May 11, 2023 • 42 mins
Navy pilots, radar specialists, and other well-respected members of the US military have come forward with stories of still unexplained aerial phenomena. In this episode, Payne speaks with Ryan Graves and Kevin Day about their strange experiences while doing military drills.
Want more?
Our High Strange music playlist is now available exclusively on Apple Music. Visit the link in our show notes or go to apple.co/highstrangeplaylist
To access our book list, go to apple.co/highstrangebooks
To find us in Apple Maps, go to apple.co/highstrangeguide
For ad-free listening and bonus content, subscribe to Tenderfoot+ now! Members get all episodes ad-free plus bonus content throughout the season. Sign up at apple.co/highstrange. For Spotify, Google, and other Android users, visit tenderfootplus.com.
Follow along on social and the web:
@highstrange on Instagram
@highstrange on TikTok
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
High Strange is released weekly every Thursday, brought to you
absolutely free, but if you want to bene the whole season,
it's available right now on Apple Podcasts for all Tenderfoot
plus subscribers. You'll also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
For more information, check out the show notes enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
They come from outer space, lower Earth orbit, go to
twenty eight thousand feet right off the coast of Catalina.
Whatever that object was, drop right down to the surface
of the water. These things were breaking the soundberg, but.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
There was no big boom. Freaked us all out. We
didn't even know how to respond to it.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Came from outer space all the way down to twenty
eight thousand feet and stopped.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was so outside of our experience we didn't know
what to do.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They look like about a fifty foot long giant ticktack,
pure white, no doors, no windows, no nothing, sh of
his aircraft proximately whatever that object was, with two fast
eagles aside cap station the exact latitude, longitude and altitude,
and stopped. How in the hell didn't know where that
cap point was. It was a secret location only in
(01:16):
secret message traffic. They knew where in tent.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Welcome to high strange.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I sat down with senior radar operator for the US Navy,
Kevin Day, in two thousand and four. He was aboard
the USS Princeton, a naval guided missile cruiser, when strange
objects began to appear on a screen. Over the course
of several days, he continued to see large tic tac
shaped objects running circles around the Navy jets, raising the
legitimate concern of a possible mid air collision.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
There were zigzagging all over the sky like a flywood
do an impossible things darting all over the place, creating
G forces thirty five gus forty g's that would make
us into pancakes.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The pilot can survive maybe eight or nine G forces.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I don't think there's anything biological in these things. You
all saw, yep, we all saw it.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it shook me to my core, truly did.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They watched on radar these unknown objects dive from over
eighty thousand feet in the air to the very near
surface of the ocean in a matter of seconds. They
were long, fifty foot cylindrical objects, white in color, no
windows and no doors, and by appearance they were rotorless
with no signs of propulsion.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
We were concerned about safety of flight. I was at meetings.
Hey guys, I got something for you. What's up, keV.
We have a safety a flight issue off the southern
California coast. And when I went to describe what happened
to us and knowfore, I got laughed at man, what
do you mean?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
They laughed UFOs ha ha.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And the people who weren't laughing, they were giving me
this kind of look looking down their nose, like wish
he been smoking. It was real. I mean, pilot saw
it with our eyeballs. It's on every ship's radar, and
those radars are really good at what they do.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
He trust me.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I was concerned about safety of flight. Man for aar
Landers too. I got so frustrated no one would listen.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
I quit.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Commander David Fraber flew his F eighteen super Hornet towards
the object and it crossed directly in front of the
nose of his jet, then took off out of site.
When the object appeared again, it was at the exact
location The jets were supposed to rendezvous at a secret,
undisclosed set of coordinates. Five years after the TIC TAC incident.
Kevin Day resigned from the Navy in twenty seventeen. While
(03:50):
volunteering at a country club near his house. He was
carrying a plate of fish and chips when he noticed
the breaking news on the TV.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Unexplained aerial phenomena. This Navy video showing the pilot's reaction
to the strange aerial encounter.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
The Pentagon released three videos of unknown flying objects to
the public.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I stood there, frozen. I dropped the plate of food
I was carrying.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
After over twenty years in the Navy, being mocked and
laughed at by the Department of Defense, he was finally vindicated.
He belined to his house in a daze.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I raised home, probably broke and reached traffic law on
this little talent to get home, Jump on the computer,
call my friends and deal with it, you know, because
what else are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
If it was you, what would you do? I have
no idea, right exactly. We're just human.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Right. When he got home, he started calling other sailors
aboard the USS Princeton, people who also witnessed the event.
Now that the news had broken, he wanted to make
sure they could all stick together, and he urged them
to come forward and talk about the incident openly.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
We can't let command a favor twist in the wind
by himself here, because we were there and we know
what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
We have to balance what he's saying. So that's how
that all started.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Both the New York Times and Politico broke the news
that the Pentagon had been investigating UAPs for a decade.
This UAP task force was officially known as the Advanced
Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The leader of the operation, lou Elizondo,
had just resigned, claiming he left the program for similar
reasons as Kevin Day. His higher ups were simply not
(05:27):
taking this seriously.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I think what happens from this point forward, the science
teams get on the ball around the planet and we
start collecting science data on these things.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
UAP is noble. We can know what these are.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
We're worried about paying the rent and making sure the
electric bills paid and the kids are on school and
time and they're.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Healthy, well addressed. Who the hell's got time to think
about you? You know, we have to live in the
data to life. What if the entire.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Planet has to change all of a sudden and we're
not prepared. That's what the scientists are saying. Now, hey,
get ready for the societal impacts. Looking back on this,
I wouldn't trade a moment what I went through, because,
you know what, the things that happen to me are
going to be a powerful damn message. You want to
go to Congress. That's how I'm going to transmitt this.
(06:18):
I'm going to turn it into a message that they
are going to have to listen to. I feel so
damn lucky. I can't even express how lucky I feel,
how blessed I am.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
What in honor? What in honor?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It was all worth it, all of it to get
the message out. Whether we like it or not, whether
we admit to it or not, these things are coming.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Accept it. I don't want anything. I don't want money,
I don't want fame. I want the.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
World to get ready for what's about to happen. That's
what Kevin Day wants.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
It was so cool to see a Space Shuttle launch
or a landing and realize my dad was instrumental in
doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
This is John Greenwald, the founder and creator of the
Blackfault dot com, And after.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
He retired, I found out he worked on the Mars lander.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
I found out he worked on the Space Defense program.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So there's a lot about him that I didn't know
until after he retired.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
And my dad he has really kind of I think,
instilled in me the fascination with space and stretching the
limits of what science can do.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
I started way back when I was fifteen years old.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
A incident in nineteen seventy six one of the very
few UFO documents that you could go and read and download,
and it read very much like a X Files episode,
a science fiction movie. It just didn't make sense. Seen
over the city of Tehran, Iran, a second UFO was
(08:04):
seen coming out of that one, a third coming out
of the bottom, one of which the F four Phantom
pilot saw hover above the ground and cast this large
light just like the.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Tictec in two thousand and four. The Tehran UFO incident
involved not only eyewitnesses the radar pings of something strange
in the sky. The pilots began to engage the UFO
over Iran's capital city, and as they got closer, both
F four Phantom jets lost controls of their onboard weapons systems.
As they turned off from the pursuit and headed back
(08:37):
towards their base.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Magically, all their.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Communication and weapons functions began working again, and this happened
to both of the jets.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
During this whole event, two separate F four Phantom jets
seemingly were strategically shut down, losing controls communications as they
were engaging this UFO.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Whatever that was.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
One could potentially be a coincidence. Two, however, seem strategic
and it seemed like technology. There's really not a feasible
explanation for it, even to this day. So the question
mark is, well, what was it and why we're talking
about nineteen seventy six here with all this time that passed.
(09:21):
I mean, maybe we'd see something similar, maybe we'd have
a viable explanation.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
At this point we have nothing. We have neither.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This was almost thirty years before the tic TACs were seen.
How could an adversary like Russia or China have such
a tight lid on some advanced technology like this for
so damn long.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
That was the first document that I got when I
was fifteen, and I thought, man, the Internet has to
have more. And that's what kind of drove me and
motivated me to go back and look. And there really
wasn't anything. You just saw more of the he said,
she said story. There were chat forums, message boards at
the time, nobody really had the full story, and if
(10:06):
they were telling the same story, they were telling it
in different ways.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And it was so frustrating.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
So that's why I started utilizing the FOYA and then
just going after these documents because I figured, Hey, if
this four page document exists, there have to be more.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
And sure enough, there was a lot more.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
The Freedom of Information Act is essentially a law here
in America that allows anyone in the world. You actually
don't even have to be an American citizen to access information.
You request information, they have to send it to you,
but the fine print allows nine different reasons for them
to say no. Those nine different what they call exemptions,
(10:48):
are those reactions that you see, freedom of information. We
can go after information. Government militaries got to send it
to us. Problem is they put in nine reasons for
them not.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
To send it.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
To see things that the American public and the world
have never seen before, to get documents, to get videos
like old film reels, it's such an amazing feeling because
you're seeing history that only a select few people that
had clearances or that were involved in the project have.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Seen before I was fifteen. I was stupid.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
I didn't realize exactly what I was getting myself into,
but quickly learned that the government was going to push back.
And what I first wanted to achieve was essentially get
these documents out and put them out in their raw form.
I didn't anticipate the struggle that there was going to
be to get it. Being that fifteen year old curious kid,
(11:45):
I didn't know a whole lot about it. I just
knew there was something there. What was this Freedom of
Information Act? But hey, they're going to send me something
for free.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Cool?
Speaker 6 (11:52):
And that's what I kind of went for the Freedom
of Information Act, building a website and just kind of
going from there, and I take it to kind of
the next level for me, where I put it online
for everybody. Here we are twenty six years and three
point two million pages later. I haven't gone anywhere people
can download with the click of a button in seconds
(12:15):
what sometimes took me over a decade to get. Literally,
for me, that drives some of the motivation to do
what I do.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
John has been collecting documents released via foiler request since
he was fifteen years old. I wasn't even remotely productive
with anything at that age.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
I went from that curious fifteen year old kid who
was just trying to find some documents to really piecing
together pieces of the puzzle that in some cases had
never been released to the general public at all, finding
that irrefutable proof that they were still interested in UFOs
(12:54):
and even in the CIA files had material of some
kind post what they admitted to investigating back in the forties, fifties,
and sixties. I deep down kind of always knew there
was a mystery to this. I mean, you just look
at the books on bookshelves and a bookstore, and I knew
that there was a lot to the topic. It wasn't
(13:15):
just kind of like a silly Internet rumor. So, being
again that young naive kid, I didn't know what I
was getting myself into, but I at least was kind
of solidified with my beliefs that there was something unknown
about this, something.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
That was worthwhile exploring.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
From all over the world, they were collecting sightings and
that nineteen seventy six Iran incident, I'll stress the date
nineteen seventy six, seven years after the United States Air
Force and in turned the United States government said, hey,
there's nothing to this, there's nothing that's a threat to
national security.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
We're not interested.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
If you want to report something, go to your local
law enforcement or a UFO group, but we don't care.
Behind the scenes, though, they were collecting all these reports,
and clearly, if you have a craft of some kind
in nineteen seventy six that can strategically shut down two
separate F four phantom jets, that's a concern. There was
(14:09):
a United States Air Force pilot that chimed in on
one of the documents that I found through the NSA
on this very incident. He stated in this once classified document.
It was a low level classification for this one. There's
certain things in a pilot's career that just defy logic
and explanation. This case is one of them, he says.
(14:31):
But this will probably be filed in a drawer somewhere
and forgotten. All the way up to twenty seventeen, the
government maintained that they had zero interest in UFOs. Oh,
that's probably left over from Project Bluebook. They forgot about it.
Military is notorious for forgetting things. What I did was
(14:52):
proved quite the opposite, that it was actually modified through
the two thousands. UFOs was never taken out. Now, some
of your odd it's might say, well, that doesn't sound surprising.
They're looking into UFOs prior to twenty seventeen, when the
UFO program that was reported in the New York Times
kind of blew open this whole avalanche of interest and
(15:13):
so on. Prior to that, it was a lot different.
That's part of my story, that's part of my growth
and seeing both eras being deeply entrenched and saying, look,
there is irrefutable proof the government is lying. They're interested
in UFOs. These phenomena are real. Those multiple facets of it,
It extended way beyond nineteen sixty nine. They're lying to
(15:35):
you about the interest. They have material. You can see
photos of it in the old Army files. I mean
there's stories on top of stories on top of stories,
and then you get to twenty seventeen, then they start
talking about it, and then all of a sudden you
have this completely different conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
My experience on my other show, Radio Rental has shown
me that there is more unexplained in this world that
I ever could have imagined. Through decades of in depth research,
John Is unearthed mountains of bizarre stories, all by requesting
documents from the government.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Now they're acknowledging UAP are real, they're looking into it,
they're investigating it, and they're talking about it.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
They're not poking fun at it.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
There's research organizations or groups within the United States military
complex that are looking at this thing. That's all positive,
full stop period. The bad part is the secrecy. I
thought twenty six, twenty fifteen years ago secrecy was bad enough,
it's worse now. It's not a popular take right now
(16:41):
because those that want to believe that we are on
the road to some disclosure feel that just because the
government is talking about UAP, that this is it. The
reality is that even though they are talking about it,
they have deeper secrecy now procedures specifically targeting the UAP
topic to classify it, and they don't want to tell
(17:05):
us about it. A lot of people that again really
have that belief that we are onto something here on
the road to this disclosure, feel that politicians are going
to be the answer.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Now.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
Look, I've met quite a few politicians over the years.
Some of them are great people, some of them their
heart is in the right place. But if anybody thinks
politicians are going to be the turning point for transparency
on UAP have a real big letdown coming. My proof
of that is you look in the last couple of
years and these classified briefings that we now know quite
(17:38):
a few politicians have had. They are going behind closed
doors and hearing what you and I can't.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
They don't come.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Out and reveal anything, right, I mean, we can all
agree to that. They've got their security oaths and nobody
has turned around and shouted to the heavens that all
of this stuff has to be declassified. Their own procedures
are stopping them from doing that.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Politicians cannot circumvent it.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
So even if those are coming out of the classified
briefings screaming to the high heavens, you need to declassify
all of this in the eyes of the military, it
doesn't matter. Can they have pressure, absolutely, Will they be successful?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Probably not?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
And newsflash to some politicians are kind of selfish like
that they want the information for themselves and they want
to keep part of that information from you and I.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Why control.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Those are all elements to this conversation that a lot
of people I don't think banter about as much as
they should. I don't think politicians are the answer. I
don't pretend to know what the answer is. I just
don't have as high of hopes as some people do.
Even though you have politicians on these committees, getting the
(18:54):
classified briefings and maybe getting motivated enough to create that legislation,
they are not there in perpetuity. They are not there
forever they change, they'll retire, they get voted out. That's
why I don't think politicians are going to be that
ultimate answer.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
There's a lot of things that play here.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
I think society creates the dream scenario, but it's not
necessarily reality. I don't believe disclosure in the sense that
we all talk about it is going to happen. I
don't see the government coming to some kind of podium.
President comes out in front of the White House and says,
(19:36):
the extraterrestrial presence is here.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
They're real, we know about this.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
That's how most people define disclosure, and I don't think
that's going to happen. I think disclosure is going to
be with us, that we're going to be able to
figure out those answers for ourselves. For some, that threshold
is a lot higher or lower, depending upon who you
talk to for them to really come to the conclusion, Hey,
there is an extraterrestrial presence here.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
For me, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Bring it all together for yourself, analyze it for yourself,
and come to a conclusion. I don't need the government
to tell me what I believe. I don't need a
researcher to write me a book and tell me what
to believe. I don't need anybody who runs a site
called the Black Vault to tell me what to believe,
because I don't want to be that person to tell
people what to believe. I think we should all just
(20:26):
look at all those pieces of the puzzle and try
and figure it out. And for me, that's what disclosure
ultimately is.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
What is it? Is it extraterrestrials, Is it aliens? What
everybody wants to know?
Speaker 6 (20:37):
I don't know, because my threshold is really high to
say that everybody thinks the government is this all knowing entity,
that they have the answers and they're just the big,
bad evil guys that are keeping it from us. There
is a partial belief that I have that they just
have zero answers, that they truly are clueless, that they
have no idea just like kind of some of us,
(20:59):
we're just trying to figure all this out. I think
that's a possibility too, that the government doesn't have all
the answers. I mean, you can't in one breath say
they're completely inept and can't do X, Y and Z,
and then in the next breath say they are holding
the biggest secret of humanity and they've been able to
cover it up in any ample undeniable scientific proof that
(21:20):
extraterrestrials are here and it's all because the United States
government has done that. Does the government know more than
what they're telling? Absolutely, that's undeniable. We can see that
with the secrecy and the reactions and the denied documents
and videos and photographs. But does that denial constitute answers
that I don't know, but I would have my doubts
(21:43):
that they do. I think that they may be trying
to figure it out just as much as some of us.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
My name is Ryan Graves, former fateen pilot.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Ryan Graves, former Navy fighter pilot and engineer, got a
sense of deja vu when he saw the UAP videos
released in twenty seventeen. He recognized the voices he'd already
seen this video before during a classified briefing aboard the
USS Theodore Roosevelt in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
They upgraded all their radar systems.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
Once we had upgraded our radar to the newest version,
we were seeing things that just weren't there on the
other radar. We would go out in the morning with
one aircraft with one radar and not see anything, and
then we'd get an upgraded radar on our next flight,
and then we'd see a lot of these objects.
Speaker 7 (22:56):
We actually didn't think it was anything.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
We thought it was a radar malfunction of some type
until we got close enough with some of the cameras
we have on board to see that they were physical objects.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
During an air to air training mission, as pilots were
returning to the aircraft carrier, they noticed on radar an
object that looked to be a disc or gimbal shape
with five other objects flying in formation nearby it.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
There was energy emitting from those spots.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
This was now potentially some kind of drone or junk
or something. Once we got them on the fleer, which
is our camera system, we'd want to fly by the
scene with our eyes, but we couldn't see them if
our radar is looking at something. Everything is looking there,
and all that information is pumped into my visor on
my helmet. As I'm flying right at this object, there's
(23:49):
a square in my visor showing me where to look.
Look there, Look there. I can see my wingmen and
the circles on them. But for these particular objects, we'd.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
Come by them and there would be nothing in the square.
We couldn't see them.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
Faighteen's radar system isn't the best tool to help us
figure out what these are.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
There's a refresh rate.
Speaker 8 (24:09):
If something was to accelerate so fast it just darts
off on the radar, that might not look like a
super fast acceleration. That might just look like something disappearing
off my radar.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
One of the days we.
Speaker 8 (24:22):
Were going out on a flight together, two of the aircraft,
two people in each aircraft, and just a standard day
going out to do some training out in the working areas.
We enter the working areas at a very specific location,
at a very specific altitude, and now as aircraft are departing,
they essentially depart lower at the exact same spot. That's
(24:44):
kind of the entry and exit point they call it.
They were flying through that point and right at the
point they flew right by.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
One of these.
Speaker 8 (24:53):
Objects went right between the lead aircraft and his wingman.
This object went right between them, flew through it almost
hit the thing. To my knowledge, this is the first
(25:15):
visual of the object. They ended up knocking off the
flight after that, essentially canceling the flight. He came back.
He had a look of shock on his face. I
was hit one of those damn things. I was like, well,
what it looked like? He was like, it was a
dark black cube inside a clear sphere. The corners of
(25:39):
the cube were essentially touching the inside of that sphere.
Speaker 7 (25:44):
No gas, no propulsion, no propellers.
Speaker 8 (25:48):
We shouldn't have objects operating near our fighter jets that
we don't know what they are.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
That's a serious issue. The fact that one of these could.
Speaker 8 (25:55):
Take out our aircraft and the crew with it is
a major safety issue United States security perspective. It's a
major lapse to just assume that this is something that's
not going to be a problem. As time progressed, more
people saw them. I know at least a ten or
so that saw the objects themselves and described it the
(26:17):
same way.
Speaker 7 (26:19):
It kind of broke our brain. What we do with
things that are strange.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
We try to make it not strange anymore by relating
it to something else. Laying in bed at the end
of the day, that lingering question, that kind of uncertainty.
For a while, that's where it sat for me until
I left on deployment to Mississippi, where I was in
a flight instructor gave me more time to kind of
(26:47):
think and reflect on it, and that's when I realized
I felt the need to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
He released video shows an encounter between US Navy pilots
and some kind of unidentified flying object.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
It wasn't an overly hard choice. We've been stigmatized around
this topic. I hate to use this word, but programmed
in a sense, with certain assumptions about what ET is
through our media and our culture and all those things. Right,
we like that it's something that fascinates us as human
beings to think that there's something else out there, and
so we've built up stories about it. But those stories
(27:23):
have been created with our own imaginations. I had some
assumptions that I didn't realize were so fundamentally baked into
my core right. Being able to examine those assumptions in
a logical way help me understand that there's actually a
lot of meat on this bone. We are truly perhaps
(27:43):
talking about something alien, and that word I think has
more depth to it than we commonly think it does.
If something is truly alien, it might be very difficult
for us to really imagine its makeup. We have to
assume if there's hyperintelligent aliens out there, that there's a
lot of knowledge that we don't have right that we're
just at the very beginning of our scientific understanding. If
(28:06):
that's true, if that logic is true, then almost by definition,
anything we're going to see as almost magical beyond our
comprehension and understanding because we just simply haven't connected those
dots yet.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
And that is understanding.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
When you look at the behavior overall, there's no consideration
for energy here. To have something that can go as
fast as a jet and then go as low as
a helicopter to do those things back and forth, it
takes an incredible amount of energy. But when we would
look at these objects on the flear, it just looked
like a single source of IUR energy.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Coming out from the objects.
Speaker 8 (28:43):
No propellers, there's no heat, there's no plume of gas
keeping it in place.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
When a Navy fighter pilot says they saw something unexplained
in the sky with no signs of propulsion and openly
claims that the technology is not from anything we have
here on Earth, it's hard not to listen and to
actually believe their story.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
One of the things that I'm doing within my work
at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is building
a state of technology manual, if you will, for UAP
sensing something that would be updated yearly that we could
put out to help inform engineering community on different methodologies
that have been tested and what works and what doesn't.
(29:28):
Really looking to move the engineering conversation forward. This is
the beginning of a scientific peer review process that's going
to allow a standardized and reputable way of discovery where
we can have experts come in from across the aerospace
scientific regime and provide peer review to papers that get
(29:50):
published and no kidding, move the science forward. You can
see how artificial intelligence is moving itself in to science more.
It would make sense to utilize machine learning to perhaps
understand certain areas or functions that maybe aren't obvious to
our understanding of science. I think that we will radically
(30:15):
have redefined how we think about intelligence. We're going to
share this earth in a sense with another non human intelligence.
We have to really leverage our interaction with AI to
be competitive and successful. That's going to be an interesting change.
I think the concept in our understanding of consciousness and
(30:35):
intelligence will be much greater in fifty years.
Speaker 9 (30:59):
How do we try to kind of unwind and understand
how those vehicles could operate that way?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Because if that's.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
A bad guy who has that technology, we're in big trouble.
They're basically rendering defenseless all of this stuff that we've
developed over many decades.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
To protect and they're toying with us.
Speaker 9 (31:21):
Is there any way we could understand how those things
could be doing that, Maybe get a little further down
the road of explaining where they're coming from, who owns them,
is somebody in them or is it a drone. One
of the studies the idea which I found fascinating was
on multi dimensional travel. In other words, maybe these things
(31:43):
are not so far away. They're from here, and think
of stranger things. They're from the upside down, and that
sounds crazy the more you think about it. We know
there are things that exist in this natural world that
we can't see. When you sent me a text on
your phone to mine something went from you to me,
(32:04):
and we don't see it, we don't feel it, we
don't taste it.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
The concept of not knowing what it is is alarming.
They were all explained, we wouldn't even be talking about this.
Whole nature of the phenomenon is that we don't know
what it is. It's always been that way. I wish
they would get to the point where they would be
willing to say, I don't know what it is, but
I know it's not from planet Earth, or I know
it's not made by human hands.
Speaker 7 (32:30):
That really distinguishes.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
It closes that door which we've always left open about well,
maybe it's Russian or Chinese or something.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
The government said this publicly a year ago that some
of these UAPs as they call them.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Are not ours, they're not our aircraft.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Maybe it's possibly secret technology from America, which they sort
of said it isn't, But there's always that little bit
of question about that.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
If that works true, it would be an amazingly good story.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
There would basically be evidence of a government within a government.
Speaker 9 (33:06):
I think it's very remote that that is the case,
these things have been seen at least since the beginning
of the technological age, the age of aviation. What country
developed this stuff when? I mean, how could we have
missed that all these years later?
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Gradual dissemination is probably the safest and best way to
do it, and then they can gauge people's reactions and
see how it affects people and not create this huge shock.
If they can work gradually up to the moment where
they might cross that line where they acknowledge that there's
something here that's non human.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
I think it's an exciting time to be around. We
obviously have a lot of problems as a planet, a
lot of people who doubt we're going to make this
thing work much longer unless we get our shit together.
We also live at a time where technology and the
ability to understand not just our own world, but what
else is out there is much sharper than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Massive changes in the world just in the.
Speaker 9 (34:08):
Last hundred years, more change than in the previous thousand years.
One hundred years from now, we may know a lot
of things if we don't kill ourselves first. There's no
doubt the Overton window has moved. There's a window of
what's acceptable public debate. If things don't fit into that window,
(34:32):
you can't really talk about it because.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
You're seen as being on the fringe.
Speaker 9 (34:37):
UFOs clearly, the fact that Congress openly talks about it
demands more investigation.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
The Overton window has moved.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
We think of ourselves as being the top of the
food chain, right, We're it to imagine that that's actually
not the case.
Speaker 9 (34:57):
You have to kind of reconceive a lot of our
own narrative here on the planet. Keep an open mind,
open to the idea that some of these.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Sightings really are not earthly.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
This morning, I woke up, had breakfast and some coffee, showered,
then went to my office. I got a call from
this reporter at Newsweek. He wanted to hear my thoughts
in the latest Chinese surveillance balloons, the one shot down
by the US military, but more specifically the strange tic
(35:48):
tac shaped objects shot down over Alaska, the one the
US government claimed it was unable to recover.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
That's too bad.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I had a few zoom calls, a quick lunch, did
some scrolling on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Is it a UFOE boone wouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That algorithms working nicely today. Send a few emails. Some
listeners sent me some home footage of what they think
is a UFO in their backyard.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
An email from someone in the military who has a story.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Then this really angry message about how my podcast is
polluting the minds of kids, and if aliens were real,
they'd be in the Bible or something like that.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't know. Her name was Karen Something.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I left my office, went to my local neighborhood bar.
It's called Vesper by the way, I'm getting a Manhattan.
I saw a few friends there who were so energized
to talk about UFOs. Damn it. I didn't want to
be the UFO guy. But our conversations felt different. They
became more philosophical, discussing our beliefs in the real implications
(36:51):
of life beyond our planet in the universe. Okay, I'll
stay for one more, a phone call, email, Time to
eat dinner and go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But I didn't. I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
My mind was racing with way too many existential thoughts
about life and the future, and not the negative kind either.
This insatiable itch in the back of my brain, this
desire to learn more about everything and just figure it
all out. As I sat on the edge of my bed,
reflecting back on all the people I talked to, all
(37:38):
the personal stories and eyewitness accounts, the mountains of archival
documents I'd read, and all the differing opinions from every
single person out there, I realized something. I realized despite
all my efforts in this podcast, I myself still did.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Not have a definitive answer.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
If anything, it felt like I had opened the door
to even more questions. But I almost instantly realized something
else that I think I'm okay with that. Truthfully, had
I learned that all this UFO stuff was just fake
and closed the book on it, well, then I wouldn't
even have more questions.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
The conversation would be over.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Knowledge and understanding isn't something you attain overnight.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
It's a process that's so individually unique to all of us.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I feel like, because we live in a world where
information travels the fastest it ever has, Like how quickly
we get the breaking news on our phone, can send
a message or make a call, how connected we are
to even strangers all through the Internet. It's too easy
to fall into the mindset that we need to know
everything right now, everything around us is so instant. The
(38:44):
reality is we're all still learning about everything and will
never stop learning. Things change, people change, views change.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
We're all still evolving.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It's too easy to look at life in this exact
moment and think this is it. But if we just
stopped for a second and really think about it, we
all know that's not actually true. Look back in history
a thousand years or even just last week. We know
more today than we literally did yesterday. I mean, seriously,
(39:16):
we used to smoke cigarettes on airplanes like it was nothing.
Today's breaking news is tomorrow's old news, and with every
minute passed, it all becomes a little bit easier for
us to understand. It's okay to not know everything, and
feeling like we have to all the time tends to
make us incredibly divisive. Once upon a time, we were
cavemen just banging rocks and making fires. We've evolved so
(39:39):
much in nearly every way imaginable, and we can't forget
that we're still evolving. So as I sat there on
the edge of my bed, thinking back on everything I
had learned, I realized that even though I couldn't close
the book on UFOs, the fact that I couldn't means
to me that there's still so much more to learn.
(40:08):
Life can feel like a hamster wheel doing the things
we know until we get too tired and go to sleep,
but our own curiosity of the world around us should
be encouraged and celebrated. This desire to reach out and
explore is what makes us special as humans. So even
though the hamster wheel keeps turning, it's okay to step
(40:30):
off every once in a while and contemplate the bigger picture.
It'll be right there waiting for you if you ever
decide to come back until next time. This is High Strange.
(41:10):
High Strange is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association
with Cadence thirteen, created, hosted and edited by myself Payne Lindsay.
Executive producers are myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney,
Cooper Skinner and myself. Original scorer by Makeup and Vanity Set,
Sound design, mixing and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production
(41:33):
by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney, Meredith Stedman,
and Sidney Evans.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Our cover art is by Polygon.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
This episode features the song Man on the Moon performed
by Rim courtesy of Concord Records. Visit Concord Music on
the Web at Concord Musicgroup dot com. Special thanks to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the whole team at UTA, the Nord Group,
Station six Beck Media and Marketing, as well as Chris
Corcrum and the team at Cadence thirteen. Check out the
(42:06):
show's website at high Strange dot com. Follow the show
on TikTok and Instagram at high Strange, and you can
follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Payne Lindsay. If
you have your own UFO story, email us at tips
at high strange dot com. And if you're enjoying the show,
please help us out by rating and reviewing the podcast
(42:26):
and share it with your friends.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Thanks for listening.
High Strange is released weekly every Thursday, brought to you
absolutely free, but if you want to bene the whole season,
it's available right now on Apple Podcasts for all Tenderfoot
plus subscribers. You'll also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
For more information, check out the show notes enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
They come from outer space, lower Earth orbit, go to
twenty eight thousand feet right off the coast of Catalina.
Whatever that object was, drop right down to the surface
of the water. These things were breaking the soundberg, but.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
There was no big boom. Freaked us all out. We
didn't even know how to respond to it.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Came from outer space all the way down to twenty
eight thousand feet and stopped.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
It was so outside of our experience we didn't know
what to do.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They look like about a fifty foot long giant ticktack,
pure white, no doors, no windows, no nothing, sh of
his aircraft proximately whatever that object was, with two fast
eagles aside cap station the exact latitude, longitude and altitude,
and stopped. How in the hell didn't know where that
cap point was. It was a secret location only in
(01:16):
secret message traffic. They knew where in tent.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Welcome to high strange.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I sat down with senior radar operator for the US Navy,
Kevin Day, in two thousand and four. He was aboard
the USS Princeton, a naval guided missile cruiser, when strange
objects began to appear on a screen. Over the course
of several days, he continued to see large tic tac
shaped objects running circles around the Navy jets, raising the
legitimate concern of a possible mid air collision.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
There were zigzagging all over the sky like a flywood
do an impossible things darting all over the place, creating
G forces thirty five gus forty g's that would make
us into pancakes.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
The pilot can survive maybe eight or nine G forces.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I don't think there's anything biological in these things. You
all saw, yep, we all saw it.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And it shook me to my core, truly did.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
They watched on radar these unknown objects dive from over
eighty thousand feet in the air to the very near
surface of the ocean in a matter of seconds. They
were long, fifty foot cylindrical objects, white in color, no
windows and no doors, and by appearance they were rotorless
with no signs of propulsion.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
We were concerned about safety of flight. I was at meetings.
Hey guys, I got something for you. What's up, keV.
We have a safety a flight issue off the southern
California coast. And when I went to describe what happened
to us and knowfore, I got laughed at man, what
do you mean?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
They laughed UFOs ha ha.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And the people who weren't laughing, they were giving me
this kind of look looking down their nose, like wish
he been smoking. It was real. I mean, pilot saw
it with our eyeballs. It's on every ship's radar, and
those radars are really good at what they do.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
He trust me.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I was concerned about safety of flight. Man for aar
Landers too. I got so frustrated no one would listen.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
I quit.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Commander David Fraber flew his F eighteen super Hornet towards
the object and it crossed directly in front of the
nose of his jet, then took off out of site.
When the object appeared again, it was at the exact
location The jets were supposed to rendezvous at a secret,
undisclosed set of coordinates. Five years after the TIC TAC incident.
Kevin Day resigned from the Navy in twenty seventeen. While
(03:50):
volunteering at a country club near his house. He was
carrying a plate of fish and chips when he noticed
the breaking news on the TV.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Unexplained aerial phenomena. This Navy video showing the pilot's reaction
to the strange aerial encounter.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
The Pentagon released three videos of unknown flying objects to
the public.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I stood there, frozen. I dropped the plate of food
I was carrying.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
After over twenty years in the Navy, being mocked and
laughed at by the Department of Defense, he was finally vindicated.
He belined to his house in a daze.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I raised home, probably broke and reached traffic law on
this little talent to get home, Jump on the computer,
call my friends and deal with it, you know, because
what else are you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
If it was you, what would you do? I have
no idea, right exactly. We're just human.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Right. When he got home, he started calling other sailors
aboard the USS Princeton, people who also witnessed the event.
Now that the news had broken, he wanted to make
sure they could all stick together, and he urged them
to come forward and talk about the incident openly.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
We can't let command a favor twist in the wind
by himself here, because we were there and we know
what happened.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
We have to balance what he's saying. So that's how
that all started.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Both the New York Times and Politico broke the news
that the Pentagon had been investigating UAPs for a decade.
This UAP task force was officially known as the Advanced
Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The leader of the operation, lou Elizondo,
had just resigned, claiming he left the program for similar
reasons as Kevin Day. His higher ups were simply not
(05:27):
taking this seriously.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I think what happens from this point forward, the science
teams get on the ball around the planet and we
start collecting science data on these things.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
UAP is noble. We can know what these are.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
We're worried about paying the rent and making sure the
electric bills paid and the kids are on school and
time and they're.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Healthy, well addressed. Who the hell's got time to think
about you? You know, we have to live in the
data to life. What if the entire.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Planet has to change all of a sudden and we're
not prepared. That's what the scientists are saying. Now, hey,
get ready for the societal impacts. Looking back on this,
I wouldn't trade a moment what I went through, because,
you know what, the things that happen to me are
going to be a powerful damn message. You want to
go to Congress. That's how I'm going to transmitt this.
(06:18):
I'm going to turn it into a message that they
are going to have to listen to. I feel so
damn lucky. I can't even express how lucky I feel,
how blessed I am.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
What in honor? What in honor?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
It was all worth it, all of it to get
the message out. Whether we like it or not, whether
we admit to it or not, these things are coming.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Accept it. I don't want anything. I don't want money,
I don't want fame. I want the.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
World to get ready for what's about to happen. That's
what Kevin Day wants.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
It was so cool to see a Space Shuttle launch
or a landing and realize my dad was instrumental in
doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
This is John Greenwald, the founder and creator of the
Blackfault dot com, And after.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
He retired, I found out he worked on the Mars lander.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
I found out he worked on the Space Defense program.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So there's a lot about him that I didn't know
until after he retired.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
And my dad he has really kind of I think,
instilled in me the fascination with space and stretching the
limits of what science can do.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
I started way back when I was fifteen years old.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
A incident in nineteen seventy six one of the very
few UFO documents that you could go and read and download,
and it read very much like a X Files episode,
a science fiction movie. It just didn't make sense. Seen
over the city of Tehran, Iran, a second UFO was
(08:04):
seen coming out of that one, a third coming out
of the bottom, one of which the F four Phantom
pilot saw hover above the ground and cast this large
light just like the.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Tictec in two thousand and four. The Tehran UFO incident
involved not only eyewitnesses the radar pings of something strange
in the sky. The pilots began to engage the UFO
over Iran's capital city, and as they got closer, both
F four Phantom jets lost controls of their onboard weapons systems.
As they turned off from the pursuit and headed back
(08:37):
towards their base.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Magically, all their.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Communication and weapons functions began working again, and this happened
to both of the jets.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
During this whole event, two separate F four Phantom jets
seemingly were strategically shut down, losing controls communications as they
were engaging this UFO.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Whatever that was.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
One could potentially be a coincidence. Two, however, seem strategic
and it seemed like technology. There's really not a feasible
explanation for it, even to this day. So the question
mark is, well, what was it and why we're talking
about nineteen seventy six here with all this time that passed.
(09:21):
I mean, maybe we'd see something similar, maybe we'd have
a viable explanation.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
At this point we have nothing. We have neither.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
This was almost thirty years before the tic TACs were seen.
How could an adversary like Russia or China have such
a tight lid on some advanced technology like this for
so damn long.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
That was the first document that I got when I
was fifteen, and I thought, man, the Internet has to
have more. And that's what kind of drove me and
motivated me to go back and look. And there really
wasn't anything. You just saw more of the he said,
she said story. There were chat forums, message boards at
the time, nobody really had the full story, and if
(10:06):
they were telling the same story, they were telling it
in different ways.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And it was so frustrating.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
So that's why I started utilizing the FOYA and then
just going after these documents because I figured, Hey, if
this four page document exists, there have to be more.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
And sure enough, there was a lot more.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
The Freedom of Information Act is essentially a law here
in America that allows anyone in the world. You actually
don't even have to be an American citizen to access information.
You request information, they have to send it to you,
but the fine print allows nine different reasons for them
to say no. Those nine different what they call exemptions,
(10:48):
are those reactions that you see, freedom of information. We
can go after information. Government militaries got to send it
to us. Problem is they put in nine reasons for
them not.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
To send it.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
To see things that the American public and the world
have never seen before, to get documents, to get videos
like old film reels, it's such an amazing feeling because
you're seeing history that only a select few people that
had clearances or that were involved in the project have.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Seen before I was fifteen. I was stupid.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
I didn't realize exactly what I was getting myself into,
but quickly learned that the government was going to push back.
And what I first wanted to achieve was essentially get
these documents out and put them out in their raw form.
I didn't anticipate the struggle that there was going to
be to get it. Being that fifteen year old curious kid,
(11:45):
I didn't know a whole lot about it. I just
knew there was something there. What was this Freedom of
Information Act? But hey, they're going to send me something
for free.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Cool?
Speaker 6 (11:52):
And that's what I kind of went for the Freedom
of Information Act, building a website and just kind of
going from there, and I take it to kind of
the next level for me, where I put it online
for everybody. Here we are twenty six years and three
point two million pages later. I haven't gone anywhere people
can download with the click of a button in seconds
(12:15):
what sometimes took me over a decade to get. Literally,
for me, that drives some of the motivation to do
what I do.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
John has been collecting documents released via foiler request since
he was fifteen years old. I wasn't even remotely productive
with anything at that age.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
I went from that curious fifteen year old kid who
was just trying to find some documents to really piecing
together pieces of the puzzle that in some cases had
never been released to the general public at all, finding
that irrefutable proof that they were still interested in UFOs
(12:54):
and even in the CIA files had material of some
kind post what they admitted to investigating back in the forties, fifties,
and sixties. I deep down kind of always knew there
was a mystery to this. I mean, you just look
at the books on bookshelves and a bookstore, and I knew
that there was a lot to the topic. It wasn't
(13:15):
just kind of like a silly Internet rumor. So, being
again that young naive kid, I didn't know what I
was getting myself into, but I at least was kind
of solidified with my beliefs that there was something unknown
about this, something.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
That was worthwhile exploring.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
From all over the world, they were collecting sightings and
that nineteen seventy six Iran incident, I'll stress the date
nineteen seventy six, seven years after the United States Air
Force and in turned the United States government said, hey,
there's nothing to this, there's nothing that's a threat to
national security.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
We're not interested.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
If you want to report something, go to your local
law enforcement or a UFO group, but we don't care.
Behind the scenes, though, they were collecting all these reports,
and clearly, if you have a craft of some kind
in nineteen seventy six that can strategically shut down two
separate F four phantom jets, that's a concern. There was
(14:09):
a United States Air Force pilot that chimed in on
one of the documents that I found through the NSA
on this very incident. He stated in this once classified document.
It was a low level classification for this one. There's
certain things in a pilot's career that just defy logic
and explanation. This case is one of them, he says.
(14:31):
But this will probably be filed in a drawer somewhere
and forgotten. All the way up to twenty seventeen, the
government maintained that they had zero interest in UFOs. Oh,
that's probably left over from Project Bluebook. They forgot about it.
Military is notorious for forgetting things. What I did was
(14:52):
proved quite the opposite, that it was actually modified through
the two thousands. UFOs was never taken out. Now, some
of your odd it's might say, well, that doesn't sound surprising.
They're looking into UFOs prior to twenty seventeen, when the
UFO program that was reported in the New York Times
kind of blew open this whole avalanche of interest and
(15:13):
so on. Prior to that, it was a lot different.
That's part of my story, that's part of my growth
and seeing both eras being deeply entrenched and saying, look,
there is irrefutable proof the government is lying. They're interested
in UFOs. These phenomena are real. Those multiple facets of it,
It extended way beyond nineteen sixty nine. They're lying to
(15:35):
you about the interest. They have material. You can see
photos of it in the old Army files. I mean
there's stories on top of stories on top of stories,
and then you get to twenty seventeen, then they start
talking about it, and then all of a sudden you
have this completely different conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
My experience on my other show, Radio Rental has shown
me that there is more unexplained in this world that
I ever could have imagined. Through decades of in depth research,
John Is unearthed mountains of bizarre stories, all by requesting
documents from the government.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Now they're acknowledging UAP are real, they're looking into it,
they're investigating it, and they're talking about it.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
They're not poking fun at it.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
There's research organizations or groups within the United States military
complex that are looking at this thing. That's all positive,
full stop period. The bad part is the secrecy. I
thought twenty six, twenty fifteen years ago secrecy was bad enough,
it's worse now. It's not a popular take right now
(16:41):
because those that want to believe that we are on
the road to some disclosure feel that just because the
government is talking about UAP, that this is it. The
reality is that even though they are talking about it,
they have deeper secrecy now procedures specifically targeting the UAP
topic to classify it, and they don't want to tell
(17:05):
us about it. A lot of people that again really
have that belief that we are onto something here on
the road to this disclosure, feel that politicians are going
to be the answer.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Now.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
Look, I've met quite a few politicians over the years.
Some of them are great people, some of them their
heart is in the right place. But if anybody thinks
politicians are going to be the turning point for transparency
on UAP have a real big letdown coming. My proof
of that is you look in the last couple of
years and these classified briefings that we now know quite
(17:38):
a few politicians have had. They are going behind closed
doors and hearing what you and I can't.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
They don't come.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Out and reveal anything, right, I mean, we can all
agree to that. They've got their security oaths and nobody
has turned around and shouted to the heavens that all
of this stuff has to be declassified. Their own procedures
are stopping them from doing that.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Politicians cannot circumvent it.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
So even if those are coming out of the classified
briefings screaming to the high heavens, you need to declassify
all of this in the eyes of the military, it
doesn't matter. Can they have pressure, absolutely, Will they be successful?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Probably not?
Speaker 6 (18:23):
And newsflash to some politicians are kind of selfish like
that they want the information for themselves and they want
to keep part of that information from you and I.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Why control.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Those are all elements to this conversation that a lot
of people I don't think banter about as much as
they should. I don't think politicians are the answer. I
don't pretend to know what the answer is. I just
don't have as high of hopes as some people do.
Even though you have politicians on these committees, getting the
(18:54):
classified briefings and maybe getting motivated enough to create that legislation,
they are not there in perpetuity. They are not there
forever they change, they'll retire, they get voted out. That's
why I don't think politicians are going to be that
ultimate answer.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
There's a lot of things that play here.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
I think society creates the dream scenario, but it's not
necessarily reality. I don't believe disclosure in the sense that
we all talk about it is going to happen. I
don't see the government coming to some kind of podium.
President comes out in front of the White House and says,
(19:36):
the extraterrestrial presence is here.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
They're real, we know about this.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
That's how most people define disclosure, and I don't think
that's going to happen. I think disclosure is going to
be with us, that we're going to be able to
figure out those answers for ourselves. For some, that threshold
is a lot higher or lower, depending upon who you
talk to for them to really come to the conclusion, Hey,
there is an extraterrestrial presence here.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
For me, that's what it's all about.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
Bring it all together for yourself, analyze it for yourself,
and come to a conclusion. I don't need the government
to tell me what I believe. I don't need a
researcher to write me a book and tell me what
to believe. I don't need anybody who runs a site
called the Black Vault to tell me what to believe,
because I don't want to be that person to tell
people what to believe. I think we should all just
(20:26):
look at all those pieces of the puzzle and try
and figure it out. And for me, that's what disclosure
ultimately is.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
What is it? Is it extraterrestrials, Is it aliens? What
everybody wants to know?
Speaker 6 (20:37):
I don't know, because my threshold is really high to
say that everybody thinks the government is this all knowing entity,
that they have the answers and they're just the big,
bad evil guys that are keeping it from us. There
is a partial belief that I have that they just
have zero answers, that they truly are clueless, that they
have no idea just like kind of some of us,
(20:59):
we're just trying to figure all this out. I think
that's a possibility too, that the government doesn't have all
the answers. I mean, you can't in one breath say
they're completely inept and can't do X, Y and Z,
and then in the next breath say they are holding
the biggest secret of humanity and they've been able to
cover it up in any ample undeniable scientific proof that
(21:20):
extraterrestrials are here and it's all because the United States
government has done that. Does the government know more than
what they're telling? Absolutely, that's undeniable. We can see that
with the secrecy and the reactions and the denied documents
and videos and photographs. But does that denial constitute answers
that I don't know, but I would have my doubts
(21:43):
that they do. I think that they may be trying
to figure it out just as much as some of us.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
My name is Ryan Graves, former fateen pilot.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Ryan Graves, former Navy fighter pilot and engineer, got a
sense of deja vu when he saw the UAP videos
released in twenty seventeen. He recognized the voices he'd already
seen this video before during a classified briefing aboard the
USS Theodore Roosevelt in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
They upgraded all their radar systems.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
Once we had upgraded our radar to the newest version,
we were seeing things that just weren't there on the
other radar. We would go out in the morning with
one aircraft with one radar and not see anything, and
then we'd get an upgraded radar on our next flight,
and then we'd see a lot of these objects.
Speaker 7 (22:56):
We actually didn't think it was anything.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
We thought it was a radar malfunction of some type
until we got close enough with some of the cameras
we have on board to see that they were physical objects.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
During an air to air training mission, as pilots were
returning to the aircraft carrier, they noticed on radar an
object that looked to be a disc or gimbal shape
with five other objects flying in formation nearby it.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
There was energy emitting from those spots.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
This was now potentially some kind of drone or junk
or something. Once we got them on the fleer, which
is our camera system, we'd want to fly by the
scene with our eyes, but we couldn't see them if
our radar is looking at something. Everything is looking there,
and all that information is pumped into my visor on
my helmet. As I'm flying right at this object, there's
(23:49):
a square in my visor showing me where to look.
Look there, Look there. I can see my wingmen and
the circles on them. But for these particular objects, we'd.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
Come by them and there would be nothing in the square.
We couldn't see them.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
Faighteen's radar system isn't the best tool to help us
figure out what these are.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
There's a refresh rate.
Speaker 8 (24:09):
If something was to accelerate so fast it just darts
off on the radar, that might not look like a
super fast acceleration. That might just look like something disappearing
off my radar.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
One of the days we.
Speaker 8 (24:22):
Were going out on a flight together, two of the aircraft,
two people in each aircraft, and just a standard day
going out to do some training out in the working areas.
We enter the working areas at a very specific location,
at a very specific altitude, and now as aircraft are departing,
they essentially depart lower at the exact same spot. That's
(24:44):
kind of the entry and exit point they call it.
They were flying through that point and right at the
point they flew right by.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
One of these.
Speaker 8 (24:53):
Objects went right between the lead aircraft and his wingman.
This object went right between them, flew through it almost
hit the thing. To my knowledge, this is the first
(25:15):
visual of the object. They ended up knocking off the
flight after that, essentially canceling the flight. He came back.
He had a look of shock on his face. I
was hit one of those damn things. I was like, well,
what it looked like? He was like, it was a
dark black cube inside a clear sphere. The corners of
(25:39):
the cube were essentially touching the inside of that sphere.
Speaker 7 (25:44):
No gas, no propulsion, no propellers.
Speaker 8 (25:48):
We shouldn't have objects operating near our fighter jets that
we don't know what they are.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
That's a serious issue. The fact that one of these could.
Speaker 8 (25:55):
Take out our aircraft and the crew with it is
a major safety issue United States security perspective. It's a
major lapse to just assume that this is something that's
not going to be a problem. As time progressed, more
people saw them. I know at least a ten or
so that saw the objects themselves and described it the
(26:17):
same way.
Speaker 7 (26:19):
It kind of broke our brain. What we do with
things that are strange.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
We try to make it not strange anymore by relating
it to something else. Laying in bed at the end
of the day, that lingering question, that kind of uncertainty.
For a while, that's where it sat for me until
I left on deployment to Mississippi, where I was in
a flight instructor gave me more time to kind of
(26:47):
think and reflect on it, and that's when I realized
I felt the need to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
He released video shows an encounter between US Navy pilots
and some kind of unidentified flying object.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
It wasn't an overly hard choice. We've been stigmatized around
this topic. I hate to use this word, but programmed
in a sense, with certain assumptions about what ET is
through our media and our culture and all those things. Right,
we like that it's something that fascinates us as human
beings to think that there's something else out there, and
so we've built up stories about it. But those stories
(27:23):
have been created with our own imaginations. I had some
assumptions that I didn't realize were so fundamentally baked into
my core right. Being able to examine those assumptions in
a logical way help me understand that there's actually a
lot of meat on this bone. We are truly perhaps
(27:43):
talking about something alien, and that word I think has
more depth to it than we commonly think it does.
If something is truly alien, it might be very difficult
for us to really imagine its makeup. We have to
assume if there's hyperintelligent aliens out there, that there's a
lot of knowledge that we don't have right that we're
just at the very beginning of our scientific understanding. If
(28:06):
that's true, if that logic is true, then almost by definition,
anything we're going to see as almost magical beyond our
comprehension and understanding because we just simply haven't connected those
dots yet.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
And that is understanding.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
When you look at the behavior overall, there's no consideration
for energy here. To have something that can go as
fast as a jet and then go as low as
a helicopter to do those things back and forth, it
takes an incredible amount of energy. But when we would
look at these objects on the flear, it just looked
like a single source of IUR energy.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Coming out from the objects.
Speaker 8 (28:43):
No propellers, there's no heat, there's no plume of gas
keeping it in place.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
When a Navy fighter pilot says they saw something unexplained
in the sky with no signs of propulsion and openly
claims that the technology is not from anything we have
here on Earth, it's hard not to listen and to
actually believe their story.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
One of the things that I'm doing within my work
at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is building
a state of technology manual, if you will, for UAP
sensing something that would be updated yearly that we could
put out to help inform engineering community on different methodologies
that have been tested and what works and what doesn't.
(29:28):
Really looking to move the engineering conversation forward. This is
the beginning of a scientific peer review process that's going
to allow a standardized and reputable way of discovery where
we can have experts come in from across the aerospace
scientific regime and provide peer review to papers that get
(29:50):
published and no kidding, move the science forward. You can
see how artificial intelligence is moving itself in to science more.
It would make sense to utilize machine learning to perhaps
understand certain areas or functions that maybe aren't obvious to
our understanding of science. I think that we will radically
(30:15):
have redefined how we think about intelligence. We're going to
share this earth in a sense with another non human intelligence.
We have to really leverage our interaction with AI to
be competitive and successful. That's going to be an interesting change.
I think the concept in our understanding of consciousness and
(30:35):
intelligence will be much greater in fifty years.
Speaker 9 (30:59):
How do we try to kind of unwind and understand
how those vehicles could operate that way?
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Because if that's.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
A bad guy who has that technology, we're in big trouble.
They're basically rendering defenseless all of this stuff that we've
developed over many decades.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
To protect and they're toying with us.
Speaker 9 (31:21):
Is there any way we could understand how those things
could be doing that, Maybe get a little further down
the road of explaining where they're coming from, who owns them,
is somebody in them or is it a drone. One
of the studies the idea which I found fascinating was
on multi dimensional travel. In other words, maybe these things
(31:43):
are not so far away. They're from here, and think
of stranger things. They're from the upside down, and that
sounds crazy the more you think about it. We know
there are things that exist in this natural world that
we can't see. When you sent me a text on
your phone to mine something went from you to me,
(32:04):
and we don't see it, we don't feel it, we
don't taste it.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
The concept of not knowing what it is is alarming.
They were all explained, we wouldn't even be talking about this.
Whole nature of the phenomenon is that we don't know
what it is. It's always been that way. I wish
they would get to the point where they would be
willing to say, I don't know what it is, but
I know it's not from planet Earth, or I know
it's not made by human hands.
Speaker 7 (32:30):
That really distinguishes.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
It closes that door which we've always left open about well,
maybe it's Russian or Chinese or something.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
The government said this publicly a year ago that some
of these UAPs as they call them.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Are not ours, they're not our aircraft.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Maybe it's possibly secret technology from America, which they sort
of said it isn't, But there's always that little bit
of question about that.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
If that works true, it would be an amazingly good story.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
There would basically be evidence of a government within a government.
Speaker 9 (33:06):
I think it's very remote that that is the case,
these things have been seen at least since the beginning
of the technological age, the age of aviation. What country
developed this stuff when? I mean, how could we have
missed that all these years later?
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Gradual dissemination is probably the safest and best way to
do it, and then they can gauge people's reactions and
see how it affects people and not create this huge shock.
If they can work gradually up to the moment where
they might cross that line where they acknowledge that there's
something here that's non human.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
I think it's an exciting time to be around. We
obviously have a lot of problems as a planet, a
lot of people who doubt we're going to make this
thing work much longer unless we get our shit together.
We also live at a time where technology and the
ability to understand not just our own world, but what
else is out there is much sharper than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Massive changes in the world just in the.
Speaker 9 (34:08):
Last hundred years, more change than in the previous thousand years.
One hundred years from now, we may know a lot
of things if we don't kill ourselves first. There's no
doubt the Overton window has moved. There's a window of
what's acceptable public debate. If things don't fit into that window,
(34:32):
you can't really talk about it because.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
You're seen as being on the fringe.
Speaker 9 (34:37):
UFOs clearly, the fact that Congress openly talks about it
demands more investigation.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
The Overton window has moved.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
We think of ourselves as being the top of the
food chain, right, We're it to imagine that that's actually
not the case.
Speaker 9 (34:57):
You have to kind of reconceive a lot of our
own narrative here on the planet. Keep an open mind,
open to the idea that some of these.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Sightings really are not earthly.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
This morning, I woke up, had breakfast and some coffee, showered,
then went to my office. I got a call from
this reporter at Newsweek. He wanted to hear my thoughts
in the latest Chinese surveillance balloons, the one shot down
by the US military, but more specifically the strange tic
(35:48):
tac shaped objects shot down over Alaska, the one the
US government claimed it was unable to recover.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
That's too bad.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I had a few zoom calls, a quick lunch, did
some scrolling on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Is it a UFOE boone wouldn't do.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
That algorithms working nicely today. Send a few emails. Some
listeners sent me some home footage of what they think
is a UFO in their backyard.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
An email from someone in the military who has a story.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Then this really angry message about how my podcast is
polluting the minds of kids, and if aliens were real,
they'd be in the Bible or something like that.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't know. Her name was Karen Something.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I left my office, went to my local neighborhood bar.
It's called Vesper by the way, I'm getting a Manhattan.
I saw a few friends there who were so energized
to talk about UFOs. Damn it. I didn't want to
be the UFO guy. But our conversations felt different. They
became more philosophical, discussing our beliefs in the real implications
(36:51):
of life beyond our planet in the universe. Okay, I'll
stay for one more, a phone call, email, Time to
eat dinner and go to sleep.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But I didn't. I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
My mind was racing with way too many existential thoughts
about life and the future, and not the negative kind either.
This insatiable itch in the back of my brain, this
desire to learn more about everything and just figure it
all out. As I sat on the edge of my bed,
reflecting back on all the people I talked to, all
(37:38):
the personal stories and eyewitness accounts, the mountains of archival
documents I'd read, and all the differing opinions from every
single person out there, I realized something. I realized despite
all my efforts in this podcast, I myself still did.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Not have a definitive answer.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
If anything, it felt like I had opened the door
to even more questions. But I almost instantly realized something
else that I think I'm okay with that. Truthfully, had
I learned that all this UFO stuff was just fake
and closed the book on it, well, then I wouldn't
even have more questions.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
The conversation would be over.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Knowledge and understanding isn't something you attain overnight.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
It's a process that's so individually unique to all of us.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I feel like, because we live in a world where
information travels the fastest it ever has, Like how quickly
we get the breaking news on our phone, can send
a message or make a call, how connected we are
to even strangers all through the Internet. It's too easy
to fall into the mindset that we need to know
everything right now, everything around us is so instant. The
(38:44):
reality is we're all still learning about everything and will
never stop learning. Things change, people change, views change.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
We're all still evolving.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
It's too easy to look at life in this exact
moment and think this is it. But if we just
stopped for a second and really think about it, we
all know that's not actually true. Look back in history
a thousand years or even just last week. We know
more today than we literally did yesterday. I mean, seriously,
(39:16):
we used to smoke cigarettes on airplanes like it was nothing.
Today's breaking news is tomorrow's old news, and with every
minute passed, it all becomes a little bit easier for
us to understand. It's okay to not know everything, and
feeling like we have to all the time tends to
make us incredibly divisive. Once upon a time, we were
cavemen just banging rocks and making fires. We've evolved so
(39:39):
much in nearly every way imaginable, and we can't forget
that we're still evolving. So as I sat there on
the edge of my bed, thinking back on everything I
had learned, I realized that even though I couldn't close
the book on UFOs, the fact that I couldn't means
to me that there's still so much more to learn.
(40:08):
Life can feel like a hamster wheel doing the things
we know until we get too tired and go to sleep,
but our own curiosity of the world around us should
be encouraged and celebrated. This desire to reach out and
explore is what makes us special as humans. So even
though the hamster wheel keeps turning, it's okay to step
(40:30):
off every once in a while and contemplate the bigger picture.
It'll be right there waiting for you if you ever
decide to come back until next time. This is High Strange.
(41:10):
High Strange is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association
with Cadence thirteen, created, hosted and edited by myself Payne Lindsay.
Executive producers are myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney,
Cooper Skinner and myself. Original scorer by Makeup and Vanity Set,
Sound design, mixing and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production
(41:33):
by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney, Meredith Stedman,
and Sidney Evans.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Our cover art is by Polygon.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
This episode features the song Man on the Moon performed
by Rim courtesy of Concord Records. Visit Concord Music on
the Web at Concord Musicgroup dot com. Special thanks to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the whole team at UTA, the Nord Group,
Station six Beck Media and Marketing, as well as Chris
Corcrum and the team at Cadence thirteen. Check out the
(42:06):
show's website at high Strange dot com. Follow the show
on TikTok and Instagram at high Strange, and you can
follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Payne Lindsay. If
you have your own UFO story, email us at tips
at high strange dot com. And if you're enjoying the show,
please help us out by rating and reviewing the podcast
(42:26):
and share it with your friends.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!