{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Personal Kosmology","title":"From F-18 Pilot → UFO Expert | Ryan Graves","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":5513,"description":"Ryan Graves did not grow up dreaming about UFOs.\nHe grew up in rural Massachusetts, reading science fiction, playing sports, questioning religion, and imagining the technological future. He studied aerospace engineering, became a Navy F/A-18 fighter pilot, and eventually found himself operating some of the most sophisticated aviation systems in the world.\nThen those systems started detecting things that were not supposed to be there.\nAfter a major radar upgrade, Ryan and other pilots began seeing unidentified objects operating inside military training airspace off the East Coast. The tracks appeared repeatedly. Multiple sensors confirmed that physical objects were present. Some hovered. Some moved at extraordinary speeds. Some seemed to operate in ways the pilots could not explain.\nThen another pilot came back from a flight shaken.\nHe had nearly collided with one.\nHis description: a dark gray or black cube inside a clear sphere.\nThe object passed between two Navy jets and came roughly 50 feet from the cockpit of the lead aircraft.\nWhat followed is what makes Ryan's story so interesting to me.\nThis is not the story of someone becoming convinced that aliens are visiting Earth. Ryan remains extremely careful about what the evidence does and does not allow him to conclude.\nIt is the story of a person trained to trust data, make decisions under pressure, and distinguish signal from noise being forced to confront evidence that did not fit his model of reality.\nAnd then confronting something perhaps even harder: an institution that did not seem equipped to deal with it.\nRyan eventually learned that multiple near misses had gone unreported. The objects continued appearing. Pilots altered training missions to avoid them. Years later, the 2017 New York Times story revealed that the problem had not simply been resolved somewhere higher up the chain of command.\nRyan decided to speak.\nThat decision eventually took him to the Pentagon, Congress, national media, and ultimately...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/kLXNCOLMRmPXStMTgWCjEZUlm9PaHyn73cAJMCAaEo4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81M2Nm/NTNmNTc4MmVmZjI4/YmVjZTEwMDFmNzU1/ZWFiZC5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}