782. Philip Mantle

British UFO researcher, author and publisher Philip Mantle joins Martin Willis to discuss UFO Reflections and more than four decades of investigation. Topics include Charles Forgus’s claimed Roswell testimony, the Alien Autopsy hoax, the reported 1980 Normanton UFO landing, and new witnesses and recordings connected to the Pascagoula encounter. Philip also reflects on his friendship with Calvin Parker, the importance of preserving forgotten testimony, and the growing challenge of AI-generated UFO misinformation.

SHOW NOTES

781. Alex Dietrich, We Don’t Know What We Saw

Former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot Alex Dietrich joins Martin Willis for a candid conversation about the November 14, 2004, Tic Tac UFO encounter off Southern California. Flying alongside Commander David Fravor, Dietrich witnessed an unidentified white object near an unusual disturbance in the ocean during a routine training mission with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. Dietrich recounts what she saw, the uncertainty she felt, and what she learned years later about the USS Princeton’s unusual radar contacts before the encounter. She also reflects on the personal challenges of speaking publicly and why acknowledging what we don’t know matters. It’s a thoughtful firsthand account of one of the most widely discussed UFO encounters in modern history.

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Show 782 Notes: Philip Mantle

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Thursday, September 10, 2026 @ 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)

Longtime British UFO researcher, author and publisher Philip Mantle joins Martin Willis for a fascinating look back at more than four decades of UFO investigation—and the evidence that may still be sitting undiscovered in filing cabinets, attics and forgotten archives. Philip discusses his expansive retrospective, UFO REFLECTIONS, including the remarkable videotaped testimony of former Deputy Sheriff Charles Forgus, who claimed that he witnessed the recovery operation at Roswell in 1947. The conversation also explores: • The infamous Alien Autopsy film and how Philip helped expose the truth behind it • The 1980 Normanton, England, UFO landing reportedly witnessed by a mother and several children • How two of those children, now adults, were found decades later and reaffirmed the account • New witnesses and previously unseen recordings connected to the 1973 Pascagoula encounter • The secretly recorded conversation between Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson • Philip’s friendship with Calvin Parker and his efforts to preserve Calvin’s story • How forgotten film, audio and online comments can uncover important new witnesses • The growing problem of AI-generated UFO stories being presented as authentic evidence Philip Mantle is a former Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and the founder of Flying Disk Press. Throughout his career, he has investigated celebrated cases, exposed major hoaxes and preserved testimony that might otherwise have disappeared. UFO REFLECTIONS and Philip Mantle’s other books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/… Flying Disk Press: https://flyingdiskpress.blogspot.com/

BIO: Philip Mantle is a British UFO researcher, internationally published author, and publisher with more than four decades of experience investigating the UFO phenomenon. He formerly served as Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and as the Mutual UFO Network’s (MUFON) representative for England. A lecturer and broadcaster, Mantle is also the founder of Flying Disk Press, bringing UFO research and accounts from around the world to English-speaking readers.

 

Show 781 Notes: Alex Dietrich

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Tuesday, September 08, 2026 @ 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)

One of the most important interviews ever presented on Podcast UFO, host Martin Willis sits down with former U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot Alex Dietrich for a candid discussion of the November 14, 2004 Tic Tac UFO encounter involving the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. Dietrich describes how an otherwise routine training mission suddenly changed when her flight was redirected by the USS Princeton to investigate an unidentified contact. She recalls the disturbance in the ocean, the moment the white Tic Tac-shaped object entered her field of view and the confusion of watching it react to Commander David Fravor’s aircraft. “We weren’t supposed to be there,” Dietrich explains. “What the hell is this thing? Where did it come from? What is it doing? How is it doing that? Is it a threat?” Flying high cover during the encounter, Dietrich found herself fascinated and unnerved. The aircrew were unarmed, the object could not be identified and no one knew what it was capable of doing. Years later, after questioning whether they might have been unknowingly sent into a secret American test, she says she was repeatedly reassured that the object was not a U.S. system, that no submarine was operating in the area and that there was no evidence of American or allied activity responsible for what they witnessed. Dietrich also discusses the troubling absence of an immediate formal investigation. No specialized reporting system, debriefing procedure or UAP investigative infrastructure existed for the aircrews at the time. When she was eventually questioned at the Pentagon years later, details had already begun to fade. The conversation goes far beyond the mechanics of the encounter. Dietrich explains why she does not consider herself a whistleblower, how her identity became public after information from the case appeared online, why she resisted media attention and what finally persuaded her to appear on 60 Minutes. She speaks about the ridicule experienced by military witnesses, the need to examine extraordinary reports without automatically embracing or dismissing them and the importance of treating experiencers with dignity. Her position remains neutral: she does not claim to know what the Tic Tac was, but she believes unexplained objects in controlled military and civilian airspace deserve serious, scientifically responsible investigation. This is the story of the Tic Tac encounter from one of its principal eyewitnesses, told with honesty, humor and extraordinary clarity. ***VIDEO CLIPS PROVIDED BY DAVE BEATY

*** Correction: John Mack was a psychiatrist

BIO: Alex Dietrich is a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who served for 20 years as a naval officer and F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter pilot. She completed two combat deployments supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and later served on the ground in Afghanistan as an infrastructure reconstruction engineer. Her military honors include the Bronze Star and Air Medal.

Dietrich is best known publicly as one of the four naval aviators who witnessed the now-famous Tic Tac UFO during a training mission with the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group on November 14, 2004. Flying as Commander David Fravor’s wingwoman, Dietrich maintained high cover while observing the smooth, white, wingless object maneuver above a disturbance in the Pacific Ocean before rapidly departing. She has since briefed officials at the Pentagon and Congress and appeared on 60 Minutes and other major news programs to discuss the encounter.

Following her operational career, Dietrich taught Naval Science at a consortium of Washington, D.C., universities and served as a military professor in Leadership, Ethics and Law at the U.S. Naval Academy. Her academic work has included critical thinking, leadership, ethics, resilience and change management. Despite the attention surrounding the Nimitz encounter, Dietrich remains deliberately neutral about the object’s origin and advocates for careful, evidence-based investigation without stigma or sensationalism.

A 2025 Sighting Investigation Report From the NICAP Website

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

In 1969, just before the December 17th press release that Project Blue Book was being terminated, Donald Keyhoe was removed from his position as director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. NICAP quickly became a shadow of its former formidable self, but it never fully ceased being active thanks to Fran Ridge, who passed away on January 20th of this year. Ridge maintained the NICAP website, which is still operating as of this writing, and this week, we’ll look at one of the last cases Ridge investigated.

In the 2025 Chronology in the section of the site headed “The Chronos,” there is a file headed “2025-MADAR.htm.” This is the “Project Report: 2025” covering “Potential Sightings of Interest & MADAR Anomalies,” which is a joint effort between NICAP, the National UFO Reporting Center, and MADAR (Multiple Anomaly Detection and Automatic Recording).  MADAR was a project started by Ridge in 1970, and by 2023, there were 221 members operating 168 sites with systems designed to collect and record geomagnetic, electromagnetic, and background radiation anomalies. Read more

780. Live at Rye NH Library NEW HAMPSHIRE UFOs

Martin Willis interviews Dean Merchant live at the Rye Public Library for a fascinating discussion about UFOs in New Hampshire, including the legendary 1965 Incident at Exeter. The program features firsthand testimony from Mike Geanoulis who describes seeing a massive object with extremely bright red lights over the Exeter area, as well as retired Exeter police officer George Dufour, who served on the force at the time and personally knew officers Gene Bertrand and David Hunt. Dean also explores the Betty and Barney Hill case, Stratham Hill, Pawtuckaway, Raymond, Ossipee, the White Mountains, and other New Hampshire UFO hotspots, along with theories involving nuclear activity, geology, and decades of unexplained sightings across the Granite State.

SHOW NOTES

779. Rich Hoffman

Veteran UFO researcher Rich Hoffman joins Martin Willis to discuss his remarkable six-decade journey, from investigating sightings near Project Blue Book as a teenager to helping lead the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. Rich examines the Tic Tac encounter, reported radar jamming, government transparency, private defense contractors and the limitations of UAP videos without adequate data. They also explore the New Jersey drone wave, AI-generated UFO footage, common misidentifications, near-death experiences and the possibility that science has only begun to understand the true nature of UAP and consciousness.

SHOW NOTES

Show 779 Notes: Rich Hoffman

Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Tuesday, September 01, 2026 @ 8:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)

Veteran UFO researcher Rich Hoffman joins Martin Willis to discuss his remarkable six-decade journey investigating UFOs and UAP, from the 1964 Socorro era through MUFON, decades of defense systems work and today’s scientific study of anomalous phenomena. Rich discusses the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, what constitutes meaningful UAP evidence, the need for sophisticated sensors and rigorous methodology, government involvement, his presentation at a NATO Space Domain conference, and what researchers have and have not learned after more than 60 years of investigation.

BIO: Rich Hoffman is a retired Senior Systems Engineering Analyst who spent more than 30 years supporting the U.S. Army Materiel Command at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. With a B.A. in Organizational Communication from Wright State University and a broad professional background in IT, training, organizational development and leadership, he has also devoted nearly six decades to investigating and researching UFOs/UAP, beginning in 1964 around the time of the Lonnie Zamora Socorro incident. Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Rich joined the Midwest UFO Network, later MUFON, in 1969 and went on to serve in numerous leadership roles, including State Director, Star Team Manager, Deputy Director for Investigations and Director of Strategic Projects; he remains a MUFON Benefactor and Lifetime Member. In 2017, he helped establish the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), where he currently serves as an Executive Board Officer. SCU brings together more than 400 scientists, engineers, former military personnel, academics and business professionals to study UAP using scientific methods and advanced technologies. Rich also serves as a Board Advisor to the Society for UAP Studies (SUAPS), represented the United States at a NATO Space Domain conference in Bologna, Italy, in 2022, and has appeared on numerous television, radio and podcast programs, including as a regular contributor to History Channel’s The Proof Is Out There. He has also coauthored several scientific papers on UAP research, many of which are available through the SCU website.

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Show 780 Notes: LIVE SHOW | Dean Merchant Rye New Hampshire Library

Live Audience Simulcast on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter | Thursday, September 03, 2026 @ 6:30 PM EDT (GMT-4)

Martin Willis interviews Dean Merchant live at the Rye New Hampshire Library, with a live audience, for a fascinating conversation about UFOs in New Hampshire. Dean, co-founder of the Exeter UFO Festival, discusses why the Granite State has long been considered one of the most active UFO regions in America. The conversation explores the legendary 1965 Incident at Exeter, the continuing mystery surrounding sightings in the Exeter/Kensington area, and other notable New Hampshire hotspots including Fremont, Brentwood, Raymond, Nottingham, Pawtuckaway, Ossipee, and the White Mountains. We also get into theories about why these areas may be so active, from geology and rare minerals to reports of USOs and long-standing witness testimony. If you’re interested in New England UFO history, regional hotspots, and the ongoing mystery of unexplained sightings in New Hampshire, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Guest: Dean Merchant
Host: Martin Willis
Location: Rye New Hampshire Library

BIO: Dean Merchant is a local historian who serves as a witness in the context of UAP/UFO research. He is featured in the video “Incident at Exeter,” which discusses Norman Muscarello’s 1965 UFO encounter, contributing to the historical narrative surrounding UAP phenomena. His role as a historian adds a contextual layer to the examination of such incidents

The National UFO Reporting Center Investigates

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

Peter Davenport

The National UFO Reporting Center, started in 1976 by Robert Gribble, has been a mainstay in UFO research ever since. Its present director is Peter Davenport, who took on the position in 1994. As the name implies, NUFORC is primarily a reporting center, but there are four investigators, Keith Bickford, John Budrys, Ben Hansen, and Lynda Thompson, listed in the “About Us” section of the website. While browsing the “Posts” section, the November 28, 2025, post titled, “Mysterious Lights in Northern Michigan – A NUFORC Investigation” caught our eye. It covers a case investigated by Budrys and has a link to his report and the report of the primary witness.

According to the post, from September into October 2025, a couple in northern Michigan had “repeated encounters” with basketball-sized illuminated objects. The couple, a 75-year-old artist and her 87-year-old husband with a PhD in psychology live in an isolated area with no nearby light sources, which made the lighted objects they saw stand out. Read more

777. Grant Lavac

Australian UAP researcher, activist and podcaster Grant Lavac joins Martin Willis to discuss Australia’s continuing reluctance to investigate unidentified anomalous phenomena, despite its participation in the Five Eyes UAP Caucus Working Group. Grant examines Australia’s lack of a formal reporting system for military personnel and civilian pilots, what his Freedom of Information research suggests may be happening behind closed doors, and why some Australian pilots have instead submitted reports to Ryan Graves’s Americans for Safe Aerospace. The conversation also explores new developments surrounding the 1966 Westall UFO incident, the mysterious disappearance of pilot Frederick Valentich, and the Australian government’s failure to respond to calls for an independent Westall inquiry. Martin and Grant also confront the UFO community’s growing “disclosure fatigue” and ask whether it is finally time for firsthand witnesses, verifiable evidence and receipts.

SHOW NOTES

777. Scott Gearen, Hiding in Plain Sight

Retired U.S. Air Force Pararescueman Scott Gearen discusses the mysterious aerial object he photographed and filmed for approximately three and a half hours over Panama City Beach, Florida. He explains why he rejected the weather-balloon explanation, what appeared in the enhanced images and why he wonders whether the object could have been biological or intelligently controlled. Near the end, Scott shares his remarkable near-death experience following a catastrophic 1987 parachuting accident—and how he later returned to complete more than 500 additional jumps.

SHOW NOTES

UFO Landing Reports and Unique Trace Evidence in Ontario, Canada

by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

Starting in December 1975 and continuing into the middle of 1976, there was a UFO flap in the area of Madoc, a village in Ontario, Canada, halfway between Toronto and Ottawa. Investigators from the Ontario-based Neptune Research Organization went to the area, interviewed witnesses, and were able to see for themselves what may be the most unique UFO-related trace evidence ever recorded.

Harry Tokarz, “affiliated with Neptune Research” and “editor and publisher” of UFO Pulse Analyzer wrote a report on the case and published it in the first issue of his journal, put out in April 1977. According to Tokarz, the flap came to the attention of the press when a farmer in an area north of Madoc found something unusual on his property and contacted Madoc Review reporter Ron Heiser. NRO found out about it and seven investigators, including Tokarz, “were dispatched.” Besides studying and analyzing what was in the farmer’s field, they found several witnesses who reported seeing UFOs throughout the Madoc area.

The earliest report described is that of Pauline Dudgeon who said that on December 11, 1975, a bright light caught her attention. She went to a window, looked out, and saw a large object that took up the width of Highway 12. A pulsing red light on top of it made her think she was looking at a traffic accident scene. She went outside and was, in Tokarz’s words, “awed by what she described (from 1000 ft. distance) as a disc or oval-shaped object with a dome or cupula on top and bright lights revolving around its periphery.” She was particularly fascinated by the bright light on top as she watched the object for 20 minutes. Read more