The UFO Encounter that ALTERED My Reality| The Origin Story| Total Disclosure

0:02 Speaker 1: Today, I decided I wanted to do something well, a

0:06 Speaker 1: bit different. I realized recently in an interview with Connecticut

0:11 Speaker 1: State Representative Joe Hawk so that I had actually never

0:14 Speaker 1: told my story quote unquote from start to finish all

0:19 Speaker 1: the way through it. And it got me thinking, Easter

0:22 Speaker 1: just passed. That was when my mom had passed away,

0:26 Speaker 1: and it got me just reminiscing on my own experiences,

0:31 Speaker 1: internalizing those and trying to distrapolate as much as I

0:35 Speaker 1: could from it to inform my next couple moves. There's

0:40 Speaker 1: a lot of changes happening, whether it's you know, the

0:43 Speaker 1: studio or trying to go bigger and boulder with certain

0:47 Speaker 1: guests and getting them in here. A lot's been on

0:49 Speaker 1: my plate. The team's growing, and I thought, you know what,

0:53 Speaker 1: let's take it back to basics. Why do I do

0:56 Speaker 1: what I do? I hope you enjoy this, and I

0:58 Speaker 1: hope it gives you some person perspective on the conversations

1:02 Speaker 1: I have, why I do interview people the way I do,

1:06 Speaker 1: why I have the energy I have, and what it

1:09 Speaker 1: all really means. Why do I search for answers? And

1:13 Speaker 1: we definitely are standing on the shoulders of giants but

1:17 Speaker 1: the world has never been so connected yet felt so isolated,

1:22 Speaker 1: alone and cold. So let's take a moment, and I'm

1:26 Speaker 1: going to let you in. I'm going to let you

1:28 Speaker 1: into my head, to my experiences, and I'm going to

1:32 Speaker 1: show you a little bit of warmth step. The day

3:10 Speaker 1: started like any other. I woke up in the basement,

3:14 Speaker 1: rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and started getting ready

3:17 Speaker 1: for school like I had a thousand mornings before. But

3:21 Speaker 1: when I climbed those stairs that day, my mother was

3:26 Speaker 1: waiting at the top with that look in her eyes,

3:28 Speaker 1: the one that meant today was different. Every once in

3:31 Speaker 1: a while she'd pull one of us kids aside and

3:34 Speaker 1: offered the golden ticket stay home with me. No questions asked,

3:38 Speaker 1: and we never pushed for reasons we didn't want to

3:40 Speaker 1: jinx it. That day, that ticket was mine. She was

3:43 Speaker 1: a creature of habit, my mom, a stay at home warrior,

3:47 Speaker 1: queen of routines. Don't get donuts, coffee, hot rice depending

3:52 Speaker 1: on the season. Of course. Now I can't pin the

3:55 Speaker 1: exact date or time of year, but I remember that

3:59 Speaker 1: it was nice outside. I'd already watched Live with Ritis

4:03 Speaker 1: and Kelly at nine am, and with no phone, no Internet,

4:07 Speaker 1: and everyone else stuck at school. Boredom hit fast. Mom

4:12 Speaker 1: got bored too, so I grabbed the tennis ball and

4:15 Speaker 1: headed out back for the only game that ever worked alone.

4:21 Speaker 1: Off the wall, you threw the ball against either a

4:25 Speaker 1: wall or a steep roof, in my case, watched it

4:27 Speaker 1: pop off the gutter and caught it on the bounce. Simple,

4:32 Speaker 1: mindless mine. I wound up, eyes locked on the clear

4:37 Speaker 1: blue sky above, reared back with my left hand, and

4:41 Speaker 1: launched that ball skyward. The ball hung for a second,

4:45 Speaker 1: then something else caught the corner of my eye, a glint,

4:50 Speaker 1: a silver gun, metal gray. It snapped into focus at

4:55 Speaker 1: treetop level, oscillating, drifting straight over my head. Three circular

5:02 Speaker 1: protrusions jutted out, forming a perfect triangle. If you had

5:06 Speaker 1: connected them with a straight line each. The whole thing

5:11 Speaker 1: was a disk. It was flat, silent, and even at

5:16 Speaker 1: my young age, I knew impossible. No engine, roar, no wind, nothing.

5:24 Speaker 1: I grew up next to Hanscomb Air Force Base, and

5:27 Speaker 1: for the most part, I knew planes, I knew jets.

5:31 Speaker 1: I also lived through nine to eleven in the shadow

5:33 Speaker 1: of Boston, close enough to New York to feel that

5:37 Speaker 1: fear wholeheartedly. I knew what belonged in the sky and

5:40 Speaker 1: what didn't. This didn't. It glided over me like it

5:45 Speaker 1: had all the time in the world. My jaw dropped,

5:49 Speaker 1: the tennis ball, rolled off the roof, and thumped onto

5:52 Speaker 1: the grass. I didn't care. Time stretched thick and slow.

5:57 Speaker 1: I could have read symbols on it's hull if there

6:01 Speaker 1: were any. That's how close this thing was. And it

6:04 Speaker 1: passed directly over the house, over the exact spot where

6:07 Speaker 1: I'd been standing seconds earlier. I snapped out of it

6:11 Speaker 1: and sprinted around to the backyard, desperate for one more second.

6:16 Speaker 1: By the time I rounded the corner, it was gone,

6:19 Speaker 1: vanished into the canopy of trees, or simply blinked out.

6:23 Speaker 1: I stood there, chest heaving, scanning that empty sky for minutes,

6:29 Speaker 1: but those minutes felt like hours. It never came back,

6:32 Speaker 1: but it also never left me. I bolted inside, out

6:36 Speaker 1: of breath, words tumbling over each other. Mom calmed me,

6:40 Speaker 1: looked me dead in the eyes, and said the words

6:43 Speaker 1: that rewired my entire life. Tyler, what you saw was special.

6:48 Speaker 1: Not many get to see what you just did. She

6:52 Speaker 1: didn't dismiss it, but she also didn't force it into

6:54 Speaker 1: a box. She told me her truth. She said, you

6:58 Speaker 1: saw a UFO identified buying object, and humanity didn't have

7:04 Speaker 1: all the answers, and we barely had any when it

7:06 Speaker 1: came to the universe. I was ten or eleven, but

7:09 Speaker 1: young enough to believe her with our argument. I just asked,

7:12 Speaker 1: will you teach me? She smiled and said, let's do

7:16 Speaker 1: one better. We're gonna go to the library. You're getting books.

7:20 Speaker 1: That was the pivot, the day curiosity cracked me open,

7:24 Speaker 1: the day the world stopped being black and white and

7:27 Speaker 1: started living in the gray. And I've never left girls,

7:31 Speaker 1: friends life. Yeah, they did take the front seat as

7:35 Speaker 1: I grew up, but in the back of my mind,

7:38 Speaker 1: that silver dish never stopped hovering. I got back into

7:42 Speaker 1: it hard as an adult, at least by the state's definition, eighteen,

7:47 Speaker 1: devouring documentaries, books, every scrap of information I could find.

7:52 Speaker 1: But the stigma was still thick. You didn't talk about

7:55 Speaker 1: it out loud in real life. You whispered it at

8:00 Speaker 1: parties while passing the joint, staring up at the stars,

8:04 Speaker 1: hoping for one more glimpse. Mine didn't come for years,

8:07 Speaker 1: not until the worst day of my life twenty twenty.

8:14 Speaker 1: I was one year sober, one year clean after alcohol

8:19 Speaker 1: had owned me, and then pills and whatever else helped

8:23 Speaker 1: numb the anxiety and depression. I'd been drinking to function,

8:26 Speaker 1: not to feel good, and the shakes were real. The

8:29 Speaker 1: people around me were poison. Then the phone rang. My

8:33 Speaker 1: brother never called texts only I knew something was wrong

8:36 Speaker 1: before I had even answered the phone. And then I

8:39 Speaker 1: heard the words that I hope you'll never have to hear.

8:42 Speaker 1: He said, Mom was just diagnosed with late stage breast cancer.

8:47 Speaker 1: The world stopped. Every second stretched like the afternoon on

8:51 Speaker 1: the roof. I hung up and stared at the wall

8:53 Speaker 1: for ten minutes, maybe floridy, I'm not sure. A friend

8:57 Speaker 1: snapped me out of it because we had to record

8:59 Speaker 1: an episode, actually, our first episode of the Pop Culture Corner.

9:04 Speaker 1: What was weird was I said nothing. I shoved it

9:07 Speaker 1: down deep, the way I'd always done. You can still

9:10 Speaker 1: watch that episode. Actually, my eyes tell the whole story,

9:13 Speaker 1: even if my mouth never did. Thirteen months earlier, thirteen

9:17 Speaker 1: months later, April third, twenty twenty one, the day before Easter,

9:22 Speaker 1: I was in the middle of an interview with Owen Gleiberman,

9:25 Speaker 1: chief film critic of Variety. I'd spoken to Mom days earlier,

9:30 Speaker 1: promised i'd be by her side twenty four seven and

9:33 Speaker 1: just two hours for this one interview I needed now

9:37 Speaker 1: taking a mine and into consideration that they told us

9:41 Speaker 1: weeks not days. I was wrong, and if I could

9:46 Speaker 1: go back, I would have never left her side. But

9:51 Speaker 1: my phone started buzzing during the show. My sister first

9:56 Speaker 1: call Politico. She'd been calling a lot for miss calls

10:01 Speaker 1: in a row. Later, that's what I knew. I ended

10:04 Speaker 1: the interview mid sentence, told my co host keep rowing

10:08 Speaker 1: and ran. Those episodes still exist. I can't bring myself

10:13 Speaker 1: to delete them. For some reason. I see my own

10:17 Speaker 1: face in them, and I want to scream. When I

10:20 Speaker 1: spoke to my sister finally, I had told her that

10:24 Speaker 1: I was already waiting on the uber. When the uber

10:27 Speaker 1: got there, I begged the driver like my life depended

10:32 Speaker 1: on it. Logan, my service dog, my best friend was

10:36 Speaker 1: in the back with me. I was praying out loud

10:39 Speaker 1: the whole ride, you know, please wait, Mom, please, but

10:44 Speaker 1: if you have to go, I understand, but please please,

10:50 Speaker 1: if you can wait for me. A twenty eight minute

10:55 Speaker 1: ride and that driver turned it into seventeen wherever he

11:01 Speaker 1: is out there, Thank you so much. You're a legend,

11:05 Speaker 1: and I still owe you. I burst through the door

11:09 Speaker 1: at my parents' house. Hospice nurses said it could be

11:12 Speaker 1: ours or minutes. They'd lower her pain meds so we

11:16 Speaker 1: could each have one last moment while she was still

11:19 Speaker 1: loose it. One by one, my siblings went in. Then

11:24 Speaker 1: it was my turn. The room felt like a hospital

11:29 Speaker 1: hospital bed in the middle of the room. Logan, my pop,

11:34 Speaker 1: the dog, who had jumped into that bed with her

11:36 Speaker 1: for weeks at her own request, did something different that day.

11:41 Speaker 1: He laid down parallel to the bed, as close as

11:45 Speaker 1: he could get without being in the way, like he knew,

11:49 Speaker 1: he always knew. I sat down. I took her hand,

11:54 Speaker 1: and she was warmer than I expected. Her eyes opened

11:58 Speaker 1: and she spoke softfully words just for us, and she

12:03 Speaker 1: asked for a Logan. I lifted him into the chair

12:08 Speaker 1: beside me. He sat there, staring at her with those

12:12 Speaker 1: eyes on carried to my grave. The nurse came back.

12:17 Speaker 1: The time was up. There had to raise the meds again.

12:22 Speaker 1: She started slipping back. I stayed right there, holding her hand,

12:28 Speaker 1: and then it happened. I was looking at her face

12:31 Speaker 1: when my pocket started to buzz, and I glanced down

12:35 Speaker 1: for what could have only been in micro second, maybe less.

12:40 Speaker 1: When I looked back up, a ball of pure light

12:44 Speaker 1: streaked across my vision and hooked a sharp left and

12:48 Speaker 1: vanished straight out the window. And when I looked back

12:51 Speaker 1: at my mother, she was gone. Now I don't know

12:55 Speaker 1: if it was real. I don't know if it was grief,

12:58 Speaker 1: a fever dream, or the most beautiful goodbye ever given.

13:03 Speaker 1: But in that exact moment, total disclosure was born. She

13:08 Speaker 1: was the common thread in both of my experiences or sightings,

13:12 Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, the one that opened

13:15 Speaker 1: my eyes as a boy, and the one that closed

13:18 Speaker 1: hers as she left this world. And I couldn't help

13:21 Speaker 1: but feel like it was her final nudge, this is

13:25 Speaker 1: your path, walk it. I was sober, but I had

13:30 Speaker 1: no purpose. Now I did every interview, every conversation, every

13:37 Speaker 1: stage I've stood on, every time I've walked her memory

13:43 Speaker 1: into the halls of Congress. It's not just for me,

13:46 Speaker 1: It's for her. All of it. The show, the mission,

13:50 Speaker 1: the fight for answers, the refusal to live in the

13:53 Speaker 1: black and white when the truth is gray and beautiful

13:56 Speaker 1: and terrifying. I haven't stopped, sir, I never will, not

14:01 Speaker 1: until I see her again, somewhere out there. I hope

14:05 Speaker 1: she knows and I do that. Everything I've built i've

14:09 Speaker 1: built for you. Mom. Thank you for the disc in

14:12 Speaker 1: the sky, thank you for the books, thank you for

14:15 Speaker 1: believing in me, and most importantly, thank you for the

14:19 Speaker 1: light that showed me the way home. The reason I

14:22 Speaker 1: wanted to tell this story is because I thought it

14:24 Speaker 1: was important for once for all to tell it start

14:28 Speaker 1: to finish. It's, of course a sad one in some ways,

14:33 Speaker 1: but it also is a happy one one that's filled

14:37 Speaker 1: with mystery, and maybe that will help some people understand

14:41 Speaker 1: why I choose to do what I do, why I

14:43 Speaker 1: interview a certain way. I'm looking, I'm searching, and I

14:48 Speaker 1: represent you because I am you. I want to know

14:52 Speaker 1: just as bad. I've seen things that I can't explain,

14:55 Speaker 1: and I don't try to. I saw a disc and

14:59 Speaker 1: a ball, but it's led me down a path that

15:03 Speaker 1: I can't I just can't even fathom. I can't believe.

15:07 Speaker 1: Some days I forget, I think we all do. How

15:10 Speaker 1: beautiful this world truly is, heaven hell, all of it?

15:16 Speaker 1: Does it matter? Right? Now we've got a paradise. Too

15:22 Speaker 1: many people spend their times looking ahead or over analyzing

15:27 Speaker 1: their past, and they forget all we have is the present.

15:31 Speaker 1: Stay humble, stay kind. We'll see you on the other side.

16:00 Speaker 1: Like that old and be nice.

16:09 Speaker 2: Shop me in his my head, Yeah, I thought it

16:12 Speaker 2: was gonna take you, you know, wear out, knocking you,

16:15 Speaker 2: riding with or something, just will wear money then more.

16:19 Speaker 1: W he's worked. I knocker. Oh him just laying the mouth.

16:24 Speaker 1: He sucks. He was face like a ship. He's trying

16:31 Speaker 1: to get away from you. Doesn't that tea you know

16:32 Speaker 1: or something? Buddy ouldn't have such an ugly playface. You

16:36 Speaker 1: guys have an ugly play face.

16:38 Speaker 2: I'm like Odin, I think I c a cry.

16:53 Speaker 1: Growers expect him