Speaker 1: Last time on OBSCURUM: Invasion of the Drones.
Speaker 2: Drones, I saw some type of craft.
Speaker 3: It just disappears one minute was there one minute It wasn't.
Speaker 4: Somebody's making money doing this, otherwise it wouldn't exist. Normally,
Speaker 4: it would.
Speaker 1: Say like local, Like if it's a local call, it
Speaker 1: would say Sterling, Colorado, where it would say where it's from.
Speaker 1: It had lifted Palestinian territory.
Speaker 5: I have heard and I haven't seen.
Speaker 2: I seen a picture of like a green substance that's
Speaker 2: been dropped.
Speaker 1: Could you make out that it was in fact a drone?
Speaker 6: Sounds better than a UFO identified flying object?
Speaker 4: Basically, Yeah.
Speaker 1: A quick note, some material in this episode is graphic
Speaker 1: and unsettling. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 5: The first time was Sunday night. Yeah, the items were
Speaker 5: in a I guess what you would call kind of
Speaker 5: a mesh bag, and then there was a frozen mass
Speaker 5: in there.
Speaker 1: When I finally got the answer about what was in
Speaker 1: that mesh bag, I'd had a crazy twenty four hours
Speaker 1: that started when Marcie added to the already strangeness of
Speaker 1: this story by saying something was falling from drones at night.
Speaker 1: But that was only the beginning chapter five, bad juju.
Speaker 1: I'm glad they have coffee here. I was absolutely last
Speaker 1: night researching this, looking through articles. If the green stuff
Speaker 1: was being dropped from these mysterious objects, someone had seen
Speaker 1: it firsthand, taken a picture and shared it. I racked
Speaker 1: my brain to figure out who may know more. I
Speaker 1: left a message with a friend who used to be
Speaker 1: a local reporter. Then I searched for information. I'd heard
Speaker 1: about a crew of people who'd banded together to investigate
Speaker 1: the sightings themselves.
Speaker 4: When I was little, I had ricorring dreams, and in
Speaker 4: those dreams, I was old man, and in those dreams,
Speaker 4: I was exploring in the different mountain ranges, different sides.
Speaker 4: I think I started looking maybe when I was seventeen
Speaker 4: or eighteen, and I would just look the satellite and
Speaker 4: just and maps and anything i'd get a hold of.
Speaker 1: When I connected with Rod Miller, who started the group,
Speaker 1: he described himself as a concern local with a lifelong
Speaker 1: passion for studying geography in ancient history. Everyone thinks these
Speaker 1: are drones. For better or worse, people are saying there's
Speaker 1: drones out here.
Speaker 4: For me and the group that I started, we used
Speaker 4: the word drone because it was comfortable to other people
Speaker 4: because if you mentioned UFO, you know, the drone was,
Speaker 4: you could talk about it without people up stamping.
Speaker 1: You're crazy. At what point do you go ahead and
Speaker 1: start this group? After those first few sightings.
Speaker 4: Right, okay, we were out and literally we counted it's
Speaker 4: like eighty some of these craft and I have nine grandkids,
Speaker 4: four kids, and they all live in this area. Instantly,
Speaker 4: my concern was, you know, one, they weren't legal. They
Speaker 4: didn't have the three life system. That's whether you're militaria
Speaker 4: or whether you're not up military. That is normally what
Speaker 4: they have. So that's pretty much what YT started.
Speaker 1: By this point, the group had a small presence on
Speaker 1: social media. However, I became aware that the most devoted
Speaker 1: members had moved to private channels to share their thoughts.
Speaker 4: What happens is the is the bright lighted orb drone,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it. We'll get up in
Speaker 4: the sky and when you first, if you don't see
Speaker 4: it get there, it just looks like another star up there.
Speaker 4: But as it's sitting there, you know you'll and you're
Speaker 4: watching it, zoomed in on it with the with your camera.
Speaker 4: When you do, you'll just see these little red lights
Speaker 4: drop out of it. And then those little red lights
Speaker 4: will work this sky. And I say work because it
Speaker 4: seems like they're working, and they'll work their way down
Speaker 4: to the ground a lot of times. When they get
Speaker 4: near the ground, then this like a rid beam of
Speaker 4: light will go across the ground.
Speaker 1: There was something very compelling about Rod. He had tattoos
Speaker 1: covering his face and arms, a gray beard, and piercing eyes.
Speaker 1: He was passionate, and I had a feeling I was
Speaker 1: only beginning to see how driven he actually was. Rod
Speaker 1: never mentioned that he'd seen anything falling from unexplained aircraft,
Speaker 1: but he did suggest that I contact a cattle rancher
Speaker 1: named Alex Peterson. Alex had locked in on one of
Speaker 1: the aircraft with his gun in a thermal scope at night,
Speaker 1: recording what he saw.
Speaker 3: What the fuck? Oh that is beyond creepy.
Speaker 1: Whose two objects that it is really hard to keep.
Speaker 3: On and is coming right over me and I'm trying
Speaker 3: to hold steady.
Speaker 1: He didn't pull the trigger.
Speaker 3: Oh there's another one coming off of it.
Speaker 2: What in the hell?
Speaker 1: Alex described the scene to me that took place above
Speaker 1: his farm.
Speaker 3: You know, I was watching it and it was coming
Speaker 3: right down the river with blinking lights, a red blinking
Speaker 3: light and a solid white light, and all of a
Speaker 3: sudden it turned towards me. The lights turned off, so
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, where did it go? So I
Speaker 3: looked through my scope and then I could see this
Speaker 3: square five by five bucks in orange with bars going
Speaker 3: through it. It was the weirdest damn thing I ever seen.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, three bright lights which
Speaker 3: I could only see through my scope, so they had
Speaker 3: the infrared. I'm not kidney and my hair was standing up.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like this strone was targeting you specifically
Speaker 2: and you you were there?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: As we visited, it didn't take long to realize the
Speaker 1: ranch held many secrets.
Speaker 3: I get up there, the cow is setting upright, and
Speaker 3: there's completely cut apart, but she's setting like, you know,
Speaker 3: like a cow sleeps now. I was like, what in
Speaker 3: the heck? All the neck, the skin off of her neck,
Speaker 3: all the way down to her shoulder was just gone.
Speaker 3: I looked up on the under side of her skulp
Speaker 3: because all the meat was off of her the side
Speaker 3: of her head, and there was a hole right up
Speaker 3: into her brain.
Speaker 1: Bad juju since twenty thirteen, thirteen cows had been violently
Speaker 1: killed in different areas of the ranch. There was no
Speaker 1: explanation as to how they died. Alex showed me photos
Speaker 1: of what he experienced in the pastor his description of
Speaker 1: one of the deaths was extremely disturbing.
Speaker 3: She had been dropped, and you could see she'd been
Speaker 3: dropped just from the vcs that had been shot out.
Speaker 3: I mean, like thirty feet she's gone, bust it up.
Speaker 3: The calf was gone. She would have been six months pregnant,
Speaker 3: and then all the jaw and the tongue was gone again,
Speaker 3: and the eyeballs were still there. So it was not
Speaker 3: a predator, because that's the first thing they would have done.
Speaker 3: I looked around for tracks. There's no predator tracks. There's
Speaker 3: no pickup tracks, nothing. I pulled my pick up up
Speaker 3: about fifteen feet away from it, and I called my brother,
Speaker 3: and so him and his son came up. We started
Speaker 3: walking up and he's walking. I walked up to the
Speaker 3: cow and he's walking up, and my phone just went
Speaker 3: no service as soon as he got up, you know,
Speaker 3: with one hundred and fifty feet no service, his son
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty feet no service. Walked back and
Speaker 3: then our phones would work. I went and got back
Speaker 3: in my pickup, which is Brandy pickup. Dead, dead as
Speaker 3: a door nail.
Speaker 1: His cell phone lost service and truck battery died in
Speaker 1: close proximity to a dead cow. It was my assumption
Speaker 1: that would ever killed these animals had to approach them
Speaker 1: on the ground. Alex was convinced it came from the sky.
Speaker 6: There was no tracks. He couldn't find any foot tracks,
Speaker 6: any pickup tracks. And how anybody would even know how
Speaker 6: to get in there because it's very inaccessible too, How
Speaker 6: would they get the cow down to do that? And
Speaker 6: three they were visibly dropped. Looking at the cows, they
Speaker 6: were all busted up. I mean they were busted up bad,
Speaker 6: so they had to have fallen from least fifty to
Speaker 6: one hundred feet.
Speaker 1: Would you just drive yourself as someone who's fascinated by
Speaker 1: strange aircrafts.
Speaker 6: No, not necessarily. I raised cattle. I've been around kettle
Speaker 6: my entire life, and when this started happening, I knew
Speaker 6: something was wrong with it because I've seen you know,
Speaker 6: cattle dye. I've seen all that before, but this was different. Now,
Speaker 6: I'll say, with the mutilations and just the weird conditions,
Speaker 6: and then the drones started flying over just weird things
Speaker 6: that pay a lot more attention.
Speaker 1: Now Chapter six, Space Potatoes. I had a miscall from
Speaker 1: the reporter i'd reached out to that morning. I called
Speaker 1: her back and it wasn't long before she told me
Speaker 1: about a couple who lived outside of Imperial. They'd been
Speaker 1: visiting with the sheriff near their home when they overheard
Speaker 1: through his police radio that drones were dropping things on
Speaker 1: county roads and someone had gathered them all up. This
Speaker 1: was now the second time I'd heard about stuff falling
Speaker 1: from flying objects, in addition to Alex's assumption that at
Speaker 1: least one of his cows was killed on impact. Were
Speaker 1: these reports true or just another small town rumor?
Speaker 3: So what do you really think is going on with
Speaker 3: all this?
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, people have drones in the county.
Speaker 2: They use them for cattle and stuff, but not like
Speaker 2: on a big scale, and they're never the big But
Speaker 2: the weirdest thing is is, you know, people have seen
Speaker 2: strange lights in this area forever. There's even been well,
Speaker 2: you know how small towns are, but people have been
Speaker 2: talking and saying these things maybe dropping something out of them,
Speaker 2: and so I'm to know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: I think tonight I just may call it a night.
Speaker 4: And come home.
Speaker 1: After a quick call with my mom. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: I pulled off the highway near the Imperial Airport to
Speaker 1: see one of those beautiful Nebraska sunsets. As it got dark,
Speaker 1: mystifying lights began to appear in the sky. It was
Speaker 1: at this time that I was sent a picture of
Speaker 1: what Marcy said the craft were dropping. In the photo,
Speaker 1: I could see what Marcy had mentioned. It looked like
Speaker 1: they were being kept behind a chain link gate in
Speaker 1: a dark storage facility and didn't resemble anything I'd seen before.
Speaker 1: They were capsules roughly six to twelve inches long and
Speaker 1: wrapped tightly in some type of green covering. I'd heard
Speaker 1: a couple deputies from the nearby town of just north
Speaker 1: of Imperial may have had them in their possession. I
Speaker 1: dialed Perkins County Sheriff James Bruggaman's office, and his luck
Speaker 1: would have it, he wasn't in. He was supposed to
Speaker 1: be back that afternoon, so I left a message, But
Speaker 1: I soon realized it may take me going there in
Speaker 1: person to get him to talk The courthouse is located
Speaker 1: near the edge of town. It's an older brick building
Speaker 1: with three levels. I parked in front, walked up a
Speaker 1: few flights of stairs, and went straight to the front desk.
Speaker 1: I was told the sheriff was in his office but
Speaker 1: unavailable to talk. I tried connecting with the receptionist by
Speaker 1: explaining that I'd grown up in Imperial and played football
Speaker 1: for the local high school. I wasn't leaving until I
Speaker 1: had answers about those capsules. I was eventually led back
Speaker 1: to the sheriff's office and given an interview. I had
Speaker 1: many questions, but knew I could lead with the capsules.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make him feel as if he
Speaker 1: couldn't trust me with sensitive information. I'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: just have you say your full name, James Brugman, Okay,
Speaker 1: and you can go ahead and say your titled to
Speaker 1: sheriff here in Perkins, here in Perkins.
Speaker 5: County yup, Perkins County Sheriff.
Speaker 1: When did you first start to hear about these drone
Speaker 1: sidings in your specific area?
Speaker 5: The first time was Sunday night, around eight thirty.
Speaker 1: And what's been your biggest concern?
Speaker 5: I think the biggest concern is just the uncertainty. It
Speaker 5: would be nice to know who owns the drones and
Speaker 5: what the purpose of the flights is. We're working with
Speaker 5: agencies within the federal government, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Speaker 5: the Department of Homeland Security, the Nebraska State Patrol, which
Speaker 5: is a state agency.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Again, like I said, I think everybody's putting their minds
Speaker 5: together and investigating to get to the bottom of this
Speaker 5: as quickly as they can.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen anything remotely similar to this?
Speaker 5: This is the first time we've experienced anything like this
Speaker 5: or that I have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as this investigation continues, would there ever be you know,
Speaker 1: would you ever shoot one down?
Speaker 5: You know, anytime you shoot a weapon, there are a
Speaker 5: lot of things that you have to consider, and you know,
Speaker 5: a big concern of mine would be what goes up
Speaker 5: must come down. So if you shoot a round of
Speaker 5: ammunition into the sky, if you hit your target, you
Speaker 5: know that's good, target's going to come down somewhere. You're
Speaker 5: responsible for that. If you miss the target, you got
Speaker 5: to shell up to air bullet that's still got to
Speaker 5: come down. So I don't know that we would take
Speaker 5: very lightly shooting things out of the air if we
Speaker 5: were requested to do so, you know, we would probably
Speaker 5: go back to the agency that made that request and
Speaker 5: let them know that we felt maybe they could do
Speaker 5: that themselves.
Speaker 1: And I've talked to a lot of people around town,
Speaker 1: in Imperial and west of town, in different areas, and
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of them have even said that
Speaker 1: these drums could be dropping things out of them.
Speaker 5: There were some items that had shown up on the ground,
Speaker 5: so there there were some things that showed up out
Speaker 5: in the country on a county road.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The the items were in a I guess what
Speaker 5: you would call kind of a mesh bag, and then
Speaker 5: there was a frozen mass in there. What you're referring
Speaker 5: to is something called a track log or a pivot track,
Speaker 5: and it's a device that or it's a bag that
Speaker 5: farmers hang on there on the span between the wheels
Speaker 5: on the pivots. Somebody had taken some of those off
Speaker 5: of a pivot and likely thrown them on the back
Speaker 5: of a pickup and was driving down a country road
Speaker 5: and lost a few of them. It was just coincidental.
Speaker 5: They were picked up in an area where drones had
Speaker 5: been seen traversing, you know, back and forth across that area,
Speaker 5: and I think that's how, you know, how that all
Speaker 5: that speculation all started. Those have been identified by the
Speaker 5: company that manufactures them as being used products.
Speaker 1: It was definitely something that caught.
Speaker 5: Our attention, you know, and that we looked into immediately
Speaker 5: to figure out, you know, what was going on.
Speaker 1: He wanted me to believe these capsules were used on
Speaker 1: a pivot sprinkler system, even though the sheriff was convinced
Speaker 1: they weren't being released from unknown objects. I later learned
Speaker 1: that field tests for methamphetamines were conducted on the track
Speaker 1: logs because initially no one could confirm what they were.
Speaker 7: So, yeah, they called me. I assume they probably checked
Speaker 7: on our website and saw those. They know what we
Speaker 7: do for business, they know they know me personally.
Speaker 1: I soon met Dave Janssen, his company produces the track
Speaker 1: logs Sheriff Bruggemann spoke of.
Speaker 7: They're basically about a six inch by foot cylinder in
Speaker 7: a net wrap bag like a mesh net that you
Speaker 7: would put over to keep birds out of a raspberry
Speaker 7: bush or something like that. That's what it looks like,
Speaker 7: and then it's a gel inside of there that's held together.
Speaker 7: It's kind of a clear white gel and that's pretty
Speaker 7: much all they are.
Speaker 1: With that description, it sounded like the logs could be
Speaker 1: from another world. A few people even had their own
Speaker 1: name for them.
Speaker 7: Space potatoes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's just hilarious to me.
Speaker 7: But if you know what it is, it's innocuous and
Speaker 7: you're just like, whatever.
Speaker 1: What was the story they told you of how they
Speaker 1: found these these track logs.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they'd found them on a road in the middle
Speaker 7: of the night where the drones had been and that
Speaker 7: thing had had showed up, so that made everybody nervous,
Speaker 7: and they sent it. I believe they sent it to
Speaker 7: the state to haven't analyzed because they weren't sure what
Speaker 7: it was before they got a hold of me. Honestly,
Speaker 7: I laughed the whole time. It was quite hilarious to
Speaker 7: get that phone call.
Speaker 1: You're from a small tent. I'm from a small tent.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this? You know, whole situation
Speaker 1: of people seeing these these things in the sky?
Speaker 7: Ah, the drones, Well, the drones are interesting. I've got
Speaker 7: some friends in the military that said it sounds like
Speaker 7: a military operation. I've got friends in conspiracy groups that
Speaker 7: say it's definitely some sort of you know, round up
Speaker 7: thing for the rural people. And I know that one
Speaker 7: sheriff's office put out a notice saying they wanted to
Speaker 7: have people looking for such and such a vehicle. Within
Speaker 7: an hour, that whole thing had been reversed and they
Speaker 7: said there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 1: Officers were now searching for vehicles. Why share a description
Speaker 1: and change the story? Something wasn't adding up coming up
Speaker 1: on obscure invasion of the drones.
Speaker 2: That they there that said that they had reports of
Speaker 2: shots fired at thrones as we was.
Speaker 4: Looking at some pictographs of dark Shadow.
Speaker 3: Going forward, we are not going to talk about any
Speaker 3: of the details that that any of us undertake to
Speaker 3: try to get to the bottom of what's going on.
Speaker 1: If you have any information surrounding the events detailed in
Speaker 1: this podcast, or have your own similar account, please visit
Speaker 1: our website at obscurumseries.com and share your story. You'll also
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Speaker 1: and @gabelenners on all social platforms. OBSCURUM is produced by
Speaker 1: Imagine and Lenners Entertainment for iHeartMedia. This series is written, hosted,
Speaker 1: and produced by Me Gabe Lenners. It's executive produced by
Speaker 1: Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carl Welker, Nathan Kloke, Nikki etour
Speaker 1: in Me. Additional production by Jacob Plough. Music and sound
Speaker 1: effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Brand management and digital design
Speaker 1: by Labyrinth Brand Co. Video editing by Alex Simikopenko. This
Speaker 1: project was mixed and mastered by Jacob Plough. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Dan Bodanski, Josh Hiller, Keeton Storts, Bryson Keyes, Ailey Birchfield,
Speaker 1: David Wasserman, Katrina Norvel and my family. OBSCURUM: Invasion of
Speaker 1: the Drones is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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