My Second Interview for Unidentified

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"I can't believe the guy from the New York Times article is here in my dining room," I said.  It was surreal.

Two years ago my sister in-law sent my wife a link to an article about a guy named Luis Elizondo.  It made the front page of the Times.  It was about UFOs or UAPs as they are now often called, and how people in the US government were taking the subject seriously.  There was even mention of video footage.

Me and Lue in my Dining Room

We now know that video footage by names like Go Fast, Gimbal, and FLIR.  We saw them on Season One of Unidentified on the History Channel.  And we got to know a little more about Lue.  Today I had the pleasure of getting to know Lue a little better.  It was during a video shoot for Unidentified, Season Two.

The reader is probably seeing this article after May 2020.  But I am writing it on February 29th, 2020.  I want to document the day while it is still fresh in my head.  It was a big day - one of the biggest of my life.  My family and I cleaned the house for the past two weeks.  It was overdue.  

Since I had cancer a year ago I was never able to do a good thorough spring clean-up around the yard last year.  By the time I was healthy enough to do that it was too much and there were more important things to do.  Dried weeds lined the stone walls which encase my property.  Leaves which had fallen or blown into my yard after the fall clean up, littered the yard.

We had some unseasonably warm temperatures last week and I used the opportunity to get a lot of raking done.  The inside of the house also had many years of clutter and dust which needed tending to - with two working parents it is hard to keep up.  Finally, with the prospect of our house being on national television and downloadable worldwide on the Worldwide Web, we got our butts in gear and gave the place a good scrubbing.  I wonder sometimes if we would ever bother to tidy up if no one ever came to our house.  That is one reason I like to have people over from time to time - it is a good excuse to de-clutter and clean up.

It was a typical late February day in New England.  The temperature hovered around the freezing mark all day.  The sun was out, which helped warm the house but was not enough to prevent a few snow flakes from flurrying about, here and there.  I wondered if it would get heavier.  Snow was not in the forecast.  I did not notice the cold, so much.  I was hot.  I had spent the morning rallying with the family to finish up the last few clean up projects.  They were all great.  I was impressed and pleased with how supportive everyone was, on this.  They all knew how important this was to me and also I think it felt good to get the place in shape.  One of my kids, who often whines about this kind of thing, told me afterwards that it was not that bad - kind of easy.  Hoo-wah!

Lue and the camera crew arrived more than an hour after expected.  They wanted to have a bite in town at Dmitry's Diner (they have great stuffed grape leaves) and get some footage of Lue driving around town.    That was fine with me because it gave me some extra time to get ready.  I continued cleaning, right up until a few minutes before they arrived.

When they got here we did some video of me doing things around the house.  I fed the dog.  I put some wood on the fire.  We went outside.  I walked around my pond.  I wore just a sweater, despite the frigid temperatures.  I had not expected to be out long.  One of the camera guys had me stand on the edge of the pond and stare at the house.  The producer, Jason, asked me to get a couple soccer balls out of the yard.  I kicked one right at him and the other at the house.  He called me a show-off.  I told him, just do not ask me to shoot a basket.  Although, I do have a mean left-handed layup. * word *

I asked Jason to be kind about how the house was presented.  I always have a dozen construction projects going on.  Outdoor projects have to be timed with the weather and then they compete with yard work and gardening.  Indoor projects compete with kids' sports and skiing.  Everything competes with repair projects.  I commented to Jason that it was like a game of Whac-a-mole.  He laughed but he lives in Brooklyn so I am not sure he could really appreciate it.

We went in and scoped out a few potential sites for my interview with Lue.  I had initially envisioned us sitting in front of the fireplace, Jimmy Carter style.  Jason thought the kitchen table might be a better spot because of the large restaurant-style banquette in there.  Living in Brooklyn, Jason may have had a little kitchen envy.  I lived in Brooklyn for six years so I get it.  The kitchens there tend to be tiny.  My kitchen in this house is larger than a lot of apartments in The City.  My wife and I do a lot of cooking.

Jimmy Carter Style

In the end, we settled on the room we call the dining room.  I took the dining table out of that room a couple years ago because we never used it.  We always sit in the kitchen.  The dining room has since become the kids' computer room / music room.  I suppose we should rename it.  Sometimes I call it the Kids' Study Lounge.  I have a little café table in there that used to be in a Border's Books store.  I bought it when they went out of business and sold everything in the store.  Thanks Amazon!  Coincidentally, my friend Elisa Zuckerberg got their industrial-sized coffee grinder that I had been eyeing.  I should have bought it when I had the chance.

Lue pulled up and came in the house.  It was good to see him again.  We had spoken on the phone several times and then met in-person last fall when I did my initial interview at A&E's studio in Brooklyn.  We did not get to talk much then.  A director or producer did most of that first interview (might have been Anthony Lappé) and later on Lue and I kibbitzed in the kitchen for a few minutes.  But today we had quite a bit of time together.  Lue conducted this entire interview.

My first contact with Lue was about a month after my wife forwarded me that Times article.  For decades, I had resigned myself to the fact that (at the time) nobody cared about my sighting and I would take my story to the grave, notwithstanding the few friends and family who knew about it.  But after reading that article I thought, here is a guy who could do something with this information.  I should reach out to him.  And I did.

My story did not make it into the first season of Unidentified.  I never asked anyone why but I suppose it is because they had so much content with the Nimitz Incident and the similar Atlantic sightings that they did not need me.  I did not have any hard feelings about it.  It was just another year in a three-decade saga.  Maybe they would use me in Season Two.  Maybe there would not be a Season Two.  Whatever.  In the meantime, that initial interest by Lue had compelled me to begin this blog and I am better off for it because all this writing about my experience has relieved me of the trauma I used to relive when recounting my tale.  Although I still felt a bit of that when going over it with Lue today.

It was a long interview.  I am sure they will have to edit it down considerably for the show.  Lue asked me a lot of questions.  We kept getting interrupted by the setting sun changing the lighting.  And my dog caused a bit of commotion.  I had to put her in another part of the house.  It was a good excuse to get up and pour myself some more coffee.  I probably drank too much of it.  I started feeling a little jittery towards the end of the interview.  The temperature in the house also dropped several degrees as the fire died out and the light and heat from the sun went down over the hill, just outside the room we sat in.  I got a chill.  I hope it was not obvious on camera.  It ended up getting down to 19 degrees Fahrenheit that night.

Other than the dog and the sun there were no interruptions.  I had thought my kids might be interested in what was happening on my end of the house but no one snuck in for a peek.  At some point my wife took my little guy to play in a basketball game and the other kids found things to quietly occupy themselves with.  Perhaps if a YouTube star like PewDiePie or MrBeast were in my dining room, they would have been more curious.  But this was just face of the UFO Community.  Big deal!

I do not know if this will make it onto the show or not but Lue told me the ship I saw has been sighted as far back as the 1950's.  That was news to me.  I have searched for it online and never seen anything like it.  He said he knew about it from his "past life" with AATIP.  They called it a "School Bus" because of the windows.  I prefer the name I gave it, "The Marceau Ship" but what is in a name?  He also revealed quite a few other things to me, here and there.  I am not sure how much of it I should talk about so I will keep it to myself until I speak with Lue again.  Suffice to say, Lue is a wealth of knowledge.

The School Bus UFO or The Marceau Ship?

Lue told me a lot of people in government would be watching this.  He asked me what I would tell them.  He also asked, if the president was watching this what would I tell him.  I pictured myself locking eyes with the president.  I looked at the camera and said to him, this is happening.  It does not matter if you believe it or not.  Science does not care if you believe in Global Warming or Vaccinations and it does not care if you believe in aliens, or not.  They are observing us and we should prepare for Contact and then do what we can to make Contact.

It took me a few seconds to think of that (maybe they will edit out my pause).  I had not anticipated being asked to speak to the president.  Really, I never anticipated any of this.  All I wanted to do, two years ago, or 28 years ago for that matter, was to get my story into the hands of someone in the US government who could do something with it.  Had Lue told me on our first call that I would end up on a TV show and maybe talking to Congress or the President (either in person or vis-a-vis the TV show) I probably would have taken longer to think about it.  I have been commended on my courage but really, I never imagined it would be all this.

That is my summary of the day Lue Elizondo came over for coffee.  I still cannot believe the guy from the New York Times article was here in my dining room.  It was surreal.  I will write more about Lue and my experiences with A&E Television in upcoming articles.  Hit the Subscribe button below to be the first to see it.

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If you have seen an alien spaceship or any type of unidentified flying object (UFO) contact me using the Contact form at the bottom of this page.  You may remain anonymous if you want.  I will not ridicule you or try to tell you why you are wrong.  I get it, I saw one too.

Thank you for reading and keep an eye on the sky.