April 8, 2025 • 37 mins
Pilots are among the most trusted observers in the world, but what happens when they report objects defying the laws of physics? This episode explores some of the most credible, chilling UFO encounters ever recorded by those who might share the skies with the unknown.
With special guest Keri Pina!
Theme Music by Matt Glass https://www.glassbrain.com/
Instagram: @astudyofstrange Support the Show! astudyofstrange.substack.com/ Website: www.astudyofstrange.com Hosted by Michael May Email stories, comments, or ideas to astudyofstrange@gmail.com! ©2025 Convergent Content, LLC
LINKS!
https://www.safeaerospace.org/
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ryan-HOC-Testimony.pdf https://www.ndtv.com/feature/ufos-dancing-boeing-pilot-captures-breathtaking-footage-of-mysterious-objects-in-sky-6334450 https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/us/arizona-pilots-ufo-sightings/index.html https://www.airlineratings.com/news/famous-boeing-747-captain-has-seen-ufos/ https://www.newsweek.com/my-testimony-congress-uap-was-tip-iceberg-opinion-1817377 https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a60207287/airline-pilots-starlink-satellites-ufos/ https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/us/arizona-pilots-ufo-sightings/index.html
https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/famous-boeing-747-captain-has-seen-ufos
https://www.whsv.com/2023/06/28/pilot-reports-close-encounter-with-ufo-during-2022-flight/ https://www.newsnationnow.com/banfield/us-military-pilots-encounter-with-ufo-this-is-going-to-sound-weird/#:~:text=Ben%20Hansen%2C%20host%20of%20the,used%20to%20track%20drug%20traffickers.&text=Hansen%2C%20a%20former%20FBI%20agent,is%20beyond%20most%20drones'%20capabilities.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
What if the skies are not empty
when we look up?
And we see distant starsand the endless vastness of space.
It's hardto fathom the sheer scale of the universe.
Carl Sagan once called Earth
the shore of the cosmic ocean,and we've barely waded in.
(00:23):
The odds that an intelligent speciesnot only exists, but has pinpointed
our little island in crossed light yearsacross the universe to visit us.
It borders on the miraculous.
To put it another way,the odds are against Earth being visited
by intelligent creaturesand technology from outer space.
(00:43):
And yet, quite often trained pilots,men and women with thousands of hours
in the air report encounterswith something they can't explain.
Objectsthat defy gravity, speed and logic.
Tonight we're not talking about storiesfrom the campfire or conspiracy forums.
(01:03):
We're talking about what pilots saw.
Because maybe,just maybe, we're not alone.
This is a study of strange.
(01:30):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Michael May, and to be very honest,listeners, today's topic intimidates me
because out of all the strangenessI consume and study and share,
I've only scratched the surfaceon this topic.
And there's so muchwe don't understand about the universe.
Whether you're a skeptic like me or not.
I think we should be asking questionsbecause there are
(01:51):
strange things in the sky.
So to help me understand this topica little bit more is my friend Kari Pina.
How are you doing, Kari?
Good.
So, Kari, you were on the episodeI covered about the Kenneth Arnold.
Like the the birth of the termflying saucer before.
And so you becamewithout trying to my resident UFO person.
(02:18):
Nice. And.
Yeah.
So if you like this kind of content
and you haven't listened to that episode,go back and find it.
The Kenneth don't know what.I think we did a good job with that.
It was a really good episode.
And remind me, Kari,I don't know how you got started
liking UFO stories and videosand things you may have told me before
and I just don't remember, but when?
When did you first start to be like,ooh, UFOs?
(02:44):
Oh that's right.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm glad you brought up fire in the Sky.
And we may have even talked about thisin the Kenneth
(03:05):
Arnold episode and I don't remember,but yeah, that movie was terrifying.
And I probably saw thatfar too young as well.
Yeah.
Yes yeah I agree.
we've talked about ita little bit in the past too.
But you know, this subject doesfascinate me.
I love UFO stories.
(03:26):
They fit into that sort of strangenessthat I love.
But I am a skeptic about being visitedby creatures from another planet.
However, today's episode,the reason I wanted to do
this is their stories from pilots,
and there's a variety of themthat I'll share today.
And pilots I don't.
(03:46):
I wouldn't call them
necessarily expert witnesses,but they have a lot of time in the air.
They see a lot of things.
And so when a pilot saysthey see something that looks unnatural
or not of this world or technologythat we don't have
yet, it adds some credibility to it.
And specifically with the stories today,they all have,
or at least most of them have videos.
(04:08):
And the videos themselves are what I thinkare the best UFO videos out there,
because a lot of UFO videos,I'm like never!
But these are actually really weird.
And they do leave me saying like,what the hell is that thing?
Also,I will be using the terms UAP and UFO
interchangeably because I've been toldthat's okay to do. So.
(04:29):
It just kind of depends on the storyand what I've read.
Do you have an opinionabout that, Carrie?
Are you like,do you say one or the other or.
(04:55):
Yeah, yeah.
from where we were.
Well, I'm glad you mentionedsort of being reserved and being like,
okay, I don't know what this is,but it's something
because our first story is it's a biggie.
(05:19):
It's a big story in termsof like the history of UAPs and UFOs.
And that's the story of Ryan Graves.
And he's one of the people
that spoke to Congress when they dida hearing about this in 2023.
He is a formerly former USNavy F-18 pilot.
He was the first active duty pilotto come forward publicly
(05:39):
about seeing unidentifiedaerial phenomena.
And he's everybody'sprobably seen this guy or seen videos
associated with him because he's been onlike the Joe Rogan Podcast and 60 minutes
in History Channel and interviewedin all the big magazines and newspapers.
And not only has he witnessedstrange things in the sky, but he thinks
it's really important to talk aboutbecause they don't have pilots,
(06:01):
don't have an official placeto turn to to report about UAPs.
So he's created an entity called Americansfor Safe Aerospace, which is for pilots.
Both military and commercial pilots,
to report sightings so they can startkeeping track of these things.
And this is because hehe actually sincerely cares.
He's not just like, oh, I love X-Files.
(06:23):
So I want to learn about aliens.
There's a lot of stuff in our sky,
and it's becomingmore and more dangerous to fly.
And that's one of the reasons why he wantspeople to start tracking these things.
And even I'll go on a slight little,tangent here, but I really like
this stuff.
as an example of, like,a lot of stuff in our skies, there's over
5500 Starlink satellites in orbit,and that's just Starlink satellites.
(06:47):
Obviously,there's a lot of other satellites as well.
And there was a study donewhen a series of pilots reported
unidentified objects in the sky,
and they all werereporting them in the same place.
But the the pilotswere in different positions,
but they all were reporting objectsin the same place at the same time.
And so there was a study doneusing computers and math and 3D models
(07:10):
and CGI and whatever to try
to figure out what these objects were thatall these pilots saw at the same time.
And it turned outthey were Starlink satellites.
And it's because Starlink satellites,they're in low-Earth orbit,
and they can sort of,
can release their panels and thingslike that and basically change their shape
depending on what they're doingor what sort of,
(07:30):
you know, if they're putting upsolar panels or whatever.
So it makes them very oddbecause they don't stay in one shape.
And Starlinksatellites as well were very bright.
I think they've now made themso they're not as bright
because it was interfering with peoplestudying the sky and things like that.
But those are weird things that evenpilots were like, whoa, what is that?
And it turns out it'sjust a manmade object.
(07:50):
So that's just to give a hint or a tastethat there is a lot of stuff
floating around.
It can be dangerous and it can leadto sightings of strange things.
But Starlink satellitesdo not explain everything.
So in terms of Ryan Graves in his story,
And what he saw, he saw multiple times.
(08:12):
So it's not like one flight.
around 2014, graves was flying his f-18swith this squadron.
That'swhat squadron is. Hard to say. Yeah,
this squadron hates.
So he was off the coast of Virginia Beachand they started to get
weird hits in military airspaceon their new radar system.
(08:33):
And because it was arelatively new system,
they were assuming thatthese were like bugs in the new software.
But the objects were soon confirmedvisually by both Iris
sensors and then later,like actual visually with eyes.
And they weren't just a blip on the radar
because of these different modesof actually seeing these objects.
(08:55):
And again, this was seen multiple times,
and not just by graves,but by many, many pilots.
And from the radar they could tell
where it was, its direction in its speed,
but not necessarily its shape.
And on certain sightings
they would see this thingtraveling up and down, left and right,
meandering and very odd waysthat planes just or jets can't fly in.
(09:19):
And it had no visual propulsion system,so no engines.
And I don't think wings,I don't think they saw like wings either.
And sometimes it would appear motionlesseven in category
four hurricane speed winds.
So that's like 130 miles an hour,which you can't do.
And then it would accelerateto supersonic speeds.
(09:40):
this also wasn't these weren't quickvisual sightings either.
These things would be in the air all day.
Meanwhile, modern jets with the USmilitary, they have to go refuel,
and these things would still be out thereflying.
They only saw them over water.
And there was also a nearair collision with a jet,
(10:01):
which adds an extra layer of authenticityto it.
And I'm actually goingto have you read a quote.
So this is in that email,the first little thing I sent you,
this is a quote from graves fromI do believe this is from
the congressional hearing itself.
So when you're ready, carry.
(11:01):
Yikes.
Indeed. Yeah. And graves is very.
I love this guy because he.
He's exactlywhat you'd want from a witness.
He has a great educational background.
He's a pilot.
He he's not like,hey, it's little green men flying things.
He's like, we don't know what this is.
And we need to track this and report itand be able to talk about it,
because it could bea national security issue.
(11:22):
It could be dangerous for commercialflights and military flights.
So that's one of the reasons
why he started his organizationto report these things.
And I love the cube.
It's like just so weird.
But what was it?
A clear sphereand a cube inside a clear sphere.
Yeah.
And and also mentionedwhen they seen these things,
they were different shapes and sizesalmost every time they saw it.
(11:45):
And they were usually theselike a long gated shapes.
But I love the specificity of a gray cubeinside a clear sphere.
And he's also saidthis is a quote from him as well.
If UAP are foreign drones,it is an urgent national security problem.
If it is something else, it'san issue for science.
In eithercase, it's a concern for safety of flight.
(12:06):
And I completely agree.
And that's where even someone like me,it's like a UFO is unreal.
I'm like, well, wait,what are these things that we should feel?
We should figure this out.
Yeah.
(12:31):
And yeah.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I love that story.
It's just it seems very authentic.
And Ryan Graves himselfseems like a really stand up dude.
So our next story,we're going to go to a flight
from Saudi Arabia to Abuja, Nigeria.
Nigeria.
And this is a nameI am not going to pronounce correctly.
(12:53):
I'm just going to I've triedI've looked it up.
I can't even really confirm a proper wayto say it.
So apologies all around.
But this is a commercial pilot experiencefrom captain Ruud van panga Memon
ping amendment.
Yeah, it sounds like a mumblingbut that's that's what it's spelled like.
And he was flying on a Boeing 747.
And you can look this guy upCaptain Rude, I'll have links.
(13:14):
But he is a prominent TikTokerand YouTuber and Instagram guy,
and he basically like films his days as apilot, all of his videos are very normal.
That really fun.
You get to see what it's liketo be a commercial pilot,
waking up early and getting on big planesand all that kind of stuff.
But one videohe has shows some weird things in the sky,
(13:34):
and it's like an hour or so into his videobecause he was filming his whole day,
and this happened when he was actually,you know, in the air one night.
So it was around 5 a.m.,and the captain saw something
and captured it on his camerathat he was filming for social media.
right in the middle of the flight,he noticed this star like object.
But the star,instead of twinkling gently in the sky,
(13:56):
it began to dance in the skyand it would change altitude quickly.
Drop down, move up,go back to its initial position,
and then it would change course and fly
somewhere elserandomly before disappearing.
And this behavior is not like a plane.
It's not like a weather balloon.
It's not definitely not a satellite.
(14:17):
So he isn't sure what it was.
And both the pilot and his copilotsaw these lights, and they claimed
to have seen four objects in the skydoing this, it did not appear on radar,
which is also an important piece
of information, because if it was a plane,it would show up on their radar.
And I'll add the video itself.
It's kind of hard to see these things.
(14:38):
Like I didn't see four lights.
I think I just saw like a few, but that'sbecause of the way the camera set up.
And it's also a camerafilming into a dark sky,
so it's not going to pick up the imageas clearly as his eyes were in person.
But it's still very interesting,and it's still tens of thousands of feet
in the air doing very strange things.
(14:59):
And I'll add this to and this is sort oftied into to Ryan Graves
and everything elsewe're talking about as well.
But pilots, pilotstypically don't share their stories
because of this historical stigmaaround it.
And that's what I think is really neatabout what graves has been doing.
And even this Captain Rude,as I'll call him, posting this video
and he's gets comments on his YouTubevideo, I've read a lot of the comments
(15:22):
where people are like,thank you for posting this.
Like, thank you for not hiding it
or being worried that you're goingto come off as some psycho weirdo person
and just sharing itas part of your daily video.
And then people will share things of like,
my uncle's a pilot,and he saw some weird stuff too,
and he didn't believe in any of it,but he couldn't explain this one thing.
And so people are, like, sharing stuff,
(15:57):
Of course.
Yeah.
And there's.
(16:17):
No. And there's fear of, like, backlash.
Like getting fired or not promoted or,you know, and or you're
just other pilots not trustingyou and thinking you're weird.
And so I do think the world is changing,especially since, like, Congress
has, has had hearings on the issueand some other politicians have put,
you know, bills together trying to like,have studies done and things.
(16:39):
So I think it's becoming more mainstreamand okay to talk about these things.
And again,just because we don't know what it is
so we don't have to jump to conclusions.
We can just be like,there's some weird shit happening.
So yeah.
Exactly.
(16:59):
No, not at all. None at all.
So this next account is from 2018,
and I can't find the names of the pilots,but I like this account
because it involvestwo different airlines.
So two different sets of pilots
experiencing the same thing,which makes it all the more interesting.
And this is on February 24th, 2018,
(17:19):
when an air traffic controllerin Albuquerque, New Mexico,
received a callfrom a pilot on a Learjet flight in.
This is a scene we're going to do.
Okay. So this is in the email.
Why don't you read the two pilotsand I'll read the stage direction and the,
air traffic controller said, okay,Wait a second.
I have to pull up the email to
(17:41):
and I don't have it written down there.
All right.
this is an air traffic controllerreceiving a call
from a pilot on a Learjet flight.
No. Why do you ask?
(18:03):
that unidentified object was headed
in the direction of another flight,American Airlines flight 1095.
So the controller radioed that plane.
American 1095,this is air traffic control.
Let us know if anythingpasses over you in the next 15 miles.
Affirmative.
We had an aircraft in front of youthat reported something pass over.
And,
(18:25):
we didn't have any targets, so just,
let us know if you see anythingpass over you.
Minutes later, the pilot radioed control.
Yeah.
And some of that is a quote from thethe article I read.
(18:49):
And that's thethat's the conversation that happened.
So we don't have a lot of detailsabout what exactly this was.
I think it was too fast.
But again, it wasn't showing up on radar,air traffic control or the planes.
Apparently it was goingtoo fast to be a plane,
and they have no idea what this thing was.
(19:18):
Yes. Yeah.
Of course.
(19:39):
Of course it is.
And it's so funny that I'm the one
that's going to steer this conversationback a different way.
But that also doesn't meanthat it isn't something unworldly.
Like it could be an enemy drone or a spyor a weather balloon.
And sometimeswhen they do research these things,
that actually sometimes does happen,especially weather balloons.
That actually is a very real thing.
(20:00):
It's not just made up storiesto try to explain away
a UFO that does happen,and people do misinterpret
what that is in the sky,but we don't know what this stuff is.
So it really could be something else.
And I know there's a lot of theories outnow that like, oh, it's not all aliens.
Some of this could be interdimensionaltravel or time travel, which, you know,
(20:23):
I, I don't put a lot of stock into,but it is it is very interesting indeed.
ocean.
Right, Which is also fascinating.
And actually I'm going to skip ahead.
I'm going to come back to the next storyI was going to do,
because you mentioned that I'm going to goto one of the most famous UFO sightings
(20:45):
ever to take place,because it has video associated with it
that I think isjust super bizarre and weird.
And if you look up anything on UFOs,even if you don't,
you've seen these videos.
But this is the famous Tic TAC incident.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Okay, so the reason I,I'm going to bring this up now
because you mentioned the
(21:05):
the underwater potential oflike where these crafts are coming from.
And that kind of ties into this.
So off the coast of San Diego
in 20 a this came to light in 2012, 2015.
But the story actually happened in 2004.
And this was with a carrier group offof San Diego, California.
It involves a pilot named David Fravor,and he was working on a training exercise.
(21:30):
He was a Navy pilot,
but they were working ona training exercise with marine pilots.
And around noon or 1 p.m.
on this day, they they took off.
And so it's David Fravorand a wing man, two jets.
But they were also with two other jetsfrom the marine flights.
And they're in the airand they get a control call from control
saying thatthey have to cancel the training exercise
(21:52):
because they have a quote unquote,real world vector.
And so that means somethingis like in the vicinity,
and the jets are sent outto see what this is.
So they're sent out a further60 miles out to sea.
They have no ideawhat they're intercepting,
or at least David doesn't at all.
And they're told that, the control
(22:13):
sort of informs himthat there's been these strange objects
that they've been seeing for a few weeksthat's coming and going.
So something is weird.
Weird is going on.
They don't know what it is, and they wantthe pilots to investigate it.
Since they're out there, David assumesthat there must be a drug runner.
You know, because you're near the coastor near the coast.
You're near the border there.
(22:33):
There are drug runners that come inboats and subs and everything else.
And so he and his wingman,they get into range
of whatever this isthey're supposed to look for.
And he notes that it was calmweather, very calm seas,
but yet in the waterhe sees what he calls a giant T shape.
And it's essentiallylike if you look at the ocean from above
(22:55):
and you see breakwaterwhere there shouldn't be breakwater,
and usually it's an island or a boat,but that's what he's seeing is breakwater,
where there shouldn't be any breakwater,but there's no island and no boat
or even he even thought it could have been
a helicopter low to the waterand creating disturbance,
but they're too far away from the carrierfor it to be a helicopter.
And he also doesn'tsee any rotors or a helicopter itself.
(23:18):
It's just sort of a disturbancein the water.
And right above that disturbance,he sees what he called the tic TAC object,
or what we call the tic tac shaped object,and it's just above that disturbance.
And again, no rotors, no engine.
He estimates it could be about 40ft long
and they start circling it.
(23:40):
And as he descendsand starts to come up to this thing,
the tic TAC object turnsand it mirrors David's movements.
So they almost get in thislike circular pattern with this object.
And, David is a few thousand feet above it.
He aggressively tries to get closerand accelerates and goes down to it.
(24:00):
And as he does that, the objectthen accelerates and just disappear.
It goes so fast it disappears into view.
And as he points out,we have some very fast jets and things.
Nothing goes that fast to disappearthat quickly
that I don't think that'swhen the video was.
I think it's a later experience withanother pilot that saw the same thing.
(24:21):
I think that's the famousvideo is a different pilot from later,
but the same group in the same situationand possibly the same object.
And the videoeverybody can look this up at a video.
It's essentially a Tic TAC looking objectand you see like a tracking camera
saying from a jet following thisand you see the the video changes.
(24:42):
It's like the object is whitebecause it's air.
So the white means it's hot.
So it's a hot thing in the thing.
But then it changesto being completely black.
And that'sbecause the pilots were changing the modes
of their sensors, and they were doing thatto try to look closer.
So different modes allow you to sort ofzoom in and see better.
And they're also just tryingto figure out what it is.
They're looking at it through every mode,and it makes the video kind of change
(25:06):
how it's set up.
And they just track this object,it flies around.
It kind of like shifts in the airwhile it's moving, like it
almost turns on a dime,which is really interesting.
And then it accelerates and fliesout of out of view.
And according to the pilots,
the way it flew out of viewis far faster than any manmade aircraft.
(25:26):
So it is a very bizarre experience.
I didn't realizeit was like multiple sightings.
I always thought that was one nightwith one video, but no, it was like
multiple times that people saw this thing.
And also they did go back to thedisturbance in the water and it was gone.
There was no more breakwater in the, in the ocean in that,
in that spot.
(25:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(26:17):
My honest
reaction, I'll tell you this isthis is a progression, Kerry.
I in especially likeif I look back to my episode
with you, which is like a year or more agowhen the camps are.
Yeah.
I was very much like, look, we're going tolook at this historical account.
I like to go see what the original storieswere.
All of the original stories of KennethArnold make me think he didn't see a UFO.
(26:39):
Like that's the reality of it.
And just over time, it spins.
The reason I picked these storiesis because I am starting to open up
to just be like, oh, I don't understandwhat's out there as much as I thought
I did.
And I like these storiesbecause they are more modern.
Again, they're associated with videosthat are not a grainy, weird,
(26:59):
you know, like fake thing.
This is like a military video,as with this example specifically.
And so my my reactionnow isn't I definitely don't jump to
okay, there's some extraterrestrial typeof thing.
I'm just like, oh,
there's there's stuff out there.
And I have I have no idea.
(27:20):
And my, my opinion honestlykind of changes day to day right now.
And I still don't know much about thistopic.
Like, I, I'm so focused on my usualinterest in the strange and mysterious.
It's like murder mysteries and historicalmysteries and lost treasures.
I don't read a lot about UFOs,and I'm trying to do that.
(27:41):
I'm trying to educate myself more.
And so when you talk aboutthe study of strange, my podcast,
it really is me learning.
I'm not trying to necessarily teach peopleabout things.
I'm trying to learn about these thingsat the same time.
And that's a very long windedanswer to your question,
but hopefully that that answers that.
(28:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(29:14):
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah.
And you didn't get to hear itbecause I recorded it separately.
But I have an intro to today's episodewhere I talk about
the the odds of us coming across
another intelligent speciesin the universe is very, very, very low.
The universe is so big.
(29:35):
And it's like, you know,
trying to find a pebble of sand on Earth,you know, it's so tough.
So the odds are against us,but yet we don't know a lot.
Like we still know so littleabout how the how the universe operates.
And and that's kind of where my brain goestrying to explain these things of like,
(29:55):
we still have so much to goin our own understanding.
So even though the universe is vast,there could be something about the way
the universe worksthat we don't understand.
That kind of actually makes it smaller
and easier for intelligent speciesto travel or communicate or whatever.
So yeah, it's reallyit's really a fascinating topic, which is,
again, while I'm kind of doing this, as,as we do get better about this.
(30:18):
And as we are more opento adjust as a society to hearing stories
about unidentified things,whether they be flying in the ocean,
monsters in the woods, whateverthey may be, because of technology.
Now, in the accelerationover the last few years of AI,
it's also going to be harder to figure out
what's real when you see something.
(30:40):
And and that's really that's been a topic.
I don't know where to go with that yet,but it really fascinates me
because of my interest in this stuffand having a show, I get sent things
usually by my brother,but also from just listeners
of the show of like,oh my God, did you see this?
They like discoveredgiant bones in the ground.
And I'll look at it.
And I think because I have experiencein film and special effects and stuff,
(31:05):
I will usually be ableto see something and be like,
oh, that's I like youjust fell for an AI video.
And even one just a few days ago,there was an announcement
where someone saidthat they've used some sort of new radar
to see under the Great Pyramidsand that it, like,
goes down thousands of feetand there's tunnels and stuff
and, literally almostas soon as that announcement was made,
(31:27):
there was a video out of peopleunderneath the the pyramid
and seeing these like, ancient towersand things underground, and it's all fake.
But for a split second,I thought it was real.
And it was like,oh my God, they're down there.
So it's just going to be really hard.
And that's again, kind of why I likethese stories that I'm sharing today.
Is they all before that AI revolution.
(31:48):
But yeah, it's going to be hard.
And we all have to do a good job tryingto figure out what's real or what's not
with, that kind of content.
Yeah.
All right, so I have one more story
if I can find it.
There it is.
So this involves a commercial pilotfrom the Netherlands.
(32:10):
Again, a name I'm going to butcher and I.
I apologize to everybody in the worldabout how
well I cannot pronounce names today,but this is from Christian Van Harvest.
And he has thousands of hours of flightexperience.
He's seen a lot of weird stuffand written about it online.
But he does claim that about 99% of itis probably all very, very explainable.
(32:34):
But one small story of hisstood out to me.
And that's in 2010, Christian was flyingfrom Amsterdam to Spain,
and he was at around 41,000ftwhen he saw something.
And he had the awarenessto take a picture of this.
And he shared the photo with The Sunnewspaper specifically
is where I found this, and it appearsto be a cigar shaped flying object.
(32:58):
And he said he flew near the thing,watching it for about an hour,
and it was roughly 100nautical miles ahead of his plane.
Air traffic control saidthere was no other aircraft in the area.
They had no sighting of this thingon radars or anything else,
and it at one pointit appeared to be very large
and stationaryand just kind of hanging in the sky.
(33:19):
And to me the picturelooks like a jet at a distance.
But he was watching this thingfor an hour, and
I think the reason this stood out to me,to be very honest, is this winter,
my family and I,we took a vacation flying east
and somewhere of, like,the middle of America,
where there's probably, like the southwestbecause there were mountains and things
out the window.
(33:40):
So I saw this long cigar shaped object,and it looked like
it was just hanging in the airand it had no wings.
And I said, oh, this is it.
I finally am seeing it.
I'm like, super excited that I'm seeing.
So I can't explain in the sky.
And it looks like it's just hanging there.
And then our plane turned slightly
and the angle, the differencesuddenly it made it aware that this object
(34:02):
was another plane and it was just kind offlying a little bit parallel to us.
And it does make me say that, hey,look, it's very easy to misinterpret
something you see in the sky
because that's very obviously a plane,but just at the right angle.
It didn't look like one.
And I thinkbecause we were both flying parallel,
it looked stopped like itliterally like dead in the air.
(34:22):
And so that's what I first thoughtwhen I read this story.
But then he said, followed it for an hourand I'm like, okay, now,
now things are getting a little oddbecause
over that hour,the flight path should change slightly.
You get a different angle of it.
And he also said that it againappeared to be staging light
or motionless at a period of timeduring this whole flight.
(34:46):
So, it was just a weird story
that I really like, and I like that it'sa guy that's willing to share the story,
and he's talked a lot about how he's
seen other weird stuff,but most of it's probably explainable.
And this one, though,seems, unexplainable.
I guess.
(35:08):
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
I think so, and yeah,I think it's the time it just in my mind
of following something for an hourwhere he's really looking at it and.
Yeah, that is, it's super strange.
(35:30):
Now, I wish I had answersto all this stuff.
I wish I could explain awaysome of these stories, but
I really, really can't.
And I think we've said it a million times.
So I don't mean to beat a dead horse,but like, to me,
this just meanswe have to keep watching the skies
and we have
to notate these things and try toif everybody's got a good camera nowadays.
So film things, put it up there.
(35:51):
Even though there's a lot of videos thatI think are terrible with the UFO world,
but still film things, try to catch it and
I guess have an open mind.
Yeah.
Any other thoughts?
Carrie, how many UFOshave you seen in the last week?
(36:16):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
I, I didn't purposely take a breakfrom social media,
but I feel like I'm on itless, which is nice.
(36:39):
It's nice.
Yeah.
It is, it is.
And I feel like your brainkind of finds other things to focus
on which are more productive.
Yeah, well, good for you.
Well, thank you so much for doing thisepisode again.
It's a topic I'm trying to understand
better and learn aboutand not be afraid to talk about it.
I'm still very intimidatedto talk about these things.
(37:01):
So I appreciate you being here with mefor moral support and,
and your insights.
All right.
Thank you so much, I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you for
listening to what I thinkis a rather unique
episode of A Study of Strange,and if you enjoy strange mysteries,
(37:22):
join our Substack subscribers,get episodes early
and additional content,and it's a great way to support the show.
You can find that informationthrough our support tab on our website.
A study of strange.com.
Thank you and good night.
What if the skies are not empty
when we look up?
And we see distant starsand the endless vastness of space.
It's hardto fathom the sheer scale of the universe.
Carl Sagan once called Earth
the shore of the cosmic ocean,and we've barely waded in.
(00:23):
The odds that an intelligent speciesnot only exists, but has pinpointed
our little island in crossed light yearsacross the universe to visit us.
It borders on the miraculous.
To put it another way,the odds are against Earth being visited
by intelligent creaturesand technology from outer space.
(00:43):
And yet, quite often trained pilots,men and women with thousands of hours
in the air report encounterswith something they can't explain.
Objectsthat defy gravity, speed and logic.
Tonight we're not talking about storiesfrom the campfire or conspiracy forums.
(01:03):
We're talking about what pilots saw.
Because maybe,just maybe, we're not alone.
This is a study of strange.
(01:30):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Michael May, and to be very honest,listeners, today's topic intimidates me
because out of all the strangenessI consume and study and share,
I've only scratched the surfaceon this topic.
And there's so muchwe don't understand about the universe.
Whether you're a skeptic like me or not.
I think we should be asking questionsbecause there are
(01:51):
strange things in the sky.
So to help me understand this topica little bit more is my friend Kari Pina.
How are you doing, Kari?
Good.
So, Kari, you were on the episodeI covered about the Kenneth Arnold.
Like the the birth of the termflying saucer before.
And so you becamewithout trying to my resident UFO person.
(02:18):
Nice. And.
Yeah.
So if you like this kind of content
and you haven't listened to that episode,go back and find it.
The Kenneth don't know what.I think we did a good job with that.
It was a really good episode.
And remind me, Kari,I don't know how you got started
liking UFO stories and videosand things you may have told me before
and I just don't remember, but when?
When did you first start to be like,ooh, UFOs?
(02:44):
Oh that's right.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm glad you brought up fire in the Sky.
And we may have even talked about thisin the Kenneth
(03:05):
Arnold episode and I don't remember,but yeah, that movie was terrifying.
And I probably saw thatfar too young as well.
Yeah.
Yes yeah I agree.
we've talked about ita little bit in the past too.
But you know, this subject doesfascinate me.
I love UFO stories.
(03:26):
They fit into that sort of strangenessthat I love.
But I am a skeptic about being visitedby creatures from another planet.
However, today's episode,the reason I wanted to do
this is their stories from pilots,
and there's a variety of themthat I'll share today.
And pilots I don't.
(03:46):
I wouldn't call them
necessarily expert witnesses,but they have a lot of time in the air.
They see a lot of things.
And so when a pilot saysthey see something that looks unnatural
or not of this world or technologythat we don't have
yet, it adds some credibility to it.
And specifically with the stories today,they all have,
or at least most of them have videos.
(04:08):
And the videos themselves are what I thinkare the best UFO videos out there,
because a lot of UFO videos,I'm like never!
But these are actually really weird.
And they do leave me saying like,what the hell is that thing?
Also,I will be using the terms UAP and UFO
interchangeably because I've been toldthat's okay to do. So.
(04:29):
It just kind of depends on the storyand what I've read.
Do you have an opinionabout that, Carrie?
Are you like,do you say one or the other or.
(04:55):
Yeah, yeah.
from where we were.
Well, I'm glad you mentionedsort of being reserved and being like,
okay, I don't know what this is,but it's something
because our first story is it's a biggie.
(05:19):
It's a big story in termsof like the history of UAPs and UFOs.
And that's the story of Ryan Graves.
And he's one of the people
that spoke to Congress when they dida hearing about this in 2023.
He is a formerly former USNavy F-18 pilot.
He was the first active duty pilotto come forward publicly
(05:39):
about seeing unidentifiedaerial phenomena.
And he's everybody'sprobably seen this guy or seen videos
associated with him because he's been onlike the Joe Rogan Podcast and 60 minutes
in History Channel and interviewedin all the big magazines and newspapers.
And not only has he witnessedstrange things in the sky, but he thinks
it's really important to talk aboutbecause they don't have pilots,
(06:01):
don't have an official placeto turn to to report about UAPs.
So he's created an entity called Americansfor Safe Aerospace, which is for pilots.
Both military and commercial pilots,
to report sightings so they can startkeeping track of these things.
And this is because hehe actually sincerely cares.
He's not just like, oh, I love X-Files.
(06:23):
So I want to learn about aliens.
There's a lot of stuff in our sky,
and it's becomingmore and more dangerous to fly.
And that's one of the reasons why he wantspeople to start tracking these things.
And even I'll go on a slight little,tangent here, but I really like
this stuff.
as an example of, like,a lot of stuff in our skies, there's over
5500 Starlink satellites in orbit,and that's just Starlink satellites.
(06:47):
Obviously,there's a lot of other satellites as well.
And there was a study donewhen a series of pilots reported
unidentified objects in the sky,
and they all werereporting them in the same place.
But the the pilotswere in different positions,
but they all were reporting objectsin the same place at the same time.
And so there was a study doneusing computers and math and 3D models
(07:10):
and CGI and whatever to try
to figure out what these objects were thatall these pilots saw at the same time.
And it turned outthey were Starlink satellites.
And it's because Starlink satellites,they're in low-Earth orbit,
and they can sort of,
can release their panels and thingslike that and basically change their shape
depending on what they're doingor what sort of,
(07:30):
you know, if they're putting upsolar panels or whatever.
So it makes them very oddbecause they don't stay in one shape.
And Starlinksatellites as well were very bright.
I think they've now made themso they're not as bright
because it was interfering with peoplestudying the sky and things like that.
But those are weird things that evenpilots were like, whoa, what is that?
And it turns out it'sjust a manmade object.
(07:50):
So that's just to give a hint or a tastethat there is a lot of stuff
floating around.
It can be dangerous and it can leadto sightings of strange things.
But Starlink satellitesdo not explain everything.
So in terms of Ryan Graves in his story,
And what he saw, he saw multiple times.
(08:12):
So it's not like one flight.
around 2014, graves was flying his f-18swith this squadron.
That'swhat squadron is. Hard to say. Yeah,
this squadron hates.
So he was off the coast of Virginia Beachand they started to get
weird hits in military airspaceon their new radar system.
(08:33):
And because it was arelatively new system,
they were assuming thatthese were like bugs in the new software.
But the objects were soon confirmedvisually by both Iris
sensors and then later,like actual visually with eyes.
And they weren't just a blip on the radar
because of these different modesof actually seeing these objects.
(08:55):
And again, this was seen multiple times,
and not just by graves,but by many, many pilots.
And from the radar they could tell
where it was, its direction in its speed,
but not necessarily its shape.
And on certain sightings
they would see this thingtraveling up and down, left and right,
meandering and very odd waysthat planes just or jets can't fly in.
(09:19):
And it had no visual propulsion system,so no engines.
And I don't think wings,I don't think they saw like wings either.
And sometimes it would appear motionlesseven in category
four hurricane speed winds.
So that's like 130 miles an hour,which you can't do.
And then it would accelerateto supersonic speeds.
(09:40):
this also wasn't these weren't quickvisual sightings either.
These things would be in the air all day.
Meanwhile, modern jets with the USmilitary, they have to go refuel,
and these things would still be out thereflying.
They only saw them over water.
And there was also a nearair collision with a jet,
(10:01):
which adds an extra layer of authenticityto it.
And I'm actually goingto have you read a quote.
So this is in that email,the first little thing I sent you,
this is a quote from graves fromI do believe this is from
the congressional hearing itself.
So when you're ready, carry.
(11:01):
Yikes.
Indeed. Yeah. And graves is very.
I love this guy because he.
He's exactlywhat you'd want from a witness.
He has a great educational background.
He's a pilot.
He he's not like,hey, it's little green men flying things.
He's like, we don't know what this is.
And we need to track this and report itand be able to talk about it,
because it could bea national security issue.
(11:22):
It could be dangerous for commercialflights and military flights.
So that's one of the reasons
why he started his organizationto report these things.
And I love the cube.
It's like just so weird.
But what was it?
A clear sphereand a cube inside a clear sphere.
Yeah.
And and also mentionedwhen they seen these things,
they were different shapes and sizesalmost every time they saw it.
(11:45):
And they were usually theselike a long gated shapes.
But I love the specificity of a gray cubeinside a clear sphere.
And he's also saidthis is a quote from him as well.
If UAP are foreign drones,it is an urgent national security problem.
If it is something else, it'san issue for science.
In eithercase, it's a concern for safety of flight.
(12:06):
And I completely agree.
And that's where even someone like me,it's like a UFO is unreal.
I'm like, well, wait,what are these things that we should feel?
We should figure this out.
Yeah.
(12:31):
And yeah.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I love that story.
It's just it seems very authentic.
And Ryan Graves himselfseems like a really stand up dude.
So our next story,we're going to go to a flight
from Saudi Arabia to Abuja, Nigeria.
Nigeria.
And this is a nameI am not going to pronounce correctly.
(12:53):
I'm just going to I've triedI've looked it up.
I can't even really confirm a proper wayto say it.
So apologies all around.
But this is a commercial pilot experiencefrom captain Ruud van panga Memon
ping amendment.
Yeah, it sounds like a mumblingbut that's that's what it's spelled like.
And he was flying on a Boeing 747.
And you can look this guy upCaptain Rude, I'll have links.
(13:14):
But he is a prominent TikTokerand YouTuber and Instagram guy,
and he basically like films his days as apilot, all of his videos are very normal.
That really fun.
You get to see what it's liketo be a commercial pilot,
waking up early and getting on big planesand all that kind of stuff.
But one videohe has shows some weird things in the sky,
(13:34):
and it's like an hour or so into his videobecause he was filming his whole day,
and this happened when he was actually,you know, in the air one night.
So it was around 5 a.m.,and the captain saw something
and captured it on his camerathat he was filming for social media.
right in the middle of the flight,he noticed this star like object.
But the star,instead of twinkling gently in the sky,
(13:56):
it began to dance in the skyand it would change altitude quickly.
Drop down, move up,go back to its initial position,
and then it would change course and fly
somewhere elserandomly before disappearing.
And this behavior is not like a plane.
It's not like a weather balloon.
It's not definitely not a satellite.
(14:17):
So he isn't sure what it was.
And both the pilot and his copilotsaw these lights, and they claimed
to have seen four objects in the skydoing this, it did not appear on radar,
which is also an important piece
of information, because if it was a plane,it would show up on their radar.
And I'll add the video itself.
It's kind of hard to see these things.
(14:38):
Like I didn't see four lights.
I think I just saw like a few, but that'sbecause of the way the camera set up.
And it's also a camerafilming into a dark sky,
so it's not going to pick up the imageas clearly as his eyes were in person.
But it's still very interesting,and it's still tens of thousands of feet
in the air doing very strange things.
(14:59):
And I'll add this to and this is sort oftied into to Ryan Graves
and everything elsewe're talking about as well.
But pilots, pilotstypically don't share their stories
because of this historical stigmaaround it.
And that's what I think is really neatabout what graves has been doing.
And even this Captain Rude,as I'll call him, posting this video
and he's gets comments on his YouTubevideo, I've read a lot of the comments
(15:22):
where people are like,thank you for posting this.
Like, thank you for not hiding it
or being worried that you're goingto come off as some psycho weirdo person
and just sharing itas part of your daily video.
And then people will share things of like,
my uncle's a pilot,and he saw some weird stuff too,
and he didn't believe in any of it,but he couldn't explain this one thing.
And so people are, like, sharing stuff,
(15:57):
Of course.
Yeah.
And there's.
(16:17):
No. And there's fear of, like, backlash.
Like getting fired or not promoted or,you know, and or you're
just other pilots not trustingyou and thinking you're weird.
And so I do think the world is changing,especially since, like, Congress
has, has had hearings on the issueand some other politicians have put,
you know, bills together trying to like,have studies done and things.
(16:39):
So I think it's becoming more mainstreamand okay to talk about these things.
And again,just because we don't know what it is
so we don't have to jump to conclusions.
We can just be like,there's some weird shit happening.
So yeah.
Exactly.
(16:59):
No, not at all. None at all.
So this next account is from 2018,
and I can't find the names of the pilots,but I like this account
because it involvestwo different airlines.
So two different sets of pilots
experiencing the same thing,which makes it all the more interesting.
And this is on February 24th, 2018,
(17:19):
when an air traffic controllerin Albuquerque, New Mexico,
received a callfrom a pilot on a Learjet flight in.
This is a scene we're going to do.
Okay. So this is in the email.
Why don't you read the two pilotsand I'll read the stage direction and the,
air traffic controller said, okay,Wait a second.
I have to pull up the email to
(17:41):
and I don't have it written down there.
All right.
this is an air traffic controllerreceiving a call
from a pilot on a Learjet flight.
No. Why do you ask?
(18:03):
that unidentified object was headed
in the direction of another flight,American Airlines flight 1095.
So the controller radioed that plane.
American 1095,this is air traffic control.
Let us know if anythingpasses over you in the next 15 miles.
Affirmative.
We had an aircraft in front of youthat reported something pass over.
And,
(18:25):
we didn't have any targets, so just,
let us know if you see anythingpass over you.
Minutes later, the pilot radioed control.
Yeah.
And some of that is a quote from thethe article I read.
(18:49):
And that's thethat's the conversation that happened.
So we don't have a lot of detailsabout what exactly this was.
I think it was too fast.
But again, it wasn't showing up on radar,air traffic control or the planes.
Apparently it was goingtoo fast to be a plane,
and they have no idea what this thing was.
(19:18):
Yes. Yeah.
Of course.
(19:39):
Of course it is.
And it's so funny that I'm the one
that's going to steer this conversationback a different way.
But that also doesn't meanthat it isn't something unworldly.
Like it could be an enemy drone or a spyor a weather balloon.
And sometimeswhen they do research these things,
that actually sometimes does happen,especially weather balloons.
That actually is a very real thing.
(20:00):
It's not just made up storiesto try to explain away
a UFO that does happen,and people do misinterpret
what that is in the sky,but we don't know what this stuff is.
So it really could be something else.
And I know there's a lot of theories outnow that like, oh, it's not all aliens.
Some of this could be interdimensionaltravel or time travel, which, you know,
(20:23):
I, I don't put a lot of stock into,but it is it is very interesting indeed.
ocean.
Right, Which is also fascinating.
And actually I'm going to skip ahead.
I'm going to come back to the next storyI was going to do,
because you mentioned that I'm going to goto one of the most famous UFO sightings
(20:45):
ever to take place,because it has video associated with it
that I think isjust super bizarre and weird.
And if you look up anything on UFOs,even if you don't,
you've seen these videos.
But this is the famous Tic TAC incident.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Okay, so the reason I,I'm going to bring this up now
because you mentioned the
(21:05):
the underwater potential oflike where these crafts are coming from.
And that kind of ties into this.
So off the coast of San Diego
in 20 a this came to light in 2012, 2015.
But the story actually happened in 2004.
And this was with a carrier group offof San Diego, California.
It involves a pilot named David Fravor,and he was working on a training exercise.
(21:30):
He was a Navy pilot,
but they were working ona training exercise with marine pilots.
And around noon or 1 p.m.
on this day, they they took off.
And so it's David Fravorand a wing man, two jets.
But they were also with two other jetsfrom the marine flights.
And they're in the airand they get a control call from control
saying thatthey have to cancel the training exercise
(21:52):
because they have a quote unquote,real world vector.
And so that means somethingis like in the vicinity,
and the jets are sent outto see what this is.
So they're sent out a further60 miles out to sea.
They have no ideawhat they're intercepting,
or at least David doesn't at all.
And they're told that, the control
(22:13):
sort of informs himthat there's been these strange objects
that they've been seeing for a few weeksthat's coming and going.
So something is weird.
Weird is going on.
They don't know what it is, and they wantthe pilots to investigate it.
Since they're out there, David assumesthat there must be a drug runner.
You know, because you're near the coastor near the coast.
You're near the border there.
(22:33):
There are drug runners that come inboats and subs and everything else.
And so he and his wingman,they get into range
of whatever this isthey're supposed to look for.
And he notes that it was calmweather, very calm seas,
but yet in the waterhe sees what he calls a giant T shape.
And it's essentiallylike if you look at the ocean from above
(22:55):
and you see breakwaterwhere there shouldn't be breakwater,
and usually it's an island or a boat,but that's what he's seeing is breakwater,
where there shouldn't be any breakwater,but there's no island and no boat
or even he even thought it could have been
a helicopter low to the waterand creating disturbance,
but they're too far away from the carrierfor it to be a helicopter.
And he also doesn'tsee any rotors or a helicopter itself.
(23:18):
It's just sort of a disturbancein the water.
And right above that disturbance,he sees what he called the tic TAC object,
or what we call the tic tac shaped object,and it's just above that disturbance.
And again, no rotors, no engine.
He estimates it could be about 40ft long
and they start circling it.
(23:40):
And as he descendsand starts to come up to this thing,
the tic TAC object turnsand it mirrors David's movements.
So they almost get in thislike circular pattern with this object.
And, David is a few thousand feet above it.
He aggressively tries to get closerand accelerates and goes down to it.
(24:00):
And as he does that, the objectthen accelerates and just disappear.
It goes so fast it disappears into view.
And as he points out,we have some very fast jets and things.
Nothing goes that fast to disappearthat quickly
that I don't think that'swhen the video was.
I think it's a later experience withanother pilot that saw the same thing.
(24:21):
I think that's the famousvideo is a different pilot from later,
but the same group in the same situationand possibly the same object.
And the videoeverybody can look this up at a video.
It's essentially a Tic TAC looking objectand you see like a tracking camera
saying from a jet following thisand you see the the video changes.
(24:42):
It's like the object is whitebecause it's air.
So the white means it's hot.
So it's a hot thing in the thing.
But then it changesto being completely black.
And that'sbecause the pilots were changing the modes
of their sensors, and they were doing thatto try to look closer.
So different modes allow you to sort ofzoom in and see better.
And they're also just tryingto figure out what it is.
They're looking at it through every mode,and it makes the video kind of change
(25:06):
how it's set up.
And they just track this object,it flies around.
It kind of like shifts in the airwhile it's moving, like it
almost turns on a dime,which is really interesting.
And then it accelerates and fliesout of out of view.
And according to the pilots,
the way it flew out of viewis far faster than any manmade aircraft.
(25:26):
So it is a very bizarre experience.
I didn't realizeit was like multiple sightings.
I always thought that was one nightwith one video, but no, it was like
multiple times that people saw this thing.
And also they did go back to thedisturbance in the water and it was gone.
There was no more breakwater in the, in the ocean in that,
in that spot.
(25:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(26:17):
My honest
reaction, I'll tell you this isthis is a progression, Kerry.
I in especially likeif I look back to my episode
with you, which is like a year or more agowhen the camps are.
Yeah.
I was very much like, look, we're going tolook at this historical account.
I like to go see what the original storieswere.
All of the original stories of KennethArnold make me think he didn't see a UFO.
(26:39):
Like that's the reality of it.
And just over time, it spins.
The reason I picked these storiesis because I am starting to open up
to just be like, oh, I don't understandwhat's out there as much as I thought
I did.
And I like these storiesbecause they are more modern.
Again, they're associated with videosthat are not a grainy, weird,
(26:59):
you know, like fake thing.
This is like a military video,as with this example specifically.
And so my my reactionnow isn't I definitely don't jump to
okay, there's some extraterrestrial typeof thing.
I'm just like, oh,
there's there's stuff out there.
And I have I have no idea.
(27:20):
And my, my opinion honestlykind of changes day to day right now.
And I still don't know much about thistopic.
Like, I, I'm so focused on my usualinterest in the strange and mysterious.
It's like murder mysteries and historicalmysteries and lost treasures.
I don't read a lot about UFOs,and I'm trying to do that.
(27:41):
I'm trying to educate myself more.
And so when you talk aboutthe study of strange, my podcast,
it really is me learning.
I'm not trying to necessarily teach peopleabout things.
I'm trying to learn about these thingsat the same time.
And that's a very long windedanswer to your question,
but hopefully that that answers that.
(28:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
(29:14):
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah.
And you didn't get to hear itbecause I recorded it separately.
But I have an intro to today's episodewhere I talk about
the the odds of us coming across
another intelligent speciesin the universe is very, very, very low.
The universe is so big.
(29:35):
And it's like, you know,
trying to find a pebble of sand on Earth,you know, it's so tough.
So the odds are against us,but yet we don't know a lot.
Like we still know so littleabout how the how the universe operates.
And and that's kind of where my brain goestrying to explain these things of like,
(29:55):
we still have so much to goin our own understanding.
So even though the universe is vast,there could be something about the way
the universe worksthat we don't understand.
That kind of actually makes it smaller
and easier for intelligent speciesto travel or communicate or whatever.
So yeah, it's reallyit's really a fascinating topic, which is,
again, while I'm kind of doing this, as,as we do get better about this.
(30:18):
And as we are more opento adjust as a society to hearing stories
about unidentified things,whether they be flying in the ocean,
monsters in the woods, whateverthey may be, because of technology.
Now, in the accelerationover the last few years of AI,
it's also going to be harder to figure out
what's real when you see something.
(30:40):
And and that's really that's been a topic.
I don't know where to go with that yet,but it really fascinates me
because of my interest in this stuffand having a show, I get sent things
usually by my brother,but also from just listeners
of the show of like,oh my God, did you see this?
They like discoveredgiant bones in the ground.
And I'll look at it.
And I think because I have experiencein film and special effects and stuff,
(31:05):
I will usually be ableto see something and be like,
oh, that's I like youjust fell for an AI video.
And even one just a few days ago,there was an announcement
where someone saidthat they've used some sort of new radar
to see under the Great Pyramidsand that it, like,
goes down thousands of feetand there's tunnels and stuff
and, literally almostas soon as that announcement was made,
(31:27):
there was a video out of peopleunderneath the the pyramid
and seeing these like, ancient towersand things underground, and it's all fake.
But for a split second,I thought it was real.
And it was like,oh my God, they're down there.
So it's just going to be really hard.
And that's again, kind of why I likethese stories that I'm sharing today.
Is they all before that AI revolution.
(31:48):
But yeah, it's going to be hard.
And we all have to do a good job tryingto figure out what's real or what's not
with, that kind of content.
Yeah.
All right, so I have one more story
if I can find it.
There it is.
So this involves a commercial pilotfrom the Netherlands.
(32:10):
Again, a name I'm going to butcher and I.
I apologize to everybody in the worldabout how
well I cannot pronounce names today,but this is from Christian Van Harvest.
And he has thousands of hours of flightexperience.
He's seen a lot of weird stuffand written about it online.
But he does claim that about 99% of itis probably all very, very explainable.
(32:34):
But one small story of hisstood out to me.
And that's in 2010, Christian was flyingfrom Amsterdam to Spain,
and he was at around 41,000ftwhen he saw something.
And he had the awarenessto take a picture of this.
And he shared the photo with The Sunnewspaper specifically
is where I found this, and it appearsto be a cigar shaped flying object.
(32:58):
And he said he flew near the thing,watching it for about an hour,
and it was roughly 100nautical miles ahead of his plane.
Air traffic control saidthere was no other aircraft in the area.
They had no sighting of this thingon radars or anything else,
and it at one pointit appeared to be very large
and stationaryand just kind of hanging in the sky.
(33:19):
And to me the picturelooks like a jet at a distance.
But he was watching this thingfor an hour, and
I think the reason this stood out to me,to be very honest, is this winter,
my family and I,we took a vacation flying east
and somewhere of, like,the middle of America,
where there's probably, like the southwestbecause there were mountains and things
out the window.
(33:40):
So I saw this long cigar shaped object,and it looked like
it was just hanging in the airand it had no wings.
And I said, oh, this is it.
I finally am seeing it.
I'm like, super excited that I'm seeing.
So I can't explain in the sky.
And it looks like it's just hanging there.
And then our plane turned slightly
and the angle, the differencesuddenly it made it aware that this object
(34:02):
was another plane and it was just kind offlying a little bit parallel to us.
And it does make me say that, hey,look, it's very easy to misinterpret
something you see in the sky
because that's very obviously a plane,but just at the right angle.
It didn't look like one.
And I thinkbecause we were both flying parallel,
it looked stopped like itliterally like dead in the air.
(34:22):
And so that's what I first thoughtwhen I read this story.
But then he said, followed it for an hourand I'm like, okay, now,
now things are getting a little oddbecause
over that hour,the flight path should change slightly.
You get a different angle of it.
And he also said that it againappeared to be staging light
or motionless at a period of timeduring this whole flight.
(34:46):
So, it was just a weird story
that I really like, and I like that it'sa guy that's willing to share the story,
and he's talked a lot about how he's
seen other weird stuff,but most of it's probably explainable.
And this one, though,seems, unexplainable.
I guess.
(35:08):
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
I think so, and yeah,I think it's the time it just in my mind
of following something for an hourwhere he's really looking at it and.
Yeah, that is, it's super strange.
(35:30):
Now, I wish I had answersto all this stuff.
I wish I could explain awaysome of these stories, but
I really, really can't.
And I think we've said it a million times.
So I don't mean to beat a dead horse,but like, to me,
this just meanswe have to keep watching the skies
and we have
to notate these things and try toif everybody's got a good camera nowadays.
So film things, put it up there.
(35:51):
Even though there's a lot of videos thatI think are terrible with the UFO world,
but still film things, try to catch it and
I guess have an open mind.
Yeah.
Any other thoughts?
Carrie, how many UFOshave you seen in the last week?
(36:16):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
I, I didn't purposely take a breakfrom social media,
but I feel like I'm on itless, which is nice.
(36:39):
It's nice.
Yeah.
It is, it is.
And I feel like your brainkind of finds other things to focus
on which are more productive.
Yeah, well, good for you.
Well, thank you so much for doing thisepisode again.
It's a topic I'm trying to understand
better and learn aboutand not be afraid to talk about it.
I'm still very intimidatedto talk about these things.
(37:01):
So I appreciate you being here with mefor moral support and,
and your insights.
All right.
Thank you so much, I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you for
listening to what I thinkis a rather unique
episode of A Study of Strange,and if you enjoy strange mysteries,
(37:22):
join our Substack subscribers,get episodes early
and additional content,and it's a great way to support the show.
You can find that informationthrough our support tab on our website.
A study of strange.com.
Thank you and good night.
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