Disclosure Team | Podcast Hub

Chris Ramsay: producing a conversation and judging a claim

Chris Ramsay describes how he builds UFO shows around personal stories, informal conversation and an audience willing to entertain unfamiliar ideas. Vinnie Adams asks about guests who changed his impressions, the production of the Flying Saucer Diner and the difficulties of deciding whom to interview. Ramsay’s practical examples show how much preparation supports an apparently spontaneous exchange, while his comments on belief expose the choices an interviewer makes about challenge and trust.

Key themes

An audience becomes part of the programme

Ramsay presents the stage show as a social event for people who may never attend a conference. Audience accounts extend the telephone stories used in his videos: ticket holders submit experiences, and he chooses one or two from several dozen. The format makes less familiar witnesses visible and gives participants a place to talk. It also involves editorial selection, so the stories heard on stage reflect his choices as well as the experiences offered.

Preparing an informal conversation

The Flying Saucer Diner is designed to feel less directed than a conventional interview. Ramsay recalls printing questions on menus and placing case material in a briefcase under the table for Bob Lazar and Travis Walton. He then withdrew the crew, allowing the guests to speak without an interviewer beside them. Those choices gave the encounter both support and freedom: the setting and prompts were prepared, while the course of the exchange could develop between the participants.

Access, sympathy and questioning

Ramsay favours giving a guest room to speak and leaving much of the judgement to the audience. He describes personal contact raising his confidence in part of Jonathan Reed’s account, while remaining doubtful about later claims. With other guests, he values approachability and tries indirect questions when a direct request produces little. Adams distinguishes follow-up questions from confrontation, and both discuss the responsibility of avoiding exploitation. These considerations explain how an interview is conducted, while the factual claims still need to be assessed beyond the guest’s manner or the host’s rapport.

Possible explanations and adopted assumptions

Ramsay’s experience as a magician makes him wary of confusing an imaginable method with the method actually used. His skywatch example applies a similar restraint: objects absent from his satellite app could still have been satellites. Later, he suggests moving beyond the question of whether humanity is alone by adopting a negative answer and asking something else. That proposal reflects the exploratory purpose he assigns to the conversations. It also introduces a premise that his closing advice to question preferred explanations would itself require him to examine.

Assessment

The role assigned to the interview

Ramsay wants a conversation that can be enjoyed without requiring agreement with its guest. Prepared prompts, audience submissions and a deliberately relaxed set all help create that experience. The resulting programme can record an account and open questions that a more adversarial format might close down. His own examples also show how personal sympathy and the pleasure of a story can raise conviction. The satellite check and possible-method distinction give him ways to test those shifts in conviction. Applying the same reasoning to an assumption about humanity’s place in the universe would also keep that premise open to examination.

Crash Retrievals & Leonard Stringfield's UFO Cases (Presentation) - Michael Schratt