Season 2 of Unidentified, History Channel's UFO show debuts Saturday, July 11th at 10:00pm Eastern, here in the US.
To most people, Unidentified is just another one of History Channel's documentary-style shows. Maybe they stop on it while scrolling through the Guide, looking for something to put on in the background while staring through their phone, in bed. For people who are fascinated by aliens and UFOs it is much more than that. The UFO Community eagerly awaits each episode, looking for any new information on the UFO phenomenon.
Some of these viewers will be there for obvious reasons. They trust the source and thirst for new knowledge. Others have more sinister intentions. They will watch, looking for any grain of information that does not match their pre-existing belief system so they can attempt to debunk the stories. That is the subject of a whole other article.
The show is of special importance to me because my involvement with Season I was the catalyst which launched this blog. Here is that story:
How ISawOneToo.net Started
My closest friends and immediate family members have known for decades that I had a close encounter with a UFO in the early '90's. For the most part, no one in my inner circle finds this to be strange, thankfully. It has never been the focal point nor the foundation for my relationship with anyone (other than this one guy who paints himself blue). It is just another feature of who I am, like I am tall, I ride a motorcycle, I had a close encounter with a UFO. No biggie.
Everyone in this tight circle has heard what happened, at a high level. It has never been something that comes up at our massive Thanksgiving dinners with 30+ people in attendance or barbecues with friends and their kids, like, "Hey Dave, tell us all about the UFO again! Do you think it was really an alien spaceship? Did they probe you?" I would not hang out with people like that. It has also never been a point of derision, contempt, or fear. For example, no new parent has ever said, "Don't you touch my baby, you UFO believer person!" Clearly I am not good at making up Karen dialogue, but you get the point.
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| The #ISOT Origin Story Screenshot of an old Messenger text from my wife, March 2018 |
It was no surprise, then, when I received a Messenger text from my wife about this subject two years ago. It was a Monday evening in March of 2018. We had been making plans to ski with Mrs. M's friend from college during the upcoming school break. Meanwhile, over in the next town, my sister-in-law, Mrs. N., came across an article in the New York Times that made her think of me. The article was about a "shadowy" program at the Pentagon - the first New York Times UFO article. The program studied UFOs. Its director, Luis Elizondo, had just left his stable government job and joined up with rocker Tom DeLonge and his private company, To The Stars Academy. Surely, she thought, David would be interested in this.
Mrs. N. sent the link to Mrs. M. who then read it and forwarded it on to me. It was the end of the workday and I had some time on my hands. I pushed in my desk chair and slumped into the recliner in the corner of my home office, like a pallet of crates breaking a chain suspended from a crane. Within the first paragraph a glistering spark was ignited inside me. It was the same feeling you get when your name is about to be called to walk up in front of a room full of people.
By this point in my life I had long ceased posing the question, "Why doesn't the US government care about UFO's?" I reckoned this history would become an anecdote my grandkids would tell their grandkids. The more years that passed, the more my descendants would doubt it ever happened. Eventually my family would stop telling the tale. It would be lost to antiquity. Then I received this text. For the first time in decades, I was sodden with hope. Somebody in government does care.
I had mostly stopped thinking about my traumatic UFO encounter. Now, I initiated the process of connecting with the one human being I believed could make use of my information. I reached out to the guy from the New York Times article, Luis Elizondo. I have a knack for getting a hold of people. I have been in Sales for fifteen years and have run my own business for ten years. I have a way of getting to the person I want to speak with. This is nothing special - anyone who has been in B-to-B Sales for as long as I have will tell you they can also do this. Journalists tend to be good at this too. I first learned this skill working as a newscaster on a Public Radio news show in the mid 1990's. True story, bro.
Me, taking the bus to work... from the place where I bought itGrand Isle Ferry, April 2018
I am over-simplifying the matter, though. Looking back through my old emails I see I did not reach out to Lue immediately. First, I let my kids play hooky and took them to Okemo Mountain in a raging blizzard, I drove the family over the Seven Mile Bridge to Key West and swam with dolphins, I bought a couple 29 foot diesel engine buses - you know, normal everyday stuff that everyone does all the time, right? I finally attempted contact with Lue on June 13th, two months after my wife sent me the link to the Times article. I do not remember why I waited so long but it was probably that I really did have more important things to do.
There is also another reason why I probably waited so long. I have never wanted any recognition nor notoriety from my encounter. I never reached out to The Enquirer or The Weekly World News, for example, seeking fame and fortune. I have no desire -- ZERO -- for strangers to know who I am. I even get a little freaked out about how successful this blog has become. That means people in dozens of countries all over the world now know about me - I am huge in Hong Kong, for some reason.
That would not be terrible if the public knew me as the guy who built his own house or who started a successful business with no seed funding or who climbed and descended Tuckerman Ravine on skis and on a snowboard - all feats I am extremely proud of. But no, I am known as the guy who writes about UFOs. Obviously, there is a stigma associated with this. It contrasts everything else I have accomplished. However, like many in the UFO Community I am now a part of, I have embraced it.
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| Yeah, I skied that - and snowboarded it! Tuckerman Ravine, April 2007 |
I was likely motivated to pursue Lue by a good friend of mine. I will call him "G-Man" for this story. G-Man had known about my encounter for years and had always said things like, "If that happened to me, I wouldn't keep it to myself. I would tell everyone who would listen." I would always reply that I did not want to, "Shout it from the rooftops," because I did not want to be That UFO Guy. I had a good reputation in our community and wanted to keep it that way.
Then one night, the two of us sat on bar stools, chowing down on a huge plate of Buffalo wings, watching a game on TV. It was either the Yankees or the NBA finals - probably both. G-Man told me he had just learned that his mom had also had a couple inexplicable experiences. The woman holds two masters degrees and is a retired clinical psychologist. She is highly credible. She and her husband, a retired NYPD officer, both saw an unimaginably large, cloaked alien spaceship floating over the Atlantic City, New Jersey area, shortly before my night out with their son. She also had a much older story, I believe from the 1970's, about a patient of hers who seemed perfectly sane but was institutionalized by her family for claiming to have been abducted by aliens.
Hearing these stories from a good friend, about his mom whom I know, trust, and respect, may be what pushed me over the edge. (The mom later confirmed and elaborated on these stories for me.) It spurred me to reach out to The Guy from the New York Times Article. I sent Lue an email.
A month passed. No word back. Lue has an assistant, like many busy professionals do. She acts like a "Gate Keeper." The Gatekeeper needed to vet me out before putting me on her boss' calendar. She sent me a dubious email from a nameless TTSA account. It was a Sunday afternoon in mid-July, 2018.
I was not sketched out at all about any of this. I have a good "Spidey Sense" and this seemed legit - it was from TTSA, after all. I had reached out to them first. The assistant asked me for particulars of my encounter. I provided concise details the following morning. I also forwarded her message to my wife with the comment, "finally, someone's listening." Then I went about my life. I rode my motorcycle to a doctor's appointment that morning. Later, I brought the family to "test-drive" an adult dog we would end up adopting.
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| Test-driving our new family member |
I was away from my desk when Lue's assistant responded again, later that day. She emailed me telling me that "Mr. Luis Elizondo" would be in touch with me, "very soon." If I had been at my desk when that message arrived I probably would have felt a tingle of excitement. This was The Guy from the New York Times Article! Instead, I arrived back at my home office around Close of Business. I sat down to scan through my Inbox. Dozens of emails had arrived while I was out. I wanted to see if I needed to deal with anything urgent before clocking out on a sunny, summer afternoon. I noticed a strange message.
The email was from "Lue G." and was titled "Inquiry." I get tons and tons of spam in my Inbox - never for anything sordid like male enhancement products or single-mom dating sites. I get business solicitations. This looked like one of them. Just in case it is something important, I will often take a quick glance at new spam before marking it as spam, for the future - especially when the message has my name in the preview. This one said, "Greetings Mr. Marceau, My..." It got my attention.
After all this time, when I finally heard from Luis Elizondo he seemed as eager to speak with me as I was to speak with him. He left me a voice message on my cell phone. The email was a follow-up to the voicemail. He provided his personal cell phone number in each message. I wish I had kept the voice message because it would have been a nice little souvenir but I like to empty my voicemail as soon as I have the information I need. Every time I have tried to call someone whose voicemail is full, that person turns out to be at least a little bit crazy. Every. Single. Time. I am diligent to not let my voicemail fill up.
I closed my office doors and called the number Lue left me. I believe it went to voicemail and I left him a message. I also emailed Lue, letting him know I would make myself available for him for a few more minutes or I would carve out some time for him the following morning. Whatever the sequence was, we spoke shortly thereafter.
I think Lue and I talked for about an hour - it is possible it was only a few minutes, I never thought to log the time. Why would I? But my memory for fine details is amazing * word * and I recall it being a long conversation.
I remember Lue asking me if I had ever heard of The Nimitz Incident. I immediately felt stupid because I had not heard about it. I was not into anything involving UFOs, at the time. I thought something like, "Oh no! I should know about this. Maybe he won't be interested because I'm not informed." But I did not try to fake it. I learned an important life lesson right out of college while temping at Microsoft. If you are speaking with an expert, (software development, in this case) if you try to fake expertise you will be recognized as a charlatan. If you instead admit you do not know something, the expert will ecstatically dump their knowledge onto you, filling your mind with everything they know on the subject.
If you do not believe me, the next time you are at a social engagement (if the Pandemic ever ends or if you decide you do not care if you cause someone's grandma to die because you do not feel like wearing a mask and social distancing) seek out the biggest nerd in the room. This will be the person with the most esoteric job. Ask them to tell you about what they do for a living. Ask follow-up questions. This person will likely be someone who, ordinarily, never talks. You will soon find you cannot shut them up.
I readily admitted to Lue I had not heard of the Nimitz Incident. It sounded like he wanted to tell me all about it but he was currently investigating the incident and could not divulge many details. He tends to play his cards close to his vest. He directed the focus of the conversation back on what happened to me. That is what the call was about.
My mind wandered. In an instant, I pictured a battleship cruising far out in the South Pacific. It is nighttime, maybe ten PM. It is dark, out on the water, but a dazzling display of stars canopies all horizons. A sailor goes topside for a cigarette. The scene cuts to a wide shot of the boat, far out over the water. The "cherry" at the end of the sailor's cigarette is seen flaring up, as he takes a drag. Back onboard, the sailor sees some strange lights over the water. Another sailor comes along and he sees it too. A spaceship glides up momentarily to observe the two sailors. It then flies off into the dark abyss.
Of course, anyone who saw Season I of Unidentified knows that is not how the story goes - not even close. But that was what I pictured when Lue first brought it up.
At the end of our call, Lue asked me to email him some more details of my encounter. He also said I would be contacted by a woman (whose name she has since asked me not to print). I assumed it was his assistant, at the time, but found out later on it was one of the producers of Unidentified. This was nearly a year before Season I of Unidentified aired so I had never heard of the show. I did not even know Lue was working on a documentary - I just hoped, by speaking with him, that my information would be useful, somehow.
I followed up our call by sending Lue a narrative I had written up in a short-story format. It was already written in case I ever decided to try to write a book about my experience. I also sent a crude computer sketch I had made in the late '90's, of the ship I saw. I told Lue, tongue in cheek, if he had other images of spaceships from other witnesses I might be able to, "pick mine out of a lineup."
A couple days went by. I did not hear from the woman Lue said would reach out. I emailed him again to tell him that. I also provided more details about the size and shape of the ship I saw. Crickets...
It was weeks before I finally heard from the person whom I thought would be Lue's assistant. Instead, it was a producer from the yet-unnamed Unidentified. She emailed me her cell number. I called it. She told me she was working on a "documentary film" for A&E Networks (owner of The History Channel). She asked me if I had ever heard of the USS Nimitz. I said no, only that Lue had mentioned it. She wanted to talk to me to tell me about her background, presumably to put me at ease so I would tell her my details.
I noticed in these first few conversations with Lue and Unidentified producers, they were very sensitive to people's fears of being "outed" about their encounters. On the one hand, this was strange because I had waited more than half my life to tell someone who could do something with this information. On the other hand, I recalled the ridicule I received beginning the very night of the encounter. It was so bad, the other witness, Mike, recanted his testimony the next day. Mike now acknowledges it happened but would not talk about it for a long time. So I get why Lue and the producers were treating me with kid gloves.
The producer had some good "street cred" and I was comfortable with her right off the bat. It was not long before she told me she wanted to feature me in her upcoming documentary. It was evolving from a one hour "film" to a two hour special. I did not know what this would entail but saw no harm in it. I said, "Why not?" She said she appreciated my willingness to help them get these stories out. I told her it was my pleasure. I was happy and eager to help with the sudden momentum behind legitimizing the UFO subject, with credible stories.
Over the course of the next two months there were many phone calls and emails between me and the producers. In the end, they decided to go in a different direction and not include my encounter in that first season. By this point, the documentary had become a six episode series. A focal point was the Nimitz Encounters which themselves contained so much information, there was not enough time in the series for me. Also, my experience does not really go with the theme of Season I, so I get it.
When I contacted Lue I was not looking to get into TV. I never even imagined I would be contacted by a producer, about being in a show. So I was not sad about the outcome. I did feel slightly let-down because I had been led to believe something big was about to happen. Anyone would be filled with esperanza, imagining a new and very different future for themselves. But I am not the kind of person who feels extreme highs and lows. I had business classes to teach and a company to run. It was hunting season. Ski season was approaching. I got over it quickly and moved on with my life.
Why I started this Blog
My involvement with Lue Elizondo, TTSA, and Unidentified, in 2018, was a catalyst. I had always enjoyed writing. I have never been good at writing fiction but feel I could tell a good tale when it involves something I am recalling from memory. Like most dads, I gave up many of my hobbies when I first had kids. Writing was one of them. By 2018 the kids were all old enough that I no longer had to follow them around to prevent death during every waking moment. I had resumed some of my hobbies.
When I first created the blog I did not know what I would do with it, what direction I would take it in. I did not know what direction it would take me, nor did I anticipate it would take on a life of its own, as it has.
My primary goal was to document what was happening to me at that time. Maybe what I witnessed would make it into Unidentified, maybe it would not. Either way, a one-way door had been opened and I had chosen to walk through it. There was no going back. My big secret was out. I decided to roll with it.
My first few blog posts were about putting together a podcast or a YouTube Channel. I thought it would be good to help other people get their UFO stories out to the public. I came to this conclusion because I realized that talking about my sighting had helped me to get over its trauma. I used to get a tear in my eye every time I recounted what happened. It was like I was reliving the event every time I talked about it. The ship I saw was vivid in my mind's eye. I could see it every time I told people about it. I felt physically transported back to the little bench I sat on, out in the woods, in the summer of 1992. I became paralyzed with terror.
Today, there is nearly zero emotion when I talk about my encounter. Talking about it and writing about it has caused the event to fade, for better or for worse. I am admittedly supercilious that I had the foresight to have an illustration of the spaceship made before my memory of it began to whither, shortly after I began the blog. If I were to attempt that today the result might not be as close to the real thing as what was produced two years ago.
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| Illustration of the ship I saw Gagetown, New Brunswick, August 1992 |
At first, I wanted to help others experience the benefits of what I was going through. Witnesses would be permitted to verbalize the details of a haunting occurrence, in a safe space. After all, I saw one too. This would serve two important services.
- It would help to normalize the subject of UFO visits, to a doubting public
- It would also help these experiencers get over their trauma, just like I did
Very quickly, I put together a list of people I could speak with about their own sightings. I even recorded a few interviews. But I soon found that I did not have the patience for video editing. I can see how some people would like it, if that were their job. It is not for me.
I was enjoying the writing. Others were too. As the page hit counter went up, I was emboldened to continue creating new posts. I am grateful for my early followers - close friends, mostly. Thanks, guys.
The blog really became what it is when went to see a friend's band play, one night. (I must have half a dozen friends who are in various bands.) My buddy Keith was playing near his home in Westchester County, New York. I helped my wife get the kids ready for bed and then drove down to see Keith play. He is less than an hour away but just far enough that it is a schlep to get there.
I arrived towards the end of Keith's first set. He came over to say hi, on his break, and introduced me to one of his friends, Andy. The two of us started talking and did not stop until after the bar closed. Andy is a psychologist for kids who have experienced trauma. We talked about my UFO sighting and the terror with which it had saturated me. That conversation became the basis for one of my early favorite articles, Some UFO Psychology.
This pivotal moment also served to adjust the course of my writing. I began thinking about aliens and UFOs - a lot! I thought about how they got here, why they were here, and what they were like. I wrote about these thoughts. As time went by, I put more time and research into these stories. I cited sources. I have attempted to keep everything rooted in science while pontificating on strands of philosophy which cannot be proven without actually meeting an alien.
If my exposure to Unidentified had opened a door, my conversation with Andy and the article I wrote about it blew away the walls and the roof. There was a whole world to investigate regarding aliens and UFOs. I was sure other people were thinking about some of the topics I thought of. But no one was taking the same tack as me. I will write more about that in an upcoming post.
Enjoying this blog?
If you have seen an alien spaceship or any type of unidentified flying object (UFO) contact me using the Contact form on this page. You may remain anonymous if you want. I will not ridicule you or try to tell you why you are wrong. I get it, I saw one too.
Thank you for reading and keep an eye on the sky.
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