Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm Matt Ford, and welcome to the Good
Trouble Show. Drones are all over the news as hundreds
of these airborne vehicles, some reportedly as large as cars,
hover above town's critical infrastructure and military bases in New
Jersey and elsewhere. The Biden administration, sparking concern from residents
and outrage from state and local officials, has explained them
away as misidentified aircraft or drones operated by the public
or law enforcement. The White House has characterized these events
as new something they want to investigate, get to the
bottom of something that has never happened before. Today, Matthew Fhalan,
Chris Sharp, and I released a bombshell story in The
Daily Mail. In it, we interviewed Chris Grooms, a former
deputy of Valley County, Nebraska and former chief of Police
of Ord, Nebraska. Grooms, who was a deputy at the time,
details how hundreds of drones swarmed the county and a
small town of Ord in December twenty nineteen and January
twenty twenty. The descriptions of these drones and their behavior
four years ago are frighteningly similar to what is being
reported on the East coast of the United States. Chief
grooms claims are backed up by written testimony from residents
and over one hundred nine to one one calls and
police reports. Last month, I interviewed Chief Grooms on The
Good Trouble Show. What you are about to hear is
shocking as it makes clear this is nothing new and
that the Biden administration is gaslighting all of us about
what it truly knows is flying in our skies that
they cannot protect today's guests. A US Army Airborne Infantry
veteran who is now serving his country as a law
enforcement professional. As a sheriff's deputy for Valley County, Nebraska,
he was the department's sniper and firearms instructor. He is
currently the chief of police for ord Nebraska. Please welcome
Police Chief Chris Grooms. Chief Grooms, how are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Good yourself?
Speaker 1: I'm very well. Thank you so thank you very much
for joining us.
Speaker 2: You know, we thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You're you know, you're you're very welcome. Thank you firstly
for your service to this nation and your continued service
to your to your country.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: We we you're welcome. We have spoken previously. We we
had a fairly long discussion about about what you're about
to go into. And yeah, so firstly, how is it
in Nebraska? Is it Is it getting cold yet?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it's it's starting to no snow, but it's
it's common.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Yeah, it's it's it's been cooling off finally here
in l A. But but yeah, nothing nothing like Mike
Mike Nebraska. So so tell tell us about the city.
Tell us about Valley County and the city of Ord.
What is it like, how big is it? What's the
population like?
Speaker 2: There? Sure, population wise for the entire counties getting close
to about five thousand people. And then the county seat
for Valley County is Ord, where I currently work. And
it's a town of about twenty to twenty one hundred
people and that includes from farmers, ranchers, business owners, law enforcement, firefighters.
We have a pretty good sized hospital, so we stay
pretty active. The town's is full of nice people. But
what they experienced that we're going to talk about is
to this day still bothers them.
Speaker 1: What is the law enforcement footprint in Ord County? So
the sheriff's department and your police department and any other
city police departments, Like, what would you say like on
average or just a rough estimate of the number of
law enforcement officials that are in Ord County. So for.
Speaker 2: The county, which is Valley, it's about seven total law
enforcement officers for the county, and then for the city.
At the time when all these things were occurring, it
was about three to four officers within the city Award,
and then occasionally we would have state patrolman the Nebraska
State Patrol, which usually was two to three. So in whole,
I would say anywhere between nine and twelve on any
given day.
Speaker 1: And are there any military installations or nuclear facilities in
or around the county?
Speaker 2: No, not near the county. You'd have to go about
an hour south of Valley County just to get to
a National Guard facility.
Speaker 1: And what kind of air traffic is in the facility
in the vicinity? Is there a regional airport or major airport?
Like what on an average night would you see helicopters
flying around or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we occasionally have the National Guard flyne up here
Chinooks black Hawks, just your typical flyover county with the
big planes headed towards Omaha or Lincoln, Nebraska orn route
to Denver, somewhere around there, but we do have a
lot of crop dusters and little planes that do a
lot of stuff for the farmers, So we do have
a little bit of plane activity.
Speaker 1: And Chief and Chief grooms like in the evening, is
there much in the way of air traffic or any
low altitude air traffic?
Speaker 2: No? Not not really no.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. And and in terms of airport, there's not.
You don't have like a big regional carrier or anything
close to the county. And sorry and sorry, what is
the county again?
Speaker 3: Valley County, Valley County yep here here in ord we
have we do have an airport, and we have had
some landings by Chinooks and black hawks, but typically any
planes that come land here are or small prop planes,
your crop dusters, that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: Now, Chief grooms on it. On an average night, how
quiet is it? Is there much in the way of
you know cars or you know airplanes, you know high
altitude airplanes going over? Like, how quiet is it? Are
we just hearing coyotes and wildlife? Or is there a
lot of activity?
Speaker 2: Now your typical night, by nine thirty ten o'clock, everybody's
in home getting ready for school or work the next day.
So you don't typically see a lot of vehicle traffic
past ten ten pm. Air travel, we do have a
lot of flyover planes coming from the big cities, but
that's from you know, sun up to sundown, so that
that's pretty typical.
Speaker 1: It's not like you have a jet, a commercial jet
flying and say like five thousand feet or anything lower.
It's it's just occasional military traffic. But would you say
in the evening it is rare to have any kind
of military air traffic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, it's it's pretty rare out this way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just understood, what is the closest military base
to your city?
Speaker 2: So military base for full time active duty guys would
probably be off at Air Force Base, which is about
three and a half hours southeast of where I'm currently
located here in order.
Speaker 1: And why did you decide to reach out to me?
Speaker 2: Well, Ever, since this stuff happened back in twenty nineteen,
late twenty nineteen, early twenty twenty, it became pretty concerning
just some of the activity that we were having from
witnesses calling nine to one one, ranchers mentioning things about
their cattle and horses, kind of being harassed. It was
just real unusual activity that we would see from drones,
and we obviously don't have a lot of drone activity
around here to start with. So all this that went
down at that time when I was with the Sheriff's Office,
we were reaching out to you know, the State Patrol,
National Guard FBI off at Air Force Base, and we
weren't getting any We weren't getting any feedback. They didn't
really seem that they knew what it was. I'm not
saying they didn't, but it just seemed that way. They
were very respectful and whatnot, but as far as getting
back to us and wanting to, you know, let us
know what it was, they were very hesitant on that.
Speaker 1: So Chief Grooms, to the best of your ability, please
walk us through this. You know, these series of events.
And this was in twenty twenty, correct or was it
just before twenty twenty?
Speaker 2: Just before twenty twenty. We started seeing news reports coming
out of callers out of these things late twenty nineteen
and then unannounced to us, they're over the top of us,
and we started getting nine to one one calls from
you know, witnesses coming home from work or going to work,
people just outside minding their own business. Yeah, just tons
of nine to one one calls coming from ranchers even
hey there's these things flying around in my past year.
To a certain point, it got to hey, these things
are harassing my horses. So we started getting pretty serious
with it when we were getting nine to one one
call after nine to one one call for two weeks straight.
Speaker 1: And during these nine to one one calls, what was
what was the did were people fearful of what they
were saying or did they think I was, you know,
some kid with a drone harassing their cattle? What was
the sort of tenor or the the sort of emotion
that you would hear or the dispatcher would hear in
these calls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say At the beginning, it was kind
of a oh, look, you know, these things are in
the sky. He he he ha ha ha. And then
it after the first couple of nights, it started turning into, hey,
what are these things? What is going on? How come
nobody knows anything? You know, why isn't the larger elements
of law enforcement out here? And then it started becoming
concerning for the local populace.
Speaker 1: So so you received, you received nine one one calls
and and you guys are dispatched to locations. How how
did all of that happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, once, once a call would come into our
regional dispatch center, they would pass it along to whoever
was on duty, which a lot of the nights it
was me and another deputy or or our sheriff or
the local PD officer. And uh, if the call was
in town, it went to the PD, and if they
requested our assistance through the Sheriff's off we would go help.
But if they were out in the county, it would
come back to us at the sheriff's office and we
would essentially get as much information as we could from
the dispatch through the witness, and then we would head
that direction. And typically the calls would come through and
you would say, yeah, okay, you know sure they're seeing
twenty of these things, okay, whatever, and then yep, we'd
get there and there they were just making no sense
to us on patterns and why they were even here.
Speaker 1: So you would go to these nine to one one calls,
you would drive out there in your patrol vehicle and
you would see these things. How describe what on your
first response, your first response making contact with whoever was
reporting these things you drive up, it's at night. What
do you see.
Speaker 2: Well, the first actual recall that I saw these on
a personal level, not only was I on duty, but
it came from my actual sheriff, and he had called
me directly and said, hey, bro, you got to get
out here. And you know, we had a call on
this stuff. I'm here, I'm trying to pursue it, but
if you can come out and help me out, appreciate it.
And you know, I was out the door. So as
I was driving in a southerly direction down Highway eleven,
I could see some flashing lights off in the distance,
and I ended up calling my sheriff back saying, yeah,
I see it. I see it. I'm coming to your location.
And this thing would not let us get close enough
to it. I mean, it just continued to move away
as we would try and approach it. But it wasn't
very high in the air, maybe sixty feet at the
highest level. The one thing that we found to be
very weird about it was it stayed near the roads.
It paralleled the roads as we approached it, So no
matter how much we got close to it, it would
move away, but it would stay near the roads to
where we could continue to pursue it. It was almost like
it was messing with us.
Speaker 1: Were you going to someone's house or residence.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what the call came into the
sheriff was other than hey, these things are out here
again tonight. You know what's going on. That's the sheriff
being a good sheriff. He went to go take a
look at it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the sheriff calls you out to respond to
this call. Were you responding to a place of residence.
Speaker 2: No. I assume from what the sheriff had told me
is that somebody was just coming into town and saw him,
and we had had reports at that time the night's prior,
so it was getting to the point where we were
responding to him no matter what the situation was. So
I assumed the call came to the sheriff, and you know,
he went to go do his due diligence, and you know,
there they were. So he called me out to help him.
Speaker 1: So you drive up and you see what as you're approaching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I'm approaching, and I'm probably maybe about four
hundred yards away from it, because I could see my
sheriff's vehicle, you know, to my south and that thing
was to the southwest of his vehicle, so it was
probably about four hundred yards from me, approximately sixty feet
in the air, and I just saw lights. It looked
pretty large, so I continued to go towards him, and
I let him know, yep, I have eyes on. But
the funny thing is is as we approached it, it
would move away from us, and we noticed that it
was as it was a moving away from us, it
would stay parallel to the roads, and it would parallel
the roads. So it was almost like it was toying
with us. It didn't want us to see it fully,
but it still wanted to let us know. Hey, you know,
I'm here, Come get me, you know. And eventually, as
we continued to pursue it down some gravel roads, it
moved off in one direction. We couldn't pursue it no
more because we had come to a dead end, and
it seemed to disappear almost I don't know if it
shut its lights off or what, which is illegal, but
I assume it either shut its lights off or it
just shot straight up in the air. But it disappeared.
We couldn't track it no more with our own eyes.
Speaker 1: So the chief grooms described the lights. What did they
look like? Did they flash? Did they look like a
normal light, sort of aircraft light, an aircraft position light?
Were they brighter than normal? Dimmer than normal? Was there
anything unique about them?
Speaker 2: Well, I can certainly tell you that they were not
FAA approved or regulated by any means. Sometimes when we
would interact with these things, it would just be a
solid light. Sometimes there were multiple blinking lights from call
to call. It varied, and there was there was other
times where, like I had started earlier, it would almost
be like they would disappear or they would turn their
lights off.
Speaker 1: And did when you were approaching these lights? Did you
have your light bar on?
Speaker 2: I did not have my overheads on. No, And we
were we had we had our regular you know, dims
and brights on as we were traversing the gravel road,
but we didn't have a search light on. We didn't
have our overhead emergency lights on or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And when you at any point during this response, did
you stop your patrol vehicle?
Speaker 2: Yeah. When we come to some of the intersections, we
you know kind of made a plan like hey, you
go this route and I'll go this route and see
if we can't intercept this thing, you know, coming from
different angles, and it just didn't matter that it just
it knew where we were at, It knew what we
were doing. We just couldn't get close enough to it
to identify its actual size or what it actually looked like.
Speaker 1: Would you roll down your window to listen to it
to see if there was any noise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on numerous occasions we would roll down our windows
just to see if we could hear, you know, propellers
or a hum or, you know, a turbine or something
like that.
Speaker 1: Was there any interference that you had with your police
radio or your vehicle.
Speaker 2: No, we, as far as I know it, within my department,
we never had any communication problems, whether through radio or
even talking on our cell phones.
Speaker 1: So you respond to that call with the sheriff. What
was your next encounter with these things?
Speaker 2: Well, it would have probably been within about a week.
I mean, obviously it's been a while, so trying to
remember it as clear as I can, I'd say it
was about a week later. I was actually at home
and again the sheriff had called me and said, hey, man,
I'm currently busy. There's a lot of drone interaction down
south of North Loop, which is in my county, and Scotia,
which is to the southeast of my county. They don't
have a good law enforcement presence over there, so we
help over there as much as we can. And they
were having nine one one calls about hey, there's drones
basically circling circling the town, so it was kind of
scaring people, so they were calling, and my sheriff asked
me if I could fly down there. So I hopped
in my patrol vehicle and headed that way. And it's
about a twelve thirteen mile drive from where I was
at to Scotia, and I happened to come down eastward
down Highway twenty two, and in order to go into Scotia,
you have to turn and head south down Highway eleven.
So I had to come to the junction of Highway
twenty two and Highway eleven. And as I stopped at
the junction to turn to head south, I happened to
look left. And when I looked left, North Loop, which
would be to my left about three quarters of a mile,
there's a giant co op building and that co op
building has a big red light on top of it,
and I would say it's anywhere between one hundred to
one hundred and fifty feet high. And I happened to
just see to the east of the red co Op light,
another large orangish reddish light, and of course I'm going, well,
that's not the co Op building. So I looked right
real quick to check my other direction of travel, and
I looked back left again, and that thing had covered
close to three quarters of a mile in two to
three seconds. And you know, I was kind of stunned
because I'm pretty familiar with aircraft and whatnot from my
military experience, and I just I couldn't believe it that
something that could travel that fast without no noise. And
I didn't have my window up at that time, and
my my vehicle was running, obviously, and at that time
I drove a RAM fifteen hundred pickup truck. But at
that low of altitude and it to be able to
cover that distance, there should have been an ample amount
of noise. And there was nothing, nothing, nothing that you
would think would make a sound from a drone, even
no prop wash, none of that noise. It was completely silent. Yes,
it was dark, but it was just it was stunning.
It blew my mind, and when it flew past me
or flew right in front of my windshield, it was
still that brightish orange red color. I couldn't make out
if it had you know, wings or a tail or
any of that stuff, or if it had windows. I
couldn't see none of that. It was just a bright
orangish color. And the one thing that I thought was
weird as it went by me at that speed, there
was contrails behind it, so I didn't I didn't know
how to regulate that that am I looking at a plane?
Speaker 1: What is this?
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I'm like, hey, I got
to get to Scotia because of all the people that
are freaking out over there. So I turned and headed
south down Highway eleven to can you continue towards Scotia,
And this thing was gone. I mean it, it was gone,
the horizon, the hill, the hilltops. I had no idea
where it went like that, and it was gone. So
as I turned into Scotia, there's a bridge that you
have to cross and it's the North Loop River right there. Well,
I stopped at the river to try and get out
of my truck and get a little bit higher up
on my truck. To see if maybe I could see something,
And by that time, somebody had come pulling up next
to me in their vehicle and it had a couple
people in it that I'm I know them, they're they're
good folks, and they were actually going into Scotia because
they're on the volunteer fire department, and they were actually
going over to look what was going on Scotia because
they were hearing the radio chatter. So they jumped out
and I just looked at him. I said, please tell me,
you guys saw that, and they said, yep, well yeah
we saw it. But you know, that night, I didn't
really think about all of that of what took place
because I was still trying to let it register in
my mind. But within a few days, as I was
recollecting everything, I started thinking how weird it was that
the minute this large, brightish orange looking thing blew by
me at just crazy speeds with no sound, and then
as I'm pulling into Scotia, all of these supposed little
ones that were on the outskirts of Scotia basically essentially
harassing the town and making people freak out, they disappeared.
They were gone. The minute the big looking thing took off.
These things left Scotia and the rest of the night
we had no more nine one one calls or anything
about it. It was weird.
Speaker 1: When you when you know, when your vehicle was stopped
and you saw this big orb of light, how what
would be the size you would estimate it to be.
Speaker 2: I would say it was easily the size of my
Ram fifteen hundred pickup truck. And I'm driving you know,
the crew cabs, so it had the four doors. It's
it's a pretty good sized truck.
Speaker 1: And when this thing, sorry, go ahead, I was.
Speaker 2: Just going to say, if people I want an idea
of the size of that there, they're fairly big that
Ram fifteen hundred, So I would say it was easily
the equivalent size of that.
Speaker 1: And this again was around fifty to sixty feet above
above the ground.
Speaker 2: No that that night, I would say it was closer
to that one hundred, one hundred and fifty beat up
just because of it was flying pretty close to the
same level as the co Op tower was.
Speaker 1: And what would you estimate its distance was from you
to the object?
Speaker 2: Well, when it flew out in front of me, I
would say that it was probably within you know, throwing
distance of a football or something like that. But as
far as at a tight level, it was probably one
hundred and fifty hundred feet.
Speaker 1: Did you notice if it illuminated the surrounding terrain, illuminated
you know, the ground near your vehicle. Was there anything
odd about that or did it behave like any large
light source would have at that distance.
Speaker 2: No, there from what I recollect there was no. It
wasn't lighting up anything on the ground. And I mean
I could have missed that because I've just like, holy cow,
what is this thing? But it it just the light
is odd. I don't understand how that light was like that.
And there was no noise and then the contrails which
typically you see from a jet. But it's just odd.
That's that's all I can say about that night. It was.
Speaker 1: And And in terms of like when you say like
there's something odd about the light that it was emanating emanating,
was it the color or or how it looked to
your eye? Like what what feels or what felt odd
about it?
Speaker 2: If you think back, I I mean that that night
it was just bright, but there was nothing else to it.
There wasn't flashes, it wasn't blinking. It was just bright.
But it it wasn't directional, I guess if I wanted,
if that's a correct word to use. It wasn't directional,
as in, it wasn't in front of it, It wasn't
shining off to the sides. It was just there. The
light was just there.
Speaker 1: Did it look like looking at, say, like a welding arc,
like that kind of intensity or easier on your eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's yeah, that's a pretty good way to put it.
It was. It was bright. I mean, I obviously I
could look at it. It wasn't hurting my eyes, but
it was. It was. It was just a big bright light,
and there was no direction, you know, like my head
lights point forward when I'm going down the road. It
wasn't like that at all.
Speaker 1: So this particular light, so it was incredibly intense, like
a welding light or a welding arc, Like looking at
a welding arc. Did you have to to shield your
eyes or anything when you looked at it?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't have to. I didn't have to shield
my eyes or nothing. It wasn't. It wasn't that bright.
And perhaps it just could have been because I was
at a distance from it, so as far as it
was blightening me or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Now, the following day, when you're thinking about this, did
you were you trying to think, you know, was this
an airplane? Or were you beginning to recognize that this
was likely something that that may not have had a
human origin.
Speaker 2: I I obviously was thinking a lot of things. Sure,
you know, because I wanted to know what it was,
and having my military background and knowing how, you know,
an operation works and mission planning and stuff like that.
It it just didn't make sense if it was US,
if it was our military or even a private company
doing stuff, Why are they near small town, Nebraska? Why
are they flying around small town? It just didn't make sense.
So at that point, that's when we started making our
phone calls trying to figure out, Hey, is this air force?
Is this a private company? And yeah, I started thinking,
you know, maybe this isn't from planet Earth, or you know,
isn't China or Russia or even US. I, yeah, I
started to think about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: What was the reaction from the sheriff. Did you go
into the sheriff's department the following day and he's on
his office on his phone, How was the sheriff handling
all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'll just back up a little bit, if
that's all right please. So that that night, when myself
and a few other people on the bridge had witnessed
that thing, I did call the sheriff pretty quickly after
that interaction happened and started to kind of make the
comment that you know, you're not going to believe this,
but and as soon as I got out the word
but pardon my French, but he said, no, shit, you
saw it too. And it made sense because where he
lived at the time, that thing probably would have flew
directly over him, if not near his residence, So he
saw it too, And at that point it started to
really concern him. Because he's an intelligent guy. He's been
in law enforcement a while. He knows that that's not
normal activity. By even if it was drones, just for
what was going on, it served no purpose. So yeah,
the next morning, when I come into work to basically
start making phone calls, he was already in the office
and he had two three phones just near his face,
calling people trying to figure out who this could be
or what it could be.
Speaker 1: Who again, was the shrif specifically calling or guarding these events.
Speaker 2: We well, that morning, I know he had related to
me that he was in contact with off at Air
Force Base. I don't know the exact name of the
HR person that he was on the phone with, but
they basically gave him the yeah, it's not us, it's
not the Air Force, we're not doing that type of activity.
We contacted the Nebraska State Patrol. They you know, they
don't have that technology. They weren't up here doing things
like that. I did call down to the National Guard
out of Grand Island and they didn't They weren't doing
anything like that up here. So pretty much everybody that
we talked to gave us the no, that's not us,
and essentially, yeah, we don't we don't know what this time,
what it is.
Speaker 1: Either following these calls, was there any follow up from
you know, FBI or FAA or any of these other agencies,
Like did they call a week later and say, hey,
are these are these things still flying around? Or was
it radio silence from those federal agencies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never really got a callback or a follow
up or anything from anybody. Go ahead, I was just
going to say that the people that I did have
follow ups from where people like Christopher Mellen. He he
seemed pretty concerned. I had a long conversation with him.
We were on the phone for probably about an hour.
He was very concerned. He clearly was finding this to
be very concerning. I was in contact with a reporter
from the New York Times. I guess, maybe you don't
want me to say her name, but she actually followed
up with me numerous times, and she seemed pretty concerned
and would like to get to the bottom of it.
I spoke to a journalist out of Colorado who was
a journalist for the DoD and him and I had
conversations over the phone and emails and whatnot, and yeah,
he pretty much was given me the same gist of everything,
as yet, it's not us, we don't know what it is.
And he actually did an actual article on these things,
and the article basically read just as if as he
was telling me that we don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I want to go back again to one of the nights,
or any of the nights, we'll say, perhaps one of
the Knights that had the most volume of radio calls.
I'm sorry, ninety one one calls. What was the radio
traffic like between officers? Was it I guess what I'm asking.
Was it like more than one officer responding to a call.
Was there much sort of tactical communication between officers during
one of the busiest events.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was. There was communication between us as you know, hey,
you try and go down this road and we'll try
and you know, intercept it from different angles to you know, hey,
go over here and set up on this high point
with your binoculars while we while we try and maneuver
on these things with our vehicles. So there was coordination
to the best that we could do with what we had.
Speaker 1: The communications from the other officers, Like you know, when
I listened to you, Chief Grooms, you're you know, very calm,
very matter of fact. Did you sense any fear in
any of the other officers or like panic or anything
like that that that or was it just you know,
very sort of matter of fact. Don't know what these
things are.
Speaker 2: I think it was a mixture of every thing. I mean,
towards towards the end, not only was becoming an annoyance
because we just couldn't catch them, we couldn't figure out
what they were. Nobody was telling us anything. But also
you know, we we don't want our community to be
worrying about this stuff as much as they were at
the beginning. But we also didn't want accidents out on
the highways when people were trying to find these things
themselves and you know, running across the highways and running
stop signs. And I'm not saying they were doing that,
but that is one thing that we were concerned about,
was are our accident's going to go up because there's
so many people out. So there was concern at a
lot of different levels, not only these things being in
our in our county, messing around with ranchers, cattle and whatnot,
but just also other people's safety from staying out of
accidents and things like that.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the interaction
of these drones with cattle. Describe in if you can,
in detail, what those interactions were, like, how many of
them were there, what was the reaction from the ranchers
of these things.
Speaker 2: Towards the end of it, when we couldn't figure out
what they were and what they were doing here, we were,
you know, this is Nebraska, so we were starting to
get those answers from the ranchers about if these things
keep messing, you know, with my horses, and I got
to go round up my cattle every morning. It was
pretty much coming down to you, well, if the government's
not going to look into it and do anything, we're
just going to try and shoot them down. And you
know we're sitting there saying, hold on, let's not go
to that yet, Let's you know, continue. But I understood
where they were coming from. You know, that's their livelihood,
that's their property. So I understood that side of it.
But as far as when these things would show up up,
I received a phone call one night from a rancher
and he had stated to me, you know, these things
are essentially lighting up his pastures with lights, almost like
a searchlight or something like that, and it was starting
to really bug him because it was making his it
was making his animals move away from where he had
left them, and you know, he'd have to go out
at four or five in the morning and round them
all up and get accountability of everything, and it just
became a nuisance. But yeah, he had he had made
the comment that whatever these things were, they had lit
up his cattle and he could see it doing it
and it made him irritated. So he went out to
go try and you know, chase it off or whatever
he thought he was going to do. But it just Yeah, again,
it just took off.
Speaker 1: It just left.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it knew it was coming.
Speaker 1: The description from the from the Ranchers of these things,
did any of the description of these vehicles match or
these airborne vehicles, did any of them match what you
had seen or any of the other officers had seen,
like and did the rancher report any like sounds like
a helicopter or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was typically the same thing that
we experienced it, you know, at our level with the
no noise. Sometimes it was blinking lights, sometimes it was
a solid looking light, and like, like I said, it
just it just was starting to really irritate people that
there was nothing we could do about it. And it
seemed like the government either knew what it was or
they just didn't know what it was, so they were
shunning it off, hoping it would just go away. I
don't know what they were thinking, but that's what it
seemed like.
Speaker 1: Did the Ranchers describe any kind of rotor wash or
you know, if these things were low to the ground
and shining a spotlight on these things. Did the ranchers
see any blowing dust or anything like that, because and
again I'm I'm you know, I live here in Los Angeles,
so I don't have any experience with cattle, but it
would seem to me that just a spotlight wouldn't be
enough to make cattle run or or would it you know,
would a spotlight make him run? Or was there any
sort of wind disturbance that you that was reported during
these interactions with the cattle.
Speaker 2: As far as the noise in the in the dust,
I never got to asking a whole lot about that.
I know that at one point he made the comment
there was no noise, but it could have been due
to the fact that he couldn't get close enough to it.
But as far as dust kicking up or anything like that,
I never I never asked him about that. And then
with the spotlights, Uh, sometimes cattle they might think it's
their actual handlers and they'll move towards those lights thinking
that they're going to get fed or something like that.
So that could have been the reason that they moved off.
I don't know, but I just know that the rancher
was getting getting pretty irritated with it, so.
Speaker 1: And was there any any sort of verbal alarm from
the animals, like a lot of mooing or or whatever.
Any anything unusual about how they reacted to these that
that I don't know that I'm not for sure how
many vehicles were described above the ranch. Was it usually
just one shining a spotlight or were there a series
of them? Any any reports on on that.
Speaker 2: That that night alone, it was one, but on a
lot of the other calls, not specifically ranchers, but even
some of the folks that live right outside of town
right side Ard that don't have animals and whatnot. They
just live outside of town to get away from the lights,
the city lights. They reported upwards of fifty sometimes of
these things.
Speaker 1: At one time.
Speaker 2: Correct, yep, there was. I was not working this night,
but one of the other deputies, the sheriff, my office manager,
and I believe a state patrol trooper who was off duty,
was in the town of Arcadia, which would be to
the southwest of Board and it's in Valley County. They
were hab and I believe a baby shower and upwards
of fifty of these things were hovering around Arcadia just
doing weird stuff. It made no sense for why they
were there and what they were doing. They just showed
up and left. And the one deputy he actually tracked
them out of town headed northbound and he was he
was again counting upwards of forty five to fifty.
Speaker 1: What was the fastest recorded speed of these things? Like,
were you able to pace them with your vehicle?
Speaker 2: Well, if you, if you could pursue them. Obviously, like
I had mentioned, they would never let you get close
enough to him. But there were there were times where
a deputy, well a sheriff had mentioned that he had
his cruiser maxed out at about one twenty and this
thing was still moving away. He couldn't catch up to it.
Speaker 1: During during this two week period of these of these
supposed you know, drones or whatever we want to however
we want to classify them. The interactions are the harassment
of the cattle. Did was that happening every night there
was a report of these drones? Or was it only
you know, once a week? You know, I'm just trying
to understand what the frequency was of the cattle harassment.
Speaker 2: No, at least in my county, it wasn't. There was
not harassment every night. Now the other counties they interacted
with these things. I can't speak for them, so I
don't know, but it was just it was random in
our county when a rancher would call in, whether directly
to us or by you know, nine one one, that hey,
these things are messing with my animals. What's being done
about this? It wasn't every night with that.
Speaker 1: Following the interactions or during this two week period, did
the sheriff's department or the local police departments make an effort, say,
like during the day, like if they saw like a
U haul van pulled over to the side of the road,
or or any kind of vehicle that could have been
a command and control vehicle. Were there any traffic stops
made in order to determine if they were possibly involved
with these drones.
Speaker 2: Yep, so we we made quite a few stops on
anything from semi trailers that looked kind of different to
FedEx FedEx trucks. Yeah, we made we made stops to
try and get to the bottom of you know, where
these things being controlled by a vehicle on the ground,
or or where they were hiding at. We we were
doing everything we could to get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 1: Was there any discovery of anything that was suspicious.
Speaker 2: Not not from the not from stopping vehicles or or
semis or trailers or vans or anything like that. Nope,
we never got anything out of it that would, you know,
show that they were the ones that were controlling them.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the nine to one
one calls. What would you say during that two week
period were the number of nine to one one calls?
And is that number unique for that time of day?
I think again, you said this happened all between ten
at midnight. Was was the volume unusual? Were the calls unusual? Well?
Speaker 2: We we we vary in our nine to one one
calls on a you know, regular nine to one one calls,
but this two weeks it was every night. I mean
some nights it was three to six. Uh, some nights
it was upwards of twelve. And I would say over
that fourteen to seventeen day window where it was every
single night, I think it equated to about forty four
forty eight nine one one calls specifically for these drones.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, considering that was just our county and there were
surrounding counties that were also receiving nine to one one
calls two.
Speaker 1: And from these from the surrounding counties. Do you know
if if the various sheriffs from the surrounding counties were
in communication regarding what was going on?
Speaker 2: Specifically, one of the other sheriffs from a county near
ours I had some pretty good contact with, and he's
got quite a few nine one one calls and stories
that he can tell, as well as a few of
his debuties.
Speaker 1: Were these encounters from this from this adjacent sheriff's department?
Did they sound like they were pretty much identical to
the same sort of thing that your department was running into.
Speaker 2: Correct, especially the big ones, the big ones that we
would run into. They had a pretty astonishing interaction with
a large one that to me is still mind boggling.
And I know it. I know it freaked him out.
Speaker 1: Go into that if you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they were out on patrol and he had
two deputies with him, and they got a nine to
one one call and they went to go see what
this thing was, and there it was, they flying near
a house. So they went to pursue it. And as
they were pursuing it down this gravel road again at
paralleled it paralleled the roads as if haha, I see
you you know, but still I'm going to play cat
and mouse with you. And they ended up following it
back to the highway and getting on the highway and
started to pursue it from the highway and it paralleled
the highway and that was the time where he had
mentioned to me that he was basically going top speed
of his suburban which was his patrol vehicle, and I
think he mentioned he had topped it out almost near
one twenty and they could catch it, but it was there.
And as they finally come to a stop because it stopped,
it had kind of veered off back towards the north
off the highway and kind of hugged over a creek bed.
And as they got out and went to go turn
their spotlights on it to get a good look at it,
it actually put a huge spotlight, if you want to
call it, on them. And the sheriff had the two
deputies with him, and they said it was just absolutely blinding.
They had to look away, and the sheriff made the
comment to me that when he looked to his left
it and his right, it looked like it was daylight
out for about two to three hundred yards in all directions,
and it really freaked him out. And he did comment
to me that this thing was huge and it probably
was the size of his suburban, but it made no noise,
it was quiet, and that spotlight, even if that's what
it was, he said, it was blinding. It just what
they went to do to to spotlight it to get
a good view of what it was. It must have
knew what was about to happen, because it spotlighted them
right back. And it was overwhelming, he said.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't say like from a Did you get
the impression that it was brighter than say, like a
night sun that you would see on a police helicopter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, according to him, it lit the whole area up
as if it was daylight. He could see all around him,
and it was super super bright. I would even say
that it was probably way more brighter than anything on
a helicopter.
Speaker 1: Did anyone report any sort of negative health effects or
were there any reports of cattle becoming ill, say, like
a week after any of this happened.
Speaker 2: Not within my county. We didn't have any people showing
signs of you know, some type of exhaust burn or
radiation or anything like that. No, we didn't have none
of that. And I don't think anything from cattle either.
Speaker 1: Did any anyone from any of the federal agencies come
to the county in person to investigate or to interact
directly one on one with with the county sheriff.
Speaker 2: To my knowledge, Note he never mentioned anything like that,
neither neither was the other sheriff that I had just
mentioned with his interaction. I don't think anybody ever showed
up to his to his office. And I also I
also want to make a comment with the that night
when that thing blinded them the way it did, he
did call down to the larger airport, which would be
out of Grand Island, and they do have some fairly
large flights come in and out of there from Las
Vegas or Arizona down in right around Phoenix. And he
called down there, you know, going, hey, are you guys
picking anything up on your radar? And they told him no,
But they, I believe their radar doesn't pick anything up
below three thousand feet, So could it have been just
below their radar, probably, but it still wasn't shown up
on their radar, and it was according to him, it
was big and it could move.
Speaker 1: During this two week period, what would you estimate to
be the total number of drones viewed in the county.
Speaker 2: Well, if you count for the few times that we
were seeing upwards of forty five to fifty at one
night in that fourteen to seventeen days, I'd say it
was pretty close to two hundred.
Speaker 1: The drones, the smaller drones, How did those look like?
Did you see any propellers or anything of that nature.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the one night that I had mentioned where
the one deputy had seen forty five to fifty, my
office manager she actually got in her vehicle when these
things were near Arcadia to go kind of, you know,
look at them, try and get a better look at them.
And she had one of her kids with her in
the backseat, and as they were leaving to go try
and find these things, one actually just dropped down out
of nowhere right in front of their windshield and stuck
right with them as they were driving down the road,
you know, at twenty five thirty miles an hour, and
it just sat in front of their windshield. Freaked her out,
and then it just shot back up into the air.
And she did make the comment that it did have
some propellers on it, but it was a small one.
It was not very big at all. And the way
that it just sat right in front of her windshield.
You know, again, if this was a military operation, that's
super super unheard of for the military to be doing
that to you know, risk a civilian's life or to
just be harassing a civilian in their vehicle like that,
it just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. But also what doesn't make
any sense about this to me is like you'll hear
you've been hearing some former military folks that I think
are doing it on behalf of the Pentagon, but for instance,
the Langley drone incursions. You'll you'll hear them say, oh, well,
maybe it was a Chinese ship sitting off the coast
and that's where these things were coming from, or a
base or something like that. You don't have any of
that near your county, correct, I mean, there's no, no.
Speaker 2: The only thing we have around here obviously we're it's Nebraska.
We're right in the middle of the United States. We
do have some pretty decent sized lakes, but there ain't
no there ain't no huge cargo ships or aircraft carrier
sitting out in Calumus Reservoir letting these things come off
of them. They I don't know where they came from.
They would show up unannounced, and they would leave unannounced.
Any nights that we coordinated with other law enforcement to
try and track which directions they would go, they'd just disappear.
Speaker 1: The movement, the movement of these things did other than
the one in the one story where you were talking about,
where it clearly moved an incredible distance in a very
short amount of time. Did their movement seem fairly normal
or close to what a drone would how a drone
would perform. Were there any other observed instances of instantaneous
acceleration or hypersonic speeds?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you go back to that large
one I saw fly past the Koop tower, for a
drone to cover that distance, you know, again probably close
to three quarters of a mile in two to three
seconds with even no noise at all. I've never been
around a drone that's capable of that, especially if it
was as large as I was assuming it was, because
it was a large light And did I see an
actual size, No, but for it to have that size
of light on it, it would have to be bigger
than you know, a little tiny drone. The weight alone
of a light like that would have to be pretty big.
Speaker 1: Were there any reports of, say like a mother ship
or anything that the smaller drones were going in and
out of.
Speaker 2: Well, if you go back to that night that I
had just mentioned about the large one flying over the
co op, you know, there was a report coming out
of Scotia, I believe eleven to fifteen drones and these
were considered smaller from a few of the people that
were calling it in. But the minute this large looking
light flew past me at crazy speeds, these things disappeared
from Scotia. Now did they disappear in the direction of
the larger one, I don't know, but they did disappear
and there was nothing the rest of the night. I
don't know if they flew to a different county or
where they went, but yeah, they disappeared, so it could
have Could it have been a mothership? Sure? But as
far as if I know that directly known.
Speaker 1: As a law enforcement professional, does how does this concern you?
Speaker 2: Well, when you can't figure something out, whether it's coming
from a case like this or you know, a murder investigation,
you you want to get to the bottom of it
because you want to bring, you know, justice to your
your community. You want to give people a sense of relief.
You never want to leave your community up in the
air if you if you can, you know you you
want them to know that you're there to do your
job and that if it takes you ten years to
solve the case, you're going to continue to work on it.
It just it just irritates me from a military standpoint
because I couldn't figure out what it was and I
had to keep telling my community, hey, sorry, I don't
know at this time, and I don't want them to
think that I'm lying or that I'm trying to be
I'm trying to put them off, because that's absolutely not
what we were doing. We were very concerned about this
stuff from the standpoint of if these things are a
foreign nation, we're in trouble. From a tactical ground standpoint.
If you look at what's going on in Ukraine and Russia,
you know, what's to say that if this is a
drone and it is from China or Iran or Russia,
and they just put fifteen pounds a C four on
one of these drones and fly it into one of
our local ethanol plants, that has hundreds of pounds of chemicals.
You're looking at a problem. You're looking at a real problem.
Yes it's not a nuclear plant, but those chemicals can
ruin soil. They can you know, obviously kill a lot
of people from explosions. It just you could stop you
could stop transportation from from trains that come in and
out of here. With thousands and thousands of pounds of
feed that's going out throughout the country to feed other animals,
you've got a real problem.
Speaker 1: And for.
Speaker 2: The government, if you want to call it that, the military,
the Depentagon, to just say, oh, we're looking into this,
you know, don't worry about it. That's not a good answer.
It's not And you know, if I take backlash from that,
so be it. But I'm here for the community, I'm
here for my country. So if I have to be
the one that puts it out there more than some
of the other folks are doing, you know, such such
as yourself. You're you're doing what you're doing, which is awesome.
That's why I reached out to you after I saw
an interview with mister Mellen. So, yeah, it's it's concerning
because we could have a real problem if you just
look at what's going on in Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1: If you were given information by the Pentagon that said
these things are not from here, and by what I
mean by that is the Pentagon were to say, we
don't know where they're from, we don't think they're from
any human origin, and we're concerned about them. As a
public law enforcement official, in your mind, would that be
something that would be justifiable in not telling the public
about it, or do you think it's better to be
truthful with the public even if it's not good news.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the public has a right to know.
They do pay our salaries. That's why we're here. Whether
you're a cop or you're a soldier or an airman
or a Pentagon official, you know, the citizens of the
United States are paying you. So whether it's a hey,
we don't know what it is, but it's not from
here that we do know. But as of right now
we can't tell you other things because it's a matter
of national security, then that's fine, but at least at
least let us know something of what this is, so
you know we're not doing what we're doing right now
where it's oh, we'll get back to you on that
or that's not a big deal, don't worry about it.
That's that's not how you know, a democracy in a
constitutional or public works.
Speaker 1: Would it be fair to say in your view that
the way that the government of the United States, in
particular the Pentagon, the way that they are treating this
and the information that they are given or that they
are giving local law enforcement, that the way that they
are handling this is a is a direct threat to
public safety.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, it is. I mean, just going back to
the side of it where I had mentioned, you know,
we we at our level were not only worried about
what these things we're doing interacting with our community, but
we also were looking at, hey, what happens if six
hundred people of our local populists go out tonight at
ten o'clock at night and start driving around in their
vehicles and are running stop signs trying to find these things,
and now we have twelve additional car accidents that could
be life threatening accidents. You know, that's the stuff that
we also think about, not only just what are these
things in the sky, but hey, the populace could also
be harmed in this way from this action, you know,
So it just it shouldn't be where we're at with
this right now. There's just too much going on in
the world to just be this lacks of daisical with it.
Whether it's coming from a different world dimension, you know, China,
it doesn't matter to me where it's from. Let's figure
out what it is, and the people of the United
States have a right to know.
Speaker 1: I could. I couldn't agree more more that since this
has happened, does this topic ever come back up in
conversation with locals, either be the civilians or your fellow
law enforcement colleagues. Is it a topic of conversation?
Speaker 2: I would say every week. You're mentioning it every week.
Even some of my local family members that live around
here that are, you know, up at the hospital or
they work for the fire and ems. Sometimes I'll have people,
one of them come up to me, you know, hey, dude,
what whatever come about this? You know from four years ago?
Did anything ever happen with this? And it's I'm still
looking into it, and that side of it I am
not lying about. I'm actually being truthful. I'm still pursuing this.
I'm doing it from the work standpoint of it as
we sit here today. But I also take time out
of my day, you know, on a personal level to
reach out to people or to interview new witnesses. So
our local are one of our local reporters here with
the ord Quiz. I just talked to her a couple
of days ago, and she was absolutely excited that I
had reached out to you, and you know that we
were in contact because she's still wanting to know more,
she's still looking into it. So yeah, it's it still
brought up quite a bit around here, There's no doubt
about that.
Speaker 1: Was there any video or photos? Were there any videos
or photos recovered of these vehicles during any of your investigation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a photo. Well, there was a video
and a couple photos sent to me one night by
a local who they're good people, you know, they mind
their own business, and they had they had called me
and said, hey, man, where are you at. We got
this thing out here. We're trying to have, if you
want to call it, a party. They had a bonfire
going and stuff near their house. And yeah, this thing
was flying above them, not more than maybe thirty feet.
It was by itself, and the way he described it,
it wasn't even a light. It was just like a
solid blue object. But it was dark out, so that
made it weird. Plus they had their fire going, but
yet this thing was still showing like a blue color.
And he sent me the video of that through text message,
and when I started looking at it, I'm just going,
that is weird. I mean, first off, the FAA, where's there?
You know, what's the regulations on that? And why is
this thing at thirty feet flying over a guy's house
when it's kids, wife and kids are outside playing And
you can even hear in the video is his kid going, wow,
look at that? What is that? And it kind of
just slowly moves off and disappeared. It just was gone.
But the way he described it, and even in the
way the video was, it wasn't a light. It was
just a solid blue object in the sky. It was
so weird. And I actually did send that to the
New York Times journalist and she thought it was pretty
weird too, So I think one of her exact texts
to me was, drones don't move and operate like that.
That's you know, that's weird.
Speaker 1: Do you still have those videos in your possession?
Speaker 2: Not not now? Because of I changed over to the
police department instead of the Sheriff's office, and any of
that stuff was on the U the cell phone with
the Sheriff's office. I did. I did reach out to
a deputy over there to see if it was still
on the phone. And I assume when I had left
the department, you know, they either move everything to their
database or put it somewhere else, But it was no
longer on that phone because I no longer was in
possession of that phone.
Speaker 1: I understand that you went to the nine one one
call center to look for some of the records regarding
this and they weren't there. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: A little bit of it is, But the amount of
nine to one one calls that we had, I think
I have it right here. Actually, yeah, so I have
the I have the call logs right here, and they
obviously there was a lot more nine one one calls.
So I do have my regional dispatch still looking up
more of that stuff, and I should have actual uh
nine one one recordings next week.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, But I understand that some of some of the
information looks like it was physically removed from the nine
one one call center? Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Not at not at the regional level, But at my
level out of the dispatch at the Sheriff's office, I
couldn't find them. I don't know where they were at
as far as where they got moved to. They could
have been moved to a different location because things get
moved around, so they could still be there, but when
I searched for them, I couldn't. I couldn't find them.
Speaker 1: Well, Chief Grooms, I really appreciate, we really appreciate you
coming on our show sharing your story. This is clearly
a threat to public safety. The way that the Pentagon
and the federal government is handling this is a clear
threat to public safety. But you know, I must applaud
your your bravery and clearly putting country before self, service
before self and coming out and talking about this without
without fear of you Ushians or the stigma. We need
more law enforcement officials, people from the government like yourself
that you know, frankly, just have the guts to come
out and say this is wrong. The way that this
is being handled. This is a threat to public safety
in the way that it's being handled. And I just
I can't thank you enough for going public with this.
It from how you're describing it, these clearly are not
something that we understand. And as you mentioned, there are
no military assets in the area, there are no nuclear
assets in the area. From a tactical point of view,
it makes absolutely no sense why two hundred things appearing
as drones or not really appearing as drones would be
operating in that environment. It just I can't think of
a reason why that would be happening.
Speaker 2: Yes, especially you know, from if you want to talk
about top secret technology, what are they doing flying over
a small town Nebraska and interacting with the populace if
you're wanting to keep it a secret. It just yeah,
like you said, it makes no sense. It just doesn't.
And then from that national security standpoint, if it is
one of our enemies or it's from somewhere else, what
are they doing here? Are they recounting our infrastructure to
cause harm later down the road, or are they just
here trying to figure out what we are? I don't know,
but somebody needs to get it figured out. And it
seems like nobody wants to do anything about it other
than people like yourself and you know, Grush and Melon
and all those guys. So in lou he seems to
be really having a train wreck of people wanted to
bother him and cause him issues, and it just that
right there tells you that there's something to it and
that we're not all seeing mass hysteria. I read an
article that just irritated me with Oh, it's just mass hysteria,
and I'm like, no, no, it's not, Bud. Why don't
you do your job and come out here and interview
some of us.
Speaker 1: We we are not living in a democracy when the
federal government and elements of the federal government and security
contractors working for our defense outfits are threatening the lives
of people. That that's that's that's not what our founding
fathers intended for this nation. And frankly, it's it's an
abomination of democracy that this is going on and has
been going on for quite some time. It's it's it's
really really maddening. Well, a Chief Grooms again, thank you
very much for joining us, and we look for to
hearing any further information, and I don't know, hopefully we'll
hear more of you, perhaps testifying in front of Congress
or something of that nature, because I think our elected
officials need to be fully aware of your experience and
the experience of your your law enforcement colleagues, because this
clearly is is, this isn't good, It really is not awesome,
and here.
Speaker 2: We are four years later and it's still they're giving
us the run around.
Speaker 1: Absolutely Okay, well, Chief Grooms, thank you very much for
joining us. We really appreciate your time, your bravery, and
your service to country.
Speaker 2: Lest Tuesday, stay expla