A Montgomery County educator with roots stretching from Montgomery Village to Damascus has built one of the region’s most-followed platforms focused on UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena, turning a long-standing personal curiosity into a rapidly growing digital project with a national audience.
The creator behind Mysterious Planet moved to Montgomery County from Brooklyn as a child, settling first in Montgomery Village. He attended Whetstone Elementary School, Montgomery Village Middle School, and Watkins Mill High School before later graduating from Damascus High School after his family moved closer to Damascus. As an adult, he has lived in several parts of the county and now resides in Olney, where he also teaches at a Montgomery County public school.
Mysterious Planet began in September 2023 as a social media account on Instagram and Facebook, created in response to a renewed wave of public attention around UFOs following high-profile congressional hearings. That moment was sparked by testimony from a former intelligence official who alleged the existence of secret government programs related to UFO crash recovery and reverse engineering. For someone who had always been interested in the topic, the hearings pushed that curiosity into something more focused and intentional.
Early posts centered on clips from interviews with people who reported UFO encounters, along with segments from documentaries and news coverage. One of the primary goals was education. Many people were unaware that congressional hearings on the topic had even taken place, that the military had released UAP footage recorded by service members, or that lawmakers had introduced legislation related to public disclosure. The audience grew quickly, and engagement from well-known figures in the field, along with the occasional celebrity interaction, helped confirm there was real interest.
Nearly two years later, the account has grown to more than 44,000 followers on Instagram and over 73,000 on Facebook. While Facebook has the larger audience, Instagram remains the main hub where most content is posted. More recently, that work has expanded into video and long-form conversations through a YouTube podcast called The UAP Sessions. Though the YouTube channel is still in its early stages, upcoming interviews include whistleblowers, researchers, experiencers, and authors who are widely known within the subject area.
The turning point from hobby to something more serious came through direct involvement. After attending his first congressional hearing in person, everything changed. Being there led to networking with documentary filmmakers, podcast hosts, researchers, and others involved in the field. That exposure opened the door to on-camera interviews with members of Congress, people who report direct experiences, and other prominent voices. From that point on, Mysterious Planet shifted from mostly faceless content to original reporting and firsthand interviews, while still sharing curated clips that offer valuable information.
While individual posts have reached hundreds of thousands of views, the creator says no single piece of content “put him on the map.” Instead, it was the decision to show up, attend hearings, and engage directly with the subject that reshaped the project.
Maintaining credibility in a space filled with believers, skeptics, and outright disinformation has become one of the biggest challenges. The UFO topic, he says, contains some of the murkiest waters of any subject. Artificial intelligence has made that even more complicated, flooding the internet with convincing but fake videos that many people mistake for real footage. To navigate that, he prioritizes sourcing, credentials, and skepticism, emphasizing that curiosity should never replace critical thinking. Every story may be fun to believe, but not every story is real.
Some of the most meaningful moments have not come from viral clips, but from private messages. While he regularly receives videos from followers hoping they have captured something unexplained, most turn out to have ordinary explanations. The messages that resonate most are from people who simply say thank you, or who express trust in the work being done. Being seen as a source of answers was never the goal, and he is quick to say that no one truly has all the answers, but earning that trust carries real weight.
Looking back, it is hard for him to imagine explaining all of this to his high school self. Once shy and reserved, the idea of being this publicly involved and visible would have been difficult to believe.
Even now, misconceptions remain. Because the UFO subject was stigmatized for decades, particularly after the 1950s, serious discussion is often dismissed as conspiracy thinking. He rejects that label, describing himself not as a conspiracy theorist but as a researcher. His goal is to create space for people to talk openly about experiences and evidence without fear of ridicule.
That mindset has also led to another project called UAP Tracker, a website that pins submitted UFO videos on a map. Only footage that passes basic photo and video forensics checks is included, with obvious AI creations and mundane explanations filtered out. The goal is not to sensationalize, but to organize and examine what can reasonably be evaluated.
What started as curiosity has grown into a platform that connects Montgomery County to a global conversation, rooted in careful sourcing, skepticism, and a belief that asking questions should never be treated as something fringe.
