Somewhere in the Skies - Unidentified: Out of the Shadows

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

On episode 171 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan is joined by Anthony Lappé, the executive producer and show-runner for the History Channel/To the Stars Academy television series, Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation. We learn how Lappé first got involved with the show. Lappé offers his candid thoughts on the first season, the developments with To the Stars Academy and the U.S. Governmentand his thoughts on the first three episodes of Season 2. Lappé then answers listener questions and gives us a sneak peek at what's to come in future episodes. Guest Bio: Anthony Lappé is a New York-based author, producer and director. He produced the award-winning Showtime documentary about the Iraq war, BattleGround. He was the Executive Editor of the Sundance-awarding winning Guerrilla News Network. He has written for Details, ESPN: The Magazine, New York Magazine, and the South China Morning Post, among many others. In addition, he has produced programming for Fuse, PBS, National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Science Channel. More recently, he was a writer/producer for Radical Media. He is the current show-runner and executive producer for Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation. Learn more at: www.anthonylappe.com Disaster Relief for Beirut Explosion Victims. Donate now through Impact Lebanon by CLICKING HERE Support the podcast with a one-time contribution. There's no commitment and you can tip as little or as much as you'd like when you like: https://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies The updated and expanded edition of Somewhere in the Skies is now available! Order now in paperback or E-book. To purchase, and to leave a rating and review, CLICK HERE Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Episode edited by Jane Palomera Moore Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by 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

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Today on the show, we're speaking to Anthony Lepe, executive producer and showrunner for season two of the History Channel series. Unidentified, inside America's UFO investigation. It's a completely valid question for anyone to ask. whether these guys are still working for the government and are involved some sort of disinformation campaign. Because if you know anything about the intelligence world, that would be a pretty banana story, in my opinion. But you can never rule that out in the world of intelligence. Deception is at its heart.

And what that disinformation is could be many different things. Are they covering up the reality of UFOs? Or is it some sort of limited hangout where it's like a, are they part of this? disclosure, or are they, you know, some people say, just merely running interference on advanced weapons programs? And that's their true mission, which, which again, going back to the Navy's statement that these are not ours, raises the stakes of that claim really high. And you'll see in this season, we broach it head on as well. This is somewhere in the skies with Ryan Sprague.

Anthony, welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. Thanks. I love the name of your podcast, by the way. It's cool. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, it's, you know, we all dream of having UFO in our podcast name. But I wanted to open it up, keep it a little broad. And, yeah, we're still looking for those answers somewhere in the skies as you guys are over on Unidentified.

So we're definitely going to talk about season two of your show Unidentified. But before we do that, man, I got to get the origin story. How did you get connected to this particular project? Did you have any interest in UFOs prior to this? Yeah, what's the origin story of your working on Unidentified? Good question. I, for years, ran a website called the Guerrilla News Network, which you may be, well, too young, you might not remember it. But it was a kind of groundbreaking, if I may say so, kind of citizen journalism platform.

that also allowed people to create their own profiles and kind of run the kind of it was like a blogging platform it also had an interactive editing function where people could collaborate and write articles together so and then had a huge very robust chat platform very you know kind of in the vein of Reddit um but but so but when we're always looking at we looked at a lot of intelligence related stuff and what you know government secrets and and i remember when the first disclosure project press conference happened back in the, you know, the early 2000s. And Stephen Greer brought these these government people out. And that always stuck, you know, I never really been interested in UFOs.

But that event and the fact that there were so many government officials that were former government officials coming forward always kind of stuck in my mind. Like, that's really interesting. And then one day literally went down like this. I'm at the History Channel. I work for a division inside any networks. It's now called Six West Media. It's basically an internal production company there.

And I'm just a freelance showrunner and director. And I was doing a film about Bobby Kennedy. And I was wrapping it up. And they said, hey, you know, we had these two guys that we want you to meet. So we went into a conference room. And there was Lou and Chris. And they, you know, start talking about. this program that Lou was part of and uh and sort of you know what they believe which is that

there are things engaging with our military uh pilots in particular that they don't believe either belong to the U.S. military or our adversaries and I kind of was just like what and I and I and I looked up who these guys were and and I sort of had nightmares for a couple weeks about that and I especially the melons bearing and the way he spoke was particularly chilling. And that was the beginning. And then they asked me to do the show. And I was like to go follow these guys and find out like hopefully, you know, the truth behind what, whether they're either totally crazy or there's something real there. Either way, it was like going to be a good show, you know, because they're such fascinating people.

So I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm down for the ride. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so happy he did, man. because, I mean, a lot of people have commented on all of season one and what we've seen so far of season two, just how different it is from most of these UFO shows out there. I mean, some of them are just, God, awful, embarrassing.

And then, you know, you have the ones that strive to bring legitimacy, but there's only so much you can do with civilian witnesses, you know, and claims and testimony. But when you guys attack this from every angle and having the people you, had involved. It did. It just upped, you know, the the credibility of not only, I guess, infotainment, as we could call it, you know, UFOs on television, but also just the topic in general. Yeah, thanks. You know, we tried to do something that, you know, was journalistically sound that was really, and I think even in this season, we kind of up the ante on that regard, whereas in the first season, it was a little more self-enclosed, you know, in the sense that when

We were looking at alternative explanations, you know, terrestrial explanations, if you will, of these craft. You know, it was mostly kind of Steve and Chris and Lou kind of spitballing it amongst themselves, whereas this season, you know, we're looking at, we interviewed other, you know, experts, people who have spent a lot of time like Bill Scott, who was an Air Force flight test engineer and, you know, was editor at Aviation Week, who really became fascinated by the topic and had a lot of insight. sources at places like Nellus and Area 51 and others. So, you know, we really, you know, we really strive to, to provide all possible explanations. And we continue to do that through this season. Because I think you need, I think I do agree a lot of other UFO shows, you know, spend a lot of time leaving that, or don't spend the time, they leave all that information on the cutting room floor and really are kind of pushing a particular agenda and we're tried to, you know,

even though this show is definitely told from the point of view of Alessando and Mellon and company, there is our own editorial balance that's going on. Right. Well, I'd love to touch on what you said there in terms of between season one and season two. You know, season one, you introduced us to the Navy UFO videos and to the Stars Academy, catch us up to speed with everything that's going on. But season two, it took a different format or template, I guess. So, yeah, would you mind maybe touching a little on what the major differences are between these?

Yeah, I mean, the format kind of organically came out of the stories that we got. Because we, at the end of, if people remember, at the end of season one, we put out a call to action, you know, email for people to send in their stories. And, you know, somewhat as a shot in the dark. Like, hey, you know, might as well just see what we can get. And we ended up, it, you know, worked spectacularly almost, there was almost too much. There's so many emails. I spent a good part of last summer right around the same time last summer, sifting through these emails, reading them, reaching out to people and trying to, you know, figure out who was,

you know, crazy, who was legit, who was somewhere in between, you know, what. And, you know, we ended up just, you know, hundreds and hundreds of emails. And so I quickly realized that kind of came up with this concept, which the underlying theme, if there was like a subtitle for this season, we kind of, I called it Out of the Shadows. And because what I realized is, you know, there's so many of these stories that go back years that, you know, we could really create an incredible mosaic of hearing as many of the stories as possible. So my goal was to find is to really narrow in as many as we could and the ones that were, you know, and really talk to those people and almost, I wouldn't say cast them, but really figure out who was going to be, you know, as you can tell from even the guys that you've seen so far, these are like really serious people, you know. There's winner of the Navy Cross. there's people who were working in intelligence positions there's very serious people who devoted their career to the service of the United States so you know we really decided that but this that this

season would be different than there would be a lot more stories because we had you know I think I keep forgetting to actually count them up but it's something like 25 never before heard stories you're going to see in this season, people who are coming forward, and pretty much all of them from a military background. And most of the stories happening when they were in the military serving. So there's it, so then, so sort of organically that became, okay, so let's try to look at the patterns, right, around what they're talking about. Can we relate them to what the pilots are seeing today? Can we relate them to other patterns like nukes? That's, you know, an ongoing theme. that Chris Mellon in particular believes is really important,

that why are these things being seen around nuclear assets? So that's what this Saturday night is looking at kind of some new stories that I haven't been told that are fascinating and, again, just super legit people speaking. The format of this kind of testimonial multiple story episode built just sort of organically about how we found our stories. And then other stories started to come in. You know, people are constantly emailing Lou with stories. There's so many more that we, you know, we just couldn't have time for or we couldn't track,

you know, couldn't track down or people didn't. Sometimes people contact him, but they don't want to go on the, you know, on TV, right? There's a difference between saying, hey, Lou, I have the story I need you to know about, right? And then agreeing to have their face on TV is those are big, you know, There's a little big difference between those two things, right? Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, well, that brings up another good point. How is it as, you know, the producer, executive producer and showrunner?

How challenging is it to work in this, you know, with these people that I'm sure some of them, if we're talking all military, that might have security oaths or, like you said, remain anonymous, things like that. How is it for you dealing with all this, I would assume, red tape at times and bureaucracy and all of that? To be honest, we're dealing directly with these guys as private individuals. We're not, we didn't go through the public affairs. And even really in the first season, we got these guys to talk on their own because they felt it was so important to speak out. So, yeah, we kind of avoid, I mean, really being a journalist, if you can avoid, you know, the red tape, you do. So that's what we do. We don't really, you know, try to, we're just trying to get the information out there.

Obviously, you know, we're super cognizant of not sharing anything that would divulge any secrets. As we've seen in this new news that has come out recently, they really have one step, you know, foot in the door with the government. They're constantly, we saw this. I remind people that the recent news about this call for a multi-agency task force that the Senate Intelligence Committee is asking for in the new appropriations bill and the revelation that there's an ongoing program inside the Navy, you know, we disclosed that. We didn't say it was in the Navy, but in season one in the last episode, you see Lou going and meeting with guys who, were still involved in the program.

Right, right. And those guys, and you see, you know, Lieutenant Graves, you're there right before he goes to testify in front of members of that committee and others. And then he comes back and tells Lou how it goes, if you remember all that. So, and that was all being coordinated through the same people that are now being, you know, well, their names haven't been released, but that new program, if you will, that, that's been there wasn't you know that's ongoing that's been an ongoing thing that that lou has been open to say you know it's interesting now that then now people are realizing oh wait actually it is going on

and also you know and then there was just the whole crazy part about you know the pentagon even denying that lew had any part in any UFO program really interesting twist you know while we're working with him and you know we can see obviously that he's going to you you know we're falling our cameras are there while he's in dc meeting with congressmen and others. So that was interesting to say the least. I still can't tell you what is going on in the Byzantine halls of power behind that series of events. I'm sure it is. And with time, I'm sure will. Exactly. I feel like in 10 or 20 years, it'll all come out, you know. Well, hey, I mean, you know, this is a clear indication

that these things take time. And I think a lot of people have to keep in mind, too. Like, it's not like the DoD or the Navy is just dropping this stuff because they want to. I mean, people like Lou and to the stars and the exposure that you guys have given to the work they're doing, they worked their asses off to get these things going and get these things in motion. So I think, like you said, these things were in motion in season one and probably even before you guys even began filming. we're just seeing the end result of them. And I try to tell people, too, like, just be patient. Like, these things take time.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the fascinating things that if you're, you know, people, what's really interesting now is Chris is on Twitter, right? Yep. And I just was seeing some of the stuff he's been tweeting about, you know, some of this, you know, we get into this in later episodes. We actually look back, you know, we actually have a whole episode later on that's, that's

really asking the question, what kind of a. Nimitz Redux looking back at the, you know, the Nimitz and the Roosevelt cases. And it's pretty interesting. I mean, he says all this is part of the show as well, but it's like if you read his Twitter, the extent at which he is completely confident that what both of these groups of pilots are seeing is not some special access program and that he's, and he's run it up the ladder. and that when the Navy says it's not ours, they're not lying, right? At the end of the day, that's what it really comes down to, right? Yeah.

Like, if the Navy is saying it's not ours and it, you know, you're left with the two other possibilities. And that's kind of like what Marco Rubio just said the other day. He's actually, if on the balance of things, he'd be. happier if it turned out it wasn't the Russians or the Chinese because that's what would really keep them up at night is the Tic Tac or some of these other things, you know, is a Chinese object zipping around our restricted training areas. Absolutely.

So that's where you just, you know, I always come back to that logic. Once you start playing out the logic of that, you end up in a weird place. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the fact that we can only hope it's aliens is. That is just a weird. It's a pretty weird thing. It is. I think that's a, I think people, I'm surprised that more people have not picked up on what a interesting statement that was, right?

By a senator. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's pretty crazy. But, hey, it's 2020, Anthony. Anything clearly can happen, yeah. Nothing would surprise me. Nope, nope. Well, let's talk, if you don't mind.

maybe a little episode specific. Two episodes of aired so far of the show, the first being UFOs in combat, like you mentioned. And like you said, we got all new military cases, which is just amazing. That this many military personnel throughout history are willing to come forward and talk about this is awesome and something we haven't had before. So what did you find most interesting about this first one? You know, each one of those cases was equally interesting. The B-52 story, I thought was really, really interesting in the sense that this thing was just flying at the speeds that they saw it flying. And, you know, that they were actually taking pictures of the radar screen.

It's, you know, so frustrating, obviously, we couldn't get those pictures. But that case, I thought, was just absolutely fascinating. You know, they're in the middle of the Pacific, you know, it's not the heat of battle. You could argue that the case in Kosovo was some sort of optical illusion or something or reflect, refraction or even, you know, we posed the question whether it was a laser being shot against the clouds or, you know, there's a lot, they were in a war zone. There was maybe a lot of weird stuff happening, right? There's zipping things zipping around, whereas this thing was like just a, you know, described as a real clear object coming right at them, taking a right turn and then shooting straight up in a space. you know this on Saturday night we have a story probably one of my most favorite story that's

that we have with because I'll give you a hint you know without giving it away you know really the rest of this season is is is all we're just going to see more and more military witnesses and in some ways ratcheting up their their credibility because um in on Saturday night you're going to hear a story from a guy who is uh sees a object in the Aurora Borealis and has just a very, really interesting story about what happens. But what's so interesting about this guy is that he is a high altitude survival expert for the Air Force. So he actually trains guys currently, not for the Air Force, but he trains people to survive in a high altitude flying. So here's a guy who is currently a professor, but has a...

had a long career in the Air Force of in particular, basically is an expert in everything at high altitudes, you know, 50, 60,000 feet and above altitude, right? So he's saying he's seeing something in the Aurora Borealis in the upper atmosphere and that, you know, he is just, you know, literally 100% clear as not some sort of weather anomaly or a condition. And that is just, you'll see. This guy is just so serious. He's just such, you know, he's just as an advanced degree in exactly that and teaches future pilots about how to survive at high altitude. So he just, he goes, you know, he's constantly just flying at a high altitude.

I don't want to say how many hours, hundreds, if not thousands of hours, in up in that area, right? So that's just fascinating when you get people like that who is like their exact area of expertise seeing something in that million. Yeah. At that altitude nonetheless, you know, which again, like we know human beings wouldn't really be able to survive. Like you said, that's literally his job to figure out where that barrier is. And when you hear what happened, what the craft does, you know, you'll see from his description. It's clearly not a, you know, a comet or, you know, some kind of debris.

Anyway, it's fascinating. That's the kind of thing we have coming up. There's just a lot of just really unique. That's what I was so excited about from a story. point of view and just visually you know as you can tell from this season we did kind of up the ante doing you know these uh recreations of the events and with some visual effects and really working with the the the people directly to really you know we were having them send us drawing so we were really like okay what this would it looked like and really trying to get exactly how uh what they

experience trying to visualize that so that was yeah that's just fascinating I think the other highlight coming up for everyone is we switch gears and actually have an whole episode about civilian airline pilots, active pilots, as well as people from FAA, NORAD. And those are stories that have never been told before as well. That's the show app. I'll be honest with the one that really sends the most chills up my spine because you have airline pilot talking about something, you know, coming way too close to. to, you know, a plane full of 200 people, right? It's just, there's something really relatable, obviously, for all of us. And, you know, it's a little different than an F-A team flying around something when you're, you're in a plane.

With no weapons, nonetheless. Yeah. And there's just a bunch of civilian, you know, there's this. And these pilots, you can really tell, again, this is where, you know, the, you know, how, I just have so much respect for airline pilots. I mean, how many people every day do it, you know, their job all has 200 souls, you know, lives in their hands, right? On a daily basis. And you see that sense of responsibility and that bearing when they tell this story that these guys are not. And these guys know the skies.

You know, it's like they know what, you know, weather condition is. They know these guys are seeing objects. You know, whatever those objects are, I really. I will never, you know, I'm not going to guess, but they're seeing real objects, in my opinion, and they're really freaked out by it. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot, powered by Verizon for $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time, new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the visible plan, using the code fresh start. refresh your wireless with Visible.

Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply, limited time offer subject to change. See Visible.com for plan features and network management details. What's up guys, Ryan Sprag here, and I'm just dropping in to remind you about our Patreon campaign. Somewhere in the Skies is always free to consume, but it's not free to create. So if you want to help the show on a monthly basis, we have tons of rewards for you in return, including shoutouts on the show and website, bonus content, and content. episodes and free merge.

Want to be my guest or pick a topic for the show? You can do that too. So if you'd like to learn more and to help support the show, visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you and keep looking up. Well, episode two, Anthony, the triangle mystery. This one really stuck out to me. I had a triangular UFO sighting as a child,

which kind of got me into all this stuff to begin with. But I really obviously related to this one. And it seemed like we really got to know Chris Mellon in this one, which was cool. So yeah, can we expect more episodes where we get to know Lou, Chris, Steve, all these guys a little better? Yeah. There's a really, one of my other favorite episodes is we go down to South America. And it's kind of a road trip. And he meets with a lot of active duty military people, including literally a,

the head of the Air Force for a large country in South America, and they have a fascinating conversation. And you really get to see Lou in action and kind of, you get to know him a little better. And they either you actually kind of reveal something about his own experience, which is interesting in that episode as well. I won't give too much away there. Yeah, that's what I'm glad you picked up on that. I was proud of this episode, the triangle episode, where you really got to see melon out in the field and you really got to you got to see his theory on this that he's and you know David Marler he's not obsessed to the point of David Marler but but he like Marler just believes that there's something going on with these triangle craft that that can't be explained

there's just too many data points and that was you know that's why we kind of leaned into that the Hudson Valley story those you know we went up there and we actually interviewed many more people that day than, you know, we could fit in. But there's just hundreds of people that were just seeing them over, you know, for over such long periods of time. And clearly, I'm sure some of them were conflating, you know, a cargo plane or some other kind of plane flying over the area. But these other stories, when the craft are flying right over their house and hovering and, you know, when you have cops telling you that, it's hard to disregard that there was a lot of, you know, some very, very large craft flying over.

And actually what's interesting is there's a story from that we actually originally had in that episode, but we moved into the episode on Saturday night, the nuke episode, where a guy describes a craft very similar to one of the triangles. But we moved it, you'll see why, into this episode. And we actually had two witnesses on that. And it's pretty mind-blowing and how it changed his life. But yeah, that Hudson Valley story is just, you know, I was just actually up there for a little while. And I became friends with a farmer down the road from this house that I was staying in.

And I said, yeah, you know, I just, you know, we had learned about these sightings back in the 80s around here. And he said, oh, yeah, my mom saw a craft that flew right over the house and just stayed there. And then his wife came out. She said, yeah, when I was a kid, we saw some, we saw this craft fly. over and we became so obsessed we used to camp out in our yard trying to see it again and it's just like all of a sudden it was just like it's just a common thing for these live up there to see these things and you're just like what the heck it's it's fascinating yeah it's it was such a large wave too that of course someone knows somebody who saw something which is fascinating i mean

it's you don't get that that often yeah and that when the when the whole um park way the Tictonic shut down and people got out of their cars and the thing was just hovering right over. I mean, again, there's definitely, as we see, there are explanations, right, that you can argue. I think one of the, I think a really strong point that Bill Scott makes in that episode, you know, Jim Simovan makes a really strong point at the end, right? That there's no way they would fly a secret craft over and spook people like they did, right? But I do think, I do think there is a strong argument in particular related to these triangles that maybe that is the point is that they're tracking the reaction to see what kind of stealth it had, right? They,

you know, they're basically using these people as guinea pigs in the same way. You know, they, they are interested to see who is, who looks up, can it be heard. I don't know. There's, there's some decent countervailing evidence, I think, related to the triangle phenomenon that I thought was really important to get in there. But it does spiral when you really dig into an archive like Marler that there's just so many, there's the consistency to these stories. It's fascinating. Yeah, the triangles, I think, always beg the most questions.

Like you said, they come up with the theory of mapping. Are they mapping or terrain? That's why they're so slow and they're triangular. So that was fascinating. That was something I never really thought about. Yeah, why do these particular UFOs move so slowly? And obviously, stealth is one reason. But another is, you know, are they surveying the area?

Are they gauging public reaction or acknowledgement? I think you're right. I think there's the biggest mystery lace somewhere in those triangles, man. I'm glad you guys tackled it. Cool. I'm glad we did it justice. Yeah. Well, moving to just a couple listener questions here, Anthony,

before we wrap up if that's cool. Shane on Facebook asks, you kind of answered this, I think, at the beginning, but do you guys have government liaisons that sort of guide you, you know, when it comes to security stuff? Or, again, are these just people that are coming forward on their own?

No, we have no relationship to the government at all. You know, we're independent journalists. We're, you know, we're independent fundamentally from TTSA. We have this show produced by A&E. It's not, I think, I think to set, you know, for a lot of people, there's confusion. You know, obviously Tom DeLong is involved in shaping the vision of the show. And it was really kind of his impetus that got it on the air.

But this is a show produced by A&E. So kind of, you know, we're following these guys on their journey. Obviously, there's things, you know, it's a totally unscripted show where nothing is staged. But obviously there's things that are happening because of the show. You know, I don't think Lou would have. gone to South America for, you know, primarily just, you know, because I don't know if TTSA is the money to send them to South America. You know, obviously we're sending them on touch to investigate stuff in the service of the show. But we all are also following these guys along the way and in their own journey.

And they are, you know, actively building these patterns and they are actively investigating the stuff. And you're seeing that in real time. So, yeah, to answer the question, we don't know, we don't have any, you know, we do, you know, allow these guys to make sure that they're, you know, there's nothing, we're not compromising any security clearances or things like that. But that's, that's about it. Yeah, I think that's, you know, it's a good distinction to make, because I think there are those people out there who do worry, like, you know, is the show being shaped by the history channel or for a particular narrative, this that, this that. But I think you're right. We do see you guys at A&E. You're following this company as they grow and as they influence.

I do think the narrative. We are following their lead on their narrative. You know what I mean? If I was doing this show independently, I don't know what it would be, but it might not be their narrative. The narrative, the fundamental theme, right, that Elizondo and Mellon believe is centered around

a national security threat. These guys are, that's what they do, did for a living, and they still consider themselves in the, even though they don't work for the government, what they're doing is sort of continuing that work in the private sphere. So those themes of national security and the potential threat, right, not the threat, the potential threat that these might pose and what, in trying to identify them, that is their mission, and that's what we're trying to follow. That's the simplest way to look at how this show came to be and the framing around the narrative. For some people, some people have problems with that, right? Some people like, well, they're fearmongering and the UFOs or how do we know they're not here to help us?

Well, we don't. But that's, I'm not trying to, I definitely try not to make it a fear mongering show, you know, but I do. But I also am trying to be honest to like that is their frame. For them, their national security guys, anything that's unknown, that is showing an interest in our military is, you know, by sort of logic, right? Ipso facto threat. Absolutely. We don't know what it is. And I think, you know, the human condition itself is we are a defensive species.

So, I mean, yeah, everything. If we don't know what it is, it is a potential threat. I think that's a good point, Anthony. I mean, so many people, it's so divisive in the quote unquote, UFO community. You've got the people who believe it's all love and light and space brothers, and then those who think they're going to come and invade. And it's, I think the answer is somewhere in between because we don't know what it is. And it will always be a potential threat. So no, it makes perfect sense for a show where you have the former head of, you know, counterterrorism

and whatnot or someone who worked within that sector as the main person. So yeah. Yeah. Again, we're, We're, that's what these guys, that's the frame that they have. So that's the frame we're following. So, and I think you can argue whether, you just, you can argue whether you agree with it or not. It's not really for me to judge. It's, you know what I mean? It's like, that's, that's the story. All right.

Well, this one kind of ties into that, too, Anthony. Raquel on Twitter asks, throughout the show, Chris Mellon, Elizondo, and even Steve Justice, in Raquel's opinion, she, uh, stressed. They give a sense that they all know more. than they can share on the show. I'm sure you've heard this before. Is this something you're willing to address it all? Or is Raquel just hoping this is the case?

It's absolutely. I think there'd be the first to admit it. I mean, they openly admit it. We actually even, and I'm sure there's places in this season where we kind of get meta and reference that as well. I think in the first season we did, there are moments where Lou sang, look, I remember, yeah, one time he's on the top of that mountain in Catalina,

and he's like, look, I know a lot. more about what's going on here, but I can't tell you. And the assumption to me is there's a lot of sensitive military sites in that area, right? But absolutely. These guys all know, I mean, Steve Justice is a walking repository of both the technologies that he worked on, but also the methods, right, of how things are tested. The secrets are not just technology. Secrets are sources and methods, too. So all these guys, especially as you can see, Justice, is very

careful to not talk too much about how things work. They are absolutely, and you know, in Blue, if you take him on face value, that is primarily

like his motivation in what he's doing on our show is because he can't tell you everything he knows. He's trying to find other people who could sort of almost be his proxies to tell their stories because he can't. And that's absolutely true. And as I said, they're the first to admit it. What they know, I mean, I think it's a valid question.

I don't disregard anyone. And that's what I found was very cool about both Chris and Lou, as you'll see in this season and we broach this topic in season one. kind of dig deeper into it in season two is it's a completely valid question for anyone to ask whether these guys are still working for the government and are involved some sort of disinformation campaign. That is a completely valid question for anyone to ask because if you know anything about the intelligence world, you know, that is, it would be a pretty banana. That would be a pretty banana story, in my opinion, but you can never rule that out in the world of intelligence.

deception is at its heart. So it would be naive to think that they weren't, and what the mid-disinformation is could be many different things. They could, right? They could be, are they covering up the reality of UFOs? Are they, or is it some sort of limited hangout where it's like a, are they part of the slow disclosure? Or are they what, you know, some people say,

just merely running interference on advanced weapons programs and and that's that's their true mission which which again going back to the Navy's statement that these are not ours raises it a real the stakes of that claim really high the Navy is is is is publicly coming out to the public and saying that um it's a pretty big deal right and and if you have these guys running continually running this you know know, an alleged fiction that, you know, UFOs are real and that's not our technology. It, that to me is like, that would be one of the, it would be a really, you know, one of the bigger stories, right?

It's still a valid question. So I don't, I never disperge anyone to ask that question. And we, and you'll see in this episode season, we, we broach it, uh, head on as well. Oh, okay. Interesting. That's great. Yeah. See, there you go.

I mean, you guys, you're covering all the basics. And you know, like, you're not, so many of these shows, they think their audiences are idiots, you know, when it comes to this stuff. And I think something like what you guys are doing is you're stating the facts and you know your audience is a lot smarter than I think people usually give them credit for when it comes to the entertainment industry. So I really respect that. I mean, you're not just taking it at face value and you're asking the tough questions. So I think that's what really sets it apart. And you did mention the Navy. And this one kind of just popped into my head here.

So I might as well just ask it, man. Army, we know to the Stars is working with in a capacity when it comes to possible materials. Navy, obviously, has been the most vocal about it. Why are we not hearing anything from the damn Air Force? Like the people who we think would be the most vocal about all this. Do you have a personal opinion on that? I am not going to comment because that's a question we literally ask in an upcoming episode. Oh, boom. That is the perfect answer. I should have known. All right.

It's, yeah, it's, you'll see. That's definitely a question we ask. Ah, cool. Yep, there we go. Didn't even have to ask it. All right. So our last listener question here, Anthony. Stephen on Twitter asks, we know that to the Stars Academy is working with the Army. Will the show touch on any of this when it comes to these possible crashed vehicles that we heard about in the New York Times? Yeah, what's up with that? You know, I, yeah, I'll speak to that. Yeah, we actually don't go into the materials as we considered looking at those. There's just not enough information on those, the materials that they have and just that whole.

It's honestly, it's almost like its own show. So we really do special on that because it is, it's just, it's also, just be honest, it's just so expensive to actually do the kind of tests that need to be done on those things. We just felt like we couldn't really push the story forward because the next level of tests that need to be done are so expensive that we just didn't have the resources to really dig into that sign. level of science is somewhat beyond our purview. But I think it's absolutely fascinating. And I can't wait to hear what TTSA finds with the materials they have and these other rumor materials around. You know, that whole part of the story obviously is so huge because if if any of that, you know, proves bears fruit, it's going to, you know, be a major revelation. We just, we just couldn't

figure out a way to push the story forward within our resources. Yeah. Yeah, that is the big struggle, I think, in the scientific world alone, is trying to get the funding to do something like that. So it makes sense that, yeah, why not team up with the Army who would have the resources to do those tests? But they're going to take time. And again, I think we have to stress, like, if anyone wants answers to the UFO question,

like, get ready to wait because we've been waiting for centuries now. Exactly. Yeah. Well, that's all I have for you here, Anthony. Where and when can we find Unidentified Season 2? So it's on Saturday nights, 10 o'clock Eastern, 9 Central on the History Channel. And then I think it replays later, but set your DVRs if you can't watch it. But yeah, everyone please tune in.

You know, the more people that tune in now, the more possibility of you getting a third season. Yeah. And we better, man, because, I mean, again, I think you guys. have made waves, unlike anything the UFO community or researchers have been able to do in the past 70 years. So, you know, from one UFO person to the next, I have to thank you for everything you guys are doing. I can't wait to see what you come up with next. It was really a pleasure talking with you, Ryan. Great show. Keep up the great work. And thanks for all this support. Somewhere in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions in association with the Entertainment

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