UAP Unidentified Alien Podcast - UAP EP 199 UFO Origin Stories with Ryan Sprague

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Sometimes, we have to look to the past to remember how we got to our present. And that is exactly what Stephen Diener does with special guest and host of the popular "Somewhere in the Skies" podcast, Ryan Sprague. The Westall school incident of 1966, the Phoenix Lights saga of 1997, and much more are discussed as Stephen and Ryan take a fresh look at some of Ufology's origin stories...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to our island home. Hawaii starts here. Welcome back into UAP. Stephen Dean. We're back with you here as always on the unidentified alien podcast, episode number 199, ever closer to that magical number of 200. I can't believe it's been that many over the years, but looking forward to that. But before we get to number 200 later on this week, let's talk about right now, number 199, equally as important because today we have on a really special guest to someone that I have admired from afar, pretty much ever since I got into this space, almost five years ago. is Ryan Sprague, super popular, super well-known guy within this space,

has his, somewhere in the sky's podcast, has done a ton of different, you know, content throughout the years, whether it's on TV, whether it's his books, whether it's the podcast somewhere in the skies. Ryan Sprague is a very well-known name within the UFO community. And I was really happy to finally get to know him a little bit behind the scenes and then bring him on here to the show. I know he was really excited to get to know me and come on to the show. So it was a lot of mutual excitement and interest in bringing our shows together,

bringing our heads together and coming on here and doing this for episode number 199 of UAP. And just a really fun, really cool discussion. It's kind of, this is that kind of conversation where you can just really sit back, you know, kind of coming off the really heavy, very heady and like, intellectual conversation with myself and Timothy Albarino, not to say that this isn't intellectual, but this one really allows you to kind of sit back and take in some of the classic UFO stories of lore, of great lore. This is really more of an origins episode where we can look back at the origins of some of the most well-known UFO stories ever and kind of revisit some

of these and go over some of these details and look back and see, you know what, maybe we actually can't look and find out something new, which, in fact, I did. There were some things that I never heard about when it came to the Phoenix Lights, when it came to the famous case out of Australia, the Westall School in 1966. We hit that one pretty hard. And there's a few more in here that, again, you know, some of the more famous cases, what I call the origin stories of Uphology. And that's what I was able to do here today with Ryan Sprague, really just revisiting those and kind of refocusing on these origin stories and remembering kind of how important they are, where we come from on these, and why they still should be paid attention to today, because

they relate to a lot to what we're talking about. And sometimes we forget that. So digging deep into the origin stories of Uphology with Ryan Sprague. And A little bit of wrestling talk. Yes, I'm going to warn you right now. It's at the end of the interview. If you're not into it, I understand. But I did something in here that I've wanted to do for years. I'm a huge wrestling fan.

I think I said that a couple of times here on the show just in passing. And it turns out Ryan Sprague is as well. So we have some fun at the end. I mean, the whole thing is fun. But we have some fun at the end talking about WrestleMania coming out this weekend with WWE and just our shared passion and shared love for wrestling. and how we each got into it. And we get into a little wrestling talk at the end as well.

I know a little different here on the show, but we had some fun with that too towards the end. So for now, here it is, myself with Ryan Sprague, on episode number 199 of UAP. Enjoy this one. Well, I'm happy to finally do this. Ryan Sprague from Somewhere in the Sky's podcast. This is somebody that, you know,

we all kind of keep an eye on each other, I think, in this space, whether it's like Patrick from Vetted or some of the other shows. I've always kept an eye of what Ryan has done. done on his show somewhere in the skies. And I'm happy to finally be able to bring him on here today to UAP. So Ryan Sprague, thanks so much for coming on to UAP. This is really cool. I'm so excited.

Like I said, yeah, we all kind of listen to each other's shows, see what everyone's talking about. You never want to step out other people's toes on one week, having the same guest and all that. So, yeah, I've enjoyed all the conversations you've had on your show. And no, it's a pleasure and honor to be here. Yeah. I appreciate that, man.

Thanks very much. And so now we can finally come together here. I'm glad this came together. There's a lot that we can talk about. I mean, there's so much. And I think one of the cool things about what I'm looking forward to this here today is I want to go over some of the origin stories, if you will, right? Because there's so many times when it comes to the UFO topic, we're just trying to keep up. I mean, I don't know about you, but I wake up some days.

And I'm like, where do I go? There's this story. There's that story. There's this story. and it's almost, you don't want to feel like you're ignoring things, but you know you have to kind of hyper focus on one thing to do your best on that. And so what I'd like to do is kind of let's look back on some stuff, you know, and on some of these origin stories.

And specifically something actually that actually does kind of connect to one of the main topics right now that's going on in UFO land is Bob Lazar. You know, speaking of shows that we both admire and someone who does it is Chris Ramsey. I'm sure you've spoken to him. I've had him on here a couple of times. Great guy. And he just had on Bob Lazar coming off of his S4 documentary. I know that you've done a lot of work on the Area 51 case and how what might have, what happens there, what did happen there. So just your overall thoughts on Bob Lazar and Area 51, how does it all connect?

Is there really a lot of truth to that story, do you think? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, if people are watching this, I actually have the there here Bob Lazar poster. That's right now. Yes. Because I've caught the fever, man. I mean, Bob Lazar, he's one of those, he's a pop culture icon. I mean, he transcends kind of the UFO community.

I remember I lived in New York City for, gosh, almost 14, 15 years. And one day I'm riding the subway home from work. and these two girls sitting behind me, they had to be in their, I don't know, early 20s maybe, and they're talking about Bob Lazar. I think his first Rogan interview had just come out or something. And I took my AirPods out and I'm like, did I just hear Bob Lazar on the train in Queens by like some millennials?

What is happening right now? Right. And that seems to be the enigma of Bob Lazzar. It kind of comes back every, I don't know, five years or so. And I've had my brushes with Bob Lazzar. I remember back in, it was either 2012 or 2013. I used to volunteer out at the International UFO Congress out in Arizona. And this is before I was really like in the UFO community or I hadn't written any books or had a podcast, nothing.

And I would just fly there and, you know, on my own dime. and I would work backstage at the event. I would work audio and put the microphones on all the speakers and level them up. I had no idea what I was doing, but I just wanted to be there. I wanted to be a part of this conversation. And Bob Lazard just so happened to be speaking at Congress at that year that I was backstage. And I got to meet him. I'll be briefly, but I got to put the microphone on him, ask him a couple questions.

And, man, I'll tell you, he was just such. a genuine down-to-earth guy. He was so nervous to get up there and like talk. And I'm like, are you excited? He's like, I don't know. He's like, do these people really want to hear from me? I'm like, yeah, man, people want to hear from Bob Lazar. And it was awesome. You know, he ran us through everything, you know, the craft and how it worked, the propulsion, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that was that. But then a couple years later, I had the opportunity to be a part of a television program called Mysteries Decoded, where they sent us out to investigate Area 51. And it was sort of centered around Bob Lazar.

I think the documentary would Jeremy Corbella just come out at the time. Storm Area 51 was happening. So again, these things just rise from the ashes, it seems. And yeah, I had to dig deep into Bob Lazar for that episode of the television show. spoke to, you know, people who'd seen stuff out there in Nevada. We went to the gates of very 51. My investigator, co-investigator and I, Jennifer Marshall, she's a former Navy veteran. And she's super skeptic, man.

Like, I was the molder. She was the scully. And I'll tell you, after that investigation, it's almost like at that point, I was becoming a bit more skeptical. And she was believing Bob was on. And that's kind of where I find myself with Bob Lazar. I change my mind every day. It depends on how much coffee I had, I guess.

What is that? That goes for a lot of things, I guess. Yeah. What does it, or what is it about Bob or his story that kind of puts you there? That kind of makes you say, okay, today I'm more into it. Today I've seen this interview or I've seen this piece of the documentary, whatever it might be. And you think, okay, you know what?

I didn't think about that part. Maybe I actually do believe more than I did the other day. or vice versa. You know what? I'm not really sure about all this. What kind of puts you there? I think for me, it always came down to what the,

you know, the skeptics would always bring up. The education or the lack thereof that was often cited. Kind of the dubious past of Bob Lazard too. I mean, the dude like owned an illegal brothel at one point.

This is out in the public. Like literally his court trial is, you can watch it on YouTube. And sort of things like that. But, you know, the more I thought about it, the more I'm like, you know what, why wouldn't they hire someone who kind of had a lack of the education and someone who wasn't this prim and proper pristine physicist or engineer? If this person were to go out and leak what they had been doing,

it would be so easy to discredit them. And that's exactly what happened. We're seeing it today with people like David Grush, too. You know, the minute he came forward with what he's been talking about, blew the whistle on the legacy programs, I guess, you could call him, immediately, like hit pieces started coming up. So, oh, no. And then you go fast forward up until today with the Luigi Ventitelli documentary that came out.

I had Luigi on the show, talked for two hours, talked off air about some of the evidence that we would have. eventually seeing his new documentary. And I am now at the point where I'm convinced more than ever that Bob Lazar did work out there and that there is an S-4 location. Wow. So again, ask me tomorrow. I might have a completely different answer for you.

So by the time this series, you're going to write me back and say, I don't believe that anymore. Edit that out. No, but that's really interesting because, and you're right, by the way, about how Bob Lazar is that. name out of the UFO topic that anybody knows as far as a pop culture thing. That is the one person I always have people asking about when I tell them, oh yeah, yeah, I've got this show.

And, you know, someone who doesn't, not really familiar with what I do. And they're like, oh, wow, that's awesome. That's, you know, that's so cool. Have you talked to that guy? You know, that guy he says he did the stuff with the UFOs? I'm like, Bob Lazar. They're like, yeah, that's him. And it's so true.

I mean, and I don't know if that means that. Is that good? I mean, I feel like that's a good thing for the UFO topic when it comes to someone like Bob Lazar who kind of keeps this at the top. Or do you think it has like some type of negative effect that his story continues to get debated over the years? You know, I don't think it's necessarily a negative by any stretch. I mean, no matter what you think about Bob Lazar, he is the reason we know about Area 51. Yeah.

That we kind of started. learning about these possible reverse engineering programs up until three congressional hearings in these past few years where these claims are now being proven and are being documented. And we have Representative Eric Burlington going and knocking on the doors of these locations where allegedly these things are being housed. So I don't see Bob Lazar as a negative. I could see some people thinking it's a distraction. you know, from the actual things going on out there.

But I will tell you, again, just watch Luigi's documentary. And there's things Bob Lazaro was saying back in the 80s that are now coming true. Look at how he said these craft, the sports model maneuvered. You know, it would raise, it would turn up on his belly, and then it would go sideways. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Death Wish Coffee, Brooke Linnon, and Kylie.

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You almost forget you're on a plane. And that's the point, because when you fly with Hawaiian Airlines, it's hard to tell where your flight ends and vacation begins. Hawaii starts here. And I'm starting to like, I'm looking into other. cases now and apparently this is how the Australian case the Westall case uh how that craft maneuvered or things like the uh what was it that gimbal I think it was yeah that's right the Navy video yeah same side so like dude it's you cannot deny that there are either very very big

coincidences with what Bob Lazar said uh but in the UFO field I honestly don't believe in coincidence is. Right, exactly. We come across way too many of those in this field and it usually means that you're on to something. And for the record, I completely agree with you, by the way, when it comes to, I don't think it's a negative. Could it act as a distraction from the other stories?

Sure, because, I mean, you know, maybe you get caught up in one thing and, you know, you might not pay attention to something else that's going on, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. It's a very big topic and it's a big story. And I do believe that's, you know, pretty much what he says, that he was

and he worked on this stuff. And actually, you bring up Westall, which is funny, because I wanted to ask you about that. I know you just did an episode on Westall, and it's one of those topics, again, to talk you about kind of like the origin stories of the UFO phenomenon. 60 years ago, the Westall incident happened. To me, that remains one of the, like, if you're talking about a canon of UFO stories, like that is right up there for me with Varginia, with Betty and Barney Hill, with Roswell.

I mean, Westall, but for whatever reason, Westall, it feels like is one of those cases that even though it's like an original, if you will, in modern day, it feels like it doesn't get the amount of play that it deserves. Almost that it's underrated in a sense compared to the other ones I just mentioned. So talk about a little bit of the Westall case and what you learn from that and what people may not know about it.

Sure, yeah. You know, the more I dig into that case, the more I agree with you. I think it should be up on the shelf with the Roswells, the Varnia's and the Rendezhams and all that sort of stuff. You have living witnesses still here to talk about what they had seen, which is vital to any investigation. I mean, say what you want about Roswell. There's no way we're ever going to truly know what that was because all the first-hand witnesses are, are unfortunately. gone. But we have this case back in 66. Yep, 66. I'd make it 60. I'm not good at math, man. I'm an English. I was an English major. Yeah, they just celebrated the 60th anniversary,

and all the witnesses got back together. And they do this, like, once a year, not just to, like, try to get attention on this case, but to make sure that their memories don't fade, which can happen. with these cases or things can get built upon elaborated on or exaggerated upon and change so i think it's really cool that all these witnesses who were kids at the time mind you 12 13 years old when they had this incident happen um that they come together to be like okay let's make sure our stories are still straight like you're not now saying you got abducted or anything like that right okay okay we're good we're good um so yeah it's an interesting case uh 66 Westall High School in Australia,

a allegedly more than one craft, a saucer disc-shaped, landed right there near the high school and over 300 students witnessed this. And not only that, teachers saw it too. So it wasn't this excuse of kids pranking the teachers or making this up or mass hysteria,

as are often the case with these schoolyard incidents, which there are many of, which is weird, if you ask me. But this was kind of one of the first. And all the witnesses would eventually draw what they saw, and they all kind of drew the same looking craft. They said this thing landed, sort of hovered there for a while in a Grange, they called it. You know, I guess it'd be like a, I don't know, like a football field or a soccer pitch or something like that. And then it just shot off back into the sky.

And allegedly, according to one of the teachers and the students, there were military aircraft pursuing this object or objects. Some of the kids actually said they saw more than one craft too. But yeah, and it immediately, the principal of the school sat these kids down and said, do not talk about this. We do not want to be known as a UFO. place allegedly men in black of some sort showed up

some of the kids said that they had American accents which is very interesting as well and they also told these kids and the teachers not to speak about

what they had seen and they didn't listen this is one of those rare cases where these kids went and told everyone and the press showed up and it was taken pretty seriously

at the time, they tried to track down the pilots of these aircraft that were pursuing it. You had many UFO investigators in Australia going there at the time to investigate, interview the kids as well. And it's a crazy case, man. But like you said, a lot of this didn't come to light here in – I live in Europe right now or in the states, didn't come to light for some time after that. that. It's sad because it is a well-documented and huge UFO landing case. Yeah, it really should get more attention than I think it does. And unless you're like really into the topic, you probably never even heard of Westall. Like, you know, like you talk about pop culture, you know about Area 51, you know about

Roswell, right? You know about those things. Everybody hears those names. But you tell somebody the Westall incident, you know, the school in Australia and they're like, no, I've never heard that one. It really could be one of the most well-documented mass sightings we've ever had. And it really should get more attention, I think. Yeah, sorry to interrupt Steve. You just reminded me too. I was mentioning the belly-up craft

that Bob Lazar would say. This is a case where there is a possible clear photo of the craft. One of the clearest UFO photos out there. It was taken by a gentleman, I believe his last name was Kibble. I could be wrong on that. But you can find this image that was first brought forward by James Fox in his phenomenon documentary

where he interviewed this guy who took this photo. I think it was a couple of days before the Westall event or something. But he alleges that this is what the kids saw land in Westall. And again, it looked just like what the kids had sketched some days or maybe a week, a week later. and it was on its side, and it was perfectly disc-shaped, metallic, and it's crazy. So, again, you have everything you could ask for

in a UFO case, let alone a UFO landing case, is here. Impressions on the ground of the craft landing. Kind of a crop circle-esque thing happening, scorch marks on the Grange itself. It's just, it's incredible, man. I love this case. Yeah, it is an incredible case.

And that's why I wanted to bring it up and kind of bring more light to it because the work you've done on it and the attention that it doesn't get. I mean, just imagine if I use an analogy, if here in 2026, and I'll just use Florida as an example because that's where I'm at, if you have a high school, say, in West Palm Beach, Florida, who had exactly the same scenario as the Westall case where you have 300 teachers and students, they say they saw these craft, you have physical burn marks, you have all this different evidence that you can look at. And could you imagine no one talking about it?

You know what I mean? Now, obviously, today it would be different because everyone has phones and they're going to record and take pictures. But in the same case, I mean, everybody would be talking about this. It would be brought up forever and ever. But it just seems like this one, and if you even compare it to the Ariel School, right,

out of Zimbabwe, right? And the mid-90s, so we're talking about 30 years ago for that. That gets more attention. And rightfully so. It's an incredible case. but I feel like this one just kind of gets left in the dust and arguably I mean you could even say that maybe Westall should get more attention than Ariel

not to try to put one down over the other but just the amount of evidence for the sheer numbers because with Ariel you correct me if you think I'm wrong but earlier you're talking about you know a class of elementary school students and so you're talking about 30 kids versus about 300 you know, staff and students. Do you, I mean, do you think I'm off here?

No, I think you're right. Like, I mean, again, Rua Zimbabwe is an incredible case. I've interviewed some of the witnesses myself. But not only was this like, the amount of witnesses was like tripled. But with Rua, I wouldn't say I have an issue with it. But it is a lot more incredible of a case where you have actual beings that were witnessed with these. with these kids, which will, I mean, immediately, and forgive the pun, but like, will alienate

half the people who may have originally believed that case. They're going to be like, oh, so now they're saying they telepathically communicated with the occupants of the crap. No, thank you. With Westall, yeah, you've got triple the amount of witnesses. No beings were allegedly witnessed. So that does make it a little bit more credible in my eyes. But yeah, yeah, you're right on all of those points.

And that really has to do with the diligent research of people like Keith Basterfield. Who else? James McDonald, the U.S. investigator, flew to Australia like a week or two after or something like that and interviewed the teacher. Shane Ryan has an incredible documentary out on Westall. I highly suggest people check that out. So, yeah, Australian UFO researchers did all. they could to get this case out to the public. And like you said, it wasn't the age of the internet. There were no cell phones. So it took a little time for to get out there. And I do agree.

Today, it would be a completely different story. It would be a much different story. On Ariel, though, because you're right about Ariel, and that is a huge distinction. And I'm glad you said it. They do claim witnessing an actual being coming off the craft. So with that, if we can just draw comparisons, what do you think about? What kind of comes to your mind when you think about the aerial school case about 30 years ago where you do have about these you know 30 kids elementary school age i believe who say they witness this craft landing in the back of the school beings come off the craft and they never changed their story to this day so i mean what what do you think about when you kind of just ponder that case i think it's again one of the

most incredible cases we have i would put it on the shelf with something like west all, even with the beings involved. I mean, I personally interviewed two of the witnesses. Emily Trim was one of them who we unfortunately lost a couple years ago at this point. But I also spoke to another woman who, it was amazing, where she mentioned Selma Sadiq is her name. And she saw the beings. She allegedly had some sort of telepathic. thing happened with them.

And dude, I'm like talking to this woman and she's as normal as they come. I don't know how else to put it. These witnesses are so genuine and sincere in their stories. They're clearly, they've all clearly been affected

by it. Some good, some bad. Some of the witnesses, you know, after that event, they became alcoholics. They had forms of PTSD. This affected them negatively. For Selma, it was completely different.

She said that she got these messages of like hope and like love and all this from these supposed beings. And she would go on to do incredible things in her life with like civil rights and the environment and several of the witnesses claim that too. Like that, you know, kind of those, I don't want to call them cliche, but those messages that contactees used to say of like, we got to say. of like we got to save the planet, stop using nuclear weapons. It's cliche for a reason because it's the right thing to do.

And I think not just for humans, but clearly all other beings that might be out there are like, hey, that little planet down there, can you stop doing that? Because it's kind of messing up the whole universe. Right, right. I know it. I love the case. I love Rua. I think there's still things we could learn from it. but very credible in my opinion.

Yeah, and it's one of those things where, you know, I just kind of use the rationale when people bring that case up to me. I think about like my own kids and how much, you know, they argue or they bicker or they don't agree on something. And then I think about trying to get 30-something kids or, you know, plus or minus a few, to all agree on one thing and to all agree to keep the same story and all the same details. That to me is what makes that story in particular very, very, very critical.

because I it's impossible anybody with kids understands um it's simply impossible or if you're a teacher or no teachers how impossible that would be to get a group of kids to agree on one thing like that and to keep the story for years and so I am curious too when you talk about when you speak with the witnesses there's something you touched on there as far as how humans are affected by contact, whether it's just, you know, not to make it sound like it's nothing, but whether it's just, in air quotes,

a siding of a craft, or you do have some type of abduction experience, or you have some type of close encounter with a being where you claim to have this telepathic communication, it seems like there's different stories about how people have felt during that and coming off of those experiences. And I know this is something that a conversation that you take very passionately because you wrote a book on it about the human experience.

So what do you what did you find out about how people respond differently to different close encounters? And why do you think it happens that way? Yeah. You know, I, and I, when I first got involved in the whole UFO thing, I'm like, what can I do that hasn't been done? like I could take down a witness report and like put that out there but what what is that you know in the grand scheme of things it's just another it is a piece of testimony that we now have but I come from a playwriting background actually I'm a trained playwright I did it in New York for over a decade my plays have been produced all over the world at this point and I I thought you know Maybe there's something in that that I could infuse into my UFO research. And that's when my first book kind of formulated of like, okay, it's not going to be about the actual UFO itself or exactly what it looked like or how the event unfolded, but the

aftermath. You know, in a play, that's what we're there to see. You know, we're there to see the most pivotal moment in someone's life. Otherwise, why are we, you know, shoveling out? this money to go on Broadway and watch someone dinner or something like that. Like, no, you're dropped into their life when they are

going to be fundamentally changed in some way. And I thought, you know what? That's what these UFO events do to people. They fundamentally change them in very drastically different ways. And I thought, there we go.

Like, I'll kind of look at each of these witnesses as a character, as it were, and try to unpack the aftermath, the consequences of having a UFO sighting or encounter or abduction experience. And I went around the world and I interviewed hundreds of people for the book. And I think I thought I was going to find like one or two patterns that I could be like, yep, solved euphology. I'm done.

Like my job. Dude, like I could not have been more dumb when it came to that. Because there are no patterns. I tried. And I'll tell you, every single person reacted differently during their sighting and took something differently from it. I mean, I can say yes. Some of them, the one pattern I can think of right now that I did find with a large amount of these people was that they became creative. and I don't know how else to really put that other than this for example this one guy had no interest in art nothing like that he had these crazy orb sightings over his home I believe it was in South Carolina back in the early 2000s and after these events he started getting these like images in his head of these beautiful geometric shapes and whatnot and he's like I need to remember this and he started painting them

And then he just kept doing this and kept doing this as these orbs were coming into his life. And he became an artist after that. Wow. Coming from like a technical background, he then became an artist. Hey guys. So before we get back into the conversation, I just want to talk about something that affects all of us. And it's scary. Starting something new, right?

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Keck Medicine of USC. Together, we are limitless. There was this other person who had never picked up a guitar in his life. And after having out a UFO setting, started like freaking wailing on that thing, dude. Like no training, nothing. And that's like, that blew me away. So if there is one thing I learned from all of them, it's that it opened people's minds. It unlocked something.

And without getting like two, like, new ways. Agee, it was, it did something that I think the world needs. And that's more creativity, more imagination. And I think that's what all UFOs represent. You know, we live in a world where, like, imagination seems to be disappearing every day. You know, we're stuck on our phones, all that stuff and the scrolling. And I sound like such a boomer right now. But, like, it's true.

Yeah. It's true. And so I think UFOs open our eyes to more than just the UFO itself. And it makes us feel human again. And that's kind of what I found with these people. It's really interesting because, you know, it's true. You know, we focus a lot on the story, the case, the abduction, the siting. But what happened after?

And I've spoken, you know, like you, I've spoken to a lot of people who kind of go into the after, you know, did you feel like you were being led into something? something after that? Did you have a deeper meaning, an understanding of life and, you know, your, your own path? And it always seems to go that way. Like, it always seems to have, for the most part, I shouldn't say always, it's never an always, but for the most part, for the people I've spoken with, it seems to have a positive experience for their outlook. And they start recognizing more things. They had different knowledge. I've spoken to someone, I actually plan on doing this interview soon. I've spoken to someone, and it's incredible.

actually, and I can't wait to do the interview, this woman who started having this knowledge of, like, advanced physics and, like, quantum, like, quantum level physics. And it's incredible. She's actually sent me this to actually, this is kind of an exclusive with you here, Ryan. I've been talking to this woman for about a year, and she has sent me some of her work, and I'm looking at this. I'm like, I have no idea what I'm looking at. This is way above my pay grade to understand what I'm reading here. quantum level physics, but you wrote it and you're sending it to me. And ever since she had this encounter, she has this like understanding and she feels like she's getting messages of like how all this stuff works. So to you, and it's incredible. And I do plan on doing that interview

with her later on. If she's listening, you know, you know who you are. But to your point, it's, that's something that doesn't get brought up enough because we like to, I think, romanticize and kind of focus on the sexy part if you will of uphology but you forget that this includes real people

and they have real experiences afterward and so it's it's fascinating I mean there has to be something there right whether or not someone believes there's stuff going on something is happening to people that is giving them this new outlook or new knowledge

absolutely man you know and we are storytellers by nature. Ever since the days of the cavemen, drawing etchings of like, yo, I ran into a T-Rex today. Don't go that way. Like, do not do that.

Like, we are storytellers, but I think you're right. You know, again, in a play, like, yeah, you're telling a story, but at the heart of it are the characters. And that can be very unsexy. Like you said, especially the deeper you get into the psyche of a character.

It's a minefield, man. And it can be messy. It can be ugly. it can be disturbing. But at the same time, it can be beautiful. And again, I think that's what UFOs are to me. And that aftermath or, I guess, consequence of a sighting. And it's not just the powerful ones, like picking up an instrument,

coming up with like a quantum physics code or something like that. It's the little things. And the more they kind of open up to that, the more I think it's going to show people I often like to put it this way. Disclosure is never going to happen from a government. I'm sorry. I'm just, that's not, I'm not one of those people, all the power to those trying to do that.

But I do believe if you want a UFO disclosure, it's going to happen person by person, having a sighting, having an encounter, and then, you know, sharing that with someone, just getting it out there. I don't necessarily, believe every single person I've ever talked to

from the UFO story like saw a being from Zeta Reticuli or like a Pleiadian or anything like that but I'm going to listen because that's what they're not getting from the world

because of the stigma and the ridicule that often comes to it. It's shedding a lot but if I can just listen and be there to like preserve that story for that person I feel like I've contributed something to this crazy world of ephology that never seems to get any answers, just more questions. And maybe that's what the phenomenon wants from us to ask more questions instead of getting answers.

I don't know. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, amen on that. I think, you know, answers are great. But as long as we're bringing it, and maybe we don't have the answers, this is kind of the way I've looked at it before in the past. I know I don't have the answers. but I think I at least know

or at least have an idea of what questions and what paths to go down to at least put the discussion out there and maybe somebody else can help to find an answer or figure it out and that's what I try to do is at least to put the topics out there to put the questions out there

so we can all kind of think on it together you know and actually just to bring up one more thing not to harp so much on it but I find it fascinating where you talk about the people who have had had, you know, newfound abilities.

Like I've just spoke about the woman who reached out to me and the people that you've interviewed. He's like newfound, talents, abilities, knowledge, after an experience. I do find it interesting if people hear that and they say, well, that's just a crock. Well, think about people, we see this in science. We see this in medical journals, where people who have had different traumatic brain injuries

come out with these unbelievable talents, all of a sudden you're a master piano player. All of a sudden you can speak fluent Spanish, Latin, German, and you have no idea how. You can play a guitar. Like you have this newfound knowledge because of this brain injury you suffered. And for whatever reason, that brain injury, and again, this is documented a lot of times,

that brain injury has unlocked something that has been in your mind that you never knew that you had access to. So is there, since we have physical proof of that, in medical journals, maybe there is something to be said when it comes to the UFO phenomenon and how people are being affected by that, kind of unlocking that same part of the brain. Am I crazy? Does that make sense? No.

I mean, you look at the work of someone like Gary Nolan. Okay, right. Who has looked extensively into kind of the neurological effects of UFO witnesses. You know, I can't pretend to know a lot of the work that Gary has done in that field. I haven't personally looked into it, but he has found these patterns within UFO witnesses and whatnot where it seems that certain synapsis in the brain are like lighting up in these witnesses and stuff.

So maybe there is something to that. You know, one man's brain injury is another person's like UFO event. You know, I don't know. It's it is interesting. And I think there is something, to be said about the mind and consciousness and all of that stuff, a lot of these UFO witnesses start to go down the consciousness route after their experiences, too. And maybe that's where this is all heading.

I don't know, but it's a path I find interesting when I'll keep stumbling down with the rest of ephology. Exactly, right. And the questions continue. But yeah, it's just interesting. You think, right, you know, the consciousness aspect. Maybe there is something there that it's always there and we just don't know how to connect to it until something happens. And then it does it for us. Kind of getting back to some of the original cases.

This is one that I remember as a kid in the mid-90s, actually specifically in 1997, March of 1997. It was one of the first cases that I remember, maybe the first actually, really being interested in that sparked an interest in UFOs. me. And that was the Phoenix Lights. And you probably already guessed what I was getting to when I said March of 1997. I had a feeling. Yes. So when we hear about those, again, it's one of those pop culture

things because that was modern day. Now, still before cell phones, but we had camcorders, and you had people recording this on their camcorders, and you had news stations around the country and around the globe covering the Phoenix Light story. To this day, almost

30 years later, we don't have solid answers on what that was, this formation of lights flying in this giant V-shaped formation over Phoenix, one of the most famous modern-day mass sightings ever. So in the work that you've done, Ryan, on the Phoenix Lights, I know you've done different TV interviews on this. What can you reflect on when it comes to the Phoenix Lights case, and that can maybe help us to make sense of this almost 30 years later?

That is a good question, man. And I think it was manufactured this way that we don't have a firm answer. It's a mass UFO setting. Again, this needs to be put on the shelf with some of the best cases out there. You're right. This was one of the first times where, you know, video evidence started to really become a thing in the UFO field. And hundreds of witnesses were now recording a UFO event. in real time as it was happening.

And so when it comes to the Phoenix Lights, in my investigation, I, like most investigators, I think, have come to the conclusion that there are two distinct different events. There was an earlier event around 7 or 8 o'clock p.m., where people all across Arizona in other states as well, mind you, this thing, apparently, this boomerang-shaped craft that had been with, witnessed earlier in the night went from like Mexico over to like New Mexico, maybe chilled over near area 51, I don't know, and then came over to Arizona.

And people just didn't know what they were seeing. Massive football shaped boomerang craft in a V formation, like you said, witnessed by a lot of people, the governor of Arizona at the time would later come forward and say he saw the boomerang shaped craft earlier in the night as well. So that's one case. That's the actual Phoenix Lights UFO, in my opinion. Right. 10 p.m. rolls around.

And unfortunately, a lot of the videos you will see out there are what I believe to be military flares. Hmm. And the reason I say that is because I firmly believe there was an authentic mass UFO sighting earlier that night. But I do believe it was covered up. by the government, the military, whatever you want to call it. And they did send up planes to drop flares and be like, it's okay, everybody. This was a training thing. We do this stuff all the time.

Blah, blah, blah. The governor would come out with that infamous press conference with someone dressed as an alien, make fun of it. Again, retrospectively, he would come forward and say, no, I actually saw the craft. My bad. Sorry. Sorry. So, yeah, that's kind of where.

And in my investigation, we spoke to a gentleman named Tom King, who scans the skies. He's a skywatcher in Arizona, captures some of the most incredible UFOs out there. He's in possession of videos from the 7 o'clock event of the actual structured boomerang craft. And we got to see some of those. They're not the best, obviously. This is back in the 90s. Degradation has occurred on these videos. but we have video evidence in our investigation, at least,

that there was a solid craft witness at that time and in that location. So I don't know, man, it was a crazy investigation. We talked to a Air Force pilot who actually saw the lights while he was in the air that night. Wow. He has never come forward before. He wouldn't show his face on our television show, but I could tell you, we obviously vetted him. And he is who he says he is.

And he was a straight shooter. Lynn Kattai, one of the most famous witnesses of the event. We talked to her. And then we talked to a Zuni tribelder. And we got the kind of Native American Pueblo perspective of the Phoenix Lights, too. You know, allegedly, the lights went behind this mountain when this event happened. So we hiked up to that mountain with this, like, 82-year-old tribelder named, Clifford Mahoudi, rest in peace, he passed away as well.

The dude had a kidney transplant, like a month before I went there, dude. And he beat me up the hill. That's how, like, awesome this guy was. But you go up to where the lights disappeared behind that mountain, and it's just covered in petroglyphs, Native American petroglyphs. So he believes this was the star people and that they came out. of these mountains and they went back into the mountains and these were what the native americans call star people and stuff like that so you can look at the phoenix lights from so many different

vantage points and um it's an awesome case it's an incredible case it is yeah still still one of those that he's done a great job on it and it's still one of those that um you know kind of we we keep questioning right we keep looking into it we keep trying to figure out what is going on with all that. I think what was it, Fife Syvington? Was that the governor? I'm trying to remember of Arizona at that time. And you're right, he came out and apologized later on

because of that press conference he mentioned where he had the fake alien come out and they made fun of the whole thing. They made people feel like, you know, they were crazy and it was all one big joke. And, you know, he came out later on and apologize. He's like, yeah, you know, to your point. He's like, I did. I saw it, too. And, you know, I apologize for doing that.

Because it just made a stigma grow. Do you think that was on purpose Ryan, do you think that was, and this is conspiratorial. So, but I mean, it's just a thought that pops into my head. Do you think he was instructed to do that to kind of come out and give like this hokey press conference to make a joke out of it and make light out of it and, you know, quell the fears and tell everybody, okay, you know, this is nothing to worry about here. We can joke around about this.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and we came across this in the Westall investigation too. When Grant LeVoc came on my show to talk about it, like the principal at the time, time was like telling the kids not to talk about it. And it wasn't so much of like, ooh, spooky government telling us to shut up. It was more of like, we don't want to be known as the UFO school.

I don't believe Fyfe Simonton wanted to be known as, you know, the mass UFO state. I think he was going through a re-election at the time too. So like, and a very contentious one. So I think this couldn't have happened at a worse time for Fife Siamington. Yeah. And I do think he was like, all right, I don't want this mass panic. I'm going to make light of it. Even though I saw what these people said, they saw, did it come from up on high even further than the governor from the Air Force or, you know, Washington?

I don't know. But I do think there was a cover up. I do. I believe that later event was done by the military to try to explain everything that happened that night because they didn't. have control over the skies that night, clearly. And that is interesting to kind of talk about the flares, because that is one thing that people always kind of debate, right? Well, was it flares?

Was it, you know, paratroopers with flares on their ankle or something like that? And it's interesting to kind of draw the comparison where you mentioned later on it probably was flares, but that was their way of saying nothing to see here. But earlier, it was not flares. So I- Absolutely. Yeah, I think both could be true. Just one more thing on that real quick, and this is something I've always wondered.

I've always thought it was one big craft, and I think you've alluded to that. Is there any evidence at all that it wasn't one big craft that we were actually seeing multiple orbs at that time? We didn't really talk about orbs in the 90s. That's really been more of a, you know, probably a phenomenon over the past five years. Is that an option, do you think? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's always an option.

I believe there are witnesses to the earlier events who claimed that it wasn't like a perfect boomerang shaped craft. The interesting thing about that, man, is the witnesses who saw, I guess, quote unquote, orbs earlier in the night. I spoke to several of them, and they said when they saw the orbs, they were intelligent. It was like a choreographed dance of these things spinning around. one another and making what they believe were intelligent maneuvers. But the big thing was, after seeing them, they immediately forgot about it. It was like this, this like instant amnesia almost. And you do hear this. I have so many cases in my book where people, it wasn't like a missing time abduction, but it was an instant blackout of what had just occurred. This happens a lot

with like boomerang shaped craft and whatnot that I found. But with the Phoenix lights, yes, there were orb sightings earlier in the night, not just the boomerang shaped craft. And those witnesses claim that it took weeks, if not months later, for something to trigger their memory into remembering what they had seen. So, yeah. And then again, Zuni Tri-Belder, I firmly believe that he saw light energies of some sort. And that was earlier in the night.

It wasn't the flares at night, later in the night, excuse me. So yeah, yeah, I do leave that possibility open because of the sheer amount of witnesses who have reported that. Interesting. I actually didn't know that. I didn't know that there were other orb reports during that time, too. So I'm glad I asked. Before we're done, Ryan, I am going to bring up wrestling. And I know that sounds completely out of place.

There's really no way to segue into that. It sounds totally, totally out of left field what we've been talking about. This is where half your audience is gone, dude. I hope you know what you're doing. This is where they give the show a side eye. When I bring up wrestling, not when we talk about consciousness and gaining abilities from alien abduction. It's the wrestling part.

And I'll explain why I'm going to bring that up. But before I get into that, because I'm saving that for last, before I get into that part, just one more question on the phenomenon. We've talked about all of these cases, right? It's, you know, the origin stories, if you will, of uphology and kind of like the forgotten details of all these. Aside from the ones we brought up, and maybe this isn't a fair question to ask, but aside from the ones that we brought up, what would you say is another type of origin story that people should pay attention to? That maybe we forget about, we get distracted with everything else going on so we don't think about it, or maybe they just haven't heard too much about it. Can you point to one that people should go and look at and say, okay, this one might have happened a long time ago, but you really need to pay attention to it.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, for the longest time, I was actually writing a play about the 1980 Rendell Shum Forest incident. That's not the one I'm actually going to talk about. I do think that one has gotten the justice it deserves in euphology. I think there's still a lot to unpack there. but the one that actually sticks out to me, and this is funny, I was just going through my, my UFO library back here, man.

And I had a feeling this question might come up of like, what other cases would I recommend? And I found my first ever FOIA request that I made. And I have John Greenwald of the Black Vault to thank. He kind of walked me through how to do this. Dude's a freaking lion when it comes to that. incredible. He's the guy when it comes to putting out for us. Yeah, he knows what he's doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is it. I found my first ever,

Oh, wow. Freedom of Information Act Request to the department. It was to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Oh, wow. And this is just the cover page. I've got like 10 other pages here. But you went, you went straight to the DIA. I mean, you, you didn't like, just went straight for the big guys. Rip the band-aid off. And again, I had John to thank for that, dude, because like back then, I, like many, was like, dear government, give me UFO information, all of it, right? Like, me want it, you give me it. No, John taught me how to actually go for specific places. Because otherwise, man, you're going to get a letter saying, we have no record of that within the agency. You ask blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

they will do everything they can to not give you these things trust me um so i followed what john told me to do and i got like maybe like 10 pages on this case out of turan i ran which is a little too timely right now um but yeah in 1976 the case in toran where um air force pilots were sent up to pursue uh a craft a diamond shaped craft in the sky And these documents, they read like a science fiction novel. I'm not kidding you. It's crazy. The general at the time, Parviz Traffari, he sent two pilots up.

They tried to pursue this thing. Their instruments failed. They got scared of what they were seeing. And they highted it back to the military base. And Parviz Jafari was like, okay, I'm going to go up there. Like you guys are whatever. I got this. And he went up and same thing, man.

All of his instruments started to fail. His weapons wouldn't work. He couldn't lock a target on this thing and nothing like that. And it's a crazy case. The way he played cat and mouse with this diamond-shaped craft up there. And he would eventually come back to the base, report what he had seen. And they didn't even get off the tarmac. And there were already federal agents and stuff from the United States there.

Wow. In Tehran. I mean, yeah. Well, 76, right? It's pre-IRGC, so, right. Exactly. And we were lending them aircraft at the time. Right.

And the fact that something was out maneuvering and shutting down the weapons on one of the U.S.'s aircraft. True. They probably were a little alarmed, and they questioned this guy like crazy after this. And he would eventually go on to testify at the National Press Club about this event. You can read his entire story in Leslie Kane's book on UFOs, or go to J. Sean Greenwald's Black Vault. He's got all the files that I have and more on this case. So I highly suggest people look into it.

Probably one of the most incredible, if not the most documented, at least, pursuits of a UFO by a military ever, ever. I'm so glad you brought that one up. I mean, I think that was, and there's a lot to choose from it. I think that was probably the perfect one to bring up because it's a completely forgotten. and in some cases just totally unknown story, mainly because of the time. It's 50 years ago. It's 1976.

It's over Iran. It involves this diamond-shaped craft. No one pays attention to those stories. But this is a military story. And I say it's a perfect one to bring up because look at everything that we talk about today, with Ryan Graves or David Fravor, the Tic Tac, the Gimble, all these different videos that come out. You know, I mean, heck, I put out videos before from military apparatus, Jeremy Corbell. put out videos for military apparatus that show these, you know, unbelievable sites that we can't explain,

whether it's instantaneous acceleration or the hellfire missile video that Eric Burson put out during the congressional hearing. It bounces off the craft. The craft keeps going over the waters out in the Middle East. So, I mean, it's, the military aspect is something that we very much pay attention to today. So when you talk about U.S. military equipment, failing against this UFO, truly a UFO, 50 years ago in Iran, I mean, that's the perfect story to bring up.

And no one pays attention to that stuff. I mean, honestly. It's, well, and I'm glad you asked me to come on to kind of dig up these things, man, because it's so important. There's so many younger people getting involved in uphology. I used to be, this is depressing. I had someone to reach out to me the other day and they were like, you know, I've been listening to your show for 10 years.

Like I saw you, you know, on TV, whatever. Like, that's always nice to hear. Yeah. But what really stuck with me was what they were like, I remember when they considered you the young gun of euphology. And I'm like, used to me. What? And it's true, man.

Like, I, I'm one of the, I'm getting up to like curmudgeon level at this point, at this point in euphology. But it's also very exciting. So many younger. And there's people, and we have people to thank like you, like Chris Ramsey, like Jesse Michaels, these big channels and stuff who have brought to this topic to audiences that might not necessarily have ever thought about them. And that is so important. Like I mentioned, those 20-something-year-old girls in New York talking about Bob Lazar, that's exciting. Yeah.

And it makes me feel like there is a future for this topic. but in order to try to understand any of it, you got to look at the past. For every TikTok event in the 2000s, I guarantee you there was a TikTok event back in the 50s. And there were. People think the term UAP is real. People were using UAP back in the 1950s, man.

Like, you have to look at the past to understand the present and possibly moving forward in the future, especially with this topic. And trust me, there is a million more cases we could talk. Yeah, exactly right. and I appreciate that, by the way, on the compliment, and same to you. But you're 100% correct on that statement.

We have to remember the past, which is why I'm actually really happy, too, that we got to do this today. I feel like it's kind of perfect timing to get this together and to look at some of these past origins of uphology because it does connect to what we're seeing now. And it also reminds people, and not to get to a preach on it, but it reminds people, this isn't just like a thing that's been happening for a few years. it does go back and it goes way back more than the 50s but if you just want to stop there I mean it goes back

70 80 90 over 100 years just if you're looking at the United States so I mean don't even get us started on other areas and other times so there's so much to learn from the past and most of all I think the main thing to take away from these past stories is

it's been going on for a while this isn't something that's just over the past few years great stuff man like you said i know we we we could keep going on this but just yeah great stuff and actually but just real quick on that too with the diamond shaped craft that reminds me of like the calvine UFO our friend you know nick pope god rest his soul that was one of his main cases calvine in which i believe was the late 80s early 90s same type of you know that diamond shaped craft and just to point to again how deep this stuff goes and how long it's been investigated and if you I know the Calvin case, look into it.

I got a funny story about the Calvin one, if you want me to tell it really quick. Let's do it, yeah, let's do it. It's up to you, man. Yeah, let's go for it. We will get to wrestling before we're done, but yeah, let's do this first. Can you tell you tried to avoid the wrestling

time? Yeah, I'm just kidding. That's going to be another hour. Oh, I know. So the Calvin case, you know, James Fox covered this case in the program, his newer documentary.

And when he was filming for that section of the documentary, he, I live in Scotland. And he was like, hey, what are you doing? You want to come to Calvin Scotland with me? What? You're there? Yes. Yeah, man. He's like, yeah, I'm going to be meeting up with the press officer, who was the one who interviewed the witnesses slash photographers of the now famous Calvin UFO photo.

1990 these two photographers hiking the hills took a picture of a diamond-shaped craft the photo had never been seen in the public until like a couple years ago it was locked in someone's desk for 30 plus years and that was Craig Lindsay the press officer and he went up to Calvin with James Fox and I and we hiked up to where we believe was the location of the actual Calvin photo and dude I it was crazy. Like we were able to triangulate everything down to the exact trees that overhung in that famous photo.

We found the fence posts. Everything matched. And it was crazy. We felt like we were in a living, like we were living in the past of what these two photographers had taken. What that object is or was, we may never know. But I can tell you this,

a lot of the debunks on that photo, I believe, personally, we were able to debunk those debunks. You know, there was one that this craft was like an island and the reflection was in the water and there was a Harrier jet that was following this object. People think it was just a fisherman in the water. There's no water within 100 miles of this hill. I can guarantee you that. But I don't know.

I don't know what the object was. Again, we may never know. But we do believe that we found it. And now James has found the name of one of the photographers. So I'm like now, I keep going back to like Pitlockery, which is right outside Calvin. And being like, anyone heard from this guy? Like, we need to find it. We need to find the photographers.

So another case people should definitely check out. And yes, the late Nick Pope looked heavily into this. And when that photo came to light a couple of years ago, he was like, finally. Yeah. finally people are going to see what i had hanging on the wall at the mody that's right for so long yeah that's right no it's it's yeah again and i'm it's actually pretty cool that it's uh it's still going on i didn't know that you guys were still investigating that so the the work if james fox is included in something dude it's never done and i mean that in the

best way he does not let up and every thread you see in his movies continue i mean Farhina is another prime example. He's been back in Brazil four times after that press club event he just did or something like that. And he's going back again because the case is unfolding. And again, I think that's what's most exciting. So much happens in real time. And we just do our best to keep up with it. It is.

But we try. So before we're done here, Ryan, why am I bringing up wrestling? So here a little bit of a backstory here. And yes, I saved this for last, of course. I had Kelly Chase on here, give or take, maybe four or five months ago, somewhere in there, maybe even six months ago. And at the end of it, it might have been even after we were done, like off the air, so to speak. And wrestling came up somehow.

And she's like, I said to her, I'm like, I think I'm one of the only, like, you know, wrestling nerds in this space of a euphology where that's just, you know, it's been one of those things ever since I was a kid, it's a passion of mine. I love the storytelling. I love the characters. I love the drama. and she's like, oh, you got to talk to Ryan Sprague about that. I'm like, really?

That was her first. She got all excited. She says, you got to talk to Ryan. Oh, Kelly. Okay, cool. I will one of these days. And so now here you are. You're on UAP.

So how did you get into wrestling? And what is your connection to the wrestling world now? Yeah. I mean, again, same as you. I've always been, I was huge during the attitude era. Yeah. for your audience, he doesn't know. That was like the 90s up until like the early 2000s.

Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker, Mankind, all those The Rock, all those iconic people that have transcended wrestling. But yeah, I was, I remember the first time I saw wrestling, I went to a friend's house and he was watching like WCW Thunder or something like that. I'm like, what is this crap? You got a guy dressed as like sub-zero from Mortal Kombat. And I'm like, this is so dumb. And I would make fun of him.

And then like every Thursday or whatever it was when I, we, you know, we play, we'd shoot hoops outside and then go in and be like, I got to watch wrestling. I'm like, okay, time for me to leave. But then each Thursday, I kept staying a little longer and a little longer. And I started getting really into the characters and the stories. So I'm like, whoa. I'm like, all right, man. I'm in. Like WCW.

I'm in. He's like, hold up. You're not going to believe this, but there's another company that does it twice a week too. And I'm like, what? And then that's when I got hooked on, on WWE. And I just, I loved it. And then all my friends got involved. And it was something that would bring me and my friends together every week.

We'd rent the pay-per-views. We'd, you know, we'd get the T-shirts. We'd go to the live events in Syracuse, New York, where I'm originally from, and see the house shows. And then I'd eventually start traveling up to, like, Albany, New York where Smackdown and Raw were being taped. And my dad, God bless him, would drive me and go with me. But yeah, just like most people, like my interest ebbed and flowed. I kind of gave it up for 25 plus years. And then, yeah, yeah, I'd say back when Peacock started putting all the old stuff on television in the States, I was, it just a nostalgia.

hit me so hard. And I watched everything from like the early 80s up till modern day. And one of my best buds in New York we discovered that we were both closeted WWE fans. And we started a podcast

and I did almost 100 episodes of a wrestling podcast. Oh, that's awesome. Which I know you've had experience with too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, kind of similar. That's true. Yeah, I mean, I was telling you before we started, that actually that's how I got my start in radio. I mean, I came into radio because I am in South Florida as a radio host and producer, and that's kind of what's, you know, allows me to do UAP,

and now UAP kind of became the main thing. So this kind of took over my other, you know, job titles, if you will, within my radio career here in South Florida. But I started as just like a sports intern. That was my foot in the door. and my first shot at on air was a wrestling show. I was asked by our program director at the time, well, hey, look, if you want to do a show,

then you've got to produce it, you've got to come up with the content, you've got to come up with the clock, you've got to do everything yourself. Learn how to run the board, everything. Okay, fine, sure, sure, deal. My pleasure. And that's how I learned everything.

And he said, you know, do the show you want to do? We'll put you on Saturday nights at our AM station. Sure, fine, five people are going to hear it, I don't care. I just want to do it. That's five more people. Exactly right. And that's how I looked at it.

And it was a wrestling show. I called it the squared circle. And I spoke about WW. There was no more WCW at that point. It was just, you know, WWE, what was going on, everything. And yeah, man, it's the same thing. I grew up on it. I kind of hit that lull as well from about like 2002 to 2012.

I kind of kept up with it, but I wasn't watching every week. And then I went to WrestleMania. in Miami with John Sina versus the Rock. Sina, yep. Yes, and that I was like, I got tickets because I heard WrestleMania was coming to South Florida

and I wanted to see The Rock again and I knew about John Sina and I got tickets for my brother and I am like, well, if I'm going to go to WrestleMania, I got to start watching the show again and I've been watching consistently ever since 2012 and that ended up being one of the greatest wrestlingias of all time.

So it's just so much fun, man. And now it's generational too. And I actually draw a lot of comparisons. And I'm sorry if we've lost anybody, but this is fun for us. I actually draw a lot of comparisons to the UFO community and the wrestling community. For sure. You know what I mean? Because sometimes both are kind of looked at as like these niche communities,

they're very close knit. They're very passionate about the topic. And I kind of see a lot of similarities in those, right? that's the perfect word passionate i mean that's why i love the ufo community we can bash it all we want and we can argue on twitter and and all that stuff but at the end of the day like we're all here for a reason we have found our tribe we found people who are weird and embrace these things and it's the same with wrestling like yeah i'll give my age away i'm 41 and i'm watching men in their underwear let's fight over a fake title belt

But like, I love it. And also, it's like an escape. And, you know, I live, breathe, and sleep UFOs. And I love it. Don't get me wrong. But I need that pallet cleanser. And for me, it's the male soap opera, which is wrestling. And it's the stories.

And it's, there's, I hate to admit this. But there are times I fast forward through the matches because I just want to see the story lines. That's right. Or here the next pipe bomb by CM Punk or something. like that. I love it, dude. I love it.

And I, like you said, Monday Night Raw is on tonight as we're recording this. I'll be watching that. WrestleMania is this upcoming weekend. Come on. You bet you're good. I'll be watching that. I watched AEW Dynasty yesterday. So I'm still in it.

And you're so right, though. It's such a community thing. Like I can see the wrestlers also in the UFO community. Like the Stephen Greer is the undertaker, the Richard Dolan is the Cody Rhodes you know what I mean Yes that's right Who would they be that's right if we drew the comparison

Cage match Oh that's good It's so true and it's But it is that's what makes it fun The escapism is another thing right Because we're both I mean head deep I mean like neck deep

Buried up to our neck in the UFO topic And how much we get into it In the interviews and the the investigations and the time we put into it And for me it is that escapism where on a Monday night or Friday night, I could sit down with my kids. And again, a generational thing. We met Hulk Hogan together back in November of last year.

And then he ends up passing away a few months later. And I had never met him. So it was like one of those things where I got to meet Hulk Hogan, one of my like, you know, childhood idols with my kids at the same time. And there are very few things that you can do that with. You know, sports is one of those things when it comes to different athletes in your favorite team. But it is. It's like, you know, I put down my phone.

We watch the stories. We watch Roman Raines and CM Punk and Cody Rose and Randy Orton. And it's just a lot of fun. Aren't you on one of the shows with Chris Jericho? He's a legendary wrestler for people who don't know. Yeah, and you go on. There is a connection to this. It's not just us waxing, poetic about wrestling.

There is a connection that Chris Jericho is a famous. He's a Hall of Fame, soon to be Hall of Fame, or whenever he decides to retire, one of the great wrestlers of all time, he has a podcast, Talk is Jericho, I believe. And he brings you on to talk about UFOs, right? I am kind of as resident euphologist. Yeah. Chris Jericho, like you mentioned, future Hall of Famer, super, super nice guy.

He is an experiencer. Oh, is that right? He has had missing time experiences. Really? After having seen strange things. I didn't know that. And you will see if you listen to his show. He has paranormal investigators on.

He has cryptozoologists on his show. But when it comes to the UFOs and he wants like kind of the debrief on what's going on in that world, I'm insanely honored that he somehow randomly found me online. And whenever he needs that refresher course, I come on. I was just on a couple weeks ago. I think it'll drop sometime soon. I don't know if the show works with that. But yeah, we're talking about all the latest congressional hearings and the legacy programs and all of that stuff.

But yeah, he is, and many wrestlers are. Really? Like, you know, with athletes, they travel so much. Right. Musicians, they're on the road or they're in planes. Look at that country singer who just had the orp settings, right? Yeah, Casey Musgraves. Yeah, that's right.

They see stuff because they travel so much, and they're in different places. So Chris Jericho is one of them. I spoke to Lash Leroux, who was a big wrestler back in the early 2000. and he's abducting. Really? You're kidding. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Maven. Yeah, he had Maven on our podcast at one point. He's seen weird stuff when he was out on the road with WWE. So like, wow. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy the connections that we can make between the wrestling world and the UFO world.

And for every one of those wrestlers, I'm sure there's hundreds who have also had experiences like that. Yeah, that's something. See, it wasn't that far off topic to bring it all. See, that all together. It's a beautiful thing. And that must have been a really cool full circle moment for you where you come up on wrestling and now you're on Chris Jericho, this Hall of Fame wrestler. And you're talking about UFOs on his podcast. So nervous. He pops up on the screen and I'm like, I don't know anything about UFOs at this moment in time. It was crazy. That's so cool, man. Well, this has been so much fun. Before we go, I'd be remiss if I at least in an ask you your predictions for the WrestleMania main events then on this

since we're on the topic very last thing then Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton who you got on Saturday night and Sunday night we have CM Punk and Roman Raines Where do you think the story goes with these? So I think I don't like what's going on with the Pat

McAfee stuff. Very controversial. That's been inserted into the Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton stuff. So like of course I'm looking forward to however it unfolds. And I can complain all I want about Pat McAfee getting involved in wrestling. But at the end of the day, like, he's an entertainer. He makes a great heel.

I have a feeling. They have a plan for that. And they know how upset and angry people we're going to get. So I got Randy Orton winning. I think I agree with you. Yeah. I think it's about time. And I think it's about time Cody turns heel.

We've all been thinking it for a while. We've all kind of wanted it. You're hearing more booze in the audience when Cody's showing up. He knows it. Yeah. And I think he's smart enough to know when that turn should happen. And they're clearly being very strategic about that. So I think it's time.

I think it's time for Randy to get his world record, as it were. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that one. St. I'm punk and Roman, man. I don't know. It is the biggest coin flip I've ever had for a main event.

I don't know. What about you? I'm with you, man. It's like I, my son has asked me like a couple of times, who do you think is going to win dad? And one day I'll tell him CM Punk. Another day it's Roman Raines. I don't know where they're going to go with us on the story. Like, I feel like you can make an argument for both.

Or is CM Punk? You keep him as the guy. And maybe have Roman Raines continue to be the guy that's, you know, you continue to build that storyline. Kind of like, I know I'm getting deep into the weeds in wrestling, but kind of like how they did with WrestleMania 39 and 40, where Cody lost to Roman everyone's disappointed, but it continued

it gave them an opportunity to continue to build that story into next year's WrestleMania, and it was one of the greatest moments in wrestling history where Cody won that and you had like the whole wrestling history of the Pantheon come out for that one match. The Avengers assembled. It was, that's exactly right. So

part of me thinks they can go that route if Roman Raines loses. The other part of me just thinks it's Roman Reins, they want to be champion again so he's going to win. So I'm kind of waffling between the too. Yeah, I don't know. And that's a good thing. Right. Like it leaves us guessing and that's what they want and that's good storytelling. So again, I love it as a playwright. Like I just, I love these dramas that just so happen to have wrestling matches in between them. I guess. I guess I'll

watch the match. That's exactly right. Ryan, I had to say this has probably been my dream show to mix UFOs and wrestling to my great passions together. And I don't, know if I can do it with anybody else but you. So I appreciate all the time, man, for coming on here for doing this. The conversation has been, for me, fascinating, incredible, fantastic to be able to go over all these details with you and just get into the weeds on all this stuff and really kind of dig into some of these, you know, maybe forgotten in some cases, these origin stories of modern day uphology and then to mix wrestling with it. It's been awesome, man. And I hope we can talk again in the future as well.

it's been a pleasure man like i said keep up the good work and we need everyone all hands on deck with this topic so no it was a true pleasure and i don't get to talk wrestling anymore on my own podcast so this was a dream come true for me too so thank you so i love it man awesome oh where can everybody find you how can they follow what you're doing real quick oh of course anywhere you get your show you could find me on all the podcasting platforms um i do weekly live streams over on YouTube where I break down all the latest UFO news. So just type in somewhere in the skies. That's the name of my show.

And yeah, if you want to learn more about what I do, somewhere in the skies.com is where all of that is at. And yeah, you can find me. I'm out there too much. Just write it in there. You'll find the books, the podcast, the TV appearances. Ryan Sprague, again, thanks a lot, man. And look forward to talking again soon right here on UAP.

Thanks, buddy. Well, thank you again to Ryan for doing that, for spending all that time. I mean, we were just flowing, and you could probably tell by listening to it, we were just flowing in the conversation. We could have done that for another two hours. This easily could have been a three and a half hour episode, but we both kind of had to go with our schedules.

We couldn't spend that much time. But I can, I'm pretty confident in saying that we will do that again at some point and have Ryan back here on the show. And actually, I hope to be on his some point in the future as well. I let him know when we were done. I'm happy to do the same thing. I'm always happy to guest on other shows. So maybe you will see me on somewhere in the skies sometime in the future.

And if that happens, I will let you know when that is supposed to happen. But thank you again to Ryan. And kind of just, you know, again, going into those stories, remembering why they're so important, whether it was Phoenix Lights, whether it was Roswell, whether it's Area 51, whether it's, you know, a little bit of Virginia there. And even, you know, with Westall and the aerial school, these are really important stories. And the reason why they hold up so well over the past, you know, 80, 50, 30 years is because there's a lot of meat on the bones of those stories.

Those stories that we spoke about aren't just your everyday, hey, I saw something weird when I was walking my dog. And not to put any of those down, we all have our own experiences. But my point is that those stories, there's so much. to them. There's still so much mystery and intrigue, which means there's still so much that we can learn from a lot of those stories. And I'm so glad that he brought up the mystery diamond craft that was pursued by the Iranian military in 1976. That was very dangerous event, actually. Their lives, we didn't go too far into it, but their lives were in danger in that case.

And he brought up a good point. Those were American-made craft in 1976. That's the Iranian Air Force, the Iranian military, were using at that point in 1976. So that's why we had such a big interest in that as the United States, as a country, because that was our stuff. And it was essentially being made worthless in pursuit, military pursuit of a diamond-shaped UFO over the skies of Iran in Tehran. And that is, I'm so glad he brought the one up, like I said in the interview, because that is such an extremely intriguing case

and it's an important one that doesn't get spoken about nearly enough. So if you're not familiar with it, I did an episode on that way back when you could try to find that in the annals of UAP chronicles there, but also just try to look it up on your own time too that story about that 1976 military pursuit of a diamond-shaped UAP in Iran. It's wild stuff. And just like with all of those.

So I'm glad that we can rehash those because it is important to remember the past, because that does give us a lot of direction for the future when it comes to Uphology and this, what's happening now within the UAP conversation. So I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you found that useful. And even the wrestling talk at the end, I appreciate you sticking through that, even if it's not your thing, even if you're not into it and you have no idea who we were talking about during that conversation.

I'm glad you can at least stick around and have some fun with us there. And if you are into it, if that is your thing, then hopefully you loved it as much as we did. Because watch out. I mean, I'm just saying Ryan and I could do an hour podcast on wrestling, too. So be careful what you wish for. You just never know. But no, I love being able to do that. And that was a ton of fun to be able to kind of let loose on my love and my passion for wrestling as well.

And I know Ryan felt the same. So cool to mix those together here today on the show for the first time, actually. And if anybody from WWE is listening, happy to do some work together. Just throwing that out there. Can't wait for WrestleMania. And I can't wait also for episode number 200 right here on UAP because that is coming up next. And I mentioned last week, in case you missed it, coming up here for episode 200 is the one and only, Mr. Anthony Williams, military intelligence analyst. He is always chock full of exclusives when it comes to the UAP topic.

And this is going to be no different. And if we're lucky, maybe this, it depends on how much time we have when we record this one. But maybe this ends up being so long and so in depth that maybe we get episode 200 and episode 201 just out of this one conversation with Anthony Williams. We'll see how this one goes. But I have a feeling it is, it's going to be another classic with Anthony Williams coming up for episode number 200 here on UAP. Incredible that it's been that long. So until then, be sure to continue to download it and subscribe to the show. Keep coming back.

I always appreciate it. There's so much more to explore in this topic. We've only just begun when it comes to this topic, even though we're 200 episodes in. I feel like there's still so much that I'm behind on that I try to catch up on here. So stick around because I have a lot of things in the works and a lot of things planned. So make sure you're following it wherever you get your podcasts on all the major platforms and on social media, on TikTok, on Twitter, on Instagram, just search out U. podcast and UA Podcast 850 and a UIP podcast on YouTube and you'll find a lot of these videos

I've been doing as well for these interviews that you've been hearing. I have the raw videos up there that you can enjoy and consume that way for a lot of these interviews I've been doing because I'm putting up those more consistently on YouTube. So just search out UAP podcast there to see everything. So keep doing that and keep coming back. I truly appreciate you and all your time that you spend here with me on UAP. and always feel free to send me those messages on social media as well. So on that note, I'll just say thank you all again for everything and for all of the support.

It always means the world to me, so thank you. So until next time, it is Stephen Deaneer here saying, be well. Thanks so much. We'll talk again soon right here on UAP, the Unidentified Alien Podcast.