Somewhere in the Skies - Somewhere in the Whiskey: Part Two

Episode Date: April 23, 2018

On episode 53 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined once again by academic, author, and researcher, MJ Banias. Whiskey in hand, they dig deep into the human side of UFO experiences. Where do we fit into the entire UFO mystery? What motivations could the source (or sources) of UFO phenomena have in the way we interpret and experience their presence in our lives? And just exactly how much whiskey does it take to hear Stan Romanek's name brought up again in UFO discourse? The answer is in this second installment of Somewhere in the Whiskey. Cheers! Guest Bio: MJ Banias is a writer and blogger 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 radio shows, and contributes to Mysterious Universe and Rogue Planet. His work has been included in FATE Magazine, and in a new book entitled UFOs: Reframing the Debate. His work can be found at: www.terraobscura.net Additional music in this episode was provided by Rogue Diplomats. To learn more, visit: www.roguediplomats.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody, before we get to this week's show, I wanted to thank my new Patreon subscribers for their monthly donations to the show. To Jimmy M., Bill A., Jeffrey C., Henry S., John K., Will H., Robert R., and Jill C. Thank you so much for supporting the show. If you'd like to help somewhere in the skies growing quality and quantity and receive many bonus rewards in return, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber today. To learn more and to join, visit patreon.com, backslip. slash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now, onto this week's show.

This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Whiskey, Part 2. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. This is the second installment of this booze-fueled sub-series of the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast. In part two, I continue my conversation with M.J. Benyaz. With our respective glasses of scotch in hand, we dig deep into the human side. of UFO experiences. Where do we fit in when it comes to the mysteries in our skies? And what might the motivation be for whatever lay at the source of the UFO phenomenon? The theories are broad, messy, and downright strange.

And it's all right here right now in part two of Somewhere in the Whiskey. Cheers. So you and I have been going back and forth. You're working on a book project right now, and it ties into a lot of, of what I'd been digging into the last couple years, and that's the witnesses. What role do they play in the greater scheme of all of this? And I argue it's extremely vital.

So hit me. What do you want to talk about tonight with our whiskeys about the witnesses? My question kind of stems. I think we can start here, and we'll kind of see where it goes. A person who has sort of an experience with, let's say, an anomalous event, whether it's a UFO sighting, a close encounter. whether it's an abduction or a contact scenario, whether it's something skin walk or ranchish, whatever, right?

Like whatever a person has, they have this experience that changes in them something. They don't just see sort of a light in the sky and it could be anything, but really they have a fundamental experience that essentially alters sort of their perception of how the world works. how do they how do they sort of move on like how do how does someone

who let's say is abducted and they're convinced it's 100% a legitimate abduction by some other or how does someone who sees a UFO up close you know multiple times and it's not an airplane

it's not a helicopter like they're convinced 100% that it is it's 100% a flying saucer or it's a black triangle or you know it's not from our world or they're see orbs or whatever. We can sort of run the laundry list here. How do they move on? Like,

where do they then go? How do you then go on with your life? How do you, how do you still wake up in the morning then go to Starbucks to get your coffee or Sasquatch coffee? What's your place called? Oh, great blood. Coffee for Sasquatch. How do I get my coffee for Sasquatch? And then go to work, sit at my desk, push my pencil, you know, clock in, clock out, go home, make dinner. And like, like, how do I live my regular life? Knowing that. something else much stranger is going on. So that's where I want to start. How does that happen?

What is the process here? Not a process, but how do you function? Yeah. I mean, well, so these questions really came to light when I started talking about my own UFO sighting. It was something I didn't talk about for a really, really long time. And I'd been researching this phenomenon. I'd been talking publicly about it for years, and I wasn't really divulging too much.

I always... Can I stop you here, actually? Because that's great. Why were you not divulging? I was afraid. I was afraid of what people would think that I'd waited so long to talk about it. First of all, I'd been talking publicly about UFOs for a while. And now I'm coming forward with, oh, I had my own UFO sighting.

Whenever I hear that in this field, it's a red flag for me. I'm like, oh, you've been researching this for decades, and now you're saying you had a UFO siting or an alien abduction experience. It's a reason to hesitate. Be like, why are you coming forward now with this? So I struggled with that, and I remember talking to my significant other about this. I'm like, should I? I don't know.

Like, I'm writing this book, and I wanted to talk just about the human aspect of it. Like, do I include myself in that? And, you know, they said, yeah, of course, you got to do that. Like, that's going to make you connect with the reader. It's going to make you connect with the people you're talking to. But I was afraid, man. I was afraid that I'd be, people would think I was making it up or, you know, trying to elevate the point I was trying to make with the book. And that was my real struggle was coming forward after so long to talk about it.

So I remember one of the first times I talked about it was on an interview with, I believe it was expanded perspectives or maybe Jim Harold even, one of the paranormal podcasts where I finally like made public. that I had my own UFO sighting. And I was really afraid of what the reaction was going to be after that. And that right there is what almost every witness fears when they come forward. You know, the hundreds of people I interviewed for the book, their greatest fear is once that's in print and out to the public, there is no turning back. Absolutely no turning back, especially when I requested that they all use their real names. I was not going to use pseudonyms.

That was something I wanted to make very clear. And I thought that was very important was embrace it. And that was a lesson I had to learn myself while working on this for sure. So do you feel that there's sort of a bit of a stigma within, let's say, the UFO community overall? And particularly amongst, let's say, witnesses and experiencers that people within the community who have not seen a UFO or who have not had an experience, that they're somehow, I don't know, not lesser, but they're somehow in a less privileged position, let's say. So, you know, oftentimes I'll write something or I'll say something on a podcast. And then automatically, you know, someone will post a comment or someone will send me an email saying like, you know, you've never seen a UFO or you've never been abducted or you've never made contact. Or you're not an experiencer.

So, you know, close your damn mouth. You don't know what you're talking about. And it's true. I have never had a paranormal experience in my life, at least not one that I could sort of be like, well, it could be something else. So, you know, I'm not by any means someone who's had a strange experience. do I then come from a sort of a less privileged position compared to someone who has? Does an experienceer then have sort of a right in a sense to be like, you know, you know what you're talking about, man, and sort of read me the riot act?

No, no. I don't think any witness or any experiencer has any right to make cast judgment on someone who has not had the experience. In terms of that, I think the same could be said for those who judge those who have had the encounters. I think it really comes down to the dichotomy of, I know, what I saw and on the other side, I wasn't there. Yeah, exactly.

There's a mutual respect that needs to be between the experiencer and the non-experiencer of being like, look, yeah, you had the experience, but you can't sit there and tell me that you know exactly what happened to you. And on that flip side, I think that experiencer has every right to say, well, this is what I saw, this is what I took from it, and let's go from there. I think there can be a healthy debate between a non-experiencer and an experiencer in terms of respect for one another. I don't think the experiencers or witnesses have any more credence or have any more clout when it comes to investigating these things because you need both sides of that. Again, that's why I like this podcast, the Ross and Kerry one, where you have people outside of the UFO field commenting on it and being open to the possibilities and really trying to be compassionate.

I think that's another big thing is in interviewing hundreds of people about their experiences, of course I cast judgment in some cases. But I also had to have remained extremely compassionate that whatever happened to these people, it did affect their lives. And I'm not going to take that from them. I'm not going to say, oh, your wife left you. That sucks. I still don't believe you. Like, I can't do that as a human being and as a researcher and investigator. I can't put that on them.

I'm going to say, wow, I'm very sorry to hear that. Let's talk about what you experienced. So it's very, it's messy, man. It's really messy. So then, okay, so here comes then sort of, I mean, the follow-up then becomes, okay, so I, sorry, I'll take a step back. I agree with sort of everything you're saying. Like, I totally do.

But then what about sort of the experiencers who we often then lump into sort of the charlatan, the charlatan category, right? So does that mean I then have to have respect and accept the stories that are told to me by, let's say, a Corey Good or who's the guy who released got, like, racked up for child porn charges? What's his name? Oh, Romanik. Yeah, Stan Romanek. Do I have to kind of then be like, okay, well, he's claiming to be an experiencer. I have no evidence to suggest he's not one.

Just like any experiencer, I have no evidence to suggest that they're not one. And they typically don't have any evidence to suggest they are one, right? there's nothing that they can sort of hand to me and be like, yeah, they wrote me this letter, here you go, like a doctor's note. So do I then, so what I do in the Stan Romanuk situation, who it's someone clearly who has been sort of hoaxing a lot of, a lot of his experiences, let's say. He claims he's not, but again, I don't necessarily have physical evidence of just he is.

Meanwhile, like, the pictures are just like totally Photoshop. But do I then have to sort of give him the same respect? Like, am I bound to this rule? Like, is it all experience? and I just have to buy in wholeheartedly. Or can I be critical, meanwhile, knowing that I'm going to alienate a bunch of experiences who potentially have had real experiences or, you know, who are just liars? Like, you know, like, how do we deal with the Corey Goods of the world or David Wilcox?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these, the people you're mentioning, I think, you know, these incidents, they do not exist in a vacuum. I mean, we have to look at it in terms of, yeah, Romanek definitely has hoaxed things. Corey Good, the other dude there, they definitely hoax things. My big thing, man, is, was everything Stan Romanek, was everything Corey Good did, was it all fake? You know, was there some catalyst event that was genuine and that they genuinely believe happened to them? And on the flip side, everything thereafter do they genuinely believe happen to them?

Even if they did hoax it, we run into this all the time where they buy into their own self-delusion at times as well. And I find that fascinating too. So in terms of like, do you have to have the same mutual respect? I don't think so. But the more I'm looking into this, the more I'm trying to temper my gut primal instinct to judge them, to hate them, is to look at what they're saying and like you said, be critical, extremely critical of it and take what you can from it. If you don't believe any of it, that's fine. Again, move on. You don't have to try to. be the justice warrior to bring them down. They're going to do that to themselves eventually. We see it all the time. These people who start these UFO cults as they were, even cult of personality, eventually it fizzles and they fade into obscurity. And I think it's the people who do the research and have facts and evidence to back it up

that can really, that really shine and really, I guess, you know, survive the apostrophe. the apocalypse that comes time and time again with this field. You know, it makes me wonder if, like, with the more charlatan aspects, like, let's say the Stan Romanx, it makes me wonder if, like, let's say there is an intelligent phenomena occurring, like, does it get pissed off with them? And then it cleans up its own mess. You know what I mean? Like, maybe, like, I'm just going to, we're going to kind of go on a wild speculation

right here, but let's say Stan Romanuk did have an experience. Let's say he did, let's say he was abducted by something. Like, I'm not claiming aliens or extraterrestrials. whatever the phenomenon is. He had an abduction experience. And then he, you know, he sort of started talking about it and he gained a bit of notoriety. And then obviously sort of he began to kind of keep playing upon that. And, you know, he started to maybe fake a video or two or fake phone calls or fake pictures.

And you know, enter Stan Romana. Is it possible that the phenomenon was sort of being like, son of a bitch? And then it kind of went in there and was like, I'm going to make sure like you don't walk away from this. And it sort of like, like I mean like cleaned up. own mess and kind of ruined him. Like, you know, it led to a series of events that put him in a weird situation where there was child porn on his computer and, and destroyed him, right? And he, you know, he's obviously going to claim that it was planted by the cabal or who, you know, his enemies and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whether it's sure or not, I don't

know, but, you know, it's interesting to think about, you know, this whole thing with Stephen Greer, right, and the otakama humanoid, right? It was recently released that, you know what, it's human. DNA evidence proves it's a human. There's nothing curious about it that suggests it's extraterrestrial or anything. It has some weird mutations granted, but it's human. You know, is this the phenomena kind of being like, okay, asshole, you know, DNA results? Here you go. Human. Like, I'm wondering maybe, you know, is this possible? Is George Hansen right? Are we dealing with a trickster who's going to screw with you if you, you know, get too big for your britches? Yeah, it's an interesting concept, man. I mean, I'm laughing as you're saying these things. But, like, that it is possible, I think. I mean, let's look at like, you know, Willie Streber. Let's look at the, the experiencers we all know and who at this point, we have some doubts about the follow-up events that happened to them or the extent in which they are connected to these phenomena.

Maybe, yeah, maybe it is some grand social experiment to say, oh, let's fuck with them the first time to see how. they react thereafter. Let's see if they can do it without us. Like, what, what, what are they going to perpetuate after we do this to them? And, you know, that's something I, I kind of kept in mind when I was doing, a big part of my book was the aftermath. Again, like, where does your life go after that? And how does it affect everything in your life? And I kept thinking, like, maybe there is this, this intelligence looking over each of these people and seeing how it affects them and where that's going to lay in their grand cosmic agenda of some sort. It is a fascinating thing to think about.

Like, are they the puppeteers in this, this, this, this puppet show? I don't know. I don't know. Like, Valet posits that it's like some sort of control system in, it's either in confrontations or in Invisible College, I don't remember. But he suggests that, you know, maybe the UFO phenomenon, it's not aliens. I don't think. Valet would probably say it's never, or it might be, but he would probably say it's more,

he argues some sort of control system. Like is this control system then one like you know is it going to be petty enough to do that? You know, but it's really interesting to think about if if it is a control system and it is creating situations where people have strange experiences, will it self-correct if that individual who had that strange experience starts to create other strange experiences for themselves that it wasn't responsible for? Like, you know, will it automatically remove that system out of itself so that it doesn't compromise? the rest of the system. Say that is, you know, what's going on. There is some sort of control system. They want to see what happens and then they're going to self-correct it.

But what, to what end, I guess, would be my question. Like, are they looking at this from an ethical point of view? Are they looking at this from, like, what, does it change their belief system? Is it all of these things? Or is it none of these things? Like, what is the point of the controlled system, I guess? And, you know, I will never be able to answer that, I would assume. But I do wonder, like, if they did have.

one genuine experience and then they want to see what they do with it afterwards like to what end like what is the motivation of whatever lay behind this yeah i would say like logic and rationality is probably not part of the equation right like you know like humans function in logic and rationality but it's not necessarily like anyone else does so so if there's a control system whatever it's doing it's functioning by its own standard whatever that is so again maybe as a control system again we are speculent we are going down the rabbit hole. Oh, yeah. But, you know, maybe if the control system's intent is to provide humanity with sort of

a fundamental connection to, let's say, something otherworldly or a connection outside of the cell, right? So I want to, we, as a control system, our task is to ensure humanity always remains connected to sort of this other side, whatever it is, this other. You then have individuals who are creating false connections. You then have an individual who's saying, yeah, I had a connection, but now I'm going to fake a whole bunch of shit to create more connections. But the problem is they're all, like they're all,

they're all untrue and they lead to nowhere. There's no, they create a connection that has no end point. So the system then is like, well, there's a, this is a flaw within the programming. Therefore, we're just going to erase it. And, you know, erase enough flaws. You eventually need to erase the source of the flaw, right? Like, you know, like a computer system will sort of, will, an antivirus program will quarantine a virus until it can delete it from the system.

maybe that's what they're doing. Maybe, Stan Romanuk started, you know, preaching too much bullshit and he was quarantined and then they, well, he's in jail now, so he's quarantined.

And now they're just waiting to erase him. But you see with Stephen Greer and this whole out of comma thing, right? You know, he made these big claims that it's not human,

it's an alien and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the system is self-corrected. Right? No, it's human. Now he's going to have to deal with all this, he's going to deal with a lot

of real life shit. Like, he, he's holding onto a dead body, right? And it's human, And it's an antique. Like, it's a piece of human antiquities now, right? Like, I'm sure there's laws that are going to now be like, okay, you owe us money because

you stole a body from the Chilean government. Like, I can imagine the shitstorm that's going to hit him with fines and paperwork and he's going to have to return it or, you know, give it to a museum. Like, I can imagine just the Chilean antiquities office, whatever it's called is going to knock on his door and be like, hey, man, we want our dead body back. Oh, my God, I would pay to see that. Right? And because ultimately he can sort of hold on to the fact, well, it's not human. Therefore, you have no claim. Now the evidence is out. Pre-reviewed evidence, it's human. So he has no rights now to claim that he has ownership over it, for example. It belongs to the Chilean government. So I don't know, man. It's hard. It's hard. The control system, baby. The control system. The control system aspect is extremely interesting. And then, I mean, take the UFO phenomenon out of the equation. Like, then you have another.

as it were, completely separate from that. Like, let's look at, you murder somebody and you don't get caught. Like, what do you do from there? Do you admit what you did, or do you spend the rest of your life covering this thing up and hoping for some, you know, that this lifetime, you won't be pegged as a murderer for the rest of your legacy, I guess. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of people who have killed people and have never been caught and live probably

happy, very happy lives. Of course. I don't know. That's an interesting way of looking at it. I never really considered like something outside of the phenomenon as being part of it. It's hard. Yeah. I mean, because then you go into every rabbit hole of like, you know, is the paranormal connected to that or is it completely separate from the UFO phenomenon? And is it the same for that. Like, I saw a ghost. No, fuck you. No, you didn't. Like, that's bullshit. It's. And then you make a career out of it and you make, you know, Bilbo Baggins or whatever his name is that has the Demon House documentary. Did I just make a Lord of the Rings reference? What's that dude's name? Begging something? I don't know.

I don't know. What happens then when like UFOs are responsible for killing people, right? And this happens, right? Like there's recorded UFO incidents where people die, right? Like Mantel and I think, again, one of Valet's books where he's like in Brazil investigating like and like flying refrigerators or whatever they look like. And like five people died in Brazil as a result of these things. So it's like, okay, now, so now what's being self-corrected here?

Or is, are we totally wrong? The control system is totally not what's going on. And rather, we just have, like, UFOs that murder people out of some weird, like, sense of, like, ethical duty or justice or, or just they're just evil assholes, right? Like, you know, maybe we're dealing with real pricks out there who just want to kill us. Yeah. I don't know. Or they don't give a shit, and they're stepping on ants just like we do.

Who knows? Right. Yeah. Who knows? Anyway, we went a little off topic. Yeah, sure. Where should we try to rain ourselves in here? The whiskey's kind of kicking in, so I don't know anymore.

No, we were talking about witnesses, and we were talking about, like, how do you move forward? How do you move on from having an anomalous experience that really changes your life? Where do you go from there? How do you continue buying Starbucks or Sasquatch coffee? Yeah. I mean, for me, and again, I don't want to just speak about me, but I want to talk about the other witnesses. It varies from person to person. I mean, there's people.

The story I always go to is this woman Patty, who I spoke to, who had a UFO setting with her two daughters. Now, it was a singular event for the daughters. It was an ongoing thing for the mother who said she had experiences thereafter. So, I mean, right there, you've got, like, two daughters who saw what they saw. It impacted their lives, but it went no further. They never wanted to talk about it again. And then you have this mother who fully embraced the experience. and apparently had experiences thereafter.

And I'm not saying apparently in any sort of, you know, disrespectful way. You just don't know. There's no evidence to suggest that it's real or not. Exactly. You know, I do come to the defense in every single person in my book that I genuinely believe that they believe these things happened. You know, casting judgment aside. Whatever happened to Patty, it was incredible. It was extraordinary.

And I do believe it happened. I really, really do. whatever that was, I'm not even going to venture, I guess, because I don't think that's my place as the investigator or the interview. I wouldn't say investigator. As the interviewer, it isn't my place to come to a decision about what happened to someone when I wasn't fucking there. You know what I mean? Right. I want, like, the romantic poetic part of me here wants to say, oh, my God, that coffee tasted different after I had my UFO sent in.

Or colors were more vibrant. But you know what, man? Like, I had my sighting at a very young age and it could have been anything. It scared me more than amazed me or, you know, opened up my eyes or awareness. No, it fucking scared me. And I was terrified. So I started looking into UFOs and are they going to come kill me? You know, the first book I read was Crash a Corona, Stan Friedman.

And now I'm like, I saw this thing in the sky. And now I learned they're crashing and like the government's covering it up. Like, what the hell do I do now? And no one's talking about this? I didn't want to leave my room after that, dude. And then I start reading about, oh, they're peaceful aliens that are visiting us. No, they're coming to invade us. No, they're creating alien human hybrids.

And again, it just goes off into every avenue from there. What I learned, and again, I'm rambling a little here from whiskey, but what I learned is that every single person is different when these events happen. I interviewed my uncle who had a dramatic UFO sighting while in the military, and he saw it, and he didn't ever want to talk about it again after that. He was like, oh, that was really interesting. Moving on with my life. I have to go fight in fucking Vietnam. Like real shit's going on.

That was cool, but all right, let's do this. Whereas someone like Patty, this became an integral part of her life. Or Michael Carter, this dude who had an abduction experience that he perceived as. religious in a way and he became a pastor after that. So again, like his event directly changed the course of his life where someone like my uncle, it happened moving on. So again, like, I think I set out to find patterns and to find like one road to take when it came to the implication or aftermath of an experience or citing. And the biggest lesson I learned is no, no, that's not what the phenomenon unintended and I don't think that's that's what we're trying to really find is one answer to it all

either. Would you say though that like all of the experiences you spoke to or all the witnesses you spoke to, would you say that they sort of walked away with this sort of understanding that, you know, everything they learned in school or everything they were taught by their parents or everything that they sort of assumed to be normal and real no longer necessarily was? You know, like, did, did they walk away? Yeah. Did they walk away? Yeah. Did they walk away, realizing that they weren't in Kansas anymore. Some of them, again, like, I wish I could, like, directly say yes or no. But even your uncle, like, even your uncle who, you know, would he, does he sort of walk around

this world? Yeah, okay, you know, I had this experience, whatever, and he sort of written it off, let's say, or he sort of, you know, tried to move past it without really thinking about it much. Would you still say, though, that he sort of still perceives the world as being slightly strange or slightly, you know, reality is being slightly different because he had this experience. That's a really good question. And he's probably not the best example for that, only because I asked him, I'm like, did you believe in like UFOs or ET before this event happened to you? And he said, I was, you know, I was indifferent about it. After I saw what I saw, I believe that what I

saw was not from this earth. And I was like, all right, all right. Well, did, so you're saying that changed you and he's like no I believe there was life out there before this happened he's like this is just validation for me I'm like all right well did that change your complete perception of your reality he's like no he's like I just added it on to the beliefs I had before and the beliefs I have no so it's interesting like I wanted to find a dramatic change in every person I talked to and sometimes it's just not there and I was frustrated by that because I wanted you know that that's you want that You want the meat. You want like those, those stories that are going to pack a punch and make people believe.

But at the same time, for someone like him, he was like, saw it. What did I do after? I had a cigarette. And I went and had a beer. Wow. Interesting. You know? Yeah.

Whereas all these other people, yeah, it changed their lives. So I don't know, man. It really runs a gamut. And I guess what I set out to do in the book, I kind of succeeded in. But at the same time, I still have so many questions. about the actual implication to having a UFO encounter. Yeah, I find it fascinating me because you have people who have UFO encounters and they just, like you say, they walk away from them.

Or you have people who are like abducted and they never talk about it. They don't pursue it anymore, right? Like they sort of swallow it up and they kind of just leave it inside. They know they don't go out. They don't do research. They don't start meeting with other people like them, right? Like they hide it versus other people who become. full-fledged members of sort of the UFO community, right? They start doing reading books,

they do research, they start participating in conversations, and all of a sudden they're on the long list of experiencers who are on Facebook or on, you know, Reddit or whatever, who, in the various forums, who have had these experiences, and they talk about them, and they become members of the UFO community. This is, this is interesting to me. Like, it's interesting that sort of people cope with it, I suppose, or deal with it in different ways. But again, from a subcultural perspective, which is sort of my ben, like as a, as someone who studies the UFO subculture as a group. I find it compelling that there are,

there's a whole host of individuals out there, countless individuals. We just don't know the number. Right. You have had wild anomalous, frightening encounters with either UFOs or beings or the other, whatever it is, and they're not part of the community.

But are they? My big struggle, too, man, is like, if there is a UFO, quote-unquote, subculture, are you a member of that subculture if you had an experience and continue to pursue it and talk to others about it? Or what if someone like my uncle who had a one-time event? Is he part of that subculture of that community? I find that fascinating too.

That's a fundamental question. Like, you know, typically the definition of a community or the definition of a subculture is a group that engages with whatever their interest is, right? You're not a member of the knitting subculture if you don't knit. If you sit there and think about knitting every once in a while or you've knitted once, that doesn't necessarily make you a member. You've knitted once, who cares? I went to like a screamo, like, goth concert once in my life. Do I consider myself a member of like the gothic subcultures? No, not at all. You know, the experience was typically awful to me. But, you know, like, but I engage with the UFO

discourse, right, pretty regularly. So therefore I consider myself sort of a member of the UFO community because I participate in the conversation and the debate in examining the phenomenon. But if you have someone who has an experience, but they walk away from it, they, I refuse to even, even Google the thing and they don't engage with it whatsoever. They don't read a book. They don't talk to anyone. They're just, I was in this situation. It happened and that's it.

And they go on with their lives, obviously affected by it, but they go on with their lives. Are they members? Because we just don't know, right? We can't talk to them because they don't reveal themselves. They don't ever come and be like, yeah, I had this happen to me until they do, at which point then maybe they become members, right? Because now they're talking about that experience. Right.

And I think it comes at the choice of the individual, too. I mean, you know, when something like the Roswell Slides thing happens, I want to run and say, nope, I'm not a part of the UFO subculture community. When something like the Pentagon story comes out, I'm like, yep, told you guys, I'm definitely burning. You know what I mean? It's like owning up to it when it's good, but not when it's bad. And I think that's a bad thing to do, obviously. Like, you got to take it for the bad and the good. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

You make a good point. Like, are they a part of it? And does that even matter? And that's the bigger question. Yeah. Like, does it really matter? And yeah, man. I don't know, dude.

It's tough. And I think what's really, really important is that we do give the witnesses, you know, a voice to get that out there. You know, I... Of course, yeah. You said you have not had an experience, but you are writing about it. are talking about it, you're interviewing people about it. And same with me. Like, if I'm going to have a podcast or go on for an interview something, whatever, write a book, like, if I have the ability to do that at any level, whether it's to the mainstream or just to the community, like, just to get those voices

out there to be heard. You know, whether, whether it's real or not, it's so tough. But yeah, just giving people a voice and an outlet to get it out there because they believe this happened and sometimes that's all the closure they need is to like get it off their chest. Yeah, no, and I agree with you there. I think, I think the biggest disservice that you can have sort of towards sort of the UFO discourse, the UFO debate or the phenomenon itself is to treat the witnesses sort of as the least important aspect. Yeah, exactly.

And fundamentally, they're the most important because without them, you have nothing. But again, like I almost, you know, the old academic side of me is sort of I have to be a little cautious here because then, you know, what do I then say to all the individuals who are clearly lying or they're clearly making shit up? Maybe they're not lying initially, but they're clearly making shit up now. You know, we have to kind of run a cautious course because you don't necessarily want to, you know, for the lack of a better term, alienate the people who have had legitimate experiences but can't back them up. It was really fundamentally every single UFO experience out there that anyone has ever had sort of does. doesn't have enough evidence to really support it to say this happened 100%. There's exceptions. We can talk about physical evidence and trace evidence and artifacts and radar hits and whatever. We can talk about that. And that's sort of different. But the vast majority of experiencers I speak to, they have nothing to back up their story

apart from their story. So I have to decide if I believe them. Do I have, do I put my faith in you as a person that you're telling me the truth? Or at least you're telling me the truth in that you believe that it happened to you. And that's fundamentally, I think, a huge aspect of, I think that's one of the strengths of the UFO community, right? Is that we typically as individuals, as a group of individuals, sort of like the underdog. And we typically want to listen to the underdog. And we're typically fine with being like, you know what?

I believe that this happened to you. Or I believe that you believe that this happened to you, right? We'll go that far. That's one of the strengths. But I would also say that's this fundamental weakness, right? Because the second you go that route, anyone can be an experiencer because any story is as legitimate as any other. The story of a person being abducted by the Grays is no more or less legitimate than a person who's standing in their backyard and an orb shows up and a giant bunny rabbit walks out of the damn thing. Both are incredibly high strangeness, but both are as supportable, right?

The person who saw the Grays can't turn around and say, well, that bunny story is bullshit. as much as the person as the bunny story can be turned around and be like, now the gray thing's bullshit. So, yeah, we're kind of in this weird nebulous zone. And this is kind of what I'm trying to chisdell out in my book. I'm trying to figure out how this sort of works, I think. And this is why I'm talking to you because you've had a lot more experience talking to witnesses than I have. I've spoken to my fair share, but, you know, not like you.

So I'm sort of, I sort of want to glean insight from your vast amounts of knowledge. Well, I think it's really important what you're doing, man, because, I mean, it was, I'm not saying what my book did was, you know, revolutionary by any means. People have been interviewing witnesses since the dawn of uphology, this is the dawn of UFO sightings. But putting the focus on that and seeing what you can extrapolate from that, I think, is extremely important. Maybe even, you know, beyond the UFO field or the UFO question, it's like, how does something that happen in your life that's so extraordinary and challenges your perception? Like, how does that change you? And again, that's

always fascinated me most. Maybe it's because being a playwright or being an actor. Like, that's what I always focused on in anything in my life was the person and how it changes. Like, that's, you have no character if you don't have them change. Like, that's just, it's not a story you

want to follow. So, that was my intent with the book was to not look at these people as fictional characters, but as characters in their own one man show or one woman show of what happened to them in where to go from there. What I think is important is, you know, maybe that's a starting point, is

here's their stories, this is what it did to them. Okay, so what does that mean in the grander scheme of things? And I think that chiseling away that you're trying to do right now is going to be a step further. And then maybe someone else picks up the ball, the co-creation hypothesis, something like what Greg Bishop is looking into, you know, and it's just constantly like feeding, feeding that new theory and putting the focus on trace evidence, radar evidence, videos, like, this hasn't proven anything to us yet. All right, let's shelf that for a minute. Let's look at the human side of it.

All right. So what's it doing to us? How is it changing us? How does that change our belief systems? How does that infuse itself into psychology, into sociology, into, you know, everything, everything you can think of, theology. It's fascinating. And I think that's a road worth taking.

and, you know, if it's not the right road, we're going to do a U-turn and go another way. And that's what this field has been for 70-plus years now. Clearly, we haven't found an answer, and I think that's okay. And I don't know if we're ever going to find an answer, but I think it's great, man, what you're doing. And again, like, before we even, before I knew that you wanted to talk to me about this on the show, I was nervous because I'm like, I don't know, I don't know what they're answer is, I don't know what to tell him. And the more we're, you know, going through it, the more

I'm comfortable saying, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you, but this is what happened to them and this is what they took from it. You know, it's interesting. Again, from a cultural standpoint, the UFO community is full of people who have undergone this chain. Like, you know, you mentioned. So, you know, yeah, a UFO witness or UFO experiencer undergoes this sort of change. Now those of, that group of people then sort of coalesces into a culture or community. So now you have this massive community of people who have undergone this change. And it's sort of reached this large mass, right? I don't know how many people are in the UFO community or the UFO subculture,

because I don't think you can delineate borders. But we're probably dealing with very high numbers here. So you now have this massive collection of people who have all experienced strange things, or people like me who are willing to accept that other people have experienced strange things. So whether you're an experience or not, all of us buy into the idea, at least fundamentally,

that something odd is happening. From the experienceer end, those sort of we trust, we trust that they have had a strange experience and people like me, the rest of us, we just believe you. So now what does that do? Now that you have a community of individuals

who are coalesced like this, who work towards a common series of understandings of potentially what is, causing this phenomenon, what does that then do to the phenomenon itself? Are we a sort of, I don't use the term beacon, but are we a sort of beacon for the phenomenon? Because now you have people who have interacted with the phenomenon, and then you have people who believe them. Is the phenomenon then shaping itself around what the subculture thinks or what the subculture perceives or what the subculture creates as ideology or paradigm? Are we and the UFO or the

phenomenon, are we in a state of symbiosis, right? Is it feeding off of us and are we feeding off of it simultaneously, like ying and yang's kind of style? Yeah. And this becomes really complicated because typically that's how subcultures generally work like this, right? Punk music, the punk music, that's how we're talking along a little more. The punk music subculture, punk music feeds off of what the subculture wants and what

the subculture wants to listen to. And in turn, the subculture feeds off of what punk musicians create. Right. So subcultures generally work in this perfect symbiosis all the time. Because ultimately, if the punk music creators or producers stop producing punk music that the subculture wants to feed on, they just simply die. Right. They become irrelevant and they disappear. So ultimately, you need to have this constant back and forth.

The subculture creates the situation, and then the situation feeds off of the subculture. Right. Right. So are we dealing with a similar thing here? Is the phenomenon itself feeding off? of the subculture and we're feeding off of it. It has all subcultures function like this. Right, right. It's a constant, you know, give and take.

And I think that's a really, really good point of, you know, let's say this is a non-human intelligence at the control of the UFO phenomenon. Let's just say that for now. Yeah, sure. Maybe, maybe the fact that, all right, they saw us or they had an experience with us, and now they're starting to talk and now the people who have been to, experienced what we've done or the intervention we've brought to them. They're now talking to them and starting to believe, like, is it this, is it fuel for them to finally be like, okay, now we're

going to make our arrival as it were to them? Like, is there a certain number they have to get to on this planet, you know, to convince us that it's real, that, that they're coming or they've been here? I find that fascinating. Like, is it the, the people who experienced it and those who didn't, and that just builds and that builds. And, you know, is it that it gets out to the mainstream through our media throughout the world? And now more people than ever believe it's possible. Okay, now they're ready. Let's do it.

I'm just saying, that's a very sort of ETH approach, right? Like, that's sort of assuming that, you know, I mean, ultimately, we can go even deeper. We could look at this sort of from like a consciousness level or from like a Jungian standpoint, right? Right. where you and I are individuals who participate in this discourse. So we sort of have, I don't want to use the cliche of opened our minds, but we appreciate the possibility that something strange is going on. So therefore, you know, we've somehow allowed ourselves to exist within this world where

we buy into reality, but we also don't buy into reality a little bit. So we exist in a sort of dualistic realm of, you know, the going to Starbucks and buy my coffee realm, but also this odd, curious realm where paranormal events happen and everything's sort of connected or, you know, via some sort of unified unconscious mind or whatever, the control system, whatever it is, you know, is that control system or is that intelligence that exists within consciousness itself or is this intelligence, whatever it is, using the subculture as a sort of idea feeding ground. So people, for some reason, think, um, aliens look like grays.

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Modify. Terms apply. Or people for some reason think the phenomenon is the graze. Therefore, we're going to give them grays because that's what they think, right? It's almost like Greg Bishop's Co-creation, right? Like they're sort of like these sort of shape shifters that not, again, that's kind of ETH-ish. Whatever the intelligence or the phenomenon is, it just kind of becomes what we need it to become. But in turn, because it's becoming what we need to become, we're feeding off of that and continuing to sort of advance our own discourse in it and our own sort of understanding of the phenomenon and our own experiences as well, right? Because people still see

grays, for example. Right. Right. So this is why, you know, maybe in the 1800s people saw airships with big balloons and curious men with like overall coming down and like trading pancakes for fuel or something, right? You know, and in the 50s, those flying saucers and now it's orbs and black triangles, right? Is that maybe what's going on, right? Like we're kind of in this relationship with whatever it is. And the UFO subculture is really this beacon. It's really the fundamental kernel of data that's flowing out to the phenomena. and the phenomena is pumping data back at us. And we're just kind of using each other's data simultaneously to create curious events.

That got philosophical. That was amazing, man. No, that's exactly. Somebody should write that down and write a book about it. Someone should do that. And you are the one who's going to be doing that. Copyrighting that right now. Formally, this stands in the court of law, copyright.

Just like our show idea, where we're going to go around, travel, eat, great food, drink, great booze, and interview UFO witnesses. Buz, bros and UFOs. I've been pitching this thing forever now. He's pros and UFOs. That history channel, how are you not doing this right now? All right. See, who wouldn't want to listen to two dudes babble for two hours drinking whiskey and UFOs?

Yeah, the glass has been refilled a few times at this point. Oh, my God. Dude, this has been amazing. This has been fun, yeah. This will not be the last time we're doing this. I want to make this a regular on Summer in the Skies, where I bring you on. maybe a couple of our other friends. Maybe not.

Maybe it's just this is our thing that we have together, where we just hash it out. I love this. It's something I haven't done on the show yet being this off the cuff and unscripted, as it were, and as a slave to a script. This has been extremely, I put myself in a vulnerable spot, and I absolutely loved it. So I hope you gained something from it. I hope the listeners did. Dude, tell us where we could find what you're doing, what you're up. to and yeah where we can find all your work before we go here yeah sure so um right now it's been

actually pretty busy i'm like i said i'm in the middle of a book project so there hasn't been a lot of other writing i sort of pump out stuff every once in a while but um my blog uh you can find most of my work at is www www.taterra obscure dot net um if you just google terra obscure a blog you'll find it you can also sort of you know hit me up on facebook twitter instagram i'm on all the social medias i also write for mysterious universe so if you just go to mysterious universe and you just punch in M.J. Benais. You can find sort of my archive of articles. It also is linked on Terabst here. So I'm sort of all over the place. Just Google it. And it, you know, things tend to pop up. It's great. That's sort of where I'm at right now. Oh, oh, crazy. I just

happened recently. Actually, I'm in the latest issue of Fate Magazine. What? I totally forgot. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Break this, please. Yeah. In their latest issue, it's really funny. I sent them an article, God, like eight months ago. And I didn't hear anything. And then all of a sudden, I get an email like a month ago being like, hey, we want these your article. And I was just like, okay, I don't remember what it. I literally said, I don't remember what it was about, but please edit and go ahead. Like, and I still don't, I haven't read it yet because I can't find fate in my city. No one carries it. So I emailed them. So they said they're going to send me an issue like, you know, just in the mail or whatever. But I'm in the most recent issue of Fate magazine. I think it's

about Greg Bishop's co-creation hypothesis, but I'm not sure. So don't poke me on it. Oh, that's Awesome, though, man. And to know that there's still a print edition of a magazine out there is amazing. And of course, it's fate. I mean, God, things been around forever. That's amazing. Well, definitely, I'm going to be getting my hands on that as well. And no matter what it's about, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, and if you could take a picture of it and send it to me, that'd be great. Because I can mess. I don't know if I'm going to get my copy. It's been like weeks and they haven't, it hasn't shown up yet. So either they forgot about me or it's stuck in the mail or the, say, out of it or something. But yeah, yeah, it's, you know,

If you do find a copy, just take a photograph of, like, the article and send it to me so that I can put on my own Instagram and just, you know, mooch that off of you. Absolutely, man. Again, to all the listeners, too, if any of you guys have fade a subscription or you can find it in your hometown, please do the same. Book selfies are awesome. I did it when my book came out. And it really does, you know, it's fun. It's fun for everybody. And tell me if it's a good article.

Somebody read it and tell me if it's okay. That's the important part. Yeah. Awesome, brother. Well, this has been amazing. I look forward to the next time, and everyone, please be on the lookout for booze, bros and UFOs. On History Channel, 9 p.m. Pacific. Pacific. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Ryan.

That's it for this two-part series of Somewhere in the Whiskey. Be on the lookout for more episodes like this in the future. If you liked what you heard today, please share the show with friends, family, coworkers, and that one really weird dude that lives at the end of the block and is always walking his dog at like 3.30. 30 a.m. Is that just me? Anyway, we're on all major podcast outlets, so please subscribe, rate, and review where possible.

It helps tremendously. We are on Twitter at SomewhereSkies. If you'd like to reach out to me, stream past episodes, read articles, and keep up to date with the latest news. Visit the website at somewhereinth skies.com. I leave you once again with a perfect anthem for Somewhere in the Whiskey. This comes to us once again from the rogue,

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