What's up, Theorites? Welcome to episode one of Theorists in the Desert, a bonus interview

series. This is part one of at least six interviews we have leading up to contact in

the Desert June 25th to 28th. We've teamed up with the event organizers to bring on some

of their amazing researchers, scientists, and presenters ahead of the event. So we hope

you enjoy episode one with Kevin Day. Kevin Day is a retired United States Navy senior

chief petty officer, a former operations specialist and top gun air intercept controller with

more than 20 years of experience in strike group air defense, including wartime operations.

He is an expert operator of the highly advanced spy one radar system and has logged hundreds

of air-to-air intercepts of suspect aircraft in both training and wartime operations. That's

more than enough introduction. We hope you enjoy the interview with Kevin Day. Let's get

to it.

All right, we have Kevin Day here. Kevin, what was the catalyst that got you started on your

current path? Well, let me go back to 2004 when this really happened. It was just happened to be my

last underway before I retired. It was also my very last real-world intercept at 100s in my log

group. That was an air intercept controller. Hundreds of intercepts and peacetime and wartime

operations. And when that happened, I had 18 years of sea time behind the spy one radar. I was

up on watch and I saw those really strange formation of tracks off of Cavalry, Leona Island.

And first time I saw them, I think there were probably five tracks and they were at 28,000 feet

going 100 knots. I was thinking to myself, now it's really strange. I never see anything ever fly

like that. And I wasn't really worried about them. They were way up there. We were way down to

the south and they probably didn't need something civilian-related. They didn't even know where they're

until the day that we were going to do the air defense exercise. And I told the captain,

...