March 11, 2025 • 29 mins
Could there be a connection between the unidentified aircraft and missile silos? Gabe meets with an Air Force official and locals living near the sites to search for answers. A follow up interview with a key figure exposes new information. As things begin to click, a surprising lead pulls Gabe in a different direction, one that unravels miles away.
This episode covers:
Chapter Fifteen - Buried in Plain Sight
Chapter Sixteen - F.E. Warren
Episode Webpage: https://www.obscurumseries.com/podcast/invasion-of-the-drones/truths-and-lies
Music by Epidemic Sound
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Previously on OBSCURUM
Speaker 2 (00:07):
They will actually their arms, flash their lights and beat
with the music. They turned red, they become violent. I mean,
they'll come at you real hard.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I've watched a lot of UFO videos where you can
hear the people who are taking the video of the UFO.
You can hear them conversing on the audio truck. They
and the people around them are literally negotiating the meaning
of what they're seeing.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Rod kind of told me that he had been diagnosed
with cancer, and he said it wasn't looking good.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
He did have a tumor.
Speaker 6 (00:42):
He had had that drone encounter that he was talking
about at that contract was totally gone. So can I
explain that medically?
Speaker 7 (00:50):
No, I cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It feels like you're driving up to that building and
stranger things.
Speaker 8 (01:09):
Where they're doing all those tests. There's this big.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Metal door with concrete walls that are like twenty foot
high allow and there's cameras kind of all over the place,
(01:37):
peering in the direction of a tunnel on the side
of a hill in the middle of nowhere. I prepared
to go meters underground into a Cold War era room
that once housed a nuclear warhead estimated to be twenty
times stronger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. To see
if my hunch was true Chapter fifteen, Buried in plain sight,
(02:16):
I slowly walked up to the entrance of an intercontinental
ballistic missile silo. My goal was to see how expansive
these installations were, and ultimately if a similar space would
be able to conceal many aircraft. A quick Google search
revealed these sites and the bombs locked inside of them
(02:38):
were first built during the Cuban missile Crisis in the
nineteen sixties and scattered throughout the Great Planes, sometimes right
next to farms. The military sold a few silos that
weren't in use. I tracked one down that belonged to
Don and Shark's Wantzer. They'd bought an abandoned or decommissioned
(02:59):
missile site near Kimball, Nebraska. I convinced them to take
me around the property.
Speaker 8 (03:04):
What is this right here?
Speaker 6 (03:05):
Now?
Speaker 9 (03:06):
This is the door that would open and they would
back the missile end. So the missile bay is right
behind this forty seven ton door.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Go ahead, followed on.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
We entered the structure through a large hole covered by
metal mesh curtains. There was a long tube with lights
illuminating a walkway twenty to thirty yards in. I saw
a second haul to the right. It felt like a narrower,
darker version of a New York subway station and not
the type of place side spend a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
The crew was down that tunnel with the red phone
and the launch buttons were The missile was in a
room building over here, for the purpose of the tunnel
was to separate the two buildings so the crew wouldn't
get blown up when they launched.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I was surprised to learn the crew actually lived where
the rockets were housed. Do you know how many people
used to live in here? Like at one time?
Speaker 7 (04:06):
Five twenty four to.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Seven from Cheyenne Zeffie Warren.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Here's the room that the missile was in now.
Speaker 9 (04:13):
The missile was eighty five feet long, about nine foot
in diameter.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was stored in a horizontal position.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
The nose was down here.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
But we have two buildings underground, the launch building which
is about fifteen thousand square feet, command building, which is
underneath that dirt, which is five thousand square feet one
hundred and thirty nine thousand cubic yards of concrete designed
to a stand A one make a ton blast one
point six miles away had four warheads on it. Commissioned
(04:43):
at a time with the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We walked downstairs into what was known is the oxygen room.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Down here's a warm sixty room contained a sixty five
foot stainless seal liquid oxygen tank in.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
How far underground are we right now?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, the culvert above the culvert is about twelve feet
to the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
When I emerged from the tunnel, I plugged in coordinates
for an active missile site I located not too far away.
Speaker 10 (05:20):
It's just crazy how unexposed they are.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I turned off the highway and onto a dirt road.
There was a barbed wire fence with a lot gate
to my left. Inside the perimeter stood a few metal
slabs with poles sticking up.
Speaker 9 (05:37):
I do know they're like these permanent two sighting things.
And there's there's some kind of cryptic kind of some
directional sorts of stuff, kind of a creepy thing actually
that we would have it right the corner of our place.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
As I got out of the pickup, I was approached
by the owners of a nearby farmhouse. For the sake
of their privacy. I called them Emma and John. It
wasn't long before they showed me a cylindrical metal plate
buried in their lawn, only a few hundred yards from
the missile site.
Speaker 8 (06:10):
That was to set up the guidance systems. And the
guidance systems on the missiles are designed to go off
a true north and at night they would go up
and get their settings off the north star, and then
that's how they put in the guidance for the missiles.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Seeing something that helped direct a missile right next to
a home was odd, but they didn't seem to mind.
We paused for a second and looked towards the silo
before walking around to the back of the farm. I
was curious to hear if anybody who lived nearby had
spotted the mysterious aircraft flying at night.
Speaker 8 (06:45):
Nobody ever sided them flying over a silum. They were
always different places. See, because most of the military work,
the air force stuff, has generally done at night, and
so you don't you don't see them that much more.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
It's done very visible, and you see like armored and
one of those vehicles, somevies on corners and you might
even see a helicopter in the air and there'd be
a trailer working on the ground, yeah, on the at
the site, so that's very visible, and you know something
something's going on.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
When the Air Force was asked, they said, uh, oh,
we don't know nothing. Okay. With all the missile sites,
they would have known something.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
With the silon near Emma and John's residence housing a
nuke that could be launched at any time. I'd wondered
if they'd seen an increase in military activity when the
strange crafts were nearby.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
They're regular routines of checking didn't increase, so.
Speaker 9 (07:46):
That makes you think a little bit, you know, I mean,
they the assumption would be they knew something was going
on because they weren't being ever vigilant of their property,
you know, so they were probably.
Speaker 8 (08:01):
And law enforcement generally didn't have much of a clue
whether they were told and told not to say anything
or not. But you know, even the x sheriffs and
ex deputies they speculated the same thing at this military
the last it's maybe been five years, five to seven years.
(08:21):
They have surveillance on all both sites that they thought
when they started in the sixties, they the fences had
been around them were pressure sensitive, so if anybody messed
with it, they didn't know. We had tumbleweeds, and within
a month they had to change their system because there'd
be enough tumbleweeds blown against them and set them off. Supposedly,
if you would take a little drunk and go fly
(08:42):
it over missile site, somebody might show up and stuff
like that, because I know they gentlemen put a pivot in,
ran the electric climb in, he nicked the communications cable
and it's pressurized, and I think they said twelve minutes.
There's a choper.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That seemed fast, but I knew a lot could happen
in twelve minutes. Even with many government agencies publicly denying
involvement in the sidings, it did seem probable that old
silos in the land surrounding them could be a secure
place to operate and store large numbers of drones. If
(09:21):
there was a connection between the functioning silos and unknown aircraft,
I was confident the Air Force would know what was
going on. Chapter sixteen f E.
Speaker 8 (09:43):
Warren use the.
Speaker 11 (09:44):
Right lane to take exit three point fifty nine c
ANTI twenty five north and US eighty seven North toward
Casper in one point two miles take Exit ten d
Onto missile drive toward Happy Jack Road.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Two military helicopters flying right towards me on the Interstate.
Helicopters flew over as I parked near a guarded gate
at f you Warren. It's the closest Air Force base
to a majority of the sidings and located on the
outskirts of Cheyenne, Wyoming. A lieutenant by the name of
(10:19):
John Karkaff agreed to an interview with me as a
representative for the base. After a few minutes, he arrived
to take me to his office.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
FI Warren originally started out as a cavalry training base,
so I think at one point there were twenty five
thousand horses here at FI Warren, and we still have
some of the stables up on the north end of
our base. But it eventually became an intercontinental Ballistic missile
but an ICBN base.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The base looked like a small town, complete with brick
buildings and dirt road streets. Sitting in the passenger seat
of his vehicle, I noticed how clean it was and
over the top attention to detail hail type clean. John
was definitely a type a personality.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
So when I originally found out about FI Warren, I
was a little bit misfied. I'd never heard of F
You Warren, you know, never seen the bass pop up
on anything. So I was a little bit, you know,
inquisitive as to what exactly I was.
Speaker 10 (11:17):
I was heading into.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What does the ninetieth Missile Wing do specifically?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Yeah, So the ninetieth missile Wing is made up of
several groups, and this includes security forces, the missileers of
the actual operators who sit in the missile capsules, as
well as the maintainers, the administrative folks, the mission support groups,
the forced support So the nineteth MISSI Wing encompasses all
(11:42):
of that. And the ninetieth Missile Wing is the wing
stationed at F You Warren that would execute the nuclear
mission that ensures that the President and his advisors or
her advisors have the capability to call upon nuclear power
should it be necessary.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I didn't know how long I'd have to speak with John.
I steered our conversation towards the mysterious aircraft. F You
Warren has denied that these drones belonged to them. Would
that mean that you wouldn't have to acknowledge if a
contractor outside of you was using those drones.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, so I can confirm that the drone sightings were
not related to FI Warren or the Air Force in
any way. So that would include you know, contractors or
what other you know, third parties that might be, but
they were in no way, shape or form.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
Related to the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
When it comes to the active missile silos in the area,
I assume that there's some type of counter drone technology
that would protect those.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
So FIE Warren does have a counter drone program. I
can't go into too much specifics due to operational security,
but I can say that any kind of you know,
training that we we do do on f E. Warren
takes place within the confines of the base, and in
discussions with with our forces in the field, you know,
(13:11):
we confirmed that those drones were not ours and in
no time, at no time did they ever threaten any
of our facilities, any of our missiles, any of our
missile silos. So that that kind of again put it
definitely made us think about an aspect of you know,
(13:31):
how we you know, how we communicate you know, our
our programs to the public. I know it is something
that some people. You know, you think of anti drone
technology and you think of ray guns or whatever it is.
Speaker 8 (13:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Again, I can't go into specifics about how all that
counter drone stuff works, but it did, you know, make us,
uh make us you know, I guess approach the the
drone issue in a more direct way. I can't speak of,
you know, when the counter drone stuff was was being
(14:05):
used or wasn't being used. Although I can't say that
we did have the technology, should we need to employ it.
We've we've had that, but at no point in time
did we ever need to employ it during that.
Speaker 10 (14:20):
January time frame.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
John said that the Air Force did have counter drone
technology in place during the first week of twenty twenty,
when the majority of the objects were cited. However, he
didn't go into detail about counter drone surveillance at each
individual silo.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
I don't think there's a there's a need for concern,
you know. I again, I want to stay in my
lane here, but you know, I know in terms of
the FAA and the other agencies that do serve to
protect you know, our community and our neighbors out in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado.
(15:01):
You know, I do they I know they are very
you know, on the ball in terms of you know,
what we are doing and what they are doing, and
how we work together in order to make sure that
our community is safe. So I don't think there's a
there's a need for concern.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
No need for concern. This was a confusing statement to me.
If these unknown aircraft didn't belong to the Air Force,
and if John on behalf of f you Warren could
also conclude no Air Force contractors were flying them, there
may be something strange flying in the vicinity of nuclear
missiles and no one could pinpoint what it was.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Point nine back up.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
This call is now being recorded.
Speaker 10 (15:53):
The first time I interviewed you, I felt like you
were giving me the full picture and clearest detail of
everything you knew. Can you go into more of that?
Speaker 8 (16:04):
Now?
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Definitely into more of it. But in the one big
issue in all of it is as far as what
I can go into and what I can the one
big one is the FAA related breaking of rules and laws.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Following my visit to f You Warren, I was able
to convince Matthew Spencer to talk with me again.
Speaker 10 (16:30):
Do you have any way of proving that you were
in Colorado during that time.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
The only thing would be would be the logs from
the drunes, and that becomes an issue. I mean, that's
the thing, and that's kind of why I was offered
the polygraph to avoid having to turn anything in that's
gonna get me into trouble.
Speaker 10 (16:51):
What were you doing in Colorado during the time of
the Colorado drone mystery?
Speaker 6 (16:55):
The Colorado drone mystery and that exact spot in spots
was happening is essentially where we thought we were going
to be able to catch up with what we were
tracking UAP. We were not. And so as our own
process entails, sometimes drones go up to tell us what
we need to know if we missed it, and that's
(17:18):
what the end of it was. We did come to
the conclusion we had missed it, and with what was
going on with the Colorado drones, we decided to get
on out of town at that time.
Speaker 10 (17:29):
Now, is this the same type of craft that the
Navy refers to. Is it tic TAC that we've all
seen in those videos online?
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Yes, this is the exact same technology. There's a particular
version we were looking for, but they all match up
the same, and that version is going to be that
essentially there is no sign of propulsion, you have the
ability to really just float their. Contrary to belief and
what you've heard from the various encounters, it does make
(17:58):
a noise, It's just not a noise you're going to
pick up by flying a fighter jet. Is a slight
hum on an ultrasonic mic. It really tells you a
lot about what is going on inside of it. And
these are the sort of things that we look for.
In other words, there's nothing physic wise that we know
of in the inventory that could do these sort of things.
Speaker 10 (18:19):
That sounds crazy. What would lead you to believe there
was a tic tac in the vicinity of the Colorado drones.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Most of what you hear and most of the objective
being lit right now is definitely from an adversary such
as China or Russia, or it's little Green men. All
of those dictate the story in the narrative, and that
narrative would be it could be coming from overseas or
from a ship, could be coming from the sky Mars,
(18:49):
and it's coming down to us. But when you get
into the reality of it, if it is ours, if
it is us, then it has to be built somewhere,
and it has to be maintained somewhere, and that's going
to be in the United States over land.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
What would lead you to believe there was the UAP
in the vicinity of the Colorado drones.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I've been at this a long time. You know. The
correlation is is do I have drones? Of course, that's
a part of it. In certain instances, you know, where
we've seen issues with the craft, which is why you
usually get a great view of it. Drones follow, So
if you have something a hypothetical a piece could come off,
(19:31):
you would have a stall out and you would have
drones follow. We believe that that would be the METHA
and we believe that's probably what's going on with the larger, faster,
heavier ones that seemed to show up.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
Right before we left.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
If there was a larger aircraft or some type of
UAP in the vicinity of these drone like objects, I
couldn't find any information that would confirm that. Matthew brought
up a few of the FAA emails that Douglas Johnson
had published online. He had strong words for how his
correspondence with the FAA was released. When he said agent
(20:12):
Bumgardner he was referencing Agent Bumberger.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Michael Bumgardner is a legal hawk. If you look him up,
if you're researching, he's the guy that goes out to
the local little airport where they got Sessen's flying from
the nineteen sixties, and he watches and he writes down
your tail number and he writes tickets. There's cases of
it online you can find he was sent out to
write tickets. He wasn't sent out to solve the mystery.
(20:39):
People have to understand, you know, I'm a debunker. Like
I said, there were satellites in the area during that
time period, there were planets. There's all sorts of stuff
in the sky, and I always debunked that, and I
believe a lot of it could be debummed. As far
as what I think about Bumgardner is this stuff happens.
You know, people always think if we like, we'll find answers.
(21:02):
Foy is not new. The paper that they released and
the communication between Bumgarner to me says, at the bottom
of it, you can't show anybody this, you can't distribute
it nothing. So they also could keep everything in a
file and the only way that comes out is what
they want to pull out of that file. If you
pull something out of that file yourself, federal charges federal penalties.
(21:25):
So they're just having to release some stuff in FO
you and not the other things.
Speaker 10 (21:31):
And then you have this narrative.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
And the narrative I think, in everyone's opinion, was very
negative of me.
Speaker 10 (21:38):
I gotta be honest, Matthew, that sounds like it's out there.
Why would Bumberger go to so much trouble to throw
you under the bus.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
There's a narrative, and it's an FAA narrative, and that's
that they know everything.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
They're the facts.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
I mean, this is the way it works. A story
that a UFO or UAP was in that area is
not than they want to do with. Now you're the
special agent in charge, that was his title of this.
It's on you, and he's sure and Hick wasn't going
to let anything out that wasn't normal. Did you see one?
(22:14):
Did you think he's right? Or do you think he
should have took the guy that wanted to take a
polygraph come up there and answer some questions. He didn't
want that polygraph on record.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
It wasn't my job to judge or not judge an
FAA narrative, I was missing key facts. There was another
person who could possibly shed new light on the FAA's response.
It was a man I'd been trying to interview since
day one, as the obscure sidings seemed to begin in
his county. Phillips County, Colorado Sheriff Tom Elliott finally agreed
(22:50):
to speak with me.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
In early January, a task force meeting was held in Brush.
He discussed the sightings. Did you take part in this
meeting and what did you learn from it?
Speaker 7 (23:01):
I was there and all we got was lip service
from the Federal Aviation Administration, and those are the people
that actually regulate these drones. What we found out is
the FAA has a no enforcement arm, so their capabilities
to enforce their own rules is zero.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Now. Phillips County Sheriff's office posted on Facebook on January sixth,
a strategy meeting was held today in Brush, Colorado with federal, state,
and local law enforcement agencies regarding the drones. Specifically, we
are looking for the command vehicle. We are looking for
a closed box trailer with the antennas or large band
does not belong in the area. If you see anything
(23:47):
that resembles that or this description, Please call the Phillips
Kenny Sheriff's Office. Were you ever in fact looking for
that specific vehicle or was that based on what was
talked about at that task.
Speaker 7 (24:00):
We asked two different questions there. So the question about
how did we come to a description of the vehicle
came from the FAA from that task force meeting, And
that's the description of the vehicle that they said they
were looking for. They said they said at the meeting,
quit looking for the drones, start looking for the command vehicle,
and this is what you should be looking for, the
(24:22):
second part of your question, is that's the description of
the vehicle. Yes, that is what we were looking for.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Have there been any follow up from that taskforce meeting?
Get the death of your knowledge.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
There was never even a task force formed at the meeting.
There was one, you know, Sheriff Martin took names, but
no task force was actually formed. So therefore no task
force was ever a never got off the ground to
investigate this. This all falls back on the federal government
who refused to do anything. This is a federal law
(24:53):
violation and they should have done something about the federal
law violation.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Fingers were pointing at the FA. It later came to
my attention that Logan County Sheriff Dave Martin not only
took names as mentioned by Sheriff Elliott, but was said
to be the head of the drone task Force. He
didn't want to be recorded, but told me there were
no steps ever taken to form the group. FAA officials
(25:20):
left the meeting saying they'd share information, but as I learned,
there was no follow up. Was it the FAA's job
to be the glue that brought this together? But more importantly,
were there details FAA investigators purposely kept from collaborating agencies.
(25:46):
I soon became aware of disturbing information which led me
to research an area outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Plo Verdi generates the most energy of any power producing
facility in the It's also the largest nuclear plant, with
three units.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Something happened in the skies above the PalaVerde Nuclear Generating Station,
one of America's most powerful nuclear plants, on consecutive nights
in September of twenty nineteen, two months before the Northeast
Colorado sightings, unauthorized drones were spotted flying over a restricted
(26:26):
area with pressurized water reactors. These were described as large
aircraft with red and white flashing lights. They appeared at night,
and it was reported that they had spotlights on while
approaching the site, but turned them off after entering the
security owner controlled area. No drone operators were found, and
(26:48):
witnesses were left scratching their heads. This discovery led me
to uncover something else, an alarming trend the FAA knew
of that would completely change my view of the mystery
(27:12):
coming up on Obscure Invasion of the Drums. I kind
of stop at that two way stop signing it. It
stopped moving and then elevated, and then it lowered itself
behind a tree. I'm anxious, but I can't worry about
what might happen or the consequences of revealing the truth.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
It's going to go up slowly, but it kept doing
it for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. This thing ended
up being thousands of feet in the air.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
We want to hear from you if you have any
information surrounding the events detailed in this podcast or other
obscure stories in rural America we should look into. Please
visit our website at obscurumseries.com and send us an email
to connect with us on social media. You can follow
(28:19):
@obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced
by Imagine Entertainment and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted,
and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by
(28:41):
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Kara Welker, Nathan Kloke, Niki Etour
and Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound
effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design
(29:01):
by Labyrinth Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Semikopenko. This
project was mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks
to Dan Bodanski, Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield,
(29:22):
David Wasserman, Katrina Norvell and my family. OBSCURUM
the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Follow now.
Previously on OBSCURUM
Speaker 2 (00:07):
They will actually their arms, flash their lights and beat
with the music. They turned red, they become violent. I mean,
they'll come at you real hard.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I've watched a lot of UFO videos where you can
hear the people who are taking the video of the UFO.
You can hear them conversing on the audio truck. They
and the people around them are literally negotiating the meaning
of what they're seeing.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Rod kind of told me that he had been diagnosed
with cancer, and he said it wasn't looking good.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
He did have a tumor.
Speaker 6 (00:42):
He had had that drone encounter that he was talking
about at that contract was totally gone. So can I
explain that medically?
Speaker 7 (00:50):
No, I cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
It feels like you're driving up to that building and
stranger things.
Speaker 8 (01:09):
Where they're doing all those tests. There's this big.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Metal door with concrete walls that are like twenty foot
high allow and there's cameras kind of all over the place,
(01:37):
peering in the direction of a tunnel on the side
of a hill in the middle of nowhere. I prepared
to go meters underground into a Cold War era room
that once housed a nuclear warhead estimated to be twenty
times stronger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. To see
if my hunch was true Chapter fifteen, Buried in plain sight,
(02:16):
I slowly walked up to the entrance of an intercontinental
ballistic missile silo. My goal was to see how expansive
these installations were, and ultimately if a similar space would
be able to conceal many aircraft. A quick Google search
revealed these sites and the bombs locked inside of them
(02:38):
were first built during the Cuban missile Crisis in the
nineteen sixties and scattered throughout the Great Planes, sometimes right
next to farms. The military sold a few silos that
weren't in use. I tracked one down that belonged to
Don and Shark's Wantzer. They'd bought an abandoned or decommissioned
(02:59):
missile site near Kimball, Nebraska. I convinced them to take
me around the property.
Speaker 8 (03:04):
What is this right here?
Speaker 6 (03:05):
Now?
Speaker 9 (03:06):
This is the door that would open and they would
back the missile end. So the missile bay is right
behind this forty seven ton door.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Go ahead, followed on.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
We entered the structure through a large hole covered by
metal mesh curtains. There was a long tube with lights
illuminating a walkway twenty to thirty yards in. I saw
a second haul to the right. It felt like a narrower,
darker version of a New York subway station and not
the type of place side spend a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
The crew was down that tunnel with the red phone
and the launch buttons were The missile was in a
room building over here, for the purpose of the tunnel
was to separate the two buildings so the crew wouldn't
get blown up when they launched.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I was surprised to learn the crew actually lived where
the rockets were housed. Do you know how many people
used to live in here? Like at one time?
Speaker 7 (04:06):
Five twenty four to.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Seven from Cheyenne Zeffie Warren.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Here's the room that the missile was in now.
Speaker 9 (04:13):
The missile was eighty five feet long, about nine foot
in diameter.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was stored in a horizontal position.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
The nose was down here.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
But we have two buildings underground, the launch building which
is about fifteen thousand square feet, command building, which is
underneath that dirt, which is five thousand square feet one
hundred and thirty nine thousand cubic yards of concrete designed
to a stand A one make a ton blast one
point six miles away had four warheads on it. Commissioned
(04:43):
at a time with the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We walked downstairs into what was known is the oxygen room.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Down here's a warm sixty room contained a sixty five
foot stainless seal liquid oxygen tank in.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
How far underground are we right now?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, the culvert above the culvert is about twelve feet
to the surface.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
When I emerged from the tunnel, I plugged in coordinates
for an active missile site I located not too far away.
Speaker 10 (05:20):
It's just crazy how unexposed they are.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I turned off the highway and onto a dirt road.
There was a barbed wire fence with a lot gate
to my left. Inside the perimeter stood a few metal
slabs with poles sticking up.
Speaker 9 (05:37):
I do know they're like these permanent two sighting things.
And there's there's some kind of cryptic kind of some
directional sorts of stuff, kind of a creepy thing actually
that we would have it right the corner of our place.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
As I got out of the pickup, I was approached
by the owners of a nearby farmhouse. For the sake
of their privacy. I called them Emma and John. It
wasn't long before they showed me a cylindrical metal plate
buried in their lawn, only a few hundred yards from
the missile site.
Speaker 8 (06:10):
That was to set up the guidance systems. And the
guidance systems on the missiles are designed to go off
a true north and at night they would go up
and get their settings off the north star, and then
that's how they put in the guidance for the missiles.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Seeing something that helped direct a missile right next to
a home was odd, but they didn't seem to mind.
We paused for a second and looked towards the silo
before walking around to the back of the farm. I
was curious to hear if anybody who lived nearby had
spotted the mysterious aircraft flying at night.
Speaker 8 (06:45):
Nobody ever sided them flying over a silum. They were
always different places. See, because most of the military work,
the air force stuff, has generally done at night, and
so you don't you don't see them that much more.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
It's done very visible, and you see like armored and
one of those vehicles, somevies on corners and you might
even see a helicopter in the air and there'd be
a trailer working on the ground, yeah, on the at
the site, so that's very visible, and you know something
something's going on.
Speaker 8 (07:19):
When the Air Force was asked, they said, uh, oh,
we don't know nothing. Okay. With all the missile sites,
they would have known something.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
With the silon near Emma and John's residence housing a
nuke that could be launched at any time. I'd wondered
if they'd seen an increase in military activity when the
strange crafts were nearby.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
They're regular routines of checking didn't increase, so.
Speaker 9 (07:46):
That makes you think a little bit, you know, I mean,
they the assumption would be they knew something was going
on because they weren't being ever vigilant of their property,
you know, so they were probably.
Speaker 8 (08:01):
And law enforcement generally didn't have much of a clue
whether they were told and told not to say anything
or not. But you know, even the x sheriffs and
ex deputies they speculated the same thing at this military
the last it's maybe been five years, five to seven years.
(08:21):
They have surveillance on all both sites that they thought
when they started in the sixties, they the fences had
been around them were pressure sensitive, so if anybody messed
with it, they didn't know. We had tumbleweeds, and within
a month they had to change their system because there'd
be enough tumbleweeds blown against them and set them off. Supposedly,
if you would take a little drunk and go fly
(08:42):
it over missile site, somebody might show up and stuff
like that, because I know they gentlemen put a pivot in,
ran the electric climb in, he nicked the communications cable
and it's pressurized, and I think they said twelve minutes.
There's a choper.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
That seemed fast, but I knew a lot could happen
in twelve minutes. Even with many government agencies publicly denying
involvement in the sidings, it did seem probable that old
silos in the land surrounding them could be a secure
place to operate and store large numbers of drones. If
(09:21):
there was a connection between the functioning silos and unknown aircraft,
I was confident the Air Force would know what was
going on. Chapter sixteen f E.
Speaker 8 (09:43):
Warren use the.
Speaker 11 (09:44):
Right lane to take exit three point fifty nine c
ANTI twenty five north and US eighty seven North toward
Casper in one point two miles take Exit ten d
Onto missile drive toward Happy Jack Road.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Two military helicopters flying right towards me on the Interstate.
Helicopters flew over as I parked near a guarded gate
at f you Warren. It's the closest Air Force base
to a majority of the sidings and located on the
outskirts of Cheyenne, Wyoming. A lieutenant by the name of
(10:19):
John Karkaff agreed to an interview with me as a
representative for the base. After a few minutes, he arrived
to take me to his office.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
FI Warren originally started out as a cavalry training base,
so I think at one point there were twenty five
thousand horses here at FI Warren, and we still have
some of the stables up on the north end of
our base. But it eventually became an intercontinental Ballistic missile
but an ICBN base.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
The base looked like a small town, complete with brick
buildings and dirt road streets. Sitting in the passenger seat
of his vehicle, I noticed how clean it was and
over the top attention to detail hail type clean. John
was definitely a type a personality.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
So when I originally found out about FI Warren, I
was a little bit misfied. I'd never heard of F
You Warren, you know, never seen the bass pop up
on anything. So I was a little bit, you know,
inquisitive as to what exactly I was.
Speaker 10 (11:17):
I was heading into.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
What does the ninetieth Missile Wing do specifically?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Yeah, So the ninetieth missile Wing is made up of
several groups, and this includes security forces, the missileers of
the actual operators who sit in the missile capsules, as
well as the maintainers, the administrative folks, the mission support groups,
the forced support So the nineteth MISSI Wing encompasses all
(11:42):
of that. And the ninetieth Missile Wing is the wing
stationed at F You Warren that would execute the nuclear
mission that ensures that the President and his advisors or
her advisors have the capability to call upon nuclear power
should it be necessary.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I didn't know how long I'd have to speak with John.
I steered our conversation towards the mysterious aircraft. F You
Warren has denied that these drones belonged to them. Would
that mean that you wouldn't have to acknowledge if a
contractor outside of you was using those drones.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Yeah, so I can confirm that the drone sightings were
not related to FI Warren or the Air Force in
any way. So that would include you know, contractors or
what other you know, third parties that might be, but
they were in no way, shape or form.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
Related to the Air Force.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
When it comes to the active missile silos in the area,
I assume that there's some type of counter drone technology
that would protect those.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
So FIE Warren does have a counter drone program. I
can't go into too much specifics due to operational security,
but I can say that any kind of you know,
training that we we do do on f E. Warren
takes place within the confines of the base, and in
discussions with with our forces in the field, you know,
(13:11):
we confirmed that those drones were not ours and in
no time, at no time did they ever threaten any
of our facilities, any of our missiles, any of our
missile silos. So that that kind of again put it
definitely made us think about an aspect of you know,
(13:31):
how we you know, how we communicate you know, our
our programs to the public. I know it is something
that some people. You know, you think of anti drone
technology and you think of ray guns or whatever it is.
Speaker 8 (13:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Again, I can't go into specifics about how all that
counter drone stuff works, but it did, you know, make us,
uh make us you know, I guess approach the the
drone issue in a more direct way. I can't speak of,
you know, when the counter drone stuff was was being
(14:05):
used or wasn't being used. Although I can't say that
we did have the technology, should we need to employ it.
We've we've had that, but at no point in time
did we ever need to employ it during that.
Speaker 10 (14:20):
January time frame.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
John said that the Air Force did have counter drone
technology in place during the first week of twenty twenty,
when the majority of the objects were cited. However, he
didn't go into detail about counter drone surveillance at each
individual silo.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
I don't think there's a there's a need for concern,
you know. I again, I want to stay in my
lane here, but you know, I know in terms of
the FAA and the other agencies that do serve to
protect you know, our community and our neighbors out in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado.
(15:01):
You know, I do they I know they are very
you know, on the ball in terms of you know,
what we are doing and what they are doing, and
how we work together in order to make sure that
our community is safe. So I don't think there's a
there's a need for concern.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
No need for concern. This was a confusing statement to me.
If these unknown aircraft didn't belong to the Air Force,
and if John on behalf of f you Warren could
also conclude no Air Force contractors were flying them, there
may be something strange flying in the vicinity of nuclear
missiles and no one could pinpoint what it was.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Point nine back up.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
This call is now being recorded.
Speaker 10 (15:53):
The first time I interviewed you, I felt like you
were giving me the full picture and clearest detail of
everything you knew. Can you go into more of that?
Speaker 8 (16:04):
Now?
Speaker 6 (16:07):
Definitely into more of it. But in the one big
issue in all of it is as far as what
I can go into and what I can the one
big one is the FAA related breaking of rules and laws.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Following my visit to f You Warren, I was able
to convince Matthew Spencer to talk with me again.
Speaker 10 (16:30):
Do you have any way of proving that you were
in Colorado during that time.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
The only thing would be would be the logs from
the drunes, and that becomes an issue. I mean, that's
the thing, and that's kind of why I was offered
the polygraph to avoid having to turn anything in that's
gonna get me into trouble.
Speaker 10 (16:51):
What were you doing in Colorado during the time of
the Colorado drone mystery?
Speaker 6 (16:55):
The Colorado drone mystery and that exact spot in spots
was happening is essentially where we thought we were going
to be able to catch up with what we were
tracking UAP. We were not. And so as our own
process entails, sometimes drones go up to tell us what
we need to know if we missed it, and that's
(17:18):
what the end of it was. We did come to
the conclusion we had missed it, and with what was
going on with the Colorado drones, we decided to get
on out of town at that time.
Speaker 10 (17:29):
Now, is this the same type of craft that the
Navy refers to. Is it tic TAC that we've all
seen in those videos online?
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Yes, this is the exact same technology. There's a particular
version we were looking for, but they all match up
the same, and that version is going to be that
essentially there is no sign of propulsion, you have the
ability to really just float their. Contrary to belief and
what you've heard from the various encounters, it does make
(17:58):
a noise, It's just not a noise you're going to
pick up by flying a fighter jet. Is a slight
hum on an ultrasonic mic. It really tells you a
lot about what is going on inside of it. And
these are the sort of things that we look for.
In other words, there's nothing physic wise that we know
of in the inventory that could do these sort of things.
Speaker 10 (18:19):
That sounds crazy. What would lead you to believe there
was a tic tac in the vicinity of the Colorado drones.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
Most of what you hear and most of the objective
being lit right now is definitely from an adversary such
as China or Russia, or it's little Green men. All
of those dictate the story in the narrative, and that
narrative would be it could be coming from overseas or
from a ship, could be coming from the sky Mars,
(18:49):
and it's coming down to us. But when you get
into the reality of it, if it is ours, if
it is us, then it has to be built somewhere,
and it has to be maintained somewhere, and that's going
to be in the United States over land.
Speaker 10 (19:05):
What would lead you to believe there was the UAP
in the vicinity of the Colorado drones.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
I've been at this a long time. You know. The
correlation is is do I have drones? Of course, that's
a part of it. In certain instances, you know, where
we've seen issues with the craft, which is why you
usually get a great view of it. Drones follow, So
if you have something a hypothetical a piece could come off,
(19:31):
you would have a stall out and you would have
drones follow. We believe that that would be the METHA
and we believe that's probably what's going on with the larger, faster,
heavier ones that seemed to show up.
Speaker 8 (19:44):
Right before we left.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
If there was a larger aircraft or some type of
UAP in the vicinity of these drone like objects, I
couldn't find any information that would confirm that. Matthew brought
up a few of the FAA emails that Douglas Johnson
had published online. He had strong words for how his
correspondence with the FAA was released. When he said agent
(20:12):
Bumgardner he was referencing Agent Bumberger.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
Michael Bumgardner is a legal hawk. If you look him up,
if you're researching, he's the guy that goes out to
the local little airport where they got Sessen's flying from
the nineteen sixties, and he watches and he writes down
your tail number and he writes tickets. There's cases of
it online you can find he was sent out to
write tickets. He wasn't sent out to solve the mystery.
(20:39):
People have to understand, you know, I'm a debunker. Like
I said, there were satellites in the area during that
time period, there were planets. There's all sorts of stuff
in the sky, and I always debunked that, and I
believe a lot of it could be debummed. As far
as what I think about Bumgardner is this stuff happens.
You know, people always think if we like, we'll find answers.
(21:02):
Foy is not new. The paper that they released and
the communication between Bumgarner to me says, at the bottom
of it, you can't show anybody this, you can't distribute
it nothing. So they also could keep everything in a
file and the only way that comes out is what
they want to pull out of that file. If you
pull something out of that file yourself, federal charges federal penalties.
(21:25):
So they're just having to release some stuff in FO
you and not the other things.
Speaker 10 (21:31):
And then you have this narrative.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
And the narrative I think, in everyone's opinion, was very
negative of me.
Speaker 10 (21:38):
I gotta be honest, Matthew, that sounds like it's out there.
Why would Bumberger go to so much trouble to throw
you under the bus.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
There's a narrative, and it's an FAA narrative, and that's
that they know everything.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
They're the facts.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
I mean, this is the way it works. A story
that a UFO or UAP was in that area is
not than they want to do with. Now you're the
special agent in charge, that was his title of this.
It's on you, and he's sure and Hick wasn't going
to let anything out that wasn't normal. Did you see one?
(22:14):
Did you think he's right? Or do you think he
should have took the guy that wanted to take a
polygraph come up there and answer some questions. He didn't
want that polygraph on record.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
It wasn't my job to judge or not judge an
FAA narrative, I was missing key facts. There was another
person who could possibly shed new light on the FAA's response.
It was a man I'd been trying to interview since
day one, as the obscure sidings seemed to begin in
his county. Phillips County, Colorado Sheriff Tom Elliott finally agreed
(22:50):
to speak with me.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
In early January, a task force meeting was held in Brush.
He discussed the sightings. Did you take part in this
meeting and what did you learn from it?
Speaker 7 (23:01):
I was there and all we got was lip service
from the Federal Aviation Administration, and those are the people
that actually regulate these drones. What we found out is
the FAA has a no enforcement arm, so their capabilities
to enforce their own rules is zero.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Now. Phillips County Sheriff's office posted on Facebook on January sixth,
a strategy meeting was held today in Brush, Colorado with federal, state,
and local law enforcement agencies regarding the drones. Specifically, we
are looking for the command vehicle. We are looking for
a closed box trailer with the antennas or large band
does not belong in the area. If you see anything
(23:47):
that resembles that or this description, Please call the Phillips
Kenny Sheriff's Office. Were you ever in fact looking for
that specific vehicle or was that based on what was
talked about at that task.
Speaker 7 (24:00):
We asked two different questions there. So the question about
how did we come to a description of the vehicle
came from the FAA from that task force meeting, And
that's the description of the vehicle that they said they
were looking for. They said they said at the meeting,
quit looking for the drones, start looking for the command vehicle,
and this is what you should be looking for, the
(24:22):
second part of your question, is that's the description of
the vehicle. Yes, that is what we were looking for.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Have there been any follow up from that taskforce meeting?
Get the death of your knowledge.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
There was never even a task force formed at the meeting.
There was one, you know, Sheriff Martin took names, but
no task force was actually formed. So therefore no task
force was ever a never got off the ground to
investigate this. This all falls back on the federal government
who refused to do anything. This is a federal law
(24:53):
violation and they should have done something about the federal
law violation.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Fingers were pointing at the FA. It later came to
my attention that Logan County Sheriff Dave Martin not only
took names as mentioned by Sheriff Elliott, but was said
to be the head of the drone task Force. He
didn't want to be recorded, but told me there were
no steps ever taken to form the group. FAA officials
(25:20):
left the meeting saying they'd share information, but as I learned,
there was no follow up. Was it the FAA's job
to be the glue that brought this together? But more importantly,
were there details FAA investigators purposely kept from collaborating agencies.
(25:46):
I soon became aware of disturbing information which led me
to research an area outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Plo Verdi generates the most energy of any power producing
facility in the It's also the largest nuclear plant, with
three units.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Something happened in the skies above the PalaVerde Nuclear Generating Station,
one of America's most powerful nuclear plants, on consecutive nights
in September of twenty nineteen, two months before the Northeast
Colorado sightings, unauthorized drones were spotted flying over a restricted
(26:26):
area with pressurized water reactors. These were described as large
aircraft with red and white flashing lights. They appeared at night,
and it was reported that they had spotlights on while
approaching the site, but turned them off after entering the
security owner controlled area. No drone operators were found, and
(26:48):
witnesses were left scratching their heads. This discovery led me
to uncover something else, an alarming trend the FAA knew
of that would completely change my view of the mystery
(27:12):
coming up on Obscure Invasion of the Drums. I kind
of stop at that two way stop signing it. It
stopped moving and then elevated, and then it lowered itself
behind a tree. I'm anxious, but I can't worry about
what might happen or the consequences of revealing the truth.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
It's going to go up slowly, but it kept doing
it for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. This thing ended
up being thousands of feet in the air.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
We want to hear from you if you have any
information surrounding the events detailed in this podcast or other
obscure stories in rural America we should look into. Please
visit our website at obscurumseries.com and send us an email
to connect with us on social media. You can follow
(28:19):
@obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced
by Imagine Entertainment and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted,
and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by
(28:41):
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Kara Welker, Nathan Kloke, Niki Etour
and Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound
effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design
(29:01):
by Labyrinth Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Semikopenko. This
project was mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks
to Dan Bodanski, Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield,
(29:22):
David Wasserman, Katrina Norvell and my family. OBSCURUM
the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Follow now.
Host
Gabe Lenners
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