Somewhere in the Skies - THE 100th EPISODE!

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

On episode 100 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan celebrates in fashion with some of the highlights from past episodes. From his very first guest up to today, some of your favorites are here in a jam-packed retrospective that is sure to make you remember the good times, the bad times, and hopefully, have some new revelations! Special thanks to all listeners. You are the reason we made it this far, and we hope to continue with 100 more episodes, searching for answers somewhere in the skies! Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies To watch ROSWELL: MYSTERIES DECODED for free, CLICK HERE  Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you enjoy true stories of the supernatural from the people who experienced it? Well, then you might like my show, Jim Harold's Campfire. Hi, I'm Jim, and we've been doing the show since 2009. And we talk about ghosts, cryptic creatures, UFOs, head scratchers, you name it. And you tune in and you might hear a story like this one. And as he was driving home, he encountered a shadow person who seemed to be dressed like a monk. I know that sounds very strange, but it was a solid black form and it was wearing a hooded cloak tied at the waist with the cloak up and it had glowing red eyes. He sees this thing

coming out of a really teeny abandoned cemetery. If you haven't tuned in, I hope you'll check us out. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are heard, it's Jim Harold's Campfire and you can find it at Jim Herald.com. Thanks so much and stay spooky. Hey, y'all. Ryan Spreck here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume, but it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of and the list is only growing. So please help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a patron. To contribute

and to learn more, visit www.patriot.com backslash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now, on with the show. Today, we celebrate the 100th episode of Somewhere in the Skies. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. And today we're celebrating. 100 episodes of the show, with some of the highlights and most memorable moments from the past. But first, I want to thank each and every person who listens to the show. Whether you were with me from the very start, or you've hopped on throughout the growth of the show, or maybe this is even your first time listening, you are the reason we made it this far,

and you have shaped and molded somewhere in disguise into what it is today. When I first decided to make a podcast, I can honestly say that I had no idea what I was doing and where I was heading. But with the guidance of many other podcasters, researchers, and a built-in support system of friends and colleagues, I stumbled my way through and somehow made it this far. And I can't pretend it was easy. This podcast has become a huge part of my weekly, if not daily, routine. From research to booking guests to recording interviews to editing, producing, uploading, and promoting. It has become a job. But it's a job I love and a job I take very seriously.

So again, I have to thank you for following me on this journey to find answers. And with every single episode, I feel like I'm inching closer to maybe finding some of those answers. UFOs are an unforgiving and rebellious phenomenon. It doesn't follow any type of guidelines, strictures, or patterns. It's frustrating and it's sometimes discouraging. But I have met so many amazing people along the way on this journey that it has shown me that the destination isn't the be all end. It really is the journey.

So I hope you'll continue to take that journey with me. And today, we're going to take a look back at some of my my favorite moments, cases, and experiences somewhere in the skies. And what better place to start than with the premiere episode? My first ever guest on the show was UFO historian, author, and my publisher, Richard Dolan. Since podcasts are considered a media-driven medium, I wanted to talk to Mr. Dolan about the effects that media has on the UFO topic and how UFOs have influenced the media, but also how media has influenced and even controlled our perception of UFOs. Here's a clip from our conversation on episode one. I think what we're looking at,

my basic analysis, my conclusion is that it's very obvious to see that the UFO phenomenon has been an important part of national security and an important concern. And in that lecture, and in my career, I've often like to quote a few particular documents. One of my favorite ones is a CIA document from 1952 in which the director of scientific intelligence writes to the director of the CIA that these sightings must have immediate attention that there are sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes

and traveling at high speeds near major U.S. defense installations, he said that are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles. So you have a one of a number of statements during the Cold War that are very highly classified in which this phenomenon clearly is being taken seriously. And yet our media, which is supposed to be the watchdog, the guardian of the Republic, really, completely dropping the ball. So then the question arises, are they doing this because of their own journalistic,

biases and they're just biases as human beings or is there something else going on and what i what i would say is that there's something more going on the media has explicitly been working in conjunction with the intelligence community um we know this in the ufo field through something known as the robertson panel where in early 1953 the last weekend of the truman white house the cia um did its own study and debunking of the ufo phenomenon it was already a rigged game even then right and they they made it as one of their conclusions to work with major media to debunk the phenomenon to the public. And we also know outside of the UFO subject of something known as Operation Mockingbird, which I believe I talked about that a little bit in the lecture,

and Mockingbird was a CIA coordinated media control program. It went all through the Cold War, 1980s, 60s, 70s, where the CIA would have journalists on its payroll, who would report the news in a way that the CIA liked, who would sometimes make up fake stories. The CIA would do this. They normally would make up fake stories internationally and let them come to the U.S.

That was their way of doing it safely, but they controlled spin, they controlled editorial policy. We're talking New York Times, Washington Post, particularly, and they're always the leaders. But also television, CBS did a UFO special in the 60s featuring Walter Cronkite, the great American anchorman.

It was a UFO debunking piece. That was part of the Robertson panel. I would say part of the whole Operation Mockingbird. I think I'll look at it all as one thing, one piece. So in other words, what I'm saying to you and to listeners is that mainstream media has never been an honest player relating to the UFO phenomenon. And it's not an honest player relating really to anything political in our society. And I think no matter what one's, one thinks that their political orientation is, I think if you

do an objective study of the media, you see they are, they're working for an agenda. It's an elite agenda. It's an intelligence community dominated agenda. It's a financial community agenda as well. And that these all really work together as a control system. The next clip I want to share with you comes from episode four, featuring Annie Jacobson, who is an investigative journalist, bestselling author, and 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. We talked about her book, Phenomena, the secret history of the U.S. government's investigations into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. And while I'd heard rumors that the government had at one time looked at these topics, I had no idea how deep it truly went. And just how it all came to be.

This was clearly a departure from UFOs, but a very fascinating conversation. All roads lead to the Nazis. at least when you're a national security reporter covering war, weapons, U.S. national security and secrets. And phenomena is no different. I began the story, the kind of launch point is this discovery by U.S. intelligence agents at the end of the war. They were called Operation Alsace. And they discover a weird trove of Heinrich Himmler's science department. department documents. The department was called Das Ananarbe, and this unit within it explored

extrasensory perceptions, psychokinesis, map-dousing, and then also very extreme forms of the occult, which Himmler was pursuing and pushing among his SS men. And we discovered this weird cache of documents. And Samuel Goodsmith, who was the lead physicist at the time, hunting down atomic secrets and, you know, biological weapons secrets and all these other things I write in my other book, Operation Paperclip, kind of cast aside this weirdo, what he thought was sort of weirdo, supernatural research. But it comes back into play later, a few years later, because what we find out that the Soviets got the other half of the Das Anan Narrabay documents that dealt with the supernatural, if you will.

And naturally, I think the launching point for this extraordinary battle between science and the supernatural. Is it fact? Is it fantasy? You know, and this question drives the narrative. And boy, was it intensely interesting to research and report on this? Because it's such a mystery. All right. So staying on government involvement in unorthodox programs, projects,

and experiments, this leads to episode seven, featuring prolific author Nick Redfern. In 2005, a book hit the shelves that completely shattered the Roswell UFO incident and caused quite a stir in the UFO community and beyond. That book was body snatchers in the desert, the horrible truth at the heart of the Roswell story. In it, Redfern brings forth the theory that rather than a crashed UFO piloted by alien beings having crashed at Roswell, is it possible it could have been a highly confidential U.S. government-sanctioned program to conduct medical experiments on handicapped, disfigured, and diseased Japanese POWs over the New Mexico desert? On these gigantic balloon lifting body type of radically...

As I point out in the new book, there are... While Redford never admits that he fully buys this theory, his evidence that he brought forward was very compelling, and it actually coincides with several stories I heard firsthand in Roswell, New Mexico. And, hey, it makes a lot of sense the more you look at it. But just like any good mystery, we may never know what truly happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Moving away from Roswell, we head to Utah in episode 11, featuring UFO researcher Erica Lukes. She recalled a very interesting UFO case reported by pilots for American Airlines. Shortly after midnight on January 14, 2016, a pilot reported seeing an extremely long, bright

object that he estimated a mile wide. Apparently, the air traffic controller told the pilot that the object was not detected on radar. The object appeared to keep pace with the aircraft. Here's Erica explaining the case and even sharing exclusive audio from the FAA communications. Would you mind trying to run us through this very complex case and what you were able to obtain from an FOIA request? Oh my gosh, this case was truly the highlight of my time investigating, but I have a friend, his name is Pat Daniels, and he hosts the fringe radio show. And he's also an avid ham radio operator. He does all sorts of things, scanning frequencies.

And he is, he contacted me because he had listened to something that was, that really piqued his interest and was almost alarming to him. He had been sitting at his desk doing some work a little after midnight on January 14th. And he heard a couple transmissions from a pilot or the crew. of the craft asking what this this object was that appeared to be keeping pace with the plane. And then you've, you know, I mean, it was a large orange square object. And he said, you know, he said, in all my years of just scanning frequencies, I have never heard this ever. And knowing that he is a good human being who was kind of shaken by this, I decided that I was going to try to find out more. And so I grabbed my assistant state director, Jeff Cox, and we went to the ATC, the air traffic

control website and just scoured it to find any bits and pieces of this transmission. And lo and behold, we were able to find a brief snippet of a pilot talking or the crew talking, asking flight control what this object was. 34, go ahead. No, that's a good question. I'm not sure. Is it off to your right side? American 434, that is Nephi, Nefi, Utah.

And so what we did then, again, I was working with Bill Puckett. I brought him in, and we submitted a FOIA request for radar data for audio logs, and for the tower logs and for audio. The FAA actually, in about six to eight weeks, sent back all the radar data, which was incredible, they sent back some of the audio and there was a portion of the audio that was redacted, which was curious. But after careful analysis of the radar data, we were able to determine that there was something absolutely incredible spanning almost a six-mile area over a remote part of just right outside of Nephi, Utah. So that coupled with

the fact that you've got the snippet of audio really made a powerful case. You know, when you're looking for for evidence, you can't really argue with this, especially because, you know, Bill Puckett is so methodical and he sends the data to other researchers all over the world to get their feedback. And it was, it was quite curious. He was able to rule out anomalous propagation. And it's, you can go to UFO's Northwest and actually. look at the great work that he did on the case. And after investigating Jeff Cox and I, reaching out to the community, you know, we put an ad on the paper, talked to everybody there, did a lot of investigating and looking at old cases and things. I mean, this is an area where there have been

some interesting cases historically as well. So what's going on there? I don't know. Now from Utah, we head across the entire United States in episode 19 with New York Times best-selling author Ben Mesrick. We talked all about his book, The 37th Parole, The Secret Truth Behind America's UFO Highway, which chronicles the life and investigations of UFO researcher Chuck Tsukowski, in his search for answers to the mysterious cattle-neederation phenomenon, UFOs, and a path of uncertainty and mystery across America, known as the 37th parallel. Since basically the 60s, but even earlier, more than 10,000 cows and horses have been found lying on their left side, usually missing organs. The cuts are all circular and they look surgical, and the animals are completely drained of blood.

You know, there's no blood at the scene. There's no blood in the bodies. There's no witnesses, no footprints, no fingerprints, no fingerprints, no. No one's ever been arrested and no one's ever been caught doing it. In the 70s, it got so bad that three state governors got together and petitioned the Attorney General of the United States demanding an investigation. And the FBI investigated, used over 100 agents and came to no conclusions. They found nothing. No one's ever been arrested. So it's this very wide-reaching phenomenon in multiple states spanning 60 years that no one can figure out. And, you know, whether it's related to some weird biotesting or some cults, you know, was one theory,

or a biker gang was another theory, it's so vast. And the idea of these animals drained of blood, it's just very creepy. You know, Chuck believes it's connected to UFOs. There's often sightings in the same area. The ranchers who see this happening always speak about things in the sky and then they think that there's a UFO component. it's a weird one and no one can figure it out and you know it's it's something that hasn't really been covered very well every now and then you'll see an article here or there um but you

won't see any major mainstream you know journalists looking into it um and it's it's just one of those things and i was i was captivated by it just because it's so wide-reaching you talk to these ranchers and they're traumatized you know they they've their their animals are mutilated in a very horrible fashion right and uh and to them it's it's a very big deal obviously because they live and die by these animals. It's part of, you know, their livelihood. So it's really kind of a stunning thing. And nobody really knows what's going on with it.

The cattle mutilation phenomenon is very dark and disturbing, no matter what lay at the source of it. But dark and disturbing is an understatement when it came to this next topic. In episode 24, I interviewed investigative filmmaker, Chris Garantano. Garantano has been on a lifelong search for answers to the Montauk Project, said to have been carried out at Camp Hero on Long Island, New York. The government claims that this site is a shuttered military base that once protected Americans. But for decades, endless rumors maintained that the U.S. government engaged in a pattern of covert behavior that sought experiment on its own citizens.

Preston Nichols wrote a book all about it. And working off of that book and the claims by Nichols, Garantano runs us through how this project came to be. The area in Camp Hero has a vast history that goes way back. So the Revolutionary War, before that, and it's also the same location that just after the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders were kind of quarantined out there. So there's always like activity out there.

Later it becomes a place called Fort Hero and World War II, it's turned into the Camp Hero Air Force Station. And so as we know in history, this is the place where before satellite technology was established, the Sage radar tower, semi-automatic ground environment radar tower, that big iconic radar tower, was built and designed and used for a variety of purposes, detecting enemy ships. They claim that their submarine bases underneath, and I would, of course, believe it because it's just this giant stronghold. It's on a cliff facing the Atlantic Ocean at the very furthest eastern tip of Long Island. But where the weird stuff starts coming in is at the end of World War II, Nuremberg trials, you know, there were a lot of people who were spared as spoils of war in regard to the United States absorbing these Nazi scientists into our, into our military, into our scientific and military development.

They were developing rockets and all sorts of crazy things for the Nazis. So instead of hanging them, we brought them over. And this was called Operation Paperclip or Project Paperclip. And it was those paperclip scientists that Preston Nichols and Alfred Beelich claim began the Montauk Project. It all started at a place called Brookhaven National Labs, which is a little further west of Camp Hewark. Hero Air Force Station. And according to Nichols, he was eventually recruited by the Brookhaven National

Labs because of his expertise and electronics and other reasons, more esoteric reasons, like the fact that he has psychic abilities, the fact that he has, you know, this connection with certain energies, so he claims. And so he was recruited by the labs first, and then the Montauk project came about, because according to Nichols and Beelich, Congress had a big problem with eventually, because we did kind of celebrate these Nazi scientists, libraries named after them, I think, in one point. So Congress had an issue with these guys. They got kicked out of Brookhaven National Labs, and according to Nichols,

the skits kind of muddy, but he said that they established the Montauk project in a facility deep beneath the ground at Camp Hero. I'm not sure what was embellished and what wasn't. And I've had over a decade now on this subject matter. So it begins with this very thin book, which was that first book that Nichols published, with a very small bit of information to go on. I've since, I feel, between the Dark Files, between speaking to these gentlemen for Montau Chronicles,

and in my own personal research furthering, you know, every day, looking for things and talking to people that I didn't interview for those projects, I feel like I found significant evidence that corroborates at least some of his story. The more believable stuff, though. And I'm not saying I don't believe in time travel or I don't believe in extraterrestrial intelligence. I'm just not sure all of it happened by Camp Hero. If any of what Preston Nichols and others have to say about Camp Hero is true, this is far more disturbing than any threat in our skies by Ariel Phenomena.

And this is one interview that shook. me to the core. If you haven't listened, definitely check it out in the archives. From documentaries and TV shows, we move to the Silver Screen, where I got to interview cinema studies professor and author Robbie Graham about the intricate and intimate relationship between Hollywood and the military when it came to the topic of UFOs. In episode 31, Graham uses a very well-known alien film to back up his observations of this relationship. through the lens of the first independence day. Have a listen.

Sometimes the military will approach filmmakers, but usually it's the other way around. A filmmaker will approach the military seeking their cooperation on a production in order to cut costs on that production. So if you're making a war movie, an action movie that requires tanks, guns, jets, you know, troops,

then especially before the age of CGI, the only way to create that really is through expensive props, or to actually get the real stuff on screen with the help of the military. And the military is only too willing to lend its toys to Hollywood, but it has to be mutually beneficial. So the military will say, look, we'll give you our stuff. If you sign a contract with us, which enables us to oversee your production,

and we can alter as we see fit anything in your script that we deem to be objectionable, anything that paints the military in a negative light or anything that we don't agree with in terms of depictions of you know national security policy etc etc they can change this and do in in Hollywood scripts and so what you have is is a it's a sort of a legal open form of propaganda and and it's all a okay and above board but it's not really publicized too much you know and that relationship has been very healthy and ongoing for a long time. In recent years what you've had is filmmakers becoming increasingly willing,

excuse me, the Department of Defense becoming increasingly willing to work with UFO-themed productions. Until the late 1990s, that was not the case. There had been a policy dating back to the 1950s where the US government and military were very reluctant to cooperate on any, UFO themed productions in Hollywood. And that was as a result of recommendations made by the Robertson panel in 1953, who suggested that UFOs be debunked and demystified through media channels. And that did have an effect. So generally, right through to the late 1990s, whenever a filmmaker approached a branch of the

government or military for cooperation on a UFO theme production, the response was, no, we will not help you because UFOs don't exist and it contravenes our policy. So that was the policy. But then in the mid-1990s, on the first independence day, when the filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin approached the Department of Defense for their cooperation for obvious reasons. The Department of Defense said, look, we have all sorts of problems with your script. But the sticking points for us are that you include Erie 51 as being central to the plot, and you also make reference to the Roswell incident.

And you suggest that the president has been kept in the dark. Why the hell wasn't I told about this place? Two words, Mr. President. Plausible deniability. I don't understand where does all this come from. How do you get funding for something like this? You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you? That's obviously not the case.

This is what they said specifically in their script notes to the filmmakers. And to their credit, the filmmakers went their own way, and they said, look, we can't take those things out of the script because they're central to it. We're going to do it with CGI and that's what they did. And then as a result of that, I am convinced, as a direct result of that, the Department of Defense recognized very quickly when they saw that that film became the most successful of 1996 and one of the most successful of the decade, grossing over $800 million. They realized, oh, my God, we've missed out on a huge opportunity here because had we given them our support, we would have had access to the script. And had we access to the script, we could have shaped the narrative in a way that serves us. us, we could shape, we could try and steer particular beliefs within the UFO conspiracy community. We could, you know, we could better portray our own history with relation to UFOs.

We could, you know, we could massage it as we see fit, but because they denied their cooperation, they lost that opportunity. The marriage between Hollywood and strange topics like UFOs, the supernatural, and everything in between has never been as close than with my favorite television series of all time. The X-Files, and I had the chance to speak with Dean Hagland in episode 39. You may remember him as the blonde-haired conspiracy geek Langley, one of the members of lone gunmen. Haglund shared some insight on what he experienced in terms of how closely the show truly was to some real-life cases in the FBI and beyond. I mean, we all know, you know, sort of Dean at this point that the X-Files did use a lot of action.

case material or had people on set, you know, sort of advising in terms of when it came to how the military might have been involved with this or obviously the FBI. Right. Did you ever come across anything, I guess, while filming or in the script or even with lone gunmen in terms of that? If you, if like the conspiracy, you know, correlated a little too closely with what you guys were working on, we all know the whole 9-11 thing. I know that's a great example. That is a great example. Absolutely. But that was just, I think that was a weird coincidence.

If you're saying that, you know, I've had like when I did, when I still do stand up, but I was touring a lot while the show was on the air. People would come to my comedy shows all around North America. And after the shows, sometimes there would be like, you know, I worked for the FBI. Do you want to come by the office? You know, I went to the San Antonio office and got to sit in the head. FBI, or no, it wasn't San Antonio, it was Al Paso, you know, so there's pictures of me in Kevlar vests and wearing FBI stuff. And, um, and those guys would say, so these stories,

particularly, and they would like say an episode and stuff like that, said, where'd that information come from? And then I go, I don't know, the writers wrote it. Yeah, yeah, okay. And I go, why? Is it close? Well, we can't say. So they would never tell me exactly what was co-relating so closely, but they were curious enough to, actually specify specific examples and specific episodes to go, how did you get that information? So either it is just luck of the writers or, you know, somehow some classified information got onto the airwaves. Well, the X-Files Fund did not stop there, however, in what many consider a new classic fan favorite, The Art of Forehead Sweat aired during the 11th and what many believed to be the last season ever of the X-Files.

And the pivotal character driving this hilarious and mind-bending episode was Reggie something. Literally, that was his name. And the name of the actor who played him may be familiar to many of you comedy buffs out there. Brian Husky, join me for episode 42. While exploring the idea of the Mandela effect in which groups of people remember an alternate history, Mulder and Scully discover how the X-Files may have originated. Husky's character, Reggie something, confronts Mulder and Scully, explaining that he may in fact not be a stranger, but their third partner.

Not only that, but Reggie may hold the key to finding the truth to what is and always has been out there. Here, Husky and I talk about the Mandela Effect, and we of course touch on the UFOs. I think the Mandela Effect is plausible just in that memory and perspective is fallible and malleable and people are far more, I don't want to say self-centered, but your perspective on the universe is your perspective. Yeah. You can only, your lens on what the world is and your experiences is always going to be yourself. So I think that's just inherently true. I heard recently somebody said, like, you, it's impossible to have sort of objectivity about yourself. And I think that's true.

Because even if you're like, no, I know myself. It's like, I know myself within the parameters of what I know about myself or I'm willing to admit it by myself. I mean, that's a prime example of, you know, I've heard you in other interviews say, like, oh, I went into an audition and I think I did horrible. And then, you know, once later, you say, you were perfect for the role. You got it. Like, that's a good example there of, like, looking outside of yourself. You know, we only see this 2D version of ourselves. So you do have to wonder.

Yeah, totally. And, I mean, even in this episode, it was so cool that, you know, supposedly your character created the X-Files. He got Molder, the I Want to Believe poster. These were really interesting. Now, these are episodes that X-Files fans hold so close to their hearts, these Darren Morgan episodes, even the pilot, the pilot episode, you are now a part of in this, in this reality. What was that like sort of going back and learning that you were going to be a part

of classic X-Files. And I mean, even in the bigger picture, like being a part of a franchise that's been around for so long. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's sort of above and beyond anything I could hope for because it's, it's, yeah, I sort of got like the, the, the episode buffet where they're like, have at it, you're going to get the be in this and this and reference this. And it's funny, like, not that I looked at all, but on Twitter, there are a lot of people who are just saying, like, you know, I got to sort of live the X-Files' dream of being in all these, these episodes and commenting on them. And yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty phenomenal. Well, getting back to that, you know, that idea of the truth, I would

not be doing my, uh, euphological work here. Right. If I didn't ask you your personal thoughts about UFOs, man. The phenomenon, if there's aliens out there, what sort of stake do you put in these sort of things? You know, we talk about this every week on somewhere in the skies, but for you, someone coming in as an actor and doing this, I would love to hear if you did any sort of research into this stuff or what your personal take on all of it is. Well, you know, I got people of earth. I did a little research on more, more so on people who believe in, and, and, and, you know, UFOs and in doing that just like I sort of learned about like oh yeah here's this is probable and this is this is possible but I was more interested in researching people that have

those beliefs and because that's what the show is about like people who believe in aliens but are sort of like have to have to have a therapy group uh to through the day as a result but I I I've never been I here's my here's my stance if we are the only life forms out there it's tragic, you know, because I don't think we're doing a good job of it right now. Yeah. But the probability of that is so small. But I don't, where I sort of like have a separation, I was like, I don't know if the technology exists where they could come to us. And I say that only because I think I have maybe in comparison to the technology that is out there or the, you know, it's like celestial awareness that's out there.

I think I have a very caveman perspective and sort of limitation as to what I can imagine. That makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It really is the lens you look through it. Yeah. And going back to the episode, the Darren Morgan episode is the kind of thing of like,

I'm going to have, I have my perspective on that truth based on the truth I have for myself. And someone else might have a very different truth based on encounters. they might have had. And so it's, it's bridging the, the willingness or the awareness, the openness, I don't know what kind of nest is going to be to, to say like, oh, yeah, now, now, now that is true. Now I have sort of proof of that. And the thing, I guess in doing my research, the thing that was very solidifying for me was, and I can't remember his name, but there was a Harvard professor who did a lot of profiling of people who said they were abductees. John Mack.

Yes, John Mack. And for him to sort of put himself out there, you know, as this esteemed institution and say, like, I think it's true. I don't think these people are lying. I think there's a consistency in the narrative that they share and the sort of affect. And he's like, yeah, I'm a believer. So, you know, that's that kind of thing. Like, well, science will prove it. And that helped it.

And now we move right next door to episode 43, where my mentor, Peter Robbins, join me to tell us the tragic and mysterious story behind the death of former Secretary of Defense, James Forrestall. On May 22, 1949, Forrestall felt to his death from the 16th floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he was treated for depression. What many are not aware of, however, is that Forrestal had been connected to the controversial MJ12 group, an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by the U.S. President Harry Truman

to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. Before his departure as Secretary of Defense, Forrestal had a mental breakdown, which ultimately led to his death. But what did he know? What was he told? And what exactly happened to him in the hospital as he plunged downward into tragedy and questionable history? The doctors assigned to his case were not cleared to know what he knew, anything but. And their commitment was only to restore him to good mental health, period. That ironic turn of events unfortunately sealed his fate and made it necessary for others to complete the job for him.

America's collective memory of their fallen hero lingered for a while, though now to be linked forever with the tragedy of his combat fatigue-induced suicide. The implications of such a key player, folding as Cold War realities deepened, were not lost on anyone clear to know the secrets that he knew, and as the years, then decades, began to pass, so did the public's memory of the man who had been a patient at the Bethesda Naval's facility in the spring of 1949. To that select group of men who held power in this country in the middle of the last century,

James Forrestall's mental collapse had to be treated as a priority national security matter. The decision to force him out of that window was, I am convinced, in no way personal. It's even likely that the men involved, like and admired Mr. Forrestall, as an individual. His murder was simply the only way to resolve what this inner circle had come to perceive as a security risk of the gravest nature. Despite his dedication, love of country, and tireless contributions to the safety and security of our nation, the name and accomplishments of James Vincent Forrestall have effectively been written out of 20th century history. And this oversight is something that should be corrected, don't you think? This was a very heavy two-part series, and I highly suggest you check them out in the archives for the full story.

It's a piece of both UFO and American history you won't soon forget. For those who follow the show religiously, you know that I take time to breathe every now and again and let the listeners take the wheel in what I call my witness accounts episodes. These are where witnesses and experiencers recall their own UFO. events in their own words. These are by far the most listened to and downloaded episodes of Somewhere in the Skies. And with good reason, it's you telling your stories and how it affected your lives. No words I put together could ever do justice to the impact these events can have on a person.

So right now, I'm going to share just one of those accounts that really stuck with me from episode 46. me and my wife were both musicians um we were playing a gig that night out in the suburbs of chicago and we were driving to that gig um it was probably around five six in the afternoon it was still daylight out and if you ever lived or have been to chicago you know that usually no matter where you're driving there's a lot of cars all around you and we were driving along, I can't remember which highway it was, maybe highway 290, is there 290 or 295, or 294, I can't remember. Anyways, it was pretty much bumper-to-bumper traffic, except the traffic was flowing at about

between 45, 55, miles an hour, and so it was a nice steady flow. And we're driving, I'm driving the car this time, and my wife's in the passenger seat. and I look up ahead of traffic and I saw this black balloon descending out of the air. I had no idea where it came from. It was just, you know, I just looked and it was just there. And it's descending towards traffic. And I kind of nudged my wife and said, hey, check out that balloon up there in front of us. I don't know why I felt the urge to tell her about it, but I just had this weird feeling about it.

And she looked in the sky and goes, oh, that's just an airplane. And I go, no, no, no, not the airplane, because there was an airplane in the sky. I said the balloon out in front of us because this balloon was descending towards traffic, and she saw it. And she was like, oh, well, that's weird. And we're watching it. And it's getting close to the cars at this point. and my wife was like getting a little concerned she's like oh no it's going to go into traffic and i said you know that's not a big deal it's just a balloon you know the wind from the traffic

is going to blow it back up in the air and it's going to flip around and do its balloon stuff not a big deal don't worry about it so right when it's about to like hit that point when it's about to flip back up in the air, I'd say we're, you know, a good three to four cars are back from this thing. And we're both watching it, waiting for it to go back up in the air, except that's not what it did. It came down and went right above a car in the far left lane, and it stopped right above the roof. I mean, like, I mean, maybe a foot above the roof at the most, two feet maybe, I don't know, but not that far from the roof. And when it got there, it stopped and it like locked onto the car. I don't know how else to say it.

Like it started tailing the car. Okay. And you have to understand that all the wind and everything did not affect this thing. it was like it was attached to some sort of, you know, rod or something that would be attached to the roof of the car. That's how still and how right in line with this car it was. It was just tailing it. It was matching its speed. Remember, we're going between 45, 55, 55 miles an hour. And it matched every movement of this car, going around the turns. And right then I was just like,

Oh man, what the hell is going on? And then I watched it ascend back up in the air. But when it went back up in the air, it went straight up in the air. And it was still keeping pace with the cars underneath it. It was still going at the same speed and going straight in the air. I mean straight, no weeble wobbling or anything like that. And the wind didn't affect it. Okay. And it went to the right, to the next car over. And then it descended again and started tailing the next car next to it. The same thing as it was doing the other car. Keeping pace with it, not moving, not budging. It just stayed there. And after it did that for a while, it rose back up in the air straight and it kind of stopped tailing the car, meaning that like it stopped.

stopped going 45 to 55 miles an hour. It was like it was done with it, you know, and stopped going with the speed of traffic. And at that point, when it was rising in the air, we drove right underneath it, like directly underneath it. And me and my wife both looked up in the air at it. And I saw it up close. It wasn't, this wasn't some light in the sky thing.

This was in broad day life. up close. It was not that high above our car when we drove underneath it. And it was a solid black ball, round ball. It was solid. There's no wings, no exhaust,

no propellers, nothing, no means of any propulsion on it. It was aerodynamically impossible. How does a solid round ball with none of those features even do anything, let alone do and maneuver in the way that it did without any kind of turbulence or air or anything affecting this movement. Like it was like, it was, I don't know, it was like outside of everything. You know, I don't know how else to say it.

Kind of like, you know, like you hear about maybe it was. warping the space time or gravity around it or something like that. Maybe there's some sort of bubble it was in that everything else just didn't affect it. I don't know. But that's all I have to say. The only other thing I can think of is if it was maybe some sort of mesh material that was so woven so tightly that it appeared like it was solid black. but even then, that still wouldn't be, it wouldn't be able to do what it did.

It wouldn't, that, that would indicate maybe there were propellers inside of it, but like, like, if it was mesh, a mesh wiring or, or fabric or whatever, that was so tight that it appears completely solid, and I mean, it's solid black, just a solid object. There would, there's no way that, there's no way it could do what it did. You know what I mean? there's no way. As we drove under it and was, you know, we got past it. And I really want, I wish I could have just kept looking at it, but I had to drive.

You know, I couldn't wreck the car. And I was just sitting there thinking, I didn't see that. That didn't happen. I was like trying to like pretend like it didn't happen. And then I looked at my wife and she started screaming and going, what the hell was that? and just yelling at me. And that was when I was like, okay, I did see that. I'm not making that up.

That just happened. And we went to the gig, and we went one of my other bandmates and a good friend of ours was there, and we looked at him and we go, we think we just saw a UFO on our way here. And he just kind of looked at us and smiled and gave a little laugh. And that was it. We just didn't talk about it after that. And we went on over night, played gig, had a good time. And then afterwards, I got on the internet, you know, to try and...

I just did a search for, you know, circle drones or spherical drones. And I found a video of a thing that the Japanese government made, the sort of drone that they made, where it was a circle. but it was a wire frame. You could see the propellers in the different little wings and things to help it move around inside. You could see the inner mechanics of it.

It was not the same thing as I saw. It wasn't solid at all. It was wide and open. It was just like, if I remember correctly, it was just like two circle rims. It was an open thing. it wasn't solid black. And like I said, I could see the propellers in it.

And this thing moved very, very similar to what we saw. It was the closest representation that I could see to tell, kind of show someone like what we saw. But it wasn't that drone. There was a little bit, you know, you could tell that this drone still like, it's like a helicopter or any other kind of propeller type of mechanism that has to obey but the laws of physics, you know?

Like, there's little bobs and weaves in the way that it moves. It can't just go straight up and over and down. Like, the thing that I saw it moved, it was moving in straight lines, direct straight lines. There was no kind of, I don't know how I'll describe it. So that was the only anything that I can find remotely close to it. And like I said, it wasn't it? A couple other things that happened is we,

We reported it to the police. We called the police, and they got mad at us. We tried to be completely honest with them, but they thought we were trying to pull a prank on them, and they scolded us a bit. And they said to us, sir, there are things that we do that protect you that you don't know about and all this stuff,

and I was kind of like, yeah, but not this. and, you know, that went nowhere. I even made a report to move on, and they, I don't know what I was expecting, really, to get from them, they're pretty worthless. Because I gave, I wrote out a report for them, and I got an investigator guy, and I told the story just like I told you, even,

like in the beginning, I said I thought it was a black balloon at first until it moved this way, then obviously it wasn't a black balloon. And the only response I got back from the guy was, oh, it must have been a black balloon. So I pretty much wrote him back and I don't think I was very nice. I tried to be nice, but I was like, listen, buddy, you're worthless. So just forget about it, basically. You know, I feel bad for kind of rude, but I was just frustrated. And that's pretty much it.

all as I know is I witnessed a technology that did operate it in a way that it shouldn't have operated. It's a technology that, to me, from my limited understanding, defied the laws of physics. Well, let me say it defied our current understanding of physics, I should say. Or at least there's more to the picture than we know, obviously. And from that point on, I had to face the fact that... that there's stuff out there that we don't know about, that we call UFOs, and they're in our sky, and they can do things that our technology can't.

And I don't know, that's enough for me to, you know, I don't know who's flying them. I don't know where it came from, but it's not hard to extrapolate from what I do know for a fact. although it's not definitive that I will be correct on what I think it may or may not be, but I think I can safely say it's pretty exotic, whatever it is, and whoever is controlling it and made it who is able to do those things is also probably pretty exotic. So, you know, the world just became a really strange place.

that's my experience with the blackball. It's obvious that this man was shaken up by this, and I thank him and the many others who have come forward and felt comfortable enough sharing their personal UFO stories with me and the thousands of people who tune in every week. If you'd like to share your story, I'm always looking to do more witness account episodes. The more people that come forward,

the more we normalize this topic and shed that omnipresent ridicule factor. So, reach out to me on my socials or through the website if you'd like to be featured in an upcoming episode of Witness Accounts. All right, we have hit the halfway mark with episode 50 with an interview I will never forget and one of my proudest moments here on someone this guys. I had the amazing opportunity to interview who many consider the dean of uphology. That's right, nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman. With the recent announcement of his retirement from the UFO field,

Stanton brought us on the journey spanning 40 years of memories, experiences, and theories. And he sets the record straight once and for all on his thoughts on the infamous MJ12 documents. Check this out. This is a big part of the Roswell case as well is another thing that you worked with and investigated. And I'd really love to hear your thoughts on where you stand on this now. It's the MJ12 documents. Now, we've had so many people argue this for so many years, but you wrote one of the most definitive books on these documents. So I'd love to hear, you know, now in 2018, what is your stance on these documents? How much is real? How much is baloney? Where do you stand on that?

Most of the MJ12 documents are phony. Okay. That's true. Most isotopes aren't fissionable either. You know, like it or not, most people can't run a mile in four minutes. Nobody can. So there are at least three documents that I believe are genuine. The Eisenhower briefing document, the Cutler-Twinning memo, and there's another one which doesn't come to mind at the moment. And as proof tells you something about research in the field, Philip Klass was Mr. Noisy Negativist himself,

Finabianianianianian Equip in Space Technology, no flying saucers are alien spacecraft nonsense. And he challenged me on those documents, the Cutler-Tining memo in particular. Obviously, the memos are frauded because it's done in the large PICA type, but I've got nine documents here

done from the National Security Council, which name is at the top, and they're all done in elite type. So I challenge you to find any other genuine documents found in the same size and style type, and I'll give you a $100 each up to a maximum of 10. He did this

rather publicly, and you have 60 days. Well, okay, I immediately went to my files and, unlike, it turned out, I didn't know this at the time, it turned out until it never been to the Eisenhower Library or the Truman Library, and I spent weeks at them. And I immediately

went to my files, and I had 20 pages done in the same size and style type. They didn't meet all this criteria, but time frame, et cetera. So I was going to the Eisenhower Library and might as well check. When I went there, it's easy to spot the difference because one type is much bigger than the other one type of face. And so I made copies of 14 documents, no doubt about there being genuine.

I found them up the Eisenhower Library and made copies of all of them, sent him the copies and an invoice for $1,000. He would only pay me for $10, say. And he paid me. And then he got maddered in hell when I included a copy of his check in my project. The audience loves it. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, it's typical of the intellectual bankruptcy of the pseudoscience of anti-Uphology. Don't bother me with the facts.

My mind's made up. And it's such a splendid example that he had never been to the library. And it turns out they have like 250,000 pages of NSC documents. and you're telling me they're all typed on the same typewriter. I hope people recall, and we used to use typewriters before computers were around. Well, the MJ12 documents, in other words, I'm convinced I did rather extensive work on the 12 members of the group.

And I'm especially proud of my discovery, to my total surprise, I will admit, that one of the members was Dr. Donald Howard Menzel, and he was a debunker. He written three anti-UFOs, How could he be a member of a group that knew about crash saucers, alien potties, all that sort of stuff? Well, I saw a mention of his name in a knock document in the Ben of our Bush files. He was the chief science advisor in the United States in this time frame. Outstanding individual.

And so I followed up on that and had to get permission with three different people to look at his papers at Harvard. The Center for UFO said, no, UFO, whatever the name of the group was at that time. I got a research grant and I went to the Harvard Archives after getting permission from people to see his papers written permission pain in the neck but anyway I didn't know what I was looking for

let's see what we find and there was a JFK file oh that should be interesting I know his UFO papers were elsewhere and I've been there too Kathy and I've gone to the archives Emerald Philosophical Society Library has his papers

and also have those classes, papers, and so forth. Anyway, and one of the first things I opened up in the JFK files, there's a letter from Menzel to Kennedy, Dear Jack. Turns out they knew each other quite well, even had breakfast together on occasion, both living in the Cambridge area. And there's one area, this is after the election of 1960 when Kennedy was elected president, there's one area where I may be of assistance to you. It's with regard to the National Security Agency. I've had a longer continuous association with them, 30 years of anybody, when we are properly cleared to each other, this is telling the president, when we are properly cleared to each other, I can tell you more about

this. So he did a lot. It turns out he was a world-class cryptologist. Nobody knew that. He did all kinds of classified work. And I was the first to take note of that. And so suddenly it made sense that he was part of this. But it was such a shock. And there were people, oh, he couldn't lead a double life. I wrote a paper, the double life of Donald Menzel. There are loads of people who led double life. Think of Burgess Filby and Maclean, the Russian spies who work for British intelligence for like 15 years, you know? Yeah. And you've got to be very careful when you're a spy, you know, reveal, you know, you're having access to information you shouldn't have access. But once I found Menzel and then saw the connection with the other people, I was, you know, I was, you're

I was able to show that it made absolute sense and opposed three documents and clasping me a thousand dollars that didn't hurt any in terms of the overall picture. And so I think I've dealt with all the arguments with the people say the documents are fraudulent. Yes, I would show that a number of documents are fraudulent. So what? I'm not denying that. It'd be natural if some good stuff gets out, you flood the market with crap and I hope it rubs off. Yeah. That interview was a true honor, and if Stanton Friedman is done lecturing,

he most definitely is not done searching for answers somewhere in the skies. And I'm wishing him all the very best on that continued journey. All right, so for this next one, I and my guest let loose and have some beers and talk UFOs in another fan favorite series I call UFO Happy Hour. This is where I bring on UFO researchers, varied guests and other podcast hosts, and I get them drunk. And we have an uncensored barstool chat. In episode 68, Rob Christopherson of the Our Strange Sky's podcast joins me

to recount one of his all-time favorite UFO cases that involved a close encounter with aliens and their breakfast baking abilities. Pancake aliens! Oh, man. Like, you know, I don't like to prejudge. people, but if some Italians gave me some pancakes, you know,

that case is so crazy. And I mean, like, it occurred the same year that Betty Barney Hills abduction did. Right. You know, and here's the thing. 62-year-old chicken farmer,

sitting down to brunch at 11 o'clock in the morning. Here's this sound and he goes outside and he sees this, it would probably be like a saucer. He described the UFO as two saucers connected by a depression ring that had like these six

inch diameter pipes that were going all around it. And this hatch opens. And he sees what he describes as three, five foot, Italian-looking aliens with mesmerizing eyes wearing onesies. And they want water. So he trades them water for some

what he calls pancakes, even though I would call them cookies. And he gave me a salute with the back of his hand, the gesture of thanks, I presume. And then, well, I gave him a salute, what am I going to do? I noticed this little man, the same side of a man, right to the side, the right side of the halfway cooking these pancakes, which I have one here yet. He was frying these pancakes, these pancakes, and I pointed to him and made a gesture like eating.

I thought maybe I get a conversation out of him. nobody was saying anything. But he, he didn't say a word. He just reached over and he got a handful of them, and he handed them down to me, and they were hot and greasy. And with that, he reached up, and he closed this hatch

with a heavy stud and quick-like, on it, latched. And with that, the thing started to raise. It's like it came down. Everything was time-perfe. It went up about 20 feet. It tilled at a 45-degree, straight south, and shot off. And within two or three seconds, it was out of sight.

Well, there I stood in the driveway with a handful of greasy pancakes, my mouth opened, wondering what the heck I'd saw. What had happened? But, you know what? You were about to sit down to brunch. I understand why you call them pancakes. How they taste? They taste like cardboard. Okay.

Cool. Here's the thing about that case. That case is charming as hell, as opposed to Billy Meyer, who is not charming in the slightest. Joe Simonton, I would listen to that man. if he was still alive today, tell me all about his alien pancakes. I don't like to put a lot of stock into belief, but listening to Joe Simonton, I believe that he did get some pancakes from some Italian-looking aliens

who had mesmerizing eyes and they just wanted some water. I'm going with it. I don't care. And one of the coolest things that's coming out this year, I believe it's still coming out this year. I had John Tenney on my podcast. He has written a children's book about this case. Oh, my God.

out. Yeah, that is coming out later this year. And it's all about Joe Simonton. And he even has a recipe in there for these space pancakes. And he has instructions for children to submit FOIA requests. Oh, my God. Yeah. If anything, if anything, this case got more charming just based on that. So I will believe Joe Simonton all day. long. I love it. I love it, man. And you and I are going to make a trip to Wright Patterson, and we're going to bring, are you an Antimima guy or a Mrs. Butterworth? I could go either way. I really could. Okay. All right. We'll bring both just to be safe. The libations continued to flow in episode 71 when I had on Jason McClellan of Rogue Planet and MJ Benayas of Terra Obscira. And we talked about the endeavors currently being under taken by To the Stars Academy in collecting and analyzing possible UFO or alien materials.

Known as the Adam Project, these materials will undergo rigorous analysis to determine its composition and possible origins. But will we as the public be privy to what they find? And if they do determine that these materials are from off planet, what comes next? Jason and MJ, have very different opinions on that. What happens when you have your test results, right? Even if your test results say, wow, we've never seen anything like this, this looks like it was manufactured off Earth. That's the most likely explanation.

It's still not concrete proof, right? It needs to be tested and tested again and tested again by multiple labs. Go through the scientific process, like MJ said at the beginning. It's a very rigorous process for mainstream science, let alone talking about things that could potentially be from a UFO. So that makes it even more difficult and really ups the responsibility, the burden of proof on the people doing the testing in this case. But even if we accept their results and say, wow, this thing is probably from a UFO, what does that do? What does that do?

For the world, for us, for the UFO research community, what does that do? My opinion is nothing. not a thing it sucks but you know for us in this and for the people who are excited about it I'm a UFO fan

you know I want those results I want to hear that announcement it'll be super exciting for me and I'll go that's cool but I can't really do anything else with it I'll file it away in my brain and say okay this is another element I have to work with

in forming my own opinions but that's really all it does It might stir some headlines for a couple weeks, like we saw with the Pentagon UFO program, but people are going to move on. Even if the results, you know, go to a couple different labs and say, this is from an alien spacecraft. That news is still going to fade in a couple weeks. So is it going to change the course of UFO research? I don't think so. But I love this because it's so, I know it's so paradoxical, but on one hand, I say it's not going to do anything.

On the other hand, I'm all for it. I'm all behind it 100%. And I'm so excited that somebody's willing to pony up that money and do research like this. Because I do think it's incredibly important, but while also saying it's not really going to do anything. I'm going to jump in here. I got to jump in here because I don't actually disagree. So we're going to have our first debate of the night, boy. Sweet.

Okay. So if let's say, okay, sorry. I want to clarify here, Jason, are you saying that if multiple. Labs confirm the data and an academic peer-reviewed papers written and published. Like, we're talking about, I mean, we're not talking about this is going to happen tomorrow. We're talking about this is potentially like five to ten years before this all happens because like testing takes time and then writing the paper and confirming your data. So assuming that happens, an academic paper is written and it comes out, yeah, we have a piece

of material that is not from this world and it is otherworldly confirmed. you're suggesting that that would not change anything in like the study of UFOs? I agree. We have, we have mainstream scientists who have published peer review papers confirming the discovery of extraterrestrial life. And that's mainstream science. And they get shot down. That stuff barely makes the news and people move on. I mean, now we're talking about UFOs, so it's even harder.

What do you mean? Sorry, there's peer reviewed papers where scientists have come out and said that they have epidural extraterrestrial life. many times over in many different arras. Absolutely. And that is fully refuted by plenty of scientists. It barely makes the news, and then we move on. I think ultimately what ultimately happens, though, is the ball rolls forward a little bit.

I mean, how many, I'm sure, as a result of those papers, most astrophysicists now and most astronomers now, most scientists now believe, or at least would argue that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, where maybe 100 years ago or 50 years ago, that would have been viewed as maybe taboo or somewhat heretical to the dogma of science. But now, most people believe, yeah, there is probably extraterrestrial life somewhere out there. Whether it's coming here is debatable,

but it's somewhere out there. If suddenly a material shows up that enters the academic world as being, yeah, no, it's been confirmed by multiple labs and articles have been written, and it is. I would argue that mainstream academia would now, potentially at least certain people within mainstream academia, would start to start studying the phenomena as being like, okay, well, maybe something is actually happening since there is something here, right? We have a tangible piece of, we have a tangible object we can actually study now.

This was one of the best conversations I had on the show about the latest out of inspective The Stars Academy, and I know our talks about Tom DeLong's company have only begun. The coming year promises a lot of updates, discoveries, and projects by To the Stars. So stay tuned for all of that as the year progresses. Also, as the year progresses, I am looking forward to what my guest on episode 75 is trying to achieve. That guest was UFO investigator, Chase Kletke. After hearing about her extensive careers with Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, I was excited to hear from a woman who implemented her many skills into her UFO investigative work. And even cooler, she was now taking UFOs to the Hill, filing as one of the first UFO lobbyists in Washington, D.C.

In 2016, you became a lobbyist for the UFO field. You are fighting the fight for us down in D.C., So what made you want to do this? What did you hope to achieve in becoming a UFO lobbyist? This is awesome. Yeah, it was really Steve Bassett and being a witness to an extraordinary event that produced a lot of forward movement for us as euphologists. And that was the Citizens Hearing for Disclosure. And I know they were former Congress and Senators. And if anybody knows how D.C. works.

They probably have more political clout to call the president than. the seated ones right now. But, right? But, you know, I watched them come in on a Monday and they were being polite and they were listening. By Wednesday, we had half of them standing up saying, we need those files open. So what I realized is when you approach these people who have no idea, no idea of what's going on, they're not being read in. The secret keepers are not these guys sitting in the house or the Senate.

With the right language, we can educate them. and they get it. I saw it at the citizens' hearing. So when we kind of thought, what are we not doing as uphologists in this field? Well, we're really not including the scientists and the lawmakers who have been brutal to us in the past. And, you know, not being afraid to have a door shut in my face, I've really elicid both. And I use science, a lot of scientists to test a lot of labs because I won't use UFO labs because, you know, it's like the prosecution trying to prove the case with only their witnesses. So, you know, I use very independent labs as scientists and I've learned as long as I'm not saying, hey, I think this medal's from a mothership. Yeah, it's like, hey, I got some metal.

You test metal. Can I send you this metal? How much is that going to cost? And we're good to go. And I'm getting really noted labs. And some of the guys that I've even had examine our stuff are up for Nobel Peace Prize. So yeah, and knowing that, okay, well, we walk through that door, what's the next one? So I kind of thought we have to get our lawmakers because we're never going to get anything declassified. We're never going to change anything with the secret keepers or to have any transparency if we don't start including the very people that can do it. I am really looking forward to hearing from Chase again in the near future and updating everyone on how her meeting with Congress went. But for now, we're moving to episode 83, live from AlienCon, Baltimore.

This was a jam-packed weekend where I got to give my Summer in the Sky's lecture and spoke on many different panels. It was insane. When I wasn't too busy, I was able to get some brief interviews with both attendees and other presenters. And one of my favorites from that weekend was from Rami Romani. Rami is a world-renowned Egyptologist and, author. In this interview, we touch on his latest book, Conspired, and he even clears up some misconceptions I and many others have had on the ancient alien theory. Thank you so much for joining me, man. Thank you so much for having me, Ryan. To finally meet you, it's a huge honor. So I have to ask you,

you are giving a talk today. Today is Saturday and Sunday, two different talks, one on the history of Egypt, one on Mummy. So could you tell us a little bit about both of those for the people who aren't going to make it here? Well, the first one is not just about the history of Egypt. It's about the biased history of Egypt. I am obsessed with archaeology and Egyptology, but in a different way, I am obsessed with the unexplained. I've studied all my life explanations that could make sense

to big world mysteries in ancient Egypt. And the problem is that it's the explanations that everyone comes together and agrees on with no. no facts. And that's the problem. For me, the unexplained is what matters most. And I think it's a group effort by everyone that listens, by everyone that looks into it, because everyone comes up with their own theory, and one of them could be correct. But the unexplained is my passion. And ancient Egypt has a lot of unexplained history. We have so much, we have so much archaeology from ancient Egypt that we have found. But even though that's the case,

it's only 10% of ancient Egypt. 90% of ancient Egypt is still under the sands of Egypt. So having a lot of mysteries still unexplained is the reason I do this. And it's fine if it's unexplained. 90% of ancient Egypt has not been found. It's fine if it's unexplained. And that's what I do.

I love them. And a lot of the misconceptions with the whole ancient alien theory as well is I remember someone asked, see this when you had like one minute left answer at a Q&A, did aliens build the pyramids in Egypt? And I loved your answer. It was, you're

going to ask me that when I have one minute left? It's a huge contention and a misconception that ancient aliens is just about aliens came here and they built all of these amazing things that cultures get no credit for. So I have to ask you, what do you make of all these

ideas and your role that you play in bringing that to the ancient aliens theory to that audience. What do you make of all that? It's the biggest criticism I have as an Egyptologist from the scientific world, just the fact that I appear on ancient aliens. And the problem with that is that I think the scientific world is just as ignorant about what they criticize as the rest of the world is. They probably have never watched ancient aliens and just by looking at the title they probably think ancient aliens is all about green people coming to the earth coming to earth hundreds of thousands years ago and building structures

with technology for us and that is not the case ancient aliens is literally a place where people ask questions and have unexplained theories and ancient aliens can sound deceiving but the ancient Egyptian mythology with the gods and every job of every god, just the gods of ancient Egypt is the definition of ancient aliens. An alien is a being that doesn't come from this earth, whatever it is. And if people believe in gods of ancient Egypt, what is a god? A god is a being that doesn't come from this earth. So that is technically an alien. But just saying ancient aliens sounds so bad when scientifically and theoretically when you think about it, ancient Egyptian mythology is full of ancient aliens.

That's a really good point. Do your research, look into the history of a place, and then come to those conclusions. I love that. I love that. So your next talk is going to be about mummies. Can you give us a little cap on what that's going to be about? My next talk is going to be about mummies, not just because I'm obsessed with my... I have a mummy fetish.

Maybe I shouldn't be saying that. That's an exclusive. But mummies are the one thing we actually have from ancient Egypt that is real. Everything else could be anything, but the mummies is the bodies of these ancient Egyptians. And sometimes we don't realize that mummy is a scary thing in a movie, but those mummies are human bodies. Those mummies are dead people that are still. still here a thousand years later.

Those mummies are literally a time capsule that can tell us so much about the history of our ancestors when the technology is right. And keep watching for me on TV for some announcement coming up. And mummies is the hint. You've heard it first here, guys. All right. So we're going to cap this off with you recently came. out with a book. I was so excited when I saw this coming out. Conspired. Can you tell us a little bit

about this, where we can find it and what to expect from it? Conspired is a book that is also about an unexplained mystery that strikes me as an archaeologist. I went inside a tomb in ancient Egypt that no one is allowed into. It's called KV-55, and when I went inside, it was unlike any other tomb, bare walls, no drawings, all the way inside. There's a sarcophagus with a mummy. And around the mummy, there is the magical blocks. Those magical blocks exist in every tomb. They are the ones that protect the mummy from the outer world because that's where people think the mummy curse.

They have inscriptions on them that says anyone that comes close to this mummy will be choked to death. But in that tomb specifically, those magical blocks were turned inwards instead of outwards, which tells you that whoever did this wanted to not protect this mummy from the outer world, but to protect the outer world from this mummy. On the way out of the tomb, there were inscriptions on the wall by ancient Egyptian priests' language, the heretics, and it says, The evil one shall not live again.

That took me on a journey to try to solve this mystery and find the unexplained. Who could this be, and why did they treat him so bad? What could he have done? And that's the book. Wow, where can we find it? You can find it at AlienCon Store or Amazon.com. Thank you so much.

for joining me today. Thank you so much for having you gratitude. I can't wait to see this new TV project Rami is working on. If it's got mummies, I'm in, it's all I'm saying. And our next guest was all in when it came to his highly controversial film, covering the Area 51 mythology. In episode 84, I spoke with investigative filmmaker, Jeremy Corbell, all about his film, Bob Lazard, Area 51 and Flying Saucers.

There has been a lot of contention with the claims brought forward by Bob Lazar, and the UFO field in general has always been split on whether they believe he is selling the truth or not. And with his story now amplified by Corbell's film for a whole new generation, I wanted to hear his thoughts on the skeptics, and even his thoughts on those who straight up debunk the entire Bob Lazar story. And as you can imagine, things got real interesting real quick. It's, you know, it's an interesting thing. It's extremely easy for internet trolls and people who are on the outside looking in to look at a story that is fundamentally hard to grasp and then to dehumanize the messenger. This is something that is done over and over. It's done in warfare. This is something that is done by intelligence agencies.

This is something that is done so you can dismiss the message by dehumanize. the messenger. You know, and I got to say, the critics of Bob Lazar have been holding the mic for the last 30 years. And it's time to take the mic back. And that's exactly what we're going to do on December 3rd at the world premiere in Los Angeles. It is simply time to take the mic back. You know, Bob has never been one to try to correct everybody on his story and what's been going on. He disengaged. He came forward to protect himself. Whether you, he's not. He's not. He's not. He's You believe it or not, that's the truth. Now, it is time.

It is time that the story is told to two new generations. Think about it. 30 years ago was when he came forward with George Knapp. So now we have the opportunity for two new generations to hear this story. So it's happening, whether you like it or not. Here's the deal, man. There are more snakes and charlatans and half-wit just parrots in this field than any other field. I'm sorry, it's true.

Most of you all being sold, a bucket of lies, and you are just happily eating it up. Now, obviously, not the fans listening to this podcast. You're listening to Ryan. I mean, you know, you've got good taste, you know. But I'm just saying it is true and it is sad. So people need to snap out of it, wake the fuck up, and start to understand that all this BS. And I don't even name names because the deal is that gives them power. It gives them a platform.

They don't even deserve it. But you know all the people I'm talking about. all these fake messiahs and people are going to save the world with disclosure and all these people that are telling you all these things they have not a single piece of shred of evidence or any of them to back them up besides their other charlatan friends i do not focus on those stories i will never focus my camera on an individual who i think is being deceptive not from day one and i'll quit in the middle of day one if i ever started down that road the films you get from me are all about the extraordinary beliefs of credible individuals.

I may not completely agree with a cosmology that somebody presents in one of my films. However, I will never point a camera at somebody who I think is intentionally deceiving the public. Never will. That's it. Jeremy Corbell is one passionate mofo. If you have not seen the film yet, please check it out. It's on all streaming platforms. Again, it's called Bob Lazare, Area 51, and Fluff. saucers. And you know what? Just make up your own mind. Come to your own conclusions on it.

Something tells me we're going to be debating Bob Lazard till the end of time. Episode 84 was a bit more lighthearted, as I had three of my good friends and colleagues on to talk all about some interesting space-related discoveries in 2018. My guests included Maureen Ellsbury and Jason McClellan of Rogue Planet, and our resident Punkrock euphologist, Mike DeMonte. Here, we discussed the mysterious interstellar object that came in for a hug with Earth and then gave us the cold shoulder. We had some really, like, groundbreaking stuff happened this past year. Late 2017, early 2018, and for the first time in history, scientists have detected the first interstellar object ever observed. Now, this is

amazing, in my opinion. We're talking about Omuamua. Avi Lube, chair of the the Harvard University Astronomy Department said Oumuuma did not behave like an ordinary asteroid or give off gas like a comet. There seemed to be an extra force that is pushing it, and it's not clear what this push is from. In an upcoming paper, he and a colleague offer what they call a more exotic scenario. Omuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization. This thing kind of made a comeback when Harvard scientists wrote a paper about it. claiming that it could be aliens. Now, I know that's a very hypothetical thing,

and of course every news outlet grapples onto that one little quote that they say. But very fascinating, this huge elongated object that came into our solar system, hung out for a little bit, and made some really odd maneuvers, and took off. We'll probably never see it again, but who knows. But what do you guys make of the whole Omuamua incident? Where do you all stand on this? thing. Is it an alien probe? It's hard to say, I mean, because, you know, there are, there's some research to suggest that the kind of movement it had could be similar to

resulting from gases from a comet, but could it be an alien probe? Well, we can't really say it couldn't be because we can't see it anymore and we didn't get a good enough look at it. So maybe, but I think it's more fascinating, you know, that this is the first object we've spotted from interstellar space, and that they believe that there's at least four other objects that could be of interstellar origin currently bouncing around that could be hiding amongst all the other space debris. And I don't know, it's kind of fascinating.

Are there just a bunch of creepy alien drones hanging out in our solar system? It's not that far-fetched. I mean, we send probes to other planets, granted within our own solar system, but just look at Star Trek. I mean, yes, it's science fiction, but is it really that far-fetched to think that we could advance to that in the relatively near future? I don't think so. I mean, we just had one of our objects go interstellar, right? So, yeah, I mean, you make a great point, Ryan. I mean, extraterrestrials aside, this is huge news, extremely exciting.

I mean, big time stuff is happening in space all the time now, and we do live in science fiction times, and it's super exciting. So removing the alien possibility, it's exciting on its own. But, yeah, I think responsible journalists and responsible scientists certainly take note of this and see the unusual behaviors. And certainly considering all of the unknowns that exist with this thing, you can't rule out the possibility that this is something, you know, you know, that has an extraterrestrial, an intelligent extraterrestrial component to it. That doesn't mean we're saying that it is. But being a responsible scientist and not having all the answers, you do need to keep an open mind and you do have to weigh all the possibilities, and that's certainly a possibility.

Coming from a media standpoint, you know, it's interesting how, you know, Ryan, you made that joke, you know, they're playing in the headlines, you know, the alien aspect of it. And I don't know if that's just kind of more a telling sign of how the media is more clickbaiting nowadays or just the fact that they're more open to running headlines like that in general. That's where they pull from that, the fact that NASA scientists are saying it could be aliens. So either way you look at it, I think, you know, you have this, you know, they're potentially trying to sensationalize a little bit by running that in the headline.

But also, that's kind of the news too, because, you know, maybe 20 years ago, NASA scientists wouldn't have been so open to even state that claim. So I think it's fascinating how it's been played up. Well, and what's even more exciting, too, is because of this object, they're building another telescope in Chile. Once it's completed, they're going to use it to search for similar objects. Like you said, Maureen, there are possibly other objects out there like this, so now it's pushing scientists to fund these telescopes to look for more of them. And you can't ask for more than that. And you can't ask for more than all of these scientists writing new papers arguing,

comet, asteroid, something other than that. it just keeps going and going. And the fact that we don't have a clear answer yet of what this thing was, that's actually exciting than getting an answer, I think. That unknown is what keeps us going. And I think that's pretty cool. Agreed 100%. Oh, mua, mua, please come back.

We barely got to know you. And we want to show you. Wow. This is why I do a UFO podcast and not poetry. Moving right along to episode 93. I welcomed Diana Walsh Possoc to the show. She is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion.

Her latest book made a huge splash in early 2019, and that was American Cosmic, UFO's Religion Technology. Pesolka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and the book argues that the media is replacing religion

as a cultural authority that offers believers' answers about non-human intelligent life, and the enigmatic phenomenon often connected to all of this. UFOs. So basically, I see this as what I set out to do when I realized that a lot of people were interpreting their encounters and sightings as religious-like, right, or spiritual. I, like Carl Jung, I said, wow, this is something unprecedented. This is a new type of religiosity.

It has nothing to do with old types of traditional religions. And so the thing I wanted to convey by this book for academics was that the digital infrastructure, and this is what Jacques understood too, when he says that the phenomenon acts like a technology, the digital infrastructure has created a new form of spirituality, a new form of religion, really, whereas we have these old forms of religion where we have basically guys who begin these religions like, you know, the Buddha, or you have, you know, you have some religions started by women, but not men. and you have like a central figure, Muhammad, you know, and then they start their religion. But here what you have is you have a diffuse form of spiritual reality for people who talk amongst themselves and it's communities of people. And there's no hierarchy here. I mean, you know, there are people who are experiencers like Travis Walton, say, and, you know, has a movie made or something like that.

But in, but, you know, with the contact movements that are, that are springing up all over the globe right now, you have this diffuse form of religion and spirituality that is, you know, going everywhere. It's, it's kind of linky. It's like networking. And it really replicates the internet. It replicates technology. Even the synchronicities are technological. You know, people can have bought synchronicities. So, you know, I really wanted to show that to people. I also, that's a lot. I also, that's, you know, that's, you know, That's why I kind of kept going back to 2001, a space odyssey. I wanted to show that, well, for one thing, wow, Kubrick was insanely brilliant. I don't even know. I mean, how did you know all of this back then? I don't know. I love Robert Ayer's interpretation of the monolith as like the iPhone or the screen, you know, and that, you know, the monolith functions as this alien technology, and it's created a new form of religiosity.

So Carl Jung, so I was trying to answer Carl Jung's challenge. This book is certainly making waves in the mainstream scientific community, theological communities, and even the intelligence communities. Pesolka even claims that because of the sensitive nature of some of the people she interviewed in the book, every interview she gives is monitored and sometimes even vetted for either classified information or information that may give away. the identities of some of the prominent people who went out on a limb to give their thoughts and experiences with the UFOs. That's pretty scary if it's actually true. Otherwise, it's a really good marketing tool. Bravo, Casalca. Another book that will release in mere weeks is one by Summer in the Sky's regular contributor, MJ Benayas. M.J. is an educator, writer, and YouTuber. His book,

The UFO People, A Curious Culture, is going to release any day now, and I had him on for episode 99 to discuss the book in depth. The book is part narrative journey and part cultural study, and it's a challenge to the UFO subculture and the broader public to recognize the UFOs, and the people who study them, challenge societal norms, institutions, and even ideology. The UFO phenomenon, real or not, abandons us to a ghostly realm where nothing should be taken for granted. I think, you know, for your long-time listeners and all the shows I've sort of been on previously on somewhere in the skies, I think they've sort of heard me say it many times, but I'm very

confident that uphology is actually philosophy. If euphology is a thing, like, I'm going to sort of argue a bit that there really is no euphology proper. But the art of engaging with the UFO phenomenon or UFO discourse is really a philosophical project. the way we interpret reality is all mediated by language and how we make and give things meaning. Anytime you give anything meaning or definition, you are creating a reality for it. Reality is real in the sense that things exist in the universe and objects are there.

Like there is an objective reality. But without us, it really has no meaning. we apply meaning to everything around us. So a coffee cup is a coffee cup, not because of some objective coffee cupness. It's a coffee cup because we say it's a coffee cup. Whenever you deal with any meaning whatsoever in reality, you can tear that meaning down.

And so you can kind of go through why certain ideas we have, have the ideas that sort of are in them. You know, why are, why is the masculine, masculine, or why is the feminine feminine? and we can break those ideas down and see where they came from, we sort of create meaning in turn, but ultimately we can kind of start to chip away at the different layers and filters we've applied to the world around us. There's sort of one thing, though, that typically defies meaning as a sort of undefinable thing

or an undeconstructible thing. And the ghost is a great example of this, right? A specter is something that cannot be, I guess, deconstructed because it exists and it does not exist, right? Ghosts by their very nature are real and not real. They're fact and fiction, their reality and mythology simultaneously, and we can't necessarily kind of break them down. Not really ghosts as like the spirits of the dead. Ghosts more as sort of our shared experiences as a society. And it gets all quite philosophical. And I go through that in the book. But to sort of quickly boil this down, the UFO community is sort of similar. The UFO community exists and it does

not exist. Very similarly, just like the UFO. The UFO exists and does not exist. It's a specter. It shows up and it disappears. To a lot of people, it's real. It's a real physical object that's tangible, that they can touch, they've been aboard that they've experienced in some way, not just seeing it, but engaging with it, communing with it in some way. But to others, the UFO is a myth. It's folk tale. It's just lore. It's mythology, right? So the UFO exists in this dual state.

And the people who pursue UFOs, you know, us, the UFO people, we're also ghosts. We sort of haunt mainstream culture and popular culture. We have our feet in two worlds, right? We, on the one hand, we go to Starbucks and drink coffee. We drive our kids to dance class. You know, we buy minivans and apartments and houses. and we have day jobs and we have a bank account and pay our mortgage. Like, you know, we live that life, that normal daily sort of what we would deem real life, quote unquote.

But then on the flip side, we're also a group of people who believe in things that ought not to exist, right? We believe in UFOs and we believe in ghosts and we believe in potentially Bigfoot and all of these other paranormal phenomena that challenge the other side, right? They challenge the idea of you should go to Starbucks and have a mortgage and drive your kids to dance class. They challenge the very fabric of our daily lives. So how do we reconcile this, right? How do we as people who believe in flying saucers and UFOs and interdimensional beings reconcile the fact that I still pay a mortgage and have a bank account and for some reason, like, go to work every day and like to what end, right? So we get stuck in this ghostly realm, this in-between realm of our daily lives that we would say are real is. real, and then this UFO world that we would say is real. And they're in incredible conflict

with each other. I actually think conflict is a very good way to put it, and to kind of wrap this up. Us UFO people are our own greatest supporters, but many times we're also our own greatest enemies. Just like any other community, we often gossip, fight, and sometimes even sabotage one another's work. But I don't want that to be what this show ever becomes. So I am counting on you, the listeners, to keep me grounded when I'm reaching too far or too low. These past 100 episodes have shown me some of the most interesting, scary, dark, inspiring, mysterious, and sometimes even unbelievable conversations going on around the world about UFOs and paranormal phenomena. Everyone likes a good story, but I wanted to make somewhere in the skies more than just entertainment.

I wanted it to be a place where people could share their thoughts and opinions without judgment and ridicule. And as we hurdle forward to what I hope is another 100 episodes and more, I want to thank each and every person who gave me a chance, who were there for me from the very beginning or just hopped on for this episode. I hope you'll go back through the archives and revisit topics that you find interesting, that open your mind and even your eyes to what may be out there. And I hope that we can continue to search for answers and even ask new questions.

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you to the E1 Podcast Network for always being there for me. If you have a story to share with me or you want to check out past episodes, be sure to check out our official website. Somewhere in the skies, We're on Twitter at SummerSkies and Instagram at SomewhereSkiespod. Please do me a huge favor and head on over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe to the show.

While you're at it, please also rate and review the show. Every subscription, rating, and review brings us closer to being featured on the Apple Podcasts pages. Be sure to check out our official store at tepublic.com. Just go to teapublic.com and search for the Summerless Sky Store. And the last thing I'm going to ask of you is please just share the show with your friends. Word of mouth goes a really long way when it comes to getting the word out about a podcast. So please, just tell anyone you know about it. You never know.

They might even have their own UFO story to share. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you here next week. And remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network. To learn more, visit Entertainment One Podcast.com.