Latest / Caught on the Mike... / Steve Berg- Actor, Comedian, Host of “Hi, Strangeness”

Transcript

Steve Berg- Actor, Comedian, Host of “Hi, Strangeness” · Caught on the Mike...

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Once again, we are in the month of October, and you know I like talking about the weird, or should I say, strange.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: My next guest is an actor and the comedian and hosts his own podcast called I Drain Fit.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Nothing more shooting for the month of October.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Big Bird joins me on the show today.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Coincidentally enough, he's also a fellow Nebraskan to re talk about some localized weirdness or strangeness and have a lot of fun in doing so.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mic.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, it is the first day of October, and there is no better guest for my favorite month of the year.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, October.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: It is the best month.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: You know how obsessed I am about Halloween.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: I will talk about Halloween in the middle of March.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: So I turn my attention to the strange.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And who better than the host of High Strangeness, Mr.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Steve Berg?
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Steve is also a resident of the great state of Nebraska.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know that until after we uh had exchanged a few messages back and forth.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Steve, how the hell are you?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, man.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, hey, nice to be here.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I am.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm uh, you know, originally from Omaha, and then I live in LA for like a little over 20 years, maybe 21, I can't remember.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And then during the pandemic, like I uh moved back here because my parents are old and I felt bad about like them being alone.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, it's great.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: I love being back in Omaha, it's super fun.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: So you describe yourself as a high strangeness enthusiast, UFOs, paranormal, weird belief systems, the unknown and the unexplained, but you're also a stand-up comic and an actor.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: You've been in such movies as Don't Worry Darling, Tag, Skinwalker Ranch, and the recently released Snack Shack.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: How do you find time for all of this stuff, man?
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh honestly, I mean I started uh doing a lot of this stuff, uh, like my podcast and speaking about the high strangeness during the actor strike, which was last year, and so there was a whole year where I was not even allowed to work.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, I'm gonna go bananas if I don't do anything.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: So let me just like start a podcast and talk about the things that I love, which is a lot of weird stuff.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: And uh I have found that I love it like as more or as much or more than acting, to be honest.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's nice to be in control because basically, you know, when you're an actor, you're just like a gun for hire.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Here's your line, stand here, do it this way.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's I mean, like it's uh you know, it's it's a job, it's great.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: I love it, but um doing the podcast is so nice because I have full control, can do whatever I want.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know what I mean.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: It's it's funny because uh I think that's a commonality you and I share.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I spent 20 years trying to, hey, I'm holding up the air quotes, make it in the music business, but it was never as rewarding as this whole podcasting experience has been.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like I you know, uh, I just recently had Brian Austin Green on, and we were talking about how as performers we have a natural sense of narcissism, but as we get older, instead of talking about ourselves so much, we like to take in other people's stories and other people's experiences, and it helps us learn more about ourselves.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's something that I absolutely love about podcasting.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would agree.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: I think, I mean, I would I would just put a kit the caveat in there that like you hope that people stop talking about themselves and look and like start to shed the narcissism because there's a lot of people who are uh massive narcissists at my age and older.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: But the you know, the the people who are pleasant to be around are people who are good at listeners, you know.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: Like I like to think of myself as a good listener, and if I have any skill in podcasting or even acting or comedy, it's like listening.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: It's like what they teach you in comedy when you're doing improv and sketch is like listen.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: For the first year, it's like you're learning to listen to the information and to respond appropriately to it.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, a lot of kind of actors like they get so nervous they just went like, uh, I'm just waiting for my lines so I can say my lines, and they're not listening, and you can just see, you know, it's it's all over the place.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So I think listening is a super important skill, one I'm always trying to get better at.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: And uh I I really love the art of listening.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And I and the art of podcasting, you know, bringing it full circle.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: So, speaking of podcasts and your current podcast, High Strangeness, let's talk a little bit about your origin story a little bit.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: As you said, you'd spent 20 plus years in LA, I'm assuming, trying to do the acting thing.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the writer strike came up and you started your podcast.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: How did you land on this topically?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: And let's talk about your origin story and what got you into all of this.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it's not like the most remarkable story.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: It's like I didn't have an experience.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: Like I know a lot of people are like, well, I had like my house was haunted, or I had like a dramatic UFO setting.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Not for me, unfortunately.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: I uh, you know, my mom tells this story to me, like when I was five years old, she was a school teacher, so she was a big reading advocate.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: And she took me to get my library card, a Swanson Library in Omaha, and uh, you know, on 90th and uh Dodge.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: And um, she like said, I came back with a book about UFOs and a book about like doing sleight of hand magic.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And so to be honest, I don't remember a time being alive where I wasn't super invested and interested in this stuff.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: It kind of made me a voracious reader, and my mom was really nice.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: She's like, look, if he's reading, I'll buy him this book about alien abductions, even though maybe it's I should have, you know, like my poor mom.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: I was that kid who was like, you know, 10 years old in the bookstore with my mom, going to the occult book section, probably making her look like a bad parent.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, she didn't care, she just wanted me to read.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And I I kind of uh I I'm I'm grateful for that because I do think it's like, you know, let your kids find their own way as long as it's not harmful.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: But that was kind of my story, and then I, you know, I like in terms of getting into it, but then I, you know, in high school, I started going to Lincoln and like going to UFO conferences, like anywhere I could in the Midwest.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: And I just carried that along, you know, all the way to college to LA.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think since I started, you know, before I started doing my podcast, I was a pretty like lonely guy in this stuff.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: I didn't really like none of my friends were into it.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: My wife's not like really into it.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: So it's just kind of something I'd read about and then just sit there with my thoughts about these really strange topics.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of the genesis of me wanting to do a podcast.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm dying to talk about to all these people I've always wanted to talk to.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: So it was just kind of my entree to be able to talk to authors, researchers, investigators, experiencers, and and even like I I I still I talk a lot about outsider art and counterculture because I for me it all feels inextricably linked.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm not like a one I'm an all-purpose weirdo, I guess.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: So I like anything, I like things in the margins and things that are like out of the mainstream.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: It just it pleases me, it makes me happy.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: It's a great thing that you just brought up the word mainstream because I feel, and maybe it's just my height heightened sense sensitivity to it all, because I've since podcasting been kind of running in those circles as we were talking about before we pressed record.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: But it does feel like there's a lot more cultural acceptance to things that were typically believed to be on the fringe before.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that is?
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh look, I would want to say obviously that 2017 article about you know the New York Times came out, which I mean, you know, my opinion on that is it's all total, utter garbage.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a big disclosurist.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't think uh disclosure is a thing that's gonna happen in our lifetime.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't think uh UFOs are a knowable thing, to be honest.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: But um I also think, and this I'm not trying to sound cynical or negative, but I you can look in history going back.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: I I I love to study like these these movements in the occult and like these unknown topics.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Whenever there has been a lot of turmoil or like a plague, spiritualism and the occult, there is a huge uptick.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I'm not trying to I I will not you know mention names or get too political, but like, you know, in the last ten years the world is is going through more challenges than ever.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: There's been pandemics, uh political strife, wars, and climate change, and all this stuff.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: And the more I see this kind of like and I'm not saying the world is dystopian, but there's a view, there's a dystopic view for that some people have, right?
9:39
SPEAKER_01: But I think gravitating towards another is a natural thing.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: Because it you you've we've seen it throughout history, truly.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I I would say that's the like the obvious reason, but also social media.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: I think people are fighting communities and like kind of like even like a guy, you know, a person like myself who was very lonely in these kind of paranormal high streets topics.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, with social media and podcasting, now I have a community and people I talk to, like you know, before the show we have like mutual people we know, so they don't live close to Nebraska, so I would never know them, you know.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's kind of a multitude of reasons, but yeah, there is definitely an uptick, I think.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And I like your take on that.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: It's very similar to our mutual friend Rob Christofferson's take on it, where he takes more of a, I want to say, a historical and scientific like look and approach to UFO and alien phenomenon and and kind of deconstructs it from there, which I I greatly appreciate.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: So how does all of this and the practicality of it all affect your personal belief system?
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have no belief, I absolutely zero belief system in all this stuff.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Like I I feel like there's something to the UFO phenomenon, but like I don't like believe they're aliens from another planet, or I don't believe they're interdimensional, or I don't believe they're crypto terrestrials.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, no one knows.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: So I I have a hard time with belief and like with you know, I'm not a big faith guy, so like taking something with the absence of evidence is a little tricky for me.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: So I just I I I will say, like, when in terms of like the paranormal and the UFOs, I think there's something to it.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: I think no one has any clue what it is, though.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I agree with you.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you, and that's that's something that's commonly come up on the show.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: It's it's just like you know, you you summed it up really well when you said you didn't want to touch the the politics or the sociology of it because the last thing you want to do is infringe upon somebody's personal belief system or personal space.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Totally, you know, if somebody wants to believe this, and then then it's real to them, right?
11:51
SPEAKER_00: But I I am the same exact way in the sense that I believe in the possibility, I dwell in possibility.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: That that that see that resonates with me.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: I think I think that's the honest way to be because you will, when you, you know, you uh traverse these spaces, you know, for enough years, you will run across many people who are like, well, this is what it is, and then here's how I know.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And like, I'm like, they don't, you don't know, like you know, no one knows.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And like even like you know, Bigfoot, for example, like I think there's a possibility that there is something to it.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't really find it plausible that it's a flesh and blood creature, but I almost think it could be this mythological thing, like a hyperstition, where it's an old story or piece of mythology that somehow, through some kind of like, I don't know, magic or paranormal thing, it can manifest and people actually can witness this stuff.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Because even in Nebraska where we live, there's a lot of Bigfoot settings.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't say a lot, there are quite a few, especially in eastern Nebraska, still to this day.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna touch on that exactly because it does feel that since I've been kind of dipping my toes into this space and being in Nebraskan, there is a lot of weirdness and weird activity in our state in general, and kind of neighbor nearest neighbor states like Iowa and such, when you take into account the Veleska Axe Murder House, Melv, Malvern Manor.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And um, I guess, you know, uh I was just recently uh working security at a Rob Zombie concert, and Rob said something over the PA before one of his songs about UFO sightings in Lincoln, Nebraska being one of the largest hotspots in the United States.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I never knew that before.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure where he's getting that information.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, but you know, I love it.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it we made a great for a great segue to his next song.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, I mean it's it's crazy.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, but I I mean, you know, I guess I would say like there have been like, you know, quite a few uh UFO settings and dramatic ones, you know, since the 1940s.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And even like going I have some cases that are like from the 1920s before UFOs even had a name, you know.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: That one like one, you know, there was a group of kids outside of Lincoln in Ord, Nebraska.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: I think Ord Nebraska's outside of Lincoln, isn't it?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Tiny little town.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: But there is this dramatic sighting that I love, and I found from a newspaper from 1903 where a bunch of kids see this white ball come down, and then they see a being inside the white ball, and they just called it a moon lady.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: But they didn't have the term UFO back then.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: So if three kids saw that in 2024, they'd be like, oh, it's a UFO, it's aliens from another planet.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: So our cult where we are culturally and sociologically, and what our current technology and our current mythology is, this phenomenon seems to emulate that.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: It's you know, throughout time.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Like in, you know, it's like, why don't we see you flying saucers anymore?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Now we see, you know, balls of light, flying triangles, tic-tacks, if you believe that's uh I was just gonna say, you know what I'm saying?
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: So, what are some of the strangest occurrences that you've heard about in our area?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's share some share some storytelling with everybody.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: My main focus, I try to focus on eastern Nebraska, all the way from the tippy top to the bottom.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Simply because, one, I can drive there, you know, and get there so I can actually go to the site and check it out and feel the magic of place.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And two, that is just the most sightings of all this stuff.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Ghosts, UFOs, cryptids.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: It does seem to really be the hotspot seems to be from the top of Nebraska all the way to the bottom, right along the Missouri River.
15:32
unknown: Wow.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And so uh I'll just kind of start my way from the bottom.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: There's a place called Fall City, Nebraska, that in 1957, this guy by the pseudonym of Mr.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: Hanks was driving home uh with a you know car full of groceries to his family, and he sees like what looks like a large bird in the sky, and he's like, Well, that's that's a big old bird.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, he gets closer and he sees that this large bird is like flying kind of erratically and like dipping down, like losing altitude, and like wobbly, and then he's like, huh.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: So he kind of stops his car and like looks forward, and then he it flies over him, and he notices this thing is a nine-foot tall, nine-foot long, demonic-looking creature with piercing blue eyes, uh, you know, brown leathery skin, and it's got a shoulder harness on with wings that are like that look like a they have like a wings that look like they have a kind of like this grid meshing.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And then on its chest, it has like a computer.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is 1957, so computers weren't like a household name.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And it's like turning knobs and you know, dials and stuff like that.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: And so the guy, you know, Mr.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Hanks gets out of the car, he starts walking towards the thing, and now it's really low, and he's paralyzed.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Not by fear necessarily, but by some kind of power that this creature had.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, then the thing flies off, and this guy was so traumatized for the rest of his life that he ended up taking like a second job because he's like, sleep was the enemy, all he wanted to do was stay awake, and so I decided I'd just work a lot.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, like but it it's it I love it because it's so weird, it's such a weird, weird, weird story.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Simply because, like, you know, it's 1957, there's like a piece of technology involved.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: It looks like some kind of weird demonic creature, but it's usually when you hear about flying wing humanoid cases like the Mothman, it's organic wings that are part of the creature.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: This is a device the creature was wearing.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So I love that case.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: I think it's so fun.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: But uh when I moved back to Nebraska, there is a researcher who's been around for a while named Ray Boche.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: And Ray Boche is kind of like I would consider probably the keeper of the majority of high strange cases in Nebraska.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: And I was aware of Ray, I kind of had a little bit of a correspondence with him.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: So when I moved back here, I'm like, Ray, I have some time off.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: There's a pandemic, I want to, you know, do some boots in the ground research.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Well, outside of Nebraska City, there's this ghost town called Minersville.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, and he's like, Miners Minersville since the 1800s has had massive reports of lights over the Missouri River, large Black Panther type creatures, and Bigfoot, they call him the Booger of the Hills, like the old timers did.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And lo and behold, I start I'm uh I'm a big geek for like newspapers.com.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: And so I will spend a lot of time sifting through articles.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And my friend, I have found what we would now call Bigfoot sightings, they just called uh uh hairy wild man.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: They just didn't have the you know terminology back then.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, so I have found Bigfoot sightings from the 1890s, so many Black Panther stories, in one that was so dramatic that the mayor of Odo County, where Minersville was, hired a bunch of men with shotguns and torches to go kill the Black Panther because it was going by school houses, you know, killing livestock, and it became a real big problem.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh this place has had kind of these like inf these these certain points where the activity is really ramped up.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: So in the 1890s, clearly, from what I can tell in these newspaper articles, there was a lot of stuff going on.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Then in the 1960s, it really ramped up again.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And it also kind of coincided with uh the very famous, probably our famous, most famous UFO cases, the Herbert Shermer case, where the police officer was abducted in Ashland, Nebraska.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Ashland is not that far from Odo County at all.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: But when all the stuff was happening in like, you know, it so people would see were seeing lights over the Missouri River so often that they would drive to this one uh like block and street that was on a hill in Nebraska City, and people would gather with like picnic baskets, like you know, lemonade at night and watch the lights.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And they would see like barges going down the Missouri River, and the barges were like shining lights on these things, clearly aware of them, going like, what the hell is this?
19:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and there was also a nuclear power plant there too, and there is uh Ray one time FOIA's uh the government to get these some files about the area, and one was that there was a giant triangle craft over the nuclear power plant, and that was like I think in the early 2000s.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So stuff is still happening there, there's still reports coming out of this place, but it's so there's not many people around there, you know, it's it's not a very populated area, as you I'm sure you're aware, right?
20:28
SPEAKER_01: But it but it is this place that just has like a lot of the hallmarks of a window area or a hot spot area, and so I've really made that place.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: I've I've spent a lot of time learning about the history, so they named it Minersville because they found a vein of um coal, and they were having children mine it because it was a small mine.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're not known for caves or coal in Nebraska at all, right?
20:52
SPEAKER_01: But they found this along the Missouri River, and so the town was thriving for a little while, and they were using children to mostly mine it because they were small, and then the cave collapsed, and so there's like this tragedy where either they in terms of like I talked to historians and they say either 14 or 44 children died.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh so then you know, like, but like a lot of these places, there's tragedy involved in these kind of window areas, and so it does have all the hallmarks of like a point pleasant, it's right along the river, there's a nuclear power plant right there right there.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: There was a tragedy.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: They see lights, cryptids, black panthers.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in and then you know, if you even go a little further down, like in Brownville, Brownville's got two very famous haunted locations, and there's a cemetery called Pioneer Cemetery that's famously haunted.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: So this area, it's like from basically like Minersville, which is just five miles outside.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, have you heard of Seven Sisters Road?
21:45
SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of it.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's a famous road outside of Nebraska City, right?
21:49
SPEAKER_01: It's technically in Minersville, and that's there's a lot of lore about that road, and this whole area just seems charged with something weird.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh so that That that is I spent a lot of time reading about the history of this place because I feel like when you are researching a spot or an area or a place that's had a lot of stuff, you really need to know what was going on in the town.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: Like what do people believe in?
22:15
SPEAKER_01: What was their belief systems?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: What do they eat?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: What's the you know, where are they from?
22:19
SPEAKER_01: What kind of folklore did they bring with them from wherever they were from?
22:23
SPEAKER_01: So I I I I really look deep into that stuff.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: One, because I love it, and two, I think it tells a bigger story.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely it does.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, uh, just kind of off the record, but on the record here, I my wife is originally from Nimaha County, she's from Auburn.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna pull her aside and I'm gonna interrogate the hell out of her about all this shit.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Please do what have you heard about this stuff?
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, the thing is, like, if you just use Google, you are gonna find some things, of course.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: But when I first started really studying Nebraska, I was like, huh, you know, well, like I'm Googling stuff, but really, I guess Nebraska's not that weird.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: No, man.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: I had to like start.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: I I call, you know, historical societies.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: I have like multiple people who are from historical societies all over the state who now we're sharing stuff back and forth.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: I call libraries, you know, like I will call police departments, which is let me tell you, that it doesn't always go over very well when you're asking about a Bigfoot case and you're talking to a sheriff.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: He's like, What?
23:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: But I think you have to really dig in, like, you can't just rely on the internet to give you all the stories because you're not gonna find everything at all.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I mean, and you brought up a good point, like anything that's within an hour's drive of the Missouri River, you think about things that could correlate to different weird things.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, we talk about the Velisca Axe Murder House, the Malvern Manor, Ball Cemetery.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ball cemetery, sure.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: As far as tying in UFOs, you know, we have the strategic air command right there, the Air Force Base right there.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Which typically tend to be magnets for um type of UAP activity, if you will.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: So it's, I mean, there's a lot of things with within an hour distance of the Missouri River.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's I've never correlated that before until you brought that up.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's just interesting.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't like, you know, I didn't have this hypothesis.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, I need to make this fit my uh my plan.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: No, it's just it's really just what I found.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm being totally sincere.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, and I'm not the first like Nebraska researcher to discover this, like I'm sure.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: But if you really just focus, I I I'm a big fan of this uh writer and researcher named John Keel, who is no longer with us anymore.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I love his books and I loved his um kind of theories on what this stuff represents.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: But his whole thing was like, if you want to find the weird, take a small microcosm around where you live and absolutely exhaust every detail.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Look into the history, the oldest historical records, look into the folklore, look into the superstitions, look into the religion, you know, like and when I kind of took that that advice from John Keel, I thought it really has paid off.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: So uh since you've taken an interest and started investigating these things yourself and taking your uh belief structure or lack of uh into consideration, have you experienced anything personally in your time of researching all this that has maybe influenced your interest one step further or not?
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a great question.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Um well, you know, I did, I mean, this is weird.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: I had my first UFO setting, meaning that it was an unidentified flying object.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: It was not like a confirmation thing where it was, you know, right in front of me.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: It was probably kind of vague and boring to most people, but like I 12 people witnessed it.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: But the thing that was interesting, I was in Kentucky and I've I've been shooting this documentary series with uh uh my partner down there, and we were visiting this guy's house named Glenn Quiggins, and Glenn has had a lot of experiences.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And Kentucky is one of those places that is like just there's a lot there, you know, there's a lot of weird stuff there.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: And Glenn, you know, early in the afternoon we were shooting, we were shooting an interview with him, we went outside for a break.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, I'll tell you what, there is a UFO that as soon as it gets dark, usually around nine o'clock, that will appear right over there.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Oh, okay, yeah, sure, man.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, of course it will.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: Every night on demand.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: And so I really didn't pay attention to it.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know, I was being polite, but I was very skeptical of it.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, we're all inside eating spaghetti.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: His wife made us a beautiful spaghetti dinner, and one of the camera guys that said uh smoking a cigarette, and he straightens yelling, oh my god, everyone get out of here.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, we see this light exactly where he said it was gonna be.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: And it would like change colors and like move around erratically, and then sometimes it like had like weird like lines coming out of it.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what to make of it.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it was like you know, a non-human intelligence, but it was something weird and it was definitely identified, you know, like and it was up there kind of hovering and like moving around a little bit for over an hour.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I I don't think many commercial drones can hover for an hour that I know of.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: But um, but also he's been seeing it for five years.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Weird.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh, like on schedule.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: On schedule, yeah.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: And he and he's had it, according to him, fly close to his like really close to his house.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Has he ever reported it to government agencies or is he like avoiding that?
27:33
SPEAKER_00: So you know, it's a great question.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: I think he's I think he might have reported it to a local Kentucky like UFO group.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, like and that that is the thing, Mike.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, well, we can look at the data, you know, like MUFON or like the BFRO, which is the Bigfoot Research Organization, and people say, well, well, there's 14 uh Bigfoot cases, you know, in the BFRO.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: That's all Nebraska's ever had.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: And I and and that's just not true.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, right, you know, it's I think a very small percentage of people who have these kind of like profound confirmational experiences really don't report them.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: They may tell their friend or their spouse or whatever.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: But if I saw something and I've experienced some weird things, I'm not calling Mufon or Right, you know, I'm like, this is for me, it's personal.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell my friends or colleagues in this stuff, but like I have no interest in reporting it to someone else, you know.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: You don't want your integrity challenged to the point of being institutionalized.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, but like I think so.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: When people like look at these statistical uh databases, I think we're getting a very small piece of the story.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: I agree, I agree.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna interject with my own experience here, because I come from a very similar um background and belief system as you, or lack thereof, as I clarify once again.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: But um, as a kid, I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a number of years.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so New Mexico is also known, obviously, Roswell, everything.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Along those lines, New Mexico is known as being one of those big hot spots in the United States.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Big time.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, I was in I would say fourth or fifth grade, the fire alarm went off, and I went to this uh school that had army barracks as classrooms because the school was overpopulated, it was in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So they had us all come out, we're on the the basketball court, and they just the teachers pointed up to the sky, and they said it was a sundog phenomenon, but I've looked up sundogs since and I've never seen anything like this.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: There was like multiple suns in the sky, almost like numbers on a clock.
29:52
unknown: What?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And I've never seen anything like it.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: I've never seen any any pictures and books or anything like it.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: So I've always wondered if I hadn't experienced some sort of phenomenon or shared experience with everybody that I had gone to school with.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing on the news about it that day.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, my parents talking with them about it, they they remember it happening, but they don't remember any type of reporting or anything that went along with it.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Just the weirdest thing ever.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: So, and that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, there was all sorts of weird things that we would hear about or experience living in New Mexico when I was a child.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: That is incredible.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: It's too bad it wasn't like in Nebraska where you could like look up the other.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, you don't know any of the kids anymore.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, uh, yeah.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're how how old were you?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I it was like fourth or fifth grade.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: I lived there for like I I think I was there from like third grade to seventh grade.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: So we moved around a lot as kids.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: That is amazing, though.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, and it stayed with you.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it was very powerful.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, what did you think at the time?
30:58
SPEAKER_00: I at the what I thought at the time, I just kind of trusted, you know, the teachers that were saying, well, uh this is uh one of those rare phenomena called the sun dog, it's just the sun's reflection on the atmosphere, yada yada yada.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Right, but it looked like we had multiple suns in the sky.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: It was the weirdest thing ever.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Weirdest thing I've ever experienced, or at least one of them.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: That is that's a great story.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that with me.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm so jealous.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, gosh, you know, it isn't amazing.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Like it would be so interesting to talk to other students who saw it and just like what their recollection was, you know, like in you know, what they thought about it, or if they still think about it, like you know, right, and that that it's one of those things that I just I it was I don't want to call it a suppressed memory, but it's one of those things I've always carried with me through my whole life, but I've I never tried to like tie it to any type of abnormal phenomenon until recent years where I'm like, I wonder if I experienced something you know beyond the explainable, you know.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I mean you might have, and and and maybe it was this the sun dog phenomenon.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: I truly don't know much about it.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I know there's optical illusions that we can see, but that does seem pretty weird, buddy.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, in uh, you know, what little I have known about it or researched on it, if you will, um, that's typically something that only happens at like the North Pole, South Pole, like the extreme.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: So really weird stuff.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've never heard of anyone else seeing a sun dog.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh buddy, that is juicy.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the uh the the Bigfoot phenomenon in uh uh Nebraska a little bit because I know that's something that our mutual friend Brian Corey has been spending a lot of time focusing on.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, it sounds like there's been a lot of sightings in western Nebraska, and I'm guessing it's near the correlation of since it's so close to Colorado.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: What can you tell us about that?
33:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, um there are sightings I would not say a lot in Western Nebraska.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: The ones I have uh clippings from articles, and you know, like obviously, like I I don't know if any of these are genuine, but in terms of the stories, I have found eastern Nebraska has by far the most.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Um it is right along the Missouri River.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Like in fact, in fact, there was a recent sighting, gosh, like six months ago, in Blair, Nebraska.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right along the Missouri River, and it appeared uh police investigated three different reports in one night.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: One was like like I think like on a like a residential neighborhood, one was behind a Dollar General, which I went to the Dollar General and spoke with a witness, and she told me the story.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: I I could tell you that if you want to hear it, but um Yeah.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: So it was kind of odd.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: I was actually preparing for a uh lecture at the Nebraska Bigfoot Conference, right?
34:03
SPEAKER_01: And I went to go take some pictures in Oakland, Nebraska, because there's a really famous kind of um flap of Bigfoot settings that this town of Oakland, Nebraska.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: People were seeing Bigfoot this one summer, and at 19 oh god, I'm so bad with the ears.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: It was in the 70s, maybe 77.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to get some of the pictures of some of the places, you know, this graveyard in uh this one farmhouse.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: So I was taking photos of that, and then I get this this uh text, I can't say who it's from, but um saying, like, hey, there was a Bigfoot report in the Dollar General, and I'm like, well, weird.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: And they said in Blair, Nebraska.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, really?
34:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm literally going by there.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, how weird is that?
34:43
SPEAKER_01: What a synchronicity that I'm out taking pictures for a Bigfoot conference of Bigfoot spots, and I'm really close to Blair, Nebraska.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: So my colleague and I kind of, we like, well, dude, let's get let's go there now, you know?
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And so we drive there, and you know, I was kind of nervous.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I guess I'm just gonna bust up into this Dollar General and start, you know, causing trouble.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: So I go to uh I walk in there and um there's a lady stocking the shelf, and I go, Hi ma'am, you know, uh, my name's Steve Berg.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm a researcher writer from Nebraska, and uh I'm here inquiring about a rumor of a Bigfoot story.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: And she just kind of looked at me, and this one lady came out from behind uh the register and goes, I was the one who reported it.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, do you mind telling me the story?
35:25
SPEAKER_01: And she says she was locking up one night and she was with two other people who were there all locking up at the store like at 10, 10, 30.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: And every night she kind of walks out um to just pull on the front door just to make sure physically that it is locked, you know?
35:40
SPEAKER_01: And she said as she was doing it, she looked around the corner and there was like a nine-foot-tall, big foot-looking creature playing peekaboo with her, like around the side.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: I know, it's terrifying.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: And she was horrified, ran inside, they called the police, the police came, they cleared the area, and then according to uh according to a source I have, and I did follow up with the police, they just haven't gotten back to me yet.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: I think they're just ignoring me, probably.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: But supposedly there was two other sightings that same night, one by the train tracks down by the the river, and one in a residential neighborhood.
36:16
unknown: Oh wow.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: But this lady was really like shook up about it.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Like I, you know, it's one of those things where like I'll never know if she's being genuine, but I did get the feeling, and so did my colleague that she believed what she was saying to me.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Now, it could have been like, you know, a vagrant, you know, who had long hair and dreadlocks.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Sure, it definitely could have been.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: But she believes that she saw a bigfoot, and so you know, I I you know, none of us could determine whether it's uh legitimate or not, but the story is great.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: So it was it was super exciting to kind of be there after it freshly happened.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's uh a lot of emotional intelligence involved in trying to disseminate uh the legitimacy of stories.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Like I I think whenever we listen to people, other people's experiences, the goal is to not be an interrogator and present a sense of doubt, but to as we stated in the start of this episode with podcasting, is to be a good listener and listen to learn as opposed to listening to respond and gathering context, clues, and details.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: As somebody that podcasts in this space without judgment, like how do you disseminate um somebody speaking for the sake of hyperbole versus you know what they actually believe?
37:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh like how do I detect whether I like find them to be genuine or not?
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: What's your bullshit detector like?
37:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, gosh.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: And and like it's just go a lot of it's going with your gut.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: And like it, if sometimes I have gotten reports, because you know, since I do this podcast now, I do get people reaching out to me via like social media or they find my email through my podcast and they'll give me reports.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when they're like one like you know, just massive tome of like a story and there's no like punctuation, it seems like I'm not a you know a psychologist, but it seems almost like manic behavior where it's like and it gets a little crazy town, and then there's like you know, a lot of those I try to ignore, and because I mean I don't want to suggest that that they talk to a therapist because that's not my place to do it, but I'll say, well, thank you for sharing the story with me.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: And then there are stories that seem super grounded where the where the people are really even like doubting themselves, and they talk about how scared they are, and like for instance, there is this um bow hunter, and he's actually from outside of outside of Lincoln, I think lives in Waverley, maybe.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and a few years ago, he was a huge hunter, like he third generation hunter, and he that's really like keeping deer meat in his freezer was important to him.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And he was a bow hunter, and he was hunting at his usual spot in Douglas, Nebraska, which is outside of Palmyra.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: Douglas is like it's a village of like a hundred people, and so when you go out to this area, like your phone doesn't work, it is definitely about as isolated as you can get in this entire state.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: And he had a pretty dramatic Bigfoot encounter where he just saw like what he said looked like kind of like an ape creature behind a bush.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: And so then he got out of his car and started walking towards it, then it stood up and he flipped out.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I can't even describe the terror I felt.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I was looking at something that shouldn't have been there.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And then in this area, it's all all this he he's he hunts on this ground.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: It's actually a farmer's like property, so he has special permission to hunt this private property.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: And all around where he he's and he's had this experience twice, all around this area, there are these crazy tree structures where these giant logs are like crisscrossed up in a high oak tree.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what the hell?
40:12
SPEAKER_01: So either this guy is hoaxing this stuff just for me or he's being genuine.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Because, like, you know, I'm a big dude, I'm like 6'3, 250, like a pretty strong guy.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: I could not do this stuff by myself.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: There's no way I'd have to use ropes and levers and pulleys and have a couple buddies help me.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: But I can't imagine this guy doing it just to pull one over an old Steve Berg.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Because, in fact, what one thing that almost gives me more credence to his story is that when I first approached him, he had agreed to show me, show me the spot.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, awesome, right on.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: And then he did what most people do.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: He googled me and he saw that I had done a bunch of stuff at Comedy Central, that I have like a comedic background, and he thought I was like trying to pull a bull rat and like make him look like a fool.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: He's like, No, you're a comedy guy, you're just doing this, like make fun of me.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: So then it took me a month to convince him I was genuine.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: So finally I did go out there with him and he showed me these structures.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: I saw him for myself, and I it was like it freaked me out, I'll be honest.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, I I'm not like pretending to be like some super brave tough guy.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: This stuff does frighten me, you know.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, and then he he and he he came when I came there, he had two guns on him, and he told me to bring a gun.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't have one, but you know, right on.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but he was he was scared.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: He showed me around for about four or five minutes, showed me the tree structure, showed me where he found prints, show me, showed me where he saw the Bigfoot, and then he's like, Okay, I'm going.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: You can stay here as long as you want, but make sure you text me when you're leaving the area when your phone service comes back, because otherwise I'll think something bad happened to you.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: And so he took off, and I was like, for a second, I was like, all right, let's go, big boy, let's go be brave and walk through this thing.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, hell no.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: I went to Casey's Pizza, I went to Casey's, got a piece of pizza, and drove back to Omaha.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I was like, I'm out of there, man.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, right?
42:00
SPEAKER_01: It was unsettling, it was all vibed out, and I just like really got a bad feeling.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, I I think kind of adding another layer to the same line of discussion, I think being podcasters, we think a lot about our integrity, and we have to go that extra mile to vet our guests sometimes or vet other people's stories, so our own personal integrity is not challenged.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna put somebody on my show that I don't at least have a certain base level of belief in, you know, and and I imagine you're kind of the same way.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily believing, again, you know, affecting our personal belief structure, it's believing in the person.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: I I I think I think you can, you know, you can be your own barometer.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like um you know, in and I guess it is hard to determine, it's hard to explain like the vetting system I have because if it's an experiencer, I like to know them a little bit.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: So if it is if if it is an experiencer I'm having my having on my show, I will definitely talk to them prior to having them on.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Just so I don't think they're having some kind of episode or I definitely am like way against exploiting anyone.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of podcasts in this in this realm will just go after the most salacious, wild stories, and they probably should know better that the people are not like well, you know what I'm saying?
43:33
SPEAKER_01: And I I am I'm very against that because I think it's just cruel and you know, I don't I I'm exploitation like that is not like cool to me.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: So I I if I have an experience around, I really tried to talk to them for a little bit, or even talk to other people in the field to say, like, what do you think about you know this person?
43:50
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, I think she's onto something, or he's onto something.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of the most of the people I do have on are researchers, investigators, and a lot of them have had experience.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Experiences, but I have some kind of relationship with them, and I feel like they're genuine, they're honest people, they're not like making things up.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Or if they are, like, I don't know why they would be, you know, like well, there there's a there's a million plus clickbait worthy uh podcast clips out there, and it's like, do you want to be clickbait or do you want to be something that people trust and rely upon and come back to?
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: You we you don't need to like add anything like wild and crazy to this already wild and crazy subject matter.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
44:34
SPEAKER_01: Like it does it's it's wild and weird enough by itself.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Like so I feel like you know, there's a lot of people and and grant, like it does get them a lot of engagement, like they will have a million, you know, watch views on their YouTube channel.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, and I get it, like you know, sometimes you click by, it's like, you know, like dude, born on the moon secret space program with he, you know, was uh like alien half alien kid with Barack Obama on Mars.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, uh boy, okay.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's um but like people will watch it because maybe they think it's funny or they just believe it.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like putting that kind of information out there is not cool, dude.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I it's uh I have you know, I I feel like I I'm repeating rabbit here, but I I brought it up on multiple podcasts in the past that my off-limits topics typically are uh I don't talk politics, I won't talk religion.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I don't have my own belief structure as far as those things go.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: It's that I don't want to add to the negative social discourse that's already out there.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of that.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Or could watch you.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: And and it and it's like, and that's that's not my goal.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like for the type of art that you are doing, because it still is an art to it, um, you kind of run the same risk to a certain degree.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: And and that's gotta be front of mind from time to time.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, like I have gotten in, not I mean, I shouldn't say in trouble, but like uh one thing I'm very fascinated with is like the history of ufology, right?
46:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: And it definitely has this very problematic side to it where going back to the earliest contactees in the 1950s, and I'm not gonna get political, I promise.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: I will move on fast on this, but like there has been um a fascist, Nazi, anti-Semitic, hard right leaning militia patriot movement aspect to it, it is still there today.
46:35
SPEAKER_01: It started in the 1950s, so there are a the UFO field is probably of all the you know fields in these weird subjects, is by far the most toxic.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: And I I don't know why that is exactly, but it's been around since the early 1950s and the early contacts, and it is continued to stay.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: And so one thing I do like to do is point that out and say and like talk about like a guy like Bill Cooper, who in the 1980s he kind of used UFOs as a way to get attention, and then quickly, like after 18 months, said UFOs are all fake, but what I want to talk to you about is forming militias because we need to destroy, you know, and he became wildly popular.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: So I like to point out these things because I do see with younger people getting involved, they're like, Wow, who's this Bill Cooper guy?
47:22
SPEAKER_01: He has some wild stories.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, let me save you the trouble.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: This guy is bad news bears.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: So I I do feel like it is good to talk about these things, not just ignore it because I'm very against racism and anti-Semitism and all, obviously, right?
47:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, so I I I'm okay with pointing out the bad actors in these fields, and I'm sure that's like lost mean listeners.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's probably people in there who are like, oh, he's like getting political, but like it's not outwardly political.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: It's just like I'm I'm trying to clean up the field a little bit, you know.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of other people are too.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think I do I think it's important to do.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's it's an election year, and and this is the one time I will go off script and say there's a far big difference between human rights and politics.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: They like politics are the things that govern our country and just make you know living day to day easier.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: Human rights is something every person, every unique person is entitled to.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's entitled to be their own individual self, and politics have no business infringing upon that.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: So well said, well said.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but but you know, that's like it's it's funny because like that's not like outwardly talking about politics.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about who we're voting for and stuff like that.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: But politics, whether we like it or not, are infused into everything, you know.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: So it's like, no matter what I'm talking about, like it's there is a political bend to it.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: But I totally agree.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm never talking about like elections and like you know, like, wow, this senator's doing this and that.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I I we you and I could probably talk about Nebraska politics on and bore everyone, but like, what's the point?
49:00
SPEAKER_01: We're all inundated with it 24-7.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, why do I have to I don't need to add to that, you know?
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, social media has made it far, far, far, far worse.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: God, yeah.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: I I I love the fact that social media media can connect guys like you and I, but I hate the fact of the white noise we've got to sift through every single day to make those connections.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, buddy, you said it.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: You said it.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't agree more.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: There's there's such a there's a real positive to side to it, and there's just a real ugly side to it.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: And uh God, if only we could find some balance.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: So who do you find the most toxic?
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Is it the internet UFO community, the internet pro wrestling community, the internet level community, and the internet Star Wars community, which is the most toxic out of all of them?
49:48
SPEAKER_01: The only one I really follow is the UFO community.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: So Okay, so you win.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: It it it it really is like very, you know, it is toxic, but I'm and but there's so many beautiful people in it too.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I'm saying?
50:00
SPEAKER_01: There's so many wonderful people in these uh paranormal UFO cryptic communities that I love and I feel like are lifelong friends and people I genuinely care about.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: But that I I you know, Mike, I think like with every subject matter or fandom thing, there just is good people and bad people, man.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, like right, right.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: But great point.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've had several common friends that I've made through my podcasting journey as well, that I've had them on my show once, and all of a sudden we've become friends for life because they are naturally good people, which leads me to my next line of questioning is you know, with the acting work that you've done, the podcasting and everything in particular, what's been your biggest pinch me moment since you've been in um the public scope, if you will?
50:58
SPEAKER_01: I would probably have to go back to like the early days, kind of like between 2008 and 2000, you know, like around like 2008 and kind of like the 200 like 16 where my career was going kind of went from like little small bit parts and doing like you know commercials to getting like real parts where I was like helping push the story forward.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: And I think it w it wasn't I'm trying to I'm trying to think of like uh gosh, what is the name of that show?
51:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I'm so bad.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh God, I'm so bad at this.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: Um I couldn't probably pick out one thing.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: It was more of an era where I could feel my career, whereas where it was like for a while when you're doing like these small like one-liners, you're walking on it's like, here's your water, mister, you know, like in like those kinds, which are great.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: I there's no I'm not disparaging that.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: That is still a very almost impossible job to get, you know.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: But once I started getting getting to play real characters, ones that were important to the piece, that's when I'm like, oh, I'm like a real actor now, and I belong here, and people start treating you differently, and I'm getting new opportunities.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like once I kind of like graduated from, you know, getting my SAG card and getting a couple commercials and doing that, that was great.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: That was so exciting too.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: But I think once I got to that kind of next level, I was like, oh no, this is like real for me, you know.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, for sure.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: My closing question is my most favorite question to ask, and I have really thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, me too.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: You're great.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad we're friends now.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: I know.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I would just say to you, uh, you know, we should I uh if you're ever interested in uh visiting some of these weird spots, man, I will I'll take you to Minersville, man.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: Seriously, let's dude, that would be awesome.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely an experience.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: It is deep creepy run there.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, with all the experiences that you've had, Steve, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think um try to uh kill your ego, and greed is the enemy.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Greed is the enemy, man.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: Like nobody needs to have too much.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, um, don't aim to be a billionaire.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: Aim to be happy, I'm telling you.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like I think happiness and uh focusing on making other people happy around you is gonna in turn make you happy.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: So it's like not a selfless act, but I think killing your ego and just be nice, man.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, be a nice person.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: Like the world is challenging enough, and like we just don't need to be a jerk.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: There's no time for that.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: So tell all my listeners, viewers, everybody that's out there and caught on the mic world where they can find you online, my friend.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: We'll do it.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to say thank you so much, man.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: You're uh you're you're you're a kindred spirit, I can already tell.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so you can find me at Bergmaster5000, and I have a podcast called High Strangeness, and it's H I like I'm saying hi to it, comma strangeness.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: And you can find that, you know, anywhere you find a podcast.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: But this has been so enjoyable, buddy.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: It's nice to have a new buddy, especially one in Nebraska.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, always, always.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: And ladies and gentlemen, if you you get a few moments, uh, Steve also does stand-up comedy in the area.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh take a few moments and get on IMDb.
54:15
SPEAKER_00: You might recognize a few things that uh he's been a part of.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being on the show, Steve.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: The world's much better place as you and it, my friend.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, right back at you, Mike.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, bud.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: Once again, I'd like to thank my new friend, Steve Berg, for joining me on the show today.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of fun.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you give him a follow at Birdmaster5000 on Instagram.
54:39
SPEAKER_00: Check out his podcast, I Strangeness, wherever you find your favorite podcast, and look him up on IMTV.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: I am serious.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: He's doing some good stuff.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: If you are being generous with the followers, make sure you are following Caught on the Mike on all social media platforms.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: And check out my website, www.cotonhe.com.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, friends, I've got this new program.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: It is called Buy MeACoffee.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: BuymeaCoffee.com backslash caught on the mic.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: That's where you can show your love and support for the show by buying me a coffee for as little as$5 a shot that helps keep this show ad free and all of this awesome content going.
55:27
SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
55:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.