SHOW NOTES

Martin Willis welcomes analytical chemist and longtime paranormal researcher Matt Moniz to Podcast UFO. For more than 35 years, Matt has worked in analytical chemistry, with experience in environmental, commercial testing, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology laboratories. Outside the conventional laboratory, he has brought scientific testing and methodology to some decidedly unconventional subjects—including alleged UFO materials, alien abduction cases, crop circles, psychic phenomena, ghosts, cryptozoology, and other unexplained phenomena. Matt has served for many years as Science Advisor for Spooky Southcoast and was a producer, researcher, and cameraman for 30 Odd Minutes. His work has brought him into direct contact with investigators throughout the UFO and paranormal communities, and his scientific analysis has been referenced in numerous books and television productions. In this conversation, Martin and Matt explore what happens when extraordinary claims are subjected to laboratory testing. What can analytical chemistry actually tell us about alleged UFO evidence? What constitutes a meaningful anomaly? How do contamination, provenance, and chain of custody affect results? And after decades of investigating extraordinary claims, has Matt encountered anything that science simply couldn’t explain?

BIO: Matt Moniz has been a scientist for the last 35 years in the field of analytical chemistry, working in the past for environmental, commercial/contract product testing, and pharmaceutical laboratories. He is also the science advisor for a weekly radio show Spooky Southcoast the last 19 years and the Audio Video Manager for the UFO Monument Park and Paraween, and Inner Space TV. Matt was also one of the producers of 30 Odd Minutes and researcher and cameramen for the show. He’s worked first hand with the world’s best in paranormal research, conducting scientific tests on materials connected to things like: UFOs and alien abductions, Crop circles, Witchcraft, psychic phenomena, ghosts, cryptozoology, and a multitude of other related topics. His scientific work is featured in dozens of books pertaining to these fields, and has appeared on numerous TV shows and documentaries about the paranormal: Monster Quest, Beyond Skinwalker Ranch, Expedition X, Ghost Adventurer, Conversations With a Serial Killer, and more.

On November 19, 1987, the Sentinel out of Gulf Breeze, Florida, published three pictures of a well-defined, lit-up UFO under the headline, “UFO Sighted Over Gulf Breeze.” The caption under the photo asks anyone who saw the object or had information about it to call the Sentinel. Along with the photos is a letter from the photographer that begins, “To whom it may concern.” The writer explains that the pictures were taken on November 11th and that he showed them to “Ed.” According to him, “Ed, in turn said the photos should be shown to the press.” He adds, “That is why he is showing them to you.” While he emphasizes that he is a “prominent citizen” and needs anonymity, he says he might come forward “if these photos and story spark any interest in your readership.” The photos became the subject of a long investigation led by the Mutual UFO Network. More photos and a videotape followed, and the photographer remained anonymous until just before the publication of his book. At around the same time, a discovery in the attic of his former house by the new owner cast serious doubt on his story.

The Sentinel stuck with the story for over two years due to Editor Duane Cook’s faith in the photographer’s credibility. The December 3, 1987, Sentinel has the article (page 6 of the pdf) headlined, “UFO – Follow Up – More Sightings Reported.” It begins with the background that the Sentinel has been keeping tabs on local UFO sightings since it published the photos taken on November 11th. It is reported that a photo of a “similar object” taken over a year earlier in June of 1986 had been submitted and it is printed below in the section headed “Letters to the Editor.” The November 11th photo is printed next to it for comparison, and the objects pictured in both are more identical than similar. The photographer of the 1986 photo wrote that he/she was “relieved to see the UFO photos” as they looked “just like the photos I took last June ‘86.” Even though there is only one photo from the writer published, he/she says that two photos were taken while facing south on Shoreline Drive. This photographer also wished to remain anonymous.

There is a letter below this that begins, “Dear UFO Sighter, My husband and I feel you are not alone.” The writer continues: “However, I’m not sure if we saw the same thing.” The writer asks if the object photographed on November 11th made noise and the letter is signed, “Anonymous.”

The last letter is signed Joe Parrish and he wrote that he wagered that “it,” like most of the objects flying through Gulf Breeze, “had Okaloosa tags.”

The December 10, 1987, Sentinel has the article (page 3 of the pdf) by Allison Brown headlined, “UFO Investigation Update.” According to Brown, Charles Flannigan and Donald Ware, primary investigator and MUFON state director respectively, issued a statement that “prior to the completion of photogrammetric analysis” the preliminary evaluation of what is seen in the photos is “an unknown of great significance because of the quality of the five photographs and the reputation of independent witnesses.” Local photo retoucher Marie Price is said to have found “nothing really wrong with the pictures,” but is quoted as saying, “They haven’t been retouched, but they do look fishy to me.”

In the December 24, 1987, Sentinel there is a photo (page 5 of the pdf) that is reportedly one of nine sent in along with a letter to the editor signed “Believer Bill.” The black-and-white reproduction shows a non-distinct disc or oval-shaped white blob. According to Bill, he actually saw three UFOs at around 6:00 a.m. along Shoreline Drive on December 23, 1987, but could only capture one at a time on film. He wrote that when he lowered his camera, “the UFOs turned white and shot up fast as lightning.”

The editor’s note to Believer Bill explains, “The Sentinel is having our UFO photos analyzed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,” and requests “two more sets of photos or one negative…” A negative from the photographer of the 1986 photos is also requested.

In the February 11, 1988, Sentinel, there is the article (page 8 of the pdf) by Duane Cook headlined, “Gulf Breeze UFO Photographed Again.” He tells a dramatic tale and identifies Ed as the photographer of the November 11th photos. According to Cook, he was in the office in the late afternoon on January 24th when he got a call from Ed. He explains that Ed usually called the day after a sighting, but “this time was different.” Speaking quickly, Ed said, “It’s here! I know it’s here. I can hear the buzz…”

Ed told Cook he couldn’t “get anybody on the radio,” referring to the walkie-talkie he used to communicate with the MUFON investigators. It was arranged that Ed would come to the Sentinel, and he and Cook then went off together in Ed’s pickup truck heading east on Highway 98.

Along the way, Ed was nervous because “he didn’t know what they wanted from him” and knew from experience that “they were powerful.” He had brought along his Polaroid and videotape recorder, and Cook put down his 35mm and used the recorder to tape their journey.

When they came into Tiger Point East, Ed said he was worried about Cook’s safety. Cook told him he wanted to stay and keep recording “and that there wasn’t any history of people being hurt or killed by UFOs.” They chose a spot in the area that had a clearing on the right, and Ed got out of the truck with his Polaroid in his left hand and “called out to the UFO” to “beam him up and get it over with or take their buzz and get out of his life.”

Ed then screamed and said his left hand felt like it was in a vice, and Cook suggested that he drop the camera. It started to rain, and Cook got back in the truck as Ed kneeled down in pain and searched the sky. He then got up and walked to the back of the truck and yelled out that “they missed their chance” and that he “wasn’t going to give them another opportunity like this again.” Then, just as he went to get back in the truck, he yelled, “There it is!” He took a picture as Cook scrambled to get out of the truck, but Cook got out too late to see the object. Cook says he watched as Ed took the photo out and separated the positive and negative, and when it developed, Cook could see the “now familiar round object with a highly lit ring on the bottom and small ‘portholes’ around its midsection.” The photo is not included in the article.

Throughout the rest of the year, the area around Gulf Breeze became a UFO hot spot and is featured in the television special (beginning at 49:00) UFO Cover-Up?: Live! which aired on October 14, 1988. A live feed was set up from Gulf Breeze that shows a live studio audience. Host Mike Farrell introduces the segment saying that “over 100 people witnessed a UFO” there. He introduces Cook, Ware (who claimed to have found 153 witnesses), and Chief of Police Jerry Brown. Ed is still not identified by his full name.

By this time, Ed has claimed (page 6 of the pdf) that he had seen a creature outside a widow of his house; that he’d been “struck by a blue beam from a spaceship” that immobilized him, lifted him off the ground, and then dropped him (leaving him smelling of cinnamon and ammonia); that he heard a humming sound before “an appearance of a spaceship;” and that he heard a voice in his head.

Next week: Debate and doubt.

Did British special forces recover an unexplained craft in northern England? What did RAF aircrews reportedly encounter when ordered to intercept UFOs? Former British military intelligence officer and Parachute Regiment veteran Franc S. Milburn joins Martin Willis on Podcast UFO to discuss extraordinary accounts shared with him by fellow military veterans. These include an alleged late-1980s recovery operation involving a craft described by his source as “non-human,” and claims from RAF Tornado aircrews that they fired on disc-shaped objects that outmaneuvered their jets. We’ll explore how Milburn assesses these sources, what corroboration is available, and the questions these accounts raise about secrecy and alleged UFO retrieval programs. These are accounts relayed to Milburn, rather than events he personally witnessed; the UK Ministry of Defence told the Daily Mail it was unaware of salvage operations involving materials of unexplained origin. Our discussion will also cover the USS Nimitz encounter, Pentagon UAP investigations, and the potential strategic implications of reported advanced aerospace capabilities. Milburn is the author of the Begin-Sadat Center papers The Pentagon’s UAP Task Force and American Development of UAP Technology: A Fait Accompli?

https://independent.academia.edu/FrancMilburn

BIO: Franc Milburn is a former UK Defence Intelligence officer, Army Paratrooper, DoD / State Department military contractor and consultant. He has run on-the-ground HUMINT operations in conflict zones with Special Operations teams. He has three decades of analytical, investigatory and risk advisory experience, including aerospace, Fortune 500 and FTSE 100. An alumnus of Sandhurst and the London School of Economics, he’s a member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies published two UAP papers of his. He is also a think tank expert on Iran, Kurdish insurgency and increasingly, on Russian hybrid warfare in Europe, with a special focus on drone operations targeting military assets and critical infrastructure. He was the very first to write highly prescient open-source assessments of Russian Shadow Fleet drone operations in the Danish Straits (Sept-Oct 2025 and Feb 2026), as well as for UK airbase incursions in November 2024. He provides risk advisory and intelligence services to C-Suite and high net-worth individuals.

SHOW NOTES

SHOW NOTES

In last week’s blog, we looked at a case from the Canary Islands involving thousands of people reporting that at around 10:30 p.m. on June 22, 1976, they saw a huge sphere of light in the western sky. The Spanish Air Force investigated, and included in the case file (released on July 22, 1994) are testimonies from members of the crew of the Atrevida, a Spanish Navy corvette, and Dr. Francisco Julio Padrón. The captain of the Atrevida said that a “luminous point of intense bluish-yellow” came up from the ground and reached an altitude of 15-18 degrees where it stayed for about two minutes while “generating a large halo of intense bluish-yellow light that persisted in the same position for forty minutes.” This matches almost all of the other reports. Padrón, on the other hand, said that while in a taxi on his way to see a patient in the town of Gáldar, he saw a transparent sphere 60 yards away that had two red humanoids inside. Even though Padrón’s description was unique and dismissed by the Air Force investigator, many accounts of the case focus on it, from the first reports in the press up until the present day. The cause of the sightings remained a mystery until two Spanish investigators, Vincente-Juan Ballester Olmos and Ricardo Campo Pérez, looked into the case and came up with a likely explanation.

Campo wrote the article headlined “Dos Gigantes Rojos Cabalgando un Misil” (Two Red Giants Riding a Missile) that was posted on June 22, 2016 (the 40^th anniversary of the sightings), on the Naukas website. In it, he is highly critical of the press and others who promoted Padrón’s story to the extent that what was seen by people all over the Canary Islands became known as the “Gáldar UFO.”

According to Campo, the Air Force investigator, Commander Antonio Munaiz Ferro-Sastree (incorrectly identified as “Juez” in last week’s blog) wasn’t the only one to dismiss Padrón’s story. One person he mentions is Manuel Borraz, who after analyzing data and testimony, published his findings in a 1990 paper titled “Los Gigantes De Gáldar y Los Avistamientos Canarios (The Giants of Gáldar and the Canarian Sightings). Campo quotes from it: “Everything suggests that this witness’s mind played a trick on him, distorting what he, like thousands of other Canary Islanders, had the opportunity to observe, and which was taking place more than 700 kilometers west of the archipelago.”

Another person Campos quotes is a “fan of parapsychology,” Dr. Alejandros Carlos de Gyorko-Gyorkos: “I couldn’t find anything to support the witness’s testimony.”

According to Campo, Padrón continued giving statements over the years that became “increasingly extravagant.”  In 1972, Padrón told a reporter from Diario de Los Palmas  that he experienced “great clairvoyance” during his sighting, and in 1994, upon the release of the Air Force file, he told the paper this: “The beings on the ship have the ability to erase your mind, everything that happens. And you’ll see inside your mind for months, maybe a year, what they want you to do. They replace an energy in your brain. That’s the problem.”

Campo says he went the area of Los Rosas two weeks before and spoke with one of the children of the patient Padrón was going to visit who told him that Padrón continued to visit the site for many years hoping to see the “ship” and that at one point, while driving in the area, he slipped into a ravine and needed help getting the car out.

Campo also brings up an incident reported in the June 26, 1976, La Provincia that helped to perpetuate Padrón’s story. An onion farmer near Gáldar, José Gil González, said that when he went to water his field on June 24^th, he found a circular area that was damaged. According to Campo, Gyorko-Gyorkos collected samples and told La Provincia, which published his statements on the 28^th, that he had found nothing out of the ordinary.

Campo presents the only known photo, in color, of what was seen on the 22^nd, and says it was taken by a tourist in a hotel on Grand Canary Island who left it at the reception desk. There is a copy of it, black and white, in the Air Force file. Two arms of light are seen extending out of a huge sphere of light, and Campo explains that these are caused by the camera lens.

A black and white copy of the photo, possibly from the Air Force file, appears on the cover of the Vol. 29, No. 4, July 2005 International UFO Reporter put out by the Center for UFO Studies. On page 3 of that issue there is a translation of the article by Ballester and Campos originally published as “Identificados: Los OVNIS de Canarias fueron misiles Poseidon” in the official journal of the Spanish Air Force, Revista de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica, in March 2001.

The IUR article is headlined “Navy Missile Tests and the Canary Islands UFOs.” As the headline indicates, Ballester and Campo came to the conclusion that what was seen on June 22^nd, as well as on other occasions from 1974 to 1979, were the result of missile tests. They acknowledge that they weren’t the first ones to consider this and refer to the work of others, including Manuel Borraz, who believed that, according to his calculations, “the missiles responsible for the Canary sightings were launched from submarines sailing between 700 and 1,600 kilometers west of Tenerife Island.”

Ballester and Campo describe their investigation to determine which country was responsible. According to them, Ballester sent a report detailing five incidents to former NASA employee James Oberg, a UFO skeptic who wrote on the subject, and Oberg replied saying “I have found a definite correlation with Poseidon missile launchings.” According to the authors, Oberg included “a table prepared by Gunter Krebs providing data about Poseidon missile launches matching Canary UFO cases.” Krebs had consulted a database prepared by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who in turn used data from Eastern Rocket Launches 1950-1994 by historian Mark C. Cleary.

Ballester and Campo present the table with data for the five incidents and explain the “meaning of each column.” With this information it can be seen that there were two Poseidon missiles launched on June 22, 1976, from the USS Von Steuben (SSBN-632), one at 2016 GMT and the other at 2017 GMT. The authors note that there is a one-hour difference in the recorded launch times and the sightings that were reported to have begun at 2115 GMT. They explain that they consulted with Cleary and “he informed us that he had also detected several errors in times and dates in some launchings, after comparison with data from his own Range Scheduling Department.”

A witness from USS Nimitz Primary Flight Control steps forward to share an account he says he kept even from his wife for years. Join Martin Willis LIVE on Podcast UFO, Thursday, September 24, at 8:00 PM ET, with Navy veteran Jimmy Hernandez III and filmmaker David Beaty, director of The Nimitz Encounters: Inside the Navy’s UFO Mystery. Stationed aboard USS Nimitz from July 2001 to June 2006, Jimmy worked in Primary Flight Control directly under the Air Boss and Mini Boss. In his first live interview, he discusses his perspective on the 2004 Tic Tac incident, his account of men arriving to take recordings, and why he remained silent for so long. Jimmy says his commitment to following orders was so strong that he only told his wife about the incident a few months before recording his interview for Beaty’s documentary. David joins us to discuss his updated 2026 film, which revisits the encounter with additional witness testimony and new forensic recreations. We’ll explore the film’s claims concerning confiscated recordings, rewritten logs, and CIA operations, and ask what can be established through testimony and supporting evidence. What did Jimmy personally observe? What happened inside Primary Flight Control? And what questions remain more than two decades later? 

BIO: Jimmy Hernandez III, 47, is a U.S. Navy veteran who served aboard USS Nimitz from July 2001 to June 2006. He and his wife, Jennifer M. Rogers Hernandez, have been married for 11 years. His commitment to following orders led him to keep his account of the Tic Tac incident private, even from his wife, until a few months before his interview for The Nimitz Encounters. Jimmy comes from a family with a history of military service. His maternal grandfather served as a machine gunner aboard a tracked landing vehicle in the Pacific during World War II, and his paternal grandfather served in the Korean War. He enlisted in the Navy in March 2001 and reported aboard Nimitz that July, shortly after the ship emerged from dry dock at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Following the September 11 attacks, the ship changed its homeport to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California. During his time aboard Nimitz, Jimmy completed two Western Pacific deployments and worked in Primary Flight Control directly under the Air Boss and Mini Boss. In 2006, he transferred to shore duty at Naval Outlying Landing Field San Nicolas Island. In 2008, he volunteered for an Individual Augmentee assignment and trained with the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas, before deploying to Iraq with Naval Provisional Detainee Battalion Ramadi 2. He conducted detainee operations briefly at Camp Bucca and later at Camp Taji. Jimmy completed his active duty service honorably after eight years, eleven months, and nineteen days and held an active Secret security clearance until 2013.

BIO: Multi Emmy-Award winning television producer and cinematographer Dave C. Beaty is a UFO researcher, former broadcast journalist, and currently a filmmaker. His career in non-fiction television and documentary spans 30+ years with production company Cinegraphic Productions. Career highlights include national programing on PBS, History Channel, Travel Channel and A&E and includes work on all major news networks and cable networks. A seven-time Emmy-winner, his current work includes producing more than a dozen nationally televised films in partnership with The WWII Foundation, preserving WWII history with multiple documentary films.

www.cinegraphicproductions.com

www.thenimitzencounters.com

www.wwiifoundation.org

#NimitzEncounter #TicTacUFO #PodcastUFO #UAP #DavidBeaty #JimmyHernandez

What happens when the people trained to investigate the unexplained become the witnesses? Serving UK Police Inspector Roy Teague joins host Martin Willis to discuss UFO encounters reported by serving and retired police officers—including accounts involving missing time and alleged abduction experiences. A British Army veteran with more than 26 years in policing, Roy’s background includes armed response, tactical firearms command and protection duties for members of the Royal Family and Parliament. His investigations into UFOs and paranormal events have led him to interview more than 250 serving and retired officers, many sharing experiences they had previously kept private.His book, Close Encounters of the Police Kind, brings together previously unheard accounts from UK police witnesses. We’ll explore what officers reported, why some were reluctant to speak, and how Roy approaches extraordinary claims with an investigator’s attention to evidence.How are UFO incidents perceived, reported and investigated within UK policing? What can an officer’s training bring to an account—and what questions remain unanswered?

BOOK: Close Encounters of the Police Kind
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: Policing the Unexplained
CONTACT: contact@policingtheunexplained.com

Insp Roy Teague Bio
Inspector Roy Teague served six years in the British Army, completing operational tours in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia before embarking on a distinguished policing career spanning more than twenty-six years across two police forces. Throughout his career, Roy has led a frontline existence working on emergency response, proactive teams and the elite Firearms Operations Unit of West Midlands Police as an Authorised Firearms Officer and both an operational and Tactical Firearms Commander, where calm judgement and decisive action are demanded in the most dangerous of circumstances. Many of these operations have led to the arrest of some of the country’s most dangerous armed criminals. He has also led protection details for some of the country’s most important figures including members of the Royal Family and Parliament. He has been awarded numerous commendations for bravery including one from a Chief Constable and another from a High Court Judge at the Old Bailey in his own attempted murder trial. His career has been built on evidence, discipline and an unwavering pursuit of the truth. Yet it is another skill that has taken him into territory few police officers have ever explored. A world just beyond our own – a place where mankind has no jurisdiction – where reality rides a razor thin seam between fact and impossibility – the world of UFOs, and the paranormal. In the perplexing field of unexplained studies, where hard evidence is often elusive, credibility remains the cornerstone of serious investigation. Roy’s reputation for professionalism and discretion enabled him to earn the trust of those trained to observe, question and report facts. That reputation opened the door to one of the most remarkable investigations of his career: interviewing more than 250 serving and retired police officers about their own encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena and paranormal events. Officers with nothing to gain and everything to lose finally broke their silence describing extraordinary close encounters involving missing time and alleged abduction experiences. The officers spoke because one of their own was asking the questions —and because they knew they would be treated with professionalism, respect and without ridicule. That research culminated in the publication of Close Encounters of the Police Kind, a unique investigation unlike any before it: law enforcement interviewing law enforcement about a phenomenon that has remained hidden behind the badge for decades. Blending the rigour of criminal investigation with first-hand testimony from experienced police officers, Roy offers readers a rare glimpse into a world where the unexplained collides with those sworn to uphold the law.

SHOW NOTES

SHOW NOTES

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Thursday, September 17, 2026 @ 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)

What if UFOs are real, but the extraterrestrial explanation is wrong? Longtime UFO researcher Norio Hayakawa joins Martin Willis on Podcast UFO to explore that question through his decades of interest in Area 51, Dulce, New Mexico, and the broader UFO mystery. Hayakawa began studying the subject in 1961 and questions the evidence behind claims of alien spacecraft and underground alien bases. Background and research interests Our planned discussion explores why he favors a “paraphysical” interpretation, meaning an intelligence that he believes can temporarily appear within our physical world. We will also examine how his Christian beliefs inform his thinking about the phenomenon, deception, and alleged encounters. These are Hayakawa’s personal interpretations, open to discussion and questioning. Hayakawa’s explanation of his views Where does the evidence lead, where does belief enter the picture, and what would it take to change his mind?

DULCE Article

Explore Norio’s writing: Norio Hayakawa’s website: https://noriohayakawa.wordpress.com

BIO: Norio Hayakawa is an Albuquerque, New Mexico, UFO researcher who began studying the subject in 1961. His longtime interests include Area 51 and Dulce. His writing combines skepticism toward alien visitation claims with a personal belief that the phenomenon may have a paraphysical or spiritual origin.