Carter Roy

But that's still more than two decades away.

John's Columbia voyage will go on to become the first orbital flight of a reusable spacecraft in history.

He'll spend two days in space, making 37 trips around the Earth, and the project's success will open the door for NASA's space shuttle program for decades to come.

So, pretty impressive.

John's interest in UFOs is separate from his work at NASA.

It started in the 60s, during the peak of UFO mania in the United States.

John thought he'd spend six months debunking a bunch of sightings and turn his research into a book.

But things didn't go as expected.

Sure, there were the wild claims that were easily discredited, but he ran into a few that he couldn't easily dismiss.

the experience led him to forming the mutual ufo network an organization dedicated to investigating the phenomena further and his colleagues at nasa now consider him their go-to ufo guy on staff anytime they get a phone call from someone who says they saw a strange object in the sky

They get forwarded to John.

It's a headache more than anything.

Most calls are nonsense.

Strangers making strange claims.

It's why when Betty Cash places that call to John's office, he doesn't actually pick up.

And when she then leaves a voicemail, he doesn't bother calling back.

He assumes it's another fake lead.

What he doesn't realize is he's actually heard of Betty before.

A doctor friend told him about a woman who came into the hospital with horrible injuries, claiming to have been burned by a UFO.

They wanted John to investigate, but told him they couldn't ethically pass along the woman's name.