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(Bonus) *DRONES* Over NJ: My Brother Owen
92 Plays3 months ago
What the hell are these (alleged?) drones over New Jersey? I don't know. And I'm working on it. But meanwhile, in this bonus episode my brother Owen comes on the pod to share his thoughts.
UFOFocusPodcast@proton.me
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Transcript
Introduction to UFO Focus Bonus Episode
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to UFO Focus. I'm your host, Isaiah. And thanks for tuning into this, what I'm calling a bonus episode. I'll explain that in a second.
Initial Drone Sightings in New Jersey
00:00:15
Speaker
But an
00:00:26
Speaker
drones over New Jersey.
00:00:44
Speaker
dozens,
Shift in Narrative: Authorities Respond
00:00:45
Speaker
maybe hundreds, who knows, of reports to local authorities, reports, by the way, that preceded national attention on this story, and in fact it was the UFO community, if anybody, who was kind of on top of this early. Anyway, many reports in New Jersey to local authorities of what people perceived as drones flying over their houses, in some cases hovering, we'll get back to that,
00:01:20
Speaker
ah
00:01:23
Speaker
reports that were taken seriously by mayors, local congresspeople, members, senators. Eventually the national press did catch up with this story and the story has kind of morphed ah in recent days as far as I can tell.
00:01:42
Speaker
I just got
Personal Story: Isaiah in Tucson
00:01:43
Speaker
back from Tucson, actually, Tucson, Arizona, my first time there, and was having a wonderful evening with a friend of mine, a journalist friend, who I'll just call Dee, because I don't know if he wants me to use his name. And we sit down at this amazing bar. It's called um The Buffet, and it's been there for decades and decades. and Bukowski hung out there apparently. I went to use the bathroom and I come back and my friend looks at me and he goes, you went to the black hole and I, the bathroom, they're not kidding when they call it the black hole. It's the most grotesque, disgusting, amazingly dingy bathroom. Anyway, the whole place was great, but I digress.
00:02:39
Speaker
So I'm
Discussion with Dee on Drone Misidentification
00:02:40
Speaker
talking to my journalist friend, Dee, and this guy, let me just tell you, this guy is wicked smart. He's a great journalist, hard-nosed journalist, you know? And anyway, so I say, what do you make of this drone situation? And he he immediately just goes, psst.
00:03:02
Speaker
He's like, uh, the drones, you know, like, how could you ask such an idiotic question? He didn't say that drones. There is no drone situation. It's all aircraft, you know, regular aircraft. People are just misidentifying it. There's nothing there. So
Conflicting Government Responses
00:03:20
Speaker
in case you missed it, the government response to this and Even that becomes complicated because it seems like there's the White House and there's the Pentagon and then there's other agencies. There's the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI. I mean, there's been all these statements put out, but most of them basically boil down to this. A, we don't know whose drones these are. B,
00:03:49
Speaker
There is no reason to be afraid. There is no threat here. um Those statements, as I will express in this interview, seem plainly contradictory to me. um
Unexplained Drones Amid Media Skepticism
00:04:02
Speaker
But what sort of emerged and surpassed those statements, I think in the past few days even, is A message that I don't hear those parties saying it directly, but it seems to be getting out that there there is nothing going on. It's just all misidentification. And to be clear, as we'll touch on, obviously once this is in the news and people are looking up at the sky, people will misidentify things as drones and call those in.
00:04:33
Speaker
That doesn't explain where this began, or it says nothing about the underlying truth or falsity of the original assertions that there were, perhaps still are, weird drones flying around New Jersey. So what the hell is going on? Short answer? I don't know. I really have no idea.
00:04:57
Speaker
But I am trying to figure it out.
Research Collaboration with Owen
00:05:01
Speaker
What I want to do is bring someone on the program who knows a lot and has a good hypothesis. But I don't have such a guest just yet, and you know quite frankly, this is no disrespect to anyone in terms of those of us trying to figure this out. I don't think anybody really knows.
00:05:22
Speaker
Anyway, uh, lacking such a guest yet, maybe I'll have to go solo and just share my research, um I thought I would just do this little fun family bonus episode in Touch Base with someone who Full disclosure, does not know a ton about any of this, ah but who I think has a good head on his shoulders, and that would be my brother, Owen. So ah I'm going to check in with Owen. I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you're looking for anything, sort of for new meat to put on the bones of this story, I totally feel you. you're not you I don't think you're going to get it from this interview.
00:06:01
Speaker
but um I enjoyed the conversation with my brother. I
Media Skepticism and Coverage Analysis
00:06:06
Speaker
think it's good to talk to people who have different points of view, different experience, different backgrounds to calibrate. And so I wanted to calibrate with my brother and here's that conversation. Oh, thanks again for listening. Please share on social media. I'm trying to find more listeners. Okay.
00:06:33
Speaker
Um, ready to go? I made the way, I guess. Okay. Just in case I use this as my actual intro. Hello, and welcome back to UFO Focus with a very special guest, my brother, Owen. Owen, welcome to UFO Focus. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the invitation. um Thank you for doing it. um So i think this is I don't think we've talked in between. So basically, my recollection is that I called you maybe a week or two ago, I don't know, 10 days ago or something. And I was like, have you heard about this drone situation? And your answer was no. And I don't think we've really talked much since we talked earlier tonight. Is that basically right? Yeah, that's about right. I believe my answer was, what drone situation? Yeah.
00:07:26
Speaker
and we And we haven't really caught up since then, that's right. Right, but then when we talked earlier tonight, um you had more information, you had heard more stuff, and you, like I, um voiced a skepticism about kind of what what seems to be becoming the the proverbial party line here, what seems to be becoming sort of the thing that i'm I'm hearing repeated back more and more, which is like this idea that There is no drawn situation. um So anyway, why don't you just describe like ah from knowing nothing to learning something, where are you at right now? Yeah, so a week ago, about a week ago, you asked me about it. I have not heard about it at all. I think you know I pulled out my phone, looked up New York Times when you told me about it. It seemed like there was very little news so far.
00:08:23
Speaker
And I'd say a day or two after that, I started to kind of break through into my usual news so that I would be hearing about it, you know, if I hadn't heard about it from you. And almost everything I've heard about it has been like and medium to very skeptical that there is any phenomenon happening here at all. So like I listened to I listen to a lot of WNYC news. I listen to Pod Save America, just a couple podcasts. I read The Times, I read a couple other things. and All the coverage has been, yeah has a lot of it has been kind of tongue in cheek, even like on some of the non, I'm not on UFO Reddit, but I'm on other Reddit, some people on Reddit are kind of making fun of ah you know what was they perceive as a hysteria of people, you know like calling in to report
00:09:20
Speaker
UFO sightings when it's like an airplane, and you know, people are not able to tell the difference between a jumbo jet with hundreds of people on it, thousands of feet in the air and a drone. Yeah, so the coverage has been largely skeptical and hasn't really, has not really added up with, you know, the level of skepticism I think has surprised me a little bit or at least kind of been discouraging
Speculation on Drone Origins
00:09:49
Speaker
because I Well, I'll learn more about this. Yeah, I mean, I agree. And i've i've you and I consume a lot of the same media. And so I've heard a bunch of the same sort of segments that you have. And um yeah, it's it seems like it seems like what is happening is that
00:10:15
Speaker
the government or at least certain parts of the government, because something else I was just listening to made a distinction between like what the White House has been saying and what the Pentagon has been saying, what Homeland Security has been saying, et cetera. But um it seems like the White House in particular has been really actively playing this down. They're sort of putting out the like nothing to see here theory. And I think part of what's happening is that responsible, you know generally responsible journalists are saying, okay, the government is saying, you know we should sort of trust this because we should trust the authorities. And I often agree, I'm sure you feel the same way, that you know it is often a good thing to trust authorities, um but what what what keeps you skeptical?
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, right, like in general, we should not promote mass hysteria, right? Mass hysteria is not really helpful. And conspiracy theories. I mean, but- And conspiracy theories, right. So I do have the impression there's a lot of ungrounded stuff that is sneaking in here and being about on socials and stuff, although not on socials that much. But yeah, you know, what's frustrating about it is I think as the time passes,
00:11:32
Speaker
The initial story, you know, like my wife, for example, who has kind of different news sources, you know, legit ones, but she just kind of focuses on different stuff and she follows different people on socials and everything. And she was like, oh, I thought that it turned out to be nothing. you know And I was like, well, no, like a week could ago was pretty clearly something, right? Like there were they are clusters of large, like larger than hobby sized drones that seemed to be hanging out around like utilities and stuff, and i'm also maybe military bases.
Public Reactions and Media Narratives
00:12:06
Speaker
um And that felt like that was probably something real, like I don't know what it was. It you know it occurred to me that like Russia had vowed retaliation on the US after, I think after the latest some latest providing of weapons to Ukraine or something, right? So I was like, I don't know. I mean, like they might be messing with us with drones to see how we react. Like that seems like one possible explanation. But that seems like a real thing. Yeah, i think what you're referring I think what you're referring to probably is we gave Ukraine permission to use weapons that they had not had permission to use or in context that they hadn't before. So we sort of freed them up. Anyway, go on.
00:12:51
Speaker
i think I think that's right. And like they can hit targets farther away or something. And there was some kind of ominous language. And there's been a bunch of times in that war that there's been ominous language. right But there was something I had heard recently. And like, oh, yeah, maybe there's some connection there. and you know Or it could be some other completely different explanation. But it seemed like it was pretty clearly not nothing. And that people were clearly like noticing something new. And then There's also like pretty clearly been a cascade since then of as the news spreads, people are looking for something and seeing it both when it is and isn't there, right is my impression.
Government's Contradictory Statements on Drones
00:13:29
Speaker
you know but um And it's it's been kind of of funny to watch, how like I'm just kind of thinking this for the first time out loud, but there's been kind of like two parallel tracks where
00:13:38
Speaker
at the same time, kind of like the news, like comedy, like late night comedy and stuff has decided it's a joke, like responsible news people have kind of decided it's not real. at Even as like kind of simultaneously Congress was starting to take it more seriously and elected officials, in Congress and local officials, seemingly they were like, hey, you know, it seems like our constituents are really riled up about this. Maybe we should kind of get in front of this and like, you know, talk tough on this.
00:14:07
Speaker
I could not agree with you more. No, you're hitting the nail on the head. the I think you're absolutely right. The kind of the the media writ large is starting to write this off. it's it's It's almost like you can see these competing narratives and you can see how sort of one seems to be winning and growing. and you know it's like like the amoeba that's eating the other ah smaller amoebas or something. And it happens that that is basically the narrative that's being put forward by at least some elements of the government. ah Well, it seems like most elements of the government, um right? Because like one of the first things we heard here, I can read this to you. i I have a few relevant documents that we can look at. Let me see if I can find them.
00:14:59
Speaker
I saved a couple of good ones, but the one in particular, I think, okay, here we go. All right, so I'm assuming you haven't seen this, but I'm reading to you from something December 12th,
Comparison to Past Incidents
00:15:10
Speaker
so that's um six days ago as we're recording this, joint DHS slash FBI statement on reports of drones in New Jersey. Today, the FBI and DHS jointly issued a statement on reported jones drone sightings in New Jersey.
00:15:27
Speaker
Quote, we have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus. ah Then it says that the FBI and DHS are continuing to deploy per personnel and technology to investigate the situation, blah, blah, blah. And then it says, historically, we have experienced cases of mistaken identity where reported drones are in fact manned aircraft or facilities.
00:15:58
Speaker
facilities, I don't know what that means, but um blah, blah, blah. ah
00:16:07
Speaker
ah We take seriously the threat that can be posed by unmanned aircraft systems, UAS, as if like, we we are concerned with UAS, but not unidentified drones. It's like, well, how do you know it's not a UAS?
00:16:24
Speaker
um which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate the reports. To be clear, they have uncovered no such malicious activity or intent at this stage.
00:16:40
Speaker
um While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight the insufficiency of current authorities. Oh my god, I didn't realize how bizarre that statement was. That got a little weird at the end there. so like just Just to be clear, we don't necessarily know anything.
Foreign Interference or Misunderstanding?
00:17:03
Speaker
Well, we don't know anything, but but but the reported sightings, quote, highlight the insufficiency of current authorities. Yeah. I mean, it's a funny thing, right? Because I followed, like a lot of people did, I follow news with the Chinese spy balloon thing. Yes. And there and there was a funny like confluence of stuff there, right? Because I you know i don't know what's happening now, right? And maybe we'll never find out. but there was like clearly a real thing which was that it seemed to really be a Chinese spy balloon and it both made sense for people to be concerned about that because that was not something we had heard about really before and then there's also like a sensible reason to be tamping down hysteria because people were talking about like I'm going to go out and like shoot my hunting rifle and like no you're not and that's a really bad idea
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, people like looking for it, so they're seeing all this other shit. And I'm a government briefly, like the national government is briefly like, oh, well let's, you know, people are upset about this. Let's like shoot down everything in this guy we can't identify, which turns out to be, I don't know, like dozens of objects or something, however many it was. Eventually, I believe it was actually only three objects. Oh, really? Yes. And it could be one, could be four, but I think it's three. And the two other were never identified what they were.
00:18:26
Speaker
That was very strange. ah
Drones vs UFOs: A Comparative Discussion
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know, so you kind of think about that and you're like, okay, well, maybe some of this, it it really, um you know, even if it all turns out to be some sort of like deep misunderstanding, or, you know, maybe it's the US Army testing out some drones or something like, ah either way, whatever it turns out to be, it really highlights how easy it would be potentially. I mean, maybe not, maybe we have more protection against this than I think, but like, it certainly seems to be like illustrating the way that foreign governments could mess with us through mass hysteria. I mean, maybe they couldn't get drones here, but I think they probably could. And I mean, for that matter, we could do it to other governments too, I guess. Well, or we could- It's kind of a playbook watching, like we're still like watching the dry run play out, even if unintentionally.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, ah or we could do it to ourselves. I don't believe that's what's happening. I don't believe that's what's happening, but there is certainly a certain faction of of people out there who believe that, you know, who are deeply, deeply distrustful of the government in ways that I'm not generally, and who believe like, no, no, no, it's the US government playing out a psy-op on its own citizens. I don't think that's the case.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't really make sense to me. If anything, it makes our government look weak, I think. But also, I don't know if the US s military, like the US military industrial complex has made some pretty bad decisions sometimes. So um yeah, i don't I don't see why that would be the case. But also,
00:20:12
Speaker
you know so some of these Some of this massive distrust is bizarre to me and some of it comes from historical stuff I get, like the people who were downwind of the nuclear testing in the American Southwest and were lied to about it and ended up being really paranoid about the federal government for generations.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah, um something that I brought up when we talked earlier is that to me there's like this fascinating parallel with so I don't think that these are UFOs or UAP in the sense of I mean, there's always someone in the room who's like, well, if they're unidentified, then by definition they are. And it's like, well, yes, by one definition, yes.
Public Ignorance and Skepticism on UAPs
00:20:52
Speaker
But then by another definition, if you define UFOs or UAP as things that are that defy explanation because of something about them, right? The way they move, the way, whatever, but facts the the circumstances defy explanation. um These don't seem to be exhibiting any of those characteristics, but
00:21:15
Speaker
And i'm I'm interested, because you're not, per se, a UFO guy. I've become a UFO guy, I guess, but I'm agnostic about what they are. but um But I wonder, like like I said to you earlier tonight, I was like, this is what UFO land is like. It's the same thing where people see stuff or like you know you or you they uncover accounts of something happening. And then you sort of go to the government and you go like, well, what is this in the government? And you don't get an answer. And it just kind of goes on. And and most people kind and it becomes a joke if it goes public. Yeah, I mean, it's been,
00:21:52
Speaker
In the last couple of years, I'm still—I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm still surprised to sometimes talk to people who are very smart and educated, rational people who just have never really encountered the massive amount of, like,
00:22:13
Speaker
very substantial news about UAPs who are still in this mode that I was probably in know you know two or three years ago of like, oh, that's all ridiculous. And everything can be explained. And mean i'll just like point now I can just like point them to a New York Times article to a source they trust and be like, no, there's definitely some stuff here that is not easily explained. But you see that playing out here, right? like I can tell when people talk about it in my news sources and podcasts and late night stuff. I'm like, oh.
Media Narratives and Trust in Government
00:22:43
Speaker
the way you're joking about this, you're clearly not somebody like who has watched you know the but fighter pilot's video of the pill-shaped thing. like it's It's not very funny when you know that there's like freaky, um inexplicable things flying around in our airspace kind of like all the time. and yeah i If I remember right, and you probably know, um it seemed to me that around the same time as the sightings in Jersey,
00:23:10
Speaker
started that there were reports of drones kind of infringing on airspace of UK military bases where the US is stationed. I was going to ask if you had heard about this. Yes, you are right. It was basically right before the like literally like the week or two weeks, you know, but I mean, it might still be ongoing. I honestly don't know, but Right before the New Jersey stuff started bubbling up the UFO people were all over this there were apparent drone incursions over UK like air bases and to to add another thing I do you know about the Langley air base situation.
00:23:56
Speaker
think so Yeah, so about a year ago there were now acknowledged miss mystery drone incursions over Langley Air Base in Virginia and there was never an explanation provided. It came up at the recent UAP hearing Senator Kirsten Gillibrand like mentioned it. She was like, you know, these things are happening. We had drones or alleged drones over Langley, but nobody in that hearing or anywhere else has ever answered like, well, who's were they? Did we ever figure it out? So, you know, and then the skeptic could argue like, well, how do you know that that has any connection at all? Well, I don't, but at the same time, it doesn't seem crazy to rule it out.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, right. I mean, right. I was sort of surprised at how dismissive a lot of the news quickly became about the New Jersey stuff, given how it seemed to coincide with the UK stuff. I was like, okay, well, that's that's our military at our allies base.
00:24:55
Speaker
we and that ally are aiding Ukraine against Russia, which is sort of like publicly vowed, you know, unspecified retaliation on us. So it just seemed like that would be something to really, you know, take seriously. And it sounds like they are actually taking it seriously and like maybe they like moved some of our fighter jets or something away from those bases. So it's a weird thing to not take seriously.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I mean, to me, the great contradiction in all of this is, and you know this comes from sort of another set of statements, including ah the the Secretary or whatever his position is of Homeland Security, um the Department of Homeland Security,
00:25:46
Speaker
another statement that I could pull up, but I don't know if it's worth our time to, let me just see what I did with this. That's the one I thought, oh, now wait a minute. Hang on, let me just see if I can find this one really quick. All right,
Media's Role in Public Perception
00:26:02
Speaker
I've lost track of where my sentence began, but um yeah, it seems to me that the crux of the,
00:26:11
Speaker
the kind of cognitive dissonance here is the claim by many sectors of the the government that like A, we don't know what they are or whose they are, but B, we're pretty sure there's no threat here.
00:26:30
Speaker
Right. I find that hard to buy. It just it doesn't seem super logical. and i you know And I'm fairly trusting. like i'm As far as Americans in 2024 go, like I'm pretty trusting. So I can see a lot of people are hearing about that, you know hearing them kind of push those contradicting lines and just be like, no, you're obviously lying. And I don't know that they're lying, um but it doesn't seem like we're probably getting everything the military or federal government knows about this, which has generally been
00:27:07
Speaker
the true with UAPs, right? It's like we don't always seem to be getting to full the full information that could be available to us, which it's funny. I mean, to me, it makes it kind of freakier, but there's clearly a segment of the population that is comforted by that. Like when I talk to smart people who don't know about all the military pilots reporting UAPs and stuff, I'm like, oh, this is actually like,
00:27:37
Speaker
The fact that this has like come out in congressional hearings and like major news article you know major news organizations reporting and and you don't really know about it and don't think it's serious is actually a great success of the military and military military industrial complex. I don't know. I'm just going to say the military's approach to the issue, which is like, all right, we're not going to vociferously deny this stuff. We're just going to kind of treat it like it's no big deal. And you'll sort of infer from our attitude that it really is no big deal. And that people and that yeah yeah seems to kind of work for a lot of people. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. um And I think that's what's in and and you'll you'll infer that it's no big deal. And oh, what about the reports? Well, it's just crazy people. People are dumb. People are crazy. People are whatever. And, um you know, Obviously, I mean, I think it goes without saying, I should probably put this in the introduction, like, obviously, now that this is all on the news, people are looking up at the sky, seeing airplanes and being like, I think there's drones. Of course, but the question is, how did this all start? And it seems like it started from legitimate accounts of unusual, I mean, who can't forget if they're drones or aircraft, people were seeing stuff they weren't used to.
00:28:55
Speaker
There's all sorts of weird stuff that, if you're not expecting to see it, is very alarming. and like I think humans probably have a pretty reasonable reaction to being alarmed by seeing unfamiliar things flying or hovering above them. like I don't think it's like it's kind of mean to judge somebody for being terrified when a strange machine is hovering or flying over their home. Yeah, what I want to close on is just like something that you touched on that i you know, the response of sort of, you know, responsible media, um intelligent, responsible, sophisticated media and
Conclusion: Search for Truth Amid Skepticism
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, it feels to me like what I'm seeing play out is this dynamic that is very familiar to anybody once they get into the UFO topic, which is a dynamic by which like, it's not just that, like it's not like these media organizations are really devoting much investigative resources to this. What they're basically doing is they're sort of going to the authorities
00:30:03
Speaker
in, you know, whether literally or just, you know, via, ah you know, secondhand information, they're they're taking the information put up by the authorities and they're sort of saying like, well, this is this seems reasonable and and we don't wanna look bad. So like, we don't wanna be wrong. But you said something very interesting when we were talking earlier this evening about your sort of hesitation there where you're sort of like, but what if you are wrong? Yeah, that's right. I mean, I would think I was saying you earlier It's weird listening to these very confident people speaking in all sorts of media, yeah the car laughing and being like, we know this is nothing. Right. And I'm like, you don't know, like you think, you know, but you, you could be in whatever amount of time. And we may never know. Right. But like, I have these moments listening to people being like, in a week, are you going to look totally foolish? Like in a month, you know, if
00:30:58
Speaker
If this proliferates in a way where it can no longer be denied or becomes clear that of something, you know, other than mass hysteria or confusion like Yeah, I'm kind of amazed by the number of people who are just confidently going on the record at saying it's nothing. Yeah, it me too. And especially when the statements that we're getting are just, to me, so obviously flimsy and and non almost nonsensical. And to me, it's like the role of the media. you know Whatever the underlying reality is, if the government, you know the higher the office, the more this matters. If what they put out doesn't make sense,
00:31:38
Speaker
then you you're supposed to challenge it. You're supposed to be like, this doesn't make sense. How can you say it's not a threat if you don't know what it is? How do you not know what it is? you know I mean, something something isn't working here. Yeah, that makes sense to me. And it makes sense to me in terms of like, yeah, like I think you're saying, like it resonates in terms of the coverage of the congressional hearings on UAPs. That's right. Where people just kind of, a lot of smart people just don't really know what to do with this information.
00:32:07
Speaker
as It's kind of terrifying, but inconclusive. And so it's sort of easier to brush it away and treat it as a long story than it is to deeply engage with it, partly because it's like, it's so deeply unsatisfying to, if if you're someone bound by facts and you you you want to like report on something you can prove and you can't prove anything, like I i see the reporter's dilemma there. Yeah, yeah, I do too. um But there's, you know,
00:32:40
Speaker
there I think there are some good reporters who are on the ground who are trying to do their best to report what people are seeing. And it frustrates me that that that reporting gets drowned out by this kind of national scale reporting, where generally you don't have anybody on the ground and you just have people relying on press statements and stuff like that. um All right, brother, I'm gonna let you go. Well, nice talking to you. All right, thanks for doing it. All right, so long. Bye-bye.