Somewhere in the Skies - MJ Banias: Whiskey, UFOs, and Shaking the ET Hypothesis

Episode Date: August 14, 2017

On episode 18 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan sits down with MJ Banias. This was a deep conversation that could only be processed with whiskey in hand. In this case, it was Maple Whiskey for Ryan, and a 15-year-old scotch for MJ. As a cultural theorist and peripheral student of philosophy, MJ runs us through his thoughts on the UFO topic, the UFO subculture, and the many ways to approach ufology as we move forward in this deeply enigmatic and unapologetic topic. What does ufology have to do with capitalism? Is there room for skeptics and debunkers when it comes to the UFO question? And just exactly how can we move forward without even connecting aliens to the UFO mystery? All these questions and more are asked in this booze-fueled episode that shatters the UFO mythos and picks up the pieces in a whole new light.  Guest Bio: MJ Banias is a writer, blogger, and theorist with a background in Critical Theory, History, and Cultural Studies who critically and philosophically examines the weird, the strange and the anomalous.  He was a former field investigator with MUFON, has been featured on multiple podcasts and contributes to Mysterious Universe and Rogue Planet. His work is also featured in a new book entitled UFOs: Reframing the Debate. He is also the creator of the blog, TERRA OBSCURA. This blog is aimed at critically exploring the culture, the people, and the ideas that shape what society considers inexplicable. Using aspects of philosophy, critical theory, and cultural studies, TO questions the common ideologies that form and inform our knowledge concerning bizarre incidents, anomalous paranormal events, UFOs, synchronicities, and other events people consider "strange." To learn more, visit: www.terraobscura.net Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Order UFOs: Reframing the Debate by CLICKING HERE Order Somewhere in the Skies: A Human Approach to an Alien Phenomenon by CLICKING HERE Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook. For more information, visit somewhere in the skies.com. This is Somewhere in the Skies. with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. So by the time you're hearing this episode, I am either in Liverpool, Nova Scotia,

for the East Coast Paracon, or I am in the air flying to Syracuse to visit my parents. Either way, I do have to give a warning that the next two weeks are going to be a little crazy for me as I am moving across the country to Los Angeles. This is a very exciting time for me,

but it has also been one of the busiest months of my life. so I hope you'll bear with me through August. Now, this intense traveling itinerary may or may not affect the show in terms of release dates, but you can always keep up to date on Twitter. Just follow at SomewhereSkies, or you can always visit our very active Facebook page. Just search for Somewhere in the Skies podcast. Request to join, and I will give you the proverbial skeleton key.

Today, on the show, I kick back, have a couple maple whiskeys on the rocks, and talk to my good friend and colleague, MJ Benias. He was drinking a wonderful skeleton. Dodge really showed me up there, MJ. So let's hear a little bit about MJ for those who may not know who this dude is. MJ is a writer, blogger, and theorist with a background in critical theory, history, and cultural studies,

who critically and philosophically examines the weird, the strange, and the anomalous. He was a former field investigator with Mufon, and he has been featured on multiple podcasts and contributes to Mysterious Universe and Roke Planet. His work is also featured in a new book entitled, UFOs. reframing the debate. He also runs the very popular blog, Terra Obscura. This was an extremely

laid back and wide-ranging discussion, so I hope you'll grab a beer, a glass of wine, some whiskey, or a cup of coffee, whatever your poison is, and enjoy our discussion with MJ Benyus. MJ, thanks so much for joining me tonight, man. It is a pleasure to be here. And I know before we started recording, we shared a photo with each other about what we're drinking tonight. So let's share with the all. audience what we got going on. What are you drinking? Oh, okay. So in front of me, I have a beautiful Beaumour 15-year-old scotch. It's a sherry cask, so it's their sort of darker, sort of more boozier, special scotch that they produce. So it's very, very rich, very, very alcoholia,

though it's pretty hot in the booze. So I'm really enjoying it right now. It's getting me good and ready for this interview. Oh, good, man. Well, you classy, son of a bitch. I am drinking snow wheat. This is a maple whiskey out of upstate New York. Let me see. Dark Island Spirits they're called. I know I visited this distillery when I was on vacation last year and it was awesome. They had every kind of flavored whiskey you can think of. I'm usually just a straight up urban guy, but I'm really starting to get hooked on these flavored things. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but it's certainly deadly because half the bottle is missing already. That is deadly. Yes.

That is a serious problem. Yeah, if that's the only vice I have in life, I'll take it. Yeah, you're okay. So, MJ, for those who may not know who you are, what you do, how we got connected, would you mind sort of running us through what got you interested in UFOs? How long have you been researching it? And what got us to this conversation today, brother? Wow.

It's a lot, I know. You know, we'll start with my academic career in university was related to critical theory and cultural studies. So the sort of the philosophy of society and the philosophy of sort of popular culture. That's kind of my sort of academic jam. And I really did a lot of sort of research and work in the study of subcultures. And I sort of focused a lot more sort of on music subcultures, primarily sort of punk rock and and like goth culture and all that. But I quickly started to sort of see sort of connections in some of those cultures to like

aspects within the paranormal. And I never really touched on that ever in any sort of essays I wrote for university or anything like that. I sort of always found it interesting, I suppose. But I never really sort of saw the connection. And, you know, I've always kind of been into the sort of UFO and science fiction and alien kind of, you know, TV shows and the movies and all that. stuff. But the two never really mixed until probably about three years ago where I sort of met up

with Chris Rutkowski, who's another sort of UFO guy, and we started chatting. And he said, you know, it'd be an interesting thing to bring sort of this idea of critical theory and philosophy to the UFO field and the UFO question because there's not a lot of people doing it. So I started to kind of explore a little more and I started to read a little more and I sort of started to dig into sort of UFO casework a little more. and I kind of found my niche. I joined Mufon. I became a Mufon field investigator about two years ago.

And I did that. And I have to be honest, I recently left Mufon for sort of, I guess, most political reasons. But I really enjoyed sort of investigating UFO cases. And I started writing about some of my experiences. And I've written for Rogue Planet, which is Jason McClellan and Maureen-Elsebury's website. and then I started writing for Mysterious Universe, and I started my own blog, sort of around that same time called Terabscura, where I sort of talk about the UFO question, and I apply sort of the philosophical lens or the critical, sort of cultural lens to it. And I approach the UFO question not necessarily from trying to figure out what UFOs are or what aliens are or whatever, but rather sort of what do humans do when we deal with. with that phenomena or how do humans react or how do society as a whole react to the UFO phenomenon.

So that's kind of my personal gem and my wheelhouse, I guess, in the UFO world. So I'm not sort of, you know, I am interested in UFOs themselves, but I'm more interested in the people and the culture that sort of exists around the phenomenon. What do people do when it comes to UFOs, not necessarily what do the UFOs do? So that's kind of my place in the UFO world. Right. And I mean, I couldn't agree more. That has always been more fascinating to me than the actual UFO, you know, what people are claiming to see or experience.

It's how it affected them, how it's perceived throughout both the mainstream and the subcultures, which I would absolutely love to dive into as well. I know at one point, you know, you called the UFO discourse, this small field made up by a collection of fringe dwellers, which is an awesome term. So, let's sort of, if you don't mind, would you mind giving me your thoughts on what is the UFO subculture?

You know, you said you sort of examined what the punk rock subculture is. I had a gentleman on who talked exactly about this, what punk rock and UFOs had in common. So what do you think, what lays behind this idea of a UFO subculture? What does that mean to you? When you think about, you know, the UFO discourse, I suppose, in a very broad sense, you sort of have, I picture it almost like a large sort of sphere circle. And on sort of the outer edges of this circle is sort of, you know, the mainstream, right?

And the vast majority of sort of people exist sort of on the outer edge of the circle, right? Everyone's kind of in the mainstream culture of just, you know, every day, right? Western culture or whatever, you know, we drink Starbucks and we watch, I don't know, what do people watch UFC? Is that something people watch? I don't know, whatever people do in regular everyday life. And then as you kind of get closer into the core of the circle, you start to deal with people who are a little more interested in the UFO question.

and eventually you kind of get to the very pinnacle, right? The very sort of focal point of the circle, right, the core. And that's kind of this subculture of people. And they exist primarily on the internet, right? Like it's all Facebook and it's all sort of Reddit and forums and various websites. And the UFO subculture is this very, very sort of digital group of people who talk about UFOs like nonstop online. It's a constant, constant back and forth debate, sometimes like verbal abuse, you know, but ultimately you have this sort of core group of people who consistently dwell within sort of the UFO world.

This is kind of how subcultures are built. You know, you have the mainstream and then, you know, shades of the mainstream become interested more specifically into a given topic until eventually you have. sort of the people who just only exist within that topic and sort of, you know, the mainstream is sort of secondary. I think the UFO subculture kind of is very similar, or is this, really. The mainstream understands what UFOs are, right? You go to any person on the street and you ask them, do you know what a UFO is? They'll be able to tell you, right? The ideology of UFOs has permeated society.

Everyone knows what a flying saucer is. everyone if you spoke to them if you asked them about Roswell they would probably have heard of it they probably wouldn't know what happened necessarily but they would have they've been like oh you can't have heard that word before right so this subculture's kind of been able to sort of permeate itself outwards into the mainstream but really the specific subculture itself like I said is this sort of very tight-knit close-knit group of people and like I said they sort of all exist in this online world and they all communicate with each other. Usually like Facebook, you know, as you know, is kind of one of the bigger. I think UFO kind of hotspots for sort of discussion and debate. There's other websites, obviously. But, you know, it's very strange because it's very difficult to get into it. The conversation is so fluid. The subculture is insanely fluid. People come and go all the time. Only today, you know, I guess at the time of this recording anyway, someone, like a person who's well known and well respect within the UFO community

has sort of publicly said I'm leaving it. And I'm sure by the time this airs, they'll be back. You know, it's this kind of very sort of nuanced sort of and conversation. Like you kind of know who everyone is because the culture is kind of small enough that you've kind of heard of everyone. It's, yeah, I don't know. It's at least sort of. to be specific here because I'm generalizing at least sort of for us here in in the west in North America. I got to be honest, I don't know many people in UFO world outside of sort of

Western society. I don't know very many sort of UFO researchers out of, you know, northern or southern Africa. I don't know anyone in Asia really, you know, like it's all kind of European and sort of North American and South American researchers that we're kind of all tied to. But we all kind of do dwell on the fringe a little bit. We all kind of function within mainstream society. Like I said, we all buy Starbucks. But we all believe and function in this odd way. Like I must check my Facebook a dozen times a day being like, I wonder what's happening

right now in the UFO world. And in fact, my wife will criticize me. She'll be like, you're on your phone all the damn time looking at Facebook. Like what's going on in the UFO world? Did something blow up, right? And I'm just like, oh, yeah, this guy said this or this guy did that. And, you know, I'm commenting. And, yeah, it's madness, man.

That's kind of a good jumping off point. You recently had an essay published in the book UFOs Reframing the Debate, which I was honored to be, you know, just a few chapters after yours. And your chapter is titled UFOs in Modern Capitalism, Descent, Disenfranchisement, and the Fringe. Now, like you said, we all sort of live in the mainstream when it comes to, you know, everyday topics going to work, you know, politics, this that, this that. But there is this topic that we find ourselves thrust into, this smaller subculture, even smaller community where we do hash it out, where we have almost hierarchies that seem to ebb and flow all the time. And this really, this is what attracted me to your essay in this book, which was edited

by our mutual colleague Robbie Graham, would you mind just giving us a little taste about what your chapter was about and how it sort of connects with what we're talking about? Ultimately, one thing that I think differentiates the UFO subculture from other subcultures is that it, the message, the ideology that it presents in a general sense

tries to openly counter and defy sort of current power systems, whether they're political or economic. So in my essay, I basically go out to try and sort of prove, or at least argue that UFO discourse and the UFO debate itself is sort of an anti-capitalist discourse. It's an anti-capitalist subculture. And I don't want to spoil it, but ultimately I sort of provide kind of three sub-topics where I lay out sort of this is the group of people. This is the UFO community.

And these are the sort of the things they believe. These are the things that sort of make them tick. And each one of these things is in direct opposition to sort of a capitalist model when it comes to sort of not only economics, but primarily ideology. UFOs and the debate around UFOs commonly deal with sort of a few key things. one, it deals with mistrust of power, a general mistrust of those who are in established positions of power, organizations that are in established positions of power, and sort of, even sort of non-existent organizations potentially that are in positions of power, like, you know, Illuminati or whatever, right?

Secret sort of shadow governments. But ultimately, you have this general belief or this general idea that permeates you UFO subculture that the government is lying to you. Corporations are lying to you. Governments and corporations are working hand in hand to take control over the human race and subjugate it for some reason, whether they're doing with aliens or not or whatever. And you can kind of look in the UFO literature. You can go online and just type in like UFO conspiracy theories and just Google that.

And you'll get a smattering of everything from secret space programs to, to, you know, camp trails pumped out of airplanes that are designed to control the weather, to, you know, FEMA, like slave camps on Mars. Like, who the hell knows, right? But ultimately, it's sort of this general idea that people in power and those sort of groups within sort of power systems cannot be trusted. The second sort of aspect that I really focus on is that the UFO topic really, really, really pushes this idea. that because of these lies, because these people in power are trying to subjugate sort of humanity, clearly humanity's technological sort of ability is greater than it is currently.

You know, like someone has the ability to create, you know, free energy or somebody has the ability to, you know, create antimatter engines or anti-gravitational engines or whatever, which would sort of solve the world's problems when it comes to hunger and famine, when it comes to, you know, water security, when it comes to war and conflict, when it comes to sort of general economics itself, the use of oil and fossil fuels. So there's this belief, again, that UFOs somehow provide immense technological ability that is being hidden from humanity. And if only we can kind of access that technology, whether we do it through like a disclosure sort of movement by, you know, petitioning our government members or whether we sort of do it by hacking NASA files or whatever, we will eventually find the truth and we will eventually be able to create, you know, free energy or whatever, which again would sort of throw completely

into disarray the capitalist system of the world, right? The entire world functions upon, you know, some people having a lot and a lot of people having very little. And the UFO undoes that. The UFO

would say, well, listen, if energy is free, it's everywhere, it's all around us, you don't need anything really, except for, you know, a simple machine built by aliens to access it. You know, it should sort of be evenly dispersed. And then you start getting into sort of other narratives, right? You get into contact narrative where, you know, aliens visit people and say, you know, you need to be a messenger and you need to go out and warn people about global warming or nuclear weapons or, or you need to warn them about, you know, free energy and tell them that it's out there and and all of these sort of other narratives that exist, that again counter this, this sort of ideological system that we sort of function on every day, which is, I guess, you know, what we would call capitalism, modern capitalism. So that's kind of what my essay is in a nutshell.

shell, it's a little more nuanced than my explanation, but it tries to get into this idea that UFOs counter popular culture. They counter sort of the ideological, ideological framework, you and I live it on a daily basis. And that's why they are a fringe topic. That's why they are tabooed. We don't talk about UFOs in polite society because they counter this ideology. And it's spun that way, right? You know, the media and sort of, you know, governments will, will sort of purposefully try to make sure the UFO topic stays on the sidelines because, again, it does call into question their own authority. It calls them to question the authority of government. UFOs and the alleged aliens that pilot them don't function within government borders.

They don't understand, you know, national lines that we've established. So why should we, right? It's kind of the question. So would it undo sort of countries as a whole? Who knows? But ultimately, this is what the UFO question sort of dredges up all the time. And I think for those within the power systems that establish sort of law in order for us, an ideological law in order for us on a daily basis, this is concerning. You know, you don't want people thinking that capitalism can end. You don't want people thinking that wealth can be evenly distributed.

Not in some like capital or communist socialist model. That's silly. But just this idea that, you know, if energy is free, why should we not have all, why should not everyone have equal access to it? Like, why should only some have access versus others, right? You don't want this kind of ideology to change. So that's kind of what my essay is about in a nutshell. And that was a long nutshell, I understand. No, it's fascinating because, I mean, what you're looking at on sort of this, this macro level, we can even analyze on a micro level within the subculture of uphology, I think.

I mean, you have those who study the topic that you have, you know, one side of it who are looking at it from a hardcore believer stance, another hardcore skeptic. And then somewhere in between is the scientific approach. And we have so many researchers out there or people who considers themselves scientific, screaming for more science within UFO studies. And the dichotomy is there that the UFO rebels against that, obviously, you know, Every time we hear about some sort of UFO defying every sort of conventional way of traveling that we know of here on planet Earth, it's already, like you said, bending those rules and breaking down those walls of structure, of capitalizing. It's fascinating. So you even have that dichotomy within the field of uphology itself.

It's an awesome read. I'm still making my way through the entire book, but yours is by far. one of one of my favorite in that book. So, oh, thanks very much. That's really kind. Of course, man. There's one Amazon review that says you should skip my essay. So, you know, the fact that you're saying it's good makes me happy.

Hey, you know, we all knew going into this book that we were probably going to get more hate than love on it. But it's extremely refreshing to see so many good reviews on the book. And I think it's good. It really, you know, it challenges everything that we've sort of, been conditioned to believe about UFOs. A, that it has anything to do with aliens, which we'll definitely get into. And that, you know, we're just bringing forth new questions.

We're not saying anything's right or wrong. We're just, we're here saying, hey, look, what if it's this? Expand, you know? It's kind of like Mike Myers and S&O, you know, talk amongst yourselves. Well, let's sort of, let's dive into that idea about the occupants of these craft. you wrote a wonderful article on Tara Obscira M.J.

about shaking the ET hypothesis. Now, this was a big part of UFOs reframing the debate as well. Probably one of the biggest running themes throughout the entire book. Now, can you give us a little, just a little bit about why you wrote this essay?

What compelled to you to write this essay about shaking the ET hypothesis? What is the ET hypothesis for those who may not know? For the longest time, like 70 years, there's been this, I'm going to call it a cultural push or an ideological push that's existed within sort of the UFO subculture, the UFO community, that UFOs are made of, you know, metal or something. You know, like they're machines that like you and I can make their technology. And they're piloted by beings like you and I, right?

They're made of meat. or if they're not made of meat, they're sort of made of silicone or they're maybe they're automated or something, but they're intelligently controlled in a way by some sort of species that's just more advanced than you and I. So basically the claim is,

and sort of the philosophical claim, is that extraterrestrials are essentially, they have the ability to create technology. They have free will, They have agency like you and I have. And they have an agenda, right? They hop in their little ships and they are purposefully going around doing stuff for some reason.

And ultimately, this is a bold claim. This is a bold claim for a lot of reasons. The main one being that, you know, there's no evidence to support it. We can maybe argue that UFOs have shown signs of intelligent control. but does that necessarily mean they're being piloted by anything? Does that necessarily mean that they're actually physically there? Does that mean anything? No, somebody saw something that looked like it was being intelligent,

but it looked intelligent to a human. Again, we're making assumptions based, you know, are they then intelligent? Like us, it doesn't matter. The point is, sorry, I'm philosophically going somewhere else. The point is UFOs have sort of always been considered, you know, inside the spaceship is a little, or groups of people, and they fly around. you know like I said the evidence isn't necessarily there to support this especially when you look at the broad field of sort of all UFO sighting reports or especially contact and abduction reports or close encounter reports you get a lot of strange strange moments that kind of defy these ideas there are literally UFO reports where a person will see something in their yard sort of this bright glowing object they walk out in the yard and and like a door opens and out walks like a six foot bunny rabbit right and the bunny rabbit like looks at them

and they look at the bunny rabbit and then the bunny rabbit turns around walks back into the into the orb glowing thing and takes off and it's like okay so like clearly you know unless you never know maybe bunny rabbits evolve somewhere else but but ultimately this is sort of this this odd UFO report that kind of shows up once in a while and and you know you can kind of replace bunny rabbit with various animals or things um that you know, doesn't necessarily follow this model of sort of extraterrestrial hypothesis. You know, you also get these huge variations in object shape, craft shape, you know, whether it's a saucer or a triangle or, you know, like a crescent shape or a delta wing or whatever. You get, you know, variations in what they look like. You get variations in how they act. you know people have have citing reports where they are hyper-stressed and they're they're freaking out about what they're seeing and then you have others where they felt perfectly at peace rather and almost like they're having like a divine moment with you know like they're touching the face of god and again you know if this is just an extraterrestrial species why is there so much variation right why like why in the 1950s did they fly flying saucers and why in the 90s, do they fly black triangles?

Did they have a technological shift? Did they have a stylistic shift? That seems highly unlikely. You never know, though. Again, that's speculation. But, you know, it doesn't necessarily kind of make sense. So, you know, what naturally occurs, right, is people within the UFO community kind of start, like, making shit up, right?

Can I swear on the show? Absolutely. They start making shit up. And they start saying stuff like, you know, well, there's different races. Or there's their, and some of them are peaceful and some of them are malevolent. And, you know, like, you get this whole smattering of different sort of ideological, like, bullshit that tries to suggest there's these, like, dozens and dozens of alien races out there. And they're all kind of coexisting for some reason. And humanity is stuck in this kind of battleground situation between the grays and the Nordics and the reptilians and the blue avians and the whites or whatever they're called.

Like, it's ridiculous, right? And this is kind of all trying to defend the. ETH, right? The extraterrestrial hypothesis doesn't stand on its own. So what occurs is this ramping up of ideology. And you just kind of throw more stuff into it to try to explain away these problems that tend to show up. I think what UFO is reframing the debate, the book, and a lot of the writers in it, they go about and they actually look at the evidence and they actually look at the witness reports and they go back to the witnesses, which is kind of all we really have, right? In the UFO world, all you have is the testimony of witnesses really fundamentally.

You might have a few pieces of physical evidence, but it's limited. And at most times, it's dubious. All you kind of fundamentally have, the bread butter is the witness report. And if you actually look at them and you look at all of them, and you take them kind of all at the same level of sort of quality, you kind of notice that there's these insane variations, which suggests that maybe we're not dealing with a species that's made of meat, like you and I flying in metal spaceships around the galaxy,

but rather we're dealing with something else, something intelligent, but something else. And I think that this is potentially kind of where I think a lot of younger sort of UFO sort of researchers are going. I think they're kind of improving upon the errors of their parents in a sense. And they're kind of looking at this phenomenon more from the perspective of the witness

and less from the perspective of their own personal bias and their own personal ideological background and their own sort of personal sociological and cultural baggage that they bring to the UFO table.

So I'll stop there before I say anymore because I know right now I'm sure there's a few sort of older guard euphologists hit slamming their hands on tables right now yelling and cursing my name. Hey man.

Well, I mean, what you're bringing up is this whole idea of this term exophilophilis. in a sense, you know, this idea that as the younger generation is coming in and looking at this topic, we're realizing, hey, you haven't got a metal ship for us to look at. You don't have a body for us to look at, supposedly. There might be some in Peru somewhere. Moving on. But yeah, this idea that we can look at this entire topic from a very human angle. And like you said, all. we really have to rely on is witness testimony. And that is extremely faulty at times. We know this.

It's our biggest frustration within this field. And it's hard, man. It's hard to look at this topic and try to bring a credible approach to the mainstream about it when all we have is millions of people saying millions of different races are visiting this planet and interacting with us. So, you know, what do we do? What do we do at that point? I think UFOs reframing the debate is one of the first steps in a very long journey to come. But I think it is paving the way for people to be like, okay, it's all right to think differently than what we've been thinking for the past 50, 60, 70 years of UFO studies.

It's okay. We're going to get hate for it. But, you know, who hasn't gotten hate when they're starting to be? bring new ideas forward. People hate change. They feel comfortable. And I think this is a topic that you have to be extremely uncomfortable with if you're going to get anywhere. For sure. And, you know, like the idea that the UFO phenomenon is caused by something potentially more, I don't know, let's use the term mystical, you know, not necessarily material, but more mystical. You know, it's an old idea. It's been around for sort of as long as the ETH has been. But for some reason, right,

Like for some reason, culturally, the ETH is really the one that's kind of taken hold, especially in the mainstream. When you really think about all of the movies out there about aliens, all the TV shows about aliens, and especially kind of like for the UFO community, kind of the bread and butter shows that those sort of reality sort of TV documentary shows and all those, right? Like ancient aliens or Hanger One or UFO hunters or chasing UFOs or whatever, like those. shows that sort of show up, you know, at 9 p.m. on History Channel on like a Wednesday, those shows are are continuously pushing the extraterrestrial phenomenon consistently. No one for some reason, especially sort of within programming and media that accesses mainstream content, talks about the more mystical aspects of the UFO question or the more sort of weird, high strangeness aspects. It's always about aliens. It's always about them

visiting us for some reason in their ships. And it's weird to think, like, why is that the message that made it? Why does the mainstream, whenever it talks about UFOs, always refer to sort of extraterrestrials and aliens? Why is that the ideology that has sort of pushed its way out of the subculture into the mainstream? And why is the other ideology that sort of more mystical, universal consciousness, whatever you want to call it, non-ETH, why has that sort of been restricted to inside the subculture and has

never kind of had an opportunity to kind of really air itself out within popular culture? ETH has had 70 years to do it. This mystical sort of argument, you know, once in a while will pop up, but very quickly disappears again. And you never really hear about it. And that's the same thing. You go outside to the mainstream and you talk to people about Roswell. and the automatic, it's aliens, right, from another planet, some alien ship crashed from another planet, right?

That's kind of what they say, because that's what they've kind of been told that it's what we believe in, in a sense, right? This is what the UFO subculture believes in. It believes in aliens. And that's not necessarily true, right? We don't necessarily all believe in aliens. I personally don't believe in aliens in a sense of it's like, you know, aliens visiting Earth. I'm sure they're out there in the universe, which is huge, but I'm not necessarily sure if they're coming here. You know, I don't have a sort of a belief system that aliens are present on Earth. Do I think, something strange is going on. Of course something strange is going on. Do I know what it is? No. Is it aliens? I don't think so. I want it to be because that would be cool. But I don't know. That's a good point. And I remember hearing you say once, MJ, that, you know, this, the idea of the alien, this is a potential game changer for humanity no matter what. When you look at other topics like the paranormal, a ghost or a cutie with a big foot, you know, I've heard you say, like these do these pal and commands, in comparison to the idea that an alien may exist as well,

because this would affect us directly, knowing that we are not the only, you know, sentient being within the universe, let alone the world, you know. It's fascinating. And this idea that, yes, you can believe in UFOs and not believe in aliens. That is very possible. And it's, it's just, it's so much to take in all at once. Yeah, you know, I mean, the pleasure.

and the joy of sort of being in philosophy and critical theory is that I can kind of compartmentalize my brain, right? So I can say one thing and kind of believe something else. Because, you know, that's what it is. It's a wonderful luxury to have. It's a beautiful, yeah, it's a beautiful sort of place to be. You know, no one's worried about ghosts and Bigfoot invading the planet. You know what I mean? Like, it's not a concern.

And it's not part of the message. It's not part of the sort of the construct that is like, you know, Bigfoot, you know, okay. interesting, you know, it's a, it's a large beast thing that roams around. Sure, maybe it's aliens. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and that's, that's my favorite thing, right? People are kind of saying Bigfoot's paranormal, right? Like, Bigfoot is a ghost or Bigfoot is an alien, which I love.

I love that. But, you know, no one's worried about a whole bunch of hairy monkeys, you know, suddenly picking up guns and shooting at us and invading the planet and then burying the statue of liberty and sand, you know, at the end and Charlton Heston shows up. no one's really sort of fundamentally concerned about this no one's concerned about kind of ghosts amassing massive technology and using it against us in a sort of an effectual way that would sort of subjugate humanity aliens do present this idea right and i mean a lot of horror movies that come out right kind of focus on this concept right the aliens are here to invade they're

they're they're just sort of they're better than us and and the law of nature is that you know the strong dominate the weak. Humanity is very comfortable on earth as the strongest and the dominant species. Nothing else kind of stands in our way. We can literally move mountains if we want. Being presented with another intelligence that is able to do more than move mountains, that is able to sort of subjugate us. This is, yeah, philosophically frightening. And in fact, philosophers have talked about this for a long time. Thousands of years, in fact, philosophers kind of said, you know, what if there's life elsewhere created by a god? just like you and I. And what if they're better than us? What if they're more intelligent? What if

they're sort of better than us morally or ethically? They don't behave like we behave like a bunch of sort of animals trying to nuke each other half the time. What if they're sort of living in peace and they view us as a threat? This is sort of old philosophy. But it does raise a lot of fears I think amongst people. I think humanity is kind of anxious about the UFO question for sure in that sense, because it presents to us a possibility that you and I may not be the highest thing on the food chain. And, you know, there's nothing more frightening, I think, than getting eaten, you know. Well, something else I want to touch on, the idea of skeptics within UFO discourse. You have another article on your site called God Save the Debunker. I love your

titles, by the way. Thank you very much. Yes, very enticing. It's a really good way to draw people in and then to actually, God forbid, think. So this. This is a very good way. It's a very good way to draw people in. So this idea of the place for debunking or the place for skepticism within the UFO discourse, what are your personal thoughts on the value of that within this? You know, we can scream from the rooftops that UFOs are quote unquote real or that this is a phenomenon worth exploring, whether scientifically, philosophically, theological, whatever. But what is the place of the skeptic and the debunker and all this? it's it's it's interesting to think people who write off the belief in UFOs right people who say it's there's nothing to it generally leave it at that someone will say i saw this UFO it was like you know like hey you know here you go here's a here's a great example here's a you sit down with you know your you're soon to be

father-in-law or something and you know you just you know you're having a conversation at the dinner and at the dinner table you know and the first time you bring up you like you know what when I was a kid I saw a UFO and your father and law being, you know, a rational person is like, you know, that's silly. And then the conversation moves on and it's never spoken of again. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because he just doesn't give a crap.

And, you know, you're at your wedding and five years later, 10 years later, you know, it's never brought up because, you know, your father-in-law just doesn't care because UFOs just aren't something he buys into. That is like the worst thing for uphology, right? The only thing that really gives ufology credit within the mainstream, is that people spend the time debunking it or attempting to debunk it. Because what it then does is it then proves that it's something worth talking about. If somebody is going to actively engage with you and debate with you about something and say,

you're wrong because, and here's my proof, and then you are able to then say, well, here's why you're wrong and here's my proof, they are only reinforcing the validity and the importance of the topic. I coach debate. I'm a teacher. I coach debate as a side thing. We only debate stuff that people care about. Stuff that no one cares about isn't debated. So when Carl Sagan or when Neil deGrasse Tyson or when Stephen Hawking or when Philip

Class or Robert Schaefer, God bless him, steps sort of out, Bill and I, the science guy, steps out and says, UFOs are not a thing. aliens are not a thing or at least they're not a thing on earth here's why they are automatically establishing the importance of the topic right they're basically saying i'm willing to debate with you on this right and and argue against you they they are literally if they want euphology to die just don't talk about it right yeah it's the old like ignore it and it'll go away it'll go away exactly but debunking the act of being a skeptic and listen that's sorry i shouldn't use the act of being a debunker, the act of engaging the UFO topic and saying, you are wrong

because you are throwing more gasoline on that fire. And what it's doing is it's allowing the UFO debate to continue. It's allowing the UFO discourse to thrive. You need the skeptics. I hope Robert Schaefer listens to this. You need the Robert Schaefer's on Facebook calling people out. His actions are literally reinforcing the importance of what you're talking about. I hope he does listen, because I'm excited for the Facebook comments. It's going to follow this. That is a good point. I have to add, there's a gentleman who, and again, like, we've all been there, these

flame wars on social networks and whatnot. You know, there's a gentleman who every time I post something, he challenges it, and he'll go off on me about it, we'll defriend one another, and then three days later, we'll reconnect and be like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you know, like, let's talk about this, you know? And that, that's what keeps me going, is having someone to constantly challenge you to, you know, set you straight when you're starting to veer. And I think that's very important in people like Schaefer, as blunt as they might be, they're healthy for this entire topic. It becomes a big echo chamber. And it also becomes, like, the debate's essential, right? You need

the conversation. You need the back and forth. Because like I said, if no one's willing to talk to you about it. It just kind of goes away, right? It just kind of dies a slow death and the fire burns out and then all of a sudden, like, you know, nobody cares. And worse off, no one sort of in the mainstream cares anymore. And this is kind of a huge aspect, I think, for UFO discourse, is it's constantly trying to move its way into the mainstream. It's trying to unfringe itself. It's trying to untaboo itself. And, you know, every time kind of Neil deGrasse Tyson steps up and talks about it, or Bill Nye releases a YouTube video saying UFOs are bullshit, it pushes UFOs kind of a little more into the mainstream.

Because now you have someone like Bill Nye talking about it, right? And then it causes kind of further research. And, you know, the UFO community is unable to kind of drag a few more people kicking and screaming into the dark pit that it is. And, you know, we have a few more victims to feed upon. So it's a good thing. Overall, debunkers are a good thing. And Flame Wars are fine. whatever, I mean, you know, thick skin and all. But I've never been sort of the victim of really

a major flame attack, so I can't really speak to it. I know there's other people, and I shouldn't say anything, but there's other people sort of in the UFO community who really have been attacked. So I'm sure it's terrible. And I'm being totally like serious and honest. It's probably just discussing what people say. But the flame wars aside, the sort of the honest discussion and debate is what's essential to this, to the survival of the discourse. We have, by the time this, airs we may already have had this information divulged to us, even though it's been about a year since we were supposed to get it. There is a hot button issue that we cannot get around, that we've all been faced with time and time again, and that is the Tom DeLong thing.

I knew it. I hate bringing it up, man. But what are your thoughts on this whole thing? I'm trying to gauge the reaction from people who take this topic as serious as we do. And to have someone of Tom DeLongs, I guess, I don't even know if notoriety is the right word, of his perception within mainstream, being kind of the voice of uphology right now. What do you make of this whole thing? Let's unpack this. Sure. You got your drink? Let's do it.

Yeah, I could use a refill, but it's okay. No. Yeah, I think, yeah, this came up, I think, actually, in a conversation somewhere. My concern with the Secret Machines franchise and the Tom DeLong schick is that because he has sort of significant financial backing, he is able to really permeate his message throughout kind of the fabric of, you know, potentially mainstream culture, but at least within UFO culture itself. And what becomes problematic is that if his message kind of becomes the norm, and it's problematic not because it becomes the norm through kind of academic rigor or it becomes the norm through study or it becomes the norm through actual work, but rather it becomes the norm simply because of his funding.

He's able to just do social media blitzes. He's able to do advertising blitzes. He's able to release whatever he wants and take a financial loss and it doesn't matter. He has significant sort of resources behind him. And what you don't want is for those financial resources to be the reason why his message becomes kind of an ideological norm within UFO culture. You don't want him to become the next kind of ETH in a sense, right? What will eventually occur? And I don't know if, you know, if Mr. DeLong listens to your show, and I hope he does.

I hope you're listening. I'm a big fan of Blink 1282. I grew up in the 90s anyway. So I feel bad. I feel bad being critical. Well, that's a thing. Like, this is a dream come true for someone like you and I who grew up idolizing this band and this, you know, these songwriters.

And now to have them at the forefront of something we find so passionate as UFOs, it was exciting at first. And now it's just sort of a slow burn at this point. Well, and further, like my concern is, is ultimately what happens to the voices of the people within the UFO subculture who don't necessarily agree with his position. Do they get drowned out because his voice is simply louder? And that is the big concern.

He can pump out, like his band, a lot of volume. He can reach high decibel levels. The rest of us can't, right? My blog maybe gets, you know, a few hits a day. You know, I think I maybe get, you know, a couple of things. thousand hits a month. Like, you know, I am not a major sort of voice within UFO discourse. So what happens to sort of all of my work? What happens to my research? Especially if it counters or it disagrees with his, it just simply vanishes, right? And I think what's going to occur is if

the secret machines project kind of continues unabated and it continues on sort of pushing whatever the ideology, whatever the message is, what's going to eventually occur is, is, it's going to kind of wash the rest of us out. We're going to kind of be silenced in this. And we're just kind of vanish and die a slow death as sort of the tom-de-long reality becomes the reality. And that is my big concern. It's not often that people within the UFO community

suddenly are given immense amounts of resources to do whatever the hell they want with. that never happens, or at least it's rare, right? In fact, I don't actually know. Like, I'm not actually sure if I can kind of sort of find someone, right? Like maybe Project Blue Book, you know, but even then they had financial problems. So, you know, ultimately, you don't get sort of these groups that are able to influence the message. And he is able to influence the message.

As a guy who started off as a punk rocker and had a countercultural message, he is very quickly becoming the new culture of UFOs. He is becoming the ivory tower, the elite UFO message. And he is no longer countercultural, right? He is becoming the message maker, right? He's becoming the main point of information.

And this is interesting and then problematic and frightening and cool all at the same time. It really is, man. And it kind of brings up that whole ethical dilemma, you know? I remember once being asked, like, if you You could be given the truth about UFOs, what we know, but you can't tell anyone about it ever, like, would you do it? And, you know, and would you feed disinformation to the public, you know, for us if we were to give you the truth?

And that's something I've struggled with for a really long time, you know, that extremely selfish side of me wants to be like, you know, fuck yeah, I want to know. oh, I've been studying this for half my life. But then, you know, that other side always creeps up and says, like, you know, you owe it to the public to continue the truth and not perpetuating these ideas and this disinformation and this, that, this, that. And you have to wonder with someone like Tom DeLong, like you said, with so much disposable income that it's not about making money for him. The Secret Machines is not a franchise that he hopes to become a second over. millionaire with. Like, you know, I talk to Mike DeMonte about this. You, he doesn't need the money. He doesn't give a shit about the money. Like, he's not making that much off of this. He's probably spending a shit ton of money to get the writers he's working with to, to get the information he's working on. And you just have to wonder, what are his intentions? By getting this information from these people he may be speaking to in, you know, highest levels of authority, or having once been in this highest levels, of authority. What is the end game? What is he getting and what is he being told to give to the public? Let's assume, you know, he's not full of shit. Like, let's assume he's not messing with anyone, right?

Like, I'm willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Like, I'm willing to say Tom DeLong believes 100% in what he's doing. Me too. I don't think he's lying. I don't think he's doing it just for a laugh or just to take the piss or just to take money. Like, I don't think that's his, I don't think that's what he's doing. I think ultimately he believes sort of fundamentally this is what I think is going on with the UFO question. So that's fine. My concern is not that. My concern is that, like I said, if his message becomes the norm, what happens to all of the voices of dissent?

What happens to all the voices who disagree with him? He is, like I said, he's simply able to wipe us off the face of the earth, right? He's simply able to just drown us out with boosted social media. hosts and Twitter, you know, campaigns and whatever, that he can just, you know, do whatever he wants, you know, create websites and, and like you say, hire amazing writers to really sort of push his work, go to Hollywood, right, and create films, you know, like, ultimately his ability to get that message out there is significantly greater than sort of any of us. And in fact, I would say his ability to get that message out there is significantly greater than probably all of the UFO

community put together. You know what I mean? He probably has more financial backing than most of the UFO community combined. When you really look at people within the UFO subculture, like everyone's broke, right? Broke-ass euphologists. It's crazy, right? Because you can't make money in uphology. There's no, there's like there's very little avenue, very few avenues rather to make sort of a living. And I don't mean like a living that you can like you pay your bills and that's it.

I mean like a living and then have disposable income thereafter, right? everyone has a day job right I am not you know financially able to throw you know 60 grand into my work like no chance in hell can I do that right I got mortgage I got you know we got bills and I got kids and what you know so ultimately you know DeLong has this ability to have

significant influence over the UFO community it is scary and you have to wonder if like he says it's true that he was chosen to do this like why why did they pick him and this very well could be the reason The guy doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. He has the luxury of being able to do it and put as much money into it as he wants. What better, I guess, almost like Patsy could you afford at that point?

Again, I agree with you. I think DeLong has very, I wouldn't say altruistic, but he's very passionate about the topic and does want to get the information out there. I don't think it's going to be the information that many of us expect or like, but the mainstream will. And like you said, that's the power someone like him has. Yeah. And I think ultimately, like you say, right, he believes in his message. And this becomes problematic, especially if he's presented with evidence or theory or philosophy or science that counters his belief. Right.

Right. Like he's coming to his secret machines project with, sure, people are telling him things he has evidence. whatever it is, you know, like he's not just walking and making shit up, but he's ultimately sort of getting information from somewhere, but he's believing it, right? Or at least he's believing enough to publish it. If he's presented then with evidence that counters those beliefs, that counters his sort of predisposition, is his, that counters his current ideological sort of baggage that he's bringing to the UFO table, is he going to then say, holy crap, I screwed up, here's the, here's my error, here's what I now think, or here's my new evidence,

or my new theory or whatever, or is he going to keep kind of riding his belief train like most of us do, and he's going to keep saying, well, yeah, that's nonsense. The people who see the bunny rabbit walk out of the UFO, that's nonsense.

But the people who see the grays, that isn't. And again, why is one nonsense and why is one not nonsense? And DeLong is functions with an ideology like the rest of us. He's going to have his own opinions and his own theories and his own thoughts just like the rest of us, and he's going to buy into them,

and you're going to believe them, and you're going to defend them to the bitter end. Not necessarily to make money or sell books, but because that's just kind of how humans function. Somebody counters you on something. You're going to entrench yourself more. And this is, again, my fear, right? This is how the ETH kind of hijacked uphology.

People just believed it, and it became the norm. And now everyone thinks, everyone within UFO discourse, believes in aliens. It's like a thing, right? and is the DeLong incident, is this going to be the new normal, right? Is this going to be the fundamental belief system within uphology, even if current evidence counters it?

I don't know, man. I hope Tom's listening because I don't want to be, I'm not being critical. Like I just, he kind of needs to be aware of the ideological power he has within the UFO community. and the sway he holds. Yeah. You know, if he is listening, which would be amazing,

we're here for you, man. We've both said, you know, if you ever want to reach out, we're here. 100%. Let's try. Never too late to meet your heroes, for sure. Well, you know, moving past the DeLong dilemma, I guess. By the time this airs, it'll probably be out, MJ, but you have a open letter.

to UFO TV producers. Now, we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I want to hear all about this because as a young UFO researcher, I can admit that I have been contacted by dozens and dozens of UFO, excuse me, by TV producers to develop UFO shows. It never happens.

Once they're excited about it, they're like, oh, we're going to go out and we're going to have you like, you know, search on the sky. and climbing a mountain and scuba diving and this that. And then when it comes time for them to actually sit down and do it or put money behind it, it never happens. And that's because there's very little evidence out there for someone on a UFO TV show to actually go out and investigate. So we have a big dilemma when it comes to mainstream television in UFOs.

As hard as they try, it never seems to really work. UFO hunters lasted for three seasons, which is pretty damn good, in my opinion. That's a long time. That's a long time for a UFO show. So what do you think? Why is this? Is it the ETH, you think? Or what is this open letter that you want to get out to those people?

Maybe we can actually get them to listen for once. Sure. Yeah. So the open letter basically, well, it's a little philosophical. So I'm not going to touch on that. You can read it on my blog. But these shows come out. And like I said, they're on History Channel or Discovery Channel or, you know, outdoor life network or, you know, whoever is producing these shows.

They kind of follow the same pattern all the time. But they all fundamentally push the extraterrestrial hypothesis as sort of the key – sorry, they push the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the main sort of ideology of UFO discourse. And they basically say stuff like UFO researchers believe or as much. Mufon files suggest. I'm just joking. They hangar one with stupid. They basically say things like, you know, people who research UFOs think it's aliens, right? And the meme of the guy from ancient aliens with the crazy hair, I don't remember his name.

But, you know, it's like, I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens. That, that meme, everyone knows it. It's the picture of him. It's really permeated mainstream culture to the point where, like we've sort of talked about already, the extraterrestrial hypothesis is to the mainstream what UFOs are. They've become the reality for the mainstream. This is not true. In my article, I kind of clearly state this.

Listen, there's a wide array of beliefs within the UFO community. There's a wide array of positions and sort of ideological standpoints that we all kind of, we kind of debate all the time. we don't really coexist with this idea that it's aliens. We kind of have this chorus of ideas that exist. So my letter is kind of calling out these TV show producers and these documentary filmmakers and the Tom DeLongs of the world. Nah, to kind of look, just kind of, you know, examine the content you're putting out,

knowing full well that it's totally bogus and nonsense. not everyone buys into alien and why do these shows push that idea and really if you really think about it and I sort of touch on this a bit in the article but not much TV show producers produce these shows then for sort of one of two reasons

one they believe in the extraterrestrial hypothesis or they want to kind of push UFO discourse deeper into the fringe by basically saying look at all these crazy people who believe in aliens because ultimately there's no other option. There's no other place that they're coming from. They're either buying into it 100% or they don't buy into it and they're just trying to establish the UFO community

as just a bunch of loony bins, fringe dwellers, right, who believe in ET. So these shows, these UFO shows that come out like Hangar 1, like UFO's The Lost Evidence, which is the newest one that just came out, they kind of subjugate the UFO discourse further into the fringe. They push us deeper into sort of the fringes of mainstream culture. And they don't do us any favors. I have to be honest.

A lot of people kind of say, hey, these shows are great because, you know, finally, you know, history channels talking about, you know, UFOs and aliens for once. It's like, okay, fine, but what damages it doing to the people who are doing honest research? What damage is it doing to the people who are actually out there investigating sightings? And what damage is it doing to the witnesses who report these sightings, especially if they've had like close encounters or contact phenomena or abduction phenomena happen to them? They're getting dumped on this idea that this is what's happening. It's aliens when in reality there's no evidence to support that. Really?

So I think I think my kind of the point of my open letter is to kind of to the people who produce. these TV shows to either kind of, you know, like put up or shut up, right? Produce an honest television show or don't produce one at all, right? Stop producing bullshit. Yeah. And that's kind of what the point of the open letter is. The problem is, I know how difficult this is, right? TV show producers don't really give a crap about you and me or anyone apart from maybe

lining their own pockets or lining the pockets of their bosses. Yeah. I'm not going to get a show now. Holy crap. I take that back. Not all television producers. Some of them are great. Some of them are wonderful human beings who, who, I don't know, donate money to charities and they're wonderful.

But a lot of them really don't care, right? It's just to make a dollar, right, off a show. So ultimately, you know, the UFO community isn't really able to influence these people. Because if they don't care, they don't care. Exactly. The article kind of establishes then what we need to do as a community is all of us, in the community who show up on these TV shows who are on these TV shows need to kind of fundamentally pressure each other.

We need to pressure the so-called experts out there who show up on these TV shows to kind of pressure the TV producers, right? To basically say, listen, I'm not going to say what you've written on the Q card. Absolutely. Because it's total BS. I'm going to say what I think, right? Because I believe it or because I've researched it or because I have scientific. or because I have scientific evidence to support it,

or because I have philosophical rationality or philosophical reasoning rather to support it. Ultimately, we need to kind of be responsible for ourselves as a community, and we need to kind of let the experts within our community, and I put experts in kind of floaty quotes that you can't see because this is radio or podcast, but the big names within the UFO community need to kind of be put on notice, right? And it's tough because, you know, egos exist, right?

People want to be on TV. Hell, I'd love to be on TV. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, if somebody holds a cue card in front of me that says it's aliens, am I going to read that cue card? I don't know when push comes to shove. Yeah. And I mean, the glory of editing is always on their side as well. That's true. You can be like, aliens, you're crazy.

And then, like, they cut out everything about you're crazy and it's just aliens. Aliens. Oh, damn it. Editing. Love and hate relationship, for sure. I've done a couple episodes of a TV show, and I spent hours saying the same thing over and over again, slightly changing a word here and there. MJ literally just so that I would not come off as the hardcore believer,

or saying it was aliens. You know, even just saying the word, it could be, you know. Yeah. Or allegedly. Allegedly makes all the difference in the world. So anyone out there who gets on a U.S. UFO show or gets interviewed about UFOs. Like, challenge them.

See how far you can take it because they can only edit so much. And like you said, if they can't get what they want out of it, they're just not going to air it. And that might be better off for everybody. In my mind, I kind of have an idea for a show that I think you and I could do. And I think that fundamentally, I think it would be a big shift from what's out there. And I think it would be very interesting. And I think it would be honest. And that's kind of the key thing.

I think it would be an honest approach. And it wouldn't be full of sort of speculative nonsense that, you know, it kind of follows the traditional model. And I think that, you know, if there's TV show producers listening, I think, you know, I could probably pitch this show. And I'm pretty sure you'd be behind me on it. Absolutely. I know we've talked about this a few times now. Having imbibed some alcohol tonight, let's pitch this, man. If anyone's listening, MJ and I are available.

we've got the show ready to go and all we need is your faith that we can make it happen. So please pitch this to our audience. So I think ultimately what we would do is we would sort of do a show where you and I travel around the world, Anthony Bourdain style,

like Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown style. And we go to all of these sort of UFO hotspots and these UFO sort of community places wherever they are and we we we drink excellent liquor um from the area you know what i mean like anthony bourdain does right and then we eat awesome food and and a lot of the focus is like on the alcohol and the food and you know the chef comes out you know very kind of like that you know you get to kind of know the place from like a gustatory way right you know we kind of we we eat and

drink our way through i don't know like new mexico or something and then um we then instead of really like exploring and rehashing old UFO cases that no one gives a crap about it anymore or shouldn't give a crap about anymore Roswell sorry instead we we we meet up at these great sort of little restaurants or whatever we meet up with one like experiencer or or or or or contactee or abductee or sighting like witness UFO citing witness or whatever Like we meet with someone who's had an experience, and then we meet with someone sort of in the UFO community who doesn't necessarily need to be an expert. You know, we don't need to meet with sort of the Richard Dolans of the world.

He can be on an episode. He's great. But ultimately we can kind of meet with like, you know, actual researchers. And we can actually have conversations about the UFOs. And, you know, if the producers want to throw in like reenactments or whatever, we can do that. That's fun, you know. And once in a while, you know, we'll go to a really weird place. like we'll go to like the Tibet and we'll go like hunt UFOs in Tibet or something.

You know like we'll go meet with some Tibetan monk who's had a UFO sighting and he's going to talk about like the mystical aspect behind it. And then like we drag along Erica Luke's for the ride or something and she hangs out with us and she, you know, gives her interpretation or something. I don't know. We can do it. But ultimately I think it needs to be like Anthony Bourdain's parts unknown meets like UFO hunters. meets like I don't know I can't

Destination Destination truth or something Right yeah yeah yeah yeah We kind of need to tie them together So it's not necessarily about like Like I said rehashing those old UFO cases Or tying with that It's more about the people right

It's more about the people and where they live And how this influences kind of their UFO experience You know Does growing up in Tibet provide you a different UFO experience than growing up in New Mexico than growing up in Cuba, than growing up in Russia, then growing up in, I don't know, Egypt,

than growing up in like Nairobi and Kenya. You know what I mean? Like, we need to kind of do something like that. That's my pitch because it's honest and we would kind of have an assortment of different, you know, UFO beliefs and ideologies. And we would just eat and drink awesome food. And people who don't care about UFOs

would watch it just for two guys going to eat and drink their way around the world. And people who care about UFOs would be like, great. It also kind of covers all those bases. Absolutely. Well, we're copyrighting this now, man. Boo's food and UFOs. That's right. It's like, yeah, we're caught.

Yeah, 100%. It's going to, yeah. I don't know. I don't have a title yet. I have ideas for a title, but I don't want to say it because someone might steal it. Exactly. Well, you can copyright ideas.

So let's officially say right now, this is ours. Yes. We are 100%. This is our show. If you want to give us money to do it, I'm in. It's more MJs than mine, just for the record, guys, he did come up with this. So I'm just riding his coattails if this ever happens.

But in terms of what you got going on, what can we expect from... First, give us the site, Tara Obscura. Where can we find all of your work? Sure, yeah. So I do contribute to Mysterious Universe. So if you haven't heard of Mysterious Universe, that's Mysterious Universe.org. And you can just kind of go there and I'm sure you can kind of search for my name. I'm all over social media as well, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

it's usually at MJ Benayas or yeah yeah you'd search me up but my main blog where sort of everything kind of that's the hub of everything you can kind of access all of my content through there is www. www.tera obscure.net if you just Google terra obscura blog or terra obscura UFOs it'll definitely pop up and please please please read all of my work it's wonderful I'm just joking most of it's crap but it's okay especially if you're kind of of interested in the cultural aspects of uphology or the philosophical aspects of uphology. I don't really talk a lot about like UFO cases themselves. I talk more about sort of the general UFO discourse as a whole as a cultural phenomenon.

So if that's kind of something that interests you, tarabsecuro.net. That's awesome, man. It's such a refreshing and fresh take on the entire topic. Like I said, I consume your work only as fast as you can produce it. So, you know, I get excited every time I see you come up with something new. You challenge the norm, and we can't ask for more than that when we're looking at the UFO question. And I do want to end with a sentence you have here that I live by and I absolutely love. And that's this, quote, by clearly establishing the spectrum of euphological belief, we understand the playing field.

Who will play and who will warm the bench? we just need to figure out what the game is. Now, as a baseball player, this struck me on so many levels. And I think that is kind of the message we have to keep in mind when we're looking at this is we may never know what game we're actually playing, but we are attempting to play it, not knowing what the real rules are. And that's exciting to me. And that's what you're bringing forth, again, challenging the UFO question. So I can't thank you enough for the work you do.

I look forward to everything you got coming out, MJ. And thank you again for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Thanks very much. It's been a pleasure. That's it for this week's episode. My thanks again to MJ Benias. You can find all his work at terraobscira.net. And also check out his essay in the new book, UFOs, Reframing the Debate. There are 14 contributors to this book, including me, so I may be a bit biased,

but it really is an awesome book. You can find it on Amazon, in paperback and ebook. If you haven't already, please consider rating and reviewing the show on iTunes. It really helps us gain new listeners. I've also decided to extend the contest to win a free copy of my book. Somewhere in the sky is a human approach to an alien phenomenon. So between now and September 1st, I'm giving away three copies. All you have to do is go to iTunes, rate and review the show,

let me know what your iTunes name or screenshot, the review for me, anything, and just send it to Sprag 51 at Hotmail.com. Just make sure I see the rating and the review somehow, some way. You'll automatically be entered into a lottery to win one of three books. It only takes a few moments, but again, guys, it helps out more than you know. If you have guest or topic suggestions, you can contact me on the website, where you can also find all past episodes and articles. That's somewhere in the skies.com.

Thank you so much again, guys, for joining me today. Have a great weekend, and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies. This has been a third kind production. To learn more, visit thirdkind productions.com.