Somewhere in the Skies - UFO HAPPY HOUR: Volume Three

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

On episode 108 OF SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, the tables have turned on Ryan and he is interviewed by Rob Kristoffersen, host of the OUR STRANGE SKIES podcast. First, they look at some of the cases in Ryan's book that intrigued Rob most, and then they dive deep into what UFOs may represent. They round things out by talking about what cases Ryan turns the skeptics to for evidence that something truly anomalous is happening somewhere in our strange skies. Grab a beverage of choice and join us for UFO Happy Hour!  Guest Bio: Rob Kristoffersen is the host of the Our Strange Skies podcast, and has been an amateur UFO researcher/paranormal investigator for nearly 10 years. He has been a lifelong resident of the Adirondacks and has had an interest in the paranormal from a very early age. When he's not investigating incidents of high strangeness, he can be found indulging in his love for professional wrestling, music, and good writing. Follow him on Twitter @YerUFOguy Use Promo code: SKIES for discount tickets to ALIEN CON Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies To watch ROSWELL: MYSTERIES DECODED for free, CLICK HERE  Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, saucerheads. This is Ryan Sprag from the Summer in the Skies podcast, and I have an exclusive offer for you to come join me at Alien Con Los Angeles. AlienCon brings together UFO researchers, the stars of ancient aliens, and science fiction fan favorites. But most importantly, it brings us all together as like-minded people to talk about these topics. I'll be giving lectures and taking part in numerous panel discussions with some of the most popular UFO and unexplained podcasts. out there today. And don't forget to check out live podcast recordings of Somewhere in the Skies and Unknown, hosted by Jason McClellan. It's going to be a jam-packed weekend you won't soon forget and you get to be a part of. The event is June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Tickets are on sale right now at thealiacon.com. And if you use the promo code

Skies at checkout, you'll get an exclusive discount on all tickets. Again, use the promo code Skies. For guest info, special offers, full schedule, and tickets, visit thealiancon.com, and I'll see you there. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Spread. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprigg. Well, I am on the road again doing some top secret projects, but I did want to bring you an episode this week.

So, I decided to pull this one out of the archives over at the Our Strange Skies podcast, hosted by Rob Christofferson. And when Rob Christofferson is on the show, you know it's going to be a UFO happy hour. But this time, Rob interviews me, all about my book, what I think about UFOs in general, and what cases I turn the heart skeptics to. So sit back, crack open a cold beer, pour a glass of wine, or, or, grab a coffee. No one's judging. And let's begin this volume of UFO Happy Hour. Ryan, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, man. Hey, listen, I love what you're doing. I've been following your work ever since you started the podcast, and it's such an honor, pleasure to finally be on your show. I had you on mine a little while ago. So, yeah, full circle here. So honored, pleasure. Yeah, man, happy to have you on. Definitely one of the first people that I thought about when I was,

was going to do this. So I definitely appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk for a little bit. In the interviews that I've heard you do and stuff, you kind of got into UFO research after having a personal experience of your own when you were a teenager. Can you talk a little bit about your experience and kind of how it affected your life? Because your book really dives into the aftermath of the sighting and how it affected people. Right. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm a playwright, first and foremost. I lived in New York City for 10 years, and that was my bag, man. That was my bread and butter writing characters, you know, how they live, how they breathe, how they talk, how they react. And, you know, the aftermath, what changes a character throughout the process of a play. So that's always been the way I wanted to go with my UFO research. And that kind of is how I got involved with this. I had my quote unquote origin story when I was 12. years old, my Peter Parker moment, I guess.

This was up in your, kind of your neck of the woods. This was in central New York, right on the border of New York and Canada. I was on a nighttime fishing excursion off of a dock at a motel. I was staying out with my parents. We were away

for the weekend. And, you know, it's 1995. I've got my disc men. I'm listening to, what was it, Duky by Green Day. Oh, wow. Yeah, man. And I was by myself.

I love doing stuff like that. Just listening to music and either writing, drawing, or fishing, as it were, that night. And so I'm just, you know, I'm reeling my line in. And I see this reflection in the water. And it's, you know, kind of triangular. And it's like three white lights. I'm like, oh, that looks pretty cool. I thought it was in the water at first.

But then I, closer I looked, I realized it was a reflection. so I naturally look up and there it was, man. I mean, it was a triangular formation, three kind of orange, white lights, and this huge red basketball-shaped hazy thing in the middle, and it's just floating there. And there was no solid structure, not that I could see. I couldn't see the stars behind whatever the formation was, but I did not see any mechanisms or solid.

structure, but it was just like hanging there silently. And that really affected me. All I could hear was kind of, you know, like the water hitting the dock. And I was scared. I was kind of just frozen there. And finally, I'm able to get, you know, these little squeals out of my 12-year-old voice to my dad. He's inside the motel watching a Yankees game, and he's not going to be leaving that anytime soon. And I'm yelling. I'm yelling. The thing starts coasting over the water. towards Canada, and finally, I get my dad's attention. He comes out, and as he's coming out to look at the thing, it's just making its way over the water towards Canada, and it kind of disappeared right at where the water met the sky, the night sky, and I don't know if, this always kind of bothered me. I don't know if

it just disappeared out of sight, or if it actually submerged into the water. But my dad, he did see the tail end of it. He saw the two white lights in the back of this thing. So he tells me it's just a plane, you know, doing his due diligence as a father calming me down. But again, dude, like I was 12 years old. Even I knew, you know, silent, no sound of propulsion, how fast and how slow I should say this thing was moving and how big it was. It was not any plane I'd ever seen. So, yeah, absolutely terrified me. I became obsessed. I had nightmares about it for years after that. And and that's kind of how it all began, man. I started taking out books on UFOs, cryptids, paranormal,

and that's it. I was hooked after that. And it's always kind of interesting when you go back and you relive the sighting there in just memory. And like, I felt this emotion, I felt that emotion. Do you think that it was just the fact that you were seeing the craft? Or do you think the craft was kind of inducing that? fear because there are people that talk about seeing craft like this and they hear this hum and then

all of a sudden they are fearful or whatever. So do you think it was just you reacting in the moment or do you think it might have been something else, maybe the craft itself? A little of both. I've researched a lot of cases like you just mentioned where there was physiological effects and psychological effects happening at the same time. For me, personally, I didn't hear a hum, but I felt a hum. Like, I felt this vibration going from the back of my neck, down my spine, and kind of into my stomach. Again, like, I don't know if this was adrenaline or fear, but I was definitely scared. I was definitely scared. You know, I ripped my headphones off. My disc ming goes flying, and just so I could, like, hear what was going on. And when I heard nothing, that's when I was

what the hell is going on? And I can't tell you, man. I can't tell you if it was making me feel anything, but it was this weird mixture of fear and calmness all at once. I wasn't, it wasn't, you know, flight or fright. It was more of just stay there, keep looking at it. I know you're scared, but you have to see what this thing does, whatever the hell it is. So there were physiological effects, whatever that was inside of me vibrating. But other than that, I can't really tell you what else I was feeling in the moment. I just wanted to remember it. Yeah, I totally understand because there was an experience I had like three years ago almost now. And like, I keep going over it again and again in my head. And I'm like, well, why did I react the way that

I reacted in the moment? Because I had a phone on me and I didn't take a picture of it. What that? Why didn't I want to do that. And like, I experienced mine with a friend and, uh, I got to try and, uh, reconnect with them just to get his, uh, impression of it. But yeah, it's, it's one of those baffling things where it's just, this thing wants you to see it. And it's kind of inducing emotions in you, but it's such a baffling phenomenon that it does drive people to research this stuff. So, uh, I commend you, man. I probably would have like, ran off. the talk. I mean, don't get me wrong.

I wanted to, but I'm telling you, man, like something kept me frozen there. Again, I don't know, maybe just scared. But it happened. And, you know, I do look back and be like, oh, what could I have done? Should I have, like, reported it? You know, we talked to the owner of the motel the next day. We're like, hey, dude, the hell is above your motel. Like, what's going on?

But he really had nothing to say. He's like, oh, yeah, people report UFOs here all the time. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? But that was really about it. And I do regret that. But again, I was 12. I wasn't into UFOs yet.

I didn't know about Mufon or, you know, reporting it to the police or the FAA. I just, I saw it. It changed my life instantly. And rest is sort of history. And from that history comes forth a book somewhere in the skies. Your book begins. in a bar in the lower east side of Manhattan. And it starts with a bartender named Tyler

and he starts talking about his experience seeing the Phoenix lights. This is kind of that catalyst moment that pushes you in the direction to write this thing. What was it about that encounter with Tyler that really made you want to write this book? So that was, that really was a pivotal moment in terms of my writing,

aspect of the whole UFO research thing, I guess. I was on my way to do a, you know, like a mini interview with my mentor, Peter Robbins. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know that name well. But I was nervous, man. I needed some, some whiskey in me. That's kind of my go-to. Bourbon and specific. But so, yeah, I stopped into this bar and I don't know if you've ever had that. that experience where the UFO thing just sort of comes up in conversation. Maybe happenstance, maybe forced, but it's always a debate in your head. Like, do I do it? Do I take that leap?

What's going to come of it? I mean, I've lost a lot of second dates, you know, bringing this thing up in the past. God bless my girlfriend now. She loves it. But yeah, it can be a really big icebreaker, whether, you know, on a date or, you know, on a date or just in regular conversation. And, you know, luckily for me, it came up kind of, kind of naturally. In the book, I kind of explain how it all went down. But Tyler was such a cool dude. He, he was so excited to talk about it. And that really, that really inspired me,

man, to sit there in the middle of Manhattan with a complete stranger and have an extremely intimate conversation about the Phoenix Lights. I interviewed some witnesses. I interviewed some witnesses, of that event in the past, but not to that extent and not face to face. So that was the moment, I think, being face to face with a witness, seeing how they recalled an event. And whenever I did interview people, I would write down, like, how their voice sounded, you know, what the tone was in their voice. These were things I learned and was trained as a playwright. Like, how do you do those sorts of things? So I'm kind of of analyzing him as he's telling me this. And I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. You know,

I'm no speech pathologist. I'm no, you know, human lie detector. But he was sweating. He was, you know, he was animated, telling me about what he'd seen, how it, uh, floated through the air, how big it was. And that was the moment where I was like, I have to, I got to do this. I want to meet witnesses. I want to see how they react. And I want to know how it affected their lives. And that's kind of what I went with with the book. That was my approach is let's, let's implement my playwriting skills of characters and induce that into my research, not creating characters, but kind of taking that idea and focusing on the people having the events rather than the event itself. Yeah, and that's kind of one of the most fascinating aspects of this all.

It's not the experience. It's the experiencer themselves and how they come away and how it changes them. And it's kind of amazing that nobody's really done this before. We're like over 70 years into UFO research and nobody has really done this. It's always been the story or the report or what happened. It's never what happens after. So I commend you, dude. great job on the subject of this.

It's definitely a book that I recommend now for people to go to. If people are interested in UFOs, it's definitely one that I recommend up front. How did you come to find all the people that you interviewed, and how long did it take to gather all the information and put it into a book? I'd say from, like, the first interview to literally, you know, send it in it off to the publisher.

maybe about two and a half years or so. I mean, it was not short, but it was not long either. I did some traveling to go meet people, countless nights over Skype and on the phone. My Verizon bill was higher than it's ever been. And still on a family plan, so thank you, Dad, for that. But yeah, man, it was an amazing journey. and just, you know, I went and stayed awake with some abductees.

I flew out to Arizona to meet with some witnesses for this. I went to a couple other places and interviewed people face to face. And it was just, it was an incredible experience. You know, I kind of wanted to take that journalistic approach and that boots on the ground approach and get out there and talk to the people. So, you know, Skype, Facebook, online forums, these were all very valuable assets to me that a lot of researchers didn't have in the past. So, you know, God bless the Internet for all it's good and bad. It really helped me with this.

Man, you really mind for it, too, because what you get in the book is like a really wide swath of people and experiences that run the gamut from just seeing a UFO, like a, the CE1 or a nocturnal light kind of siting all the way up to abductions. And it's definitely well-rounded. And another thing that I really love about the book, what surprised you the most while doing the research and doing the interviews? I think what really surprised me was just the spectrum of reaction and aftermath. You know, when I first set out to write the I was like, oh, I'm going to find this one linear pattern to all the cases. And there we go. Boom.

I've solved the UFO mystery. I did it. Yay. That was the stupidest thing I ever could have assumed. But, yeah. It was definitely like the spectrum of, you know, someone has a UFO sighting or a CE1, 2, 3, 4, 5, even. and it impacts them greatly. It changes their entire life.

Whereas I interviewed a guy who had a sighting on his way to his first military job, and it was a classic saucer-shaped craft that stopped his car, that circled around him, that took off. And he literally said to me, oh, yeah, just got in my car, went to a bar, and went to my job. I mean, that right there, man astounded me. I thought, oh, wait. Like, no matter what, this is a profound experience and it's going to change your life forever.

For this guy, no, it really didn't. He had it. He thought it was pretty cool. And maybe it opened his eyes a little, but it did not change him in the profound ways I had expected. And as for other people, I talked to a guy who had an abduction experience, Michael Carter, the guy who became a minister of a church after he was aboard a craft, apparently, talking to these. white alien beings and they showed him an image of prayer hands with a lightning bolt through it. This was his sort of, you know, I guess translation in his own mind that he had to pursue faith healing. He had to infuse his UFO encounters with his spiritualism became a minister, wrote some books on

UFOs in the Bible. So, I mean, that changed the entire course of that dude's life. So it really ran a spectrum. And I think that's what was most surprising to me is this is messy. It's profound. It's mundane. It's scary. It's beautiful. And it's everything in between. And I think that's what's beautiful about all of it is we're all going to take whatever we experience a different way and either infuse that, embrace it into our lives, or reject it and deny it and move on. So yeah, that's kind of what surprised me the most is just how messy this melting. pot really is. Yeah, it really is. And I think some of the interesting interviews that you did involve, especially when you're talking about the ones that involve interactions with beings of some

kind, like Claudette Huber's case, that's not any kind of alien being that I've ever really heard of. It's just, it's short, it's, it's got darker skin with, and it's wearing a black flowing robe? Yeah, dude. That one really surprised me. That was one of the individuals I met in person. And it's kind of an interesting story. So I met her at a UFO conference and I asked her, I knew she had an experience and she'd never spoken about it to anyone. And I said, hey, you know, would you be willing to talk about this with me and just kind of see where it goes? I'll turn a recorder on, but I will never let it share it with anyone. And it took some time and some debate, and she decided to do it.

So I had dinner with her and her husband, and, you know, she broke down into tears when she said, I want to share my story with you. And her husband's there holding her hand, supporting her. And she came up to my hotel room. We sat there for over an hour and a half, maybe two hours, and she divulged everything to me. And again, it was one of those pivotal moments where I was like, this is what I have to do. I have to focus on the person and let them tell the story, not me. Let them tell me what they saw, what they experienced and how they felt, what they think it was. So with Claudette, yeah, she was very young when this happened.

She saw these weird beings, like you said, almost monk-like in appearance, dark, crackly skin, very, you know, moist, almost as if the air was very, very humid. And it was weird. You never really heard about this other than maybe some of the beings that Whitley Streber once described seeing. But this actually happened Claudette's event before that came out. So she had a trigger event later in life when her boyfriend at the time was watching Communion, the movie, that horrible, god-awful movie. For all its faults, I still love it. It's a cool classic. She saw the being in that movie, and she flipped out.

You know, she cowered behind the couch and started crying. Boyfriends like, what's going on? What's going on? And she couldn't tell him, you know, couldn't tell him for many years later. So, again, a lot of this is not what you would expect. This was not the little gray beings with big black eyes, big head. This was a monk blue and black in appearance and wearing some kind of ancient robe, man. I don't know.

I don't know what to make of it. And I don't pretend to either. This is what she experienced, and I'm going to relate that the best way I can as the journalist and the author. And I think what's interesting is to say, just in the way it reads, she only had like one experience with these beings, right? Yes, apparently. You know, I've spoken to her a couple times after that. And she said she's had some other weird experiences, but nothing as dramatic as this. So that's another big thing is, you know, some of these people, it's a lifelong thing.

It happens. It's reoccurring. For others, it's a singular event. So again, there's very few patterns that can be made with all of this. But, you know, we're going to keep trying, and we're just going to keep recording what we can when it happens and if it happens. That's kind of one of those aspects that we don't get a view of most of the time, because when we're talking about abductions,

it's always a lifelong event or at least most of the life. and it's always, it runs in families and all this stuff. And like, there are definitely people in your book that kind of defy that a little bit. Yeah, like you said, Michael Carter, his experiences only lasted, like, what, about six months or so? Yeah, within the span of six months, he had a ton of experiences. So, again, whatever is happening, no matter what it is, aliens, some higher power, interdimensional. I don't know, man. Again, I don't pretend to know what the abduction phenomenon is or who's in control of it.

But, uh, I mean, my God, they say like they'll, they won't, they won't do to you what you can't handle. But I don't know how that man can still be sane after that many experiences. Uh, he did tell me that he went under therapy after a lot of this and, uh, and kind of stepped away from it for a little while to live his life. But yeah, the whole running and families thing, I know you're a big proponent of that idea, that that seems to be one of the only patterns we can make with these things.

And I agree with you. While I didn't find many of those cases, I know they're out there. And there must be something to it. I just, in my own research, I haven't tapped into that quite yet. And, you know, it's a phenomenon that constantly reforms and constantly reshapes itself.

So it's interesting to see this, wide swath. They were definitely aspects of that book that I really just enjoyed. I'm going to say that like a billion times because I really did it. I love the hell out of your book. Well, thank you. I swear to your listeners, I didn't come on here

just for that. But no, dude, I really appreciate that. Like, again, I just want to get these stories out there for individuals who just need, like, they want their voices to be heard. They're not Whitley Streber. They're not

these these big cases like rendelsham or al-A-A-Gash or anything like that they're they're people who had they're everyday people that's that's kind of what I'm trying to get at with the whole thing is this is your next-door neighbor this is your you know your professor in college this is your law enforcement officer this is the mailman I mean it isn't some that cliche of like some hick in the backwoods having an experience Those days are over. And honestly, they never truly were that, that cliche. So I appreciate the broad spectrum of individuals having experiences and coming forward, having the courage to give their real names.

That was another big thing in the book is I wanted no pseudonyms. I wanted these people to own it, to embrace it, and to get out there. And that's a huge, huge risk for them. So if any of them are listening, I always say thank you. Thank you for having the courage to do that because the ramification to coming forward with this, as you know, it can go one of two ways. Either people are like, interesting, cool,

or they're like, hey, you just lost your job. Or, hey, we're going to ridicule the hell out of you after this. So again, I applaud each and every person in the book and who are not in the book as well, who come forward with their real names on these things. I think that's really the only way it's going to be normalized. Yeah, I absolutely believe that and for all the criticism I throw to to the Stars Academy and the New York Times article,

hopefully, you know, at least we're on the precipice of kind of reshaping the image of UFO research. I definitely hope that's a step in the right direction. I think so. Yeah, I agree. Aside from the one story that takes place in my hometown that you were a part of, the one story that just scared the daylights out of me was Patty Blackburn's story and her daughters. Could you just kind of go into it, man, and talk a little bit about it? Because it reads like an abduction case, but it's not an abduction case. Yeah. It's so very strange.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Again, yeah, this is one that really stood out to me. And I'm still working with Patty on this because I'll tell you what, like, this is definitely one of those reoccurring event. things that's still sort of going on. So, yeah, this was definitely one of the more dramatic stories. This happened in Michigan, and it was in 2006, right over Lake Michigan. She lived right near the water. Again, that's another big thing. A lot of these things happened over water. Yeah. I don't know what to make of that, but we can definitely talk about that. Anyways, she's heading out to walk her dogs one night, and she could feel something was sort of

off. You know, the dogs, they wouldn't leave the front porch. They're, you know, they're whimpering. And she makes her way down the front lawn to try to get them to come with her, you know. And that's when she noticed that there is a black triangle floating right above the tree line over her property. And it kind of stopped her dead in her tracks. And obviously, she couldn't believe what she's seen. So kind of like me at age 12, she starts yelling for someone to come see this. You know, make sure it's actually happening to her. And her younger daughter, Jennifer, she comes outside. And Jennifer comes out, you know, they're both kind of staring up at this thing. The daughter did see it. And it starts slowly creeping closer until it's literally directly above them. What I kind of found most

interesting about this one, though, was that Patty, while she's looking at this thing, she hears a low humming, like you mentioned earlier, like a whoushing sound almost. And she asks Jennifer if she can hear it. And when she looks over at Jennifer, she's covering her ears and telling her mom how unbearably loud the noise is. So that was immediately where I was like, what what the F? Like you're low humming

for the mom, unbearably loud for the daughter. What's going on here? So, you know, they're having completely different experiences in terms of hearing the craft. And while this is happening, Patty starts to feel calm. She's collected. And the daughter's terrified. She thinks this is a threat of some sort while their mom's feeling euphoric. And that's where I think that whole idea, man, of them being able to convey some sort of reaction and emotion out of us while an event is happening. Whatever intelligence is behind it. But like you said, that wasn't kind of the end. That was the initial

experience with Patty. You know, sometime later, the daughter, her other daughter, Jessica, she's getting ready for bed one night and she's walking in the hallway of the house and she sees a figure coming out of her younger sister's bedroom. You know, she assumed it was her sister, you know, head into bed. Maybe she was in the bathroom or something. But when whatever this thing is that comes into sight, it was not her sister. She described it as being about four feet tall, large. head, small body, and it had large black eyes. So right here, you've got kind of the prototypical gray, as it were. This is where I started getting really creeped out, man, with this whole

story. She went on to say that it had a robe on with a hood, kind of like what Claudette had experienced, and it just stared at her, and it starts slowly moving towards the parents' room. So Jessica freaks out She goes into her bedroom Gets under the covers And she doesn't know what to do You know, she's a kid She stays underneath

She's scared to death to look And when she hears her mother's voice In the room She takes the covers off You know, the soothing voice of her mother And the mother's in there to say good night She's still too scared to say anything To her mom about it

And she can see This hooded figure Walking around her bedroom while the mom is in there silently. And Jessica is just petrified at this point. She's frozen. She doesn't know what to do. And finally, her mom kisses her on the forehead, says good night, and goes out of the room.

And the being just follows the mom out. And that was, that was it, man. She thought maybe this was some weird dreams she'd had. But then she started seeing this being in her dreams constantly after. that. And this all kind of culminated into a really bad experience for the family. They started having weird poltergeist activity, paranormal stuff happening in the home. And it just got out of control. You know, one time their electricity went out, the dude comes to fix it. He sees a UFO over the house and tells them he's never coming back. So you have cooperation that something

weird is going on in this family's home. It really starts to eat away at them. The two daughters and the mother stop talking to each other. They become very, very introverted. And it's not good, man. The mother thinks that whatever's happening is demonic. She was Christian. And what they decided to do, and this is a really other really interesting defense mechanism, I guess, is to pray. They all started praying together for these things to stop happening. And for a while, that seemed to work. They prayed, it didn't happen, the daughters moved on with their lives, but Patty is still having some weird experiences at the home

and struggling with her spirituality and whatever the hell is going on in that house, above the house and beyond. So it's just, I don't know what to make of all of it, man. It's heartbreaking. It's terrifying. And I'm still working with Patty to this day to figure out what the hell is going on out there in Michigan. It's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying.

And it really is one of the most bizarre cases that I have ever read simply because when you're talking about poltergeist activity, it almost mimics the way that Poultergeist activity happened in Point Pleasant with the mom. mothman thing, minus the really weird telephone calls, but it's... Right, right, the whole injured cold thing. Yeah, it's so strange because, like, it doesn't fit into a box, even for, like, the average UFO research, and UFOs really don't fit into a box very neatly themselves, but this goes above and beyond that. So, damn, man, I had nightmares after reading that. Me, too, dude.

I don't know how she goes on day to day. And, you know, we do hear, you know, Valé talks about this and many other researchers about that aspect of high strangeness after a UFO event, that it kind of just opens these doors. It lifts the veil. You know, you've now had something that kind of bends your reality. And then it's just the floodgates after that, you know. The cryptids are like, oh, I'm coming in. The ghosts are like, let's do this. You know, it's just like, up, aliens, you got that?

Cool. all right, we're going to go in now, we're going to mess around a little bit, and then we'll be out. And you don't know if any of this stuff, whether it's the non-human intelligence, the apparitions, the high strangeness, like if it even gives a shit about these people, that's another big thing is while it's impacting their lives and changing their lives, it's not always for the better. You know, I talked to people who became very depressed, had to get on med, started drinking. So it's not. always good implications to these things. And it's not brotherly love. I can tell you that much, dude. But I don't know. It does not fit into a box. And I think it's meant to be that way. You enjoy true stories of the supernatural from the people who experienced it. Well, then you might like my show, Jim Harold's Campfire. Hi, I'm Jim. And we've been doing the show since 2009. And we talk

about ghosts, cryptic creatures, UFOs, head scratchers, you name it. And you tune in you might hear a story like this one. And as he was driving home, he encountered a shadow person who seemed to be dressed like a monk. I know that sounds very strange, but it was a solid black form. And it was wearing a hooded cloak tied at the waist with the cloak up. And it had glowing red eyes. He sees this thing coming out of a really teeny abandoned cemetery. If you haven't tuned in, I hope you'll check us out.

You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are heard. It's Jim Herald's Campfire, and you can find it at Jim Herald.com. Thanks so much, and stay spooky. The best way, and I always bring it up, that anybody has ever talked about to describe what interacting with these intelligence is like, is like the book Flatland, where it's, a three-dimensional world interacting with the two-dimensional world, and I don't understand how to fully make out what's happening, and it's absolutely terrifying. So kind of shifting a little bit to your experience in this book on a weekend retreat up in my neck of the woods in my hometown. You gave me nightmares again, man.

Just doing my part, my man. I tried to contribute to your, uh, your insomnia. I appreciate it, man. I definitely appreciate it. So could you kind of go in a little bit about your weekend up in good old Sarnac Lake, New York, and the experience you had there? Sure. I mean, first of all, one of the most beautiful areas I've ever seen. I've traveled the entire United States. I've been to every state but South Dakota. I'm sorry, South Dakota. They literally got nothing going out there for me to go see for any. of your listeners who live there. I'm so sorry. That was very mean. Anyways, no, man, I, I wanted to really embed myself in this, you know, kind of like a journalist in a war zone. I wanted to

become a part of what I was doing. And while some journalists may find that irresponsible, I think that's really the only way to go. So I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with a good buddy of mine colleague Mike Lullen. Many know him as the the owl guy. You know, if you've ever had a UFO experience that has somehow connected with owls or synchronicity, he's the man to turn to. Absolutely. Yep.

That being said, Mike also believes he is an abductee. And he, what he wanted to do is get a group of experiencers together, you know, just to have conversation and spend a weekend. in an isolated area, which happened to be a bed and breakfast that him and his partner own, called The Doctors Inn, which is a really cool cabin right, you know, right near Saranac Lake. And right next to it is an abandoned sanitarium, which is really creepy. They even, you know, they had some of the doctors stay at the inn at one time. So a lot of weird history there, if we're talking like paranormal and legend tripping.

but I'm getting off topic. I apologize. No, that's all good, man. And actually, where the doctor's in is, my dad actually used to work up in that area. Really? Yeah, he used to work for the American Management Association, which is up in that neck of the woods. Oh, wow. Okay, gotcha. Yeah.

I mean, I got to wander the grounds of the abandoned place, and, oh, God. I wish I had, like, a psychic there with me. But anyways, yeah, so I decided to, to go there for the weekend and just kind of hear people's stories and put myself in that situation, that vulnerable situation. So we go, my girlfriend and I, God bless her for doing this. And it was awesome, man. It wasn't like go sit, talk about your experience.

Mike knew that that's not really how you get to the crux of these things. And I really appreciated that about how he handled the weekend. It was let's just camp, have dinner, go on. out, drink some wine, and just kind of let things happen organically. And I noticed that throughout the three nights I was there, that it would. It would just be on a walk outside in the snow that maybe this one person would tell a story or, you know, while we're sitting down playing cards or eating dinner, another story comes up. And that's kind of how the weekend went. And I even got to meet a shaman, which was freaking amazing. I'd never met a shaman before.

And what sort of happened is as the nights progressed, I heard more and more stories and I began to get a little uncomfortable. And the last night that I was there, I was in bed. My girlfriend was passed out. It was a long night. And she was exhausted. So she goes to bed. And I talked to Mike and a couple of the others for a little bit. And then I head up to go to sleep.

And in the middle of the night, I just start hearing a tab. on the window outside our room. Mind you, I'm three stories up in this building, and there's no trees next to me. So I'm like, oh, it's not a branch. That's immediately what I thought it was. It wasn't hell or snow. It wasn't snowing. Maybe it's an owl, which would have made perfect sense for where I was and who I was with. So, you know, maybe that's it. And I don't know what came over me at that moment, dude, but it was more fear than I've ever felt in my entire life. Even having a UFO sighting, I've had a few paranormal experiences in the past. This was stark fear of, I don't know where my life is going to go in the next few moments. Everything I've

ever believed is going to change. And I genuinely thought I was about to have an abduction experience. And I will be 100% honest with you. I am still very, very on defense with the abduction phenomenon, having it be an actual physical phenomenon. I've spoken to so many individuals, but I am still very on the fence. And I think that's the right way to go with it. But in that moment, I just remember seeing footstep or feet under my door, you know, in the light outside the room.

And everyone was asleep at this point. Mike's cat was locked in, not locked, but closed in his. bedroom with him. I'm like, who the hell is outside my door and what is tapping on my window? And I was just terrified. And my girlfriend would not wake up. I tried to wake her up. She's the lightest sleeper you can think of. If I even shift a muscle in bed, she will wake up. She would not wake up for the life of her at this moment. And I didn't know what to do, man. I literally thought I was about to get abducted. So I finally had the courage to open the curtain to the window and look out, and that's kind of where it all ended, I guess, for me, in terms of that night. I did not

see an alien outside my window. I did not see a craft. I saw nothing. There was nothing there. And that flood of relief came over me. And I did not get abducted that night. But I can sure as hell tell you that something weird was definitely going on. And no matter what I believe about the abduction phenomenon or those who have experienced it, I definitely experienced the fear that many of them have had. And I can't even imagine how much more multiplied it was for them than it was for me that night. And that's kind of interesting because whatever it was, it wanted to get your attention.

Yes, absolutely. We're going down the rabbit hole here a little bit, man. Why do you think I wanted to get your attention? Well, just speculate a little bit, you know. I understand that, you know, we can't possibly understand what, you know, these things are. But if you had to speculate a little. Yep, absolutely, man. I mean, I won't go through the whole case, but there's another case of a dude who saw a black triangle over a drive-in movie theater,

shut down all the power, hundreds of people. people saw this and then disappeared and no one remembered it happening. They didn't react to it. So what I think these intelligence or these UFOs want from us is a reaction of some sort. Some of them are begging to be seen. Look at Phoenix Lights. Look at the O'Hare Airport case. Look at what happened in Texas at one point. I mean, they want to be seen. Some of these things want to be seen. So I do wonder, is it to gauge our reaction to them? Is this sort of a buffer into, okay, let's give them a little bit. Let's hang that carrot out there.

See what they do. Look at the Battle of Los Angeles. They see something. They fire at it. They try to take it down and destroy it. Okay. We're going to leave for a little bit. We'll come back in 47, you know, and show ourselves in Washington to Kenneth Arnold.

But let's chill for a little bit and then come back. So you do have to wonder, you know, is it to gauge a reaction? Is it to see how we interpret what they are? Look at like someone who has an experience and they say it's a religious experience. Look at, you know, going back all the way to what valet said and what many other sociologists and psychologists have said. is this like sort of is the UFO reminiscent of our anxieties here on earth? I think it's a huge experiment by many different controllers, and I think they just want to see what the hell we do with it.

Is it to have a UFO podcast? Is it to become an artist and convey your experience through that? Is it to become a musician and sing about UFOs? I don't know. Is it to become a teacher and talk about, you know, God knows what? I don't know, man. I don't know. But I think whatever it is, it wants to be seen on many of these occasions and it wants to see what the hell we do with that. And I think that's really cool. It's like the biggest art project of all time. That is a fascinating way to look at that, man. God damn, you're like changing my perspective here. And I can't pretend that that's like my idea. You know, you look at someone like Greg Bishop who's looking at the whole co-creation phenomenon, that maybe we have a lot more to do with this than we think.

So are we working in tandem with the phenomenon to create it? Are we a phenomenon to them? It's fascinating. Like you said, it's a rabbit hole. And again, I didn't create these ideas or theories. I'm just kind of running with them and trying to look at it in different ways. And I think that's what you got to do. You know, physical data, nuts and bolts, hasn't done shit for us.

So let's kind of look at it other ways. And let's get weird and crazy. Absolutely, man. I'm totally down for that. So science hasn't totally embraced this phenomenon. Like they haven't other phenomenons. In the book in Chapter 6, you talk with many scientists about UFOs and how we can bring a scientific approach to it.

What do you think the best approach to this is in terms of science? A multidisciplinary kind of study, or is this something purely the social sciences have a leg up in? What do you think on that? That's a really good question, man. And I can't pretend to have, like, one answer, but, you know, you've spoken to Chris Cogswell, and his approach, being a scientist, was to look,

at it both from a hard science standpoint and a soft science standpoint. And again, I think that's great. There's room for everyone in this. There really is. I mean, UFOs, their astronomy, their psychology, their everything in between, their chemistry, their social sciences. It's crazy. We can connect the UFO phenomenon to any of this. In terms of if we're looking at it from kind of a nuts and bolts data-driven phenomenon, I think some of the people I interviewed in the book are a really good way to go with that. UFO data, CubeSat. You've got Trumbull who's trying to put you know, Humvees on the ground to be a rapid response mechanism to go out and record a UFO event. That's so incredibly cool to me. I mean, you know, that's awesome. And I think that works in tandem

with these other people looking at it from a more heady space. So what approach scientifically we can take to it? I think we're there. I think we have really cool innovators out there trying to record data, trying to capture photos and radar and everything in between when it comes to the phenomenon. But I think, this is sobering to say, I think the phenomenon is always going to be a step ahead of our technology and our science. and we're never truly going to get there.

Maybe. Maybe someday we'll hit that precipice where our soft sciences and our hard sciences can come together and be like, boom, UFO mystery solved. Let's go do something else now. But I don't know, man. I don't know.

I think it's all exciting. I think we can all work together. I think we've got to stop scoffing at one another for you're a little too new agey, you're a little too cerebral, you're a little too science-based. and let's just all share information and be like, oh, that's cool. Let me see if I could put that into this.

And I think that's what it's all about putting the puzzle together. Yeah, definitely an open, an open-minded approach. Like, I think in this age that when we hear the term skeptic, it's always meant to be as this blocker from accepting what is actually out there or isn't. And I think part of it is definitely an image issue that we're still kind of trying to work through. And at times, there are people that are trying to control the perception. And to go back to the stars, when, you know, you have an article saying that you have a metal alloy that you're claiming is from a UFO, it's suddenly now a physical phenomenon. and it seems like it's more complex than that. So I definitely agree with you.

I definitely agree that we need a very open-minded approach to this to fully gauge exactly what's going on because it's not as simple as a nuts and bolts kind of thing. Exactly. And even with the whole Pentagon UFO program into the stars, like, yeah, we're getting physical data and imagery and videos, but we know full, well that the program looked at much

we're going to be seen a lot more of that coming forward with Skinwalker Ranch and whatnot too so it's again dude like I don't think there's one way to look at this and I applaud to the stars in many ways and I uh I turn my I turn my nose up at them

and others but uh but you know use it some Shakespearean language there as a theater nerd uh Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but I know that we can all work together, and that's exciting. So shifting again here, if somebody's coming up to you and they're a skeptic of the UFO phenomenon, or if somebody's like, I'm kind of interested, what cases would you point them to to kind of wet the whistle and say, you know, there might be something here?

I've got two for you if you're down for it. Yeah, go ahead, man. Cool. So, yeah, I mean, I often veer towards. pilot witness cases because there's usually, like we said earlier, the most data, documentation, and I do think those things are important. Not the approach I'm really taken right now, but, you know, there's the Japan Airlines case of 87. That's a good one. You recently spoke about the Thomas Mantell case, which is awesome. You covered it so well. But I'd have to say I do

have two favorite pilot cases that still give me chills. The first one was the, uh, the Carlos de Santos case of 75. Do you know about this one? No, I don't. This one is great. I covered this on episode five of somewhere in the skies really early on in my podcasting days. And I had Ruben Uriarte on, who looks at cases out of Mexico, out of the southwest. And I had never heard of this case either. And it blew me away that I really started looking into it. So this happened in 75. Carlos DeSantos was heading back to Mexico City. He's in a small piper plane that he owned, and he sees three disc-shaped objects that begin to follow him. A very reminiscent kind of of Kenneth Arnold, but much, much closer in proximity. The objects, they surround his plane, and one of the objects

hits his fusel lodge, and it sends the plane kind of into a controlled dive. It affected his his aircraft. So he radios the closest tower, makes a distress call. And this is all caught on audio, mind you. You can listen to this distress call. It's in the episode. Episode five is somewhere in the skies. If again, you want to stay up a little later at night and have some nightmares, man, check that out. So the objects, you know, as he's making this call, Mayday, Mayday, I'm out of control. This is what's happening. Help me, help me. The objects, finally. start to separate and they head towards a volcano of all things, a mountainous volcano in the distance and

disappear. So Santos lands and reports what it happened. So immediately he's put under psychiatric watch. Right. Oh my God. But dude, he comes out on the other side of it completely like okay. They're like, oh, he's fine. What he says he saw, we've legitimately think he saw and he's he's okay and what was also really interesting is uh you know sometime later the radar operators at the tower that he made the distress call at they both swore under oath

that they saw the objects surround his aircraft and then disappear and that they were captured on radar um so this is an extremely well documented case corroborated and i i love it i love it santo Bill talks about it up until today and hasn't changed his story one bit. So that was a really interesting one. And I would say the other one would have to be the Tehran case, which I could definitely run through if you want. But if your listeners know it well enough, that one's amazing as well. No, definitely, man. Run right through it for us.

Oh, sure. I'll try to do the express route on this one. This happened a year later. This was 76. You know, I actually got off my lazy ass and made a freedom of information act request for this one. And I did. I got some documentation on it. Thanks to my friend John Greenwald.

He told me over at the Black Vault, told me how to properly do this so that I could actually get stuff. And the reason there was documentation is because the U.S. military was involved with this case. I'll get into that. I got this stuff. And what it sort of told me was that in 76, the Iranian Air Force, they'd gotten reports of a huge luminous object over the city, kind of like the Battle of L.A. And they had to go investigate it, you know? This thing was over the entire city. Hundreds of reports coming in. So they sent up a fighter jet to investigate. And as the first jet starts to get close to whatever this lighted object is, all of its instruments and equipment start to malfunction.

pilot kind of freaks out he's like oh shit he starts heading back to to the base and this time parvice trafari he is the general at the base he's like i'm gonna take care of this i'm gonna go up there and investigate and see what the heck's going on um so he goes up there and he gets even closer to what this thing is and he actually sees what it is and he reported seeing a multi-colored diamond shaped object and it was huge like jumbo jet sized huge. And he starts to move a little bit closer, tries to make contact with it. He's getting nothing. And then out of this massive object, another smaller object descends and starts to head towards Jafari.

So what's going on with this? Jafari, he starts to try to lock in on the object. Like, uh, dude, what are you doing? His weaponry, his instruments, they start to malfunction. and he can't use him.

And the thing's starting to move towards him. So he makes a U-turn and goes into defense mode and starts a negative G-dive to try to out-maneuver this thing. He's having a cat and mouse game with a UFO in mid-air, dude. This kind of blew my mind. And whatever the object is, it gets a lock on him and he freaks out. He's able to make another negative nosedive, negative-nosedive, negative j-dive. nose dive and outmaneuvers it again and gets a lock on the object. But right when he does, the object disappears out of sight and he hears this loud explosion, like it had crash landed or

something. So if that was not dramatic enough, he goes back to base, he reports what had happened, and the next morning he and a bunch of the Iranian military go out to where supposedly this explosion happened, and they investigate. They start speaking to witnesses. and nobody saw anything, but they did hear the explosion. Nothing was ever found, no object, nothing like that. But what I found most interesting was that apparently the DIA, the NSA, and the CIA in America, they all got involved because our jets were being leased to the Iranian Air Force at this time. You know, they wanted to know what the hell this thing was that was out maneuvering our technology.

So there's a bunch of documentation from these intelligence agencies about this event. And Jafari, he spoke about this entire thing at the National Press Club in 2007, and he's very outspoken about it. He spoke about it up until his unfortunate passing not too long ago, maybe a few months ago even. So, oh, God, these two cases, these are the ones I would tell any amateur UFO researcher, anyone just interested. to look into in terms of documentation, radar, pilots, and legitimacy for sure. So I hope that serves some purpose to your listeners. I'm sure it will, man. Absolutely.

Kind of pivoting a little bit here. If you had to direct these people to maybe a book or two, what books would you recommend for them? So I know Jafari's entire event is logged in Leslie Kean's book, UFOs. That is definitely one I recommend everyone go look at. If you're looking for government, military, and pilot accounts of UFOs, again, some of the most documented cases out there, she has them tell all their stories in their own words. That is probably one of the top ones, I would say. Also, anything by Jacques Valet, someone who looked at the phenomenon quite differently, looked at it from a very cultural stance, psychological stance. and it's just an all-around amazing individual.

And again, if you're looking for more of a scientific approach, anything by our UFO dad, Mr. Heinek, is the way to go. Definitely the way to go. But, yeah, there's many ways to go in terms of UFO books and documentaries. But I think a lot of the work being done by Jeremy Corbell in the film industry on UFOs is pretty awesome. and anything by Heinick, by Valet, and some of the younger people out there, Jason McClellan of Rogue Planet has a really good book called, I forget the exact title, but it's like only weirdos see UFOs, which kind of sheds the ridicule factor. It's not true that only weirdos see UFOs. So that's a good primer for anyone looking to look at some of the cases and to see what's out there in UFO history.

and really get you into a good headspace to start looking at this crazy stuff we do. Yeah, absolutely. And one that I'm definitely going to keep on people's radars is the one that it's not out yet, but the one that M.J. Benyis is working on definitely seems, it's going to be fascinating for sure. It's going to be unlike anything I think we've seen before. Again, MJ is a philosophical person, and he's really looking at the culture of euphology, which I think is very fascinating. and says a lot about it, and I think influences the phenomenon itself.

So I can't wait to see what he comes up with. Yeah, when the pre-order link comes up, I'm there. I'm totally there. One-click Amazon, done. Absolutely. So from your book, Somewhere in the Skies, comes the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast. How did that come about? What inspired you to get in the podcasting game?

I've been listening to podcasts for so long. Jim Harold's paranormal podcast was my first endeavor into that world. I've been listening ever since. And I love it, man. I think it's a medium that is really booming and is the future of both journalism, of radio, of broadcasting. And anyone can do it. Look at how many podcasts there are out there. It's ridiculous.

You can find one on anything. Anything you can possibly think of there's a podcast about. And I got involved by co-hosting another show into the Frey Radio with Shannon Legrow. And that was a dive into worlds I'd never been in, cryptids, ghosts, paranormal. And I approached Shannon. And I was like, I loved the work you did with Sasquatch Chronicles and looking into Bigfoot and stuff. That's something I don't know much about. I want to know more.

like I'd love to like maybe hash it out with you and if you ever want any info on UFOs I'd love to share that with you and she said why don't you come on why don't we like do this together and learn from each other I'll learn about UFOs you can learn about cryptids so I did that for over 50 episodes or so of Into the Frey Radio and the more and more I did it the more and more I enjoyed the process of interviewing people of doing the research and getting it out on a platform that I'd never really thought of and that was, you know, over the internet podcasting. So I took the leap and I wanted to do one just on UFOs, my bag, my specialty. And that's when the idea of continuing somewhere in the skies of the book in podcast form and do the show, man. And I had no idea how it was going to go. I was terrified. And, but the response has been amazing. And, you know, it's growing every week. and I've made so much, so many contacts and incredible friends and colleagues through that, including yourself. And we're kind of, you know, we're all there for one another, all the podcasts.

It's a family, it's a community, and a community I love, and that supports one another. The UFO field is very divisive. The paranormal field can be often very divisive as well. People backbiting and arguing. I don't find that in the podcasting world. I'm sure it's out there, but for you and me, man, and other podcasts out there on the UFO topic, we're just trying to share information and be there for one another. And I think that's what's really cool.

And I just, I look forward to what you're doing and where somewhere in the skies goes and how we can all work together. When I decided, hey, I'm going to do a podcast, I've done podcasts. Okay, you do what you're passionate about. you just bring it to the table. And one of the most fascinating aspects of doing a podcast is how supportive the community is, how everybody pretty much holds each other up and shares all the information. And it's definitely been one of the best parts of this, the whole process. And you definitely kind of gave you that little confidence booster when you had me on your show.

So it's been great, man, you know. And I can't wait to see. see what both of us do down the line, you know? Yeah, man. We're either going to change euphology or we're going to become hermits and get our tinfoil hats professionally made. I don't know, but

I'm ready and I'm so happy to have you along on that journey with me. Absolutely, man. It's so great to meet all these great people, including yourself, and so many others, MJ Benayas, and Mike DeMonte, and so many others. Yep.

So last question. What do you hope that people take away from your book the most? I hope that they come away asking questions of me, of the phenomenon, of the witnesses, because again, these are just stories. And I know that. I knew that full well going into it, that people are going to, they're going to call me out on that. Like, I have no proof that any of these stories actually happened. I don't have physical data.

I don't have evidence. These are stories. But I can tell you right now, man, I firmly believe that everyone in my book is telling me the truth that they believe these events happen to them. Whether they happened in the reality that we all perceive, I don't know. But I think it's most important that we hear each other out

because that can be closure enough for people who have these profound, traumatic, dramatic, emotional events happen in their lives. And I just hope that even one person who reads the book who may have had an experience and never talked about it can now do that with someone and can get their voice out there. Because again, that's one more case. We can be like, hey, look at this person who had this experience. It becomes normal. And then that's when we keep moving forward, getting it out to the mainstream. And then we can start looking at it through many, many more eyes.

Yeah, just keep focusing on the individuals having the experiences, and I think we're going to be in a good place to move forward as the human race. I 100% agree, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it a ton, and it's been an honor having you here. All right, that's it for this week's UFO Happy Hour with Rob Christofferson. You can follow his show, Our Strange Skies, on Twitter, at Our Strange Sky. Great Skies, simple enough. And you can follow us on Twitter at SomewhereSkies and on Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod.

If you haven't already, please take a few moments to rate and review Somewhere in the Skies on Apple Podcasts or on any of your Android apps. Ratings and reviews and subscriptions help gain us visibility and find us new listeners. Thank you in events. All past episodes, news articles, and contact information can be found at the official website somewhere in the skies.com. Thank you, as always, to the E1 Podcast Network, KGRRA Radio, and Roke Planet. But especially, thank you to you for listening. I'll see you here next week, and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies.

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