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Each episode of the podcast Personal Kosmology traces one seeker's journey: the beliefs they inherited, the experiences that broke them open, and the questions they're still living.
I'm drawn to people who didn't just change their minds, but rebuilt their lives around what they found.
In their stories, you may recognize your own.
PK_S01E02 - Ryan Graves - Line Cut-1
Devin: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Personal Cosmology of Ryan Graves. I'm your host, Evan Martin, and the mission I've given myself here is to collect the origin stories of people that I consider to be seekers, those whose curiosity and life experiences have forced them to grapple with the edges of their beliefs- Mm ... and often our beliefs, society's beliefs.
And one way I was thinking about you and this conversation was that I'm here to humanize alien perspectives. And I don't even mean literally aliens- Yeah ... although I think we're, we might go there. I mean things that when you first hear it, like I know in my life there have been times when I hear somebody say something and I just immediately think, "Well, that's ridiculous.
That's stupid. That's impossible. That's wrong." And then over the course of my lifetime, I've come to believe exactly that. And one of the ways I've gotten there is by getting to know the person behind the belief, and [00:01:00] specifically connecting to where they started, understanding what they went through that broke apart the thing that I shared with them.
Ryan: Mm.
Devin: And then really what's exciting to me now is what you're doing today, how this is impacting you, how you're living this courageous life because of these really challenging beliefs you've been forced to grapple with. So today you're the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, which is a nonprofit- Mm-hmm
which is collecting accounts and facts, data, and being transparent with anomalous events.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Devin: And my, I, as, if I understand correctly, also pushing the American government to do the same, to, for, towards transparency.
Ryan: Absolutely. We're, we're not just collecting it and admiring the problem necessarily.
We're trying to make the data actionable for the first time, and we do that with help and, and collaboration with different organizations from, uh, NASA to the FAA to different, uh, airline unions to, um, uh, law enforcement [00:02:00] from local, local and federal, and of course Congress.
Devin: But I'm guessing if I had met you as a young child-
or a young adult and said, "What's your mission in life? Why are you alive? What are you gonna do with your career?" You would have not had said anything about UFOs or UAP- ... or any of that. I think you were on a very conventional life trajectory by, you know, most standards. A, an exceptional one, but in, in, in other ways, conventional.
And so what I'm asking you is can you take us back all the way? I mean, literally, where were you born? What was the household and the community you were raised in? What was their beliefs about what's good, what's true, what's beautiful, and what is a man supposed to do with his career-
Ryan: Mm ...
Devin: to contribute to society?
So like, yeah, where, where, where were you born?
Ryan: Gosh, yeah. So I w- I was born in, uh, Leominster, Massachusetts, uh, which is not where I was from. Leominster was, um, about 30 minutes away from my town, but my small town didn't have necessarily a large hospital. Uh, it was a very small town. [00:03:00] Uh, I think technically it was a village.
Uh,
Devin: Ah, real small.
Ryan: Yeah, I don't know what defines that, but, um, you know, if you search for the town, it'll actually pull up the, um, the larger municipality around it called Templeton.
Devin: Okay.
Ryan: Uh, so I grew up in Baldwinville, um, Massachusetts, born in Leominster. Uh, more cows than people. Uh, my high school c- class graduated about 80 kids.
Uh, and that was- So
Devin: not, not too dissimilar. I was, I was raised in Ashland, Massachusetts. Okay, yep. And I was born in Framingham 'cause we didn't have a hospital. And we graduated 100 people. But you're, you were a bit further west and more rural.
Ryan: We were definitely more rural. That, that's, that's big town stuff you're talking about here.
Yeah. But, uh, uh, we were to the northeast of, um, of Quabbin.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Uh, very, very woodsy. Very beautiful. Um, a lot of swampland really. Um, a lot of, um, a lot of woods. And, you know, I, I know I'm repeating myself, but that's where, uh, you know, myself, my friends [00:04:00] spent our time as a kid- Yeah ... was exploring those woods.
Um, and I mean for miles, right? Mm. Uh, we'd camp out, we'd explore. We'd have friends that w- you know, either owned acreage or I mean, you could just explore forever out in the woods of New England and it was beautiful.
Devin: This was not helicopter parenting, highly scheduled activities after school. This was kids off on their own-
Ryan: Yeah
Devin: in the wild.
Ryan: I mean, I was, you know, I'm, and, and, and you are too, part of a unique generation that grew up completely without the internet-
Devin: Yeah ...
Ryan: and then transitioned into it, right? And so, you know, our escape, my escape when I was a kid from the world was reading. Mm. That, that was the outlet. Um, and otherwise it was exploring the woods, doing silly things.
Uh, and I'm, you know, I'm talking about myself, you know, maybe 12 and under right now. Um-
Devin: And were you raised in a religious belief system? Was there, like what was the, what were you taught about the universe, what's real and how to find truth?
Ryan: [00:05:00] Yeah. Um, I was, I was in a Catholic elementary school. Um, we used to go to church every Monday.
We'd walk from the elementary school, uh, to church every Monday. Um, my parents, I would, you know, probably call them or, you know, define them as maybe, uh, uh, holiday Catholics, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, Easter and Christmas and, you know, the big events. Um, but not, uh, regularly but, you know, at my early age I was, um, going every Monday.
Um, n- it never clicked for me. Um, it never, I never once kinda just leaned into it. Um, just-
Devin: And were you the type of kid who was thinking deeply about this, or were you too busy living? Were you, you questioning these things?
Ryan: I think it was, I, I, I think even at that age I was always questioning things.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: And there was way too many questions I had with no one willing to provide any reasonable answers to [00:06:00] me- ... at least at that point in my life. And, you know, I said, "Okay, this is, you know, this is a belief system." You know, that's what I w- you know, even at a very early age, you know, I just kinda shied away from that and-
Devin: Yeah
Ryan: I think even young, at a young age prided myself being more rational and, uh, objective and, um- matched with the reality that I could interface in, not necessarily looking for this esoteric outside reality, right- Right, right ... perhaps. Um, but I think I was doing exactly that through what was almost constant reading and the devouring of books.
What, what, do you remember
Devin: what type of stuff was having an impact? Like, was there anything that blew your mind
Ryan: when you were young? I read a lot of, uh, science fiction-
Devin: Mm ...
Ryan: uh, space-based science fiction- All right ... and Star Wars
Devin: and Star,
Ryan: Star- So there
Devin: were, there, there were some early signs of this interest.
Ryan: Oh, I, I mean, I had a huge interest in the future- Mm ... is what I think it was. What the technology would be, what we would be like, what our society would be like, [00:07:00] what we would find out there. And I think from an early age, I presumed that life was somewhere out there and it was just a matter of time. But, um, but even at this age, it wasn't an interest in UFOs as, you know, one might become accustomed to it in the popular culture media.
Devin: It was more what humans might do to leave the planet.
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: What we would find out there.
Ryan: Yeah, in that, in that potential future. And, you know, I, I would read... I mean, I read hundreds, hundreds of books. Really? And then I shifted into, you know, hard science fiction and used to read, uh, you know, books, you know, kind of pop culture science books about black holes and, you know, cosmology and physics and relativity.
And anything I could get my hand on. I absolutely loved learning about where w- not only the future, but where we also were, right? Yeah. Because the future's not evenly distributed, and I learned, you know, I figured that out at an early age. And it became, you know, the science fiction led me into where is that edge of understanding of science and technology, you know.
Because if you don't understand that, you can't lean forward into [00:08:00] the future, right?
Devin: And did you have an interest in the origin story as well? I mean, Adam and Eve, the Big Bang, where do we come from? Like, what is humanity, you know, is Darwin correct? Like, were you thinking about those things?
Ryan: Well, I was thinking about...
I mean, you can't study black holes and not think about the Big Bang. And so, you know- Yeah ... I was approaching it from what the scientific literature was providing to me at these ages. Um, and yeah, I mean, I thought deeply about, you know, not only those aspects that were mysterious, but what lay beyond them, right?
I mean, uh, to 12-year-old Ryan, there was nothing cooler than thinking about what existed inside of a black hole. All right? I mean, it's one of the most mind-bending things that- You can do it ... you can learn about. Um-
Devin: That and, uh, if the universe is expanding, what's just past the edge of the expansion? Like-
Ryan: Mm-hmm
Devin: I remember at that age, I just kept trying to, like, think about
Ryan: that- It always opens up more questions ... and, and I couldn't think. Yeah.
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, and it, it, it, it's illuminating what we don't understand and leaving room for more, right? And that, for me, was, okay, there, I can see where the future is now, right? I can- Do, do you think- That's where we understand-
you naturally
Devin: had an ability [00:09:00] to be comfortable in the mysteries? To not need immediate, immediate certainty? Like, you could hang out In that curious space of wonder
Ryan: I think at that age I could. I think later, um, less so, and I think, you know, uh, a career as a pilot of course, you know, doesn't leave a lot of room for uncertainties.
Right But then I had to almost adapt back to that more childlike state in order to operate in the world that I, I do now.
Devin: What were, what were the career options laid out for you? Like, when you... I'm, I'm always interested in major life transitions, like major life decisions. Mm-hmm. When you were finishing high school and thinking about what comes next-
Ryan: Mm-hmm
Devin: what were you led to believe you were capable of, or was, or the right thing to do?
Ryan: I was not, um, on paper, a very good student.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Um, especially early on. Um, but when I actually made a decision to apply myself or found it relevant for whatever reason, right? Um, you know, I could, again, read about black holes or whatever, you know, for hours on end under, you know, my [00:10:00] blankets as a kid.
But, you know, focusing on, uh, you know, algebra in, in, um, in high school wasn't my strongest, um, strongest skill. But ultimately, once I decided to do it, I got straight As, but on average- Mm ... you know, the grades didn't look so good. But I was also playing four sports a year. Wow. I was, um, a, a constant athlete since I was basically walking.
Mm. Um, it, you know, it's, um, I pitched and played shortstop, uh, threw baseball. Um, I might still hold the home run record. I don't know. Um, set the rushing record in, in football as a running back my junior year. Um, but was playing on the high school team since I was a freshman. Played basketball, played track.
Um, so I, I was constantly doing something, and frankly, you know, I, I knew that probably athletics was gonna be a better chance of having me, uh, you know, attend a reputable school than my academics.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Um-
Devin: So what was, what was the sport that would get you in?
Ryan: Football.
Devin: Football, yeah.
Ryan: [00:11:00] Yeah. And there were some, you know, D1 schools that were, were looking.
And I knew I didn't wanna play it for life. Uh, and I knew I wasn't gonna be a professional athlete, but, um,
Devin: I- It's a, it's a, it's a ticket- It was a ticket ... out
Ryan: of a small town into a big university I was a small town. And frankly, you know, my thoughts were clouded, you know, in the, in the, in the clouds of youth, right?
I wasn't as strategic of a thinker as I was now and, you know, I only applied to one college.
Devin: Really?
Ryan: Um, a- and got in basically through the, the help of the football coach. Um-
Devin: And did you have a plan for what to study, or was it like get there and figure that out?
Ryan: It was... You know, there was definitely a lot of uncertainty, but I knew I was gonna be doing some type of engineering.
Uh, and I thought mechanical- Mm ... you know, would be a good start. Um- I struggled a bit my first year, you know. Again, just kind of adapt, new environment. Realized, you know, I couldn't mess about and actually kind of did see the light as far as focus and immediately spent the rest of my college career getting straight As, um, including- And did.
And playing football the whole
Devin: time?
Ryan: No, I [00:12:00] quit football, and I think that's what, you know, also helped me. Was it too
Devin: much doing both at
Ryan: a high level? I knew I couldn't do both, right? Yeah. It's like I can be a mediocre student and play football for another three or four years, unless if I get injured- Yeah
or I can actually focus on what I need for the rest of my life. Um- And
Devin: at that point, were you starting to think about the career that comes after college?
Ryan: Yes. Um-
Devin: Were there hints of military then?
Ryan: No. None. Um, you know, my, my mother was a, a nurse later in her life. My father was a, um, pipefitter and contractor- Mm-hmm
in the union. Um- They were what, my brother's doing the same job as my father, uh, and lives nearby. And so, you know, there, there was a lot of pride that I was going to get an engineering degree that could, perhaps I live at home and now I'm the engineer around, you know, these environments-
Devin: Yeah ...
Ryan: um, where my parents worked and whatnot.
Um, and I ended up s- you know, I was a bit more ambitious. I didn't know what to necessarily [00:13:00] do with a mechanical engineering degree. It's very broad. So I focused, I said, "Okay, there's this new program called Fire Protection Engineering, which is a five years bachelor's master's program."
Devin: Oh.
Ryan: Um, and very few schools offer it.
My advisor was on the 9/11 Commission, uh, due to his expertise in fire and melting buildings and things of that nature. So I thought, "Well-" Wait, so
Devin: is this designing fire detection and suppression systems for buildings?
Ryan: For buildings, for aircraft, for, uh, spacecraft, for Antarctica research centers, all the- Oh, wow
for museums, like all the high-end, like really cool stuff.
Devin: I, I actually, for my, my first career, I spent 13 years doing security systems.
Ryan: Okay.
Devin: And I designed fire s- suppression. Or not fire suppression, fire detection systems. You know, I was certified in, I don't know, half a dozen states.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. Oh,
Devin: very cool.
So I, I understand it a little bit, but none- Yeah ... of the more esoteric, none of the-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: moving objects.
Ryan: Yeah, and a lot of it early on was, you know, fluid flows, right? I mean, that's what a fire is- Mm-hmm ... and, and thermodynamics and things of that nature. Um, and so I, you know, I proceed along that path and, you [00:14:00] know, every time you have little successes, it makes you feel more certain that that's the right path type thing.
And, uh, ultimately it was my junior year and I went down to Atlanta, uh, from Worcester, Mass to Atlanta.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: I was at, I don't know if you mentioned it, but I was at Worcester Polytechnical Institute- Okay, yeah, yeah ... uh, in Worcester.
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, and I did an internship in Atlanta. Um, my fir- you know, my dad dropped me off and then he flew back.
Um, I was staying with one of their employees. First day of work I walk in, you know, and they're, you know, ha- have a seat at the desk and they drop this book on my desk that's about yay big and it's-
Devin: Code? ...
Ryan: all the fire code in the US going back to some time in the 1800s or something ridiculous. And I immediately, when I saw that book, and he's like, "You might as well start studying.
This will be a rush for your career." And I was like, I was like, "This is not the future." You know? Like, this is... I, I had- This is tedium. This is- ... [00:15:00] a vision of what brought me into engineering, but, you know, over the course of y- you know, the reason I went in there changed from what, you know, can give me a 20% higher salary or more job security and all this nonsense, right?
And, and I realized, like, I don't wanna do this. Like, this is not what I wanna do. Um-
Devin: I, I don't know if you got this far, but I, I never studied the whole code book, but I looked at it enough and I ran into enough situations to realize that at the end of almost every clause, which is very specific, you know, technical specs, it says, "Or according to the local authority having jurisdiction."
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Devin: Which means the fire chief can walk in and say, "I know you did this according to the book, but that's not how I wanna do it"-
Ryan: Mm-hmm ...
Devin: and make you change anything you've done.
Ryan: That sounds fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Devin: I'm
Ryan: glad I avoided that. So it's even worse than studying it. Yeah. Yikes. Um, and it w- that was instant, you know?
I, I immediately... You know, I didn't immediately know what I wanted to replace it with, but I knew it, it wasn't that. Um, and I quit later that day.
Devin: Wow.
Ryan: Yeah. I-
Devin: Were you always that decisive? [00:16:00]
Ryan: I, I have been pretty stubborn in my life, yes. Um, you know, when I really make a decision, I go all in on it, you know?
And it's not something I even have to force myself to. Not every decision, of course, right? But there are ones that you make in your life, and it's just now who you are, you know? Uh, and I knew that that decision, you know, was going to change things. Didn't tell me who I was yet, but, um, yeah, I quit later that day.
I drove home-
Devin: Wow ...
Ryan: the next day, and I thought about it on the ride home. You know, what actually do I want to do with my life, you know?
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Um, I liked engineering. I liked the science. I like learning about these things. I like the technical aspects. I like looking towards what's possible and what the future is.
Um, but I've, you know, spent my whole life up to this point on teams, you know? Mm. Running around, move my body, doing things, accomplishing things, not just studying. Um, and on that ride, just it came to me that flying a jet seemed pretty amazing. Kind of [00:17:00] pieces all that together. And that was
Devin: new. You weren't...
Like, I feel like-
Ryan: No ...
Devin: I feel like the story I hear often is, like, if you end up flying, like, an F-18, you grew up s- obsessing over-
Ryan: I've heard many a stories ... fighter pilots. Yeah, my colleagues that were, you know, born into that career, right? Right. Their dad was a pilot, or they saw an air show when they were five.
I didn't see my first air show till I was in college, I don't think- Mm ... or late high school, right? It just wasn't part of the ecosystem in central Massachusetts, you know?
Devin: But I, I guess if studying fire code is the exact opposite of sci-fi- ... fighter jets are kinda-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: as far, close as you can get.
Ryan: Yeah, and, you know, the technology that we'd get access to, you know, excited me that, okay, that is really what, you know, the edge is, right?
Yeah. Um, and obviously flying would be cool, but I've never done it. I don't even know if I'd like it, right, at this point. Um, but I had a feeling. Um- And I had a feeling that it would work out. Um, and so I didn't know if I wanted to go Navy or Air Force, uh, but I knew one of those cockpits I wanted to get in.
Uh, and so on that drive, I also decided [00:18:00] to change my major. Instead of five years, 'cause I didn't need to do five, a master's wasn't gonna help me in that career path, uh, I should just switch to something else and get something that's most applicable perhaps. And so, uh, I s- I switched to aerospace engineering.
Um, like I said, a lot of l- low speed fluid flows and thermodynamics and fire protection engineering. Similar, yeah. S- you know, propulsion engineering. A lot of supersonic fluid flows, sometimes without oxygen- Mm ... um, a- and all the thermodynamics associated. So y- I was able to accomplish that and finish, uh, and get that check in the box before graduating.
Um, and I applied once I g- I got out, um, uh, to Officer Candidate School. In fact, actually let me back that up. Uh, the next summer, instead of an internship, uh, I basically saved all my money, um-
Devin: You need to fly, you need to experience flying, I'm guessing.
Ryan: Exactly. So I, you know, I graduated now, I've got the degree.
I'm waiting to apply for the next [00:19:00] window of Officer Candidate School- Mm ... for a pilot slot. And so I got a quick CAD drafting job out of college. I mean, this was 2008 too, so there weren't a whole lot of engineering jobs- Right, right ... or any jobs available. Uh, great timing. Um, and um, I started flying, and I flew...
I would, after work I would drive an hour and a half north to where my instructor was, uh, studying on the way. And I would, um, go there and do the, the briefings and go for the flight, and then drive another hour back to my house, uh, studying some more. Uh-
Devin: Was the first experience memorable? Like, did it, was it surprising or were, or was it just confirming like, "Yep, I wanna be in the cockpit"?
Ryan: Yeah. It, you know, confirmed that, you know, I'm not gonna just start puking up there or, um, you know, for whatever reason. You know, I, I had no doubt, so it really wasn't such a revelatory first experience. Yeah. It was just like, all right, let's, you know. I already n- assumed I was gonna be successful, right?
There was no option of failure in my head. You know, I mean, after [00:20:00] bashing my body against people for the past, you know, eight years playing football and sports, like, you know, I didn't think there were challenges that they were gonna put in front of me that just, that was the thing I couldn't do, right?
Right. Right. There just, maybe there was, but I just wa- that's not how I was operating at that point, right? Yeah. So it was just another check, you know, first check in the box. Um, slightly uncomfortable, he, he was a very large elderly man who often got chest pains while flying. God. So maybe I bla- I block something out.
You may have to
Devin: land this one.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, but um, but all the flying went fine. Um, I, um, eventually, you know, applied and was accepted as a pilot- Mm ... uh, with a slot. And then I found out, um- In the fall of, um, 2008, and then I was classing up in February of 2009 for Officer, Officer Candidate School. Um,
Devin: and off I went.
And were you thinking at the time, "I could be at war. This could be [00:21:00] life-threatening. This could be, you know, something much worse than being
Ryan: in a football game"? I thought
Devin: about
Ryan: every aspect of
Devin: it.
Ryan: Yeah. No, I mean, that was part of the thrill, I think- It was, yeah ... to actually live, you know? To, like, to actually do something.
I mean, at that age, right, um, as a young man, that certainly wasn't a detractor in the conversation.
Devin: The, uh, the front of our brains are still slowly coming online.
Ryan: I mean, that's... Yeah. I mean, it's just a stark reality. I mean, it wasn't that I was ignoring the risk. It was just that I, I was putting my own ability to operate above any type of risk that I could face, right?
And-
Devin: Yeah ...
Ryan: and plus, you know, we weren't, you know, as- necessarily in a, you know, advanced air-to-air theater war. You know, we're flying over the Middle East and doing things out there. Not necessarily... You know, it's not like signing up to go to World War II, right? Yeah, right. They're just a little bit different times.
Um, but of course, I mean, you think about all of that, and at, at the end of the day it's just, I think that's just part of the adventure you're signing up for one way or the other. You wouldn't be [00:22:00] in that slot eventually if you were operating at a point of fear from that.
Devin: How rigorous is the process? How many people don't make it?
What exactly do you ha- I mean, I, I, I want people to understand that when someone in your seat claims they see something, we're not talking about me or some person off the street seeing something. This is a, a selection process that gets us very unique individuals of a certain caliber.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, and it's not people necessarily that have book smarts or, um- You know, are, you know, a jock in some way, right?
It's just, it's a very specific mold. You get all types- Mm-hmm ... from different backgrounds, from PhDs in physics to history majors, uh, D1 athletes to, you know, people that can't, um, you know, do 100 pushups, which I guess is a lot, but in the Navy, you know, it's kind of the standard.
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, but, um, you get all types, but you gotta be able to, to make, you know, you [00:23:00] gotta be able to have self-awareness and agency to be able to, um, deal with reality in real time constantly, right?
And in
Devin: the- Calm under pressure.
Ryan: Calm under pressure.
Devin: Cool, collected. Cool,
Ryan: collected. Reasonable. All the reasonable things, but, you know, I wish I could give you a number. It's the most common question, right? And I remember asking, having that question, going on the forums, trying, you know, learning as much as I can and before I was in, right?
Like, "How many people? What's the number?" And of course, there's no exact number, but you know, I'd say of people that in the United States are even eligible physically to do the job and take the basic test, I mean, it's a pretty small percent.
Devin: And then there's, I don't know how they test this, but there's some mental rigor.
They're looking at your psychology and saying, "Is this somebody who's stable, who's..." You know?
Ryan: The whole process is an evaluation of that in some sense, and of course, there's the medical checkups and- Yeah ... a- and psychological checkups, but it's operating under pressure of the flight training program. Um.
Devin: So if you're hallucinating or if you're, you [00:24:00] know, showing signs of obviously schizophrenia, but even subtler forms of just being a little manic or a little wild, you're not gonna end up in a cockpit with a multi-million dollar
Ryan: plane.
Presum- presumably not, right? And you know, you're also gonna bake under pressure potentially through the training program. You know, I, and I'm still trying to put a number on it, but you know, God, I don't know how many people apply and just don't get in. But at the end of the day, you know, there's maybe, um- Probably 800 jets in the Navy's arsenal-
Devin: Mm
Ryan: right, any one time. Um, a squadron probably has about 15 pilots in it, um, at any time. Um, so, you know, it's, it's a pretty small group of people really doing that job at any time, under 1,000 people. Um-
Devin: And how did it feel, like, when you looked around you and saw the other people? Did you feel like these are your, these are your people, these are people I respect, these are people I'm-
Ryan: Oh, yeah
Devin: impressed by?
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, you see it as a student, you know, with your fellow students, [00:25:00] even the ones even just six months ahead are almost like gods, right? Because they've been through all these challenges that you haven't and have all this information. So even just seeing the other students that had progressed, you know, was motivating.
Uh, never mind the instructors who were just on a whole 'nother tier, right, that you couldn't even imagine as a student.
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, I mean, 'cause all these guys have, you know, been in combat, whatnot, and you're over here just trying to get your first solo under your belt in a- Mm ... training aircraft. Um, and then, you know, you move on through training and there's different iterations from, you know, ground school, that's three months, to your primary flight training to your intermediate and advanced strike training to your fleet replacement squadron.
Now you're out in the fleet. And like you said, you know, you get into the fleet and you look around that room and, I mean, you respect the hell out of all of them, but you could- even in a ready room, you can just probably point to two or three guys where you're like, "Holy shit, like, that's a f- like, that's the guy I wanna be like."
You know? Yeah, yeah. Even in a room of people like that, there's still a few exceptional people, uh, that, you know, you just kind of- This is the movie Top
Devin: Gun [00:26:00] and that whole ...
Ryan: And yeah, and, and many of them have been Top Gun or have been instructors there. Mm. One of the guys was XO. Uh, and they're just, you know, phenomenal pilots, uh, fantastic human beings, and work their ass off.
Uh, but at the end of the day, they're also human. Um, and so, you know, when we talk about these people doing this incredibly difficult and challenging job and doing it well every single day, they can still make mistakes, and they do. But I think one thing that's important, when we remember when these folks are coming forward, it's very rarely just about what they saw with their eyes.
Devin: Right.
Ryan: Um, they're also operating some of the most sophisticated radar system, electro-optical systems, electronic warfare systems.
Devin: Can you take me inside the cockpit on before anything anomalous started happening, just w- how long you were out there, what it felt like, and a sense of, like, you know, the, the government's now releasing this footage, and everybody's so frustrated by, "Well, this is grainy," or, "This is low resolution," or, "This is just a scanner."
Mm-hmm. And for somebody [00:27:00] who doesn't look at that all day and every day and isn't trained, it's hard to know how meaningful that is for someone like you. Mm-hmm. And my sense is you couldn't do what you were doing without this information coming at you being extremely reliable and, and being very attuned to what it means.
Ryan: Yes and no. Uh, and I'll, I'll, I'll tell you what I mean by that. So get back on the mic. So let me tell you, tell you what I mean by that, yes and no. So what's being released right now are primarily footage from electro-optical cameras or infrared cameras, and so you're seeing heat energy, um, uh, or essentially a camera, camera footage, but mostly it's been IR energy, infrared.
So two things. One The Navy F-18 pods are not great, right? Just, that's one of the reasons why those are, these are what's getting declassified, 'cause they're older systems, they're not high quality.
Devin: Pods meaning
Ryan: like the- Like the, the infrared pods, like the- Oh, okay ... thing that go on our jets. Sorry, yeah. Um, [00:28:00] it's not great quality.
They're old systems. There's tons of footage out there. They're not particularly secret, and so that's what's coming out. But us as pilots, we don't use that for air-to-air identification.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: It's not what it's designed for. It's designed to shine lasers on the ground and select targets and drop bombs on them.
Devin: Okay.
Ryan: We can use it for visual ID of jets in an air-to-air fight, but frankly, there's much better systems do that, and no one I know even incorporates that into their scan whatso- And typically you're not even flying with a pod in an air-to-air fight anyways. Okay. You take them off. Um, so it's not something we use for air-to-air identification.
Our primary tool, however, when we're in the air-to-air environment, is our radar system. This is covering vast swaths of airspace, and I won't use numbers, with very high precision that can detect very small objects and can track them very rapidly.
Devin: Is this the system that you told me, uh, once went through a major upgrade during your time there?
Ryan: It was. Um, this, the radar system that we did have prior was the APG-73, um, [00:29:00] and we upgraded to the APG-79. And really what that means is that we were going from a, a pretty legacy system, a kind of fixed big plate type thing with one radar beam that's searching out there, to a, like a digital system with, like, thousands of little radars- Mm
going out. So the
Devin: resolution went way up.
Ryan: Yeah. It's like a difference between, like, an OLED TV and, like, a plasma tube- Mm-hmm ... you know, TV. So much better capability, and that's, of course, when we started detecting, uh, these objects. Um, but so what's r- being released now is not the primary data. The primary data is gonna be the radar, which has been ch- likely tracking the object for much longer, showing where it came from, how it was behaving independent of the aircraft, and show where it went, and how, how this whole thing terminated.
Was it exhibiting rapid accelerations we wouldn't expect, right? Was it stopping and hovering? These are the details that would be important, but what they're releasing is the secondary sensor, where the radar's looking out, and then the second sensor slaves to where the radar's looking. And now you have this low-quality camera that's on [00:30:00] it, and now you're getting five or six seconds, and you can't really tell a lot of times, is the camera moving or is the object moving, right?
Yeah. There's physically no way to tell,
Devin: right? And often blacking out some of the telemetry, some of the specifics of zoom and measurements
Ryan: and- Frames and- Yeah ... yeah, speeds, relative speeds and all that, which would actually be helpful to know, uh, the prior details, right? Is this thing, uh, 40 miles away and looks as large as it does and is, is moving at the speeds it is, or is it, you know, up close?
So all these details would be helpful. So the releases, for me, have shown that there's a there there, but it doesn't really provide useful information or context to actually determine what's going on.
Devin: So when you're a pilot, you're sitting there, the radar is something you are attuned to. You know-
Ryan: 100%.
Devin: You're, you're developing the instincts to react quickly if something anomalous shows up, if, you know, if an enemy or, you know. Like, what, what, what type of things would you be seeing and identifying and orienting the craft around normally?
Ryan: Yeah. So I mean, I mean, that's exactly right. We're probably using the radar 99% of the [00:31:00] time, primary sensor.
And so, you know, it's showing us what's out there, uh, it's showing us... And it's not giving us an image of it.
Devin: Right.
Ryan: It's like a little icon on our screen, right? And so we can see what direction that aircraft is pointed in, what its kinematics are, how fast it's moving, its acceleration, its relative air speed, uh, and you can just see it move around out there, right?
Uh, plain as day over time. Um-
Devin: And it's like, uh, Neo in The Matrix. Like, it might be an icon on a screen, but in your mind you're like, "Commercial aircraft, bird," what- whatever is, mountain. Like, there's- It
Ryan: will present information, and I'm being a bit vague here on purpose- Yeah ... uh, 'cause we're getting into nitty-gritty capabilities to a degree.
But, um, it provides a situational awareness about not only where it is and how it's moving, uh, but is this a threat? Is this not a threat? Uh, is this thing jamming us? Is this not jamming us? Um, is this thing shooting at us? Is it not shooting at us? There's one other one I was gonna say too, but I can't remember it now.
But it's, um- [00:32:00] I- is our radar locked on it to a high degree of quality as well, right? Because we don't wanna be throwing missiles out at decoys, um, or false tracks. Um, so, so that's kind of some of the information that, that we can see. Um, it would kind of give us the overall picture. Right now we're just getting the blurry snapshot of, of something that happened, right?
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: And-
Devin: And, and you're, you're not looking at HD cameras zooming in on objects from the radar. That's not part of the process. No.
Ryan: There's
Devin: ways that- It's, it's not like there's recordings that are being hidden that you know of that are-
Ryan: The radar data sh- you know, presumably, I mean, it has ... It'd be such a shame if it wasn't being collected now 10 years later when I've recommended it at every course of action to collect this data and retain it.
Um, so presumably s- Arrow or another office within the Pentagon does have that data. N- they're not gonna release that, of course.
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Right? But it would be helpful to maybe have a summary of what that data indicated along with the videos instead of just allowing us to have to [00:33:00] figure it out on our own with no access to information.
Devin: All right, so take us into the first moment when something weird happened.
Ryan: Yeah. You know, it was, um, for me it was the first time I flew with the newer upgraded radar. And we're doing ... You know, it took about a month to do a single jet, so it took about nine months to get every jet, uh, upgraded. And so it wasn't every flight we were flying with the new radar.
But, um, but when I flew with that, I remember looking out into the areas in our ... We're in Virginia Beach here, and we fly to the east out over the coast, and then 10 miles over the ocean our working areas start, and there's a very large cube of airspace covering probably, you know, 1,000 square miles that we subdivide and operate in.
Devin: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Uh, and I remember, uh, you know, flying out there and- You know, we also share data through data links and stuff. It's not just the radar. So I see all our friendly folks out there and showing up as they should in their areas. Uh, but then we notice these, what we call uncorrelated tracks, um, where we don't know who they are, [00:34:00] and they're operating in a segment of the area, but they're just kind of meandering around, right?
They're at low speeds. Some are at higher speeds, but they're not respecting the boundaries of the, the working area. They're not talking to anyone. They're not showing up in our data link as, you know, as an F-18, uh, or a friendly player.
Devin: And this means, like, normally air traffic control is directing traffic, and you know everybody's on a path, and they're following that path.
Ryan: Not necessarily. Air traffic control basically leaves us when we check into the area. Mm. Then all the fighters assume our own responsibility for separation through standard operating procedures and subdividing those working areas. So to have someone just operating willy-nilly and doing that, I was like, whoa, this is a big flag, right?
And some of them were even spilling outside the area, like to the north, which is where international traffic comes. Like, you can-- It's one thing to spill in the interior barriers, boundaries, but you can't spill it, like, on the outside. It's like a big deal. Like- Yeah ... now you're FAA-type b- violations, not just messing with someone's flight, right?
Uh, but these things weren't respecting those [00:35:00] boundaries either. Um- And, you know, I didn't know what to make of it. My WO didn't know what to make of it. And eventually, you know, we started just over time, as we were seeing these, kind of just kinda reaching the conclusion that, well, you know, it's a new radar.
Um- Glitches ... maybe these are just, um, false tracks, we would call them. Um, older radars can sometimes reflect radar energy off of buildings or cars, and it appears to be a moving object in the sky when it's not. Um, this radar wasn't supposed to have those issues. Um, but you know, I guess there's some of the work out still, right?
Um, but it wasn't until we happened to get close enough to these while having them locked up that our IR sensors and our electro-optical sensors were slewed onto them and within range to now actually say, "Oh, there is something there." Um, there, you know, there's-
Devin: And now this, so, so now this is confirmed, there's physically something being detected.
Yeah. This is not a radar glitch.
Ryan: Yeah. So now it's [00:36:00] like, okay, whoa, like multiple sensors are correlating that this is an object. I can see it on the system, like that's an object. It's something's here. Um-
Devin: But still
Ryan: no
Devin: visual, nothing.
Ryan: No. Um, and then, you know, at least for me, I was like, all right, well, let's go...
You know, it just happened to be such that I had the ability and agency to go check it out, right? It was close enough and I had a few minutes, so let's find- And
Devin: is that something that happens where radar gets something, okay, IR has it, we don't know what it is. Is that a red flag? Is that like potential threat we have to confirm this is not-
Ryan: Sometimes, right?
I mean, it could, it's like maybe this is a, a, a Google balloon that broke its tether and is floating through space and we should go let everyone know, right? Let, let air traffic- Yeah ... control. So there's some responsibility, but, um, but typically the area doesn't have any issues, right? 'Cause it's, people have been using that for decades, so people know to stay away.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Uh, and plus we're operating at pretty high altitudes and whatnot, so unless you're in a power, high-powered aircraft, you know- Right ... which not a lot of people are just messing around in, so so typically it's pretty clear. But [00:37:00] it could be an adversary. This is not,
Devin: this is not Richard Branson floating in his air balloon
Ryan: across it.
Yeah. I mean, it could be an accident, it could be an, a, an adversary. But, um, let's go take a look. And so at least for me, I'd pick one out that was stationary. And we'd see these things, you know, completely stationary. We'd see them point six, uh, point eight Mach, about 250, 350 knots. Sometimes circular patterns, sometimes a racetrack pattern, sometimes just kind of meandering around, uh, in a general direction.
But what I would call inconsistent altitudes and inconsistent headings, you know. Uh, and sometimes supersonic. Um- Mm ... in my experience, traveling due east, um, not west over land or north or south. Um, but you know, when I went to see one, I'd find one that was stationary. I'd have it on my radar, I'd have it on my other sensors.
We'd step down below it. We'd slow down to about 200 knots so that we could, you know, get a better look. Um- All this information be pumped into my augmented reality visor system, right? It's literally drawing a box where this object should be. So
Devin: you know where to look.
Ryan: [00:38:00] Yeah. We come up to it, pshh, nothing there.
Um, we turn back around, reacquired all our sensors. It would still be there, but it'd be displaced. Um-
Devin: And are you, at this time, thinking, "Oh, man, these new technologies, I don't know what's going
Ryan: on"? No, I'm not. I'm not thinking that at all because I, I mean, I literally trust my life to these systems on a daily basis.
So it's like, by the evidence that I am alive, these systems actually work. The problem is with whatever the heck is in the sky. Mm. Right? Um, that was the mentality. There's no way to spoof an object across multiple systems, you know, in real time in a way that my system doesn't trigger, right? I mean, it's just, the ability to do that is so far beyond our mo- even our most advanced, you know, kind of war fighting systems.
Devin: And
Ryan: it, and
Devin: it had been correct so many times. Even the new system, you'd had positive confirmation. You'd
Ryan: sensed something- Yeah, it works every other time- Yeah ... except for this one thing, right? So I, that's not consistent with a, a system error.
Devin: And is, is there, are you talking to other pilots? Are you talking to
Ryan: command
Devin: about this?
Not
Ryan: really. No, we're not, because it's, everyone's just kind of like keeping their head down on it in some ways, [00:39:00] so.
Devin: Is, is, is there a culture around this, like you, an unspoken rule at the time?
Ryan: Yeah. It's like, well, you know, what the heck are these things? Uh, you know, some UFO jokes. Then they're like, "Huh, okay.
Well, we don't know, but it's probably a balloon or an adversary." And, um, but actually, I will, I will say this. I, people even reach those conclusions. It just was more of just a question mark that no one wanted to address. I was thinking that in my head, but- And,
Devin: and not an official report.
Ryan: Not yet, no. Um- Uh, a couple weeks after, you know, these experiences, um, we had two jets from our squadron going out to the same working areas.
Uh, and there's a specific altitude and GPS location where we enter those working areas. And, um, as they crossed that threshold, they were about 150 feet apart. Uh, and one of these objects, uh, was either stationary there or moving, but it went right in between, uh, the two jets. Uh, it came 50 feet from the lead aircraft- Oh,
Devin: wow
Ryan: its cockpit. Um, which was basically just... I [00:40:00] mean, that's like a duel when someone misses you, you know?
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Misses you by the ear. It's just luck they didn't hit it at that point. Um, and, um, that was the first time we saw it. Canceled the flight, came back. He was in the ready room with his gear on, his jaw hanging open.
I'm like, "What, what's going on?" He's like, "I was hit one of those fucking things." And we didn't have a name for it, but... And we weren't really talking about it, we all knew what he was talking about. Um, and, uh, he just said... I was like, "What'd it look like?" And he's like, "It was a dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.
Uh- ... points touching that inner circumference of that sphere. Um-
Devin: And this was such a jarring experience for him that he wasn't thinking, "Can I talk about this? Is this appropriate?" This was like right away- So we
Ryan: had to now- ... just had to ... it's like, I had... Like, now we're obligated to file a safety report. All right?
This is a reportable event, right? So within 500 feet, it's a near miss.
Devin: And, and, like, we've seen air shows, we've seen people clying in, flying in close formation. Mm-hmm. What is considered extremely close formation on purpose?
Ryan: A couple feet.
Devin: You guys get that [00:41:00] close?
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: Okay. So 50 feet is in this range where, like- Yeah
you need extreme care.
Ryan: Oh, I mean, yeah. W- like I said, these aircrafts were about 150 feet apart. You know, you're a quarter second away from hitting them, you know, at those, those things, right?
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, when you're in bl- you know, Blue Angel formation, right, I mean, you're like this. But 50 feet with something you didn't know that was there- Going the opposite direction
in the opposite direction, you know, hundreds of miles of relative velocity, I mean, it's, it's basically a bowling ball-sized bullet, you know, that you just narrowly avoided. Um, and so we had to file a hazard report. The safety officer had to get involved. Um, he started hearing these rumblings about something going on and started interviewing people.
And as it turned out, there were four or five other near misses that occurred just in the previous five weeks or so in our squadron, all of which went unreported.
Devin: And did you start to talk to people and hear that there were also visuals that were-
Ryan: Yep ...
Devin: confirming?
Ryan: Well, no. I will say I didn't really know the extent of it until years later when the safety reports were released from a Freedom of Information [00:42:00] request.
Really? We just weren't talking about it. It was just like, all right, the safety officer went off, talked to some people, I guess found some others. So
Devin: presumably, the information was rolling up, but it wasn't being shared- No ... at your level.
Ryan: And so, uh, you know, it wasn't until years later I realized that, oh, all these other people in the squadron are having issues too, and we still weren't even talking about it.
Like, that would've been nice to know as a pilot flying out there, right?
Devin: I was gonna say, looking back, is that infuriating that your lives are in jeopardy, p- potentially national security is in jeopardy, there's something you could be looking for or doing, and yet for some reason it was being-
Ryan: Looking back, it's infuriating
hidden? At the time, you know, as a very new guy in the squadron, you know, f- trying to find my place, you know, and trusting everyone else's, you know, got things figured out, um, you know, I'm just like, "Okay, well, I guess this is just a thing that happens," or, you know? Like it was just, this is something... And we didn't- we weren't jumping to any alien conclusions or anything.
It was just unknown, maybe an adversary, probably an adversary. Um, doesn't account for why they're... And I wasn't hearing just all how strange the kinematics were necessarily [00:43:00] at the time- Right ... until down the road, right? So this was all pretty early at this time. So I'm just kind of hearing glean- you know, gleaming pieces here, but not overly close with everyone in the squadron where I'm coming up and prying information from them, right?
Devin: I mean, how long had you been in the cockpit at that point?
Ryan: Well, this was about, um- Four years in to my time in the Navy, and about, you know, three and a half, three and a half to f- yeah, years in the cockpit.
Devin: And how much longer did you stay there?
Ryan: This was, this was my first, like, year in the squadron, and I was there for a total of three and a half years.
Devin: Okay.
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: So did this just continue to get weirder?
Ryan: Well, it con- It didn't stop, is what happened, and it didn't necessarily get weirder, but it just was always persistent. It just continued, and-
Devin: Most flights, or-
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much. I mean-
Devin: Most flights on radar, or-
Ryan: On radar, yeah, because- Not, not, not
Devin: always confirming
Ryan: IR or visual
well, at this point now, because this is just all risk, it's a documented safety hazard. We're not, you know, [00:44:00] investigators. We don't have the tool set for that. We have missions to do, so don't mess with them. Don't fly up to them. Don't put yourself in a position to lose the jet for no reason, for your curiosity.
So, so don't
Devin: do what you did the first time- Yeah ... which is, like, "I'm gonna go investigate
Ryan: this." Yeah, so we just stiff-armed them. Uh, we'd change our f- training areas if they were in our areas, or sometimes have to cancel flights if the areas were too busy. Um-
Devin: So now we have an anomalous event, potentially enemies, changing our flight criteria- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
changing our mission protocol. Like, that's-
Ryan: Yep ...
Devin: that's gotta feel weird.
Ryan: Yep. Yes. I, I mean, I, I even remember a specific instance where, like, quite literally made my flight more dangerous. Like, I m- remember one time we were proceeding down to the Navy, uh, DARE Range. It's a bombing range. Um, it's North Carolina, just south of Virginia.
And, uh, it was my first time leading a division, four aircraft at night, right? And, uh, pretty congested [00:45:00] airspace. I remember there was a few of these objects that were basically in our flight path, and I had to shift the whole flight, you know, at night, which is a whole thing- Basically 30 degrees right, check 'em right, then check 'em back.
And now we're on, then we, essentially, now another flight was leaving the bombing range. Now they were at our altitude. They were at the wrong altitude. And now we're 30 seconds away here and w- we start descending, they descend, and then they pull up, and we start pulling up. But eventually we just kind of de-conflict, but it was messy, you know?
And first, one of the first times leading that many aircraft, and it's like, didn't have to be this hard, you know? I wish we knew what these things were.
Devin: And as, as, I mean, as a citizen who doesn't know much but has this vague sense that America dominates the skies, like, we have the most advanced technology, the best-trained pilots, maybe along with Israel.
Like, we shouldn't be running from anybody or anything, especially in our own airsp- airspace.
Ryan: That was my, you know, that was my thought, too. I, I think that's not necessarily the case. Um, I, I think we've [00:46:00] developed great protections against certain threat profiles, right? Like ICBMs a- and other things. But, you know, world is rapidly changing.
Warfare is rapidly changing. Air warfare is rapidly changing.
Devin: I mean, I know now drones are just changing- Yeah ... the whole entire picture. And- And were you talking about this, like, the, okay, this could be some new drone technology. This could be our government- Mm-hmm ... with secret technology we're not allowed to know about.
Ryan: Potentially. You know, I mean, that was one of the early thoughts. But when, ultimately this happened for years and is still happening today, spoiler alert. Right. So the thought that we would be testing a s- special access program, a super secret technology against our own Blue fighters consistently for over a decade, while ignoring all the procedures that come-
with reading them into programs, that we-
Devin: They're recklessly endangering you, and maybe they're m-
Ryan: Even more importantly than that- May- may- maybe they're
Devin: using you to test
Ryan: things but- Even more importantly than that, you know, what they're doing is exposing us to a classified program we're not read into, right?
Right. As if they walked into our squadron and handed us a [00:47:00] folder, said, "Have a look," with us not being read in or having need to know. So
Devin: it, it's hard to d-
Ryan: They
Devin: would- ... understand decision-making that would lead them to do that.
Ryan: Yeah, I would go to jail. I mean, I'd, I would have to sign an NDA. I mean, they could potentially go to jail for spilling those secrets.
I mean, it's a whole security event, right? Like, to think that they would just be doing this continuously for decades means we've either completely, you know, rewritten the rules of how we secure information and don't care anymore, or, you know, it's not Blue technology. And you can use the same logic i- in a similar way for Red Air as well, right?
If they've developed- Can you
Devin: explain those terms?
Ryan: Oh, sorry. So you know, I, in the fighter world, Blue Air are friendly forces. Red Air are adversarial forces. Red Air. Um, ironically, China uses Red as the friendly forces- ... and Blue as the adversary. Don't know why that could be. Um, but, um- Um, gosh, where was I?
Sorry. Uh
Devin: So I, t- yeah, t-take me to what, what, what led you to start to think about leaving?
Ryan: Okay, yeah. We can, uh, jump there. Well, you
Devin: know- Un- unless there's a major transitional moment in between that, that's [00:48:00] helpful.
Ryan: Uh, there's a lot, but I
Devin: might have- Or, or, or if- ... or if there's a specific interaction or sighting that stands out that really changed your thinking.
Ryan: Well, I will say, you know, we just, you know, this started in early tw- or late 2012, early 2013. We had all the experiences I just described to you, and then had to operate around these things until late 2014, early 2015. And then, then we went down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt to prepare for our deployment.
Devin: Hmm.
Ryan: And when we arrived down there, um, the objects were either already there or they followed us down, because we then had dozens of instances. Um, unbeknownst to me at the time, we were having dozens of instances, but my squadron had a few instances, including two videos that were captured and later released in The New York Times in 2017.
The- Oh, okay ... Gimbal and GOFAST video.
Devin: Yeah, yeah, which I think was the, the public's first real holy shit moment-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: this appears to be real-
Ryan: Yep ...
Devin: for a lot of people, and The New York Times substantiated it.
Ryan: Yep. [00:49:00] And y- you know, I'll fast-forward a bit but, you know, eventually we left on a deployment. Um, I left that squadron mid-deployment to go to Meridian, Mississippi as an advanced strike fighter instructor in the Navy, you know, training the students, back to one of those senior instructors that I was, you know, idolizing just years before.
Um, and did that and forgot about this really, uh, for a couple years until 2017. Um, I was sitting on my couch and I saw that New York Times article pop up, and had a massive moment of deja vu as I, you know, recognized the voices in the video and the videos itself because I watched those videos, uh, on the boat right after the crew landed.
Um- And, you know, reading the article, I realized, wow, you know, what we passed up, we assumed would, you know, get looked at hopefully a- and resolved by some counterintelligence effort or something of that nature. Now here, this article, it, it was saying that there was a group that st- stood [00:50:00] up within the Pentagon to investigate the sightings that Navy pilots had been having, and yet they had been hitting these huge walls within the Pentagon due to stigma and other issues.
And they were essentially resigning in protest. And so-
Devin: Wait, and remind me, I don't remember, how did The New York Times obtain that footage?
Ryan: So, uh, I think there's probably a longer backstory there, but there were individuals that were working in that program office that had been put together to, to look into what we were seeing, and they had collected that information as part of their work.
But I don't know directly how they
Devin: obtained that. But was that considered classified? And was that-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: and so that was, like, more of a whistleblower leak than-
Ryan: I'm not gonna get into the terminology around it,
Devin: but-
Ryan: It wasn't, it wasn't a government-sanctioned release ... it, I think it was more of a, "Oops, it slipped through, through some clever paperwork," but also didn't hur- harm national security, but was probably technically not supposed to be released.
So-
Devin: Okay. Yeah ...
Ryan: um, that's my general understanding of the flavor, but I don't know the mechanics. I wasn't, I wasn't involved with that whatsoever. Um, so, um- [00:51:00]
Devin: So yeah, so you're a trainer now and this is suddenly
Ryan: back in your mind. So now I'm a trainer and the article comes out and it's like, holy smokes, this is getting stonewalled for the same reasons that we were stonewalling ourselves.
But now this is just putting the responsibility back on the shoulders- Mm-hmm ... of the people that are getting ready for war, right? Um, which is not a great thing to do. So I, you know, that's... I, I called some of my colleagues after I read the article that were still on the East Coast, and I was like, "Are you guys still, you know, seeing these things?"
And yep, they still are. Um-
Devin: And at this point, is, is... Are you starting to think, 'cause I hear people say this a lot, that it not, not exclusively, but primarily happens near or over water? That was- As if the origin might be under the ocean or something related to the ocean.
Ryan: Mm-hmm. It, this seemed to be a, a recurring, uh, trend, uh, but it also happens over land too, so it's hard to say one way or another.
Devin: I mean, I know nuclear sites are another- Yep ... collection point.
Ryan: Yep. Um, um, and so I reached out to some of my colleagues, said it's still happening. I spoke to some of my friends the next, uh, day in the ready room, and they're like, [00:52:00] "Yeah, the cubes, the spheres. Yeah, I remember all that." And I didn't even know these guys had had their own sightings.
They were in different squadrons while
Devin: we were on the East Coast. Oh, oh, and another thing I'm curious about, um, 'cause I've heard other people claim that there are also weird experiences personally, subjectively in consciousness, some strange altered states or connection to the craft- ... or some sense of some communication perhaps.
Ryan: That's something I've, you know, certainly heard about as I've delved into this after I got out more, and also with some of the cases that get reported to my nonprofit, but-
Devin: Not your pilots, not you ...
Ryan: it wasn't my experience, and frankly, it's gonna be tough to walk up to your buddy in the ready room and be like, "Hey, I just had this very strong emotional experience-
in the jet on the last flight." Like, I'd be like, "Cool. Go see the flight doctor." I
Devin: saw,
Ryan: I
Devin: saw- You
Ryan: know? I, I saw a cube in the air and I felt sad- That's the last thing you'd want to say. Yeah, like that's- ... is not a compelling- No pilot is gonna share that in a fighter squadron. Right. No, absolutely not. Not with their buddy, not with the flight doctor.
Devin: So this does not mean it doesn't happen. It just means this is not- I
Ryan: just don't know ... what you were
Devin: talking
Ryan: about. Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't [00:53:00] expect to know from the data I receive. But- Yeah ... do I hear things now? Yes. Um, so I, you know, that's... W- when I saw those articles, I s- I said and saw the problem and realized this wasn't just our squadron, it was much broader.
I said, "Maybe I can do something. Maybe I... You know, maybe I can take some of this load off so they don't have to deal with this by-" Letting them know, the people that released this, that this wasn't just, you know, three videos, two videos from our thing. This was something that was happening quite often, you know, nearly daily, and it needed to have the proper attention on it so we could mitigate whatever it was.
Because I don't know what they are, but you can't assume it's not China, and it's not a threat, and it's never gonna hit an aircraft, right? You have to assume those things will happen, especially considering the number of safety reports that we have from near misses. So why are we not addressing it? Why are we not understanding what it is?
Why are we not mitigating it? And so-
Devin: And in, in, in any bureaucracy, in any big company, and certainly in the government, people are indoctrinated, especially in the [00:54:00] military, to follow the chain of command. You don't speak out against- ... you know, your superiors. Mm-hmm. So I have to imagine the thought of publicly talking about this in any way that wasn't coming from the top, I don't know, was it scary?
Was it-
Ryan: Oh, yeah, it was a huge decision. Um, it was a huge decision. I did not think this was going to get resolved internally. And, you know, there's a whole chain of command thing, but what's the chain of command on this, right? Like, I'm in a different squadron. My commanding officer doesn't, you know, care about this.
This, he's worried about the day-to-day here. Who, who, who am I supposed to talk to about this- Mm ... right, uh, and resolve this? Especially considering we had already submitted these reports and they're saying the Pentagon doesn't care anymore, right? I mean, that's what that article is saying.
Devin: Right.
Ryan: Um, and so I reached out to the people that released the video, and I just told them I, you know, I wouldn't share anything classified, of course, but I just want you to know this is happening more often.
Um, I could provide some details about that. Uh, and you know, that was, that was the start of, you know, a whole, whole journey at that point. Um, and each one [00:55:00] was a, a pretty small step that, that grew larger, right? And the first one was for them to invite me to the, um, to DC, uh, to, uh, speak to the Senate Armed Service Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, um, to share, um, you know, what I just shared with you.
Um- I received a phone call the night before that. I was going to represent myself personally and taking personal time to go have this conversation. But the night before, about 8:00 PM, I got a call from my commanding officer telling me my leave was canceled, and I now was on orders to DC.
Devin: Immediately.
Ryan: I didn't even know, he didn't even know he knew about this, right?
Like, I didn't share it with him, um, getting... Why would... It's not ne- relevant for his-
Devin: Somebody- Yeah ... so the guess is somebody called him and said, "Pull this- Someone, yeah ... pull this guy out. Don't, don't let
Ryan: this happen." Not keep me out, but they said... My meeting was at 1:00 PM next day in Congress. Says, "You're to report to the Pentagon at 8:00 AM in full uniform."
Devin: And what does it mean to say [00:56:00] no to that?
Ryan: There is no no. I was on orders. It go to... It was-
Devin: So you can be thrown in jail, like this is-
Ryan: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. Um, do I think it would've come to that? I don't know, but, I mean, I'm an active duty soldier, you know. They can do what they want, or they can make it...
Yeah, they can make my life as miserable as they want. Um, so anyways, I, I went. It wasn't a miserable experience. I show up at the Pentagon. It was weird and quiet, and there wasn't a lot of friendly conversation. But ultimately, you know, went down to a basement skiff and, um, told them- Skiff is
Devin: a
Ryan: secure room
yeah, and just told them what I was gonna be telling Congress, which is again, what I just told you. And, uh, there were no threats or, you know, manipulation. Um, but- And then I was escorted from the Pentagon by about seven different stars, two, three, you know, one, two, and three-star admirals and generals, um, onto a bus and over to Congress and, um, sat down in the Senate Armed Service room and, um, shared with them.
Um, shared with them what problems we were having. [00:57:00]
Devin: And, and that must have been heartening to know you were getting the green light. I mean, terrifying maybe wondering what they were gonna ask you not to say or hold you accountable to, but then once they gave you the green light, did you feel like, okay- It
Ryan: was less of a green light and more of a-
Devin: We're not gonna-
Ryan: you need to be very careful here type-
Devin: It was ...
Ryan: set up. Yeah. It wasn't like, "All right, cool. Great. Yeah, good luck in there." It was just like, "Tell us everything you're going to say."
Devin: Don't say more.
Ryan: We know... Basically they were like, "Who are these people?" Basically just letting me know that they knew who I was both professionally and personally.
Devin: So from now on- Potentially ... you know people are keeping an eye on you.
Ryan: Yeah, at least at that point. Um-
Devin: And you're thinking, "Okay, what are the... I haven't signed NDAs. I, I, I know-"
Ryan: I'm not reporting on anything classified. Right. You, you know that. I'm not doing anything wrong necessarily. The biggest sin I'm committing is basically going to speak to Congress without my chain of command's permission, which I guess technically I'm not supposed to do.
Eh. Um, the bigger risk I was taking was that I did agree to [00:58:00] record a documentary interview-
Devin: Mm ...
Ryan: while I was still active duty, with the explicit understanding it was not to be aired until after I got out, and that I wouldn't be seen in uniform, anything like that, right? Not representing the Navy.
Devin: So at this point you had made the decision to leave?
Ryan: Yeah. Yep. Uh, and there were a number of reasons and- And did you
Devin: know what you... Is this again a jump off a cliff moment where you're not quite sure what's next, but you know you it has to change, or did you have a sense of where you were gonna land?
Ryan: It, it becomes that. You know, when you're in the, the training command like I was and you're, you know, day to day flying two, three flights a day, five, six, sometimes seven days a week, like, you have a bunch of reservists coming in who work at the airlines and telling you how good life is.
It's like, "Well, I guess, I guess maybe I'll do that." You know? Like, the salary's good and whatnot, but I never wanted to do that. Yeah. My entire career I was like, "I don't wanna fly airlines." You're a little
Devin: bit too much of a thrill-seeker.
Ryan: Yeah, and you know, it just felt a bit like going out to pasture for the next 40 years.
Never mind I'd be gone all the time from my family.
Devin: Right.
Ryan: Time zone. You know, I, I, I didn't wanna be [00:59:00] tired for the rest of my life. It's not a great
Devin: lifestyle. You know? It's, it's good pay. It's not a great lifestyle.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, but it was, you know, a bit pretty big carrot at the end of the stick, right? And at the end of the day- Mm
I'm a pilot at this point. What else am I gonna do? Um, and so I, you know, proceeded down that path. Um-
Devin: You did not think, "I'm gonna make a career out of disclosure"?
Ryan: Oh, that wasn't... No, I didn't know where any of this was going. Absolutely not. Um-
Devin: So yeah, so what pulled you back in?
Ryan: Nothing really pulled me back in.
I mean, it, what, what happened was I got an opportunity to work in a advanced research and development center-
Devin: Mm-hmm ...
Ryan: uh, for a defense contractor, where I could apply my subject matter expertise in tactical aviation to next generation autonomous combat wingmen-
Devin: Mm ...
Ryan: to new weapons systems and things of that nature.
And-
Devin: This is like an Anduril type-
Ryan: It was BA Systems. Yeah, okay But yeah, it's that type of, you know, they provide some very advanced capabilities. Um, working with DARPA, Strategic [01:00:00] Capabilities Office, Air Force Research Labs.
Devin: Was some part of you thinking, "Maybe I'll figure out what's going on. I'll f- I'll, I'll understand the edges of
Ryan: technology better?"
That was... Yeah, look, exactly. So I made this, you know, I left, I, I, uh, technically got a job for like a month at American Airlines, and I left to do this research and development job.
Devin: And, and just take me into your head a little bit. Like, are you still the kid who's reading sci-fi, reading physics, curious about technology- Mm
engineering?
Ryan: Yeah
Devin: Like, fascinated, like, what could be going on? Trying to wrap your head around propulsion systems, all these things.
Ryan: 100%, especially now that the UAP topic is more on my mind. You know, the curio- like I've, I've, I've crossed the threshold from, this has to be an adversary or our technology to, I'm not gonna say it's aliens, I don't know what it is, but I really wanna know w- where these advanced capabilities are coming from.
Is this advanced drone technology? Are, do we have new sophisticated energy storage capabilities or generation capabilities? Are there unique electromagnetic propulsion mechanisms that we're starting to use? Is
Devin: this something else? And, and, and some things you [01:01:00] haven't said is, is normally on, on some of the, the readings, you can see a heat signature, which tells you propulsion's happening.
Mm-hmm. Or there have been acceleration, which breaks the laws of physics. Things go from zero to- I
Ryan: wouldn't say they break the law of physics, but they accelerate much faster than we expect, right? And the forces within that craft would be- Smush a human ... yeah, nothing biological would live, and even hardware would be hard-pressed, right, to maintain.
Um, so yeah, I, I was like, "All right, so what, what is this," right? And it wasn't my primary purpose, but certainly, you know, it was part of the vein that drove me to be a pilot, which was to learn what's on the edge. And this, the edge for me earlier was F-18, w- was in the cockpit. Now I'm talking about what can be built in eight years, you know-
Devin: Mm
Ryan: with technology in the future. So now we're moving into, you know, the future, which was always really where I wanted to be, right?
Devin: Yeah.
Ryan: So, you know, that was, that was, uh, very interesting for me. Um, and did that for a while. All the while, I'm, you know- Coming up [01:02:00] in this UAP conversation, my first day at BAE Systems, uh, I got an email from their communications director from BAE Australia asking why they're receiving emails about my employment at BAE, uh, if it relates to the UAP topic.
So that was not a great thing to have on your first day at a systems company. And had the
Devin: documentary come out yet?
Ryan: Um, yes.
Devin: Okay. So-
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So I was starting to get that attention. Uh, I did Joe Rogan not too long after that.
Devin: Did that change your life?
Ryan: Well, actually, not, not, not actually, I skipped one. I did New York Times in 2019.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Um, and then- And then
Devin: when were you on Rogan?
Ryan: Uh, I think that was in, um-
2021
Devin: And did that-
Ryan: I forget exactly what ... bring a lot of attention your way? Then a
Devin: couple, yeah Did people start reaching
Ryan: out? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and so this whole time, this is, this is kind of building up. I'm engaging more and more, and more people are coming to me. I'm still working the defense side, and eventually left the defense, went to a, a startup working material [01:03:00] science, advanced material science, and, um, um, generating quantum algorithms to be able to predict the emergent behavior to large groups of atoms- Mm-hmm
uh, to predict material science properties and manufacturability and things of that nature. Um, I was their operational guy for about a year. Um, then I started consulting with the Office of Naval Research, again, on their autonomous capabilities and whatnot. And so I was kind of doing, you know, this advanced tech and, and science and future work, if you will, um, um, you know, to s- to, to survive, to pay the bills, right?
Um, it was obviously interesting, but the, the second career, if you, if you will, was just, just engaging on the UAP topic and these interviews, which ultimately led to the creation of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Um-
Devin: Yeah, so take me to the genesis moment. Like, why, why did you feel like, okay, there's a need here and I can fill it?
Ryan: Yeah. Well, we were... I had actually... I'll, I'll step a little bit earlier. We were working-- I had put together a different group within the American [01:04:00] Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Um, it, that group is a 40,000 plus professional organization for everything aerospace and aeronautical. Um, and I worked with them to create a UAP committee within their organization.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Um, and it, it's still their UAP Integration Outreach Committee. Uh, we present papers every year at their events. We have about 40 to 50 PhD types, engineers and scientists working on human factors and hardware factors, technical aspects.
Devin: But- And for people who don't know, UFO, identi- unidentified flying object, UAP, unidentified aerial phenomenon.
Correct. Yep. And my understanding is that-
Ryan: We're late in the conversation for that definition.
Devin: This is partly, like, there was a stigma around UFO, but also because it's more accurate because some of these things are, like, orbs of energy or light or we don't know what they are, and we don't wanna assume- Yeah
it's an object.
Ryan: You know, there's a lot of cultural bias from the average person when it comes to the term UFO 'cause they immediately think it's ridiculous, you know- Right ... as we started this conversation. So when they hear that, it's like, "Oh, well, what does that really mean?" And it doesn't come with all that baggage [01:05:00] necessarily, and it is more accurate technically.
Um- All right. Sorry, where were we?
Devin: So yeah, so you were, you started this organization-
Ryan: Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah, the, at the AIAA. And, you know, that was technical work, and some of the folks that were helping me out there identified a need, and they said, "Hey, you know, there's a lot of work going on here that, you know, we can share with Congress.
You already have, you know, relationships from going to the Senate Armed Services Committee and whatnot."
Devin: Mm. "
Ryan: Let's put together an organization that can educate the public on this, that can, um, educate Congress, um, that can, you know, maybe do some polling and just really try to understand the problem from a societal side and from a policy side versus from an engineering and technical side."
Um, and so we started Americans for Safe, uh, Aerospace, uh, with colleagues, uh, Brad and Haley. And, um- Off we went. But what happened very quickly was that so many people had already started to, and then continued when ASA started, submit reports to me and their own [01:06:00] experiences, right? Um-
Devin: People meaning civilians-
Ryan: Military pilots
commercial commercial aircraft, military ... commercial pilots, civilians, law enforcement. I mean, every, up and down the spectrum. Uh, and of course, nevermind the random people I run into be like, "Let me tell you about my experience," 'cause- ... it's much more common, much more common than people would think.
Devin: Um- Are you starting to g- hear stories now, not just of flying objects, but of contact, of people saying there was a being, there was some kind of entity?
Oh, yeah, those,
Ryan: those come through, for sure. Um,
Devin: and- And, and, uh, is that to you clearly connected, or are you wondering about their sanity or wondering if it's a different phenomenon?
Ryan: Um, you know, I, I can't... It's hard for me to assess someone's subjective experience, and I'll, I'll, I'll talk more about this, you know, how I kinda think about the data I receive here- Yeah
there's a methodology to it, right? Yeah,
Devin: please.
Ryan: Um, it's not an area I delve into really, the personal contact stories, because for me it's not repeatable. It's not something I can, like... I can maybe look at some data and aggregate, but, you know, that, that's part of it. I think probably that's also a [01:07:00] rationalization 'cause it's a bit frightful to me even, right?
Um, I
Devin: don't- So I am, to be clear, we're talking some people say they were abducted. Mm. Some people say they were transported to another dimension. Some people just say they got information or they're- Mm-hmm ... channeling even. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Yeah, there's, you know, I also have different levels of uncomfortability with different aspects of, but just as a human, not, uh, a pr- professional distaste or coming from a lack of believing or, or, or wanting to understand it, but just simply it's a little bit too much for me to incorporate into my, my current research at the moment.
Um-
Devin: But, but to be clear also, like, this is strangers reaching out to you, but this is also people you and I both know. This is-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: credible people that you- A
Ryan: lot
Devin: of them ... trust.
Ryan: Oh, yeah. So-
Devin: That, that you have a history with who, who also then reveal these things have happened.
Ryan: Yeah. So, you know, my organization is, is very pragmatic on, on, um, you know, what we assume and what we don't.
And within the organization, we assume that people are seeing, um, that are being truthful and they're reporting things that are exhibiting capabilities [01:08:00] beyond the state of the art. We don't assume that we know what that means. Right. That therefore it's aliens or time travelers or something else.
Epistemic
Devin: humility is the-
Ryan: Yeah. That's the organization. That gives, I think, people, you know, a, a high level of psychological safety to dip their toe into this, realize that there are serious implications, and then kinda figure out where they wanna take the research path from there as far as these different aspects.
But like you said, personally, I've, you know, spoken to a lot of people. Um, we, we share, you know, we're friends with some of those same people, and I've, I've talked to dozens of others who, um, all very, you know, highly functioning, intelligent, and objectively successful individuals who, um, have shared that they do have y- have had various experiences in their life, either as a child or an adult, and ongoing.
Um, and like you said, across the spectrum from, uh, you know, corporal experiences, uh, from more ethereal experiences and thoughts, uh, and downloads, as you [01:09:00] said. But, you know, when I explore this topic, I receive so much information, and some of it You know, at, y- you read it and it's just like this is very hard to, like, just accept, right?
Um, and early in the conversation I had to develop a thought pattern where I said, "You know, I can't react to information when I hear it." 'Cause everyone immediately has this either subconscious or, or conscious reaction to information they hear. It's good or it's bad, and it's, you know, it's that simple, right?
Yeah. It real- it's not real, like, want it or I don't, right? And, and, um, I fight that feeling every, you know, whenever I have these experiences to the point where I, I, I, you know, it's pretty seamless now but I just receive it and try to build as much context and understanding around any one particular incident or case that's reported, and p- just put that in the filing cabinet in my head and watch and wait and see where those connections line up from the other files that go, you know, in that cabinet in my head, and see what those connections tell me about [01:10:00] are these consistent experiences?
Are these unique? Uh, does this information exist elsewhere? Uh, what does that tell us? And over time, that builds a pretty compelling picture that, you know, what these people are experiencing are not just individual one-off oddities. There, you know, seems to be patterns of, of, of what is entailed in these encounters.
Devin: I mean, one of the hypothesis is, that I'm working with on this podcast is that humanity's trying to figure out an, a new mythology, a new story about what's real, about what's out there, and, like, there's a tension between science and religion right now. Mm-hmm. But there's perhaps some overarching story that's gonna integrate both of them, and my belief is that if we collect the individual stories, we'll zoom out eventually and start to see the constellations, the patterns, and something- Mm-hmm
will emerge from that. And I feel like you're doing real work in one area of this.
Ryan: We're trying to. Um, I, I think that's right. And you know, there's... The, the UAP [01:11:00] conversation, although, you know, we f- focus more on the nuts and bolts at American Safe Aerospace, it's, it's hard to ignore, uh, the element of conscious experience that comes into the conversation from a multiple of angles.
Uh, from, you know, the lore, if you will, about craft operated through thought- Right ... uh, which in the '60s perhaps seemed like science fiction. Of course, not so much, uh, anymore.
Devin: Although- And are you, are you connected with some of these other non-governmental organizations that are going out and attempting to call in craft with their thoughts and document and get footage?
Ryan: Yeah. I, you know, I, I keep abreast, I'll say. Uh, but yeah, you know, I wanna, I wanna figure it out, and if people are doing interesting things, I wanna see what's coming of that. Are, and
Devin: are they sharing data with you if they collect it? Is that- Uh,
Ryan: some organizations, some not, right? It kinda depends on their internal- business makeup and whatnot- Yeah
or how they're organized. Uh, I remember where I was going there. So we were talking about a few different aspects of how consciousness has presented itself as, you know, perhaps part of this conversation, right? Yeah. As we were talking about the [01:12:00] Eastern/Western philosophies being separated a bit. Um, so you know, wherever we've seen consciousness in the lore, how, how these craft operate, um- Communication, right?
Uh, downloads, um, of course remote viewings in the conversation. Um, and interestingly in the reports that we have at ASA, you know, there's a particular type of object, typically they're orb shaped. In about 30% of those cases, the individuals report having a very strong intuition that they're about to see something before they saw it.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Uh, so much so that maybe they pulled over their car, got out of bed, shut off the TV, walked outside, and then looked in a particular direction and then saw the object. And in many of these cases, not just those but others, even at very far away objects, there's this like overwhelming sense these people report often that the object is definitely watching them as well.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Right? Like, they just, they just, these subtle movements of it are, it's hard to put their finger on, but they just get this sense that as soon as they saw it [01:13:00] and it kind of locked onto it, it locked onto them as well.
Devin: And I don't know if you've come across this, but I've found the work of Rupert Sheldrake very compelling for a bunch of different reasons.
Um, and one of them is he wrote a book, which is, I think it's called The Sense of Being Stared At, where he set up these scientific studies to see if people could prove that somebody either behind them- Mm-hmm ... or even in another room through a camera feed was looking at them. Yeah. And there seems to be some innate capacity we have to know when we're being looked at.
Mm. And we, we can't explain it through the, the senses that we are familiar with, but to me, I, I believe like when somebody says that I, I don't dismiss it right away. Mm. I, I think there's something there.
Ryan: But one thing that, you know, and this kind of leads back into this whole philosophy, you know, split that you mentioned before, um, and it's often talked about here in Austin how, you know, the East and West split.
Yes. Uh, Descartes, the, the logical side from the spiritual side.
Devin: People talk a lot now about the left brain and the right brain and-
Ryan: Yep. Uh, and you know, our physics is [01:14:00] unlocking some somewhat m- mystical, you know, parts of the universe when it comes to intention and observation and- We don't
Devin: know what consciousness has to do with, uh, wave particle collapse.
Yeah. But we're almost certain it has, plays a role.
Ryan: Absolutely. And of course, non-locality as well. A- and our further ability to now n- maybe not create consciousness, but create intelligence seemingly at scale- Right ... and w- questioning whether that is conscious or not, and starting to have some systems to perhaps probe to understand what consciousness is.
And, you know, I think when we have a deeper understanding of what consciousness is and w- how it is manifested in the world, uh, it provides an opportunity to kind of link those Eastern traditions and philosophies- Yeah ... with Western traditions and philosophies. And I can't help but wondering if there are, you know, if these sightings do represent, you know, intelligences from other places.
Um- Have [01:15:00] they, you know, perhaps they are so hard for us to understand and observe as relatively rational observers because they have combined these philosophies into a holistic science that presents new things that we just simply aren't aware of or haven't unlocked yet, either in our own consciousness, in our own physiology, our own body, our own mind.
Um, and I think that is maybe one of these kind of, uh, anthropomorphic shields that- Mm-hmm ...
Devin: you
Ryan: know, we block ourselves with when we observe these because we assume they have to be operating in the same state as us.
Devin: I, I studied developmental psychology for many years, and one of the rules, if you accept the fact that people grow through stages of development, is that you can see anybody and how they operate at a lower stage of development.
Mm. But as soon as somebody develops capacities that are beyond you, you can't accurately assess or judge or even necessarily understand or maybe even witness.
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: You know, and it's just, it could be as simple as like, I don't speak language, you've acquired language- Mm ... I don't understand language. But then it could get into things [01:16:00] which I can't even talk about because I don't have them yet.
Yep,
Ryan: yep.
Devin: And so I think the idea that there are- Consciousness, entities, anything that are beyond us. I mean, to assume there aren't anything beyond us, I think is hubris.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Devin: Especially the vastness of the universe, but maybe even on this planet. Do you... And now, clearly we're not, we're not talking about what you do professionally.
We're talking about- Sure ... like the fun speculation. Sure. Like, when you do let y- And I- and I, personally, I believe the rigor you talk about having professionally is easier to maintain if you're also giving yourself a space to play and explore and know that this is not the same thing.
Ryan: You can't f- you can't, just because something might be disagreeable with, with you or not aligned with your purpose, doesn't mean it's beneficial to ignore it.
Right. Right? And not educate yourself on, on those aspects. Absolutely.
Devin: And, and one of the most fascinating parts of this question to me is, are these extraterrestrial or are these terrestrial?
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Devin: Because, you know, I think it was, uh, was it Harvard or MIT, there was a paper published a handful of years ago, The Terrestrial [01:17:00] Hypothesis.
Mm-hmm. Which was trying to do a meta-analysis, you know, before you had collected a lot, I think.
Ryan: Ultra terrestrial, I think is-
Devin: Yeah, yeah ... I think it was called. And, and they were basically saying, I think the ocean is at, even maybe more than space, the place we should be aiming ourselves. Because w- their origins are unknowable, but where they seem to be collectively coming from at the moment appears to be near or under the ocean.
Mm-hmm. And now we have to say like, did they just arrive? Could they have been here for thousands of years? And then of course, people are talking about the book of Enoch. You just saw, something in the hallway. And Nephilim, and this idea that we may have been genetically altered by some higher being. You know, it gets very- Mm-hmm
it's speculative. Mm-hmm. And scary, and challenging Catholicism, and challenging the scientific paradigm. Do, do, yeah, where, where, where does, what does all that stimulate? Where do you come down on this? Are you playing with all these ideas as well?
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm certainly familiar with all the angle. I obviously don't have the answers, uh, to where these [01:18:00] intersect, you know, with reality.
But, you know, these are the tr- the traditions, you know, um, that, you know, our, our, our people, our culture has had for millennia in some of these stories. Um, so I mean, do I- I hold space for the ultraterrestrial, you know, hypothesis, I'll say, and, you know, what does that look like? You know, if you, if we want to speculate, you know, was there a civilization on Earth five million years ago?
Eight million years ago? Um, there are perior- there are, I think, five to, or six or seven periods in the history of our Earth where there was time, you know, sufficient time to develop life, and then a long period of stable climate, and then a complete destruction of that- Right ... climate to the point where the crust is literally gone, you know, under the, into the mantle, right?
And then we get into the records. There's no, zero trace of it. We would never have a trace of it. So is it possible a high society, advanced society, even perhaps one with space travel, uh, existed on this Earth? It's not impossible. Um, it's very unlikely we'd ever [01:19:00] find records of it, um. Unless- Could life have sustained, you know, Mars have sustained life 15 million years ago, 25 million years ago?
Would we know that? No. Right? Um, so there's, there's space in our, in our history for a advanced society or species, one that could come from a genetic line of humanity, perhaps one that come from the same that, um, that could have risen and fallen on Earth, and perhaps there's remnants of. Um-
Devin: And perhaps they survived a calamity by going underground or in the ocean or-
Ryan: Yeah.
Poten-
Devin: I mean, this is, this is the work of, like, Joe's Rogen's other favorite, Graham Hancock.
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: People like that.
Ryan: Well, he doesn't like to ascribe a... Yeah, he, he does... Yeah, he leaves the UAP out of the conversation, I think, but he thinks there's definitely room for that. Um, I think he's looking a little bit more narrow in time, you know, around, like, 9,000 to 12,000 BC or so- Yeah
around what society could have lived, lived in then and we would find traces. What I'm talking about periods of time where there will be [01:20:00] no historical record. Mm. Like, maybe there will be traces and DNA that we might be able to find, but, uh, well, it's an unknowable question right now with what we have access to.
Um, could these be things that traveled from far away, a long time ago, uh, and have been operating here stealthily, perhaps under the water or remote locations for perhaps thousands of years? It seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me, especially considering, you know, if one wants to look into the historical record as far as sightings in the sky, uh, and, you know, how people like to interpret certain religious aspects as potentially being, um, uh, non-human intelligence or UAP related.
Um, these are unanswered questions, of course, right? I don't have answers, but these are, these are slots where this, this could exist, right? Um, or, or perhaps, you know, the kinda baseline theory is that it's a co-evolved species that we've just never noticed. I find that a bit harder to believe. I also don't like the thought that [01:21:00] these things arrived recently and have been hiding in our ocean.
I assume if they have been hiding in our ocean, they've probably been doing it for extremely long period of time.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Just kind of, I hate Bayesian thinking in this conversation, but the odds of them arriving in the past 50 years seems a lower probability than them being here- Yeah ... for a significant period of time, right?
It seems
Devin: more likely we developed the capacity to see them more, that we're-
Ryan: Yeah ...
Devin: the new radar and a bunch of other things that- Yep ... we- us being in the skies-
Ryan: Yep ...
Devin: more.
Ryan: So, you know, those are some of the ultra terrestrial kind of ways to think about it. Um, another, of course, is that they're from another star system.
Uh, another, of course, is that they're time travelers of some type, and everyone, I think, makes a bit of a fallacy here, where they presume that because they're more advanced, they must come from the future, right? Yeah. Um, they don't have to, right? They, it could've been a civilization that's a million years old and started, you know- Many y- millions of years before ours, uh, and could travel forward in time [01:22:00] perhaps.
Devin: Hmm.
Ryan: Right? And not go back. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah Right? And so maybe they somehow try to, um, influence the
past by the fut- I, I don't know, right? We're just total
Devin: speculating, but- And yeah, we're talking maybe faster than light travel- Yeah ... but also maybe controlling things that are terrestrial from an unknown distance with quantum entanglement, with some kind of mind meld.
Ryan: Yeah. Let me get there, though. Let me get there, though.
Yeah. So we have pr- you know, back in time maybe, but w- it doesn't, it's not supported in our physics at the moment. Yeah. Except from very unique kind of swirling universe models in general relativity, um, and around certain black holes. Um, travel from the past into the future is possible. Um, can they go back?
Can they send information back? I don't know. Probably not, so it might be a hard thing. Um, but even if they are from far away
Um, they could be time travelers as well. If they are using conventional rocketry in some sense and traveling, uh, below the speed of light, then they're gonna experience most likely time [01:23:00] dilation-
Devin: Mm ...
Ryan: which means they are traveling in time. It might take them five years to travel from some distant location, but the relative time change might be, you know, hundreds of thousands of years for their own civilization or for ours.
So-
Devin: Right ...
Ryan: they could be both physically travel- you know, literally traveling through spacetime, not just space, uh, in that case. Or perhaps they have mastered the ability to segregate spacetime into a bubble and move itself through spacetime, through space necessarily, without moving through time. Uh-
Devin: Is it, is this what, uh...
Is it Gary Nolan, who was on The Age of Disclosure, talking about his theory of what the, the cube that your pilot saw and the sphere around it might be doing?
Ryan: There are different theories about, um, uh, what the sphere could represent, but generally speaking, I think a lot of people ascribe, in, in the UAP space have been studying it, ascribe a, a moderate degree of confidence that these crafts could be manipulating the local spacetime environment around them such that there's [01:24:00] increased or decreased densities, right?
So they can essentially ride a wave. And some of the reasons for thinking that are both the rapid acceleration, the apparent time dilation that happens around these objects, sometimes even when they've landed and beings are kind of skipping through time it appears. Um-
Devin: Or the, or the perfect cloaking that maybe you witnessed if-
Ryan: Cloaking, inability to lock, uh, and shifting of energies, right?
So-
Devin: Mm ...
Ryan: um, if you are compressing spacetime, essentially, you're gonna be... That, that energy wave is gonna get pressed as well, and it's gonna go into higher energy states. And there's a lot of evidence that is out there as far as physiological effects that humans in close proximity to craft that are powered up experience.
They're similar to microwave and X-ray damage and radia- radioactive damage. People have had actual
Devin: skin- Yeah ... flesh wounds.
Ryan: Yeah. These, people have applied to, um, for veterans disability for these cases. Yeah. Some of them have required congressional support [01:25:00] to not have it denied. Right, so this isn't just me saying somewhere in the lore there's been injuries.
There are documented cases where people have fought to get this information out on their medical records.
Devin: And, and I know there was a, a research project done which ruled out a, a big group of people who said, "No, this was actually microwave technology, the enemy," like in Cuba, I believe. Well, that's some of the work
Ryan: that Gary Nolan was doing.
He
Devin: was- Right. But then he said there are these other people who, based on everything we're reading, this is clearly not what happened to them. Yeah. There's not any known explanation from terrestrial technology that humans have.
Ryan: Yep.
Devin: And so that, these are the people who are saying, "Okay, this is anomalous." I, I think that's how he got sucked into this conversation- Yeah
'cause he's a extremely successful scientist entrepreneur.
Ryan: He was analyzing their blood samples and their, and their brain- Yeah ... for the CIA, and he categorized them and say, "There's two groups here." Here's one, here's the other." And he's like, "Oh," they're like, "These are Havana Syndrome. We'll take those. Those are the UAP ones, those are yours," you know, for continued work more or less.
Devin: So tell me What's your dream for ASA, for [01:26:00] what, what's the next three, five, 10 years of this work is?
Ryan: Yeah.
Devin: And, and also maybe how we can help you, like how, you know, I'm new, I'm new to the podcasting game. I'm assuming I'll have an audience, but I know, I know a lot of people who are excited about this space and wanna contribute.
Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Yeah, you know, r- r- what we focus on right now is receiving reports from everyone, but, uh, specifically looking for ones from law enforcement, from aviators, uh, and we have the unique ability to make them, uh, actionable. Uh, we have partners in law enforcement, again, from the local to the federal level, uh, with different organizations.
And so we can take your report, we can understand it, uh, we can break it, break down the national security implications and aviation safety and ensure it's going to different organizations who can process that and respond to that. 'Cause those didn't exist- Mm-hmm ... five years ago, but they do today. And so we're working to continue to do that work and move from a handful of volunteers that we have now into what I hope in the next few years will be a national [01:27:00] organization that can serve as a central collection point for this information across the airlines, across the military, and be able to assess the information.
Because it's not all perfect information, right? Right. There is noise, and there are processes we can do to remove that noise to ensure that, uh, we can categorize and understand the information and forward it to the, the proper, uh, folks, and always with the witness's permission, I might add. Uh, so that w- we can, we can figure this out.
We can figure out what the UAP are. We can ensure that they're not adversaries that are spying on us or someone setting up for an attack. And we have. We've had many cases like that in our database that we forwarded to law enforcement that turned out to be nefarious actors.
Devin: Mm.
Ryan: Right? So-
Devin: And by that you mean, like, a drone operator or a foreign-
Ryan: Foreign, foreign
entity.
Devin: Really?
Ryan: Yeah. Um, so that's-
Devin: Things, things that the public would've said are a UAP that turn out to be verifiably foreign technology?
Ryan: Either ignore and be like, "Oh, that..." Yeah, exactly. So people are like, "Oh, that's nothing," or, "That's just a drone. That's not a UAP." And then it's like, well, actually it is a drone, and it is important 'cause it's spying [01:28:00] on the base that's next door to you, right?
Mm. Uh, so we don't wanna throw any information away. So we're gonna continue to do that work. President Trump comes on stage, you know, in a month and says all this is real and we're gonna start understanding this, our mission doesn't change. The problem still exists, right? The operators in the military and in the airlines still have this responsibility on their shoulders with no outlet, and so that's the gap that we're gonna fill, all while building a better understanding of, of what this is.
Devin: And will you be releasing anything to the public in terms of reports or films or-
Ryan: Yeah. So we, one, we are, uh, releasing our reports on our website. Uh, two, we've recently launched a podcast where I'm sitting down interviewing the witnesses one-on-one. Uh, you can find that, uh, on YouTube at Safe Aerospace. Uh, and we're also creating reenactment shorts of, uh- Mm-hmm
some of the experiences as well in animated format, so people can be in the shoes of the witness and understand why it's so anomalous instead of just, you know, reading certain data points, right? [01:29:00] Uh, and so you'll have the opportunity to, you know, really feel what the experience is, really hear it from the person's voice, and then we're offering, uh, our members as well the opportunity to join those witnesses for an ask me anything, uh, after as well so that not just we can understand it, but everyone can understand and, and talk to these witnesses.
And they're not just witnesses now when they come forward, right? They're, they're advocates, right? They're willing to put themselves up there. Right. They've made that decision. They know this is going to get attention. And for them, enough is enough. We should be talking about this, and that's the example that we wanna set.
Devin: Yeah, and I feel like it's, we're, we're at a turning point in our culture where it's gone from people are immediately dismissed as kooks and crazies to now, okay, there's... It's not, I, I, I feel like you, maybe you or I can start to think it's getting mainstream. I think a lot of people still are still clueless about this.
Ryan: The wave is there, it's just not evenly distributed, right? Yeah. Some people are on either side of it, but it's definitely making some serious progress.
Devin: And to be clear- Paradigm
Ryan: shift is hard, you know?
Devin: It is. It has its process. This is a big one. Yeah. This is... And to be clear, you guys [01:30:00] are accepting, looking for donations.
Donors can get involved somehow and-
Ryan: No, absolutely, yeah. Uh, we're building out our team and we're scaling up. We're starting to work with some of those partner organizations more formally, uh, and we are raising money to support that team to do these operations.
Devin: Amazing. Amazing. Any last thoughts? Anything else we didn't touch that I wouldn't know to ask?
Ryan: You know, I, I, I think you covered it all. You know, I think as, as a parting shot, I would just say, you know, the ultimate takeaway is you see something, report it. Uh, and you can- Oh
Devin: yeah, and tell us, how do we-
Ryan: Yeah ... how does
Devin: somebody report
Ryan: to you? Head over to safeaerospace.org. You can submit your report, uh, directly on that site.
We'll process it, we'll follow up. Uh, and depending on the case and the circumstances, we may ask your permission to share with certain partners.
Devin: Amazing. Ryan, this has been fascinating, and I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna help a lot of people understand something that they have had a hard time wrapping their head around.
Yeah. [01:31:00] So thank you for being courageous and vulnerable and sharing everything and, uh, I hope to have you on in the future to get an update- Oh,
Ryan: awesome ... 'cause I think- Yeah, thank you, Devon. This was great. Appreciate it.
Devin: Beautiful. Good. All right, man.
Ryan: Awesome. Perfect. I love it. Good job. Thank
Devin: you. Was that fun?
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, that was great.
Devin: Ah. Oh, I have to remember to get a picture too.
Ryan: Oh, yeah. Good. I forget,
yeah