Somewhere in the Skies - The Philosophy of UFOs

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

On episode 61 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is fresh off his trip to Pasadena, CA, where he presented at the 2018 AlienCon. He reflects on the event and then pulls a fascinating interview out of the archives with past guest, MJ Banias. The two discuss how Banias got involved in the topic, his thoughts and theories on the importance of UFO studies and research, and the philosophy behind it all. It's the perfect discussion to precede next week's jam-packed episode recorded live at AlienCon. Guest Bio: MJ Banias is a writer and blogger who critically and philosophically examines the weird, the strange and the anomalous. He was a former field investigator with MUFON, has been featured on multiple podcasts and radio shows, and contributes to Mysterious Universe and Rogue Planet. His work has been included in FATE Magazine, and in a new book entitled UFOs: Reframing the Debate. His work can be found at: www.terraobscura.net Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Closing music by Electus SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey y'all, Ryan Spreck here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume. But it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only grown. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a patron.

To contribute and to learn more, visit www.patriot.com backslash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host Ryan Sprague. By the time you'll be hearing this, I'm on my way home from AlienCon, which took place this past weekend in Pasadena, California. It was an incredible event where I was able to reconnect with the... old friends and colleagues, meet new ones, and ask new questions about the UFO phenomenon and the ever-present question of whether or not we're alone in the universe. I got to spend some valuable time with my good friend and now colleague Dean Alliotto. I also got to see some really cool panels, including one on the X-Files, which featured David Dukovni and Mitch Pileghi.

All in all, the weekend was just so much fun, and I had a blast. And the turnout for my presentation, was much more than I ever could have anticipated. So that was pretty cool, too. I was able to conduct some interviews between all the craziness, and I'll be sharing all of that with you in the very near future. But for now, let's get to this week's interview. He is no stranger to the show. You may remember him from our two-part series, somewhere in the whiskey. Yep, that's right. Today, I'm sharing a great interview from the archives with M.J. Benayas. We hear all about how he got involved in UFO studies, his thoughts and theories on the topic, and what role philosophy truly plays in the grand theater of the mind we call UFOs. I hope you enjoy.

My origin story, you know, when I was starting out, you know, I did a lot of stuff in sort of the local community when it came to paranormal investigations and stuff like that, like ghost hunting, whatever, you know, the occasional, uh, the occasional Bigfoot or Wendigo kind of, kind of a thing. I'm in Canada, so, you know, we don't really have, we have big foot here, but they're not really, you know, we're more when to go people where I'm from. But, you know, did that kind of stuff. And, you know, I found it great and I found it fun, but I didn't find it sort of as, you know, what I, it wasn't my passion. I'd always been a fan of the X-Files and, uh, Twilight Zone. And we had outer limits here in Canada, which was a cheesy version of the Twilight Zone. Oh, yeah.

It was terrific. But so, really into that, and I just always was into the sort of culture of UFOs and I always found it interesting, the sort of mysterious and murky world that it is. And, you know, I met up with Chris Rikowski, who lives in the same city I do, and we started chatting. And I spoke to him before because I had a gentleman contact me concerning an abduction situation through the paranormal group that I was with. And it just sort of took off from there. We sort of built a friendship. And, you know, I started reading some of his stuff. And I really started getting into it.

And then I decided to start writing for myself because I think I had a lot to say about sort of the state of. state of uphology, you know, where it is now. I mean, it's something that's been around for a long time and, you know, has it made significant progress in 60-something years? You know, I don't know. So I guess my perspective is trying to bring that fresh new look, fresh new examination into the world that is the UFO. Right, right. Yeah. And we'll definitely get into that state of euphology throughout this conversation, MJ. It's funny you mentioned that sort of Chris kind of took you under his wing. I had a similar experience with Peter Robbins here in the U.S., the UFO researcher. And it seems like that's sort of how it goes, where you have, like, the young protege coming in and trying to, you know, get what they can from the, the quote-unquote, old guard of euphology.

Not by any means pulling a Darth Vader of such, but, you know, sort of taking what we can from the old guard of uphology, the history of UFOs. and move it forward. So we'll definitely propel in that way. So when exactly did you start investigating UFOs and writing about them? What was sort of your first dive into UFO journalism, I guess? Writing about it has been really recent. I did a few UFO investigations.

It was mainly abductions. You know, Chris was really in where we are in Canada. Chris is really the UFO guy. Like he gets, I don't know, like transport Canada sends him their files when they have UFO reports. Like he is Mr. UFO in this country. So he was really handling that stuff. It was more every once in a while, you know, we would get an abduction case.

And he would sort of route it to us because ultimately, you know, who has the tech and the equipment to investigate potential abductions? But, you know, ghost hunters, right? We have IR cameras. We have EMF detectors. You know, we had all that stuff, right? So, you know, we started dealing with some people who had alleged abductions, you know. And that was all well and good.

And, you know, for personal reasons, I sort of had to leave that kind of world behind, whether it was just, it was, you know, kind of getting a little too strange for me. And some people were definitely latching on, you know, they wanted to be more than just, you know, a client. You know, they wanted sort of your friendship and they wanted sort of psychological support and just like, listen, I'm not qualified at all to do this, you know. So, you know, it kind of got a little sticky. guess about a year ago, a little longer a year ago, I decided to join Mufon. So I became a Mufon field investigator about a year ago. And that sort of officially launched me into the world of actually investigating like actual UFO sightings in relation to just dealing with abduction cases. And then I started writing probably a couple months after that as I started to deal with

some actual Mufon cases and how Mufon handled the UFO world and how other investigators were working and I guess you know I realize as I kind of delve deeper into the world I started to have a lot of concerns you know you start to sort of see the the this field that you're really interested in and it starts taking these awkward turns and you know I watched a lot of hangar one I think I commented on my blog once that it's my favorite it's my favorite comedy on television you know and you know that's kind of where I decided to start writing about it like I am in I'm in no way sort of some debunker or hardline skeptic but I think that there's a lot.

I think there's a lot of issues in euphology. And I think Chris is the first one to say that, you know, there's some weird stuff going on out there. And, you know, Chris is definitely a man of science. And if it's not substantiated sort of by, you know, extraordinary evidence, then that extraordinary claim isn't, you know, he's not going to pay much attention to it

because, you know, we really need the scientific background and the scientific information there. data. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you bring up a really good point. And that sort of ties into something, MJ. I know you and I talked about, and you touched on briefly in one of your blogs, which I'd also like to talk about that as well, your new project you got going on. But sort of, I believe it was, it came up when I did an interview with actually, Mike, I Hank's, our mutual colleague. Yeah.

And he brought up the issue of the difference between scientific study of uphology and more of a philosophical angle. This issue came up after some quotes that he brought up from some of the leading scientists out there. And I'd love to delve into this a little bit with you and get your thoughts. Do you see science or philosophy as one having more merit or so over the other one studying? UFOs? You know, this is a massive question. I think this is what my blog is sort of

is evolving into because it started out with me just sort of talking about euphological phenomena or cases or whatever, but it's very much becoming sort of, I think, these two juggernauts. And I don't think there necessarily is a separation

between science and philosophy or theory. I think that they're kind of, they need each other, right? I think they need to sort of bolst for each other, because Science without philosophy is meaningless, and I think philosophy without science is useless, right? They don't, they really need to coexist. And, you know, Micah brought up during an interview, and I wrote a blog post about it, it was a great interview because he raised some interesting questions in regards to, you know, can science really help us solve the UFO phenomenon? And I would say, you know, when you look at Facebook, when you look at the forums, when you look at all the websites,

sites, right, that deal with UFOs. It really, we're dealing with a lot of philosophy and a lot of theology, right? A lot of the discussion is about belief. It's not about actual data. And I think, you know, at this point right now, I think science is sort of is impotent in helping solve the UFO phenomenon right now. I think it is a big question of philosophy. It's a big question of theory because, you know, what can science really talk about when

it comes to UFOs, right? UFOs don't follow, and they don't follow patterns, right? They don't, they're not reproducible. In order for a claim that is to be scientific, it has to be reproduced, right? We have to prove that we can sort of recreate this event over and over and over again, test various theories against it, test various hypotheses, sorry, against it, and potentially get an answer to what this thing is, right? UFOs don't do this, right? And I think science, and I think the reason why there's this massive UFO taboo out there, right? Why science doesn't talk about it and why, you know, people like you and me, Ryan, are cranks and crazies and lunatics,

is because science can't provide an answer, right? And I think science is frightened by this, right? I think that there is genuinely, this underlying concern. I'm not saying scientists, you know, actually worry about this, and they go to bed and I'd panic about UFOs, but I think they, or I think the scientific community says, you know, listen, we can't really prove it. And I think this puts a huge limit on science, right?

Because UFOs, you know, aren't, they're paranormal, but they're not, right? You know, UFOs tend to leave once in a while trace evidence. You know, they show up on radar once in a while. They leave imprints and depressions in the ground. You know, they have, you know, crop circles, which, you know, sometimes obviously are human-made, but generally, a lot of times there is sort of no explanations to what caused them. So once in a while we get this weird mold. where we have all of this actual physical evidence,

but science can't provide an answer just to what it is. And scientists, I think, hate, I don't know as an answer. So it's a lot easier to say it doesn't exist. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, we have, and that's not to say that scientists aren't interested. Yeah, they're probably not going to bed, you know, with this conundrum keeping them up at night. But we both, I'm sure, have spoken to many scientists interested in the topic.

But like you said, there is no repeated evidence for something like this. Once a UFO is spotted, it's gone in an instant. So how do you track that? How do you analyze data and how do you repeat it? It's just it's simply not the thing. And that's where, like you said, philosophy comes into the realm of UFO studies and the dreamers are the ones we sort of depend on. And that can be either a huge hindrance to the field or it can be the only way to open it up for conversation.

So it's frustrating nonetheless. But, yeah, you bring up many good points. In terms of evidence or tracking on radar, MJ, there is a very interesting case that happened in your neck of the woods. I believe this was in 1967, the famous Shag Harbor UFO incident. Are you at all familiar with this case? Oh, you know, this is, you know, people call this Canada's Roswell, right? This is the, this is that, that case that, you know, people give a lot of credit to, I think, because of the amount of investigation there was, because of the amount of witnesses, there were testimony from people on the ground, civilians, and people, you know, on Navy vessels, actual military officers, you know, people who are involved from sort of this whole massive, spectrum.

It's a big case. I personally, you know, I don't know what it is. We can talk about it. I'd love to sort of get into this with you. But, you know, it is definitely one of those massive cases. And 1967 is this weird year for Canada. I'm going to be honest, there are so many UFO reports and sightings and big cases in Canada in 1967.

It was like something happened, like something exploded. And suddenly people were seeing UFOs and things were crashing. And, you know, there's a great case. out of my neck of the woods called a Falcon Lake UFO incident where a guy got burned by a UFO. I mean, there's, yeah, I mean, you know, left evidence, right? Trace evidence. And it's one of those things. Yeah, great year for UFOs and a great definitely incident to the Shag Harbor UFO case. Yeah, and I mean, like you said, that's, that's very interesting that you sort of had a flap in 67. And we wonder why these things happen. I mean, look at 1947. You know, we didn't, we didn't just have Roswell like many people think.

I mean, we had the first, quote-unquote, modern uphology case being Kenneth Arnold. We had the Mori Island incident. And you wonder why, why are these flaps happening in certain locations at this time? Is it some sort of mass hysteria? Have we opened the consciousness of the possibility of UFOs inviting it in? In terms of Shag Harbor, right there, you have almost this return of the foo fighters, these glowing orange orbs

sort of descending into the waters in Canada. So yeah, what do you think about the whole idea of a flap, MJ? I mean, this comes and goes all the time in euphology. What do you make of that?

You know, it's... Lapsers are these interesting things because, you know, it's tough, right? You know, are people actually seeing physical objects in the sky and whatever is controlling these objects, assuming their objects, they're being controlled intelligently or whatever,

you know, do they just kind of show up for a few weeks or a few days or a few months or a year and then suddenly they disappear and, you know, are they, you know, kind of showing up and then deciding to hang out for a bit and then leave? Or is it like, I don't want to say mass hysteria, but is it sort of a cultural, I don't know, a buildup of thinking, you know, people see people see articles and reports and the radio they hear reports about UFOs and then they start seeing lights in the sky. So they think, oh, I'm seeing one too. And you sort of get this progression of visions of UFOs that aren't necessarily there or

they're seeing something, but it's not, you know, intelligently controlled or anything. It's just, you know, a random natural phenomenon in the sky. You know, I can be honest, I find it tough to talk about the idea of a flap because I don't think I necessarily know where I stand on one or where I stand on. the idea of UFO flaps. Yeah. It's a tough one. It is.

I mean, and who's to say they're all connected or disconnected? It's a case-to-case basis, for sure. And I think the idea of the flap is, you know, it's not a scientific idea, right? It's not something that we can sort of prove and reproduce. Yeah. It's very theological, right? I think we're going to have a debate about, you know, whether we believe in them or not, right? Not necessarily whether they're actually occurring or.

not. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, again, it's, it's what, it's not whether or not it's, it's occurring, you know, it is happening. It's just a matter of what it is. And that's, again, another struggle we all have. And we sort of try to lump it into this idea, because it's our way of dealing with it, you know, instead of from, this could be from another dimension, another time, other world. Let's throw it all together in a nuts and bolts sort of way and say that these are, quote, unquote, non-human piloted craft visiting our planet. I mean, it's a sweeping assumption to say the least. Oh, 100%. And I think that, you know, I think people, and I think this is a big reason why there is such a UFO taboo out there, right? Why the mainstream media, you know,

whenever they report on a UFO setting, there's always that kind of wry smile on the snicker, right, on the anchor's face or whatever, right? I think that, that for people in general, right, we view sort of ourselves as, you know, we have complete control, in essence, over this planet, right? We are sort of the be-all and the end-all of intelligence on this planet, right? You know, every single animal is generally, you know, we can control it. We can generally control Mother Nature once in a while, you know, if we need to move a river, we can move a river.

You know, if we need to build a hill, we can build a hill, you know, once in a while, Mother Nature throws us a curveball, but she doesn't do it on purpose. You know, she just kind of is. And I think, you know, we as humans kind of think, you know, we kind of run the show here. And I think that the idea of something else, right, intelligently controlling objects in our skies, it's, I think generally quite a frightening concept, not just physically frightening, you know, we're afraid of being invaded or whatever other movie alien trope there is. I think it really threatens our sort of sense of control.

And I think this is, you know, something, some philosophy that exists within us, right? Some innate desire to be in control, to have power. And I think the idea of the intelligent other, and not only that, the intelligent other that also thinks the same way we do in that, you know, I can be in charge, right? I have agency over the world around me. you know, I can be in control. You know, it would be frightening to think that there's another group out there that isn't us, but has free will and thinks and wants to be in control of the situation. I think this is really problematic.

And I think, you know, when we kind of think about how people deal with UFOs, you know, I think people generally don't want to think there's something actually going on, right? We're okay to kind of believe in it and snicker about it and watch episodes of the X-Files in Star Trek. But we don't necessarily want to kind of deal with this potential, potential, potential. And I say potential. I'm not saying there are, there's anything out there, but potential threat that, you know, there's another intelligence out there. And we would have to sort of deal with this, especially if this other showed up on our planet and said, you know, we're going to share this place now. I mean, this for us would be, like, this would totally change everything.

It would be an entire philosophical shift in thinking of, you know, what is our agency on this planet? Are we actually in control? So I think, you know, when we talk about flaps and we talk about the science versus the philosophy of UFOs, I'm not sure if science really wants to deal with UFOs because of the potential we can't deal with this situation that would arise or could arise. And like I said, it's not just physical. It's not a threat of invasion or whatever. It's like I said, I think it's more innate. It's more that which drives us as humans on this planet, right?

This instinct to be in control. Exactly. I mean, and it says so much more about us than it does this potential other, other, other. Well, I mean, sort of dovetelling off of that, MJ, you shared a video on your blog. Also, let's give the name of the blog. I don't think we've given it. No, let's do a plug. I need a plug.

I need a plug. Yeah, let's do it. You have a new blog that you're running with Chris, another Canadian UFO researcher. What's that called? Yeah, so our blog is www. terraobscura.net.

T-E-R-R-A-O-B-S-C-U-R-A dot net. I think you can Google us. We're like, we're not the first. first hit, but that's okay. Terra obscura.net. And it's sort of where culture, theory, and high strangeness meet. It's sort of a critical theory approach to uphology. So we sort of look at not necessarily the question of do you believe in UFOs,

which I think is actually a waste of time. Really worth thinking. We talk about why don't governments and academics and scientists study UFOs? what are the philosophies that exist behind the lack of attention for UFOs? So, yeah, I hope people will read. I realize, I'm really enjoying writing it because it's definitely my academic background mixing with UFOs, which are the coolest thing in the world. Yeah, agreed, my man.

Well, yeah, I absolutely love it. I get so excited when I see you posting something new. So I definitely suggest listeners check. that out. You did post on the blog not too long ago about a video that UFO historian Richard Dolan was interviewed about disclosure. So let's sort of get into that quote unquote potential of something coming to this planet or if it already has. What do you make of the idea of disclosure? Like you said, it would be a complete paradigm shift, a perception shift. What do you make of the possibility of a disclosure of a non-human intelligence on our planet.

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So you're asking me, I'm assuming there is something to disclose. Let's say they're assuming there is something to disclose. Whether that comes, again, forcefully by this intelligence to the planet, or for some improbable reason, some government body discloses the truth, which I think we can both agree probably will never happen. what would that disclosure entail? What would it do to humanity? Right.

So, you know, I think we, I think, I think, you know, Richard Dolan, you know, I love the guy. I think he kind of hits the nail in the head in his video of, I think what it would do politically. I think there would be a lot of problems. I think you would have, as he mentions in his interview, you know, you would have this massive shift in, you know, right, I think you'd have a right wing sort of fundamentalism occurring where people, you know, the heavy xenophobia. You know, there would be, I think he said there'd be Occupy Area 51 or something like that. I think that's a little silly. But I think, you know, you would definitely have a lot of protest. You would have a lot of people saying, you know, go away, right? You know, humanity doesn't want you. And then I think you'd have the other side, right? You'd have people who would probably be willing to embrace this reality that, you know, we are simply a voice in a chorus of other that sort of occupy, you know, the same time and space.

we do, let's say, or universe or galaxy or whatever. So I think he hits a nail on the head there. I think for humans, though, in general, I don't think, I think, sorry, we would have, like I said before, this really fundamental upset to the way we perceive ourselves. You know, we kind of, you know, you and I are both Westerners. We grew up in North America, you know, a good Western liberal capitalist democracy, bless it, you know, for all of its faults. And I think, you know, we, as we grow up in our little social world, you know, we go to school and our teachers tell us that, you know, you need to get a good job to be happy and you need to live your life in, you know, in a good capitalist way. And, you know, you definitely don't want to work for Broadway because there's no money there. I'm just messing with you, buddy. I'm just joking. Why, I, I know. You know what, I'm a huge fan of theater. Actually, my wife is a theater.

major and she's actor so it's and then she teaches and she teaches theater so I you know I'm I'm on your side don't worry but you you are right there's no money in it but move no I know yeah that's why I do you have exactly right it because euphology makes us like oh buckets of money people living yeah yeah all those Google ads yeah at a wet half a cent uh right every 1,000 likes everything I think we would have this this horrible realization and and you know the term I'm sort of that I have been dancing around is something called anthropocentrism, which is the idea that humans are sort of the only things on this planet that have agency, right? You know, animals don't really.

You know, we kind of control animals on this planet, right? There's nothing really else. You know, God, you know, while I'm sure, you know, maybe there's a God, I don't know, but God probably has free will, but ultimately he doesn't really do anything. You know, he doesn't walk around on our planet. and like, you know, send thunderbolts at us or anything. So, you know, at the end of the day, humans are sort of that which control Earth and our world around us.

You know, if we want it, we can do it. If we take enough money resources, wealth, treasure, talent, and throw it at a problem, we can generally solve it. And I think that this, the idea of disclosure, would upset this concept, right? We've no longer be what's sort of the pinnacle of. intelligence, there would be something potentially that is bigger, smarter, better than us. And this is really, I think, frightening for people. And humans aren't generally good with the unknown and the other anyway.

I mean, you look at, you know, racial issues or you look at issues, you know, with, you know, terrorism out of the Middle East or or whatever, right? there are already problems on this planet that humans, we generally fear the unknown. We fear what we don't understand. We fear the other because we don't necessarily know how the other thinks. And this would be compounded by a disclosure, right? Because then not only are these others, they're not human others, right? They don't think like us. They don't necessarily think the same important.

They don't think what we think is important is actually important. So I think we would have this huge upset to the same. system, not only government and statutory, but I think personally and philosophically, and it would really force us to question what our meaning is on this planet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You said it so succinctly, man.

I mean, this phenomenon in general, despite disclosure, it says so much more about us than whatever it actually is. And I find myself, you know, circling that conundrum constantly. You know, what is this UFO phenomenon? And how is that different from the, quote, unquote, UFO culture that we sort of self-proclaimed and seated and seeing go in so many different directions? There was a quote by James Carion, who used to be, I believe, the executive director of Mufon. I think. I'm personally not a member, so I'm not too in tune with the history of Mufon. But that being said, he once said that therein lies the problem with uphology and eophologists.

They race after every case, every witness, every shred of evidence, regardless of provenance, that will help prove what remains in their bucket, but will ignore all evidence to the contrary. If we examine what the UFO bucket really is, it is an egocentric belief that we humans are so interesting and our planet so are luring that other civilizations, for any number of reasons, can't help but to visit us. Very interesting quote. The reason I pulled that out is because it sort of ties exactly into what we're talking about. You know, are we worth coming here and monitoring? are we worth looking at for some sort of cosmic galactic federation, as it were? Like you said, we have so many issues here on our own planet.

If another intelligence is visiting, they're probably on their way out, man. I mean, sort of looking at what we're doing, they don't want anything to do with it. Again, this is all hypothetical. Of course, yeah. You know, and it's funny because that same argument that the quote that you cited, you know, skeptics will often use this to their advantages too. They'll say, well, you know, they would have just made themselves known already, right? They would have landed on the White House lawn or something, you know, as if the United States is some bastion of like, sorry, no offense, America.

I love you guys. But, you know, come on. So, you know, we have this, you know, both skeptics and believers, you know, say, you know, all humanity, you know, the skeptics say they would have shown up already and they would have made themselves known. Here we are. You know, we're here to share wonderful technology with you. welcome to the United Federation of Planets. Picard is, you know, on the bridge. And, you know, the believers, I think, you know, like you say, right, there's this fascination with, you know, and maybe it's a fear.

I don't know, we can't be alone, right? It's this fear of loneliness. But it's weird because, you know, humans, you know, we kind of want to be alone because we don't want something horrible to come and invade us and exterminate us. But we also, you know, don't we want them to also be kind of nice. too. Like, you know, we want, like, the beginning of Mars attacks, but we don't want the end of Mars attacks, you know, we want them to show up and it's be this beautiful ceremony and then, you know, all the guns come out, right?

I think the quote is interesting. And I think that it came from a Mufon director is interesting, too, because I think Mufon, again, I, disclaimer, I'm a member of Mufon. I love Mufon. Thank you for letting me be, thank you for letting me be an investigator. but I think move on and I think the quote is correct

in saying that every single shred of evidence, every single little piece is made to fit into the puzzle, right? And the problem is a lot of those pieces don't fit at all. They're actually useless pieces. They're not even the right puzzle.

You're borrowing pieces from other puzzles and you're jamming them into the euphological puzzle. You know how the kids, right? They make the puzzle pieces fit, right? They kind of put the pieces together and they start hammering it all with their fists. I think that's kind of what's going on. And I think Mufon and Mufon field investigators definitely play a role in this, right? You look at the amount of Mufon field investigators who are believers themselves, right?

Or who have had experiences themselves that they want answers for. You know, I would say a significant chunk of the ranks of Mufon are people who have had experiences or are believers already in intelligent beings, others visiting our planet. And I think that this is a dangerous position to be in. because uphology is not a belief in alien life, right? And I think that this is what often gets muddied here. Exactly. Right? This is why in the news, you know, whenever you get interviewed in the news, people, you know,

the news anchor was asked, well, do you believe in UFOs? And it's like, what are you asking me, right? Are you asking me, do I believe in things in the sky that people see and they can't make sense of? Yeah, of course. It happens all the time. We all experience these weird lights in the sky or something. And then upon further research, we figure out, you know, oh, it was just the space station or it was a satellite or whatever. or, upon further research, we have no clue at all what it is.

And that's a UFO, right? And I think that the other side of euphology is this curious, you know, it's got to be aliens, man, it's got to be aliens, it's got to be aliens. And this is not euphology. This is a belief in aliens and the other and interdimensional beings or ultra-trestrials or whatever you want to call them. And the two are clumped together and they shouldn't be. And I think that one thing that definitely needs to happen is a separation, right? A separation of uphology into the study of unidentified flying objects or unidentified aerial phenomena. And then the other side, which is a belief and very much a theological belief in alien life.

Because there is no science, right, to prove aliens really exist. There's no science to disprove it either. And I'm a full skeptic of science as much as I am of the belief, right? I don't think science is, you know, necessarily this bastion of truth that we all hope it is and that our government tells us it is, right? But I think that there's definitely concern. And I think as you follow just, Ryan, I'm sure you agree with me here, that, you know, we kind of get lumped into this pile, right? And people, you know, I'm up and ask like, oh, what do you do? And, you know, I have my job.

And then, you know, I also kind of, you know, study UFOs. And I'm into that kind of thing. And people go, oh, yeah, UFOs, man, the aliens, they're here, right? You're just like, oh, man, no, why is this happening to me? You know, and I have to have this conversation with everyone I meet right now. Well, you know, a UFO isn't necessarily alien. It could be a lot of things. And you kind of get trapped.

Oh, that is the first thing I say to everyone, you know, when they say, what do you do with UFOs? Yeah, it's, okay, well, I'm not talking about aliens. I'm talking about UFOs. That's right. Huge distinction. And it's hard to separate people's minds from that. We've been so conditioned by either Hollywood or, you know, these quote-unquote, real documentaries we see, and it all sort of ties into the mainstream, you know? I mean, I guess a lot of

UFO researchers, myself, and I am guessing you included, we've been taken to task for saying that the mainstream media is beginning to take these topics more seriously now, more than ever. What are your thoughts on the perception of the UFO phenomenon in the eyes of the mass public? Like you just said, we get this all the freaking time. Are we seeing? Are we seeing? a shift in consciousness or is it just some more, you know, media brainwashing in a sense? Not to get too conspiratorial, but... Oh, well, is that... I wouldn't say I like conspiracies, but, you know, I think the media just reacts to us, you know,

and whatever we think, right? So, you know, the media kind of bounces off the public, and the public kind of bounced off the media and we're sort of in this weird symbiotic relationship, but, you know, it's really tough, right? It's really tough because I think social media has played a huge role in the UFO world, right? Everyone watches YouTube. Everyone goes on, well, not Facebook. Is that still a thing?

People still go on Facebook, but I know young people don't, right? You know, everyone's on Twitter and Instagram and, you know, access to this information is hugely out there, you know, much more than before. And I think the media, like the mainstream media, like, you know, CNN, Fox, all those, I don't know, what else there is. one of our other media channels. CNN and Fox are kind of the demons of the media world, right? We always have to pick on them. I think that when we really look at the way the media perceives the UFO as a thing, as an object, it's this weird mix of one, people who watch CNN and Fox to pick on them tend to be, you know, believers, right?

Or they believe in some of this, you know, some of these more paranormal things, you know, whether it's ghosts or Bigfoot or Chupacabra, whatever's out there, right? So I think, you know, CNN Fox is potentially catering to numbers sometimes when it comes to media coverage of UFO reports. But again, you know, you look at the bulk of UFO stuff. It doesn't get covered at all, right? It's only when it's in some big way. You know, Tom DeLong, right, Blink 1282, you know, when he started doing his, he got tons of coverage, right? Because you have a celebrity talking about UFOs, which is kind of weird.

Meanwhile, I'm sure there's a lot of celebrities out there that have UFO fascinations. They just can't talk about them, right? Because of the taboo, it's, you know, apart from him because, you know, he's a punk rocker. And I think that he's allowed socially to be into weird stuff because he is a punk rocker, right? You know, Taylor Swift, I don't know if she has that freedom. I think, you know, it's very easy to get blackballed. It's very easy to kind of be put on the crazy person list. And then, you know, people start avoiding your phone calls.

And then suddenly, you know, you're not getting any more gigs. And, you know, people start paying attention to you. because you're the UFO not. So, you know, I don't really know how to answer your question properly because I don't know if the media is paying more attention or because, you know, is the disclosure movement actually making headway? Like, who knows, right? I mean, you never know.

Crazier things have happened. But, you know, I don't necessarily think it's occurring because there is some massive shift in the way people think about UFOs. I think people, I think we're still sort of taught. and trained, to use the conspiratorial term, I think we still sort of have this belief that UFOs don't exist, right? Or, sorry, not UFOs, that intelligently controlled UFOs don't exist. Yeah.

And, you know, their tongue-in-cheek, and therefore the X-Files and, you know, the history channel late at night, and that's about it. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's a great way to put it. I mean, like, we could even go back to what you said of this fear of it being a possibility. So, of course, sort of ignorance is bliss in that sense. We'll leave the idea to Hollywood to perpetuate these sort of fictionalized versions. And that's a, you know, that's a terrific way of putting it, right? Ignorance is bliss.

Because I think, I think ultimately any state, like government, any state or any scientific organization, any, you know, university, whatever, you know, if there is no solution to the problem, right? If there is no fix, if we can't identify. to fight. If we can't measure it or track it or trace it, the last thing we want to do is talk about it, right? Especially if it does have some physical properties, right? Especially if it does show up on radar once in a while, or it does interfere in, you know, operations that the government is concerned about, such as nuclear test sites or nuclear facilities, rather, you know, if it does

leave impressions on the ground or burn marks or whatever, right? If it leaves us trace evidence, but we can't understand it. It's a lot better to say it doesn't exist or it's just lunacy in regards to being like, okay, we're going to study this and we have no freaking clue what we're studying, but we're going to try. I think the two have very different messages, I think, politically, right? Yeah. One is they don't exist.

We don't have to deal with it. Fine, move on. And the other one is, you know, listen, our job is to maintain power as a government or as a, you know, as a scientific body or whatever. we're here to maintain control and we're here to make sure everything makes sense and we can't make sense of this. The I don't know is frightening, right? It's one of the most frightening things someone can say about something, right? I have no idea what's going on is terrifying, especially to people and the general public, right?

This would be, like I said, upsetting. Yeah. It would be a very awkward moment if, you know, Barack Obama walks out and says, yeah, listen, we've been sending UFOs for a while and we have no clue what they are. I think this would be an awful moment. CNN would be having a hayday. Yeah. It would be great. Yeah.

And I mean, the whole idea of that we don't know, MJ, it sort of boils down to if some governmental agency, intelligence agency or the military, again, we'd like to lump these things together, but they're so compartmentalized, you can't even imagine. That being said, if the government doesn't know what's going on, they at least have the power to contain that information. they do have maintain it in a way that they see fit. And, you know, we sort of run into that problem time and time again. And I guess it sort of boils down to, you know, those of us who seriously study UFOs, are we going to stand up for what is actually true when it comes to this? No matter what that truth may be. It might not be the answer we want.

It might not be the answer the believers want, nor the sky. skeptics. It could be something completely different, far stranger than we ever imagined, or it could be as mundane as, you know, all weather anomalies are natural phenomena. You know, that's a huge stretch. But when it comes down to it, I think we have a crucial decision, you know, do we, do we actually want to solve the UFO mystery or do we want to continue to to sort of perpetuate it? It's fascinating. And it says more about like the, society and culture than anything. Yeah, but, you know, it's, it's one of those things. I think, I think if there was a legitimate disclosure, like, let's, you know, let's assume the government has been actively studying UFOs in some top secret fashion that, that, you know, only they know about, right? Yeah. I don't think they need to. I honestly don't. I think that, you know, we kind of recap ourselves in, in the UFO phenomenon, just in the way we sort of ourselves live our life, right? You know, like I talked about before, right, we sort of have this general fear of the other and, and, you know,

an intelligent other that isn't human would be even worse. So I think we're kind of, we're fine ourselves to maintain some sort of mystery or lie if there is one. But, you know, assuming or for argument's sake that the government is actually hiding some top secret study of UFOs, you know, and that was released and said, yeah, here's all of our files. And it was done honestly. Here's actually everything we have. There's no bodies in some area 51 basement or there's no ships or anything. We're just, you know, we have been studying and we don't have an answer, right? These things show up and they do whatever they want.

and then they leave and there were, you know, we can track them once in a while and that's it, but they're gone as quick as they come. I think if that happened and then suddenly, you know, you had academic, you know, academic schools, universities, you know, scientific organizations, whatever, start picking up these studies and actually scientifically studying them. I think a lot of you, I think euphologists would be out of a job, you know, I think because what would happen is it would leave the realm of euphology, right? It would become a general science.

And I don't think, because the vast majority of euphologists out there, you know, the vast majority, you know, aren't in any way scientifically trained or aren't in any way philosophically trained, you know what I mean? Like, the vast majority of us are just people who just kind of picked it up as a hobby. And this hobby became this horrible monster, which became our life. And then suddenly, you know, we've identified, you know, ourselves as being uphologists. I don't necessarily think, you know, we would be the ones who would be hired, you know, would suddenly, you know, would suddenly MIT be like, okay, yeah, we're going to start studying UFOs.

So, you know, UFOs, all of you guys who've been studying UFOs for the last 30 years of your life, you know, please apply. Like, I don't think that would happen. They would send it to their in-house trained engineers and scientists, biologists, chemists, you know, physicists, whatever. And it would be done as an actual scientific study with their people, right? The people who are within this elite scientific community. So, you know, I think what would stop happening is UFO experts showing up on History Channel to be interviewed, right? I think that would end, right? Exactly.

Yeah. The reign of the UFO expert would probably collapse because it's no longer a mystery, right? It's now something that's studied by the general sciences. Well, but, I mean, look at any government investigation into UFOs to date. They all came back with the same conclusions of, we don't know what's going on. What we do know is that it is not a threat to national security. And when it comes down to it, that's what they deem an answer, a conclusion. Like this isn't threatening us, therefore, we're no longer going to investigate it, pump millions of dollars into it.

So you make a good point. It's a fantasy that we would be the ones called upon when this all happens. But let's be honest, you know, I'm a playwright living in New York City. You know, I bartend at night. That's what I do. Yes, I'm absolutely fascinated by UFOs. I make it my second job because I love it and I have a passion to find answers. but they're not going to call me when it comes down to it to be like, what do you know?

Exactly, right? Because ultimately, you know, the facts that we have, you know, I would say aren't facts, right? I think they're theological or philosophical beliefs. I don't think we have really a lot of hard data. And again, you know, people will disagree with me, right? Mufon, I think would be one of the first groups to say, you know what, MJ, you are messed up. Look it, look at, look it. That's right, hey.

Look at our case management system. look at all that data and I would say, you know, maybe, you know, maybe that's data. Right. But honestly, MJ, what has that done? And that's not a slight against Mufon. You look at like New Fork, you look at all of these reporting centers throughout the years. What has their data actually done to further the study of UFOs? We always hear nothing has changed in the past 50 years. I tend to disagree with that. I think, you know, any new information is quote unquote good information. there has been some progression in terms of what the, what UFOs are not. Yeah.

But it's, it's frustrating, you know. We have all these investigations by Mufon, but then what? What, what happens from there? Yeah. And, you know, that's, that's a big question, right? That is the big question. Why hasn't anything changed? Why hasn't ufology been able to break through into some sort of

standardization or into maybe some sort of academic sphere or why hasn't it been able to sort of puncture into the mainstream sciences like what is going on right yeah and i think that that's that's and again i'm going to plug my blog again i think that's kind of what my blog is is trying to address right it's not necessarily oh do you believe in UFOs or what are UFOs because i'm not sure if that's a question we can currently answer right we don't necessarily have the science right now to be able to get to a solution because science requires reproduction and testes You know, UFOs don't do this, right? But they do leave physical evidence behind sometimes, which is kind of this weird.

This is what makes the mystery even better, right? You know, they leave stuff behind once in Ohio. And I think that really where uphology needs to go away from, sorry, not away from, I think it needs to employ science. I think euphology needs science behind it, but I think it needs a lot more theory, a lot more critical theory, a lot more philosophy. It needs this questioning of why are scientists and governments not officially and publicly looking into the phenomenon of UFOs, right? I think this is, you know, critical theory for all the listeners who don't know what it is, is it's a branch of philosophy that studies sort of the power systems that are in place in our world, right? So stuff like Western liberal democracy, capitalism, communism, gender studies, whatever, all that stuff is clumped into cultural theory or cultural studies and critical theory.

I think uphology is definitely needs to be studied in this way. So what is preventing the state and what is preventing the scientific community from actively looking into UFOs? And why are scientists and government officials and anyone who is actively trying to push for this study? Why are they being blackballed or why are they sort of being laughed at? And why do anchors, news anchors on Fox News and CNN Snicker every time. time a UFO story pops up, right? And why is it okay? Like, why does the general public, why do

just you, me, and Joe Sixpack sort of deem it okay that the study of UFOs is not acceptable, right? Why is it lunacy? And I think that this is, this is the big question, you know, and I don't know if science is where it needs to be for us to actively study UFOs properly, but I think that, you know, if time and energy was actually put into it, right? If scientific communities were actually given funding to study UFOs, if they were actually given the opportunity and the state actively did it, you know, I think this would be a different, I think it might be a different beast. You know, Blue Book didn't work. Grant, a lot of state-run UFO investigations didn't work. But a lot of people would say they were already, when they were first created, kind of kneecapped by the people who were running them, right?

I mean, you know, you read Heineck. You know, I love Heineck and his work, and he talks about when he worked on Project Blue Book. You know, every single military officer he worked with was a junior level officer. They were all like majors and captains. Like they didn't have a single colonel, a single general. Okay, they had a left hand in a colonel. But, you know, they had all these junior officers who could, they couldn't requisition, what requisition, a car half the time to go visit a witness, right?

The government, like the military just wouldn't give them funding to be like, okay, yeah, listen, I need to borrow a company car for a couple hours. Sorry, you can't, right? And it's like, well, if you're going to kneecap it before it even starts, then this is, you know, we're not going to get anywhere. And I think that this is kind of where we're at, right? It's this taboo subject of nobody really wants to talk about it and nobody wants to study it. But I think there's a lot of interest in it.

And I think there's a lot of people who are probably concerned about it. I mean, you know, if we go to the nth degree to the belief, let's go to the believers side for a second, right? And we go full out, full out. You know, they're here all the time visiting us and they do it. You know, this is concerning, right? I think that this freaks a lot of people out because they can do whatever they want. and there is no way of stopping them, right? And this is really problematic.

Assuming, you know, that's what's going on. You know, again, for argument's sake, I don't want to talk about my personal beliefs because, you know, that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, in the same vein, MJ, we know that just like any sort of fringe or esoteric topic, there are those who claim to be experts. And we know full well, that's complete bullshit.

I mean, I can honestly say straight up that when it comes to UFOs, I have, without hesitation, stated, that I do not know what they are, and I do not know what they represent. Yet, we are the ones who are considered UFO, quote-unquote, experts. We both know that's utter nonsense. We have no clue,

but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to find answers. And I guess my convoluted question in this, who do you turn to for the most credible and beneficial information? Who out there in the UFO quote unquote field inspires you? Someone that you could steer us towards, I guess. Save us, help us. Ryan Sprague. Oh, my God.

Stop. No, I'm just, you know, God, you know, that's such a tough question, right? Because, you know, I think I can tell you who inspires me, but I don't necessarily think they're right. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I can tell you who I think is, is, they're great writers, they're great, they have a lot of knowledge on the subject of sightings. And I think I mentioned this in one of my blog posts, this idea of the expert, right?

What makes an expert an expert? It's all ideology, maybe. But we can, that's a later, that's a later auxiliary episode. The problem with the expert is we're all kind of experts in what we don't know. And I think that's what the UFO phenomenon is, right? We have no idea what's going on. And anyone who says they do is crazy. Sorry, no offense to everyone who thinks they know what's going on, but I'm going to call it, you're crazy.

Because there is no evidence to support anything of what's actually going on. We have stories and we have some evidence once in a while, but that doesn't prove anything, right? It doesn't prove that they're from another dimension or that they are intelligent or they are, you know, from this. particular star system or whatever. You know, the people I really listen to and the people I really read, you know, there's a handful. I'm excited for somewhere in the skies, that's for sure. Because I think, you know, your potential book, I mean, I don't know anything about it,

but I only know the heading in the sub-title, or the subtitle, which is, you know, a human, what is it, human exploration? Something alien? No, approach. Yep, human approach to an alien phenomenon. Yeah. And, you know, it's beautiful because that is kind of where we're at, right? It's a human approach to something that is totally other and totally alien.

We don't have any idea. So I think, you know, I'm really looking forward to that one. Send me a copy. Absolutely. I'll Amazon it otherwise. I really like Micah Hanks. I like Micah Hanks because I think he kind of follows a lot of the same sort of mentality, you know, potentially you and I follow, right?

Right. Something is going on. I think we kind of can hit that nail on the head, right? Something strange is going on. We just have no clue what it is. is. And I think that that's kind of my position as well. You know, do I think UFOs are things in the sky that people can identify? Yes.

Do I think that there's anything, you know, do I think they're aliens or, you know, or do I think that it's interdimensional beings or whatever? I don't know, right? I don't know at all. And I think that that is kind of the best position to take in uphology because you can't prove anything otherwise. Yeah. So I would say, you know, Micahanks is this great kind of public, very public character

in the UFO world, right? who actively kind of promotes this message, right? You know, uphology is not about speculating as to, you know, the star system or the type of, you know, warp drive these vehicles have or whatever. It's not about that, right? It's about sort of why are people seeing these things and, you know, can we ever find an answer? So I do like Micah Hanks. I like his Graerleian report.

I do really enjoy that show. I think Richard Dolan, on a historical aspect, this guy kind of knows everything. It's ridiculous. I'm right now cutting through his recent book, his UFOs for the 21st century mind. You know, I think as like, it's almost like an encyclopedia, right?

It's this general overview of uphology since it's sort of inception. And I think it's great. I think that, no, obviously it deals with a lot of cases and it deals with a lot of speculation at times. And that's totally fine. I mean,

that's the point of the book, though, right? It's to offer this overview of the world of UFOs. You know, do I necessarily agree with some of Mr. Dolan's sort of other opinions in regards to what the UFOs are or who is driving the UFOs, let's say, or flying them. You know, I'm not sure if I necessarily buy into all that. But I think that from a historical sort of solid, well-researched, euphological side, I think he's great.

You know, and there's tons. Sam and Shannon at Into the Frey love them. I got to be honest, I didn't know much about Bigfoot before. Now I know more about Bigfoot than I care to. Isn't that crazy, man? I'm the same way, you know. Yeah, and it's funny, hey? Because I think Bigfoot is sort of similar to UFOs, right?

Yeah. In that, you know, he's kind of mysterious. He shows up or she shows up whenever he or she wants. And then, you know, once in a while they leave evidence, right? They'll leave a footprint kicking around every once in a while. You know, and you go, oh, that's kind of interesting, you know. The problem is, you know, I'm not sure if Bigfoot could invade the planet and, you know, enslave us in some sort of, you know, cocoon-like race where we just, you know, are mindless zombies.

You never know. You never know. Those big foot. Yeah. There's so many people out there. But I guess the consistent ones, you know, I just mentioned. Chris Rikowski, obviously, you know, as a Canadian euphologist, the guy is, the guy is definitely a man of science. He is not, he just not sort of, he doesn't enjoy whimsy.

And he does not. But he is like, this is, like, this is what we know. And it's this tiny sliver. And everything we don't know is this, you know, titanic of a. of a beast that is just, you know, waiting around and, like, we know nothing about what's going on, but, you know, something weird's going on, right? So I definitely have to give props to Chris. Chris, Chris is, I have to add, MJ. I mean, Chris has called me out on bullshit so many times, and that's what we need. We need someone there to sort of rein us in when they can see we're getting

a little too out there, you know, when you and I, again, we're on the younger side, we're sort of, we're still stumbling. We're trying to find our way in this field. And when we have people like Chris, like Dolan, to sort of pull us back in and remind us like, you know, go back to the facts,

look at the history, and then move forward. I can't tell you how many times I've been wrong, and you have to be willing to admit that. And I think someone like Chris or Dolan, like these are people who are willing to do that. Oh, for sure. You know, and that's such a great

way to approach it. And, you know, Dolan being my publisher and Micah, having written the foreword for my book, I'm so happy that you brought this to you up. It makes me feel more comfortable moving forward with my own research. Well, I mean, you know, there's very few voices in the field of uphology that I would say sort of are this middle ground, right? We admit to saying, yeah, you know what, there is something strange going on, but we aren't prepared to kind of drink the Kool-Aid and go full out.

you know, full out believer, disclosurist, you know, they're here, they have ships and their bodies are buried in an area 51, like, you know what I mean? Like, there's this, it needs a middle ground, I think, and I think that this is kind of where you, myself, and some of these other people kind of rest. Yeah. Because otherwise,

everything else is speculation, right? We can only speculate. We can only speculate. And like, and the true research is going to come from those who aren't out there touting TV shows and books and this. Like if people want to buy my book, great. If they want to read your blog, awesome. I don't expect that. I don't give a, you know, I don't care how well the book does. This is what information I got and this is what I want to give to the public, whether you accept that or not. Great. So I think the real research does come from underground. I know Mike has talked a lot about this as well. It's those sort of not out there, not giving their

names who are doing this true research and that's what counts. It's the information. It's not the people. Whenever skeptics say uphology is dead, it's because they're looking at the people involved. They're attacking the personalities and that's all it's based on. And in some ways, I don't blame them. There's a lot of charlatans out there and a lot of quote unquote experts who say they have all the answers like you said earlier. We cannot trust them. So yeah, I think the real work is being done underground. It's being done. independently, and that comes with things like Tara Obscira, the Graalian Report, into the Fray. You know, I'm going to just keep naming them until you stop me. But again, that's what it is.

It's civilians, it's people on the ground who have experienced these things or are relaying that information that I think matter most. I don't know how you feel. Well, I mentioned that one of my blog posts when I talked about sort of the ideology of science and sort of whether, you know, euphology can fit into this ideology. And, you know, I kind of ended it by saying that, you know, really, it's the grassroots, right, that are going to make a difference right here. It's those scientists and those thinkers and philosophers and theorists and whoever, who are going to kind of, they don't necessarily worry about existing on the fringe a little bit and dealing with it and writing about it and thinking about it. Because uphology, as much as science

is needed, it's a thinking man's game or a thinking woman's game. And there definitely needs to be some critical thought put into, you know, this field. that has, I don't want to say run amok, but a little bit has kind of run amok into, like you said, right, the shows and the documentaries or, you know, that try to make people money and whatever. That being said, on a side note, History Channel, if you do want to call me, www. www.tera, obscure.net, you can just hit contact and I will take your money. You know, but it's, you know, it's one of those things. You know, it gets that easy to become an expert, right? You know, History Channel gives you a couple minutes of time, and they put UFO expert on there, and boom. You're invited to Congress, and you're invited to...

Except for a life. All of the... Yes. Yes. And then your hair just gets bigger and bigger. It's funny. I saw that meme on Facebook. Somebody posted it with the ancient aliens.

The hair. It's really funny, actually. His hair does get bigger every season. Oh, yeah. It's beautiful. It's great. It's beautiful. Yeah.

Oh, man. M.J., I just wanted to cap it off. there is, you know, do you see UFO activity decreasing? I don't know about you, man, but like, it seems like there are less and less of these big cases out there. The last one I can really think of was Chicago, O'Hare Airport. And again, I'm looking at it strictly from perhaps ignorant Western eyes. These things are happening all over the world, obviously, you know, huge in China, huge in Brazil, even huge in Canada, you know, being. my northern neighbor, I don't even hear about cases out of Canada a lot. And we're so focused on

the United States when it comes to this topic. Again, do you see UFO activity sort of waning? What does that say about us or what does it say about the phenomenon? I don't know. What do you think? You know, I think there's a couple things. I mean, you know, one, I think that a lot of UFO sightings, a lot, the vast majority of them, you know, obviously aren't. anything interesting, right? They're just natural phenomenon. I think people generally are becoming a little more aware of what's out there in the skies, satellites,

space stations, et cetera. So I think we, you know, I think people are generally a little more, are a little better educated as to what's going on. Not only that, the ability to access information on where the space station is at a given time or what

stars are out there or whatever. You know, there's an app for your phone, right? Sky watch or sky view or whatever, right? That you can literally track what's going on live. You know, I think that really helps reduce a lot of sighting reports. I also think, you know,

setting reports are sort of mythological in nature, right? They're ideological in nature. People are watching television. People are on Facebook. People are watching movies. People are, my cat just walked in the room. People are consuming media. It scared me.

Sorry. People are consuming more media. And I think that the, you know, UFO sightings are becoming this, like, like, myth that people believe in, just like people used to believe in, I don't know, vampires and fairies and stuff like that. But I think that, you know, we're not. But I think that what we are losing, and I agree, you know, these massive sightings that sort of are the bread and butter of euphology, right? You mentioned Chicago O'Hare, which is such a great sighting that, you know, there's no evidence really to document it apart from witness testimony, but there's so many witnesses.

And not only that, there's, you know, radar or not radar, sorry, there's radio recordings of people talking to each other about it, you know, like I'm standing outside and staring at this thing. And you can literally hear the conversations people are having with each other because there's all this all recorded. that is a solid case. And I wish we had another one. One of my favorite cases that ever sort of occurred ever in history, because I think that there is a lot of evidence in regards to it, is the 2007 Alderney UFO siting, which occurred over the English Channel. You had a flight, a routine flight in 2007 that was going across the English Channel. And this guy in his little plane with whatever 20 passengers sees, you know, these two objects just hovering there.

then, you know, he asks tower, or ask the tower rather, if there's, you know, if there's anything on radar. And sure enough, you know, the guy, it's there on radar. And then the radar operator asks for, asks for another pilot who's in another aircraft if he has visual confirmation on this. And this guy's about 20,000 feet high. And he sees something, right? He records, yeah, I see this sort of shining object, right?

And it's this beautiful case where you have, where you have about 20 people on board an aircraft, see it, including the pilot. you have a radar operator who gets several radar hits. And they're kind of ghosting, right? They're not a consistent hit. It's kind of in and out. But enough that, you know, I get, you get a ghost once in a while. But, you know, consistent radar ghosts over a short period of time.

That's pretty good. Followed by confirmation from another pilot who is on a separate flight, you know, at a different altitude. I mean, this is one of those UFO case that, you know, I wish we had another one for. You know what I mean? and I wish one would pop up soon because this is one of those cases that that is just, it's so unknown and the information and the details that are presented are all there. You have so many witnesses, you have radar, you have a second pilot. Like you, this is one of those UFO cases where you kind of go, this is mind-blowing.

Like this, how does this happen? And how does no one sort of properly look into this? Like how does no government? I mean, maybe they do. Who knows, you know, the British Secret Service, MI6 or MI5, whatever, right? You know, maybe they did look into it, but it's such a beautiful example of a case, similar to Chicago O'Hare, that you wish, you could just, wish you could be there for one. You know what I mean? Like, you wish you could just be like, ah, I was there when it happened.

But I don't know. Do I think that sightings are waning? I don't know. I think individual sightings will never win. I think they'll probably go up and down, you know, the Canadian UFO report that Chris Rukowski does. You know, stats are up in Canada. Yeah. People are seeing more UFOs in Canada than previous years.

So, you know, in Canada, I would say, you know, obviously, at least the numbers say they're not going down. That's exciting. But I think, you know, people are getting smarter. People are being a little more critical about what they're seeing. People are able to check what they're seeing. They don't have to see something and then write a letter and wait two weeks for them to get a response from some society that, you know, yeah, it was a meteor or not or whatever, right? You know, this information is all instant. Yeah.

Yeah. So I hope, I hope really what happens, because I deal with, like I said, I'm a move on field investigator. So I deal with a lot of Chinese lanterns and Venus and international space stations flying by and people saying they're seeing UFOs. I really can't stress enough, you know, for people who do have a sighting, look online first, you know, go online and see, you know, was the space station over me at this time? Or was it a flight?

You know, flight radar is a great website. It tracks flights live and you can go back a week to see, you know, if anything was overhead at the time. Like, these are the tools of the UFO. investigator, and I think people need to definitely sort of use them, weather underground for strange weather phenomenon, stuff like that. These are great sites and tools that people can use to sort of track their own UFO sighting before making a report. Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, people have mistaken the moon for a UFO, and you're kind of, you know, we should have checked where the moon was at the time.

Yeah. But, you know, honest mistakes happen as well. And you know what? I mean, that's the job of the field investigator, right, is to kind of get in there and try to find those mistakes in real. regards to actual sightings. Right, and I'm sure it makes your job more frustrating when it just turns out to be one of those things. But wouldn't you rather have someone report something possibly unknown than not reported at all? You know, true.

But then we kind of go back to the old, you know, what we started off this interview talking about, right, is can we actually figure out what it is? Yeah, yeah. You know, we have Chicago O'Hare, like you said, do we actually know what happened? Or we have the olden UFO sighting. I mean, do we actually know what happened? And can we prove it? Like, can we actually sit down and can science actually, you know, run through it and figure out what it was?

No, of course not, right? We can't. So it's this weird catch-22. It really is, yeah. I mean, that's a fascinating case, by the way, MJ. I see, and I've never heard of that one. And that's what it's about, you know? It's mind-blowing, and it's funny because a lot of people haven't, because it's out of the

UK, and it didn't get very much coverage or very much, I mean, it did, for the few weeks when it happened and whatever. But apart from that, it's like no one's really talking about these cases that are actually interesting. You know, I love the Roswell situation. Roswell's great. But, you know, what evidence really is there? And most of the evidence that we have is the evidence is missing. Yep.

Or it was taken away by the powers that it would be. Whereas in, you know, the 2007 Alderney UFO sighting, none of that's missing, right? The radar hits are all out there. You can see them on the internet. You can watch the videos. You can literally see, you know, the radar information. You can listen to the audio between all three or the two pilots and the radar and the radio tower. You know, you can hear witness tests.

It's all public, right? No one has hidden anything. There's no data missing. There's no pieces of alien craft in some bunker somewhere. You know, like this is one of those cases where everything is out in the open so anyone can investigate or anyone can look at it. And the data is good. You know, the data is generally good. that's incredible i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna have to look into that one yeah gt s that um wow mj

thank you so much man it's been such a pleasure having you with us today one more time where can we find your work terra obscura dot net thank you so much this has been tons of fun right good i'm glad you had a good time again it's so it's so exciting to have someone with such a fresh perspective um who has some humility with the topic as well and is willing to go those lengths to tell their honest opinion, but also rely on the facts. So I have to thank you for what you've done for the field, what you'll continue to do. And thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much.

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