Bill Konkolesky

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back, everyone, to the Tron Podcast. This is your host, Rashad Woods. Today on our show, I have a very special guest. He's the director of the Michigan chapter of the UFOs network, Mr. Bill Kunkoloski. Thank you. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Hey, thanks for having me on. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Rashad, you know your background and what you've done over the last few decades. Actually, when it comes to ufo. Now, do they call it UFO or UFA now? [00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, UAP is the alternative term, and that's for currently because it started off as Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. Now it's Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. I prefer ufo. I'm a bit old school that way. Uap, I guess, is a broader umbrella which encompasses a lot more things. UFO tends to be very specific in what it's trying to describe. It's a flying object. And it might not be flying. It might be on the ground. It might not be an object. It could be something without a shape or it could be just light. So, I mean, I guess UAP is a little closer to a common generalized term for it. But again, I'm old school, so I like ufo. [00:01:12] Speaker A: So I had a chance to look at some of the segments that you had on abduction chronicles, and it looks like your first instance with UFOs was when you were about 8 years old, 7 years old in your bedroom, when. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Okay, so actually, my very first memory in life at age two, I did have a very dramatic encounter at age seven. And. But just rewinding a bit to when I was 2, it was nighttime. I was in my crib. A little gray guy came into my room. Giant black wraparound eyes that just stared down at me. And I screamed for my parents. And my mom in the other room told me to go to sleep, like she thought I was having a bad dream or just fidgeting or something like that. And so my parents didn't come in. And after a while, the being just was like, okay. It felt satisfied and then walked out of the room. And that was, again, my very first memory in life. It wasn't anything playful or abstract. It was this very specific moment. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Okay, and what city was that in? Michigan? [00:02:18] Speaker B: Sterling Heights. [00:02:19] Speaker A: And so. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Okay, so this one's much more in depth if. And I can definitely walk through it. I was in bed, and I woke up to this sort of tingling feeling all over. And I look and there's this hole in the ceiling above me. And it's very strange. Obviously, you're still. When you're like, seven, you're still at an age where. Where weird things can happen. That you've never seen before. And you just sort of say, okay, that's new in life. I'm gonna roll with it. So here's this thing. I'm like, I have no idea why it's there, how it could have got there. But then this metal sort of hose or cable, pardon me, drops out of it and starts whipping around really quickly. And I can really feel the energy start to build up. And then I felt just this big, powerful sort of vibration in me. And suddenly I'm in this small room, and it's got this sort of dark light in it. And there's these two little guys in there, the ones that I had seen before, about 3ft tall, super thin, the big eyes. And I got the feeling that I was being cleansed somehow. Like this was kind of like their mud room on board a craft, if you will. And so I was being, you know, taking any germs on me or whatever. I felt that was what they were doing. And then the door opens, and they lead me into the next room. And I see this slab in the middle of the room that I interpret to be a doctor's bed. I'm like, oh, they're going to want me to go on this bed. Very sparse room, very brightly lit. Nothing that I could look at and say, oh, I understand what that is. Like, that's like this type of tool or that type of storage or whatever. Then there's three of them now in this room. The two of them, when they let me in, there was a third one there. And then there were two doors, one on the left and one on the right. The beings got up and walked through the left door and then left me alone. I'm like. I'm like, well, that's very interesting that they would leave me alone. And so they went through the left door, so I went through the right. And I found myself walking along a long, narrow, curved hallway. And then I got to the end of the hallway and there was this room. And I looked in the room. It was a very small room. There was some kind of mechanical contraption in it. The closest analogy I could think of was like a furnace, something like that. And then I came out of the room and looked back, and then the three of them were there, just kind of casually following me. Like they realized what I did realize. I probably couldn't do a whole lot of damage or go anywhere. So they were just curious, like, okay, we'll follow them. And so when I turned back, they let me into a side room that was in that hallway. And then when we went in there, there was another being just like them, but, like a couple feet taller. This one was, like, about five feet. These little guys are about three feet. And this one that was five feet wanted me to sit in this chair that was very much like a dentist's chair. And I did. And I felt stuck to the chair immediately. There weren't any clasps or anything to physically hold me, but I just felt magnetically attached to this chair. And so the man, the being, came, and he went right into my face very closely and said, be very good, and you'll get to see the color blue. And I was like, you know, as a kid, you want a sick. You know, a sucker or something. [00:05:55] Speaker A: These things are speaking English, just so I'm clear about that. You can perfectly understand. [00:05:59] Speaker B: It's all telepathic, okay? It's all telepathic. The little ones didn't actually ever say anything, but the taller one was communicative. And it seemed like it. It was very similar to the other ones, but not exactly the same as the other ones. This. It. This one had an ability to communicate and I guess connect with people in a way that the. The smaller ones couldn't. And so then, you know, I said, it got in my face. Be really good. You get to see the color blue. And then I felt a sharp pain on my right arm. I looked down. There's a. Now a slice on my arm. And I'm looking at it. As I'm looking at it, it's actually starting to heal up right as I'm watching it, which is strange. I didn't see what cut it. I have no idea why it's healing. So I look back up at the being, and it's got his face in mine again. And it's. And, pardon me, it doesn't say anything, but its eyes turned from a deep black to a bright, like, cerulean blue. A very bright backlit blue. And I'm being pounded with this bright blue light from its eyes. And it was actually relaxing. It was tranquilizing, mesmerizing. I was lost in this sort of field of blue. And then the next thing I knew, I woke up the next day. And the first thing I. I look down and I see that scar there that wasn't there the day before. And I went around to my brothers. I have four older brothers and my parents. And I'm like, do you have any idea how I got this? I. I've never seen it before. Just. Just in case that somehow I may have gotten it Some other way. And none of them could remember it. And my mom was particularly surprised. She's like, oh, that's a pretty big scar. And she's like, you would have remembered getting that. Like, oh, yeah. So then later. Later in the afternoon, that of that same day, I'm in the backyard playing with the little boy across the street was a year younger than me. So I'm seven, he's six. We're just climbing the trees in my backyard. And this mist rolls into the backyard. This sort of cloud. This mist just comes in. And I thought at first, you know, is it a fire? Is it somebody's barbecue? What's going on? And then when it hits me, it's cool. Like a fog machine cool. And I'm like, this is strange. And then inside of it was a gray guy. And he says to me, you know, telepathically, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm fine. And he seemed satisfied, and he kept walking, and the mist rolled with him, and he went into the next yard. And. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Now, was there any other young kid with you at the time who could. Who saw that? [00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. So my friend from across the street, he saw the mist. We both remember it. And I'm still in touch with him at. And he still remembers it, but he did not see the little being. So. [00:08:58] Speaker A: So obviously, you're seeing these, and. And I hate to. I'm gonna be respectful when I ask. This is when you started telling people, do they think this was a product of kids over, you know, a kid's imagination, Overactive imagination? And, you know, is. Is it kind of this way you see it, like, almost in TV or movies where mom, dad, I saw this. You know, brother, I saw this. And then people weren't really, you know, tell thinking that you were telling the truth. [00:09:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:09:22] Speaker A: That had to have been frustrating. Imagine. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, there was. There was definitely that element to it. A thing about my household was. I have. My. My four brothers are all older than me. My two oldest brothers and I could go toe to toe in a strange and crazy happen to me contest. Then the next two brothers between them, zero experiences, Not a single thing. Not even being around one of the others of us in the instant that something was happening. And my oldest brother's, like, 11 years older than me, and 10. They're all, like, about a year apart. And then there's a gap. And then I came along, but. So there was a household rul. Because weird stuff runs on my mom's side of the family. And so I have lots of Cousins with weird stuff happening to them too. But there was a house rule that they can be supportive of me when I said stuff, but they couldn't share their own stuff with me. They didn't want to influence me, they didn't want to scare me, but they could be supportive of me. And so it wasn't until I was, you know, in the middle school, junior high age that they started to share some of the weird things. Yeah. And so I, I was never like pushed away or ridiculed or told. No, that's not, no, that's impossible. You know, it's always just like, oh. [00:10:53] Speaker A: That'S right, that's, you know, and, and they only ask because it, so because it's such an open ended, you don't know how that could be received when you tell your parents or your siblings. So do they based upon your experiences and what you've seen. And I got just a couple questions. This is so fast. This is very fascinating. Did you find out it was exclusively that they were targeting you or did you have any other people in the neighborhood? Was there an age, was there a reason that this was happening particularly to you? Were you researching them and they, you know, were you researching phenomena and they felt that there was a connection of some sorts. [00:11:27] Speaker B: I always like to say that the UFOs had an interest in me before I had an interest in them. So it runs again. It runs on my mom's side of the family and so I think I just sort of inherited it. And the number of people that this happens to I think is widely underreported. So I'm not like one of like few. I'm one of probably maybe even several hundreds of thousands of people. So it's rare. But you know, I don't, I don't necessarily feel like special, like I'm one of, you know, the, you know, the aliens came down and said out of 8 billion people, you know that, yeah, that kind of a thing. It's just there's a minority of people, sure. But it, you know, at this point it's a community because the Internet allows people to sort of get together. And I always say there's sort of three ways you can be indoctrinated onboarded excuse upon into this sort of phenomena. One is if it runs in your family. One is if you are around somebody who has this type of phenomena happen to them long enough, enough times, you'll start to have things happen to you too. I've had it sort of rub off on friends of mine. And then the other is and this one's maybe a bit more rare. Like if an experiencer, which is sort of a kinder way to say abductee, lives in a particular house for a long time, there's sort of a residual there. And if they move out, something can possibly happen to the new homeowners. I've seen that happen twice. So, yeah, it's kind of like almost like a disease almost. You kind of catch it. You know, you could catch it genetically or be around somebody or leave the residue and somebody else picks it up. But it's very strange for somebody who's outside of childhood to start having these type of phenomena. If somebody says, if somebody says, I was in my 20s when it started happening to me, what I hear is that there were probably several things that happened to them when they were younger and they just don't remember it. I'm not going to make jump to assumptions and say, I know that's the case, but based upon the pattern I see it very rarely starts to happen to somebody later in life. Unless one of those causes, like they're around somebody that it happens to so that, you know. [00:13:50] Speaker A: So there's usually some sort of childhood event that happened. They may not have a good memory of it. And then when they're older and they have a better memory or it's more recent to them, then you kind of push it to the back end of their mind. They're like, oh, this just started happening. That's based on some of your experiences. That's. That's very interesting. So my next question would be, and I'm just jumping a little bit, is the senatorial hearings. Where did that kind of feel like validation from all the things that you said that you, that you've seen or experienced? And then last year they have those Senate hearings and, you know, there's some validation from Air Force pilots and particularly over the Atlantic and over oceans and bodies of water that said that they've seen multiple things. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's a lot there. One is, I'll just start off by saying that I never needed anybody outside of myself or say the UFO or experiencer community to validate what I know is true. Either from investigating UFOs through MUFON or of course, my personal experiences. A lot of people are like, it's almost as if UFOs won't exist until the government tells us they do. And then suddenly they will. Like magic. They exist now because the government said so. You know, it is validation, though. It is good to hear. You know, I've been since I've been in, I mean, I joined move on in 93, but I've always been immersed in this topic. And I remember back in the old Larry King show where they would have a guest on his talk show where they said, you know, here's people who've had experiences. And then there'd be somebody else on the show saying, we don't even know that there's planets out there. We know there has to be, but we haven't found any. And then now there's planets everywhere that they're finding. And pardon me, it's a progression. It's a slow, steady drip of disclosure. There's been some real big, like David Grush last year was a gentleman who said, yeah, said that we have craft, there are bodies. And then it's a very tedious dig into those claims to see if anything is there. So it's slowly moving in the direction. I'm confident that at some point it'll just become obvious. And so, you know, for the time being, you know, I, I do what I can to get out. [00:16:09] Speaker A: A lot of these things particularly happen at nighttime or over bodies of water. Is there, is there a particular reason why people tend to see these at night? And maybe not. And this is just my, me just seeing videos on, you know, on YouTube or, you know, seeing a news broadcast. They usually happen at night or over an ocean. Is there a particular reason why that happens? [00:16:32] Speaker B: Okay, so first of all, I'll cover the night thing and then the water thing. And this is also true for some of the over water sightings. So it's like an airplane. You know, there's airplanes flying overhead all the time. During the daytime, you don't seem to notice them as much because at night when there's not as much going on in the sky, you see the lights on the airplane, the lights catch your attention. So I think it's more an aspect of that and that's a very broad over generalization. But generally you're going to notice something with lights on it. And the other thing is for those sightings that are on or over water, there's not a lot going on around the water. You know, there aren't any. Like if you are on the shore looking out over a big lake or the ocean, what have you, and there's, you don't see any lights on the horizon. There's not a lot. There's no trees, there's no buildings or anything. So your eyes are looking like, is anything going on in the direction I'm looking? Like, oh, there's a thing, and it's moving kind of weird. That's different. So there's that. But I will also say that the recent videos that have been disclosed to the public from the military, the ones out over the Atlantic and out over the Pacific, it's not that there aren't a lot of sightings over the mainland, because there are. It's just that when they're testing the waters again, excuse the pun, testing the waters to see what people think about the phenomena, like, what the man on the street thinks about UFOs, they're not going to like, say, oh, my gosh, there was this giant UFO over Chicago. You know, they're gonna say, like, out on the ocean this direction. Out on the ocean that direction. There was a thing. And people are like, well, that's weird. Glad it was over the ocean. It's like, you know, it's like if you saw a shark, you know, you'd be surprised. But, you know, if you said, oh, look at this shark out. Out in the ocean, you'll be like, right, right, right. [00:18:32] Speaker A: And I. I've heard. I watched a documentary on Netflix recently, I. Escapes the name of me right now. But they said that they actually, because we can't measure the depth of the ocean based on our technology, that UFOs could actually be in the ocean underwater. Is there some validation to that too, as well? The reason why, like, people see them over bodies of water frequently that happens. They're actually coming from the bottom of the ocean. [00:18:59] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, for however long we've been here as a species, I'm sure it was very easy for them up until now to just kind of like, say, oh, here's a high enough mountain. These people can't climb this. Let's. Let's hang out here. You know, let's hang out on the back side of the moon. They can't even see that. You know, all these places that were just sort of easy for them to hang out, like Antarctica. Nobody's coming here to the center of Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean. Sure, there's. Those are all viable places that would be fairly easy for them until, you know, it's kind of like, you know, using that. The parenthood analogy. You know, it's cute when you see your kid, you know, sort of just laying there, your b. Little cute little baby on the ground. But once they're up and walking, holy cow. [00:19:48] Speaker A: Right? [00:19:48] Speaker B: You know, changes. Change everything. So y. So I think now that we're toddling around, they're hidden bases. Don't have that same luxury that they probably did for thousands of years or however long it's been. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Can you tell us about your work with MUFON? You know, you've been director since what, since 2004? [00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So what MUFON does, we're the world's largest civilian UFO research organization in over 40 countries, over 5,000 members. Now, the organization's been around since 1960. 66. I have not been around since 1966, but MUFON has headquartered. So. Yeah, right now. Yep. And so when people see something, they can primarily they go to the website and report it. And then we have a field investigator, a trained, A well trained field investigator, a volunteer, but still a trained investigator. Reach out to them and try to figure out what it is that they seen. In Michigan, every year we get about 200 sightings. And our field investigators can identify typically about 90% of what people report. People misidentify airplanes or they'll see things like Starlink satellites. That's a big one. Drones, Chinese lanterns, sometimes weather or natural celestial phenomena. And a lot of the time we can identify it, but it's at 10%. That's the really interesting stuff that, you know, it keeps you. Pardon me, a little bit of cough, really keeps you motivated and interested in it. So since I've been State Director in 2004, Michigan has gotten a little over 4,000 sightings into West. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's never dull moment. [00:21:40] Speaker A: So. And I know in 94, Michigan had those sightings that were what, over Muskegon, I believe, where they said that. And it was multiple people said they saw something at that time. And it's, you know, I don't, I don't recall that. I was only about 11, 12 years old when those instances were taking place. So I'm only finding out some of this information as I got older and started, you know, researching your background and this phenomenon. Because with all due respect, a lot of times it wasn't that you didn't believe that there was something that was available out there. And yes, the government didn't validate it, but it kind of now that it came pseudo mainstream as well as more people who have no agenda said, I've seen something, and this is unexplainable to me. I mean, you have a heart even. And I say this respectfully, maybe they don't believe the kid in bed, but they'll believe the Air Force pilot. Right. You know, and that means. Because an Air Force pilot Has no. He's like, our technology didn't. Couldn't even chase that thing in air. And you're like, it blows your mind. And you see the video of it, you're like, you gotta be kidding me. [00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That 1994 case had. Yeah, it was 3-8-94. Had over 300 witnesses to it. The Muskegon National Weather Service tracked it on radar. All sorts of people, over 60 people made calls into 911 about it, which is huge, right? Because, you know, you hear that like, okay, people called 9 1. But you think about it, and people called the same number. They call if somebody's trying to break into their house or they fall in and they can't get up because they saw something in the sky that impressed them. That's that. That means they were really impressed by what was going on in the sky. To call 91 1. There was a great piece on it done by Unsolved Mysteries maybe is a bit of a most. Because I helped put it together. But there was. Yeah, a solid episode just on that March 8, 1994 case in. In Michigan that I know they have a new incarnation. [00:23:40] Speaker A: The music itself would make like, literally, it was the music. Like, now I see it on Netflix, obviously. God bless Robert Stack, you know, But I'm like, I don't know if I really want to tune into that one more because I kind of. That. That wasn't an easy experience as a. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Kid, you know, and it was kind of. It's kind of funny, too. I'll just add that I joined Muon in the fall of 93, and in the spring of 94 is when that happened. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's going to be like this all the time. [00:24:07] Speaker A: But, you know, so in order to be a field investigator, you know, I saw the kind of. The qualification, not kind of the actual qualifications. There's a 250, 65 question exam, and then there's a background check. So you have some really credible people from backgrounds to make sure that you're. You're getting people who generally want to do this. And it's not just somebody off the street. [00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's a lot of people that, you know, just like anything, they. They pick up a hobby, say they. They think they're gonna golf or something. They go all in and they buy all this expensive stuff, and then they're like, maybe not. And then it just sort of sits there. So we want some sort of investment before we just let anybody have access to be able to receive information and manage it responsibly and be responsible with the people that are reporting things. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. No. I have a question. I know we're running on time a little here, but I just had one more quick question for you. How is the resources from the state changed since you started or states that other people have been in since the beginning of when you started or got into this, and now that there's congressional hearings about it and now it's becoming more. There's something there and there's actual, an actual push from a wider spread. You can't just hide this from a government level. Have you changed, seen any resources change at a state level? [00:25:34] Speaker B: Well, there's a lot going on dynamically right now, let me say for the international organization, because there's the international that is worldwide or to the extent that we're worldwide, we're mostly based in the US understandably. And then each state or province or whatever has its own chapter in it. And Michigan's always been a really strong independent chapter at the international level. There's a fee to join, there's a fee to be a field investigator. That's how you have to become a field investigator. In joining the international organization. Economically, we found that people don't have as much easy money. You know, it's just a phase the economy is going through. Maybe that'll turn around, maybe not. So there's a lot of people that say, hey, put me on your email list or I'd like to attend your zoom meetings, things like that. But otherwise, I mean, we've generally had about a hundred people that I would really consider members at any given time. That number really hasn't grown or shrank. Interestingly as much as either when we try to put effort into it or we completely ignore it, that number seems to remain about the same. But so many people are interested and say hey, just put me on an email list and I'd like to hear more of it. I don't know if that addresses your question, but I would think yeah, the level of interest would indicate. And we do have some very generous, wonderful people who donate because that's how the, the state chapter runs, by donation. Some, some wonderful donations that come into us. Really something. However, if we were to rely on the membership based model where we ask people to have to pay a specific amount to participate. Dues. Exactly. They that number is, is not reliable. Currently the interest is there, but not everybody has commitment. [00:27:33] Speaker A: So you know that. I really appreciate your time. I would love to have a follow up with you about this just because I think that there's so much I could dive into and your experiences with it. But for the sake of your schedule and your time, I'll save that for our next conversation. So did you have any questions for me? [00:27:52] Speaker B: No. Thanks so much. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Bill.