Stuff They Don't Want You To KnowBeginning in 2019, locals in rural areas of Nebraska and Colorado were astonished to witness multiple mysterious lights and objects in the sky. Everyone agreed something was up there, but no one seemed to know what this stuff could be. In this interview segment, Ben, Matt and Noel welcome Gabe Lenners, the creator of OBSCURUM, to learn more about his continuing investigation into a "circus in the sky."
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is known.
They call me Bed.
We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. We couldn't be more excited for this and a little bit disturbed, to be honest with you, folks, if you are a longtime conspiracy realist, you've doubtlessly noticed the same thing. We all have a strident uptick in reports of mysterious things happening in the sky, unidentified light, mysterious objects, drones that appear to come from somewhere unknown and return to an unknown place.
And you know, I was thinking about it.
For a lot of us, it's kind of like a headline, right, or a sound bite you read and maybe forget.
But well, and for others it becomes a full on obsession.
Right right, yes, exactly.
You know, for many of us in the audience tonight, there's a story, an incident you witness that you can't explain. You check with friends and neighbors. As the years go on, you may make theories of your own, but every so often an intrepid observer goes a step further, taking on a quest to figure out what on or off Earth is actually happening up there in the sky. And you, guys, in today's interview, we are joined with an investigator who did just that, the one and only Gabe Leonards, the creator and host of Obscurum Invasion of the Drones. Gabe, thank you so much for joining us.
Guys, it's so great to be here. This has been a long time coming and I can't wait to dive in with you.
Can I just say, Gabe that when I was listening to the first episode of Invasion of the Drones as a synthesizer nerd, I thought it was really appropriate. The first time you hear is a synth drone and I was like, that was very appropriate. So well done on the music portion as well.
Hey, we did it for you one.
Hi.
Thanks you.
I appreciate it your ol msnic drone.
I felt seen or heard.
All right, guys, let's set this scene because on this show, we have discussed multiple drone sightings in multiple parts of the world and at multiple times, but in obscurum we start pretty clearly in late twenty nineteen, right around Christmas time, in a place called Phillips County, Colorado. Gabe, take us to that place. What you're doing at that time? Why this even pings on your radar?
Yeah? So, I originally grew up in this small town in Nebraska, which consequently is about thirty miles away from where these sightings first began. I live in Los Angeles, but I was going home for the holidays, and I was sitting there with my family and we were getting ready for dinner when we get this knock at the door, and it is this police officer who we were talking earlier. I used to chase storms and go out with him and actually spot severe weather in the area. But this time he came and he said, Gabe, you know what, there's some weird things happening over people's farms, not only in our county in Nebraska, but out there in Phillips County. There are all of these flashing lights just hovering all over the prairie, and no one knows who they are or who they belong to, and I think maybe this is something you should look into, and from that moment an obscure them invasion of the drums that you guys heard, I just started asking questions to try to get to the bottom of what was going on. But more importantly, you know, we've all seen flashing lights in the sky and it's very hard to justify what something is when you look up into the sky and see it. And I thought, why would these things actually be flying? And that's what I wanted to look into, the different theories as to the why more than the what, especially at the beginning game.
I love how you just kind of casually dropped they used to be a storm chaser back in the day.
Yeah, you know.
Situation.
Yeah, this is this is one of the first off I've got to say. I love how you chat with your mom in the show because there's this, there's this. This is a a genuine, thorough investigation into unexplained phenomena. It's also, I would say, an exploration of how people react to the unexplained, and that's the crucial piece of this.
This is a.
Hometown area for you, and I am so excited from the jump where this guy you know, shows up at your house and I think it's kind of late at night. It says, Okay, I I thought you might dig into this. Did you immediately go chasing the lights or how did you process this story?
I thought he was crazy at first. I thought I've grown up in this area, you know, I've seen pretty much everything there is to see. I feel like in this part of the world growing up, because I would be out there on those back roads, chasing storms, you know, and running track out out there in high school and different things. And I thought, what could possibly be in the sky, because you got a picture this area. It's a remote area northeast Colorado, southwest Nebraska town of about two thousand people, and you look up into the sky and it's about ten or eleven at night, and you see all of these, you know. I mean, I saw myself SUV sized drones and then smaller ones surrounding them. It's just something that's straight out of a sci fi movie, honestly, and not something I would ever expect. And yeah, I thought someone has to be flying something or this is just a crazy coincidence. I really didn't know what to expect until I drove out there and looked up and saw these for myself.
So you, Gabe, you actually saw like the smaller drones and mother drone kind of situation in the sky.
And there's a great scene where you're kind of experiencing it in real time and you describe it beautifully. But yeah, I think that's about right.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I'm about the biggest realist you're going to get. I'm a journalist and a producer, and you know, I always go where the evidence is to ask the questions to get answers, and yeah, I went out there and looked up into the sky and saw, you know, what appeared to be some type of mothership drone if you will, about two to three hundred yards off the ground. And then you have all of these kind of smaller red and white flashing lights surrounding this large kind of or black light which is literally just hovering about the prairie for hours.
It seemed on end and unlike unlike a lot of people who may have and no judgment here, but there are a lot of people who might see something strange in the sky and just file it away as you know, a campfire story or something to talk about on Thanksgiving, but you also learned this is not some sort of one off siding with say a single witness. There are multiple witnesses, not just around town in Imperial but also in nearby Phillips County, Colorado. And you start talking to locals right start checking in with other people. Could you describe those initial conversations and what the townsfolk were saying when you ask them.
Absolutely, this was something where, you know, this whole event was referred to as the Colorado Nebraska Drawn Mystery, and people were seeing all of these drones over such a large area at the same time, they weren't just seeing a couple in their backyard. I mean when I went out there that first night, just to give you some perspective, I mean, the very first time I looked up and saw this, I saw like fifteen to twenty of these things. There were at least a couple mother ships or if that's what you want to call them, sitting there, and then you have, you know, I would say fifteen at least of these other flashing lights surrounding it. I mean, this isn't something you could just shake off because it was there, and you have not a lot of self service it's dark, it's in the middle of the night, you're in the pasture, and this just isn't something you normally see. And yeah, when I talked to locals, that's one of the first things I did in the you know, the first couple episodes of the podcast, because you know, I'd grown up with these people and I knew they wouldn't be just making stuff up for their health for lack of a better word, and telling me stories you know that weren't true because I've known these people forever, and not just those people, but people in the surrounding counties. And one of the things that really stood out to me early was how similar these accounts were in a large area. We're talking, you know, hundreds of miles in north central Nebraska all the way down to northwestern Kansas and eastern Colorado, and you know, these people aren't talking to each other every day, but yet they're experiencing something very very strange in the night sky. Man.
You know, I'm mentioning the storm chasing stuff. You did actually go to college for a meteorology correct, Yeah.
So I originally went to the University of Oklahoma to study weather. I actually ended up getting a broadcast journalism degree, but I've always had this very strong fascination with weather and studying the science behind it. And that was one of the things too. If you think about these drones in the winter time, and you know in that area you have strong winds, just to geek out for a second, and.
The upper levels of the app exactly.
Right, you have really strong winds with low pressure systems that kind of moved through with heavy snow blizzards, and these drones would be out there and sub zero temperatures, flying around for hours on end. And that was one of the things. One of the police officers, I think it was an episode four that I was talking to, saw the winds were very strong that night and the temperatures very cold, and these drones were up for you know, six to eight hours plus at a time and wouldn't have to come down even because of the cold weather.
And you also, you're speaking to just a dovetail on that point. You also speak to professional business owners who work with drones and you ask them at a couple of points, you know, would you guys fly a drone out in these conditions? And if so, why, And I love the link. There's this honest tone. You know, you're talking to the experts, and I believe upon relistening multiple times people say, at least for their business, it would be a bad idea to fly a drone, you know, with snow cover and what these treacherous winds and so on.
And also it seems like another example of when there are sightings like this, it just seems to be presenting technology that isn't available, you know, widely, And I wonder if the drone experts spoke to that, like even the logistics of them being able to be out in these conditions for so long.
Yeah, one of the ones that I talked to had to do with agriculture and when you have drones, it's becoming more and more common to spray different fields instead of having a spray plane do it with drones. You know, a technology is evolving so fast. But one of the interesting things I learned was that you know, if someone was to do this, they would only stay up for a very short period of time, and they can put these long arms on these drones to extend while they're flying over the fields. And this wouldn't be something that would a be on a large scale too likely be taking it happening at night in three definitely not during the winter. Yes, yeah, exactly.
Well, okay, let alone just the how these drones take flight. Right, The drones we're aware of that we see most often that you can go out and buy right now as a consumer are copter type. Right. They use multiple blades, often for or more to go up, and then they can use those blades as they turn and tilt to move left and right basically as they're flying. The other type we know about are the more military style ones that you know, we saw during the Second Iraq War that are almost like a plane or a prop plane that have instead of a helicopter style, a rotor blade. It's turned, you know, horizontally and allows flight by going forward using wings these things. Did you notice anything like that when you physically saw the drones in the sky, like any type of how they were actually flying.
So the show is called Invasion of the Drones because that's what everyone has referred to as what these aircraft are. But I mean I can say seeing them, I could never see anything that would allude to the fact that it wasn't, you know, was actually a drone. Specifically, I never saw things flying because they were at night, and a lot of the people I interviewed would say, oh, yeah, the drones, the drones, the drones and what people started calling them. But you could never in my opinion, outside of their movement. You know, we've seen videos of you know, UAPs that have been captured over the ocean by Air Force pilots and everything else. They didn't move in that type of manner, but you couldn't tell they were specifically drones outside of the way they kind of moved. The only thing that I could really justify, and a lot of the people I talked to, was that these were lights in the sky moving in weird type of patterns that weren't consistent with airplanes, helicopters, anything of the sort.
I love that too, because there is this is not a spoiler to the narrative here, but there is a moment that really stood out to me where you're you're speaking with someone who has an interest in figuring out what's going on, and they straight up tell you, they say something like, Gabe, we're calling them drones so that we don't sound crazy, right, So maybe drone is a word they put on a thing.
Well, you have an interview with somebody I believe in the first episode, or maybe it was a SoundBite in one of your trailers talking about the origin of the use of the term drone. I think I was actually in the last episode, the most recent one. How it even that as a concept was for the purpose of kind of like calling these things, this technology, something that didn't sound too scary or too terrifying. I don't know, I think drone is kind of ominous personally, but I wonder if you speak to that as well, what you learned about kind of the history of the idea of drones.
Yeah, I mean as far as my my learning about like drones and stuff for this podcast. The term kind of drone started to be used a lot during the First Gulf War, which we kind of get into, and I think it's the first or second episode just a bit, but that kind of became synonymous, and you know, like you said, it is drone the new and more casual term for UFO. I don't know, I would be willing to say maybe based on all these drone sightings that people see, because it does make you not sound crazy.
For lack of a lack of a better words, if you're like.
That, drone out there. You know, I saw I saw some drones. Really what what did you see? Was at a plane? Was it a helicopter?
Was it lights?
Yeah? Right right, that's not to stick on that moment too. About the past, you do something that I think we all found incredibly impressive, which is you say, well, let's step back, right, let's scoop out through time, because nothing, you know, occurs in a vacuum, so you start looking into any possible precedents or earlier reports in the area. Could you tell us a little bit about what you found or the people you spoke to regarding that.
Yeah, that was one of the most interesting things that I again had no clue what I would find out when I started talking to people. But if you go back in history in southwest Nebraska, it is one of the areas with one of the first recorded UFO sidings in modern history. And there's even a lot of press from the eighteen hundreds. Now how factual it actually is remains to be seen, but the story goes there, you know, were there there were some cowboys that were out on a ranch and they're sitting there watching over the cattle, and this blazing ball falls to the earth and they all turn and go see what it is, and you know, they see this cylinder shape craft. And a couple of days later, if I remember the story correctly, it rained and it started to kind of like dissipate and go away. But all of these news outlets in the area reported on this. Now, some people say it's a hoax, some people don't, but there's enough recordings in different areas that something did happen there. Now, the specifics of it were not quite sure. It's out was a long time ago. But then also in the podcast, there are a couple people who I know personally who had seen, you know, strange things in the sky and the same location where these drones were being seen. And in one of the cases actually he described his grandparents being out there on the prairie and seeing these spherical balls of light, which a lot of people referred to as the drones hovering over their farm. And that was, you know, decades earlier, and so weird things have definitely been seen in the area, and this was not the first time.
Jeez.
Around this time, when you're looking, when you're talking to people and you're finding these earlier reports, you're also talking to people who are reporting some pretty strange things in real time, Like in twenty nineteen, you know, twenty twenty one, there's one report and I guess a photo this related to it of some kind of green substance associated with some of these sightings. Did you did anything ever come of that?
Nothing came of that, but it was one of the really interesting things that transpired in the first couple of days of this drone mystery, because how the story goes is there were these weird green blobs that were showing up out on county roads and.
It was the ooze.
It was the ooze. It was it was the ooze, and people, you know, were convinced that these drones were dropping these things and they were related. And I mean, I'll just go ahead and tell you about it. It's a track log. It's a soil pam track log. And these are what a lot of people use in agriculture and hang on their pivots, and it, I guess provides some type of nutrients. I mean, it looks like it came from another world. If you see one of these things, it's green and mesh wrapped and it has this green you know, ooze that's like frozen and I mean, it looks weird. It's it's very weird looking.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, so much. I've got to say, it does look weird.
It looks weird if you google it. Yeah, but but yeah, the the Sheriff's department was you know, perplexed by this so much so that they tested it for meth amphetamines and weren't quite sure what it was and thought it it's got to be to be related to the drones. So but it ended up being that, you know, in that specific case, we were able to you know, figure out that it wasn't.
So we're going to pause here to let the sponsors drone on for a second.
Kidding, We'll be right back.
And we've returned. Let's jump right back into our conversation with Gabe.
Now the story is escalating now there there are going to be reports that the drones are not just you know, flitting around having a light show, but may also be dropping physical objects. And one thing you do consistently is speak to law enforcement and authorities at multiple you know, local, regional, even federal level, and at every turn you encounter something that is so common in stories of this nature or in experiences like this, wherein people will say, Okay, I saw a thing, but I want to be really careful about how I describe it and how I you know, how I will be perceived in society based on, you know, the way I articulate my experience. And then you come to a point where you start logically asking, you know, well, where could where could an aircraft come from? And it brings us to one of our favorite returning characters on this show, the Denver International Airport.
Yeah, best mural game in the airport world, no question about it. Nothing weird in any of those murals.
Now, I mean that there's so much. You hear so much about that place. I you know, when I hear the airport, I just think of ongoing construction because every time I'm in there, they're always like fixing something, and there's always a line and it always you always have to walk like so far to get to your your check in point because they're always fixing something. Something is always being built at that airport.
Like we hear a lot about that airport, Atlanta Airport and what was there's like one or two other ones that are always under construction. I think the Guardians.
The Guardian is finally done, though, La Guardian is really nice. Now finally is it's nice?
It is man.
Whenever I hear Denver Airport, I picture that one mural where there's this big, creepy, hulking dude in like a green rubber suit with a gas mask, swinging a saber that acts as sort of the like dividing line in this mural composition. And then there are all these like starving African children kind of like they're being sliced that by this it's very weird. It's like something out of Pink Floyd's the Wall.
Yeah, because it's on a wall.
It's the wall.
I did hear they may have taken that mural down.
It's a good one.
Maybe maybe you sent the right email, NOL, but.
About the right comment card.
The reason we're bringing this up here, Gabe, is because with that logical step, you're also in your investigation, you're kind of opening a door, right, and you're not telling You're never telling people what you think is happening, like what they should believe, but you are asking people and with that we have to we have to get the takes. Because you've talked to people from so many demographics, what are some of the theories that you heard.
I mean I heard a lot of theories. I mean, you know, there's and that's one of the most interesting things as you hit on earlier, and it's a case study into how people do react to the unknown and how they perceive what's going on in the world around them and more importantly, what you know, what they want to believe about that in the future. As far as like, you know, some of the some of the craziest theories obviously, like a lot of people are saying, oh, this is the government, this is this is the government doing this, you know, and I can say, you know, I think the government has a job to serve and protect, and you know, there's things we shouldn't know or be aware of. One of the most interesting things early on, and you hear this in episode for you know, with that theory is and I talked to a lot of people as this thing was really kind of unfolding in the first in the first few days. So I would say that with that type of theory, I think more than you know, people are like, oh, stuff is being hidden. I think there was just a lot of confusion. I don't really think anyone really knew what was actually happening here, because you know, some of those people wouldn't have agreed to probably talk to me if they were like, oh, there's nothing to see here. And a lot of times when and you guys are probably experts on this a lot more than me, but a lot of times when the military seems to be testing something or doing something new, it's kind of a wink and a nod like, oh, that may be us over there, and like there's not a lot of you know, there's not a lot of questions about it, and it's just kind of like, Okay, it happened, it's over. You know, we may have been doing something there, but you can't say for sure. But one of the things that you know with this is people went on the record early to say this is not us, we are not doing this, we are not involved with this, and they didn't have to release, you know, statements and just say that. And could it be someone or some you know, groups or groups that we're not even aware of. Of course it could be, but you know, for the most part, you just don't really see that. And you saw that a lot in New Jersey as well, where people would go on the record and say, hey, it's not us. We're not doing this, these aren't us. Let's get to the bottom of this mystery together. So that was one of the big, you know theories specifically that people thought early. And then of course you had the you know, the whole kind of alien UFO theory where there and there were strange things happening around where people live, like out in the country. You know, you can't you can you can't discount what some of those people people said, but I mean it, yeah, just a very It's kind of just like the real upside down, real life stranger things type of scenario where a whole bunch of weird things were going on at the same at the same time. And you heard that that officer say, you know, ten miles to Denver International Airport. I mean, that's not some guy. I mean, that's a police officer who's in a big county in Colorado. And I can't remember his title, but he may have even been I can't remember, but he was fairly high up, and I mean he's telling you this. This isn't like some random person on the street, you know.
So yeah, well, I think one thing that you mentioned early on in the in the series is that the drone sightings in New Jersey recently have kind of brought this whole drone spotting thing maybe back into the zeitgeist. And one thing that I thought was interesting when that was being reported on was this idea that like drones, beget more drones, Like you have a handful of drone sightings, and all of a sudden, every Tom, Dick and Harry are sending their you know, consumer drones up to check it out, which may well have led to the kind of saturation point of all of those drones, not just a couple. And I'm wondering if you saw anything like that with this story that you're that you're exploring.
Yeah, I mean there, you know, there were people who were talking about taking their own drones up. I mean there weren't the sheer number of people obviously that live on the East coast is in the middle part of Nebraska, and so you didn't see this on a big on a big scale, just because people weren't living there. And you can drive anywhere and still see the drones, the mysterious drones, if you will, and there would be no one within like you know, fifteen to twenty miles in any direction, and so it wasn't like their drones were getting you know, caught up with the other ones. Now, I was on the ground in New Jersey at the height of all that craziness. I found myself there, and you know that that was a little different situation where, you know, it did seem like there are all these reports of drones early and then you know, with the flight paths of JFK and LaGuardia and people taking hobbyist drones out and probably you know, the military and local law enforcement having their drones up at the same time, it kind of created this circus in the sky, if you will, and you don't really know what was actually happening there.
Oh I love that circus in the sky.
Yeah, right, that was doubt I've got.
If we can talk about this, just to stick on this for a moment longer. You are speaking with law enforcement, you're speaking with aviation professionals as well, we're talking with the FAA and so on. All right, so everybody seems to agree that there's something up there, right, there's something happening. There's no one who says, you know, Gabe, you're crazy, this interview is over or anything like that. But could you tell us a little bit more about just the basic legality of drones for anybody who hasn't operated one before. How do drone enthusiast in general comply with the law. What's the nature of say a no fly zone? How close can these get to the airport? Where can they go?
What happens altitude restrictions as well, if I'm not mistaken, But.
Yeah, yeah, you know, this is something that continues to get fine tuned. You know, the FAA has had these this feature, if you will, And there's a lot of gray area of like you know, having it tagged and having to register your drone and what do you need to do Do you have to do that to fly a drone? Do you not to be able to track them? No one, in my opinion, no one really knows what's happening with those. But typically with a drone, like in the middle part of the country, the drones are supposed to be below four hundred feet. When you get above that, uh, that's where that's where you run into problems. And these were and these were low, you know, many times two to three hundred feet off the ground, and when you get into the area of an airport, they are no fly zones, and some of the people that I reviewed said that if they flew hobbyist drones near like a small airport in southwest Nebraska, northeast Colorado, northwest Kansas, their drone would come down if they entered that airspace, because it was like, especially if it was a consumer drone. But then I also talk to other people who's you know, their drones weren't impacted by that. But you're generally not supposed to fly obviously within an airport anywhere, even if it's you know, even if it's a smaller one. But you know, the restrictions are lax, and it's very clear that technology is outpacing what's happening with with drone development in all areas of the world essentially, and it's very hard to regulate from the people who I've talked to who's flying these drones, and what you can actually do about them once they're in the sky if they do appear to be doing something that is nefarious or is skeptical.
Yeah, I keep remembering that line, just to add this in. I keep remembering that line about the FAA not having an enforcement arm.
Yeah, I mean, that's the real thing.
That's well I mean ask yourself the question when you were listening. I'm not sure how far you got through. But there are all these reports of things flying around during the Colorado Drum mystery. Say a local law enforcement official calls and reports it and say it gets to the FAA. You know, what would they tangibly do in that moment, because by that time the report's been called in, the things probably not at that specific point, and they aren't there. I mean, you can't fault them because well, I mean, what are they physically going to do unless they can, you know, unless they know where that drune is originating from and they could take it down remotely. I mean, it's kind of just a weird, tricky situation all around, I feel like for sure.
So let's get let's get back to some of the sightings that specifically the Navy has been seeing and finally reporting on and telling the public about. So back in twenty twenty two, I think it was, there's a former naval pilot named Ryan Graves who testified before Congress and he describes basically from twenty thirteen on, he and other Navy fighter pilots who would fly things, fly machines like f eighteen's they would encounter specific UAP what they described as uap as, these black or dark gray cubes inside translucent spheres, and they would see these in the sky as they're flying, you know, really fast in F eighteen and other even more advanced craft. Then in Obscure we hear a story from a hunter, a man named Alex Peterson, who he has his weapons, a rifle that has a thermal scope on it, and he's looking through that thermal scope and he describes something really similar down by the water. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, that was one of the things I didn't think I would encounter, but I actually, you know, I've talked to him multiple times throughout you know, putting a story together, and he in the trailer and some of the different things you've seen in video, I'm sure online that's actually raw video from his scope of his gun as this thing is approaching him. So it's not like, you know, everyone's like, where's the video, show us the video, but this thing was, Yeah, it was approaching and if I remember correctly, yeah, he described it as a is a box with like orange in the middle of it, and it was yeah, and this was a you know, this was approaching him and he had to make the decision of what he was going to do, and he obviously didn't do it because that's illegal. You never want to do that.
But to actually shoot down the drone from the grounds, right, Yeah, yeah, bad idea, not even for social media, Like no, well, you know.
Results again, we're using layers. We're calling it a drone, but that doesn't sound like a dang drone.
Ghost lights, you know, like swamp gas there, one of those.
That's my favorite. Everyone's like, oh, it's.
Swamp gas, swamp gas.
I need to look at what the meteorological you know, set up for swamp gases specifically, so I can I can debunk that one in real time.
Yeah, we're we're happy to throw our hats in the ring on that one, Gabe, Yeah, tell me, yeah, We're we're super pro swamp gas over here as well.
Well.
The theory with that is that it's it's some kind of gases that could theoretically ignite and cause fire in the sky.
But then you have to think about the altitude, right or the origin of the gas and the mix. I mean, that's that's the thing that I think is very fair about this investigation. We're hearing different voices with different perspectives that sometimes conflict. Will pause here for a word from our sponsors, and we'll be back with Gabe, and we're back. Everybody is trying to do their level best, right from civilian witnesses who are saying, look, let me tell you what I saw as accurately as I recall seeing it. Here's any evidence I have all the way up to you know, a really interesting meeting in Brush, Colorado that you share.
You share some accounts of this.
It's a strategy meeting right with multiple stakeholders, we could call them. Whatever people are seeing out there in this area. It has risen to a level, or risen to a threshold such that federal and local law enforcement are getting together to figure out what's going on. Could you tell us a little bit about their interactions and about this meeting in Colorado.
Yeah, I tried to get into this meeting, and this meeting happened a few weeks after majority of these sidings really started, you know, ramping up, and I you know, when I started talking to people, I wasn't even sure this meeting happened or was going to happen, But it did. In fact happen, and basically all of these sidings in northeast Colorado, people were on the brink because no one was doing anything. And so the FAA supposedly came to this meeting and set it up. The Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management was there, the Air Force was there, all these local law enforcement officers from different areas and all these different states had a big pow wow and brush Colorado to try to figure out what they were going to do and form a task force. Now, as we later learn from people at the meeting and one of the guys who was going to actually lead the task force formation, it never really happened. So there was a whole bunch of talk at this meeting and no one really took it to the next step. And it kind of goes back and forth. Was it the FA's job to do this or was it the local officials job to do this? And you know, if you talk to the FAA people, they'll say, well, the reports just kind of stopped. And if you talk to the local people, they'll say the FAA dropped the ball and didn't really push this forward to get it going. But for lack of a better term, it never really got off the ground, and there weren't a lot of yeah, answers following the meeting in fact, and so you know a lot of people say the reports just dropped off. But did people become desensitized to just seeing them and not report them as much? Because I still talk to people who see these things out there, though not on a big scale as they were before. And so there's just a lot of questions surrounding that whole meeting, and I'm still you know, I hope through this podcast, like I get more more clarity on that. But I did talk to a lot of people who were there, and it's just, yeah, it seems like everyone came together and nothing happened really.
Well, Matt, I mean, you had a buddy, I think in North Georgia maybe who was in some strange lights in the sky. And we have, you know, historical reports of very similar things, I mean probably further back, but like the Phoenix lights, like back in ninety seven or whatever, very similar reports that usually seem to get traced back to some sort of experimental aircraft. But Matt, what was the deal with your friend?
We can talk about it. I had a friend who is down near Augusta, Georgia, near Fort Eyes an hour and they this friend was seeing you know, orbs as they're described, of light in the sky doing kind of weird stuff and it's very similar and it actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this is because he started a social media account to you know, share videos what he's seeing. And what he found is that once he started sharing stuff, the conversation about what this could be, the possibilities, and then the stronger voices as they come in the opinions of what this potentially got weirder and weirder, and then again those opinions got stronger and stronger. And you learn a little bit about this in the podcast right about what that happens with a couple of different groups, Like I think it's the drone intelligence center that you speak with someone about just where once those ideas start being discussed openly, you can believe stranger things, let's say, than what you might.
Normally absolutely and that was one of the you know, in this in the podcast, there were so many people who had different perspectives and more than like you know, at the same time of getting to the bottom of this mystery, I really just wanted to document what was actually happening with all these different people and get their perspectives and put it somewhere because it was just such a weird, a weird thing. But yes, I mean, when people don't have answers about the unknown, it's very clear that they start, you know, they can take that perception and make it into something that it may or may not be. Maybe they're right, maybe they're not. But you know, especially when people are in kind of siphon groups and in remote areas, if you're around a group of people and we get into this in one of the episodes with a psychologist or a sociologist from Stanford, but if you get into the group think mentality, and you know, you see something in the sky and the group of people validates what you saw in the sky. Even if what you saw in the sky is not at all what you saw in the sky, and you have everyone else telling you that's what you saw, then you know, you're probably likely going to believe what that group of people, for lack of a better term, says over time, and so yeah, kind of what you said.
Is true, especially with the you know, the social dynamics come into play, right I believe. Our sociologist also points out it's not just a group consensus building. It's also guided by perceptions of authority, right, and guided by perceptions of you know, this is a person I trust for some other reason. Therefore, what they're saying here, even if I didn't originally think that it's going to have it's going to inspire me to reassess my initial experience.
Yeah, I mean, and so many people just don't have a strong enough perspective that it's really easy for the loudest or most confident voice in the room or in one of these discussions to steer them, you know, to to allow people to kind of like have their perspective shifted because they need that, you know. And sometimes even if someone is coming at it with authority, it doesn't mean they actually have the background or the expertise to make those kinds of claims. And I think we see that all the time in the echo chamber that is sort of online conspiracy chatter.
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm not I'm not in that space as much as you know, you guys are and stuff. But based on the limit, you know, you can kind of see that as well with with the new Jersey, the sightings and other similar events of that.
You know, oh Chinese weather blued shout out, you know to our boy from a few years back.
Yeah.
Yeah, but then you've got you've got stories. And forgive me, I can't remember the gentleman's name, but the person who has an inquisitive mind, who is going out there on social media trying to you know, have other people vet his work. Basically as he's taking videos and making recordings and saying, hey, I noticed that when I play certain music, these lights turn blue, and then when I play other music, they flashed o their lights' Like what do you guys think? Like, that's a really inquisitive mind trying to test variables. And so I just imagine somebody like that and I wanting so hard to prove scientifically something.
Isn't that just a regular dude or was that an expert? I'm remembering the soundby but not the identity of this person.
So that's the leader of this group called the drone Hunters. Basically like formed it was group this you know, this social media group and they would go out and they would you know, band together and really try to study these They were concerned locals. But with that story, I thought to myself, just like you, I mean, I'm I'm skeptical at the beginning. And so I called the sheriff's department in that specific county. And it was very interesting in that interaction because the guy told me he would go out there regardless of you know, the the lights and like the music and everything else. I was like, could I verify that someone else who lived in the area was seeing the same type of things at the time or and continues to see these things? So I called the sheriff in that specific county in western or in eastern Colorado. And you know, it was very interesting because I got this assistant at the sheriff's office and she was like, oh, let me go ask because I said, hey, you know, I'm looking into some of those mysterious drone sightings that had been reported by people who live in your area. Would I be able to talk to the sheriff for people still seeing these She waited, she put me on hold, and she came back and she's like, there's nothing that's been seen here lately, and the sheriff doesn't want to talk about it, and I was like okay. I was like I was like, I was like okay. And so then I, you know, I found people who kind of lived outside of that town or the sheriff lit and called them and they're like, oh, yeah, we see these or black lights, you know, multiple nights a week still ever since like the you know, the drone the drone mystery really kicked off, and my son was out and he was he was getting the mail. He saw him the other night, and so then the guy's story is like, oh, someone else who lives where he does is seeing these at the same time, not saying, you know, the weird nature of them, but they are seeing something in the sky at the same time. And so take that information however you want. But it's very it's very curious.
That's the thing that gets me too.
In the absence of transparency, speculation naturally thrives, right, And there's not anybody, it seems in the story. There are people who have strident beliefs of their perspective of what they've seen, but we don't see anybody pulling a cynical grift, you know what I mean. We don't see anybody starting a UFO based cult or anything.
People are hopefully people are trying to that we know of that we know of right, right, people are trying to figure this out together, and in doing so, you know, we could make an argument that perhaps beliefs become more extreme when you have people kind of bubbled in one space.
Did you run into anybody who had serious contradictions about another person's perspective regarding the drone mystery.
That's a great question. I honestly, I honestly didn't, because because it was such a widespread thing. It's not like someone saw something once and then the other person's like, well I didn't see it. I don't believe that, because so many, so many people were seeing things at the same time. I mean one, you know, one group of people who you know, my family is friends with even rented a party bus and went had a party and went and had like a drone watching party and was driving around you know, during the time, just for just for just for fun, for sheer fun. And so it wasn't like it was a thing where people were just seeing one or two here there. I mean, they were seeing them all over the place. And the thing, you know, I looked back at, you know, some of my notes and stuff. And one of the first reports that came in outside of Phillips County was actually in my county, uh a Chase County, and it was the it was the it was the sheriff's apartment there that reported seeing fifty of these things, you know, before people were even calling him, you know, calling them in and so I mean, and that was they sent that to to everyone, and so it wasn't even the people who were leading the sightings at the very beginning.
So, yeah, can you tell us who this Matthew Spencer guy is? It sounds like a voice actor when you hear it in the in the episode, You're like, there's no way this guy talks like that.
Also, can we can we hang out with him on the party bus?
So I will say, I will say to protect his privacy, he was so his part was reread because but this is a real guy. He did go on the record. We had to we had to protect him. So yes, there was a voiceover or a voiceover artist reading that specific part. But this he is, you know, one real person. He was, according to all of my research, being looked at by the FAA during that time, and was reaching out to different newspapers in the area, claiming responsibility for these sightings, and so, yeah, I tracked him down and yeah, you know, it'd been so such a long kind of time that had passed. I didn't want to put him on full blast. But but yeah, but this is a guy and he was being looked at by the FAA for being behind these sidings and so that it's all, it's all one part of the weird, wacky story that is the drones.
Well does he ever say what it could be like the.
Yeah, so his so, I mean, I don't know how far you've listened, but basically he so his thinking was that the specific guy that there was a u a P in the area, and his life's mission was to study UAP, and he had his own drones that he was like taking them and studying the UAP, and he had reason to believe that there was a UAP in the vicinity of the drones, and that was why the drones were there, because typically in his experience, if there would be a UAP, drones followed to kind of study it or study what happened in the area, and that was kind of his assumption and why he was flying his own drunes there at the time.
Well, yeah, and well that's sort of the point that came up around the New Jersey stuff, where it's like a lot of the clutter of it all were maybe hobbyists or other people who were curious who own their own drones kind of going to check out the initial sightings and then kind of adding to the traffic.
Yeah. Absolutely, and so that's where he, you know, he said, said he was there, and I yeah, and obviously other people did too. Called he called one of the sheriff's offices in eastern Colorado and they alerted the FAA. From what I found out in the FAA, you know, it appears looked into looked into him and thought he could be, you know, be involved in some of these so a person of interest persons of interest which I had to listen to see what happens. But yeah, but he's very But but I but I will say that you know the voiceover actor who read that does he is very It's a very similar portrayal of the actual guy.
Interesting.
That's it.
There's a there is an importance there right to protecting someone's anonymity and what their comfort level may be. And I think it returns again and again to this idea of comfort level, right, how comfortable are we sharing this story or how comfortable are we as you know, law enforcement professionals talking talking to Gabe and saying, all right, here's what I can say, here's what I like there. There's at least one time where someone tells you they're not going to speak with you unless they get some paperwork behind it, right, like a public disclosure request or something of that nature.
Yeah, I mean there was a lot of people you know that are weary at first, but it you know, people who live in that area like, they don't they don't really care about the perception of what people think in this capacity. They'll just say it how it is because you know, they they got to go back to the farm and work and really don't give a crap what, you know. They they don't care. They'll just say, oh, yeah, I saw this weird thing you know happen. I'm not exactly sure where, you know. Yeah, it is kind of a taboo subject where some people you know wouldn't want to talk. But like I said, I mean if the New Jersey thing doesn't you know, shed enough light on that. I mean, everyone was talking about it. It's become so mainstream now with these sightings, especially at Air Force bases in the UK and Langley and New Mexico and California in different places, that that it is becoming, you know, a topic of you know, a topic of conversation.
I do have, I do have on that on that note about the locals and the rich picture that you paint. Uh, we in the region, in the town. We're really in the atmosphere here. Just on a personal note, man, how's everybody doing interview?
Yeah, everyone's doing well. Uh. People are pretty excited about the podcast. They've they've really enjoyed, They've really enjoyed listening to it because it was such a weird thing and they all they all experienced it, you know together, and so to be able to you know, put this, put this together and kind of document They're always every time I would go home, they're like, how's the podcast? How's the thing coming along. It's taken a while to to get this off the ground because I do, you know, I do a few other things in LA and I wanted to kind of see how it would evolve over time too, because I talked to the same people, you know, different times, multiple times throughout the throughout the story, and so they're they're excited about it. Everyone's everyone's doing well. And you know, some people are still seeing seeing drones at there, or what they describe as drone. So it's interesting.
I've said this on the podcast multiple times, but many many years ago, when I was in a band and traveling through Nebraska, I very much saw a triangular kind of kite shaped like an architectural measuring tool, hovering in the distance. And I had a little camquarder at the time, and I got video of it on like a mini DV tape, which I have lost. I have a bunch of mini DV tapes in a bag somewhere hopefully one day find. But it was very, very striking and I will never forget it. And I couldn't tell you what it was, and I haven't really seen anything since that fully explains it. In my kind of rational brain, I like to think maybe I did catch a glimpse of some kind of experimental aircraft, but it was very odd and very similar to the way some of the sightings in Phoenix were described, you know, for the Phoenix Lights scenario, like in the late nineties. But I understand this idea I think we all do of seeing something that you can't fully explain, feeling like you're sort of, in some small way, part of a larger conversation. Yeah that's interesting.
Yeah, absolutely, Yet now I want to see that, but she don't. But you don't.
I'll find it right.
When we've been I've been trying.
I've been asking this guy for years, if you can give me that final push, Let's.
Let's find the tape. Let's find the tape.
I've got I've got one last thing here, Gab that i just want to put out there because I there's a feeling in the air, and there has been for a long time that the next big military conflict is on its way. When we're talking about like potentially a world war of some sort, some form or fashion, with all of these massive conflicts that are rising up around the world, and that's probably a feeling that humanity has shared since the end of the Second World War, right where we're like, oh, the next one's coming, the next one's coming. You have a feeling, at least I do, uh that something's coming. The concept of these drones being used or these whatever, these objects are being used to monitor nuclear sites, so sites that in the heartland of the United States, and you know, in places like Nebraska, in places like Colorado out in the middle of nowhere, missile sites that have nuclear missiles inside them or once did that would be launched in the event that there is a need for those things, at least according to the people at the top of the country. What do you think there's any type of experimental aircraft experimental security forces that are out there being used. Did you see any evidence of that?
I mean when I was as far as like, as far as related to the drones or as far as yeah, I mean I didn't personally see that. I mean, it would be a great area too, and that was one of the theories test new things. There's not a highly dense area out there, and there's a lot of pasture and stuff. I didn't see anything, you know, personally in that regard. And when it comes to like you said, there there are there are missile silos in the area, all kind of scattered throughout the great planes, which we delve into in the podcast a little bit. But you know, one of the biggest things for me with these drones and like all the sidings and that in the Pentagon went on the record you know about Langley Air Force Base and all of those different things, is that it is a security risk because we don't know what's flying obviously those drones do we don't know what capabilities those actually have and what is behind those and you know, if you take away the surveillance aspect, but just think about, like, we don't know what's actually flying in the sky, and you've seen all the things that have happened, you know, recently with different incidents in the sky. I think it's very important to know what's flying in the sky and where and how it could could impact different things. I think that's you know, one of the biggest, biggest questions.
And that's a commonality among a lot of UAP sightings is that they sometimes tend to hover around nuclear sites.
Yeah, you're two thousand with the disclosure projects that we heard multiple stories.
Of that dating back to post World War two exactly right, Yeah, and there there are you know. I love the point you made earlier, Gabe where he said, yes, there were newspaper reports from back in the day, from decades past, but I don't know how dependable those were, right, where these just sort of were these reports with maybe a light editorial touch, a little bit of embellishment to sell the paper. That's an open question, but we do. When you see people telling the same story over a window of time, right, and they have little in common other than their location on the planet and their eyewitness accounts, as flawed as eyewitness accounts can be, when they seem to bring true and hold those commonalities, it's time to really start digging in and exploring the questions, figuring out what is going on with this strange Gordian knot of social dynamics of technology that outpaces legislation. I feel like I'm ted talking here.
Gave.
The main question is what do you hope listeners take away from the first season of Obscure Them.
I hope listeners really are challenged to question the world around them and step out and figure out what's going on in their local community and realize that a lot of the stuff they may see, you know, on mainstream news is great for a broad perspective, but there are so many things that need to be asked right in your own backyard, and you need to be a citizen journalist and go out there and ask questions. I hope people are inspired to learn more about the stories that really surround surround them and where they live.
You're here, yeah, beautiful.
Yeah so, and I think too, I think, you know, I alluded to it before with my circus and the sky comment, but I think now more than ever, we have the most things, you know, I think it would be safe to say historically in the sky than ever. And I think there are a lot of things happening at the same time in the sky, and to kind of take everything into account, there's helicopters, there's UAP, there's airplanes, there's people flying consumer drones, there's probably military drones. There's probably people doing other types of surveillance. There's probably the electrical company. You know, there's a lot of different things happening at the same time.
And I think, and to your point about the FAS capabilities, like it's getting so crowded out there. I can't imagine being able to know exactly what all of them are doing at all times. It doesn't even seem logistically possible. Or maybe that's more something in the realm of military surveillance, but even they would probably be struggling with that.
I mean, it has to be tough. I mean, think about that. I mean you can go buy you can go buy a drone and fly it. Yeah, and think if everyone's doing that, you know, how do you how do you regulate that they sell.
Them at Barnes and Noble.
I didn't know that. Yeah, act now it's funny.
It's funny you mentioned that game because I was texting the guys earlier this morning to see about getting some drones. So I don't know if I got the right takeaway from the show, but one thing we can say for sure is that this is the kind of investigation that needs to happen more often, you know, because for every hundred of people right, or every two hundred people who see something right, how many will come forward or how many will look further into it. One thing I thought about a lot while researching the show and listening through was the threshold that it would take for your average person to actually contact authorities. I don't know how it is over in Nebraska, but in a lot of these United States, that's a pretty high bar. So that I think as to the reality, the concrete nature of what's happening. And this is where there's something you do at the end of every episode where you and your team ask people who have similar stories or may have some insider information, you ask them to reach out to you all directly. Where's the best way for folks to contact you and your team.
So there's a few different ways you can do that, and that is a great point because and I've gotten some interesting people reaching out that have seen, you know, drone things in a lot of areas of the country. And if you want to go on the website, there's a spot where you can share your story. So share your story, you can go on there. You can also hit us up on social media at Obscure Them that's obs c U r U M Underscore series and send me a DM. I'd love to hear from you there. And then the thing too that's been really inspiring with that is to see people commenting on the podcast on where the podcast is too, and it's almost like a conversation there and people are saying, oh, I saw this, I experienced this. So if you wherever you listen to your podcast to if you can, if you can comment there, that's a great way for us to see your stories too.
And Gabe, we've listened through episode eight. Are there more episodes coming?
Yeah, So there's one final episode which is going to come out tomorrow, and then hopefully, hopefully we're gonna like I said, I was, so I was in New Jersey. I literally decided to get on a plane as we were finishing production on these because I didn't know what would happen there. So I flew to New Jersey and was kind of on the ground. I just randomly booked a flight and took my producer with me and we went all over kind of New Jersey at the height of everything that was happening there. So we're hoping to put more episodes together and release those soon. In the New Jersey content this season is very, very compelling. But the New Jersey stuff, I'm excited to get that out there because there are a lot of high level kind of officials that were kind of talked to at the time, and we were chasing these with the Sheriff's Department in with the Coast Guard on the Jersey shore, which is very which is very weird, and so I'm excited for you all to uh, hopefully, hopefully we'll get those together soon. But but I tell you, it's it's a story that won't go away, but it just gets a stranger and stranger.
I love that You're gonna have a different pellette of accents.
Trust me, Gabe.
Gabe has not given us spoilers, so we're right there with you. Uh, we're going to be tuning in as well, Gabe. Thanks million Man. Just full disclosure because we we uphold transparency in everything we do on this show.
Uh.
Your West coast, we're East coast. You woke up early for this.
I forgot that.
I just appreciate. I just appreciate you guys that doing. It's been some much fun to hang out and yeah, hopefully hopefully we can do it again soon. And yeah it is early, but I got some coffee. I'm gonna go get some more.
So oh good.
Absolutely Obscureum Invasion of the Drones available now wherever you find your favorite podcast. What a cool guy, you know, folks, friends, dabors, fellow conspiracy realists. It's not all the time, or it's not super often that we get to hang out with a colleague. We're interviewing just off air, and we kept it was like the no you hang up things.
Uh.
It was a fascinating conversation, one that will only become, I would argue, more important in the near future.
Lovely fellow and super talented storyteller and weathermen apparently.
Oh yeah, and there's so much that we didn't cover that exists within that series there. God, we didn't even talk about cattle mutilation.
We didn't talk about the abduction experience.
Yeah, we don't.
I mean that stuff is a little more out there, right when it comes to talking with somebody who like Gabe, who you know, I was going to say, is a little more serious about that. But those those are serious topics. It's just they're definitely more fringe, I think. Then the series goes in that wants to explore, the series, wants answers.
Yeah, but it's woven into the narrative so well, it's real, no stone left unturned thing. And I didn't get to say it when we were in the interview, but you guys, my favorite chapter title is space Potatoes, Space potastic. It's fantastic. We are not blowing smoke. We want to hear your opinions, folks. If you dig our show, you will love obscure them. And you know, the community is a big part of this, So send us your stories of strange things in the sky. You can find us via email. You can find us on a telephonic device of your choice hopefully, or you can hit us on the lines online on the Internet.
Indeed, you can find us at the hamlic Conspiracy Stuff where we exist, on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube with video content galore for your perusing enjoyment, and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok over. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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