Our Strange Skies
Rob Kristoffersen
Podcaster | Historian
Rob Kristoffersen is an amateur UFO researcher from the Adirondacks of Northern New York. His interest in the paranormal and UFOs started at a young age, influenced by shows like The Real Ghostbusters, Unsolved Mysteries, In Search Of…, and that cooky Alien Autopsy special that they aired on Fox twice.
Following a UFO sighting in 2015, he devoted much his time to the subject of strange objects in the sky, and in late 2017, debuted the podcast Our Strange Skies: UFOs Throughout History. To date, the podcast has been listened to over a million times.
When he is not perusing old UFO journals for obscure cases, he enjoys Table Top Role Playing Games like Dungeons and Dragons. Rob is the Game Master for Welcome to Sunderland, an alien themed Dungeons and Dragons campaign, set in a modern setting.
Podcast Archive
The picturesque island of Coronado, situated in the resort city of San Diego, California, is crawling with the Secret Service in preparation for the arrival of William “Bill” Jefferson Clinton, saxophonist extraordinaire and 42nd President of the United States of…
The Pennine Hills, located in Northern England, played host to a number of strange phenomenon throughout the 1970s and into the 80s. From the “Phantom Copters” of 1973, to triangular shaped UFOs and low hovering objects that would stop cars,…
In the Spring of 1988, Dr. Karla Turner, an English instructor at the University of North Texas, unexpectedly asked her class to objectively evaluate evidence on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or UFOs. Despite describing herself as open-minded, she had…
Scribd is a magical resource, full of the most obscure documents, journals, and manifestos ever assembled in one location. One fine day I stumbled upon a strange report assembled by Dennis Pilichis entitled Night Siege – The Northern Ohio UFO-Creature…
In episode 140 we looked at a wave of UFO activity that occurred in 1967. Many reported seeing strange red lights and metallic structured craft, and other objects, but few humanoid sightings were reported. In 1968, things got a lot…
1967 was a unique year for Canada. While the United States was embroiled in its own flap that saw the Ohio Valley play host to a myriad of strange activity, the Men in Black run amuck on UFO witnesses, and…
We’re taking a bit of a break from our abduction series, and this week, Sequoyah Kennedy from The Nonsense Bazaar joins me to talk a little shit about the C.I.A.In 1952, the new Project Blue Book was riding high. With…
Welcome back to the third and final part of our series on Whitley Strieber. If you thought the last episode was wild, prepare yourself to take classes on Mars with the Sisters of Mercy. On this episode we cover the…
So, what happens when you have a hit book on your hands? Well, your publisher wants another one. In this episode we cover the first two sequels to Communion, Transformation: The Breakthrough and Breakthrough: The Next Step.These sequels have it…
This week, we begin a three part series on one of the most important figures in alien abduction lore, Whitley Strieber. Through a singular image on a book called Communion, Strieber captured the uncanny valley of many readers and introduced…
On this weeks episode, OSS teams up with the What If? Podcast to review David Paulides’ new documentary, Missing 411: The UFO Connection. Together we dive into David Paulides’ sketchy past as a cop, we postulate where the actual UFO…
CW: Sexual abuseWhen it comes to the alien abduction phenomenon, no two figures have played a greater roll in its shaping than Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs. And shaping, I think, is the perfect word, because, as we’ve covered on this…
Eight years before Whitley Strieber’s Communion was published, The Andreasson Affair hit the shelves and challenged the notion of what abductions could be. Part alien abduction story and part contactee story, Betty’s contact occurred during a tumultuous period in her…
In our first installment of our History of Abductions series, I put forth the premise that abductions weren’t in print before 1957… welp, that’s not entirely true. On this episode I dive into the origins of the phenomenon with fae…
CW: Self-harm, Childhood Sexual Assault, and CSA MaterialWe’re taking a break this week from the abduction series to introduce a new series, UFO Grifters, featuring the worst of the worst in the UFO community. We’re starting with a big one:…
Abductions in the 1970s are characterized by cases that gained a level of popularity on their individual merits. The Pascagoula Abduction for instance was a media sensation that occurred during a very prominent UFO/humanoid flap. It’s also the first year…
Way back on episode three of this podcast, we featured our first of only two UFO Book Clubs, dedicated to The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made The World Believe in UFOs by Mark O’Connell. O’Connell’s biography of J…
CW: RacismWhen it comes to the alien contact experience, and the cases that we’ve come to revere, we often forget that there are voices excluded from the conversation. The alien abduction phenomenon more often than not seems like a purely…
First and foremost, I can’t thank you all enough for the overwhelming support for our first episode. It means the world. On this week’s episode Rich Hatem is back and he brings the story of Albert Coe along. Published in…
This episode marks the beginning of a L O N G series about the history of the alien abduction phenomenon.Our premise, in part, can be summarized by Thomas Bullard, “UFO abductions in the strict sense of the term usually include…
For Halloween this year I wanted to do something special. I reached out to Stan Gordon, and he was kind enough to join me. Stan talked about many of the cases he’s collected and investigated over the years, including the…
At the end of this week’s episode I referenced a webcomic that I’ve been working on with past guest and all around good dude, Todd Purse, called Welcome UFO People. Well, we decided to get together and talk about it.…
Page space within UFO journals of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was dedicated to solely to the seasoned investigator, debuting important cases that we quote endlessly today, for the first time; the established theorist theorizing about the true nature of…
The 1970s produced a distinct flavor of Sasquatch, one that could be found in nationwide headlines in states like Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Often these sightings would be accompanied by other anomalous events, like UFOs, strange voices, and…
When it comes to the big hairy guy in the woods, most people are of the mind that Bigfoot is a salt of the earth creature, feet firmly planted on the ground. Well, on this episode, we talk about the…
CW: domestic abuseA couple of months ago, patrons of Our Strange Skies voted on a non-UFO topic that we would cover. Among the choices of “Haunted Objects, “Gef, the Talking Mongoose” and “The Beast of Boggy Creek,” the topic that…
On episode 96, we briefly touched upon the story of the Sunderland family, who’d had a series of encounters with UFOs and aliens in a field near their home. The accounts of Gaynor and Darren Sunderland were very similar; they…
On September 13, 2022, Vice Motherboard rand published an articled called “Ukraine’s Astronomers Say There Are Tons of UFOs Over Kyiv.” Astronomers at the main observatory in Kiev described black, extremely fast moving objects, that absorbed radiation. These objects were…
CW: misogyny, fat phobia Back in April I did an impromptu live stream. The theme of this live stream was music. One thing I love doing is live reacting to things I’ve never read before and this episode captures it…
Journalist Bob Pratt made several trips to Brazil, collecting stories from villagers of UFO encounters. Many of them proved to be random, violent encounters which he published in UFO Danger Zone. Often these attacks would come after the witnesses had…
In UFO circles, Puerto Rico’s reputation has largely been built upon that red eyed goat sucker known as El Chupacabras. In reality, their UFO and humanoid history is much more varied than that.Magdalena del Amo-Freixedo, the wife of investigator Salvador…
Am I phoning it in again? Yes, but I really like this episode and for those who haven’t subscribed to the Patreon, this is what you can expect. While I was perusing Patrick Hughye’s Field Guide to Extraterrestrials I found…
In UFO research we have lots of strange terms for things. For instance, a flap is defined as a large cluster of sightings over a period of time. A great example of a flap is our series on the 1973…
CW: Animal death and mutilationThis week Spencer Wirth Davis of Finding Quantum Quest and The What If? Podcast steps in to tell ME a story.Sometimes, a sentence is so unhinged and delivered in a normal fashion that it’s unforgettable. In…
After nearly 8 hours of content over the span of three episodes, I feel like we could use a bit of a breather. Okay, maybe I need the breather, but I’m not gonna leave you hanging. I’m flying solo this…
As silent wings hovered over the TNT area north of Point Pleasant, the big gray birdman would soon be replaced with bright luminous lights, and mysterious men driving brand new Cadillacs, asking strange questions to Mothman witnesses.1967 would be the…
On August 29, 1965 headlines across the country all read “UFO Prober Says There’s Nothing to Indicate Any UFOs Extraterrestrial.” Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla, a physicist and head of the Project Blue Book, made a statement following the huge…
1965 is often viewed as a turning point in ufology. Up until that time, the press had largely dismissed UFO reports at the behest of Project Blue Book and their downplay of UFO reports. 1957 was the last time that…
In February of 1978 a man known only as Julio F packed up his car, his dog and his .22 rifle and headed out into the woods to hunt for hare. Almost immediately, everything got weird. From the start, he…
The Men in Black, MIBs, the UFO silencers; since the 1950s, UFO witnesses have reported encounters with shadowy figures who’ve threatened them into silence. Or as Nick Redfern puts it in his book, The Real Men in Black: “For years—or…
On September 7, 1956, Thomas Hutchinson, a resident of Moneymore, Ireland, put a head lock on a miniature UFO that had landed on his property. Thomas attempted to escort the object to the police department, but after placing it on…
They go by many different names and are found in cultures all throughout the world. Trolls, Leprechauns, the fae, various legends of “The Little People” in Native lore, The “Hidden People” of Iceland. But Today, we’re calling them gnomes. Specifically…
As a life long resident of the Adirondack region of Northern New York, books covering topics like ghosts and cryptids were slim. And aside from Night Siege, the Center for UFO Studies’ examination of the Hudson Valley UFO flap of…
CW: Domestic Violence, Childhood Sexual AssaultIn 1994 Jean Bilodeaux, a field investigator for MUFON in California, received a phone call form a woman. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “May I talk to you? I saw…
When Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released to wide audiences, it was believed by some in the UFO community that it would have an impact on UFO reports. And yet it didn’t. CEIII reports continued to vary during…
CW: ANIMAL DEATH, ANIMAL KIDNAPPING On September 21, 1967 Harry King went to the fence to give Nelly Lewis’ prized Appaloosa Horse, Lady, her usual treat for the day. He grew concerned when she failed to show up. A short time…
UFO witnesses who describe contact with otherworldly beings are often told “do not be afraid”, that the beings “mean them no harm.” On this episode of the Our Strange Skies podcast, the opposite is the case.For this episode I’m joined by…
When I ask a guest to be on the podcast, I often given them a list of topics to chose from, but with Stephanie Quick it started with a DM that began “Are you familiar with the Trancas Incident?” I…
It’s safe to say that the new logo for the podcast is a fair representation of what would happen if I were to meet an alien in an open field. For our guest this week, Katie Webb, the opposite is…
The Yukon has this reputation where the sky is a theater itself. It’s a place known for its lights in the sky, where from August to April the Northern Light can be seen against a backdrop of stars.It’s the kind…
In 1968 Gordon Creighton of Flying Saucer Review received a rather angry letter from a man named F.D. Marrow of Flemington, New Jersey. Marrow, a Klass apologist, was concerned that he was doing a disservice to UFO research by comparing…
1973 was an unprecedented year for abduction cases. 10 abduction cases were reported that year, 8 of which occurred during a 17 day period from October 11-28. Many of them would become infamous in the UFO community. The abduction of…
“The fall of 1973 saw one of the largest and most concentrated waves of UFO reports in history… But the strangest reports from 1973 were of humanoid entities often seen in association with UFOs. I recorded 70 reports of this…
The Year of the Humanoids was a unique time in UFO history. Over the course of four months, the eastern United States saw a high concentration of UFO sightings characterized by unique humanoids in association with them. Bigfoot type creatures,…
The Place Bonaventure Hotel Incident is the quintessential UFO event involving a big UFO hovering above the outdoor pool of a Hilton hotel in downtown Montreal. For nearly three hours, 40+ eyewitnesses looked upon a UFO, including journalists, police officers,…
“There are no other cases, this is the case” Frank Galvin, played by Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet’s 1982 classic, The Verdict, said. And it’s a line that our guest for this episode, Richard Hatem, repeated multiple times. In the…
In 1994 it was not uncommon to see experiencers featured on shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show or Geraldo Rivera. The public attention that the Roswell Crash, Whitley Strieber, Budd Hopkins, and John Mack received pushed the UFO into the…
Through the annals of UFO lore and literature, there are tales of short humanoid beings with long ears, beings that seem to be ripped straight from the pages of fairy lore, beings that resemble bridge trolls and fauns. On this…
On episode 77, I presented a wave of UFO activity from 1972 that was witnessed throughout South Africa. On this episode we head over to Argentina where an odd series of “train-like” objects were spotted in the month of July.…
The picturesque island of Coronado, situated in the resort city of San Diego, California, is crawling with the Secret Service in preparation for the arrival of William “Bill” Jefferson Clinton, saxophonist extraordinaire and 42nd President of the United States of…
The Pennine Hills, located in Northern England, played host to a number of strange phenomenon throughout the 1970s and into the 80s. From the “Phantom Copters” of 1973, to triangular shaped UFOs and low hovering objects that would stop cars,…
In the Spring of 1988, Dr. Karla Turner, an English instructor at the University of North Texas, unexpectedly asked her class to objectively evaluate evidence on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or UFOs. Despite describing herself as open-minded, she had…
Scribd is a magical resource, full of the most obscure documents, journals, and manifestos ever assembled in one location. One fine day I stumbled upon a strange report assembled by Dennis Pilichis entitled Night Siege – The Northern Ohio UFO-Creature…
In episode 140 we looked at a wave of UFO activity that occurred in 1967. Many reported seeing strange red lights and metallic structured craft, and other objects, but few humanoid sightings were reported. In 1968, things got a lot…
1967 was a unique year for Canada. While the United States was embroiled in its own flap that saw the Ohio Valley play host to a myriad of strange activity, the Men in Black run amuck on UFO witnesses, and…
We’re taking a bit of a break from our abduction series, and this week, Sequoyah Kennedy from The Nonsense Bazaar joins me to talk a little shit about the C.I.A.In 1952, the new Project Blue Book was riding high. With…
Welcome back to the third and final part of our series on Whitley Strieber. If you thought the last episode was wild, prepare yourself to take classes on Mars with the Sisters of Mercy. On this episode we cover the…
So, what happens when you have a hit book on your hands? Well, your publisher wants another one. In this episode we cover the first two sequels to Communion, Transformation: The Breakthrough and Breakthrough: The Next Step.These sequels have it…
This week, we begin a three part series on one of the most important figures in alien abduction lore, Whitley Strieber. Through a singular image on a book called Communion, Strieber captured the uncanny valley of many readers and introduced…
On this weeks episode, OSS teams up with the What If? Podcast to review David Paulides’ new documentary, Missing 411: The UFO Connection. Together we dive into David Paulides’ sketchy past as a cop, we postulate where the actual UFO…
CW: Sexual abuseWhen it comes to the alien abduction phenomenon, no two figures have played a greater roll in its shaping than Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs. And shaping, I think, is the perfect word, because, as we’ve covered on this…
Eight years before Whitley Strieber’s Communion was published, The Andreasson Affair hit the shelves and challenged the notion of what abductions could be. Part alien abduction story and part contactee story, Betty’s contact occurred during a tumultuous period in her…
In our first installment of our History of Abductions series, I put forth the premise that abductions weren’t in print before 1957… welp, that’s not entirely true. On this episode I dive into the origins of the phenomenon with fae…
CW: Self-harm, Childhood Sexual Assault, and CSA MaterialWe’re taking a break this week from the abduction series to introduce a new series, UFO Grifters, featuring the worst of the worst in the UFO community. We’re starting with a big one:…
Abductions in the 1970s are characterized by cases that gained a level of popularity on their individual merits. The Pascagoula Abduction for instance was a media sensation that occurred during a very prominent UFO/humanoid flap. It’s also the first year…
Way back on episode three of this podcast, we featured our first of only two UFO Book Clubs, dedicated to The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made The World Believe in UFOs by Mark O’Connell. O’Connell’s biography of J…
CW: RacismWhen it comes to the alien contact experience, and the cases that we’ve come to revere, we often forget that there are voices excluded from the conversation. The alien abduction phenomenon more often than not seems like a purely…
First and foremost, I can’t thank you all enough for the overwhelming support for our first episode. It means the world. On this week’s episode Rich Hatem is back and he brings the story of Albert Coe along. Published in…
This episode marks the beginning of a L O N G series about the history of the alien abduction phenomenon.Our premise, in part, can be summarized by Thomas Bullard, “UFO abductions in the strict sense of the term usually include…
For Halloween this year I wanted to do something special. I reached out to Stan Gordon, and he was kind enough to join me. Stan talked about many of the cases he’s collected and investigated over the years, including the…
At the end of this week’s episode I referenced a webcomic that I’ve been working on with past guest and all around good dude, Todd Purse, called Welcome UFO People. Well, we decided to get together and talk about it.…
Page space within UFO journals of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was dedicated to solely to the seasoned investigator, debuting important cases that we quote endlessly today, for the first time; the established theorist theorizing about the true nature of…
The 1970s produced a distinct flavor of Sasquatch, one that could be found in nationwide headlines in states like Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Often these sightings would be accompanied by other anomalous events, like UFOs, strange voices, and…
When it comes to the big hairy guy in the woods, most people are of the mind that Bigfoot is a salt of the earth creature, feet firmly planted on the ground. Well, on this episode, we talk about the…
CW: domestic abuseA couple of months ago, patrons of Our Strange Skies voted on a non-UFO topic that we would cover. Among the choices of “Haunted Objects, “Gef, the Talking Mongoose” and “The Beast of Boggy Creek,” the topic that…
On episode 96, we briefly touched upon the story of the Sunderland family, who’d had a series of encounters with UFOs and aliens in a field near their home. The accounts of Gaynor and Darren Sunderland were very similar; they…
On September 13, 2022, Vice Motherboard rand published an articled called “Ukraine’s Astronomers Say There Are Tons of UFOs Over Kyiv.” Astronomers at the main observatory in Kiev described black, extremely fast moving objects, that absorbed radiation. These objects were…
CW: misogyny, fat phobia Back in April I did an impromptu live stream. The theme of this live stream was music. One thing I love doing is live reacting to things I’ve never read before and this episode captures it…
Journalist Bob Pratt made several trips to Brazil, collecting stories from villagers of UFO encounters. Many of them proved to be random, violent encounters which he published in UFO Danger Zone. Often these attacks would come after the witnesses had…
In UFO circles, Puerto Rico’s reputation has largely been built upon that red eyed goat sucker known as El Chupacabras. In reality, their UFO and humanoid history is much more varied than that.Magdalena del Amo-Freixedo, the wife of investigator Salvador…
Am I phoning it in again? Yes, but I really like this episode and for those who haven’t subscribed to the Patreon, this is what you can expect. While I was perusing Patrick Hughye’s Field Guide to Extraterrestrials I found…
In UFO research we have lots of strange terms for things. For instance, a flap is defined as a large cluster of sightings over a period of time. A great example of a flap is our series on the 1973…
CW: Animal death and mutilationThis week Spencer Wirth Davis of Finding Quantum Quest and The What If? Podcast steps in to tell ME a story.Sometimes, a sentence is so unhinged and delivered in a normal fashion that it’s unforgettable. In…
After nearly 8 hours of content over the span of three episodes, I feel like we could use a bit of a breather. Okay, maybe I need the breather, but I’m not gonna leave you hanging. I’m flying solo this…
As silent wings hovered over the TNT area north of Point Pleasant, the big gray birdman would soon be replaced with bright luminous lights, and mysterious men driving brand new Cadillacs, asking strange questions to Mothman witnesses.1967 would be the…
On August 29, 1965 headlines across the country all read “UFO Prober Says There’s Nothing to Indicate Any UFOs Extraterrestrial.” Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla, a physicist and head of the Project Blue Book, made a statement following the huge…
1965 is often viewed as a turning point in ufology. Up until that time, the press had largely dismissed UFO reports at the behest of Project Blue Book and their downplay of UFO reports. 1957 was the last time that…
In February of 1978 a man known only as Julio F packed up his car, his dog and his .22 rifle and headed out into the woods to hunt for hare. Almost immediately, everything got weird. From the start, he…
The Men in Black, MIBs, the UFO silencers; since the 1950s, UFO witnesses have reported encounters with shadowy figures who’ve threatened them into silence. Or as Nick Redfern puts it in his book, The Real Men in Black: “For years—or…
On September 7, 1956, Thomas Hutchinson, a resident of Moneymore, Ireland, put a head lock on a miniature UFO that had landed on his property. Thomas attempted to escort the object to the police department, but after placing it on…
They go by many different names and are found in cultures all throughout the world. Trolls, Leprechauns, the fae, various legends of “The Little People” in Native lore, The “Hidden People” of Iceland. But Today, we’re calling them gnomes. Specifically…
As a life long resident of the Adirondack region of Northern New York, books covering topics like ghosts and cryptids were slim. And aside from Night Siege, the Center for UFO Studies’ examination of the Hudson Valley UFO flap of…
CW: Domestic Violence, Childhood Sexual AssaultIn 1994 Jean Bilodeaux, a field investigator for MUFON in California, received a phone call form a woman. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “May I talk to you? I saw…
When Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released to wide audiences, it was believed by some in the UFO community that it would have an impact on UFO reports. And yet it didn’t. CEIII reports continued to vary during…
CW: ANIMAL DEATH, ANIMAL KIDNAPPING On September 21, 1967 Harry King went to the fence to give Nelly Lewis’ prized Appaloosa Horse, Lady, her usual treat for the day. He grew concerned when she failed to show up. A short time…
UFO witnesses who describe contact with otherworldly beings are often told “do not be afraid”, that the beings “mean them no harm.” On this episode of the Our Strange Skies podcast, the opposite is the case.For this episode I’m joined by…
When I ask a guest to be on the podcast, I often given them a list of topics to chose from, but with Stephanie Quick it started with a DM that began “Are you familiar with the Trancas Incident?” I…
It’s safe to say that the new logo for the podcast is a fair representation of what would happen if I were to meet an alien in an open field. For our guest this week, Katie Webb, the opposite is…
The Yukon has this reputation where the sky is a theater itself. It’s a place known for its lights in the sky, where from August to April the Northern Light can be seen against a backdrop of stars.It’s the kind…
In 1968 Gordon Creighton of Flying Saucer Review received a rather angry letter from a man named F.D. Marrow of Flemington, New Jersey. Marrow, a Klass apologist, was concerned that he was doing a disservice to UFO research by comparing…
1973 was an unprecedented year for abduction cases. 10 abduction cases were reported that year, 8 of which occurred during a 17 day period from October 11-28. Many of them would become infamous in the UFO community. The abduction of…
“The fall of 1973 saw one of the largest and most concentrated waves of UFO reports in history… But the strangest reports from 1973 were of humanoid entities often seen in association with UFOs. I recorded 70 reports of this…
The Year of the Humanoids was a unique time in UFO history. Over the course of four months, the eastern United States saw a high concentration of UFO sightings characterized by unique humanoids in association with them. Bigfoot type creatures,…
The Place Bonaventure Hotel Incident is the quintessential UFO event involving a big UFO hovering above the outdoor pool of a Hilton hotel in downtown Montreal. For nearly three hours, 40+ eyewitnesses looked upon a UFO, including journalists, police officers,…
“There are no other cases, this is the case” Frank Galvin, played by Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet’s 1982 classic, The Verdict, said. And it’s a line that our guest for this episode, Richard Hatem, repeated multiple times. In the…
In 1994 it was not uncommon to see experiencers featured on shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show or Geraldo Rivera. The public attention that the Roswell Crash, Whitley Strieber, Budd Hopkins, and John Mack received pushed the UFO into the…
Through the annals of UFO lore and literature, there are tales of short humanoid beings with long ears, beings that seem to be ripped straight from the pages of fairy lore, beings that resemble bridge trolls and fauns. On this…
On episode 77, I presented a wave of UFO activity from 1972 that was witnessed throughout South Africa. On this episode we head over to Argentina where an odd series of “train-like” objects were spotted in the month of July.…