Mike Damante: Punk Rock and UFOs

Hello, and welcome to Open Mind UFO Radio. This is your host Alejandro Rojas, and I am here with my good buddy Martin. Busy dude, Willis. Yeah, yeah, a little bit busy out there, but that's a good thing. Yep. Oh, I got to keep this brain busy, boy. Yeah. If you don't keep your brain busy, it goes to mush or dark places. Oh yeah, that's even worse. There's a lot of dark places to go. So let's keep you busy. We'll keep

your brain busy. So, speaking of which, you know, I need to I want to start mentioning this at the beginning of the show because I don't mind, but I want people to know, you know, at the beginning of the first segment of the show, here with me and Martin for the first about twenty four minutes go over UFO news. So we're going to have the latest UFO news in just a minute here, and then the actual interview starts at about twenty four minutes. So sometimes people like to skip ahead,

so I want to let people know that. But let's get into the new news first. But I do want to introduce who my guess is going to be, and that is Mike Damonte cool name, I think, but he is the guy who runs punk rock and UFO is a cool block. He's also written a couple of books. Those books are punk Rock and UFOs, Cryptozoology Meets Anarchy and then punk Rock and UFO's True Believers. So Mike is a journalist by trade. That's what his degree is in. He's written

for the Houston Chronicle quite a bit. He was a staff writer for them. He's still writing for them regarding music, so that's one of his big beats, his music. He also has written for sports and other topics, but music is kind of a big one. That's the punk rocks you know thing in his title. But it's really helpful to talk to someone, you know, who's a journalist and kind of his viewpoint as to, you know, being someone's who's trained in mainstream journalism, what does he think of what's

going on right now? In fact, I've read some of his blogs and that's why I'm having him on is that I think he's got some really interesting perspective and things to say. Also, we talk about why punk rock and UFOs, What does punk rock have to do with UFO? Some of us might kind of you know, intuitively think, oh, I get what the thing is. But we'll talk to Mike about that, and I think it's

an interesting perspective he has on that as well. He does share that in his first book, which is about cryptozoology, because he likes other paranormal kind of topics. And then his second book, True Believers, is actually more focused on UFOs and kind of the UFO community and what the UFO community feels. Now he has had his own siding and that's what has inspired him. So he's definitely really into the topic and fiels there's something to it. So

great interview. I had a lot of fun talking to him, and we'll have that interview coming up after the news. But first UFO news, mister Martin, Well, today there's a lot of great stuff and actually, if you go into the UFO headlines over at open mindst TV deals see some links to some great stories in this one here, this is a blog by Cheryl

Costa. I know she's been on your show a number of times and she writes for the Syracuse New Times. She does a blog there, and you know it's been several years now on this topic of UFOs and this particular blog I find very interesting because it's something that I talk about quite a bit actually, and get asked about. And the title is Timing is Everything for UFO Observations. Well, she writes this like she's actually telling the story here,

so I will go in some quotes here. As a UFO researcher and journalists, folks frequently asked me about when people observe UFOs, I usually smile and reply, that's not an easy answer, and she continues. After Linda Millercosta and I built the UFO Sightings database, which we used to create our twenty seventeen book. The title of that book is UFO Citing Desk Reference began to

process the process of analyzing the raw data on a relatively superficial level. In twenty seventeen, we could tell you that the UFO siting reports were generally driven by three principal factors. I find this interesting population, temperate weather, and leisure time. There's something I never thought of, but that makes sense.

That does make sense. Yeah. Since twenty eighteen, we have had the opportunity to dig deeper into the data, which now totals one hundred forty six eight hundred sighting reports by utilizing some creative algorithms, we've been able to refine our understanding of the UFO siting phenomena, and there are more factors population, regional, seasonal weather, daily seasonal activity, and time of day. This

part here I find very interesting because she continues on here. Whenever I publish a listing of the top states for UFO sightings, I get a lot of social media responses that informed me the reason California is number one is because of its population and depth. Examination of the data reveals that California is a unique situation. California crosses nine lines of latitude, which makes the state a complex model. As an experiment, I constructed a pseudo California using the East Coast

states, which by the same lines of latitude and similar land mass. California's population in twenty eighteen was thirty nine point five to six million. By comparison, the pseudo California represented on the East Coast was fifty two million people. And guess what, the East Coast model has far less UFO sighting reports. I really think a lot of that's weather myself, But she does talk about

that regional and seasonal weather. She goes into that and not to take too much about this, you know, to take up too much time about this. But you know, the daily seasonal activities, there are more sightings during when people are busy outdoors, you know, doors doing things, baseball games,

you name it, things like that time of day. In the United States, seventy two point six percent of the UFO sighting reports generally occurs in the hours between four pm and midnight, and with a peak between nine and ten pm. In essence, you know bedtime or the last smoke outside walking the dog. You hear about that smokers and dog walkers. The hours between midnight and four pm represent twenty seven percent of the typical days UFO sightings.

And we've noticed that after about five am, the daily UFOs sings volume is relatively flat, about twelve point five percent of peak hours. Isn't that something? This is all really interesting to me. So, you know when people in cufos in Alaska, the peak months are in the dark winter months and in the months with measures of light in the dark days, but in May, June, and July UFO setting reports are at rock bottom. So the summer months are mostly all daylight all the time, or white nights as they

sometimes call interesting stuff, isn't it? Are you there, Alejandro, Yes, I think it is really interesting. Stuph. I think it's just really hard to cut up the data, I mean in a useful way. So for instance, mirroring the west coast with the East coast states, I don't know that that's really accurate. And I don't I think what she's getting at with these different geographic lines because I did look at that story is they're different

climates. You know, it changes, So I mean I think it would be more accurate to look at specific climates, to segregate them, and then look at those as opposed to kind of glombing big areas. Because I think she has something. I mean, I looked at one of the latest or at least one of the reports I have up where I agree with those people who say population is a big deal, and when I just did it, per population per state, California dropped to fifteen. Now, of course,

a state border is a pretty random line itself. I mean, it's just kind of just chosen out of nowhere, you know, as political reasons and stuff. So it's just kind of segregations of populations and stuff. So so fifteen is still pretty high for California per pop you know, as far as sightings per person. But then again, that's just a number of reports.

That's not good reports necessarily, And like you said, you know, I think weather because it's nicer out in the Western States, which are higher at least when I've put these together typically, although Maine is pretty high too. Yeah, Maine. I forget where Maine is. When I did per population and let's see this one's twenty fourteen, Maine was number nine. Hmm. Okay, wow, yeah, that is pretty high. Yeah, we're very very low population by the way. Yeah, I think it's something like three

hundred thousand. I don't even know for sure. And twenty fourteen is one point three million. That's close to three hundred thousand, which is still pretty low. I mean in that you know, any cities have over more yeah than that som and in relation, California has you know, nearly it probably has over about thirty nine million people, So I should say it feels like there's about three hundred thousand people. Yeah, yeah, a lot of open land, yeah, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah, so an interesting

story. I think it's a great service she does to tackle these numbers and to look at them and then to also offer up some ideas about them in her articles. So, yeah, that was a good one. Let's see what else did we have out there? And headlines we have, but we move on. Let me just just I'd like to add just one last thing. Yeah, and you know, because I'm sure people have asked you, you know, like when is a good time and all that, and it

is so random. I mean, that's the one thing that's the one reason science stays away from you know, UFO researching is because of the random ways really to show up. You can't reproduce it well. Like you said, there's less sightings during the daylight hours and more at night. The problem with the night things, of course sightings is that just things that are normal can

look abnormal at night. You know, when you see lights, you don't know what the light configuration is. Very likely those lights are on an aircraft and if it was daylight, you would be able to see that, recognize that very quickly, or drone or what have you, So you could tell people to look at night. The other problem with night is it's hard to identify things, and it's even harder to photograph things, So it may be best to tell people during the day. I just tell people they're seen everywhere.

It is. Does seem to go better, you know, better to go to hot spots, but time putting in the time just looking up a lot. Yeah, we're looking most people looking down at their smartphones. Yeah, exactly and going on with their daily lives. So yeah, yeah, So a couple of other stories out there. There's an opinion piece out there in the Buffalo News. It's Don Paul. He writes what he believes about

aliens, and he goes over I think this is good. I know a lot of people interested in this stuff will be frustrated because he takes a skeptical look, but of course that's why I appreciate it. But essentially he's saying that, you know, there are a lot of sightings, so we can't just blow them all off. But you know, that doesn't mean that they're all alien. And so he goes over, you know a lot of some of the science and thoughts about if they're out there, or you know,

how could they be out there, how would they get here? All of kind of the science around some of this stuff, And I think it's really interesting. Don Paul, the guy who wrote the article, was a broadcast

meteorologist for thirty five or thirty four years Buffalo TV. You may say, well, what does that, How does that, you know, qualify him to speak on the science of this, But meteorologists, you know, do a lot of science around I mean, first of all, they use the dopplers, so they understand, you know, that sort of radar and everything. And then they also do you know, they they learn a lot of

science around climate and weather and how it works. And so they also learn over the years, you know, about the types of things that can't see, kind of cosmological phenomena as well. So in that respect, I mean, meteorologists are scientists, and so yeah, I think it's pretty interesting, and I think what's great is just that he's talking about it. Right. We're seeing a bit of that now. It seems. There was also a big meteor in Georgia. Yeah, that's Tallahassee Democrat. Did you see that

one? I did, Yeah, I mean really lit up the sky. That was something else. Yeah, that made the news right away. This is a fun one. Phew. The Russians did a fly by of Area fifty one and this was written by Tyler Rogaway. Have you had him on your podcast. Yet how luckily I have Yes, I thought, so, yeah, he's great. So he wrote a story. This is an interesting one that the Russians just did a fly by of Area fifty one. Dunt

dunt dam. What are those Russians up to? But this is not like some secret thing where they just secretly, you know, flew over and we caught him or something. This is a regularly scheduled program where there are agreements where they can fly over some of our stuff and we fly over some of their stuff, you know, and we're aware of it. So, I mean, that is the one you know, hid anything you don't want to see. But this is a they threw. They flew one of their one

fifty four m aircraft. You know, they get real specific on this website, but yeah, took pictures of area fifty one, and they've got some pictures of Area fifty one and some more information about Area fifty one on this article about this situation that really is something in the open what is it called the Open Skies Treaty. Basically it was signed back in nineteen ninety two, and I think it's kind of almost bizarre that this treaty exists, but that

you can actually fly over and take pictures. I mean, it seems like we're always trying to hide things, and everyone's trying to hide things. But in no way. I guess it's a good thing, you know, kind of if it's a if it's an even playing field for everyone, I guess that's a good thing. Yeah, you know, I'm sure we're still trying to look at each other and observe and do you know, reconnaissance off of

these times. But yeah, I guess it is at least some openness as far as and you know, I don't even know the whole history about it. Maybe it's to make sure that you know, they can see what we're doing with our you know, nuclear facilities and stuff like that, so we're

all on the same page and we have some openness. But it is I felt like you, I felt kind of like, hey, it's nice to have you know, this cooperative sort of program in the news as opposed to, of course, so much fighting and you know, stress and a really stressful time when it comes to the US and American relations. Yeah. What I think is really interesting about this is it also states that a copy of all data collected will be supplied to the host country, so they actually give

the host country what they've surveiled. Yep. So if you're sneaking to trying to sneak on the Area fifty one, the Russians might see and say, hey, you got some goofballs over here trying to sneak in Area fifty one. What if they see a saucerne Yeah, hey we saw you got one of those aliens that busted out of, you know, one of your containment areas at Area fifty one. We got a picture here of him crawling around, so you might want to know, this looks like a guy with Bob

Lazaar maybe yeah, oh spotting him down there. Yeah, so uh yeah, so that's a good one. Uh. The also Billy Cox. So this is what's funny about Billy Cox. You know who Billy Cox is? Right? Yeah, he's in Florida, Yeah, Sarasotada. Harold Tribune is is something. It was what he writes for. Again, he's another I guess he's not full time there, so he kind of has to make a living on the side. He used to be a little bit more prolific with

writing these stories. But he has a blog over there called The Void and he writes about UFOs and it's funny because he's so well known, at least amongst many of us in the UFO field, that I kind of took it for granted and thought, you know, oh, he's got to be so popular and everything. But it is kind of a little unknown thing. And I could see why I always make fun of his titles because they don't have UFO in them, and you wouldn't know what the hell he's writing about,

that's right. I noticed that. And he doesn't like get on social media a lot. You can't like subscribe to an email, so you're notified when his stories come up. Because his stories are great, So you got to go search for him at least, you know, check back on his blog once in a while. But it's well worth it, and I just this is a big plug for watching his sight. Fortunately I got to meet him for the first time in Alabama. Oh really yeah, Oh so he was

at the SEUs. Yep, he was, And he doesn't look like I thought he would look like for some reason. I've even seen some pictures which are hard to find. But that was kind of funny. But it was great to meet him and he was there and he just posted yesterday an article kind of overviewing his thoughts on the SCU presentation on the Nimetz case and some more, a little bit more about you know, the SCU event. He's got another article about the SEU event that he wrote, you know, a

week ago, but this one is newer. And yeah, going over to the Nimits encounter, which was a great presentation that was done at the SCU conference. And of course you've had Robert Powell on most recently, and I think you're one of the few to have Robert Pooll recently because he was waiting

till he gets his Nimmetsy report out to do more interviews. But so your listener's got some of the latest, but they can see some more and then that presentation that they did will be shared publicly in a not too distant future as well. Yeah, I can't wait till that's out. So, yeah, I don't know, I didn't hear you say that the title to this article is called drilling In. Yeah, exactly, But it's not clickbait, that's for sure. Yeah, it's not clickbait and drilling in you'd be like,

what the heck is he talking about? And his titles are like that. So, you know, I didn't get a lot of time to talk to him. I would love to talk to him some more, but I don't think that he really likes to draw attention to the fact that he writes about UFOs. Yes, I've written him in the past, never got a response to see if he'd come on my show, you know, But I just don't think he's you know, I you know, you can take that

in a number of different ways. But maybe he just doesn't want to be, you know, so known for it, but still was interested in writing about it. Yeah, but I mean you met him, what do you think. I think you're right, I think you know what. I don't know. You know, we didn't get as we were. I was hoping to have a lot of you know, one on one time with him because I have so many questions and just to kind of connect some more. But we never had that chance. Time just flew by. But that is an

interesting question, and he is somewhat humble about his his stuff. But yeah, that would be a good question. But some of the examples of his titles are kind of funny. Here's one abcd FGS. Is he talking about Chief Force? No, he's talking about all of the acronyms and this you know group, and this group and all of these different groups, especially lately with these potential UFO groups, where do they lie with all these acronyms?

So pretty funny. Finally, I do want to talk about and of course we do in the last couple of minutes here I mentioned this probably every April Full Day, but it is I think the best April Fool's UFO story. But this is a Virgin's UFO prank that happened in nineteen eighty nine. This

was over London. But it's a really good story where Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin you know, the earner of Virgin Galactic and Virgin Airlines and all of that Virgin records, of course, I think is where it started, he pulled this UFO prank. And so we've got this article that I posted today as well in the headlines that people can check out. But it is a really funny prank that really scared the police and freaked a lot of people out. But it's a pretty balloon. Yes it was a balloon.

Now you gave away with a it's a really some great pictures of it too. This the bottom lights up in I guess it's a saucer with the dome on the top and yeah, like you know, propulsion lights down below or whatever it is. Sure enough, you know, this story gets out every pretty much every April. First, somebody kind of talks about this story, and the History Channel has an article out. Actually I linked to it. It was it's called nine Outrageous Pranks in History, and one of those nines

is this one. And I've seen little bits of it here and there, but they're usually just this little summary of a paragraph or two. So when I put together this article a few years ago, I wanted to do something that was more full, because you never get the full story. And I wanted something with a lot of pictures because you never get you know, each of these stories they'll have two paragraphs and maybe one picture. So I wanted

to compile a lot of pictures as well. And Virgin had written this great thing about it a few years ago, so I wrote out a really full piece with lots of great pictures from it. Do you know how I didn't read through the article totally, but do you know how long this thing was airborne for and what type of reactions that they had Oh, yeah, I don't know how long. Oh I do know how long it was airborne, but I can't remember right now. I'd have to review the story. But

yeah, people freaked out. There were some people who knew, but a lot of people freaked out. And you'll see why he did this very early in the morning. And when you look at the pictures, you'll kind of see why people freaked out. I mean, it was a UFO, it was very intentional to look like one. And then the lights, the way it was lit up was very interesting as well. They did a great job.

This thing must have been really expensive. Yeah, but we're out of time, buddy, we are c Yeah, all right, Well, thank you so much Martin Willis from podcast UFO for joining us with the news. My pleasure is always We are going to take a short break and then we will be back with Mike Demante of Punk Rock and UFOs, So stay tuned. I am happy to welcome for the first time to Open Mind GUFO Radio,

Mike Dimante of Punk Rock and UFOs. Hello, Mike, Hi, thanks so much for having me. I was saying earlier, kind of before we went on air, that you know, I'm really honored to be on the show. You know, we share some mutual friends and Open Minds TV launched the careers of you know a lot of people that I'm friends with in this field that I kind of gotten to know, and you guys are one of the first websites to really put this stuff out there. So thank you.

Yes, I am so happy to have you on and to talk to you. This is kind of funny too, because I've been watching your work ever since started working, because you started working closely, I know, with Jason, and I remember Jason and Maureen who used to work for Open Minds. For those who don't know coming, you know, talking about you when they met you. And I've been wanting to connect ever since then and just haven't had the chance and it's been so busy, but especially right now,

it's like I got to do it because the moment's right. And we'll get into this but because of some of what you've been writing about lately, but before we get into that, I do want to kind of talk about who you are, what angle you're taking. So I really love that you're a journalist because you know it's important and I understand that perspective in that world a bit so that's what's exciting as well. But it also makes me understand that, you know, as you've probably ran into, this is kind of a

difficult area to dip your toe in as a journalist. Would you agree with that or have you found that to be true? Oh yeah, absolutely So just to kind of give you some of my background, I mean, currently I teach full time. I do my you know, UFO research on the side, like many of us do. I'd previously worked at the Eastern Chronicle and here in Euston, I did web producing and copy editing, I did

writing, I did reporting. I covered music and features and uh sports, and you know, I used to remember, you know, I used to kind of push for this stuff and it was always kind of met with, you know, kind of like this criticism. And I remember Eric Berger, this name kind of I was in the news in our field because he his story on to the Stars going bankrupt became this huge thing. But I used

to work with him. We used to work together, and we got a little Twitter banter about Bigfoot, so they decided to have us debate Bigfoot on air. We did a Google hangout on cron dot com, which was Recent Chronicles website and it was. It was actually very good, but the way they presented it was still very goofy, Like we had a guy in the background in an ape suit towards the end come out, which is kind of funny, kind of lighthearted, but just in general, that's kind of the

way these stories were looked at. And one why is that? You know, being a person in journalism, there is always this tendency and I'd love to hear your perspective aswer why that happens to add something goofy, whether that be a graphic or as we've all heard a gajillion times the X Files music. Why why? Why is that? You know, it's hard to answer.

You know. In my first book I talked to I kind of had a whole chapter about media literacy, and my whole thing was, you know, a lot of times, you know, we see these stories on the news and there's usually you know, if there's a sighting or reporting, usually don't see much in terms of a follow up story. You have a story and a lot of times you know it's given proper attention, but then it

dies from there. You don't have the you know, the follow up or you know what's next, And even some of the more mainstream cases nowadays. I mean, it's been months since we've heard you know, after the Pentagon. You have story that was almost a year ago at this point. So I can answered that question in terms of, you know, why do these stories kind of die in the media just because a lot of times there's not

a follow up, because there's a lot of times there's not resources. I mean, obviously you have certain journalists you have like like George and app for example. He obviously has some pull where he works, so he can do

these things, but a lot of journalists don't. They kind of have to go where, you know, go where the money is in terms of, you know, what's going to get clicks and what are the big stories of the day, And sometimes, unfortunately, the UFO siding is not considered a big story of the day in terms of the you know, the playful nature with the graphics and the musics. That's just probably somebody you know in that department just not taking it seriously unfortunately. But I do think we're turning a

page in that sense where these stories are being taken more seriously nowadays. Now when it comes to your colleagues, I'm sure you've heard some feedback because as you you know, at least it's been my experience and rightfully so, I mean, this is this thing you've got. You've got a degree in journalism. Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, and so they are, and so it's often, you know, you're met with some of the largest skepticism with

with fellow journalists. And absolutely that's how it should be. I mean, you should question everything. That's the first one of the first thing I learned in college is as journals, you need to question everything. But it comes to the point, especially in our field, where everybody is questioning everything, to the point where it's no one's gonna believe anything. Yeah, it's good to have a skeptical eye, but it's gotten I mean, I've only been

involved in this field for you know, a few years. I mean, I've been studying this stuff for my whole life, but I've only been i guess visible and active, I guess ever since I started writing my books. But I've always been interested in the subject. And I've noticed, you know, these people who study this they're very jaded. And it's you know, some of the comments you know, Facebook and Twitter, it's very synarchy.

It's very kind of back and forth. And I mean it's probably like that in anything, but you know, this is a community that's supposed to be coming together and you know, pushing. We're all pushing for the same thing, and it's kind of hard to see that at times, right. And it's kind of interesting because you know, for instance, luel Azondo, when I talked with him earlier on, he was like, everybody has to work together. You know, that's going to be cool to talk to everybody,

get everybody to work together. I think he's found that that's a much more difficult task than he thought it might be. But you you felt similarly. I remember seeing a lot of your posts that you know, we all have to work together. Yeah, no, absolutely, And in like I said, I don't work full time a journalism anymore, but I still have a lot of colleagues and I've done some some local local press in Texas. And I remember I have a buddy of mine, she's a producer for Fox twenty

six here. I was like, hey, get me on, you know, because I was on there. I did their evening show once, but I was like, hey, have me come in in the morning, like be in the studio and they're like, yeah, no, like you know, they're still kind of like hesitant, you know, regarding regarding that, so like there's not necessarily I would say pushback, but it's you know, there's still other things that take present over UFOs and thanks of that nature.

M H. I would like you know your perspective on this as well. And I think this is something that a lot of the UFO community quote unquote doesn't get completely, is that you know, as journalists, like for instance, with you and I are with you for speaking with skeptics. You know, your biggest the most convincing to an editor or to a fellow journalist are

your sources. Do you have any sources? And typically we don't have credible sources, but with this new you know, Pentagon program being revealed and with to the stars and their members, all of a sudden, we have a huge ingest of credible sources, and I think everybody else is frustrated, Well, why didn't anybody listen to us when we were saying some of the things that they said, And they don't get it that they're just not no disrespect.

They don't have the background to be considered you know, a credible source. Yeah, absolutely. And the kind of things I wrote about recently on my website on a punk correctingfos dot com is that a lot of people don't know, you know, journalism, journalists we rely heavily on these official titles, and sometimes to a fault. But if somebody works for the government pentagon and you quote them, that is an official source. Now whether they lie

or not, you know, that's not on the journalist. That's for the audience to decide. And one of the things you know, I always try to teach my students, because I teach journalism as well, is that you a good story needs to show balance and you need to try to have quotes from you know, different sources from each side of the argument or each side

of the story. But a lot of cases in our field, it's hard because a lot of times you only get one source, or you know, the sources the person who saw UFO, not the person who said, you know, not that like I said, not the sheriff in town who lied about it. You know, sometimes you know, those stories are hard to

track down. If a lot of times I report sightings, people will you know call into me or an email into me or semi photos and I'll report on their signings, but I don't have the time because I teach full time and resources to go out to that town and try to track down a cop, you know. So a lot of the times you kind of have to

go with what we have in terms of resources and time. M h. And then it's also hard when you have finding the other side, especially when it comes to doing your due diligence and finding a skeptic at least I find that in that. You know, you want to find someone who's skeptical, but if you go to let's say, a university professor, they're going to just offhandedly dismiss without educating themselves often, and so that's not fair either,

which kind of puts you in a difficult situation. Yeah. Absolutely, I think that that's a very fair It's very that's a very fair assumption of it, because it's true because a lot of times, if you're going to go to somebody who you automatically know is going to shoot down the story, then it's like, what's the point. You want to try to get somebody who

alas provide some insight and go from there. Yeah, And I think you made another really great point that just because we're writing about what an official says does not necessarily mean we are validating what they say. Of course, we're going to do our due diligence to reveal any deception or any issues that we canna cover about these comments. But it just the fact that an official is

saying something is news that justifies it. Whether you like that or not, even if you think you can say something better or more wise, you just don't have the title, like you said that this person has. Yeah, absolutely, that's the official source and that's what they're saying, and you quote them as so. And I said, people make their judgments from there. Now, when it comes to punk Rock and UFOs, you kind of the punk rock part is a bit kind of like your mission statement. It fits

in to at least your perspective of this field. And I wanted you to explain that. So this is always a great question when people ask. So the book, the books are called punk Rock and UFOs, and obviously the website and the brand is the same name. The idea behind it is, you know, punk rock the way of thinking, not necessarily the music, but the way of thinking. There's obviously this rebellious nature to it and why

do we choose to rebel against some beliefs and accept others? And I definitely saw a parallel between I mean, what people believe in terms of religion and political beliefs and you know, as opposed to what they believe in with UFOs and other stuff. So it's like, you can believe in this one thing and accept it, but this other thing is all of a sudden out of the realm of possibilities. So it's kind of more about our process of belief.

And then also too, I mean, the punk rock scene really births a lot of underdogs, you know, a lot of those bands and the mentality and we are underdogs as well as researchers, and you know, this whole community is kind of underdogs and everything that we're striving for. So one of the things I try to do a lot with the website is and with my second book, True Believers, is I try to give us a voice too. Who are these people that are researching this? Why should we care?

And yeah, what what can we all do to better understand these questions? M hm? With your second book also, I mean, is that something that you feel that you find is this kind of rebellious nature, and a lot of the researchers, uh, I think intrinsically, Yeah, because, like I said, we're rebelling against this, these preconceived notions and these

you know, like these dismissive kind of comments. And you know you said earlier with you know, the graphics on TV playing the X files in the background, and you know, all those things are kind of dismissive, and we've been rebelling against that for a really long time. You know, there's some serious people involved in this research and with serious credentials. And this isn't new. There's serious people. I've been setting this for a really long time.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you when in researching your book and doing your interviews, what was some of the information that you felt? I mean, I'm assuming that you learned and what was it that was the most impactful to you that you learned. That's a great question. So one of the important things I learned is you know, you never stop learning. You know, the more people you talk to, the more perspective you get. And just

looking at my first and second book, it's like night and day. Like my first book is very theory based and very kind of opinionating and it's kind of all over the place. The second one is this this more concentrated idea of you know, what do we need to do to kind of get more people involved in this? And hey, these are the people who are trying to get more people involved in this. And one of the big takeaway from me was we all had this commonality where it all started with something that sparked

our our in yourself, you want your research this. You know a lot of people I spoke to had a sighting or they had something and then next thing you know, years later, they're either doing a podcast, writing a book, a YouTube channel, or a radio show. So it's all started with something. And I think there's something to be said there that you know, it all starts with with with a spark. And that's actually did get to kind of come back to my original question, which I didn't kind of

finish that whole path was what was yours spark? So I was interested as a as a very young child about UFOs and Bigfoot and the Lockness Monster and unexplained I see, my mom used to get me these books, these time life books. Every month there'd be a new it was like these hardcover books. They had these really really really nice photos inside them, and I was just drawn to them at an early age because you know, I was I was a comic book guy. I was a horror movie guy. So to

me, it was this is right in my alley. But at the same time, though, there was like a mystery to it, and there was a truth in there. There was something in there that was to me that was nonfiction. So I was always interested in that and I never really stopped being interested in that. But then I had my first sighting. I remember driving home when I used to work downtown. I used to work at the

Chronicle. I was driving home and I saw the traditional white orb and then next thing, you know, a couple years later, I'm writing about this stuff. So that was my first sighting that I recall. So that sighting, when did you say that was? I would say I can't remember the exact year, but I was in the two thousands, so it's probably within the past two I was nineteen in the past nineteen years. Yeah, I'm older. I'm in my mid thirties, so that was probably in my twenties.

It's funny you call that older, but in the post ride, yeah, I feel old for when it happened. But yeah, so you know, and then so that kind of experience compelled you. Yeah, it's weird. It wasn't something like instantly I was like, oh, I got to write a book, you know, something that kind of just said and you know, festered. And then I'd probably say maybe a year or two later

is when I or maybe a year later. I don't recall the timeline, but I remember when I wrote my first book, it was just I would get up every day. Actually know, at the time, I transitioned into education, so I was a teacher, so I summers off so and I believe that was my first summer off. So I'd had this routine where I'd get up every morning, rite go to the gym, come home, research,

write some more research, go to bed. And I did that for like basically three weeks straight, and next thing you know, I had a book done. So it was it was very I was very involved in it from the seeing that I started writing about it just kind of took over. And then you started your blog just a couple of years ago, I think, right, yeah, it was right trying to think when it was probably it's two years old at this point, just because I felt like I needed

a continuation. I want to shore if you know, how if another book was going to happen and when and people, you know, I wanted to continue to write and research about it. And the way site is basically, you know, it says on the thank cryptozoology and culture, and it's yes, it's obviously the more traditional news stories. There's commentary. There's reviews on there as well, So I wanted to be a little mix of everything.

You know, I always, I always like to kind of interview, you know, the fellow researchers, people who are involved in this as well, so people get to know them and what makes them tick, what makes them, you know, what makes them research? And the way, you know, even though it is a blog format and the name is punk rock at UFOs dot com, I definitely approach them like I'm writing a serious news article for print, just because I have that background, which I very much appreciate

and and I'm sure others do as well. But I guess, what is your niche what do you do you see kind of a space for yourself in this arena And I guess this arena meaning journalism and in ufosh and what is that space? It's a great question. I'm not sure if it really technically thought about that. But like for me, the journalism I do now is, you know, I'm not attached to anyone. I'm basically you know, I have my own website. I don't have an editor to answer to.

I don't have an organization to answer to. I do a music blog on the side for the chronicles still, but that's just like for fun. But I don't, you know, I don't have all those mechanisms controlling what I want to do, so I'm able to still continue this research and do it the way I want to do it. In terms of you know, this UFO community, I think I'm just one of many newer people just getting involved

in. I'm always very honored and humbled when you know, people like yourself and other other people asked me to be on their shows and say nice things about me, because it's you know, that's the biggest takeaway. You know, I wrote a book, and I haven't made any money off those books, but I've had so many opportunities in doors open, and to me that means more than you know, making three hundred dollars in royalties. You know, and do you think you've what do you think you've learned, especially I

guess related to especially the community. I mean it can be kind of strange and getting to know and you know, figuring out the space, uh and especially kind of you know, done this through Aleasondo's experience in last year. What was yours like? It's you know, it was great because it was very welcoming from the start. It doesn't seem as competitive and cut through.

I mean, obviously there's people you know who are jetted, and I get that, but Jason McKellen was the first person to reach out to me. He was a you know, a road planet. He was the first one to put me on and put me on a show, and automatically, I mean we had so much in common and I felt like this, this isn't

just a colleague. This is all even though I've never met him. I mean we talked on the phone, but like this is a friend now, so you know, and then obviously talking about to Ryan Sprague and Eric Lukes and some other people, and you know, it's it's very tight knit and it's really cool how people are supportive of each other. And you know, obviously you know there's other side of that too, where there's people who've been

doing this for a long time. They're jaded, they've been disappointed, they've seen things not go certain ways, and I get that, but it's you know, it's how you how you choose to respond to it, and a lot of times, a lot of times it's you know, it's not even worth engaging, you know, some of the people who have arguments, you know, like one of the researchers, I'm not gonna name who it is, but I blocked them on Twitter and I referenced them in my last article

because we got in this whole debate because this person believed that to the Stars was a mechanism to sell alien T shirts, which is probably the worst take I've heard on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll definitely get into some of that because I agree that that's that gets pretty silly out there.

But what then, I guess when it comes to the phenomena itself, at least to me, and especially as a journalist, you know, for you, so to me, it seems like even though other journalists can't find stories, and I kind of understand that because you've got to really kind of get in there, especially with all the signal to noise so much noise. There are a lot of really compelling stories to tell. Yeah, absolutely, and not like not every story has to be necessarily huge or groundbreaking. Like I

love sharing people's stories. I had so at work, we had a professional development day and I did a class on UFOs and crypt zoology, and I had a teacher come up to me afterwards saying she's had experiences her whole life and she was always ashamed to tell people, and she let me tell her story on my website, and that was really cool because, like I said, this isn't anything you know, it's going to make front page news,

but still someone's experience that they're sharing, and you know, once again it's

up to the audience's side whether they buy it or not. And there's other stories like I picked up the story that Muffon passed on multiple times as this older man who claimed to have a military experiment on him where he was fed supposedly a serum from an alien spaceship, and everything about his story just sounds like something out of a comic book or science fiction, Like it sounds crazy, but you know, he was very eager and helpful to provide proof that

he was in the military. And his paperwork and his blood work, and he had really nothing to gain from this. It's like, you know what, I'll go for it, even though it kind of sounds out there, But you know, I did three different stories on him, and here's a sweet old man who wanted his story told. So a lot of times it's giving these people a voice or an outlet for them to tell their story.

And you know, and I know that story. In fact, I was familiar with it, and of course I did see you what you had written about it. And those are kind of hard. How do you take those where someone seemingly, you know, genuine has an extraordinary story to tell.

That's that's kind of a tough one to tackle. Yeah, absolutely, And I don't take every story that people will just kind of throw at me, and they're just person on Twitter who is just sending me stuff all the time, and I just I just had to pass because it was so kind of out there and a lot of it wasn't able to be so like a lot of times, if someone pitches something to me and it sounds like something I've heard before or something that could be possible, then of course you're am more

open minded to doing that. Story in this case, you know, it's you kind of have to try to use your judgment and see this person's credible in the sense that they're not trying to dupe you or deceive your audience. So for for this one, I said, I spoke to the guy multiple times, and he just sounded like a nice guy who wanted his story told. And and he wasn't necessarily like a ufologist, like he didn't know a lot of the uf post stuff. He's just like he saw the Roswell the

Coded show on CW. He's like, oh, yeah, Roswell, and he was just kind of like, I have a story to tell. You know, that just kind of you know, jogged back his memory. But he didn't know a lot of cases like I told him about, you know, Corso's book the day after Roswell and a few other ones. And a week later he called me and said, hey, I read those books. They were great. I had no idea. So it's you know, it's kind of part of the sharing. Mm hmm. Well, we've got to

take a quick break. We're taking to Mike Demante of punk Rock and UFOs dot com and uh, we'll take a short break for those of you listening on a radio channel that you're going to hear a commercial break. The rest of you will hear a short musical interlude and we'll be right back. You're listening to Open Mind GFO Radio. We are back. You're listening to Open Mind GFO Radio. I'm your host, Alejandro Rojas, and we're talking to

Mike Demante, a punk rock and UFOs dot com. And you mentioned one of your recent stories that you had written about this gentleman with this this kind of interesting story claiming to have been part of this military experiment where he drank this alien serum. Now, was he convinced that it was extraterrestrial in nature? And was he did? He say he was told that? Yeah,

he said he was told that. But he signed these NDA agreements and he's at the point where he doesn't care violating because he's eighty four years old. So at this point of his life, even though he's very healthy, he's in great shape, he doesn't care anymore in terms of if he gets in trouble and what you know, he shot a video I think probably two three years ago he videoed his whole story and it's only been like kind of living and on like a few message boards. That's it. Like, no,

no one's really picked it up and ran with it. So that's why I was like, well, if this is out there, but nobody kind of bit on it. So I wanted to be the one to bite on it because I thought it was interesting. M And I personally feel it's good you did. I mean, with a lot of these and people get frustrated because I don't write about it. I just like you, you know, I

just don't have the time. It's a it's a great story to get out there, especially if it's someone who sounds you know, to be a sound mind and have an interesting background, but you just don't have the time. Yeah. Yeah, And that's the thing too. You know, a lot of us don't do this, you know, full time for a living, so you know, it's whenever we have the time to do so. And you know, I guess I wish I had more time to vote to you

know, doing three, three or four posts a week. You know, now with your stories, do you necessarily make a judgment, so like, how do you feel about, you know, whether or not this particular person is you know, accurate that that that that actually happened. He drank an extraterrestrial serum created by the government. Well, well, you know, it's hard because you kind of have to trust. In that case, we'll not trust, but you kind of have to give them the opportunity and then go

from there. He was able to send me some of his documents that I've showed, showed to a nurse and somebody in the military, and they were able to collaborate that yes, these are real documents, and this is his blood work, and yes, this is extraordinary for someone his age. So for me, you know, the fact I was able to get get a hand of those, you know, those documents and go from there was definitely

helpful in making that decision to go forward. M hm. And you know what's it's kind of funny as a journalist because it's there's a different perspective also in that we don't necessarily have to know when we put together a story. We're looking at the credibility of like the witness or or the interest in the story, but we're not necessarily making judgments. We're looking for information that'll give us something indicators one way or another. But at least many of us I

don't know about. If you go about it differently, but I don't judge it. I put together the story to get it out there, and then people will ask, well, what do you think it. I'll be like, I don't know, and they'll be like, oh, you got to know, you wrote about it, you got to believe in it or have some opinion, and sometimes I just I don't know, you know, No, absolutely, yeah, I hear it, because sometimes you have to try to keep our personal opinions out of it too. So yeah, it's a

tough one. Mm hmm. So uh Blink one eighty two. Would you consider them punk rock? Oh? Absolutely, obviously. You know, nineteen ninety nine was a year where you know, you had Blank and previously had Green Day and all those those bands that were making the mainstream were considered sellouts. But we're like so far past that, you know, those days, And obviously I've covered you know, I've covered their music and their career my whole life, and I've been a big fan, and obviously they were on

the pop punk side for sure. But yeah, that's definitely was my gateway drug and punk rock music was Blank at a really young age. Hmm. Interesting, So it had to be especially compelling or impactful to you when you know, after you even started using this this name punk rock in UFOs, that Tom DeLong comes out so full on about UFOs and eventually, really and I make this justification. I don't know if you've seen that in the articles.

And I think it's true that we wouldn't have had these Pentagon revelations without him. Yeah, how I mean that had to be pretty a pretty big deal for you, especially well, I mean he's never really hit his you know, his UFO obsession. He's talked about it in interviews. Before one of their DVDs, there's like this bonus footage of him going on like he's

drunk. He drank like a bottle of wine. Here's going on. He's showing, you know, all the books in his house, and he wrote a song Aliens Exists, and anyone who's listening to Angels and Airwaves, there's very good literary references to the mysteries of the universe and kind of secret society.

So all throughout his career he's kind of been interested in this. And you know, I'm kicking myself because I've interviewed him, I met him multiple times, and we never I never got the opportunity to ask about this, because at the time I was asking him about you know, Blink and when Angels and Airwaves was here in Houston years ago, I interviewed him backstage and it was obviously you know, I got through in some fanboy questions there,

but never at the time that I think to ask him about that. I don't know why I should have, because now he's a really hard guy to get in touch with. Obviously, you know, went to the Stars Academy and things are being controlled a certain way. You know, kudos to you. You're probably you're the first one to get mister Elizondo, so that that's huge, and I think that's great that they're starting to come out and slowly talk more to outlets and and be more transparent, because I think that's what

a lot of people for the past year. Yeah, that's what's been hard too, because you know, Jason and Maureen got that great interview for Open Minds with Tom DeLong a few years ago, and I haven't had the opportunity to. I've got to speak with him off the record about several things in the last few years, well, all related to all of this, but it's all had to be off the record. And so, And it's not

because, oh, major secrets or something like that. It's just because, rightfully so, they're being careful about how they're releasing information, and you know, right now lose the guy who's sharing the information about the group. So I know what you mean. And it's still I guess, you know,

did you did it really hit you how significant? And I imagine it was, but I just kind of I'm curious about your reaction, how significant you know these stories were, you know, back in twenty sixteen with the October His to the Stars Academy coming out, and then soon after the Pentagon story, I guess, how did you react to to the Stars being created?

So optimism, I guess is the best way to say. But you also have to be skeptical too, And to this day, you know, I've said multiple times I'm not really a fan of the business model aspect to it, but I do say this. You know, the Pentagon uf U Foe story was big for a lot of us because it confirms a lot of us have been saying for years regarding secret programs. So you know, he's taken

risks his whole life and his whole career. So for him to walk away from Blink, which was the banning created and one of the largest bands in the world. To do this, he obviously has a lot of people involved that have credibility, so it's kind of it was kind of exciting, you know, just kind of see where it goes from there. And everything that they slowly said was going to happen is slowly happening for the most part.

It may not be as fast as you know some people want or as a specific but I always said, hey, worst case scenario if we get a documentary TV series or a movie, or if we get you know, we get this, like, it's not a it's not a complete loss. You know. I think people have these these lofty expectations. You know, let them do their work and it may take a while, but you know, if they get people talking. You know, mister Alizondo has been all over

you know, some major meat outlet's. You know, he's been referenced in plenty of articles, and I think, you know, he's the guy going forward because he has so much credibility because of his his background and a lot of He's going to be a household name sooner, sooner rather than later. So what is shocking though, especially as as someone writing about this this all and who's a student of kind of the history of UFO research, and it

was probably shocking to you. It was shocking to me because Tom DeLong personally had been telling me, you know, here and there that big stuff is coming, big stuff is coming, and even I was kind of like, yeah, sure, we'll see, but I was not prepared for and of course was completely shocked and still am to this day about everything that is kind of happening at this point. Yeah, I think it's, like I said, a lot of it's a pleasant surprise. I was never shocked by him

kind of hyping things up because he's been that way his whole career. It's not a bad thing. That's just you know, I've interviewed him before about blinking about angels and air waves, and he always he knows how to get people excited about projects he's working on. Does he always deliver, I mean, that's up to people to decide, but I always think his heart's in the right place and he has, you know, he aims high, and

that's something I think that's very admirable. I think that's another there's another disconnect there too, also, and let's get into that. So first, this is a question kind of leading into this next set of questioning, is the pacing. Like you said, people have been disappointed about information not coming out and enough have you felt that same disappointment. Have you felt, oh,

man, they're so slow in their release of information. No, because I understand for the Stars was still a very small operation, even though they have a lot of big people working for them. I know in San Diego obviously to the Stars aspect of it, the entertainment aspect of it, it's still a very you know, very small business. It's almost family ran at this point. But going forward, you know, I think it's going to obviously have to grow, if you know, if the academy is going to take

off and so forth. So, and I also know how how he works. You know, he doesn't work well with deadlines. Tom likes to work at his own pace. That's why musically, Angels and Airwaves is his baby, and he's able to kind of do things as he pleases. And that's why that was a major rift with Blank that he had with the other members

of Blank. But no, I mean I think it was something like this though intrinsically, you have to be patient because there's there's analysis that needs to be done, you know, with these television networks as contracts, Like for anyone who's you know, ever done television or even interviewed with producers, they know that sometimes producers will be jung ho about a show and then the network will sour on it or you know, or the direction will change or so

forth. So these things take time, all these things that they promised, Like, I get it, it's gonna take time absolutely because they're not self releasing any of this stuff. You know, there's obviously other companies and people involved, right right, and so I it's kind of been a disconnect for me also because I'm like you, I've been like, you know when people say that. Recently, I was on a podcast and Steinfeld Steinfeld is his

name, but it was sort of the same thing. He's like, you know, people are so frustrated with him, like there's nothing that's come out since the announcement. I'm like, are you kidding? There's a ton that's come out. And I shared that with him and how I felt, at least from my perspective, we've been getting a lot of great information, you know, since they've been releasing it, although there's also kind of a different expectations with what information's coming out, and I could see that, and I

would love to hear your thoughts on this. So for instance, and it's partially Tom's problem, and I kind of written about this as well. He kind of set up this expectation of some really extraordinary, wild kind of revelations that were coming, and that's what a lot of people in the UFO community

were expecting. Now, what was announced for me, from my perspective, was just jaw dropping and amazing and the absolutely most incredible type of information I could hear, which is that these government agencies were existed and that these ex officials are now coming out and working with Tom DeLong. So for me, that was great, But for a lot of others, they were wanting to hear about the aliens at Roswell and about Dulce and all of this other stuff.

And I think they still expect that's what is coming out. Yeah, I mean, who knows, you know, But like you said, we have to, you know, keep our expectations to you know, was gonna say. Tom did a little short documentary with this group called Meta. It's like a it's like a motorcycle thing, and he referenced to the Stars as a as an aerodynamic Oh I'm sorry, it's wrong. Words had a brain fart. Yeah, he is an aerospace company. And it's like it's not

that yet. It's like pumped the brakes. But like that's just him speaking and aiming high. And you know someone's gonna hear that and say, oh, he's lying. They're not this, they haven't done this. That's just like I said, him speaking and aiming high. So I think the first year to the Stars, you obviously had you know, the Pentagon UFO story and all these official people coming out, which is great and fantastic, but then you know, no one was speaking they really want to speaking to the

media. Outside of that, you know, Tom wasn't doing any press outside of a few main treatment outlets, and then it got pretty much shut down after the Joe Rogan interview. And now you see Eli Zander. Now he's coming out, he's doing some press, and now you see him showing up to convention. So maybe there are some things that they can discuss at the

time. I don't know, but I think this is good now that they're being more transparent because I think that was one of the main concerns with them the first year, and they're kind of in a tough spot, and I don't think people see that as well. And I think that you know, in Alabama recently, Lou talked about this and that he's got to walk a very fine line because there's certain things he cannot say he could get in a lot of trouble for. And also he has colleagues where he doesn't want to

step on their toes. So he's kind of this de facto spokesperson, even though he doesn't want to be, and he shouldn't be, but he's the one everybody wants to hear from. Yeah. Absolutely, I think he's doing a great job, and I think going forward he probably will be the spokesperson in terms of that sense, just because like, he doesn't have to do this, but he is. And I think a lot of people in their community appreciate that that he's going to these conventions, you know, and a

lot of them are small, like the Alabama one. I didn't even hear about it till like a week before. I'm like, oh, this is a thing. But you know, I think that that speaks volumes about you know, his his dedication. Mm hmmm, yeah, and so I think

that's been important. But also your article, So you've written about, you know, some of the detractors, some of the people who are upset, and you mentioned and I wanted to talk some more about, you know, your article and kind of how you've dispelled some of the what you see in laps of logic. So, for instance, which makes it Yeah, Tom's got a lot of money and he is not in trouble financially, fortunately for him, and hopefully this project does not put him in any financial jeopardy.

But yeah, he's not doing this for teas and book tales. Yeah, because any anyone who's written a book knows you don't make money unless your names like Stephen King. Yeah, exactly. So, but what are some of the other, you know, arguments that you've seen that you think are kind of invalid. Well, I think obviously it starts with there this is a money grab or you know, oh, this is just another you know, one of these these uh, you know, these egotistical celebrities trying to throw

their hat in the game. You know, this isn't Megan Fox hosting a show. You know that she doesn't eat this isn't William Shatner hosting a show he doesn't need to host. You know, this is somebody who's actively been involved with this stuff, into the stuff for a really long time, who's passionate about it, who's putting his money where his mouth is, and wants

to do something about it. You know, like I just said, you know a lot of these things are common sense things that you know, why would you leave arguably one of the biggest bands in the world to come up with some company to fraud people. It just doesn't make logical sense. And that it's all going to be fiction and it's all uf tayment and its all this stuff. It's one of the I mean the things they said. You know, they have three non fiction book series, I'm sorry, the three

books in the non fiction book series. They said, this documentary is coming out. Obviously there's a fictional aspect of that they're doing too, But they said that from the start. They said that before the Academy even happened, before you know, when anything about UFOs even happened. You know, Tom was doing his fictional series with the poet Anderson in strange times, so you know, this isn't a affront, you know, to sell Hollywood projects.

You know, that's another thing too. And then just in terms of like the patients, you know, these things take time. But I think that's a logical thing. If if they have this data like they say they do, and they're analyzing it, you would want it to go through the proper avenues to say, you know, you wouldn't want that rushed. So let them do their due diligence and the just see from there and be patient.

Right, And like you said earlier, there there's small group. I mean, it's really not all of the people that are listed as team members are full time TSA. Some of these people, I mean, I don't think people realize I mean, Chris Mellen, some of these others. These people come from some very very uh you know, substantial backgrounds, not being with billionaires and everything, and they have a lot of their plate and you have

to imagine that they're taking a substantial peicup right. And some of them, fortunately they don't need money either. I mean, for since the Melons, they've got plenty of money still there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like I said, a lot of those people are, like you said, are set already for life in terms of money. Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know. I can't speak to all their financials, but you know, Tom doesn't need money. If he wanted to, he could

probably fund a lot of this himself. But then again, you know, that's a lot to ask. I like it. M There's a couple other things that I wanted to ask you about. And it's also kind of to check myself to see if I'm off on this at all, and I like to do that a lot, but especially with you've got a journalists background. One of the big questions out there is whether a tip had anything to do with UFOs, And you know, there are arguments that we don't have any

documents explicitly saying that, which is true. However, we do have. Some people have argued all we have is lose word. Well not necessarily. We also have Harry Reid's word. We also have all of the big low aerospace people. At least we've heard from how put Off, you know, Eric Davis. We've heard from others who confirm that as well. And of course, if people knew the background, which many of these people who are making these claims do. Bigelow has been looking at the UFOs for a long

time and then was contracted to do that. So there's I don't understand any doubt. And as a journalist, and I think this is another thing that they're not getting as a journalist, we're looking for credible sources to say this was a UFO program. When we have the guy who ran the program, the Harry Reid who generated the funds for the program, and scientists who are inside the program all confirming this. We don't need an official document. We

got the guys in the program telling us this. Yeah, no, absolutely, I know. Even the documents that have came out, you know, people like to argue, you know, the playing semantics was an a TIP? Was it with a W, with a T? You know all, you know, with the different names it was. And we have to understand with anything the Freedom Information Act, it's partial disclosure, so things could be redacted, So there could be things that we have not seen or they're not

disclosing. So the fact that we have a got official document that says in big bold letters, a TIP was a one hundred percent UFO program, And you know, I don't think that's that's the smoking gun, you know, I think as of right now, you know, we have these people's word, and we have some documentation that these programs existed, even though doesn't say

they were UFO and this is other things. We know that they were investigating an almost activity, right and and so hopefully we'll get some more information out. But you know, there's been a little bit more information we've gotten even

recently. I noticed you retweeted UFO Joe who was recent at the recent talk by George Knapp, and George kind of filled in a few of the gaps there and explained how he got a lot of this information from sources he cannot share in Washington, d C. Yeah, absolutely, And I think I mean, George Knapp is a journalist and a lot of times you're not allowed to share your sources, or if you do, you have to get that approved by your editor. I would think some of George Knapp's editors at Im

Mosse has no his sources. I would definitely think those are some of the people who know him. For sure. Very few people will probably know them. But I would argue that if he ever runs any of those stories, that they're going to go through one of those editors first, right exactly. And of course, as we know with journalists. They're going to be skeptical and they're going to be hard on the information, and I'm in fact they

give a surprise. They give George so much leeway that they do to run so many of these stories and I'm which is great because we get so much really good information from George Knapp. Yeah, absolutely, Like you know, he has he's been doing this forever, and he has the credibility within his organization and as a journalist and you know throughout us so's it's really cool that

he's able to, you know, be one of those mainstream journalists. Obviously there's Leslie Key and Ralph Blumenthal too who work for a big news out but you know, they have the credibility and they're willing to write these articles and their outlets are willing to support them for running it. So what's next for you? So you've got are you working on another book? Do you are? There? Is there another kind of angle you're looking at tackling UH in

your blog? So what's next for me? Eventually I'd like to write another book. I have some other books, non UFO related, potentially in the pipeline as far as my blog goes, you know, Puck rocking Foes dot coms, continue what I'm doing and just monitoring all these stories and seeing who I could speak to next and who wants to come to me next, And there's possibly some other opportunities in multimedia. I don't want to kind of reveal things. I don't know anything yet and I want to jump the gun.

But I may be able to go, you know, use some someone else's resources to go research some things, and maybe it'll be on TV or the internet. I don't know, but yeah, that's what's next. And you know a lot of this is you know, I said, we have to be patient. You know, many of us don't have the resources to go out ourselves and you know, go hunt down uh you know, politicians and you know break into area fifty one. So you know a lot of just

you know, we have to wait and see and go from there. Punk rock and UFOs dot com is where everybody can find your books and your blog is there? Are there any other u ur ls or maybe social media you want to send people to. That's it. I mean my social media is at Mike Demante on Twitter. I tweet obviously about the subject and my other interests as well. If you can get past that. But yeah, awesome, Yeah, I love the other interests as well. Thank you so much

for being on the show. Oh, thank you so much. One. Like I said earlier, this is an honor to be on and as soon as you asked me, I got really excited. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much to Mike Demante for being on the show. It was more wonderful to have him. A lot of really cool information. Be sure to check out his website punk rock and UFOs dot com for more information and also information on how to get his book.

You can see some of his blog. You can also even got merchandise up here. Help him out by buying some of his cool shirts and other stuff here. Lots are really cool stuff. But anyways, I really appreciate having Mike around. I've appreciated his blogs and some of what he's been contributing to this conversation. And of course it's great to have someone else who's a fellow journalist so that we can kind of share our perspective so people can understand where

we're coming from. And speaking of a lot of the cool information coming up. The SEU, the Scientific Coalition for Youthology. So this is an organization I've talked quite a bit about because I've been involved with working with him and getting information out and hopefully getting access to the world of academiam and science. And so their website is the place to go for information about the Anomalous Aerial

Phenomenon conference. So the conference they put together that went on a couple of weeks ago, wonderful conference that Luis Elizonda was at, So explore SEU dot org. That's the official release of information. Unfortunately, there were some people who shared information a little prematurely. They were recording and or audio taping, you know, the talks, and you know, some people said, well,

why couldn't we do that? And the reason is that, you know, as we get in these conversations and I tell you guys this, sometimes you know when and you guys know this, when you're talking with people one on one, then you share stuff that you wouldn't share publicly. That's just

obvious, right. And if we want to get in kind of these think tank type of situations where we're kind of talking about things and spitballing, you know, there's going to be information that will be shared that not everybody's wanting to share, so for instance, information could be taken out of context or

We talked with Kevin about this last week. Kevin Kanuoth one of the scientists who was there, and he talked about how it's important that you know anything we say or do is handled carefully and correctly, and that's why we're careful about releasing what we're releasing, getting permission before we're doing it. That's a

professional and respectful way to do it. There's no way as a journalist that I can go to any event and then just you know, write about things when I was asked not to. I even then I'm even more careful to make sure, hey, this was a topic, this was a situation that was all clear right, And especially when you're working with scientists, you also to make sure you're framing the information right, to make sure you're accurate,

because it's so so complicated that if you want to share with the public accurate information and you've got to verify that you're doing it correctly. So there's a number of reasons why that's important, and there's a number of reasons why for the AAPC for that event really explore SCU dot org is the official outlet and the best outlet for that information. And there's going to be more and more coming to the website there that you'll see. So you'll see there's an AAPC

link and there'll be some more videos and information. One exciting piece of information that's coming really soon is the Nimtz Report, So the investigation that SCU members Peter Reality and Robert Powell did into the Nimetz case, and that's really exciting. I got to see a little bit of a preview and a presentation they did at the event. But they did some really great work there, talk to many witnesses, many more witnesses and have even been heard out there.

So it's a lot of fun. So you'll be able to check that out soon as well. Of course, as usual, please do go to the UFO Congress and get on the email list that has kind of become that the Facto Open Minds email list, to be honest, because as open Minds, you know, I'm the only guy and I'm working from homeworking on open Minds. At this point. We used to have a staff, as you all know, people like we were mentioning earlier Jason and Maureen, but no longer.

It is just I and the website is kind of hosted remotely by John Reo who owns the company, and there's changes that go on, and it's not like, you know, they have a whole core company to run over there. So like email, right now, we really just don't have an email list ability to send out to on the open mind side, but we do on the UFO Congress side, So we have been sending out UFO Congress

emails and we do include information and stories on open Minds as well. So if you haven't joined that email list, please go to Ufocongress dot com and do so. And if you are already on the open Minds list, you will be fine because that was a joint list of the Congress and open Minds, and so keep an eye out for that. Otherwise, other cool stuff at the UFO Congress. There's a lot of new products there for those of you who like UFO and alien kind of paraphernalia, clothes and junk like that.

Lots of really fun stuff there, so you can find that at Ufocongress dot com. Otherwise, I want to thank Martin Willis for the news. Martin Willis a podcast UFO The news that we talked about can be found on the front page of Openminds dot tv, including that fun story from April Fools of nineteen eighty nine where Richard Branson fulled of virgin galactic you know, kind

of fold all these people in London. Great story, so check that out if you haven't before, but again you can find that all in the front page of open Minds TV. Otherwise, I want to thank Caleb Hanks for the opening and Close Music Systematics for the bumper music, and of course, as usual, I want to thank you the listeners for being here once again. Thank you so much for being here until next time, which will just be next week. In case you're wondering audio smooth chuchos, you were motionless