April 20, 2025 • 33 mins
This episode is part of a special miniseries featuring members of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) who have had personal encounters with UAP. Each guest appears in two versions: a short interview focused on the core events, and a long-form conversation offering a deeper account and discussion. **This is the short interview.**
GUEST:
Mike Pritchard is a technologist and member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. He started his career in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, working on cutting-edge problems with NASA and the Department of Defense, where he solved all sorts of interesting problems by doing things like using ultra wide band radar to detect mines, figuring out how to navigate in environments where GPS is off-limits, and using machine learning techniques to solve all sorts of problems. His work has even earned him a commendation from NASA. At LG NOVA, he helped build an entire engineering team from scratch, supported clean tech and AI startups, $700M VC fund. At the U.S. Digital Service he was a Presidential Innovation Fellow. At LG NOVA, he helped build an entire engineering team from scratch. He was part of a team that secured $700M venture capital fund. Outside of work, you’ll find Mike hiking with his family, playing soccer, paddleboarding, or tinkering with 3D printers and Arduinos.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:22):
Welcome to The Anomalous Review,the official podcast of the
Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.
My name is Michael Glausson. I'm a philosopher of science and
technology and the host of the show.
This conversation is part of a special series on the anomalous
review that we're calling the UAP Witness series.
Let me tell you a bit about it. In this series, I interview SCU
(00:43):
members who've had their own personal encounters with truly
anomalous phenomena. These conversations are a new
format for us as an organization.
SCU leans toward a hard science approach to studying UAP.
That means using quantitative data that fits into
spreadsheets, and they can be analyzed with consistent
statistical methods. Things like the size, shape,
(01:05):
acoustical and kinetic properties of UAP.
That's the kind of data that SCUspecializes in.
Now, that's partly because of our skill set.
Most of our members are working scientists and engineers, so
we're used to using that kind ofdata and those sorts of
analytical tools. But this approach also serves as
a kind of hedge that keeps soberdiscussions about UAP from
(01:29):
falling into unstructured or even unreasonable speculation.
You probably know the kind of conversations that I mean.
We like structured investigations that employ the
tools that we're familiar with. But it would be a mistake to
think that we in SU focus on thehard data points simply because
we think that that's all there is to these phenomena.
(01:51):
Every one of those data points, after all, comes from an
encounter that was deeply and uniquely personal.
And these encounters are far richer, stranger, and more
complex than the numbers in the spreadsheet might ever suggest.
The tools of quantitative analysis just aren't great for
analyzing those unique experiential dimensions, though.
(02:12):
So for our analytic work at SCU,we usually just set the rich
elements of those stories aside.But shortly after we launched
this podcast, SCU leaders told me that there are several SCU
members who'd had their own encounters with UAP.
And after a few conversations, we decided let's invite those
members to tell their stories just as they experienced them,
(02:34):
along with all the questions andideas that those encounters gave
rise to. Encounters like these are, after
all, the source of our hard datapoints.
And inviting people to tell their stories here is a way of
showing what's on the other sideof the spreadsheets, the unique,
complex, deeply strange and often unsettling experiences
that push us to ask questions that data-driven analytical
(02:56):
methods aren't always fit to tackle.
But let me just say this clearlyacknowledging the strangeness of
these encounters and giving people space to tell them as
they live them is in no way a departure from SUS data-driven
scientific mission. But it's meant to complement
that mission by acknowledging the very elements of our source
(03:16):
material that often compelled usto want to do the scientific
work in the 1st place. This is an expression of the
conviction that doing good science means holding on to
intellectual humility before a reality that's under no
obligations to conform to our expectations or to our tools.
And that means facing reality asit comes, even and especially
(03:39):
when it challenges our frameworks.
We're putting out two versions of each interview.
There's a full length conversation and then a short
partial edit. For those who may not have time
to commit to the full conversation just yet, this is a
short version. In it, you'll get a quick
outline of the guests experiencealong with the taste of the
(03:59):
deeper discussion that we had inthe full conversation.
These encounters are full of strange, fascinating detail, and
if this version grabs you even alittle, we really encourage you
to check out the full interview.But since the full versions go
really deep, we wanted to make these shorter ones available
too. My guest in this interview is
Mike Pritchard. Mike started his career in
(04:22):
robotics and artificial intelligence by solving cutting
edge problems for NASA and the Department of Defense.
He did everything from using ultra wide band radar to detect
mines to navigating GPS denied environments and applying
machine learning and lots of interesting and novel ways to
solve problems that he probably can't always talk about.
(04:43):
He's helped launch engineering teams from scratch, he's
supported clean tech and AI startups, and he was part of a
team that secured a $700 millionventure fund.
At one point, he's even earned Acommendation directly from NASA.
Up to the point of this interview, Mike served as a
Presidential Innovation Fellow at the US Digital Service
position that he has since movedon from.
(05:05):
I found Mike to be one of the most open and reflective guests
that I've had on this show, and I really enjoyed talking to him.
So I think you will really enjoythis conversation.
Here now is my conversation withMike Pritchard.
Mike Pritchard. Thank you for being here and for
telling us your story, being willing to tell him your story.
So. Why don't?
You just start. We're doing a series on
(05:28):
experiences. Or maybe we don't use that word.
Maybe we. Use witnesses to UAP.
Activity who are ACU members? And you're both.
So why don't you just tell us what your experience was?
Yeah. Well, thanks and thanks for
having me. Yeah.
And absolutely. So this this happened in 2024.
(05:49):
So this is March 28th, I think 2024.
So I was in Colorado, basically me and my son who was 13 at the
time. We we went on a father son ski
trip to Breckenridge. So lots of fun.
I used to live in Colorado back in the day.
(06:10):
Now I live out in Northern Virginia, but so yeah.
So we skied, had a great time and on the final day we decided
that we wanted to drive from Breckenridge to Colorado
Springs, which is where I used to live.
I used to live in a town called Manitou Springs that's on Pikes
Peak. Beautiful place.
(06:30):
So and the drive, the drive fromBreckenridge to Pike's Peak,
it's just beautiful too. It goes across the plains of
Colorado. So just gorgeous.
So anyway, we're, we are so we're dry, we're leaving, we get
up early, we're leaving Breckenridge.
Clear, clear day, clear blue skies, which up until then it'd
(06:53):
been, it'd been, it'd been like snow and, and, and fairly bad
conditions, but that day was beautiful blue skies.
So we're driving out of Breckenridge.
And for those that have ever been there, like if, if you're
driving out of Breckenridge, you'll, you'll know that you,
you, you hit, you hit basically the mountain.
So you have to basically climb out of, of Breckenridge.
(07:14):
So the first kind of climb out of Breckenridge, which goes out
to a place called the Hoosier Pass.
And so we're driving up there and it's pretty crazy.
Switchbacks. It's kind of like the
switchbacks you see on TV where it's like literally you come
literally right back, right? And as you're driving, you're
like, your car is like you're looking, you know, up into the
(07:35):
sky as you come around the corners, right?
So, so we're driving up and justjust chatting away, you know, as
you do kind of zoned out and I and I came around one of these
corners. So as, as we're looking up, I
saw above the tree line, I I sawthis thing.
(07:55):
And yeah, that's the start of this event.
It, it, it's kind of hard to describe it.
Was it, it like at first we thought it was a water tower,
right? Like literally.
And I said to my son, like, whatis that?
And he hadn't seen it yet. It, it and then we realized
looking at it, it's like the shape of a water tower, but
(08:16):
there was nothing between it andthe ground.
So that was the first thing we noticed was like, wait, there's
no, there's nothing connecting this thing to the ground.
And it's also, it was very like metallic, a highly polished
metallic surface. But that's, that's what it
looked like. You can imagine kind of a Chrome
finish, unblemished, perfect, very reflective surface.
(08:39):
And it's just stationary right there above the tree line.
It, it just looked wrong. It, it just.
So when you see it, it's, it's because you got to put it in in
perspective where you know, it'sin the mountains and there's
trees, there's all the pine trees and there's a little bit
of wind and things. There's a little bit of motion
(08:59):
going on. And obviously we're driving, but
this thing is stationary, like perfectly stationary.
Yeah. As if it's like just painted
onto the sky. It's, it's, and it's hard to get
a sense of perspective of this thing because I, I don't know
how big it is. So I couldn't really figure out
how far away it is. And there's no, no markings on
(09:22):
it, No, no lights, no nothing. It's just there.
So weird. So as we come around the corner
and start going back on the switch back.
So now you know, as you mentioned, like we're driving up
the corner for see it and as we come around the switch back, now
it's to our left. So we're still looking at it to
our left and I'm going pretty slowly at this point because you
(09:43):
can imagine I'm like, what, whatis that thing?
And then then I just thought, OK, I, I, OK, I've got to stop.
I've got to stop. I've got to find somewhere to
stop. This is crazy, but because like
I mentioned, there'd been a lot of snow, you know, days before
there was snow everywhere. There's the snow plows that, you
know, created those giant snow berms to the side of the road.
(10:05):
So there was literally nowhere to stop.
There's traffic behind me and I still remember looking in the
rear view mirror and I saw like,I even remember there was like
some kind of like like truck, like a Bronco.
I don't know what it was specifically.
It was don't remember. So like crap, there's someone
behind me, so I've got to pull over.
So I'm like, OK, great. I'll just keep going until I can
find somewhere to stop and then I'm looking.
(10:26):
And then this is where it got weird and kind of frightening in
that I, I had this powerful, I kind of, I don't know how to
describe it. It's feeling.
Emotion came over me that I would best describe as that
(10:46):
feeling when you're really late for something, you know, it's,
it's that feeling where you're like, oh crap, I had to be
somewhere. Urgency or?
Something, yeah. It's like a general sense of
like, I wish I could stop, but Ican't because I got to do the
thing. But the weird thing is we're
just driving. Like we had no, no plans.
We didn't, we had nowhere to be.We didn't care.
We're just sightseeing and having fun, you know?
(11:08):
But yeah, no, I had this like really powerful feeling that I,
I man, I wish I could stop and take a picture of the most
interesting thing that's ever happened in my life.
I'm going to be somewhere. And and it was totally weird
and, but I remember like, OK, then I drove and.
Boy, did your son, your son saw it too.
Yeah, he saw it too. Yeah.
So we're both, I mean, as we're driving along really slowly at
(11:30):
this point, we're both looking at it.
We're both looking at it. And I told him, let's, you know,
let's OK, let's find a spot. Let's try and, you know, get our
phones out, take a, you know, and then we, we both just kind
of like that we have to be somewhere.
But I kept on going and, you know, now it's like there's now
there's trees between US and it.So we couldn't see it anymore.
(11:53):
And but as I got up to the actual pass itself and there's a
parking lot up there. And so I was thinking I could,
I'll turn around there and come back, right.
But when I got there, unfortunately, it was still had,
you know, snow, snow plows that made it.
Yeah. I couldn't get into it.
But I remember thinking to myself, you know what, screw it,
I'm just going to make this happen.
I'm going to turn around and go back or whatever.
And then it came over me again. I had this intense feeling of
(12:16):
like, no, no, no, I can't. I just don't have time.
And and then, yeah. And then we left, left the, the
area and then, you know, I remember like just feeling all
day long, like not even remembering it, but having this
weird feeling of dread that's probably not even the right
word. But I had this weird feeling
hanging over me all day long. We just ignored it.
(12:37):
We didn't talk about it. We didn't say anything.
And we just started on going andwe, you know, we went to Pike's
Beef, went to a wolf sanctuary. It saw some.
And then then we drove back to the airport and flew home and we
just didn't talk about it. But I, I remember having this
like that day, having this weird, weird sense in my head
(12:58):
and I dread would be the closestword I could describe to
describe it, but that's not really accurate.
Just just a weird feeling. I forgot about it.
I didn't I didn't talk to anyoneabout it.
And two months went by you. Didn't tell your wife or anyone.
Did not tell my wife and bear inmind you probably get the sense
(13:21):
I talk a lot. If anything interesting happens
I'm the first thing I do is iPhone out my wife.
Now bear in mind also I I have been doing UFO research for a
couple of years leading up to this point.
Just out of a personal interest.Just not.
Not after having experienced anything.
But this was an interest of yours prior.
To the exactly, yeah. So for me, this is a dream come
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true. Or it should have been.
But now I was I and I didn't talk to my wife, didn't talk to
anybody. And about two months afterwards,
it just I can't explain it. It felt like a block had like a
war had come down in my mind. It's it it suddenly I I talked
(14:04):
to my wife about it and but it was weird.
It was the the way I talked about it wasn't like, hey, this
is amazing thing happened to me,you know, like I wasn't talking
to her with excitement. It was almost, it felt like I
was talking to her about a traumatic event.
I I, I don't, I've never had PTSD in my life, but that's it.
(14:28):
It I can imagine that's kind of what it that's probably too
putting it too strongly. But but I, I went from like,
it's it was weird. It wasn't like I didn't
remember. It was just I didn't talk about
it. I didn't, I don't know if that's
because I didn't want to talk about it or I needed time to
process, but for whatever reason, I couldn't touch that
(14:50):
memory. I, I, I knew it was there.
I just couldn't talk about it. And then suddenly I could.
And I can't explain that. And it was like a tidal wave.
And when I first talked to my wife, I was pretty emotional
about it. Like, it, it, it, it was like,
and even though I don't think anything traumatic actually
happened, that's it. It kind of felt like I'm
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relaying a story that I didn't want to talk to her about
because this thing had happened and it wasn't a good thing that
had happened to me and I didn't want to talk about it.
And but I I had to talk to her. I had to get it off my chest.
I needed to process it myself, so yeah.
We, we've actually done a longerversion of this conversation
that everybody should check out.In that longer version, though,
(15:31):
I think what one question that'sprobably coming up for people
who are listening to this is, well, maybe something really
traumatic did happen to you and you just don't remember it.
But in that longer conversation,we recount a very clear timeline
of what happened, and it doesn'tseem like there is actually any
room for anything to have happened that you don't
remember. It's just that you.
Do remember exactly what happened and nothing traumatic
(15:52):
did happened, but there was thisemotional kind of malaise or or
block on you for a period afterwards.
Yeah, I believe so. Like, I mean, in summary, I
mean, we we know we could, we bought gas before we left
Breckenridge. And when we got to the wolf
sanctuary, we took a picture andI could see the timestamp of it.
So just doing the math, you know, like that there's plus or
(16:14):
minus maybe an hour in there. But you know, that's probably
being generous. So I don't, but I don't believe
anything happened, although I do.
And this everything I'll just relay to you I'm sure about.
But the one thing I have is I remember when I got to the other
side of that the pass and we drove on, there was no traffic
(16:37):
behind me. I remember looking in the
rearview mirror and there's no traffic behind me.
And like I said before, I remember, I distinctly remember
there being traffic because we were in traffic.
This is Breckenridge in the winter.
It's traffic. And but I'm not sure about that.
I, I can't be 100% sure about that.
(16:57):
So that's weird, but I'm. So maybe you were sitting on the
road longer than you thought or?But we never stopped.
We we could never stop. We tried.
Like, that's the thing. Every time we tried to stop,
this whole thing happened. And there's never a place to
stop anyway. Yeah, I mean, if I was fully,
but if this happened to me again, I, I, I screw, I'm just
(17:19):
stopping in the car and rid of the road.
If anyone asks, I'm like, go look at that thing over there.
And, and and that also reminds me, I do also remember looking
in the rearview mirror. I don't think anyone else saw it
because we were driving slowly and I think we were annoying
people. It it it's weird.
(17:40):
So I, I, yeah, it's very strange.
Well, just a, a few questions to, to clean up in, in any, any
really important lingering questions that people might have
about whether what you saw was anything anomalous.
You did look on satellite imagery and all that to see if
there was any kind of structure there that might explain what
(18:00):
you're saying. And you did an enormous amount
of research and nothing turned up right.
Yeah, and I, I lived in Coloradofor many years.
I've been to Breckenridge many times.
They've been on this road many times.
Been on this road many times, but yeah, I just, I put
satellite imagery. I even found satellite imagery
for the morning of the the event.
(18:20):
I think it was maybe the eveningbefore.
And there's nothing there. But there's no structure there.
I've lived on Google Maps like since and there's no, like this
is a part where there's no, there's nothing up there at all,
nothing at all. It's just forest up there.
I have thought about going back sometime just to hike up there
just just. But yeah, yeah.
Well, thanks. I think that covers most of the
(18:42):
highlights. We do an almost 2 hour
conversation on this for the longer version and we talk about
the a lot of the emotional content of the experience, the
how you look into it with GPS software and and imagery and and
also your previous history and interest in studying UAP using
(19:03):
sort of Aqua sonar. What is the term Hydra?
Yeah. So I was studying getting
hydrophone data to Catalina Bay,which is, you know, a hotspot.
So yeah, so I've got back into that work since this happened,
so. Oh, you have?
Finally, yes, I finally have tried to get like this event
kept me away from UFO research. I don't know why, but after we
(19:25):
talked that in a way to help me process this and I've been able
to get back to that. So I've actually started working
on that again. Did we?
I, I can edit this around a bit.Did you?
After our first conversation, isthere anything that came to mind
that you thought, oh, that's something I hadn't jogged
before? No.
One thing that I talked to my son, my son hasn't really talked
(19:47):
about it much and he has said something interesting and he
said this a couple of Times Now and he said he has said he
weirdly remembers seeing a cube and.
So when I ask him about that, it's like, and he says I, I
can't explain it because I saw with my eyes the metallic sphere
(20:09):
or, you know, or, you know, it'ssource or whatever kind of that
shit. But a squashed sphere was the
shape. Yeah.
Now he says he remembers it being that shape, but at the
same time he has this weird feeling that he also remembers
it as being a cube. The same object, not that there
was a a cube in addition. Same object.
(20:30):
Yeah, which is weird. And he said that to me a couple
of times and we talked about it and he said, I can't explain it,
but that's something I remember.Which is it?
I don't remember that at all. But I think I've told you
before, I, I looking at this, I'm trying, you know, I thought
a lot about this since this happened, like as an engineer
(20:51):
thinking about trying to think about the physics behind all of
this. I, the conclusion I keep coming
back to is what I'm, what I'm seeing is not a physical object
in, in the census that I don't think it's a metallic object.
I, I think it's a field. I think I'm seeing the edge of a
field. It's too perfect to be, to be
(21:15):
metal. But I don't, I don't know, like
it like a perfect distortion or something like that.
That's I don't know. I mean, the object was perfect.
It's like a it's hard to explainit.
It's like a perfect object up there.
But but his observation does make me think that maybe it was
a field and that, you know, you can get this situation where,
(21:37):
you know, subliminal messaging. So you can imagine if you got a
field that cycling has some kindof frequency that maybe when the
field is like off for that momentary off between it's off
on, off on, you can see through it.
And maybe that's the thing. He had a subliminal perception
of there being something behind the the field that was cube
(22:00):
shaped. Now that's all speculation.
Sure, yeah. But it's not it, it has some
explanatory value. It's it's something we could
think about and investigate eventually, or at least look in
the mathematics of it or, or or something.
And it also seems to resonate with accounts that you hear
from, say, fighter pilots who said that they see cubes within
(22:20):
spheres. Yeah, yeah, that's what I find
it. I find it really fascinating.
And I think it makes a ton of sense because I think when you
when you do think about the physics, like how are these
things, you know, what kind of form of propulsion are they
using? And, and you know, like, the
most logical explanation is based on what we, what we know
is some kind of distortion, likedistortion of space-time, you
(22:43):
know, like, you know, and, and if you could do that, the, the
notion that you could distort, you create a distortion, a
bubble around yourself with light goes around it, which it
might look like a reflection to us or might look like a stealth,
might be a stealth field or who the hell knows, right?
You know, and, and I think technologically what happened to
(23:04):
me is more akin to like hitting electric fence where it's like
they, because we know, like there, there are, there does
exist today weaponry that can, can, you know, you can beam
microwaves at someone's head andit can cause psychological
effects like fear. So the notion that you could
create some kind of device that you can beam at someone and with
(23:27):
very accurate targeting of different parts of the brain,
you can tickle that part of the brain that makes you feel
something like fear. Unwell or urgent or anxious or
something? Yeah, exactly.
So that's like in my mind, that's where I kind of landed
on. It's like what I, what I hit was
some kind of technological device designed to keep me away.
And I think all the other thingsI, I, I felt me just being a
(23:50):
human mind trying to deal with what happened.
I but I, I, I don't know, I in my mind is the, the I can see as
clear as day. It's like burned into my mind,
what I saw. I'll never forget it.
It's so weird so. Fascinating story.
It strikes me how different so many people's encounters are,
(24:12):
but how there's a a core thread of this anomalous, weird,
inexplicable in a way that doesn't seem explainable as a
misperception. You know?
I mean, there are things that can be misperceptions and they
make sense that way. But when a person says, I stared
at an object and its appearance was so strange that I can't even
(24:35):
put it into words, that's not the way misperception happens.
Misperception happens by fittingA perception to something
familiar in that it that it isn't in.
In these cases, you're having a perception that fits absolutely
nothing. That's familiar, and that's just
not how misperception works, I don't think.
Yeah. And, and, and I do think like
the, you know, your monkey brainis trying to make sense of what
(24:56):
it's seeing. And that could then like
manifest in a number of different ways, which is kind of
interesting. But I do think like ontological
shock is real. Because even for me, where I, I
would say, you know, going into this based on research, I'm, you
know, I'm pretty certain, 95% certain that UFOs are real.
There's, there's, there's a realthing happening right now.
(25:17):
And if I were to put money on it, I would say that, you know,
alien visitation is happening. But but then after this
happened, now it's 100%. Now I know I, I don't know what
I saw, but I can tell you what Isaw was technological in nature.
No doubt in my mind that that was a technological thing in
nature. As opposed to a natural
(25:38):
phenomenon it wasn't, or whatever.
Too way too perfect, way too perfect.
And and then but then the effectthat happened to me.
I think those two things correlated just to me.
Tell me, tell me technological and knowing that and it's not
human, there's no way in hell that like I I don't buy there's
(26:00):
no way Lockheed Martin has technology like that.
No, just it's no way. It's it's kind of mind blowing.
It's like now that I know that it's really hard to process that
like like knowing going from like, you know, this is probably
a thing that's happening to likeholy, this is all real.
(26:21):
This this is really a thing likethis is this is real like and
then going down that rabbit holeof like, what do you do with
that in your life? Like how do you?
Like how do you? Go to work the next.
Time like what do you yeah. And and this is something I
thought about a lot. I it's it's it's like whenever
something crazy happens at work,which happens a lot lately, I I
(26:44):
keep thinking about this. I'm like, it's, it's like, but
there's aliens. Yeah.
It's like why? Why are we not all hands on deck
studying these things do? You think it's just because we
don't know what we would do. Like how do you do that?
How do you get all hands on deck?
And. And that's the question.
(27:06):
I mean, I, I've been in the government, I work in the, you
know, I work, I'm a senior, remember the senior executive
Service, right? I, I've worked in the, in the
executive office, worked in the White House and I don't buy the
conspiracy theories like I, I, you know, some to some extent,
but the sense, the idea that there's some global conspiracy,
(27:27):
it's hard to process. I, I not that that might not, I
mean, OK, it's possible. Not saying it's not, but you
know, Occam's razor just like just tells me highly.
I it's. Not the most parsimonious
explanation, yeah. No, So I the only thing I can
think of, it's them. It's whoever these things are,
(27:50):
they don't want us to do that. So it's like the the the thing
that happened to me, they're manipulating us to not want to
discover them or not want to find out.
I don't know. But that's the only I don't
know. It's, I mean, in your case that
would that would explain a lot because you were a person who
already had a really strong interest in this, who was
(28:12):
presented with the very thing that you're very interested in.
And somehow you behaved in a waythat doesn't make sense to you.
You turned away from it for likemonths afterwards.
And yeah. Yeah, it's it's true.
I mean, I don't believe they're there for me.
I mean, maybe, but I suspect they were just there, right.
And it but it is a hell of a coincidence.
(28:33):
I got to say it did. I have thought a lot about that.
Like, like, is that, is that, how is that a form of
suppression? Like is that when, when UFO
researchers get too into it, that something happened to them?
I don't know. I mean, I, I have a hard time
(28:54):
believing that because it's a very me centric view of it,
right? Or I, I think it's more likely
now like, but then why are they there?
Why are they there in freaking Breckenridge?
Like, like it's that's a busy. There's lots of humans around
and, and, but I, I, I do think that not, I think us seeing them
(29:15):
was unintended. I don't think other people saw
it. And even my son didn't notice it
until I pointed out to him. So I, I've wondered if there's
like you, you don't see these things unless you really like,
focus on it. I, I don't know.
I don't know. There's, there's something,
(29:35):
there's something weird to it. There's, there's something
definitely there's a second level thing going on that.
Yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, the whole thing is just
because what I saw, I've never read a report like what I saw.
So if I was to make this up, this is not what I want to make
up. Like I was surprised by what I
(29:56):
saw. It's a good point, yeah.
If you were going to make something up, that wouldn't be
this. Yeah, And then all the videos
I've seen of like glowing orbs in the sky, when I see those,
I'm not. I mean, I'm like, that's
probably, but not. But this was like in my face.
It's like slap in your face. There's no, there's no way to
interpret it differently and it's profound.
(30:16):
I, I, I think that's like, I, I'm trying to not fall down into
a rabbit hole. And I think that might be why I
didn't do the research more thananything else.
It's because like, I don't want to let myself.
Become obsessed with. It, I'm obsessed with it, you
know, like, you know, if you stare into the best, the best
stares back, you know, type of thing where but I don't know
(30:38):
and, and I, I came away with these things are dangerous.
I, I did not, I think I mentioned this before and you
know, it was not a pleasant experience.
It it didn't, it didn't feel pleasant, like it felt
traumatics are wrong is too strong of a word.
(30:58):
But it, it felt like an unpleasant thing had happened to
us, which is weird because again, I don't remember anything
specific happening to us. But but then again, who knows,
right? I, I, I, I, I don't remember,
but but I don't understand. I am kicking myself.
(31:21):
I don't understand why I did nottake a frigging picture or video
because my engineer brain is like I, I want to get like I
want to take video. I want to get like a prism.
Like. Yeah, I want to, I want to like,
I want to see it in different frequency.
I want to like sample electromagnetic spectrum.
I want to, there's all these things and I didn't do any of
that. It's so against my nature.
(31:41):
Like I'm an engineer. I've been an engineer my whole
life. When I see things, I want to
understand them and I'm deeply curious about things.
And it was so out of nature for me.
This whole experience is so out of whack.
So I, I, I do think there's moreto it than what I remember, but
I'm kind of afraid, to be honest.
(32:02):
I'm kind of afraid to dig into that more.
But maybe one day I will. I don't know.
But these experiences invite a level of speculation that's
impossible not to engage with, but that also might not be
totally healthy. So I, I feel for you in the
position that you're in. I don't want to speculate too
much or go too into too many routes of conversation because
(32:23):
we go into those and long conversation.
I really do want everybody to listen to that.
But this has been an excellent entree into the larger and wider
experience that you and your sonhad and that lasted months and
months long. So thank you so much for being
willing to share this with us. Well, thank you for listening.
This is, I mean, I will tell youthis psychologically, this has
(32:47):
helped me process. It sounds weird.
I I, I, I think it's I don't think people will understand
that aspect of this, but I have had a hard time processing this
event will happen to me. So this so thank you.
This is really helpful. Absolutely.
Thanks. Well, thank you.
Yeah. The Anomalous Review is a
project of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.
(33:10):
It's hosted and produced by me, Michael Blossom and edited by
Kelly Michelle. Our theme song was written and
performed by Telma Chrisanti. Communication and PR work is by
Preston Dykes. Our advisory team includes
Jennifer Roche, Robert Powell, Richard Hoffman, Joshua Pearson,
and Larry Hancock. To find out more about SCU,
check out Explorer SCU org.
Welcome to The Anomalous Review,the official podcast of the
Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.
My name is Michael Glausson. I'm a philosopher of science and
technology and the host of the show.
This conversation is part of a special series on the anomalous
review that we're calling the UAP Witness series.
Let me tell you a bit about it. In this series, I interview SCU
(00:43):
members who've had their own personal encounters with truly
anomalous phenomena. These conversations are a new
format for us as an organization.
SCU leans toward a hard science approach to studying UAP.
That means using quantitative data that fits into
spreadsheets, and they can be analyzed with consistent
statistical methods. Things like the size, shape,
(01:05):
acoustical and kinetic properties of UAP.
That's the kind of data that SCUspecializes in.
Now, that's partly because of our skill set.
Most of our members are working scientists and engineers, so
we're used to using that kind ofdata and those sorts of
analytical tools. But this approach also serves as
a kind of hedge that keeps soberdiscussions about UAP from
(01:29):
falling into unstructured or even unreasonable speculation.
You probably know the kind of conversations that I mean.
We like structured investigations that employ the
tools that we're familiar with. But it would be a mistake to
think that we in SU focus on thehard data points simply because
we think that that's all there is to these phenomena.
(01:51):
Every one of those data points, after all, comes from an
encounter that was deeply and uniquely personal.
And these encounters are far richer, stranger, and more
complex than the numbers in the spreadsheet might ever suggest.
The tools of quantitative analysis just aren't great for
analyzing those unique experiential dimensions, though.
(02:12):
So for our analytic work at SCU,we usually just set the rich
elements of those stories aside.But shortly after we launched
this podcast, SCU leaders told me that there are several SCU
members who'd had their own encounters with UAP.
And after a few conversations, we decided let's invite those
members to tell their stories just as they experienced them,
(02:34):
along with all the questions andideas that those encounters gave
rise to. Encounters like these are, after
all, the source of our hard datapoints.
And inviting people to tell their stories here is a way of
showing what's on the other sideof the spreadsheets, the unique,
complex, deeply strange and often unsettling experiences
that push us to ask questions that data-driven analytical
(02:56):
methods aren't always fit to tackle.
But let me just say this clearlyacknowledging the strangeness of
these encounters and giving people space to tell them as
they live them is in no way a departure from SUS data-driven
scientific mission. But it's meant to complement
that mission by acknowledging the very elements of our source
(03:16):
material that often compelled usto want to do the scientific
work in the 1st place. This is an expression of the
conviction that doing good science means holding on to
intellectual humility before a reality that's under no
obligations to conform to our expectations or to our tools.
And that means facing reality asit comes, even and especially
(03:39):
when it challenges our frameworks.
We're putting out two versions of each interview.
There's a full length conversation and then a short
partial edit. For those who may not have time
to commit to the full conversation just yet, this is a
short version. In it, you'll get a quick
outline of the guests experiencealong with the taste of the
(03:59):
deeper discussion that we had inthe full conversation.
These encounters are full of strange, fascinating detail, and
if this version grabs you even alittle, we really encourage you
to check out the full interview.But since the full versions go
really deep, we wanted to make these shorter ones available
too. My guest in this interview is
Mike Pritchard. Mike started his career in
(04:22):
robotics and artificial intelligence by solving cutting
edge problems for NASA and the Department of Defense.
He did everything from using ultra wide band radar to detect
mines to navigating GPS denied environments and applying
machine learning and lots of interesting and novel ways to
solve problems that he probably can't always talk about.
(04:43):
He's helped launch engineering teams from scratch, he's
supported clean tech and AI startups, and he was part of a
team that secured a $700 millionventure fund.
At one point, he's even earned Acommendation directly from NASA.
Up to the point of this interview, Mike served as a
Presidential Innovation Fellow at the US Digital Service
position that he has since movedon from.
(05:05):
I found Mike to be one of the most open and reflective guests
that I've had on this show, and I really enjoyed talking to him.
So I think you will really enjoythis conversation.
Here now is my conversation withMike Pritchard.
Mike Pritchard. Thank you for being here and for
telling us your story, being willing to tell him your story.
So. Why don't?
You just start. We're doing a series on
(05:28):
experiences. Or maybe we don't use that word.
Maybe we. Use witnesses to UAP.
Activity who are ACU members? And you're both.
So why don't you just tell us what your experience was?
Yeah. Well, thanks and thanks for
having me. Yeah.
And absolutely. So this this happened in 2024.
(05:49):
So this is March 28th, I think 2024.
So I was in Colorado, basically me and my son who was 13 at the
time. We we went on a father son ski
trip to Breckenridge. So lots of fun.
I used to live in Colorado back in the day.
(06:10):
Now I live out in Northern Virginia, but so yeah.
So we skied, had a great time and on the final day we decided
that we wanted to drive from Breckenridge to Colorado
Springs, which is where I used to live.
I used to live in a town called Manitou Springs that's on Pikes
Peak. Beautiful place.
(06:30):
So and the drive, the drive fromBreckenridge to Pike's Peak,
it's just beautiful too. It goes across the plains of
Colorado. So just gorgeous.
So anyway, we're, we are so we're dry, we're leaving, we get
up early, we're leaving Breckenridge.
Clear, clear day, clear blue skies, which up until then it'd
(06:53):
been, it'd been, it'd been like snow and, and, and fairly bad
conditions, but that day was beautiful blue skies.
So we're driving out of Breckenridge.
And for those that have ever been there, like if, if you're
driving out of Breckenridge, you'll, you'll know that you,
you, you hit, you hit basically the mountain.
So you have to basically climb out of, of Breckenridge.
(07:14):
So the first kind of climb out of Breckenridge, which goes out
to a place called the Hoosier Pass.
And so we're driving up there and it's pretty crazy.
Switchbacks. It's kind of like the
switchbacks you see on TV where it's like literally you come
literally right back, right? And as you're driving, you're
like, your car is like you're looking, you know, up into the
(07:35):
sky as you come around the corners, right?
So, so we're driving up and justjust chatting away, you know, as
you do kind of zoned out and I and I came around one of these
corners. So as, as we're looking up, I
saw above the tree line, I I sawthis thing.
(07:55):
And yeah, that's the start of this event.
It, it, it's kind of hard to describe it.
Was it, it like at first we thought it was a water tower,
right? Like literally.
And I said to my son, like, whatis that?
And he hadn't seen it yet. It, it and then we realized
looking at it, it's like the shape of a water tower, but
(08:16):
there was nothing between it andthe ground.
So that was the first thing we noticed was like, wait, there's
no, there's nothing connecting this thing to the ground.
And it's also, it was very like metallic, a highly polished
metallic surface. But that's, that's what it
looked like. You can imagine kind of a Chrome
finish, unblemished, perfect, very reflective surface.
(08:39):
And it's just stationary right there above the tree line.
It, it just looked wrong. It, it just.
So when you see it, it's, it's because you got to put it in in
perspective where you know, it'sin the mountains and there's
trees, there's all the pine trees and there's a little bit
of wind and things. There's a little bit of motion
(08:59):
going on. And obviously we're driving, but
this thing is stationary, like perfectly stationary.
Yeah. As if it's like just painted
onto the sky. It's, it's, and it's hard to get
a sense of perspective of this thing because I, I don't know
how big it is. So I couldn't really figure out
how far away it is. And there's no, no markings on
(09:22):
it, No, no lights, no nothing. It's just there.
So weird. So as we come around the corner
and start going back on the switch back.
So now you know, as you mentioned, like we're driving up
the corner for see it and as we come around the switch back, now
it's to our left. So we're still looking at it to
our left and I'm going pretty slowly at this point because you
(09:43):
can imagine I'm like, what, whatis that thing?
And then then I just thought, OK, I, I, OK, I've got to stop.
I've got to stop. I've got to find somewhere to
stop. This is crazy, but because like
I mentioned, there'd been a lot of snow, you know, days before
there was snow everywhere. There's the snow plows that, you
know, created those giant snow berms to the side of the road.
(10:05):
So there was literally nowhere to stop.
There's traffic behind me and I still remember looking in the
rear view mirror and I saw like,I even remember there was like
some kind of like like truck, like a Bronco.
I don't know what it was specifically.
It was don't remember. So like crap, there's someone
behind me, so I've got to pull over.
So I'm like, OK, great. I'll just keep going until I can
find somewhere to stop and then I'm looking.
(10:26):
And then this is where it got weird and kind of frightening in
that I, I had this powerful, I kind of, I don't know how to
describe it. It's feeling.
Emotion came over me that I would best describe as that
(10:46):
feeling when you're really late for something, you know, it's,
it's that feeling where you're like, oh crap, I had to be
somewhere. Urgency or?
Something, yeah. It's like a general sense of
like, I wish I could stop, but Ican't because I got to do the
thing. But the weird thing is we're
just driving. Like we had no, no plans.
We didn't, we had nowhere to be.We didn't care.
We're just sightseeing and having fun, you know?
(11:08):
But yeah, no, I had this like really powerful feeling that I,
I man, I wish I could stop and take a picture of the most
interesting thing that's ever happened in my life.
I'm going to be somewhere. And and it was totally weird
and, but I remember like, OK, then I drove and.
Boy, did your son, your son saw it too.
Yeah, he saw it too. Yeah.
So we're both, I mean, as we're driving along really slowly at
(11:30):
this point, we're both looking at it.
We're both looking at it. And I told him, let's, you know,
let's OK, let's find a spot. Let's try and, you know, get our
phones out, take a, you know, and then we, we both just kind
of like that we have to be somewhere.
But I kept on going and, you know, now it's like there's now
there's trees between US and it.So we couldn't see it anymore.
(11:53):
And but as I got up to the actual pass itself and there's a
parking lot up there. And so I was thinking I could,
I'll turn around there and come back, right.
But when I got there, unfortunately, it was still had,
you know, snow, snow plows that made it.
Yeah. I couldn't get into it.
But I remember thinking to myself, you know what, screw it,
I'm just going to make this happen.
I'm going to turn around and go back or whatever.
And then it came over me again. I had this intense feeling of
(12:16):
like, no, no, no, I can't. I just don't have time.
And and then, yeah. And then we left, left the, the
area and then, you know, I remember like just feeling all
day long, like not even remembering it, but having this
weird feeling of dread that's probably not even the right
word. But I had this weird feeling
hanging over me all day long. We just ignored it.
(12:37):
We didn't talk about it. We didn't say anything.
And we just started on going andwe, you know, we went to Pike's
Beef, went to a wolf sanctuary. It saw some.
And then then we drove back to the airport and flew home and we
just didn't talk about it. But I, I remember having this
like that day, having this weird, weird sense in my head
(12:58):
and I dread would be the closestword I could describe to
describe it, but that's not really accurate.
Just just a weird feeling. I forgot about it.
I didn't I didn't talk to anyoneabout it.
And two months went by you. Didn't tell your wife or anyone.
Did not tell my wife and bear inmind you probably get the sense
(13:21):
I talk a lot. If anything interesting happens
I'm the first thing I do is iPhone out my wife.
Now bear in mind also I I have been doing UFO research for a
couple of years leading up to this point.
Just out of a personal interest.Just not.
Not after having experienced anything.
But this was an interest of yours prior.
To the exactly, yeah. So for me, this is a dream come
(13:43):
true. Or it should have been.
But now I was I and I didn't talk to my wife, didn't talk to
anybody. And about two months afterwards,
it just I can't explain it. It felt like a block had like a
war had come down in my mind. It's it it suddenly I I talked
(14:04):
to my wife about it and but it was weird.
It was the the way I talked about it wasn't like, hey, this
is amazing thing happened to me,you know, like I wasn't talking
to her with excitement. It was almost, it felt like I
was talking to her about a traumatic event.
I I, I don't, I've never had PTSD in my life, but that's it.
(14:28):
It I can imagine that's kind of what it that's probably too
putting it too strongly. But but I, I went from like,
it's it was weird. It wasn't like I didn't
remember. It was just I didn't talk about
it. I didn't, I don't know if that's
because I didn't want to talk about it or I needed time to
process, but for whatever reason, I couldn't touch that
(14:50):
memory. I, I, I knew it was there.
I just couldn't talk about it. And then suddenly I could.
And I can't explain that. And it was like a tidal wave.
And when I first talked to my wife, I was pretty emotional
about it. Like, it, it, it, it was like,
and even though I don't think anything traumatic actually
happened, that's it. It kind of felt like I'm
(15:11):
relaying a story that I didn't want to talk to her about
because this thing had happened and it wasn't a good thing that
had happened to me and I didn't want to talk about it.
And but I I had to talk to her. I had to get it off my chest.
I needed to process it myself, so yeah.
We, we've actually done a longerversion of this conversation
that everybody should check out.In that longer version, though,
(15:31):
I think what one question that'sprobably coming up for people
who are listening to this is, well, maybe something really
traumatic did happen to you and you just don't remember it.
But in that longer conversation,we recount a very clear timeline
of what happened, and it doesn'tseem like there is actually any
room for anything to have happened that you don't
remember. It's just that you.
Do remember exactly what happened and nothing traumatic
(15:52):
did happened, but there was thisemotional kind of malaise or or
block on you for a period afterwards.
Yeah, I believe so. Like, I mean, in summary, I
mean, we we know we could, we bought gas before we left
Breckenridge. And when we got to the wolf
sanctuary, we took a picture andI could see the timestamp of it.
So just doing the math, you know, like that there's plus or
(16:14):
minus maybe an hour in there. But you know, that's probably
being generous. So I don't, but I don't believe
anything happened, although I do.
And this everything I'll just relay to you I'm sure about.
But the one thing I have is I remember when I got to the other
side of that the pass and we drove on, there was no traffic
(16:37):
behind me. I remember looking in the
rearview mirror and there's no traffic behind me.
And like I said before, I remember, I distinctly remember
there being traffic because we were in traffic.
This is Breckenridge in the winter.
It's traffic. And but I'm not sure about that.
I, I can't be 100% sure about that.
(16:57):
So that's weird, but I'm. So maybe you were sitting on the
road longer than you thought or?But we never stopped.
We we could never stop. We tried.
Like, that's the thing. Every time we tried to stop,
this whole thing happened. And there's never a place to
stop anyway. Yeah, I mean, if I was fully,
but if this happened to me again, I, I, I screw, I'm just
(17:19):
stopping in the car and rid of the road.
If anyone asks, I'm like, go look at that thing over there.
And, and and that also reminds me, I do also remember looking
in the rearview mirror. I don't think anyone else saw it
because we were driving slowly and I think we were annoying
people. It it it's weird.
(17:40):
So I, I, yeah, it's very strange.
Well, just a, a few questions to, to clean up in, in any, any
really important lingering questions that people might have
about whether what you saw was anything anomalous.
You did look on satellite imagery and all that to see if
there was any kind of structure there that might explain what
(18:00):
you're saying. And you did an enormous amount
of research and nothing turned up right.
Yeah, and I, I lived in Coloradofor many years.
I've been to Breckenridge many times.
They've been on this road many times.
Been on this road many times, but yeah, I just, I put
satellite imagery. I even found satellite imagery
for the morning of the the event.
(18:20):
I think it was maybe the eveningbefore.
And there's nothing there. But there's no structure there.
I've lived on Google Maps like since and there's no, like this
is a part where there's no, there's nothing up there at all,
nothing at all. It's just forest up there.
I have thought about going back sometime just to hike up there
just just. But yeah, yeah.
Well, thanks. I think that covers most of the
(18:42):
highlights. We do an almost 2 hour
conversation on this for the longer version and we talk about
the a lot of the emotional content of the experience, the
how you look into it with GPS software and and imagery and and
also your previous history and interest in studying UAP using
(19:03):
sort of Aqua sonar. What is the term Hydra?
Yeah. So I was studying getting
hydrophone data to Catalina Bay,which is, you know, a hotspot.
So yeah, so I've got back into that work since this happened,
so. Oh, you have?
Finally, yes, I finally have tried to get like this event
kept me away from UFO research. I don't know why, but after we
(19:25):
talked that in a way to help me process this and I've been able
to get back to that. So I've actually started working
on that again. Did we?
I, I can edit this around a bit.Did you?
After our first conversation, isthere anything that came to mind
that you thought, oh, that's something I hadn't jogged
before? No.
One thing that I talked to my son, my son hasn't really talked
(19:47):
about it much and he has said something interesting and he
said this a couple of Times Now and he said he has said he
weirdly remembers seeing a cube and.
So when I ask him about that, it's like, and he says I, I
can't explain it because I saw with my eyes the metallic sphere
(20:09):
or, you know, or, you know, it'ssource or whatever kind of that
shit. But a squashed sphere was the
shape. Yeah.
Now he says he remembers it being that shape, but at the
same time he has this weird feeling that he also remembers
it as being a cube. The same object, not that there
was a a cube in addition. Same object.
(20:30):
Yeah, which is weird. And he said that to me a couple
of times and we talked about it and he said, I can't explain it,
but that's something I remember.Which is it?
I don't remember that at all. But I think I've told you
before, I, I looking at this, I'm trying, you know, I thought
a lot about this since this happened, like as an engineer
(20:51):
thinking about trying to think about the physics behind all of
this. I, the conclusion I keep coming
back to is what I'm, what I'm seeing is not a physical object
in, in the census that I don't think it's a metallic object.
I, I think it's a field. I think I'm seeing the edge of a
field. It's too perfect to be, to be
(21:15):
metal. But I don't, I don't know, like
it like a perfect distortion or something like that.
That's I don't know. I mean, the object was perfect.
It's like a it's hard to explainit.
It's like a perfect object up there.
But but his observation does make me think that maybe it was
a field and that, you know, you can get this situation where,
(21:37):
you know, subliminal messaging. So you can imagine if you got a
field that cycling has some kindof frequency that maybe when the
field is like off for that momentary off between it's off
on, off on, you can see through it.
And maybe that's the thing. He had a subliminal perception
of there being something behind the the field that was cube
(22:00):
shaped. Now that's all speculation.
Sure, yeah. But it's not it, it has some
explanatory value. It's it's something we could
think about and investigate eventually, or at least look in
the mathematics of it or, or or something.
And it also seems to resonate with accounts that you hear
from, say, fighter pilots who said that they see cubes within
(22:20):
spheres. Yeah, yeah, that's what I find
it. I find it really fascinating.
And I think it makes a ton of sense because I think when you
when you do think about the physics, like how are these
things, you know, what kind of form of propulsion are they
using? And, and you know, like, the
most logical explanation is based on what we, what we know
is some kind of distortion, likedistortion of space-time, you
(22:43):
know, like, you know, and, and if you could do that, the, the
notion that you could distort, you create a distortion, a
bubble around yourself with light goes around it, which it
might look like a reflection to us or might look like a stealth,
might be a stealth field or who the hell knows, right?
You know, and, and I think technologically what happened to
(23:04):
me is more akin to like hitting electric fence where it's like
they, because we know, like there, there are, there does
exist today weaponry that can, can, you know, you can beam
microwaves at someone's head andit can cause psychological
effects like fear. So the notion that you could
create some kind of device that you can beam at someone and with
(23:27):
very accurate targeting of different parts of the brain,
you can tickle that part of the brain that makes you feel
something like fear. Unwell or urgent or anxious or
something? Yeah, exactly.
So that's like in my mind, that's where I kind of landed
on. It's like what I, what I hit was
some kind of technological device designed to keep me away.
And I think all the other thingsI, I, I felt me just being a
(23:50):
human mind trying to deal with what happened.
I but I, I, I don't know, I in my mind is the, the I can see as
clear as day. It's like burned into my mind,
what I saw. I'll never forget it.
It's so weird so. Fascinating story.
It strikes me how different so many people's encounters are,
(24:12):
but how there's a a core thread of this anomalous, weird,
inexplicable in a way that doesn't seem explainable as a
misperception. You know?
I mean, there are things that can be misperceptions and they
make sense that way. But when a person says, I stared
at an object and its appearance was so strange that I can't even
(24:35):
put it into words, that's not the way misperception happens.
Misperception happens by fittingA perception to something
familiar in that it that it isn't in.
In these cases, you're having a perception that fits absolutely
nothing. That's familiar, and that's just
not how misperception works, I don't think.
Yeah. And, and, and I do think like
the, you know, your monkey brainis trying to make sense of what
(24:56):
it's seeing. And that could then like
manifest in a number of different ways, which is kind of
interesting. But I do think like ontological
shock is real. Because even for me, where I, I
would say, you know, going into this based on research, I'm, you
know, I'm pretty certain, 95% certain that UFOs are real.
There's, there's, there's a realthing happening right now.
(25:17):
And if I were to put money on it, I would say that, you know,
alien visitation is happening. But but then after this
happened, now it's 100%. Now I know I, I don't know what
I saw, but I can tell you what Isaw was technological in nature.
No doubt in my mind that that was a technological thing in
nature. As opposed to a natural
(25:38):
phenomenon it wasn't, or whatever.
Too way too perfect, way too perfect.
And and then but then the effectthat happened to me.
I think those two things correlated just to me.
Tell me, tell me technological and knowing that and it's not
human, there's no way in hell that like I I don't buy there's
(26:00):
no way Lockheed Martin has technology like that.
No, just it's no way. It's it's kind of mind blowing.
It's like now that I know that it's really hard to process that
like like knowing going from like, you know, this is probably
a thing that's happening to likeholy, this is all real.
(26:21):
This this is really a thing likethis is this is real like and
then going down that rabbit holeof like, what do you do with
that in your life? Like how do you?
Like how do you? Go to work the next.
Time like what do you yeah. And and this is something I
thought about a lot. I it's it's it's like whenever
something crazy happens at work,which happens a lot lately, I I
(26:44):
keep thinking about this. I'm like, it's, it's like, but
there's aliens. Yeah.
It's like why? Why are we not all hands on deck
studying these things do? You think it's just because we
don't know what we would do. Like how do you do that?
How do you get all hands on deck?
And. And that's the question.
(27:06):
I mean, I, I've been in the government, I work in the, you
know, I work, I'm a senior, remember the senior executive
Service, right? I, I've worked in the, in the
executive office, worked in the White House and I don't buy the
conspiracy theories like I, I, you know, some to some extent,
but the sense, the idea that there's some global conspiracy,
(27:27):
it's hard to process. I, I not that that might not, I
mean, OK, it's possible. Not saying it's not, but you
know, Occam's razor just like just tells me highly.
I it's. Not the most parsimonious
explanation, yeah. No, So I the only thing I can
think of, it's them. It's whoever these things are,
(27:50):
they don't want us to do that. So it's like the the the thing
that happened to me, they're manipulating us to not want to
discover them or not want to find out.
I don't know. But that's the only I don't
know. It's, I mean, in your case that
would that would explain a lot because you were a person who
already had a really strong interest in this, who was
(28:12):
presented with the very thing that you're very interested in.
And somehow you behaved in a waythat doesn't make sense to you.
You turned away from it for likemonths afterwards.
And yeah. Yeah, it's it's true.
I mean, I don't believe they're there for me.
I mean, maybe, but I suspect they were just there, right.
And it but it is a hell of a coincidence.
(28:33):
I got to say it did. I have thought a lot about that.
Like, like, is that, is that, how is that a form of
suppression? Like is that when, when UFO
researchers get too into it, that something happened to them?
I don't know. I mean, I, I have a hard time
(28:54):
believing that because it's a very me centric view of it,
right? Or I, I think it's more likely
now like, but then why are they there?
Why are they there in freaking Breckenridge?
Like, like it's that's a busy. There's lots of humans around
and, and, but I, I, I do think that not, I think us seeing them
(29:15):
was unintended. I don't think other people saw
it. And even my son didn't notice it
until I pointed out to him. So I, I've wondered if there's
like you, you don't see these things unless you really like,
focus on it. I, I don't know.
I don't know. There's, there's something,
(29:35):
there's something weird to it. There's, there's something
definitely there's a second level thing going on that.
Yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, the whole thing is just
because what I saw, I've never read a report like what I saw.
So if I was to make this up, this is not what I want to make
up. Like I was surprised by what I
(29:56):
saw. It's a good point, yeah.
If you were going to make something up, that wouldn't be
this. Yeah, And then all the videos
I've seen of like glowing orbs in the sky, when I see those,
I'm not. I mean, I'm like, that's
probably, but not. But this was like in my face.
It's like slap in your face. There's no, there's no way to
interpret it differently and it's profound.
(30:16):
I, I, I think that's like, I, I'm trying to not fall down into
a rabbit hole. And I think that might be why I
didn't do the research more thananything else.
It's because like, I don't want to let myself.
Become obsessed with. It, I'm obsessed with it, you
know, like, you know, if you stare into the best, the best
stares back, you know, type of thing where but I don't know
(30:38):
and, and I, I came away with these things are dangerous.
I, I did not, I think I mentioned this before and you
know, it was not a pleasant experience.
It it didn't, it didn't feel pleasant, like it felt
traumatics are wrong is too strong of a word.
(30:58):
But it, it felt like an unpleasant thing had happened to
us, which is weird because again, I don't remember anything
specific happening to us. But but then again, who knows,
right? I, I, I, I, I don't remember,
but but I don't understand. I am kicking myself.
(31:21):
I don't understand why I did nottake a frigging picture or video
because my engineer brain is like I, I want to get like I
want to take video. I want to get like a prism.
Like. Yeah, I want to, I want to like,
I want to see it in different frequency.
I want to like sample electromagnetic spectrum.
I want to, there's all these things and I didn't do any of
that. It's so against my nature.
(31:41):
Like I'm an engineer. I've been an engineer my whole
life. When I see things, I want to
understand them and I'm deeply curious about things.
And it was so out of nature for me.
This whole experience is so out of whack.
So I, I, I do think there's moreto it than what I remember, but
I'm kind of afraid, to be honest.
(32:02):
I'm kind of afraid to dig into that more.
But maybe one day I will. I don't know.
But these experiences invite a level of speculation that's
impossible not to engage with, but that also might not be
totally healthy. So I, I feel for you in the
position that you're in. I don't want to speculate too
much or go too into too many routes of conversation because
(32:23):
we go into those and long conversation.
I really do want everybody to listen to that.
But this has been an excellent entree into the larger and wider
experience that you and your sonhad and that lasted months and
months long. So thank you so much for being
willing to share this with us. Well, thank you for listening.
This is, I mean, I will tell youthis psychologically, this has
(32:47):
helped me process. It sounds weird.
I I, I, I think it's I don't think people will understand
that aspect of this, but I have had a hard time processing this
event will happen to me. So this so thank you.
This is really helpful. Absolutely.
Thanks. Well, thank you.
Yeah. The Anomalous Review is a
project of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.
(33:10):
It's hosted and produced by me, Michael Blossom and edited by
Kelly Michelle. Our theme song was written and
performed by Telma Chrisanti. Communication and PR work is by
Preston Dykes. Our advisory team includes
Jennifer Roche, Robert Powell, Richard Hoffman, Joshua Pearson,
and Larry Hancock. To find out more about SCU,
check out Explorer SCU org.
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