Day 1

We were somewhere around the perimeter of the conference grounds when the …. began to take hold, not the chemical kind, mind you, but the slow, toxic drip of recognition that I’d been here before. Three years prior, to be exact, wandering these same asphalt veins ( hotel ground) like a man condemned to rerun his own fever dream.

Night One. That’s what the program says. The “getting familiar” phase, as if this were some kind of corporate retreat instead of a gathering of the damned and the curious. But I knew these faces. Christ, did I know them. The same desperate tribes of true believers, the glassy eyed prophets who’d been waiting since Roswell for someone in a suit to finally tell them the truth.

Only now there was fresh meat, new blood drawn here by the media circus, the promise of those disclosure files dropping like manna from a bureaucracy that wouldn’t know truth if it sodomized them in an elevator. And drop they did right before this carnival kicked into gear. I’d been praying for it, scheming for it, hoping against hope that maybe just maybe the suits would treat it with some dignity, but no.

That’s not how the machine works, is it? The elected officials, these bloated caricatures of public service, treated it like a punchline. A joke. I expected it, of course. You don’t cover this beat for twenty years without developing a terminal case of cynicism. But the crowd? The poor bastards who’d driven hundreds of miles, who’d bet their sanity on this moment? They never saw the hammer coming. I did meet up with a familiar face, a speaker, a past guest of my own. A friend. ( I can’t share those details )

Now I’m looking around this hotel resort wasteland, and what I see is Podcast America in full retreat from the outdoors. Sixty percent of these people look like they’d rather be in a soundproofed basement in Brooklyn, nursing an oat milk latte and arguing about compression algorithms. They’re terrified of the wild, of the open sky, of anything that doesn’t have a USB port.

Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe the desert heat and my own liver are conspiring to show me monsters where there are only mirrors. But I don’t think so. I spent the evening prowling the grounds, stalking the perimeter like some kind of rabid wolverine, and I crossed paths with strangers who don’t know my name, and I don’t know theirs. Pleasantries were exchanged. Handshakes. The occasional nervous laugh. They think I’m one of them. If only they knew.

I could tell you more. Christ, I could write a book about what I’ve seen tonight, the whispers I’ve heard, the deals being cut in the shadows, but I’ve been sued before, dragged through the legal meat grinder by people with deeper pockets and colder hearts than mine. So I’ll keep my mouth shut, for now.

I managed to slip away and make it over to see a past guest and friend, Brad Olsen. I had to keep my head down and move as quietly as I could through the room, and the whole scene felt strangely familiar when I hit that particular hallway. A few years back, I’d sat tucked into that same quiet corner and interviewed Clyde Lewis. If memory serves, he wasn’t in great health at the time, so I can only hope he’s doing better now. Brad went into the following:

archaeological and historical evidence suggesting that giant humanoids with elongated skulls and significantly larger cranial capacities once existed alongside modern humans, challenging established evolutionary theories. His research centers on DNA analysis of skulls found in Peru, particularly the Paracas Peninsula, where discoveries dating back to 1928 revealed specimens with 30 35% greater cranial capacity than typical humans measuring between 2,200 and 3,200 cubic centimeters.

This anatomical difference cannot be explained by cranial deformation practices alone, as the skulls show genetic lineages that diverge from known human ancestors. Particularly compelling is a mummified juvenile found in Peru’s Sacred Valley, nicknamed “Gray Alien,” which displayed a head nearly as large as its torso, a proportion radically different from human anatomy. This specimen was buried among Incan royalty, suggesting these beings held high status. Similar elongated skulls discovered at the pre Incan megalithic site of Tiwanaku, Bolivia, were also interred with royal adornments, further indicating reverence for these beings.

Olsen also draws upon historical accounts of giants from multiple sources. Records from Magellan’s voyage, documented by survivor Pigafetta, describe encounters with the “Patagonians” or “Cloud People” at San Julian Bay, giants who wore minimal clothing despite the freezing climate and were first sighted performing ceremonial dances with red ochre. These accounts align with references in the Book of Watchers describing Nephilim, Josephus’s writings from 79 CE, and Egyptian records claiming giants existed into the 13th century BCE. Olsen further recounts the alleged 2002 “Kandahar Giant” incident, where U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan reportedly killed a giant that had been taking livestock, with the body allegedly transported to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. He suggests this evidence has been systematically suppressed because it disrupts conventional evolutionary narratives, with artifacts being hidden, destroyed, or lost to protect established academic paradigms.

The man who told that story has been on the program more than once over the years, and you get the feeling there’s still a deeper, uglier layer to it that hasn’t fully surfaced yet. To make matters worse, the fact that one of the crew members died by suicide not long after the incident hangs over the whole thing like a low desert curse. He has never talked about that incident on the show, but I’ve spoken to him several times about it throughout the years. ( off air )

 

Day 2

The desert sun came up over Day Two like a poor omen, all bleached white and mean, and the whole atmosphere felt off like the cosmic dial had been turned a few notches toward static, perhaps it’s from all the drinking. I had arrived expecting the full New Age circus: the tie dye faithful, the crystal bowl pilgrims, the swaying incense haze of seekers chasing enlightenment through the carpeted ballroom. Instead, the old caravan had vanished, taking its sage smoke and chanting with it. In their place was a younger, tidier crowd with clean shoes and sharper phones, the kind of people who might be here for answers, or entertainment, or maybe just the Wi-Fi. The hippie element I never thought I would miss. I still enjoyed the scene, though it had a different feel with certain familiar faces missing. RIP Nick Pope. 

And then there was the ghost in the room: David Wilcock. Dead, they say, and not a soul on the microphone so much as whispered his name. Not a “rest easy, you magnificent cosmic oddball,” not a nod, not a shrug, nothing. I was never one of his devotees, though I did meet the man once and found him perfectly civil, almost disarmingly normal for this particular corner of the universe. But whatever else you say about him, he could pack a room. He and Corey Goode once pulled crowds like revival preachers with better lighting. Now they’ve been exiled from the tribe, blackballed into silence, erased with the kind of efficiency usually reserved for inconvenient history. Some will say “GOOD!”

I asked around, and the responses came back thin and wary, the way answers do when nobody wants to be the one holding the match near the fuse. Eventually, one brave soul confirmed what the silence had already confessed: they’re out, banished from the conference kingdom. And that, of course, is part of the spectacle too, the machine doesn’t just build prophets, it devours them. For my part, I don’t quite share the organizers’ vision, though I understand it. I get why they’d want distance from the movement’s origins and its more combustible figures. That’s fair enough. But I still can’t help thinking controversy is part of the fuel here. A disgruntled Corey Goode stomping back onto the stage? Now that would be a story. Maybe even a good one. Will it happen? Probably not. But it’s the sort of argument worth having anyway, especially with the people who’d rather nail the door shut and call it peace. Moving along, we go.

I found myself drifting through the crowd and into a long, snaking line before realizing I’d queued up for George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell, which felt less like waiting for a panel and more like approaching some desert side transmission from the ether. It was genuinely good to see George in person, alive, alert, still carrying that unmistakable veteran newsman electricity, not a beat lost when he stepped onto the stage. The whole thing played less like a polished presentation than a live recording of the latest chapter in the UAP saga, with Knapp and Corbell bringing out three men whose names deserve more daylight than they’ve gotten: Marty Gardner, Chief Wiggins, and Dylan Borland.

What unfolded was a grim little scripture of modern whistleblowing. The broad outline is familiar by now: men say they went through the proper channels, tried to do things the clean way, and got hammered for it, jobs gone, clearances threatened, families rattled, and an ugly cloud of retaliation hanging over everything. The public is always invited to cheer the brave truth teller, but the backstage reality is something else entirely: pressure, smears, suspicion, and consequences that keep following long after the microphones are packed away. The men onstage made it plain that they didn’t ask for the spotlight, but felt they had no choice once they believed something serious was being concealed, and people could be at risk.

And then there was Corbell, who seemed to be running on pure voltage the whole time, visibly emotional, almost too much so for my taste, though maybe that’s simply his machine. He came across as sincere, no question, but I couldn’t help feeling the voltage was getting a little high, like he was one hard jolt away from frying the whole circuit. Maybe that kind of intensity helps him; maybe it carries the message farther than calm ever could. Still, I kept thinking: easy there, man. There’s only so much desert heat a human nervous system can take before it starts trying to turn itself into a warning flare. Corbell has become a subject of high levels of criticism from the online UFO community.

 

Later that night, things shifted from the merely strange into the gloriously ridiculous. The band, Disciples of Shima, took the stage, and I’ll admit I’m a sucker for live music in almost any form. I’ve got a dangerous habit of respecting anyone willing to get up there and throw themselves at a room full of people who didn’t exactly arrive expecting revelation. To their credit, they were part of the hotel’s audio visual crew, which means they had the kind of day job credibility that can either save you or sink you. Some people were into it. Others clearly thought they should retreat to the gear closet and never come back. I was somewhere in the middle, though the alcohol may have done some of the heavy lifting. The saxophone player, however, absolutely stole the show. You had to be there to understand it.

Then came the moment that lifted the whole evening into the absurd: a clearly well lubricated woman bouncing across the outside lawn on a trampoline like some pagan moon ritual trampolining champion. That’s the sort of thing that tells you the night has either gone very right or very wrong, and I’m inclined to think it was both. It was a full moon, people were loose, and the whole scene had that delirious desert energy where everyone either loses their mind or finds a slightly better version of it.

What really stuck with me, though, was the surrounding atmosphere, the staff, the hotel workers, the random guests who had simply booked a room for the weekend and ended up dropped into the opening salvo of Contact in the Desert. I kept wondering what they made of it all. Did they think they’d stumbled into a convention for lunatics, or did curiosity get the better of them? Maybe they stood there at the margins, half amused and half alarmed, trying to decide whether these were serious seekers or just very committed weirdos. Probably a bit of both. I’m sure someone’s dreams came true that night, god I hope so. 

Either way, it made for a perfect kind of ending: strange music, strange people, a little too much drink, and that final slow walk back to the hotel room with the universe spread out overhead like a cracked open secret. From the rooftop, everything felt briefly larger than life, and getting back there felt like one more minor trespass against the machinery of the place. I won’t explain the security doors. Some victories are too stupid and too sweet to document. “SHIMA! SHIMA! SHIMA!

 

 

Day Three: The Simulation Ballroom

The AV guys have finally found their groove, lights dancing across the ceiling like we’re in some kind of cosmic discotheque. Much better than their attempt at being a band the night before. No offense, boys. Keep swinging.

Yvonne Smith takes the stage to a modest crowd in this cavernous space, and suddenly we’re back in classic territory, pure, uncut New Age. The 2024 drone flap? That was just the aliens giving us a teaser trailer, she says. A sample of coming attractions. And the messages, oh, the messages haven’t changed since the 60s: “Be good to each other, be good to the Earth.” Low vibrational beings are tampering with human affairs, but fear not, the light keepers and light bringers (always with the light) will see us through. Disclosure is coming. Always coming. Never quite here, but definitely, absolutely, pinky promise coming.

“Smith suggests that low-vibrational beings interfere with human affairs, while good energy, light keepers, and light bringers are meant to protect and steady those who have been contacted. The message appears to be that disclosure is still coming and that people should not be distracted by what is ahead. The speaker also connects this to personal dream experiences, including an apparent apocalyptic vision, and notes that a 12 year old boy reported similar dreams.

The rest of the talk moves deeper into paranormal material, which the speaker clearly finds more entertaining than the free panels. It includes images of orbs and apparitions around children, along with a photo from the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The speaker also jokes about Long Beach being a rough place, especially overnight, where car break-ins are treated almost like a local rite of passage.

Another theme is the warning not to trust elected officials, especially on the subject of nuclear weapons. The speaker says this kind of message has been reported for decades, with abduction accounts becoming darker through the 1970s and 1980s. Whether one is skeptical or not, the lecture presents all of this as unsettling but still fascinating.”

 

I heard a man named David Medina, he was describing a long running set of experiences they believe are evidence of contact with nonhuman beings, beginning around 2017 and extending through multiple videos, audio clips, and physical symptoms. They say they were waiting for MUFON to authenticate the material, and they present the recordings as proof that they have been documenting these events for years.

A central part of the story is a claimed Ring camera video showing two “aliens” in the home. The speaker says they initially thought the event was a dream, only realizing later that the footage had actually been recorded and saved on their phone. They present this as a key moment because it made them rethink the experience as something real rather than imagined.

They also connect the encounter to a major medical crisis. According to the speaker, the beings told them they were going to die but would return, and they say the beings were working on their chest before a cardiac arrest happened 15 days later. They describe an out of body experience during the heart attack and say their teenage daughter recorded part of the event, which they view as documentation of what happened.

Another major theme is the possibility of an implant. The speaker says they have a triangle shaped mark and believe they were implanted. They describe tests involving a microphone held near the implant area, and they say that at times this produced strange sounds. They also mention National Geographic filming them and doing radiation related testing, which they interpret as outside validation that something unusual is present.

David, repeatedly emphasizes physical evidence and third party interest. They say they have videos, forensic support from multiple companies, and additional material involving GPS and other recordings. They also mention an unusual adoption related GPS event and a 20 minute video of a UFO leaving, suggesting they believe their case includes multiple independent forms of proof. I ran into David outside of the conference, and I asked to see the photos and the video footage as my curiosity got the best of me. I was not prepared for the number of photos and videos he showed me. I plan to bring him onto the program, and he can share a good chunk of what he has captured. He also firmly believes that he will be a speaker by next year at the conference.

last panel…….. Glitches in the Matrix: Questioning the Nature of Reality
Explore one of the most profound questions of our time: what is reality? What if artificial intelligence is not just a tool, but a revealing mirror of the deeper foundation of existence? Could it be that we are living in a simulation and if so, who or what is behind the code? Could the synchronicity phenomenon be potential “glitches” or meaningful patterns within the simulation? There are many forms of Simulation Theory, from philosophical frameworks to scientific perspectives. Which theory could explain how consciousness operates in these conditions? Join us as we challenge our perception and venture into the realm of base reality. Dr. Thomas Campbell, Caroline Cory, Anthony Peake, Dr. Simeon Hein, and Dr. Rizwan Virk

Then the simulation crowd takes the stage Paul Hynek hosting a rogue’s gallery of reality-questioners. Rizwan Virk name drops *The Matrix* within thirty seconds (of course), and we’re off to the races. Consciousness is fundamental, yeah, we know, tell us something we didn’t learn from a Ram Dass cassette in 1987. Time glitches, geometric universes, no coincidences. It’s real, and it’s not real. Schrödinger’s consensus reality. Simeon Hein is there, teaching remote viewing, seeing the code behind the cosmic simulation. Fun stuff. I see patterns in myself, in the room, in the whole mad circus of it.

The desert does strange things to people. Out here, with the heat shimmering off the pavement and the stars threatening to reveal their secrets, everyone becomes a prophet. Everyone has the inside scoop on the nature of existence. And maybe just maybe that’s the real contact. Not with aliens, but with the part of ourselves that still believes something weird is out there, waiting, watching, and occasionally sending drones to tease us. The panel all said various things that I can’t list here, but I do have an answer that was presented by Mr. Deep Prasad:

Mr. Prasad argues that reality may be better understood through the simulation hypothesis, but also says our language may be too limited to describe what is actually going on. They suggest that terms like simulation, reality, existence, consciousness, information, matter, and energy may all be incomplete or even misleading, and they raise the possibility that something more basic than consciousness itself could underlie everything.

A major part of the discussion focuses on observer dependent reality and the idea that each person may experience a kind of personal simulation. The speaker references quantum experiments, especially entanglement and Bell type tests, to argue that different observers can produce different measurements of the same object or system. They describe this as evidence that reality may not be fully fixed in the way people usually assume.

Deep Prasad used a car color example to explain the point more simply. In the example, different observers claim the same car is green, blue, or red, and then try to settle the disagreement with measurement tools such as cameras or hyperspectral imagers. The point of the example is that measurement can still preserve observer disagreement, which the speaker treats as a challenge to the idea of a fully observer-independent reality.

They also discuss a framework in which consciousness is treated as deeply connected to energy and matter, even to the point of trying to define a kind of consciousness tensor aligned with Einstein’s field equations. The speaker presents this as a way to formalize consciousness in physics while still leaving open the possibility that something even more fundamental exists beneath all three concepts.

Another theme is interaction and coupling between objects and space time. Deep, gives the example of applying a local stress-energy tensor to a bottle and water, suggesting that such an action could warp space-time in a meaningful way. This is presented as a speculative idea about whether consciousness or intention might interact with matter through some nonlinear mechanism.

The final idea is ontology translation: the need to account for how different beings or minds interpret reality through different priors, biases, and inherited assumptions. The speaker says every person brings a different framework to the world, and that this makes communication and interpretation difficult. They extend that idea to non-human intelligences, aliens, and artificial intelligence, suggesting that any such entities would likely process information through structures very different from our own.

 

The conference ends. The lights go down. The simulation continues.

And that’s when the …. wore off, or maybe they kicked in because I realized something foul and undeniable: I had been lying to myself. All that opening bile about not being part of the scene, the freak show, the cosmic carnival… pure horse manure. I am the scene. I am the freak show. I am the thing in the tent that children point at, and mothers hurry past.

I am grateful for it. Specifically for Contact in the Desert. That neon lit oasis in the wasteland where the damned and the curious gather to compare notes on reality’s glitches.

Because here’s the thing, and it’s all on tape somewhere, buried in digital amber back in 2016, a week before the event, I made a promise to the void. One last ride, I said. One final pilgrimage to the sand and the stars, and if nothing happens, if the sky stays silent and the earth doesn’t shake, then I’m done. Finished. No more UFOs, no more whispers from the beyond. I would keep the interest, sure, like a man keeps a scar, but I would never speak of it again. The platform would go dark on the subject.

Then came the first night. I was standing there where exactly doesn’t matter, the desert all looks the same after midnight when it happened. Behind me. A ball of light that seemed to manifest from nothing, from the empty air itself, from the space where my shadow should have been. It engulfed the room. Not gently not some soft new age glow but a nuclear burst of white light so powerful, so absolute, that closing my eyes meant nothing. I squeezed them shut, tight as a fist, and still it came through like a blade through butter, like the light was inside my skull already, just waiting for an invitation.

There hasn’t been a day since not one miserable, beautiful, chaotic day that I don’t think about that night. Wondering if I’ll ever stand in the presence of something that again. If I’ll ever be so thoroughly dismantled by a moment of pure, unexplainable phenomena.

The best part the only thing that keeps me from believing I finally snapped, that the synapses finally fried is that I was not alone. Others saw it. Others felt it. Which means either we’re all insane together a distinct possibility in this racket or something truly special and phenomenal actually occurred. Something that doesn’t fit in the simulation’s programming. So here I am. Still standing. Still seeking. Still part of the freak show I claimed to despise. And I have that ball of light to thank for it that impossible, beautiful, terrifying burst of illumination that proved, if only for a moment, that the universe is far stranger than the sober minds would have us believe.

 

God help me. God help us all.