Raw capture
Sound, Light & Frequency #16 — "Deal or No Deal" (Brett Leonard's account)
Sound, Light & Frequency #16 — "Deal or No Deal" (Brett Leonard's account)
Source: Sound, Light & Frequency (iHeart Podcast, produced by Stellar Productions), Episode #16, "Deal or No Deal — Sound, Light & Frequency." Hosts/executive producers Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman (co-creators of NBC's 1996 series Dark Skies); guest Brett Leonard (film director — The Lawnmower Man, Hideaway, Virtuosity). Exec produced by Nick Johnson; for Stellar, Jackie Zabel.
URL: https://youtu.be/hxltEtjtFKo (YouTube upload by Stellar Productions, dated 2026-06-08; ~1:07:00).
Captured: 2026-06-07. Full verbatim auto-transcript (timestamps retained; speaker turns not labeled in source — Zabel, Friedman, and Leonard alternate; ASR misspellings preserved, e.g. "Bryce Sable"=Bryce Zabel, "Brent Freriedman"=Brent Friedman, "Manatulan"=Manitoulin, "Waznjak"=Wozniak, "Kotkkey"=Kottke). Provenance only; analysis lives in ../../topics/government-ufo-disinformation.
What this is: the series' first outside "witness." Leonard recounts being approached (~early 1990s, after The Lawnmower Man) via a NASA Ames contact ("Bob") by an anonymous man — card with only a name + a 310 number — who, after deflecting CIA/DoD/FBI, claimed NSA, showed Leonard a thick personal dossier (read as implicit leverage), and offered to feed him insider UFO material to weave into his storytelling ("slow drip disclosure"); Leonard ghosted him. Presented as corroboration of Zabel & Friedman's own claim that a man ("JC," claiming Office of Naval Intelligence) crashed their Dark Skies premiere party (~1996) with the same offer. Themes raised: disinformation vs. authentic-government-appeal vs. alien/"walk-in/shell person"; an "MMRPG built around us"; the Cicada 3301 ARG; Spielberg's Day of Disclosure; the "Quickening."
[00:00:00.080] So far, you've heard Brandon me tell our
story. The night a guy showed up at our
[00:00:04.000] Hollywood TV premiere party, claimed
he worked for a national intelligence
[00:00:07.760] group and offered a well, let's just say
a very specific kind of cooperation. Now,
[00:00:13.440] that story has always lived on the fault
line between show business and government,
[00:00:17.840] between that's impossible and wait that kind
of tracks. And the only way to deal with it all
[00:00:24.000] honestly is to keep looking for corroboration, for
patterns, for independent accounts. It's one thing
[00:00:30.800] to talk about ourselves. It's another thing when
someone else says, "Yeah, that happened to me,
[00:00:35.440] too." So today, for the first time on this podcast
and on camera, we have another Hollywood creative,
[00:00:40.960] a film director, who says he was approached in
a remarkably similar way to what happened to us.
[00:00:47.120] And whether you think this is disclosure,
manipulation, mythmaking, or all three,
[00:00:52.320] this is the kind of firsthand account
that sharpens the entire conversation.
[00:01:14.960] I'm Bryce Sable. Have you ever wondered
if there's a secret connection between
[00:01:18.720] Hollywood and UFOs? I'm Brent Freriedman
and you're listening to Sound, Light,
[00:01:23.360] and Frequency. We like to think that our
show is an active investigation into this
[00:01:27.760] issue and today we're bringing
our first witness to the stand.
[00:01:44.000] So, I'm thrilled to bring my good friend Brett
Leonard to our show today. Uh, I met Brett back
[00:01:50.640] in the late 80s, I think it was, uh, through a
mutual friend in LA, and it was right after he
[00:01:56.320] had made his first feature, The Dead Pit. Being
a big horror buff, we became fast friends. And I
[00:02:03.040] really I like to think of it as having a front row
seat to watching Brett's career take off after he
[00:02:08.720] made the lawnmower man as it was for me watching
yours. Thank you. Same thing. Um and that was an
[00:02:15.120] adaptation of a Stephen King short story where
he got to show off that he was much more than
[00:02:20.480] a filmmaker. He's always been an innovator. And
in Lawnmower Man, he took the concept of virtual
[00:02:26.400] reality to a level no one had ever brought to the
screen before. After that, he went on to direct
[00:02:32.240] some features, including Hideaway, which was an
adaptation of a Dean Coun horror novel starring
[00:02:37.520] Jeff Goldblum, among others, and uh Virtuosity,
sci-fi thriller starring Denzel Washington and
[00:02:44.080] Russell Crowe. Power Cast, if there ever was
one. Um, but he's done much more than movies. Um,
[00:02:49.600] he's been working on the bleeding edge of cinema
and technology for decades. I remember being blown
[00:02:55.360] away the first time I saw the 3D IMAX dinosaur
movie that you made. I also think you're probably
[00:03:00.640] one of the only people who's ever made a CGI music
video to Peter Gabriel's The Kiss That Frog, no
[00:03:06.800] less, that was also a ride simulator and then also
went on to win an MTV movie award. Am I correct?
[00:03:14.320] I think you're correct because I have had a very
strange career. Anyway, um we're thrilled to have
[00:03:21.040] you here on the show and there's so many things
we can talk about, but I want to start first with
[00:03:27.120] what happened to you when you got offered your
deal. Let's take us back to the very beginning in
[00:03:32.400] the context of this particular podcast, which is
the deal with who knows what from who knows where.
[00:03:40.880] Um, and you know, it's interesting because you
just gave a little of the history and you know,
[00:03:45.360] uh, I was again also watching Brent, uh, career
start to take off after having, you know, slept on
[00:03:52.160] the couch of our friend, our mutual friend Randy
Fontana's couch for about 5 years, you know, cold
[00:03:56.960] calling everyone in Hollywood and, uh, watching
us, you know, and Brent was working on scripts
[00:04:01.840] and and, uh, mostly at horror at that time and we
were just, uh, you know, scrapping away trying to
[00:04:08.000] get into this this crazy business which was an
amazing business in the n in the 80s90s when
[00:04:15.040] we started getting into it uh in in you know in
retrospect looking back at that period definitely
[00:04:20.880] an interesting time that is gone now it's a very
different business than it was what happened is
[00:04:26.640] we both actually attained success and part of
that weird success or the weird thing that came
[00:04:32.400] with that was suddenly these people came out of
the woodwork you know and and when I heard about
[00:04:39.680] what hap I just recently heard uh the story from
from from Brent and and uh and Bryce, you know,
[00:04:47.360] about what they were dealing with. I suddenly
was taken back to this thing that I almost kind
[00:04:53.600] of put in a a a place in my history that I didn't
go to think about much because it was such a weird
[00:05:02.320] experience and it was almost kind of like out
of a movie itself. It was like it was like is
[00:05:08.560] Hollywood really this self-reflective? You know
that that I remember thinking that at the time
[00:05:13.280] I was researching Lawnmower Man and part of the
researching of Lawn Man was to research virtual
[00:05:18.320] reality technology and one of the places that had
the most advanced virtual reality technology on
[00:05:23.760] the planet was a place called the Ames Research
Center which is uh south of San Francisco. Uh
[00:05:29.600] it's connected to NASA, NASA as uh it has got the
biggest flight simulation system I think in the
[00:05:36.160] world at that time anyway. Uh and that was the
most advanced virtual reality system. It was a
[00:05:41.920] $30 million virtual reality system. And so I threw
some friends who I knew uh through living in Santa
[00:05:49.920] Cruz at the time. And you know, part of part of my
living in Santa Cruz was I was part of this cafe
[00:05:54.640] society that included people like uh Steve Waznjak
and Steve Jobs. And so I was this, you know,
[00:06:01.040] crazy, you know, kid trying to make science
fiction movies hanging out with those guys. And
[00:06:06.160] uh and my friend Dan Daniel Kotkkey who was the
first uh employee of Apple and was, you know,
[00:06:12.800] kind of mixed in with this whole Digiari at the
time. Uh, and that was very exotic for me because
[00:06:18.720] I literally had just come from Toledo, Ohio, very
soon before that. So, talk about cultural uh,
[00:06:25.520] yoga stretches. Uh, very very intense. And
so, going to the NASA as research center,
[00:06:31.040] I I was able to find a way in there through these
uh, through these contacts in Santa Cruz. And I
[00:06:37.200] remember it was a guy named Bob. And Bob was
very open to showing me these things. and he
[00:06:43.840] obviously worked with NASA and but kind of worked
with other things too. I mean, I felt like he was
[00:06:50.800] coming from a more holistic perspective with this
level of technology and the fact it was NASA and
[00:06:57.920] the defense department and all these things.
So, and you know, being a bit of a, you know,
[00:07:03.520] semi-paranoid conspiracy theorist, uh, in some
ways since I was a child really, uh, you know,
[00:07:09.280] I I I kind of started feeling strange things and
he kept sort of questioning me about interesting,
[00:07:17.280] you know, aspects of my research and why I was
doing this film. And, you know, he he found
[00:07:22.880] out what the, you know, the basic storyline of
the film was. And if those of you remember it,
[00:07:27.200] it you know has very little to do with the
Stephen King short story by the way. Uh very
[00:07:31.520] little the Stephen King short story had no virtual
reality in it, no technology in it whatsoever. So
[00:07:36.400] I really was creating out of a whole cloth in
many ways and that's a whole other story. But
[00:07:40.880] uh and so uh it it did have to do with government
research in virtual reality and and brain research
[00:07:47.360] with virtual reality things that were kind of
esoteric and using of the neutropic drugs with
[00:07:53.040] technology and these things that are you know was
very exotic back then at you know the late 80s
[00:07:58.880] early 90s and so he was very you know intrigued
by the fact I was thinking this way and said look
[00:08:04.720] I think there's somebody you should talk to and
I'm like Okay. Um, what do you mean? And he says,
[00:08:13.120] "Well, just let I you know, there's there's things
that, uh, I'm connected to that I think you should
[00:08:20.880] be connected to as well because you're going to be
working in Hollywood and, you know, you're going
[00:08:25.040] to be Well, that kind of like sat there and and
and sort of percolated for a while. And I kind
[00:08:31.360] of in all honesty didn't aggressively go to make
those connections because I was a little freaked
[00:08:38.080] out. I I was a little bit like by by the guy
himself. Yeah. By the guy by the by the story,
[00:08:43.280] by the by the the context. It's like, well,
I'm just trying to get my career going making
[00:08:49.120] science fiction movies. Do I have to like deal
with the government right now? You know, I mean,
[00:08:54.080] and you know, of course, I just always had some
nefarious thing in my head. And of course, if you
[00:08:58.400] think about Stephen King, I I reference one of his
things, the shop in uh in uh in Virt I mean, I'm
[00:09:05.280] sorry, in in The Lawnmower Man. And so that was a
a kind of paranoid government's cons uh you know
[00:09:11.440] conspiracy thing. And so the whole thing was just
like well I'm going to kind of just do a moonwalk
[00:09:17.280] back back you know and and and get away from this
a little bit. I did until the movie came out and
[00:09:24.480] it was a hit and it was I'm going to I'm going to
interrupt you right there because when we talked
[00:09:29.520] about this earlier you had also mentioned that
they had like a really strange VR program. Yes.
[00:09:35.760] I think we need to hear about the the VR program.
I just want to jump in and clarify one thing. By
[00:09:41.360] the way, nice to meet you uh on camera here. Uh
one thing folks may not remember may not know
[00:09:47.680] actually is that Brent, you talked to Brett first
and then I said, "Don't even tell me the rest of
[00:09:53.600] this. I want to be in a soundproof isolation booth
so that I hear this story for the first time." And
[00:09:59.200] by the way, uh Brett, I have been to Toledo, Ohio.
I don't know that that's important. That's kind
[00:10:04.320] of amazing. We believe in full transparency and
disclosure here at Soundlight and Frequent. So,
[00:10:09.440] I just wanted to bring that out. But I just
want to make sure I'm I'm getting this so that
[00:10:13.200] our audience is on board, too. Tell me again, who
is this person that first approached you? Who was
[00:10:19.600] that person? A guy named Bob at who worked at
the NASA as Research Center. Okay. This is who
[00:10:27.360] was part of this, you know, this group of people
that were uh showing me this $30 million virtual
[00:10:35.120] reality simulation flight simulation system and
talking to me about VR and my thoughts on VR. I
[00:10:41.360] mean, it was it became very wide ranging and
I actually, you know, through that process,
[00:10:45.280] I I made a lot of friends at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory at JPL. uh you know I got involved in
[00:10:51.040] that that kind of that kind of group of people
because I you know uh I could I could I could
[00:10:56.160] talk story with them you know I could I could we
could kibbitz about a lot of different things. And
[00:11:01.840] at one point just part of the Bob story that Brent
just reminded me of in the context of doing this
[00:11:10.480] uh flight simulation demo. Suddenly there was
a demo of something that was very surprising.
[00:11:19.200] It was suddenly a demo of this craft came into
the frame of the the the fighter jet simulation
[00:11:27.360] with what can only be described as non-ballistic
movement and it was zipping around and and then
[00:11:33.760] there was all these like indicators going on and
there was all this cuz I wasn't flying you know
[00:11:38.240] this is me getting experience of the flying in the
in I think the right-hand seat while the simulator
[00:11:43.760] was being flown by someone else and he goes yeah
this is a special program we have and And I'm
[00:11:49.120] like, for for uh for for unique and interesting
circumstances, I'm like, okay, first of all,
[00:11:55.200] this is a $30 million flight simulation system.
It's the highest end virtual in the world, and
[00:12:00.400] they're showing UFOs on this thing as part of the
simulation for flight training. Uh that was very,
[00:12:07.920] very strange cuz I asked him, are these UFOs? And
he just smiled. Right. So uh yeah, but but I'm I'm
[00:12:14.560] telling you there is no way there was any these
were, you know, MIGs. This was not about that kind
[00:12:20.400] of this was a totally non-bic movement. It was
showing uh a visual that that had, you know, weird
[00:12:27.600] colors. There was a there was a a a level to it
that literally felt like it was a special effect
[00:12:32.480] out of a science fiction film. Except Brett,
before at the time that you were first shown this,
[00:12:37.360] what was your opinion about UFOs? Did you have
any feelings about them one way or the other? Yes,
[00:12:42.720] I I have experienced two major times in my life.
Absolutely. Experienced what I know was something
[00:12:49.840] that was otherworldly. One was on Manatulan Island
and I was there with my uh family and with another
[00:12:57.200] family uh and I'll never forget all of us watched
this thing in the sky and it was a brilliant sky
[00:13:05.200] because Manulan was very very isolated wilderness
place you know in the middle of one of the great
[00:13:10.000] lakes and I we watched you know I think I was 10
years old 101 and we watched it for several hours
[00:13:19.200] it was it was it was going all over the sky. It
would go to the other side of the island. It was
[00:13:25.760] definitely experiencing non, you know, expressing
non-ballistic movement. I didn't know what that
[00:13:30.320] was at that time. Of course, I didn't have the
ability to express it, but uh and I remember even
[00:13:35.680] my father who was a science teacher, very very
empirical guy. Okay, this is not a guy that's
[00:13:42.960] prone to flights of fancy, let's put it that
way. Um he was truly intrigued and thought,
[00:13:51.280] you know what, this is something absolutely
different than normal aircraft. And because we
[00:13:56.880] launched it for so long, it became a kind of real
foundation for me of just believing that there was
[00:14:04.080] something out there that that was different that
that was, you know, what we call UFOs at the time,
[00:14:09.440] you know, and and just that was always something
informing me. Then one at one point, this is a
[00:14:15.840] an amazing weird story. Later on when I was about
15 years old, I took my father's Audi Fox car out
[00:14:25.440] of the driveway where very late at night with
my friend Joel Hazard and we just did it to go
[00:14:31.840] driving out into sort of the the corn fields on
the outskirts of Toledo just to do it. I think
[00:14:38.080] we're going to smoke a joint, you know. And 15,
you said without a license. Yes. Yes. out of no
[00:14:43.680] totally without license. And and we we pushed
the car out the driveway silently. Now again,
[00:14:50.160] if my father had caught me doing this, I thought
probably my life would be over, right? So this
[00:14:55.040] was actually a very I think we were out at Oakings
and we were driving down this dark road just like
[00:15:01.360] out of Close Encounters, literally like the one
that Roy Ner is going down when the the railroad
[00:15:07.440] uh signs go crazy. And I'll never and I saw again
a non-bin thing come zipping it stop and then as
[00:15:16.960] soon as it stopped the car died. Everything about
it died. What? Wait a minute. And then it zipped
[00:15:26.800] away and that car did not come back to life until
after it went to the So my father did find out I
[00:15:34.560] stole the car. My father can can actually uh
and those aliens substantiate this this story
[00:15:41.200] because there's no way I would have called him.
You know, literally I I I remember we had to walk
[00:15:45.280] to a farmhouse and it was about dawn and my dad
got up early because he was an elementary school
[00:15:49.680] principal at that time and I called him and he
answered the phone, "Where's the car?" So, and it
[00:15:55.840] literally all of the electrical system was fried
in the car. Wow. Okay. That's just like Close
[00:16:01.920] Encounters. It was literally when I saw Close
Encounters which was after that not many years
[00:16:07.440] after that actually it was I literally had this
flash that I experienced that that scene because
[00:16:15.520] in close encounters Roy Ner's car comes back to
life so at least he didn't have to face anybody
[00:16:21.360] hold and and I remember my grandpa father had to
come out and get it towed to an electrical place
[00:16:27.760] and it was like it was it was a big rigomearroll
and you know of course my dad didn't want to hear
[00:16:32.560] telling any stories about UFOs. I mean, you
know, he he just, you know, whatever you did,
[00:16:38.720] you you you ruined my car, you know. Um, plus I
was 15 and didn't have a license, so, you know,
[00:16:43.920] anyway, bad bad boy. uh you know so so that those
those experiences and there were a few others
[00:16:50.320] uh in my more adult life uh that h have made
me feel absolutely there are things going on
[00:16:57.440] in our skies that are definitely in the realm of
of UAPs and going back to the flight simulator
[00:17:05.040] um what you saw was clearly similar um in terms
of the movement and everything to what you'd seen
[00:17:12.160] in real life exactly that's why I knew That's
how I had a correlation to it. It was like,
[00:17:17.280] wait a minute, that that reminds me of being on
Manatulan Island and watching. I want to drill
[00:17:22.400] just one step deeper on that, though, because
you've seen that you've seen two things. And you
[00:17:27.360] know, sometimes you don't see them up close and
personal like you might in a flight simulator.
[00:17:31.840] Was the flight simulator version literally like
right out your window and you're seeing structure
[00:17:38.000] in a craft kind of thing? It was. It was not too
much structure. It was a little It was definitely
[00:17:43.840] round and it was flashing lights. So, it was
not a normal aircraft. It definitely was not
[00:17:48.720] a normal aircraft, but but it didn't show a lot of
structural detail. Okay. Okay. Uh what was what it
[00:17:53.600] was doing though was flying non-ballistically and
then the simulator of the the fighter jet that I
[00:18:00.240] was in was obviously adjusting to that that
movement, right? So, the guy was, you know,
[00:18:05.360] sort of playing with this thing and that was
what it felt like. It felt like, you know, they
[00:18:10.880] were they were playing with something. I I asked
a bunch of questions. And Bob said, "Look, this is
[00:18:16.320] uh there's some people there's somebody I want you
to meet. That's that's why it kind of led to this
[00:18:21.440] this idea." And then I, as I was saying before, I
kind of didn't uh go for that. I didn't I didn't
[00:18:29.200] uh pursue that very much. But what happened was
the movie was a big sort of phenomenon. It was a
[00:18:35.680] hit and a kind of phenomenon at the same time.
And suddenly out of the out of the blue, Bob
[00:18:41.040] gives me a call and says, "Look, I've got a guy
um that I want you to meet." I got a guy literally
[00:18:48.160] literally was it was almost that it was almost
like that, you know. I got a guy like exact. Yeah,
[00:18:52.720] exactly. Like this was you're talking like this is
probably almost a year after you'd met Bob, right?
[00:18:59.040] You were still researching. It was like a year and
a half. It was a year to a year and a half. Yeah.
[00:19:04.080] which was again sent a chill down my spine because
the fact that someone was reaching out to me now
[00:19:10.640] that I had a successful film I was like going wow
this this is something there's something actually
[00:19:16.160] happening here that's connected to the fact that
I have put something out in the world that people
[00:19:21.520] have actually seen and that thing has a lot of you
know concepts in it that are related to government
[00:19:27.920] are related to secret research all of those things
so I I was constantly going am I in trouble I
[00:19:33.440] can you know am I in trouble? Uh you know and
so my whole thing was look man I'm just assign
[00:19:38.640] I'm just telling festival stories and you know of
course I was actually trying to base it in real
[00:19:43.840] technology more than most. Uh that was one of the
reasons I think it was on their radar is because I
[00:19:49.360] was using actual real virtual reality technology.
I was showing sort of the real thing and the more
[00:19:54.960] fantastical element of it simultaneously which
is kind of rare uh in science fiction. So there
[00:20:00.240] was very much science fact in that movie as much
as there was science fiction. And uh and so that
[00:20:07.120] brought about this connection to this this person
that was introduced to me by Bob and I uh I got
[00:20:13.360] a call uh let's meet and I went and met him. Uh I
can't remember his name. I I remember he did give
[00:20:23.360] me a card. I asked him I he and I think I heard
in your story a thing about a car that didn't have
[00:20:28.960] much on it. That was exactly my same experience.
Exactly. Our guy was JC, right? That's all that's
[00:20:34.800] all the card said was JC do the 310 number. This
was this was a guy's name and a number and I and
[00:20:42.400] I I one of the things I kept trying to get
from him was who do you work for? Who the
[00:20:48.640] freak am I talking to here? you know, I mean,
cuz I was again in the back of my mind going,
[00:20:54.640] "Does this end with me and leg irons?" You know,
I I had no idea what the hell was going on. And I,
[00:21:00.720] you know, I got comfortable talking with him.
And he eventually, like we went through all the,
[00:21:05.760] you know, DoD, CIA, FBI, eventually landed on
NSA. He said, "Well, the main agency I work for
[00:21:14.480] is the NSA." The main So he Wow. So he worked
for multiple agencies. Yeah. Yeah. Basically,
[00:21:20.800] it was and and I don't know if that was just him
sort of giving me a, you know, a red herring or
[00:21:27.840] not. I don't know if he because I tried to lock
him down to CIA cuz I really felt like this feels
[00:21:33.040] like CIA to me. And and he wouldn't lock down
to that. And he finally he said if you I work
[00:21:39.920] for the NSA and and the NSA is a very secretive
group. Uh you know, it's about signals uh signals
[00:21:45.920] intelligence more than anything. And that's why
we're talking with people uh in the Hollywood
[00:21:50.720] environment because there are things that you're
dealing with because you're you're looking at
[00:21:57.600] actual science. You're looking at things that
are more fanciful in nature and there are things
[00:22:02.480] we are doing in the government that actually
connect to the kind of things you're talking about
[00:22:06.640] including what you saw in that simulator. And he
referenced the experience I had in the simulator.
[00:22:13.280] So he referenced the quote unquote alien aspect
of it as just part of, you know, sort of part and
[00:22:18.880] parcel of this overall thing. And we want to know
if you'd like to work with us or, you know, he he
[00:22:24.960] was just wanting to do this connection and kind of
like the the uh the idea that I would be able to,
[00:22:31.840] you know, see things that others didn't get to
see that could maybe inform my stories. And he was
[00:22:38.480] very seductive. very seductive. But that also was
weird because he didn't feel like a cop. He didn't
[00:22:45.040] feel like an FBI guy. He didn't feel he felt like
someone trying to seduce me in a direction with
[00:22:51.200] and and I couldn't get a handle on what was the
actual purpose of that? like are you trying to
[00:22:58.720] use me for propaganda or are you actually someone
trying to get some truth out through the Hollywood
[00:23:05.280] connection because I'm a at that time you know
a younger Hollywood film director and there's
[00:23:10.480] you know we're interested in these sort of things
and uh you know so when I heard your story Brent
[00:23:15.920] it was literally reactivated that chill down my
spine because it was so many things that you know
[00:23:23.680] obviously different on on so many levels but so so
many things that were very similar in terms of the
[00:23:28.960] vibe in terms of the the overall sort of mystery
of the experience. Now my reaction to that again
[00:23:35.920] after I had experienced him was to hide from it.
I I I wanted to just get on with my work. I I I
[00:23:44.080] I was worried that if I got down some rabbit hole
with this that I'm working for the government. I
[00:23:51.760] mean I I you know that wasn't really something
I wanted to do. And he did kind of almost make
[00:23:57.280] it seem like that. Um, even in this court of
seduction part, there was all, you know, there's
[00:24:02.960] ways you can make money doing this. There's, you
know, there there was all these kinds of things
[00:24:07.120] that he was sort of playing with in his uh in his
pitch that came off of my questions. You know,
[00:24:13.360] I was very very in, you know, like questioning
of what the hell was going on here. And so, uh,
[00:24:20.640] you know, there he reached out a couple different
times, but part of what he did, uh, in that first,
[00:24:27.200] um, meeting or was it the second? I think it
was the second meeting. There was two meetings.
[00:24:34.400] And again, this is this I'm unearthing this in my
because I literally buried it. I I kind of buried
[00:24:40.720] it and and didn't, you know, didn't pursue it.
So, it was something that got reactivated when uh
[00:24:46.320] when I heard your story. He showed me my dossier,
your and he my dossier your intelligence dossier
[00:24:55.920] was this thick. Whoa. And every movie I had ever
rented was listed. Uh all of these things that
[00:25:04.400] were really like personal going back to my high
school days. I mean, and I'm like, is this NSA?
[00:25:11.440] Is this, you know, well, just call it your FBI
dossier. FBI? Wait a minute. Am I doing something
[00:25:16.400] wrong? you know, so he was very very like um he
was constantly shifting the story a little bit,
[00:25:23.600] right? So I couldn't fully land on exactly what
is this and yet he was also trying to seduce me
[00:25:30.320] into being part of something even though for me I
wanted specific answers. I wanted to know what the
[00:25:38.400] hell am I working for? What is the purpose? Why?
And that's just not what his energy was. That it
[00:25:44.400] was kind of like ah that's that's kind of cute
and funny that you're asking those questions,
[00:25:49.040] Brett, but you know that's just not the way it
works. You know, I'm like oh well that's the way
[00:25:53.840] I work. You know, I'm I'm sorry. I can't just give
myself to something without knowing what the you
[00:25:59.680] know the sort of moral framework of it is and all
these other things. And so when I saw the dossier,
[00:26:05.600] I realized, holy [ __ ] this is a real thing. This
is actually connected to me being someone that's
[00:26:15.200] had a lot of people see my work that I, you know,
because of there being some success there and I'm
[00:26:21.520] making a hit film that had scientific components
and all these ideas in it that I was now in this
[00:26:29.120] sort of track, you know, and that terrified me. I
did not want to be on that track. I wanted to be
[00:26:38.560] doing what I wanted to do in my own way without
having to be in that track and be working. So I
[00:26:44.720] literally kind of almost aggressively ran the
other way is what happened. How long How long
[00:26:50.800] from the time where you sat down with him,
I guess, for the second time and and heard
[00:26:55.440] the pitch. How long from that time to when you
felt that you had to make a decision and you had
[00:27:00.560] to just get off the fence and tell the guy you
weren't interested? No, right away. And I never
[00:27:05.680] fully told him. I just I did a fade. I I mean, I I
basically ghosted him. Yeah. I mean, and you know,
[00:27:12.080] I was moving. I you know, I I was getting
more money at that time in my life. You know,
[00:27:16.560] I had more flexibility. I I was able to, you know,
go to Hawaii and live there for multiple months in
[00:27:22.880] the jungle and then come back and make a movie. I
mean, to say I lived a crazy wild life of a film
[00:27:28.880] director would be an understatement. I I I won't I
won't get into all the detail, but just letting me
[00:27:33.920] tell you. I have I have a good imagination. Let me
just say one word. Colonel Curts. Anyway Anyway,
[00:27:39.520] I get the I I totally get the idea that you said,
"I don't want to do it." But my question also is,
[00:27:45.920] did you at least a night or two, stay up late,
and consider the possibility that you would in
[00:27:52.960] fact need to take this cuz it was so unusual.
And so many night, many nights, many nights.
[00:27:58.640] And actually there were times there were times
when I would later after sort of assuring this
[00:28:06.000] I would sort of kick myself and think well damn
it maybe I should have you know maybe this is
[00:28:11.280] benign maybe this is some part of that structure
reaching out to me because I was a storyteller
[00:28:17.600] and and who knows maybe they reached out to HG
Wells and they reached out to Jules Vern and they
[00:28:23.040] reached out to you know and I'm just you know I'm
I could have been in that line of communication
[00:28:28.320] you know, and I mean, there was all
those thoughts, you know, it's like,
[00:28:31.200] but I I must say I go by my own instinct, and
there was something off. There was something a
[00:28:37.680] little off. And I don't know if you guys felt that
or not, but there was something a little off. Now,
[00:28:42.720] the thing that it might be off that I think
now, he could have been an alien. It's so
[00:28:50.080] funny. It's so funny that you say that because I
you know, that rings a bell. I yeah, it for for
[00:28:57.040] years when Bryce and I would talk about this and
reminisce about JC and and and the party crasher,
[00:29:04.640] um it was always like, well, was he really who he
said he was? Was he really O and I uh was or was
[00:29:10.640] it a hoax or and then it wasn't until years later
when I told my daughter the story, right? And she
[00:29:16.320] was in her 20s at that point and without a beat,
she said, "Well, how do you know he was human?"
[00:29:21.840] And I kind of was taken aback because at that
point, you know, now we're hearing all these
[00:29:27.360] stories about hybrid programs and humans that
are living amongst us as aliens. Exactly. And
[00:29:32.880] so I can't completely rule that out. Look, let me
let me say it in the way that I experienced it.
[00:29:40.880] The the weird feeling I got was not a weird
feeling that was necessarily evil, right?
[00:29:49.040] It was a weird feeling like there was a strange
glint in his eye kind of thing like like there
[00:29:55.680] was something there and again because the story
kind of bounced around and in its factual nature
[00:30:01.200] and the way he was presenting it didn't feel had
a it didn't have a continuity with the rest of my
[00:30:09.440] normal human experience with people right it was
it was like interesting this is on the outside of
[00:30:15.360] it was just odd and now I look at it And I go,
that oddness was kind of a feeling of alieness.
[00:30:23.040] It was feeling like it was was it somebody, you
know, and I've now, you know, researched all kinds
[00:30:28.080] of things about walk-ins and all kind, you know,
all kinds of, you know, aspects and I'm going,
[00:30:33.120] was that, you know, a shell person that I was
talking to? And the more I think that, of course,
[00:30:41.120] quality of memory is an interesting immutable
thing. um the more I feel like there were things
[00:30:47.680] about it that absolutely fit that idea and because
of that there's some of my regret is there. It's
[00:30:58.000] kind of like the regret. I was Roy Ner gonna get
onto the mother ship and then I said no. You know,
[00:31:03.920] I mean that's a, you know, hyperbole, but it's
still a feeling of that like I I I kind of said
[00:31:09.680] no to something because I felt it was outside of
my experience that would that would be something I
[00:31:16.800] could control. And so because I wanted to control
where my you know my career was going and how I
[00:31:24.080] wanted to tell stories and I I I I pushed it away.
But was I pushing away something that would have
[00:31:30.080] been an absolutely unique experience? You know,
let me just throw this one thought out there. Uh,
[00:31:36.240] I get the alien part of it, but uh, for my own
take when this guy JC approached us, my first
[00:31:45.200] take was this guy's got to be putting this on. I
mean, it just seemed too radical happening to us.
[00:31:52.880] And and then and then uh, we saw him a second time
as as you did, but then I started to go, it sure
[00:32:00.800] seems a little more real than that. But I never
thought alien. So my I guess there aren't there's
[00:32:06.800] three options in this thing. One is disinformation
or hoax. The other is authentic government appeal.
[00:32:15.680] And for me the outlier was the alien thing because
I thought the guy acted pretty human and I I I was
[00:32:21.680] willing to buy into that story. I just I just
wasn't clear what their angle was. So was the
[00:32:29.280] disinfo versus real government approach part of
your debate? Absolutely. As a matter of fact,
[00:32:34.400] that was that was the maj that was how I was
thinking then. And and it's interesting you
[00:32:38.640] said you thought was he putting you on at first
with Bob. I thought Bob was kind of joking with
[00:32:44.000] me right at the at the as he followed up later
after the film came out and was like saying I
[00:32:50.400] wanted you know I realized oh it's not a joke. He
wouldn't go to this elaborate you know thing to
[00:32:55.360] do that. And then when I met the guy, at first
I thought, "Oh, maybe this is a who knows. Is
[00:33:02.080] this some comedy team doing something, you know? I
mean, literally, because it was weird." The moment
[00:33:08.240] that cemented it for me was when he showed me my
dossier. A physical thing. Yeah. A physical thing.
[00:33:15.360] Did you flip through it? Did you flip through this
thing? Like for a while. Like I got to He let me
[00:33:20.080] look at it for a while and it was incredibly
comprehensive. So someone put that together
[00:33:27.360] that was serious, you know, it it it wasn't out of
nowhere. It wasn't something that was, you know,
[00:33:33.200] put together as a gag thing. It was real. And did
you feel like when I when I hear you say that,
[00:33:40.000] I get, you know, kind of go up on my hunches and
because it feels like a threat. It feels like a
[00:33:47.360] here's everything we know about you. Yes. and we
can use it for you or against and the way he said
[00:33:53.200] it was like, "Oh, I got something to show you."
You know, it was like at some point in the and
[00:33:58.240] then what? Boom. Right. And I'm like, even though
it didn't wasn't overtly feeling threatening, the
[00:34:07.920] whole thing felt threatening. That's why I that's
why I backed away, you know, because I I felt if
[00:34:14.800] I keep going and really poking this bear, what's
this bear going to turn into? And at that point,
[00:34:21.360] I didn't think alien, but but later on that came
to be more of the thought process. Brad, I want
[00:34:28.960] to ask you how you felt about something. Um, yeah,
I I know when this was happening to me and Brent,
[00:34:34.160] I didn't even know the phrase at that point.
The MMRPG, isn't that massive multiplayer role
[00:34:40.000] playing game? Role playing game. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. So later when I was aware of that term,
[00:34:46.560] I always felt like Brent and I had been targeted
by somebody that had built an MMRPG around us and
[00:34:53.840] that whatever their motivations were, whether they
were, I guess, disinformation or the real thing
[00:34:59.680] or I guess even now alien or whatever, somebody
had put some time into the approach to us that
[00:35:06.400] exceeded casualness. It exceeded somebody being
in their parents' basement looking for a lark.
[00:35:12.000] It seemed like it was welllaid out and that's why
I find uh the thing about them having their file
[00:35:19.680] on you and it I mean yes did you see anything in
the file that was incorrect that would make you
[00:35:26.720] not one thing not one thing was incorrect. It
was a serious like some law enforcement agency
[00:35:33.920] has and it was and he basically was saying like
well because you made this hit film dealing with
[00:35:38.560] science and it has government ideas this is
just what we do and that's pretty threatening
[00:35:43.520] stuff and he and he was suggesting that that was a
normal thing for people in Hollywood that I should
[00:35:49.600] just you know accept that and that the NSA was had
those kinds that kind of uh information on people.
[00:35:56.000] I don't believe and I think I believe you.
I don't believe that the NSA has that. The
[00:36:01.760] one part of this story that I've mostly told other
people and you if you talk to many friends of mine
[00:36:06.400] was the fact that this guy showed me my dossier
at one point after I had a hit film that was the
[00:36:12.080] distillation the story got down to because it was
such a radical moment. It was like what? Oh man.
[00:36:19.360] you know, uh I guess there's a there's a sacrifice
you make when you get into the public eye and
[00:36:24.880] you put out ideas out there that, you know, are
beyond what you, you know, traditionally think,
[00:36:29.600] unless you're watching science fiction movies that
have these kinds of plots all the time. I mean,
[00:36:34.560] it's like out of war games or, you know, I
mean, it's, you know, it's it's it that's
[00:36:38.800] why it felt so self-reflective to me. It felt
like I was in a movie of my own movie career,
[00:36:47.200] you know. Yeah. Right. That's how Brent, you and
I felt that. That's I mean, I remember saying that
[00:36:52.800] to you at the time, feeling like I I feel like
not only are we having this interaction with
[00:36:58.480] this person, but that other people were observing
the interaction. It wasn't just the event itself,
[00:37:04.400] it was a larger context. It had a weird level of
artifice to it. Exactly. That's that's that's the
[00:37:11.760] vi this when I say there's a twinkle in his eye.
That that's the part of it that still to this day
[00:37:18.640] is the vibe I take away from it. Like this thing
outside of normal life sort of descended on me
[00:37:26.080] for a little while and I was in this roleplay in
a way, you know, that's why it feels, for lack
[00:37:32.800] of a better term, kind of alien. you know, it it
just it it's outside of, you know, it was an ultra
[00:37:39.280] ultra experience, you know, and and uh and
then later in my life that not too many years
[00:37:45.920] ago actually. Um there are a few things that have
happened that kind of feel connected to it. Uh I
[00:37:53.760] didn't tell you about this before, Brad, because I
remembered it after we talked. Um, I got involved
[00:37:59.360] and I think I may even told you this a few years
back in this documentary series about the Cicada
[00:38:07.120] ARG. Do you know what the Cicada is? Cicada 3321.
Um, it's the big online game that was one of
[00:38:16.240] the first major ones. There's huge amounts of of
controversy around it. It eventually got connected
[00:38:21.600] to QAnon. Um, not that that's where it started,
but uh and there was a there was a man who was
[00:38:27.920] very uh involved with it and one of the supposedly
the founder of this this this online game. Uh,
[00:38:34.560] and then there was all this intrigue that happened
between the players on a global basis and and
[00:38:40.240] became there was actually a CNN uh documentary
about it and the HBO documentary about Q and Q
[00:38:47.760] has a bunch of that in there about Cicada. So if
you want to look into it and look up Cicada 3324,
[00:38:54.160] I think yeah, that was the the moniker. By the
way, it's still out there. It's still an ongoing
[00:39:00.480] it came out of uh 8ran, you know, and for I mean
I mean came out of you know the the dark the dark
[00:39:07.040] web and uh and so it was fascinating to me as
a story. But then when I got involved with it,
[00:39:12.080] I felt kind of the presence of the same energy
that I had felt with that those those guys,
[00:39:19.920] you know, Bob and the guy who I can't remember
his name. And it it it has connections to a
[00:39:25.760] similar sort of hidden government element that
seems to have a couple times reached out to me.
[00:39:32.800] I didn't chase this stuff. This chased me.
And that's one of the weird parts about it,
[00:39:37.680] right? I mean there's many ideas that I've gone
after just like uh you know you guys of course
[00:39:41.840] have gone and gone and developed and researched
and were chasing. these are things that chase
[00:39:47.680] me and I wasn't really wanting them to chase me
but they as I got more deeply in the you know you
[00:39:54.720] would feel this this interest and also this kind
of terror uh you know a fision uh about it that
[00:40:03.520] uh because it felt otra it felt outside you know
and that's that's the when you said your talked to
[00:40:10.960] you about your story that's the feeling that was
that was awakened in me about this memory which
[00:40:19.120] I had really not thought about for many years
in all honesty. One of the steps you just said
[00:40:24.080] is how seductive it was. You said it was very
seductive and I'm I'm just I'd like to define
[00:40:30.400] that a little bit more for our audience. I mean,
I think both Brand and I could be I mean, I think
[00:40:36.800] all of us when somebody approaches you like that,
you sort of part of you, no matter how scared you
[00:40:42.640] might be or how strange it is, you're also saying
I must be special, right? Exactly. They've they've
[00:40:48.960] sought me out because I'm special. And of course,
who doesn't want to feel special? So, I mean,
[00:40:54.320] part of the decision process is asking yourself,
am I really special or is it just the position
[00:41:00.640] I have right now that's special? or exactly. Walk
me through your process of trying to separate the
[00:41:08.320] way they were coming at you psychologically with
how you finally said, "I'm not doing this." Well,
[00:41:13.760] first, you're very flattered. I mean, it's it it
feels like, oh, I hit some I I hit some chords
[00:41:20.000] here. you know, I I pluck the right cords and uh
obviously I'm really smart because I'm plucking
[00:41:25.440] the right cords and some of the things I'm talking
about are actually maybe true or are related to
[00:41:31.360] something that's very true. And at first you're,
you know, as a storyteller, you get, as they say
[00:41:36.640] in Australia, chuffed, you know, chuffed about
that. You know, you could, wow, okay, man. I'm,
[00:41:41.040] you know, I got my my my hands on the pulse of
something, you know, and but then you wonder,
[00:41:46.720] what is it the pulse of? I just want to get one
thing in here because I'm afraid people that are
[00:41:50.720] listening are going to say I just want to make
really clear like it was clear to me and Brent
[00:41:55.040] what they wanted us to do. They wanted to give us
stuff uh information that we would somehow write
[00:42:01.840] into the show as part of a slow drip disclosure.
So the guys that approached us were not confusing
[00:42:07.760] about it. They were their mission. A lot of things
were confusing but the mission seemed clear. Yeah.
[00:42:13.760] That's one of the things that's different.
What did they want you to do? Exactly. They
[00:42:17.360] were more wanting me to be part of something
that then they would be sort of feeding me like
[00:42:24.080] the idea that I'd be fed uh information and that
I could in incorporate that information into my
[00:42:30.720] storytelling as a storyteller because again I was
a singular director writer you know and and uh was
[00:42:37.120] working in this realm and I I I it didn't get as
specific. You guys had a network show, you know,
[00:42:43.200] that was going. We had a live platform that they
had a live platform. So, so they could be very
[00:42:48.880] concrete with you. It's like, well, let's use this
platform. They were much more, again, it was more
[00:42:53.600] like a seduction of me becoming part of something
that would be ongoing for my whole career. That's
[00:43:00.160] how they they made it feel to me like you could
be part of, you know, connected, you know, and and
[00:43:05.600] and because because you're so precient, you can be
connected to something where we're going to give
[00:43:10.960] you an edge. That was the seduction. Were you
supposed to be part of this simulation? Uh were
[00:43:16.960] you going to be assigned to that or was that just
to show you the bells and whistles? That was just
[00:43:21.280] to show me the bells. Well, that that was that was
for me in my research of virtual reality at large
[00:43:27.520] because I was making a movie about it, right? So,
and I was very fascinated. I continued to research
[00:43:32.960] virtual reality and I've, you know, to all the
way to where I'm doing actual virtual reality
[00:43:37.520] and healthcare now. You know, I mean, it's it my
storytelling with virtual reality turned into,
[00:43:44.160] you know, a kind of life focus of using simulation
in a healing way. uh one of my friends Dr. Skip
[00:43:53.040] Rizzo, he saw the lawnmower man, you know, 30
some years ago. He then was inspired by it because
[00:43:59.760] it had to do with virtual ex changing brain
chemistry, changing, you know, the neuroplasticity
[00:44:05.520] of the brain was actually shown in the film.
These are pretty advanced concepts and he he
[00:44:11.120] got inspired to take his uh therapeutic research
in that direction. He's run the ICT lab at USC for
[00:44:17.200] 25 years and has been the the primary VR clinician
on the planet. He's one of my co-founders in my
[00:44:24.000] company, Ubiquity VX, which is using virtual
therapies for health and wellness. So, it and
[00:44:29.840] and there's and and by the way, the Veterans
Administration is incredibly involved with that
[00:44:35.600] because they utilize 30 to 40 uh virtual therapies
uh in their in their corpus of care. And so it's
[00:44:43.680] uh and again do these is this thing from the
past connected to how I mean think about it I'm
[00:44:50.240] a director I'm involved with real virtual reality
in therapy you know that's a strange career path
[00:44:57.040] you say you know I mean I'm in healthcare you know
and by the way it's been an amazing journey I'm
[00:45:03.760] I'm it's it's it's uh turning out to be a very
successful thing that we're developing in you
[00:45:10.160] know right now in a very incredible process and
uh you know it's so for something that started
[00:45:17.520] for me as a story I've walked into the reality of
it and I'm doing the real thing in a very specific
[00:45:24.640] uh sensibility which is the the sensibility of of
using it for healing you know so which by the way
[00:45:30.400] is because Dr. Skip Rizzo inspired me with his
work to go in that direction. Yeah. You know,
[00:45:35.760] so fascinating. But it's all those things are
connected into the government in some way. I mean,
[00:45:40.080] you know what I'm saying? I mean if if again if
I look at the stranges of my career I'm wondering
[00:45:46.160] are there invisible hands in there somewhere
you know and and and not just guiding me but
[00:45:54.480] also guiding where it gets taken because it seems
strange that I would actually have these things
[00:46:01.680] come you know you don't usually tell a story and
then suddenly you're involved with the actual
[00:46:06.480] reality of that story you know 30 years later
and It's it's a kind of trippy almost psychedelic
[00:46:12.880] experience in all honesty. Absolutely. And
on but on the topic of telling stories,
[00:46:18.800] you said something which uh is fascinating to
me. You said that when you would tell your story,
[00:46:24.800] you would really just distill it down to the
dossier. Yes. I'm curious a how many times
[00:46:30.560] had you told the full story, everything you just
told us before now? And and if you didn't tell it,
[00:46:39.040] you know, in whole, how come? I felt I needed
to be in at during the earlier part of my life
[00:46:45.440] anyway, in a very intimate level of relationship
with someone to tell that story. First of all,
[00:46:50.640] I don't know if they would have believe it. I
didn't want to tell something that sounded like
[00:46:54.000] some [ __ ] story, right? And so there's only
really a couple people that I had very close
[00:46:59.040] relationships with that I told that story to fully
uh in the past, primarily some of my my partners.
[00:47:05.920] But when you told your story, it activated a whole
other thing in me. It was re I realized, oh, now's
[00:47:12.640] the time to come out and tell this story. Now's
the time to deal with this. I mean, if not now,
[00:47:16.880] when? You know, this is the you this is the, you
know, the this phase of my my life and my career.
[00:47:22.160] and and you know I am a storyteller and this is
a true experience that I had and uh it seems to
[00:47:29.120] be connected to something that's going on right
now that's much much much larger because I feel
[00:47:34.240] like we're on the the precipice of a quickening
regarding the alien question. I just feel that
[00:47:42.640] that's we're in the middle of it in a way that's
different than the other times we may have felt
[00:47:47.760] that in the past. It feels, by the way, when you
say The Quickening, I remember Art Bell wrote that
[00:47:52.720] book, a book called The Quickening. Yes. Matter
of fact, I was I was at a party with Art Bell
[00:47:58.960] uh at the very beginning of my career called The
Mad Scientist Weekend put on by Marilyn Ferguson,
[00:48:03.680] the woman who wrote The Crack in the Cosmic
Egg. And uh it was this crazy called it was
[00:48:08.560] called the Mad Scientist Week. It was at this
this multi-millionaires mansion in Athetherton,
[00:48:13.360] you know, near the research center, by the way.
Um, you know, and and Art Bell was there and I
[00:48:18.400] talked to him about some of these things. Uh, but
this is before I made The Lawn Man, way before,
[00:48:23.760] you know, he was he was um, you know, towards the
end of his life at that time. But, um, anyway,
[00:48:29.280] uh, what you told that, you know, you told us the
name of Bob. Uh, I I'm just Did you tell us the
[00:48:36.720] name of your contact again? I can't remember.
And you just can't remember it. That leads me
[00:48:41.120] to ask another question though because this is,
you know, Brent and I have selectively told a few
[00:48:46.720] people about the story. We then we started talking
a little bit publicly, but never in the detail
[00:48:51.040] that we have obviously right now. And one of the
things that has come to light when we talk about
[00:48:56.640] it now is occasionally I have somebody go, well,
did you ask for identification? And I go, uh,
[00:49:03.920] no. Now I'm a I'm a journalist by training. Yeah.
The very first thing I should have done is said,
[00:49:10.320] "Okay, you're you're from the Office of Naval
Intelligence. Show me something. Show me your
[00:49:15.200] ID. Show me your military ID." And all I can say
is in the middle of this weirdness, it just never
[00:49:21.600] seemed like You know what? I never did. I did ask
for it though. Good for you. I was He would get
[00:49:29.920] that little twinkle in his eye. I it would it
would and and he go well you might say the CIA
[00:49:36.880] you know and I'm like well do you well I'm not
going to you know can't we're not at that phase
[00:49:40.960] yet and and then I'm like well what really come
on and then he again he eventually landed on the
[00:49:46.880] as if he was sort of like giving me the real thing
the NSA that was that was his way of giving and I
[00:49:53.440] had not even I had barely heard of the NSA at that
point I mean I didn't you know I had to study Sure
[00:49:59.440] what that was you know and and how it came out of
signal intelligence and the you know World War II
[00:50:04.800] and all the you know the history of that and it's
a very weird arcane history even compared to the
[00:50:10.640] CIA history you know tell our audience what you
mean by signal intelligence well that means you
[00:50:15.840] know the the capturing of of coded uh signals uh
you know the Enigma project those are the kinds
[00:50:22.560] of things that became the NSA uh you know I mean
obviously in in Europe there were other versions
[00:50:28.240] of it uh but in America it became the NSA and
they basically look at all the signal. I mean,
[00:50:33.440] I think uh um uh Snowden worked for the NSA, you
know, that that was that that that whole area of
[00:50:42.400] surveillance of capturing, you know, if you look
at what uh Palunteer is. Palanteer to me seems
[00:50:49.520] like a private organization, you know, extension
of what the NSA was or is, you know, and where
[00:50:56.320] one one ends and another begins, who knows given
what's going on right now in our body politic. So,
[00:51:01.600] it's almost like they're really doing it, but
lying about it, you know, it's it's just the
[00:51:05.360] the whole thing right now. I believe we're on is
all part of this quickening we're talking about
[00:51:10.400] where you know where a lot of things are coming
to the four in relation to surveillance privacy
[00:51:16.800] signal intelligence and possibly underpinning all
of it is this alien question you know if you're
[00:51:24.720] going to talk about the quickening and what you
know what that kind of means is there's just a
[00:51:28.640] sense that things are in the air they're happening
there's a couple of things I just have to ask you
[00:51:34.000] because I'll hate myself if I don't ask it in
in this time. First, if you had a if if out of
[00:51:41.840] nowhere Bob showed up again right now and said,
"Hey, man. Uh, we want to have another lunch or
[00:51:46.960] a dinner." And you go to that meeting and this guy
is there and he says, "Okay, you know, I heard you
[00:51:52.640] doing the Soundlight and Frequency podcast. That
sounded very interesting." No offense, not taking
[00:51:57.840] any offense, but how would you like to take us up
on our offer now? What would you tell that person?
[00:52:03.760] I might I might go down that rabbit hole. I might
What's changed? What's changed? What's changed is
[00:52:10.480] I think that Here's what's changed. I think that
the black and white version of the world that I
[00:52:16.400] may have had as a younger person, I don't have
that black and white version anymore. I It's very
[00:52:22.240] much a lot of grays and other tones and colors.
And I think that there are probably pretty amazing
[00:52:28.240] people or non-people involved with things that
may be connected in a way that would connect to my
[00:52:36.400] own, for lack of a better term, light, sound, and
frequency, you know, at the core of my soul, you
[00:52:41.680] know, and if I felt there was an alignment, a soul
alignment or, you know, for lack of a better term,
[00:52:48.000] an ethical alignment, a moral alignment, however
someone would want to express it. For me it would
[00:52:53.200] I would express it literally as a spiritual
alignment. I would I would want to go there as
[00:52:58.560] part of my own spiritual journey. So because part
of my own spiritual journey has been looking at
[00:53:04.000] other you know other worldly mystical energies.
I've experienced a lot of things in my search
[00:53:10.560] uh for you know just all the crazy paradoxes that
exist in our in our reality in our world. And
[00:53:17.280] uh this is such a potent one and and such
a juicy one. I don't think I could resist
[00:53:23.680] to tell you the truth. O over the years,
Brent, you and I have gotten together and
[00:53:28.320] uh off and on on various projects we've worked
on and every once in a while we're discussing it,
[00:53:33.280] our minds kind of drift and we kind of think what
would our lives have been like if we said yes.
[00:53:40.720] That's so exactly something. Brett, my friend,
that's my question. when you lay awake at night
[00:53:47.440] and you mole in your mind what would have happened
if I said yes that was 30ome years ago for you
[00:53:54.320] yeah it was okay you're not the same person but
and in fact you're a person who said no 30 years
[00:54:00.400] ago and so now you're saying maybe this time I
would let's imagine for a second you'd said yes
[00:54:07.040] what would your life be like today in your opinion
I you know I I've I've considered like would that
[00:54:14.080] have supercharged my career? Would that have
destroyed my career? Would that have you you
[00:54:20.240] go all the different ways with it? in terms of,
you know, when you're in the middle of the night
[00:54:24.960] facing the facing the the dark ceiling, you
know, it's like you're just you're thinking
[00:54:29.520] all the different possibilities and and you go, I
wonder if there are others that have said yes that
[00:54:37.760] I'm very aware of and that are out there doing
things connected to that. And then you look at
[00:54:44.800] what Stephen Spielberg's doing right now with Day
of Disclosure and and everything else he's done,
[00:54:50.240] you know, in the realm of and you go, I bet he
said yes. Did you have anybody in your life, uh,
[00:54:57.920] Brett, was there anybody in your life important
in your life when this went down that you went
[00:55:02.640] to them and said, "Yes, you got to I got to tell
because I'm sure Brent and I each were, you know,
[00:55:08.080] uh, probably talked to our significant others at
the time, but mostly to ourselves and at least
[00:55:13.120] Brent and I had somebody to talk to. You had to
bring somebody in. Tell us how that went down.
[00:55:19.120] So the my partner J Everett who was also
the writer coowwriter of Lawn More Man was
[00:55:25.600] the producer of Lawn More Man um was my both my
my wife my first wife and my part my filmmaking
[00:55:32.240] partner we broke into Hollywood together from
nowhere from nothing uh Brent you knew J um yes
[00:55:39.520] and uh J was an extremely spiritual person okay
she was a master yogini you know her whole life
[00:55:47.360] she was really raised me as a spiritual person,
as a as a a man and as a filmmaker. Um, uh, she
[00:55:56.720] passed on, uh, about 15 years ago, almost 20 now.
And she she was extremely influential in my life,
[00:56:04.160] uh, and was my partner in all of these early
adventures. And of course, I went directly to her
[00:56:08.720] with this. And she kind of agreed that we should
leave it alone. She was she felt in her instincts
[00:56:18.720] there was something there that could have been
destabilizing and we're tr you know again you
[00:56:23.840] think about we're just we just made our first hit
movie we're trying to solidify what that means in
[00:56:28.880] our life and as you know filmmakers of course at
that point the career in filmm was everything it
[00:56:34.960] was something that felt like a distraction in some
ways maybe it it was and she was uh someone that I
[00:56:41.680] think persuaded me not in a really drastic way cuz
she wasn't someone who was a scared he she wasn't
[00:56:47.360] scared of much. She was a very fierce uh intense
person, but she did I think was part of me sort
[00:56:54.000] of walking away from it. I I have a question for
you, Brent. Yes. When you hear uh Brett tell this
[00:57:01.680] story and how he felt and everything, how is it
changing how you feel about our own experience? Or
[00:57:06.880] has it? It's kind of uh affirming a lot of my own
feelings and sensibilities that I also had a hard
[00:57:16.000] time articulating. To me, the the the word I would
use was surreal. Yes. Um and and and you know,
[00:57:23.760] obviously you're at your, you know, premiere party
for your first show on network television and a
[00:57:30.880] guy comes out of the bushes. I know. And start
wants to start talking about a deal with the
[00:57:35.600] government. like I I just I was not prepared in
any way, shape or form to have that conversation.
[00:57:42.640] But he seemed like it was the most ordinary thing
to be having this like why wouldn't we be having
[00:57:47.680] this conversation? That's where that's where my
experience was similar. They were very much very
[00:57:52.800] like hey this is just you know this is just what
happens man. What happens with what when oh when
[00:57:58.240] you're doing what kind of thing you're doing? Oh
okay. And that I mean I think he did reference you
[00:58:04.080] know not many people do what you do. Remember not
many people make hit films. Not many people get a
[00:58:08.960] concept out into the world that you know is going
to you know affect technology and these kinds of
[00:58:14.400] things. I'm like okay I guess you're right. You
know so again that's part of the seduction. Yeah.
[00:58:20.320] I also think too that the the other aspect of
this that is fascinating. It's it's harder to
[00:58:25.840] articulate. You know, when Bryce and I were both
telling our story in in episode one, we made,
[00:58:32.800] you know, we brought to the surface the fact that
he remembers seeing JC differently in terms of how
[00:58:38.640] he was dressed than I did, right? So, you go,
was that just the Rashimon effect or is there
[00:58:44.400] something about a guy like this that has a weird
aura around it where it's just hard to remember
[00:58:52.640] certain details? Let me talk to that because
as we've been talking just now cuz uh Bryce,
[00:58:59.280] you asked me a couple times, did you know remember
this guy's name? Yeah, I have a very good memory.
[00:59:06.160] I am not someone who doesn't remember details. I
mean, I made giant technological films. You have
[00:59:11.920] to have a good memory. I mean, it's, you know, you
you just have to have that facility with facts and
[00:59:17.120] with things. And so the fact I can't remember him
exactly is weird. It is weird. It's like I I It's
[00:59:25.600] weird. I would usually absolutely remember that
guy, right? And and and think of that uh almost
[00:59:32.480] in a photographic memory sense that that that card
and his and I can't see his name. Yeah. So what'd
[00:59:41.200] you do with the card? It went with the the winds
of the winds. That's kind of what happened to you.
[00:59:49.040] Exactly. It just it just got got put somewhere and
then who knows many many changes. As our audience
[00:59:57.280] knows, uh we did have the first encounter, if you
will, our close encounter at our party. But then
[01:00:04.000] uh JC came out to the dark skies offices with his
so-called boss and they proceeded to brief us. So,
[01:00:11.600] we had about an hour and a half conversation with
two guys who were floating with and we're not
[01:00:16.880] going to get into that right now, but they were
floating their version of what was going on in the
[01:00:22.320] nature of reality and the universe and all that.
Right? So, in other words, they weren't actually
[01:00:27.120] looking for us to tell to tell them anything. They
just want to know if we wanted in and they were
[01:00:32.240] sort of floating ideas to us. Did uh the gentleman
you met with ever float any ideas about what the
[01:00:39.920] what was going on with this whole UFO issue or or
did it not get into that detail? No, he he did. He
[01:00:47.520] he he was the overall tenor of it was that you're
on to something. You are somebody who sees the
[01:00:56.320] truth. This is part of the seduction again, right?
And because of that, as a storyteller, you know,
[01:01:02.480] and and your precience, you could be useful and
I think we could be useful to you. That was the
[01:01:09.520] context for me. It was in the context of you you
know almost like of course you believe in aliens
[01:01:16.800] you know and and you know again I I love jawbon
about all kinds of things and we jawboned about
[01:01:23.920] interdimensional uh concepts and you know the
idea of of you know not being metal ships as
[01:01:31.680] Jeff Goldblum says in uh Philip Kaufman's remake
of the invasion of the body snatchers. You know,
[01:01:38.160] it's like it's not about metal ships. It's about
something beyond metal. It's about something that
[01:01:43.120] is interdimensional in nature. And I did talk to
those kinds of concepts with him almost in that,
[01:01:48.640] you know, speed wrappy kind of wild, you know,
having a wild conversation with a friend idea, you
[01:01:53.920] know, way of of being. And he would nod his head
and go, "Yes, with again, you you're on to it." As
[01:02:00.400] if he was confirming that I was on to the nature
of reality. Now, I took that with a grain of salt
[01:02:08.560] and I felt like it was more of a seduction. And
so, I would I I didn't, you know, I didn't let
[01:02:13.680] my I didn't let that totally work for me. I I was
I let I kind of became skeptical of the fact that
[01:02:20.080] he was using that technique in some ways. So, we
are at the end of our line here, but I I we can't
[01:02:27.440] we can't let this end without asking you just one
basic question. Sure. uh you've had a long time
[01:02:34.240] to think about this as as we have of course and as
many of our listeners have given great amounts of
[01:02:40.800] time and research and study to thinking about this
at the end of the day now knowing everything you
[01:02:46.800] know the experiences you've had this conversation
this reawaken in your mind about wow that really
[01:02:53.440] happened to me what do you think two parts I guess
what is going on in terms of the secrecy around
[01:03:01.360] this uh that probably is going on today. But even
more than that, what do you think is the nature
[01:03:09.040] of what we're dealing with when it comes to this
phenomenon? What do you think's going on? Okay.
[01:03:15.040] Well, I think that the secrecy has been something
that had to be kept in place because of the idea
[01:03:21.920] of societal disruption. Um, and maybe they're
right about that. Maybe that was a wise thing
[01:03:28.080] to do. I think we're coming to a point of kind of
chaos theory where where everything is so mutable
[01:03:37.200] in our culture. The the idea that truth isn't
truth anymore and that you know there's not one
[01:03:42.400] truth but multiple truths. And uh you know I like
to say one of my favorite phrases is the truth is
[01:03:47.600] in the paradox. You know, because there's so many
paradoxical things in modern culture and in the
[01:03:53.520] idea of human consciousness and how we experience
it at this point with, you know, almost 8 billion
[01:03:58.640] of us on the planet. Um, that we're coming to this
quickening that we're coming to a moment where
[01:04:04.960] the the the fabric of the uh that's been that's
been oluding that is dissolving. The veils are
[01:04:12.320] dissolving. And there's a there's a truth there
that's beyond what I think we could even possibly
[01:04:19.920] imagine. And that to me is incredibly exciting
because if I can totally imagine it right now, how
[01:04:26.560] boring is that? Right. Right. I want to actually
discover something. I want to be surprised. Now,
[01:04:33.040] I don't necessarily want to be surprised in and
you're all going to become foods and food tubes.
[01:04:38.640] Yeah. I don't want to be surprised in that. You
want a good surprise. You want a good surprise.
[01:04:42.000] I want a good surprise. or at least one that has
multivariate nature to it. Right. Right. And I
[01:04:47.840] think that we're on the cusp of something that
truly relates to some of the largest questions.
[01:04:54.960] Why we're here? What really is existence, life,
and death. those questions related to this idea of
[01:05:04.080] alieness I believe is something that the veils are
going to dissolve away and are going to be more
[01:05:11.360] connected than ever now I think there's going
to be different lanes of the highway that you
[01:05:16.720] could sort of come on there's there's a there's an
apocalyptic lane over here and you could choose to
[01:05:21.680] be in that and that's like a you know a million
car pileup and then there's the fast lane over
[01:05:27.440] here you could just shoot past that and go into a
whole other different reality. It's all a choice
[01:05:33.760] of your own consciousness and what it's going to
be perceiving as the truth as relates to your own
[01:05:40.720] deepest essence. Yeah. And that I think is the
moment we're in. That's what I mean by the moment
[01:05:45.600] of the quickening. I I think that's a fantastic
interpretation of things. I tend to agree with a
[01:05:52.320] lot of it. And I think this is a great place to
to end the conversation because I don't know how
[01:05:56.560] we can top it. So, I just want to say thank you
so much, Brett, for remembering your story and
[01:06:01.920] then actually agreeing to come on and share it
with us in our audience. And thank you for for
[01:06:06.880] activating it in me because it's actually been a
very positive thing that this has been activated
[01:06:11.680] in me again because it is something that I held
kind of in a secret place and now it's definitely
[01:06:17.760] not secret now. It is no longer secret. I can
promise you that. Thank you for having the the
[01:06:22.640] courage to let it out. We really do appreciate
it. It's no problem. It's been a wonderful
[01:06:28.000] message to you guys. All right. Bye. See y'all.
Soundlight and Frequency is an iHeart podcast
[01:06:33.760] produced by Stellar Productions. It's executive
produced by Nick Johnson and for Stellar,
[01:06:38.880] Jackie Zable. Our show's music was written by
Anna Stumpf and Hamilton Lighouser. And your
[01:06:43.920] hosts and executive producers are Bryce Zable,
that's me, and Brent Freriedman. Watch the skies.