Somewhere in the Skies - Witness Accounts: Volume 42

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

In Witness Accounts: Volume 42, we return to the heart of the podcast: YOU, the witnesses. Four people share encounters they’ve carried with them for years. A strange illuminated craft in Florida... transforms into three lights. A massive black triangle silently hovers over a field in Ontario before vanishing. A glowing sphere drifts over an Oregon neighborhood in broad daylight. And U.S. Army veteran Vince Hall shares a deeply personal encounter with a bluish-white orb while deployed in Baghdad, Iraq. As UFOs become increasingly consumed by government investigations and disclosure debates, these stories remind us why I started this show in the first place. Behind every sighting is a person whose life may have been changed forever, once again proving, YOU are the disclosure. Special thanks to Tim, K.G, Patrick, and Vince for sharing their stories. If you want to share your story on Witness Accounts, email me at: Ryan.Sprague51@gmail.com to discuss further. Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ Send us a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/SomewhereSkiesPod Substack: https://ryansprague.substack.com/ All socials and books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Follow Suzanne on X: https://x.com/csuzannelanders Email: ryan.sprague51@gmail.com Opening theme song by Septembryo Closing song by Per Kiilstofte Background music by: OBSIDIAN SOUNDFIELDS Copyright © 2026 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #UFO #UAP #UFOSighting #UFOEncounters #AlienEncounters #Paranormal #HighStrangeness #SomewhereInTheSkies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:01 While our government's official position is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other possibilities to use our imaginations. For if we consider that astro-scientists agree on one point that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some feel is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. I'm Ryan Sprague, and you are now somewhere in the skies. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I am your host, Ryan Sprague. And today we have another volume of witness accounts.
Starting point is 00:01:10 Now, you guys know how much this series means to me. This would be our 42nd volume of witness accounts. That means hundreds of you who have reached out to me and decided to tell, your UFO story or your close encounter. And I can't tell you what that means to me, that you would trust somewhere in the skies with your story, some of you for the very first time ever telling it.
Starting point is 00:01:39 And I think what these episodes do is they put me back into the shoes of the curious young UFO researcher who wanted to do nothing else than to contribute to this. large, vast field of UFO studies. And the way that I decided to do that was through you, the witnesses, the experiencers, and to help tell your stories and how these events have changed your life or affected you in so many different ways. And these are my favorite.
Starting point is 00:02:16 And apparently they're your favorite too. They are the highest downloaded and highest listened to episodes of Summer on the Skies across the board all 10 years that we've been doing this show. And why I think it's important that we continue to do these witness accounts is because this topic of UFOs has gone mainstream. And that's great. It's exciting. It's empowering even.
Starting point is 00:02:42 But it comes with some baggage. The reason it's so mainstream right now is because of the involvement of the government. You could even go as far as to say, the intelligence communities, whether it's former intelligence people who have come forward and said they know the truth behind UFOs and the occupants that pilot said UFOs or the cover-up and the legacy programs and all of that stuff. It's interesting, but it's not the whole story, and it will never be the whole story. You guys know, I always say, disclosure does not come from a government. It does not come from one country. It does not come from one leader. It comes from you.
Starting point is 00:03:31 It comes from every single person who's looked up into the skies and seen something unexplainable staring back at them. That's the disclosure person by person. You your parent, your significant other, your next door neighbor. And that's what is most important about this topic. So I want to take just a moment to thank the four individuals who are telling their story tonight on witness accounts. So to Tim, to KG, to Patrick, to Vince, thank you. Thank you for making somewhere in the skies the platform you decided to come forward with. Thank you for your courage, your bravery. No matter how mainstream this topic goes, it never gets easier to tell your own personal UFO story. So huge props to you guys. I commend you and thank you. I want you to pay
Starting point is 00:04:28 close attention to the last story tonight, that of Vince Hall. Now Vince was a speaker at Anomicon, our free virtual conference that took place this past week on September 12th of 2026. And Vince really blew me away with his presentation. It resonated so much of me as I know it will with a lot of you because you are going to hear Vince's story of his UFO sighting that he had in Baghdad Iraq as a service member and the way he describes what happened after and and what's most important about everyday people coming forward and telling their stories it's what we do here that is the reason I started somewhere in the skies will we continue to interview authors of books yes we
Starting point is 00:05:20 Will we continue to do case histories? Of course. Will we probably have former intelligence people, military witnesses, government officials on the show? Yeah, we probably will. Because I do believe that everyone deserves to have a voice in this topic. I truly do. But I also want you to remember the heart of this mystery.
Starting point is 00:05:43 And that's you, the observers. So I hope you enjoy this very special episode. of Summer on the Sky's Witness accounts. And I hope you'll take just a few moments to rate and review Summer in the Skies on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, that truly, truly does help us in ways I can't even tell you guys. So thank you. Thank you for those who have done it.
Starting point is 00:06:08 And thank you to those who will do that. So rate and review on Apple, Spotify, anywhere you possibly can. If you're watching this on YouTube, take a moment to just click like, like this video, Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. Go back and watch all 11 hours of a nomicon or free virtual conference. It's right there in the archives as well. And yeah, thank you. Thank you for supporting everything we do here.
Starting point is 00:06:35 If you'd like to further support us, we have options to do that as well. Patreon, Apple Premium, YouTube channel membership. All of these links are in the show notes or video description. And that goes a really long way of how. helping us out too. But that's it. That's it for me, guys. Enjoy this episode. And again, my very special thanks to the witnesses that came forward in this volume of witness accounts and all other volumes throughout the years. You are the disclosure. You are somewhere in the skies. So thank you so much and hope you enjoy. Hey, Ryan. How are you doing? It's me, Tim, from
Starting point is 00:07:33 Tallahassee, Florida. And I just want to tell my story. of that kind of that me and a friend had of a night that we saw a spaceship. And I do sometimes, like, I stutter over my words. So if I do stir up my word, then it takes me a little minute. Just please, yeah, bear with me, if you may. But, yeah, this is my story of a spaceship that we saw. So me and my friend, we worked at, a restaurant um it was i mean a sonic drive at the time and it's not there anymore they tore down a few
Starting point is 00:08:15 years ago but at the time we got off at we got off at 12 o'clock a.m. and when we got off at 12 a.m. we went to my friend's house you know something that you know you're typical 19 you know 20 year olds to do you know after you get off work you just go chill so we went out to his house chill, which he stayed maybe like 10 minutes away from the job. So we were outside just chilling. And at this time now, it's in between one-ish and two-ish, right in between. And we were just sitting outside talking, and then all of a sudden, it sounded like a helicopter was coming straight forward. So we turned around and we're looking like, ain't like, like, hey man, like, do you hear that helicopter?
Starting point is 00:09:04 but we don't see it. And like at this time, we've been standing there for like three, four minutes waiting on this helicopter to come. And we're not seeing a helicopter. So we're just like, all right. So the helicopter sound, it just went away. It never came.
Starting point is 00:09:19 It just went away. And we turned our heads, like, we just forgot about it. We're talking, talking. Next thing you know, in our vision, and our, like, you know, you're looking straight, but, you know, you can see on the,
Starting point is 00:09:34 side of you and you can see like all like a bunch of lights so I looked and then I was like hey bro look and we look and it was a a spaceship like a regular like a real spaceship and the size of like a car like a long car or like a nice size truck and it had like a dome top on it and the middle part of it was spinning and like rainbow colors and it wasn't. It wasn't spinning fast and it wasn't spinning slow. It was like almost like it was spinning like at a perfect time. Like just so perfect to where like it like almost like it hypnotized you like because when we looked at it. It seemed like time.
Starting point is 00:10:22 It seemed like it's slow. It took forever to flower our head. Like it was like a like on a movie where you'd be like, whoa. It was one of those moments where it like seemed like. like it took forever. So it's flying over our heads. And as it's flying over our heads, we're not talking.
Starting point is 00:10:39 We're not saying nothing. I don't know what he's doing. He don't know what I'm doing. We're both just looking up straight up. And as it gets in a distance, before it went over a tree, there was a tall tree right in front of it down, like maybe like, maybe like 20 feet ahead or whatever.
Starting point is 00:10:58 There's a tree, a big tree right there. Then it goes in the woods. Just before it got over that tree, the whole spaceship turned into three lights in the shape of a triangle. So it turned from a spaceship into like three orbs in the shape of a triangle. So there was an orb to the left. There was an orb to the right. And there was an orb down at the bottom in the middle part of the left and the right.
Starting point is 00:11:30 So if you picture that, that's like a shape of an upside down. side down, you know, triangle. And when it turned into the triangle, it just flew away in the shape of the triangle and went over the tree line. And at the time, I was able to pull my phone out at the time where it flew over the tree line. So you was, so on my recording, you was able, I was able to see the three dots. But that was like 15 years ago.
Starting point is 00:12:03 and I went through like five, six phones in the 15 years from now since that happened. But after that, I did what you usually do. As a teenager, I went home and told my mom, she didn't believe me at first. Me and my friend, we talked about it the next day. I called me. It was like, hey, bro, were we dreaming or did we see the spaceship? He was like, yeah, we definitely saw a spaceship. And we told a few people about it.
Starting point is 00:12:32 And we had to be together to make people believe us, but they were like, y'all, y'all definitely saw something. And now that I was quiet about it, but now I'm coming out more about it and telling my story to more people. My mom was like, now since you're talking about it still after all that time, she was like, now I definitely believe y'all saw something and y'all wasn't just out there singing anything or tripping. So, yeah, I don't want to hold too much time because I could talk about this. all day long this subject, all day long. And I've seen, and it's not my first encounter, I've seen more encounters as well. But thank you for the time, Ryan,
Starting point is 00:13:15 and I appreciate you, and I hope that other people can hear my story, and I'm so excited to hear other people's stories as well. Thank you for the opportunity, Ryan. Thank you. Hey, Ryan. My name is KG. Micheli.
Starting point is 00:13:33 I wanted to talk to you about a strange, like, paranormal encounter that I had had before. So going back to when it first happened, this would have been somewhere around 2014. Me and my boyfriend at the time, we were driving. Well, I was driving the car. I was leaving a little town of Comber, Ontario, heading towards the city of Windsor. and there's nobody outside, like, there's no cars on the road. It's, like, midnight. You can't see, like, there's nobody else.
Starting point is 00:14:14 Nobody's outside. We're driving, and, you know, the music's off. It's pretty quiet. I'm just focusing on the road in front of me. You know, it's a long stretch road. It's about a 45-minute drive to where we have to go. And you're basically just, like, surrounded by, like, cornfields. and every now and then you'll pass a house.
Starting point is 00:14:35 But it's mostly just fields here. So we're driving down the road and out of the corner of my eye, I want to say it was like the top left corner of my vision, looking through the windshield, I notice a black shape in the sky. Now it's kind of off like over to the left. It's not moving.
Starting point is 00:14:57 It is a solid black triangular object just like hovering over this field. Now this thing was huge. Like when I say big, like it looked like it had to have been bigger than the field itself for sure. And in my opinion, I couldn't tell if it was, you know, really low to the ground or if it was just a huge object in itself. So as I'm driving, my boyfriend's in the passenger seat, I'm staring at it. I keep like kind of looking up to it and looking at the road, looking back at it. And every time I glance up, it's not moving. It's just staying in one singular spot.
Starting point is 00:15:40 It's not floating away. It's not moving. It's not coming lower. You know, it's not moving at all. There's no lights on this thing. There's not a single, you know, light coming off of it. It just, it looked almost as though it was trying to blend in with, you know, the darkness outside.
Starting point is 00:15:59 And as I'm looking, my boyfriend goes, oh my God, do you see that? And I'm staring at it. I'm like, yeah, the big black triangle in the sky, yeah, I see that. So as we're both now noticing, I know I'm not going crazy. Like the person beside me is now seeing this object as well. I decide really quick that I'm going to pull the car over and try to, I wanted to try to get a photo of it. So I go to pull over as soon as I
Starting point is 00:16:26 my car hit the gravel on the side of the road, I saw the object move over very slowly. It just kind of did like a little shimmy. Like it just moves over like pretty slowly. And then as I'm looking, it's just gone. Like it's there one second. It moves over very slightly. And then it's vanished. Like we didn't see it go in any direction.
Starting point is 00:16:49 We didn't see it go up, go to the side. Like we don't know which way it even traveled in. It was gone in literally the blink of an eye. And the one thing that was really weird about this is just the fact that, like, when I had rolled my window down, there was no noise coming off of this thing. Like, there was not a single, you couldn't hear an engine. Like, there was nothing. There wasn't a light on it. Like, this is where I started to, like, I really came to terms with the fact that, okay, we just saw a UFO.
Starting point is 00:17:21 Because really, what else could it be? Like, what else could it be at that point? So I ended up doing some research later and tried to figure out like, like I was looking at different spaceships and, you know, people were trying to say it was the military because there was a lot of, you know, military activity happening with them, like, moving things. But yeah, when I looked it up, it basically said that it was the U.S. military or something. The thing that caught me so strange with that was why in the world would a U.S. military ship that doesn't make sense because we know they don't have anything like that? I mean, as far as we know, they don't have anything like that. But why would it be randomly hovering over a dark cornfield in the middle of Staples, Ontario, in the middle of the night?
Starting point is 00:18:17 Even if they did have a ship that looked like this, and it was them, why in the middle of the night? the world would they be sitting there? Like it, the whole thing just made no sense. And, you know, after the fact, after we saw it, the only thing going through my mind was we were seconds away from possibly being abducted. Like, I don't know. This thing definitely knew that we saw it because it seemed to vanish like as soon as it knew, as soon as we started to pull over. And, um, I mean, I thought it was cool. I wasn't really scared by it. I thought, I thought it was a pretty cool experience that like, hey, you know, I actually saw one of these things for real. But yeah, I mean, that was my extraterrestrial experience.
Starting point is 00:18:59 I kind of hope one day I get to see one again because, I mean, like I said, it was so surreal. It was, it was cool. But yeah, that's my story. And thanks for allowing me to come onto the show and share this with you. Hello, this is Ryan Sprague, the host of Summer in the Skies. If you're enjoying our podcast, our live streams, and our video. and you'd like to support the show. There are several ways to help
Starting point is 00:19:28 while unlocking exclusive perks. Join our Patreon community for early access to episodes, priority guest questions, exclusive articles, bonus content, and access to a growing community of fellow UFO enthusiasts. You can also subscribe
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Starting point is 00:20:12 we do here. So to learn more, check the links in the show notes or the video description. In Real Talk here, guys, thank you for listening and supporting us for almost 10 years. years. And thank you for supporting independent content. And I hope you'll continue to join me somewhere in the skies. Hello, Ryan and the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast, big fan, enjoy your show, listen to it regularly. My name is Patrick, I'm from Seattle, Washington. I, among other things, I'm an experimental, free-empervised musician, guitarist, a noise maker, and I perform under the name Uneasy Chairs. So if you're around, I want to hear some noise.
Starting point is 00:21:12 There it is. Anyway, my story goes back to approximately 1985 in a little town called Kaiser, Oregon, where I went to high school. And this happened approximately sometime in the summer. I was riding a small, I think it was like a Dodson pickup truck, a little small one. And my good friend was driving. I was sitting in the passenger side. And our friend John was sitting kind of in the middle of the seat. And his head was kind of pressed up against the interior.
Starting point is 00:21:56 so he couldn't really see out much, which will be unfortunate later. But anyway, it was again like summertime, middle of the afternoon. I just remember being a very sunny, beautiful day out in Kaiser. Again, Kaiser is kind of a little suburb side city of Salem, Oregon, which is the capital, obviously of Oregon. Anyway, we're driving down a main road heading back to my friend who's driving the pickup. We're heading back to his parents' house. And none of us are talking.
Starting point is 00:22:41 We're just kind of driving along. And I happened to turn and look to my right. And there was, I could kind of overlook the top of kind of one of the suburban kind of, neighborhoods and floating over the neighborhood coming from the north and it looked like it was heading due south and it looked like it was probably well what was was flying overhead was a very large phosphorescent glowing spear that in my mind I remember it being oh at least I would say probably at least 100 150 feet in diameter it was moving slowly no sound again it was glowing kind of like almost like mist coming off of it
Starting point is 00:23:50 like this phosphorescent mist and the interior of this here underneath this layer of phosphorescence. It was just, it was kind of similar as pure black. So it was kind of like a pure black sphere with this phosphorescence around it, sort of like a mist that was coming off of it. And again, totally silent. So when I saw this, I immediately yelled out like, what the actual fuck is that? What is that? What is that? and my friend driving his name is John as well like my friend in the middle seat
Starting point is 00:24:33 and he he yelled out too we were both just like what what the fuck is that and my friend my other friend John who's in the middle seat was like what what what his head being pressed up against the ceiling he absolutely missed the entire site
Starting point is 00:24:52 the siding lasted just sidel We were driving in this pickup truck, small pickup truck while this siding happened. And the entire thing lasted only maybe like three, four, five seconds, very short. But in that time, I saw it gently, silently, head from the north to the south over this suburban neighborhood. Again, middle of the afternoon, beautiful weather, just the weirdest thing I've ever seen, probably. And one of the weird things about it was that after this siding, we just kept driving for a few more blocks to my friend John's parents' house, the driver. got we all
Starting point is 00:25:50 both of all three of us got out of the pickup truck walked into his parents house nobody was home and we all just kind of just sat down in the living room
Starting point is 00:26:03 didn't talk about it I don't remember us ever talking about it and we just kind of I don't know it's hard to say I almost feel like we took a map were just chilled out.
Starting point is 00:26:22 And I don't know, this sighting has come back. This siding or this experience has kind of come back to me over the years. I've always remembered it clearly. I've reconnected with my friend John, who was driving, and he clearly remembers it. My friend John, who was in the middle seat, obviously never got to see it. I never spoke into him again.
Starting point is 00:26:51 But yeah, I just wanted to share this story. I've heard a lot about green, kind of phosphorescent things like this. Usually it's like people trying to explain meteorites, something that seems like would be a higher atmosphere thing. Again, this is very low. I mean, it was probably a couple hundred feet in the air. very low, silent. And it seemed to, again, while it's following its path, it seemed to slowly just disappear into this neighborhood.
Starting point is 00:27:31 There was no crash, no explosion, nothing. Nothing reported afterwards. So again, there it is. I'm glad that you have this forum for people to share their stories. It's one of my favorite episodes that you do. And I, again, I appreciate everything you do and a big fan somewhere in the skies. Keep up the good worth. Thank you. Hi, everyone. First off, I just want to say thanks to Ryan, this guy right here. My name is Vince with the UAP pod. A little bit of a background on me. I am a U.S. Army event. I spent some time in
Starting point is 00:28:18 psychological warfare. I do know that there is some baggage when it comes to SIOP. And I totally get that, but I do take the UFO topic seriously. It's near and dear to my heart, so don't worry, you're going to be in good hands. I'm also a former pastor. I got my undergraduate degree in ministry and leadership. I got my master's degree in theology. I also planted two churches, but in 2020, I chose a different path, one rooted more in discovery than in doctrine. I have five kids. Yes, you heard that correctly. It's never a dull moment around here.
Starting point is 00:28:54 I am happily married. I currently work in sales and marketing. What I'm about to share with you, I wasn't looking for. At the ripe age of 18 years old, I joined the military. In 2003, I did basic training. I did my AIT, my advanced individual training. I graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Special Warfare. I trained some more.
Starting point is 00:29:19 And then eventually I arrived in Baghdad Iraq in August of 2004. We flew into Baghdad Iraq in the middle of the night. We flew in on a C-130 and we dropped in on one of those very steep tactical landings, like right over the airport almost. It's like your heart just goes right up into your throat. My heart's pounding. because this is my first time in a combat zone. We arrive at Baghdad International Airport,
Starting point is 00:29:47 which is just outside Camp Victory. We get to Camp Victory, we are assigned our living quarters, and for whatever reason, I still fully don't understand, I end up with my own trailer, my own little house, okay? And as a junior enlisted guy, that was really highly unusual. The first night, the base gets hit with mortars and rockets,
Starting point is 00:30:07 the ground is shaking, I am scared out of my mind. The only thing that calmed me down was looking out a small window of my trailer at the night sky. And I've always been drawn to the stars for however long I can remember. So I laid there just looking into the night sky and I said a simple prayer and eventually I just dripped off to sleep. Little that I know, I had no idea that a couple months later, something would happen that would change the course of my life forever. pretty quickly into my deployment. I had overnight fire guard duty. Basically, while everyone else slept, I stayed up in our operations center. Everyone actually had to do fire guard at some point.
Starting point is 00:30:51 We were, you know, on a rotation. And I actually kind of enjoyed those nights. I'd grab a cup of coffee. I was by myself. I would shoot hoops in the hallway. I'd listen to music. I'd just pass the time. And also, I would often just step outside and look up at the stars. Baghdad was surprisingly peaceful at night. You could occasionally hear distant gunfire or helicopters, things like that, but most of the time it was just quiet. There was very little light pollution, so the stars were amazing. And one night, while it was staring at the sky, I noticed a point of light that seemed to be getting brighter, making its its way towards me. And at first I assumed it was an aircraft, but it wasn't moving like an aircraft,
Starting point is 00:31:38 and it wasn't making any sound whatsoever. It wasn't a helicopter, that's for sure. I didn't hear that like, dum, dum, dum, dum. And then the brighter that it became, the more I realized that I was looking at something that I couldn't identify. What I saw appeared to be a sphere of bluish, white light suspended in the night sky. It was an orb. It was clearly there, clearly moving in my direction. And when people have asked me the size, I can really only describe it as a little bit smaller than the full moon. And don't ask me how high up it was. I really don't know. And then something happened that I've struggled to explain for more than 20 years. What I'm about to tell you, I know it sounds crazy, but the orb communicated with me. And I didn't hear it
Starting point is 00:32:28 like in a voice, right? But I received a message, call it telepathic, and it spoke to my heart and to my mind, clear as day. The message was, no harm will come to you while you were here. I remember blinking and rubbing my eyes and looking back up at the light. It was still there. And just as really suddenly as it appeared to me,
Starting point is 00:32:55 it fades off into the night sky, like a literal fade, just fades off. And I sat there just waiting for someone else to be like, yo, dude, did you see that? And nobody did. It was like 2 a.m., right? It was in the middle of the night. And deep down, I knew that that experience wasn't meant for anybody else. It was meant for me.
Starting point is 00:33:16 And that sentence, no harm will come to you while you're here, prove to be true my entire tour in Iraq. And there were moments in time when something tragic should have had. happened to me and it didn't. I'm talking about mortars, rockets, roadside bombs, gunfire, dangerous meetings, dangerous helicopter rides, being in the right place at the right time, that kind of stuff. And for whatever reason beyond me, I was protected. Now, I'm not here to say that I am special in any way, but I also know that if I wasn't here today, if death did take me, my five children wouldn't be here. And that is enough of a reason for me. So there are many
Starting point is 00:34:04 points in my life, huge points that would not exist if I were not here. At the time, the only way I knew how to make sense of that experience was through faith. Maybe it was divine, maybe it was an angel, maybe it was something else entirely. I didn't know, really, didn't have a context for it, right? So what I did know was that the experience changed me. When I returned home, I eventually threw myself into ministry. I earned degrees in ministry and leadership and theology. I became an org-bated pastor. And ironically, while I spent years preaching about faith and hope and God's protection,
Starting point is 00:34:49 I never ever shared the story of what happened in Iraq. I'd talk about Iraq, but never about an orb. That just wouldn't go very well. I certainly never told my command when it happened at the time. I was a soldier with a security clearance, so there was no way in hell that I was going to tell them that an orb spoke to me. I never talked about it with my family. I never talked about it with friends, not with my congregations, not with my therapist, no one.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Not because I feared the mystery. I definitely feared the ridicule. And so for nearly 20 years, that experience remained one of the most important and most private moments of my life. And then something pretty cool happened. So 20 years later, in my own backyard in St. Louis, Missouri, I began having experiences that stirred up some of those feelings and wonder and curiosity and mystery all of over again and I can see and interact with orbs on the regular and I know that that sounds friggin' nuts. Believe me, I'm not past that. The orbs today, that's a whole other topic all in its own. There are so many different groups of people that have had experiences in their
Starting point is 00:36:15 life that they cannot explain or it shifts their paradigm and yet they don't know how to talk about it. Many experiencers remain silent, not simply because they fear ridicule, but because they're truly struggling to find the language for what happened to them. Anomalous experiences often refuse to fit neatly into our existing categories. They can be physical yet deeply personal. They can be objective yet profoundly subjective. And so when people share these experiences, they quickly discover that others want simple answers. This is what has happened to me. me with this kind of stuff like, hey man, you saw an orb. Was it an alien?
Starting point is 00:36:55 Was it a spirit? A hallucination? Secret aircraft. They just want these simple answers to questions and it's not that easy. The experiencer is often left holding a mystery rather than a conclusion. So even when experiencers choose to speak, many intentionally leave out details. Some details feel too strange. Like, hey, I don't want to come across as a weirdo.
Starting point is 00:37:19 some are too personal. Other times things are just too difficult to explain without sounding unbelievable. I've had the privilege to hear so many stories from people that have messaged me. We say, hey, man, I want to remain anonymous and I just want to tell you something that happened to me. And it's brief. And the result is that many people kind of share the safe version of their story, right? Which is understandable. Like, hey, yeah, man, I saw lights in the sky. And I know that they were not airplanes or satellites or drones or hey I saw an unusual object flying mocked Jesus across the sky and I had this strange coincidence that didn't make sense or whatever the case might be and a lot of times during these stories people are omitting the emotional or psychological or
Starting point is 00:38:06 intuitive or consciousness related aspects which in my opinion are the most significant part of the experience they are not necessarily hiding the truth but I feel like they're protecting themselves from judgment or misunderstanding and the possibility of being dismissed altogether. I know that's what I feel. At the same time, we appear to be entering a period where the stigma surrounding the UFO and high strangeness type experiences is beginning to weaken. You've got government officials and military personnel and intelligence officers and pilots and scientists, I mean, really just ordinary everyday citizens, right?
Starting point is 00:38:42 And teachers and doctors, all kinds of people who are increasingly willing to come forward and say, look, I have had an encounter, something happened. People are starting to come forward to discuss their encounters. While skepticism remains important, the conversation has really become more acceptable. This creates an opportunity that did not exist for previous generations of experiencers. Now is the time for more people to speak up. Not because every story should be accepted uncritically, but because every story should be accepted uncritically, but because every story represents a potential data point.
Starting point is 00:39:20 Patterns cannot emerge if the data remains hidden. Researchers cannot ask better questions if witnesses remain silent. The goal is not to convince everyone of a particular explanation. The goal is to gather observations, to compare experiences, and to better understand a phenomenon that has consistently appeared across cultures and decades, and backgrounds. And so the more voices willing to share, honestly, the clearer the picture may become for all of us. And I'll leave you with a few final thoughts. First, be willing to share
Starting point is 00:39:58 your own story. Maybe it's not about UFOs. Maybe it's a strange coincidence, a profound dream, an unexplained moment, or just simply a time when your understanding of reality completely shifted. Vulnerability has a way of giving other people permission to be vulnerable to. So you never know when your story might help someone connect the dots in their own. Secondly, just listen before you start explaining. If someone shares their story, one of the greatest gifts that you can give them is simply believing they believe what happened. You don't have to agree with their interpretation.
Starting point is 00:40:39 You don't have to have all of the answers. Just create enough space for them. for them to tell their story without immediately trying to solve it. Thirdly, show genuine curiosity. Instead of asking, what was it? What's going on? What happened? You know, maybe just say, hey, man, what was that like?
Starting point is 00:40:59 Or how did that change you? Curiosity invites more conversation. Certainty often just shuts it down. Fourthly, pay attention to the almost stories. Come on, we all work with people. we go to school with people, we live with people in our own homes. You'll notice this if you listen carefully. People often say things like,
Starting point is 00:41:22 hey, this is going to sound crazy. Or I've never told anyone this. Or you'll probably think I'm nuts. You see, those are invitations. Instead of interrupting, just be like, dude, yeah. Dude, go ahead. I'd love to hear it. That one phrase, I'd love to hear it probably is unlocked.
Starting point is 00:41:42 more stories than almost anything else. So to tie this all up, I love a good government hearing, I love a good UFO conference, I love when UFO files dropped via the Department of War, I love cool YouTube videos, I love all of it. But I do truly think great conversation happens around dinner tables, between neighbors, between friends, when someone finally feels safe enough to say,
Starting point is 00:42:08 something happened to me. because the experiencer next door isn't someone else's neighbor. They're yours.

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