Somewhere in the Skies - UFOs LIVE: Hollywood Edition

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

On episode 105 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan shares a very special live recording he took part in with some of Hollywood's brightest and funniest comedians today. Originally broadcast as part of the Hound Tall Discussion Series, host, Moshe Kasher, invited Ryan to educate his fellow panelists and a live audience on the history of UFOs. Joining them were Irish comedian, Aisling Bea, and Oscar-nominated power couple, Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. In the span of a one hilarious hour, the five navigate their way through the complicated history of UFOs and the official investigations into them. Ryan shares some of his favorite cases he's researched and personally investigated, and the panel voice their varied opinions on what we may be dealing with when it comes to the ever-elusive UFO phenomenon.  Did Ryan make a believer out of the panel and audience? Tune in to find out!  Special thanks to Moshe Kasher. Check out his amazing show at: www.allthingscomedy.com/podcasts 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

Hey y'all, Ryan Sprague 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 page.

To contribute and to learn more, visit www.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. This week, I'm coming to you from my hotel room in Washington, D.C.

Why I'm here? I can't quite give away just yet. And yes, I am pulling a Tom DeLong. To the Stars Academy, critics and fans who'll get that reference. But I did want to let you know that this week I'm sharing with you a very special discussion I had while I was living in Los Angeles this past year. I had the amazing opportunity to be part of a panel discussion at the Upright Citizens Brigade as part of the Houndtall Discussion Series, hosted by well-known comedian Moshe Kashar.

Joining us that night was Irish comedian Ashling B, Oscar-nominated. writer, Emily Gordon, and Oscar-nominated writer and featured actor on the X-Files and the Twilight Zone, Mr. Kumau Nanjiani. With that lineup, I was a little intimidated, but I also prepared for both a little ragging on, and definitely for some well-needed laughs. But I made sure to always bring the topic back to a level of sincerity and seriousness, as it well deserves. But just be warned, this is a comedy discussion.

Sensitive ephologists out there may get a little offended, and for that, all I can say is, I'm not sorry. If you can't have a little sense of humor with all this, please find another passion and hobby. This was an amazing opportunity where I got to run these comedians and a live audience through over 70 years of UFO history, leading up to the announcement of the Secret Pentagon UFO program. Another warning, this was recorded almost a year ago, so many revelations about it. the A-TIP program and to the Stars Academy have been made since then, so just keep that in mind when you hear us discussing it.

But other than that, I hope you can sit back, enjoy some levity in our discussion on UFOs. And as always, keep your feet on the ground, as I, Moshekashar, Ashland B, Emily Gordon, and Kumel Nangiani keep searching for answers somewhere in the skies. Enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, we're live at the UCB Franklin Theater for another episode of The Hound Tall DeHaw.

discussion series. Say hi, everybody. Hi. Tonight we're talking about UFOs. Do they exist? Well, our guest expert definitely says that they do, and we'll find out for ourselves. Right now, put your hands together for him. He is the author of Somewhere in the Skies. Ryan Sprague, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for him. Here he comes.

And our guest comedic panelists, Ashling B, Emily Gordon, and Kumail Nanjiani. There they are. There they go. How exciting. Oh, wait, Ryan, no, come sit next to me. Kumail, you go away. Okay. Sorry.

I'm trying to get Kumail back down to Earth since his Academy Award nomination. What about Emily? I also was nominated for an Academy Award. You were also nominated for an Academy Award, but you do not have the problems with ego that Kumail does. And I therefore do not need to bring you down to Earth.

It's really not a big deal. It's just an Academy Award fucking nomination. I wish you'd stop bringing it up all the time. Well, you know what? Actually, I thought this would be a cool opportunity because it's probably the last podcast you'll both do before the awards, right? And I just thought, why don't you go ahead

and just do your speech just for us right now? Because we'll never get to do it. No, no. No, you're going to win an Oscar. This is the last podcast we're doing, period. I literally, you asked me to do it. I was like, and you were like, Kamel already said yes. And I was like, Camille, you're doing podcast again?

She needs the help. I'm grown. I like the idea that you're doing them again. I just love the idea of Kamail coming home all death of a salesman style, putting his briefcase down. God damn it, Emily, that's the last podcast. People are like, we need you as a guest.

Oh, I'm too old for that shit. Yeah, classic death of a salesman reference, Camille. I was doing a different reference. I don't know what you're talking about. Who are you up against? Who are these other prints? We don't want to talk about it. Nobody.

Some real nobody. She met who are you up against tonight on this podcast. It's Ashling B, ladies and gentlemen. There she is. That's her dulcet Irish tones. Ashling, are you a believer in UFOs? Big time. Just only between like 9 p.m. at night

and 3 o'clock in the morning. So like ghosts, vampires, aliens, crystals. You start to believe in crystals finally? Everyone is. Yeah. We all believe in crystals. Gems of all kinds. Beware, beware, beware, beware, children.

She's showing a necklace, ladies and gentlemen. She believes in necklaces. Emily, you and Kamel are big X-Files people. Are you guys also believeers? She's not. Are you not? No, I'm an absolute believer, and it's the only thing I'm frightened of. Why are you afraid of them?

Because I don't get them. And I watched a lot of unsolved mysteries as a kid, and the whole idea is that you don't know, they could be taking you over on a nightly basis, and you just don't know. So I was like, how do I prove that I haven't been taken in the night? And then they wipe my brain. And then that tied me into knots for like nine, the ages of nine to like 12 or 13.

It was a nosebleed. If anyone in school got a nosebleed, like, you've been taken by aliens. There's no other way of no... And I had a lot of... What a quaint country Ireland is. No, we murdered a lot of children and we were embarrassed by it. Looking back, we thought X-Files was a documentary and nobody told us and we're embarrassed, but we moved on. Kumail, what about you? You believe her?

I think so, yeah. Of all the, that, like, I don't believe in ghosts or vampires or Bigfoot. UFOs is the only one of that whole group that I think that there's a very real possibility. Ryan, do you resent the idea, like everybody's been framing this already from, I don't believe in ghosts, specters, poltergeist, but I kind of do believe in. Does it stick in your craw that it's even categorized with those things? It's tough because the way I look at it, the UFO or alien phenomenon could impact the world in many different ways, whereas I don't think many people feel threatened by a ghost. What do you talk? That's the primary characteristic of ghosts. They are very threatening.

They say boo and you shit yourself. They have unfinished business. They came up with a three-letter word for I am threatening you. But I take your point, though, Ryan. You're saying essentially that because of how potentially real this is, it feels like it more could fall under the category of possible science rather than supernatural. I think so, yeah.

I mean, if you think about an alien civilization from somewhere else. Whoa. Oh, my God. Oh, shit. What the fuck. Still not scared of ghosts? Oh, ladies and gentlemen. Science speaks for itself, man.

Science speaks for it. Listeners at home, I don't know what to tell you, except that, as he said, ghosts aren't scary. Ectoplasm fell from the sky. I am now a believer. A ghost sneezed on us. But it's abu. Thank you for laughing. It did not deserve it.

It didn't deserve it. I thought it deserved a bigger laugh. That was pretty good. I think it did. I'm not joking. I think it did. Ryan, before we get into the science and the possible changing of the world that UFOs could bring about, I read your book, I read a good portion of it, and it starts off with your, well, it's difficult to get through everything. No, not the book is very good, easy to get through. It's a page turner. I just, I'm busy. Anyway, Ryan, you start the book off with your own personal experience of a UFO sighting, and I wondered if you could take us through what happened. Just tell the story. Fuck yes That wasn't even Kumail

That was the specter that has appeared Yeah so I was 12 years old I was 1996 I had a bloody nose Yeah I had a bloody nose And I was fishing off a dock I was away with my parents at camp What part of the world were you in?

This was in upstate New York Okay Right on the near the Canadian border Upstate New York And I was fishing and I looked up and I saw three white lights in a triangular formation and completely silent. I didn't see like a structured craft, if you will, but I could not see like the stars or anything behind it. And it was coming down.

Is this at nighttime? Night time. Yeah. It was coming down over the water. Fishing at night, you say. This story's starting to fall apart. No, okay, so it's nighttime. All of a sudden you look up.

There are three lights, to quote Captain Picard. And that's a deep cut. And you can't see past the lights. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Completely silent. All I could hear was like the water hitting the dock where I was fishing.

Wait, you were still fishing at this point? That's a committed fisherman right there. Absolutely, man. It's aliens, but these bass aren't going to catch themselves. It was perch. Okay, sure. Sorry. You fucking idiot.

It's Upstate New York, dude. They don't have paths in upstate New York. Yikes. Maybe you should have finished the book. That's the last chapter. That was like page two. Chapter 42. It was perch.

Mystery solved. Okay, so what happened? Are you scared? Are you, you're 12 years old? You're terrified. I was fucking terrified, man. Yeah, I screamed for my dad to come out. He was inside our camp.

Wow, that's kind of weak up you the other way. 12, 12, yeah. So you screwed for your dad, did he come? He came out. He came out. He saw the tail and did this thing as it floated silently over the water towards Canada. Whoa. Smart aliens, huh? We're going that away.

They're like in 20 years, some shit's going to go down here. We don't want to be here for it. To Trudeau and beyond. Question, what your dad saw, is it, did he see enough of it? to be like that was crazy or is he like I don't know what I saw something yeah yeah I so again

he saw like the tail end of it so to him he thought it was a plane it could have been could have been anything I saw it directly over me it was huge whatever the hell this thing was and it just floated silently and that's the thing that really got to me was like a Prius like a Nuber

coming to pick him up but this is not that's how great did you come from but this is 96 up the horn we are pre Prius yeah yeah So couldn't have been a Prius. Were you a kid at that point who was prone to believe in UFO? Were you like sort of the kind of kid who was like looking for UFOs and that kind of stuff? No.

Not at all. That's the right answer, Ryan, by the way. That was the one I wanted from me. Yeah, I was really leading you. Did you watch Unsolved Mysteries growing up? I did see it on occasion. The music scared the shit out of me. Yeah, the music was terrified.

That one episode with the arsonist and the guy watching, if anybody? Oh, forget about that. That's a scary. Also, did you, uh, um, We were talking backstage, the Time Life books. Oh, I had those. Yeah, did you have those before or after this incident? Oh, man.

I'm trying to figure when this came out. What were those books? This is like who's straight up white privilege 101 right here. I know that you had the books for sure. Now, did you get the books before or after your UFO experience? No child did not have those books. Yeah, they come with your white card. They do come with your white card.

Do you remember those commercials, Emily? Yes, 100%. It was so, like, just this. stories would be so incendiary. It'd be like, and then aliens came down, grabbed the man. What happened next? Read the book. You'll have to find out.

And I stole them from the library, but they had gorgeous art. Okay, got your street cred back. Yeah, got that street cred back. They had gorgeous artwork, so sometimes I would just steal pages out of them after reading them. What a monstrous thing to do. Yeah. To prevent others from solving the crimes. Yeah, that's right.

That's why the mystery stayed unsolved. Yeah, it's me tearing them out of the time. All the clues were on your... You're like a young hip Jessica Fletcher. I'm going, I'll never work out out of with me the whole time. That's exactly right.

That's how I refer to myself. So far we've referred to death of a salesman, unsolved mysteries, lethal weapon, murder, she wrote. I think we're doing a really good job. We're old as millennials.

You'll get yourself a piece of toast. So Ryan, Kamah, you had a question? Go ahead. Keep going. I just want to know more about. Yeah, tell us more

of what was happening to you physiologically at the time that you saw this? Because it was more, I don't want, no, would you, do your dick get hard, or what was going on?

Bro, bro, look at me, bro. should get dick and hard I mean I was 12 year old yeah so it was always hard that's what he was fishing with this

line in the end yeah that wasn't no line but you do describe your physiological reaction to seeing these lights because I don't want to paint a picture that like in the book

it really struck me how intensive and experience this was for you it was more than just seeing three lights in the sky you were you felt a vibration in the air Tell us more about what it felt like physically.

I could like, maybe it was adrenaline, something like that. I was definitely scared. I felt threatened. I felt this vibration throughout my whole body. My hair was sticking up. My hair was sticking up, sorry. And it just... Your hair was sticking up.

Wow. How did you know your hair was sticking up? You're like, better get my fishing mirror. Sticking up! Okay. Or do you just, could you feel the spikiness of your... Oh, your hair and your arms. Oh, good.

Your head. Did you get bumps? Okay. Which is also a great series of books from our era. Because somebody wanted to reference another thing from... Now, did you have the, like, all right Hitler haircut at the time? Oh. Oh, my God.

I invented this haircut. I invented this haircut. It's a good-looking haircut. Michael Moore did. No, no, Hitler did. But after that, it was me. No, I used to have that haircut No, but I just do like the image of you

It's very funny to think of Hitler's hair standing on it Anyway, whatever The little mustache goes up, whatever, okay So Ryan, what else? And then as it disappeared into the skyline, what are you thinking? Do you think I just saw an alien craft or you thought? What do you think?

What's your process? Yeah, I mean, at that time, like, I mean, I was only 12, but sort of my limited knowledge of aviation, I knew that what I was looking at was not like a plane I'd ever seen before I knew that whatever it was, it was silent

there was no propulsion to it and I was just confused I had no clue what I was looking at and for my father to say it was a plane it was a plane to try to calm me down like that helped in the moment

but I just I became so curious after that that I wanted to keep pursuing whatever So did you like tell your friends about it did you like think about it for weeks and weeks? And how did the people around you take it?

I didn't tell anyone for years and years. Wow, okay. Yeah, I would go to the library and take a book after. And there were pages were missing. Emily! Sorry, guys. I'm white trash. White card revotes, yeah.

And, yeah, I became obsessed after that. I mean, stacks of books I would take home on, like, UFOs, lockness monster. like all this crazy shit because sort of this door was open for me that whatever was happening out there whatever we were being told was happening wasn't the whole story

And I'll just say that I When you sent me a bunch of material to look at And when I got the material I would say that I was probably a pretty heavy skeptic I believe in alien life Because it just seems pretty obvious At some point there's going to be alien life out there But in terms of UFOs visiting

Earth wherever they may or may not have come from I would say I was a skeptic by the end of looking through the material you sent me, I don't think it's really up for debate that there has been some, something has come to this planet. Maybe it came from this planet. Maybe it came from somewhere else.

But let us, so let's go back in history and just get to our modern understanding of, like the military and the government's involvement in a cover-up of whatever the craft that has been seen may be. It started when. I mean, what are some of the early sightings that we refer to?

You were telling me about one that happened even before Roswell, right, that happened here in Los Angeles, right? Yeah, yeah. One of the first, I guess, recorded ones in modern UFO history, we call it. Ashling's doing silent physical comedy on a podcast right now. That's my brand. That's why I'm invited on so many podcasts. She's doing the reenactment. She is doing the reenactment.

That would be a great podcast. I'm going to need that. The mime cast. I'll be you seeing the alien. Very cool. Put your hand up like this, though. Okay, Ryan, yes, so before Roswell, you were telling me,

there was actually a documented UFO visit here in Los Angeles, right? In 1941, it was called the Battle of Los Angeles. Oh, I know this. Yeah, Battle of L. Not the movie with Rihanna. Oh, fuck, I don't know about it.

So, um... That movie was from 1941. It looks good. Rihanna is ancient. Black-o-Krek. Yeah, so this huge cylindrical object, bright as all hell was seen over Los Angeles. The Army actually got really scared about this, and they started firing on it. They mobilized and sent planes into this guy.

Absolutely. And this is a documented thing that happened. This is documented. This is, you know, in every, yeah. Did they bring it down? So they shot at it, and whatever was up there, complete. It just disappeared out of sight. Shell casings actually fell back down and killed people.

So this was actually like a pretty deadly event. Are you sure that the Army didn't just shoot a bunch of people and then make up the story to cover? Oh, there was a UFO we were shooting at. It fell back down. Oh, my God. These protesters were just standing under the UFO. A spacecraft came down and piloted by George Soros and cell. That's legit scary, though.

That is very scary. And one of the ongoing themes of these different stories is that the, is that idea that the craft not only are larger than any craft you could ever imagine, that they also move at a pace that is unimaginable. That doesn't match any technology. And they change direction too, right? That's another. Certainly not. Weather balloons. Right.

Yeah. It's like certainly not technology that we have now, but definitely not that we had in 1941 or 47, which is when Roswell happens. What happened in Roswell? I honestly don't know the story of what else. So tell us that. This was early July of 1947. Something crashed in the desert in Roswell, New Mexico. A rancher found a bunch of wreckage on his ranch.

He reported it to the local airfield, and they came out to investigate. Immediately, they started gathering everything up, putting it on their trucks, and sending it back to their base. And they were told the rancher never to talk about, what had happened there. The next day, the newspaper said that they had found a flying disc. And the day after that, the story was

retracted, and they said that they found a weather balloon. I mean, that's what most people know about Roswell. It was just a weather balloon. It was just a weather balloon. But there's been, I mean, countless witnesses in the military who've come forward and said, that was a cover story. Like, we don't know exactly what it was,

but it definitely was not a weather. So what I'd heard about Roswell was like, that's, like, people saw the grays, like the little guys with the big eyes that give me all of the chimedare mirrors. So is that a cockamamie part of the theory? Or is it we just don't know what they saw? We don't know what people saw. What's the gray's thing at Roswell?

Well, the grades are just, that's what the aliens are that have the bad guys. I know, but I didn't know that people saw those aliens in Roswell. There are many witnesses who claim to have seen bodies. So what those bodies were, we don't know. They might have been dead human bodies. It could have been a test, you know, by the government, some sort of flight. test. This was the very early days of aerospace, of

trying to get as far up as we could. It could have been some sort of test pilots. The whole body thing has always been up for... Before this, because you know the way when you see aliens in all movies, we don't seem to be able to really stretch away from an alien look. Like even, what's that Amy Adams movie?

Arrival. They have... They look still a bit like the like the... Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah. Like it's always like octopuses. We can't imagine anything weirder than an octopus. Octopuses are absolutely mad. Eight legs, no one can understand them. I'll eat them, but I don't understand them. To be fair, octopuses look fucking fuck-up.

They love mad. They're insane-looking. Guys, are we all just, I mean, just not all get our heads around octopuses. Is that what aliens are? But you know, say, after the film, the Truman show, there's, after the film The Truman Show, in the sort of book of mental health,

there is now a sort of disease where people think, and I think at the whole time, like, oh, I'm in a movie. They've cast those extras really bad, because I saw him running around two years ago, and they just reuse the budget for the extras. Like there's a, it made us thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We're in. People are replaced by doubles and that, yeah. Exactly. And so you start looking for the filmic or the connections in your life. I wonder, say with aliens, how much, and you could maybe answer, how much Hollywood has to answer for what we see matching or when we, when we think we see something, matching what's so delivered to us as this octopus looking thing. But I think the octopus.

The looking thing is not the standard image of the alien. The grave is it's those big eyes that even ET fits into arrival. Those are more. But your point is well made. The question is always begged when we talk about UFOs is, did we begin to believe in UFOs because the science fiction movies showed them to us? Or did science fiction movies take from the human consciousness? Yeah, like the chicken and the egg.

Just like that. The old chicken and the egg. Another unfinished question. We'll get to that later. So what do you think? I mean, you're a believer, so it's a difficult question to pose to you. And by the way, I want to point out that Ryan's specialty is not necessarily alien visitation. It is UFO.

It's spacecraft, people that have seen spacecraft, right? We're going to get more into the beings. But even the spacecraft, the imagery that we see when we see the spacecraft, we used to see flying saucers, and now it's maybe modernized a bit. Like, to what degree do you think we have been in? By the way, you would admit that most UFO sites, settings are total bullshit, right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, 95% of...

Oh, yeah, but yours was real. That's what everyone thinks. 95% of them are prosaic explanations. They're conventional aircraft. They're misidentifications. They're birds. I don't know. But there is always that, like, 5%.

They're flying octopuses. Flying octopuses. Oh, those guys? And that we can't explain. Right. Simply can't explain. And that goes for the government. That goes for science.

we've had astronomers look into this, which I'm sure we'll get into. Did you hear about, did you read that news story that came out a couple months ago about the guy who worked in the Pentagon? Oh, we're getting there, Kumao. We are getting there. Hold your horsey. But before we do get to the Pentagon, because I think that is part of what was so striking to me in looking through this stuff. It's like the government has been involved in some sort of cover up. I don't know if it's for alien spacecraft or if it's just because they're covering up the, you know, experimental, their own technology.

But the government's been involved since 1947, right? And Roswell was the... By the way, that is the year that Pakistan became a country. Anyway, keep going. I'm just trying to teach you something. That's fucking awesome, man. Are the two things connected?

You're back at... I don't know. I was fucking spaceship crashes in New Mexico and a month later we have a new country. You tell me. I mean, well, that is another question that comes up, actually, is how much of the concentration

of UFO sightings is based in the United States or how international phenomenon is it? It is definitely a world phenomenon. We often see it through Western eyes, however. All the big cases you think of, Roswell, Rendelsham,

which was in England, but was on a American military base, which I can get into later as well. But most of the cases have happened here. And so the ones that are reported in other countries, are they similar images? Very strikingly

similar. There's many patterns to be made in terms of what they saw. The thing I've noticed, though, is that other countries, they take this topic very seriously. Where here in the United States, it's very ridiculed at times. Because we've made so many movies about it, maybe. Possibly. There's a lot of, like, the chicken and the egg thing is which came first, the bug-eyed aliens in the movies or the... The bug-eyed aliens fucking me up the ass with their instruments.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Kumil, you grew up in Pakistan. Tell us about that. No. How much of the movies True. Spotlight, Freddie.

No, but what was the cultural consciousness as a kid in Pakistan like, do they talk about, what's the understanding of UFOs in Pakistan? Oh, I mean, I remember us, all of everybody talking about it. I was obsessed with UFOs since I was a little kid.

I had all the books and stuff. Time life? Not time life, but other ones, but I was really, I remember looking at a picture of like the checkerboard radiation burn thing and being like, oh, wow, that's, I want that.

But like if you, I don't know if you can speak to it now because you've been gone for so long, but if a person had, one of the things that I noticed through your book and through this documentary that I watch is that people, when they come out,

there's a lot of pretty regular people and a lot of very high-ranking people. Right. They're immediately ridiculed and they made to be sorry that they ever talked about what they saw. Is the same kind of ridiculed in Ireland or in Pakistan?

Does it feel as Lambasset and Lampooned in the other countries that you guys grew up in? Yeah. I'd say so. I mean, the thing is, I think you'd be more ridiculed for an alien than a ghost in Ireland. Because I think if you've a very religious country, any really religious country, you're naturally saying, I believe in something higher, as long as it's not higher than Jesus.

Right. Like, or Allah, or whatever it is. Oh, we've got something higher than Jesus. I see your Allah and I raise you a Jesus Christ. You call them wee little spirits, is that right? A wee little spirit and not at earth. No, we really don't. But I think there's the belief in something higher than you,

but the alien science side of it, I think you would be ridiculed. Because to some degree, an alien sighting flies in the face of a religious subject. Exactly. Exactly. It feels more grounded in science. I think, I mean, the idea of God and why we have it, it's for all of our psychology and it's for all of our insanity. It's what we have to explain things that we don't have any words for at the moment. We don't have any science for. And that's why we have it. And whether it's real or not, we don't know.

Actually, I do know any of this. Is it Jesus? Oh, not Jesus. Literally. Is it not Jesus? Who is it? Oh, God.

The other person is. The other thing is religion provides comfort, whereas aliens provide discomfort. Extreme discomfort. Why would we want to believe? But I think, I think the idea that we are alone is so solipsistic. It's so the idea that we are at the core of our own universe. I've always said it was solstistic.

You are Moshe. It's classic Moshe, to be honest. But it's so, the idea that we are the only planet that has managed to, like, get enough heat and bacteria together to develop into whatever these little bags of meat we are are is absolutely ridiculous that said

I don't know about how far in advance for example all of the alien spacecrafts we have are a version of airplanes so we can't even imagine something that doesn't look like even when it moves as a vapor like we don't know even like the Hindu gods

are Jesus they all look like men you're saying that the sightings of UFOs match aircraft that we've seen in actual conventional... They match some idea of a helium balloon, of a balloon into the sky, of an octopus. Is that true, Ryan? That for me is... That's the bit that I'm like a trip of sightings. That doesn't feel like it tracks with your book. Is that, is that true that the sightings of alien spacecraft fit conventional aircraft

ideas? I wouldn't say they directly mirror our aircraft. They always seem to be a little bit ahead, at least from what I've gathered, from, you know, decade to decade, report. to report. I mean, you look at, like, the early 50s, you had saucers. You look at the 60s and 70s, 80s. You had...

Just weed leaves, right? Just floating weeds. I just saw a Tesla three flying around the other day. Well, take us... Yeah, please. I'm sorry. Oh, God. What's Springheel Jack?

Do you know what that is? You don't know what that is. I think that's a murder thing, isn't it? No, but there was... I've read these books, and now I'm getting, like, little flashes. But in London, there was like a... there was like a sighting and then this creature was seen jumping around for

this was like in the 1800s. So are there like, you know what there's like old paintings where there's like a disc flying and stuff? What's that about? Yeah. Great question Kumau. Yeah, that's tough. I mean again, that would get me more that pre the idea of an airplane or people flying

there's something. What I was trying to say there was the idea that there's aliens, of course, of course we're not the only bloody planet. Like how classic hashtag human is is it of us, to imagine like, no, we're the only ones. We're the most advanced you could ever be. What about crock shoes then?

That's disgusting. Like, clearly we're not the most advanced people in the world. That's your proof that we're not alone in the universe? Crocs, guys, just don't. But, like, that we can't even imagine something a little... Like, you were saying about sightings, they're a little bit further on than a spacecraft. They're not an unimaginable thing.

You're just a little bit... But I think in the past, if there were... Like what you were saying, Kamil, about those things in the paintings, you're like, that is, that is nuts. Are there a lot of sightings before, like, the 1900s of? Oh, yeah, I mean, there's, there's sightings back to recorded history from what I can gather. I mean, I look a lot at the modern UFO era from, like, Roswell on, but yes, I mean, you look at like, like, Nostradamus's predictions of 9-11 or whatever, you're like, oh, that's weird

because they are, that he couldn't even have imagined a building that high. So something that, that, that, that to me is like, whoa, that's a, you know, perfect. You worked real hard to bring 9-11 into this. Always. That's kind of my brand. Never forget. So, yeah, so getting back to the modern understanding of the UFO era, which I think these questions are good. And what you're saying is that there are recorded instances of these sightings, but it doesn't actually hit its fever pitch until, to your point, Ashley, we do get it to the modern era.

So there is a kind of, you know, sort of confirmation bias question about it all. But as we get into later on into the history... But I want to say it makes sense that as we have more science, that these sightings would stand out more because back then you see something flying and you're like fuck we don't know anything so that's fine but now we're like we know most things what the fuck is that yeah so

they wanted to figure out whether it was real when we got to this exactly what you're saying to this era of scientific exploration and in fact to this era of really being afraid of our skies being compromised our national security being compromised after World War II and airspace

being a secured thing that needed to be secured we started seeing government involvement and trying to figure out what these things are. So tell me about Project Blue Book and what was that and how did it affect the discovery and the exploration of UFOs. Yeah. So Project Blue Book was the government's first official acknowledgement that there was a UFO phenomenon. By the way, they coined the term UFO unidentified flying object to downplay the danger of what these things could possibly be in our skies. They just don't know.

Yeah. We just don't know. We just don't know. Yeah. So they coined this term UFO. They started looking into it. They hired the world's most prominent astronomers to look into this to debunk it very much like sculling. And when was this?

This was in 1957 when Project Blue Book started. Pakistan had been around for 10 years. So what was happening beyond what was happening in Pakistan, which we've all been very curious about. What was happening between 47 when they confiscated all the equipment at Roswell and the beginning of this Blue Book project? Like what was the government doing and what was happening in this space? No pun intended. Yeah. So, I mean, if these things were crashing in the skies and they weren't supposedly ours, like clearly it was a threat.

You know, so I think that was the point where they had to say, okay, we have to look into this officially. They hired Dr. J. L. and Hynick, again, the world's most prominent astronomer at the time, to say it's just swamp gas. It's just natural phenomena. Oh, I hate swamp gas, man. That was a bad night, you know. And he couldn't do it. He spent years investigating these cases, going out, you know, boots on the ground, like, looking at these things. And eventually he came to the conclusion that whatever these things were, they were not ours.

And it was pretty interesting. He started his own organization after that, after Project Blue Book ended in 1969. The government said it was not a national security threat. Everything's cool. We're done investigating. What was he investigating, though? Was he investigating, like, parts of the scrapes crafts that he found or people's reports? Reports. Yeah, so he was, like, the first responder when people would report these things to the government. So they would, you know, send him out there to interview the witnesses and to look for any trace evidence, you know, had a craft supposedly landed, they'd go out there with Geiger counters looking for radiation in the area. And did they find radiation in the area? Oh, yeah, on many occasions. In fact, like, it was, In that documentary, like Harry Truman, who was president at the time, was talking about it. This isn't like...

This is not a classified project. No, no. This was completely open to the public. Right. It wasn't. And at the time, the conversation felt a lot more dignified. It felt a lot less ridicule-based and more like where they were actually trying to figure out whatever the phenomenon was that people were seeing whether or not it was a real phenomena. Yeah.

And Harry Truman himself was like on talking about it and trying to get to the bottom of it. So in other words, the government hired a scientist to try to disprove the existence of UFOs. And he could not. He could not know to the point where he became a believer. Do you enjoy true stories of the supernatural from the people who experienced it? Well, then you might like my show, Jim Harold's Campfire. Hi, I'm Jim, and we've been doing the show since 2009. And we talk about ghosts, cryptic creatures, UFOs, head scratchers, you name it.

And you tune in and you might hear a story like this one. And as he was driving home, he encountered a shadow person. who seemed to be dressed like a monk. I know that sounds very strange, but it was a solid black form, and it was wearing a hooded cloak tied at the waist with the cloak up, and it had glowing red eyes.

He sees this thing coming out of a really teeny abandoned cemetery. If you haven't tuned in, I hope you'll check us out. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are heard, it's Jim Herald's Campfire, and you can find it at Jim Herald.com. Thanks so much, and stay spooky. I think that's what's so scary about the whole thing.

It's not just aliens, at least when it comes to America. It's the fact that it feels like our government has been working their asses off to keep whatever it is from us. And I think that's the thing that's scary. It's not only like, not only are there beings coming from other places, but like, oh, the government knows everything. It's spending millions of dollars keeping it from you. there's something definitely bad going on here.

It kind of speaks to a scarier like, oh, there is something for sure, and the people who are in charge absolutely don't want us to have any part of it. Do you think it's getting harder and harder? Do you remember when Osama bin Laden was caught? Oh my God. No, but it's... Queen of 9-11 speaks again.

That's right. I just want some answers. No, put on glasses. Do you remember there was a guy who tweeted about seeing the helicopters, and so they were trying to do like a private mission, but there was a guy like I can see these helicopters outside my house and all of a sudden

you for example had no access to the internet all he could do is go dad him at the time but now the people around can go guys what the hell is going on here's a picture everyone else can see this so at the time there was this guy just in his house going it is weird for this time of night

for these helicopters to be floating about so that would be that would fall into your 95 98% of cases that are bullshit that are people thinking they're seeing something that I don't mean it like that I mean it more that at the time you'd like you what would you do to call the government

you'd call a government get through to a hotline weeks later someone would come with a white coat and go whereas now you sort of people have connection to communities and you can take a photo very quickly you can just take it you know like you were saying about technology we have sort of access to go that is weird because there's so much stuff I can take a picture of it

or but then all the side all the stuff is it's harder to believe because exactly yeah yeah that is the biggest conundrum we have in uphology as we call it is we live in an age where anything can be faked you know every UFO photo every video that comes out you know so then i get sent on a weekly basis it's bullshit it's bullshit it's bullshit so in a weird way these older sightings and these older cases are a little bit more helpful to figure out if they're real than people saying that they see them now i think so i mean it's it's sad to think

that you know we have to look back at 1947 for you know to see an authentic UFO right so so Project Blue Book was shut down in 1969 why did they shut it down because they decided there was no credible threat whether that was true or not they shut it down and they said or did they find it enough to

realize that they had to start hiding it yeah by the way I do want to say that the government secrecy around it I understand that and I support it what do you think that is I think if they were like we don't know this spacecraft coming and going we have no idea that would be horrified. I wouldn't know.

I wouldn't know. But what do you think would happen? In a world where we're living in a reality that's terrifying on a daily basis, like what would really happen if the government was like, yeah, there are UFOs? It wouldn't even move the needle. Yeah. No, but that's from... We elected Trump.

It's all good. Yeah, but that's now. I'm saying like before that. No, I agree with that. And I think that the era that these craft came out, that's post-World War II era, people were really paranoid about the end of the world nuclear weapons. Now, we just accepted that it's definitely going to happen. It's not a big deal.

So it doesn't, so it explains why they covered it up in the first place. It doesn't explain why they continue to do so today if it is, in fact, a cover-up. And I think the evidence shows that it is, in fact, a cover-up, whether they're covering up their own technology or not. We don't know. But what happened when they shut down Project Blue Book? Did they stop researching UFOs? Apparently. That was their official statement on it.

A story came out, you know, maybe a month ago, where we learned that that certainly was not the case. What was that story? So this happened about a month ago. The New York Times came out with an article about a secret Pentagon program that had been going on for about five years where they were secretly investigating UFOs. You mean the last five years there's been a program at the Pentagon study of UFO? This was from about 2008 or so to now, so a little longer than that. Did they discover anything? This is what you were talking about, Camel.

Yeah, it's really great stuff. Yeah, it was, I mean, for like, ephologists who were screaming, you know, for vindication that these things are real. And by the way, to your point, Moshe, this story came out and did not move the needle. Exactly. Everybody's just like, what did Trump tweet? Yeah. There's alien life here right now. But what about Trump, though?

Did he fuck Stormy Daniels? But do you think that's why certain things take off because they kind of capture a mood? Like, there are certain times when collectively, we're humans are more like bees. Like we all sort of are afraid of the same things at the same time, whether it's terrorism or UFOs at the time, or mad cow disease or whatever it's going to be. We all get afraid at the same thing. And it takes attention away from something else.

At the moment in the world, aliens are the least of our fucking problems. So we're like, oh, come and bomb us or do something. It'll be better than what's going on now. But tell us it with the Pentagon guy. But before you do that, Ashley, speaking of terrorism, just real quick, what's your favorite terror attack? Oh, I don't know. I mean, the IRA had some real dozy's your aviation.

No, I wasn't trying to distract from what you were saying. I was just saying in terms of it going quiet, it's because the fear has been sort of pushed somewhere else. So I'm not surprised there was no big, like kind of like hitting the news about it because people are so overwhelmed by everything else that's going on. But also, a rival came out right after the election and I sobbed like a baby during that movie.

So what was the Pentagon story? What did we learn from that? So the head of the program, his name was, Luis Elizondo. He'd worked for the Department of Defense for a really long time. He was hired to head this project by, I believe, was Senator Harry Reid. Yes, it was. Harry Reid. He's the one who got the money to do that. What are you, a hip-hop hype man? The super...

Harry Reid! I just mean, it's not a crazy guy. It's a guy we know. Well, that's what I kept coming to with the stuff that you sent me was like, yes, there are crazies out there that are like, you know, saying that they were getting alien anal probes. But a lot of the people that are cited in your book and in this documentary are like, you know, Air Force General, majors, Air Force pilots. Jimmy Carter, right? Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Harry Truman. So what?

Morris Day. Morris Day and the time. Time life books, pages missing, et cetera. I'm getting too old for this shit. So Harry Reid had hired this guy. Yeah, he hired this guy and he got the funding to do this project because Harry Reid was very interested in the topic. and so it was something like $22 million, which to me seems like a lot, but in terms of government funding, it's nothing.

And I think that was the purpose was it was so lowly funded that it was under the radar. So they could do this secretly and keep investigating UFOs. And wasn't he involved with another guy who was like an entrepreneur? Yeah. What's that? So Harry Reid was directly involved with. Robert Bigelow. This guy is an entrepreneur. He started the budget

hotel suites. So this dude's a billionaire, and he's had a strong interest in UFOs for many years. He is convinced that we've been visited by something otherworldly non-human, and he had been helping to fund this project as well. So any information that was going into this Pentagon story was then getting funneled to

Robert Bigelow. Wait, so this is a private citizen that's funding a Pentagon inspection unit? And was he legally getting the information or was the guy just passing it to him? See, that's where it gets very... Interesting. Supposedly, Bigelow

has wreckage from UFO craft in his possession. In one of those budget suites. It's crazy. And he has a brother named Deuce who's actually a male Gigolo. I don't know people know about that, but just looking for a joke. Camille, all right, I see your disappointment.

Did you find one? Did you find what? You're right? Could you find a joke? Yeah, when are you going to find it? Yeah, let me know when you find a joke. You know what? The joke is out there.

Okay, so in the 60s, so we move it in the 60s and 70s, right? And now things start to get a little bit wonky and weirder because with psychedelic drugs and with the kind of hippie movement, the UFO, to your point, Ashley, the UFO movement, swayes into the cultural forces that are present at the time. What's going on in the 60s and 70s in terms of the UFO sighting? Yeah, so, I mean, you're looking at the decades when, like, we're very anti-war. We're all about peace. And you start to see this movement within uphology that almost these religions start to pop up around it. And a lot of people believe uphology is religion. It's a belief system.

Whereas I look at it more as fact-based, evidence-based. What do they believe? What are the tenets of this religion? That there were beings that came and set up our civilization. And that's why they're coming back. Because that was one of the questions I kept asking myself. It's like, I can understand an alien visiting. I can't understand aliens visiting

sustained over and over again for 60 years and what are they doing? How are fucking interesting what are they doing? Are they just jerking their little 12 year old dicks to our you know like porkies looking through why are they here so much? Lottery probably.

What's that? They're just playing the lottery every time they come back they're like we're going to get it at some point and then we can go. Maybe it's like a cruise ship for them like they're paying money. Oh go, go check out Earth. Look at these idiots.

And do you think it's An element of it again, I just don't, again, I believe that there are probably aliens. It's just at certain times that psychological zeitgeist or what it taps into is sort of prevalent around the world. For example, fear or the idea that we're alone or that we want to go somewhere else. So I believe a lot of like religions come from, God, imagine if this is all we is, if this is all we are. Imagine if this is, this is it. That would be too terrifying to get our heads round. so let's just really believe there's something else.

And then with an argument against actual UFOs. No, no, no, against, not to say some of the sightings, but like you're saying, like in terms of tapping into the psychology of why we have this need to believe. What needs UFOs kind of take, what need they fulfill for us? Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And that's why I'm curious, what, in euology, what is the current thing of what aliens,

are doing for us, like that we is what's in the culture? In other words, why are they coming here? Or what do they do? No, no, not actually like it just, I'm more interested in how we, we interpret them coming. We know that already. No, but like literally right now. So if it's gone from like, oh, they might be a threat, oh, they're

peaceful, loving beings, we should build a religion around them. What is it now? Have they come to take us away from this bad? Yeah, is it a rescue mission at this? Well, if in the 60s, was it that there were religions around UFO? Yeah, I mean, there were religions popping up There were cults popular.

But what was the basis of those religions? Like, are we going to be saved? Or are we, what is the, what is the idea behind? I think it was, it was this whole idea of, uh, they are going to impart knowledge on us. They're going to, uh, come here to save us. So we were searching for like an other to save us because we weren't, you know, saving ourselves. And that's exactly how we've interpreted phenomena. We don't understand it.

It used to be like, oh, it's raining because this goat, we should kill this goat. You know, you know what I mean? And so, yeah. Seeing UFOs, we're just putting on... I don't know why you guys laughed at that. That's real shit. But we're seeing something we don't understand and we're coming up with different reasons to explain.

I just had a thought if all of the butt probing of the 80s was a result of like STDs and like suddenly like that... And homophobia. And homophobia and that being a thing in the culture. That's what we're responding to. Yes, Jessica Fletcher. Yes. Thank you.

So, well, exactly. What happened in the 80s and 90s is that they started they moved from being our, like, loving brothers into being people that are coming to, like, stick shit in our, yeah, but fuck us and give us space aids. So, what, have you encountered people

that were abducted, that claimed to be abducted by aliens and what, like, do you buy that? Do you buy that kind of stuff? It's really tough. And it, I was extremely skeptical when I got to the alien abduction part of the book and, and, you know, essentially interviewing people who claim this.

Like, I had to meet them face to face. in order to hear them. Or as to as the case may be. It's funny how that all probed. Like that was like one case. Yeah, but really one case? No, it's definitely more than one. A few. Yeah, but listen, it's the steel dossier.

We don't talk about all the other shit. We talk about the fucking piss on the, with the Russian hooker. I mean, so it's salacious. If you're probing as a scientist, there's only so many holes in a human. One of them's going to be like it's like two nose, two ears, one mouth or a butt. Like there's only There's only one of a vash.

There's only one of a vach. very important hole. I've heard about my main one. You know, when it comes down to sex, it's an ass, two nose, nostrils, an ear, and I guess you're done. I don't know what else is there. When I lose my virginity,

I'm going to know all about the asses. You really are Irish. But no, it's not that mad to think that you go up one of them, wouldn't it? Like, it's your nose, your ears. Did you ever conduct an interview with a person that had been abducted that made you feel like this is something happened here?

Yeah, so there were a few. I mean, I met with a woman face-to-face with her husband and she's recalling this event that had happened to her that she'd been taken aboard this craft that they'd experimented on her and she's like gripping her husband's hand and just

crying and he's like there like trying to calm her down. Now whether or not, that's the whole thing that I've come to with the alien abduction phenomenon is whether or not that physically happened. If it really happened if aliens actually took this woman, I can't tell you. But you think she

believes that and that's all you can get at. Most of these people, they firmly believe that these events happen to them. I can't say they did or they did not. I'll take down the story. I'll be a listening to hear for them. But do you believe? Like you can always, of course you can't, but when you go into those rooms, is there an element

of belief or is it just sort of like pity and sorrow for whatever this person feels viscerally like they're going through? I wouldn't say pity. I'm definitely open and compassionate. I think that's essential when you're interviewing someone on such a sensitive issue. Just to hear them out is almost like confirmation enough for them

if someone's willing to listen. But are you, like, without enabling them. They do studies of people like if you write down while someone's telling you about a trauma, if you are writing something down versus not, the people who are being listened to by someone writing something down feel better than the other people because they feel like it's going

somewhere official. And now it means something. I read a thing that's a theory is that a lot of these abduction memories are actually dissociated memories of abuse. Oh yeah. Yeah, I run into Somebody just snapped like we were at a poetry slam over here, I swear. You're like, dissociated memories of abuse right there, boy, yeah.

They have a bingo card, I'd check that. Oh, yeah. Do they have their hound-tall bingo card? But that it's someone a visitor in the night, taking, you know, all that. Oh, yeah, I mean, they're the theories of, you know, abuse or trauma as a child or sleep paralysis, you know, things like this. These are a lot of the times the explanations for abduction cases. there's a gentleman that I used to speak to. He passed

away a few years ago named Buddy Hopkins. He was fucked to death by an alien, wasn't I? I knew it. I knew it. This was a real person. Oh, is your friend? Yeah. Collie. Collie? All right. He was fucked to death by an alien. He had a family.

I know. It's a fucking tragedy the way he went out. You're going to have to bleep his name. Go ahead. He interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people who claimed it had been abducted by aliens. I'd say about 98% of them. He found absolutely no evidence of any sort of trauma.

But what about the 2%? And this is what I would say to you as well. Nobody's saying 98% had no abuse of trauma, so only 2% were the ones who were easily debunked. Exactly. So what did he... No, rather, what did you feel? Because again, you're saying you've a lot of sensitivity

and everything and you clearly are a caring person. Were there any of them that you were like, fuck man, I think this might have happen to you when you were talking to these people? Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I am, I've been interviewing this guy for years now. His name is Travis Walton. They made a movie about him. Early 90s, I want to say, called Fire in the Sky. Oh, that I seen is awful. Oh, that I seen. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, it's, what is it called? It's called Fire in the Sky. What happens in the... So isn't that the movie that first scared you about from aliens? No, E.T. was the first fucking movie that scared me about aliens. That guy looks like a penis. Sorry. I'm not scared of this. You're not scared of him anymore. Somebody's upset.

You just got the opposite of a poetry slam snap on that. You fucking say E.T. looks like a dick, motherfucker? Uh-uh. Take it back. He wrote a bike and it was cute. Are you terrified of E.T? No. Oh.

Hey, I'm right here. Yikes. Yikes. Take it out. Put a blanket on and see if we all love it. You know, in 1947, Pakistan. Pakistan began and the alien dick phenomenon

has never been the same. Now, okay, so we're going, I want you to answer that question first. This person, what were you saying? You interviewed this one person. Oh, yeah, I mean, this was back in like 75, it happened, but like six, he was part of a logging crew that went out to do a project, a tree-thending project.

They see this craft. He gets out, this guy, Travis, he looks up at it, it shoots a beam down, hits him, and the other dudes, they just both, they get out of there. They think he's dead at that point. Many hours later, they come back. Many hours later.

Should we go check on Claude? Male friendships are awful. Male marriage. If that was a girl, I'd be like, get the fuck down, you piece of shit. Go on, Mary, you get up there. It's not on my shoulders. We'll get him back.

But men are like, run. We'll come back in a few hours and see if he's okay. Yeah, I've noticed how supportive women are of each other all the time. So they all saw Taylor being abducted. Travis. I called him Claude, and I feel like it should stick. Yeah. We don't let it go.

I'm sure what about me. They saw him be hit by a beam. They saw that. They saw it. They all saw it. He gets hit. They leave. They report it to the police.

What happened. They go out with the police to try to find the guy. They can't find him anywhere. So for weeks on end, everyone thinks that this guy's been murdered. And that this, like, story of a UFO was a cover-up for it. by the loggers they think the loggers That they you know Maybe something happened out there

They made up this elaborate story A few weeks later He shows up He's found on the side of a road And they are able to You know Get him talking again and everything He recounts the same exact event

That happened with the beam coming down And then he recounts this crazy story About being taken aboard a craft And being experimented on He picked something up Tried to hit one of the aliens at one point Whoa. That's a logger for you right there, huh?

You get a comedian up there. It's just fucking submission, you know? I'm turning over. I'm like, it's back here. This is the only one I have. At least it's a story. There's a one-man show. I got ten new minutes.

I got a one-man show coming soon. This is not the difference between men and women again. You get kidnapped by an alien and you get ten new minutes out of it. That is at least a one-man show. It was like, no, no, no, go back to the other stuff. That's all I got on that, actually. Motion talks fast. Anyway, I'm married now, so it's, you know, that's a trip.

Anyway. So this gentleman remembers it. And is he still around? Oh, yeah, still around. And what's weird is, like, he hasn't, it looks like he hasn't aged a day since this happened. Whoa. Take me up there. It's kind of creepy.

Hollywood. He and the other loggers were put under countless, like, polygraph tests. And they all passed with three. flying colors. It's fucking crazy. Did you talk to the other loggers? Yes. I've spoken to several of them on several occasions. They all have the same. They all have the same story. Are they all friends still? No.

No. Yeah, sure. How far away would you be like you run away? Taylor's still a little, it's all young and fuckable. We're all old ass loggers over here with our leather skin. Travis. But yes. I went from Claude to Taylor. I'm getting closer. How far away was he found from where he was taken, presumably? I think it was

something like 20 miles or something like that. What do you think? So that's when you believe like you feel like I mean that's a case where I'm like these, they had everything to lose and nothing to gain with this story.

They made no money on this. You know, they made a movie about it unless they were like knowing out with each other as an orgy or something and they were like, guys if we all say we saw a baby life and they all fucked each other and then he hid for two weeks.

Homophobia is deep. It's like, I'll be. in this log cabin for two weeks. It's also an anal probe situation. Well, that's the thing. I know people personally who are normal, sane, normal people, people who have seen

UFOs, and I know a group of three friends who'd seen it, and one was telling people and the other two were like, don't tell people that makes us look weird, so he doesn't talk, but I know multiple people who've seen it. There are cases where like a whole town in Texas saw something, you know? That's right. They don't gain

anything from. Or in a town of Texas in Phoenix, Arizona. There was one case in Phoenix, Arizona, that so many people saw it. The governor of Arizona saw it. And he came out and said, I saw these aliens. What did they see? They saw a utility. Yeah, this was the

Phoenix Lights Incident of 1997. It's a great title. A huge boomerang craft was seen over the city of Phoenix. Thousands of people saw this, reported it. They sent out fighter jets to try to find this thing. What year was this? This was 97. You're I graduated high school

So Because as you remember That was a crocodile Bundy was really huge then So that's why people were seeing Giant Boomerang That's not an alien spacecraft It's an alien spacecraft

So So So But that wasn't that long ago For a whole time to see something It's quite like Well there's another One of the stories

In the to me was the most Substantive And really it was sort of breathtaking was the story Of the air base in England where the U.S. Air Force Base in England, tell us about that what they saw and what happened. Yeah, so I've been in direct contact

with the key witness to this event. This happened in 1980. It was called Rendelsham Forest. This was a forest between two joint military bases owned by the United States in England. This is during the Cold War, you know, so tensions were high. We were over there just in case anything happened.

So one night, this craft is caught on radar. Everyone's seen it coming in. land in the forest and about 60 officers were sent out to investigate whatever the hell this thing. Because they thought it was maybe a sort of foreign actor that was coming in to do some nefarious something. Absolutely. And what's interesting is at the time we were secretly housing nuclear ordinance under these bases without England's knowledge. We were able to sneak them in. So, of course, it's highly sensitive at this point if something had incurred, you know.

So they scrambled like 20 military police or whatever to go? 60. Okay. And they all ran towards it. They all had to go. They didn't know what they were walking into. They were just told to go out there and see what they can do. The base commander, this is caught on audio as well. You can hear this. I heard the audio. It's insane.

It's pretty scary, yeah. And the base commander is recounting what's going on as this is happening. And he said that this craft was directly over the nuclear ordinance and disabled it. It got shut down. And the other thing is that these 20 military police went to the woods, and they all saw something that they universally reported as beyond any kind of possibility of being crafted on at least technology that any of these people in the fucking Air Force knew about, right? So this is all the way from high-ranking military officials down to military police. All were reporting the same thing. And then, to correct me if I'm wrong, they called in somebody else once again to debunk.

the thing. They called in a higher ranking military official who came in and saw the exact same thing. Yeah, there was activity for three nights on the base. Once this thing landed and supposedly shot off, strange lights were seen over the base for two more nights and they could

not explain what was going on. And they told all the officers, never to speak about it. This story only came out about 20 years ago or so. It's interesting. And this was not like a traumatized yokel, you know, just going like, I saw something in the sky. These are high-ranking military officials.

And also, after that, the governments of England and France have come out, and Belgium, have all come out with full disclosure on their UFO programs, their UFO observation programs, and they all report that there are at least some substantial cases of UFOs that they cannot explain and that were sightings that can't be explained. So other countries have come out and admit that they've, like, found stuff. almost every country you can think of who has ever investigated UFOs whether publicly or secretly have come forward

and said look we've looked into it we don't know what's going on but here's our files we're such assholes why are we we're such assholes like no no no we'll keep this because we're the ones talking to them do you think we're actually talking to them I mean you look at contact

to the movie contact you know that's what SETI comes in. I love that film It's so good. It's really good. I have a, I don't know if there's a funny story, but it's an odd story. I saw contact, and I was so taken with it. I was like, wouldn't it come out? No, it was later.

It was like... 97 or so. I was just like in awe of the film. It really got my brain going, and I'm like, I got to get in my car and drive into the hills to look at the moon. So I did. I got into this, like, 93 Saturn, and I drove up into the Oakland Hills, and I didn't bring any shoes, because I was like, it's like,

two in the morning. I'm just going to go ponder the cosmos, right? And I'm up there, I'm sitting on the hood, I'm just having like a moment with God and the moon or whatever, and I have no shoes on. I'm way up in the Oakland Hills, and I pull, I'm like, okay, well, I've looked at the moon for a while, and I pull out, I start the car and I pull back, and the car pulls up over a boulder, and I'm stuck. I, like, can't move the car. I don't have, no cell phone. This is pre-cell phone times. No shoes, and I had to walk three miles. down a winding Oakland Hill Road barefoot

to this hotel where I walk in at like four in the morning barefoot like do you guys have a pay phone? You guys seen the movie Contact? They're like, yeah, people come here all the time. I've been pondering. Yeah, yeah.

We got another shoeless contact fan. It's been happening for 10 years. The movie's only been out for two. Ryan, tell us... Did you see the video that came out a month ago? that that was another one of those videos that came out with the Pentagon guy that they released one of the videos. Yeah, so I mean, the big part of that Pentagon story was video footage that came officially from the Department of Defense.

And these were two videos that were from the gun camera footage from the fighter pilots who were sent to investigate these UFOs. And you're listening to them and these pilots are like completely out of character. They're like, what the fuck is that? They're freaking out. That's not how you talk when you're alive. I don't know what it is. Yeah. It was pretty freaky.

And the footage itself is extremely startling. Really? These objects are moving. You know, zipping around at breakneck speeds that no human could survive. It's just, and that's what's really interesting. And these videos were leaked by the head of the program. Yeah, he left the program. He left.

He left the program so he could talk about this, right? And he quit so he could be like something's happening. It's like every other country in the fucking world, it seems like, except for hours. Isn't B. 182 involved in this? somehow too? Yeah, that guy's like he pays money. DeLong? So, yeah.

Maybe all the small things was about that. All the small little men. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the information about UFOs that's come out comes from very wealthy people. If you have money, you're able to get the information. So Tom DeLong, all through his time in Blink 1282 had been investigating UFOs,

researching the topic. So whenever they were touring, you see, they go to Roswell all the time. It's a great cover. Can you imagine marrying someone from a band and going, oh, it's great, he's got so much money. They'd be like, do you never believe what he spends it on? Oh, God, I have to do all the child support.

He spends on alien investigations. What a waste. My girlfriend goes to be bad. Oh, my dad. She's here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Wait, you're in Blink 182. With that haircut, you're close. Tell me some more of the, like, tell me one more of the stories,

the anecdotal stories from your book or from the people that you've talked to that really, like, What are some of the most spine-tingling stories that you've heard? Like, one are just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to refuse. What's that? The ones that are hard to refute, you're like, I mean, so many people.

Right. So the ones I find most interesting is when there's more than one witness. I mean, you have cooperating everything at that point. You know what I mean? And there was one where a mother and her two daughters, they witnessed a triangular craft. This is in Michigan. And so it's floating above their house.

And one of the daughters is outside with the mother. the mother is like staring up at this thing she thinks it's amazing she's in awe she feels euphoric and the daughter's right next to her like covering her ears and saying how unbearably loud it is and how it's like going to kill them and the mother couldn't hear anything oh god so it that really what do you what do you take from that that that one really mystified me i mean they're they're clearly looking i think at the same object but having completely different perceptions Because you know your ears up until the age of 18 can pick up sounds that an adult can't. That's right. So they do at a lot of shopping centers.

Oh, so maybe she was, that's right. They tried to drive kids away at malls. Yeah, because at malls, sometimes they play these sounds to stop kids loitering. Is that true? Yeah. Until the age of 18 is a frequency you can hear. Oh, that's so funny. Adults can't.

That's the end of the show. Very good. Well, that's a good point for us to, are there any questions? from the audience. Let's take a couple of questions before. Are there any people who don't believe? Wow. I want to... Yeah, here. We have a question here. Are any of you more convinced of UFOs now? After you're having? I was already pretty convinced, but I would say... I'm more convinced than I was, and also we'll have to take a lot of medication to sleep tonight. Yeah. I still... I've always believed in aliens because I think it's ridiculous not to. The UFO's saying, I still... I think I have a question over our mass hysteria. and psychologically what we actually do as groups,

even things like looking up before airplanes or even the start of airplanes, did we ever look up as much as we do and how much do we? I think that's fair enough. What refutes it to me is like 12 military police on an Air Force base and a major seeing a spacecraft right in front of them doesn't feel like to me,

maybe there's mass hysteria in the military, but it just feels like aren't they the opposite of mass hysteria? For me, it's more like, why in a military area you're like oh maybe there is some kind of from another country or not going to a military area why in that particular

that's those are the questions cases of them like going gravitating towards nuclear weapons and stuff right just that happens a bunch of times absolutely yeah the rental show one we mentioned there was one in Montana where it went over the base and shut them down again there's one in Germany

where it turned them on into oh yeah that yours turned you on a little bit too right I remember that because it makes sense that they would go where our technology is best, right? If they want to learn about us. For us, like I was saying, we always put it something to our perspective. So whether it's language or

it's military or it's war, we put it within our perspective. So they're like, oh, they would go to a military base. And for me, that's a really human connection. Sure. But if they're going to a place where... If they're attracted to radiation... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. No, but if they're looking for, like, good

technology, our most advanced technology, it would make sense that they would go to places. That's, again, it has to be to do with technology. Alien life, we always have to go, oh, it has to be with technology. It wouldn't be an organic matter. We can't even imagine something. No, but they do everything. They're, you know, anal probing, but also they're going to... That's organic. There's a lot of...

There's a lot of organic matter inside of an asshole. So we have a question up here. Hey, so you've looked at so many of these cases. You guys are talking about, you know, oh, there's stopping over military bases and stuff about technology. You've looked at so many of these over time. I mean, are there any particular, like, odd details or recurring details, they're just like, what could that possibly be? Like, why would this happen so much? Like sort of strange things? Yeah, I think

for me, at least, it's the way it impacts people, actually. It's not even like the data or the evidence of the thing happening. It's how it actually affected people afterwards and sort of opened them up to the possibilities. Yeah, you're wanting a euphologist badge right now.

It really did a number on you. Yeah. Is there anything that doesn't connect with what we see as alien So again, like the spacecraft, the gray men, whatever it is, is there anything that, like, people have seen that have felt something that just doesn't connect with the sort of the cartoon of what we think are UFOs, the triangles, whatever it is? Yeah, I mean, there's like, there's the narrative of, you know,

the flying saucer, the little gray aliens that we see over and over and over again. But there's so crazy bizarre cases out there of, like, you know, seven-foot-tall Nordic aliens, you know, Nordic-looking. There's no wizard people. That's hot. There's politicians that are... Like, what do you want? An octopus or a seven-foot-tall Nordic man?

It's hard to not feel threatened by that because there are a few people who are less seven-foot-tall Nordic than me. It's just the flavor she's been having for a while. So it's like, you know, it's an exciting other, you know what I mean? Right, no, because I love chocolate, but every now and then it's like, let's try a seven-foot-tall Nordicman.

Is there anybody who came tonight who didn't believe who now thinks that it's possible that it's... Oh, yeah, all right. Let's hear from you. Why? Oh, just all of the military examples you were bringing up. It sounds pretty legit and I want to do some research now. Yeah, because our military would never lie. And then again, I leave. That's actually a really good point, man.

The fact that I don't personally believe the government is ever going to tell us the truth about what they know. Because honestly, I don't think they know a lot. about what's going on. You know, they, they don't, they don't control what's happening in our skies, but they can control the information that they give to the public. You want to project confidence. Absolutely. And I don't think disclosure, as they call it, is ever going to come from the government.

So, like, if you see something, just, it's like, you know, the subways. If you see something, say something. You know, there's 100,000 UFO reports a year on average. You would recommend people report UFO sightings? It seems like every person that does is ridiculed and, like, it becomes a mistake in their lives. I see that changing. You don't have to call it like I-CNA,

like the nice thing about unidentified flying object. You're literally like, what the hell is this? Well, Dennis Kucinich in that presidential debate, they asked him if you see the UFO and he was like, well, yeah, but it was, and his presidential campaign was over. They were just like, we're down here, so bye, Dennis. But you'd still say do it. Why do you think it's important to report these things?

I think it's extremely important because it gives us something to work off of instead of, you know, these cases from 1947. and stuff like that. I think the more people, the more credible people, military or academics or scientists that come forward, or everyday people, you know, just see something when they look up. If they report it, that's more things that we can look into and bring it to the government and be like, tell us what you know. Are the reports going up, given that we all have video cameras in our pockets at all times?

That is a really good question. To my knowledge, the amount of UFOs reported hasn't changed. Interesting. But, yeah. Because that to me makes it less the fact that we can capture the images now. And we're not. And we're not. No, but it's...

That's the kind of the point I was making earlier on about the... I think there's more videos, but not more sightings. Is that what you were saying? I think so. And it's tough because that is the biggest conundrum. I think in today's technological world is that we have the technology to just look up and take a picture. And we don't, you know. But for me, and this might seem like a jump.

but if you look at what's happening with race in America, so much stuff is getting captured in video. 9-11, yes. But like, race visa be 9-11 and the foundation of the Pakistani state. How does that connect? Well, Pakistan is a country classically depopulated of seven-foot-tall

fuckable aliens, and I just think it's time for us to talk about it. Let me finish my point, is that what most people are saying, the incidents aren't new. What's new is that we can finally capture them and go, this is happening, can someone finally be held accountable? They're also less credible because you can manipulate an image.

Yes, that is true, but at least things are being captured, so we're seeing more stuff. So it's something where for years you're like it was only witness reports because how else would you do it other than a witness report? Now there's all the technology to capture stuff and yet people aren't capturing anything. But there are, there is audio and there are pictures and there is video or there is not? Oh, yeah, it's out there. But like you said, it's disseminating. the truth from the fiction at this point like there's apps that you can insert

UFOs into your pictures. Right. Like where do we go from there? Right, I guess up. Is there anybody with a burning question one final bird? Yes, all the way in the back here. So is Scientology Real then? Let's do more.

Yeah, we've got another question to go. We're right across the street from those motherfuckers. You can talk aliens in the government all night long, but don't you ever impugn Scientology? Ladies and gentlemen, that's our show. Thank you so much. round of applause for Ryan Spray, Camille Nangiani, Emily Gordon, Ashling B. Thank you very much and come back and see us again on the Houndtel discussion series here at the UCB Theater of the second Wednesday, every month. Good night, I love you, goodbye. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network. To learn more, visit Entertainment Onepodcast.com.