What is your experience with this movie? Why is this movie so near and dear to your heart? All right, so I'm a lot closer to this movie than I think some people might think. Besides it just being about alien abduction, I am personal friends with the person that this movie is based on, Travis Walton, which we will get into. Being a euphologist, this is one of the seminal cases in alien abduction lore that we turn to for credibility. Again, we will get to that.

But yeah, this movie, when it first came out, not. 93, I believe. I was terrified of this thing. Absolutely terrified. I remember I was on a vacation with a friend and it happened to be on HBO or showtime or something. And we tuned in right at like the very peak climax of the film, which we'll get to. And it scared the living daylights out of me. So that's why when we were trying to decide on a movie, I'm like, what horror films do I know that involve aliens? And there's a lot of them out there. But this one really stuck out to me because it's kind of horror but kind of not and it's in this really weird nebulous area so I'm so happy that you decided to to cover it and um I lent you my book of fire in the sky years ago after I had you on my show to say look look at this case of alien abduction tell me you don't believe it so I will say it is the idea that is as you said you introduced me to the tale of Travis Walton. I believe on an episode where I am often taken to task in some of the YouTube comments on your page, which I really get a kick out of, which I'm sorry.

Oh my God. Are you kidding me? No, not to you. I'm apologizing to your fans that don't like me. But I am a skeptic when it comes to a lot of these things, as I've said before. as you should be. And the story of Travis Walton, I found very intriguing when you presented it to me. I will say that I think that this movie kind of turns away from what's intriguing about the story for some really weird things that I will need some clarification on. Absolutely. We'll get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I am, I'm very excited to have seen this regardless. It definitely wasn't. in an episode that will come out right before this one, I'll go over some of the movies that I had the least fun watching,

and I would not put this anywhere near that list. There was plenty of fun stuff in this movie, and there's some very solid moments, and some of that is just, yeah. But I would say thank you to you for picking this one out. Of course. It's always nice when I get a Shacktober movie that I haven't seen before. Right. I think that definitely helped.

Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I guess where should we start? Let's start at the beginning. I do love the setup at the beginning, which is where you have like a little, it's a bar and like a log, a logging town in Arizona. And I think my first note is actually Arizona spooky. Who's not scared by Arizona? But you have this bar in a logging town and then this. group of gentlemen come in, they look like they've just seen a ghost, and they all sit at a table and essentially say, like, well, we're talking about something mysterious, something about all telling the same story.

We don't quite know yet what happened, yeah. And then they call on the cops, and then we find out that they have a friend who went missing, and they believe an alien did it. They believe aliens did it. And that's where we start. One thing that I will say that through me about this movie almost immediately is that, well, A, I'm always, let me just say I'm always happy. The cast for this was a lot of fun. I love the James Garner's in this movie. And I love the James Garner's in this movie so much as just this like really cool, no-nonsense C-E-A agent.

I couldn't tell what he said he worked for. Yeah, I'm not quite clear on that either. I mean, his character was kind of made up for the film, whereas, again, we should stress that this movie in the beginning says it's based on a true story, which we will debate, I'm sure, a lot tonight. Sure. But that being said, James Garner's character was based on the actual sheriff of the town of Snowflake, Arizona, where this happened. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, he's sort of an amalgamation. of all the law enforcement that was involved in this case, which we will get to a possible murder case of this man, Travis Walton. So, yeah, yeah, again, I thought he did a wonderful job with the role. Yeah, no, he's great. It was fun to see Peter Berg in there, Mr. Modern Day action film himself, and T-1,000, Robert Patrick.

He was fantastic. Now, and that leads me to my next point is that the movie, I would have expected to be about Travis Walton is really more about Robert Patrick's character, Mike Rogers. Yeah, so, I mean, that's what's interesting. So, again, this is based on a book, but because our main character, I guess we should sort of set up what happens. So, like you said, these guys, they show up in this cabin or this restaurant, and they say, you know, we got to call the police, tell them what happened. So they claim these six loggers, including Travis Walton, they were out doing a tree-thinning project in the woods. And on their way home that night, they see this, what they assume is a fire out in the distance.

They drive up on this thing, and it's an actual, it's there. It's a flying saucer in the middle of the woods. Travis gets out to look at this thing. He's curious. He wants to know what it is. and shoots a beam down at him and knocks him off his feet. They all think he's dead, so they hightel it out of there, which some friends they are.

But a lot of people are always like, why? Why did they just leave him there? But, you know, they were terrified. They had no idea what the hell is going on. Yeah, no, that made sense to me. It's, you know, humans suck, but it doesn't, like, not make sense. Exactly, yeah. So, yeah, so, again,

they go back to look for him. Mike does, Robert Patrick's character, and Travis himself is nowhere to be found. And he's missing for five days. So again, right there, your main character of the film is missing for most of the movie. So what do you do? Yeah. So yeah, we're going to see it through Mike's eyes. And I wish, if anything, that led me to be a little bit disappointed when later on the focus of the movie shifts away from Mike, because I kind of like. that aspect of it because I was interested at first and just like

oh what would happen to somebody in that situation because I felt like they set it up with an inner reality at first where the aliens seemed very real like this spaceship thing that we see in the movie

I mean the movie is just full on showing us a spaceship there's no debate a car full of people saying yeah which it which does kind of like present its own problems

then a lot of things, a lot of the things that come later in the movie were less shocking to me because I was like, well, no, we already said that this is what happened. We already know. Like, it wasn't as much, it was played, it felt like it was played a lot for a reveal when I was just like, no, you guys show, we saw a spaceship. Like, we know that he got abducted by aliens. Right. There's very little left up to the imagination, which, yeah.

I agree. I think, you know, had we not seen this scene, which again, as a kid, I was terrified of, seeing this man get, of course. Hit by a... Oh, some of that is still pretty scary. The spandex he gets put on his face or whatever. Oh, yeah, well, we'll get to that abduction scene for sure. That is the most famous part of this movie.

Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. You were saying the initial abduction, when he gets hit by the beam of light. Yeah, the first kind of horror-esque scene in this film, I guess, or sci-fi. Yeah. Oh, no, it's pretty scary. His body convulses in a way that's pretty terrifying as well. Yeah. the kind of back, like arms back and head back.

It's, uh... And that, that whole part of it, according to the actual Travis Walton, is all real. I mean, this thing, according to the witnesses, shot him back like 20 feet into the air and just left him there completely knocked out. They thought he was dead. But again, you're... Like you said, there's very little mystery with this. We're about to see it play out that these men might be charged with the murder of their

friend or their co-worker. But again, we saw the alien craft. We saw this happen. So I completely understand what you're saying with that. But what's unfortunate is it's because that's a very fun setup for me. Like I love the idea of something supernatural or otherworldly being the cause for somebody to be in trouble, like to put place blame on somebody. And then that thing disappearing for the rest of the movie. I would have almost rather never saw aliens again.

But I mean, that's not the sell of the movie. The snag is the big twist with the Travis Walton story, because you see these guys going around being paranoid. Like they're getting the entire town thinks that these guys killed their best friend. Like it starts to ruin this guy's life. And then as he did in real life, Travis comes back. Yeah, five days later after, you know, the town and the police are investigating them and finding out that, you know, this tree-thony project they were on,

that they were really behind schedules. So they kind of made this whole thing up to get like an extension on their, their contract. But in reality, they lose the contract because of what happened to their friend. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, he's missing for five days. The whole town thinks they murdered him. It starts making international headlines. Journalists from all over the world are descending on this small town,

both because they think it's a murder case. And the other half think that this man was abducted by aliens. So it was crazy, man. Again, this all actually is documented and happened. And like you said, sort of the big twist is that five days after, he shows back up. And in that interim, like, we have a lot of drama as well. Yeah. And I will say that before we're straight too far away from it, because I believe I'm going to ask a question that I'm sure has been asked before.

but I do believe that anybody new to this film would really have to know as far as how it compares to the real life, Travis Walton. Just to really nail the details down, I would like to ask you, does he ride his motorcycle on the sidewalk often? That's the burning question. And did he have a young female friend that worked at a bakery that knew well? enough to bring him a bag of donuts hanging outside of the door? Like clockwork. Like clockwork. Like this is something they've done a lot. Oh my God.

That was... You know what that scene reminds me of? So, yeah. So Travis is up on the sidewalk, gets his donuts, waves to the girl who clearly adores him. And this reminded me so much of Back to the Future. Yeah, absolutely. Back to the Future meets James. Bond. Yes. Actually, there's a lot of sort of Spielberg and Zemeckis nods in this film.

Oh, yeah. If you really look for them, they're there. So you do have to wonder, was this kind of their way of shoehorning that in there? I mean, Henry Thomas is in this friggin movie. Yes. Yeah, he is. A little Elliot. This is his second appearance in Shacktober this year. Not only that, it's his second appearance in an alien film. Talk about... pigeonholing, I guess. I don't know. But to answer your question, no, I do not believe the actual Travis Walton rode his motorcycle on a sidewalk.

He's actually too badass to do something like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'll tell you more about that later. This guy is... Okay, okay. He's a hero of mine for sure. I believe...

Sure, sure. But so when he comes back, he clearly, he clearly, looks like he's suffered. He's got like wounds around both of his eyes. He's got black eyes. He's got some wounds on his nose, I believe, and maybe by his mouth. And then I think they say something to the effect that he hasn't had food. The doctors say he hasn't had food or water for five days. All true. All documented. Crazy. So before we get to that, the one thing I did want to point out, Andrew, if you don't mind, is the lie detector test aspect. Oh, yes. Yes, yes. I'm sorry, I thought that it was later.

No, I, because I, I love those scenes, too. I thought those were really, that was when the movie was really, you know, really singing and really hitting some stuff that I thought was, um, handled really well and was interesting. Yeah, so I mean, again, they think that these men murdered this guy or they're covering something up. Like, this whole alien abduction scenario is just impossible. Like, why? Why?

Why would they do this? So, right. They do decide all of the loggers to be put under polygraph tests. Again, you know, no longer admissible in court, but it's still a good way to at least see if they're all on the same page, you know? Right. And back in 1975 when this happened, like, lie detectors were pretty big and, you know, sort of new pioneering technology as it were. Right. Oh, yeah. Maybe like 30 years old at that point, I'll say something around there. Right, right. And Cy Gilson, the dude who administered these tests, I've spoken to him personally as well.

Oh, cool. Yeah. So all of the men go under the polygraph, and they are point blank asked, did you murder your friend? All of them say no. They're asked, did you see a flying saucer? They all say yes. Did the flying saucer zap your friend? Yes. They all passed with flying colors, every single one of them, that they did not murder their friend, clearly, because he comes back. but that this UFO actually, they actually saw this. This actually played out. So that's a big part of all this. And after they pass the tests, that's when Travis comes back

and has this really interesting story to tell about what happened to him in those five days. Crazy. Yeah, I, I'm still struck by the eyewitness aspect of that stuff. I will say that the one thing that I had a bit of a hard time with was the, Just to jump ahead because it's so directly connected, apparently they tested the guys again like the year that this movie came out and they're like, and then they all passed. I was like, yeah, but that's almost 20 years later.

And like 17 years later, I can convince myself pretty much of anything. I would think. When you believe a lie for that long, it becomes the truth. Yeah, exactly. I deal with that all the time, man, in this field of uphology. If you believe strong enough that these things happen to you, I've spoken to hundreds of people have claimed daily in abductions. If they believe this actually happened to them, they can start to live in that. And again, my big thing, including the Travis Walton case and all the people I've interviewed throughout the years who claim abductions, I was not there when it happened.

And that's kind of my defense. It might sound passive, but I was not there in the room when it happened. I cannot say if it happened or not. but there are some compelling cases and evidence, and this is definitely one I point people to to be like, I firmly believe something happened out there. You know, I do. And the story that he brings forward about what happened to him up on this craft while he was missing for five days

is terrifying, it's intriguing, it's beautiful, it's gross, it's everything in between. And I don't know, knowing this man, And just being with this case for so long, I don't know what to think. And I will say this movie didn't really, didn't really do it for me in terms of being like, this is an accurate account of what happened to Travis Walton because it does sway a lot from what actually happened to him, especially with the abduction scenario. What would you say is the biggest difference between the book and the film?

So when we get to that abduction scene, like you said, earlier. Yeah, he's back. He's having a hard time living amongst the world, and he has a full-on flashback to when he wakes up in a space, in an alien ship. And the scene plays out, and it's, you know, heart-pounding. I mean, every time I watch it, I've seen this movie probably like 50 times at this point, man. And I still, there's parts where I have to look away during this abduction scene, because it is

straight up, like, body horror. It's... Yeah. It's pretty bad. Even, you know, for 93, it's pretty rough to watch. So, you know, they're putting lasers and needles through his actual eyeball. They're shoving these surgical things into his ears and his mouth. And they're, you know, it's just, it's really gross. It's so archaic and, like, barbaric what these aliens are doing to him. In reality, none of that happened to Travis Walton, apparent. Interesting. He claims that they were extremely, now he was scared. He was terrified when he was up on the craft, but that they did not do these horribly painful procedures to him.

That as soon as he woke up and saw these aliens around him trying to, like, do things to him, he flipped out. He gets off the table. He grabs the first thing he sees on a table and starts, like, swinging it at them, which, you know, we kind of see in the movie. But, uh, but yeah, it was. not what the movie sort of played it out to be. And again, this is Hollywood. You know, I've spoken to the executive producer Tracy Tourmet on the film who said, I tried to be as accurate as possible, but sometimes Hollywood just gets in the way. And it's rough because Travis had their word that they would make this movie exactly how it happened to him. And as time goes on, you know in the film industry, like, things change. More people get involved. We have to make this standout. out. We need to make this scarier for the audience. So to this day, you know, Travis, he does contest a lot of that abduction scene. But the one thing that he remains constant on is that what he felt while he was on that craft, this isolation, this like, you know, sort of claustrophobic feeling, the terror. It all

sort of culminates into what the movie portrayed, this really terrifying scene playing out. So, yeah, the intention and the feeling was there. But what they actually show on screen is nothing like what actually happened to him. And it's also kind of, as far as like a horror movie goes, for me it was a little hard to be scared by it, only because I knew Travis so little by the time that scene happened. Like, I feel like we get kind of a crash course on him and then he's gone. And I'm okay with the movie being about Mike, but then all of a sudden the movie's taken away from Mike when he's really at his like peak most interesting.

And then instead of like getting any kind of resolution, with him. We see him two years later, like a completely changed person living in the woods. Hermit, yeah. And, like, it was just, it felt so weird. And I understood I was like, oh, they've kind of

switched places now, but I never really, like, I don't know, it just seemed, there was something about it that because I feel like they were like, oh, we have to pay attention. Like, we have to have somebody around the story, so we'll give it to Mike. But then we always have to bring it back to

Travis later, like, I feel like this could have made a better ensemble piece, because I'll be honest, when you've always told me the story before, I, when I've thought about it as being done in a movie or anything, I didn't think of the obvious and most interesting thing, which is what they went with, or at least, I guess, not that obvious, because I didn't think about it, but that you focus on the rest of those people in this movie. Like, that's an interesting being witnessed to an alien abduction. or at least like an alien happening that then results in your friend disappearing

is pretty interesting like what you'll have to go through to explain that what it might do to your family or your work or anything like what effects that it has and I felt like some of that was being handled in an interesting way but then all that momentum just kind of went out the door almost as soon as Travis came back

I agree see structurally this movie is a mess all over the place and that's a lot of the criticism that it got when it came out was what are we watching is this a sci-fi movie is this like a biopic is this a horror movie

and I don't even think the producers really knew what they were doing or the director for that hand and that's kind of okay with me because this is such a messy topic to begin with alien abduction some people view it as very

cool and metaphysical and beautiful and others see it as terrifying. And for these men, it was like such a pinnacle part of their lives, but not for, not for good. Like, no one, no one involved with this case, like, looks back at it and is like, I'm so happy we came forward or that this happened to us. It ruined all of these men's lives, except for Travis. So that's a very interesting aspect to all this as well. as the person that it actually happened to, he's doing pretty good. I mean, he does all these UFO lecture circuits. You know, he's sort of a rock star in the UFO field, this niche community of people.

But when it comes down to it, like, what I find most interesting about all this is that they, to this day, every single one of them sticks to this story. And they had nothing to gain. None of them made money off of this. You know, Travis probably made a little bit off of them. movie. But at the end of the day, they all lost their jobs. They've lost relationships. One of the dudes involved, uh, who I believe Henry Thomas played, the character he played, this guy became so obsessed, Andrew, that he's still, to this day, he goes out to the spot where this happened, praying and hoping that they come back, because he just wants answers. The young dude? The young dude. Doesn't that suck?

Oh, that does suck. Oh my God. Yeah, it's so sad, like, you know, just hoping that they'll come back maybe for him or that they can give them answers on why this happened to all of them and this and that, where Travis, the guy had actually happened to, sort of embraced the entire thing and has, like, made a life of it, like, telling his story. And it's really interesting, the dichotomy of what happened to all these people after the event. And it's all because they stuck to the story up until today. That's wild, man. I know one thing that was a tip to me that I was going to try to look everybody up, but I was like, oh, man, Travis is the only one with a Wikipedia page. I was like, that means nobody, that was a pig, that was my way of figuring it out.

Yeah. But yeah, that's, that is definitely fascinating about the story. And I will say that this movie, because it's so embedded, because now I even question, because there's these weird action movie elements to it, too, when he's, like, in the ship. Like, when he's in the ship and kind of, like, fights his way out. What did you think of the ship itself? It was super unique, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, no, I know.

I thought, aesthetically, there was a lot of great stuff about this movie. I thought the area, like, the Lying Town and stuff, just came across really well. And I thought when he was on the ship, what I liked is I didn't fully understand it. Yeah. It wasn't like the slick, futuristic UFO that you sort of envision, right? Right. And I wasn't seeing it from like an audience point of view where like, oh, I can see all these other days. It felt more like I was seeing what he was seeing, which was not the whole picture, which I really appreciated.

And those scenes were like very disorienting in a fun way. But he, I feel like he was like fighting in there. and now to learn that he didn't really have to fight that much inside of that ship, it's so weird that they added that in, and then even would a step further and at the end have him saying, like, I don't think they're coming back. I don't think they like me very much. Kind of like in this like, ah, kick ass.

Bruce Willis. Yeah, it was so weird. It was this weird. I was like, when the fuck did this become an action movie? Yeah. Like, what? It was so, you're right, like, tonally and structurally, it's all over the place. But there were, I,

I think there were some great moments and the tension between the witnesses, the five guys at the beginning. And throughout, like I said, basically until Travis came back, and I know is your friend, but I almost wish for the sake of the movie that he didn't. No, not in real life, just in the movie.

Just in the movie. I'm very glad that he as a human being was not taken permanently by aliens. But, man, if I had been making that movie, I would be like, Let's change the story a little bit. Let's just keep it about these people who are now fucked because they watched an alien abduct somebody, but they'll never be able to prove it. Right.

Like, let's put him in the witness protection program for the rest of his life. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's actually a good point. I mean, a lot of people also believe that, you know, they, something happened in an altercation with the loggers and Travis got, you know, severely hurt or something. Right. You know, maybe they got in a fight or they knocked him. out and they're like, oh my God, we killed him. Or something, or let's go hide

him. So they, like, plan this elaborate scheme where they're going to put him in a shack or something for five days. And then, well, let's make up this alien story that this happened so that we don't get blamed for almost killing this dude or anything like that. So you do have to

wonder. But at the end of the day, he did come back and he had this story to tell. And it has become possibly the most famous UFO abduction case. of all time. And, and this dude, Travis Walton, I swear to God, man, like looking at photos and videos of him from 75 when this happened. And today, he does not look like he's aged a day. Crazy. Which is so weird. Well, that leads me to my next question for you, because I'm sure

you've heard plenty of theories before being, as you said, having the story be close to your heart and also be somebody who researches things like this, and I'm sure has researched this story quite a bit, and also likes to go out and speak to the people, because I would say it would be very easy to suggest that may haps he was really abducted by aliens, and it was not Travis that returned at all. Have you heard any very crazy theories like that? And if so, what's the worst one. In terms of like him coming back, but it's not the actual Travis? Or just not

coming back at all? Just in general. Like, there could be that. Has there ever been people who say like, oh, that's not actually Travis Walton that returned? Or have there been, you know, I feel like topics like this could lend themselves

to conspiracy theories? Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean... I'm basically wondering if you heard any good ones. What's the skinny? So, I was at a UFO conference maybe four years ago now. I'm in the elevator, and this woman gets on, and of course I'm on the 12th floor, and we have to get to the lobby,

so I'm stuck with this woman for 12 floors, dude. Okay, so I'd say around floor nine or whatever, she just turned to me and says, you were on the ship with me. Oh, boy. What? She's like, you were on the ship with me when I was taken. She's like, I remember you.

So distinctly, you were right next to me, the table next to me, when they were examining us. You don't remember? And I was like, no, I'm sorry. I don't think I'm who you think I am. And she said, no, I know who you are. You don't know who you are. Oh, boy. So there are a lot of people in this realm, this UFO, alien abduction community, I guess,

who do believe that there are alien, human hybrids living among us. that they are taught to act human to sort of infiltrate our species to eventually take over. I mean, we've seen this in some movies, even the X-Files covered this. Sure. So, you know, it's possible. I believe it is Travis that was brought back. But what's really interesting is I spoke to him maybe a month ago. And something that always bothered me is no one really ever asked.

the question of him, why? Why do you think they took you? And he sort of recently has started this new theory that he's telling people is that he believes they took him to fix him, that whatever happened when he got shot by that beam and, you know, his friends thought he was dead, so did the aliens who did it to him. And they brought him up on the ship to fix him. You know, maybe even revive him, bring him back to life. And... Oh, man. Because when he came back, yeah, like you said, he had puncture wounds. He was dehydrated.

He was starving. You know, yeah, a lot of physiological things happened. But at the end of the day, after what happened to him, like, he should have been dead at that point. Right. So maybe this was a rescue operation of some sort if you really want to go, you know, down the rabbit hole. But that's what he believes. And that's what he's going with till this day. So, yeah.

That's awesome. It's fascinating. Yeah. Oh, man. Fascinating, if true. That's what I always got. Yeah, yeah. And with that, I think we can move on to our final segment of this episode, which I call,

Did It Scare You? So, Ryan, with this, I'm just going to ask you point blank, fire on the sky, did it scare you? It did, man. And I know that's, it did. Only for the reason that, again, when I first saw it, when I was a kid, in 93, yes, it terrified me. Even though I was into this topic and I thought about it every day, read all the books, the actual thought of being taken by a non-human intelligence examined, brought back to deal with the rest of your life, terrifies me. So if any, any of this story is true,

which, yes, I am still skeptical about, but I'm willing to believe this one more than 99% of the cases out there. It terrifies me. It's sad. seems like these aliens have no empathy for the humans that they're doing this to. They drop them back into their lives to deal with this forever, no matter how traumatic it is. And they lack empathy. They don't give a shit. They get what they need out of it, whatever that is, and move on with their, you know, testing the next aunt or examination patient. I don't know. So yes, this movie does scare me in terms of if it is at all real. It's a horror movie, not so much, but that, that abduction scene still gives me the creeps to this day.

Yeah, I would have to say there's, there were things about the human element of it that, um, I thought it at least made me uneasy, but I would probably say this movie didn't scare me that much with the alien stuff. Yeah, it just, and unfortunately lost that whole reveal kind of lost some bite from me only because I was like, I already kind of saw this common. Um, actually, no, when he got the saran wrap put on him, or whatever the fuck that was. That was pretty scary. Yeah.

That was pretty scary. Serran wrap wrapped around anyone's mouth is terrifying. Yeah. Oh, God. And it wasn't clear either, so it looked like a condom rubber. Ugh. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of that scene was just so brutal. So if that's actually what aliens are doing, fuck that, man. I want nothing to do with UFOs or alien abduction. Again. Done with it. I am done with this field. Done.

You heard it here first, everybody. Ryan's pregg. Done with the apology. What are you doing to me? I'm sorry, buddy. I'm sorry. That's it for this week's episode. Be sure to check out Andrew's hilarious current events podcast.

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