Hello, and welcome to Open Minds Radio. This is your host Alejandro Rojas,
and I am here with my good buddy Jason mccloen. Hello Alejandro,
and hello everybody. Yeah. I'm really excited because, you know, we
moved to this new office and I'm sure people could hear in the background,
people like in the microwave and getting water and ice and stuff. But fighting
over coffee, yeah, fighting and general also slap boxing. Yeah, lot
of that going on. Yeah. Sometimes they get upset with each other and
they kind of slap each other. Yeah, a little bit, pull each
other's hair. That's office. Yeah, offices work, yeah, exactly.
So now we are in our conference room with some microphones to hopefully have things
sound a little better, and they sounds great. You sound great, Jason,
Well, I always sound great, But thank you for finally finally noticing
you are sounding wonderful this morning. Excellent. Speaking of wonderful, our guest
this week is wonderful. It is Linda Zimmerman and I'm really excited because I
wanted to talk to her for a while. She wrote a book called Hudson
Valley UFOs, and she's written a couple books Into the Night Sky, all
about UFOs in New York. So we talked to her about how she got
into this. She actually investigated paranormal for a while, but before that she
was kind of a mainstream person who worked in science and stuff, and it's
like, why would someone like this get involved with the paranormal. Well we'll
find out why and just a little bit. So really fun to talk to
her, and we'll have that on in a minute. Any other like big
news, I feel like I'm forgetting something but I can't think of big news.
Well I do have some big news when it comes to UFO news.
Well that's good. Yeah, that's good when it comes to UFO News,
which of course Jason and I cover every week. But first we want to
say welcome to Roger Marsh. So this is really cool. Roger Marsh is
the director of communications for mofon and he, as many of you know,
writes about the sighting reports that MOFON gets. And it's cool because once in
a while. First of all, she'll write about the latest and greatest sightings
as they happen on a daily basis, but he also has kind of special
access, or at least quicker access to look at the cases that have been
resolved and determined to be unknowns, and so he's able to interview at least
the investigators, sometimes even the witnesses and then write stories on that so you
can kind of get the insight on the investigation on some of these things,
which is cool too. And this is all part of the effort that move
On has to release, you know, information as quick as possible to show
that they are transparent, and you know they are. They do feel it's
important to get people information as soon as possible, and they always have but
we are very happy to be a part of it. And now Roger Marsh
will be posting on Openminds dot tv. So last week we already started and
we had a couple of cool sightings that we posted. One of them in
particular, Well they've both done really good, a lot of people are interested,
gotten a lot of hits. But our good buddy George Napplick reposted one
of those, so we got a lot of hits on that one. And
that's pretty interesting because it was an object that this this lady saw that she
said, look to be football size, football field size. But that's a
lot bigger, that's a bit, there's a big difference big different. Yeah,
and a football field so sorry, football field so really huge UFO Pretty
cool, So go to the site to check that out. However, I
wanted to ask Jason, what was your favorite UFO story of the week last
week? My favorite UFO story last week was about a football field sized UFO.
No, I'm kidding. Okay, a good story, but a lot
of people were you know, it's easy to get frustrated with stories like that.
Let's go off on the tangent here for a little bit, because you
know, I agree with people. You know, we read stories like that.
We're all, that sounds incredible, but why is there any photo or
video? I want to see this thing. We know that it's not not
always possible for these witnesses to get photos and or video, but when you
have something incredible like that, reading it, I agree with everybody who is
frustrated saying I want to see the video meet you. But that is a
really good point to bring up, because I think people are used to our
site that we usually don't cover a story unless there's a picture or a video,
right, And of course, a lot of the times the video is
to turn out to be something mundane or something we can figure out, or
at least often you and I feel that it is something that is mundane or
for a reasonable explanation, right, right, So these often, in fact,
I think maybe there's been only one or two times prior that we've posted
a story without a picture or a video, because we try to make sure
there's some visual component. However, these stories, yeah, often come without
pictures or video, but they're still interesting because there's sometimes multiple witnesses and certainly,
you know, seeing from the popularity of the stories, that people still
like to hear what other people are seeing. But you've got to remember one
that not everybody has the presence of mind to grab their camera. And really,
if you're seeing lights in the night sky, that's nearly impossible. In
fact, that would challenge anyone to take your phone outside at night and try
to film a satellite, or try to film even a plane at a high
altitude flying around really difficult to do. Yeah, plane, bright stars,
planets, even the moon. You know, take a picture or video of
the moon at night with your with your cell phone and photos aren't that great
enough. And even if you get something, it's hard to discern what the
heck it is that's right, So no real usable details from those photos.
Yeah, so it's really hard to do that sort of thing. So I
can under understand why some people wouldn't have pictures and videos. But it's just
and it is funny because you know, you're damned if you do damned if
you don't photos. That's a good point exactly, because even if you get
a photo, everybody's like, no, that's plain, let's Chinese lantern or
something, because you can't tell what it is anyway. But being visual creatures,
yeah, we want to see the video. We want to see the
photo. It helps put that image to the details in the in the reports.
But with that said, I think these reports are important. There are
good details that come out in these citing reports, even though they don't have
the visuals to go along with it. You're right, and we are visual
creatures in fact that when it comes to you and I visually stunning creatures.
Yeah, some people are luckier than others, and we are blessed. My
friend, the aliens favored us. Yeah, yeah, there are bad All
right, Well let's get back on track and I will now answer your question.
I guess we have two weeks worth of stories to choose from this show.
Oh, that's right. Because of the holiday, we didn't have a
shot. I want to talk about a story that we've talked about several times,
has been sort of an ongoing story for the past couple of years,
and many of you probably remember this. It was great video that came out
in twenty twelve from an amateur astronomer named Alan Eppling. Now, he took
a photos and video of a weird cigar shaped UFO in Kentucky in October of
twenty twelve. Now, this was quickly kind of dismissed by local media as
being a toy solar balloon. And you know, many people wouldn't. They
didn't buy that explanation because they look at available photos of solar balloons and it
you know, solar balloons didn't look anything like this object. It was transparent
rather than solar balloons that are usually more garbage bag like the black sort of
plastic thingy. But you know, while that could possibly explain it, and
Alan Eppling at the time admitted, hey, look, I'm not saying that
this is an extraterresturial spacecraft. It could be. I have no idea what
it is, but I'm doubted the balloon theory. I will accept a balloon
as a possible explanation, but this thing hovered in the sky for hours,
and balloons don't typically do that, and you know, there could be some
technology that could do that, but it seems pretty strange. Well, about
a year after that, Google came out Google the giant tech company, and
claimed responsibility for this UFO, saying that that what people saw was just a
test of Project Loon, this new project they're testing to try to bring internet
to places where there isn't internet, so basically like these floating Wi Fi hotspots.
So when Ellen Efling heard that, he said, you know, again,
I entertain, I would possibly entertain the idea that what I saw was
a balloon, But unless they figured out how to make a balloon hover in
the sky for hours, you know, it's still pretty fishy to me.
And I agree with him. And there were still people who didn't buy the
story because Google came out out with this Project Loon and published videos and photos
of testing being done with these balloons, and they didn't look anything like what
we see in Alan Appling's photos and videos. So again that made people question
this assertion that what people saw was Project Loon Balloons. Then almost a year
after that, now Google just came out and said, so, yeah,
that balloon of ours that people saw and thought it was a UFO, it
was actually a prototype. So that's why it looked different than the other balloons
that we've shown you. But we still don't have photos of that prototype that
they call Falcon eleven prototype. So who don't know what that looks like.
But I don't want to rant here too much and doubt Google, but it
does seem fishy that, you know, they didn't make this assertion when they
first claimed responsibility, and at that time all of these questions were there.
People wanted, well, how can you say that when it doesn't look anything
like that? How do you explain that? There was no explanation at that
time. It took almost a year later for them to come forward and say,
oh, look, here's why it was this prototype. And the more
interesting thing from that story is that they now admit that they lost control of
this balloon when they launched it from California, and they lost control and they
lost the ability to track it. They had no idea where this balloon was,
and so they say that they relied on UFO skywatchers, UFO hunters to
track the balloon. They just watched online for people reporting UFOs. That's what
they assert. But I don't know how they could possibly know that this was
their balloon. And you know why, I took them a year to claim
that. There are a lot of weird loosens and just oddities to this story.
To me, yeah, I got personally, I got a call BS
on Google because sure will I do? I felt all along it was probably
some sort of weather balloon or solar balloon or something like that. Google can't
make claim to this thing. It makes no sense. First of all,
they say they lost control of this thing. It was then seen in Kansas,
and then later in Canada. Yeah, California, then over through the
South Kentucky and some other stays and then yeah, yeah I think up into
Canada. Yeah, which is kind of crazy. And if they lost control,
how can they claim that this is theirs? They don't know for sure?
How could you? How is it possible whatsoever to know for sure it's
yours unless you had some sort of tracking device on the thing. But if
that was the case, they wouldn't have lost it, So they had no
idea where their balloon is they don't. I mean, the best they could
say is that is probably our balloon, just because they recovered something in Canada
later and they know that that's what Alan Efflin saw and the UFO tracking ideas.
Absolutely, it really is absurd. And then this is what you know,
you suggested to me, and I agree with you. I mean,
it seems more like a publicity stunt on their part to bring up the whole
UFO angle and latch onto that story because that was a big story. It
was making international headlines and it did for you know, that year, and
then they reignited it by claiming responsibility in twenty thirteen and then now bringing it
up again and bringing the UFO angle into it again by saying, oh,
and we relied on UFO trackers to find it. Yeah, there are over
something like, on a monthly basis, five hundred UFO sidings throughout the United
States. Yeah, and they were able to somehow go through the database and
determine which one was their balloon and which wasn't. That really doesn't make any
sense to me, especially, I mean, they would have had to have
gone to move on if they could have said, if they would have said
well, you know, we think this sighting was our balloont this sighting was
our balloon, but they haven't shown any It's a complete lack of information and
what they've said so far doesn't really fit or hold true. It seems like,
yeah, they're latching onto this UFO thing for publicity. Yeah, I
think that's the most likely explanation. Just so many things with the story sound
like thes to me. I agree with you. Yeah, really bizarre.
I mean a total lack of information and it just doesn't fit. And I
mean, I don't know if they haven't addressed the fact that he saw this
thing stationary in the sky. Balloons are stationary, I mean they can appear
to be that way for a while. They can sort of drift and change
elevation and catch another air current and travel back the other direction. So it
seems like it's kind of staying in the same place, but not for hours.
I guess. It kind of gets under my skin a little bit too,
is they're kind of making fun of UFO observers. I mean it's kind
of like, oh, look at these silly people, so see balloons,
and we knew these silly people would think that they were UFOs, so we
decided to let them track it that way. I mean, it's it's condescending
and I don't like it. I don't like it either. We should be
making fun of these people, these technology giants. They lose control of their
balloon and can even track it, says Google, They track everything. Yeah,
and I do like Google. I love Google. So they love Google,
but Google Google X. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
They X. I don't know. They're not holding upholding to the gold
standard of Google. That's right. So I don't know Google x X,
Google x x Google x. That's right. Ex Google x ex Google x
ex Google x. Yeah. All right, Well what is your story,
Elejandro. That's a tough one because we had a couple of good stories,
and I should mention some of our really cool stories have been coming from submissions
because now that we don't do the print magazine, some of those people such
as Umberto Visiano are Italian friend, and then Paul stone Hill, who covers
Russian UFO stories, have been writing some stories to post on the website.
So that's really cool. They have some really cool stuff, like UFOs over
the Kingdom of Georgia. It's a really historical piece too, because you get
to learn the history of Georgia and not the state the country. But the
other hard thing is we've got otherwise some really cool stories too, in that
we have this air safety board in Australia's story with the UFO nearly colliding with
an airplane. However, some kind of cheating and plugging some of the stories.
But I want to go with the EPA report on mysterious cattle deaths at
Area fifty one. One of my favorite researchers and cool dudes, Shepherd Johnson,
is actually the guy who sent me this document that he found. He's
always calming databases for cool files on UFOs. He's the one who showed me,
you know, at least one Air Force file in blue Book that had
mentioned Area fifty one, which is really cool because I didn't realize. I
don't think anybody realized that blue Book had mentioned the term Area fifty one before
it was supposed to be out there. It was supposed to be secret at
that time. But this is really neat. This is from June of nineteen
seventy seven, and it's a report from the EPA on Mysterious cattle Deaths at
Area fifty one. So these EPA investigators decided to go check it out.
They go talk to security at the base. They give them a map of
the Groom Lake where which is, you know, essentially where the airstrips are
at area fifty one, and the map is marked with the mysterious cattle deaths
and these guys go investigate them. At first, you're thinking, you know,
oh, cattle mutilation. However, it seems like these animals died mysteriously.
They couldn't determine it during the investment mitigation, they couldn't figure out how
these things died. But they didn't say they were mutilated, but they couldn't
figure out how they died. And really, when you read this report,
you can see that they're really baffled, and they ruled out all of the
possible ways these could have died in a normal manner. So it was a
mystery that was never solved. But really neat that you had this kind of
cattle mutilation or cattle death mystery going on that no one knew about nineteen seventy
seven at Area fifty one. That is now released to the public. And
I guess one of the things that's curious too, is whether this document has
been out there, you know, if it was just bound, or if
this is yet another document that should have redacted the name Area fifty one but
didn't and has been out there for some time. So it's kind of funny.
It's also interesting, I think, and I'd love to hear your thoughts
on this, that even though Area fifty one is a secret base, its
existence is denied and the CIA's documents and many others, most others crossed out
the name or blacked out any reference to Area fifty one or Groom Lake,
and you know, whole sections of documents blacked out to keep Area fifty one
secret. However, there are a handful of documents out there where this wasn't
done. Either there's agencies who weren't where they were supposed to do that,
or agencies who maybe aren't as careful about redacting information, but that the name
was out there. You know. I think I thought about this, and
I think it's highly likely that several of these instances where you do see Area
fifty one in documents is just human error. Yeah, I think you're right,
And there are so many organizations, it's not like all information go through
one single like Final Source. You know, these are individual, independent organizations
and they have people responsible for releasing documents or whatever. Humans are fallible,
I mean, stuff is going to get through. Yeah, and I'm sure
there's going to be a lot of people that disagree with me on this.
And it's just a thought because it makes me think if there is our aliens
or extraterrestrial craft there, it's kind of sloppy that the name would be getting
out there and human error, you know, would cause these errors where the
name is out there if it was you know, extremely extremely top secret.
And it also makes me think of other secret projects. Why haven't we seen
the name slip here and there on those too? So yeah, well,
I mean, yeah, I know a lot of people disagree with me,
and I've said this before, but because humans are fallible and secrets, you
know, always find a way of getting out. I find it personally,
I find it difficult to believe that some of these claims of humongous secrets being
kept by the government and have been for many, many many years and they
haven't come out. I find that suspect because again, I mean a lot
of government employees are people. I know a lot of government employees personally,
I may or may not be an employment of the government myself. So you
know, these people that I know, and we all know government employees,
they're they're people. They're normal people. And people talk, you know,
whether you get them drunk in a bar, or they tell something to their
spouse at night, or your favorite method is seduction. Seduction. Seduction is
a great way to pull information, but information does get spread if and people
have big mouths, certain people some people are great at keeping secrets, but
people could talk, and people do slip up in blocking guide information and documents.
Yeah, it's really interesting, but I think either way, it's another
mysterious it's mysterious phenomenon documented by the EPA where they never figure out what happened.
They even did some tests for poison in the drinking water, it wasn't
that they did a really thorough investigation, you can see, and they were
left baffled. So I think it's a really cool story. And I was
really excited when Shepard had shown me this document and happy that he let me
post this. And I'll mention, I guess because we haven't talked since he's
or maybe we did mention this last time on the show. But he wrote
an article for us also because he was at the congressional hearing with the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI, and he interviewed Sess Shastak, right, and that
was a really cool story we have on the website also, Yeah, exclusive
interview with Seth their post hearing. So yeah, Shepherd's doing great stuff.
And now it's time for our Spacing Out plug So of course a lot of
these stories. There's a lot of other really cool stories too, like this
UFO type thing scene over here, uh An Iceberg, some other cool stuff,
and of course Maureen and Jason cover the UFO news of the week on
Spacing Out, which is posted every Friday. Yeah, youtobe you'd like to
hear more news and also see our physically superior selves, you can watch us
every Friday on our YouTube channel or just open Minds dot tv. Just be
careful of letting Jason seduce you, because he's just trying to get information out
of you. That's right. I'm warning people right now. But if you'd
like to share information and be seduced, I can help you with that.
Yeah, there you go, voluntary. Yeah, and you're probably going to
be some people that are going to try and take you up on that.
So I think so, and I'll talk like this, yeah, hello,
Hello, we'll about UFOs. Yeah, yeah, hey, I got some
Why don't you share some of that information on UFOOS baby, that's right.
Oh, I'm gonna try that. That's right. Let's go to area fifty
one and try Hey. Oh I could try that. I haven't tried that.
Good. Yeah, I'll try that. Okay. So that's what we'll
be doing next weekend. All right, And if any of you want to
be seduced and or have information UFOL information pulled from you involuntarily, my email
address is Jason openminds dot TV. Hit me up. Oh my gosh,
you're desperate for you're a married man. You should cut this out. You're
taking it too far. Look, you can't announce that now. Nobody's gonna
give me their information. You're blowing my cover here. Yeah, when I'm
saving your your marriage. Well, she understands that I've got a job to
do. Oh okay, good, like any secret government agent. Actually,
that will just bring you more people, probably because you know the mystery of
being involved with a lurid affair that's an old wives tale. Well, we'll
find out. We'll find out, all right, Thank you, Jason,
it's my pleasure. We we'll talk to you next week. However, without
further ado, let's go ahead and talk to Linda Zimmerman. I am very
excited to have Linda Zimmerman with me, as she wrote the book in the
Night Sky Hudson Valley UFO sidings one of the UFO hotspots. Welcome, Linda,
Well, thank you very much for having me. Yeah, I'm really
excited to talk to you. It looks like you've done a lot of paranormal
investigation over the years. Yes, for I guess over fifteen years now,
I've been doing paranormal investigations in the Hudson Valley and combining it with my love
of history, getting the whole interesting picture of this area that is so rich
with history for hundreds of years. And what got you into the paranormal It
looks like you were kind of into ghost hutting before UFOs. Really. Well,
I was actually a research chemist with a great interest in history. So
I was talking about history of my county, Rockland County, which was having
its bicentennial, and I was telling some of the old Indian legends and some
of the Dutch and English folks stories and people just started asking about ghost stories.
And to be honest, I was a little indignant at first, you
know, I'm giving a history lecture, but so many people asked and I
loved ghost stories. I loved Hans Holzer when I was a kid. So
I just started collecting stories and people started asking me to their homes and businesses
to investigate, and it really just took off, you know, a couple
of years in I was like, what just happened? Suddenly I'm a ghost
investigator. But it was fascinating, and it actually led to the UFO investigations
because after a lecture, people would come up and start telling me their UFO
stories. And I was a little a little puzzled at first, you know,
I'm talking about ghosts. Why are you talking about UFOs? And they'd
say, well, it's all connected, isn't it? And uh I didn't
see any connection. But their stories were so fascinating. I said, Okay,
some something big is going on here and the story needs to be told.
H So when you began doing this, this, these ghost investigations,
were you skeptical at first? I was definitely skeptical. Uh, it's as
you know, it's one thing to listen to somebody's story. It's another to
to prove, you know, the validity of what they're saying. But uh,
I can. I can honestly say after a after a couple of hundred
investigations, I'm fairly well convinced that something paranormal is definitely going on. And
what convinced you? When was the moment that if there was a moment,
or maybe it was over a period of time where you went from skeptic to
wow, there's something really here. Actually I was in Gettysburg and I was
writing about Civil War reenactors, you know, nothing paranormal, and my husband
and I were at the wheat field it was actually the anniversary of the battle,
and we saw this Confederate soldier walking across the field who we assumed was
a reenactor. And actually I said, well, this guy's the worst Confederate
reenactor. He's too bright and shiny. He should be dirty and grungy.
And my husband so we'll just interview him anyway. So I reached down to
get my pen and pen and when I sat up, he was gone.
And we're looking and I said, oh, no, he must have fallen
down yeah, about one hundred and fifty years ago. So we went running
out into the field we just couldn't find he had just disappeared. Wow.
My husband and I both saw the same thing and was like, okay,
this is this is something we absolutely can't deny. So you know that sticks
with you and to me, seeing is believing. How interesting? Yeah,
of course this is an interview about UFOs, but I find this stuff so
interesting I want to ask a couple more questions. What then, I mean,
the the movies portray the ghost phenomena is pretty scary, you know,
it's all horror type of stuff. And these children that looked mangled, kind
of popping out of the mirror and stuff like that. I mean, that
doesn't seem to be what ghost centers find for the most part with this phenomena.
No, that would make our job so much easier. That dramatic.
But it's usually something no more than a whisper or a footstep or a feeling.
And as an investigator you try to research the history of the location,
combine it with the eye witness reports, and then whatever evidence you might find.
And really these are all the same disciplines you use for UFO investigations as
well, so it was it was good training. So when you do with
ghost investigation, and I think here's where there is also some more crossover.
What sort of measurement do you use? Do you take some equipment and measure
different types of things? Sure, we use EMF meters, electromagnetic field meters,
take the temperature, we use night vision, Geiger counters, anything we
can pop possibly used to get some objective scientific measurements at a location, and
you don't always get them, but sometimes you know, you'll hit a cold
spot and suddenly your EMF meter is spiking and you say, okay, it's
not my imagination. So just as do you look for photographic evidence or EMF
readings, you know in a in a UFO sighting case, we do the
same thing in ghost investigations. When it comes to that, before we get
in kind of more of the details of the sightings, do you think then
there are that there's a tie in with the the MF for example, Are
there similar sort of phenomena happening you think? I think probably even more so
with with UFO sightings with EMF readings, because they are using some sort of
propulsions. So I'm sure there's some sort of electricity ems waves being generated with
their vehicles or whatever their equipment is. So if you're at the site of
a of a recent encounter, or you're seeing something right in front of you,
if you have a meter that's suddenly showing you know, high magnetism or
high electricity, it's a valuable tool. So any any scientific equipment that can
validate what you're seeing or feeling is very valuable. So you're doing these tacts
and people start to come up to you and tell you that your UFOs their
UFO storage where you're kind of like, okay, I gave this ghost thing
a go, but UFOs as a little too much for me. It was
nothing I ever thought I would pursue. But then, you know, I
used to be a research chemist. I never thought I'd be doing ghost hunting
either, but I so many credible people came up to me over the span
of so many years. It was it was just something I couldn't ignore,
and I thought, well, you know, what kind of credibility do I
have anyway with my ghost hunting, I might as well, you know,
I might as well get into UFOs as well. But it's funny in the
Hudson Valley area of New York. Here's it's much more accepted, I think
than perhaps in other parts of the country because if you grew up here,
especially if you were around here in the nineteen eighties, you if you didn't
see something, your family member, your friend, somebody you know, did
it was it was that prevalent. So I have found it to be far
more accepting of the UFO phenomenon in this area. That's really interesting because there
aren't many places like that, and I've heard that before, and I guess
this is another tie in with the ghost phenomenon in that there are hot spots,
it seems when it comes to ghost activity. And you can correct me
or but it's also certainly true UFO sightings. It seems to be, and
I don't have an explanation for that, but they're in spots of high strangeness
as they call it. It can be strangeness of all kinds, and we
certainly have it in abundance here. So at one point, I mean,
when people first started coming to you with these UFO stories. In UFO research,
we do know of Hudson Valley being a hot spot, but were you
aware of that at yes, I grew up in this area, and I
actually had a sighting of my own when I was in college. Wow,
which was very dramatic, these three separate lights which came together in this brilliant
blue flash and then lowered down onto the top of a mountain and pulsated.
And you know, I was in college at the time, getting my science
degree, and it's like, okay, how do we explain this scientifically?
We don't. So I was very much aware of it. And again,
if you lived here in the nineteen eighties during that incredible flap, it was
it was a part of every day. I mean I interviewed people who who
said, well, yeah, you know, I saw the giant triangle around
the third or fourth time. I just you know, said, okay,
there it is again, you know, which is is just remarkable. Some
people are fortunate to see something for five or ten seconds, and here were
people having ten to twenty minute sightings several times in a month. And to
get to the point of this blase attitude, yeah, there's UFOs. What
are we going to do about it? Is? I don't think there's too
many parts of the country where where that's too prevalent. Right, So this
flap in the eighties. How did that? When did it begin? And
how? It began in December of nineteen eighty two, and it really really
really picked up and had two remarkable sightings a week apart, in March of
nineteen eighty three, Mark seventeenth and March twenty fourth. Those two nights,
it's estimated that perhaps well over ten thousand people wow, saw these massive silent
triangles or V shaped objects. One of the most dramatic interviews I conducted was
with three teachers who were coming home from graduate school and all the road,
all the cars on the highway were stopped, so they stopped and got out,
and they said a triangle bigger than a football field was silently hovering over
them, just at tree top level, and it was there for twenty minutes.
Wow, I'm so jealous, you know, I would love to have
experienced that. And the same thing happened the following week, and you can
imagine major highways in New York suddenly stopped, but every car and truck stopped
and people getting out and just watching these. It was. It was a
breathtaking couple of weeks, and it continued on and off for several years.
I've heard someone say probably one of the longest, if not the longest flap
in UFO history in eighty three when that those events took place, did that
also hit the media? Oh? Yes, but generally not in any positive
supporting way. You know, a lot of you know, the old excuses
of mass hysteria and planes flying in formation and of course the planet Venus and
and and everything else. It It was unfortunate because it was happening so often
with such intensity. It would have been a really good time for the government
to, you know, to come out and admit, either we don't know
what these are, or we know what they are, but don't be afraid
I mean something. But they just denied and ridiculed, and you know,
tried to put a lid on the whole thing. And why do you think
the media does that? Well. I interviewed a reporter who worked in the
town of Poughkeepsie, and one of these triangles came right over their newspaper office,
and all of these reporters were on the roof watching this for many,
many minutes. Wow, when it passed off, went off into the distance,
they ran downstairs to file their reports and photos, and the owner came
in with somebody in a suit and said this did not happen. Basically,
anybody who writes a word about this is fired, and the media tried on
many occasions. I interviewed a state trooper who tried to tell his story to
the newspaper, and the newspaper said, there's no chance we're getting this story
in from somebody as reliable as you. So some people did publish stories,
but it wasn't the media attention did not live up to the level of the
sightings. And did that journalist to kind of share his speculation and who that
person in the suit might have been, Well, he was sure it was
Air Force or CIA or some government. In fact, some of the reporters
were later harassed by some sort of government officials who didn't white identify themselves,
and he was he was furious about this, even even thirty years later.
You know, where's freedom of the press? I mean, we saw the
most spectacular thing we've ever seen and witnessed in our lives, and we're not
allowed to write a word about it. You know, constitutional rights aside.
It's it's it's crazy for a newspaper to pass up a story that would have
been a you know, a large right right. So there was apparently extreme
pressure being exerted on on members of the media during that time. Wow,
when you looked into this and talked to people, did you run into more
of that? Everywhere? Everywhere? One one woman I interviewed, her whole
family had a dramatic sighting of this diamond shaped object, which again stopped traffic.
She tried to report it, and you know, they just laughed at
her and they're like, really, don't don't waste your breath. Wow,
it's it's not going to happen. So again, there were newspaper reports and
they usually ended with but government officials have assured us it was a formation of
small Cessna airplanes, so they usually had to include that, you know,
the disclaimer of the day. Wow, interesting you mentioned photos. Were there
some photos taken in are ever printed or that you saw? The best one
I saw was taken the night of March twenty fourth, when those three teachers
viewed that object. It was a high school photography student who took this remarkable
photo of a large, brilliantly lit triangle beaming a light down to the ground
and illuminating the grind bound below it. It was published in the newspaper a
couple of weeks later. H and I tracked this man down thirty years later
and I said, are you the same man who took this photo? And
he's like, wow, that's a that's a blast from the past, he
said, But why why are you interested? You know, the police told
me it was just a formation of planes, and I said, did you
look at your own foot? Does that look like a formation of planes.
So there was photographic evidence, and it just wasn't you know, it was
dismissed as, oh, yeah, the kid took a picture of some planes,
what's what's the big deal? And there were where where there was other
video, other photographs, but again the same thing, Oh you're you're just
taking picture of a flight of military jets or ultra lights or it was never
given. None of them were ever given in credence. And what people were
reporting were they all triangular or V shaped. During the nineteen eighties, that
was the predominant shape that was seen. Some were circular. Some described things
to me like a massive tinker toys or you know those erector sets see like
girders and things. So there was a variety, but the nineteen eighties was
the decade of the giant triangle here, and so do you get a censor
or that Perhaps then some of those government people knew more they had to have.
So many people told me that military helicopters took off after these objects,
or flights of military jets. One man told me a story from going back
to the nineteen fifties. In this area, they saw this huge cigar shaped
craft sitting there for I don't know, ten twenty minutes, and they scrambled
three fighter jets from the local Air Force base. And as these fighter jets
were, I mean they were bearing down on this object. I don't know
if they were ready to fire on it. But as they approached, this
thing went vertical and took off in the blink of an eye, and the
jets just went through open air. And the next day there was an article
in the paper. Nothing to worry about. Yes, fighter jets were scrambled,
but it was only a weather balloon, so clearly they had something on
radar. You don't scramble three fighter jets in the nineteen fifties because of a
weather balloon, one would hope. So in this area, at least they
had to have known for a long time. And I interviewed a man who
was with the Air Force and working at the radar installation at this Air Force
Stewart Air Force Base, and he said, one night some object raced up
the east coast at speeds we couldn't even imagine, and everybody knew it wasn't
ours, it wasn't the Russians. And he said, everybody was just in
such an incredible state of excitement. And he said they spoke about that for
months. And this was a strategic Air Command facility. So when when they
get excited about something, it's something to get excited about, right. Wow.
So there is there an air Force base in the area Stewart? Is
that what it is? Yes? Now it's it's not just an Air Force
base anymore. It's also now a commercial Air Force airport, but there is
still some military I think the Air Force reserves or they fly supplies in and
out of there. It's not a fighter base any longer. But in the
nineteen fifties it was one of the three centers for Project Blue Book reports.
It was Stuart Wright Patterson and and Air Force Base. I've seen a lot
of the documents where all you know, they gathered reports and shared them among
those three Air Force baces, and it was one of the locations for Northeast
Defense, so it was very prominent. In fact, I have a chapter
in my new book, Hudson Valley UFOs just on blue book sightings made by
Air Force personnel at that Air Force base. Oh cool, wow, neat,
yeah, eye openers. Have you did you ever feel that perhaps some
of these sightings or were you know, maybe top secret projects or something like
that. I think so. I have spoken to ultra light pilots who were
flying merrily along and had the strange cylindrical craft with stubby wings go racing by
them, and they thought these must be UFOs. And many of these pilots
in this area of this the Shawangunk Mountains, had seen these and it wasn't
until the Gulf War started and we all learned about drones, you know,
unmanned aerial aircraft, that they realized that's what they had been seeing. So
somebody in the Hudson Valley was testing drones decades ago and certainly not letting the
citizens know about it. So I'm sure other types of aircraft have been and
probably still are being tested in this area. So and you think that might
account for some of these signings. I think it probably has to. But
you know, when you get something the size of a football field silently hovering
over you for twenty minutes, you know that I think is beyond our capability,
or certainly was at that point, but certainly drones could have. You
know, we did have a military air force base here, we have West
Point, There's a lot of air force. There's a lot of commercial airports
in the area, so misidentified conventional aircraft and possibly military unconventional aircraft could account
for a good portion. But I actually found newspaper accounts going back to nineteen
oh nine, Wow in this area, talking about these mysterious airships that hover
at night and take off at great speeds. We absolutely did not have anything
capable of doing that back then. So even if you discount some of the
more modern sightings, the older ones cannot be ignored. Yeah. Pretty interesting.
So did you ever, in some of your investigations approach to it and
ask them for any sort of official ascim if they knew of anything going on
in the area or ascent for a statement. I did not approach them to
ask for a statement. I had talked to several former you know, military
men who worked at Stewart. And again they said, don't even bother,
they're not going to talk to you. So but I did talk to enough
former personnel to get a pretty good picture of what they knew and what had
been going on there. Well that's really interesting too. So you do have
two books. You have in the Night Sky, I came out what last
year? And then this year is Hudson Valley UFOs so pretty new, right,
yes, just a couple of months old. I hadn't anticipated doing a
second book, but people kept contacting me and saying, I have a story
to tell you. You have to listen to me. And again there was
just such a compelling group of stories. And when I found those nineteen oh
nine articles, I said, okay, we can we can push the envelope
back even farther now, and and you know, have an even richer tapestry
of stories to tell the nature of the objects seen in nineteen oh nine.
Were that the account similar to accounts that happened in mon Now, Well,
yes, they didn't know what they were seeing. They were always at night.
They were essentially seeing lights. Some thought perhaps they were cylindrical, just
by lights at either end, and the characteristics were they could hover silently,
and they could take off at great speeds, and they could stay in Some
of the sightings lasted as long as four hours wow, which if you knew
what you know, if you're familiar with what planes looked like in nineteen oh
nine, they were lucky to stay up for thirty minutes. And no plane
had yet to fly at night in the United States in nineteen oh nine.
Oh really, no, So obviously there were dirigibles, you know, balloons
and things, but clearly they're not capable of taking off at high speed.
So I didn't you know, I'm I'm I'm very compulsive with this. I
did all my research to make sure this wasn't some somebody's experimental craft, and
in the hundred years since, no evidence has been found. And it's also
important, nobody ever used the word alien or thought these were people from Mars.
They they thought the Wright brothers or perhaps Thomas Edison who worked nearby in
northern New Jersey, that he they had somebody had developed this remarkable aircraft.
And you know, you'll read these articles and everybody's so excited. Nobody's panicking.
They're excited to have to see these flights, and then they were just
waiting. They expected any day now for somebody to announce, you know,
Thomas Edison, to say, yes, I have developed this fabulous aircraft.
So when modern critics say those mysterious airships were just cases of mass hysteria,
nobody was afraid. Nobody was you know, thinking we were being invaded.
Yeah, you can't have mass hysterias. People aren't hysterical exactly. That is
so interesting. And it's interesting too that people kind of gave, you know,
the right Brothers or Edison, kind of this almost mystical status like their
magicians. They can, you know, with technology, create these things that
looked like magic or almost supernatural. Right. It was a great age in
the early nineteen hundreds of discovery and invention, and people were thrilled to be
part of it. Yeah, pretty cool. So and I do love and
that's that's really interesting. The Blue Book files, especially the ones that are
unknowns. I think it's so interesting to look at those because, like you
said, there are many accounts from air force personnel or other military personnel that
are often taken more seriously than other witnesses, and their very interesting accounts.
So it sounds like you ran across some of those. Well, I was
under the misapprehension that I should only look at the unknowns. And then one
of the first, one of the first cases I read the entire file for
was Stewart Air Force Base nineteen fifty one. A captain and a lieutenant in
the Air Force, who should have some clue of what's in the skies above
them, cited an object moving with what they termed planned maneuverability, obviously under
inteligent control, lighted essentially zigzagging back and forth over the base at high speed,
and then they described the angle and the speed and the trajectory that this
took off in a flash. They gave incredibly detailed reports, and yet the
final conclusion was it was a weather balloon. And steam started coming out of
my ears. And I read the twenty page report, and sure enough,
at the last line of the last page stated no weather balloons had been released
during this period, And so I very quickly lost my blue book innocence and
realized they're just lying there. You know, here's this compelling sighting by two
Air Force officers. They admit there's no air weather balloons in the air.
Yet the official excuse conclusion was weather balloon. So I read every page of
every blue book case that had anything to do with the Hudson Valley and found
dozens and dozens of cases that were explained as you know, swamp gas,
zenus, weather balloons, and actually had incredible testimony, photographs, sketches,
multiple eye witnesses, all explained away. Mm hmm. And that is a
good point, because I'm going through those. I first looked at it unknowns,
but then I also looked at what Heinech considered an unknown the astronomer consultant,
And what was interesting is they didn't always agree, and sometimes Heinich felt
for no good reason one was something mundane when the Air Force didn't, which
I thought was kind of interesting too. So right, I think you make
a good point in the important because they did try to explain away a lot
of them because they were just trying to close the files anyway they could exactly
what were is an example maybe of another really good one that you came across,
Well, there was a woman who reported seeing strange lights moving through the
sky. In fact, the whole neighborhood was seeing things take off and land
out of the woods. And this was happening over a two week period.
One night, she followed one of these lights. She went back through the
woods and she said there was a rounded, cylindrical, a circular craft.
She drew a sketch of it. She said it was the size of a
Volkswagen. She was fifty feet away from it. Submitted all this detailed information
of times, you know, the sizes, the distances, all of these
other witnesses, and the official conclusion was it was a meteor. M two
weeks worth of detailed sightings, sketches and witnesses, and they said it was
a meteor which you know, flashes through the sky in a heartbeat, right.
So I was just I was infuriated reading these and like you said,
often they'll do their due diligent, so they'll go around and ask, you
know, if there are any meteors sited, and like you said, because
I've read some of these files where they'll say there were no meteorites reported in
the area, but still come to the conclusion that that's what it was exactly
exactly. I was joking. You know, you know those those magic eight
balls where you shake them, you get they must they must have had a
cube in there that said meteor venus swamp gas and the conclusion is that hilarious.
That's it. Yeah, So it turned out to be a substantial section
of the new book because, uh, as you were saying, you know,
people usually just look at the unknowns, and I just went through every
month of every year and picked out anything that was located in the Hudson Valley
and read the entire file. And it was as a real eye opener that
this was far more prevalent than I had anticipated, and going on with a
much greater intensity for more decades than I thought. So, honestly, I
grew up also thanking. Well, you know, there was some things in
the fifties, sixties, mostly in the eighties, and then it really didn't
happen too much anymore. And now I'm you know, I see it's from
nineteen oh nine to the present and it's never really let up. That was
going to be my next question is is it still continuing? So you're still
getting very interesting reports. Absolutely, two days ago there was a sighting of
a Z shaped craft for at least ten or twelve minutes by a couple of
witnesses. There was a lot of video that was taken in the Hudson Valley
a year ago of this bright cylindrical upright object that was just pinned to the
sky for hours, and a pilot who his job is doing a aerial photography
for Hollywood. He tried calling air traffic control in the FAA and said,
you have this massive object sitting in you know, highly traveled airspace here,
and they just hung up on him. Nobody wanted to hear anything about it.
Wow. And he videotaped this object for two hours. Wow. And
many other people video taped it as well. And the only semi official word
to come out of this whole thing was that it was a milar balloon that
had been released somewhere in Kentucky and floated its way to Maine. Yet it
was able to remain stationary in twenty six mile an hour winds for two hours,
which is a pretty good trick for a mylar balloon. So here we
are decades past Blue Book and we're still encountering the same resistance. Well,
have you come up with any ideas or maybe speculated as to why this all
happens in the Hudson Valley? I wish I knew a lot. A lot
of the sightings are seen either above or in the Hudson River. Or we
have a lot of reservoirs here. I had mentioned the Shawangunk Mountains earlier.
They are very rich, rich with quartz crystals. We do have seismic activity
here. We have a nuclear power plant. I don't know if there's some
natural earth energies here that they can utilize. Perhaps that's why they're coming here.
But you know, we didn't have Air Force bass and nuclear power plants
back in nineteen oh nine either, So I can only speculate there's something about
the gig or the geography of this area that they can use. And you've
kind of touched on it earlier, and I think that there's a lot of
UFO sightings. But there does also seem to be other phenom paranormal phenomena that
is in abundance in this area as well, like hotspot for other things.
A prime example of that is the town of pine Bush, which you may
have heard about. And everybody I speak to in pine Bush they just shake
their heads and say, weird stuff happens here, you know. And I
have to agree, there's just something about pine Bush that isn't normal. And
I say that affectionately. I love the place, but it's not saying that
people aren't normal. No, just what goes on, Just what goes on.
There have been sightings going back to the nineteen twenties, ghost stories everywhere
you name the type of strange, bizarre activity and it's more than likely happened
in pine Bush. Wow. How strange. And so when it comes to
the UFO sightings, do you subscribe to the extraterrestrial hypothesis that perhaps that's what's
behind these craft in the Pine Bush area? I believe, So I'm not
ruling out that some of it could not have been military uh craft. But
again, when we're talking going back to the nineteen twenties seeing the same thing,
obviously I don't think we had the capability of that type of craft then
either. So I think the predominant activity has to be extraterrestrial. And along
those lines, you know, you've probably been ran across people who have felt
that they've interacted with extraterrestrials. So do you feel that there's a lot of
that in the area as well and possible abductions. Well, I did not
expect that when I first started my research, and the very first person I
interviewed just blew my mind. He was very credible. He started having abduction
experiences when he was a kid in the nineteen fifties, and he just gave
me chills. He just gave me chills sitting across from him listening to his
stories. So his mother, who was in her eighties, was still alive,
and I said, do you mind if I speak to your mother because
I just wanted to find out did he have an over actor's imagination as a
child, this or that? And I start speaking to this sweet little old
lady who blows my mind again, starts telling me about her abduction. Wow,
going back to the nineteen thirties, and now her grandchildren up in Vermont
are having the same things happen. And abduction cases actually became the largest chapter
in the book, in the Night Skybook, and it's like, how did
this happen? And I just spent an hour and a half on the phone
yesterday interviewing a woman who had the most chilling experiences going back to when she
was a child as well. And it's it's so prevalent here. I can't
explain it. Not so many know what happens, but so many people have
told me they see a bright light or a landed craft. The next thing
they know, it's three hours later, or it's the next morning, and
they have scoop marks and bloody noses, and even these chilling cases of one
woman who was three or four months pregnant saw this bright light and the next
day she wasn't pregnant anymore. And it was really getting into territory. I
was not prepared to tread, but I keep finding it over and over and
over again, going back generations. It's funny because you know, I know,
I think my coworkers DOHO feel similar. How the heck did we get
here? You know, how the heck why are we so involved with all
of this stuff that, you know, years ago we would have said it's
pretty dang weird. So exactly, that's really interesting. But there's just so
much compelling information there is, and it's coming from doctors, law professors,
military men, police officers, politicians. I mean, I had this one
politician tell me a story about this being that kept coming into his room night
after night, and he was so certain of what he experienced he was willing
to let me use his name. And I said, do you ever have
any hope of being re elected, and he said, wow, I'd like
to. I said, well, we're I appreciate your honest, you know,
I appreciate your honesty, but we're making up a name for you.
So when a politician whose livelihood depends on the votes is willing to state his
case publicly and have his name used, that's that's pretty compelling. Uh huh.
I think it was very wise of you to use a different name,
and very nice of you too and consider it because I think, yeah,
he would have also had a surprise in some of the problems he would ran
into, absolutely had she used his name. That's so interesting, yeah,
really really interesting stuff. So you've written two books, you know, almost
about a year apart, so you've been keeping really busy, Yes, hectically
busy, but I love it and I'm already already collecting more cases. They
just don't stop coming. And now that these other two books are out,
and of course the film, the In the Night Sky film, the more
popularity at games, the more people are seeking me out to, you know,
to tell their stories. Like this woman the other day. You know,
she had not publicly told her story. That she's in her fifties now,
and this has been going on her entire life. But she she was
adamant. She goes, I want to know the truth and I want people
to know what's been happening. So I think, you know, a life
time of being ignored or ridiculed, people are just getting to the point where
we don't care about it any the ridicule anymore. We need to tell our
stories. Right in the film, I should mention that too, A documentary
was made based on your book in the Night Sky at The documentary has the
same name and it won the People's Choice Award at the UFO Congress in twenty
thirteen, So hooray, yay. That was that UFO Congress. I have
to say, if no one, you know, somebody hasn't been to that
before, definitely go. We just had the time of our lives there.
It's just so wonderful to be surrounded by people who know what you're talking about
and have, you know, stories to share and insight it was. It's
just such a wonderful event. Well, it's good to hear you say that,
and I hope we see you at the next one. And the documentary
people can go see and purchase at Night Sky UFO dot com. And where
is the best place for people to go see your work. They can get
my books on Amazon. They're available Barnes and Noble also just about every ebook
format known to mankind. Uh huh, so it's very easy for them to
uh to get it. And you have a say go to zim. Is
that correct? Yes? G O t O z I M go to zim
dot com. Books can be ordered directly if you want, you know,
me to personalize a copy to you, I'd be happy to. Uh if
you want to contact me about your story, uh, please do as I
said, I am still very interested in collecting uh more evidence so you can
see where I'm speaking and the other strange things I'm up to, m hm
and so. And you have another UFO book in the works, then it
sounds like right, I have no time frame for that, but I am
actively still collecting information because really in the Hudson Valley there's not I don't know
of anybody else who's doing this. Who is you know, interviewing people and
collecting their stories. So you know, there are some support groups. There's
one in Pine Bush actually Walker Valley where you know, people who have had
experiences can go and share stories, but nobody's really documenting them, and that's
what I'm trying to do. And you're still out there hunting ghosts. Yes,
I have a pine Bush ghost hunt set up for tomorrow night, so
I'll be back in crazy and weird pine Bush. And I do want to
mention if anybody is in this area, the town of pine Bush has actually
designated a uh A location where you can go and SkyWatch nobody. Yes,
this is a huge step because they used to arrest people who parked along the
side of the road and tried to look for UFO. They learn about that.
Yes, it was illegal to SkyWatch in pine Bush for the longest time.
And now pine Bush has a yearly UFO festival and they have a designated
UFO citing location. So times are changing, yay. And have you found
that I guess my last question we talked about media and everything in the media,
how they treated the subject in the eighties. It seems like it's gotten
better. Do you feel that's true? In some locations that has definitely gotten
better. But unfortunately the local while the local press supported the UFO festival,
the New York Post in the city you know, talked about it being a
bunch of you know, freaks and green rubber suits. So there's still that,
you know, wink wink, nudge, nudge. It's the UFO crazy
people staying New York City people, and they should talk right right exactly.
They've got their own reputation to worry about, yes they do, all right.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the
show. Really interesting stuff, and I hope people go check out your books,
and it's great that you've moved into this area and have been contributing.
So thank you very much. Thank you. This was wonderful and I do
hope to see you with the next UFO Congress. I'll be there, Okay,
take care, all right. Thank you so much to linda' zimmerman for
being on the show Really interesting Stuff. I implore you to go get her
books and to also watch the documentary, really really good stuff. And do
come to the UFO Congress this year. In fact, we just posted the
dates and we opened registrations so you can go register and everything. So we
don't have any speakers listed yet, however, because the thing sells out and
it's so popular and it's the biggest conference in the world on UFOs, people
want to register immediately, even before they have speaker information, so they can
get in there early. Because of course, especially when it comes to the
hotel, I always tell you guys this, but luckily a lot of you
come up and tell me, man, thanks for telling me about getting into
the hotel early, because the hotel does sell out, and there are other
hotels, but they are a little bit of a distance away, or at
least, you know, it's always nice to say in the same hotel that
all the speakers and all the events are in. So go ahead and go
to open minds dot tv or Ufocongress dot com. We also have like UFO
Congress dot orgon dot net a stuff. But go to open mindset tv or
ufocongress dot com and you can go register for the conference. And actually these
days I've seen a lot of conferences that are shorter and costs more. So
it's a great deal and you'll want to check that out. And of course
the earlier you register, the better the deal. Otherwise, remember spacing out.
If you go to our site, you'll see that on YouTube, and
all of the news and stories that we talked about you'll see on our website.
There at openminds dot tv, We have another really cool video too.
I've talked a lot about this Air Force letter that I sent out and Richard
Dodi and disinformation and all of this, and we've got a new video coming
out hopefully today or at least this week where we go in depth into this
and give you more information. I talked about this on Coast Coast and on
podcast UFO and stuff. So yeah, finally it'll be out in video format.
If you're not the type who likes to read follow links and stuff,
and sometimes it's easier just to watch a video, so that will be out
as well. So just come to Openminds dot tv to see that, look
forward to Roger Marsh's stories on move On Sightings and you know, all kinds
of really cool stuff. So before we go, as usual, I want
to thank the guys who created our awesome open and closed music. We always
have a lot of people saying, man, your music is cool, and
it is and it's done by Caleb Hanks. He has a website called the
clerk Chronicles. You can go there, you can register, you can google
clerk Chronicles Caleb Hanks. You'll find his site and he actually posts his music
for free. It's really cool stuff, but thank you to Caleb Hanks for
the music. Otherwise, join us next week for another great show, and
thank you all for joining us this week. Adiosmoochatos.