Somewhere in the Skies - Obscurum: Invasion of the Drones (w/ Gabe Lenners)

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

On episode 397, we are joined by investigative journalist, Gabe Lenners, to discuss his new podcast series, OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones. With the recent media frenzy focused on mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, season one of this series, takes listeners back to a unique origin story of this phenomenon, exploring an eerily similar wave of drone sightings that gripped Nebraska and Colorado in late 2019, captivating local communities but largely remaining untold—until now. Listen and learn more about OBSCURUM at: https://www.obscurumseries.com/ Follow Gabe Lenners at: https://gabelenners.com/ 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/ 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

Today on the show, we speak with journalist Gabe Lenners about his new investigative podcast series, Obscureum, Invasion of the Drones. There is a growing investigation to a mystery that is unfolding in disguise. I think we need to figure out what's going on before any accident occurs. Drones have been flying over to the airbrush. What's controlling. What started out is a hometown holiday visit. Changed everything. I thought I knew.

I can't work. about what might happen or the consequences of revealing the truth. There's one right over the top of me right now. Perfect, perfect. Something is haunting me, a key piece of a strange puzzle that's missing. One was directly above her and one was to her left and they followed her roughly about nine or ten miles. It just feels like you're being lost by these machines.

It all began when they arrived. Groups of unidentified objects, hovering. over the prairies in Colorado and Nebraska. She was a lot more concerned, you know, in case they're trying to find people and find kids to nap. Since then, I've been asking questions. You're in the driveway outside your house. What was it doing? It actually rotated looking as if it was peering in each window of our home. I'm game winners, and this is Obscurell invasion of the drones. You hear it. There's two objects.

It's really hard to keep on. It's coming right over me. What in the fuck? You are now somewhere in the skies with your host, Ryan Spray. Now you have this awesome podcast somewhere in the skies. I've been watching some of your episodes. And man, you have some great stuff. Oh, thank you so much.

Well, dude, that's a perfect place to start. Should we just hop in? Let's hop right in. I'm ready. Okay, cool. Um, everyone, welcome. Please welcome to the show for the very first time, Gabe Lenners. Welcome to somewhere in the skies.

It's great to be here. And it's nice to meet you in person as well. Yes, I know. The digital gods have bestowed this upon us. I know I've had your, your voice in my earbuds these past, uh, gosh, a few weeks. I've had the opportunity to listen to the first three episodes of your podcast. Um, all your producers and everyone were so kind to send those to me. in advance. So yeah, we got a lot to talk about, man. I'm excited to talk about the drone invasion.

So the podcast is called Obscurem, the drone invasion. And it could not be more timely, especially right now with everything that just happened, man, in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut. Over here in the UK as well, where I'm located, we had a drone invasion right before it headed. over to New York and New Jersey and those were military bases. So I don't know what's going on, but you're trying to get to the bottom of it in this podcast. So yeah, we're going to talk about the Nebraska

and Colorado drone invasion of 2019, which was huge in the UFO world, back when that happened. So I can't wait to revisit that with you. But before we even do that, tell us a little about yourself, If you don't mind, I know for a lot of our listeners and viewers, this will probably be the first time seeing and hearing you. Well, let me introduce myself.

So, yeah, my name is Gabe Lunders. I am a host, journalist, and producer. I live in Los Angeles. I actually got my start in broadcasting doing weather. I went to college at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. I had this huge passion to spot storms and analyze different atmospheric phenomenon. on. And I thought, you know, that was my end-all be-all path. And I really do love the weather. And I continue to, sometimes I'm still on TV talking about the weather. But I kind of got pulled into this

entertainment industry along the way through, through an internship and some other opportunities. Ended up in Los Angeles, started to do some work and host for Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country, some stuff for GMA as well. And this podcast, Obscureum Invasion of the Drones, actually took me from L.A. back to my route. And Ryan, this story just kind of found me. Really. I didn't go searching for it. And it literally showed up one night when I got a knock at my front door when I was sitting with my parents a couple nights before New Year's Eve in 2019. All right. Origin story time. I love this. I love this. So this is, you know, the Peter Parker moment bit by the spider. How did it all begin? You had a knock on the

door and we hear this story sort of unravel in the first episode of your podcast, like how you just got thrust into this. So that was kind of my first question, Gabe. Like, did you have an interest in like any sort of UFO, UAP stuff prior to this kind of just, you know, seemingly falling into your lap almost? Like, what was your interest in mysteries in our skies, if any? I've always been, you know, interested in different mysteries, especially in rural America. There are so many stories that kind of just go untold. And a lot of times in the mainstream media, they're covering these bigger stories. And, you know, I'm from a town of 2,000 people. And I just know that there's so many things that need to be told. And I, you know, I've made that my mission kind of through this to continue to

bring this to light. But I've always been interested in different mysteries of the unexplained and in different things. And I am a journalist, though, at heart, Ryan. I always like to just go where the facts lead and look at the evidence and try to figure out, you know, what next steps I need to take in order to pursue that story. And that's literally what happened with this. I mean, imagine you're sitting at home a couple nights, like I said, before New Year's Eve. You get a knock at the door. And this police officer, who, ironically enough, I used to go spot storms with,

is like, Gabe, there's all of these flashing lights just hovering above people's farms. And let me just paint the picture for you, the geography in Nebraska. It's flat. There's not a lot of people there. These towns are really spread out in northeast Colorado and southwest Nebraska. And in some cases, there's no one within 15 or 20 miles. And so I got in my car, drove out to the middle of nowhere and looked up into the sky that night. And sure enough, saw all of these red and white flashing lights.

And from that moment, I knew I just had to start asking questions because more than anything, these people who I grew up with had weird things flying above their home. And they didn't know what was happening. And I needed to try at least to do what I could to help them figure that out. So you basically like became a part of your own investigation right at the beginning. Like you actually saw these drones or UAVs, UAP, UFO. Like there's so many terms for these things now. But so you actually saw them.

Well, could you maybe describe that a little bit for us what you saw? Yeah, let me go into detail with that. I kind of jumped again there. So when I went out that very first night, yeah, I looked into the night sky and there were red and white flashing lights. and what I saw firsthand. And you heard me set this up kind of before. I'm a level-headed guy. I'm a journalist.

You know, I'm probably a skeptic, a sheer amount of skepticism. But yeah, I'm driving up there and I see all of these lights and there are these white, bright orb-looking lights. And then there are these red kind of smaller flashing lights surrounding these larger white lights. And these things would hover in the sky. I mean, I was out there for hours, six, seven, eight hours. Wouldn't go anywhere.

wouldn't go charge at like charging stations, and they would just kind of sit in these same areas, and sometimes they would work the sky to the west, sometimes they would move back towards the east. And then around that time, it wasn't just neat. This Colorado-Nabraska drone mystery really started to take shape, and the news outlets started to talk about it, and then some of the big national outlets as well.

But people were seeing these drones, if you will, sometimes 20, 30, 40 at a time over their, over their pasture, just wondering what was going on. And that really kind of set everything in motion in late December of 2019 into early 2020. Right. And, you know, we follow you like in real time as you're trying to sort of unravel, like what is going on? Like in my, not just my hometown, but in the surrounding areas. I remember when these stories started to break nationally. You know, I was living in New York City at the time when this entire Nebraska, Colorado invasion was happening. And the UFO world was a bust.

They're like, oh, my gosh. It's like it's war of the world. It's like this is happening. Yeah. And it's just crazy, Gabe, that we're seeing this happen again in 2024 and bleeding now into 2025. But again, I'm just so happy that you revisited this kind of lost part of UFO history because it was a big deal for these people who saw them, yourself included, and it clearly affected these people. And you had the opportunity to go around and interview people who

saw these things. And some of their stories were pretty unsettling. Are there any of that really stick out in your mind right now. I know two episodes have dropped officially since we're recording this. So I don't want to give away too much. But any really memorable moments with these witnesses that you interview. Yeah. There's a lot. One that really comes to mind is this lady who I met. This happened in episode two. But I wanted to, let me just rewind back. When I started this, the first thing I did after I all those lights that very first night was kind of figure out where these sightings were originating in the area. And since I knew the geography of the area pretty well, I could pretty quickly pinpoint that Phillips County, Colorado was where a lot of people had reported these

first. And Phillips County, Colorado is this county in northeast Colorado. And there's not a lot of people there. There's a town called Holyoke and a few other smaller towns. But I went and tracked down this lady and she was really she was really unsettled i'd saw a comment she made on facebook and i knew i had to kind of get the full story from her but basically her daughter uh was driving home towards their farmhouse one night at the height of these sightings and three of these drones started appearing above her car um and they were about level the level of like a power line and as she's driving back towards her house her cell phone reception starts to mess up and and so much so that she gets a weird number on her caller ID when she starts to call her daughter back after they've been chatting.

And then these craft just continued to follow her. And so it was very clear in that moment that she believed that these aircraft were messing with cell phone reception and they were flying low. You know, with typical drones, they have to stay below 400 feet. And these were very clearly 50 to 100 yards off the ground. in what she described following these people, her daughter. So did she say how long it followed her for? It followed her for a couple miles, at least down these roads. Yeah, it followed her for at least a couple miles, three of them.

Okay. So that seems to me intentional. It's not like she just happened to be there when these drones were there. And, you know, she left and they went on with their business. Like they clearly were interested in her. That's so creepy to think like you're kind of being flanked by these drones and, and that they would follow you for so long. Wow.

That, that I can understand why someone would be uneasy after that. Like, yeah. And as you imagine, why didn't do that? The why is, and the why is what I wanted to figure out in the podcast.

You know, Ryan, as well as me, anytime you have lights in the sky, it's very hard to figure out the what, especially in the real time when it's happening, because you see all these flashing lights and it's hard it's hard to tell specifically what you're seeing and you have to piece different pieces together with eyewitnesses to try to get the best picture of what happened

but in this case i knew that these were flying over such a large area at the same time and i wanted to figure out the why why could they be flying and that's what i dove into in these theories because i know if i could check out different theories i could at least get closer to the answer of why they may be hovering there. So one of the things I really get into first, I touch on this a bit in a couple episodes, is the agricultural thing. Because a lot of people think that, you know,

if people have these fields and they're farmers and they're doing corn and they're having all of these herd of cattle, that maybe there's drones watching like a cow that got away in a pasture and there's drones trying to track down where that cow went. Or we have a lot of spray planes as well in the, area and drones in some cases have replaced spray planes. They have these big arms that stick out and the drones will hover above the crops and spray them. And I thought, well, could this be like a new form of technology that maybe they're testing in the area? But it became very clear early on that

nothing could stay up that long, nor was it as big. Because many people, you know, including myself, describe these as the size of small cars. I mean, to see these flashing lights so far off the ground, I mean, they're huge. Just kind of, you know, going back and forth, it's clearly not related to agriculture. So that was just one theory I kind of was able to to rule out early on. See, and that's what I appreciate about your investigation is like you go in looking for the prosaic answer. I mean, if you look right now, I've got hundreds of UFO books behind me. And I guarantee you, 95% of these books, like their first theory is it's extraterrestrial. And that's just the way that this UFO culture has sort of been conditioned

for 75 plus years now, ever since, you know, the first flying saucer craze happened. And the Roswell UFO crash occurred. And it's so easy to go to that, what we called the ETH, the extraterrestrial hypothesis. But for someone like you, like coming in kind of, you know, no preconceived notions, an open mind, but not too open,

you ask these questions. Like, yeah, could they be mapping an area? Could they be, yeah, like you said, dealing with agriculture or are they military? Like the theories are endless because of the ambiguity

of the mystery in the sky. And nobody's answering it. Look at today. I mean, we're no closer to an answer of what this drone invasion in 2024 is than we are what happened in 2019. And you even spoke to like officials, right? In the podcast about this, yeah. What did they have to say, if you don't mind me, ask? Yeah.

So I get into it with the officials later on as we get into the podcast. And I'll just dive into that with you now. but I think at the very beginnings, I talked to, if you will, kind of a graph of what I did in this thing. I talked to the local people first to really try to figure out what they thought was happening on the ground. And I didn't know some of these people because the area is very spread out. As I said, people live a long distance away. And the stories that they shared were so similar and so spot on. And they didn't even know each other that I knew that what they were experiencing was something they actually.

experienced because these are people who grew up in the area. They have no reason to say one way or another, you know, what may or may not be happening. And at that point, when the local authorities, the sheriff and different police officers weren't getting answers, that's when I started to jump into some people at the federal level. And early on in that mystery, you know, people are always like, oh, there's a cover up. There's something happening. I think early on, no one really knew what was happening at all levels. It was very hard to kind of put your finger on the very beginnings of this mystery because think about it, you have all of these lights just flashing over a huge area, multiple states at the same time people were seeing. And no one can really

wrap their mind around what was happening. Now, you have to factor in two at that time. Everyone was looking for drones after about two weeks because it was such a viral topic that, sure. Was there a level of mass hysteria? Probably. Were people seeing things that were airplanes, hobbyist drones, helicopters, most likely. But was something very big happening there at the same time? Yes. And I think that led to, yeah, like I said, just a lot of confusion early on. Yeah. Again, like this just mirrors everything going on today. I had so many friends in New Jersey like calling me, leaving me voicemails like, bro, bro,

I just take a look at this thing I just saw above my house. They send me the photos and yeah, man, some of them were definitely planes. Some of them were definitely drones. And then some of them, you got me. And after studying UFOs for 20 plus years now, like I looked at some of these images

and even I could, you know, deduce that this was not any conventional drone or airplane. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think about? What did you think about the New Jersey drones? So I was there on the ground for a week when this was going on.

Were you? I'm just curious, you being the expert here. I mean, what did you, what did you think about that whole situation? First of all, it's very flattering. I don't think there's any experts with UFOs because none of us know what the hell is going on with these things. And if they do tell you, then run. Run, yeah. Run, yeah. That's a very good question. So as, you know, this was unraveling, having been in Scotland at the time where I currently reside, it was a little scary because we had them going over military installations here in the UK all across, you know, England, Germany, even some of the Scandinavian countries, even here in Scotland.

And they were going over American bases in the UK, which was super weird. So that was very troubling. It really did unsettle a lot of people over here. And then it kind of died down a little bit. And then it seemed to move over the ocean and started happening on the East Coast in America. And at first, I'm like, okay, people are hearing these stories in the UK and they're getting a little, like, paranoid. like this little fizzle out after a day or two. And as you know, having been there at the time and how viral this story went,

it was anything but like a fizzle out. Like people were just the internet like crazy, which is, you know, I think a part of the problem too is it's so easy to not only misidentify things, but misinterpret. and share misinformation online. People are sending me photos of things. And they're saying, yeah, this just happened in Hackensack, New Jersey. I'm like, oh, that's interesting because I have the same image from Connecticut a week prior.

But I don't know, man. Confusion is the perfect word. You use the word confusion. And I think that's what we're dealing with all of this. So I'm going to turn the tables on you. What was it like being there as that way? happening. So we had just finished production on these first nine episodes in this in this season. The Colorado, Nebraska origin story of obscure invasion of the drones. And I was sitting in L.A.

and I kind of saw this stuff ramping up. And through some of my, you know, regular news contacts, I was talking to some, you know, some people at ABC News and different things on the East Coast. I just kind of made a snap decision around the 9th of December. I'm like, I'm going to take my producer and we're going to book a flight and we're going to fly out tomorrow and just kind of see what's going on and just kind of go to where different things are happening. And so we did that not knowing what would happen. And we got a lot of content. And hopefully we're going to put some follow up episodes together from New Jersey after this. But right when you got there, you kind of got echoed.

of exactly what was happening in Nebraska five years earlier. But one of the strongest parallels is if you look at kind of the timeline of these mysterious drone incursions, I'm sure there's more that I'm unaware of. But in 2019, 2020, you have Nebraska and Colorado. Then in 2023, you have Langley Air Force Base for two weeks, which has been confirmed by the Pentagon that there were drone incursions there. Same time frame in December. And then in 2024, you have these New Jersey, northeast sightings in Connecticut and New York,

kind of around the same time period. So with all that in mind, I wanted to kind of go to in New Jersey where I thought this mystery was beginning. And I went down into this county called Ocean County, where the sheriff kind of had his own group of deputies out really kind of on the hunt for these things as this thing was developing in real time. And so I kind of saw, you know, the different ways people were investigating that. And then also how different congressmen and different people kind of on the front lines were handling it in the press. And so it was definitely a weird situation. And like you said, again, just a lot of confusion and no clear answers.

And I don't think they're there in the first couple days is any deliberate, like we're trying to hide what's going on. I just really don't think people could grasp what was happening anyway. I mean, that's how I feel. And then, of course, you have, you know, people giving statements for damage control. Of course, we're safe. Of course, everything is fine. You know, we know. But I just really, from my reporting, don't know how much is actually known.

The Summer in the Sky's podcast is free to listen to every week. But if you would like to help support the show, we have a very active Patreon page where you give what you think the show is worth. In return, you'll get early access to the main show, bonus episodes, and priority to ask our guests your listener questions. Your support truly makes the show continue and grow. So, to learn more and to join, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. I think you're right and the genuine, uh, intrigue and wanting to find answers is obvious, both in the 2019 incursions and with your

investigation and interviewing officials. And like you said, some of these people in New Jersey, Connecticut, like local law enforcement being like, hey, we're trying. We're trying to find answers. We're cooperating with the FBI. They don't know what's going on. The White House doesn't know what's going on. I have a question for you about that a little later. But the current statements by the White House about all this stuff. But I do want to return to the podcast because it wasn't just like the officials that you talk to and the locals and the witnesses and yourself. Everyone was seeing these things.

But you had one, this moment really stuck out to me. It might have been episode one or two where a gentleman was saying, oh yeah, the rumor was that a nuclear warhead or something like went missing. and the drones are looking for that. And that's the current thing is going on, 2024, 2025. But again, man,

those are the kind of rumors that start spinning and growing on top of one another when there are no answers. So did you find that with the 2019 event too where, like, people were, I don't want to say making stuff up. Everyone's just desperate to find an answer. But, yeah,

were there any, like, really out there sort of things you heard while, the ground there in Nebraska in Colorado. Yeah, the most interesting thing to me about the unknown coming into this world is how people interpret the unknown personally. I mean, I'm sure you experienced that a lot. Yeah, there are a lot of outlandish rumors that people would come up with. But it's like you can't justify how crazy they are until you get the facts because

honestly, some of the things that people are saying could be real. Could it be a criminal organization? Probably not, but maybe. Could it be related to other worldly visitors. Could be. Could it be related to the government. Maybe. You know, so while I heard some crazy theories, I really tried to,

tried to dive into validating or not as many of those as I could quickly. Some of the, yeah, definitely that one of, you know, we're missing a nuclear warhead. You know, one of the things you got to do in a small town is you got to go down to the coffee shop. And that's what I did in episode one because everyone's talking about what's going on. You meet some of the most interesting people and they'll put you in directions that you may not, you know, think about. And they'll say, oh, yeah, Bob came in from, you know, west of the river. And Bob was telling me there were some things hovering low to the river right above the water last night.

Maybe you should go talk to Bob. So that's kind of, you know, where I was still trying to figure out who I should talk to next. That's where I went. And yeah, there were definitely some wild theories. But the nuclear warhead theory that that guy kind of spit out in episode one. I mean, yeah, think what you will. Yeah. I mean, again, this is where we fill in the gaps of uncertainty with these sorts of things.

It's how conspiracy theories are birthed, Gabe, to be honest. I mean, when we're not given answers by officialdom, that's when people start saying they're, you know, aliens from Zeta reticuli or they're, you know, Russia, they're China, they're this, they're that. It's, it's frustrating. But like you said, it's not even so much a cover up of like, oh, the government knows what these are and they're not telling the public.

The real cover up, I think, is that they don't know what it is. And they're trying to play catch up with what the public are seeing, I think there's a lack of just communication in general between different agencies and the government at the local and federal level. There's just not a lot of, from what I experienced, a lot of information sharing that's regularly happening. That I feel like you could squash some of the rumors quickly and instead let's let people maybe sit and think about this, you know, and come up with their own thoughts. you could just say, hey, you know, put out a statement. We had a report of 10 and what people were describing as drones. We have no information to show that they're, you know, anything nefarious,

but they were there last night according to our deputies. We're investigating this. Please be diligent and on the lookout and let us know if you have any other whatever. Instead of just letting people, you know, kind of talk about it. You know, it's like put out, put out a statement and just say, say you don't. know, but you're looking into it, you know, at least you're acknowledging it. Yeah, that's the first step. Absolutely, made. Creatively, I love to know, like, when you started the show, did you, like, map this thing out? Or it sort of sounds like it was

like a real investigation where you were just going wherever the facts led you. I mean, I'm doing a documentary right now where I'm investigating a famous UFO crash that happened. in Nova Scotia, Canada, of all places. Oh, no way. And, oh, man, it's a crazy case. And I had this idea of what it would be. I tried to map the whole thing out. And the minute I got there, it was just like you gave.

Like, you know, one person would say, oh, you got to talk to this. Oh, have you not heard about this part of the case? Well, you got to go talk to them. And then the thing becomes something entirely different than what you intended it to be. So, yeah, long-wind. way of asking you. Like, did this change at all from what you originally thought it would be? Absolutely. And a lot of it developed over time. It's told chronologically as it actually happened, but I captured different content and would check back with different people over multiple years.

And I think as a producer, you really have to keep an open mind and have a skeleton framework of what you want this final product to look like. And this story. and have an ending in mind. But my journalism roots kind of always keep me going back to, you can only produce so much and you really have to go where the story leads. And you can't not go there because you can't predict what's going to happen. And that's one of the biggest things is just to be flexible with the way that you capture your content and your story.

And in this, I mean, basically what you're hearing is how it can. came to me. I mean, it's edited in some spots for clarity, obviously, but it's a chronological, you know, kind of we start a few years later, go back and tell the story and we're almost in present day by the end of it again. And yeah, you just really have to keep an open mind and listen to people on the ground because you could have your crew there. You could be capturing an interview and you may have to go talk to Dorothy in Nova Scotia who lives in a little hut out there on the river. And you didn't know you were going to have to talk to her, but she could have the most interesting thing that you never thought or expected. And so I just, yeah, I can't stress

enough, keeping an open mind and being super flexible. Yes, absolutely, especially when you're dealing with anomalous things in our skies. Yeah, for sure. If there's anything I've learned, Gabe. Another, I sort of, I guess, production question. You're working with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer on this project. How did that come to be? I mean, wow, that's like, talk about pressure. Yeah, I mean, imagine entertainment has made some of the my favorite shows of all time, Friday Night Lights, movies like Apollo 13, a beautiful mind, things that we've grown up with in the entertainment industry. And it's been such an honor to work with that team. And the way it kind of came about was they kind of, they kind of, have heard this story. Some of the folks that worked there were very interested in helping finalize it and bring it to life in the audio department. And so we kind of started working together and building this out. And so Carl Welker, Nathan Clokey, and then Ron and Brian came on as executive

producers. And then of course the team and Imagine. And it's been just a truly collaborative effort to put this thing out there and make a story that is, and produce it in a way that is what Imagine is known for in film and TV in the audio space and really just focus, you know, about how the story's told, the sound effects. And it's almost like you're in a real-life twilight zone and the audio's audio while you're listening to it. And so it's just been an amazing experience and hopefully we'll be doing more episodes in this topic too, because as we know, Ryan, this thing in New Jersey just kind of, I've been working on this for years and then all these drones start popping up in New Jersey

out of nowhere. We were originally going to put this thing out in October and because of some production timelines and stuff, we decided to go at the top of next year. And thankfully, we did because the New Jersey thing just kind of took off out of nowhere. And we were able to kind of move and be flexible and capturing some content there at the same time. Because I always thought, you know, when I was working on this, oh, it needs to get out. It needs to get out. But I do a lot of other hosting and producing things. And I was like, let's just kind of see how this plays out.

Are these things still there? They coming back? Because there was the Langley thing. And I kind of just wanted to watch. And so I think it finally has come out at the right time. I think you're right, man. And those things happen for a reason. I mean, I'm working on a doc on a UFO crash retrieval, like trying to

recover a downed UFO. And I was just like you. I'm like, I got to get this out. It's got to get out before the end of, you know, the beginning of 2025. Like, just got to get it out there. And then what happens about, you know, four to five weeks ago now as we're recording this. But a guy comes forward in front of, you know, Congress and says, yeah, there's secret government UFO crash retrieval programs. This guy worked on it.

This guy worked on it. And then a whistleblower. came forward and said, yeah, I'm the one who retrieved UFOs for the U.S. government. So I'm like, see, there you go. Everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason, you know, and, you know, take your time, make the best thing that you possibly can. And you have such a great group of people who follow somewhere in the skies and your

audience and stuff. They're going to love that story whenever it comes out. And I think it's going to be even more impactful now with all the stuff that's been happening in Congress in different areas. What do you make of that game to sort of start to wrap things up here and bring things current? Like, you know, yes, your podcast, it is about quote unquote like UAP, but I'm sure as the show in Revels, like we're going to learn more about these towns and these people and like this overall mystery and all that. But what do you make of the whole UFO topic and how it's being, I guess, portrayed in the halls of Congress today? in the media.

Like it seems like the topic that was once ridiculed and, you know, people laughed at it for so long. It's now being taken seriously, even by the Pentagon. So, yeah, what do you make of all of that? I think that with not being an expert in the UFO space, but kind of looking at everything flying the past couple of months and kind of following the story, I think it's almost like a circus in the sky.

is happening right now if you think about it. There's a lot of different things happening at the same time, and I think that's being reflected on the ground. But if you look up into the sky now, you have more drones than ever before. They're more accessible to people than they ever have been, hobbyist drones. You have airplanes.

You have helicopters. You have these mysterious aircraft. Then you have anomalous UAPs, which have been reported throughout history, going on at the same time. And in theory, if those are there, which the evidence suggests based on, you know, U.S. Air Force fighter pilots that have captured video and other concrete reports, people coming forward, there's probably different drones studying those or trying to study those. So think about that. You have so much happening at the sky at the same time. And it's almost like this whole story of what's happening on the ground is just transpiring in such a big way all at the same. time in the sky. And I think with a lot of things that have happened recently, even in aviation,

with different things related to airplanes and everything else, it all is part of this broader conversation of safety of we need to know what's flying in the sky. We need to know who's flying it. We need to know where it shouldn't be and where it currently is. And that's one of the things that I really want to help move forward in pursuing the truth with these drones is. You know, it's been reported in history that we've had drone incursions over multiple bases across the country in Ohio, Camp Pendleton, in Texas, and Langley. And it's, I think, you know, for national security perspective, if they're not ours, I think we need to know what's flying there and why.

And I think that's the bigger question is just the safety aspect for me. So I think it's very important that we're talking about this in Congress and at the different levels of government because regardless of what you think of UFOs, there's things flying that we don't know who they belong to. And we need to take steps forward to figure that out. Absolutely. I could not agree more with that. Well, this is season one invasion of the drones. So this would lead one to believe and hope there will be a season two of obscure them. Do you have an idea yet of what you want to explore in that? Has it been done already?

Or where is this all leading, Gabe, if you don't mind me asking? If you can. If you can do it more generally. No, I will talk about anything. Basically with Obscureum, it is a whole brand that is a storytelling brand that looks at an obscure side of rural America. And this drone mystery was set to be the first one. And we were going to potentially move on to a different topic,

which we'd been looking at for a while. But then the New Jersey thing happened. And in the New Jersey thing, when I went there, I was on the ground and was able to interview again about 20 to 30 people as this thing was happening. And so we're going to probably move to put another season of that together next and continue this story because it's really evolving right now, even with, you mentioned, you know, President Trump's press secretary, statements and different things which are continuing to be seen. And there's a lot of things that I want to continue to follow in that and also build on, you know, some of the content that we got. So that will be the next series of episodes, I believe, in this.

And we're always looking to other platforms down the line as well because it's just such an important thing to shine a light on stories, like I said, that happen in rural America that are mysteries that may not get the type of. of attention that they deserve just because on where the story takes place. But with the New Jersey thing, it was just too interesting not to jump on related to the first season because I will say some of the New Jersey content that we've captured is right in line with this first season, if not even crazier than what you'll hear in the first season. At first, I didn't think it was real.

I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place Pluto TV Then I heard a voice Come with me if you want to live There were thousands of movies and shows And they were all free The truth is our sin

It's just so beautiful On Pluto TV free streaming Of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow The 100 NX files may cause excitement Loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials No credit cards or alien encounters necessary Pluto TV stream now pay never Oh wow okay

I love it. Good tease there. Good tease there. And I should let people know, like, guys, listen to this show with stereo headphones because like you mentioned, the music, man. Ooh, it transports you. It's like it's its own character almost. So again, bravo to you in the entire production and creative team. Like it's, yeah, this is top notch. This is top notch. It's five stars in the summer in the skies universe, if that means anything. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, my producer, Jacob Plu as well, has been doing a lot of the music on that and figuring out, you know, how all of that goes in line with the voiceovers and different things. It's been a truly collaborative effort. And he did such an amazing job and the imagined people did. And I'm very proud of how it turned out.

And I can't wait for you to hear the rest of the episodes, too. Yeah, absolutely. So again, guys, the show is Obscureum Invasion. of the drones you can find it wherever you get podcasts we'll have links to everything in the show notes below um one more question game yeah what do you hope people will take away from obscure you mentioned you know sort of telling these untold stories of rural america which i agree is very important but but is there anything else like you really hope the listeners will take away from the show i hope when people listen they're going to be inspired to step into the unknown

themselves and really think about where they live and what questions they're being told and what stories they've heard and how it's so important to be a citizen journalist and a producer and really, you know, raise, raise questions and get answers about what's going on in your community. And I just hope it inspires people to get out of their comfort zone and find stories closest to them that they're passionate about and maybe, you know, dive in and create something of their own or at least, you know, move in the direction of something that will help their community because they've asked those tough questions. I love that.

Yep, the world always needs more stories. That's awesome, Gabe. Well, where can we find everything you're up to if you don't mind? So personally? Sure. Yeah, let's do it. All right. So you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Gabe Lerner's.

And you can also, with Obscureum, you can find more about that, obscuremseries.com. And then we're also on social, Obscurem underscore series, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X. So go follow us there. And it's really cool with this website. We have an amazing team at Labyrinth Brandco, and they are building this whole website. So we're going to have more content on there. And you can actually listen to the podcast straight on the web. website, but yeah, please make sure to just rate, follow, and then leave us a review. We'd love to know

what you think. And if you have any specific tips that we should look into, maybe you've experienced these mysterious drones yourself or whatever they are, leave us a comment on that review and tell us so we can kind of delve into that more and look into it. We may be finding you to have a conversation and talk more. I can guarantee you, man, after people hear this episode, your email box is going to be flooded yes um yes i and i can't stress enough how important it is guys uh with a new podcast to rate and review it so be sure you go to apple spotify make sure you rate and review obscure them um it really helps shows get features so yeah definitely do that check out the website like i said we'll have all the links in the show notes for you guys but game this was awesome man thank you

for taking time to do this with us thank you for revisiting one of the a very obscure moment in UFO history. And thank you for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies. Well, thank you for giving us the time to do this. And it's been so great. And we love what you're building here. And hopefully we can do this again in the future at some point. Oh, we would love to have you back once season two hits and everything.

And I'm just going to tell you now, I'm stealing your term circus in the skies. That's now going to be a trademark.