February 25, 2025 • 23 mins
Gabe Lenners is chasing a lead that may crack this Midwest drone mystery wide open. As he closes in, he encounters a different person with an otherworldly story. A tense, high-stakes interview reveals a web of contradictions. Shattering revelations change everything.
This episode covers:
Chapter Eleven - Outskirts of Yuma
Chapter Twelve - The Hunt
Episode Webpage: https://www.obscurumseries.com/podcast/invasion-of-the-drones/otherworldly-horizons
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 (00:06):
Colorado has what they call a multi mission aircraft. They
call it an MMA.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
They can pinpoint of a.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Straight cap in the middle of a wildfire somewhere.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The man mentioned in the article who's apparently taking responsibility
for the sightings is this guy named Matthew Spencer.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Everybody's knowing completely around that site, but it doesn't show
right there at that site.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Very weird.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Why do you think the drone showed up when the
trash can was let with fire.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I think it picked up the heat. It was probably
at least eight feet across. It was intimidating. Didn't know
anything like that, was it even existed that could hover
like that and then take off at that kind of speed.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
Hong Kong health authorities have activated their most serious response
level after an outbreak of a new type of viral
pneumonia in China.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
As the World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak
a public health emergency of International Concern.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
New York now confirming its first case.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
We're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread
and severity. The WHO has formally declared the coronavirus a
global pandemic. When the coronavirus pandemic ramped up in the
spring of twenty twenty, I stayed focused, but experienced many setbacks.
(01:31):
Along with trying to find more about Matthew Spencer and
if he was tied to the sidings, I didn't cover
other things, things that didn't make sense and made me
fear what technology may be hovering above the prairies. Chapter
(01:59):
eleven Outskirts of Yuma left here, old fashioned sign, rustic
kind of text in the window. To help get a
clearer picture of Matthew's relationship with the Yuma Pioneer, I
(02:20):
set a time to visit with the newspapers editor, Tony Rail.
Walking into the newsroom felt like going back in time.
The walls were a bit worn, and there was a
scent in the air that smelled like an old five
and dime store. Tony, nice to meet you. How many
papers do you appront of? Weekend?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Here?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Oh, are circuations about two thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Tony's the kind of guy you'd imagine running a small
town newspaper. He had gray hair glasses, and you could
tell he loved the news by the way that he talked.
He walked me to an empty room, then told me
when he first became aware of the unknown aircraft for sure, it.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Was in December when it started started getting reports about
him things in New Year's Even my kids said they
thought they saw one too, and drove out in the
country a little ways to kind of follow it. There's
somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That night, when we talked for a couple minutes, I
moved the conversation to Matthew.
Speaker 7 (03:20):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
He was saying, there were the ones you know that
were doing this stuff. Some of found out more for him,
and they just kind of disappeared and never heard fro
him again.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
After a while, Tony didn't reveal much. After I left
the office, I thought I'd chat with a few local
residents to see if Matthew was a regular in Yuma.
No one had seen him. Another name kept getting brought up,
Tim Colin. It was said that Tim may actually know
(03:50):
what was behind a few of the sightings. Tim lived
in a white, historic looking home on the main drag
right through town. He was waiting for me on the
front porch.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
I got an old saying, and I take it from Einstein,
the universe is not only stranger than you imagine it's
stranger than you can't imagine. I take that straight to heart.
I'm pushing seventy here, and I've learned a lot. There
no other way to look at it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Tim has gray hair and a distinctive voice. It didn't
take long to realize why folks pointed me in his direction.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
The night I was abducted to my wife and I
were coming back from Denner because I had to go
up to see a doctor, coming back from a doctor's
appointment and coming up Highway fifty nine south of Yuma,
about twelve miles south of Yuma at large ufo across
the road in front of it was probably a hundred
foot long, twenty foot wide and ten foot high, and
(04:48):
it crossed over the fence but under the phone lines
across the road. Now it was kind alongside the car
and backed up plenty of yards and put the car
and parking and we're looking at it. One light came
on right above. Now there was two bright lights. Now
(05:12):
A lot of people asked me what kind of alien
did abducted me? And I don't really know, got no clue.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Tim believed an alien had snatched him on the outskirts
of Yuma and put some type of chip the size
of a candalope seed in his arm.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
I'd injured my hand working, so I went to the
doctor and got next to Ray and he come back
and he says, do you know you have a piece
of metal in your wrist? And no, And he said,
got any idea where it come from? He had a
student nurse doctor with him, And I said, well, doctor,
(05:49):
finish making your rounds and come back and I give
you some info on where that piece of metal might
have come from, because it was rapidly dawning on me
that it was shouldn't have been there, and it had
been interesting. The implant was put in my body and
it didn't have no port lantry. There was no port
lanty in my body for this thing to be put
(06:10):
in there. I mean there was a built for brise.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Tim was a character. This was a fascinating story and
a lot for me to take in. He provided nothing
new about the drone like craft seen in the region.
So did you ever find the guy that was mentioned
in the article that you were looking for?
Speaker 8 (06:32):
No. I drove all the way to Yuma and I
talked to the editor of the paper and he said
he talked to that guy about the story, and then
he just disappeared. Everyone kept saying, if you're looking for
information about the drones, you got to talk to this
guy named Tim, and I went over to Tim's house
and he started telling me this story that he was
(06:52):
abducted by an alien.
Speaker 9 (06:54):
Creepy, creepy, creepy.
Speaker 8 (06:56):
Okay, I got to get on this other call, but anyway,
I'll talk to late mom.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I look deeper into another theory while trying to find
more about Matthew Spencer's background, and that was if these
flying objects could be related to the oil and gas industry.
Tell me just a little bit about what your company
does and what the priorities are of your company.
Speaker 9 (07:20):
We're a small on min aircraft company that we focus
primarily on the use of onman aircraft systems for scientific applications,
so that can range everything from atmosphere can sense you're
sampling to a remote sensing.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's Jack Elston of Blackswift Technologies out of Boulder, Colorado.
His company not only flies drones for different clients, but
builds them too.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
So we started out focusing on fixed wing on men
aircraft and the reason why we did that is because
of the endurance. They're far more efficient than quad roaders,
and so we can fly for a lot longer with
the same amount of battery, carrying more payload, And the payload, honestly,
is the real reason why these things exist in the
first place. Without a sensor to gather data, you're just
having fun flying something around in the air. So the
(08:04):
payload refers to, you know, anything that we're putting on
board to gather the data that doesn't have to do
with the flight control of the aircraft or actually keeping
the aircraft aloft.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Is thermal imaging pretty common in your line of work, Yeah.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
I'd say it's second only to just regular visual imagery.
Thermal camera can be used again, you were talking about
search and rescue. It makes it a lot easier to
find individuals rather than just trying to look at visual data.
We've also used thermal cameras as well to detect things
like pipelines underneath the ground because you can actually see
their thermal signatures coming to the surface.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Do people use drones a lot like in oil? In
oil and gas or pipelines like that.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
The oil industry, I know they're doing a lot of
infrastructure inspection, So inspectrum pipes and things like that, stuff
that you normally have to have people climb up on
ladders and kind of deal with the risk of that.
It's much easier to just have the aircraft fly the
camera up there for you. They're also doing things like
looking at methane detection so see if there's any leaks
in the area.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
The mysterious aircraft didn't belong to Jack's company, but I
thought he could have some ideas as to why they
might be flying.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
Sounds like they were a fixed wing aircraft from based
one of the explanations that I heard, I don't know
exactly what people are doing. I mean, normally I have
to get permission to go do that without permission. The
most plausible thing I heard, though, was that it was
somebody that was conducting experiments as far as figuring out
whether these things could do perimeter surveillance or missile.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Sites missile sites. When Jack said those words, I had
a flashback to high school. On the way to a
football game, I remember somebody pointing out an area on
the side of the road where a bomb was buried
in the ground. Weeks rolled by with few developments. Eventually,
(09:54):
a new piece of information emerged Douglas Johnson, volunteer researcher
affiliated with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, a group
that analyzes unidentified aerospace phenomena, obtained a trove of internal
FAA emails. They were published online and provided a glimpse
(10:17):
into how the FAA was approaching the unidentified drone mystery.
Looking to verify the authenticity of the messages, I noticed
a couple interesting notes in the endless pages of text.
One of them was dated January second, twenty twenty, and
written by Special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA's Law
(10:40):
Enforcement Assistance Program. Michael Bumberger, who I refer to as
Agent Bumberger, wrote that he was chasing a lead about
someone who may be behind the sightings. In the email,
he insinuated that he wanted the FBI to visit this person.
(11:04):
Chapter twelve The hunt. Was the FAA is zeroing in
on Matthew Spencer or was he even real? I contemplated
that question many times. I was beginning to wonder if
he was just a joke drummed up over a poker
game by some drunk at the bar. Then everything changed.
(11:28):
Through a series of recurring visits to a couple people
who didn't want to be recorded. I was able to
figure out that Matthew Spencer did in fact exist. I
finally believed that I knew how to approach him. The
conversation started with a DM to a random Twitter account.
There wasn't a person's name linked to it and very
(11:50):
few details In the bio. I wrote, I'm a journalist
based in la I'm originally from the area. I'd like
to chat with you about the mystery aircraft. Interested in
learning more. I received a long and detailed reply. The
words were jumbled and confusing at times. The writing style
(12:13):
was similar to the article in the Yuma Pioneer. I
was ninety percent sure I was messaging with Matthew. I've
never seen this guy's face before. He told me he's
wearing Gene Schortz, I believe, a T shirt and a
ball cat. I persuaded Matthew to talk with me in person.
(12:39):
After many hours of driving through Kansas, I slowly pulled
up to a location. He chose, the Old Cowtown Museum
in Wichita. It's a western town that resembled the city
in the late eighteen hundreds. He was waiting in the
gift shop. He had a stocky build with a black hat,
(12:59):
car go shorts and glasses on. We set a brief hello,
then began walking through the town's dirt road streets. We
turned past the blacksmith shop, then grabbed a couple of
saasparillas from the saloon. We sat down at some picnic tables.
You're an old town square.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
All right, So first go ahead and tell me your name.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
Yeah, it's Matthew Spencer.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And what is it exactly that your group does.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Basically, when you start forming together and you're picking up people,
and you're picking up you know, property, and you're doing
different things. We decided to form a group. You know,
in a group you're not gonna find on the Internet
or a website per se. But what we want to
do in the trick and we want to do is
essentially the identifying mark of who we are.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
The tracking we want to do is an identifying mark
of who we are. Surely I didn't drive all the
way to Kansas for a vague recon sponsores like that.
I asked Matthew to clarify, so we.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Caught some attention. When you get into what you're referred
to as the Colorado Drawn Mystery, naturally, but it's about
a decade of work. And essentially what we're doing is
we track high value aerospace targets, so to break down
into the business world. But our many focus is to
go after the UAPs that are within the news right now.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I thought back to a few stories I'd seen about UAPs.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Oh, queen of them.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Look on the Afah going against the wain.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
They went one.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Hundred, went out of the class. While the mission of
Matthew's group was unusual, I wanted to get straight to
the point. It seemed highly unlikely that one man or
team could operate large numbers of drones in multiple locations
hundreds of miles apart at the same time.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
How many drones were you using, like five, ten, fifteen, twenty.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
So the groups of drones, let's say ten to twenty five? No,
not at the same time. Yeah, do we have a fleet?
Of course? Was it you know, twenty five the night
sky looking any windows?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
No? Well, I pressed Matthew on the characteristics of his
drones and if he was actually flying them at night.
I didn't get much information.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So what type of process do you use and do
with those drones?
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (15:30):
I wouldn't say there's an exact method, But the idea
is that you have to get in the air one
way or another with your devices and with your tools,
and then essentially, based on that data, your picking at
your next location.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Matthew avoided the question, and I was losing my patients.
Do you know who is responsible for the drones in Colorado?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
You have to get down to the basis. Were there
other drones there besides mine? Yeah, without a doubt. Can
I tell you who they were?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
No, Matthew was adamant that the small number of his drones,
along with others, were flying in the night sky.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
You know what I do when I'm tracking, or when
anybody's tracking, what do you do? You're flying a grid.
That's just how it works. And so you hear all
the reports coming out, Well, they're flying in a grid.
Kind of makes me think that you know, you got
you know, I don't want to stay fool because I
wasn't trying to fool anybody, But you've seen something in
your brain kind of figured out the rest. Was there
drones in the area, Definitely, But anytime you have drones
(16:33):
in the area, there's always a why. So who's gonna
be right on the why? And it's always the facts
and the burden of proofs on you, and I think
there's more.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Of a story there.
Speaker 6 (16:43):
But I think it was evolving more than just you know,
Drnes for no reason. We're flying in with people there
who referred to as the middle of nowhere, and I mean,
I'm from a place like that, so there's no disrespect there.
But something was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I was able to confirm that. On January second, Agent
Bumberger emailed Matthew directly saying that he'd been advised by
the Yuma County Sheriff's office that the mysterious drones in
question were his.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
You want to send me down and say I had
lives going You want the clearest to understanding. I think
when you get down to it, and that he said,
She said, especially federal agencies put me on a polygraph.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I couldn't verify the majority of what Matthew told me.
It appeared that when the FAA wouldn't allow a polygraph,
he reached out to different newspapers to claim responsibility for
his drones. If Matthew was breaking any laws, he hadn't
been arrested yet. Was he just screaming for attention behind
(17:43):
the scenes? FAA investigators clearly had an interest in him.
I could tell he wanted to share more. When we
finished visiting, I fired off an email to Ian Gregor
to see if he could arrange a short interview with
Agent Bumberger. In a nutshell. Ian wrote back that he
(18:05):
wouldn't make Bumberger available. I pushed through further correspondence he
shut me down. Since the origin of the sightings was
a mystery, I thought the FAA would want to provide
as much transparency as possible. I was wrong. I had
to find another way to Bumberger. I re examined the
(18:27):
FAA emails i'd seen online. As I analyzed them again,
I discovered a paragraph i'd previously skimmed over. This was
part of a message sent on New Year's Eve of
twenty nineteen, notating paragraph six. The drones are reported to
(18:48):
have six foot wingspans, and there are several reports that
indicate the drones are operating in coordination with a big
drone that may be stationary in the area. There's also
an unverified report of the larger drone potentially landing and
taking back off from an airport and Imperial, Nebraska. I
(19:12):
closed my eyes and thought back to those first couple nights,
I saw the mysterious lights in the sky. It's what
we like to call God's country out here. You look
into the sky, you see a few stars, but then
you see all of these blinking lights kind of just
moving around in irregular patterns. I'm looking at one now
(19:32):
and it has green and yellow light, and there's one
with a solid white light on it. It looks bigger
and lower to the ground, and it looks like it's
stayed in the same area since I pulled up here,
just kind of hovering, counting at least now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
(20:02):
thirteen fourteen. I'd seen the unexplained aircraft. You're the exact
spot the FAA official had written about. Had I missed
a landing coming up on obscure invasion of the drums.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Eat a living beat. I mean they show curiosity, They
just show different emotions here. You can feel it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They did not look like anything that I had ever
seen from this planet.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
They backed those things up and were started to.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Come after me as I was coming down the road.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
When it comes to the active missile silos, I assume
that there's some type of counter drum technology was that
in place, I.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
Got things to do and it ain't play with drones.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
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
(21:34):
@obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced
by Imagine and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted,
and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by
(21:56):
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Welker, Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me.
Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound effects courtesy
of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design by Labyrinth
(22:17):
Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Simikopenko. This project was
mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks to Dan Bodansky,
Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield, David Wasserman,
(22:39):
Katrina Norvel, and My Family. OBSCURUM
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite podcasts. Follow now.
Previously on OBSCURUM
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Colorado has what they call a multi mission aircraft. They
call it an MMA.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
They can pinpoint of a.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Straight cap in the middle of a wildfire somewhere.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The man mentioned in the article who's apparently taking responsibility
for the sightings is this guy named Matthew Spencer.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Everybody's knowing completely around that site, but it doesn't show
right there at that site.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
Very weird.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Why do you think the drone showed up when the
trash can was let with fire.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I think it picked up the heat. It was probably
at least eight feet across. It was intimidating. Didn't know
anything like that, was it even existed that could hover
like that and then take off at that kind of speed.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
Hong Kong health authorities have activated their most serious response
level after an outbreak of a new type of viral
pneumonia in China.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
As the World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak
a public health emergency of International Concern.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
New York now confirming its first case.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
We're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread
and severity. The WHO has formally declared the coronavirus a
global pandemic. When the coronavirus pandemic ramped up in the
spring of twenty twenty, I stayed focused, but experienced many setbacks.
(01:31):
Along with trying to find more about Matthew Spencer and
if he was tied to the sidings, I didn't cover
other things, things that didn't make sense and made me
fear what technology may be hovering above the prairies. Chapter
(01:59):
eleven Outskirts of Yuma left here, old fashioned sign, rustic
kind of text in the window. To help get a
clearer picture of Matthew's relationship with the Yuma Pioneer, I
(02:20):
set a time to visit with the newspapers editor, Tony Rail.
Walking into the newsroom felt like going back in time.
The walls were a bit worn, and there was a
scent in the air that smelled like an old five
and dime store. Tony, nice to meet you. How many
papers do you appront of? Weekend?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Here?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Oh, are circuations about two thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Tony's the kind of guy you'd imagine running a small
town newspaper. He had gray hair glasses, and you could
tell he loved the news by the way that he talked.
He walked me to an empty room, then told me
when he first became aware of the unknown aircraft for sure, it.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Was in December when it started started getting reports about
him things in New Year's Even my kids said they
thought they saw one too, and drove out in the
country a little ways to kind of follow it. There's
somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That night, when we talked for a couple minutes, I
moved the conversation to Matthew.
Speaker 7 (03:20):
Oh.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
He was saying, there were the ones you know that
were doing this stuff. Some of found out more for him,
and they just kind of disappeared and never heard fro
him again.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
After a while, Tony didn't reveal much. After I left
the office, I thought I'd chat with a few local
residents to see if Matthew was a regular in Yuma.
No one had seen him. Another name kept getting brought up,
Tim Colin. It was said that Tim may actually know
(03:50):
what was behind a few of the sightings. Tim lived
in a white, historic looking home on the main drag
right through town. He was waiting for me on the
front porch.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
I got an old saying, and I take it from Einstein,
the universe is not only stranger than you imagine it's
stranger than you can't imagine. I take that straight to heart.
I'm pushing seventy here, and I've learned a lot. There
no other way to look at it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Tim has gray hair and a distinctive voice. It didn't
take long to realize why folks pointed me in his direction.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
The night I was abducted to my wife and I
were coming back from Denner because I had to go
up to see a doctor, coming back from a doctor's
appointment and coming up Highway fifty nine south of Yuma,
about twelve miles south of Yuma at large ufo across
the road in front of it was probably a hundred
foot long, twenty foot wide and ten foot high, and
(04:48):
it crossed over the fence but under the phone lines
across the road. Now it was kind alongside the car
and backed up plenty of yards and put the car
and parking and we're looking at it. One light came
on right above. Now there was two bright lights. Now
(05:12):
A lot of people asked me what kind of alien
did abducted me? And I don't really know, got no clue.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Tim believed an alien had snatched him on the outskirts
of Yuma and put some type of chip the size
of a candalope seed in his arm.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
I'd injured my hand working, so I went to the
doctor and got next to Ray and he come back
and he says, do you know you have a piece
of metal in your wrist? And no, And he said,
got any idea where it come from? He had a
student nurse doctor with him, And I said, well, doctor,
(05:49):
finish making your rounds and come back and I give
you some info on where that piece of metal might
have come from, because it was rapidly dawning on me
that it was shouldn't have been there, and it had
been interesting. The implant was put in my body and
it didn't have no port lantry. There was no port
lanty in my body for this thing to be put
(06:10):
in there. I mean there was a built for brise.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Tim was a character. This was a fascinating story and
a lot for me to take in. He provided nothing
new about the drone like craft seen in the region.
So did you ever find the guy that was mentioned
in the article that you were looking for?
Speaker 8 (06:32):
No. I drove all the way to Yuma and I
talked to the editor of the paper and he said
he talked to that guy about the story, and then
he just disappeared. Everyone kept saying, if you're looking for
information about the drones, you got to talk to this
guy named Tim, and I went over to Tim's house
and he started telling me this story that he was
(06:52):
abducted by an alien.
Speaker 9 (06:54):
Creepy, creepy, creepy.
Speaker 8 (06:56):
Okay, I got to get on this other call, but anyway,
I'll talk to late mom.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I look deeper into another theory while trying to find
more about Matthew Spencer's background, and that was if these
flying objects could be related to the oil and gas industry.
Tell me just a little bit about what your company
does and what the priorities are of your company.
Speaker 9 (07:20):
We're a small on min aircraft company that we focus
primarily on the use of onman aircraft systems for scientific applications,
so that can range everything from atmosphere can sense you're
sampling to a remote sensing.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
That's Jack Elston of Blackswift Technologies out of Boulder, Colorado.
His company not only flies drones for different clients, but
builds them too.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
So we started out focusing on fixed wing on men
aircraft and the reason why we did that is because
of the endurance. They're far more efficient than quad roaders,
and so we can fly for a lot longer with
the same amount of battery, carrying more payload, And the payload, honestly,
is the real reason why these things exist in the
first place. Without a sensor to gather data, you're just
having fun flying something around in the air. So the
(08:04):
payload refers to, you know, anything that we're putting on
board to gather the data that doesn't have to do
with the flight control of the aircraft or actually keeping
the aircraft aloft.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Is thermal imaging pretty common in your line of work, Yeah.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
I'd say it's second only to just regular visual imagery.
Thermal camera can be used again, you were talking about
search and rescue. It makes it a lot easier to
find individuals rather than just trying to look at visual data.
We've also used thermal cameras as well to detect things
like pipelines underneath the ground because you can actually see
their thermal signatures coming to the surface.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Do people use drones a lot like in oil? In
oil and gas or pipelines like that.
Speaker 9 (08:45):
The oil industry, I know they're doing a lot of
infrastructure inspection, So inspectrum pipes and things like that, stuff
that you normally have to have people climb up on
ladders and kind of deal with the risk of that.
It's much easier to just have the aircraft fly the
camera up there for you. They're also doing things like
looking at methane detection so see if there's any leaks
in the area.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
The mysterious aircraft didn't belong to Jack's company, but I
thought he could have some ideas as to why they
might be flying.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
Sounds like they were a fixed wing aircraft from based
one of the explanations that I heard, I don't know
exactly what people are doing. I mean, normally I have
to get permission to go do that without permission. The
most plausible thing I heard, though, was that it was
somebody that was conducting experiments as far as figuring out
whether these things could do perimeter surveillance or missile.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Sites missile sites. When Jack said those words, I had
a flashback to high school. On the way to a
football game, I remember somebody pointing out an area on
the side of the road where a bomb was buried
in the ground. Weeks rolled by with few developments. Eventually,
(09:54):
a new piece of information emerged Douglas Johnson, volunteer researcher
affiliated with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, a group
that analyzes unidentified aerospace phenomena, obtained a trove of internal
FAA emails. They were published online and provided a glimpse
(10:17):
into how the FAA was approaching the unidentified drone mystery.
Looking to verify the authenticity of the messages, I noticed
a couple interesting notes in the endless pages of text.
One of them was dated January second, twenty twenty, and
written by Special Agent Michael Bumberger of the FAA's Law
(10:40):
Enforcement Assistance Program. Michael Bumberger, who I refer to as
Agent Bumberger, wrote that he was chasing a lead about
someone who may be behind the sightings. In the email,
he insinuated that he wanted the FBI to visit this person.
(11:04):
Chapter twelve The hunt. Was the FAA is zeroing in
on Matthew Spencer or was he even real? I contemplated
that question many times. I was beginning to wonder if
he was just a joke drummed up over a poker
game by some drunk at the bar. Then everything changed.
(11:28):
Through a series of recurring visits to a couple people
who didn't want to be recorded. I was able to
figure out that Matthew Spencer did in fact exist. I
finally believed that I knew how to approach him. The
conversation started with a DM to a random Twitter account.
There wasn't a person's name linked to it and very
(11:50):
few details In the bio. I wrote, I'm a journalist
based in la I'm originally from the area. I'd like
to chat with you about the mystery aircraft. Interested in
learning more. I received a long and detailed reply. The
words were jumbled and confusing at times. The writing style
(12:13):
was similar to the article in the Yuma Pioneer. I
was ninety percent sure I was messaging with Matthew. I've
never seen this guy's face before. He told me he's
wearing Gene Schortz, I believe, a T shirt and a
ball cat. I persuaded Matthew to talk with me in person.
(12:39):
After many hours of driving through Kansas, I slowly pulled
up to a location. He chose, the Old Cowtown Museum
in Wichita. It's a western town that resembled the city
in the late eighteen hundreds. He was waiting in the
gift shop. He had a stocky build with a black hat,
(12:59):
car go shorts and glasses on. We set a brief hello,
then began walking through the town's dirt road streets. We
turned past the blacksmith shop, then grabbed a couple of
saasparillas from the saloon. We sat down at some picnic tables.
You're an old town square.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
All right, So first go ahead and tell me your name.
Speaker 6 (13:22):
Yeah, it's Matthew Spencer.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And what is it exactly that your group does.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
Basically, when you start forming together and you're picking up people,
and you're picking up you know, property, and you're doing
different things. We decided to form a group. You know,
in a group you're not gonna find on the Internet
or a website per se. But what we want to
do in the trick and we want to do is
essentially the identifying mark of who we are.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
The tracking we want to do is an identifying mark
of who we are. Surely I didn't drive all the
way to Kansas for a vague recon sponsores like that.
I asked Matthew to clarify, so we.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Caught some attention. When you get into what you're referred
to as the Colorado Drawn Mystery, naturally, but it's about
a decade of work. And essentially what we're doing is
we track high value aerospace targets, so to break down
into the business world. But our many focus is to
go after the UAPs that are within the news right now.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I thought back to a few stories I'd seen about UAPs.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Oh, queen of them.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Look on the Afah going against the wain.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
They went one.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Hundred, went out of the class. While the mission of
Matthew's group was unusual, I wanted to get straight to
the point. It seemed highly unlikely that one man or
team could operate large numbers of drones in multiple locations
hundreds of miles apart at the same time.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
How many drones were you using, like five, ten, fifteen, twenty.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
So the groups of drones, let's say ten to twenty five? No,
not at the same time. Yeah, do we have a fleet?
Of course? Was it you know, twenty five the night
sky looking any windows?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
No? Well, I pressed Matthew on the characteristics of his
drones and if he was actually flying them at night.
I didn't get much information.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
So what type of process do you use and do
with those drones?
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (15:30):
I wouldn't say there's an exact method, But the idea
is that you have to get in the air one
way or another with your devices and with your tools,
and then essentially, based on that data, your picking at
your next location.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Matthew avoided the question, and I was losing my patients.
Do you know who is responsible for the drones in Colorado?
Speaker 6 (15:53):
You have to get down to the basis. Were there
other drones there besides mine? Yeah, without a doubt. Can
I tell you who they were?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
No, Matthew was adamant that the small number of his drones,
along with others, were flying in the night sky.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
You know what I do when I'm tracking, or when
anybody's tracking, what do you do? You're flying a grid.
That's just how it works. And so you hear all
the reports coming out, Well, they're flying in a grid.
Kind of makes me think that you know, you got
you know, I don't want to stay fool because I
wasn't trying to fool anybody, But you've seen something in
your brain kind of figured out the rest. Was there
drones in the area, Definitely, But anytime you have drones
(16:33):
in the area, there's always a why. So who's gonna
be right on the why? And it's always the facts
and the burden of proofs on you, and I think
there's more.
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Of a story there.
Speaker 6 (16:43):
But I think it was evolving more than just you know,
Drnes for no reason. We're flying in with people there
who referred to as the middle of nowhere, and I mean,
I'm from a place like that, so there's no disrespect there.
But something was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I was able to confirm that. On January second, Agent
Bumberger emailed Matthew directly saying that he'd been advised by
the Yuma County Sheriff's office that the mysterious drones in
question were his.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
You want to send me down and say I had
lives going You want the clearest to understanding. I think
when you get down to it, and that he said,
She said, especially federal agencies put me on a polygraph.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I couldn't verify the majority of what Matthew told me.
It appeared that when the FAA wouldn't allow a polygraph,
he reached out to different newspapers to claim responsibility for
his drones. If Matthew was breaking any laws, he hadn't
been arrested yet. Was he just screaming for attention behind
(17:43):
the scenes? FAA investigators clearly had an interest in him.
I could tell he wanted to share more. When we
finished visiting, I fired off an email to Ian Gregor
to see if he could arrange a short interview with
Agent Bumberger. In a nutshell. Ian wrote back that he
(18:05):
wouldn't make Bumberger available. I pushed through further correspondence he
shut me down. Since the origin of the sightings was
a mystery, I thought the FAA would want to provide
as much transparency as possible. I was wrong. I had
to find another way to Bumberger. I re examined the
(18:27):
FAA emails i'd seen online. As I analyzed them again,
I discovered a paragraph i'd previously skimmed over. This was
part of a message sent on New Year's Eve of
twenty nineteen, notating paragraph six. The drones are reported to
(18:48):
have six foot wingspans, and there are several reports that
indicate the drones are operating in coordination with a big
drone that may be stationary in the area. There's also
an unverified report of the larger drone potentially landing and
taking back off from an airport and Imperial, Nebraska. I
(19:12):
closed my eyes and thought back to those first couple nights,
I saw the mysterious lights in the sky. It's what
we like to call God's country out here. You look
into the sky, you see a few stars, but then
you see all of these blinking lights kind of just
moving around in irregular patterns. I'm looking at one now
(19:32):
and it has green and yellow light, and there's one
with a solid white light on it. It looks bigger
and lower to the ground, and it looks like it's
stayed in the same area since I pulled up here,
just kind of hovering, counting at least now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
(20:02):
thirteen fourteen. I'd seen the unexplained aircraft. You're the exact
spot the FAA official had written about. Had I missed
a landing coming up on obscure invasion of the drums.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Eat a living beat. I mean they show curiosity, They
just show different emotions here. You can feel it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
They did not look like anything that I had ever
seen from this planet.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
They backed those things up and were started to.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Come after me as I was coming down the road.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
When it comes to the active missile silos, I assume
that there's some type of counter drum technology was that
in place, I.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
Got things to do and it ain't play with drones.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
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
(21:34):
@obscurum_series and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced
by Imagine and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted,
and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by
(21:56):
Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Welker, Nathan Kloke, Nicki Etour and Me.
Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound effects courtesy
of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design by Labyrinth
(22:17):
Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Simikopenko. This project was
mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks to Dan Bodansky,
Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield, David Wasserman,
(22:39):
Katrina Norvel, and My Family. OBSCURUM
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite podcasts. Follow now.
Host
Gabe Lenners
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