Somewhere in the Skies - John E.L. Tenney | A Weird Time for UFOs

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

Ryan sits down with one of the biggest names in the world of the weird, John E.L. Tenney. Whether its UFOs, the paranormal, cryptids, the supernatural, or the occult, Tenney is on the hunt for answers to all of them. And he's not afraid to have a little fun along with way. In this uncensored conversation, he and Ryan discuss flying saucers, belief systems, the realities we each possess, the power of words, and the issues facing certain research and theories today and in the future. Follow John E.L. Tenney's work: https://weirdlectures.com/ Please take a moment to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple. Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Discord: https://discord.gg/NTkmuwyB4F Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ryansprague.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomewhereSkies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somewhereskiespod/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryansprague51 Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U Read Ryan’s articles at: https://medium.com/@ryan-sprague51 Opening Theme Song by Septembryo Copyright © 2025 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Greetings everyone, Ryan Sprague, our host of Summer in the Skies. For over seven years and more than 400 episodes, the Summer in the Sky's podcast has always been free to listen to, but it's not free to create. So we offer several ways to help support our efforts and get rewards in return. If you listen to the podcast on Apple, you can click the subscribe button at the top of your somewhere in the sky's feed to become a premium Apple subscriber. Or you can join our Patreon campaign with several tiers available. Both of these options give you the same benefits and rewards, add-free episodes,

early access to the main show, and bonus episodes and content. Help keep the lights on at the Summer in the Skies HQ and help us continue to grow by becoming a Patreon subscriber at patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Or by clicking the subscribe button at the top of your Apple feed. Thank you for your continued support. And keep looking up. You are now somewhere in the skies with your host, Ryan Spray. I saw your photo that you took with the UFO people sign. Yeah.

Off front, which was incredible. The Heinrich photo. Yep. Yep. It was amazing. For anyone listening, they put on the sign to the venue we're speaking at. I'm with John Tenney, by the way. I should probably mention the first time he's on somewhere in the skies. I've been waiting. How has that happened? I know. It should have happened a long time ago.

It should have happened a long time ago, and I should have met you a long time ago. That's true. I have been a huge fan of your work for a really long time. And I'm sitting here nervous as shit to interview you because I have no idea. I want to ask you. So, there we go. That's where the conversation is going to start. Back to the UFO people.

I saw your photo and I was like, oh, I got to get out there. I've got my high-knit t-shirt on right now. I got to get a good photo. So I'm out there and I set my phone up on a guy's truck to try to get a timed photo. And of course, who comes out when I'm trying to take the photo, the guy who owns the truck. Right. He's like, can I help you? I was like, oh, dude, I'm so sorry.

I'm just using your truck to try to prop my camera to get a picture. And he was so confused. He's like, what, what's going on? And then when I explained, I'm here with a UFO conference, he was like, oh, what? He's like, what is going on? So I thought that was really interesting, someone who wasn't here for the convention. And when I came out to, we did like a sky watch earlier tonight, I went out there and I saw the dude. And he was out there with all of us doing the skywatch.

Of course. And I ran into it and I'm like, what hell are you doing here? He's like, oh, well, when you told me there was a UFO convention, I had to see what was going on. So I've talked to a number of people at this convention who came here to talk about UFOs. Yes. And over the course of the past couple days, I've also talked to a dozen people who were just staying in this hotel about UFOs. So, like, even people who, like, realize. this is my opportunity to tell my story.

Right. And so I've been brought into corners by people who don't realize that they can just approach me and tell me their story. Right. And it's a very insightful moment when someone who has, this happened to me when I was 16. And the person I'm talking to is in their 50s or 60s. They've never told this story before. But for some reason, they were staying at this hotel. They saw there was a UFO convention, and now they can unload this information that they've had carried in their soul for 45 years or 50 years.

And that's the amazing thing about this community. Like, because those people, I actually tend to believe more than the people who came to this convention. There's no baggage. Right. There's no experience. There's no, like, preconceived notions. Right. Yeah.

And you can hear the reality in their voice. They're not telling the story for the first. time. They search for words. They're not on a script. Yeah. You mentioned earlier today, we did a panel where you could have two people sitting right next to each other. One says, I saw a UFO. And you can immediately, and I've been in this situation, say, they're full of shit. The guy right next to him says, I saw a UFO. And I believe him. What does that mean? I mean, that's the part of humanity that's the most interesting to mean is that we do know how to communicate with each other. The reason that people like podcasts

is because they hear human beings being honest and interacting with each other. The reason that some podcasts succeed, whether it be a comedy podcast or a true crime podcast or UFO podcasts, is they hear the inflection, the tonality, the timbre of someone's voice. And they know this person is really interested in this. And they're being honest and succinct with me. I don't know how we learned it, whether it's, you know, evolutionarily based, whatever. But we are the best bullshit detectors. We learn it as little kids. We know what doesn't work.

When we break a lamp and we tell our mother, I didn't break the lamp, and she doesn't believe it, and then we're punished for it. We learn how to change the inflection because we know what's not working. And there are some people who, for whatever reason, aren't cognizant of that.

And so when they're telling you the story, you're like, oh, you fucking broke the lamp. Like, even if they're 60 years old, they didn't realize, like, that's what you're not supposed to be doing when you're telling the truth. People come to me and say, I think your story's bullshit or whatever. I hear it all the time. I have 30, maybe 35 weird stories over the past 30 years. And I'm like, that's fine. I don't expect anyone to believe me. I don't need anyone to believe me.

there are people who can back up my stories and you can go and try and check them out but the reality of the situation is for me being honest means that I don't have to remember when I told you the last time I told you the story it's just if I tell you what happened

it's going to be the same every time I tell you done yeah right and so like when you have people who have spectacular stories whether it be Bob Lazar or whatever there was even talked about at this convention, I think Nick was talking about. Like, someone who tells the same story 20 years later, and they're hitting all the same exact beats, like start looking at that story because why hasn't it changed?

Because it's the truth. It's just the easy way to remember things. That's a really good way to... If you are telling the truth, there's nothing you really have to remember. Right. If you think about it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like...

The only thing that's going to happen to the story is that it will... degrade. It won't become more elaborate. It'll become less elaborate. The human memory is the worst system of storage ever. You're not going to remember better. I started off researching political assassinations of the 1960s and 70s, so the Kennedy assassination, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, right? And what I would do at that time is I would look at what the witnesses of those events said in the moment. Because talking to them 30 years later, they haven't remembered. more, they've forgotten more. And so if their story has more detail to it 30 years later,

I know that they've watched documentaries and they've made stuff up and their mind has filled in the gaps. And so when you hear someone telling a story and this is just the way I'm telling it because this is just the way it happened, their story is actually going to get worse over time. Not better. And so when you, like I was saying, when you come up with like kind of grandiose, crazy story, about the UFO phenomena or ghost phenomenon or Bigfoot whatever any kind of strange phenomenon What you're looking for and you will pick up readily is is it becoming more complex Did they remember something this year that they didn't know 15 years ago?

And then you know they're just making it up I mean is that the case or is it them? Learning new stuff when it comes to like their own experience But their experience shouldn't change. When I tell something that's happened to me, and I've, I mean, maybe this is just individualistic to each person, but I've had a lot of experiences and learned stuff that might compromise my memory of the original experience. Yeah. But I have the knowledge of saying like, okay, so maybe this happened. Like, even while I'm telling the story, it'll just be a quick aside of me saying, now maybe. now maybe, and you haven't heard that now maybe before, that's me with my new learning

talking about the old story. And that actually makes it more genuine because you're like, oh, the person learned something. But when they don't call it out, when the story is the same for a while and then changes and they haven't mentioned that, oh, but I also read this book, but maybe these quantifiers, okay, let's get into a deeper discussion. do it. So definitive conversations

in UFO phenomena, in supernatural phenomenon, paranormal phenomena, when people make definitive statements, they're on

the very wrong track in my mind. When someone tells you, I know I saw something. When someone knows I know for

sure that this happened, those people, immediately your brain knows that something is wrong. Because you know instinctively,

and all your listeners and people who listen to this know instinctively they don't know anything. People don't know shit. Right. No one knows anything. Right? So when someone is declaring the fucking reptiles are fighting people under the ground at Area 51. You're like, well, you know that for sure?

And they're like, yes, I fought them in the underground tunnels. Right? And you're like, well, that's a bunch of bullshit. It's a good story, and I like listening to it. But it's probably bullshit because you're saying, not that it didn't happen, but this person is saying they know it. it for sure.

There's no real good evidence, and we all know this kind of subconsciously, there's no real good evidence that I'm sitting on a couch in a hotel talking to you. Like, this may just be a fucking weird, old piece of ham dream.

Right? A Christmas carol. I'm not a ghost. I'm just a piece of pork. Yeah. Like, so when someone gives you a definitive statement in something, that's when you start doubting them. And with the UFO community, we are in a situation right now where we have a group of people who are making definitive statements. And that's why people are lashing out. Okay. Let's dive into that a little bit.

Okay. So I remember early on in the inception of To the Stars Academy and all of this A-tip stuff, everything going on, a lot of the younger people in the UFO field got really excited. You know, this is the first time a lot of us, myself included, had heard anything like this. a secret Pentagon program, all these intelligence officers getting together in like creating their own UFO research organization. This is so cool. And I remember hearing from a lot of the people who, you know, were my mentors or people I learned from saying, put the brakes on. We've seen this before.

And I remember early on, you were one of those individuals that was saying, guys, be careful. Yeah. We have been through this before. And, you know, us younger, stubborn people are like, oh, no, like, whatever. That was then. This is now. Right. So let's get into that a little bit.

I remember you talking a little about some of the members of this to the Stars Academy have been caught up in this kind of shit before. No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks co-pilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his seat. sales and costs.

To help him see if you can afford it, co-pilot shows Hank where the money's going, and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now, Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365Copilot.com slash work. Yeah, for sure.

And I completely understand. I mean, I remember when I was a young researcher and there was information breaking. I mean, when I was 16 or 17, like the MJ12 papers were dropping. And then, like, all of a sudden we had, like, alien autopsy video. And, like, so, I mean, there was a time to be really excited. But even then, like, my mentors were, like, calm down. We've seen this stuff before.

A lot of it's going to turn out to be fake. So just relax and try and qualify the data. Look at the people who are involved. Look at their history. and wait for it to play out because if what they're saying proves to be true, everyone in the world benefits. No one will care who was right and who was wrong because it changes the world. And so when I see it start to happen now almost in my 50s and I see it kind of happening again,

and I tell people like, calm down, look at the players, look at what's going on, because if it proves to be real, that's great, but we're all going to benefit from it, and no one is going to care who was right and who was wrong. We're all going to be elevated. Our thoughts, our processes, our living, the reality of humankind changes to a point where no one's going to say, like, stick their fingers in their ears and say like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I was on the right side. We're going to be at a point of elevation and illumination.

beyond that saying like, holy shit, we can explore the universe together forever now. So the idea of saying like yelling at someone and saying like, you're wrong, you're wrong, they're going to break through, they're going to change everything. I hope so, but I'm not going to fight with you over it. I'm just going to tell you to be careful because they might be fooling you. And if they're not fooling you and they do make a breakthrough, you're not going to care at the other end anyway if you were right or wrong or if I was right or wrong. There's this huge divide right now, and I find myself teetering on either end of wanting to support these people who are getting the UFO topic out to the mainstream, unlike anything I've seen in my generation or my time researching. But at the same time, I find myself looking at it and being like, hmm, there is a distinct narrative being pushed with this. and I don't like it.

I just, I don't like where it's going. Right. And that's frustrating because I grew up with this guy Tom DeWong. Sure. Like he was, you know, a musical hero of mine. And then I find out he's into UFOs like I was. You find this kindred spirit and you're like, wow, this is the UFO Messiah I've been waiting for. Right. And it's frustrating.

It's frustrating. It's frustrating. But the thing is, what's interesting is so, like, I've been talking to some people, obviously, goes back and forth. And people are like, but they're bringing it into the mainstream. And it's like, yes, absolutely. Bringing in the mainstream a lot more topics, news articles, television shows, whatever about it. But you have to realize like, and people are like, like it's never been done before. They're like, oh, it's never been done like this before.

It's huge. No. It's at the same level, the last time the stuff broke through into the mainstream, our technology is different. are the way that social media works is different. But like in the 90s, when you have a three-hour primetime special with Larry King talking about UFOs, right? That is massive.

The Internet doesn't exist at that point. Everyone is only watching television. And now a primetime special on Larry King at that point in the 90s, the biggest fucking person on television is talking about UFOs and has Stanton on and has all these people talking about UFOs. That's huge in the world.

of UFOs at that point. In the 70s, Walter Cronkite does a special. In the 70s, there's no internet at all. There are only eight channels of television, and they're going to dedicate two hours to UFOs. This is enormous. Something is going to change. It must change.

Look at how impactful it's going to be on society, because that's all there was. And now people are like, well, it's never been this big. No, it has been this big, relative to the technology and the media structure that we have. It's the same amount. There are people in France that don't know anything about Two the Stars Academy. There are people in Africa and Russia, China, Japan.

We think very collectively about the world as the United States. Yeah. We view it through very western. It's a very small lens. There's a lot of stuff going on in England where they have no idea what's going on in the United States. They could care less about Two the Stars. Academy.

But here, in our insulated Twitter, Insta community, like, we're like, no, this is the biggest thing that's ever happened. It's about to change the world. No, we've been here before multiple times. That's interesting. When there were only 30 newspapers in the United

States, and they were talking about airships in the 1890s, it must have seemed like something was going to happen. That disclosure of a wider, weird world was going to happen. every major newspaper in America, all 30 of them, right? We're talking about airships.

So something must going to happen. And this is just the way it is. Yeah. I want to circle back to some of this stuff that you talked about today in your lecture, which was hilarious. Thanks. I must say. I'm a goofball.

But that's what it's about the weird, embracing the weird, which is your thing. I think that people think. that I'm a lot more serious in my lectures until they see my lectures. I didn't know what to expect because I've never seen you speak before. I don't think that they realize that I'm as, there's a, because of social media, right? There's a curated aspect to our personality. And so I have this, I have this personality where people think I'm this very, like, uptight, kind of deep thinking old man character.

And the reality is, like, I'm a stand-up comic talking about weird. talking about weird shit. That is the perfect definition. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, and so I watch all the other lectures and I'm like, wow, there's a lot of factual information being parsed. And then I get up and I look at myself outside of myself. I use my imagination to see what I must look like. And I'm like, man, I am a fucking goofball. I'm hitting myself in the head with the microphone. Right. Yeah, like screaming and calling out my own errors. And I'm like, why is anyone listening to this stuff? It's so true, though, because there's times where I'm up there and I'm trying to be super. serious and I'm like looking down at myself being like loosen the fuck up man like this is some weird shit yeah and we're all in this together like we're not here to like be serious like we need answers now we're here to like hash things out yeah and it cracks down at least for me when I think about it

in the way that I communicate with people it's important for me to stand in front of people as a very weird person. I think about myself as a weird person and call everyone a weirdo to their face, the entire crowd. You're all fucking weirdos. And the response isn't what they would normally have throughout their life,

which is to be offended. They cheer it. They're like, I am. Like, this person is calling me a weirdo. He knows he's a weirdo. and there's some self-realization and actuality in that where they're like, we are talking about weird fucking shit. We're talking about magic crystals,

fucking people from outer space and monsters. And I feel a lot of the time in UFO lectures or paranormal lectures, people get so caught up in wanting to be taken seriously, they forget how fucking crazy this is we're talking about. Right. There's two things that really resonated with me today that you mentioned, and that one was being the definition of weird. Yeah, could you give that to us?

Yeah, so weird is a 14th, 15th century word. It's W-Y-R-D. It was actually one of the first recorded writings of it we have is in Shakespeare, the Weird Sisters, right? So the witches is how it gets translated. But the actual usage of the word was for people who didn't respond accurately to the taxation from kings and queens and land barons and baronesses at the time. The etymological meaning of weird is literally people who manifest their own destiny.

So if you are a weirdo, you're a person who doesn't do what the controlling classes tell you what to do. You are a person who thinks for yourself. You are a person who does what you want to do regardless of how you're going to be treated. And so when you call someone a weirdo, you're not insulting them. You're complimenting them on being a free thinker. I love that. I mean, again, we have so many back connotations when it comes to that. But then you can sit in a room of all weirdos and not, A, be uncomfortable calling them that or be being called that.

Right. Yeah. You know? It's we're all in it together. And we are, we are all part of these subcultures or these communities that go against every normal thing you can think of. you know but at the same time like we all go to our jobs we all have families we all have to do the day-to-day things and pay our bills but then we go to these conferences with people and talk about flying saucers right little green maim and the paranormal and ghosts and bigfoot and it's

it's amazing to me i still find myself no matter how many times i go to these things or talk to people being like, wow, there really are two different worlds going on here. There's this day-to-day routine that we all live as human beings, and there's this other crazy world out there that all of us have been given a tiny, tiny glimpse of, and we're just trying to piece it together. I remember you saying today, we all hold different pieces of a puzzle,

and that really resonated with me. had a woman come up to me and say the same exact thing, yet she hadn't been to your lecture or anything. And she said, I feel like everyone that looks into this stuff, they all have like a small piece of a puzzle that we're all trying to put together. I'm like, were you at Tenney's talk? And she's like, no, I wasn't. It was like, oh, my God.

It's there, man. So when people start to be discounted for their stories or their experiences, that's losing pieces of the puzzle when a scientist or a religious scholar whoever tells us you're wrong that's not the experience you had like you're subtracting a piece

from the puzzle of reality I've always thought of reality as a game and not a game in where there's a winner or a loser but we're players in this game. Everyone's important in the game. Everyone is playing the game.

But when I say game, there's this instinctual, learned behavior of adults that there's a winner and a loser in a game. When you're a child and someone tells you to go play, you will go outside by yourself. You'll spin around in a circle for a while. You'll climb a tree, you'll fall down, you'll laugh, whatever, and then you came in. Now, you just played a game. no one won, no one lost, you had a great time playing, other kids will come and do the same thing with you,

they'll climb trees and they'll spin around, no one's trying to win, no one's trying to lose, you're just playing. And you have more fun when there's other kids out there doing that with you. And I feel like the phenomena, whether it be ghost, UFOs, or Bigfoot, searching for consciousness like any of it, just reality of itself,

is playing a game. It doesn't want to win. It doesn't want to lose. It wants you to engage with it. It wants you to just go outside and climb a tree and spin around a circle and see an alien. See a big foot. Try and talk to a ghost.

It just wants you to do something. It doesn't want to win or lose. Like, that's the human adult learned part of you. But what does it mean? That's the winning and losing. What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. It means we're in a very fucking weird world

that no one understands. Everyone has a little piece of the game. They each play the game in their own way. That adds to your game. None of us win or lose. But when you subtract pieces from it, your game becomes less. When you start to tell people,

that's not how the game is played. Now you've created rules and the game lessens itself. Does that make any sense? Absolutely. Well, in my talk today, I brought up the Rua Zimbabwe case with 64 kids. witness this craft land, creatures come out, whatever, no adults involved. And to hear the testimony of these kids talking to John Mack, Harvard psychiatrist who interviewed the children, you hear such a pure, innocent honesty from these kids where I can only imagine if any adults had been involved with this case, how different it would have come across.

Sure. They would have, like you said, with years comes filtering mechanisms and beliefs and suspicions. And like I said, the rules start to come when you get older and older and you're out there longer. And with these kids, I understand that because they were so honest in what they experienced. So I totally get that. Do you think there's anything to that in terms of like getting old? and it changes your entire perception of an experience? Yeah, one of the things that I love the most,

so during the panel session tonight, like there was a girl who stood up and just asked a completely bonkers question. And I did, I mean, I called it out, but I mean, it was great because there was no filter on her. Like, she just went for it. She started talking about, like,

are there multiple mes and multiple realities? And just went for it. And it's great because even I, at this point, I'll start to tell a individualized story that happened to me. And while I'm telling it, at certain points, I'll hold back, but at certain points, I won't. I'll say, now this is going to sound strange. Like, I'll throw that caveat in there, because as an adult, I feel like I can't even be truly honest with you telling you how strange this fucking thing was. So I have to let you know that I'm talking about something strange, where if we were really honest with ourselves as a child or something,

someone who is truly open, I'm just going to tell you this fucking weird story without throwing any of those caveats or filters into it. And I think that that's important. I think it's something that people need to learn. And back to our original point in this conversation, what's interesting about that is there still is an honesty in the tone and the body language of a person speaking to where if there's no hesitation at all in an adult, that's when you're like, oh, they're not being truly honest. Right.

That's when your bullshit detector kind of starts hitting. Right. Because you know, oh, something might be chemically psychologically wrong with this person. Because they don't even feel necessary in telling me. And then I feel bad for us because I'm like, maybe we are missing it. Maybe those filters are blocking us from just allowing it. I have no idea what your reality is. none.

So for me to make a judgment call on it is terrible for me. And so when someone's telling me, I was on the ceiling, this happened a few months ago, this guy came up to my table and goes, hey, if you ever talked about aliens

that are demon-like, that pull people up to the ceiling of a room and rip open their chest and eat their hearts and then drop them on a bed? And I go, no, I actually haven't heard that. And he goes, it happens to me like seven times a day. A day.

Okay. And then he just turned around. and walked away. And I thought to myself, well, that dude's fucking crazy. But if I think about it honestly to myself, I'm like, holy shit, what is fucking happening in his reality? Is that really happening to him? Right. Like, what is going on? Right. And why isn't anyone studying him? That's a good point. I mean, you hear it and you're like, ah, crazy. Crazy. Got to be crazy. But when you look at the person and their state of being, like, okay, so let's say, he's telling the truth. How does he go day to day living with that experience? How does he even

function in a normal society when a demon alien is ripping his insides out every day? Right. And pulling him up to the ceiling and ripping his eyes out and throwing him back down. Right, right. How do you exist in this world? Well, you exist in this world by, after he walks away, I kind of watch him, and then I see a woman falling around, and it's his mother. And so I track down his mother at some point and I go what is what's happening with your son and she goes oh he has a lot of problems and I go what do you mean by problems and she goes well he he's he's not right and I say well what does that mean she's never not been right and then she kind of walks away and now I'm like well

is the problem with her me or him yeah the layers just keep yeah yeah like am I not able to experience this reality, maybe he's the only fucking person in the world that's actually having his experience. Right. And all of us have a block up on a filter on it. And how would you exist in a world where you're the only one that's having this crazy experience happening to you? You know that you sound crazy.

So you never want to talk about it. And everyone's going to think you're crazy. But you know that it is happening. Like, it's... Wow. Yeah. It's like an onion, man. Yeah, the layers just keep going. Oh, my God.

Oh, this was something else that I thought was really interesting that you brought up was applying certain words into phenomena. Right. It's not, it's something that I never really thought about that even words used during recounting something or describing something can either limit. what's going on or have a different effect as well. Yeah, would you care to elaborate on that? So are you talking about like ghost and gnome and alien?

Yeah, exactly, the story you tell. Yeah, so words have always been important to me because they are somewhat archetypal. They mean certain things, whether or not they still retain their original meanings, is always been interesting to me. And when you take any basic philosophy course in college, like the, basis is we have to define our words before we start having a conversation that way we all are logically talking about the same thing because if I say imagine a tree like you might have imagined a pine tree and I just imagine an oak tree so we're already on the

wrong fucking track and so I ask people like do you do you think that when you die you become a ghost and most people say yes and then I'll say like do you think that you become an alien and most people say no and I say do you think most people do you be when you die you become a gnome and everybody laughs at that. And, etymologically, like a ghost is from geist,

which is wind or breath. So do you become breath? And that's what most people believe, that they become breath, just a wisp of air. And then do you become an alien, right? Which is a French word,

the etymology of alien. And are you a foreigner to this place and do not belong here? which is what that means. And some people said yes, but most people said no. And then a gnome, which most people laughed at. And gnome is, the etymology of gnome is a spirit of this world. And that's the one that is the most real.

Yeah. But sounds the most ridiculous when you say gnome. Then you start looking at all words. They have some type of meaning to them. And we forget that words are these kind of impact. powerful things that we use all the time. There's a reason why I can look at someone and say, I love them. And it's fine.

I've hugged a lot of people this weekend and said, love you, right? And hug them and whatever. But there can come a time in your life when a person looks in your eyes and says the word love. And there's a power behind it. You can feel their emotion come through that word. And we would talk about magic words when we're talking about magic. Words hold a power. They're the insight into our brain.

And we've forgotten that. So when I was talking about even like people named George in the UFO phenomenon, George Hunt Williamson or George Adamski, George Van Tassel, like there's names that come up over and again. Keel talks about this a lot. He talks about the Reeves phenomena. There's a lot of Reeves that happen in the UFO phenomenon. Does that play a part too?

Like, is the universe playing with us through language as well? And I don't think that people look at the whole component of reality, which includes words to mean something. So like L, right, the original name of God, as far back as we can find, the original name of God is L, E.L. to this day, even after 6,000 years of language in modern English, most words that begin with EL mean up. So like elite, elevator, elevated, elder, like it still means up there somewhere. And so there are hints, there are these kind of archetypal hints that language is important to.

So when you're reading accounts of contactees, the words that are used by the aliens or the Space Brothers or where do you want to call them, like those are important too in our research and people leave them out all the time. It's fascinating to me that just simple language can become such a powerful way of interpreting an experience. You know, like you've been brought up, and I love this case, and I've talked about it many times. times on the show, the Simon Dickies. My favorite. My favorite. My God. And when you said towards the end of the experience, what he thought was possibly alien,

but you had another interpretation of them. Which is fairies or fairy folk. Right. Which, again, most people would laugh at or scoff at. This was clearly an alien experience. Right. You know, things came out of a silver disc and, you know, we're looking for water and took off. clearly an alien encounter.

But when you flip the script and tell us that it was not alien, that blew my mind. I mean, people have to work with the language that they have. If you look at there's a little small book that was written in the 1800s called a common discourse on second site. It's maybe

60 pages long. And the author at the time is talking about how angels interact with us. And one of the things he writes is angels using their power, and their words can create lights in the sky, can create things around you which are physical and are not physical.

So, like, he's talking about, like, manifesting, like, experiences in a language of the early 1800s. And he doesn't have aliens. So he uses angels. He uses people up above, right? But he's trying to talk about unreal experiences in the language that he has, the way that Joe not knowing about fairies. talks about fairies in the modern language of UFOs.

And I've never understood why people can't see past that. I mean, I know a lot of people are brought up with religion. One of the things I think was great about my parents is they brought me up with no religion. So I kind of interred into everything with everything being a comic book, if that makes any sense. It's all just kind of myth and story and whatever. And so where are the similarities? And I think it's hard for hard, it's hard for people to break out of the, the idea that like, just at this conversation this weekend, there was a guy and he was like,

he said people who are believe in the Islamic faith are never going to buy into the idea of UFOs. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? And he goes, well, you know, Christians, we have a lot of talk about like old sky gods and stuff. So it's easier like for us as Christians and to accept maybe. people from outer space. And I said, so you think that people who believe in a talking snake find it easier to believe in UFOs than people who believe in a man who jumped on a horse and flew into space, which is the Quran, right?

Yeah. And he was like, what do you mean by that? And I'm like, they've already got people traveling into space in the Quran. It should be much easier to them. This enters into a whole other aspect of language, religion, and the racism of UFOs, which no one ever talks about. like ancient aliens is a straight up racist thing right oh yeah i think i mean i don't no one ever talks about it i don't know why it's the like we don't talk about this in

UFOs but like the idea that non-white people had technology beyond white people uh they must have had help from aliens to do it right that is the underlying current and unfortunately when you read a lot of older UFO books when you read a lot of older paranormal books the underlying Kern is that like white people are the dominant species. Nordic Faith Brothers, they're all very highly involved and they're all white and tall with blonde hair.

Whether it's Theosophy, you have the Nordic brothers who are all kind of white and tall. You have the white ascended masters. You have the white brotherhood. It's black magic, which is bad. You have white magic which is good. There is a very weird European

underlying racist content to it. And the language is important because you see the words and how they evolve with, and I know we're jumping all over the place, but that's just kind of how my brain works. That's how we do this, man. But, I mean, you see how language evolves into breaking us and keeping us in component parts. Like, that's why this guy doesn't think that people who believe in Islam will ever be able to accept UFOs, because he's only ever read Christian theology.

He's only ever read UFO stories about white people in Nordic Space Brothers. He doesn't know that the men in black, as described by Albert Bender, were black. Like, they are black-skinned, dark-skinned people. Joe Simonton's aliens are dark-skinned Europeans, olive-skinned Europeans, Italians, as Joe called them. UFO researchers don't like that for some reason, because there is this underlying weird racist quality to it. How many black UFO researchers do you know right now? going to say that. Maybe one that I can think of.

In 30 years, I know like three. Yeah. Yeah. And I've had a lot of non-white friends ask me, how come there's no black people at these EFO conferences? How come there's no people of color in general at any of these things? And I'm like,

I don't have an answer for you. I wish it was different. What do you think that is? What? Let's go beyond the idea that a lot of the old literature and everything is, I agree, definitely racist. Sure. Why is it when you go to these conferences or talk to most people who've had experiences,

they're predominantly white? Because, I mean, it has to do with systemic racism. Okay. I mean, you have white Europeans having a certain amount of white privilege, like we have extra time. Yeah. Like we have the ability to go to school. and we don't have to worry about the system holding us down or holding our ancestors down.

We haven't had to worry about it. And so we have extra time to think about shit like UFOs. That's a good point. I mean, our focus and our energy isn't going day-to-day dealing with the struggles that, you know, racism's cause. So we have the luxury of being able to think about people and other planets and what could be out there. It's sad in a way but as long as you, I think

people like us, two white men talking about this, can acknowledge it. That's a step. And now it's... It's a step. It's a step. I don't know how much the two of us can really do to change that. Except pointing it out when it happens.

Like you said, this guy who said, oh yeah, Islam, like, they'll never get it. They'll never understand it. That's a problem. That right there, that is Islamophobia at its core. It was very troubling. That's hard, man. And I've heard things like that before where people have said,

oh, yeah, like, the Christians get it. Like, they're fine with it. But all these other religions, they're, like, they're weird. They're this, they're that. Or, you know, these tribes in Africa, they do their weird voodoo stuff while we're over here doing this. It's sickening. Right. And it's sickening, but it's funny because, again, it's like the appropriation, right?

So, like, some of the greatest, like, magic, paranormal supernatural phenomenon, like, let's say Senegal. Okay, Senegal has a very rich history with witchcraft and magic and spirit beings and stuff like that. But it's Senegal, right? And it's all black people. It's all Africans. So you have European ritual magicians who, are doing rituals that they've learned from watching

the Senegalese people and saying, this is how you do magic now, right? And so then you have generations of white and European magic saying this is how you do magic, not even realizing that's been drawn from Senegalese, voodoo practitioners

in the Pacific Islands, like it all gets like, it's very troublesome. And I just wish that people would talk about it more. How many episodes have you talked about racism on your podcast? A lot? It's peak

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talking about ancient alien theory. Yeah, it's troublesome. Because you have a vast swath of culture, whether it be black, Asian, Hispanic, that have rich cultures and histories where we talk about South American UFO encounters all the time. How many people at this convention did you see that were from South America or Central America? Again, it's all white, because it's all white people, because there is a struggle going on that's

systemic throughout the world where people are actually more concerned with living tomorrow than if the human race is going to get spaceships 10 years from now. So what do we do as presenters or people who have been given this platform to talk at these events about the research we've done? What do we do to change that? Is there anything? I mean, there's small conversations like this. This makes a difference. Yeah.

Yeah. Very small difference. Yeah. But it makes a difference because someone's talking about it. It's always interesting to me. So, like, the majority of psychics that I know that I think are actually really. really psychic and have some psychic power to them are not white. But those communities keep it to themselves because they don't want white European men

appropriating it. I did a convention at Michigan Paracom, which is at Insue St. Marie, and it's on an Indian reservation. And this woman came up to me and she said, you should talk more about the Algonquins. And I looked at her and I said, well, like I wrote a book about sky people and the stories of Native Americans and original North American inhabitants. I said, but when I go to

tribal people and try and get them to tell stories, like, I'm a white guy. I'm like, you're a Native American. You need to write this book. Like, that's your journey, because I'm not going to be led into the club. Yeah. Like, for all of my good intentions, like, it's just not going to happen.

Yeah. And it is important that we have slight discussions like this. Slightly important. I think you're right, and I think that speaks to the greater mystery that we're all trying to figure out, is if we have these small discussions and we normalize the topics,

that we can then move forward instead of just ignoring the problem, ignoring the issue, and moving on. I mean, I'm sure you and I have both spoken at conference that we knew some of the speakers were complete frauds. Yeah. Or charlatans. Sure.

But when you're in a room with all these people, they're listening, the conference organizer is there, and you know this person's full of shit. What do you do? You don't call them out while they're in the middle of their talk and say, that's bullshit. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.

Have you ever been in a situation with that? Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I've been at conferences. I mean, this is one of the reasons that I am the person that I am and that why I'm not allowed to go to certain conferences. Okay. Like, there are huge conferences that I probably should be speaking at and I am not speaking at.

And it's because if someone says something that's not right, I didn't do it today at this conference just because I think that most people had seen lectures by me before. I did kind of a thing beforehand, but I was asked how many people have seen one of my lectures. but usually at a lecture where I've never lectured before, I tell people, if I say something wrong, please raise your hand and tell me that I'm wrong, right? Because I don't want to be wrong. I want to give people decent information. And sometimes I don't sit on lectures because if I hear someone say something that I know is factually incorrect, I'll raise my hand and I'll interrupt their lecture and I'll say that, you know that's not right.

And they'll say, what do you mean? and then something ensues. I mean, it has to be done in the moment. Like, I can tell that, I can pull that person away later at another time and say, like, after they're done with their lecture, like what you said was wrong, but they still just told 300 people something that was wrong. I can't go to each of the 300 people.

Like, I have to do it in that moment. And people are like, well, you're a dick for doing that. And it's like, am I? Or am I a dick for letting someone spout off something that's wrong to 300 people who have known there's 300 people? who know there's 300 people who know something that's wrong. Because they're just going to do it again

at the next... Of course, and they're going to get away with it. Yeah. You know, there was a television show this is maybe 10 years ago, but I was on a television show and I walked into this house, it was a ghost show,

and I walked into this house and as I looked around and talked to the family, like I realized like there were abuse issues and there were some drug issues and there were some mental health issues. And I went back outside to the producers and I said, this is not a paranormal event that's happening in this house. This is, they need family counseling.

Psychiatrists need to be here. Psychologists need to be here. We are not supposed to be here. And the producers were like, you need to just go in that house and make a ghost show. And we need a shot of you standing in front of the family saying that there's a demon in the house. And I was like, I quit. And they're like, well, we have a contract with you. We'll sue you for a million dollars.

And I'm like, go ahead. I don't have a million dollars. Like, it's fucking fine. Like, I don't care. And I walked off the set and walked away from that show, and it never got made. Like, it's as easy as that. Just stand up for the things that you believe in and call shit out when it's wrong. And things change.

But if you don't, if you say, well, that's okay, and I'll let him get through it. Like, then it just stays fucked up forever. And it's hard. It's hard to, like, I've gotten in fights with people who, the older, generation than me. There are fights that occurred in the 90s between me and Stanton. We had fights. Lauren Coleman and I got in fights. Richard Hall and I got into fights. There were old researchers who didn't want to hear some young upstart kids saying, that's wrong. I wasn't arguing them on their ideas or their thoughts, on their facts. That's when you just call people out. If someone makes a

declarative, definitive statement that they understand something, that they know something, and you know it's wrong. You know declaratively for yourself that it's wrong. They need to be challenged on it because we just roll around and end up in the same cycles that we're seeing now. And it is hard, but there's a lot of people who grew up. You're probably part of them. We talk all the time about this kind of brashful, youthful, I mean, I'm an old punk rocker, right? Like, fight authority. change shit. This generation, your generation, I'm a little bit out of it.

I'm a little bit too old for it, but I'm still kind of an old punk rocker. Like, just tell people like, that's wrong. And that will change things. You go to a convention and you're sitting in the crowd and someone, let's say me, if I say something during my lecture and you know it's factually wrong

and you raise your hand and I go, Ryan, what? And you go, it wasn't 1964, it was 1965. I'm going to go, I'm sorry about that you're right. You're not going to say, fuck you. No, of course not. Yeah. Right?

Unless I'm bullshitting you. Unless I'm bullshitting everyone there, then I'll get mad. If you correct me and you're right, I'm going to be happy about it. If you correct me and I'm bullshitting people, then I'll be mad. I mean, we all want truth, some kind of truth. So just be a dick about it every now and then. I love that. Dude, that was awesome.

There's a lot of babble in there, but there's some good stuff. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's it for this week's episode. Again, check out all of Tenney's work at weird lectures.com or on Twitter at John E.L. Tenney. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate, and review somewhere in the skies on Apple Podcast.

Your Android apps or wherever you get the show. We're on Twitter at SomewhereSkies and Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod. I'm still taking submissions for our next witness accounts episode. If you'd like to tell your UFO story in your own words on the show, this is where you get to do it. These are some of the most powerful and popular episodes of the show where you, the listeners, and experiencers, take the mic back to show the world that these phenomena are real.

To discuss further, reach out to me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or use the contact tab on the website, Somewhereinthe skies.com. And my special thanks, as always, to you for listening. I'll see you here next week. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching Somewhere in the Skies. Somewhere in the Skies is part of the Somewhere Podcast Universe.

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