“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.”
— Carl Sagan
There is a noticeable shift taking place in the conversation surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena. While headlines continue to focus on disclosure, government hearings, and military videos, another story has been unfolding quietly for decades, one built not around breaking news, but around the patient accumulation of experience. This is the liminal journey.
It is the place where observation begins to outweigh assumption, where patterns emerge through time, and where the most valuable evidence is often found not in a single dramatic event but in the consistency of a lifetime.
That is precisely what makes JOHN FOSTER: IDENTIFIED PHENOMENA such an important documentary.
Unlike many productions that focus primarily on sightings or speculation, this ninety-minute film presents something increasingly rare: a carefully documented longitudinal case history. It follows the life of John Foster — an 87-year-old retired research and development engineer whose experiences with unidentified aerial phenomena began in childhood and continued throughout his life.
His account is extraordinary because it was meticulously documented.
Dates.
Locations.
Witnesses.
Drawings.
Timelines.
Engineering notes.
Family members.
Friends.
Coworkers.
Again and again, experiences unfolded in the presence of other people willing to testify to what they observed. In a field where isolated testimony is common, multiple independent witnesses over decades are exceptionally uncommon.
Director Rhett McClure understands this. Rather than producing another documentary built around sensational claims, he allows the chronology itself to tell the story. Foster’s engineering background becomes an essential part of the narrative.
Another essential element is Foster’s methodical effort to evaluate his own memories against external facts. He repeatedly revisited locations, compared timelines, documented physical environments, and preserved more than 170 detailed illustrations depicting events witnessed by both himself and others. That disciplined approach transforms the documentary from a collection of extraordinary experiences into one of the most comprehensively documented long-term experiencer documentaries produced to date.
What makes John’s story particularly compelling is that it naturally bridges several schools of thought that have developed over the past four decades.
Whitley Strieber helped bring the deeply personal nature of contact into public awareness. His work gave countless experiencers permission to recognize that they were not alone in navigating profoundly transformative encounters.
Jacques Vallée expanded the discussion into a broader conceptual landscape, proposing that the phenomenon behaves less like episodic visitation and more like an adaptive, long-term influence on human perception and culture — strategic in its engagement, resistant to direct exposure, and unfolding relationally over time.
John Foster’s life mirrors that framework with remarkable fidelity. His experiences formed an ongoing relationship spanning nearly eight decades. They involved recurring locations, recurring intelligences, recurring witnesses, and recurring attempts to understand rather than simply describe what was happening.
His books, Eminent Discovery, To Earth From Heaven, and the expanded two-volume UFO Eminent Discovery: Living Within and Beyond the Five Senses, read less like collections of strange stories and more like an engineer’s field notebook documenting an enduring interaction with an elusive phenomenon.
That same progression continues through the work of Dr. Angela Thompson Smith, whose decades of remote viewing research and longitudinal documentation explore contact from another perspective: consciousness itself. Her research reminds us that some of the most interesting questions may not concern the origin of the phenomenon, but the relationship between consciousness and the experience of contact.
Together these researchers trace a remarkable progression:
Experience.
Pattern.
Method.
Inquiry.
For decades the public conversation has largely asked: “Are UFOs real?”
JOHN FOSTER: IDENTIFIED PHENOMENA is a documentary asking a more challenging question: What happens when a lifetime of documented experiences refuses to fit within our current understanding of science, consciousness, history, and human potential?
Throughout this compelling 90-minute feature, Foster recounts encounters involving windowed saucers, coffin-shaped craft, luminous atmospheric distortions, and entities that appeared capable of moving between realities. Speaking as both an experiencer and an engineer, he explains how he continually tested his own memories against verifiable facts, determined to understand what was happening rather than simply believe it.
The documentary also explores the profound spiritual dimension of Foster’s experiences, his search for meaning, and the remarkable network of what he calls “familiar strangers” — individuals whose independent encounters echo his own. Their stories suggest that these events may be far more interconnected than previously imagined.
An overwhelming number of films focus on dramatic sightings or government disclosure, JOHN FOSTER: IDENTIFIED PHENOMENA turns its attention to the clandestine nature of the phenomenon itself. Why do these encounters often occur over decades? Why do so many involve multiple witnesses? Why do they remain simultaneously visible and difficult to fully explain?
The film invites viewers to consider that the phenomenon may be interacting with humanity in ways that are personal, adaptive, and deeply woven into human experience. Whether you approach the subject as a skeptic, a researcher, or an experiencer, Foster’s story presents an extraordinary case study in long-term observation, careful documentation, and the enduring power of curiosity.
Sometimes the greatest mystery isn’t what appears in the sky. It’s what quietly walks beside us for a lifetime.
JOHN FOSTER: IDENTIFIED PHENOMENA, available on Youtube. Rhett McClure’s website for more information: https://www.vizzyness.com. Connect for Documentary Style Marketing for education, nonprofit, agriculture, and more.
John Foster’s Account is Mindbending – My Endorsement
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of corresponding with and interviewing John Foster on multiple occasions, so seeing his remarkable life story brought to the screen is especially gratifying.
Director Rhett McClure has done far more than assemble a collection of extraordinary experiences, he has carefully woven together the background, chronology, and documentation that make John’s case so compelling. Foster approached his encounters as both an experiencer and an engineer, preserving dates, locations, timelines, witness testimony, and painstaking illustrations in an effort to understand rather than simply recount what happened.
In a field where evidence is often fragmentary and firsthand accounts frequently stand alone, John’s history is exceptional. Many of his experiences were shared by family members, friends, and colleagues who were present and later provided corroborating testimony. That combination of longevity, meticulous documentation, and multiple witnesses makes this one of the strongest long-term experiencer case histories I have encountered.
I believe the time has come for John’s story to reach a much wider audience, not because it claims to answer every question, but because it invites us to ask better ones.
John Foster’s account offers a rare glimpse into a phenomenon that appears deeply woven into human experience while remaining remarkably clandestine. Whether its purpose is ultimately understood or not, John’s decades of careful observation remind us that some mysteries are not unsolved because they lack evidence, but because they unfold on their own timetable. Until then, the invitation remains the same: stay curious, follow the patterns, and remain open to the possibility that we are part of a reality far larger than we currently understand.
Thank you, John Foster, for leaving a legacy that serves as both a grounded roadmap and one of the most carefully documented experiencer case histories ever assembled. Your work demonstrates how a phenomenon can remain deeply integrated within our reality while eluding conventional methods of observation and verification. Whatever conclusions future generations may draw, they will do so from a foundation strengthened by your commitment to careful documentation, intellectual honesty, and the courage to share your story.
— Wendy Garrett
Broadcast Journalist • Author • Podcast Host
Visit John’s Website for background, books, and drawings. https://johnfosterufos.com/
*Images used with permission. Copyright John Foster.
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