Anomaly-NOW! 20250917

Anomaly-NOW! 9/17/2025 – Weekly News/Media Round-Up

Anomaly-NOW! 9/17/2025 – Weekly News/Media Round-Up

UpComing Events:

 

Local Austin, Texas MeetUps & Happenings…

 

  • Tui Snider Presents Travel, Tombstones & Transformation – Sept 24th for Anomaly Academy Cadet Tier Patrons of the  Anomaly Archives in Austin, Texas – Anomaly Archives / Patreon

 

 

The Internet, AI, Frontier Tech and UFOlogy  / Anomalistics. . . and Fringe Groups

 

Other AusTex / CenTex News

 

UFOLOGY: Follow-ups to the Sept 9, 2025 UAP Hearing – 

 

UFOLOGY

 

More UFO News We Didn’t Get To…

 

Misc Frontier & Normal Science News

 

CryptoZoology

 

Frontier Archaeology

 

Paranormal (?), Parapsychology, Spiritualism

 

Anomaly-NOW 20250917 Transcript and MORE

Title / Shownotes / Chapters / Takeaways / Summary / Raw Transcript (No Editing or Spellcheck) created by Cleanvoice.ai

Anomaly Archives: AI‑Podcast Threats, Mars Hype, and UAP Skepticism

# AI Podcasts Are Coming for Human Creators—But Should We Be Worried?

 

**Miles Lewis sounds the alarm on a troubling trend**: AI-generated podcasts are flooding the market at $1 each, threatening to replace authentic human storytelling with mass-produced content that lacks journalistic integrity. But that’s just the beginning of this packed episode.

 

Lewis previews exciting upcoming talks on **80 graves around the world** and **Cold War UFOs**, while diving deep into the Texas State University report that debunks the “Rainy Street Ripper” theory—finding no serial killer behind 189 Austin drownings, just tragic accidents involving alcohol and easy lake access.

 

The episode explores **NASA’s potential Mars biosignatures** from 3.5 billion years ago, analyzes controversial UAP footage that skeptics say shows a missile hitting a balloon (not a UFO), and examines why the recent congressional UAP hearing left veteran researchers frustrated with “a whole lot of nothing.”

 

From misidentified contrails to the clash between national security secrecy and scientific transparency, this episode unpacks the biggest questions facing anomaly research today. Lewis also highlights concerning parallax illusions in UAP videos and the ongoing push for rigorous, open inquiry into unexplained phenomena.

 

**Ready to separate signal from noise in the world of anomalies? Listen to the full episode now.**

 

  • AI Replaces Celebrity Podcast Hosts
  • AI Replacing Podcast Hosts
  • No Evidence of Rainy Street Ripper
  • Austin drinking district study
  • Hellfire Missile vs Alleged UAP
  • Experts Doubt Missile-Hit UFO
  • Ryan Graves and Safe Aerospace Update
  • Contrail Misidentification and UAP Hearing
  • Demanding Evidence in UAP Hearings
  • Calls for Transparent UAP Investigation
  • Did China shoot down a UFO?
  • UFOs as a Global Myth
  • UFOs as Spiritual Transformation
  • Pentagon Denies Yankee Blue Memo

 

  • A plan (Janine Wright’s Inception Point) to mass‑produce AI‑hosted podcasts is advancing—and is seen as a real threat to content quality and journalistic integrity.  
  • A Texas State report has effectively dismissed the popular “Rainy Street Ripper” theory, undermining a high‑profile local serial‑killer narrative.  
  • The UAP community is sharply divided: prominent skeptics (e.g., Mick West, Ryan Graves) dispute footage authenticity while others call for greater transparency and stricter scholarship.

 

Miles Lewis, host of Anomaly Now, previews upcoming Anomaly Archives talks by Tui Snyder on her book Around the World in 80 Graves and by Erica Lukes and Jack Brewer on Cold War UFOs. He voices alarm over Janine Wright’s Inception Point AI plan to churn out $1, AI-hosted podcasts, arguing this push to replace human creators threatens quality and journalistic integrity. The host criticizes mass-produced AI podcasts that stitch together documents into faux conversations, arguing they won’t meaningfully inform listeners. They then discuss a Texas State University report on the so-called “Rainy Street Ripper,” which analyzed 189 drownings (58 matching the alleged pattern) and found no evidence of a serial killer, attributing deaths mainly to alcohol and easy access to Lady Bird Lake. Still, the host remains uneasy about a few anomalous cases. The hosts discuss local concerns about the “Rainy Street Ripper” and suspected drink‑spiking incidents near Austin’s riverfront, noting they’ll review the Texas State University–APD study and share the PDF on anomalyarchives.org. They pivot to NASA’s announcement—Nikki Fox described potential 3.5‑billion‑year biosignatures in the “Sapphire Canyon” Mars sample—tempering excitement with past contamination caution. They close by highlighting the recent UAP hearing and linked witness testimonies. The speaker walks through analyses of footage claimed to show a UFO struck by a modified Hellfire missile, highlighting Mick West’s “flying Ginsu” explanation that the object is likely a balloon and apparent post‑impact motion is a parallax illusion. They note Rep. Burleson received the clip anonymously, and that skeptics like Patrick Armstrong, Ryan Graves, and Chris Lehto concur. The speaker suggests the clip may reveal military testing or signaling, and worries about precision missiles used for targeted killings. Former Navy pilot and UAP advocate Ryan Graves described initial puzzlement over a video but later suggested a missile strike with debris behaving aerodynamically, urging release of longer footage to resolve the mystery. Graves’ work with Americans for Safe Aerospace has pushed pilot-led reporting, congressional testimony, and protections for witnesses. Meanwhile, Tim Banal’s report of a Hudson Valley “fireball” drew skepticism from the host, who argued it was a sunlit contrail misperceived by viewers. In the podcast the host laments misidentified contrails being treated as UFOs and contrasts those with real meteor fireballs tracked by the American Meteor Society. Veteran ufologist Kevin Randall criticizes the recent congressional UAP hearing as offering “a whole lot of nothing,” still seeking Roswell-era evidence and David Grush’s promised disclosures. Leonard David echoes disappointment, while Robert Powell urges Congress to obtain full videos and pilot interviews, warning the military won’t voluntarily disclose crucial details. At a tense hearing on UAPs, Powell warned that national-security secrecy is siloing information and urged Congress to fund scientific study. Alejandro Rojas criticized the proceedings for praising science while sidelining the Pentagon’s Arrow office, arguing lawmakers scapegoated rather than supported transparent analysis and better sensors. Mark Rodiger welcomed the testimony and hopes legislation will uncover hidden government involvement, while others like Avi Loeb pressed for rigorous, open inquiry. On the podcast the host surveys recent UAP coverage, quoting Mark Rodiger and Michael Saffone, who warns that postwar national-security priorities clash with the scientific values of open inquiry and have hampered treatment of those wishing to speak publicly. Saffone and SUAPS push for rigorous scholarship, evidence standards, and transparency. The episode also spotlights SUAPS’s reading circle with Greg Bishop, a puzzling Chinese ‘shoot-down’ video, and Mike Cleland’s Substack on disclosure challenges. Mike Cleland and his guests argue that UFOs are evolving into a global myth—echoing Joseph Campbell and Jacques Vallée—rather than merely a disclosure problem. They criticize the UAP framing and the disclosure crowd’s data-only focus, noting firsthand accounts describe spiritual transformation, healing, and synchronistic, dreamlike encounters. Anecdotes like Lee Spiegel’s reluctance to report abductions show the stigma, and Kelly Chase’s evolving perspectives are recommended listening. Kelly spoke with Mike Cleland on Cosmosis about plasma cosmology and the future of anomalous studies, reporting from a University of Exeter workshop with thinkers like Robert Temple, Jeffrey Kripal, Bernard Carr, and Nick Cook and reading her conference paper. She later joined Jim Madden, who recommended Jacques Vallée’s Messengers of Deception as essential reading and highlighted striking excerpts. Investigative reporter John Greenwald pressed the Pentagon after a FOIA denial of the alleged “Yankee Blue” memo. The host recaps a FOIA saga in which the DOD reported no high-level records about “Yankee Blue,” noting that DNI Avril Haines was reportedly stunned and that an appeal is underway, with documents linked on Black Vault and Anomaly Archives. He mourns the recent death of Sasquatch researcher Dr. Jeff Meldrum, highlights frontier archaeology finds from Stonehenge clues to Paleolithic indigo and Homo naledi burials, and revisits paranormal investigations like Robert Curran’s Haunted and new looks at the Smurl and Warren cases.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Hello and welcome to another edition of Anomaly Now, straight out of Austin, Texas. I’m your host, Miles Lewis. This is the weekly news and media roundup for the 501c3 nonprofit Scientific Anomaly Institute, aka the Anomaly Archives. All right, we gotta get going here. So really looking forward to this upcoming monthly Anomaly Academy lecture for our… anomaly archives patrons you can go to patreon .com anomaly archives and you’ll find all the links that you need to learn more about becoming a member and how to access those monthly live online lectures this one for september is tui snyder’s travel tombstones and transformation that is the subtitle of her wonderful new book around the world in 80 graves highly recommend this book i am thoroughly enjoying reading it, making my way through it. It’s a nice, fun, brisk read. Tui is a great writer and very inquisitive person who has traveled the world exploring humanity’s cemeteries across the planet.

 

And boy, has she got stories to tell. And you’ll get to hear some of those for her first ever lecture presented on her new book. She recently appeared on Coast to Coast AM and of course is a… fan favorite and friend of the Anomaly Archives. Also coming up next month in October, we have Expanding Frontiers Research’s founders Erica Lukes and Jack Brewer presenting The Cold War and UFOs. This is yet another monthly presentation for Anomaly Archives patrons. That’s going to be on Wednesday, October 22nd. And as I mentioned, Tui Snyder’s presentation is going to be this coming next Wednesday, September 24th, 2025. Hope you’ll join us for those. Well, let’s dive right in. There’s several articles I was not able to get to last week on our slightly one day late episode of Anomaly Now. This is just, to me, very disturbing. The Hollywood Reporter, that’s HollywoodReporter .com, has this headline, 5 ,000 podcasts, 3 ,000 episodes a week. $1 cost per episode behind an AI startup’s plans. Former Wondery exec Janine Wright is leading a new firm, Inception Point AI, that’s betting on flooding the zone with audio content. Quote, I think the people who are still referring to all AI generated content as AI slop are probably lazy Luddites. I’m sorry, Janine Wright. You are, well, I’ll reserve my own opinions. for the inside of my head. But I think folks can come to your own conclusions. This article reads, why pay a celebrity podcast host millions when you can create your own using AI? Inception Point AI has attempted to do just that as the company builds a stable of AI talent to host podcasts. AI talent. Oh, give me a break. And eventually become broader influencers across social media literature and more amid the high cost for producing narrative podcasts and pricey short -term contracts for popular hosts. The idea here is being able to own, scale, and control the talent, unlike those off -the -cuff humans. Points to head. And produce shows at a minimal cost. Quote, we believe that in the near future, half the people on the planet will be AI. What? And we are the company that’s bringing those people to life. Unquote, said CEO Janine Wright. who was previously chief operating officer of podcasting company Wondery, W -O -N -D -E -R -Y, which has recently had to reorganize under the changing podcast landscape. Okay, so you couldn’t figure out how to turn a profit, so now you’re just cutting out everything, cutting out everything that’s human, and using everything that’s the worst aspect of our current technological inflection point. That’s all commentary by me. The views expressed by this guy here, myself, Steve Miles Lewis, do not necessarily reflect those of our 501c3 nonprofit anomaly archives. But yeah, this is just terrible. The article goes on to say, the company is able to produce each episode for a dollar or less, depending on length and complexity, and attach programmatic advertising to it. This generally means that if about 20 people listen to that episode, the company made a profit on that episode without factoring in overhead. Inception Point AI already has more than 5 ,000 shows across its Quiet Please podcast network and produces more than 3 ,000 episodes a week. Collectively, the network has seen 10 million downloads since September 2023. It takes about an hour to create an episode from coming up with the idea to getting it out in the world. I hear more and more about how people are using AI in this very way,

 

more and more about how people are using AI in this very way, just dumping documents. into chat GPT or their favorite AI engine and coming up with audio podcast outputs that have two different hosts chatting about the material. I’m sorry, I just can’t believe that that’s actually going to inform anybody on any significant level more than actually reading the material yourself or listening to people who’ve read the material and are talking about it themselves as humans. Oh, man, this just so bothers me. Does it bother you? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Please like and subscribe, hit the notification bell, all that good stuff that does help us. Another article from last week. Oh, where is this? Well, so I don’t have the article open, but here is the PDF provided,

 

don’t have the article open, but here is the PDF provided, thankfully, from cbsaustin .com. It’s a PDF provided by Texas State University. titled The Rainy Street Ripper, an independent analysis of the evidence. So, of course, for the last several years, at least the last two years, but really it goes back to before the pandemic and the lockdowns. I remember missing posters at our offices, around our offices that used to be across I -35, Interstate 35, across from Rainy Street, the last location of the anomaly archives when we physically had a location. missing fly flyers for a missing fellow who became one of the many deaths attributed to either accidental drowning in Lady Bird Lake,

 

to either accidental drowning in Lady Bird Lake, AKA, is it the Colorado that runs through downtown Austin? Or if you’re like a lot of people, I think it’s some kind of serial killer, but yeah, I haven’t had the chance to read yet this 40, 41 page document. from Texas State University TSU, but it’s from their Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation. The summary reads, in part, the theory that a serial killer is drowning men from Austin’s Rainy Street district has been advanced by social and mainstream media for over two years now, repeatedly fueled by speculation set off by the recovery of bodies from Lady Bird Lake. Quote, major city gripped by serial killer rumors as cops reveal 38 bodies have been found in and around Lake. Unquote. Source Martinez, 2025, the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation at Texas State University in cooperation with the Austin Police Department. Conducted an evidence -based and scientific study of the data for the purposes of understanding the nature of these incidents and detecting any possible existence of a serial murderer. We analyzed records of 189 drowning cases from 2004 to 2025. identifying 58 target cases that match the general modus operandi and victimology of the alleged Rainy Street Ripper, quote unquote. Our study found neither direct evidence nor indirect warning signs of a serial murderer. The frequency of drowning incidents in Austin is consistent with historical patterns, average drowning risks in Texas, and population growth. A number of prior years have experienced more drownings than 2023 when allegations of a serial killer began to escalate. No evidence of foul play has been discovered. Investigators determined that these drownings were not crimes. Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office concluded the deaths were accidental drownings, most involving intoxicated individuals who fell into the water. Quote, one common theme of the drownings in Austin this year is the combination of alcohol and easy access to Lady Bird Lake. Yeah, I haven’t, again, have not had the chance to read all this. And I’m, I’m, this may be the simplest explanation. It certainly is the simplest explanation. It just strikes me still as there seems to be a small core of anomalous incidents where the individual, there’s at least one or more individuals who have said that they believe they were drugged and that they had a near death experience that some thought might have been caused by this sort of thing. Let’s take a break here.

 

All right. Thank you for sticking with us. Welcome back.

 

Thank you for sticking

 

Yeah, so just, you know, the Rainy Street Ripper, the alleged serial killer here in Austin, all I’m saying is I’m interested in reading the rest of this Texas State University study in coordination with APD, Austin Police Department, and their research on this.

 

Do the statistics for Austin being a college town and having these drinking districts so close to a river compare to similar circumstances around the country? Is this a problem in any college town where there’s a drinking district near a river? And so do the statistics bear out? We shall see. But yeah, I’ll provide a link to this PDF of the study. in the show notes which you can access at anomalyarchives .org moving right along other news that we didn’t get to last week rock found on mars could be evidence of ancient life nasa says the groundbreaking groundbreaking discovery points to the possibility of past life on mars this is september 11th 2025 abcnews .go .com reported on this and among the details in the article A 3 .5 billion -year -old rock discovered on the Red Planet is, quote, the closest we’ve come to discovering ancient life on Mars. According to NASA, potential signs of microbial life were found in a rock sample collected by the rover in 2024 from an ancient dry riverbed on Mars’ Jezero Crater, an area of rocky outcrops on the edges of the Neretva Valis, a river valley carved by water rushing to the canyon billions of years ago, NASA officials announced in a press conference on Wednesday. The sample, named Sapphire Canyon, contains potential biosignatures, which are substances or structures that might have a biological origin, NASA says. Quote, it’s a signature. It’s a sort of leftover sign. It’s not life itself. Nikki Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s science mission director, it said Wednesday. Quote, it certainly could have been from ancient life, and that would have been something that was there billions of years ago. Similar headline over at CNET .com. NASA found signs of ancient alien life on Mars. Here’s how excited you should be. NASA is finally releasing details on its discovery of Mars, biosignatures, and exactly what that means for alien life. Basically, this discovery was made a year ago, but they wanted to do the proper vetting of the evidence and see if it bears out to scrutiny. And so far, so good. This is very exciting, of course. You know, I believe it was back in the 90s under the Clinton administration when they announced that they had discovered some some possible evidence of microbial life from Mars. But it was I think it was on a a piece of a meteorite or piece of Martian rock that had made its way to Earth. The concern was that it was that the detected material was perhaps just from contamination here on Earth. But yeah. Interesting that this is happening right now. The CNET article is September 10th. Woohoo.

 

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Grill. So jumping to the UAP hearing news, of course, you can go to anomalyarchives .org and there is a page there for this most recent UAP UFO hearing from September 9th, 2025, or titled Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency. Of course, if you go to last week’s episode of this show, you can. see an hour and 40 minute analysis and about 17 clips from that nearly three hour hearing with my commentary on that. And you can go and find the links to that. And also the witness testimony links of all the different witnesses, Jeffrey Nusitelli, Chief Alexandro Wiggins, journalist George Knapp, Dylan Borland, Joel Spielberger, et cetera. That is all available at our website. But yeah, so the big, of course, news. One of the things that everybody’s focusing on is this alleged this footage of an alleged hellfire missile hitting a alleged UFO, UAP, Tic Tac orb. It looks both cylindrical and slightly orb like or egg like. Again, I’m not really interested in playing the footage, but I think. I and others are right to be skeptical of this. And I must say that the very first analysis I saw, of course, was that of Mick West on his YouTube channel, Missile versus UFO video. And he’s basically suggesting that this is the quote unquote flying Gensu, the flying ninja hellfire. Basically, it’s a hellfire missile that’s been modified to not explode, but to kill through. kinetic attack that it releases a series of about six blades. It’s also, I think, referred to as, I mean, I’m thinking of the movie Phantasm and the spheres with their little blades on them, a flying Cuisinart. But basically, he and others are suggesting that this is, in fact, footage of a Hellfire missile hitting a probably stationary or slow moving object, likely a balloon. off the coast of Yemen that is not anything anomalous. And again, he’s comparing it, as you see in the video here, to their recreation of the Go Fast, the famous Go Fast video, where you see an object zipping along what appears to be just above the water. The same effect here with this footage, but that this is all attributable, most likely, to parallax, the illusion created by… your camera eye moving relative to the target that you’re looking at and giving the false impression of fast movement. He also looks at the data in the bottom corner of the video to indicate the altitude. And yes, this really seems like it’s a steady object some distance above the water or the sand,

 

distance above the water or the sand, dude. I think it’s the water. which once it’s struck by the Hellfire missile, begins to sink rapidly. And that all is consistent with a balloon. And so the false impression of the ejected, split off parts from the impact moving along mysteriously, anomalously with the object after being struck is just a false impression. Again, parallax. I think this all makes very… good sense. And then when you learn that Rep Burleson, who put out this video,

 

Burleson, who put out this video, he later went on to say that he received it at a dead drop,

 

it at a dead drop, basically an anonymous drop site by somebody. He doesn’t know who. And that basically He was leaving it up to the internet to vet its authenticity. Well, good job, because I think we have vetted it. I think there is agreement. Patrick Armstrong vetted. Mick West of Metabunk. And even UAP proponents like Ryan Graves and others are suggesting the same thing. And you can go to this Daily Grail article. Former military pilots voiced skepticism about new video of UFO being hit by a missile. Quote, it’s a balloon. And yes, Ryan Graves and Chris Leto, L -E -H -T -O, both are suggesting that this isn’t evidence of anything anomalous. And what it really seems to me most likely is that this is a great example of the military industrial complex. the counter -terrorism intelligence espionage folks using the UFO community to put out information that is signaling to some people. So if you’re familiar with the conflict off of Yemen, I think it’s off the coast of Yemen with the Houthis and the ongoing battles involving our drones and their missiles. This is an instance where The Hellfire missile is usually used air to ground, but this is perhaps the first evidence of it being used air to air. And if this was, say, a decoy balloon or reconnaissance balloon being used by the Houthis, or even just a test target for our military, the Navy or whatnot, this could just all be a showcasing of this technology. Ninja Hellfire, Ginsu Hellfire, whatever the heck you want to call it. It’s got various names, but it seems to be, again, it’s used for assassinations, which is the terrible thing. It’s used to thankfully reduce collateral damage and not kill other uninvolved humans around the target.

 

around the target. Literally, they can use it apparently to target a particular passenger in a vehicle and not… potentially not harm the other passengers.

 

Anyway, that’s what I think is most likely going on with this footage. So yeah, from the Daily Grail article, one person who was impressed on the first viewing was former U .S. Navy FAA -18F pilot Ryan Graves, who has emerged in recent years as a leading advocate for serious and open investigation of UFO sightings. Quote, I’m not aware of any object that can take a missile hit and the constituent components continue to travel together. unquote. Graves said after his initial viewing of the video, quote, I’ve not studied the video closely, but after first watching, I don’t have an explanation, unquote. However, after further review, Graves voiced more skepticism, saying, it’s conceivable the video is of a prosaic target struck by a missile, chunks broke off, stabilized on the airstream, and began a parabolic descent that is generally aligned with the camera angle, making the target aspect change nearly imperceptible as it descends. Graves requested that more video be released to help properly ascertain what the object might be, stating, quote, if we had a longer video, we may see the components impact the water surface eventually. And I believe, yes, this is from his X account. Let’s see, get that. There you go.

 

All right. Well, on to the next section.

 

OK, so as we were saying. Ryan Graves, who’s been an active participant in the UAP UFO movement ever since coming out because of his anomalous sightings. He has also been an activist for Safe Aerospace, one of the founding members, I believe, for safeaerospace .org. And over at the website, they have a new newsletter out. It says, Hi, Ryan Grace from Americans for Safe Aerospace here. It’s been a while since we’ve checked in. Thanks for your patience. I want to assure you, while we’ve been quiet, we’ve been working hard. Over the past year, ASA, with your support, has become the world’s largest pilot -led UAP nonprofit focused on aerospace safety and national security. We’ve stayed behind the scenes doing the work. Now it’s time to bring you into the fold. What we’ve accomplished, over 850 reports submitted by aircrew and civilians. Goodness. and counting, provided testimony before Congress in a historic hearing amplifying the voice of our witnesses, built alliances with members of Congress, NASA, FBI, FAA, AIAA, pilot unions, airlines, and more, elevated the conversation in outlets like CNN, NBC, NPR, Newsweek, Politico, and PBS, helped shape the Bipartisan Safe Aerospace for Americans Act, protecting pilots who report incidents. You know, what’s also amazing here, and I believe I think it’s in here. Yes, community. Over the past year, ASA skyrocketed to over 30 ,000 members. That’s amazing. That’s truly amazing. Congratulations, y ‘all. You can find out more about them over at safeaerospace .org. Now, moving right along, this is something I’ve talked about on previous shows that’s so frustrating. Over at Coast to Coast. Tim Banal reports on September 11th video, a mysterious fireball spotted falling from sky in New York’s Hudson Valley. He writes, residents of New York’s Hudson Valley region were left scratching their heads at the site of a mysterious fireball seen falling from the sky. According to a local media report, the odd incident occurred on Tuesday evening with witnesses in multiple communities capturing the curious scenes with their cell phones. As one might imagine, the fiery falling object sparked fear in many witnesses who were uncertain as to what they were seeing. Now, this is so frustrating. Yeah,

 

I’m not going to play the audio here, but this local news cast highlights this and they show various bits of footage. And I’m sorry, this is not a fireball. This is people who aren’t familiar with things in the sky seeing an everyday occurrence. A contrail created by a high -flying commercial aircraft catching the setting sun or the rising sun and illuminating it in such a way. And because it’s heading towards the opposite horizon, it looks like it’s going down, but it’s not. It’s just going in a straight line, probably at 30 ,000 feet.

 

And it’s not falling. And all these people are like, oh, it was so close to us. It was clearly nearby. And, you know, that made us scared. But as you if you zoom in on it, you can clearly see two different ruts. That is a telltale sign of of aircraft contrails. And yeah, and local emergency folks are saying they’re going to investigate. There’s nothing to investigate. They should be able to look at it. and very easily and get the time and look at commercially available, consumer available radar, flight radar data and be able to tell you even what specific flight that was. I’ve commented on this before. It is so frustrating that people continue to misidentify this and that the media are not doing their job in helping figure out this mystery. Meanwhile, over at SOTT .net, sign of the times. They reproduce something from the American Meteor Society, meteor fireball over Illinois and two other states on September 9th. In these cases, you really, these are fast moving, not like that other footage. These are really hard to see. Just quick streaks of light with a big ball on the end. Those are real. fireballs folks not those other things so all right what’s next all right resuming and jumping back to the restoring public trust through uap transparency and whistleblower protection hearing i did want to call attention to veteran ufologist kevin randall over his blog a different perspective commentary on ufos paranormal events and related topics

 

right resuming and jumping back to the restoring public trust through uap transparency and whistleblower protection hearing

 

did want to call attention to veteran ufologist kevin randall over his blog a different perspective commentary on ufos paranormal events and related topics On September 10th, he posted his analysis, his review of the information provided in the recent hearing on UFOs, UAP. He was not impressed. A whole lot of nothing is basically his analysis. He does write a bit more about that. Obviously, you can go over to his website, Kevin Randall. That’s K -E -V -I -N -R -A -N -D -L -E dot blogspot .com. And to find this post there, you know, he was just very disappointed. He very much is still harping on Roswell. Why wasn’t there anything there about Roswell? Why hasn’t David Grush come forward with any of the information that he says he had access to, that he was aware of involving crashed, recovered craft or biologics, alien bodies, that sort of thing. It’s really frustrating for somebody like Kevin Randall, who’s seen it, done it. heard it all before and been down this road and why aren’t why aren’t the folks behind this this hearing doing a better job of this and i i tend to agree as much as i didn’t think it was the worst hearing in the world it just after so many cries of we’re going to get first -hand witnesses and then just more of the same stories that we’ve heard it is frustrating Meanwhile, over at space .com, there is this column by Leonard David for his Space Insider column. UAP witnesses criticize Pentagon UFO office in congressional hearing for, quote, using science and coming up with answers, unquote. Quote, this is about national security, government accountability, and the American people’s right to know, or excuse me, right to the truth, unquote. Yeah, this writer at space .com was not very impressed. with the hearing either. However, I must say he did have some interesting quotes from other people, and I figured I’d share those with you. Further down in the article under the headline Wanted, nitty -gritty details, quote, the military witness reports were very good, said Robert Powell, executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies in Austin, Texas. While it may not be apparent to the public or Congress, Powell said that anyone who has studied the history of the subject knows that there have been hundreds of such reports by military witnesses that are equally as good. So how do we move forward? Quote, unless Congress is willing to push for the nitty gritty details by, quote, unquote, by obtaining full videos, interviewing pilots involved in UAP incidents and other reported events, quote, we will not progress, unquote, said Powell. Powell said, in his view, the military will never release the necessary information to establish the presence of a non -human intelligence. Quote, that’s because of their concerns for national security and whether one of our adversaries might learn something from UAP that they could use militarily against us, Powell said. The resulting tendency to silo all information on UAP prevents moving forward with learning more. Only if Congress allocates funding to the scientific community and academia to study UAP will we make any progress, he concluded. Science above all, quote, I find it frustrating that they, rightly, reiterate the importance of the role science can take in figuring out what is behind UAP, but do not apply it in these hearings, unquote. That’s the outlook from Alejandro Rojas, a longtime UFO journalist and a consultant to Enigma, a UAP UFO sightings alert network. Quote, we have years of anecdotal reciting reports and claims of hidden government knowledge about alien visitation. What we need is evidence, Rojas said. Rojas added that he found it also trying that the one organization that has been using science, the Pentagon’s All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Arrow, was pummeled in the hearing without being represented. Quote, having worked in the UFO field for so long, I am sympathetic to their Arrow’s effort. They have shown each step of their work analyzing previous videos, and although it is unpopular to demystify some of these reports, their scientific analyses have been sound, he said. Now, I would say, and others have said, that they aren’t always showing their work. Maybe they are in some of the cases that they have debunked, but not all of them. But I agree. It’s really unfortunate that Arrow wasn’t allowed to be a participant, wasn’t asked to be a participant, and that they just became the not present scapegoat punching bag for the proceedings. The article goes on, preconceived notions at the recent hearing, quote, the gripes of committee members came across as being frustrated with the organization that is using science and coming up with answers, sensed Rojas. However, because they dislike the answers, they blame Arrow when in fact they genuinely do not want scientific analysis to dismantle their preconceived notions. Unquote. In the end, Rojas found the hearing disheartening. Quote, instead of focusing on real issues and truly championing scientific investigation, the hearing comes across as a very political back and forth between the Oversight Committee and the Pentagon, said Rojas. What gets lost is what we actually need, and that is data gathering and scientific evaluation of that data. As a consultant with Enigma, Rojas said the group is collecting hundreds of reports, many with videos. Quote, what we need is a robust, transparent effort to analyze what we are collecting and to build better sensor systems to gather more and better data on UAP, said Rojas. If extraterrestrials are visiting us, it is not just the military that would be seeing them. Now,

 

I’ve said many times, as much as I respect Alejandro Rojas as a UFO journalist, I am disheartened that he is the representative for Enigma Labs who are working with Arrow or have been alleged to be working with Arrow and who are alleged to have foundational ties to billionaires such as Peter Thiel. It’s just a little creepy. The article goes on to quote Avi Loeb and Loeb of the Galileo Project. But they also interview someone from CUFOS, the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies. Tone and testimony. Quote, overall, I was pleased with the tone and testimony in the hearing from the witnesses and the often excellent questions from the representatives, said Mark Rodiger, president and scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, Illinois. Quote, the hearing hopefully provided more impetus to pass the crucial legislation necessary to answer questions we have about possible USA. U .S. government slash contractor involvement with UAP that has been hidden all these years, says Rodiger. Rodiger said the witnesses added additional experiences on the record of both UAP sightings and how the aftermath of those had been handled by the military, including treatment of those wishing to speak publicly. It then goes on to describe the legislation that’s being attempted to be passed. And they quote Mark Rodiger even further. Anyway, there’s more there. They also, oh yes, they move on to Question, Mike Saffone of UAP, Society for UAP Studies, SUAPS. Under the headline, Deep Difficulties, Michael Saffone is the founding executive director of the Society for UAP Studies based in Los Angeles, California. The group’s mission is not to promote a single narrative, but to advance careful scholarship, develop educational frameworks, and advocate for standards of evidence and data transparency. The recent congressional hearings on UAPs underscored once again, quote, both the importance of this issue and the deep difficulties that have hampered its treatment for decades, said Sifoni. That handling of the topic within the government, whose aim since at least after World War II has been increasingly obsessed with national security and maintaining U .S. military and strategic dominance, feels Sifoni, quote, are guiding principles that are ultimately at odds with the inner operating directives of the sciences themselves, free, open, and therefore democratic exploration of self and world. Anyway, there’s much more at the article there at space .com. You can check that out. All of this reminds me, SUAPS is this weekend having another edition of their, how you say, reading circle. SUAPS, societyforuipstudies .org is having this week, this weekend, September 20th. Their reading circle is going to be featuring our good friend Greg Bishop’s book, Project Beta, The Story of Paul Benowitz, National Security and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth. And Greg Bishop will be joining the fray. This is this coming Saturday, September 20th from 5 to 6 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. And you can get the Google Meets link by going to their website and signing up for. these reading circle events. So that’s, that’s pretty cool. Okay.

 

What’s up next?

 

All right, folks. Sorry for all the breaks. We’re probably not going to get through all the news I have for you today, but you’ll be able to go to the show notes, the pay, the website, and then on my archives page for tonight’s episode and see all the other links. There’s so many, so much great. News that you can read up on over at anomalyarchives .org and our flipboard. So, you know, keeping with this idea of fireballs and drones and hellfire missiles, this interesting article and video from economictimes .indiatimes .com. Did China just shoot down a UFO with a missile? Bright flash over Shandong deepens the mystery after authorities deny knowledge. This is from… It looks like September 14th. A fireball -like luminous event was reported over eastern China on September 12th. Witnesses in Weifang and Rizal, Shandong province, observed a bright aerial object followed by a strong flash. With videos of the incident quickly spreading across Chinese social media platforms, according to the watchers, several posts and local headlines described the event as a possible intercept or shoot -down, suggesting a second rising light was visible before the flash. The claims fueled speculation online of a… potential military action. Yeah, this video, let’s see if we can play this here. Pretty interesting. Let’s see.

 

One more time.

 

So yeah, not sure what to make of that, but it’s certainly intriguing given things like Israel’s Iron Dome, its ability to shoot down incoming rockets and missiles, and our own military’s technology in regards to the same kinds of things that’s that’s it’s all very intriguing now i wanted to highlight the work of some folks that i really admire that being mike cleland of owls and ufo infamy who i love and some other folks over at his brand new sub stack is Mike Cleland’s post disclosure without a spark, my challenges within this field. And you can listen to him reading this. There’s an eight, eight minute version of this, but I just wanted to highlight some of this.

 

He basically starts by saying he’s not really interested in disclosure. And I very much understand that, that sentiment. And he expresses some sentiment that I also have been feeling. And I think I’ve expressed. He says, He then goes on to talk about Joseph Campbell and the idea of future myths. He then says, this is the UFO. It’s a new global myth. We are no longer a community of separate tribes, each with our own mythologies. We are no longer different than our brothers over the hill in the next valley. The UFO has been presenting itself as a presence from beyond Earth. We are confronted with a phenomenon that forces us to see ourselves as one community on this fragile planet. But a myth isn’t meant to be literal. It’s symbolic. I mean that. And from my own sanity. And for my own sanity, I’ve been seeing the overall UFO mystery as myth, like Campbell’s idea of an emerging global mythology. The UFO is a symbol. Let me also say I’m not much interested in the term UAP. This acronym has two meanings, unidentified aerial or anomalous phenomenon. As far as I can tell, there is an assumption that UFOs imply alien visitors, whereas the new UAP terminology is meant to reduce the stigma associated with anyone actually being in. or on those things.

 

And yeah, so here’s a story. I was at a UFO conference a decade ago, and they had a formal banquet on the final night. I wore a suit and tie and spoke with Lee Spiegel, who at the time was writing about UFOs for the Huffington Post. I said, quote, I read your reporting, but you never write about abductions. He told me, yes, I do that on purpose. I want to be taken seriously. That made my heart sink. I’ve had nearly the same conversation with plenty of people in this field and it feels awful every time. And he just goes on to lament what I and Jacques Vallée and others have been lamenting, that there’s this over focus on military witnesses, radar returns, the sensors of technology, when in fact humans are an amazing sensory array. He says later on, the UFO is now a UAP and the committees are discussing the whole thing as if nothing. as if it’s nothing more than some advanced component from an airplane. But that’s not what I’m finding. The accounts I’ve been collecting are about spiritual transformation, newfound healing abilities, psychic powers, and synchronistic events that are so specific that they seem orchestrated for maximum transformative effect. Yes, there are burn marks in farmer’s fields and radar returns from airport control towers. There’s a physical component to this mystery. I’m not denying that. Yet, if you listen to the people who’ve had the direct experience, They describe it as something metaphysical, spiritual, mystical, transformational, and dreamlike. These are elements of myth, and much of the disclosure crowd is ignoring this non -physical information. There is a story to the contact experiences, but there is nothing but data to the disclosure. The information they present is interesting and important, but there’s no magic spark. It’s data without a story, and that’s not enough. I yearn for something more. Anyway, there’s more there. I highly recommend you go check it out. Subscribe to his podcast, Hidden Experience. There’s more of that over at his Hidden Experience website. And his Hidden Experience podcast is over at podbean .com, where he recently interviewed somebody else I highly respect, and that is Kelly Chase of… UFO rabbit hole, now Cosmosis, that she is now co -hosts with J. Christopher King. But this recent September episode of Hidden Experience is Kelly Chase and Mike Cleland having a very deep, thoughtful conversation on the subject of the UFO. And I really have enjoyed seeing how Kelly’s perspectives on the UFO phenomena have. changed and evolved and highly recommend her, her work. And there’s three videos of hers recent of late besides this interview and conversation with Mike Cleland over at their Cosmosis, formerly the UFO rabbit hole podcast is this about an hour long video. You can also just listen to the audio version at your favorite podcast location titled plasma consciousness and the future of anomalous studies. She recently took part in a workshop conference in Europe, and I find it fascinating. Very much wanting to hear more about this. The description says, fresh from the University of Exeter workshop on plasma cosmology with thinkers like Robert Temple, Jeffrey Kripal, Bernard Carr, and Nick Cook. Kelly unpacks the conversations that are reshaping the frontier of science and anomalous studies. And then at this other video, at the same YouTube channel or podcast channel is unfurling the myth narrative as interface between psyche and the field. Highly recommended. This is only 26, 25, 20, 25 minutes long. She’s reading her paper that she presented at that conference in Exeter in England. Highly recommend that. And also recommend this recent. conversation that she had with what’s his, this fellow’s name is Jim Madden. And this who Jim Madden is a very interesting thinker on the UFO phenomenon. He has written a book whose title I cannot remember, but it’s involves the word UFO is a hyper object, but the Madden and this fellow Jared have a podcast, a new podcast called the great Jane dangerous books podcast. And Kelly is their recent guest talking about Jacques Vallée’s Messengers of Deception. And this is a very good and interesting conversation. And they basically recommend Jacques Vallée’s 1979 book, Messengers of Deception, as a great entree to people just getting into the UFO field as an important book to read. Madden reads a number of direct excerpts from it that are fantastic. This is the book kind of book that I used to recommend to people all the time. And every time I see a used copy of it, I buy it because I just think it’s so important of a book. But yeah, even as many times as I’ve read it, it’s been a long time since I read it directly. And some of the quotes that Madden was bringing up were just really phenomenal and really got me thinking in new ways about Jacques Vallée. and his writing on the subject so highly recommend that lastly i haven’t had the chance really to read this i know i say that a lot but john greenwald over at theblackvault .com has this new article pentagon denies existence of quote -unquote yankee blue memo reportedly excuse me reported by wall street journal his foyer response Their FOIA response has raised new questions about a widely circulated Wall Street Journal article that described a Department of Defense effort known as Yankee Blue. According to the WSJ, the Pentagon ordered an immediate halt to a practice in which military officers misled subordinates into believing they were working on reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology. But when pressed for the underlying documentation, the Pentagon now says no such memo exists. In September 2025, the Office of Secretary of Defense, OSD, issued a final response to FOIA case. 25 -F -3514, denying the existence of records related to the alleged 2023 directive. The request specifically sought, quote, a copy of the memorandum issued by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in spring 2023, ordering the immediate cessation of practices associated with the so -called Yankee Blue program, unquote. The response stated that after, quote, thorough searches of the electronic records and files of CMD, no records of the kind you described could be identified. And then he has his little visual excerpt scan of that part of the response. And he says that denial directly contradicts the Wall Street Journal’s claim that, quote, the defense secretary’s office sent a memo out across the service in the spring of 2023, ordering the practice to stop immediately, unquote. If such a memo existed, it would be retained by OSD correspondence management systems and would be subject to FOIA. Given that the topic allegedly involved halting a hazing ritual rather than revealing classified operations, the record would not be expected to carry high -level classifications. Courts have repeatedly held that embarrassment or institutional sensitivity does not constitute grounds for classification. This is not the first no -records finding to the Wall Street Journal reporting. He mentions another FOIA case. The DOD also reported that it could not locate, quote, briefing materials, talking points, slide decks, notes, or summaries prepared for or presented to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines in connection with briefings on Yankee Blue. The Wall Street Journal reported that Haines was briefed on the discovery, describing her as, quote unquote, stunned upon hearing about the scale of the deception. That request is currently under appeal. Well, yeah, you can read the rest over at theblackvault .com. And as I mentioned, you can go to our Anomaly Archives website and find a ton of other information there. We’ll have links to all the articles and news that I’m not getting to. There were so much more. Sorry, folks. There is cryptozoology news. Sadly, Sasquatch researcher. Author and anthropologist Dr. Jeff Meldrum has passed. He was born in 1958 and passed away just recently. We have two articles talking about his passing, sad though it is, as well as an interesting article about Australia’s man -eating trees. In our frontier archaeology section, you can find links to articles titled A Neolithic Cow’s Tooth Helps Point to the Mysterious Origins of Stonehenge’s Iconic Stones. as well as ancient medicine or something else. Archaeologists discover 34 ,000 -year -old indigo dye on paleolithic tools. And another article, Mystery of Homo Naledi, an ancient human species who buried their dead, deepens with new burial discovery. Also in our Paranormal, Parapsychology, and Spiritualism section, headlines, The Haunted, One Family’s Nightmare by Robert Curran. You can read that for free on the Internet Archive. And these other two recent articles and videos describe how it may not be the most accurate in describing the infamous investigation, quote unquote, by Ed Lorraine, Ed and the Warrens, Ed and Lorraine Warren. There’s an article titled Investigation of the Smurl Family Haunting and a video, The Haunted Story Unsmurled. All right. Well, that’s going to have to do it, folks. Sorry to not get to those other items, but got to go. Take care. Be safe.