WEBVTT - Project Blue Book 0:00:00.170 --> 0:00:02.810 Hi, Hollywood UFO people. I'm Bryce Zabel. And you know, 0:00:03.150 --> 0:00:06.670 there are certain television shows that just seem to belong together. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.400 And today we're going to be talking about our brother 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:13.139 from another mother, Project Blue Book, the history series that 0:00:13.180 --> 0:00:17.239 ran for two seasons beginning in 2019. Now, Project Blue 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.680 Book takes place in the 1950s. The show that Brent 0:00:20.750 --> 0:00:24.210 Friedman and I created, Dark Skies, takes place in the 1960s. 0:00:24.650 --> 0:00:27.810 But both shows are period dramas built around the real 0:00:27.870 --> 0:00:31.920 history of UFOs and the possibility that somewhere behind the 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.730 official explanations, another story is being kept from us. Both 0:00:36.790 --> 0:00:40.029 shows mix real people and real events with fiction, and 0:00:40.210 --> 0:00:43.790 both shows take a swing at the larger conspiracy instead 0:00:43.830 --> 0:00:48.170 of just chasing a different UFO every week. And strangely enough, 0:00:48.690 --> 0:00:54.080 both shows also produced exactly 20 hours of television. Our 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.040 guest today is going to be David O'Leary, the creator, writer, 0:00:57.100 --> 0:01:01.040 and producer behind Project Blue Book. David and I became 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.140 good friends while Project Blue Book was on the air, 0:01:04.180 --> 0:01:07.020 and we clicked immediately because we had so much in common. 0:01:07.500 --> 0:01:10.720 His show was digging around in the 1950s, Heineck, Project 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:15.120 Blue Book itself, the Robertson panel, the Washington, D.C. overflights, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.190 basically the beginnings of the modern UFO mystery. And then 0:01:19.250 --> 0:01:22.610 Dark Skies picked up in 1961, when all of that 0:01:22.709 --> 0:01:26.890 secrecy started colliding with the Kennedy murder, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 0:01:27.330 --> 0:01:31.350 the Moon Race, Majestic Twelve, and basically the growing American 0:01:31.390 --> 0:01:35.929 suspicion that maybe the government wasn't telling us everything about anything. 0:01:36.569 --> 0:01:41.000 Before we bring David O'Leary into our secure, compartmented information 0:01:41.060 --> 0:01:45.240 facility here, let's get my Dark Skies cohort, Brent Friedman, in. Brent, 0:01:45.260 --> 0:01:47.180 how are you doing? I am doing well, thank you. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:48.300 I am back home. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:49.200 Yes. 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.380 We were like ships passing in the night. I'm in 0:01:51.420 --> 0:01:54.290 San Francisco right now, but you were just in San Francisco. 0:01:54.750 --> 0:01:56.210 I was in San Francisco, yes. 0:01:56.330 --> 0:01:59.170 It's too bad we didn't Get together and do an 0:01:59.290 --> 0:02:01.450 episode with both of us in the same frame, which 0:02:01.470 --> 0:02:03.570 I think we tried for some interview one time. 0:02:03.610 --> 0:02:05.700 I don't think we know how to make the technology 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.320 work for that. I don't think we're ready to do that. Hey, listen, 0:02:08.340 --> 0:02:10.040 just one thing that just hit me while I was 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.260 doing that introduction. You remember how the Dark Skies pilot 0:02:14.419 --> 0:02:18.570 actually introduces our main character, John Loewengard? He gets sent 0:02:18.630 --> 0:02:24.690 to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to investigate... Project Blue Book. Oh, yeah. 0:02:24.940 --> 0:02:27.600 Yeah, no, this is kind of closing the circle, if 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:33.190 you will, on that whole storyline. And I'm really looking 0:02:33.210 --> 0:02:36.120 forward to this episode because I didn't watch the show 0:02:36.190 --> 0:02:39.250 initially when it came out, but I have caught up 0:02:39.350 --> 0:02:39.810 on it now. 0:02:40.030 --> 0:02:43.550 And what a fun ride. A great ride. And because 0:02:43.590 --> 0:02:45.950 I wanted to put money in my friend David's pocket, 0:02:46.130 --> 0:02:48.609 I have bought it twice now on Apple, or I 0:02:48.669 --> 0:02:52.240 bought season one and season two on Apple. And really 0:02:52.290 --> 0:02:56.780 enjoyed rewatching it outside of the weekly play out. So 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.119 congratulations to him for that. Another thing, if you think 0:03:00.180 --> 0:03:03.320 about it, our Dark Skies lead, John Lowengard, who is 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:10.559 a fictional, non-fictional character. He's inspired by non-fiction characters, even 0:03:10.580 --> 0:03:13.540 though he is a fictional character. And the Project Blue 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.019 Book lead, who is J. Allen Hynek, is obviously based 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.840 on a real guy, but then he's fictionalized in some 0:03:19.990 --> 0:03:23.080 things he says and does. But both of those characters, 0:03:23.180 --> 0:03:27.390 Lone Guard and Heineck, are on surprisingly similar journeys because 0:03:27.770 --> 0:03:31.230 neither one starts out as a hardcore UFO believer. They're 0:03:31.250 --> 0:03:35.110 just guys there doing a job, asking questions, and then 0:03:35.290 --> 0:03:37.840 things get a little weird. Absolutely. 0:03:37.900 --> 0:03:40.440 And I love the fact that it's because they do 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.800 their jobs well that they get themselves deeper and deeper 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:45.700 into the ufology rabbit hole. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.760 Yeah. And it certainly seems true for Project Blue Book. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.540 At some point, Lone Guard tells Bach, who's running Majestic 12, 0:03:52.540 --> 0:03:55.590 he goes, I'm pretty close to the truth. And Bach, 0:03:55.970 --> 0:03:59.670 who actually knows what's going on, is dismissive. He kind 0:03:59.710 --> 0:04:02.730 of laughs and goes, the truth is overrated, which is 0:04:02.770 --> 0:04:07.130 certainly what seems to be being said in Project Blue Book, 0:04:07.180 --> 0:04:08.800 or at least the people who are running it seem 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.180 to think that way. If you squint just a little bit, 0:04:11.660 --> 0:04:14.880 Project Blue Book almost feels like the unofficial prequel to 0:04:14.900 --> 0:04:16.700 Dark Skies, which is why I think this show is 0:04:16.740 --> 0:04:19.479 going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, completely. Okay, 0:04:19.700 --> 0:04:21.620 so look, we're going to be right back, folks, with 0:04:21.660 --> 0:04:24.580 David O'Leary. And the three of us, Brent and me 0:04:24.620 --> 0:04:27.210 and David, are going to kick around what it's actually 0:04:27.310 --> 0:04:31.550 like to create a television series that takes real UFO history, 0:04:32.070 --> 0:04:35.690 real government secrecy, and real people, and then turns all 0:04:35.730 --> 0:04:38.870 of that into a period piece that's not afraid at 0:04:38.950 --> 0:04:41.940 all to take big leaps in dramatic license. So we'll 0:04:41.960 --> 0:05:01.560 be right back. I'm Brent Friedman. 0:05:01.740 --> 0:05:04.440 Years ago, a family friend who became a cabinet member 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.260 in the Reagan administration disclosed to me that aliens are real, 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:10.760 they're here, and he'd seen them. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.460 I'm Bryce Zabel. Later, when we were producing Dark Skies, 0:05:14.850 --> 0:05:18.330 an NBC TV series about an alien invasion, we were 0:05:18.370 --> 0:05:20.550 approached by men who said they were from the Office 0:05:20.589 --> 0:05:23.589 of Naval Intelligence, and they wanted to give us inside 0:05:23.650 --> 0:05:27.490 information in exchange for access to our show. We didn't 0:05:27.610 --> 0:05:28.600 take that deal seriously. 0:05:29.050 --> 0:05:31.000 But we have never stopped thinking about it. 0:05:31.589 --> 0:05:34.910 That's why we do this podcast. We're working out ideas 0:05:34.970 --> 0:05:39.190 in real time about how Hollywood has portrayed aliens and why. 0:05:39.810 --> 0:05:43.330 Every episode is different because there are so many questions. 0:05:43.710 --> 0:05:47.140 We're looking for answers. It's an active investigation. Let's do 0:05:47.180 --> 0:06:17.180 this together. We've talked about David O'Leary long enough. It's 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.020 time to bring him in here and let him defend himself. Now, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.540 David is the creator, the writer, and the executive producer 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.230 of Project Blue Book. He did an enormous amount of 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.549 research into the real J. Allen Hynek and the actual 0:06:30.770 --> 0:06:33.599 Air Force program and all the cases that surrounded it. 0:06:33.630 --> 0:06:36.670 So he's got a big database up in his head 0:06:36.710 --> 0:06:40.510 to talk about. But there is something that is very 0:06:40.670 --> 0:06:44.170 also interesting about David that makes him perfect for our show, 0:06:44.230 --> 0:06:47.770 well-suited for it. He graduated from Vassar with a double 0:06:47.870 --> 0:06:52.909 major in film, which, yeah, that fits the Hollywood thing, 0:06:53.089 --> 0:06:54.790 but also cognitive science. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:58.779 When we were doing our research on David, and we 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.750 have literally a file on you this thick now, I 0:07:01.830 --> 0:07:05.410 saw that you did a really fascinating project for your thesis. 0:07:06.370 --> 0:07:08.890 I did. And guys, oh my God, thank you so 0:07:08.930 --> 0:07:09.870 much for having me. 0:07:09.970 --> 0:07:13.480 I feel like I've earned my MJ-12 clearance badge and 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:14.720 I'm in the inner. 0:07:14.580 --> 0:07:16.900 Bunker and I love it. I love it so much. 0:07:17.100 --> 0:07:21.020 I've had a deep interest in UFOs and the paranormal forever. 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:27.700 And I actually did my cognitive science And I ran 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:34.300 a sensory deprivation telepathy experiment that has been replicated multiple times. 0:07:34.380 --> 0:07:38.870 It's called a Gansfeld telepathy experiment. And it was amazing. 0:07:38.910 --> 0:07:41.060 It was like something out of altered states. And I 0:07:41.100 --> 0:07:44.000 got all this really cool data. And then I also 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.530 had to defend what the physics of ESP would be. 0:07:47.590 --> 0:07:49.670 So I read a lot of books on quantum physics 0:07:49.730 --> 0:07:54.090 and neurology and quantum neurology and how spooky action at 0:07:54.130 --> 0:07:56.730 a distance and maybe our brain is accessing other realms. 0:07:56.790 --> 0:07:59.650 And this thing sits on my shelf. It's 100 pages, 0:07:59.690 --> 0:08:03.560 but it was like the first really in-depth, lengthy document 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.080 I ever created, really. 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.560 What did you conclude about this whole paranormal and cognitive 0:08:11.190 --> 0:08:13.070 consciousness part of this phenomenon. 0:08:13.310 --> 0:08:17.370 So what's really interesting is there's something called the sheep-goat effect. 0:08:17.770 --> 0:08:24.020 Sheep are believers in ESP. Goats are skeptics. And what 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:25.640 I had them do is I had them fill out 0:08:25.700 --> 0:08:29.320 a questionnaire beforehand, before their participation in the study, that 0:08:29.370 --> 0:08:31.880 determines whether whether they are a sheep or a goat, right? 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.880 It asks them questions like, I have had an ESP experience. 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.120 I think there were some questions in there about UFOs too, 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.540 by the way. UFOs might be real, right? Just your 0:08:39.580 --> 0:08:43.620 sort of openness to psychic phenomena. So what it turns 0:08:43.780 --> 0:08:49.719 out is one's belief in ESP is a determining factor 0:08:49.820 --> 0:08:53.530 of their ability to perform well on an ESP task. 0:08:53.870 --> 0:08:57.189 And that is very replicated. It's called the sheep goat effect. 0:08:57.230 --> 0:09:00.400 I encourage our listeners or your listeners to look that up. 0:09:00.670 --> 0:09:03.580 And that's crazy because my belief in whether a unicorn 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.220 exists shouldn't determine whether a unicorn does exist. But with 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.229 psychic phenomena, it really turns out that if you're open-minded 0:09:10.250 --> 0:09:12.760 and And you feel that maybe it's possible that you'll 0:09:12.780 --> 0:09:16.360 get lucky today or whatever, like you do statistically better 0:09:16.700 --> 0:09:17.640 on an ESP task. 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:19.200 And we were able to replicate that. 0:09:19.300 --> 0:09:21.740 All of our hits were people who had a high, 0:09:22.100 --> 0:09:24.020 they were high sheep. They really thought that this was 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:25.719 going to be fun and this was going to be possible. 0:09:26.140 --> 0:09:28.580 So that was like our most interesting result. 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:30.020 It's fascinating. 0:09:30.140 --> 0:09:34.240 And it validates that inversion of the famous saying that 0:09:34.300 --> 0:09:35.900 seeing is believing is believing. 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:37.160 Believing is seeing. 0:09:37.460 --> 0:09:40.010 And I think- That all goes back to, I think 0:09:40.210 --> 0:09:42.460 we have a much deeper dive conversation on this, but 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.560 the role of consciousness in all of this, whether it's 0:09:45.580 --> 0:09:50.420 your experiments, ESP, or even the larger topic of UFOs 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:51.819 and UAP. 0:09:51.820 --> 0:09:56.330 100%. My favorite line in the Mothman Prophecies movie with 0:09:56.390 --> 0:09:59.250 Richard Gere is, what do you look like? 0:09:59.510 --> 0:10:03.080 And it says... it depends on who's looking. It depends 0:10:03.140 --> 0:10:03.840 on who's looking. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:08.220 And I was like, oh, this movie is next level great. 0:10:08.500 --> 0:10:13.859 Okay. It understands everything. I love it. It's so funny, David, 0:10:13.900 --> 0:10:16.570 because we did an episode called, I think, All About 0:10:16.610 --> 0:10:19.520 the Woo, And sort of the portal film into that 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.040 was the Mothman Prophecies, okay? And we found that it 0:10:23.059 --> 0:10:25.780 got an enormous amount of interest that we've actually done 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:30.090 another episode about Woo because people like to talk Woo. 0:10:30.140 --> 0:10:32.630 And I guess you know what Woo is. It's the- Oh, yeah. 0:10:32.890 --> 0:10:35.550 Not the nuts and bolts. It's everything else. So my 0:10:35.610 --> 0:10:38.910 question for you is, have you had any personal experiences 0:10:39.150 --> 0:10:44.530 that would qualify as some kind of experience that's paranormal? 0:10:44.670 --> 0:10:47.570 Or have you experienced your own ESP- experience or anything 0:10:47.610 --> 0:10:48.890 like that? Yes. 0:10:49.150 --> 0:10:51.820 I've only had one UFO experience, which I'm happy to 0:10:51.860 --> 0:10:55.280 talk about, but predating all that with a lot of psychic, 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.440 what I would determine to be psychic experiences growing up. 0:10:58.580 --> 0:11:00.900 And there were things I didn't even remember. Like my 0:11:00.940 --> 0:11:03.959 middle name is Eli, which is both a movie I 0:11:04.020 --> 0:11:08.620 produced and I'm named after a grandfather I never met. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.069 And he had a sister named Ida who had my 0:11:12.150 --> 0:11:14.880 birthday and he would call her Idy. And when I 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.229 was a little kid, for no reason at all, I 0:11:17.270 --> 0:11:22.180 would call my sister, Kara, Heidi. And so I was calling, 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.330 like there were weird things like that where I couldn't 0:11:24.370 --> 0:11:27.349 have possibly known. So it's like, I was like, I 0:11:27.370 --> 0:11:29.310 always felt like I was channeling my grandfather in that 0:11:29.350 --> 0:11:31.530 way as a very young kid. But over the years, 0:11:31.670 --> 0:11:33.870 my friends, if there's anyone listening here would know that 0:11:33.929 --> 0:11:35.670 I'd be at a party and I would ask girls, 0:11:35.690 --> 0:11:37.270 like think of a number between one and a hundred 0:11:37.330 --> 0:11:38.790 and I would try and guess it and that kind 0:11:38.809 --> 0:11:40.490 of thing. And sometimes I would get it right. I 0:11:40.530 --> 0:11:44.010 was always a big, I was always fascinated by sort 0:11:44.030 --> 0:11:46.820 of mentalism and psychic phenomena. And it always struck me 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.960 as a real thing. And I think that just came 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.100 from various instances in my life where I was like, 0:11:52.140 --> 0:11:54.270 that was so weird. I was just thinking that, and 0:11:54.290 --> 0:11:56.609 then it happened. Or I was just thinking about you 0:11:56.650 --> 0:11:57.770 and here you are. 0:11:57.630 --> 0:11:59.850 And that kind of thing. Regardless of how that worked 0:11:59.910 --> 0:12:02.829 as an ESP experiment, how did it work for picking 0:12:02.890 --> 0:12:07.500 up girls? I'll tell you this, when you get it, 0:12:07.660 --> 0:12:08.160 it works. 0:12:09.540 --> 0:12:11.680 But a lot of times I was like 81 and 0:12:11.700 --> 0:12:14.980 she was like 26. But anyway, excuse me, I have 0:12:15.020 --> 0:12:17.800 to go refill my drink now. But like in college 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.180 and stuff like that, I was always deeply interested in 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.360 the various forms of ESP. And it was great to 0:12:24.380 --> 0:12:27.040 do a college thesis on the subject. What about the 0:12:27.100 --> 0:12:29.600 nuts and bolts? Did you ever see a UFO? People 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:31.920 always ask and they always want to know whoever you're 0:12:31.940 --> 0:12:33.750 talking to. Did you ever see a UFO? 0:12:33.770 --> 0:12:34.349 What about you? 0:12:34.770 --> 0:12:37.980 So all through my life, the answer was no, but 0:12:38.010 --> 0:12:40.760 I have shared this story before, but shortly after I 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.160 sold Project Blue Book, I remember I was still living. 0:12:44.179 --> 0:12:46.099 It was before the show had gotten greenlit, but it 0:12:46.140 --> 0:12:49.349 was after I showed it to history. I'm walking home 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.609 in an area I used to live in mid city 0:12:51.750 --> 0:12:54.150 Los Angeles at the time. Well, all the homes around 0:12:54.190 --> 0:12:56.730 are about two stories and I'm actually on the phone. 0:12:56.770 --> 0:12:58.870 It's like 1030 at night and I had parked. You 0:12:58.890 --> 0:13:01.010 had to find street parking and I had parked further 0:13:01.050 --> 0:13:03.740 away from my place. And I'm walking and I'm on 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.330 the phone with a buddy of mine. And I look 0:13:06.420 --> 0:13:09.089 up and out of the trees is what looks like 0:13:09.130 --> 0:13:15.990 a teardropped shaped self luminescent green fireball, right? Like a 0:13:16.050 --> 0:13:21.209 Chinese lantern, but completely green. And I look up at 0:13:21.290 --> 0:13:23.410 it and I'm like, I freeze. And then I got 0:13:23.450 --> 0:13:28.050 the sensation that it was moving towards me and I panicked. 0:13:28.540 --> 0:13:30.740 And I was like, oh my God, I'm seeing a UFO. 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.580 And I run underneath this thing as it continues to 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.560 flicker on and just move down the tree line. And 0:13:36.580 --> 0:13:39.209 I watch it go as I'm running away. And I 0:13:39.290 --> 0:13:42.150 sat on that story for about a year. 0:13:42.170 --> 0:13:44.830 I didn't tell anybody except my wife. 0:13:45.250 --> 0:13:48.310 Because A, I was a total coward in the story. 0:13:48.330 --> 0:13:50.990 And B, it sounded like. 0:13:50.890 --> 0:13:51.670 BS, right? 0:13:51.740 --> 0:13:53.579 It sounded like, oh, here's this guy who sold a 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.620 UFO show having a UFO experience. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:56.939 But I'm not kidding. 0:13:57.059 --> 0:14:00.140 For months when I would park my car, I was 0:14:00.220 --> 0:14:02.820 like having the sensation that something was over my shoulder 0:14:02.860 --> 0:14:05.320 or something like that. It was like difficult for me 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.080 to park the car and walk through the dark in 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.000 my neighborhood during that time. And it was just, I 0:14:10.020 --> 0:14:11.940 don't know what it was. And it wasn't a drone 0:14:12.020 --> 0:14:14.209 because it like came out of the trees. Like it 0:14:14.250 --> 0:14:16.180 was like, unless you could fly a drone, like in 0:14:16.230 --> 0:14:16.850 the branches. 0:14:16.900 --> 0:14:19.510 It was like, it was very weird. It was very weird. 0:14:19.630 --> 0:14:22.410 And then about a year later when Project Blue Book 0:14:22.430 --> 0:14:26.430 had been greenlit and they did this activation at Comic-Con 0:14:26.650 --> 0:14:29.790 where they built like a fake Project Blue Book headquarters, 0:14:30.100 --> 0:14:33.480 you could report a UFO sighting and zoom it up 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.120 into space. And they really had the satellite there. So fans, 0:14:36.300 --> 0:14:38.320 it was like to build awareness for the show. And 0:14:38.380 --> 0:14:40.340 I was like, all right, I'm doing it. So I 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.100 reported my official UFO sighting into the Project Blue Book 0:14:44.140 --> 0:14:45.920 headquarters and they zacked it out there. 0:14:45.980 --> 0:14:48.840 So- it was a great, a cool way to admit 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:50.000 that this thing had happened. 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:55.280 I love the perceived coincidence of you've just started to 0:14:55.340 --> 0:14:58.140 get this blue book project off the ground after doing 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.390 tons of research on it. And then you have for 0:15:01.430 --> 0:15:04.830 the first time in your life, this potential UFO experience. 0:15:05.450 --> 0:15:08.230 And it's easy to say either a total coincidence or 0:15:08.290 --> 0:15:11.190 B that wasn't really a UFO. But if you look 0:15:11.230 --> 0:15:13.460 at both of them and say, no, it wasn't a coincidence. 0:15:13.700 --> 0:15:17.620 And by the way, it was something real. anomalous, then 0:15:18.100 --> 0:15:20.530 it's going back to the Mothman prophecies, right? Where it's 0:15:20.570 --> 0:15:22.810 like the whole point of that story was when you 0:15:22.870 --> 0:15:26.550 start putting your intention and your energy focused on something, 0:15:27.010 --> 0:15:29.210 you get deeper into it. And that is clearly what 0:15:29.230 --> 0:15:31.840 happened to Bryce and I, like as the further we 0:15:31.860 --> 0:15:35.020 got into the dark skies experience, you leave the real 0:15:35.060 --> 0:15:38.310 world and you're in the phenomenon now. And who knows 0:15:38.380 --> 0:15:39.000 what will happen? 0:15:39.250 --> 0:15:40.600 I believe that so strongly. 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.120 Even then it did feel a little, oh, they're just 0:15:43.140 --> 0:15:46.240 saying hello or we see you or we understand that 0:15:46.260 --> 0:15:49.000 you're about to create a show that's going to move 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.770 the needle a little bit on this subject. And I 0:15:51.810 --> 0:15:55.010 think obviously your show did that in a huge way 0:15:55.130 --> 0:15:59.010 as well. And I will say like, all throughout the show. 0:15:59.170 --> 0:16:01.450 And I'm curious, I feel like I know that's just 0:16:01.470 --> 0:16:03.190 from what Bryce has told me too, that this was 0:16:03.250 --> 0:16:07.290 happening to you. We had all kinds of synchronistic, a 0:16:07.350 --> 0:16:09.510 lot of synchronicity is I think what I'll say. 0:16:09.590 --> 0:16:10.430 Like a lot of. 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.000 Weird, like I remember like the first time we went 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.660 up on set and Sean and I were flying. Sean 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.680 was like my partner on this, brought him into show 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.260 run season one and then we were partners season two. 0:16:21.900 --> 0:16:23.720 And he was amazing. He believes in the phenomenon too 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:25.220 and has had his own experiences. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.320 We're like getting on a plane together And we look 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.920 up and somebody had like, for the first time to go, 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.680 just a board to go to Canada. 0:16:32.730 --> 0:16:33.190 And there was a. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.090 Little slip of paper with an alien face on it 0:16:36.370 --> 0:16:39.430 that somebody had stuck at the gate. Like just weird 0:16:39.630 --> 0:16:40.370 stuff like that. 0:16:40.570 --> 0:16:44.109 And that, like so many of those instances, so many. 0:16:44.550 --> 0:16:46.390 Like, so it was really one of those things where 0:16:46.410 --> 0:16:47.950 like the whole time I was like, this is like 0:16:48.790 --> 0:16:49.970 just synchronicity. 0:16:49.990 --> 0:16:51.750 I don't know what else to call it. I think 0:16:51.790 --> 0:16:54.850 we need an origin story for our audience so that 0:16:54.890 --> 0:16:58.410 they understand. Because they've heard Brent and I speak For 0:16:58.450 --> 0:17:02.150 some people, ad nauseum about our origin stories. But what's yours? 0:17:02.410 --> 0:17:06.090 In other words, how did the show first come to 0:17:06.130 --> 0:17:08.100 your head that you were going to even call a 0:17:08.140 --> 0:17:10.659 show Project Blue Book? And then how did you sell 0:17:10.740 --> 0:17:13.220 it and get it started? Absolutely. 0:17:13.260 --> 0:17:14.639 So I'll just say that I grew up in New 0:17:14.660 --> 0:17:17.040 York City, but I've had, for whatever reason, a lifelong 0:17:17.100 --> 0:17:20.979 interest in this phenomenon. I remember dragging my father to 0:17:21.060 --> 0:17:25.800 see the movie Communion, based on Whitley Strieber's book. starring 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.020 Christopher Walken when I was nine years old. I don't 0:17:29.060 --> 0:17:31.700 know what that's about, but I remember being in a 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.159 tiny little movie theater downtown and having that movie, by 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:35.659 the way, scare the hell out of me. And I 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.609 was definitely somebody who, when I was going through my 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:41.270 teenage years, rebelling and doing things I shouldn't be doing, 0:17:41.290 --> 0:17:44.330 I would also read these alien abduction books that would 0:17:44.430 --> 0:17:45.970 keep me up at night. I don't know what I 0:17:46.010 --> 0:17:47.869 was doing to myself, but it was like, I was like, 0:17:47.890 --> 0:17:50.310 I need to stop, but I'm also so fascinated and 0:17:50.450 --> 0:17:54.050 terrified by this subject. Anyway, years later, after I moved 0:17:54.070 --> 0:17:56.980 to LA and I Been an assistant and an executive 0:17:57.060 --> 0:17:58.399 and all this. And I think I was still an 0:17:58.420 --> 0:18:01.139 executive when the idea first came up. I watched, we 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.300 were talking about Believing is Seeing. There was a 2008 0:18:04.300 --> 0:18:09.540 documentary special hosted by the late Peter Jennings called Seeing 0:18:09.830 --> 0:18:11.030 is Believing. Right. 0:18:11.050 --> 0:18:11.629 And it was. 0:18:11.570 --> 0:18:17.590 About America's very strange history with UFOs. And I was 0:18:17.630 --> 0:18:20.330 already watching all the UFO documentaries about at that time. 0:18:20.530 --> 0:18:22.210 But what this one really did was it went back 0:18:22.270 --> 0:18:25.350 to the beginning and Project Sign and Grudge and Blue Book. 0:18:25.650 --> 0:18:27.930 And of course it talked about Hynek. And by then 0:18:27.950 --> 0:18:31.280 I'm like a 27 year old VP of development or 0:18:31.300 --> 0:18:33.760 whatever it was. And I watched and they talk about 0:18:33.780 --> 0:18:35.600 the story of Hynek and how he was this total 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.139 skeptical astrophysicist who went from skeptic to believer and became 0:18:39.220 --> 0:18:43.840 the voice of ufology and created the classification system. And 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.580 I was like, oh my God, there is, I think 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:47.980 at the time I thought it was a movie. I 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.330 was like, there is a movie in this man's life. 0:18:50.980 --> 0:18:53.369 And then many years later, when I was, after I 0:18:53.380 --> 0:18:55.290 had become a writer and I was trying to pivot 0:18:55.330 --> 0:18:58.310 from movies into TV, I'm having glass, a glass of 0:18:58.369 --> 0:19:01.609 wine with my wife. And we're talking about things, shows 0:19:01.650 --> 0:19:04.129 we love, things we love, things I love. And I 0:19:04.150 --> 0:19:06.689 brought up the idea and I still have the paper. 0:19:06.730 --> 0:19:08.890 I scribbled it down on, cause we got so excited. 0:19:08.910 --> 0:19:09.470 I have it. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.940 Somewhere and it was like it was basically like what 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.760 if i did a real life x files set in 0:19:16.780 --> 0:19:20.280 the time of mad men with alan hynek through the 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.330 eyes of dr j alan hynek and that that's all 0:19:23.369 --> 0:19:25.810 i had right using and then maybe it was like 0:19:25.869 --> 0:19:27.930 and using the real life cases of project blue book 0:19:28.010 --> 0:19:31.010 as its engine and it was just like how has 0:19:31.030 --> 0:19:34.390 nobody done this so that became the basis. 0:19:34.369 --> 0:19:37.439 I would only say that J. Allen Hynek is in 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.119 the Socorro episode of Dark Skies. So there is, not 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:42.869 only do we have the Blue Book Connect, we have 0:19:43.170 --> 0:19:45.129 a little, we have just a taste of Heineck. 0:19:45.410 --> 0:19:49.220 There is so much, there is so much Dark Skies 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.929 Project Blue Book crossover. It's just fascinating. And by the way, 0:19:51.940 --> 0:19:54.080 the Socorro case is an amazing case. We never had 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:55.940 a chance, we never had a chance to do it. 0:19:55.940 --> 0:19:58.380 But I always, even in the pit, in the sort 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:02.730 of series Bible was like a police officer or UFO encounter. 0:20:02.750 --> 0:20:05.750 And we wanted to do Socorro and we just never, 0:20:05.770 --> 0:20:07.070 I don't know, never got there. 0:20:07.700 --> 0:20:10.080 Unfortunately. Well, you didn't get to a season three, which 0:20:10.140 --> 0:20:12.280 I want to ask you about, but we just got 0:20:12.300 --> 0:20:15.379 to put this on the table though first, which is, okay, 0:20:15.420 --> 0:20:19.830 Brent and I have walked our audience through the same 0:20:19.890 --> 0:20:23.250 kind of thing about how we came to create the show, 0:20:23.630 --> 0:20:27.350 but then also how, as you said, synchronicity for you, 0:20:27.410 --> 0:20:30.449 but strange things culminating with a guy that showed up 0:20:30.490 --> 0:20:33.710 at our Dark Skies premiere party named JC, who said 0:20:33.930 --> 0:20:36.350 he was with the Office of Naval Intelligence. They wanted 0:20:36.430 --> 0:20:39.179 us to put stuff into the show, et cetera, and 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.239