Somewhere in the Skies - The Black Triangles

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

On episode 203 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by author, researcher, and archivist, David Marler. Marler is best known for his prolific work in compiling reports on the highly mysterious black triangles, having amassed and reviewed over 17,000 case files. We hear about some of the most intriguing reports he's come across, and we also get the inside story on Marler's work with the History Channel series, Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation. Marler also shares his newest endeavor in obtaining a massive collection of the original Project Blue Book files, the CUFOS files, and his work in digitizing them for future generations. Marler wraps up by answering listener questions, and also joins us for an exclusive bonus episode over on Patreon where he shares the terrifying story of a child who was severely burned by a UFO. Visit David Marler at: www.davidmarlerufo.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Episode edited by Jane Palomera Moore Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal.

And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet. No. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326, participating stores only well supplies lastly out for full terms.

Today on the show, UFO researcher and archivist David Marla. One little statement in the naval spokesman's comment that most people don't seize upon, it stated one of the reasons they were doing this is due to the increased frequency of sightings within military operations areas of these UAPs. That is a very telling statement because since the New York Times article came out in all these successive revelations with regard to the UAP task force and other things, the fundamental question I've asked myself, having been doing this now for 31 years, and looking at decades-long denials on the part of the United States government military,

why now are they acknowledging the phenomenon, why now are they coming out more publicly and talking about it, why now are they releasing DOD videos? We have to ask that question, and I think the naval spokesman gave us insight into that. So are they seeing this huge, surge in sightings, credible sightings on the part of their military. And if so, how could you not stand up and take notice of that?

This is somewhere in the skies with Ryan's bread. David Marler is with us today to talk all about his research with triangular UFOs. Obviously, a big interest of mine. We're going to talk all about his being featured on the History Channel television series Unidentified, his latest UFO file acquisition. and so, so much more. So I am so happy to finally have David Marler here. David, thank you so much for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies, my man.

No, thank you, Ryan. It's great to be here. And I have to ask, is that the office, the office that we all know in the background there? Yes, this is the ultimate man cave for UFO researchers. Yeah, this is where I spend the majority of my time, much to my wife's disappointment. But, yes, this is actually where we filmed that episode of Unidentified

and as you alluded to in the introduction, there's been a sizable acquisition since then. And so there was a lot of data here before, but I went from 15 file cabinets now to 30, and I can tell you they're chalk full of history and data, case files, news clippings, audio recordings, microfilm. You name the medium, I've got it. And so it's an exciting time right now to have all of this information.

And hopefully during the course of the show, we'll talk about some of the work that's going to be done in 2021 and beyond with regard to that information. Oh, absolutely. I really want to dive into, you know, obviously everything you have, but the latest acquisition, which really excited me. Again, you use Man Cave. Whenever I picture that, it's, you know, a basketball who've been sports in a bar with, you know, all the liquor. And then here I see the Man Cave that I would dream of as well. This is the UFO equipment. great minds think alike. I love it, man. Well, hey, before we get to everything we're going to talk about tonight, I have to do the origin story question. As many shows often do, you're probably sick of it at this point.

But for any of my listeners, my viewers who aren't familiar with you and your work, maybe give us a little rundown of how you got to where you are today and how you first became interested in the UFO topic. No, it's a valid question. And I actually, in my book, I alluded to the, that before I start delving into the subject, I guess I should give people a little bit of background. Reader's Digest Version, because I think most people probably have already heard some of this. My first recollection of hearing the term UFO was when I was five years old way back in 1973, and I'm dating myself by telling this story. But at that time, there was a wave of UFO sightings down in Piedmont, Missouri, which is in southeast

Missouri, about two, two and a half hours south of St. Louis. My father grew up there. And so we had family that lived down there as well as many friends. And I remember my father talking about it at the time because it had garnered a lot of local media attention in the St. Louis market, which is where I lived at the time. And my father, my brothers, and my sister were piling in the car on weekends with thermos of coffee and binoculars to go, quote unquote, look for UFOs down in Piedmont. And many people were doing that. The police were having issues with people parking along the county roads there looking for the, these lights in the sky. And my father had never seen anything, nor had any of my siblings,

but some of his relatives living down there had had sightings of objects, lights, as well as they knew the people that were prominently being featured in the newspapers talking about what they had witnessed. And so that was my first introduction. I remember the excitement and the enthusiasm with my older siblings piling in the car, and I was five years old. So unfortunately, I had to stay home. But that was my introduction, if you will, at a very early age to the UFO subject. Fast forward four years later, 1977, my sister and her husband had a close encounter with the UFO outside Kansas City, Missouri around midnight. And it was one of those situations.

I hate to say it. It sounds so cliche, but it's true. And this is before close encounters, are actually the same year. But they were driving. They came to a stop sign, and there was this beam of light that, illuminated the vehicle, the road, and illuminated some of the area around their vehicle. No sound, no downwash. It wasn't a police helicopter with a spotlight. But just as soon as the light shined on them, the light disappeared. And my sister's husband was able to look out

the window and he could see some type of structured object above them with multi-colored lights as well as this intense white light. So I remember hearing years and years at Christmas and Thanksgiving, when the family would get together, they would retell that story. Not to the general public, of course, but it was just kind of a little family secret. And then a year after that, in 1978 in a town called Ellesbury, Missouri, which is north of St. Louis, there was another wave of UFO sightings. And in this particular instance, cattle mutilations as well. And that had, again, garnered a lot of St. Louis media attention. And so it was really a successive series of events that kind of solidified my interest in the subject. But it really wasn't until 1990, fast-forwarding to

1990, where I heard about Mufon. And I was shocked that there was actually people that investigated the subject actively. And so I immediately signed up for Mufon, became a field investigator, trainee, and then worked my way up to Illinois State Director for about seven or eight years. I was in that position. And really, you know, cut my teeth with Mufon. And then as I was continually amassing a lot of historical material, there were areas I really wanted to focus on delving into the historical records. And so I decided my time with Mufon, you know, it was a great period that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I felt I needed to move on. I felt, you know, we all have our calling in this field as far as what we should be gravitating

towards. And I really wanted to gravitate towards more field investigation, but also coupling that with the historical research because we have 75 plus years worth of case files. And I just felt like a lot of people weren't delving into that as much as wanting to go out and get yet another UFO report. And my attitude is, no, I want to wade into the data because there's a lot of people then, as well as today, I think you'll agree, Ryan, that they talk a lot and they talk about what they believe. But at the end of the day, and I don't mean to sound crass when I say this, I know it comes, across this way. It doesn't matter what you believe. Rather, it only matters what the data reflects. And if you're truly going to look at this from a scientific approach, if you're taking UFOs as your new religion, then yes, you can believe whatever you want. But, you know, I tend to be an objective researcher,

and it doesn't matter what my personal beliefs are unless it's based or, you know, bolstered by what the data reflects. And so that's what I've been trying to do is look for patterns in the data. And of course, the most prominent example of that is the book on triangular UFOs, looking at that one particular subset of UFOs in the overall data. But certainly there's a lot of other areas that I've explored, and I've been also actively tracking down historic witnesses that are still alive in some of these old cases. And so really just a diverse background in the subject and then collecting and archiving the material and making it accessible to other researchers and really sharing the data.

I think that's so important. No one individual, I believe, is going to crack this mystery wide open. It's going to be a collective effort and a community effort. And so I try to work with as many people as possible in that endeavor. And so that's kind of it in a nutshell. That's a very important thing to stress, I think. Two things. First, the belief issue in juxtaposition of the data and also the sharing of information.

Now, there's this thing in the UFO field that a lot of us come across is people hold things very close to the chest. They want that one case that's going to make them shine or save for a rainy day fund. But I can say this with probably the largest database of files and documents and historical context of cases that you have. You are one of the most accessible researchers out there where we can come to you and say, hey, how many triangles in 1988, boom, you got it, this, that, which I love about you, Dave. But actually, the thing that that drew me to you first wasn't actually your research into triangular UFOs. It was your research into the Battle of Los Angeles. Yes.

A case that I've actually never covered on my show, believe it or not. Yeah, yeah. So I was wondering, could you maybe give us like a little brief rundown if that's even possible of what the best. Battle of LA was and yeah, the research you did into it personally. I will do that. But Ryan, before I answer that, I don't know if you realize the timing of your question. You do realize today is the anniversary. Of course I knew that.

What are you kidding me? I realized that this morning when I woke up and looked at the date and I'm like, oh my God, it's the anniversary of the Battle of L.A. That proves right there, Dave, that I haven't covered it on my show before. I didn't know the actual date. So I've, uh, you've just outed me as a lazy UFO researcher. But no, please, please, please put me to shame, if you will. Well, no, I've tried to investigate that case like many others, looking at the factual information that's out there, not going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy tales and misinformation.

As unfortunately some quote unquote researchers out there have muddy the waters, if you will, with less than credible information, spurious tales, purported government documents that have no established provenance. The research that I've been doing, I think, is one of the more extensive endeavors with regard to this case. And I do have to cite, because I always love to cite my resources for anyone that has observed or attended any of my lectures and seen my research, I have to give credit to my friend and colleague Barry Greenwood. It was Barry Greenwood, who in the early years of FOIA had secured really all of the government documentation, legitimate government documentation that we have to date with regard to this. And so what I did is I took the information that Barry had gathered,

and then I tried to correlate that with all of the original and digital copies I had of all of the newspaper accounts, and then coupled that with some additional insights that I was able to gather. Anti-aircraft guns went into action against unidentified aircraft in the Los Angeles area, shortly after 3 a.m. Pacific War time this morning. The anti-aircraft guns began barking during a blackout ordered by the fourth interceptor command at 2.25 a.m. The unidentified object, which some sources thought might be a blimp, moved slowly down the Pacific coast from Santa Monica and disappeared south of Long Beach. Army officials declined to comment on the possibility that the object might have been a blimp. However, it required nearly 30 minutes to travel some 25 miles,

far slower than an airplane. Watchers on the roof top with a Columbia Broadcasting Building in the heart of Hollywood could plainly see the flashes of guns and searchlights sweeping the skies in a white arc along the coastal area. Concussion of the shells could be felt in downtown Los Angeles 15 miles away. U.S. Army planes quickly took to the dark skies, but whether they contacted the object has not been announced. Army officials say they will not comment until they receive a full report of the action. By 3.30 a.m., observer said the object appeared to be over the south of Long Beach. Searchlights closely followed the object down the coast and kept it centered in their glare. Shells frequently could be seen bursting near the object, but none appeared to hit it.

The shooting stopped about 3.30 a.m. The shooting brought warfare to the front door of this city of a million and a quarter population for the first time since December 7th. Approximately 20 minutes after the firing died down, the ship returned and headed westward from Long Beach towards Santa Monica. The guns went into action again, hurling round after round of shells at the object. The second barrage appeared to be closer to downtown Los Angeles, since watchers could hear the concussion of the guns more clearly, and the flash of bursting shells was brighter.

Then the ship disappeared for the second time over the ocean. But in a nutshell, in the early morning hours, February 25th, 1942, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, and this is the one element I always like to start off with because the skeptics never address this when they try to poo-poo this case. We had three separate Army radar tracking stations that was tracking an inbound target coming in towards the California coast from the northwest. And they were able to track it for 120 miles. And the radar operator at the time is quoted in the government documents stating it was a strong, valid target. And admittedly, in 42, radar was extremely crude. But I found it interesting that they mentioned the radar operator by name,

and they also talk about the fact that it was a solid target, and they felt it was a legitimate target. Anyway, in the wake of this radar target being tracked, heading towards Santa Monica from the Santa Barbara area, shortly thereafter, the air raid sirens went into effect, because at the time, we had a huge military presence because, again, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, we felt that the Japanese might be ready to make a mainland assault on California. So there were army emplacements, any aircraft battery guns, literally in school yard playgrounds. And at the corner of certain housing blocks, they were deeply embedded within. in that whole area of California. And so when this radar target was being tracked, that was what essentially initiated an air rate alert.

And so most of California was completely blacked out. And the any aircraft batteries were put on green alert, green status alert, meaning that they were ready to fire if they observed a target. And they did observe a target. They actually observed several targets. And this is where it gets a little murky. Many people have postulated that there were multiple objects in the air.

Witnesses describe seeing squadrons of fighter planes, bombers, all types of reports that you can imagine. But what I tried to do is be conservative in looking at the accounts and really focusing on more objective data. In other words, for a moment, let's just discount the eyewitness testimony and say, okay, people can be bad observers in a heightened state of hysteria, which some people were. there were some heart attacks as a result of this because people felt like the Japanese were attacking. I decided to focus on two elements. One, the radar. We had three separate radars. Two, if I remember, two SCR 268s, which was the first short-range radar the Army used.

And the SCR 270, which was a long-range radar. And the SCR 270 was actually the same radar array that tracked Japanese planes coming in to attack Pearl Harbor, which is a rather interesting side note. But the fact that we had three radars correlated on one target, they were tracking that inbound target. And then beyond that, we have the famous photograph that most people are familiar with, having looked at the case online. And I really think it's the photograph that has really been a catalyst for really capturing

people's attention. But we had those two things that go beyond just eyewitness testimony. We had radar confirmation. and photographic evidence, which even today, we would really raise the bar of credibility if we had those elements beyond eyewitness testimony. Well, the object in question, based on all the information I've been able to gather from newspaper accounts, military records, etc., the object came in off the west coast, it moved over Santa Monica, it then moved inland, and then moved to the south, and then dropped down towards Long Beach, and then reports state that it then disappeared.

Well, during this entire period of time, any aircraft batteries were firing like mad. They also had, I believe, 37 millimeter round and 50 caliber rounds that were being fired, in addition to these huge three-inch artillery shells, any aircraft artillery shells. So it was mayhem. There was shrapnel raining down all over the Los Angeles area, Hollywood, and Long Beach, even along the coastline. We had, you know, multiple locations where we had shrapnel raining down. And then silence. The object disappeared. According to the CBS radio broadcast, in addition to government documents and other sources, the object or a similar object then came back.

And from all the information I've been able to gather, essentially reversed direction. Revered and came back opposite the direction it had come from, moved inland, went north, and then went out over Santa Monica and then disappeared off the coast. And so we're left with this report of an unidentified object. We can't say it's extraterrestrial for the skeptics out there. I'm not saying it's extraterrestrial, but it is a genuine UFO. And the thing I love about the case, Ryan, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, is I love the case because it was during a period of naivety. In other words, it was going to be another five years, right, before 1947 is upon our doorstep,

before Kenneth Arnold had his siding, before we were even thinking, quote, unquote, flying, saucers. And then, of course, Roswell then happened shortly thereafter. So I like to say, you know, contrary to what skeptics will say, well, people read about UFO reports, then they go out and they see a light in the sky, and then they believe they've seen a UFO. Well, we didn't have the term UFO until the 50s, and we certainly didn't have the term flying saucer in 1942. So it was an interesting period in time, and I might add, I was just talking to a fellow research of the other day about this, this is even before the foo fighter sightings during World War II. So this was a very early case involving tens of thousands of eyewitnesses,

involving radar confirmation, and involving a famous photograph. And then in my research, and this is an interesting little side note. I like to collect elements of history because I'm just, I'm sentimental. You can't be a historian, I don't think, without being sentimental. And you love to have those original elements, those original newspapers. And I have about 12 to 14 original full-page newspapers from February 25th and 26, 1942, chronicling this. One of the items that I was able to come across and acquire was an original photograph, original copy of the famous photograph that everyone's familiar with.

It's stamped on the back, property of Associated Press. In addition, it has glued onto the back one of the original teletypes from February 25, 1942, chronicling the early event, you know, before additional information was known. And it talks about a slow-moving target that the Army was firing upon. And so it's really nice to have that original piece in addition to the other elements that I have. But what's interesting is the fact that for decades we knew about this case. And really not until maybe the last 30, 40 years that the UFO community really took notice of it as a quote-unquote UFO case. But what was interesting is, you know, a lot of people ask me, well, how did you acquire that photograph? And I was talking to Barry Greenwood just the other day, and I said, we could do a whole lecture on just how we've acquired some of these items and the way in which we acquired them. There's some fascinating stories. But real quick, I found this photograph, believe it or not, on eBay. And I'm here to tell you, I have numerous other newswire photos from the time period and even later in the 50s and 60s. So I know what the earmarks look like. I know what to look for as far as the property stamps, et cetera.

And so I was in touch with a gentleman who lived in the Los Angeles area. He was the one that had sold it on eBay, and luckily I was able to win the bid and obtain it. When I reached out to him to tell him, I'm actually conducting extensive research on this event. Emails led to phone calls, which then led to video chats via Skype. And the story is fascinating. For years, we've known about the photograph, but researchers have never asked the fundamental question. Well, who took the famous photo? Who was the photographer?

It's one of those questions that really has just gone unanswered, if not unasked, over the decades. And so it was interesting because in speaking with this man, he described the fact that he and his wife on weekends like to do yard sales, estate sales, in the greater Los Angeles area. And he went on one particular Saturday, not very far from his home. I believe he said the property that he went to was only about three miles from where they lived. and I believe it was Woodland Hills, if I'm not mistaken. And he went there and his wife was looking at items and his attention was drawn to a folding table sitting in the front yard. There were two long file boxes sitting underneath this table. Well, curiosity got the best of him.

He crouched down and noticed that there were multiple files, old file folders within each file folder was a black and white beautiful black and white news photo. Photos of Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, photos from the war, anything and everything that you can imagine, circa 1942. And so one of the photos was also the Battle of L.A. photo. The gentleman asked the young lady that was apparently running this estate sale, ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, where did you acquire all these really cool photos? And very naively, she said, oh, those belong to my grandfather. He was a photographer with the Associated Press. So essentially, this was his collection of photos that he took while he was a press photographer.

He took the famous photo? Well, as best as we can establish, as I stated in my lectures, I can't say 100% certainty, but most photographers don't collect photos from other photographers. They just have their own portfolio. And so it was interesting. I did get in touch with the family through the help of this. this individual because I'm here in New Mexico and, you know, I'm not out in California. And I was able to get in touch with the family.

They were kind enough to send me photographs of pictures of the gentleman. And the gentleman, by the way, his name is Ira Goldner. And he was a photographer for decades. He was born in the late 1800s, was a fairly seasoned and older photographer at the time. And they were able to share pictures with me, which I still have. photographs of Ira with his camera in the Los Angeles area, taking pictures of sports figures, movie producers, and in addition to that, awards that he had received, press badges that allowed him to get into certain events dated 1941, 45, around that whole time period. So ample evidence

to suggest that, you know, this is probably the guy. In addition to that, I found stamps on the back of some other photographs that I acquired from the same collection that showed that he had a photo studio in Hollywood, California. So it puts him right into that area of the Battle of L.A. Beyond that, Ryan, and I think you'll appreciate this, my early research trying to investigate background on him, I did a Google search, and people can probably still pull these things up. I only found two photos that are tied to Ira Goldner, and one was extremely interesting. because it was taken approximately two weeks before the Battle of L.A. incident. And the photograph in question shows Los Angeles police officers rounding up Japanese citizens in the wake of World War II, or Pearl Harbor, I should say.

And so it was two weeks prior to the Battle of L.A. and it credits him. And it was taken in Los Angeles. So it puts us at the right time, the right month. It puts us in Los Angeles and proves that he was in there. at least two weeks prior to the Battle of L.A. incident. So looking at something that's 70 years plus old, it's about the best evidence that we can gather now to really put these pieces together and have a better understanding. Beyond that, I want to speak out or speak out

to a mutual friend of ours, Mr. Ben Hansen. Ben did an episode of the Smithsonian Channel's UFOs Declassified, and it was interesting. It's like the timing of this couldn't work out any better if it was an X-Files episode. They were coming to meet with me and Albuquerque to do an episode on triangles. The day before, literally the day before, they were filming with Ben Hansen to do an episode on the Battle of L.A. Now, in the episode, and many of your audience may have seen this already, and I believe it's still available online,

they went to the L.A. Times archives and talked to Simon Elliott, who is their photographic archival expert, and he has access to their vast photographic archive. It was interesting because when the producer showed up at my doorstep the next day, they walk into my research room, which was not this room. It was a different, different house, different room at the time. And I had the photograph prominently displayed. And he said, wait a minute. He goes, I'm looking at what you have photographed here. He goes, you're telling me this is an original copy.

I said, yeah. And I pulled it out and actually showed him the date stamp and the news teletype. And he goes, but this says associated press. And I said, yeah, I said, based on all my research, It was taken by an associated press photographer. And you could see wheels turning in his head. And he looked at the cameraman. He goes, okay, I know we're here to talk to Dave about triangles,

but I've got to talk to him about this. He goes, Dave, we literally were at the LA Times yesterday with Ben Hanson, and I told him I knew Ben. And they said, I want to show you the raw footage that we just shot yesterday. And so they showed me the clip, which ultimately it was in the final edit, where they're looking at the original negative in the LA, times. And they told me, look, what you're about to see was not scripted. This literally happened organically while we were filming. Simon Elliott's looking at the negative with them,

with Ben and with the rest of the camera team there. And he goes, now this is an interesting curiosity. I've never noticed this before. He said the notch code is not that of what is typically shown with other LA time photographs. And he expounded on it that LA Times photographers all use the same type of film stock. That film stock shows two little triangular notches in the corner, I believe the upper right hand corner of the negative. This one showed a half of an oval, not two triangular notches,

which is indicative of a different type of film stock. And so there's a catalog you can actually look this up. And on camera, and I've actually used this for my lectures, just to demonstrate, look, this isn't me, this is the expert saying this. they're saying, well, what are you telling us that it's a different notch code? He goes, well, it suggests that this was not taken by an LA Times photographer. And then the next day, they literally show up at my doorstep,

and I'm telling him it was an Associated Press photographer by the name of Ira Goldner. So the pieces just meshed perfectly. You know, the narrative only came together. And that's like the only time I've ever had something so seamlessly connect like that. And it was just, and as we were alluding to before the show, sometimes it's just timing with some of these things. Absolutely. The fact that all of that came together 70 plus years later,

and it really kind of helps solidify providing some more insight and additional answers into who was the photographer. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away.

All through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, you can't make that story up. And I mean, you're right. A lot of the things we come across, it is all in the timing.

You look at something like Stanton Friedman just happened to be in a town at a radio station where Jesse Marcel was. And they just happened to start chatting. And that's why we all know about the Roswell incident today because of that change. And these are the successes, right? How many missed opportunities maybe we've had over the years with regard to UFOs and UFO cases? Too many to count, I'm sure, man. I kick myself sometimes. But that's amazing.

you so much for sharing that with us because, again, it clarifies so much about that very mysterious case that a lot of people don't know about pre-Roswell, pre-Kenneth Arnold. And again, we still come to do for that. We still don't know what the object was. I mean, we have to be honest with ourselves. But it's highly suspicious because what I tried to do, as I do with any UFO case, as any good investigator does, you go through process of elimination, starting with the most practical explanations. And just to recap, you know, that whole incident, the Japanese Navy stated that they had no military operations in that area at that time. There was a submarine attack about 36 hours before that shot at some oil rigs near Santa

Barbara. But as soon as that took place, the Japanese sub went back out to sea. We have the Japanese Navy acknowledging that. They didn't take credit for the attack, whereas they did take credit. credit for attacking this oil rig 36 hours before. And then we also have one of the first officers in the 1970s that wrote a letter in affidavit stating that, you know, I was involved on the attack at the oil rigs, but we had nothing to do with the Battle of L.A. incident. There was no reference made to that. We also have the military documents that talk about all of these munitions that were

dispensed that morning at this mysterious target. And so, you know, there's, ample documentation with regard to the case. It's not, as I like to say, it's not a question of did this really happen. There's no doubt this episode played out. And even today, there's still some witnesses that are still alive, albeit in their 90s now, but many witnesses over the years have come forward and talked about the fact that they did see something. In fact, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, back in the early 2000s, I would always attend that. I knew Lou Ferris very well. In fact, some of his archive and material is here now in this collection. I had done a display of historic newspapers.

Some of those at the time, I didn't have as many as I have today, were the original newspapers chronicling the Battle of LA, including the famous L.A. Times with the famous photograph. And I was talking to a gentleman who I had seen in previous conferences there. He was a big fan of my lectures. And I won't say his last name. I believe he's deceased now just by virtue of his age. But his first name was Mike.

And he comes up to me and he goes, hey, Dave, he goes, this is a really neat display that you put together. I said, well, thanks. I like to kind of share some of these historical original documents with people like these newspapers. He goes, yeah, he goes, I saw that. And he's pointing to the L.A. Times newspaper on the Battle of L.A. I said, oh, you've seen it in documentaries. You're familiar with? He goes, no. He goes, I grew up in California. My mother and I were awake in that morning by the sound of any aircraft burst and air raid sirens. And we ran out to the front yard and we didn't see anything. So then we decided to run back through the house to the backyard.

And when we ran out, just like you see in the famous photo, we saw searchlights converge. And he goes, and, you know, Mike held a very responsible position for a defense contractor. He was very level-headed. He goes, I'm not going to tell you what we saw. All I'm going to tell you is in the convergence of lights, there was something sitting there that was reflecting light. He goes, so if anybody tells you different, don't believe him. He goes, I was there. I believe he was about eight years old at the time.

So it was really interesting to have contact with Mike and to be able to talk about that. And I had known him, like I said, years prior. We used to go to the same conference and it just never came up. So it was really interesting to later, it's like, why didn't you tell me this before? But it was really interesting for him to share that. And then, again, other people have come forward with their testimony. So again, it's one of those cases. But I use that as an example, though, Ryan,

because despite the passage of literally decades, it just goes to show you can never completely close one of these cases because you never know where a piece of evidence is going to surface. And what I thought was just a nice little historical piece by having an original copy from February 25, 1942 having the photograph, it turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence that gave us insights into new ideas and thoughts on that case. Right. That's so awesome.

And again, like having a firsthand witness say there was a solid object there, that alone, that is, that alone says case not closed because a lot of the contention was there was nothing there. It was just a reflection off of clouds or it was this, it was that. And now we have someone saying it was a solid object. So what that was? We don't, we may never know. jittery war nerves was one of the official explanations. And so, yes, to me, as I've stated in my lectures, jittery war nerves can't be photographed. Jittery war nerves can't be tracked on radar. And so, to your point, I think it's one of those cases that we'll probably never have complete resolution to, but it's one that I don't think we should just relegate to just an interesting curiosity from World War II. I think it's more than that. And I hope maybe even later, myself or other researchers may gain new insights or new information.

The thing is we never know what's sitting out there with regard to some of these historic cases. Yep. I know. What hasn't been uncovered yet? Absolutely. It's amazing. Well, all right. I guess let's move to what you're best known for. And that is triangular UFOs, an estimate of the situation. this book made a lot of waves when it came out. I think researchers were waiting for something like this to come along because we knew how different and unique that these cases were,

yet nobody was taking the reins, and then boom. You come out with this book with hundreds upon hundreds of these cases. So I guess Dave's sort of playing off of that, what made you want to look into the triangles, these extremely mysterious things that a lot of, of researchers are afraid to even touch? Well, first, you know, there's multifacets to that, that question as far as an answer. I came in, as I mentioned, in 1990, actively investigating UFOs. And for anybody that was around back then, one of the most prominent stories or topics

was the famous Belgian wave of UFO sightings, which involved these large triangular platforms. I found that the reports were interesting because we were not talking little points of light in the sky that could be a satellite or a meteor that someone saw and described as a UFO. These were very prominent sightings, very close encounters, if you will, with these large triangular silent platforms. And then coupled with the nature of the reports, I was also, my curiosity was piqued by the fact that the Belgian Air Force was actively looking at it. And more importantly, they weren't ashamed of it. They weren't hiding it. They were holding press conferences. And then in addition to that, we had not only visual sightings, but radar visual sightings.

In fact, we had the F-16 that locked on multiple times with its onboard radar system. And, you know, there's been some argument and controversy over those radar lock-ons. But I think what's important is the fact that what precipitated sending that F-16 up was the fact that four separate ground-based NATO tracking stations were all converged on this one target and tracking this one target. And it was based on that confirmation. So you had ground-based radar as well as air-based radar that was tracking this object in this particular case. But as I like to say, my interest was purely academic living in the United States. I wasn't, you know, flying over to Belgium to investigate these reports. But 10 years later, in Southern Illinois, where I lived at the time, just across the river from St. Louis, we had a very,

what is now kind of a classic case. At the time, I didn't think it would be as popular as it's become. But the famous Southern Illinois triangular UFO report that we received, where we had initially four and then later five police officers that all came forward from different municipalities, neighboring municipalities, that had observed this triangular object. And what was interesting about that is my friend and colleague, Daryl Barker in St. Louis, was able to secure the St. Clair County Dispatch

recordings. And so not only did we have the interviews with the police officers, we also had the audio recordings of their sightings at the time, which also provided a key piece of information in the sense that they were date stamped and timestamped. So we knew when the officer saw the object where he was standing, not just based on his testimony, but we have the timestamp on the audio recordings. And so that was an interesting case. But Ryan, what I was struck by is, as I was sitting in some of those police precincts, those offices, and these police officers are describing and then sketching what they observed, it was strikingly similar to what I knew the gendarmes,

the police officers in Belgium, had reported 10 years prior. And so that, in answer to your question, started kind of the wheels turning in my head. You know, I knew that other triangle reports had occurred. And certainly, you know, there were magazine articles, references online here and there, not compared to the prevalence we have today. But I was struck by the parallels between these two cases because the Belgian wave started November 29th, 1989, and very much similar to what occurred in southern Illinois, you had multiple police officers

in radio contact seeing these triangular objects. And so that's what started my passion for really trying to find, are there patterns here? Do the other cases describe? the same characteristics. And at the time I had amassed some historical material, nothing to the degree that I have today. But I started pulling some of these files, some of these news clippings, going back to the 50s and the 60s, 70s, and I was finding the same reports, similar characteristics being reported not only domestically in the United States, but internationally. So I started putting this together and it initially started as a lecture. And I believe it was 2006 at the Mufon Symposium was really the first big lecture where I had presented some of this material.

But as you can appreciate, with each successive week, month, year, I continue to gather additional information. I'd like to say I kind of honed the lecture, refined it, and had some really solid cases in it in 2012. And it was in 2012 where I gave the presentation. And I had done previous lectures, but this one really resonated with the audience. In fact, it was so funny. I had about four or five people come up to me after the lecture. And they said, Dave, that was a great lecture. I want to buy a copy of your book. Well, I laughed because I never made reference to the fact I had a book.

I never said I had a book. They just assumed I had a book. And so that, in addition to my first meeting with Colonel John Alexander, where John came across after my lecture, weaved his way through the audience and came up to me and put his hand out. He goes, I just want to shake your hand. He goes, that's one of the damn finest lectures I've heard at one of these UFO conferences in years. And I thought, I knew John Alexander just by virtue of his reputation.

It preceded him. And I thought, well, if John's interested in this and all these other people are asking for a book, maybe I should seriously entertain it. And I'll tell you, I never ever thought I would write a book in my entire life. That was just not even a blip on my radar. But on the flight home, it really just solidified in my mind that, you know what, I'm going to start putting pen to paper and see what comes out of that. And in so doing, within a year, I had the book written. And, you know, I like to state, though, for years prior to that, I had been cataloging and collating these cases. So they were already assembled.

They were in chronological order. I had all that material, which I was familiar with. It was really a year of just massaging it and really trying to drill down and find the best cases that I could, Ryan. And if you go through the book, the vast majority, although with certain exceptions, the majority of those are typically multiple witness cases or if they're individual cases, a lot of those are military reports, which I put much more stock in. And so I really just tried to put it together. And I wrote it to your point because there was no book out there on the subject. There were articles written a lot of stuff being posted on the internet. But my attitude was how come nobody's

like really focused on this? Because what we were seeing then, and I think you would even agree with today, we're continuing to see this positive trend. More and more people are reporting these triangles. And one of the things that really typifies that is the story that's been circulating, in which I've heard is legitimate through my back channel sources, with regard to this purported photograph that was taken last year by a naval pilot. And so if this photo comes out, I think beyond almost anybody out there will be extremely anxious to see that. And I'm told that certain people feel that that may be released in the course of the

next year or so. And so I certainly hope it will be because I get inundated with people sending me photos and videos saying, what do you think of this? And, you know, not to be disrespectful, I appreciate people sending me their information, but I'm humble. I state every time to them, thank you for sharing this. It's interesting. I'm not a photo expert. I'm not a video expert. This is simply not within my area of expertise. And I would say the same if someone sent me a chunk of metal and said, what do you think of this? I don't know. I need to find a medallor just to look at this.

And so I think this will be interesting, though, because if this Navy photograph is released through sources similar to how we have the three famous DOD videos released, what's interesting is we'll have an established provenance. You know, we have so many UFO videos online. Many of those are orchestrated and created by groups and individuals that just love to just fake UFO videos. We can't put much evidentiary stock in those. They're not evidence as such, unless we can verify who took it, where they took it,

and really investigate behind the scenes and get supportive evidence to support those videos. To me, they're just entertainment, you know, until you can do all of that legwork. But this photograph, if it is as good as rumor has it, and if it comes through official sources to the general public, that's one that I'm going to raise an eyebrow and take a look at. I can tell you. I know, man. And I'll say this. You just answered our number one listener question.

Have you seen the triangle photo emerging from the water? And when are we going to see it? I did a poll on Twitter recently. And I asked the public, you know, are we going to see it? What do you guys think? About 51% said yes. Maybe, I don't know, 20% said no. And then the rest said it doesn't exist.

So I guess we'll just have to wait and see. But you're still right in terms of sourcing these things. When it comes to photos in video, something you would think would be the best evidence we have for UFOs. But I'm sure you can agree that they're actually more of a distraction because anyone can fake these things. And we can't find a problem. Absolutely. And there's a couple reasons in my book I've had people say, well, you didn't have any photographs of triangles. and your lectures, you didn't show any photos or videos.

I do that because, again, I'm not a photo video expert. If I was, then I would go through and I would vet them as a professional, and I would pick out the ones that really go through a rigorous review and seem to be legitimate. But I don't have that ability or expertise. If there's photo video experts out there that would love to, you know, share their talents, I would love to, you know, rely on you for that. But until that day comes, I just don't try to rely on that.

And more importantly, beyond the photographs, you know, you can look at a photo, a video. I'm much more interested in kind of the big picture, if you will. I always consider myself a big picture kind of guy. And what I mean by that is you can take any witness that's seen a UFO, triangular or otherwise, and you can say, you know, I've researched this, I've investigated it, I've done the best I can do. And at the end of the day, as a researcher, you kind of do a gut check. You know, do I think this person is legitimate? do I feel they're telling the truth?

You know, is there credibility there? But it's much more impactful, I believe, if you're looking at hundreds of disparate cases worldwide, varied sources, civilian, commercial, military witnesses, spread out all over the globe decades that are all describing the same thing. And the early cases are particularly interesting. Today, someone can Google UFO, and chances are they're going to see an image or a video of a triangular UFO.

The ones that I'm really interested in, Ryan, and I'll share some of these with you after the show, are the historic reports that I found, where they're showing sketches of the triangles that were getting reported today. Equilateral triangles with a point of light at each side. Triangular UFOs where the witness says, what was interesting is the triangle wasn't flying with the point forward, it was flying with the flat side. is the leading edge. And these accounts that we have today, the modern reports, match what I'm finding in 1957, 1962, 1964. And another thing, for those people that believe, well, all these triangles are just military, well, I don't operate with absolutes. I don't like using the term all or none. I think that's just a, you know, you're arbitrarily painting with a very broad brush. Admittedly, you know, the world exists in shades of gray. It's not so simple.

black and white. And I think UFOs are no different. But what's interesting is the fact that, you know, if you believe some of these triangles are military, and I can see the modern reports, if people are seeing triangular objects in the sky, they might be military in origin, but not the ones demonstrating these highly exotic flight characteristics. And what's interesting is, if you believe that, if you believe, well, this is just the next evolution and stealth technology, for example, as many people have argued. How do you explain the ones from 1964, 1954? 1952. Help me understand that logic. You know, you're saying that we had that technology back then. And I know people think that, you know, well, the Nazis had all this technology and we

back engineered it. And I don't buy that because to me, the evidence is just not there to support that, that belief. There's many belief systems within UFOs, but the evidence just doesn't, credible evidence doesn't support it. Let me just say that. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And I think that is one of the biggest arguments that skeptics like to use for the triangular UFOs is it's early stealth technology. And I mean, I've been working on a big article about triangles and I came to you to prove that otherwise that these things have been reported not just in the 60s and 50s, but I know you've found cases that even predate that, which is incredible. Yeah. Some of the early journals, yeah, from the late 1800s referenced triangular objects. I can see, though,

the further you go back in time, the less detailed the reports are and obviously the harder they are to corroborate. You know, more modern accounts, even say from the 70s, perhaps, we might be able to correlate with government documents or other sources. The further you go back in time, it gets more difficult. But, you know, I felt that it would be remiss not to include those in the overall discussion that there have been triangular things reported in the sky going back to the late 1800s. Now, if you want to, you know, ultimately it's up to the reader as they go through the book to determine what they consider valid or not valid. If you want to discount the ones from the 1800s, fine. You still have a huge body of data that speaks to the mid-20th century where these things were being reported worldwide. And then with this most recent acquisition, I'm literally finding dozens of highly credible, detailed reports. And what's interesting, Ryan, and I have to tell you as a researcher and an author, it's so validating.

And that's the best word I can use. The characteristics that I outlined in the book, as far as common characteristics, I'm finding in these new old cases I'm coming across. Cases I didn't even know existed, but it's bolstering what I wrote about when I wrote the book in 2013. That's got to be such a good feeling. You know you're on the right path. And it's very validating. Yeah, right. And the pattern thing, too, I think is most important.

I know that's something that you focus on a lot with the triangles. And that even leads up to your current work with Christopher Mellon. So we have to talk about this. The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense of Intelligence and also the former staff director of the United States Senate select committee on intelligence. God, that's a mouthful. This dude's resume is insane. But that being said, a lot of our viewers are going to recognize you from Unidentified, the history television show and specifically the episode about Triangles.

So I got to ask, how did that come about? And what were these amazing correlations that you found with Christopher Mellon, the guy who knows a hell of a lot more than a lot of us about what's going on? And was shocked by some of this stuff you brought forward. Yeah. Tell us how that all came to be. I'll start the story before Unidentified was even a glimmer in the producer's eye. About a year to a year and a half before Unidentified surfaced as this new TV show, and I think it was groundbreaking with regard to how they treated the subject and the very professional way that they approached it, as well as the credible military witnesses.

But a year and a half prior to that, I had received a call from a colleague and friend who stated, you know, I've been talking to Chris Mellon. do you know who he is? I said, well, I know who he is. I certainly don't know Chris. And he said, well, he wants to talk to somebody about triangles and I suggested he talked to you. Do you mind if I give him your number? He goes, I don't want to give anyone's number out without checking. I said, of course. I said, if Chris has time, I'd love to have a chat with him about the subject, given his background. And so a series of emails in about two or three weeks went by. We were trying to coordinate our busy schedules at that time. And I was literally sitting here in this very chair. And we had a wonderful hour and a half long conversation. And Chris was very kind to preface the phone call by saying,

you know, Dave, I just want to let you know, I read your book when it first came out. I'm a huge fan of your research, which was very humbling, given someone of Chris's intelligence and his background in intelligence. And so it really initiated a conversation about an hour and a half long discussion about the UFO subject. And the thing I always like to point out, there are so many scripted shows out there, UFOs and otherwise. The one thing I like to point out is Chris genuinely has an interest in triangular UFOs. This was not just some creation for the TV show. We talked for an hour and a half intently on the triangular UFO subject about a year and a half prior to this show manifesting itself. And Chris has a vested interest in these things. He truly is trying to figure out

what the hell these things are. And to your point, you know, Ryan, he was, in a very key position to have access to information that, you know, none of us could dream of having access to. And, you know, despite his ability to look at additional information out there, he was of the opinion that, you know, these things are highly anomalous and they need to be investigated. And so, really, that was the extent of it. I think we might have shared some, some emails after that. And then fast forward after season one of Unidentified, the executive producer contacted me. And he said, you know, David, he goes, I don't know if you're familiar with our show on identified, but we're looking to do a season two.

And in this particular season, we're going to focus on certain subjects within the UFO field. And one, we want to do is an episode on triangles. And so they Google triangular UFOs. And I guess my name came up multiple times. And he said, you know, I've got a copy of your book and I'm going through it. And this is some really interesting historical research you've done in connecting the dots. And during the course of the conversation, I stated that, if this show, season two of the show, is as credible as season one, contrary to what I usually tell producers,

I would be interested in participating in this. And then I proceeded to say, by any chance, have you talked to Chris about this particular episode? And the executive producer said, no, why? And I said, well, Chris has a particular interest in this subset of UFO reports. And I said, we chatted about a year, year and a half ago about my research and about this particular subject matter. And he was completely shocked. He goes, no. He goes, I haven't had a chance to talk to Chris specifically about this yet.

And I said, well, I said, you know, I don't want to sound demanding, but I said, if the caliber of the show mirrors season one, and if you can get Chris to come out and meet with me, I said, I'd be interested in participating. So I tried to use as much leverage as I could to try to get Chris

to come out, but I don't think he needed any leverage. I think he was interested in coming out meeting with me to talk about my research firsthand. And I might add to be able to talk here in the research room where obviously all of the original source materials are from which I wrote my book. So he was very interested in that. And it was a busy day of filming that particular day. And again, I loved the way that the producers orchestrated the show. I've done a lot of shows that are scripted or semi-scripted. And I always tell people, when you see

Chris and I meet for the first time on camera, that's, literally the first time we met. We were doing some B-roll filming where they're just filming shots of the research room and images in some of the UFO reports I had. And then they were doing some just direct one-on-one interviewing on camera. And it got to be about maybe 11, 1130. And I asked the producer, I said, so you said Chris is in town, right? They said, oh, yeah, we have him here. He's driving around the neighborhood, but we don't want him to meet you until you meet on camera because we want it to be real. Just to give you a flavor. They really, want the show to be authentic in that sense. And you don't often find it, as you know, Ryan,

in productions. A lot of it's choreographed, stage, scripted all ahead of time. And so literally, when you see us on camera and I say, it's nice to finally meet you, I was anxiously waiting to finally meet him after a whole morning of filming where he's driving around my neighborhood. And so it was really exciting. And we did have just a few moments that day during the filming. We had an unseasonably warm day that particular time of year in the fall. And we were able to sit on my patio and have lunch together. And then we had a couple of coffee breaks where we're standing in my kitchen having coffee and just talking about the subject.

And I will say, you know, Chris and I still continue to keep in touch. As I find historical cases are those I think he might be, have interest in. I'll email those to him, as I would anybody that's seriously taking, you know, the subject seriously and trying to find answers. And, you know, so we, and he'll use me as a sounding board sometime. He'll ask me, hey, did you hear about this case? And I'll give him my two cents on what I feel. think. And so, you know, we've developed a really good working relationship, I guess you could say,

in that sense. And hope to meet with him again, you know, post-COVID at some point at a conference or, you know, personal get-together. But we continued the dialogue after the show, which is really nice. Because I respect Chris. Chris is one of the most intelligent, insightful people that I can think of. To the point where in all my conversations, both on camera as well as off-camera, with Chris, and you may not see it so much on camera, but when you're with him, his wheels are always turning. He's always analyzing what you're telling him. And I appreciate that and I value that. And I think he values my objectivity and my research methodology with regard to the subject. So there's that mutual admiration there. And I've had a lot of people tell me, yeah, watching the show, it seems like

you guys have really good chemistry. And, you know, without them knowing anything, that just kind translated on camera. And I was honored, I will tell you, I didn't realize until the conclusion of season two, if you watch season one and season two, I was the only civilian UFO researcher that they solicited for information. Robert Hastings, Robert Hastings provided a lot for their UFOs and nukes, and I know Robert very well, but they didn't really get a chance to get him on camera to talk about his research on UFOs and nukes. They did talk about his research. He did talk about his personal experiences that he's had as an experiencer, which was very nice. That was really great that, you know, he was able to really come out and talk about that more

openly. But I had a couple of people say, you know, you're the only civilian that they went to for information. And I kind of went back and watched season two again, and I'm like, wow, they're right. And so I don't say that to be egotistical. I just, I was truly humbled because I know how well they vet their information. on that show as far as military information and otherwise. And so I was, you know, you hear this, it's a cliche.

I was truly honored to be a participant in that production. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer, Gina Carrano, and the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavy weight in the world, Frances and Gondon. versus Felipe Lins. Watch Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano.

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up. That's so good to hear that it was a good experience because yes, you know, a lot of UFO researchers who have the opportunity to go on television are often let down. And so is the audience that... A majority of my experience. Exactly. Same with me, brother. But yes, it's good to know that it was a mutually beneficial experience for you and Chris. And I do have to touch on one aspect because I think it is probably one of the biggest revelations having to do with these triangles specifically. And that was something that you and Chris talked about. And I'm sure you know where this is going.

The idea of what these triangles are doing, the motivation. the reason for their structure. Could you maybe run us through that a little bit of what Chris brought to you, what you brought to him in terms of this pattern that you guys find? Well, Chris was talking about some of the military cases that he had come across and some of the military witnesses that he had spoken with or that the team had spoken with. And so that was very insightful because prior to that, I even said this in early lectures for those that may have attended,

how come none of these triangles have been seen in active military theater operations? Well, I was proven that they have as a result of that episode. And subsequent to that episode airing, I might add, I was inundated with emails from civilians and military, both active and retired military people with their own accounts. And I will apologize right now on camera. There was absolutely no way I could respond to everybody. So I apologize publicly. I do have a family. I do have a job.

And I do this in my spare time. I literally received probably 120 or more emails, and I tried to respond to as many as I could. So if there's anybody out there listening, I apologize if I haven't gotten back with you. I do have all of the emails printed. I have them digitized in my computer as well, and perhaps one day I'll get around to everyone.

But Chris really wanted to know and touch on the history of reports and more specifically, the common characteristics. Because admittedly, they were looking at a handful of cases, involving military, but they wanted to kind of create a broader context, if you will, for this particular subset of objects. And I think I have one of the largest databases on the triangular UFO subject matter. And again, Chris being personally familiar with my work, I think he could vouch for the credibility factor with regard to that. And so we were talking about different things. We profiled actually the January 5th, 2000, Southern Illinois case. And then they

also revisited, which I was extremely happy to see, the famous. Hudson Valley Wave in New York from the 1980s, and we're able to actually track down some of the witnesses that are still around and still, after decades, stick by their accounts that they saw these huge triangular objects in the sky. Again, in the 1980s, they were describing what is still being reported today and which was being reported in the 1950s, 60s, and even late 40s. So, you know, I think we can never dismiss that. You can't arbitrarily say, well, Triangular UFOs that are being reported post-Self technology are credible, but we're going to discount 70 years plus worth of other accounts. I mean, that's not scientific.

That's not objective. That's just being completely arbitrary in your approach. And so, like I say, you have to view the totality of evidence. But in the course of that conversation, and I really thought this was interesting, Chris postulated the idea that these triangular UFOs might be on some type of reconnaissance or mapping-man. mission. And I think in a very logical fashion, he looked at the characteristics that I described and the characteristics that he had seen in the reports they had investigated, the low-level flight, the very slow speed, the triangular lights, you know, with a light at each point of the triangle, which is not in all the accounts, I might add. And in some of the recreations, you'll notice they

didn't have lights like that. There are variation in the lighting patterns, but the most prevalent is of course the point of light at each point of the triangle. And Chris postulated, could these things be doing some type of mapping or scanning or reconnaissance operation as a result of their behaviors and as a result of thinking that these lights might be some type of triangulation method for pinpointing and mapping and measuring things? And I have to say, again, what I alluded to earlier, it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters with the data reflex. And there is logic to what he's putting forth.

I don't think we can just discount that. I think it's one of the most logical explanations based on what we've seen with the data time and time again. I've often cited the fact that I thought perhaps these lights, which obviously are not FAA lighting, if these things are from some of the place, they don't need to adhere to our FAA flight regulations with regard the lights.

I always felt that they were an integral part of the propulsion system or there were some type of sensors that were, some technology that we're not familiar with. But going with Chris's idea, it's interesting because I got to thinking, there are accounts where there's no lights on the triangles. So how can that account for propulsion? If the lights aren't on, it's got like an F-16.

If you don't see the fire behind the F-16 in the jet, you know, it's probably going to drop out of the sky. Well, likewise, if you don't see these three points of light, you know, this whole triangle is possibly going to come down. So it got me thinking that, you know, Chris might be on the right line. And again, Chris may be citing, and again, I can only speculate, maybe citing information that he can't disclose further. You know, again, he's had insight to other cases that might shed light and maybe even, you know, be the impetus for him coming up with this idea. I don't know. You know, Chris is very respectful of security and things that are classified.

and people think because I know Chris and we still keep in touch that I have all this inside information. I don't. I provide information to Chris and I know Chris can't disclose certain things and I respect that, you know. But I think what's interesting about the show

about Chris and about Lou, and it's something that sometimes they get a little bit of ribbing on on the part of the UFO community is I've seen a lot of postings on social media that, well, you know, they're, acting like these things are hostile, are they're violent, or that they're a security threat,

a defense threat? Well, I put in my book, you know, seven, eight years ago now, that for governments of the world, not just United States government, governments of the world, military organizations of the world, and intelligence networks of the world, if they recognize that these things are truly real. There's an objective reality to these UFOs or UAPs. If they are moving through controlled airspace without our knowing, if they're using some type of technology that we can't understand, again, lots of ifs, but we have to go down this road, if they can see that there is a genuine phenomenon, as pretty much has been acknowledged since the New York Times article has hit in subsequent revelations, it has to be viewed as a, and this is the keyword people, potential

threat. Because if this thing, whatever it is, is manifesting superior technology, and we don't know what it is, we don't know where it originates from, it has to be viewed as a potential threat. We have to keep in mind that intelligence networks around the world have think tanks that work out scenarios for every possible contingency. And this has to be one of those. Historically, when you look at UFO accounts, triangular UFOs or otherwise, they do not seem to be overtly hostile with rare exceptions. There are certainly those rare exceptions. But when you look at the vast majority of UFO reports, they do not seem to exert or show overt hostile. But as we don't know what we're dealing with, as we don't know what variables are at play, we don't know when, say, tomorrow or a

month from now or a year from now, these things might suddenly shift gears and take on a whole different approach. And if you're in a position of authority within the military defense network, if you're part of the intelligence community, you have to consider those possibilities and have contingency plans on how to deal with it. I mean, these are just logical assumptions based on what they do with any potential threat. And why should UFOs or UAPs be any different, considering we don't know what they are. Yeah, such a good point. And I mean, again, of course, that's the lens in which these guys are going to look at this. And also, let's say, for instance, there is a valid evidence that these things are surveying or mapping our world. Why? Why are they doing that?

We need to know the motivation for that. And that could be a potential threat, right? Why are they doing that? And Ryan, admittedly, there's been a successive series of revelations since the New York Times article, right? The videos came out, then they officially endorsed the videos, then the Navy came forward and said, yes, they acknowledged the videos. And by the way, we're also formulating official policy and procedure for naval personnel to report UAPs. One little statement in the naval spokesman's comment that most people don't seize upon, and I can tell you my eyebrows went up and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, it stated one of the reasons they were doing this is due to the increased frequency of sightings within military operations areas of these UAPs.

That is a very telling statement because since the New York Times article came out in all these successive revelations with regard to the UAP task force and other things, the fundamental question I've asked myself, having been doing this now for 31 years and looking at decades-long denials on the part of the United States government military, why now? why now are they acknowledging the phenomenon? Why now are they coming out more publicly and talking about it? Why now are they releasing DOD videos? We have to ask that question.

And I think the naval spokesman gave us insight into that when they stated due to the increased frequency. So are they seeing this huge surge in sightings, credible sightings on the part of their military? And if so, if you're wired like Lou, if you're wired like Chris from a defense intelligence standpoint, how could you not stand up and take notice of that? These are the facts. As we have it's an element. Exactly. It's a concern. Yep. Wow. There's so many roads we could go down with that man. But I do want to, I want to get to this latest endeavor that you're doing with Mark Rodiger. This is incredible. For those watching the video version of this episode, you will see to David's right those huge massive file cabinets, which I'm drooling, just wondering

what's in there. Tell us all about what's going on, man. Let me just say that there's 15 file cabinets that stretched behind me here. On the other side, this direction, just to orient you, are the 15 file cabinets you saw and unidentified, the black filing cabinets for those that maybe have the episode recorded or such. So there's 30 file cabinets here. but this row stretching all the way back behind me and then around,

these are the historic Kufos UFO case file collection. These are also the personal files of Dr. J. Alan Hineck and also contained the original Project Blue Book material that J. Allen Hinek took with him at the conclusion of Project Blue Book. Now, the backstory on this, Kufos, the Center for UFO Studies out of Chicago, had been wrestling with what to do with the physical files. And that being said, there has been the lion's share of work being done on the part of Barry Greenwood and Jan Aldridge

to try to get these extensive files scanned, digitized, preserved, and then ultimately made accessible to the general UFO community and general public. But it's been very slow in that process. So a series of events, I know Kufos very well. I know Dr. Mark Rodger, he's a friend and colleague. I've known him. Mark, just by virtue of the fact being in Chicago where Kufos was and me being Illinois State Director for Mufon for seven or eight years, afforded us the opportunity to get to know each other to work together in a couple instances. And I have the utmost respect for Mark and consider him a dear friend. But working with the Kufos board, they were struggling with what's ultimately going to happen to the files. They knew of my passion for UFO history, the archive that I've already started. but more importantly, my effort to try to digitize and preserve a lot of the material that I had. But through a successive series of discussions, it was decided that I would be willing to accept the files here. My wife and I here in the research room, but it was predicated on this, that post-COVID, hopefully very soon here in 2021,

we will be having Barry Greenwood and Jan Aldridge flying out to Albuquerque for extended stays here at my home. My wife and I and family will be putting them up as kind of live-in researcher guests for a week to two weeks at a stretch. And they will be working here in this room at this table behind me, digitizing and scanning as many files as they humanly can possibly do. Now, this will be a series of visits over this year and over the next probably two to three years with the goal of hopefully within two to three years of having all of these files scanned. As I mentioned, Greenwood's done a wonderful job. He estimates he's done between 20, 30 percent of the files already. But just to give you some context, these files literally stretched from the beginning of the drawer

all the way to the back. I can barely get my hand in to pull out some of these files. And again, we call them the Kufos files, but that's really an umbrella term. These are also Donald Kehoe's Nycap UFO files going back to the 1950s. And even earlier, another group, which was extremely pivotal in the early years of civilian UFO research in the United States is CSI, New York, civilian saucer intelligence, New York. Ted Blocher and many other early researchers amassed a considerable amount of civilian UFO files. And in addition to this, we have a number of Australian cases, and as I mentioned earlier, the original Project Blue Book material that Heine took with him. What's interesting about this, Ryan, and if you were drooling before, you're going to drool even more now,

What's interesting is, as you look through Heinzsche's Blue Book files, he made a habit of crossing things out and making notations in red felt marker. On a number of these, where Blue Book describes something as ball lightning, he would cross it out with a red line and then right next to it unidentified and then would make some marginalia or notation, you know, did not follow through as they should or should have been investigated more thoroughly. So what's interesting is after all these years, not only do the files give us information in the form of data, in the form of UFO case files, we get insights into what Heenik was thinking in some cases with regard to the case and with regard to Blue Book's approach and the way that they investigated or more often than that did not investigate these cases. And then lastly, I'd like to mention the fact that in addition to these files, I have an entire file cabinet of microfilm that I received from Jan Alder. And he has sent me extensive reels of microfilm. And I have a machine right here. I don't know if you can see it on the camera for those that are watching this. This was donated through a benefactor of my research.

This is a $5,000 microfilm digitization machine. And we're starting the slow process of digitizing all of these microfilms as well to make accessible to the general public in the next two to three years. and some of this has per Jan Aldridge, who's the leading UFO historian in the United States, he said the general public UFO community has not seen some of this historical material that's on these. So we're really excited to preserve the material. God forbid if anything happens to the originals, but the ultimate goal of making it accessible. Now, I always say short term, you want to see the files, you've got to come to Albuquerque.

I know that's cost prohibitive and time prohibitive for many people. However, because the files which resided in Chicago since 1973 are now here in Albuquerque, for those in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, from this portion of the country, it's now maybe more readily accessible. And so for those serious researchers that want to come and do research, prior to receiving these files, I've had a lot of foot traffic through here from local, regional, and national UFO researchers that have come to do research. Now, per Mark Rodiger,

we have here the single largest collection of UFO case files in the world. So short term, I know it may be an inconvenience for many. If you want to come, you may. You can schedule time to come and do research here, but we ultimately want to not tease you with this information, but rather diligently work towards this digitization effort to scan it all, and then we'll get it on a server,

we'll get it on a website, to where the worldwide community will have access to this, rare body of UFO data. And so to me, in that sense, it's one of the most important projects that we can be involved with right now. Oh, absolutely. I mean, just digitizing anything nowadays is essential. We know that.

I mean, we live in an age where everything is in the cloud and on the computer. So the fact that these things still exist, first and foremost, thank God. Thank God you were able to get your hands on them. And they went to someone who cares enough to give. that to the public to make it readily available. And again, it gets back to what I said. You know, it doesn't matter what we believe. It's rather what the data reflects.

Well, here's the data. Each one of these cases is a data set. And as I alluded to with the triangular UFOs, I already had amassed some cases that I was looking at and showing patterns. These additional data sets have just reinforced that profile, those characteristics that I've already outlined. So the more data we have, the more data sets we have, And I've always said this, in the absence of physical evidence, this is the best evidence we have right here.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. And it's, again, it's reinforcing the patterns that you found in your own personal research. So I think that is just, that's, you can't get any better than that. And, Ryan, your audience or researchers out there that eventually come here to look at the files, whether physically or eventually digitally, what other patterns are going to emerge. And everyone comes at this from a different perspective.

I've always said the more eyes and brains that we have applied to this data here, the better off we're going to be. No one is going to, I believe, no one person is going to crack the lid wide open on this. I think it's going to be a concerted effort by objective researchers that are truly looking at the data. And if I can show a pattern and they show a pattern and we see that like a Venn diagram, guess what? In certain circumstances, those patterns overlap. It's those baby steps. There's not going to be a eureka moment, I don't believe, with regard to UFO research. It's the laborious, tedious, boring, I'm sorry to say in some cases, research of sifting through these reports to

find those patterns that I think may lead to at least maybe a glimmer. Even if we can crack that door open slightly, it might open it up to other avenues or other questions. I sometimes feel like we're so dumb regarding the UFO subject. We don't even know the right questions to ask. You know, to ask. So maybe if we start putting these patterns together, we might be able to start asking those right questions. Yeah, exactly.

Well, I mean, I guess they bringing things to the most current as we can just a few days ago. There was a UFO case pretty much above the skies in your neck of the woods in New Mexico. Are you familiar with this case? And yeah, what do you make of it? Yeah, tell us a little about this if you can. American Airlines flight going from Cincinnati to Phoenix flying over New Mexico, northeast corner of New Mexico, which is extremely rural.

For those that aren't familiar with New Mexico, they encountered an unidentified flying objects, something that looked like a cruise missile. I don't know if it nearly collided with the plane, but it was certainly enough to really cause some excitement on the part of the pilot. and co-pilot. And the audio was actually recorded by an aviation enthusiast who monitored different radio transmissions.

I heard about it just like everyone else. And unfortunately, at this point, I know nothing more than anyone else who's read the Internet stories. But that occurred on the 21st, which was, I believe, Sunday. And the subsequent day on Monday, I filed a FOIA request with the FAA to try to secure any and all recordings because it may, may not, that might not be the only recording, the little clip that we have on the internet. But I felt, you know, duty bound to file a FOIA request with the FAA to secure any and all

recordings associated with this event, as well as any written documentation that we might have. So that was just submitted on Monday. Obviously, you know, here it's only Thursday. So, you know, let's give it some time and see if I can get that information and see, you know, if additional insights come out. But it was interesting. There's a local Albuquerque radio host that I do live shows with. and he's very interested in the UFO subject,

and I emailed it to him, I believe, on Monday after I'd filed a Bungfoyer request, and he called me immediately, and he was all excited. And he made the comment, which I thought was a very, very astute observation. He goes, this is why I have you on my show. He goes, I'm trying to convey to people. This, I won't repeat the expletive he used. He goes, this blank isn't just obscure stuff that happened in Roswell in 1947.

This stuff is ongoing. And I thought that was a really interesting, valid point. that he brought up. And it does. It demonstrates pilots, individuals, civilians, military individuals are still seeing unidentified objects, UFOs, UAPs, call them what they will. It continues. And it's being cited by credible witnesses. The skeptics can say all they want. And the interesting thing about skeptics, I don't often talk about this, is the statements that they make are true. You know, humans have bad perception. Well, that's true relative to a dog or to other animals.

You know, and that memory can be fallible. You know, they use all of these things which are true, but then they generalize them to a ridiculous degree. You know, it's one thing to say, Ryan, I'm a bad observer. But if I told you I saw a red Volkswagen on the street right before I came on the show, it's not to the extent that I hallucinated and saw a Red Volkswagen, I probably saw a Red Volkswagen. But they take these things that are true and magnify them and generalize them to ridiculous degrees. At the end of the day, you know, as long as reports are coming in, I think we should look at them.

Again, knowing what we do know, that it's not just visual perception that we're relying on. It's radar confirmation photographs and other types of objective data that we could look at. And I've often stated that I'm not a UFO believer. I don't believe every story that comes along, quite the contrary. I'm very skeptical. I like to vet as many cases and reports as best I can. And it's like when you look at this amount of data, just for an example, we're looking at thousands, if not tens of thousands of case files just sitting right here next to me.

It's not that I believe these reports, but how can you summarily discount tens of thousands of eyewitnesses? That's what I say. don't believe it, but you can't arbitrarily disbelieve at all. And if you do, I think you're being intellectually dishonest with yourself and others. Absolutely. Again, facts do not care about your feelings. That's what I always tell people. So you're right, man.

You're so right. And with this current case, I mean, again, I knew I could count on you or John Greenwald to be all over this thing the minute it happens. Well, John's the master of Poyas. I bow to John. That's his area. I just figured since I was here in New Mexico and since I knew local media would be reaching out and talking to me, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't file a FOIA request. You know, it's like you're in New Mexico.

This just happened and you're not doing anything about it. So, you know, the best I can do is file a FOIA request and hope for the best. All right, Dave. We've discussed everything I really wanted to dive into personally at the UFO researcher. But now I've got probably some of the most amazing listener questions. I've ever gotten for a guest. So let's run through these, man. Our first one comes from Teddy Z on Patreon.

And he asks, David, what is the best advice for someone that is just getting in to UFO research? Teddy's new to this whole thing that I do. And what was the craziest story that you've heard from someone since you started researching? Sure. No, great questions. First, Teddy, my heart goes out to you because I always feel sympathetic for someone coming into this field now because there's so much disinformation, misinformation, and I hate to say it, but it has to be called out, you know, charlatans and con artists and people that just are spouting conspiracy tales just to spout interesting tantalizing stories because it helps them make money or it generates book sales. you know, I would recommend that, you know, feel free to reach out to me. I can try to steer you towards what I feel are credible researchers today.

I'd be happy to give you some guidance in that respect. But the only thing I can recommend as kind of a general guiding principle, don't take anybody's word for granted, including mine. I always cite my sources so people can go through and vet and verify what I'm telling you is accurate. Or at least, okay, Marler quoted an appropriate. source. Yes, I found it myself. So I would recommend don't take anybody as offering the gospel truth. Try to verify at all times what information is being conveyed. So that would probably be a general rule. As far as one of the most bizarre reports I ever had, there was a case in St. Louis,

Missouri, and it was a couple. It was a mother and a daughter. And they lived very close to downtown St. Louis, kind of South City. And they had called in to report that they were having these repeated UFO sightings. And I don't think I've ever talked about this one publicly. So that's a great question you asked. Myself and another Mufon investigator went there from Missouri, and we interviewed the two ladies in their home. And they had some interesting stories that were suggestive, possibly of missing time, abduction. But they had reported having all of these sightings. So at one point, when we kind of had wrapped up the initial series of interviewing, I had asked, well, could we go outside? You had stated that you had seen an area where this 30-foot

object had sat down and kind of pressed down the flowers in your garden. And there's like, sure, we'll go out back. And so they take us out to the back of the house. And then much like South St. Louis, the homes are very close together with just very small spaces in between. And they said It's actually the flower bed on the side of the house where it sat down. And I walk over there and I immediately notice, first off, there's only probably at best eight to ten feet between their house and the neighbor's house. There's a small patch about four foot by four foot of flowers. They were like tulips or something like that. I can't remember now.

And sure enough, they were pressed down. But we're talking a small area, no more than four foot by four foot. And then it was interesting, as I'm talking to them, and I'm saying, so you said the object was about 30 feet in diameter? Oh, yeah, it was like 30 feet and this is where it sat down. Immediately there's issues with the narrative that they're telling me based on what I'm seeing. But then I notice just about six feet further down the house was another flower bed. And I noticed that the flowers there were equally pressed down. what I also noticed was it was either there or a neighbor's cat was laying on the flowers that had pressed them down. It didn't take a rocket scientist to establish that one, what they're telling me size-wise doesn't fit the area in question.

And two, if that flower bed is the same type of flowers and it's smashed down by a cat, more than likely the cat was responsible for smashing this down. So that was just that was one that I always remember is just kind of like there were other. incongruities, inconsistencies in their story. And I'm not calling these people liars, but a lot of people truly believe, we get back to that belief word, Ryan, believe something happened, but the reality may be something different. And in this case, the facts pointed to the fact that it just didn't add up. Right. And can you imagine, Dave, all those files you have in that office, what percentage of those could be explained by a cat?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, I will tell you, Ryan, and I'll tell your audience, and just going through these since November 3rd, which is when they were delivered here, I can tell you there are numerous meteor sightings, fireball sightings, which were called UFOs. But for all intents and purposes, it was a meteor. It was a fireball.

I mean, there was nothing anomalous. It didn't hover. It was just a point of light with sparks flying, and then it disintegrated or exploded. And there was no nonlinear flight where it made a right angle. So if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Or in this case, a meteor. A meteor, yeah.

Or a cat laying in a flower bed for sure. And I think that stresses too, like we've said so many times tonight. UFO researchers aren't there to prove that what people are seeing is alien. It's our job to do the opposite to try to find every conventional explanation other than. that. So if you're left with just that option, then you've got a true unknown. And I'm glad you brought this up, Brian, because it never comes up in conversations or in shows like this. The fact is, again, skeptics attack UFO believers because, well, they're, you know, they're talking about UFOs and they see a UFO under every rock. Well, look, myself and other

researchers don't come on to spend 15 to 20 minutes to tell you about a case we investigated that that turned out to be a military refueling operation. We're not going to waste your time with that. But even though we don't talk about it, it needs to be said that the vast majority of UFO sightings that we do receive, like the fireball sightings we were just talking about, are reported. It's that 90% noise to that 10% signal,

which is genuine UFOs. But, you know, it's boring to talk about, you know, a siting that turned out to be a refueling operation, or it's boring to talk about, you know, people seeing something else that's just prosaic, you know, we could talk about those. We probably, Brian and I would probably bore you to tears. But, you know, but we want to talk, what we focus on what we do talk about on these shows, what we do talk about on television episodes and when we do lecture across the country

are those that have, you know, past the sniff test, if you will. It's not military. It's not natural phenomenon. These are exhibiting unusual characteristics that we need to look at. not believe, but just look at, you know. And again, I don't mean to go off on an anti-sceptic rant, but, you know, the skeptics, they always, you know, will dispense opinions and proclamations

without doing any research on the subject. The January 5th case, just an example, the January 5th case, these police officers went out and they saw this triangular UFO. One of the famous skeptics at the time about a year or so later was on a documentary and he said, well, these officers went out expecting to see a UFO. None of the officers I interviewed believed in UFOs prior to this.

Some were open to it, but none of them were, quote, unquote, UFO believers. And in fact, some of them said, if you would have came in here a year ago telling me you were investigating UFOs, I would have said, there's the door. And so, but they make these statements like they know the witnesses. They've been on location. They've interviewed them, but they haven't. And that's where, rightly or wrongly, if you like the skeptics or you like the UFO believers or the researchers, I should say, at least the researchers go out and do the legwork.

as opposed to sitting back in their recliner in California or wherever they're at and just make proclamations based on nothing. And they talk about science. They say they're scientists. They're the antithesis of science. They don't collect the data and then formulate hypotheses. They just arbitrarily assign an explanation in absence of even looking at the evidence. Exactly.

It's extremely irresponsible. I couldn't agree with you more. All right. Here's another one from Robert McGie on Patreon. he asks, what is the single most well-documented and proven triangle UFO sighting, in your opinion, David? Anything come to mind? That's a really hard one. There's so many.

I don't mean to evade the question. I would probably say just off the top of my head, and I could be wrong, but I'm just going with what comes to mind is the famous Belgian siting, where you had an off-duty gendarme who was hosting a house party. He and his guests were seeing these objects with the triangular lighting configuration flying around in the sky, making erratic maneuvers. And then he contacted the local Air Force base. They checked with the four separate NATO ground-based tracking stations that were all tracking this unknown radar target at the exact same location that the witnesses on the ground were observing it. And then again, this is what precipitated the launch of the F-16 piloted by Eves M. Nielsberg, who was the Belgian pilot, who's only done, I think, two public interviews about this.

He repeatedly locked on with his onboard radar. As soon as he locked on, one could almost surmise that it's almost as if it detected that, much like our jet fighters can. And as soon as he would achieve lock on, the object would peel away at incredible speeds, either increasing or decreasing at incredible altitudes. He would then close on the object again. He would lock on. It would repeat the same thing.

you know, you can chalk up coincidence or, you know, prosaic explanations. But I think that one, because of all the disparate witnesses, because of all the different types of sensing equipment, ground-based radar, airborne radar, the fact that he achieved multiple lock-ons only for it to appear to react to that, to me, that is probably one of the more compelling. I mean, ideally, we want physical evidence. We all want physical evidence with regard to UFOs. But I think that's one of the most credible.

And I might add, getting back to what I'm not. what we alluded to earlier, Ryan, the provenance. We have the Belgian Air Force that acknowledged this, that released the radar information. I mean, then-Colonel, later General DeBrower acknowledged all of this and still to the day acknowledges it. So I would say that's probably one of the best evidentiary cases for triangular UFOs.

I love it. Yeah, and you're right. In lieu of having the craft on the ground and being able to study it, If the Air Force is releasing their data on this event, that's all we could ask for. Oh, this is an interesting one. Dan on Reddit asks, is there any observed connections between triangle sightings and saucer sightings? Or have you ever come across reports where different types of UFOs were seen at the same time? You ever seen a saucer trailing behind a triangle, Dave? Well, I haven't, I don't know if I have any saucers trailing a triangle.

But that's a great question. And that's actually one of the characteristics I outlined in my book. And I have other cases since then, again, bolstering what I already outlined in the book back in 2013. There was a famous case, not a famous case, but a well-documented case, I should say, back from November, or I'm sorry, April of 1958 in Denmark. And I include this in my book. It was over the village of Brohir in Denmark where a woman observed a large black silent triangle, hovering over the village. And she then described that that wasn't bizarre enough in 1958. She then described a series of horseshoe-shaped objects flying out of the triangle,

each emitting a very bright light. Now, what's interesting, and I mentioned this earlier, if we just had this one woman's testimony, you could believe it or discount it, you know, it's up to you. This was in a Reuters News Service article, and the Reuters article goes on to state. Reuters was able to confirm the woman's sighting with at least 20 other villagers. So we had a multiple witness account of this describing not only a black, silent, low-hanging triangle, but these objects coming out. Now, conversely, there are other accounts of these triangles where objects are going in to the triangle. The Belgian wave, they had this red orb or light that would fly around independent and then would return to the belly of the object.

That's just one case. there was a famous case. It was a British Overseas Airway Corporation flight near Nova Scotia. And this object was seen in 1954, and I talk about it in my book, this garnered worldwide media attention. Captain Howard was the pilot, who was a well-seasoned commercial airline pilot. He, the first officer, Daphne Webster, who was the stewardess, as well as almost all of the crew, or the passengers rather,

observed this thing that flew with them for about 15 or 20 minutes at least. And what they saw originally looked like an antique telephone receiver upside down. And then they noticed on each side were three objects, three black dots on each side that were flanking this object. Captain Howard described the parent object or the main object that appeared to change shape as they were observing it. over this extended period of time. And at one point, he sketches and describes, and I have a lot of the original news clippings from the time period, as well as copies,

the object being a triangle. And his attention, the captain's attention, was turned away at one point. First officer Lee Boyd continued to observe this series of essentially seven objects, the main object and six attendant objects. And then while Captain Howard's attention was diverted away, he turns back,

And he asked the officer, the first officer, where did the small objects go? I don't see them. And Officer Lee Boyd responded, it looked like they went into the larger one. So these are very early cases by pilots describing an early triangular UFO report with attendant or objects along with them. One of the other characteristics that I see in a number of reports, and I almost listed it as a common characteristic, but I felt like I just didn't have enough cases to really warrant that. but it is a common theme with a handful of accounts now is the fact that these triangles have often been seen with rectangular UFOs.

In the January 5th, 2000 case, a later witness came forward stating they saw a rectangular object and they saw the triangle in the same portion of the sky. The November 29th evening that started the whole Belgian wave that I alluded to, that case, the gendarmes saw two triangles in the same. sky and then the dispatcher Albert Kreutz and Yupon stepped out on his balcony to see if he could see anything and he wasn't in the immediate proximity but he was laughing at the whole thing he steps out and he sketch a rectangular object had kind of the dimensions of like a shoebox with a bright light at each corner of the rectangle so you have triangles being reported in the area and a rectangle with lights in each corner I found an apro file an apro case from their apro bulletin from the late 70s where a woman in New York had just arrived home from grocery shopping and they saw a triangular

object fly over their neighborhood. They went in to start taking the groceries in and as they came out, they then saw a rectangular object with the exact same description and sketch. And in my book, I put them side by side with a bright light at each corner of the rectangle. Oh, wow. So coincidence upon coincidence, which you can write off, but I have other cases where they're describing similar things. So this is why I'm anxious to dive into these files to see what else I can find out in other cases that might show similarities. Right. Wow. And I mean, your ability to just rattle off names and dates and everything just astounds me, Dave.

It's an art form in itself. But that's the... As age progresses, I might have. Yeah, I'm starting to feel that, man. Well, it reminds me so much of something like the Tehran UFO incident. well. These like, they're almost like drones coming out of the main, whatever you want to call it, mothership, let's say, for lack of a better term, and like scouting out the area before the major craft comes in or something. I don't know. It's fascinating you bring that up, Ryan,

because you're absolutely correct. You know, they had this object that was jettisoned from the parent object. In addition to that, if you recall, I believe it was the pilot was Jafari. He repeatedly locked on with onboard radar, if you recall. Only contrary to the Belgian wave where the object peeled away, every time he locked on, he lost systems control of his jet and had to pull away. But he did that repeatedly. So again, to your point, patterns in the data, there seems to be a response in reaction to the radar lock on.

Wow. Yeah. Well, that actually blutes perfectly into this next question, Dave. This comes from Brett on Reddit and talk about data. Here we go. What does Mr. Marler think of the June 2001 report published by the National Institute for Discovery Science, which found that, quote, the triangle deltoid aircraft spotted by over 500 eyewitnesses in the last decade, putting together Mufon, Nids, and Larry Hatch's data, are possibly consistent with the deployment of unacknowledged aircraft from and between. Air Mobility Command and Air Force Material Command bases.

Ooh, man, that was a technical question. But you got anything on that one? Well, again, we cannot rule out military aircraft with some of these triangle reports. I can see that, you know, very loudly. We can, I don't know what state of the art technology was in 2001 or today. So I can't sit here in definitively state that these aren't military in some cases. But that being said, again, it doesn't explain the historical reports.

And the other thing is this. We have UFOs that have congregated around, not triangles, but UFOs in general, that have congregated around nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons sites. Right. That doesn't mean that the nuclear weapon sites are the origin of the UFOs, any more than just because we have triangles being seen near military bases. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

They may not originate from those bases, rather, you know, to Chris Mellon's, you know, idea, are they mapping these things out? Are they doing reconnaissance? We simply don't know. In either case, we just don't know definitively. And I believe, I believe, and I could be wrong on this one, you were talking about my memory. I might be wrong on this one. I'm willing to concede. I think NIDS actually even backpedaled later and conceded that not all the patterns seemed to congregate around military. But again, I could be wrong. It's been years since I've read that. I can't believe that's been, what, 20 years ago? Wow. Time flies, man. I know. Yeah. The correlation between nuclear facilities and UFOs is one of the

most fascinating and most terrifying connections to be made with all of this. And I think we're only starting to scratch the surface. So I have to do it. Yeah. Oh, here's a good one. Paul Jay on Patreon asks, there's a growing metaphysical trench within the UAP world where we're seeing things. like CE5 increase in popularity, even Robert Bigelow moving into the consciousness investigations with his new program, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. Do you think this is something that shows promise and will help with our understanding of what UAPs are, or is it just more distraction to kind of muddy the waters when it comes to trying to figure out what these things are? No, it's a good question. Let me first say that, as I alluded to,

earlier. I think the more eyes we have, the more brains we have focused on this problem coming from multiple vantage points with different perspectives. I think that it certainly could provide value. As I like to say, it's not what you study, but rather how you study it. It's the methodology that needs to be called into question. I mean, if there's true scientific work being done with regard to consciousness and these other elements with regard to UFOs or UAPs, I certainly don't discourage it. I welcome anybody that's doing credible research regardless of the avenue from which they're approaching this subject. But that being said, beyond us within the UFO research field, what I fear is that regardless of the validity of that type of research, the general public

is then going to say, well, they're into consciousness, they're into UFOs, they're into crystal gazing, they're into tarot cards, they're going to paint with a broad brush. And I think that the credibility that we've seen being attributed to the subject since the New York Times article in December 2017 could possibly be eroded by things like that. Not that it's not a valid area of inquiry, but just the general public in their mind, they're just going to lump it all together. So you believe in, you know, leprechauns, you believe in the Loch Ness Monster, you believe in consciousness, and out-of-body,

experiences. Now you're saying we need to believe in UFOs. You expect us to believe all this. And so I see it just, it could muddy the waters, even if it is a viable area of research. Yeah, it's tough because I agree with you. I think there's, there's room for all theories and approaches when it comes to UFOs because we don't know what the hell we're dealing with. So why don't just do all the things. But to the mainstream perception of the topic, I can understand why it would deflect the immense growth we've had in the past three years of credibility. So yeah, it's tough. It's always a struggle. I agree with you. We're walking a final. Yes, we always are. I know, that tightrope.

Here's a good one from Miguel on Facebook. He asks, as far as I know, I'm one of the few witnesses that is reported seeing a triangular craft just pop out of thin air. I'll let you be the judge of that, Dave. it starts off as sparkles, like the kind of Roman sparkler would make. If I haven't seen that craft pop out of those sparks, I wouldn't have seen it at all. That's how stealthy and quiet it was. So I'd love to know what the deal is with that. Is it cloaking tech or is it craft capable of jumping place in time? That's crazy to think about.

It's crazy to think about, but I don't think, again, we can rule out any possibility. there are other accounts where the thing just suddenly like appears, like poop it's there, or it disappears, or there's other cases where there's hyper acceleration where the witness is barely able to perceive this rapid acceleration where it disappears. The sparks, though, I think there's only maybe one other case, and I'm trying to remember, I want to say it was Massachusetts or Maine, where there was another case, and I even found a video to this. If you want to reach out to me, I can try to send you the news clip who's asking about the sparks.

I believe in that case, the two witnesses who were newscasters saw this object that was roughly triangular in shape. And they said it looked like there was a cable or a rope dangling and they could see sparks coming off of that if memory serves me correctly. But if you want to reach out to me, I could try to send you the link to that or I can send you the video where the witnesses are describing that. But yeah, seeing sparks, that's not something that I commonly hear about in the information. But this illustrates a good point, though, Ryan.

You know, we always focus on what we see in the data. But likewise, I think it's interesting when we find these characteristics that we often don't see. You know, what's going on there? Is there something going on that we need to look at more closely? And again, looking through this additional data, will we find other cases that maybe show that that is a pattern? And we just, based on the data we were looking at thus far, hadn't made that connection. Exactly. And I think another issue that arises is researchers tend to almost censor some of the more high strangeness aspects of some of these.

Blinders. Which is harmful to the data. I mean, if someone's saying that sparks appeared and this craft came out in nowhere, that's very important to the patterns we think. or, you know, I've spoken to many experiencers who have what many people would consider insane stories to tell about a close-the-counter or this or that. And, you know, maybe early in my naive UFO researcher days, I'd be like, that's a little too much. Let me pull it back a little before presenting it to the public, not knowing what detriment I was doing to the actual case. Now I'm like, give me the weirdest shit you got, man, because that needs to be put. out there. I don't know. Am I right in that? No, you're absolutely right. And, you know, look, UFO researchers

are no different than any other researcher in any other discipline. We're subject to our own personal prejudices and biases. You know, we're not robots. We cannot be 100% objective when we look at information. And so, you know, that being said, we have to acknowledge that's just, unfortunately, the nature of the beast. I mean, we're not perfect. And, you know, we may discriminate to some degree. We're all guilty of that. Anybody that says they're not, they're lying. But to your point, I don't find those anomalies, those cases with those unusual characteristics, kind of like, it's a statistical outlier, ignore it. I'm actually kind of intrigued by those, because again, am I missing something? Are there other cases? And so this is one of those things.

We kind of put in our gray file, no pun intended. We put that in our gray file. And then we go through additional data and see if you know what, now that we're made aware of that, we can look for that and see if there are other cases. And that's just just being honest with ourselves and being honest with the data. Yep, exactly. Yep. I love that. Oh, here's one in terms of if we have data or any evidence, Dave. And I know you're the one that can answer this. Lori on Facebook asks, is there any actual hard evidence that there is for the supposed TR3B? You knew it was. going to come up at some point in the conversation. Do we have evidence that this thing exists and the recent discovery of the exotic Navy patents? This is a pretty interesting story making the rounds

right now. It is. It is. And it's funny you say that because I'm actually sitting here looking. I've got some pages of some of the patents right here. Someone else asked me about that. I'll come to that last. Let me just say with regard, and I'm going to preface this, I do not mean to insult anyone's belief system or ideology with regard. to this because unfortunately the quote unquote TR3B unquote is manufactured and it originates from one individual by the name of Edgar Foucher who is no longer with us. Foucher claimed to have worked at Area 51 and had been involved in some of these exotic technologies that he claims are manufactured technologies and that and he even said this.

again, always be wary of people that use the absolute terms, he believed that all triangular UFO reports are manufactured by the military industrial complex. Now, there's been a lot of questions with regard to some of the physics that he described online, and this is going back, I might add to the early mid-90s. This TR3B thing goes all the way back to one man and it goes back to the 90s. He claimed that, you know, he understood the physics. he even put the physics out there for people to look at. He included really interesting graphic images.

And I have a problem with people that claim that they were government insiders working on projects that then release information and nothing's done to them. If you talk to any serious person that's out there that works for Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, Raytheon, any of these defense contractors, they are very serious about security. You go through a strict security screening, and you are constantly being screamed for security reasons. I mean, talk to anybody that you know that work for these companies, if you do. The idea that you're going to share the keys of the kingdom, this incredible magical technology,

and throw it out there for all to see and lecture about it, and not have any type of response in the form of imprisonment, fines, etc., is just ridiculous. And I know there's people out there to say, well, if they imprison or they find them, then that's just validating what they said. Well, then there's no security at all. Because, I mean, if people are going to be releasing top secret military secrets with impunity, then why the hell do we even have security screenings? And why do we have these people that are being monitored for security reasons? It's ridiculous. I don't like to believe one individual solely, especially when they come out with a claim like that. The question was, is there any, like, evidence?

to support it? No, none. There's absolutely no evidence. It's the claims of one man. Unfortunately, as we see with much mis or disinformation in the UFO field, the TR3B since the early mid-90s has now become an urban myth. It has grown to mythological proportions. And often I'll have people tell me, I saw a triangular UFO, but I believe it was a TR3B. I like to make a very clear distinction. If you say TR3B, then you are basically saying, I believe, adopt, and adhere to all the claims made by Edgar Foucher. You're putting faith in that one individual and their claims, despite there's no evidence to back any of it up. If you come to me and say, I saw a triangular object, but I think it might be military, that's different. But to use the nomenclature, TR3B, denotes that you endorse and

believe wholeheartedly in absence of evidence the claims of one man at Grufoucher who's unfortunately no longer with us. Right. And it's almost like saying, I saw the Bob Lazar sports model saucer, right? Absolutely. You're going on the assumption that this one man holds all the answers, right? And if I can, just real quick, Ryan, with regard to the patents, because like I said, I just printed this off the other day and I had it sitting here, there's a number of these purported patents floating around out there. One is a U.S. patent that was done for the Navy. And this was dated the date of the patent.

And I think this is important. The date of the patent is December 4th, 2018. How does this explain what was cited in 2001? How does this explain what was cited in 1967? How does this explain what was cited in 1957 or 1949? Again, you cannot ignore the historical record. The other one that I've seen, and I don't know if this one's legitimate or not, again, I'm not endorsing these. I'm just simply saying these I know are what's circulating, which are raising a lot of good questions.

I think they're valid questions. This one was created July 6th, publication date, July 6th, 2006. And the title is called Triangular Spacecraft. And it shows the stereotypical, for those that are viewing this, your stereotypical. stereotypical triangular UFO. Now, if you look at this and the fact that it was done in 2006, it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to put together that this civilian, which it was a civilian, not the Navy, had seen the UFO reports circulating out there and then created a working model based on the physics that he knew and tried to create a patent for it. But again,

you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, the reports came way before this. this in 2006 and certainly way before this one in 2018. So I don't think that this explains triangles, at least up to the dates in question. And again, these are when the patents were filed and published. So even if you have a patent, it takes years, if not decades, to go, especially with an exotic aerospace vehicle like this, to go from a patent to an actual fully operation working model. And so I think it's very important to take all of that into consideration when looking at those things. Again, but that's why I love the historical accounts, because I can go back to 1957

with a fair degree of certainty and know then what state-of-the-art technology was with regard to the U.S. military arsenal. I can't tell you, you know, in the last 20, 30 years, what is state-of-the-art technology. Yeah. Yep, exactly. Again, the data doesn't lie. I love that. Well, I guess, kind of in closing, Dave. The one thing we haven't really touched on is the current things going on with the Pentagon. I mean, let's say elephant in the room. The Pentagon started a UFO task force. It's like, I don't know, Project Blue Book 2.0, maybe.

But this is pretty crazy. Again, never in my time in doing UFO research did I think I would see another government-funded UAP project. So what do you make of all this, man? Is this something we should pay attention to? Should we temper our expectations? I guess we always should do that. I think we should always temper the expectation, yeah. Yeah, welcome to the UFO field.

But within 180 days, now I think it's something like 100, they're supposed to give a report to the public of their findings within this task force. Again, something that Christopher Mellon had a huge part in doing. What did we expect from this? Should we trust that we get anything? Yeah, what do you think? Yeah, well, in respect to the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2021, the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act,

which had at the very end under comments, and I think that's important. People have to realize it was under comments. They requested a report with regard to UAPs, and then they cite several specific things that they would like to have. I made some discreet inquiries with people I know that are in the intelligence world, and they basically had told me that this is a request. Be very clear.

This is not an order. It's not a mandate. And they are not required under any certain terms to fulfill that request. And so I think that is the best thing I can say with regard to that. Again, I defer to the experts, people that are in the intelligence world that I know that know about these things. I certainly don't in the civilian sector. but I tend to take their word and to your point, Ryan, it's really tempering the expectations. At the end of the day, regardless of what comes out with the UAP Task Force,

maybe they will generate a report. I hope I'm pleasantly proven wrong. But whatever they come out with, it's not going to change the nature of what I've done for 30 years or what I will continue to do with regard to my research on the subject. I don't lose sleep over what the government may or may not do or may or may not say. at the end of the day, you know, I'm still going to analyze the research. In some respects, it's a distraction. I think you might have used that term earlier, you know, with regard to something else.

We need to be very careful about distractions. And like you said, we don't want to put blinders on where we're ignoring stuff. But at the same time, we need to have focus. Don't get distracted with the new shiny thing over here. Continue to be focused on the data on investigating the information. And I used to use the analogy in some of my early lectures. for those prior to all of this now with the UAP task force and coming out, where people would look back at Blue Book, they would look back at the government cover up, quote unquote. And I've always been of the opinion.

If you're interested in bugs, I want to go see the bugs in the field, not get an enomologist's opinion of what do you think of the bugs? If you're really interested in bugs, go out in the field and look for the bugs. you know and that's i feel like trying to chase down well what did the government what did they maybe know or not know back in 1950 or 1960 you're probably never going to know you're probably going to get thrown a lot of red herrings and at the end of the day how is that helping you answer what are you what are UFOs look at the UFO reports themselves that is ultimately the crux of this whole phenomenon are what people are reporting yes exactly and by saying people i think it's also important to keep in mind civilian witnesses. I mean, yes, having a pilot or a military officer

trained observers is very important. And that's what I think a lot of the mainstream is going to pay attention to. And what its UAP task force is probably going to be looking at. But for every one of those military cases, you know there's a hundred civilians who saw a triangle or saw a saucer. And if I'm going to have more comment to that, you know, people are like, well, come on, Marler, you're being overly skeptical. They're going to come out with a report. Another reason I say that is, based on the input of people that know a lot more than I do about these things, but also look at the three DOD videos that have been released since December 2017. Do we have one page of official documentation of analysis, investigation on the part of atyp or the UAP task force relative to those? videos, we don't have one page, zero, nada. So the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. We've had going on what, three years now, a little over three years since those videos have come out. And we don't have any official documentation or analyses of those videos. So I'm happy the videos are out there. I'm happy we are where we are where they're acknowledging

the UAP reality that there are these things flying around. But if you're looking for documentation, disclosure, as people love to use that word, we don't have anything but three DOD videos and nothing to back it up in the way of analysis or insight into how they operate. What's going on? That's so true. I mean, it took the former head of the other Pentagon UFO program to leave the program to give us any data and insight on this video. Absolutely.

So that's why I just tempered my enthusiasm, as you mentioned. Yep, yep. Again, welcome to the UFO research field. Well, David, I'm going to have you stick around for our Patreon subscribers to tell us probably one of the most fascinating physiological UFO cases I've ever heard about that you've looked into immensely. For our Patreon subscribers, please stick around for that. Thank you for doing that, Dave.

But before we go, this has been, I just, I don't even know what to say. This was an interview, 250. episodes in the making. I'm so happy you are able to stick around for this long. But if there's one thing you want to tell the people out there about why we do this, why we find this topic so fascinating, worth pursuing, putting our reputations on the line, and just living our lives, living and breathing this stuff, yeah, we have our own personal lives too, but this takes up a lot of it. What would you say to people out there? who may want to get, may want to get into this field, this crazy field we found ourselves.

Sure. Well, you know, again, I'll allude to these cabinets that are saying next to me, chalk full of thousands of UFO case files. If just one of these case files is truly of an unknown object from some other intelligence, from God knows where, God knows when, it's the biggest story in our human history. And, I mean, I don't think you can oversell that. I mean, if just one And so, again, it's not a matter of believing, but how can you summarily disbelieve all of these reports and all of this corroborative testimony and evidence? And, you know, beyond that, I feel compelled, and I know you feel the same way on this, Ryan, interviewing the dozens and if not hundreds of people I've interviewed now over the last 30 years, the emotional impact, the personal impact, these experiences have had with these people. until you've interviewed them, until you've really encountered some of these witnesses that have had extremely dramatic experiences, I simply can't turn a blind eye to the narratives or to them on a personal level.

And much like the case you alluded to, this burn victim case from 1964 that we'll talk about, you know, that was an extremely significant experience. And decades later, this person is still scratching their head trying to figure out what happened. So, you know, to me, it's like an itch you just can't scratch. It's compelling. It drives you. It motivates you. But we just can't quite scratch it.

And it's just that ever-elusive mystery that just fuels my interest. And once I think you're exposed to the subject, if you're honest with yourself, you're honest with the data, you just can't turn away from it. And, you know, my life's not been the same since. And I'll never see myself walking away from the subject matter. It's just too compelling. The questions that it raises with regard to who we are, where we are, our place in reality, what is reality? It just begs all those questions. And so I don't see, I'm biased, of course, but I don't see how you can't be interested in UFOs, quite honestly.

I couldn't put it better, man. a mic drop if I've ever heard one for sure. But before we go, please tell us where can we find the book and everything you're up to? Sure. Probably best to go to my website, www. www. David Marler, ufo.com. There's a link to Amazon where you can purchase that. There's an old link to Amazon where I know some people will click on it and it says not available. The book is available. But best to go through my website and there's a link right on the main point. page, you can click on the book cover. It'll take you right there. And the one thing I would ask, though, is, you know, obviously if you purchase the book or if you have purchased the book,

if you haven't reached out with feedback, both on Amazon, which is always very helpful, I always appreciate reader feedback. It helps me gauge, am I providing valuable information? And, you know, how is that helping you in your research endeavors and in your investigation of this subject? I love that. I love that, man. And I look forward. to hopefully making it out there to dig through those files with you someday. You have an invitation, Ryan. You just let me know, and we'll have that door wide open for you. Thank you. Thank you, David.

And thank you so much for coming on Somewhere in the Sky. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network.