March 18, 2025 • 23 mins
In the season finale of OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones, Gabe finds strong parallels between the mysterious aircraft hovering over Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, and now New Jersey. Authorities reveal startling similarities. Is there a deliberate cover-up? A cryptic phone call leaves Gabe with a blurred view of the drones at the center of it all.
This episode covers:
Chapter Seventeen - What’s Out There?
Episode Webpage: https://www.obscurumseries.com/podcast/invasion-of-the-drones/the-final-call
Music by Epidemic Sound
Follow OBSCURUM:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/obscurum_series/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@obscurum_series
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@obscurum_series
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/obscurum/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/obscurum_series
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Be sure to listen until the very end of this
final season one episode. We have a special announcement. You
won't want to miss it. Last time on OBSCURUM
of the Drones.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, so I can confirm that the drone sightings were
not related to f you, Warren or the Air Force
in anyway. So that would include you know, contractors or
one other you know, third parties.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That might be gentlemen. But a vivid n ran the
electric line in he nicked the communications cable and it's
pressurized and I think they said twelve minutes of the Chumberber.
This all falls back on the federal government who refused
to do anything.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
There's a narrative and it's an fa narative and as
if they know everything, they're in the face. I mean,
this is the way it works.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
A story that a UFO or UAP was in.
Speaker 6 (01:00):
It's not something they want to do with.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
There are many nights.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
I just wonder.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Where will this story lead.
Speaker 7 (01:18):
I'm anxious, but.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I can't worry about what might happen or the consequences
of revealing the truth. My curiosity into looking for a
connection between the strange sightings that occurred in Arizona in
September of twenty nineteen, and the objects that began appearing
(01:43):
over my hometown a couple months later led me to
uncover a string of unexplainable encounters which seemed too related
to actually be a coincidence. I was able to confirm
that in the same thirty day timeframe of December twentieth,
twenty nineteen to January twentieth, twenty twenty, shortly after the
(02:05):
craft first arrived in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, clusters of
unknown objects began popping up at night in large numbers
and other remote areas of the country. In the FAA
was aware of it, Chapter seventeen, What's out There.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
My name is Marc Colotti.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Last name is spelled Hla d y. I'm the sergeant
with the Rice County Sheriff's Office. I've been doing this
twenty eight and a half years with this department. Race
County is mainly rural. We do have two towns of
about twenty four thousand apiece. Northfield is in the north
end of the county and ferebl Minnesota's in the central
(02:58):
the south end of the county. I thirty five split
us right and a half.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
In Minnesota, Sergeant Halaate of the Rice County Sheriff's Office
witnessed a wild spectacle in the night sky on New
Year's Eve of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
It was New Year's Eve, excuse me, so about six
point thirty pm, dispatch gave out a report of several drones.
There's a small town, a very small town, unincorporated, basically
just northeast of Fairball called Cannon City, and some reports
started to come in between Cannon City and Fairbell that
(03:34):
there were several drones flying over the area.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I got out to the Cannon City area.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
They would hover, they would move, then one of them
literally went right over my head, very very slowly, and
it was probably eighty to one hundred feet up, but
it literally went right over the top of my head
about eighty ninety feet. I was standing outside of my
squad car and a small church parking lot and looking
straight up. I went north on the road from this
small town, straight north, and it accelerated from forty to
(04:02):
fifty miles an hour up to oh, I bet it
was eighty was outrunning me and I was doing fifty
five to sixty at most.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
They did appear to you that these were aware that
you were there, that you were doing that.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
One, there's no reason to be doing twenty thirty miles
an hour flying around eastern Fairbau and all of a
sudden slowed down to five miles an hour to pass
directly over me. It was very obvious from the beginning
that these drones were not being flown by line of sight,
and it was obvious that these drones were being flown
(04:38):
most likely over a cell service to receive the signals
because these drones were going twenty to five, ten, fifteen miles.
Was a drone I watched when when it out ran me,
I stopped on the top of the hill and parked
in a field entrance and I watched this drone and
then it stopped and it was a ways out, but
I had my binoculars and it was flashing white.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And then it started to go up.
Speaker 6 (05:04):
And what was odd is it when it started to
go up, it started.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
To go up slowly, but it.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Kept doing it for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. This
this thing ended up being thousands of feet in the air,
still flashing green and white, and I just I couldn't
I couldn't figure it out. But one to two hours
after the drones left our area, they showed up, or
most likely the same group we don't know, showed up
(05:33):
in Goodhue and Wabasha Counties along the Mississippi River, and
they were being chased around by deputies down there, to
the point where the state Patrol even sent I believe
it was a helicopter down in that area, but they
never even never found anything, and the drones just up
and disappeared.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
As a seasoned investigator, Sergeant Haladi knew what needed to
be done.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Next, I called the FAA and Air Traffic Control, and
air traffic Control took the message, and then I had
an FA supervisor from Texas somewhere call me and questioned
me about this. And it was interesting because I kind
of got the idea that he wanted to blame it on.
It was that these were planes, and I'm like, these
(06:19):
were not planes. They were not moving the way planes move.
And I told him, I said I heard one they
went right over the top of me at five miles
an hour. He goes, well, we don't have any record
of anything. I'm like, okay, I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm not saying they were
buying to me or you know, maybe they didn't know either,
but it's odd.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
That's all I can say.
Speaker 8 (06:41):
When you talked to the FAA official, did you feel
like they were gonna, you know, do follow up on
this and figure out what was actually going on? Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I kind of got the idea that he wanted to
be able to put these were planes so he didn't
have to file a report. That is the god's honest
truth of what I after getting off the phone with
some I'm Mike, I think I have perturbed him more than.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It was informative.
Speaker 6 (07:09):
What he was trying to get me to say is
they were down at five hundred feet. I'm like, no,
they're a hell of a lot higher than five hundred feet.
I think maybe he would have had to file a
report if something was above a certain point, so he
wanted to get me to say it was lower.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And he's like, yeah, the distance gets can make it
look higher.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
And I'm like, okay, I've got twenty twenty vision at
fifty some years old, I know what I'm looking at,
and I can tell you I've watched this thing go
up for twenty minutes and it's a lot higher than
you're thinking it is.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
He never even, like you know, months later, no one
ever called you to say, hey, did you ever figure
that out? Or nothing at all? You had no follow up.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
No follow up none.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
I started reading about on the news about all these
drones in northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I'm like, well, sumpthing's up? What's out there?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Thank you for calling City of Algians for one to
one after hours.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
If this is an emergency, please hang up and down nine.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
To one to one.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
After leaving a few messages, I was tipped off about
a separate incident in a neighboring state.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
I'm a sergeant Anthony Regano and that's rig A n O.
So I'm you can just go with Tony. I'm a
sergeant with the Elgin Police Department in Elgin, Illinois, which
is halfway between Rockford and Chicago.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I sent in a Freedom of Information Act request with
the department. Then I was granted access to a report
Sergeant Rigano filled out.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
Take me back to that day, January eighth, twenty twenty.
What was that day like for you?
Speaker 9 (08:55):
So at the time, I was a patrol sergeant, So
I was a sergeant on the afternoon shift, which is
about basically three pm to eleven pm. We had had
a call earlier in the day. I remember it was
a very cold day and it had been relatively busy.
A caller said there was drones in the air over
Elgin High School. As the day progressed, maybe fast forward
about twenty thirty minutes, our dispatchers will routinely ask us
(09:18):
to call up to their communications division when they have
a question, or they have a call that they're not
sure if they should dispatch, or they have just general questions.
So I called upstairs and spoke with dispatch, and they said, hey,
we have more callers in a different area now, saying
that there's at least thirty drones up in the air
over the area of the water treatment facility, which is
(09:41):
kind of north of the police department, not by very much.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
I said, don't dispatch the call. I'll just go check
on it myself.
Speaker 9 (09:48):
So I drove out of the police station and I
went up to kind of check. Now, it was a
very cold day, and we have our own drone unit
here at the police department, so I'm relatively I'm not
on the drone unit, but I'm relatively familiar with them.
I know in cold weather they don't really fly for
that long, at least not the ones. We have some
cold weather batteries, and they still really don't stay up
(10:09):
for that long. So I was kind of surprised that
they were up in a different area that far away
from the first dispatch.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
So when I got out there, there were a lot.
Speaker 9 (10:17):
Of them, and they were all kind of moving at
the same speed in kind of in unison, and some
of them were huge. I'd never personally seen a drone
that big. There was probably I would say twenty of
them at least that were I would estimate about.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Six feet from like tip to tip.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
Those were kind of strange because again I don't really
haven't seen anything that big before as far as a
drone that's just being flown for you know, fun. And
so I drove back to the police station and a
couple of them broke off from the formation, flying southeast
and stopped over the police station. It was kind of
at that point that I reached out to the FAA.
(11:01):
I had our dispatchers called the FAA because we have
it an FAA building in Elgince.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
So I thought, well, maybe they know about whatever this is.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
And our local FAA said, we don't know anything about that.
We don't show any scheduled flights, we don't show anything
on our radar, we don't show anything in the air.
Kind of being a police officer, my mind started to
spin a little bit, and I said, well, why don't
you get a hold of somebody who might be able
to tell me what's going on with this?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Because this is not normal.
Speaker 9 (11:27):
I thought, what are some high target areas in our town?
So I started to kind of go to some different areas.
I mean, it started at the school, a large high
school in the area. Then it moved up to the
water treatment facility, and then they started moving to the
southeast side of town, over this huge salvage yard junkyard.
There were probably thirty of them by my estimation.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Just hovering.
Speaker 9 (11:47):
I got on the phone with a guy from the FAA,
actually ironically out of Nebraska, and he was apparently the
point person for this, so I spoke with him. So
he said, well, see if you can drive and see
if you can catch up with them. So I ended
up actually following some of them into the town just
east of us, which is Bartlet and I was driving
about thirty thirty five miles an hour, and they were
(12:08):
pulling away from me.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
That's also something I'm not really used to. I didn't know.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
I know drones do do that, because I actually do
know somebody in my personal life who does drone racing,
but those are not large drones six feet wide. The
FAA guy that I was speaking to from Nebraska, he
actually told me to see if I could shine my.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Spotlight on one of the smaller ones.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
So I did at his direction, and when I did so,
the lights turned off completely and it flew away.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
If the FAA had told police to spotlight drones, I
was unaware of it.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
At one point, as I was leaving Bartlett, I had
to stop at a two way stop sign to cross
the street, and one of the drones it stopped moving
and then elevated and then it lowered itself behind a tree.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
That's the one part that really kind of messed with
me a little bit. That was a part that was
the most.
Speaker 9 (13:01):
Responsive, I guess, other than the spotlighting, where it just
kind of it was clearly why else did it stop?
It knew I was, you know, it might I guess.
I guess apparently must have noticed I was following it.
For every one small one, there were two of the
larger ones.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Did you ever have any follow up from the FAA.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Were they able to help you conclusively, like gather more
information about this? No, I did have contact with another agent,
and I did forward my report to them, and as
well as the two callers I think that called it in.
They said they were going to follow up and talk
(13:42):
to them and see if they saw anything further. I
certainly went on the internet and saw started reading some
of the stuff about the task force forming out in
Colorado and Nebraska, and some people theorizing, you know, what
it may or may not be from. But no, I
never got any further interactions so to speak with the
FAA in regard to what it was or.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
Nor have I and I you know, I check every
once in a while out of curiosity to see if
I can google and get any answers, and to my knowledge,
I have yet to see anything that really explains it.
The impression I got was they said that these are
very consistent sightings that were getting into these various different areas,
and you know, their stance at that point was that
(14:25):
they were just waiting any day that the military was
going to tell them, Hey, that was us, don't worry
about it.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
But they said that, you.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
Know, in times past where we have some strange sightings,
the government's pretty quick to confirm, yeah, that was us,
you know, because they don't really obviously, if they're dealing
with some type of technology they don't want out there,
they're not going to want it to become some big article.
So I you know, he kind of seemed surprised. I
would say that they have not gotten a phone call
(14:52):
to that point indicating it was it was done. I
guess the overall sense I got from them as well,
we hope we just get a phone call that explains this,
and to that point, we don't really know what else
to point a finger at to say what it could
even be.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
What Sergeant Ragano didn't tell me about his report was
just as compelling as what he did. In the last line,
he wrote that the investigations into these drones in Elgin
were not even carried over to the next shift because
they were dismissed by the Police Department iss UFO sidings.
(15:31):
To my knowledge, there wasn't another agency that played a
larger role in the investigation than the FAA agent Ragano's
account solidified that there was high FAA confidence the sidings
were not related to covert military operations. An off the
cuff interview comment by then United States Transportation Secretary Elaine
(15:54):
Chow further echoed that stance.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
We heard recently that there was the these covees of
drones flying at night over in Nebraska, in Colorado. We
don't know who they are, we don't know who they
belong to, we don't know who's operating them. To this day,
we do not.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And so.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
The law enforce the local law enforcement initiates the action.
We're very lucky nothing happened. So the local law enforcements
have have stepped down, so we're not we're not actively
uh investigating that because the local law enforcements stood dead.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
It's been over five years since I began looking into
this story. With the government shooting down weird objects and
the sky, Congressional UAP hearings in reports of an agency
harboring and reverse engineering alien aircraft, interest in strange sightings
has never been higher. I continually look to the sky,
(17:16):
but on the ground, I've been left with a revealing
web of theories, lies, and shocking truths. I'm frustrated, but
hungrier than ever to connect the dots. When I travel
to my hometown, I still hear accounts from locals who
may be out in the tractor late one night, are
(17:38):
coming home from a high school football game, and see
lights in the sky that aren't supposed to be there,
sometimes following them ever so slowly before going dark. The
first few episodes of this podcast have been released, and
I'm back in LA figuring out my next steps. I'm
(18:00):
reminded of the stark differences between southern California mountains and
prairies in Middle America. I'm turning right towards a beach
in Malibu. It's humid but mild. The water is glistening
in the sunlight. Pausing workout.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Hello, Hey, Gabe, how's it going good?
Speaker 8 (18:53):
How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I'm doing okay, doing okay. You know, I've been listening
to the podcast. I think it's great, really interesting. But
I actually have something you may want to look into.
You know my background, well, you know my background and
covering national security for a lot of years, and I've
(19:18):
been talking to some of my friends who are sources
and who are sources and who are off the grid.
You'll never hear from these people in person, but you
know these aircraft or drones or whatever the hell they
are that you're looking at. I can't share any more
(19:41):
with you right now on it. I'm going to try
to get some more on this, but it could be
a problem. This whole thing is just crazy. This could
be a real national security threat.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That call in your many tips have opened new doors.
The team and I are actively chasing fresh leads to
document how this story continues to evolve. Reports of unidentified
aircraft or popping up in other areas of the country.
In late twenty twenty four, mysterious drones began appearing in
(20:32):
the Northeast. We were on the ground investigating possible connections
between those sidings and what occurred over the Midwest five
years earlier, Which brings me to our special announcement. Next Tuesday,
We're dropping a raw teaser of what we first experienced
in New Jersey. Is the Chaos Unfolded right here on
(20:54):
our podcast feed. Stay tuned. If you have any information
surrounding the events detailed in this podcast, or have your
(21:15):
own similar account, please visit our website at obscurumseries.com and
share your story. You'll also find exclusive behind the scenes
content on the site. To connect with us on social media,
you can follow @obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms.
(21:40):
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 Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Kara Welker,
Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough.
(22:08):
Music and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management
and digital design 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,
(22:34):
Ailey Birchfield, David Wasserman, Katrina Norvell and my family. OBSCURUM:
Invasion of the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Follow now.
Be sure to listen until the very end of this
final season one episode. We have a special announcement. You
won't want to miss it. Last time on OBSCURUM
of the Drones.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, so I can confirm that the drone sightings were
not related to f you, Warren or the Air Force
in anyway. So that would include you know, contractors or
one other you know, third parties.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That might be gentlemen. But a vivid n ran the
electric line in he nicked the communications cable and it's
pressurized and I think they said twelve minutes of the Chumberber.
This all falls back on the federal government who refused
to do anything.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
There's a narrative and it's an fa narative and as
if they know everything, they're in the face. I mean,
this is the way it works.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
A story that a UFO or UAP was in.
Speaker 6 (01:00):
It's not something they want to do with.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
There are many nights.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
I just wonder.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Where will this story lead.
Speaker 7 (01:18):
I'm anxious, but.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I can't worry about what might happen or the consequences
of revealing the truth. My curiosity into looking for a
connection between the strange sightings that occurred in Arizona in
September of twenty nineteen, and the objects that began appearing
(01:43):
over my hometown a couple months later led me to
uncover a string of unexplainable encounters which seemed too related
to actually be a coincidence. I was able to confirm
that in the same thirty day timeframe of December twentieth,
twenty nineteen to January twentieth, twenty twenty, shortly after the
(02:05):
craft first arrived in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, clusters of
unknown objects began popping up at night in large numbers
and other remote areas of the country. In the FAA
was aware of it, Chapter seventeen, What's out There.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
My name is Marc Colotti.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
Last name is spelled Hla d y. I'm the sergeant
with the Rice County Sheriff's Office. I've been doing this
twenty eight and a half years with this department. Race
County is mainly rural. We do have two towns of
about twenty four thousand apiece. Northfield is in the north
end of the county and ferebl Minnesota's in the central
(02:58):
the south end of the county. I thirty five split
us right and a half.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
In Minnesota, Sergeant Halaate of the Rice County Sheriff's Office
witnessed a wild spectacle in the night sky on New
Year's Eve of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
It was New Year's Eve, excuse me, so about six
point thirty pm, dispatch gave out a report of several drones.
There's a small town, a very small town, unincorporated, basically
just northeast of Fairball called Cannon City, and some reports
started to come in between Cannon City and Fairbell that
(03:34):
there were several drones flying over the area.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I got out to the Cannon City area.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
They would hover, they would move, then one of them
literally went right over my head, very very slowly, and
it was probably eighty to one hundred feet up, but
it literally went right over the top of my head
about eighty ninety feet. I was standing outside of my
squad car and a small church parking lot and looking
straight up. I went north on the road from this
small town, straight north, and it accelerated from forty to
(04:02):
fifty miles an hour up to oh, I bet it
was eighty was outrunning me and I was doing fifty
five to sixty at most.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
They did appear to you that these were aware that
you were there, that you were doing that.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
One, there's no reason to be doing twenty thirty miles
an hour flying around eastern Fairbau and all of a
sudden slowed down to five miles an hour to pass
directly over me. It was very obvious from the beginning
that these drones were not being flown by line of sight,
and it was obvious that these drones were being flown
(04:38):
most likely over a cell service to receive the signals
because these drones were going twenty to five, ten, fifteen miles.
Was a drone I watched when when it out ran me,
I stopped on the top of the hill and parked
in a field entrance and I watched this drone and
then it stopped and it was a ways out, but
I had my binoculars and it was flashing white.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
And then it started to go up.
Speaker 6 (05:04):
And what was odd is it when it started to
go up, it started.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
To go up slowly, but it.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Kept doing it for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. This
this thing ended up being thousands of feet in the air,
still flashing green and white, and I just I couldn't
I couldn't figure it out. But one to two hours
after the drones left our area, they showed up, or
most likely the same group we don't know, showed up
(05:33):
in Goodhue and Wabasha Counties along the Mississippi River, and
they were being chased around by deputies down there, to
the point where the state Patrol even sent I believe
it was a helicopter down in that area, but they
never even never found anything, and the drones just up
and disappeared.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
As a seasoned investigator, Sergeant Haladi knew what needed to
be done.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Next, I called the FAA and Air Traffic Control, and
air traffic Control took the message, and then I had
an FA supervisor from Texas somewhere call me and questioned
me about this. And it was interesting because I kind
of got the idea that he wanted to blame it on.
It was that these were planes, and I'm like, these
(06:19):
were not planes. They were not moving the way planes move.
And I told him, I said I heard one they
went right over the top of me at five miles
an hour. He goes, well, we don't have any record
of anything. I'm like, okay, I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm not saying they were
buying to me or you know, maybe they didn't know either,
but it's odd.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
That's all I can say.
Speaker 8 (06:41):
When you talked to the FAA official, did you feel
like they were gonna, you know, do follow up on
this and figure out what was actually going on? Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
I kind of got the idea that he wanted to
be able to put these were planes so he didn't
have to file a report. That is the god's honest
truth of what I after getting off the phone with
some I'm Mike, I think I have perturbed him more than.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It was informative.
Speaker 6 (07:09):
What he was trying to get me to say is
they were down at five hundred feet. I'm like, no,
they're a hell of a lot higher than five hundred feet.
I think maybe he would have had to file a
report if something was above a certain point, so he
wanted to get me to say it was lower.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
And he's like, yeah, the distance gets can make it
look higher.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
And I'm like, okay, I've got twenty twenty vision at
fifty some years old, I know what I'm looking at,
and I can tell you I've watched this thing go
up for twenty minutes and it's a lot higher than
you're thinking it is.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
He never even, like you know, months later, no one
ever called you to say, hey, did you ever figure
that out? Or nothing at all? You had no follow up.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
No follow up none.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
I started reading about on the news about all these
drones in northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I'm like, well, sumpthing's up? What's out there?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Thank you for calling City of Algians for one to
one after hours.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
If this is an emergency, please hang up and down nine.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
To one to one.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
After leaving a few messages, I was tipped off about
a separate incident in a neighboring state.
Speaker 9 (08:26):
I'm a sergeant Anthony Regano and that's rig A n O.
So I'm you can just go with Tony. I'm a
sergeant with the Elgin Police Department in Elgin, Illinois, which
is halfway between Rockford and Chicago.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I sent in a Freedom of Information Act request with
the department. Then I was granted access to a report
Sergeant Rigano filled out.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
Take me back to that day, January eighth, twenty twenty.
What was that day like for you?
Speaker 9 (08:55):
So at the time, I was a patrol sergeant, So
I was a sergeant on the afternoon shift, which is
about basically three pm to eleven pm. We had had
a call earlier in the day. I remember it was
a very cold day and it had been relatively busy.
A caller said there was drones in the air over
Elgin High School. As the day progressed, maybe fast forward
about twenty thirty minutes, our dispatchers will routinely ask us
(09:18):
to call up to their communications division when they have
a question, or they have a call that they're not
sure if they should dispatch, or they have just general questions.
So I called upstairs and spoke with dispatch, and they said, hey,
we have more callers in a different area now, saying
that there's at least thirty drones up in the air
over the area of the water treatment facility, which is
(09:41):
kind of north of the police department, not by very much.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
I said, don't dispatch the call. I'll just go check
on it myself.
Speaker 9 (09:48):
So I drove out of the police station and I
went up to kind of check. Now, it was a
very cold day, and we have our own drone unit
here at the police department, so I'm relatively I'm not
on the drone unit, but I'm relatively familiar with them.
I know in cold weather they don't really fly for
that long, at least not the ones. We have some
cold weather batteries, and they still really don't stay up
(10:09):
for that long. So I was kind of surprised that
they were up in a different area that far away
from the first dispatch.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
So when I got out there, there were a lot.
Speaker 9 (10:17):
Of them, and they were all kind of moving at
the same speed in kind of in unison, and some
of them were huge. I'd never personally seen a drone
that big. There was probably I would say twenty of
them at least that were I would estimate about.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
Six feet from like tip to tip.
Speaker 9 (10:39):
Those were kind of strange because again I don't really
haven't seen anything that big before as far as a
drone that's just being flown for you know, fun. And
so I drove back to the police station and a
couple of them broke off from the formation, flying southeast
and stopped over the police station. It was kind of
at that point that I reached out to the FAA.
(11:01):
I had our dispatchers called the FAA because we have
it an FAA building in Elgince.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
So I thought, well, maybe they know about whatever this is.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
And our local FAA said, we don't know anything about that.
We don't show any scheduled flights, we don't show anything
on our radar, we don't show anything in the air.
Kind of being a police officer, my mind started to
spin a little bit, and I said, well, why don't
you get a hold of somebody who might be able
to tell me what's going on with this?
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Because this is not normal.
Speaker 9 (11:27):
I thought, what are some high target areas in our town?
So I started to kind of go to some different areas.
I mean, it started at the school, a large high
school in the area. Then it moved up to the
water treatment facility, and then they started moving to the
southeast side of town, over this huge salvage yard junkyard.
There were probably thirty of them by my estimation.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Just hovering.
Speaker 9 (11:47):
I got on the phone with a guy from the FAA,
actually ironically out of Nebraska, and he was apparently the
point person for this, so I spoke with him. So
he said, well, see if you can drive and see
if you can catch up with them. So I ended
up actually following some of them into the town just
east of us, which is Bartlet and I was driving
about thirty thirty five miles an hour, and they were
(12:08):
pulling away from me.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
That's also something I'm not really used to. I didn't know.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
I know drones do do that, because I actually do
know somebody in my personal life who does drone racing,
but those are not large drones six feet wide. The
FAA guy that I was speaking to from Nebraska, he
actually told me to see if I could shine my.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Spotlight on one of the smaller ones.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
So I did at his direction, and when I did so,
the lights turned off completely and it flew away.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
If the FAA had told police to spotlight drones, I
was unaware of it.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
At one point, as I was leaving Bartlett, I had
to stop at a two way stop sign to cross
the street, and one of the drones it stopped moving
and then elevated and then it lowered itself behind a tree.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
That's the one part that really kind of messed with
me a little bit. That was a part that was
the most.
Speaker 9 (13:01):
Responsive, I guess, other than the spotlighting, where it just
kind of it was clearly why else did it stop?
It knew I was, you know, it might I guess.
I guess apparently must have noticed I was following it.
For every one small one, there were two of the
larger ones.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Did you ever have any follow up from the FAA.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
Were they able to help you conclusively, like gather more
information about this? No, I did have contact with another agent,
and I did forward my report to them, and as
well as the two callers I think that called it in.
They said they were going to follow up and talk
(13:42):
to them and see if they saw anything further. I
certainly went on the internet and saw started reading some
of the stuff about the task force forming out in
Colorado and Nebraska, and some people theorizing, you know, what
it may or may not be from. But no, I
never got any further interactions so to speak with the
FAA in regard to what it was or.
Speaker 9 (14:02):
Nor have I and I you know, I check every
once in a while out of curiosity to see if
I can google and get any answers, and to my knowledge,
I have yet to see anything that really explains it.
The impression I got was they said that these are
very consistent sightings that were getting into these various different areas,
and you know, their stance at that point was that
(14:25):
they were just waiting any day that the military was
going to tell them, Hey, that was us, don't worry
about it.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
But they said that, you.
Speaker 9 (14:31):
Know, in times past where we have some strange sightings,
the government's pretty quick to confirm, yeah, that was us,
you know, because they don't really obviously, if they're dealing
with some type of technology they don't want out there,
they're not going to want it to become some big article.
So I you know, he kind of seemed surprised. I
would say that they have not gotten a phone call
(14:52):
to that point indicating it was it was done. I
guess the overall sense I got from them as well,
we hope we just get a phone call that explains this,
and to that point, we don't really know what else
to point a finger at to say what it could
even be.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
What Sergeant Ragano didn't tell me about his report was
just as compelling as what he did. In the last line,
he wrote that the investigations into these drones in Elgin
were not even carried over to the next shift because
they were dismissed by the Police Department iss UFO sidings.
(15:31):
To my knowledge, there wasn't another agency that played a
larger role in the investigation than the FAA agent Ragano's
account solidified that there was high FAA confidence the sidings
were not related to covert military operations. An off the
cuff interview comment by then United States Transportation Secretary Elaine
(15:54):
Chow further echoed that stance.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
We heard recently that there was the these covees of
drones flying at night over in Nebraska, in Colorado. We
don't know who they are, we don't know who they
belong to, we don't know who's operating them. To this day,
we do not.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
And so.
Speaker 10 (16:17):
The law enforce the local law enforcement initiates the action.
We're very lucky nothing happened. So the local law enforcements
have have stepped down, so we're not we're not actively
uh investigating that because the local law enforcements stood dead.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
It's been over five years since I began looking into
this story. With the government shooting down weird objects and
the sky, Congressional UAP hearings in reports of an agency
harboring and reverse engineering alien aircraft, interest in strange sightings
has never been higher. I continually look to the sky,
(17:16):
but on the ground, I've been left with a revealing
web of theories, lies, and shocking truths. I'm frustrated, but
hungrier than ever to connect the dots. When I travel
to my hometown, I still hear accounts from locals who
may be out in the tractor late one night, are
(17:38):
coming home from a high school football game, and see
lights in the sky that aren't supposed to be there,
sometimes following them ever so slowly before going dark. The
first few episodes of this podcast have been released, and
I'm back in LA figuring out my next steps. I'm
(18:00):
reminded of the stark differences between southern California mountains and
prairies in Middle America. I'm turning right towards a beach
in Malibu. It's humid but mild. The water is glistening
in the sunlight. Pausing workout.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Hello, Hey, Gabe, how's it going good?
Speaker 8 (18:53):
How are you doing?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I'm doing okay, doing okay. You know, I've been listening
to the podcast. I think it's great, really interesting. But
I actually have something you may want to look into.
You know my background, well, you know my background and
covering national security for a lot of years, and I've
(19:18):
been talking to some of my friends who are sources
and who are sources and who are off the grid.
You'll never hear from these people in person, but you
know these aircraft or drones or whatever the hell they
are that you're looking at. I can't share any more
(19:41):
with you right now on it. I'm going to try
to get some more on this, but it could be
a problem. This whole thing is just crazy. This could
be a real national security threat.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
That call in your many tips have opened new doors.
The team and I are actively chasing fresh leads to
document how this story continues to evolve. Reports of unidentified
aircraft or popping up in other areas of the country.
In late twenty twenty four, mysterious drones began appearing in
(20:32):
the Northeast. We were on the ground investigating possible connections
between those sidings and what occurred over the Midwest five
years earlier, Which brings me to our special announcement. Next Tuesday,
We're dropping a raw teaser of what we first experienced
in New Jersey. Is the Chaos Unfolded right here on
(20:54):
our podcast feed. Stay tuned. If you have any information
surrounding the events detailed in this podcast, or have your
(21:15):
own similar account, please visit our website at obscurumseries.com and
share your story. You'll also find exclusive behind the scenes
content on the site. To connect with us on social media,
you can follow @obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms.
(21:40):
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 Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Kara Welker,
Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough.
(22:08):
Music and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management
and digital design 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,
(22:34):
Ailey Birchfield, David Wasserman, Katrina Norvell and my family. OBSCURUM:
Invasion of the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Follow now.
Host
Gabe Lenners
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com