It all started with a string of eerie eleven eleven sightings, and then the universe sent Chris a sign he couldn't ignore.

That screenshot was at eleven eleven on November eleventh, So eleven eleven, eleven eleven, and we were both just like, I guess we have to go to this thing.

But what happens when a voice speaks to you as clear as someone standing right next to you.

If you hear something in your head right now, something talking to you as loud as you're hearing my voice right now, no matter what that thing tells you, there's a great chance that you're going to believe it.

I'm not saying it's Bigfoot, but it's Bigfoot.

I was just gonna say, you know you mentioned Bigfoot at the top of the episode.

Well, we haven't seen Bigfoot in Chewbacca in the same place.

So hey everyone, I'm Matt Ford and welcome to the Good Trouble Show.

UFOs or UAPs are the ultimate magicians, pulling off mind bending tricks worthy of a Vegas stage, from appearing and vanishing in an instant to manipulating our very perception of reality.

Our guest today knows both worlds better than anyone with over seven million YouTube followers.

Here's our conversation with Chris Ramsey.

Please welcome to the show, Chris Ramsey, Chris welcome.

How is it up in Lovely Canada?

Right now?

It's great?

Currently?

Yeah, currently raining, but other than that's pretty good.

All right.

Well, as long as you don't lose power, I think hopefully we'll be okay.

So I have to ask your fellow Canadians.

Do they think we're all crazy down here south of the border with everything that's going on politically?

I think they thought you were all crazy prior to that?

Yeah?

Would they would be right?

That is?

That is certainly true.

We first met at the dinner at the UAP congressional hearing, was actually the day before.

So I'm sitting in this restaurant.

Shallenberger is there, Lou Alizondo and I mean some other folks, and in walk you and Jesse Michaels, and I was super excited that you guys sat next to me.

Now, while I recognized Jesse, you were a new face to me and we started chatting and you were telling me, if I remember correctly, that you were just getting into the UFO thing, but you had a quite a successful channel on YouTube with over seven million subscribers and the channel channel name the handle goes by your name, Chris Ramsey.

Tell us about that about that channel.

How long you've been doing that?

Yeah, probably started about a decade ago, uploading to YouTube doing you know, performing street magic, teaching magic tricks to people, and then slightly getting into puzzle stuff as well, which is like a whole other niche that is closely related, I would say, to magic in the sense that like it deals with how things work and sort of Yeah, eventually kind of got burnt out of what I was doing.

I've been doing it for a very long time time and just needed something fresh and you know, the UFO subject.

Although I just started the channel not too long ago, I've been interested in since, you know, I was I think nine years old watching you know the first I think I watched Fire in the Sky when I was nine, and it was equally as terrifying as it was fascinating to me at the time.

And not not a movie I recommend any nine year old watch, but it was you know something about the opening credits when they were you know it said it said based on a true story.

Yeah, Yeah, to me as a child.

I was like, adults are telling me aliens are real, right, you know.

Yeah, Now it's funny that's nine years old as when I got into it.

Now.

The Fortunately I didn't see Fire in the Sky.

It hasn't hadn't come out yet.

It was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I think is probably a kinder, gentler movie than Fire in the Sky.

And actually, believe it or not, I have not seen Ire in the Sky, so.

Yeah, you know, probably better.

I mean it's a good watch, but it's definitely as I you know, if if you've if you've read the Travis Walton story, it's it's nothing compared to what he actually went through.

It's vastly different, and you know, Hollywood did their own thing with it.

But regardless, I thought it was just really interesting that there was a event that happened.

This is a first for me as a child.

You know, I've seen ET at this point and I was like, Okay, you know it's a science fiction, but this was depicted as you know, a real thing, and that really left a mark on me.

Yeah, I would imagine it sounds like it's definitely not a sort of like warm, fuzzy feel good movie, unlike ET eating.

What was it?

Skittle?

So yeah, I definitely not.

So so I have to ask, have you ever seen a uap ufo in your in your travels?

I mean I think I have.

I can't be sure exactly what it is.

I saw I filmed something from a plane that looked like a tic tac and I had shared that, you know, with my audience, and then I had filmed well, I saw sort of a triangular formation of lights with a light in the middle, which I assumed to be one single craft fly pretty low, didn't really make an observable sound, and I assumed it was, you know, not a helicopter because the lack of audio.

And as I started filming it, two the lights went out.

And then so the only video I have is like these two lights.

They're not blinking or anything, but they're just kind of like moving slowly across the screen.

Yeah, I would say, I would say, maybe that's about it.

I I don't know.

That's the thing, you know, you film these things, there's no way of knowing a if they are piloted, and b if the pilots are human.

You know, So there's of course all you can really do is just kind of speculate, but I'd like to think that I saw something anomalous and to me at least, it.

Was Yeah, yeah, I get it.

I've seen RBS quite a few times and had all kinds of crazy paranormal experiences, now speaking of like kind of like strange things, paranormal experiences and really coincidences.

One of the things I just remembered.

You and I were hanging out at breakfast at Contact in the Desert and you told me about how you ended up at last year's hearing and what sort of some sort of you know, serendipity that happened between you and Jesse Michaels, And I'd love for you to share that story if you don't mind.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, I'd gone to the Monroe Institute, I think just before it was like last April or last May.

And what is the Monroe Institute for the folks at.

Home that don't know, Yeah, the monro Institute is basically a retreat made by Robert Monroe.

He was studying the out of body experiences that he was having in the fish fifties.

He was actually a radio engineer and a sound engineer and worked for NBC.

I think at the time, and just delved heavily into creating these frequencies, the sort of binural beats that you hear about that play in your headset, that allow you that and train your brain waves to lower frequencies that enable you know, deeper sort of states of meditation or in some cases even altered states like out of body.

And so he created that, and then in the seventies the CIA took an interest.

They started sending people there to do training as well.

And I had had an out of body experience unexpectedly a little a little while before, and I was really really interested in what that was, and you know, came across Robert's book Journeys out of the Body, read that, and it spun me down this rabbit hole which I eventually ended up, you know, documenting my sort of week long journey through the Gateway process.

After that, experienced multiple out of body experiences at home, you know, subsequently meditating every day for an hour, and I would always since I got back, I would start noticing the numbers eleven eleven.

Now, it sounds hyper cliche, and it's definitely one of those things that I would have rolled my eyes to if you would have told me about this, and it just I just kept noticing it, you know.

And I don't know if it was my awareness that was growing or if it was simply you know, actual synchronicity happening.

But it would happen all the time.

I would find it, and I even told you, I would find it on receipts, and I would find it everywhere on times and this and that, and then I would just ask myself, like, what does this mean?

Like I don't even like, who cares?

Eleven eleven?

I keep seeing it, but who cares?

And it would happen like I'd hang up the phone with someone, I'd look and it was like eleven eleven, or somebody would call and it was eleven eleven.

And so at one point Jesse asks me, He's like, hey, do you want to come down and film some content?

We can like do an interview all this stuff.

I was like, that'd be cool, Yeah, let's do that.

Let's link up.

And I booked my flights to I think Austin at the time, and we're like, let's link up in Austin.

And we had made plans and this was November and he texts me there, he calls me, and I remember filming this and he says, you know, maybe we can actually go to the UAP hearing, which was happening November fourteenth, and I was like, yeah, I guess we were both kind of on the fence because we just already had plans, We had already booked things.

And on my flight to Austin, I was in a layover in Chicago on the eleventh of November, I get a text from Jesse and Jesse says, maybe we should go to this thing, and we're really on the fence.

And I remember Jesse telling me and I had filmed this, he said, look for the signs, right, and I completely forgotten he said that to me until I like reviewed the footage.

But he texted me and he goes, maybe we should go to this UAP hearing, and I said sure, let me look at flights, and I looked at a bunch of flights screenshot and it send him his way, and that screenshot was at eleven eleven on November eleventh, so eleven eleven, eleven eleven, and we were both just like, I guess we have to go to this thing, and so we canceled all of our plans going to Austin, completely rebooked a different hotel, different flights, ended up going to Washington and that's where we met, and that's where I met.

Also I met James Fox, which turned out to be one of the first sort of springboard podcasts that I ended up having, which really changed the trajectory of my channel.

And you know, consequently, I don't think we would be sitting here sure if I hadn't noticed eleven eleven.

Yeah.

So you know, this has come pretty full circle since then.

And there is something funny that happened after I told you this story last week.

We're sitting at a restaurant, we're having breakfast.

Do you remember the receipt?

I do.

I was about to ask you about that.

So the receipt, it was like table one eleven dash one is eleven eleven, And I pointed out I was like, look, yeah.

Oh yeah, I remember sitting there and we've been talking about this thing, and I had mentioned that there was a period of time I was waking up at repeating numbers two two, two three three three, and.

I haven't had that in a while.

So we're talking about these numbers, and the receipt comes and you look at it, and I remember the look on your face.

I'm like, is everything okay?

And then you hold it up and show it to me, and sure enough, yeah, it was eleven eleven.

I'm like, okay, well it sounds like a message from the universe to me, and that's that's for sure.

Yeah, that was That was pretty pretty crazy, so you know, and that was what a week ago?

So have you had anything since then any more?

Eleven elevens?

I haven't even lifted my head up to notice.

To be honest, I actually have no.

Wait.

I have a few days ago a very very important phone call.

I can't quite say who was on the phone yet, but it was a very important phone call for me, okay, and I've been waiting to speak to this person for a very long time.

And as soon as I hung up the phone, I look at the time and it was eleven eleven.

So I took that as another little wink from the universe clearly, Well, at.

Least you know kind of how I would take it is at least at least you know that the universe thinks you're doing the right thing.

So it's like it's I would if it were me, I'd be like, okay, that's a sign that I'm on the right track whatever whatever that might be.

That's yeah, that's that's that's pretty cool.

So speaking of numbers, let's let's talk about your new YouTube channel, Area fifty two.

What does Area fifty two mean to you?

Beyond the screen name?

What are you trying to explore that's beyond the cliche of area fifty one.

Yeah, so, I mean fifty two is kind of a play on Area fifty one, obviously, but it doesn't refer to Dougway Proving Grounds or any of the other sort of blacked out bases that might exist in the United States.

It has to do with my love for playing cards, and I've always you know, I'm a magician, so fifty two cards in a deck.

In fact, I have it tattooed right here, fifty two.

So it was kind of a play on words for me, and I don't know, I just thought it was a I thought it was a fun name.

You know.

The channel for me represents more than just my interest in the topic, but it's also my interest in storytelling, my interest in aesthetics via storytelling and cinematography.

I'm a massive fan of cinema.

I'm a fan of creating video and story and scripting and storyboarding and building sets and creating these little universes.

But I also love, you know, hearing from people who have really interesting stories, and so it's a really cool way for me to be able to blend all of my passions together.

And I found as a content creator, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, that you have to love it because if you don't, you'll end up just you'll end up burning out.

So there has to be a portion of it that is just kind of selfish.

And I'm you know, I admittedly I'll always say that like the number one reason I do it is for me.

I do enjoy it, and you know, like Rick Rubin says, the audience comes last.

Although I don't entirely agree with that, I do understand the sentiment being that if you don't love it, the audience won't love it.

So you have to make sure that it has your own personal approval and heart behind it before you present it to the world, and then you know they'll probably love it.

But if they don't, at least you will.

You know.

Yeah, well, I think that's about authenticity.

I mean, people can pick that up It's like if you're if you're doing a show, you're front facing people immediately since if you're like into it, and I think that audiences really connect with someone that they can tell that this individual is doing this not for money or whatever to pass the time, but because they're really into it and they believe in the content and they believe in what they're doing.

So I mean, it definitely shows.

And I have to say, first time I saw your channel, I was absolutely blown away.

You know, I've worked in Hollywood for close to thirty years in the Cinematographer's Guild, and the first thing I noticed was the level of production and just beautiful cinematography.

Man, it just it blew me away.

Have you ever come across someone or multiple persons off camera that have completely shifted the way that you see this phenomenon?

Yeah.

I have a buddy who was in Army public affairs.

This was about twenty fifteen times.

He was up at Groom Lake Area fifty one on the flight line.

He sees a huge black triangle and it just takes off at incredible speeds vertically, doesn't disturb any of the dust around it.

One of the things first time I saw that I just thought was so freaking cool, is that you have this call in number where people can leave a one minute message about their strange encounter.

And that's part of the opening of the show.

And it just it has this like great mystery and I'd never seen anyone do it, and I just I thought that was so cool.

But I'm curious, what is the strangest message that you've ever received from somebody?

And then also what's the funniest one.

It's a great question.

I've never been asked that question.

I had so many stories about that number.

You know, I'm a big fan of our art belt.

You know, we stand on the shoulders of giants here, and Art had just created that formula of people calling in, you know, and I wanted to I wanted to borrow a Porsche to that for my show in order to usher in, you know, potentially this new era of documenting the paranormal and the strange.

And so that was kind of my wink to what Art had going on.

However, you're limited to one minute, you know, where Art would have you.

Know, I did, that's smart.

I know.

I did Coast to Coast not too long ago with George Knap, which was again, you know, for me, just yeah, it felt like a write of passage.

And it was just so amazing to speak to George, and we had people call in and it was so funny having George deal with just people who are, you know, a little too passionate.

It would seem or like, don't actually have a question, just kind of want to rant at you, right, And so I don't have that problem with this because I don't speak to anyone directly, although I have followed up a few times on some of the calls.

Some people call me not to leave a message publicly.

Some people just want to share the story or they're like, hey, can you call me back?

And although I don't call everyone back, so don't get any ideas, I'm not going to just start calling everybody back, because sometimes they pique my interest enough for me to call them back.

So I'll tell you, Okay, one of the strangest ones that I've gotten, I mean, maybe one of the creepiest ones.

It was this lady and I think it was you know, like could have been Alabama or somewhere around there, and she had this real squeaky voice about her, and it was like just something unsettling about her, but she goes She's like, oh, Jeffrey is an alien and he murdered my whole family.

Oh no, And I'm like, oh my gosh, should I call the police, like what's going on?

And she's telling me about like this nefarious alien Jeffrey.

And then she calls back a couple of weeks later and says that he now resides inside a doll that lives on her couch.

And so, you know, yeah, I was.

It was terrifying.

It sounded like something out of the hills have eyes.

It was like, you know, incredibly scary.

I did not follow up on that one, needless to say, Yeah, you know, it could have been a prank call, but I doubt it sounded pretty authentic one of them.

I think one of the most interesting calls that I've gotten.

And I played a snippet of this in the beginning of an episode.

The gentleman said that he'd worked at a practice and down the hall from him there was a gentleman who was a friend of his who admitted to him or Kate basically told him that he was an extraterrestrial hm.

And and then he says, well, I didn't really believe him at first, and then he showed me, oh wow, and I'm like and then and then he goes, yeah, I don't really you know, I don't really know what to do that.

I just want to know if anybody else has had this experience.

And I'm like you to me, both, pal like, let's go.

So I pick up the phone and I call this guy okay, and you know, he was very gracious and we ended up chatting for like an hour and he tells me this entire story.

Now I'll leave this gentleman's name out of it because he did not want to go public.

But he said that he had a practice.

It was kind of like a spiritual counseling, and that this gentleman that was down the hall from him had he had known him for years, and he was very smart, had PhDs.

They talked about theology, philosophy, physics, all sorts of really complicated subjects.

And one night he gives him a call and he says, hey, I really have to tell you something.

And he would always say things like they live among us and like that type of thing, right, and he goes, you want to meet somewhere and he's like, oh, I don't really have time.

So he goes, Okay, I'll just tell you over the phone.

He goes, you know, I'm I'm an extra trestrall, I'm actually you know, not from here.

I'm a hybrid like all this stuff.

Wow.

And the guy's like, all right, come on, like whatever and all of a sudden, you know, I asked him.

I was like, well, what did he do to prove it to you?

Yeah, and he goes, it's as if he put the mute button on my mind.

Yea, how he described it.

It was like and he's like, I could hear, but just my head went quiet all of a sudden, like like completely nothing.

And he's like, I'd never experienced that before.

It was very unique.

And months later he had experienced it again with a different person who also told him the same thing.

Wow, okay, and.

The story goes on.

It's a really fascinating story.

Maybe one day he'll want to come forward and tell it.

But a lot of things happened between those two events, and yeah, he was this guy got spooked, he got scared.

But that was an interesting That was one of the interesting calls that I've gotten.

Yeah, yeah, I'll bet I'm curious.

Has this guy stayed in touch with this.

With this hybrid, there's more to come from Chris Ramsey.

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Now, with that out of the way, let's get back to our interview with Chris.

He stayed friends with him for a while and then just lost contact with him.

He moved or just stopped talking to like he phone no longer works can't follow up with him, but he did stay friends with him for a while after he found out, and you know, he would take him to meet other hybrids and it was like a whole thing.

It's wow, it would make for a great book, Like, oh yeah, guy ever wants to put it out one day.

But you know, I often think of David Jacobs when it comes to these these hybrid stories and and wonder how many stories, how many people have come to him, or people like Bud or people like you know, John Mack or John Carpenter, all these guys, and how many stories they must have.

Oh I just didn't make it into the book.

Yeah, oh yeah, man.

I tell you what, that would be an incredible guest to have on your show.

I would certainly tune into that.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like when it comes to all that stuff, literally nothing would surprise me.

Like I personally, I think Bigfoot is probably not real, But if it turns out he is, I'd be like, you know, what wouldn't surprise me?

You know, we live live in such a complex, complex universe.

But yeah, man, those are two really two stories, certainly at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

That's that's really cool.

But anyway, I just I love, love, love that part of your show.

I think that is just really really cool.

So we talked about your magic career.

So magicians, of course make what seems impossible seem real, So that gives you kind of sort of like a rare lens on deception, illusion and what people believe.

So how has your background and magic influenced the way you approach things such as you know what this guy said as far as this hybrid or or UFO claims or government cover ups, like do you see them as a magician?

Do you do you look at it more from a skeptical lens or does it actually open you up to sort of the deeper mysteries.

Yeah, I try not to.

I try not to say I believe or I don't believe.

I come in low conviction on a lot of things, surprisingly low conviction, but not zero conviction, And that conviction grows when you absorb more information and you end up connecting different points together.

And so I just find like, as a magician, I'm aware of so many things.

I'm aware of so many methods on how to get away with things, But that doesn't mean that that's how those things work.

I would be a little ignorant to assume that because I know how some things work, that that can explain how everything works.

And I think that's where most magicians end up making an error, is that you know, you're given this amazing insight into human psychology, into you know, all these things like suggestion and showmanship and misdirection, sleight of hand, all these amazing little tools and principles.

But you got to be careful not to use that to explain away everything you know.

And I'm reminded of the amazing Randy, who you know, used his platform and created this contest where you would come in and if you presented anything paranormal under his conditions, you would win a million dollars.

I think it started a ten thousand dollars, yes, and then it ended up And as you know, you know, you know, Penn and Teller a big friends of the amazing Randy, and and so you know, that's not necessarily the route that I'd like to take.

I don't find that coming into something skeptical really helps anything at all.

I think if you're especially when dealing with cy you know, if you look at a lot of the parapsychologists work.

It seems like intent has some type of effect on the test, okay, And so if the intent coming into a test is already that it won't work, then I would assume that you're going to affect the outcome using that sort of intent or energy, whatever you want to call it.

So sure, yeah, I think just low conviction on everything.

Realizing that there are ways to do things, trying to eliminate those things, I think is just a natural thing magicians do, and I think a lot of engineers think this way as well.

If you're given a problem, you're instantly looking for a solution, right, And I just happen to have like a lot of different solutions in mind from the magic background.

But I'm still you know, at points, I you know I can't.

The thing is if you just because you have a way of explaining it does not make it the explanation.

And the second thing is if you don't have a way of explaining it, don't jump to the most fantastic explanation real right away, right.

And we tend to do that if we watch a magic trick.

So if I showed you a magic trick and you had no way of explaining it, you would start saying the strangest things.

You'd be like, it's magnets, it's static electricity, and I'm like, that's that's how none of those things work, you know, And so we'll jump to these and that's you know, when I look at the pyramids, you know, just because I don't know how they work doesn't mean it's aliens.

Right exactly.

Yeah.

But although I'm not going to rule it out, you.

Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, Like I was going to ask because we know that Penn and Teller are, of course big skeptics.

They're members of the Center for Inquiry.

So I always wondered if that was like a feature, Like does skepticism and magic, you know, do they go hand in hand?

And if so, why, Like if most magicians are skeptics, Like, is it just a personality type?

Is it because they know of all of these sort of methods that you that you can fool people's perception.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

The latter.

You know, most magicians are skeptical.

A lot of them, you know, turned to atheism, including Penn and Teller.

Yeah, and you know that doesn't make them bad people.

I love them.

I love what they do.

I personally, I've been down that journey as well.

You know, I was raised Catholic, not really practicing, ended up being you know, sort of staunchly atheist in my adolescence and ever since, maybe you know, after my thirties, became a little bit more well, I probably agnostic towards the mid twenties, and then late thirties started becoming a little bit more spiritual, and not to say religious or anything like that, but just the idea that you know, these things that we call paranormal could definitely have some scientific explanation for them, but for now they remain pretty much largely in the spiritual realm for me anyways, in terms of explanation.

Yeah, talking about Penn and Teller, I've of course worked on that show for quite a while, and I've had always been interested in magic.

I thought it was cool, although like as a kid, it wasn't like something where I was like learning magic tricks.

But I was the one of the coolest parts of doing that show, and I think I did it for like twelve years.

Penn and Teller fool Less is in the video truck.

I sat next to the late great Johnny Thompson of course, as you know, one of the modern I don't know, how would you how would you as a magician, how would you describe Johnny Thompson.

I mean, he's one of the greatest.

Yeah, he's absolutely one of the greatest.

And he was one of the greatest consultants as well in magic.

And a lot of people don't know what consultants are, but I'm sure you know you've if you worked Penn Tell, you probably work with Michael Close as well.

And well, yeah, yeah, I mean these guys are just great minds, and consultants often work with magicians to create the magic, and consultants are just other magicians and sometimes you know, I mean Johnny Thompson was a fantastic performer as well.

Yeah, but sometimes those minds lend themselves to other magicians in their prime and and help them elevate their magic.

And that's something he was really really a master at as well.

And so yeah, that's that's just another thing sort of behind the curtain that you got to peek into that most people wouldn't see.

It was it was cool because part of how that show works for folks at home that haven't watched it is it's sort of like America's Got Talent, but for magicians.

So magicians would come out, they would perform a magic trick for Pen and Teller, and then Penn and Teller and sort of like their judges deliberation would try and figure out how the.

Illusion was done.

So sitting next to Johnny Thompson, I would listen to Johnny talk because what would happen is Johnny would listen to what Penn and Teller was saying.

Johnny knew how the trick was done because during during a rehearsal he would help help the magicians sort of as you know, as you said, improve upon it as sort of like a magic coach and uh, and it was always it was super fascinating to to you know, to listen to to hear Penn and Teller go back and forth over headset with with Johnny.

But then I would ask Johnny because a part of my job, I had to know how all of the illusions worked, to make sure that they looked correct, they looked good on camera.

Nothing nothing was revealed, and uh, you know, of course in many ways it.

Was like finding out about Santa Claus.

It's things I think, you know, all of these magic tricks are maybe simple in concept, but I tell you what, it really made me appreciate the level of skill it takes to make what is really something simple work in front of people.

I remember once, uh uh, you know, I was asking Johnny about how our card trick was done, and so he showed it to me, and I'm literally like, I don't know that far away from them and I watching that close, that close, close up magic.

I couldn't figure it out.

And then he finally like slowed everything down, but it just it blew me away.

And I remember asking him, well, how did you get so fast at doing that?

It's like I couldn't perceive anything.

And he tells me this story about how he got into magic.

He was growing up.

As a as a kid in Chicago and he would go to these card games where the mob would be would be betting, and he would he would he would basically swindle mobsters out of their money.

And he's like, yeah, when I was doing that, I knew if I got caught, I'd get my hands broken.

So I knew that I had to become really good and really fast.

It was it was just such a such a such a cool, cool experience.

Love love pen and teller.

So, so, with everything that you know about magic and being able to influence people's person do you feel a responsibility to approach topics like UFOs and government secrecy with really kind of a level of skepticism and then or credibility And then how do you balance that out with being.

So open and yeah, so.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question, because there is there is a balancing act when it comes to this stuff.

It's so easy to fall on one side and say I believe this person or I believe this or I believe that happened.

And as soon as you do that, I think you fall into a camp, you fall into a position that you're forced to defend.

And you know, personally, for me, I found that if that is the case, then I end up not absorbing as much information as I probably should, and so I try to refrain from really hanging my hat on any one thing or anyone theory.

Now I'll still hypothesize and speculate, but deep down, I'm just not you know, I don't really think it matters what I believe.

You know, and people might be like, what do you mean, of course, I don't think it does.

I don't think it changes the objective view or the objective reality of this, whether I believe it or not.

And so I try to do away with that and really just take the information case per case, and you know, if it comes from an individual, then I'm thankful for their time, and whether it's true or not, for me, it's equally as valuable, you know.

And I really really try to impress that on my audience as well, is that like information comes in all shapes and sizes, and it doesn't always have to be true for it to be valuable.

We can sure and sometimes, as you know, in this particular sea, it's filled with half truths, and so sometimes you got to look beyond the fantastical to find that seed of truth, or sometimes you got to dig through all the truth to find that little you know, fib you know.

And that's just part of the fund for me, is really in taking all this information and once it's catalogued, finding these connections.

But I definitely don't go into anything skeptically, and I don't go into anything with a too much of a preconceived bias.

I do have a bias in that I think I believe if there's anything I believe the one thing that I believe is that there is something.

Yeah, you know, that's I mean that I'm incredibly high conviction on.

But as far as what that thing is, I am completely open to anything and whether whether that's you know, one of the million things going on from the interdimensional to the staging, to the hoaxing, to the extraterrestrial, whatever it may be, there is something happening, and I think that's objectively true.

Now what that thing is, I think, yeah, just let's just keep absorbing all this really interesting and fascinating information and catalog it for now, and you know, who knows, maybe fifty years down the line, I'll go, ah, this is what I believe.

Now, that's it, right.

Yeah, I feel the same way because it's like, as I said earlier, it's like nothing literally nothing would would surprise me.

So when I hear Stephen Greer or somebody say oh, these are from you know, planet Pleades or whatever, it's like, well, how do you know that?

It's like, yeah, I have no idea where this stuff is from.

And yeah, so I completely agree.

So on your Chris Ramsey channel, in addition to the magic that you were just talking about, you actually solve some really highly complex puzzles.

So I'm curious as someone that is in the puzzles, I personally always sucked out of them.

I would not do well with that kind of thing.

But for you, what's the most unsolvable aspect of this whole UFO u AP phenomenon for you right now?

Like?

Is it the tech?

Is it the cover ups?

Is it the sigh?

Like?

For you, what would that be?

It's a good question.

I would say it would have to be the intention.

Hmmm hmm.

I don't think we'll ever know, you know, when you have a being if that's what we're dealing with, that is exponentially more intelligent and can communicate with you in ways that nothing else can communicate via telepathy.

If you hear something in your head right now, something talking to you as loud as you're hearing my voice right now, no matter what that thing tells you, there's a great chance that you're going to believe it.

And you know the reason for that is because simultaneously, this thing, whatever it is, is also showing you that your reality, at least to some extent, is a lie, and that it is now presenting a new truth.

And so it can say I'm the giant spaghetti monster, and you know, you'll be inclined to believe it because either you're crazy or that happened, and if that happened, then that must be the truth.

Like I mean, there's you're just not going to doubt that, you know, And that's I think one of the more complicated aspects of this phenomenon is the intention.

We have so many people and you'd mentioned Stephen Greer who believes the intention of whatever's happening via NHI or aliens or extraterrestrials is completely benevolent.

Then we have the threat aspect being militarized by other people in the scene.

And you know, I don't know that it isn't all of that.

Maybe it's more complicated.

Maybe it's just something we don't even understand.

You know, we base everything on our own, on our own ways of verbally communicating things, but even that is completely flawed in how we present our own emotions and how we present our own thoughts.

Maybe there's a civilization that speaks in numbers and binary and you know, the way that they communicate is just really specific, and there's no way that we could ever understand, you know, exactly what they're saying, and so then there'd be no way that we could really understand their intention, right, And so I think intention has got to be the most complicated thing obviously when dealing with people, because we don't know, you know, people are capable of lying, We can't read their minds.

But most definitely when it comes to some what seems to be more intelligent species, because I mean, it just opens up a whole world of possibilities that we're not ready for.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

I mean, this whole question of intent, I mean, I really think that that is prime that really all goes down to it, because less you know what the intent is, how do you then decide whether this is malevolent or benevolent, you know, whether it's a good thing they're here, or it's a bad thing we're here or they're here.

And then so, yeah, I'm with you on that.

To me, it seems like a mix.

But I certainly certainly have no idea.

And you were talking this early on about perception.

So magicians, of course rely on controlling of perception through slight hand or misdirection or whatnot.

And you hear in the literature time and time again experiencers of UFO phenomena often describing having their perception altered.

I remember when my mother a year ago told me about this very very significant close encounter that she had as a teenager with beings and everything, and she had not told anyone her entire life, and told my dad a couple of weeks.

Prior, and then I was the second one to ever hear it.

And so she's telling me this whole story, which I'm not going to get into, but one of my questions to her, like when she told me that, I was like, she would have to be terrified with what she was seeing.

And I remember asking her, well, were you scared?

Did you run away or whatever?

And she thought about it and she said no, actually I strangely felt really calm, and which to me said that her perception was altered.

So I'm curious, like, do you have any theories, like do you think that there is a technology of perception involved in some of the stranger UFO cases, like something that is able to manipulate what we are actually seeing.

But they're manipulating it at a neurological level.

It's not because you're doing something super fast.

You're you know, these things.

Whatever they may be, have the ability to manipulate what your perception is at the root level.

Yeah, it definitely seems like it.

You look at cases, even Dan Burrish.

I was watching you know, a lot of stuff on him recently, and I don't know, Ryan Jackson.

Dan Burish is an incredible case.

But you know came out and I think two thousand and two with a video saying that he worked at S four, worked with these beings.

He was a molecular biologist, really really a deep, deep, deep deep rabbit hole.

But he said that when he looked into the being's eyes, it was like you were falling into them, and they had this ability to sort of hypnogogically sort of like entrance you and then and train your mind and flood it with like endorphins and so that you would feel good, because if he didn't do that, you'd be terrified and you'd be you know, crap in your pants because of this being in front of you.

So they would do that allegedly during abductions as well.

And I thought that was a really interesting explanation for what went on, because, like you said, a lot of times, there is this sort of oh, I feel fine, I feel okay, this calming effect, and it does seem yeah, it does seem hypnotic in what it is.

You know, we do seem to be able to circumvent it during regression and get around it and observe, you know, what went on.

So it does seem like it's completely psychological, but that they would be able to sort of manipulate us.

I mean, you know, you would have to unless you're going to tranquilize people.

No one's going to come willingly with these strange looking creatures that you're going to fight you off, you know.

Yeah, there has to be some type of yeah, mental inter interaction there that calms you down.

Not to mention all the screen memories that people have as well, A lot of them are animal, you know, They're like giant owls or deer, and there's these like strange stories of oh, I you know, I encountered this deer in the middle of the road and not sure what happened there, and so, yeah, there are a lot of bizarre things when it comes to memory.

But human memory is also fallible.

It's not it's not to be relied on, you know, we can rely on it in court apparently, but definitely should not be relied on in science because as a magician, I know that I can manipulate and engineer a memory.

You know, this is a great gift that magicians have and they know this, and it's not too difficult.

And so you know, if I take something and I put a lot of emphasis on it, I say this is look at this over here, it's very important.

And then I show you this and I say, oh, it's not too important over here, but look at this, this is really important.

Well, later on, your mind is going to take those two really important things that I just showed you and placed them together in that little thing that I went, oh, this is not so important.

Your mind's not going to store useless information.

It's just not built that way.

So it's going to completely omit that from the equation and the story you're going to tell your friends is going to be this fantastical thing that never happened.

Wow, it won't be this fantastic thing plus this little thing that didn't matter, you know, because when in reality, that little thing that didn't matter made the whole trick work.

But magicians, due to misdirection and just psychological subtlety, will be able to you know, strip that from your memory using body language and all sorts of other cues, and so, yeah, I think memory is malleable.

It's you can play with it.

It's not too difficult.

The government's been doing it.

People inside the government have been using these things, from MK ultra to even training at spy school, so you know, we're no strangers to that.

However, I do also think that there is something else going on with these beings potentially.

Yeah, it certainly seems to be the case.

Now you've explored the consciousness part of your area.

Fifty two show a topic that is, you know, tied to UFOs and these sort of altered states that we were talking about.

Question, what is your take on the link between consciousness and UAPs, Like, do you think that there's something fundamentally non physical about these encounters or in your view, are they purely in the physical realm.

No, there's definitely a non physical and I think that the non physical you know, hard to say, but I think it might be more important, and a lot of other researchers have come to that conclusion.

But it's just a big pill for a lot of people to swallow because admitting that you have to admit that the non physical is also real.

Yeah, and people aren't so quick on putting anything in the real category that isn't physical, you know.

And so I think once we start understanding that the non physical is just this sort of strange projection that we have, and that you know, it is navigable, you can map it out.

Potentially it has permanence, maybe it's I don't know it, we might discover that things in the non physical have as much, if not more value as the physical realm.

And I think once we do, then we'll be able to acknowledge a lot of the non physical interactions we people have been having with entities because some in some cases they're both.

In some cases they're non physical, but then they leave physical marks on people.

And so there's this whole weird mix of all these different cases that just really is hard to make sense of.

Yeah, and if you're bringing this into the light, you're not gonna lead with non physical things.

So people people are just like they got to put their toes in the water first, So you know, they're gonna they're gonna start with Okay, maybe cattle mutilations happened, Okay, maybe you know, maybe this person got taken aboard of physical craft.

Oh, this person worked on a UFO and it'll start there.

But I think at the peak of it, I think there is a lot of non physical interactions happening, and that's where it gets really nebular list because then it's like, are you dreaming?

Yeah?

Are you in a hypnotic state?

Is what happened in this you know, sort of weird state real even, like, and so yeah, once once we get to that bridge, I think it'll be a while.

I don't think people are ready to have those conversations quite yet, but I do believe that there is a lot of importance there.

I agree.

Now, your your whole brand lives at really kind of like the intersection of mystery and masteries, so like, you know, the mastery of you know, being an incredibly good magician like that.

As I mentioned earlier, that was one of the things I learned is the concepts are super simple of magic, but but to make it believable, you really have to be a master of so many things to to you know, to bring that to life.

So my question is, where do you think this whole UFO mystery is.

Are we at the beginning of a of a new understanding or do you think that, you know, we may be just stuck in just kind of an elaborate illusion.

Yeah, I mean, are we stuck in an elaborate illusion?

That might be a deeper question, you know, potentially, I think that's all reality is.

But you know, that's a tough one because it's like.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, and I'm not going to pretend to know.

You know, the answer to that, I think it seems like some days we're making headway by leaps and bounds, and other days you look back and you say, this is just history repeating itself, right, And so it's really hard to say.

And I don't think that it's up to me to like get us to that next place or I'm just here trying to observe what's observable and make the discussion open.

So allow people to have these conversations openly without judgment, I think is what I aim to do.

Other than that, you know, if if I stumble upon something, then so be it.

But I really really think that it's important that we acknowledge and have these conversations without judgment, without saying if they're true or not or you believe them or you don't, who cares.

Let's just talk about it.

Let's make everybody comfortable with this subject, and you know, let's encourage people looking into the soft sciences as well as the hard sciences.

And let's just move this forward culturally.

Before we decide to shoot down a UFO hop in and take it for a spin around the universe, I think, let's let's study ourselves and let's get familiar with potentially a new paradigm shifting reality.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.

Now I kind of you know my feeling, and maybe you feel the same way regarding your audience.

But you know, but I think a lot of audiences are visually again, like they're deeply curious, but they're also like.

Visually engaged, you know, more like they're.

More interested in like seeing something, you know, be in a film or whatever, like something nuts and bolts, rather than say like a Pentagon memo.

So I'm curious, what what's been the most surprising audience reaction to your UFO or consciousness content, Like have they have they been able to follow you easily into this new territory because I know, like for me, I was always like I got to focus on the nuts and bolts and this consciousness thing.

I don't know if the audience would would be into that.

What's what's sort of your take, Ben.

Yeah, audience is one thing.

Algorithm is another.

Right, So yeah, that's for sure.

You know, if you're chasing numbers, you're going to want to put a certain thing in the thumbnail for sure.

As you know, as someone who's trying to be good at YouTube, I got to think about that too, you know.

But that being said, I love the pursuit of the stranger parapsychological events that have happened in the UFO space, and I try to segue those topics into, you know, the broader conversations as much as I can.

But I think people are open to it.

Man.

It's crazy when you start talking about out of body experiences as I have on the channel, or remote viewing or any sort of psychic event, it is so overwhelmingly.

I mean, people just come in tros in the comments and they're just like, I had this happen to me.

Oh my god, I can't believe someone's talking about the thing that I just experienced.

Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of comments, and so although we have all of these cases that you know of abduction and of encounters I think on the psychic and even astral side equally.

So I think people have experienced high strangeness in so many different forms, and again just having that conversation allows them to feel a little bit more normalized and allows a conversation to expand into you know, potentially new territory.

Yeah, I definitely agree.

It's funny.

It's like when I like, when I first got into this topic, I never had any idea about remote viewing or this size stuff, or even like the paranormal stuff.

So like for me, when this orb appeared above my home for the first time, it was co located with all of this insane sort of like poltergeist activity in the house, and you know, lasted for like anywhere between four to six months.

But I remembered at the time, I was like so obviously blown away that something appeared.

Above the home.

But to have all this kind of really weird stuff happened inside the house, that was the thing that really really blew me away.

And for me it was like it was a real real mind opener.

And I was telling a friend talking about contact in the desert.

So this year was my second year ago.

I was there the first year, and I'm sure you've experienced this, of course, fans being there that love your work and appreciate your work and your advocacy on the topic.

And I was experiencing that last year when people would come up to me.

But the thing that I just thought was so cool is it was like the first time it really like clicked in my head that, oh my god, there are tons of people that are experiencing this stuff, and it was great like being in kind of like a place where you could talk to somebody and not like have any filter about what you're talking about, Like you could just say the craziest thing.

I know.

I was walking down the street and I saw this raccoon and the raccoon started talking to me.

It's like you may not have that.

You may not have that conversation with like your banker, your lawyer or your accountant.

But it was cool going to this thing and finding out people have had like the same weird experiences and then finding out just like how prolific it is.

And you know, of course everybody that's going there has some level of interest in it.

But yeah, man, I just I think it is just so fascinating and this whole topic.

It's like I said, literally, nothing would surprise me.

So you know, you could tell me right now that Chewbacca is real and wasn't a guy in a costume, and I'd be like, Chris, I don't know about that, but then doubt later that it's true.

I'd be like, well, you know what, we live in a weird universe.

But Chris, Chris, thank you so much.

Go ahead, no please, I was.

Just going to say, you know, you mentioned big Foot at the top of the episode.

Well, we haven't seen Bigfoot in Schewbacca in the same place, so.

That's a good point, just saying, well, Chris, I'm so honored to have you on the show.

And folks have to say Chris has really been incredibly generous.

With with with his advice.

He's obviously been doing this way more than me, so things about being a content creator that oftentimes you're just kind of left by trial and error trying to figure it out.

You have people like Chris and Jesse Michaels who have been incredibly successful, but they are so generous in in helping other people that are that are up and up and coming behind them.

So, Chris, I really really appreciate that.

It just says so much about your character and who you are as a human being, and and that you're you're really into this for all the right reasons in my book, But I really really really appreciate the generosity of your time coming on the show, and then also your time uh you know, off camera and and being helpful, and I just I think that's that's just a really really really great thing.

So, folks, not only does he have a great show, it is a really wonderful human being as well.

So so yeah, thanks for coming on.

And so how the folks at home, how can they find your two wonderful shows?

Well, first of all, I want to thank you for having me on and you know, being candid with me on and off camera.

You know, you've you've really opened up, and it's it's nice to be able to connect with someone.

You know, people see these shows and they don't often understand that there's there's people behind these things, you know, And and I've had really open conversations with you, and you're your lovely human being as well, So thank you, you know, for the people wondering at home, what what's Matt like off camera.

He's a sweetheart.

He's really cool to hang out with and h and yeah, I enjoyed my time with you immenseally, so thank you.

Thank you to the audience by the way as well for lending me your ear.

I appreciate it.

You can find my stuff at Area fifty two Investigations on YouTube and just Chris Ramsey is like my puzzle and magic stuff.

If you want to go down and learn some slight of hand and stuff, you can check that out as well.

Awesome, well, Chris, it's been a pleasure having you on the show and look forward to having you back.

And I promise I'm not going to crank call your number.

All right.

I'll screen them beforehand and make sure.

That's right, all right, Chris Ramsey.

Ladies and gentlemen, folks, if you enjoyed our interview with Chris Ramsey, you're going to love this episode.

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