Close Encounter Club

What if an alien abduction didn’t just take you aboard a craft — but let you pilot one to a hidden city on Venus?

In EP 7: The Rising (Part 2), host Justin Gearheart continues his conversation with Jeff Selver, whose story pushes far beyond a typical UFO encounter. After being shown visions of the afterlife in Part 1, Jeff’s experiences escalate into direct, physical contact with extraterrestrial beings — encounters that include red orbs, full abductions, piloting a UFO, and exploring a vast city on Venus.

Jeff describes being taken aboard a silver craft, meeting multiple non-human species, and experiencing moments of both ecstasy and trauma that challenged everything he thought he knew about reality. From intimate interactions with alien hybrids to conversations with a compassionate Elder Gray, his journey reveals a tapestry of genetic experiments, consciousness transformation, and interplanetary travel unlike anything ever shared on the Close Encounter Club.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Jeff’s contact on a remote island and the arrival of a mysterious red orb.

This is one of the most extraordinary and controversial abduction accounts you’ll ever hear — a story that blends UFO phenomena, consciousness exploration, and cosmic mystery.

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What if a dream of your own death wasn’t just a dream — but a memory from another lifetime?

In EP 6: I Forgive You, host Justin Gearheart sits down with Michael Clifford, a retired audio engineer whose life has been shaped by vivid dreams, powerful premonitions, and what he believes are glimpses of past lives. From a chilling black-and-white dream of being shot during a robbery in the 1940s to saying the words “I forgive you” with his last breath, Michael’s story weaves together themes of karma, synchronicity, and the unseen forces that ripple across generations.

Michael also shares his journey into spirituality, beginning with Christian Science self-healing practices, lucid dreams, and premonition dreams that later came true in extraordinary ways — including one that led to a $4,000 casino win. But the most startling moment came decades later at a DMV, when a chance encounter with a stranger seemed to confirm the karmic echoes of his past-life dream.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Michael’s eerie premonition dreams and how he tested them.

This conversation dives deep into reincarnation, forgiveness, and unexplained phenomena that challenge how we think about life, death, and consciousness itself.

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What if the UFO phenomenon isn’t benevolent at all — but something far darker?

In this Close Encounter Club bonus episode, host Justin Gearheart sits down with Matt Hurley, founder of BadAliens.info, one of the most controversial and unflinching resources on UFO research. Matt’s work focuses on the disturbing side of the phenomenon: abductions, cattle mutilations, missing persons, and even cases of human mutilation that echo the same patterns.

Joined by Josh Barretto (from EP 4), this conversation pushes into territory many ufologists avoid. From the unsettling overlap between paranormal “hitchhiker” effects and abduction cases, to the possibility of cryptids as holographic projections, Matt argues that UFOs are not purely interdimensional mysteries — they are physical beings competing for Earth’s resources.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why Matt shifted from ancient aliens research to investigating darker encounters.

⚠️ Listener discretion is strongly advised — both in this episode and on Matt’s website — as graphic cases are discussed that may be disturbing.

This is not the “love and light” version of UFOs. This is the shadow side — and once you hear it, you can’t unhear it.

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What happens when an alien encounter shatters everything you believe about reality?

In EP 5: The Rising (Part 1), host Justin Gearheart speaks with Jeff Selver, an author and consciousness researcher whose extraordinary abduction story began when he was just 16 years old. Jeff describes being taken aboard a craft, encountering a female Elder Gray, and experiencing revelations about DNA manipulation, implants, time distortion, and contact that stretched into the afterlife itself.

From the moment he was frozen in place under the night sky to the overwhelming telepathic communication that followed, Jeff’s story pushes far past the boundaries of a typical UFO encounter. Inside the craft, he witnessed organic, living technology, underwent medical procedures, and was shown holographic visions of humanity’s future. Most shocking of all, Jeff recalls being transformed into pure consciousness — a state of bliss and unity that left him questioning whether he had glimpsed the soul, the afterlife, or even God.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

This is one of the most intense and detailed abduction accounts ever shared on the Close Encounter Club. It’s a journey into UFO phenomena, consciousness, spirituality, and the unexplained mysteries that may redefine humanity’s place in the cosmos.

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What if the scariest moment of your life wasn’t a dream — but something sitting at the end of your bed?

In EP 4: Noble Park, host Justin Gearheart speaks with Josh from Melbourne, Australia — the very conversation that would later lead Josh to become the producer of Close Encounter Club. This is where it all began.

At just 18 years old, while alone in his family’s creaking, century-old home, Josh witnessed a shadow on his roof one night — and the following evening endured four hours of terror as an unseen presence entered his room, opened and closed his door, and sat heavily on his bed. When he finally looked at the clock, two hours had disappeared.

That night in Noble Park became the catalyst for Josh’s lifelong exploration of the paranormal, spirituality, and consciousness. In this episode, he reflects on growing up in an evangelical Christian household, leaving religion behind, and seeking truth through Freemasonry, philosophy, and firsthand experiences with UFOs in the remote Yukon wilderness.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Josh experienced the terrifying bed encounter that defies explanation, his reflections on missing time and its possible connection to abduction phenomena, and how this story eventually led him to connect with Justin — forming the creative partnership behind the Close Encounter Club.

This is not just a paranormal account, but the origin story of how the show came to be — a raw and compelling journey into fear, transformation, and the search for meaning in the unknown.

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What if a ghostly black dog could decide your fate?

In EP 3: Black Dog of Hanging Hills, host Justin Gearheart explores one of Connecticut’s most enduring legends with guests Tristan and Christina, who encountered something unexplainable on a hike near Castle Craig. The folklore says that if you see the Black Dog once, it brings joy. Twice, it brings sorrow. And the third time… it means death.

Tristan, a schoolteacher and avid hiker, had long been fascinated by the story. But when he and his wife Christina saw a strange, blurry, almost pixelated black dog cross their path, the legend became real. Both witnessed the figure, shimmering with an aura, yet behaving like no ordinary animal. It left no tracks, acknowledged no humans, and vanished as quickly as it appeared.

In this episode, you’ll hear Tristan describe his lifelong connection to folklore and hiking, Christina share her perspective as a natural skeptic who was stunned into belief, and how the experience changed their views on the paranormal. Their story, told side by side, raises unsettling questions: was it a ghost dog, a trick of perception, or proof that some legends walk among us?

This isn’t just local folklore. It’s a chilling glimpse into paranormal encounters, urban legends, and unexplained phenomena that refuse to stay buried in history.

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What’s really flying over New Jersey — hobby drones, advanced tech, or something we can’t explain?

In this Close Encounter Club bonus episode, host Justin Gearheart speaks with Retired Air Force Major Ben Hewitt, a veteran aviator and former air battle manager with over 20 years of global military experience operating the E-3 AWACS surveillance platform. Ben has tracked drug runners in South America, coordinated missions in the Middle East, and overseen radar operations capable of detecting objects across hundreds of miles. Now, he shares his perspective on the mysterious “drone swarms” spotted in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and beyond.

This raw, unfiltered conversation dives into how radar really works, what counts as a legitimate unknown, and why some sightings can’t be explained away as planes, satellites, or hobby drones. Ben also reflects on the stigma aviators faced when reporting anomalies, the cultural shift since 2017, and the eerie sense that we’re being “warmed up” for a larger revelation.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Ben’s military training shaped his view of UFOs, why the official explanations for the New Jersey sightings don’t add up, and how both government responses and public videos paint two very different pictures of what’s in our skies. The conversation expands to UFO whistleblowers, quantum computing, simulation theory, and whether humanity is brushing against a great filter moment in its evolution.

This isn’t a polished interview — it’s a candid talk with someone who’s seen the world from a radar screen and knows the difference between noise and something truly anomalous.

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What if a single sentence spoken in the middle of the night could predict tragedy?

In EP 2: Milford Has Been Shot, host Justin Gearheart speaks with Christopher from Omaha, Nebraska, who shares a chilling family story that has echoed through generations. In the 1960s, Christopher’s mom suddenly jolted awake during The Tonight Show and declared, “Milford has been shot.” Hours later, the phone rang with the devastating news that her brother Milford had been killed — exactly as she had said.

That wasn’t the only time fate intervened. Decades later, Christopher found himself in a bar having a casual conversation with a stranger who told an almost identical story from his own family’s past. The synchronicity was so unlikely that the odds defy imagination — a one-in-250 quadrillion chance.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Christopher’s mother’s premonition unfolded, why his skeptical father and brother never forgot it, and how a chance barroom conversation reopened a mystery that had been buried for decades. You’ll also hear about Christopher’s own journey as an open-minded skeptic, from experiments testing whether unseen forces could hear his thoughts to moments of mindfulness and even a possible astral projection experience.

This is a story about synchronicity, fate, and premonition — and the possibility that something beyond us may be nudging events in ways we can’t explain.

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What if your faith and your reality collided in the middle of the night?

In EP 1: The Miters Hill Incident, host Justin Gearheart introduces the very first Close Encounter Club story — and it’s one of the most unsettling we’ve ever covered. Miriam, a 26-year-old makeup artist from Monterrey, Mexico, describes the night she awoke to find a Gray alien with soulless eyes standing in her home. Alongside it was a strange, shifting, black smoke-like entity — something she could only compare to Venom.

Frozen with fear, Miriam tried to wake her husband, who slept through the entire event. As the being moved closer, raising its long, disjointed fingers toward her face, Miriam did the only thing she could: she prayed. In that instant, both entities vanished.

The next day, while hosting a small gathering for her birthday, her husband and friends witnessed something extraordinary outside — flashes of greenish-blue light over Cerro de las Mitras and a massive craft streaking across the horizon. For Miriam, this chilling confirmation proved she hadn’t been dreaming.

In this episode, you’ll hear Miriam’s account of the gray alien and the shadowy entity in her room, how prayer in the name of Jesus ended the encounter, and how her husband’s UFO sighting the very next night cemented her belief that what she saw was real. The experience forced her to reconcile faith, spirituality, and extraterrestrial life in ways she never imagined.

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Teaser #1 for the Close Encounter Club podcast.