Show Notes
A week after Sound, Light & Frequency released the mysterious drawing Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman have spent years calling “the Formula,” the reaction has been immediate, intense and far larger than they expected. The image—drawn for them in 1996 by the man who called himself J.C. and claimed to be from the Office of Naval Intelligence—has now escaped into the wild. Listeners, researchers, podcasters, skeptics and experiencers have begun comparing it to older systems of consciousness, tracing possible historical sources and raising new questions about what J.C. may actually have been trying to tell them. That was always the point of releasing it. Bryce and Brent have called Sound, Light & Frequency an active investigation from the beginning, and now the investigation has expanded beyond the two of them. In “Wisdom of the Crowd,” they open the file wider, bringing in the audience, fellow podcasters and outside researchers—not to declare the mystery solved, but to examine what has emerged since the Formula became public and to follow the new leads wherever they go. The reveal was not the end of the story. It may have been the beginning of a much larger one. To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
More from Sound, Light & Frequency
How do you say goodbye to a story that isn’t finished? After 36 episodes of Sound, Light & Frequency, Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman reach the end of their first season—and neither is ready to leave. They set out to explore Hollywood, UFOs and secrecy through a mystery that had followed them since Dark Skies. What emerged was more than either could have scripted: an active investigation that brought forward new witnesses, challenged old assumptions and turned their audience into collaborators. They thought they were taking listeners on a journey. They didn’t realize how profoundly it would change them, too. In “Case NOT Closed,” two longtime storytellers take stock of what happens when Hollywood experience meets journalistic persistence. Recovered production records, corroborating witnesses and other filmmakers’ firsthand accounts gave the investigation substance beyond their own recollections. The public release of the Formula and the unfolding John Herrington dispute brought intensely personal stories into public scrutiny. Now Bryce and Brent examine what they’ve established, what remains unresolved and how seemingly separate threads might connect. They also reveal the films that come closest to expressing where each has landed: the unsettling warning of They Live and the transcendent possibilities of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Remembering the painful day the Dark Skies sets were torn down, Bryce and Brent confront another uncertain ending—but also imagine what could come next: deeper investigations, new territory in music and gaming, and more insiders willing to tell their stories. There’s even a direct invitation to J.C., the mysterious party crasher, to finally explain himself. Above all, this finale is a thank-you to everyone who listened, questioned and helped make the connections. A second season isn’t assured. The friendship, the curiosity and the determination to keep going are. The season ends. The case does not. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What happens when a rock star goes looking for the people who supposedly know the truth about UFOs—and actually finds them? In “Why Do Rockstars See UFOs?,” Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman trace the extraordinary journey of Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge from lifelong UFO obsessive to participant in the modern disclosure story. DeLonge didn’t wait for government insiders to find him; he went looking for them, eventually building relationships with generals, intelligence officials and aerospace figures and assembling the remarkable team behind To The Stars Academy. At the center of that origin story was retired Air Force Major General Neil McCasland, whom DeLonge privately described as a crucial adviser who helped connect him with other insiders. Now there’s a haunting new chapter: McCasland walked out of his New Mexico home in February 2026 and has never been found. There is no evidence linking his disappearance to UFOs—but considering the extraordinary things DeLonge claimed McCasland knew, it is one more mystery surrounding a story that was already difficult to explain. And it raises an uncomfortable question: when the worlds of entertainment and national security come together to tell the UFO story, who exactly is using whom? From there, the investigation travels backward through rock-and-roll history to perhaps its most famous UFO witness: John Lennon. On August 23, 1974, Lennon and May Pang said they watched a silent, gunmetal craft hover remarkably close to their Manhattan penthouse for as long as fifteen minutes before moving down the East River and disappearing. Lennon drew it, wrote about it, talked publicly about it, and eventually sang about “UFOs over New York.” Yet despite the location, the duration and two credible eyewitnesses, almost nobody else seems to have reported seeing what they saw. That mystery opens the door to David Bowie, Sammy Hagar, Robbie Williams, Billy Corgan, Ace Frehley and an astonishing musical history stretching from “Mr. Spaceman” and “Longer Boats” to “After the Gold Rush,” “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” and “Aliens Exist.” Why have so many musicians not only sung about the phenomenon but claimed extraordinary experiences of their own? Is it simply personality, lifestyle and openness to the unusual—or could people who spend their lives immersed in sound, light and frequency actually perceive the world a little differently? High Fidelity, High Strangeness follows the music into a mystery that may be much bigger than rock and roll. To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.com
John Herrington is in denial. The former Reagan administration official and Secretary of Energy has finally spoken publicly about Brent Friedman's extraordinary account of a 1981 conversation in which Herrington allegedly revealed that aliens were real, the government knew it, and he'd seen them himself. In an explosive interview with Jesse Michels on American Alchemy, Herrington denies the conversation ever happened and questions Brent's credibility. Now Brent fires back, armed with family photographs, a story he's told consistently for decades, and some pointed questions about Herrington's changing account. Who's telling the truth? And why does it matter more than ever? In this special breaking episode of Sound, Light & Frequency, Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman also examine David Grusch's startling new revelations on Joe Rogan, Richard Dolan's perspective on the Herrington controversy and the mysterious Formula, and an intriguing discovery involving Steven Spielberg's family and Wright Field. What began as a conversation on a back porch 45 years ago has become part of a much bigger story about UFOs, Hollywood, and government secrecy. Brent and Bryce didn't plan to make this episode. Breaking events gave them no choice. To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A pounding on the door wakes Daniel Tibbets from a dead sleep. It’s around midnight, and a producer friend is standing outside telling him to get dressed—they have to go. Where they’re headed, who they’re meeting, and what those mysterious visitors say they have to show them will become one of the strangest nights of Tibbets’ life. After the reveal of the Formula and the extraordinary reaction that followed, Sound, Light & Frequency moves deeper into its active investigation. From the beginning, Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman have wondered whether what happened to them during Dark Skies was unique—or whether other people in Hollywood had their own encounters with mysterious insiders, extraordinary claims, and purported physical evidence. Veteran television executive and producer Daniel Tibbets now comes forward with a story that rivals theirs for sheer strangeness and specificity, along with previously unaired material connected to his experience. It’s a story that pushes the investigation beyond Bryce and Brent’s own history and raises a larger question: how many other people in Hollywood have stories like this that have never been told? To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For thirty years, Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman have held onto a mysterious artifact from the night Dark Skies premiered: a formula written on the back of a bank deposit envelope by a party crasher who said he was from the Office of Naval Intelligence. He called it “Sound, Light & Frequency” — the “Secrets of the Universe.” Now, for the first time, they are releasing the original Formula publicly. In this landmark episode, Bryce and Brent retrace how the Formula came into their possession, reveal it in full, and explain where their investigation has led them — what they believe the symbols may represent, why someone claiming to be from Naval Intelligence might have wanted them to see it, and whether understanding the Formula makes that extraordinary encounter seem more or less credible. Then the investigation changes hands. The Formula is now available for anyone to examine, analyze, challenge and interpret. After thirty years, the wait is over — and the larger conversation can begin. To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.