Marine fighter pilot Ben Read on the 737-sized object over Houston (Safe Aerospace Podcast, 2026)

0:00 Also, I notice as it gets closer, it feels like we're going to hit it. Like we're on constant, barren, constant location range, and it's getting larger and larger. And it looks like the size of a 737. Like it's big. My name is Ryan Graves. Welcome to the Safe Aerospace Podcast. Today, I'm joined by pilot Benjamin Reed, who has had various experiences as a pilot that we'll be talking about today. But first, learning a little bit about your background. So what did your... Well, first, welcome. Thanks for joining us here today. You're a former Marine pilot. Maybe we can start there. What got you in the flying and what year did you start? Well, ever since I was a little kid, I was obsessed. Probably like age 7 or 8, I think I got my

1:03 first airplane ride in a backcountry flyer promotion thing. I went up and then the hook was set. But kind of a misspent high school years, so went off to college, thought I was going to go be a fishing game warden because I heard they had airplanes. So I went to get a degree in forestry at North Carolina State and discovered that there was a lot more fun things to do at college than go to class. So I, after one semester, realizing that I didn't have the discipline, I came home for Christmas break. And my big brother, who was kind of my hero, was like, dude, you're going to fail out of college. It's already headed that way. So before you do, why don't you make a decision and do something? So I went to the recruiting office and actually went to join the Air Force, believe it or not. I didn't know anything about the military.

2:04 So the Air Force recruiter was out to lunch, literally, and I was leaving a note on his front door and this little, like, fireplug Marine gunnery sergeant stepped out from the back office where he was eating his lunch in his office. I should have, if I was smarter, I would clued in that the Air Force guy actually left for lunch and the Marine was stuck at work for lunch. But anyway, he said, why would you want to join that service? And I said, because they have airplanes. And he said, we have airplanes. And then he showed me the video, promotional video of Marines assaulting the beachhead and jets flying over. Hook was set again. Of course, I was an enlisted guy, so I just thought I'd be an air crew member. So I enlisted thinking I'd be a crew member, like, on C-130s or helicopters or something. Got to, like, basic aviation in-doc school after boot camp. And they make you take, like, an in-doc test. And basically they said, nope, you're going

3:05 to be an avionicsman. I guess I should be flattered by that because I think it meant that I scored high, but I didn't want to do that. But I was pretty good at it. And I worked on helicopters first, CH-53s. And I had a pretty awesome enlisted leadership guy who basically was mentoring me and kept asking me, like, what is it you want to do with your life? And I was like, well, I want to be a pilot. But I screwed up that chance. I'm not, you know, smart. I can't do college. And he said, have you met our pilots? And basically helped me put in an officer package. And then, like, I think I promoted to E-4. And right after that, I got an officer package and they sent me back to be a midshipman, an ROTC at any school I picked. By then, I had already met and married Heather, my wife of 30 years now. So she was also a Marine.

4:06 Oh, really? Yeah, we met outside of the Chow Hall, believe it or not. Anyway, so she was from the West Coast. She grew up in Roseville. It's a town outside of Sacramento, born in the Bay Area. So we wanted to get back West. Anyway, so we looked at Berkeley and then ended up at Oregon State. Graduated at Oregon State, got my aviation contract. I commissioned in June of 01. I was at TBS when 9-11 happened. And then after that, I was pretty much off to the races. It was good timing for me because the Marine Corps needed everything. We were growing rapidly, you know, after 9-11. And so I was able to get a flight school slot. And then I was just stoked to be there. I assumed I'd end up flying helicopters, which isn't to say that's less than, but I just, that's where I came from. I was a helicopter mechanic, so I figured that's where I'd end up. And then went through flight school, just,

5:07 again, happy to be there. I already had a wife and two kids. And so I was probably a lot less distracted than most of my Naval Academy. Because I went, because of June graduation, I was going through all of these things with mostly Naval Academy guys. That was the same time. And I think it was, like, their first time out of the box. So they were having a lot of fun on weekends where I was buckling down and studying. So, anyway, ended up doing well in flight school and was able to get my pick. So I picked Japan Hornets because they were single seat. And at the time, I thought, I don't want a guy in my back seat. I want to fly by myself. Every pilot thinks that. Yeah, and then you get to the fleet and you realize, oh, that'd be nice to have a guy in the back seat. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. You know, I was one of those guys that wanted to, I mean, I think I'll, you know, any, like, real pilot wants to be the only one doing the thing, right? Right. You know, and I think there's a real need for that in some ways because when you have someone out back that you're relying for targeting or comms, you can't help but get rusty in those areas

6:09 if someone else is doing it. And then you have to add the mental workload of then supervising someone that's, you know, not as good at it. So, you know, one plus one doesn't always equal two, you know, inside the cockpit, that's for sure. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, so then I ended up, first tour in Japan, I kind of missed the early part of the war, or OIF, I should say. And was kind of bummed out because I thought, like, everybody gets to go to the war, but it turns out, like, you know, only certain units go. So, but it was fun flying out of Japan. Like, we got to do all kinds of cool stuff. Like, we flew all over Asia. My wife jokes that I was home more when I was in a forward deployed, like, combat squadron than I was when I was in Japan because it was, like, two weeks home, two weeks in, you know, Thailand, or four weeks in Thailand, and then Australia, and

7:11 then back. And then, so I got to see a lot of that part of the world, and flew a lot, had some pretty awesome opportunities. I wouldn't trade it, but. That's where I wanted to go when I was going for a selection. I was up for a priority alpha, which I got, but they sent me to a forward deployed squadron to the Middle East first. Oh, wow. What I wanted, which was Japan. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, you lived that life. And I'm sure it was tough for a lot of reasons, but, you know, you describe them getting to go all those places for two weeks at a time. Yeah. So it was, like, an amazing experience. I guess grass is always greener, right? Like, all my buddies that I went through TBS with, in fact, so I don't know, the TBS setup, how you live, is there's four guys in a room. It's roughly six months, and that is where every Marine officer becomes an infantry officer. Yeah. Not really, though, because infantry officers go through an additional school after that, and they're a different breed, for sure.

8:12 But in my little four-man room, it was two of us were aviators and two were grunts, and I was pretty close. Actually, I think maybe closer at that time with the grunts, and I kept in touch with them, and, of course, they're off slaying dragons. Like, I'm hearing, you know, one of them, I think, got a silver star on his first deployment. Like, he's a war hero, and the other one, combat promoted, and here I am. In my eyes, like, you know, living this lackadaisical life, flying all over Asia, going to air shows, like, I felt like I wasn't serving my country. I was having a little bit of survivor's guilt. There is one thing I've consistently noticed from all my Marine brethrens. I wasn't a Marine, of course, or the Navy. The Marines are part of the Navy, as not a lot of people realize, and especially in aviation, we train together all the time, basically throughout the whole thing. Right. But, you know, every Marine I've ever talked to, especially the ones in aviation that,

9:13 you know, got to watch their classmates go out and get in the fight, you know, as you said, have expressed the exact same sentiment. It's very uniquely Marine, so you're in very good company with that. It's good brainwashing. Well, I think it's also, like, the personality of the type of person that joins the Marines. But it's definitely a little brainwashing, too. But, yeah, so I did that. Oh, go ahead. What variant of the aircraft were you flying? What radars? So another fortunate thing about being in Japan, because of the logistics of moving airplanes and the Super Hornet coming online around that same time frame, we ended up getting the newest jets in the Marine Corps because we got hand-me-downs from a Navy squadron as they got the new Super Hornet. So we had, like, the latest block, you know, I don't think we had the latest. Yeah, they were Charlie's. We had the bigger motor. I'm not sure the newest radar was out yet. But, anyway, we were in the best jets in the

10:15 Marine Corps, really, at that time. But they were trapped out. Like, the Navy had to get rid of them because they had too much hook time. Yep. But we were land-based, so that was fine, which is why we got them. The Marines kind of got the last laugh on that because, you know, I flew down to some when they started transitioning to F-35 because since they did have the old aircraft, they replaced the Marine Hornets with F-35s before they started replacing the Navy. And so they had the tricked-out hangers and the nice gear and everything else before the Navy. So it came back around. Don't worry. Yeah. That's surprising to hear. Interesting. Like, a little side story, but I was the scheduling guy. I met a guy in the squadron near the end of that first tour. And, well, you know how it is. In a single-seat squadron, you got a lot of frenemies because you're all bros, but you're all competing for limited flight time calls,

11:17 school slots, you name it. And, of course, I'm lined up with, like, two or three of the smartest guys I've ever met in my life. And now everybody's focused. The part where I talked about in flight school where Naval Academy guys were out partying, you know, not in the fleet, now they're focused. And now they have that distinct advantage. In fact, my buddy, who we were attached to the hip all through our first squadron, a guy named Gabby Bearman, well, his call sign was Gabby Bearman. He's still in. He's, I think he's a colonel now. I'm not sure. But this guy, no kidding, you hear about photographic memories, but this guy could read. He could sit in a vault and read a Tac-Man, read a Top Gun manual once, and he could recite it verbatim. Gosh, that would have helped, huh? Yeah. So I would sit and study with him, and we would spend roughly the same amount of time in the thing. But then when it come to briefing, he'd just be rattling off numbers, and I'm over there like, oh, I think it's this, you know.

12:19 So he definitely. I don't appreciate how much information there is to absorb in this world. I don't think anyone does until you have the clearance. It's a lot. And I never really considered myself a reader at the time. I always, oddly enough, I always enjoyed reading, like, nonfiction, like, that kind of stuff, but I was never a fiction reader. Of course, now I've changed. Now I read all the time. But, yeah, I would spend hours in the vault, and my wife would be like, when are you coming home? And I'm like, I got to get this down, you know, and I'd write it out. And I was, I mean, I was blessed, though. We had an amazing, our CO who was kind of a fix-it CO. You might know this story. The Lancers was the squadron I was with, and the commanding officer that I joined the squadron with was sent to fix the squadron, because they had just accidentally dropped the bomb on the range control tower in Australia.

13:20 Because they had some, I mean, I don't know, I wasn't there. But the rumor was they had a pretty sloppy squadron mentality, and they had a young first-year, first-tour guy who, I won't mention any names, but he tried to do this thing called radar offset bombing. Yep. And he obviously didn't understand it. So he ended up designating the only radar-significant thing on the range in Australia, and now back, which was the control tower. I see. Luckily, the Australian range control guy, this amazing, like, funny character of a guy, that day, just not for any reason, it wasn't required, he thought it would be fun for all his guys to practice wearing full battle rattles. So, like, that day on the range, I don't know, call it intervention or whatever it was, everybody was wearing flack and Kevlar.

14:21 Probably saved a few lives. I think the bomb impacted, I don't know, how many feet away from the control tower, but it was a big deal. International incident. Yeah. And so, obviously, the Marine Corps came in, fired the entire command suite, and then sent two brand-new guys, me and another guy, and then a brand-new CO, XO, swapped the whole headshed. The guys that were involved in the incident, I think, all lost their wings. It was a bloodbath. But good for me, because as I joined the squadron, it was like, now we were locked in. We had this amazing, like, Top Gun graduate CO who, Homie Cedar Home was his name, and, I mean, to this day, I think he's easily the best CO, one of the best COs, I'll say, I've ever had, just played college basketball. You'd look at him and be like, that guy fits in a Hornet. But he was just charismatic, pretty much

15:23 everything you want in a leader. Kept it fun, but also, like, was down to business when it was business. And it's, you know, this is a weird thing, but it's also a part of squadron life. If I'm sure you know, if you're married, the wives have this, like, kind of side responsibility to, like, fit in. And in a squadron where you're in Japan, it's even more because you're in a foreign country. And they are trying to figure out how to make a home in a foreign country where they have nothing like they're used to. And so his wife, Becky, was awesome. Like, she made it fun for the girls. They always were having some cool outing or doing something fun together. And my wife and her got along really well. We had a fix-it squadron, too, kind of. And I was kind of second generation, so I was seeing the benefits of it, not necessarily the transition. Right. But we had some absolute, you know, ace. I shouldn't use that term, but they were, you know, just true hot shots, training

16:24 instructors, great skipper. Yeah, I can't help but mention it. You know, there's some guys, you probably know what I mean, where you walk into a ready room, especially as a new guy in, you know, after you know everyone, you're like, that dude's a fighter pilot. You know, there's always a couple guys that are just like a light year ahead, it always seems, right? And whether they're a training instructor or just that, you know, even a, you know, senior lieutenant or anyone. It could be anyone, right? But you see that and you're like, damn, you know, that guy's good. We had one of those guys as part of our fix-me squadron. And I was shocked to learn in a New York Times article about a year ago that after he got out, about six months after he killed himself. Oh, wow. Due to anxiety and PTSD and micro-traumatic brain injuries from flying. Really? It's, you know, it's not, you know, it's not my, you know, it's not something I spend a lot of time talking about. But, you know, I think people have been

17:25 doing a lot more research into the effects of pulling G for 10, 15 years on the brain and other symptoms. So, you know, for those guys and gals getting out, you know, if you're not feeling right, it's worth taking a look at. Yeah. No, for sure. In fact, in that squadron, I, that's where I got my call sign. And I think prior to that, I had a call sign, but, you know, call signs out of school don't really matter until you get one in the fleet. And I think I might have been a hundred-hour Hornet pilot at that time. And we got our first little deployment. We went to Thailand for Cope Tiger, which was a joint exercise where we were going to be working alongside the Sings and the Thais and doing, for us, a lot of close air support stuff, but also a lot of large, you know, LFEs and BFM and all this. Anyway, we get to Thailand after, like, a 10-hour,

18:28 I think at the time, the Air Force guys that drug us there on the boom said it was the longest Transpac that had ever been done because we had to fly from Iwakuni, Japan, all the way down and around Vietnamese airspace because civilian can overfly Vietnam, but military aircraft can't. Anyway, we arrive in Udapau, Thailand after this, I think it was 10 ARs. Yeah, it was 10-hour refueling just for those people in the track. That's grueling. I mean, most I've done was, like, four or five. Like, we were told, don't eat the day prior because you don't want to have to use the restroom. And there's not, like, you're going to get out of the seat. It was brutal. But anyway, we get there after that, expecting to just have this easy landing. And when we get there, there's this massive thunderstorm. And we don't really, there's not a lot of options. It's like, I think they had a, because we were coming, they had set up an ACLS, which is like an ILS, but specific. The Hornet can't use regular civilian ILS,

19:28 as I'm sure you know. So we had that option, but it wasn't set up. So we end up doing section PARs into the field. Fun. Crazy. It's like the training mission that you do, and the command to get ready, yeah. And, I mean, I think now that I'm out and a professional pilot in the civilian world, I didn't realize how inexperienced I was when it came to weather. Yeah. And it's because, you know, you're flying with taxpayer toys, so you don't want to risk them unless there's combat. So if there's bad weather, you just don't fly. But we didn't have a choice this time, so we basically landed in this, like, monsoon-level storm. I've done one or two radar. Hornet one approaches with the radar, mapping out the airfield. Yeah, totally. Put the thing on the thing. Anyway, so then we get there. Probably taking too long to tell the story, sorry. But Homie pulls me aside and says, tomorrow we've been requested to do an air show for the royal family, the Thai royal family, in

20:30 front of the palace. It's going to be two Thai F-16s, and we're going to fly three and four, and we're going to do a live gun run in front of the royal family on a target on the ground. And I'm like, okay, boss. I mean, I'm stoked, right? This is amazing. I get to do an air show for the royal family. And he picked me because I'm the new guy, you know. I think it's a typical CO thing to do, to bring the new guy in the wing. So anyway, we go out, and this is my first time ever doing anything like this, and I'm just being a good wingman, two, yes, sir, two, two, you know, just being in position when he wants me there. And then we go in for the gun run, and I'm so excited to see my hits that I twist my body to look down at the target area as I come off target and plant the stick and just go to the G limiter. And I feel something go pop, and it felt like my first instinct was, did I just piss

21:31 my pants? Like, I felt warm and tingly, and then I realized I couldn't move my left leg. So I join up, because, you know, it's a hornet. The thing basically flies itself. I join up on my skipper, and I'm like, sir, I don't know what happened, but I think I may be paralyzed. And he's like, what? And he's like, what did you do, new guy? Radio calls you're not expecting to hear. Yeah. So he brings me in. I take a – well, he asked me, you think you can activate the brakes? And so I try. I push, and I realize I can push. I just can't pull on my left leg whatever I'd done to my back in those Gs. So I end up landing, it's fine. They have to, like, seven or eight enlisted guys peel me out of the cockpit. They medevac me to Okinawa. They fly my wife and kids down to the hospital.

22:32 And I get into this – I mean, this guy, I was told – I don't know the details, but he was a – like, the world's leading back surgeon or neurosurgeon, I'm not sure. And the Navy – and I guess after 9-11, he decided he wanted to bring his skills to the Navy, so he was given one of these, like, automatic Navy captain slots for a surgeon. Anyway, Bedside Manor was pretty funny. Like, he walks into the room, and he says – he looks at my wife, Heather, and says, well, can he get it up? And she says, what? Like, she's like, why are you talking – She's, like, terrified. Yeah, why are you making a joke? It was – you know, I think she was crying at the time. And she's like, I just got here. I don't know. Anyway, and then he asked me, how are you peeing in your pants, or can you hold it? And I'm like, I think I'm good. I haven't tried to do what you're asking, but I haven't pissed myself as far as I know.

23:33 Anyway, he says, all right, well, according to the scans, you've got one of your discs separated and is down in the L3, L4 bundle. And you're probably not going to be able to walk normal the rest of your life. But we'll see. 50-50. You just never know. You're young. I hate when you hear that. Yeah, you're young. You'll recover. And then he's like, but we need to get in there and get it out as soon as possible. So I'm expecting we're going into surgery, like, now. And then he goes, so we got you on the schedule for Monday. I think it was a Friday. And I'm like, why? That's not now. Is that now in your business schedule? Yeah, in your business calendar? Anyway, we go into surgery. And he tells me, when you wake up from surgery, you'll know whether or not you're going to be able to recover from this. If you can get up and walk yourself to the bathroom and use the bathroom. And so as soon as I come out of, you know, I think I'm 27 or 28 at the time. As soon as I come out of anesthesia, I, like,

24:35 immediately try and get out. I got tubes attached to me. I'm, like, in the movie, ripping them out to make it to the bathroom. And I think I make it, like, halfway and just blood pressure because I'd been under. I, like, faint. And my wife picks me up off the ground. I'm, like, you know, gown flowing or whatever. But I'm able to stand and pee. And then the Marine Corps gave me, I think, 90 days to be able to run off BFD. No pressure. In order to not be medically separated. And so, you know, and, of course, I remember the surgeon telling me, do you want to keep going or do you want to get out? Because I can give you a medical retirement for this. No problem. And you could just be retired as an O3. And, you know, I look back at that now and I'm, like, maybe that would have been smart, you know. But I was, like, no, I want to keep flying. Of course I want to keep flying. So I had this amazing flight surgeon, Harvard graduate, a guy named Doc Jacobs.

25:39 And he basically put together a supplement and training program and recovery program for me. And sure enough, 90 days later, I ran a BFD. I think it was a second class. And then they put in a waiver. And NAMI, Naval Aviation Medical Examiner's Office, gave me a waiver and I kept flying. It was just kind of crazy. And, I mean, I have some, like, now that I'm aging, I still have a little bit of neuropathy on the outside of my leg. And I'm still, if I run too fast up a set of stairs, like, that left leg will get caught. And I used to run a lot. My wife and I were, you know, young Marines together. We ran. She was, like, a marathon runner. And I was, so I don't run as much anymore. After about the three-mile mark, my foot starts to go dead, dead drop on me. But I feel like stopping moving is the worst thing. So I keep active. But, anyway. Man, incredible. Incredible that you made it back from that. Yeah.

26:39 And then, after that, I got this amazing deal to be a general's aide, which I'm not really sure how that happened. But he just liked me. I took him flying. He was an old F-4 guy. I hadn't flown the Hornet in a while. And I was the subject matter expert on Link 16 and the radar. So I kind of got him back into the saddle. And he ended up being the CG of that air wing. And then called me one day and said, hey, what are you doing the next few months? And I was like, you're the general, sir. You tell me. And he said, well, my aide's wife is due. But I have this, like, two-month world tour that I have to go on. And I need a rental aide. And you seem like a cool guy to drink beers with, which is basically what I realized all I was for. Because I didn't go through, like, the aide training or any of that stuff. They just plucked me out of a squatter. Next thing I know, I'm traveling all over the world with this general. Got to do some cool stuff.

27:39 Got to be briefed on some stuff that even to this day I can't believe. You know, stuff that I think I otherwise wouldn't have been briefed. But because I'm the general's aide, I'm in the room listening to these briefs, it was a great experience. And on the back side of that, I got to, it's kind of the deal if you get the big suck of being a general's aide. Because you don't fly, really. I mean, I did, he allowed, like, we got to fly a Russian helicopter together once. We flew, we went to Top Gun and flew up there. But you're not, like, working on quals. You're kind of out of the location. Yeah, you're kind of out of the path. So the deal was, you can have whatever you want on the back side of this BB. What do you want? And I just, at the time, I was like, I want to go to combat. Like, that's the only thing I haven't done. And he said, all right, cool. My son's an infantry officer in this battalion and they're deploying. So why don't you be their FAC? And so I took, like, 11-month FAC tour orders and went to Iraq as a FAC for this

28:40 Marine Infantry Battalion and ended up getting to do some cool stuff with them because of the mission. The general in charge of that decided he wanted, like, a special team formed to do personal recovery. This was on the back side of 06 when Fallujah had been quelled. But in the news, I'm sure you remember, this is, like, during all those beheadings, those live beheadings they were doing. They would catch, like, special operators or whoever they deemed, take a video, behead them. But the families weren't getting the bodies back. So that was our mission. So for six months while I was in Iraq, I was a FAC for this team of, like, Navy SEALs and special dudes and intel guys. And we just went out and collected bodies. I didn't know that was an operation. Yeah, well, it was just formed for that one period of time.

29:40 It was called Task Force Personal Recovery. And I was their air guy. I was their Murdoch or whatever you want to call it. So it was fun because I didn't have to be as serious about everything as they did. You know, I got to be the goofy air guy that just was like, whatever, guys, we'll get some airplanes and go do it. Or we'll blow it up. Yeah. So it was a lot of fun and got to actually see, you know, combat on the ground. Not a ton of kinetic stuff at that time, but I mean, some, but not as much as it was in 06 and Fallujah. But all the guys I worked with had just done the 06 Fallujah thing. So the guys I worked with were all, I mean, it was apparent to me that most of them were already suffering from post-traumatic stress. I mean, they were not, some of them would say things and I'd just be like, what, dude? Yeah. It was an interesting time.

30:41 But anyway, come back off of that. And then same deal. You get to kind of pick what you want after you do a fact tour because you've done the ground thing. And so same thing. I'm like, well, I haven't been to combat in an airplane. And so I picked a, I got to pick a squadron and went right back out the door. Interestingly enough, though, like I was expecting a year at home with the wife and kids. And I finished the RAG refresh syllabus and they tell me, go over and check in with Baja, who was the MAG CEO, air group, studio. And I'm like, okay, what's this about? I thought I was going to the Black Knights. I go in and check in with Baja and he said, hey, I understand you were a FAC and like MNF West for that task force. Yeah. He's like, okay, I changed your orders. I want you to go right back out. You're going to Afghanistan. Careful, you wish for that. You're married with kids, right?

31:41 And I said, yeah. And he says, where's your wife? Actually, sir, she's at the commissary right now. Go talk to her. Make sure it's okay with her. And I'm thinking, whatever. As if that's going to change anything. Yeah. So I, but he, he wasn't joking. He's like, no, I'm not joking. Go have lunch with your wife right now. Talk to her, feel it out and then get back to me in 24 hours. So I go meet her in the chow hall and she tells the story. She was like, I don't know what aisle she was in, but I come around the corner in my flight suit and she says, the second I saw you, I knew you were going back to war. I like, and she's just starts crying and she's like, just go, just go. I don't want to, don't even ask, just go. Cause she's, I don't know. She's a special, I mean, there's a reason we've been married 30 years. She's a, she's the granddaughter and daughter of Marines. It's like a, it's the family business. So she knew what she got into and she was an amazing mom and supportive wife. And how many years was it total in the

32:43 Marines? I took early retirement. I was, again, I feel like I was a pretty lucky guy because of my prior enlisted time. I finished that combat tour with the red devils in Afghanistan, got home and they were like, Hey Ben, we got a deal for you. You're going to Top Gun. And because I'd just been doing all the war stuff, hadn't gotten Top Gun or WTI, which I thought I wanted. But at the time I was like at 17 years of service. Yeah. And so I was like, it's high up for a few. Well, also I just knew the route. It was like, you're going to send me to Top Gun. I'm going to come back. I'm going to deploy again. Then I'm going to come back. Then I'm going to maybe get a command slot. And my boys at the time were reaching puberty and like they needed their dad. And I just, I don't know. So I went home that night and I decided to

33:43 tell him no, which is not a good thing when you tell the Marine Corps no. So I came in the next day. There were a lot of yeses before that, though. Yeah. They don't always count those, though. No, it's almost like you don't exist the second you say no. But I came back and told him, because Top Gun is voluntary. They can't force you to go. And I said, I don't want to go. I'm three years from retirement. Like, my boys are, you know, I'm different. Why don't you send one of these young guys? Like, and what am I going to go to school and learn about how to do combat? Because I've already done it. Like, I don't really feel like this is a needed thing. Anyway, Skipper wasn't all too happy with me. But knowing that and being a little savvy, I realized I better find a home quick or I'm going to find myself on unaccompanied orders to, like, Minot, North Dakota or something. So I jumped on the phone and called the monitor, which happened to be one of my old squadron mates, and was like, Gomer, I need

34:43 a place to hide quick. And he's like, perfect. I got a slot in the train school down in Pensacola. And it's like a high price slot because they're getting the new T-6 Texan with an ejection seat. And the Marine Corps decided in their infinite wisdom that they want guys with ejection seat experience down there, fixed wing guys, because up to that point, I think it had mostly been, you know, helicopters, guys, and C-130 guys. Yeah. So, yeah, I got a senior Marine slot. I was like, I'll take it. So we went to Pensacola, and I spent a year down there flying around with students. Awesome. Learning how to be a pilot again because the Hornet, you know, it's built for a mission. And the T-6 is like, you got to fly it. And so I went down there. I was an instructor for a year. And then sequestration happened. It was last of second term of Obama. And Congress had given a mandate to the Marine Corps to shrink as we had gotten, I

35:45 think, 40. I think the Marine Corps is the only service. I'm not 100% on this, but we're the only service that is congressionally mandated to a certain size. And they had allowed us to grow post 9-11. And they had decided it was time to go back to our original size. So Obama came out with this executive order, temporary early retirement authority. And if you were an 04 with no bad paperwork and you wanted to retire early, you could go. So I put in my package the next day and retired six months later. And then, of course, I had to figure out what I was going to do now that I had to grow up and get a real job. But yeah. Wow. That was a lot. How many years total was that? 18, I think, was my end total. Wow. Incredible career. And so busy and so diverse. You know, like you said, it's hard sometimes to get off that standard track as a pilot. But there's some pretty cool gems out there, what you can do and kind of make your career

36:46 your own if you have the agency to do it. Because it's not obvious how to do that. I didn't see those paths when I was there. No. And, like, I didn't either. I just, like I said, I just feel like, I don't know, I'm not a religious guy. But it sure seemed like there was somebody watching out for me because a lot of it just stumbled into it. My sons, who are, you know, in their mid-20s, one of them is almost 30 now, I think they look at me and they're like, how did you have this such blessed, like, existence in the Marine Corps? Because they both went into the Marine Corps. And their time in the Marine Corps was not as good or, you know, they didn't have the greatest experience. And I just tell them, I don't know, man, I just stumbled my way through. Like, it was not planned. None of it was planned. You can't. You can't plan. Yeah. Some people just have great careers like that. It sounds like you did. Congratulations. Yeah. Now, just to clear the air, no UAP experience as well in the military.

37:47 Is that fair to say? Yes. In fact, I would say I was a skeptic. Especially after that General's, that's kind of why I brought up the General's Aid gig. You know, I saw some weird stuff. I got briefed on some weird stuff. In fact, he, you know, I don't know what I can say, but I'll just say this. He was a part of a very select group of pilots post-Vietnam during the Cold War that got to fly some pretty fantastic things that didn't exist. And so I kept, part of my aid gig with him was keeping his logbook. And after we'd go fly, you know, fill out his logbook. And I just remember flipping through his logbook one day and being like, rooster, what does that say? And he's like, don't worry about that. So I knew there was some wild stuff out there. And, uh, I just kind of always assumed that the lights in the sky in Arizona and Utah and Nevada were just exactly that stuff that

38:47 we had that people didn't need to know about. And, uh, there was, uh, a rational explanation for all of it. Did the topic ever come up in your time in the military? Any cool sea stories or anything? No, no, I never. In fact, I just remember thinking I, I was a full on skeptic and I've, I think looking back, I just thought people that saw stuff, not that they were crazy, but they just didn't know what they were looking at. Just giving in to the curiosity. And I knew that like from my time in the Hornet, I saw stuff flying all the time that looked weird. And then I would later realize what it was, you know, like, I don't know, we'd go to Okinawa and fly against the F-15s and we'd see some weird thing. And I'd think, what is that? You know? And if I didn't know what it was, I'd call it a UFO and then get to see it later and be like, oh, that's what that was. Yeah. But, so I just kind of assumed all of it had a rational explanation and it was probably

39:49 something that the U.S. military owned. So I just, yeah, I was a full blown skeptic. I mean, I was a skeptic about religion, a skeptic about pretty much everything. So, never put much thought into it. My boys, when they were growing up, they were big fans of the Joe Rogan podcast. And I remember they told me to go check out Commander Fravers, if I'm pronouncing that right. Also a former enlisted Marine. Yeah. Turnpilot. You're a good company there. In preparation for coming here, I was like, I guess I should watch some of this. So I watched his with you and learned that. And I thought, oh, that's cool. And I, listening to his comments about leadership, I was like, I totally echo everything he said. That would have been awesome to work for a guy like him. But anyway, I remember watching his and then I think I watched yours.

40:50 And I just remember thinking, I believe those guys. Like, I kind of always assume people are telling the truth. I mean, I know people lie. But when it comes to stuff like that, I'm like, why would, like, what is it, why would you do that? Like, it doesn't make any sense. So I, um, I believed him, but I wasn't sure how I felt about some of the other firsthand accounts. Like, it's like I didn't believe non-pilots is the way I would put it. Yeah. Like when I heard, you know, the story of, um, who's the guy and the kind of the original Bob Lazar, I thought, um, he seems so credible, but I wasn't sure how I, I just hadn't made a decision. You don't know how he thinks about the world, you know, we understand how we think about the world based on our training and you probably know how Dave Fravor thinks about the world as well. And so it makes sense to, to be like, okay, I know how this person thinks. I know what he already eliminated probably,

41:51 right? Exactly. Um, but with a person like Bob or really anyone that's, you know, you don't have that connection with that shared experiences, it's hard, right? And it's the same for me with Bob too. It's just, it's data that's there and I look for connections with it, but it's hard for me to, you know, view it in the same light as, you know, Fravor's or other pilots like yours, um, the experience that they've had. Yeah. So yeah, no, no UAPs or UFOs, whatever you want to call them. Um, I do remember like looking back one of my roommates, um, for a short period of time when I was in college and my wife was still on active duty. So I needed an apartment at college and I would drive back and forth to visit her on the weekends. Um, my roommate was, uh, a sub guy, a Navy nuke guy, crazy smart. And, um, Joktan Smoot was his name, believe it or not. Um, Joktan Smoot.

42:51 And I kept in touch with him a little bit after the years. And I remember him saying like back then, which is like, I don't know, late nineties, maybe a one, like right before nine 11, him saying, you pilots think that you're the only ones with UFOs. And I remember thinking, that's what are you talking about? He's like, there's stuff under the water. And I have a big brother who's passed now, but 10 years, my senior who had done a fair amount of psychedelic drugs and suffered from, I don't think the drugs had anything to do with that actually, but he's, he basically got diagnosed with, uh, schizophrenia in his late twenties, but an incredible guy, great person, wouldn't hurt a fly, just like the sweetest dude, hardworking, but he had some wild ideas.

43:53 You know, he had some, he was a full tinfoil hat guy. You know, my wife and I tell this story, which is kind of funny. So when I met and married her, first thing he said to her was, so you're the CIA plant so that you guys can create the ultimate soldier. And we're like, what? He's like, well, cause Ben's going to be a fighter pilot and you're a former Marine. And so she was driving this little Jetta Volkswagen. I think it was like a 95. I don't remember Jetta GLI 16 valve red, sweet little car. And on the top of that car, there was this outside air temperature that looked like a little globe. It had like wires going this way and wires going this way. It was just an outside air temperature sensor. And my brother was convinced that it was some sort of CIA tracker to make sure that we produce the ultimate soldier. And he used to tell my son before he passed, you know, you're the ultimate soldier.

44:54 And I think my sons actually believed it. They both went into the infantry in the Marine Corps and they tried to go to the special world. Anyway, so I had heard a lot of wild stories from him, contrails, secret government bunkers, all these things. But one of his like beliefs was that there was something under the water and that we, the Navy knew and that they had dolphins that were communicating, that we could communicate, whatever. It was just some wild stuff. And I just loved them. And, you know, I'd listen to his story and be like, well, I haven't seen any of that, dude. I don't know. Let's have a beer. Yeah. So that was kind of how I looked at it. Like most of those people probably suffered from schizophrenia and this is like the world of fantasy land they like to live in. But having been a general's aid and seen all this stuff, I just felt like there's a rational explanation. You know, we're, we're trying to keep this country safe. That's the goal. And so, yeah, we got some wicked smart scientists that come up with some wild stuff,

45:57 but none of it, they're not trying to like subjugate the population. The population of the United States or, you know, there's none of that weird, I just didn't buy it anyway. So I came into it. What changed? Yeah. So, or did it change? Five years ago, and I was looking in preparation for this because I wanted to remember the exact flight and I keep a log book, obviously, like most pilots. Five years ago, actually today. Today? No, no, no. I'm sorry. This month. Okay. It was on the 5th or 7th of May. I'm going about my business, flying as a professional pilot. You're now in the commercial world. In the commercial world. And we're going from, it's like a three-day trip. This is day two. We've overnighted in Houston. And our first leg of the day, or it's one leg that day, and it's a night leg. And we're going Houston to Minneapolis, St. Paul. And the captain I'm flying with, I'm a first

46:58 officer at the time, fun. We got along great, good personality. He's a former military or civilian? No, all civilian background. I think he flew oil rig stuff or pipeline to build his hours. Ton of respect for guys like that. I didn't realize how easy I had it in the military. Some civilians I fly with, man, they went through some lean years to get where I am now. But anyway, most pilots are interested in anything that's in the air. Like we can't help ourselves if we see a new story. So we get to the jet that morning, or that afternoon, late afternoon actually. And he says, hey dude, I think we're going to be able to see that Chinese rocket debris falling back to Earth tonight. Because it's like right on our flight path. We're going to be flying into Minneapolis. It's supposed to go right over the border into Canada. And so just remind me, when we're approaching Minneapolis, let's look up and see what we can see. So we're already kind of like thinking we're

47:59 going to see something cool in the sky. So part of me wonders, like, was I having expectation bias? I don't know. But no way. So it's my leg, meaning I'm going to be the pilot flying. He's going to be the pilot monitoring. And we're taking off out of Houston. I think it's like 7.30 p.m. is the departure time. And it's a reasonable day. It's like it is right now in Texas. There's like a high, broken, cumulonimbus layer, and then another one above it. And it's about an hour from sunset. Take off. I think it's runway 22. And if you don't know, if you depart out of Houston, these departures they have because of other airports in the new vicinity and airspace restrictions, they have you do these big, more than 180 degree a turn turns, but they dictate left or right.

49:01 So if you were to just use the autopilot, it would turn the wrong way because it's going to go short its path. So you've got to manually fly it, make sure you go left. So we're going to Minneapolis-St. Paul, roughly due north, but it's a little bit, I think, to the west, or at least the first point to get on the airway. And I think our initial climb clearance was like 4,000 or 5,000. Then we get switched to the next controller, and we're cleared up to like 17,000. And I'm hand-flying, A, because I like it, and B, just, I don't know, it feels like it makes me a better pilot in the landing, so I hand-fly usually past 10,000. So I'm hand-flying, we get past 10,000, we're now heading roughly northwest, I think it was like a 330 heading, but airplanes light, not many passengers in the back, not a huge

50:02 fuel loadout. So the climb rate is insane, like, I don't know, close to 5,000 feet a minute. We ding the bell at 10,000, flight attendants are up. He's cleared them to get up because there's not expectation of bumps or anything. And as soon as I get to the acceleration speed, so I think it was like roughly 300 knots, I click the autopilot on, and it's probably around 12,000, 13,000 feet, or cleared to 17. And then we get switched to the next controller, which is the guy that's going to clear you up into the higher space. And, you know, you're just, you get, in this job, you get these, like, you just know what's going to happen next, because it's a, you know, it's the same thing. It's, it's all very benign for a reason, so we can keep everybody safe, yeah. And so, I'm, he's talking on the radio, I've just clicked on the autopilot, then he gets the switch to the high controller, he checks in with the high controller, and the high

51:02 controller says, traffic, 11 o'clock, I can't remember what he said after that, three miles, something like that, level off 15,000. When he gets that out of his mouth, it's our, we're at 14.7, autopilot's on, and we're climbing at 4,000 feet. There's only so much you can do. So, I click the autopilot off, and I'm going to start pushing over to at least do my best to make this level off, and the captain says, don't float them, they're up in the back. So, I'm like, okay, okay, so I'm just, now. Just to be clear, don't actually induce a zero-G environment in the back of this course airline. Yeah, they were negative, and start floating up, literally. Because that's how we hurt flight attendants. So, anyway, so I kind of don't push, I, you know, I do a little, like a .9 pushover or something, but I'm hand flying now. So, I'm in the instruments, focused on that,

52:04 just trying to make this level off, and he's out looking. And out of the corner of my eye, I see him going. He's one of these guys that, like, I think he had his phone on a holster. So, I see him going for his phone, and I hear him say something, you know, like, what the fuck? Like, he, under his breath, but I hear him on the ICS. And the radio, the ATC controller, is saying, I don't know who he is. If you get a sight of him, he's been popping on and off my scope all day. He's not squawking. And can you give me a, if you see it, please give me a PID or whatever. So, when I see him go for the phone and say that under his breath, I've, at this point, got it, like, under control for the most part. The rate of climb is definitely much lower now. I'm going through 15, but I'm, like, 15, 150

53:05 or something like that. And starting to come back down. Feeling more comfortable. And I come out to look at what he's looking at, that he's trying to get a photo with his camera. And at first, I'm like, is that a Mylar balloon? And then I'm like, I don't, what the, yeah, just, like, what the hell is that? I don't know what it is. But at first scan, it's probably, like, a mile and a half out. And based on the rate of closure, just from my eyeballs, because we don't have, like, a radar lock on this or anything, it appears to be still, like, it's not moving. And it's just hovering in between those two layers of clouds. And it has this, like, you ever play with, like, well, you're not supposed to anymore,

54:07 but, you know, the liquid metal, mercury. Mercury, yeah. It looks like that. It's, like, kind of an iridescent, shimmering, metallic surface. No wings, no doors, no thrust, nothing. Just hovering in between two cloud layers. And reflecting the clouds on the top and on the bottom. Almost like, if I didn't, if the radar guy hadn't told us to look there, I don't think we would have seen it. Yeah. And now we're doing three, I don't know, probably ground speed, four something. Indicated air speed, it's three something. And the closure rate makes sense to that, that it would be still. Because it's not like merging with another fighter. It's not like that. Yeah. And it's not like he's, this, he's not, like, going parallel to me or perpendicular to me. He's just there. So maybe call it plus or minus $50 from zero, maybe, right? Yeah. Something like that. Who knows? But also, I notice as it gets closer, it

55:09 feels like we're going to hit it. Like, we're on constant, bearing, constant distribution range. And it's getting larger and larger. And it looks like the size of a 737. Like, it's big. It's not small. It's not a balloon. If you were to hold your hand out, you know, how big of an object would you need? So, like, at first time I see it, and it's oriented, you know, and I mean, I guess tic-tac is the best way to describe it. It's an oblong tube, and it's, like, oriented on our axis. And it's, like, here. And it looks probably like the size of my fist. Oh, really? So you're seeing... Okay. And we're... That's pretty big. It's big. Yeah. And so the captain says, I don't know, is that a weather balloon? And I'm like, no, dude, I've seen weather balloons before. They look, you know, they have this big, long thing underneath them. And he's like, I don't know what that is.

56:15 And, but now I'm like, are we going to hit this thing? So I start introducing a little bit of aileron roll to, like, get us away from it, because I'm like, I don't want to hit this thing. I don't know what it is. And it's rapidly approaching, or we're approaching it. And then right as he's about to take the photo, because this happens, like, I mean, you get this, like, time compression thing going. I've had it a few times, like, whether bullets are flying or in a stressful situation where time seems to stand still. So I'm sure the whole thing only lasted four seconds, maybe less. But it felt like a lot longer than that. I felt like I knew, like, I can remember it so clearly. I mean, I can remember seeing his arm at the, holding the camera, and him, just everything in slow motion. So I start to roll to get away from it. And then right as it comes to probably like

57:15 a 500-foot pass, I mean, it looked like a merge with another Hornet. Right as it is approaching my wing line, it's just, and it, it's not disappearing. It's definitely going on the perpendicular to our wing line, because I see it getting smaller. But it is, like, the fastest, I mean, I've never seen anything move that fast. From dead still to just, it's gone. And then it's over. And I'm like, did you get the photo? And he's like, no. I mean, I think he did hit the shutter, and he went through all the, you know, but there was nothing there. You can't see anything. Do you think it was avoiding your aircraft? That's what it felt like. And that's why I, you know, I think back, I'm like, because I've had a few, I've told this story a bunch of times. And pilot buddies have said, do you think you would have hit it? And I think of it like tanker guys thinking we're going to hit them. You know, it's like, it's so much more maneuverable than me.

58:16 It's like, dude, I wasn't going to hit you. If it's sentient, I just think it was like, yeah, it wasn't even close to hitting you. But to me, because I'm not as maneuverable, and I've got to move this big boat where I'm like, you know, put into control when it takes 10 seconds. And there's people in the back walking around, right? Right. And you're deviating from your assigned flight path. So I don't think, you know, to me, I thought I was going to hit it. But I bet if we could talk to whoever was operating that, that it was never in risk of hitting us. But, yeah, and then he and I, so then the controller is like, I need you to fill out an ASAP. Can you describe it? And the captain looks over at me, and he's like, what do I say? Because he doesn't, you know, this is like on a recorded line. This is our job. It's how we feed our family. So he's like, what do I say? And I'm like, well, don't lie. Because, I don't know, part of me felt like he was thinking, like, I should just make

59:17 something up. And so for whatever reason, I felt like telling him that. And then he clicked the mic and said, I don't know what to describe it as. Maybe a big Mylar balloon or something to that effect. And I looked at him and was like, that was not a balloon. I've looked into it. Mylar balloons would blow up past that altitude. Not possible. Even if there was a Mylar balloon that large that could move that way, not possible. But I think that's what he said on the mic. And the controller said, yeah, I don't think, something to the effect, I don't think so. And then he said, he's been popping on and off my scope all day. I remember him saying that. And he's not squawking and not talking. Did they report that they saw them basically or merged with it? Well, I guess he told us that he had other aircraft come close to it that day, but nobody had seen it. And then, like he said, the past few hours, I think, is the words he used.

1:00:18 It's been on and off my scope. And it was directly over the top of Houston, like city center, like right over the top of it when we saw it. Because I remember looking down and thinking, where are we? And being like, oh, that's Houston. Because, you know, we did that big turn and climbed up. So we're now like over the top of Houston. Anyway, so then we just compartmentalized it like good pilots and went on to Minneapolis. Pretty uneventful flight. Check in into Minneapolis's airspace, which is a Delta hub. And there's like, as soon as we check into the low controller there in Minneapolis, there's guys on the radio, pilots, just on the controller's frequency, which they shouldn't be doing, saying, I hope everybody's looking up. Look up. It's crazy. And sure enough, Chinese rocket debris. And it's like six or seven streaks of red,

1:01:22 like meteors, but in a line. Going towards Canada. Got the full show that night. Yeah, it was a wild night. So then I land, I get to the hotel, and I think the very first thing I did was call my wife and say, I just saw a UFO. And she was like, really? And I'm like, yeah. Like, I don't call, you know, I called, I texted a bunch of friends. And who knows, maybe they all think I'm crazy, but I don't care. I decided in that moment, I thought, I remember even thinking when I was a skeptic of the people that had seen things, that I never wanted to be a person who was such a skeptic that they would just assume someone's lying. And also I felt like it's important that people in positions like I'm in, who are not suffering from a psychological or a mental illness, to

1:02:23 be honest about what they've seen. And I feel like it's important for a lot of reasons. But anyway, and then, you know, like that was five years ago. And I have been obsessed with the topic ever since. I mean, it literally changed my life. I went from being a skeptic to reading everything I can get my hands on about it, from Jacques Filet to, I really like, I forget, I'm spacing her name right now, but the author of the book Encounter, she's a professor of the book, yeah, I really like her take on it. And the books that she's written really make sense to me, and the Ring of Truth, but yeah, I've just been kind of obsessed with it. And now I'm realizing like how much of this information is out there and how, well, also I think there's this idea after you see one that you're alone.

1:03:24 And so you want to not be alone, so you're like, I want to find out who else has seen one. So you're out there trying to gather information so you can feel less alone, less like a crazy person. And you had some trepidation about coming on this podcast, right? Yeah. So then I never, the captain was like, I don't know if he did the ASAP. And for those who don't know, an ASAP is a NASA product and it's really old and it's meant it's a open space for pilots to admit their errors is what it's meant for. But you can do ASAPs for everything. And you can admit other people's errors too. Right. And so, you know, I don't think you're a good pilot unless you've done a couple of ASAPs, right? So I don't remember if he did the ASAP. I did not. And I remember making a choice not to because I thought, NASA's going to look at this? Like, I need this job.

1:04:25 I was a little bit of a coward about it at first. I was brave to tell my friends, but I was not willing to invite outsiders into this at And then I think as time went by and the more I read, I decided that was cowardice. Like, I needed to be honest about what I had seen so that other guys who had seen stuff would be brave enough to come forward. And I think, you know, if nothing else, that's what Marines do is lead from the front. So I was like, I'm going to do it. And I think I saw you in front of Congress or something. And I thought, well, shit, if he can do it, you know, I'll do it. So then I looked up the Safe Aerospace website and I figured that was a good way to do it. So I submitted my thing, I don't know, was that two years ago? I forget the guy's name. Casey, maybe? Casey.

1:05:27 Called me and we did a video teleconference and talked much like you and I are talking now. And he told me his story, which was amazing. I think he was a special operator and saw something in Denver or somewhere near Denver. And, you know, now it comes up in the cockpit quite often. And interestingly enough, in the industry I'm in, like, the pilot demographics have changed rapidly because the baby boomers are retiring. So I moved to the left seat now. I'm a captain. And my right seat is filled with a lot of young guys. A lot of young guys who believe this stuff, who are not skeptics. And some of them who are, some of them who won't open up about it, which I, that's fine. But I fly out of the West Coast mostly. And anytime you're coming around that area,

1:06:28 there are nightly things to look at that don't make sense. And granted, they're just lights in the sky. But the way they move, and I've seen Starlink launches. I've seen all that kind of stuff. I've even flown right by China Lake's range and seen hypersonic stuff going around. Like, I know what that stuff looks like. And it's almost a joke now. It's to the point where it's like, if you're flying westbound and you're coming back to Las Vegas, you're going to see something right there. And sure enough, every night, it's right there. And it's like a group of lights that join up, and then they go up, and then they come down, and then they go this way, and then they go down, and then they go down. And it's, I mean, it's almost, it's almost old hat now. It's not, but that's just lights, you know. That's nothing like what I experienced there in Houston. Well, there's a, I think you'll enjoy this as a, I don't want to say former Marine, because that's never true, right? But we have a case from a Marine that was in

1:07:30 Afghanistan. There were five troop transports with about five guys in each one. They were transiting between fobs. I don't recall which one, but it was probably like a six-hour drive or something. They started observing what a lot of pilots have described as these kind of dogfighting lights in the sky. They appear to be point sources of light. They appear to be so far away, probably in orbit. But maneuvering in ways, that would be inconsistent with something in orbit. And they watched that for about 20, 30 minutes or so, until two of the objects, and it's kind of hard to describe, basically got still and very slowly over time appeared to get larger, which, as you know, is that constant bearing, decreasing range scenario. They watched these things for about 25 minutes as they descended until one of them stopped at what they estimated to be about 2,000 feet. The other one continued down to about 20 feet off their 11 o'clock as they were traveling. They pulled over, weapons out, you know, watching this thing, circled their convoy,

1:08:33 crossed over their heads several times, about 20 feet up, right above their heads, described as a 15-foot diameter disco ball in appearance object, multifaceted, reflecting a lot of light, emitting light. It did that for about 15 more minutes. You know, no shots were fired, thankfully. But at the same time, there's that confusion, right? Is this some ID? Is this some weapon? We're in hostile territory. What do we do with this, right? And they watched it until the low one climbed up, joined the high one, and then they both ascended until they were out of sight. So a lot of pilots are seeing ones that are up high, and it's like, well, it's just a point source, but there are some interesting examples where those point sources turned out to be, you know, physical. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Have you thought about, I think everybody has, like, what's the purpose of this? I don't know, because whatever, like, maybe watching too many detective shows,

1:09:33 but it's, you know, you're like, okay, I saw this thing, but what's the point of it? Like, why? Because it almost seems like it's capable of not letting me see it. So why did it let me see it? And then what's the point of it? And why was it in Houston? All these are questions that rattled around in my brain, and I was, funny enough, I think I was telling this story to a guy I was flying with, and he was telling me his story. That's what's funny, that so many guys have stories. Yeah. Like, I'll bet that, I don't know, some psychologist with statistical analysis could probably figure it out, but I'll bet the reports that you have represent, like, 10% of actual. Not even. Maybe 1%. Because I always ask, well, why haven't you told anybody? I don't want to be crazy. Because it's like, yes, it's more acceptable,

1:10:35 for sure, but it's still not fully acceptable. And there are people out there that I think are so entrenched in their day-to-day life, they don't want to be bothered with it, A. And they don't, it's not a comfy feeling, because a lot of Americans live in this paradigm that we rule the skies. And for the most part, that's probably true. I believe that when it comes to every other country in the world. Maybe some of our Western allies are on peer with us, but for the most part, we rule the skies. To include space. So this is like admitting that we're not rule in the skies, right? And I think that's hard for a lot of people, and they don't want to entertain that. I think I even had one guy say, I don't want to think about that stuff, it'll just make me lose sleep.

1:11:36 And I'm like, yeah, welcome to my world. Having a nice, tidy worldview can be very comforting, right? Even if it doesn't necessarily match up with reality, and a lot of people don't want to leave that comfort, I've noticed. Right. So I don't know, but I think the guy that I was talking to about this, I was like, I just can't. Because most of the viewings have happened near major military installations or test ranges. And so I think, well, that makes sense, right? If this is a sentient thing, whether it's from our oceans or it's from another planet or who knows, interdimensional time travelers, you know, they would be interested in those things, obviously. Why Houston? And then it dawned on me. It's like the petrochemical capital of the Western world. It's right by the ocean, right? Yeah. And I think it's, I mean, it's our strategic oil reserves. Like, it's a pretty important spot.

1:12:39 But it seems to me that whatever this is, they don't seem to be mad at us. They don't seem to, I mean, or at least we're not a threat to them or whatever they are. I don't know. Not directly malicious. Yeah. You can't really detect that. Almost like they're just watching. But as more and more guys come forward and, like, now we have politicians and it just seems like, well, I haven't, like, I would like to know the truth. Like, I'm sure everybody would. And it feels a little shitty that we've had leaders in the past that felt like we couldn't handle it. Because I do now believe Bob Lazar. And I believe some of these older accounts. And I think, you know, after Hal Puthoff's comments about he and those other DARPA scientists being commissioned to decide whether or not they should tell us, I don't think he's making that up.

1:13:40 And that totally tracks. Of course they would say, no, don't tell these people. They'll go crazy. The churches will. If you ask, what are the risks of this, you're going to be able to think of a lot of risks. The question they should have asked is, what is the advantage of doing this? What's the benefit, the short, medium, and long-term benefit compared to the risk? Yeah. And I think the Age of Disclosure documentary that just came out recently or in the last year says it pretty well. I think now the secret has been held so long that, like, somebody's going to have to answer the mail on why they didn't share. Because if they do know how to do this, like, why are we still flying around and, you know, I mean, but maybe it's like, you know, like, if we do this, then nobody will have jobs. I don't know. The consequence, it's one of those events almost like AI where, you know, you almost have a singularity event where it's so hard to predict what could happen afterwards. Right. But ultimately, acknowledging it, not

1:14:40 acknowledging it, doesn't change the baseline reality, right? It just is creating a veal around, you know, our interaction with the world, which, of course, is going to handicap us in our engineering and our science and our understanding and our growth. We can't just live handicapped with a limited selected amount of information that's allowed to permeate our reality. Yeah. Well, you know, let me ask you, Ben, you know, thank you for coming forward, being willing to talk about this and leading on the topic. I mean, what would you say to your colleagues about this? I would say don't be a coward. Like, yeah, because the more, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like if you look at times in history when one evil man ruled a bunch of people, if all the people were willing to stand up for themselves, evil can't exist. So, yeah, don't be a coward. Like, you know yourself, you're a good person.

1:15:41 You saw something, don't question it. Like, tell your story. And this is a great outlet. There's, you know, I've looked into it. There's no sneaky guy who's going to come in and bother you about it. Like, it's almost like the cap is off. There's too much information flowing at this point, but still not enough. It needs to be a large public outcry. It needs to be, in my opinion, an election-level event. Like, it needs to be the reason a person gets elected to office because they are going to make it happen. And so far, we've not been given that. Like, politicians have kind of thrown that in there, like, I'm going to get the bottom of this. But then nothing happens, you know. So, it tells me that whoever owns this information is crazy powerful. And I suspect that Diana Pasolka is right, that it exists beyond borders.

1:16:43 And I suspect she's right that it exists a long time ago. Like, it's pretty apparent that large organized churches have known about this. You know, I mean, she talks about it when she got into the vault in the Vatican, that the Catholic Church has probably known about this for a while. And that was even part of David Grush's testimony as well regarding things that the Catholic Church knew during, you know, the World War period. Right. It's fascinating. You know, ultimately, you know, as fascinating as the topic is, and I truly mean that as someone that has a voracious appetite for learning. This is a topic that, you know, is an endless pool of interesting things to learn about, not just from what's out there, but how other people interact with this information. And one thing that's always shocked me is just, you know, I've come to understand just how different two minds can be, right?

1:17:45 Someone that's had this experience and has had that worldview change, you know, as I would suggest you have, people don't realize that there are other people walking past them on the street right now that already live in that reality, right? That have had those experiences that haven't shared it. And I think it's this interesting dichotomy that, you know, I think is going to become more apparent over the years as more people talk about this. And we learn about what that means for society, for us, and for what those people have been holding back all those years. Yeah, I'll give you an example. I have a family member who, so I told this story to one family member. This is in my wife's side. And they go, oh, you got to talk to Aunt Nancy. And I'm like, Aunt Nancy? She's not a pilot? Like what? So I go talk to Aunt Nancy about it. I mean, she has a experience like I have never heard when she was a little girl growing up in Utah. Where she had direct in like right in front

1:18:47 of her in a field in Utah and held that her entire life and then had another one. She's had like two or three. And interestingly enough, she kind of on that Diana Pasolka thing, she felt like it was almost a religious experience. Because I remember I asked her, like, did you feel scared? Because I feel like you would be terrified if this thing lands in front of you and you're like 10 years old in a field. And she said, no. Honestly, I felt like I was looking at a, like, God or like an angel. Peaceful presence. Yeah. It was as if, like, I felt totally calm. And I thought, she asked me how I felt. And it happened so fast. But I do remember feeling that. Like, this, like once it was close enough, I felt like this isn't a threat.

1:19:50 It didn't feel like combat or like I was in danger. So I don't know what that is. I don't know what that piece of it is. But I just think, you know, like I said, I think I said earlier I was a skeptic and I'm not a religious guy. But since this, I've come to more believe maybe there is something bigger than us. Clearly there is. But I don't know what that means. What's that translate into the existing structures we have? Or maybe they don't, right? Right. Wow. Ben, this has been fantastic. Thank you for coming out. Thanks for setting a great example for all the other pilots out there. Thanks for tuning in today. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can support Americans for Safe Aerospace by liking and subscribing to the channel, commenting below, or joining our membership. We've been asking our guests if they'd like to come back virtually and maybe answer some questions from our guests, from our members in an AMA format.

1:20:51 Would you be open to that? Sure. Awesome. Thank you. We'll have to try to get that a week after it airs. So there you go. If you have any questions about this incredibly awesome conversation and experience, we'll be able to do that a week after this airs. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Yeah, man. Thanks.