Waking up Wednesday morning, I listened, as usual, to You Made It Weird, a podcast from comedian Pete Holmes. What was unusual is that this week, Holmes’ guest was Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Sports stars don’t typically appear on the show.
Rodgers has always been known to speak his mind and isn’t afraid to stand up for things he believes in, so having a conversation with Holmes isn’t too far off base. What I wasn’t expecting was that Rodgers would talk about a moment in 2005 when he saw a UFO.
Listen for yourself. The UFO talk starts around the 15:00 mark.
Holmes’ show often covers religion and comedy, two things that don’t really match with Aaron Rodgers. At the top of the show though, the host mentions that they have a mutual friend, Rob Bell, a pastor and “mystic,” as Holmes describes him.
The interview starts off innocuous enough with the two chatting about a vegan burger they both had recently at a restaurant called “Crossroads,” and how the episode is being recorded inside a comic book store. After some small talk about the state of Wisconsin and how Rodgers has his hand under a man’s butt for 70-plus snaps a game, the show lived up to its name. Things got weird.
Rodgers tells Holmes of a moment in 2005 before an appearance on ESPN’s Cold Pizza (now First Take) in which he observed a UFO while staying with a friend of his in New Jersey. When Holmes presses him about it, Rodgers tells him that when talking to his good friend about the incident, he still remembers the moment as clear as day and that his friend thinks about it “every day.”
The two-time NFL MVP describes the night as snowy, hearing a siren coming from outside that he and others went to go check out. When asked by Holmes what it looked like, he begins to describe that it looked similar to what is in the movie Independence Day. While describing this, Rodgers name-drops Jeff Goldblum and talks about a conversation that he had with the actor about the new Independence Day: Resurgence film. (Viral marketing, anyone?)
Rodgers then goes on to describe what he saw as a big, orange, left-to-right moving object. He couldn’t give a definitive shape of the craft because of the overcast sky, but described it as “huge.” As the object moved out of sight for about thirty seconds, Rodgers said he and his friends felt “shock.” After those five seconds passed, Rodgers says he heard the sound of four fighter jets, most likely in pursuit of the aforementioned flying object. He then theorizes what many in the UFO community have, that such sightings are typically accompanied by fighter jet pursuit near nuclear power plants. That explained the sirens he heard before going outside.
Stay with me here. Rodgers then tells Holmes that he loves the TV show Ancient Aliens on the History Channel and studied history at Cal. They go on to talk about the pyramids and how the presence of them all over the world could indicate the involvement of aliens. While this may sound like a joke to you or possibly even Rodgers yanking Holmes’ chain, the conversation seems to be genuine.
You Made It Weird is always about getting to an existential spot and this interview gets there quite easily. Holmes and Rodgers go on to talk about feeling a presence and awareness of everything that is going on around them. Rodgers even at one point talks about winning the Lombardi Trophy, and thinking to himself what he could possibly do next. In that moment, he felt the capability to do so much more then what he was currently doing. Not only for the sport itself, but for the community at-large.
It was a fascinating look at a star athlete who was completely candid and talked from his heart. That kind of clarity in sports is very, very rare and I applaud Rodgers for it. I think I can say definitively he made it weird.
[Featured image courtesy of Pete Holmes Instagram]
