PIONEERTOWN, California - A place of intrinsic mystery and eternal wonder. If you ask the first natural born citizen of the town, Danny, he will tell you all about it - and some of what he says will be true. But you will need to earn his trust first, and the story takes time and can't be told over the course of your beer. It takes time in a celestial sense. And ultimately, you will need to look UP to understand.

In the desert of Pioneertown you are constantly reminded of just how young humanity is. You, and your tattooed arms and hipster clothes are in striking contrast to the ancient power and gravity of 1,000+ year old Joshua trees and the picturesque landscape of Mars-like rock formations that took millions of years to emerge. Everything reaches for the sky out here, and everything worships the stars.

So it's natural to place your back on the solid ground and look up to the sky to revel in the soft glow of the Milky Way Galaxy. And this is when it hits you. Immediately your mind shifts to a more simple time, a time when your ancestors lived by the light of day, and counted seasons rather than Instagram followers. Your awareness is flooded with BIG questions, and often you experience a moment of fear. A unique moment of identity cessation. You are quickly jolted by the physical realization of the vast expanse you stare upon. You are consumed by a scale and scope beyond the possibility of even a free imagination. Unable to capture or contain what you now know; because its nature sits beyond the learned consensus of what you've been told. Beyond the ability of even a free imagination to grasp. You now know you are a part of it. That you come from it. That you're made of it. That you are included. That you've always known in some part of what animates you, whether you acknowledge it or not. It's dizzying in a profound ontological sense. And you just can't shake it. And it's too late. And you don't really want to anyway.

Suddenly a flash of light in the distance, and the mountains glow green and bright like - like a blinding sun from another world - filling your eyes with an unfamiliar hue. It seems time becomes elastic, a split second stretches and becomes disfigured and unrecognizable, then a gentle hum, and an impossible design of luminous somethings surround you. Everything just stops. The background orchestra that offers unconscious solace - it ceases to sing your soundtrack. And it's the first time you notice how loud that deafening silence has drummed your marching orders - since the day you were born. Your reality has been perforated by the sharpness of an experience you can't explain. One that you can't even categorize. One you likely won't ever talk about - as you fail to find the words to contain it.

And so you let the moment go, and you try to forget all about it. You move on. But somehow, you know that you will never be the same again. That everything you knew was a shadow. A projection, celebrating a much larger truth.

And that larger truth has a name - or rather, it refuses one. We call it The Phenomenon.

The UFO enigma is similar to an experience like this. It's fundamentally elusive, yet transforming. By its very nature, it's similar to the paradox of a sentient being who tries to study its own consciousness. It too remains trapped in a liminal state. It's persistent and present, but only when you are looking at it. And when you look, it's also looking at you. It's like staring into a mirror and expecting to see your image move before you do. You wonder if it's performing for you, like you perform the duty of identity to anybody that looks. Sometimes it feels like total insanity.

I'm not supposed to be "a prominent voice in the world of UAP studies". In fact, I'm not even supposed to be here. But here I am. And so are you.

The Road to The Phenomenon

I was a Jiu-Jitsu student and Sensei for the majority of my life. I began training martial athletics path since the age of nine, and I never thought I would do anything else in my life. But that all changed when I contracted Valley Fever and suffered a series of fevers and illnesses that took me down a different road.

I had a brief stint [in cosmic time] as a mixed-media artist that still clings to my animus like a nickname gifted by those who love you. You accept it, but it might not feel quite representative of who you have become. I was uncomfortable in my own skin for many years. I have not arrived at this conversation yet, but I would guess old-timers [like Danny], would suggest I was still finding myself.

And then my new life crept up on me like a flash flood in the Pioneertown wash. Somehow I became the subject of a documentary film on my work as an artist. As I gazed into the unflinching eye of the lens and confessed my deepest hopes, dreams and fears… I quickly realized the power of an unjudging observer. Faster than the Roadrunner escaping Wile E. Coyote I was off filming the greatest mysteries life had not answered for me. The bigger the mystery, the deeper I thrust my camera into the abyss of the human experience. I was seeking satisfaction from the mundane ideas threatening to subjugate and program my mind into submission. And faster than a Snapchat, my entire existence, identity, path and persona had been erased. And I just had to accept it.

I didn't choose the fight. The fight chose me. And once it had me, it never let go.

It had become my self-proclaimed job to debunk the frauds, and amplify the voices of those who truly sought answers to the questions that picked at their very existence like a scab that would not heal. Within twelve years [which is nothing in the world of Danny], I was able to achieve a number of notable things in the wild wild-west of UFOlogy.

I was extremely fortunate early on to find a mentor [and a comrade in arms] within my new chosen field of Investigative Journalism. George Knapp [Peabody Award Winning Journalist with 28+ Emmys for Excellence in Journalism] took me under his wing and continues to teach me the methods, ethics, pitfalls and tactics of powerful and righteous reporting. I'm grateful for his guidance in such a fascinating labyrinthine and mine-riddled area of investigation. In a sea of conspiracy, proper navigation is the only way to explore new horizons and not lose sight of the shore.

Bob Lazar and the Netflix Moment

I met and filmed with a childhood hero, the first true UFO whistleblower, Bob Lazar. In a surreal moment of readiness and destiny, he gave me an extremely rare interview for my film that was so compelling… it became a Netflix film of its own. I believe the only footage more rare would be the 42 seconds of footage captured in 1933 of the last Tasmanian Tiger in captivity before the total extinction of the species. For those explorers who don't know the story of Bob Lazar, In 1989 Lazar revealed to the public the fact that he had been hired by the United States military to reverse-engineer Alien Spacecraft from another world at a secret base called SITE 4 (near the infamous Area 51). Thus, the Area 51 craze began. My movie, that I never intended to make, became a pop-culture explosion that nearly got a military base stormed, and forever transformed the modern agreement that "something's up with UFOs".

I started to be known as a sort of repository for Cosmic Confessions.

As I treaded water with one foot firmly anchored to the shore of sanity, I was invited to document an extraordinarily talented and government-funded NanoTechnologist. A scientist, who I call Nano Man, exploring the fundamental flaws of accepted Newtonian Physics by building experimental propulsion devices that siphon power from fields and dimensions yet to be explored by humankind.

I've been given access to military bases, Naval academies, laboratories run by NASA employees willing to look at the reality of anomalous off-world metamaterials, sampled from UFO landing sites.

I have become known as a journalist that "obtains and releases" military filmed and Pentagon confirmed UFO footage to the public. Footage that seems to have altered the landscape for our debate about these defiant unknowns that traverse our restricted airspace with impunity, globally. Machines, of unknown origin that outpace, outmaneuver and outperform our greatest weapons or aerospace platforms built by humanity.

It's safe to say, "We ain't in Pioneertown no more Toto." Or as my Mom will tell you, "Jeremy… his dick's in the peanut-butter. He's fucking nuts." Which I would think was funny, but gets less so every time my friends repeat it to me.

Yet, to be underestimated is one of my greatest weapons.

What I can say for sure is that my curiosity has been weaponized - and if yours hasn't yet - you just haven't been paying attention to the modern and emerging UFO narrative.

But yet I refrain from drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. I refuse to accept more than one healthy serving of the bizarre at any given time. I keep my balance as I leaned to do in my Martial Arts days. Clarity is king, and I'm in this for the long haul. I'm here to fight on your behalf, fueled by a personal and irrational sense of duty to harness and expose the truth of it all. Whatever that truth may be, and no matter how uncomfortable or destructive or constructive, it may become.

Slowly but surely my friends and family [and even my Jiu-Jitsu students] have been won over by the sheer mystery of it all. And there IS a mystery here. But I'm not going to try and convince you of anything. It's up to you to ask the right questions. It's kinda like our pal Danny from Pioneertown will tell you, "If you don't know what to ask, silence might allow you to hear a little better." Or at least I believe that's what he's thinking when he doesn't answer me.

So as you might be able to tell, Investigative Journalism and the UFO subject chose me. I certainly did not choose it. My camera became my passport into the extraordinary lives of excessively private people. People burdened by questions, and massive paradigm corroding secrets. And secrets have an unusual way eating at your soul if you don't let them bleed out from time-to-time. So people do.

What The Evidence Demands

My personal allure to the subject matter is due to the fact that The Phenomenon is one of the most intriguing mysteries of our time. With a cursory look into the history of the UFO experience, you will find that millions of trained observers since the beginning of recorded human history, have been experiencing contact with non-human intelligences globally. That it has been documented, both militarily and in our shared and diverse cultural records. It sounds extraordinary, and that's because it is.

But being extraordinary does not make it any less true.

So here it is - no filters, no hedging, no more dancing around the campfire. This is what the evidence, the sources, and the footage have forced me to confront.

Let's get to the point of this story, as you can consider this article your gateway drug into UAP studies. On the deepest level, I don't know what we're dealing with. The visitors could be Extraterrestrials, they could be Extradimensionals or even Extratemporals or Technoterrestrials. What I DO know is that there are non-human intelligences engaging humanity, and even influencing the course of human history. There is contact. Has been for a long time. And the intent is not passive, it's got purpose. I know that there is a very real and physical reality to The Phenomenon. That there are hard physical craft [discs, cylinders, spheres, cubes, pyramids, triangles, trapezoids, and stranger], UFOs traversing our airspace at all times. The US Military [and most global powers] know, and have been aware of the UFO reality for quite some time. They take the matter seriously, they consider it classified higher than weapons of mass destruction, and they study it secretly, continually and currently. And that our government, or a sub-group within our government, has been actively attempting to reverse-engineer UFOs originating from off-world and built by non-humans, for decades. And that they will use any means at their disposal to keep that secret from you. If you think about it, any nation would kill to have propulsion technology with capabilities displayed by many of these UFO craft. And sadly, I've seen that happen. But don't take my word for it, investigate it for yourself. We've now had congressional hearings on just that - and it appears the world is beginning to wonder just what exactly has been the lie that was crafted to stop us from asking the right questions.

I've been fortunate enough to be in touch with sources of high military status, who have held positions that gave them access to some of the most exotic black-budget programs on the planet. I've been a trusted documentarian and confidant for them. I've been hauled into SCIFs (secret, compartmentalized information facilities) in Washington DC and reprimanded for what constitutional legal scholars and my federal lawyer feel, is simply practicing my first amendment right as a journalist. Spooks spiders with industry ties, I pulled out their Felix The Cat's magical bag, and tried every trick in their trade to test me. But I'm still here, and the truth remains, and there's no going back. Not for me.

They are here. Who THEY are, and what they want… those are the big questions. And for those, I have only theories. But consensus reality must begin to catch up to actual reality - or we will remain in Plato's cave without attempting to understand who WE are.

Think about it this way, it only takes one sighting or encounter for The Phenomenon to be real. After all the cases throughout human history - after all the witnesses who have been vetted - you can say that the evidence becomes weighty for a reality much more complex than at first glance. In fact, I have found that the people who reject the notion of visitation are usually simply uninformed - not closed minded. More often than not, they simply have not looked at the available evidence. It's sad actually… you can't simply ignore evidence [radar reports, multiple witness encounters, landing cases, crash retrievals, cosmic whistleblowers and government insiders coming forward under oath to testify and corroborative visual evidence filmed by our military]. As a reporter, this makes you negligent and a vehicle for ignorance. It's simply unscientific to cherry-pick facts or deny evidence such as what I have listed. We need to look at ALL the evidence, and not just mold information to fit our preconceived notions of how we want our Universe to be.

People might not know the details of the UFO issue, simply because they have not been exposed to the information. Usually it takes a personal experience before we begin to care about these bigger questions associated with visitation. It's a lack of imagination really… and that's a problem. It's easier to label someone or some idea as "crazy", than to look at the reality of the situation. Don't get me wrong, there's a HUGE signal to noise problem when studying the UFO problem. And mostly it's self-generated. But if we can get away without polarizing or politicizing the issue, we might be able to unite towards the common goal of truth and knowledge.

The Universe Speaks in Numbers

It's imperative to alter the dialogue and to mesh the data with our current understanding of the nature of reality. Mathematically speaking the Universe is teeming with intelligent and technologically advanced space-faring civilizations, far beyond what humans have achieved on Earth. Within the last 20 years we have been able to identify that the Universe is homogeneous with life-nurturing elements and environments, and have conclusively discovered thousands of confirmed exoplanets, with estimates in the billions for potentially habitable worlds in the Milky Way.

We have also realized that the Universe is MUCH more populated with stars and planets than we ever imagined. So where does that leave us? It thrusts us towards an uncomfortable humility. It forces us to the realization that... we are NOT alone. This answers a question humans have grappled with since we began looking up into the skies of Pioneertown, and started wondering what we were seeing.

Ultimately the UFO phenomenon is either REAL or FICTITIOUS. And once you actually look into it with a sober-minded and empirical approach, the answer becomes as clear as a green flash.

The Craft of Protecting the Truth

After what I have experienced, I no longer have the luxury of disbelief.

As I move forward I continue to earn the trust of my subjects, repeatedly, consistently and over time. I have never revealed a source who wanted anonymity, and I have never betrayed the trust of a subject. I have bobbed and weaved and dived and dodged, every attempt by our intelligence agencies to control or obtain ownership of my words and reporting. I have invoked and emanated a combination of styles of maneuvering that includes the nimble adaptability of Muhammad Ali, combined with the raw savage power of the great Mike Tyson… all to maintain my journalistic sovereignty. I seek stories and follow leads, but now it's a two-way street. People come to me. Access is always equated with confidence. The more confidence a source has in you to handle or contain their story or confession, the more access you will receive. Simple as that.

Keeping secrets in this business is just as important as exposing them.

My approach is to separate the wheat from the chaff very early on. I only take on cases that I can verify some element of reliable factual truth from the onset. And then once I get my fangs into something, I don't let go till I've uncovered the truth. I take it all the way. I go in deep and immerse myself. And it usually takes years. My promise to people I speak with, is that if I find out they're lying, I will expose them. If I can prove or document compelling evidence in support of their story, I will amplify the case to the public, and help expose the truth.

My work is like a modern day Twilight Zone, except some of the stories, the ones I report on, they are absolutely real. They happened. Myth, illusion, and scientific fact merge into one, and create a unique portrait of reality. I want the questions I ask in my films, the experiences I have on camera, to translate into getting you so disturbed that you become an active participant... not just an observer. I want to agitate you. To irritate you. To motivate you. And ultimately, to weaponize you.

The way I see it is that our brains are like old-world radio receivers. And if you spend time fine-tuning your awareness, it's astounding what you can experience - that has always been there.

If I do my job right, we will all learn more about the extraordinary nature of reality. If we allow each other the room to be open and to construct our own architecture of understanding, our revelatory experiences may become a more permanent facet of our character. So I encourage you to "Investigate the unexplained, rather than explain the un-investigated." [as George Knapp often says.]

Ultimately my films and journalism is a testament to the power of curiosity, and a blueprint of how to weaponize it.

Look Up, and Keep Looking

Back in Pioneertown [sitting with Danny over beers on the wall at Pappy's], I began to notice that for weeks, two planets have been dancing in our sky. Each night they have been getting closer and closer to one another, in a ballet that makes you feel as if they're going to collide. But tonight, finally, Jupiter and Venus appear to stand side-by-side like a luminous pair of watchful eyes. One brighter than the other, the duo resembles a mischievous wink. Like a cosmic trickster tipping his hat, as if he acknowledges your wonder like a cosmic Cheshire Cat.

And in that wink, Pioneertown reminds us: the greatest mysteries don't end. They only begin when you finally look up - and keep looking.

*by Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell / **@JeremyCorbell **on social / *WeaponizedPodcast.com