Aliens? Yes! But Maybe No

The Phoenix Lights Mass UFO Sighting

• Aliens? Yes! But Maybe No • Episode 11

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Did thousands of people across Arizona witness the same massive, silent, V-shaped craft in the clear night sky of 1997? What happens when the government can't explain what everyone saw? This week, Travis and Josh delve into the baffling Phoenix Lights incident, a mass UAP sighting event that baffled witnesses, including a former governor and even actor Kurt Russell. 

Twenty-five years later, the Phoenix Lights remain an unsolved mystery that challenges our understanding of what moves through our skies. Was it experimental military technology, something truly extraterrestrial, or an explanation we haven't yet considered? Whatever crossed Arizona that night, it left thousands looking up with new questions about what might exist beyond our everyday reality.

Have you ever seen something in the sky you couldn't explain? Share your experience in the comments or let us know your thoughts on the Phoenix Lights!

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Josh:

aliens aliens yes but maybe no.

Travis:

All right, hey guys, welcome back. This is the show aliens, yes, but maybe no, with josh and travis. I'm travis and I'm josh. This is an otherworldly podcast, as ambiguous as our title. I felt like I wanted to record that differently. I don't know, that's not okay. That's not like, uh, the way we normally start this yeah, it sounded great.

Josh:

I mean I'll edit out most of it.

Travis:

Okay, perfect. Edit to a podcaster of my caliber.

Josh:

Yeah, thank you.

Travis:

So last week we talked about Betty and Barney Hill, not the Flintstones character which I found out on the show.

Josh:

Yeah, I forgot about that.

Travis:

I binged as much Flintstones as I could. It was a lot of episodes, by the way.

Josh:

Were you Flintstones or Jetsons-men?

Travis:

I Flintstones or Jetsons. I like the everyday kind of slog through it that the Flintstones gave me, but I like the world the Jetsons was building. So I guess a blend of both.

Josh:

They kind of both tickle different parts of my fancy.

Travis:

Yeah, Except when you look at the timeline. So George Jetson is like 50 years old and his wife is like in her 30s and they've been married for 20 years.

Josh:

It's the future man. We can't be prejudiced.

Travis:

That means she was a teenager when they got married.

Josh:

Interesting, it's going to keep me up at night. I'm going to have to watch it now.

Travis:

Well, let it keep you up at night, it will. Let's put this podcast aside and let's just make this a Jetsons podcast, which kind of is similar to what we're talking about A little bit. I mean not on today's show, but space yeah.

Josh:

Well, I mean a little bit on today's show. We're looking up into space, oh yeah, okay, I mean, if you listen to the last episode, you know what we're going to talk about. This episode because of the baseline quiz.

Travis:

Yeah, I was just. I just like always, like to recap our last episode. Oh, I don't just a little bit oh shit, okay, so never mind betty and barney hill yeah, we agreed in that episode and if you want to know what we agreed about, listen to the episode. Listen to the episode.

Josh:

Yeah and you know what. I actually don't remember if we agreed or not spoiler for the previous episode yeah, listen to it if you're just jumping in, we just ruined it.

Josh:

Okay, this week we are doing the clear night skies of Arizona and Nevada and even parts of Mexico. People reported seeing something unusual, a mysterious craft. What began as few isolated sightings soon became an event witnessed by thousands. It started just after 7 pm in Henderson, nevada, where a man reported seeing a V-shaped formation of lights moving through the sky. The strange lights continued south and soon the phones at police departments and news stations began ringing off the hooks, as more people described seeing the same formation An immense, silent craft the size of several football fields, with five to seven lights moving steadily over the desert.

Josh:

The lights were unlike anything witnesses had ever seen. They were evenly spaced, flying in a triangular formation over homes, highways and neighborhoods. Some described the lights as amber-colored or bright white, while others claimed to see enormous dark structure connecting the lights, so large they said that it blocked out the stars. By 8.30 pm the lights reached Phoenix, arizona, where hundreds of residents, entire families, police officers, doctors and more watched the phenomenon unfold. People stepped out of their homes, pulled off the highways and gathered outside in stunned silence as the lights drifted over the city. The Phoenix Lights incident left a lasting mark on all who witnessed it, on all who witnessed it, with thousands of people reporting the mysterious V-shaped lights. The sheer volume of testimony makes it one of the most credible and widely witnessed UFO sightings in modern history.

Travis:

Okay, so that's a little bit of context for what we're going to talk about today. Yeah Right, that's the initial story.

Josh:

That is the story Aliens came to Arizona.

Travis:

What do you think it means when phones ring off the hook? So I have a cell phone, there's not a hook that I put, oh, come on, don't do this.

Josh:

What does that mean? We all know phones were originally on hooks do we know that?

Travis:

yeah, how long has it been since you've seen a phone?

Josh:

on a hook. I don't know it has been.

Travis:

I'm 35 it's a weird phrase. I think that should be retired.

Josh:

But I think it's been probably 25 years since I've seen one. Because we were early adopters of the wireless phone, we still called it a hook. Even though there was no hook, there was a little charging base. Yeah, like a port.

Travis:

Yeah, we did have like one or two phones in our house that had cables, but yeah, we had wireless phones. My mom even got one of those headsets that you wear. That look absolutely ridiculous.

Josh:

That you see middle-aged men wear in their cars sometimes, but bigger, because these phones With the big microphone.

Travis:

No, they were it was. You put like a headphone on and then you slide the phone in. Oh geez, so it was monstrous.

Josh:

Well, your mom also cut your hair with a flow.

Travis:

Actually, I started doing it, josh, when I turned 14, I started cutting my own hair with a flow. Okay, I didn't have my mom do it anymore. That's confidence. It was confidence. It was the same haircut, a bowl haircut for the rest of my life.

Josh:

Do you want to explain what the flow is to our listeners?

Travis:

It is a brilliant invention. Have you ever cut your own hair and thought, oh, I hate the cleanup of this, this sucks. Well, the Flowbee is here to tell you. It will eliminate all of that cleanup, because you hook this thing up to your vacuum and it not only cleans it up, but it pulls your hair through the cutting device. You don't even need a comb. It pulls the hair out Well, it lifts it up, it sucks it up into these cutters and then it cuts it. So you get a nice, even cut and no cleanup, no moss, no fuss. It's perfect. So it sounds like your mom bought the future.

Josh:

Yeah, futuristic gadgets.

Travis:

Uh-huh, we were talking about Jetsons before. This is like what the Jetsons would use to cut their hair. Yeah, it would be like, hooked up to Rosie, their in-house robotic maid, she would have like a vacuum attachment with a hair cutter, and I think that was probably an episode, probably Okay. So what else can we talk about with this first bit of storytelling?

Travis:

I mean one of the biggest things to talk about are the witnesses. So people pulled over on the side of the road and then what? When they got home, they called it in, or how was there? Were people that?

Josh:

how do we know?

Travis:

so many people called in. This is considered to be one of the biggest sightings in american history.

Josh:

Right, yes, so there were people already at home. They stepped out, there was people that were driving and just like what the fuck is that swerved?

Travis:

off the road. Sure, that's editorializing, though.

Josh:

Yeah, a little bit I want to keep it hot and there I mean there's people everywhere.

Travis:

There's people in the streets. Cats were living with dogs.

Josh:

Rain was falling up but yeah, the witnesses are. The main thing about this whole story is that first there were so many and then we've talked in other episodes how eyewitnesses sometimes it being different, like the aerial school, seemed as though they didn't corroborate.

Travis:

Right, they're just like 62 kids. Sure man, their testimony is golden.

Josh:

But them not corroborating and showing different things. It kind of gave it a little bit of validity which made it seem like, okay, they didn't come up with this together. Each of them saw something, but it wasn't a story that they all got together and decided to lie about. This is different. They all saw the same thing and there's video of it.

Travis:

Yeah.

Josh:

People from all walks of life seeing this. So I think we should go over some of the witness statements. Okay, let's do it. So one of the witness testimonies is Dr Lynn Katai, an esteemed physician and health educator is one of the most prominent witnesses of the Phoenix Lights. On the evening of March 13th 1997, from her mountainside home in Phoenix, arizona, dr Katai observed and documented a series of unexplained lights in the night sky and she captured these phenomenon on both video and 35 millimeter film, providing some of the clearest visual evidence of the event. Yeah, and I would imagine, probably some of the clearest in existence, because a lot of this footage that we've seen and other things, or even some of the military footage, it's not the best.

Travis:

Yeah Well, most of it's been redacted right. We'll never know all the good stuff. All the good stuff's been deleted high-end 4k.

Josh:

Why don't these airplanes and fighter jets have 4k high-end video?

Travis:

I don't know. That's a that's a good question.

Josh:

Maybe they are maybe they do and they make it shitty for us, you know, we're gonna release it but we're gonna make it look real crappy, or maybe we're just civilians and we don't understand what we're actually looking at. Yeah, anyways, so she definitely provided the best evidence and the clearest evidence that anyone has of this.

Travis:

So she had a camera. This was like recorded outside of her house.

Josh:

Yes, on her mountainside home I would imagine a doctor's little deep pockets. Yeah, and she is better than everyone else because she has money and she feels as though she needs to live above the peasants, yep.

Travis:

That's why they all live on a hill, so they can look down on everybody.

Josh:

I bet she's such a nice person. I apologize.

Travis:

She seems like a very sweet person. I watched a very short clip of somebody interviewing her and she was very sweet.

Josh:

Was she.

Travis:

Mm-hmm Good, just a down-to-earth person.

Josh:

Well, and that's interesting because initially she wanted to remain anonymous.

Travis:

Yeah, she went as Dr X. Ooh, which isn't that the doctor that created the Powerpuff Girls? I think you're right, that was Chemical X right, that was chemical x.

Josh:

Yeah, he knocked over the chemical x. Yeah, good reference, uh-huh. So yeah, she did. She came in as dr x in early media, but her desire to understand and share the truth about the phoenix lights led her to come forward publicly and since then she dedicated herself to researching the incident, authoring the book the phoenix lights a skeptic's discovery that we are not alone, and producing an internationally acclaimed documentary on the subject. So she went there, she used those deep pockets to help the people know about this Cause I mean, that's the other thing is this wasn't really reported on what until three months after the actual incident and everyone was asking questions and making these calls and trying to figure out what happened.

Travis:

But they were just calling local authorities and they're not going to those guys, aren't going to have an answer. They're calling their sheriff's department, their local police precinct.

Josh:

The local authorities saw the same thing they did and they want the answers as well.

Travis:

How do you think those phone calls went? Were they totally normal and chill?

Josh:

There I was smoking my J and then Go on what time was this?

Travis:

Are you okay? Do we need to send somebody out to see you?

Josh:

No.

Travis:

Can you tell me what?

Josh:

your address is Huh, I'm on a mountainside.

Travis:

There's like some shit up in the sky and, okay, can you describe this thing that you're seeing?

Josh:

It's like a bunch of space geese decided to like fly. Space geese, yeah so geese decided to like fly space geese. Yeah, so they're honking. I don't know, are they flying?

Travis:

south what they're just going. It looks cool. Did you mean to call who I? I gotta go. Okay, I'm sure you've got some very pressing things. Uh click.

Josh:

Hello, he put the phone on the hook.

Travis:

What was that character's name? Just for feature reference. Maybe he'll come back.

Josh:

Oh, that's a good one.

Travis:

Let me think tile oh, his name's tile t-y-l-e, classic.

Josh:

Yeah, right, right like a tyler and kyle.

Travis:

You don't want his name to get confused with the stuff you put on your floor no so.

Josh:

Beyond her personal experience, dr katai has become an advocate for public disclosure and education regarding explained phenomena. She continues to speak at conferences and events, sharing her insights and encouraging open dialogue about the mysteries that remain in our skies. She sounds super cool.

Travis:

Very cool. So we watched a couple of videos where they had like a silhouette representing Lynn Katai. Yeah, but the interview that I watched, it was like a piece of a documentary. You could see her face fully. It was just her and the interviewer talking. So she's pretty open about her involvement now, whereas maybe before she was worried about getting ostracized. I mean, she was a physician and was doing pretty well for herself. As we said, she lives on a hillside and is looking down on all of us plebes. I don't know what. What are your thoughts?

Josh:

I imagine some of the earlier clips that we've seen. She may have still been in the Professor X phase and then eventually she's like I can't take this Like this. This is too real, People need to know about this. And now she goes around. She's a huge advocate, talking at conferences, she writes books, makes documentaries, so I mean, she's one of the bigger names in the alien community.

Travis:

Now I think, just from the little bit that I've read, she's really an advocate for just getting any information out there.

Josh:

Yeah, the open dialogue, it doesn't matter what it is. I mean, like you and I were talking how, when we tell people about this podcast, they get really excited and they know more than we would have expected them to know.

Travis:

Yeah, and I think there's majority of people and have some pretty wild thoughts on it.

Josh:

Yes, Majority of people know more than we give them credit for, but no one talks about it because there's a stigma around it that you're crazy, and that was probably her thought process as well. It's like I have too much to lose. I'm a doctor, I have all this stuff. I can't be called crazy because I'll lose all my patients and then eventually she's like it doesn't even matter, like this is too important or she's at a point in her career where this kind of thing is not going to ruin it.

Travis:

She's at the sunset of her career, at her full height and power could be, and it's now like, well, nothing could bring me down maybe she took an early retirement.

Josh:

I don't know if she's still practicing. I don't either. Um, there was also governor fife, what a wild name.

Travis:

Like a piper yeah, fife pfeiffer.

Josh:

Yeah, so this one was crazy. I actually knew about this before doing some of the research for this topic. He just thought it was a joke. That's how it came across, as though he was just playing it off. Well, you gotta think about this, is 97.

Travis:

Again, there's a stigma around, even before the record. Today we were talking about uh, dnd and like my aversion to getting involved in dnd. I'm a huge nerd but dungeons and dragons has always been one of those things that I'm like, uh, too nerdy for me, but it blends two things that I love like theatricality too nerdy for me, but it blends two things that I love like theatricality and fantasy.

Josh:

And there would be no more Travis.

Travis:

There'd be no more Travis. It would be Tannis half-elven, the character from the Dragonlance Chronicles written by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Aikman. I really identified with that character Anyway.

Josh:

Sounds like you're already there.

Travis:

That's the thing, man. Man, I was dangerously close, just right on the precipice yeah, there's some things.

Josh:

I I mean, I'm a huge video game player and there's a lot of video games I don't start. I look at it, I'm like, yeah, this is gonna consume me.

Travis:

I'm gonna not tap into this every time I start a new zelda I get full of anxiety because I know what those games involve.

Josh:

My kids aren't going to see me.

Travis:

They're not going to see me and I'm a completionist so I try to get everything done. Yeah, it's very taxing, anyway, fife, fife, fife, simington.

Josh:

Yep, he was getting a lot of pressure. He's the governor of Arizona. All these people in the state were trying to figure out what was going on and he's the top person in charge and feeling the weight of the public wanting all this information. He called a press conference but instead of giving answers, he did the biggest dick move you could do in this situation and he brought.

Travis:

He was like we're going to bring in an eyewitness.

Josh:

Yeah, no, we're going to bring in the person that's responsible. Yeah, and we're gonna bring in an eyewitness.

Travis:

Yeah, no, we're gonna bring in the person that's responsible yeah, and we're gonna question them. And he dressed one of his aides in an alien outfit like that stereotypical alien with big eyes, kind of an angular light bulb shaped head yeah, shiny silver suit like just yeah probably taxpayer money probably I don't.

Travis:

I can't say that no, no, I'm sure he did. They probably went, probably went to like a Halloween store or an arts and crafts store and they put something together and that was paid for by taxpayer dollars. Like, yeah, just go and get this stuff, we'll write it off.

Josh:

Yeah, goof tax.

Travis:

Is that what?

Josh:

it's called yeah, it's called a goof tax. If any politician wants to make a goof, they just take it out of taxpayers' money.

Travis:

Yeah, I'm going to go do a goof.

Josh:

Easy. So he meant for it to be a joke, to ease the tension, probably saying like okay, guys, I get off my back, I'm only doing my best. And it came across as an insult to all these people who saw what they saw.

Travis:

Yeah Well, and then legitimizes the marginalization of these testimonies. Right, this is a governor of a state making fun, punching down on these people that all claimed to have seen this thing. And then the biggest shocker of all was that he considered himself one of these people, like had seen these lights.

Josh:

Yeah, years later, in 2007, symington admitted that he too had seen the lights and he described witnessing the massive, silent, v-shaped craft unlike anything he'd ever seen in his years of piloting. So yeah, he was a pilot and he said that I know just about every machine that flies.

Travis:

It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen.

Josh:

It just felt otherworldly. So his confession added a new layer to the Phoenix Lights mystery. While he maintained that he staged the press conference prank to keep the public calm, his own sighting confirmed what many residents had been saying all along it's real, we saw it. What is it?

Travis:

Yeah, that's just a wild statement. I'm a pilot so I know about every machine that flies. That's like saying I've had one beer, I've had a Budweiser and now I'm familiar with all styles of beer. I mean, he could be an enthusiast, he could, but it's not like that knowledge just comes with being a pilot.

Josh:

Yeah.

Travis:

It's just a weird flex.

Josh:

It is Absolutely.

Travis:

So let's talk a little bit about what's going on in popular culture. Then the first Iron man had been out, we'd started to see this big Marvel run. Nerd culture was really ramping up and this guy was like looking at the tide shift like jocks down, thumbs down, fart sound Nerds opposite of fart sound, thumbs up.

Josh:

I would imagine opposite of fart would just be like a slide whistle, like someone else farts and then you suck it back up.

Travis:

Okay, the fart would just be like a slide whistle, like someone else farts, and then you suck it back up.

Josh:

Okay, this is getting weird. So 1997, when this event happened?

Travis:

Just to be fair, you gave it a sound.

Travis:

I was just yes, anding you 2007 is what you're talking about, where there's a uptick in sci-fi and cool shit in in media well, popular culture had been shifting towards comic book movies, and we saw that especially in like the 2010s up until most recently, where now it's kind of on a decline, but that was when I was a kid. That was was what I always wanted to happen but was pretty sure would never happen was that the things that I was very interested in, which is comics and fantasy, was going to be popular, because even those movies were kind of fringe. We didn't see a whole lot of fantasy movies, especially through like the 80s. Well, 80s was a weird decade, but there wasn't a whole lot of there wasn't a lot of high quality.

Travis:

No, we got like Star Wars. Even the Star Trek movies, though, just kind of failed.

Josh:

Yeah.

Travis:

And then Star Wars. We didn't see anything after Return of the Jedi for 20 years.

Josh:

Yeah.

Travis:

It wasn't part of popular culture. And so when I think this governor started to see it like a shift, he was like, okay, now it's all right for me to. I just don't like that he was a governor and he was punching down Like these are people that were part of his population and he was like, oh, you guys are a bunch of fringe weirdos.

Josh:

The people who experienced it felt like they were being mocked.

Travis:

Yeah, absolutely. And then they, they were.

Josh:

And that he was basically tongue in cheek saying that this is a hoax, yeah, which sucks Big time.

Travis:

So there is a famous person that I learned about Probably the most famous person in the world.

Josh:

I learned about this person being involved with the Phoenix Lights during our quiz last episode and I only got it right because I copied you.

Travis:

Yeah, so Kurt Russell, maybe you heard of him. If you've heard of Kurt russell, it's probably because of the dexter riley series that disney produced. Right the computer or tennis shoes. My brain had too many pants, or whatever I have no idea what you're talking about.

Josh:

You've never seen the computer or tennis shoes no, uh, so this character, dexter riley is this disney?

Travis:

yeah, disney back tv show no, it's a movie.

Travis:

Back in disney's early. They did a lot of live action which they're getting back into, but there's this trilogy, the Dexter Riley trilogy, and those included the strongest man in the world. He developed a serum that made him super strong and he enters into this world's strongest man competition. It's hilarious, kurt Russell, kurt Russell, oh my gosh. Very young Kurt Russell. Anyway, a very beautiful human being. Some of the most piercing blue eyes you'll ever see, if you've ever, if you've seen the Thing, john Carpenter's the Thing. That is in contrast to like the atmosphere. It's a pretty dark movie, even though it's shot out in the snow, but his eyes just sparkle.

Josh:

Jeez Sounds like not only do you love this man, but you're in love with him.

Travis:

Maybe, maybe, a little bit Okay, I guess a little bit of a celebrity crush. I think Kurt Russell's a very cool. I don't like his personal politics, but I find him a very engaging person on screen.

Josh:

Well, let's let the listeners know how he's involved.

Travis:

So he's a pilot too. So obviously he knows all the flying machines that are out there your aeroplanes and your whirlybirds, your helicopters. What are some other flying machines? The flying machine Biplanes. The biplanes, those bicycles that you pedal, that have the wings that flap on the side.

Josh:

They have like 12 wings.

Travis:

Brooms. Kurt Russell knows all about those Yep, so he was actually flying with his steps on Oscar and Oscar pointed it out and Kurt wasn't really sure what to do, so he called it in. He saw these lights. He's like I don't know what they are. Called it in, which is the correct thing to do. Yeah, right, yeah, you see something. Say something, right. That's what you always say. That's what I have tattooed on my ass, where nobody can see it.

Josh:

Well, that's why I mean, if they do see it, they need to say something yeah, I don't want my ass hanging out. It's actually a good place to put it, it is so they're just out and about flying around.

Travis:

He's flying his son to see his girlfriend. His son was a teenager and yeah, they were just on like a very cool, very rich person type thing to be doing, Like let's just go on the plane and we'll go and visit your girlfriend.

Josh:

Yeah, they probably lived on a mountainside.

Travis:

Just go mountainside to mountainside, yeah yeah, you don't even have to touch the disgusting middle part of it. Okay, so he's flying a private plane going into Phoenix with his son. As they approach Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, something caught his eye. It's set of brilliant lights and a perfect V formation hovering over the city. Russell was puzzled, unable to identify the lights, so he contacted air traffic control. He said do you guys know what's going on here? The air traffic controllers were equally baffled. They had no record of any aircraft in the area and they saw nothing unusual on their radar, which is weird, right, yeah a lot of historical UAP incidences usually show up on radar.

Travis:

Isn't that? Oh, they do usually show up.

Josh:

A lot of them do show up on radar, yeah, but this time it didn't.

Travis:

This time it did not. Isn't that convenient? Russell continued to monitor the lights as he prepared to land, describing the formation as both unusual and eerily beautiful. Once he landed and shared his experience with the authorities, he pushed the incident out of his mind, going on with his life, never suspecting that he had witnessed one of the most significant UFO sightings of all time. Years later, during an interview in 2017, Kurt Russell stunned the world by revealing his involvement. He shared how, after watching a documentary on the Phoenix Lights with his family, he had a sudden realization, and that was that he was that mysterious pilot who reported the sighting to air traffic control. I actually I don't know what late night show it was on Maybe Kimmel. He was on with his son and they were talking about it.

Josh:

Interesting. I imagine he was super excited when he was watching the documentary.

Travis:

He was like I'm part of this. You know what?

Josh:

I'm going to say I was the pilot.

Travis:

That's what you're going to say. Yeah, how old were you in 97? I was 10. You're old enough, yeah, old enough to cry, old enough to fly? That's what you say.

Josh:

Yeah, I have that right under my tattoo. You've got a lot of tattoos.

Travis:

Yeah, we'll have a time to find that out. My body is a story.

Josh:

You're like the guy from memento, yeah, where you just write down all the stuff that happens to you get tattooed. But it is wild, that just a normal thing. You saw something weird. You didn't make anything of it other than I should probably call it in, that's that. And then years later he's like holy shit, that's what I saw. Like I would get super giddy. I'd go on.

Travis:

Kimmel too, not kimmel 1 no, you go on kimmel, I'll go on kimmel 2. Yeah, the new, updated version on espn 3.

Josh:

Yeah, so there have been official explanation, and when we say official, that means government explanation, right? Okay, so the us air force claims both events are attributed to military activities. The v? V-shaped object, they say, were five A-10 Warthog jets flying in formation as part of an Operation Snowbird, a training program at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The stationary lights, they said, were illumination flares dropped by the A-10 aircrafts during the training exercise. Okay, so that is the official statement.

Travis:

I guess you're going to say that that's not official, or that's not true.

Josh:

I don't know. I mean, there's a handful of things that don't line up. So the timing discrepancies while the flare drop aligns with the second wave of sightings, it doesn't explain the V-shaped objects reported hours earlier. Flares don't move across a state as well as stick around for hours. Eyewitness discrepancies there's tons of witnesses, including the former governor, and they strongly refute the flare explanation for the V-shaped object, citing its immense size, silent movement and unique characteristics unlike any known aircraft. And then there was no radar confirmation. So that's the big one. If there's planes up there, these guys aren't flying dark.

Travis:

Yeah, but it was dark out. It was dark, so they were flying in the dark.

Josh:

They were flying in the dark, but they weren't incognito.

Travis:

Yeah, are you going to explain what radar is?

Josh:

Radar.

Travis:

It's a super easy concept to wrap your mind around, josh, but you're the biggest expert on radar, so why don't you tell us what radar is?

Josh:

Yeah, so radar is a. She was an up and coming dancer from Australia, and she competed in the Olympics, wasn't she?

Travis:

She was a break dancer.

Josh:

She was a break dancer and she hung up her hat.

Travis:

Yeah, I'm just. I'm looking it up. It is this everything you're saying is backed up on the Wikipedia page.

Josh:

Of what radar is Radar yeah, cool, well, I'm glad.

Travis:

There's a lot of talk about it being like a system for detecting the presence, direction, distance and speed of aircraft, ships and other objects by sending the pulses of high frequency electromagnetic waves that are reflected off the object back to the source. But a breakdancer is probably the top one.

Josh:

Well, I said she hung up her hat and that she was. She retired the name, she retired and now she spends most of her time doing those things Reflecting Electros Back.

Travis:

Yep, Okay.

Josh:

Yeah, radar should be able to pick up things in the air. I mean it's like sonar, basically right, but with electromagnet.

Travis:

Yeah, sonar is underwater.

Josh:

Underwater.

Travis:

And it's ear like sonic auditory.

Josh:

If they were flying, they would be there.

Travis:

Yes, they should. I mean should be detectable. We can get radar, I think at a certain level it isn't picked up because of a lot of the other interference, like birds and buildings and things like that, so it's harder to detect with radar. But at a certain elevation, yes, they should get like a ping off of that. So how high was this? 6,000 feet, 6,000. So easily should have been picked up by radar.

Josh:

Yeah, and there should be flight paths, there should be documents of their test flights and their format. I mean they should all be there, but none of it is. So not just the radar, but all these other things. There's also a conflict of information, because the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base initially denied having any aircrafts in the air at the time of the first sighting.

Travis:

Yeah, but now they're saying it's the A-10 Warthogs.

Josh:

Yeah.

Travis:

Which I think have the ability to maintain their elevation. They don't have to move forward or back. They can, like stop, I think.

Josh:

I don't. I mean, only helicopters can do that I know carriers?

Travis:

No, there are jets. Carriers can do that.

Josh:

Oh, really Mm-hmm Interesting. I didn't know that.

Travis:

X-Men's Quinjet that can land straight up and down, so I know that that is a true thing.

Josh:

And what was the Agents of SHIELD Uh called uh here?

Travis:

we go again. I should know this. You know, if you were a pilot, I know you would know this information. All this information would have been given to me. I know you just absorb it.

Josh:

Well, let's keep moving on yeah, let's keep moving on so today, yeah, over 25 years later, the phoenix lights still remain an unsolved mystery. Were they classified military experiments, or extraterrestrial visitors, or something else entirely? We don't know. But the thousands who witnessed the events are certain of one thing, and that's that they saw something real.

Travis:

And now they're one degree of separation away from Kurt Russell, because they all share this experience together.

Josh:

Yeah, I guess they just automatically know him.

Travis:

Yeah, they get a Christmas card from him every year. Yeah, 600 Christmas cards.

Josh:

So I'm I'm going to uncover this whole thing right now and just let everyone know that aliens are mic drop that that that aliens, that aliens?

Travis:

oh okay, I did not understand what you were trying to communicate to me. I'm just saying when it comes to you think okay, so are we getting into our like final judgment?

Josh:

we are okay, when we go over everything that's happened in the story, there's no way it was a military, anything in my mind. So is it aliens? Yes, no, or maybe it's a yes for me. Okay with how long they were there, with how many people saw it, with the discrepancies that the official statement had from the military. I mean, when the military does training stuff like that, it's organized. People would know about it, but no one knowing what was going on, even in the highest offices in the state, and they couldn't get very much information about it either. I mean, I don't know why the military would be like, yep, that was us covering it up, but there was something phenomenal and unexplained that happened and I would definitely say that it was aliens.

Travis:

Okay, well, surprising, nobody. Nobody. I'm gonna go in the maybe because it's a mass sighting and discrepancies are all over the place with the witness accounts. I think it very likely could be a military plane. I'm not I'm not of the thinking that this has to be definitively an alien ship. I think that people see things and they misremember things, and even my boy, kurt russell, who didn't speak up about it until years later, could have just been misremembering something but also like, if it is aliens, why isn't this a more talked about incident?

Travis:

Because the government keeps putting a blanket on it, I know, but I think that's just a very convenient answer. You could say, like we don have a better underwater technology because the government. Everything can be blamed on the government, and I don't think that that's necessarily true.

Josh:

But if it is, you'd feel real dumb, huh.

Travis:

I would feel like a complete idiot. Legally, I am a moron.

Josh:

You're projecting your lack of memory onto the eyewitnesses.

Travis:

I'm not projecting my lack of memory. I think I've got a pretty okay memory. I think it fair. What are you doing? Why are you attacking me personally? What is going on here? No, I think that memory is a faulty thing and it's not to be taken as the only accounting of something. We have some really grainy footage from Dr Katai and I think that's great, but to me it's not definitive. It just looks like lights in the sky and that's just me with my dumb eyes looking at an object on a screen. What would be definitive to you? What do you want, government? And I want something that's not super grainy. I mean, what we're talking about right now is like these Bigfoot sightings, where they're grainy and it's Bigfoot from a distance and people are insane about it. I want something that is very clear.

Travis:

You want the government to tell you that it's real, not just the government, but I want the images to be clear and not editorialized by witnesses saying that this has to be aliens, because it's something that they can't define or maybe something they haven't seen before.

Josh:

You need aliens in and around your mouth for you to believe. I get it. Yeah, I get it. You love fantasy.

Travis:

I mean, this is a mass citing. It's a side effect of human language. Where we're not all the same, our brains aren't the same. So you and I could see something. We would use different words to describe what we saw. Like we were to describe a car wreck. You might say a car when it was a truck. We all know that some people just refer to vehicles as cars.

Josh:

I refer to all vehicles as vans.

Travis:

Vans Okay, so we saw a van crash, but it was actually like a Honda Civic.

Josh:

But these are smart people, I mean it's police officers, the governor.

Travis:

You assume that we don't know?

Josh:

that those people are smart.

Travis:

Doctors, truck drivers oh, some of the smartest people on planet Earth. They know every land vehicle.

Josh:

Yeah, so yours is a maybe. I'm okay with that. I can live with that. I can live with that. It's a mid.

Travis:

maybe it goes between high and low, but it's a definite maybe. It's a definite maybe for me dog.

Josh:

Okay.

Travis:

Not going to Hollywood with this one.

Josh:

Okay, well, I respect your opinion.

Travis:

I respect your opinion too.

Josh:

I'm eager for you to learn more, and I'm eager to learn more myself, because I'm learning along with you. I feel like once we get to a point, we'll have so much information that it's going to be hard to deny. That's what I forecast.

Travis:

For you and for me? Or are you withholding some information from me and waiting for that shoe to drop?

Josh:

I feel like I'm already there. I'm forecasting that for you. I mean, we've only done 10 episodes. There's some of the bigger ones, but there's tons and tons of stuff out there and we're still learning more every year. Yeah, so with that, oh fuck, our next thing that we're going to learn.

Travis:

What the fuck is this Hollow moon theory?

Josh:

Is the hollow moon theory. I have no idea what this is.

Travis:

Oh, this sounds insane.

Josh:

So I was talking to our researcher, Jordan. She said that she is slowly going to introduce us to things that are a little more strange.

Travis:

I don't know if this is it. This sounds cuckoo bananas.

Josh:

There's a lot of crazy things out there and she didn't want to scare us right off the bat.

Travis:

No, that's fine, that's uh, that's how you cook a frog or a lobster, right, because you put them in water and then you just slowly start to turn up the heat and before they know it, they're already cooked. Yeah, that's kind of this experience slowly introducing these weird things to us, and then suddenly I'm gonna be like that meme of charlie day and it's always sunny with all the strings connecting. Just a wild look on my face and probably a bunch of paint dripping out of my mouth okay, so I know nothing about this.

Josh:

Have you heard? Of anything I've heard of it I imagine, I mean just off, the people are thinking, potentially the moon is hollow, which is fun. Okay, well, let's get into this First question. What is the hollow moon theory? Is it a theory that one of Mars's moons was once a space aquifer? Is it a theory that one of Jupiter's moons is a spaceport, earth's moon is entirely hollow, or one of mars's moons is an abandoned spacecraft? I mean, I'm just gonna go with the obvious, yeah, same and say the space aquifer oh, that the earth's moon is entirely hollow.

Josh:

I mean, all of these sound really interesting. There might be a theory for each one of these, so is that what you're saying too?

Travis:

I don't see any other choice, although I do like the idea. I don't think. Does mars have a moon?

Josh:

I don't know, I don't think, so I'm not a moon scientist yeah, I'm not a moon doctor either so next question which apollo mission is most closely associated with the hollow moon theory? So is it Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 13, or Apollo 17?

Travis:

So Apollo 13,. That was the Ron Howard movie, so I'm going to rule that one out. I'm going to say Apollo 17, just going with my gut but I'm probably wrong and I'm probably going to get dragged through the coals.

Josh:

I don't know much about any of the Apollo missions, so I'm going to say apollo 11 I think you're wrong okay, next question what is the main piece of evidence cited by proponents of the hollow moon theory? The presence of artificial structures on the moon's surface? The unusual composition of lunar dust? The moon's low density compared to earth? Or the moon rings like a bell?

Travis:

what does that mean? Like you just get a big, uh big mallet and it can hit the side of the moon and it goes bong. Yeah, maybe if it's hollow, I'm gonna say the moon's low density compared to earth that would be my guess yeah, I mean, I think that's mine too, just deducing yeah, because you're this pretty dense and we've got, you know, the all the layers yeah, and it doesn't dong it doesn't dong josh and I just shared a very weird look we were both thinking that penis right.

Josh:

Yeah, we were both thinking of a sex joke. Yeah, we were coming up with something.

Travis:

Yeah, like you know who does dong, though this guy who has two thumbs and dongs all day, all night long.

Josh:

This guy okay, next question according to the spaceship moon hypothesis hypothesis, who created the moon? Humans from the future? The reptilians? The anunnaki? What is that? Or an unknown alien civilization? Oh my god, I'm torn between humans from the future this is a.

Travis:

This is a thing. This is really stressing me out or the anunnaki okay, I'm just gonna say generic, unknown alien civilization I'm gonna say the anarchy okay, I don't know what that is well, maybe we'll do an episode on that next question.

Josh:

Fuck, I'm stressed out about this. Which of the following claims about the moon's crater is cited as evidence for the hollow moon theory? The craters contain evidence of mining. The craters absorb objects like a sponge. The craters have a uniform depth regardless of impact size. The craters emit strange lights and magnetic anomalies.

Travis:

I don't think they have uniform depth. I think that there are. Yeah, they all have different depths, different depths, and they have some that are much deeper than others, so I'm going to rule that one out. Evidence of mining yeah, that's when there are like a bunch of pickaxes around and some dwarves.

Josh:

I mean that one's creepy. The strange lights is creepy. All of these are creepy.

Travis:

I'm going to say B Craters absorb objects like a sponge.

Josh:

I was thinking that, but it's so weird. This whole theory is weird, it's true, I'm going to say evidence of mining. I'm going to say evidence of mining. Okay, all right. Well, let's see how we do.

Travis:

Oh wow, I did much better than I thought I was going to do.

Josh:

I did real bad, did you?

Travis:

Yeah, tables have turned.

Josh:

What is the hollow moon theory? We both got that right, the moon being hollow, right.

Travis:

Easy. Which Apollo mission is most closely associated with the hollow moon theory. I knew 17 was like an important one, 11 was an important one.

Josh:

13 immortalized the answer is 12, so I said 11. You said what? 17? 17, okay, so we both got that wrong. Yeah, what is the main piece of evidence cited by proponents of the hollow moon theory? We both said, oh my god, the moon's low density compared to earth. The answer is the moon rings like a bell. Who?

Travis:

is how, how, how, how does it ring like a bell? How do we know that like is someone just up there with a little hammer hitting it yeah, we've been there. But that's what people are just hitting the moon with their hammer and saying like it sounds hollow. So we've got a cave system here.

Josh:

Yeah.

Travis:

If you stand on top of those caves and you hit the top of that with a hammer, does that ring?

Josh:

What if it makes a sound when the aircraft or the spaceship lands? That'd be weird. Well, I'm curious to learn more about that. Okay, so next one. According to the spaceship moon hypothesis, who created the moon? I said the Anunnaki, you said an unknown alien civilization.

Travis:

Yes.

Josh:

That is correct. Unknown alien civilization. Dang it. Okay, fine, I'll give it to you Only because you got it right though I don't believe this next one.

Travis:

That can't be right.

Josh:

So last question which of the following claims about the moon's crater is cited as evidence for the hollow moon theory? And the answer is the craters have a uniform depth regardless of impact size. That's interesting and that could explain everything.

Travis:

I mean no, no, explain everything now. Yeah, everything's a big word.

Josh:

No matter what hits it, it stops at the metal plate underneath. But that's not true.

Travis:

There are craters up there of varying depth.

Josh:

I guess not. Maybe we just assumed.

Travis:

No no.

Josh:

Maybe they're not varying depths, but it's just varying widths and sizes.

Travis:

No, I don't believe that for a second.

Josh:

Well, I am excited to find out all about this, because this is fascinating yeah.

Travis:

Well, what a rip roaring roller coaster ride of a trivia section that was.

Josh:

Yeah, get a hold of us if you want.

Travis:

If you don't, don't, yep. If you don't want to get a hold of us, don't do it. Yeah, don't. Nobody is making you do that. Nobody's going to make you get ahold of us. If you don't want to do it, just tell that person that is telling you. Unless it's us, get ahold of us. We would love your feedback, but if it's not us telling you to get ahold of us, don't worry about it. Go on about your business.

Josh:

You don't have to write to us. If you are liking the show, let us know by getting a hold of us or leaving a comment or telling your friends, because that way we can grow and get this information out to more people.

Travis:

Sure, I feel like this would be a really good introduction to aliens sure as an introduction for me, me too but yeah, thanks for listening yeah, hit us with your famous catchphrase, josh, that thing that you say at the end of every podcast sleep soundly into the night, my sweet good night.

Josh:

Good night, sweet prince yeah, so keep discovering oh my god, I don't know, I don't know I wasn't prepared for you to call me out like that. If you didn't call me out, I would have had one. You had one, like three episodes ago. I've had a couple. I think I had one the very first one.

Travis:

I think it's different every time. That's what's funny about it.

Josh:

But yeah, don't uh sleep on your back if you're a baby if you're well yeah all right.

Travis:

Thanks for listening, guys. Actually, I think it's don't sleep on your tummy bye. Thank you.