Linda Smith Oral History, 2022/05/27

Self Description: "I am a 58 year old woman who has had some very strange experiences in my life. I'm a mother of three grandmother of 1 2 3 5 I had to count their weight. No, yes. 1 2 3 4. Yes, five. And I am a published author, I wrote a book about my UFO experiences, my family's UFO experiences, including my children. My husband and I both have had experiences together. And we both are, in a sense, UFO investigators. Not active but we have been doing this for about 30 years."

Some of the things we discussed include:
Lockdown, isolation, and feeling unproductive. Working from home. Working in school transportation; jobs that didn’t do well remotely. Accommodations for special needs students with Individual Education Plans during the pandemic. Students masking. USA government’s mismanagement of the pandemic, mass school shootings, Roe v. Wade. Active shooter training for educators. Avoidable and foreseeable tragedies. Having a supportive husband. Empty nesting: children and grandchildren living far-away in Florida. Daughter graduating from nursing school. Daughter catching COVID early in the pandemic. Living in an apartment with noisy neighbors. Moving during the pandemic. Cost of living. Taxes. Catching COVID with husband in 2022; long COVID and memory issues. Free at home testing. Easy access to vaccination. Increasing mainstream interest in UFOs. The Senate Committee’s hearing and government disclosure on UFOs. Multigenerational personal experiences with UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Benevolent and malevolent extraterrestrials. Founding The Human Origins Foundation. The New Mexico UFO Paranormal Forum shutting down during the pandemic. Plans to reopen. Virtual conferences. Stigma and secrecy. Moving to online shopping. TV, movies, and escapism. Growing up with an abusive father. Early childhood memories. Addressing childhood trauma as an adult. Worry. Shame. Self-blame. Genetic testing. Sexism and ageism in medical diagnosis. Experiences as a highly sensitive person, undiagnosed ADHD, hypervigilance, changing awareness of Autism. The benefits of diagnosis and getting accommodations. Therapy and mental health. Medical literacy. Environmental destruction. Prejudice, bigotry, and colonialism.

Other Cultural References: Google, Safe Schools (public education training video database), Punk’d, Verizon, Instacart, Amazon, DoorDash, Netflix, Disney, Star Wars, The History Channel, Ancient Origins, Erich von Daniken, Roswell, Walgreens, 9/11, “Thoughts and Prayers”

May 27, 2022

Kit Heintzman

Linda Smith

Kit Heintzman

English Home & Family Life

English Social Issues

English Gender & Sexuality

writing

covid positive

government

family

abuse

ADHD

airplanes

aliens

allergies

author

Autism

COVID

disability

empath

family

Florida

guns

Hispanic

IEP

J&J

loneliness

marriage

masking

motherhood

moving

Native America

neurodivergence

New Mexico

nursing

peace

queer

race

racism

Rosewell

school

sexism

shooting

therapy

trauma

UFO

unemployment

vaccination

worry

Motherhood

LGBTQ+

From 03/2020 until 11/2022 we redacted information revealing covid and vaccination status of those other than the contributor but discontinued that practice on 11/14/2022. This note was bulk added to any item with the word "redacted" or "redact" in curatorial notes, so may not apply to all on which it appears. Erin Craft 12/29/2022

07/15/2022

07/16/2022

07/17/2022

11/17/2022

12/05/2022

12/29/2022

01/18/2023

03/21/2023

05/27/2022

Kit Heintzman

Linda Smith

Rio Rancho

New Mexico

United States of America

audio

english

01:49:23

Some of the things we discussed include, Lockdown, isolation, and feeling unproductive, working from home. Working in school transportation; jobs that didn’t do well remotely, accommodations for special needs students with Individual Education Plans during the pandemic, students masking, USA government’s mismanagement of the pandemic, mass school shootings, Roe v. Wade, active shooter training for educators. Avoidable and foreseeable tragedies, having a supportive husband, daughter graduating from nursing school, living in an apartment with noisy neighbors, moving during the pandemic, increasing mainstream interest in UFOs, the Senate Committee’s hearing and government disclosure on UFOs, founding The Human Origins Foundation, the New Mexico UFO Paranormal Forum shutting down during the pandemic, growing up with an abusive father, early childhood memories, addressing childhood trauma as an adult, experiences as a highly sensitive person, undiagnosed ADHD, hypervigilance, changing awareness of Autism, the benefits of diagnosis and getting accommodations, environmental destruction, prejudice, bigotry, and colonialism.

Kit Heintzman 00:02
Hello.

Linda Smith 00:04
Hi.

Kit Heintzman 00:05
Would you please start by stating your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Linda Smith 00:10
My name is Linda Smith. Today's date is May 27 2022. It is one o'clock pm Mountain Time, and I am in Rio Rancho New Mexico.

Kit Heintzman 00:24
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under a Creative Commons license attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Linda Smith 00:33
Sure.


Kit Heintzman 00:34
Would you please just start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening to this? What would you want them to know about you? Well,

Linda Smith 00:42
I am a 58 year old woman who has had some very strange experiences in my life. I'm a mother of three grandmother of 1 2 3 5 I had to count their weight. No, yes. 1 2 3 4. Yes, five. And I am a published author, I wrote a book about my UFO experiences, my family's UFO experiences, including my children. My husband and I both have had experiences together. And we both are, in a sense, UFO investigators. Not active but we have been doing this for about 30 years.

Kit Heintzman 01:38
Would you tell me a story about what life in the pandemic has been like for you?

Linda Smith 01:45
It's been a struggle for me. Um, being forced to isolate and stay in the house was very difficult for me. I've always been a busy person as far as going to work. And then having my husband and I having social activities outside of it and being forced to stay home made me feel extremely unproductive. Even though we were doing stuff we had a radio show, during the pandemic, I still didn't feel busy because I wasn't at work. And it really messed with my head. And then I got COVID in January of 2022, after being vaccinated and boosted. My husband got it. We were both stuck in the house with COVID. And we have been struggling since then. With the after effects of it. It's horrible.

Kit Heintzman 02:50
Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19?

Linda Smith 02:54
Yeah, I was at work. And my boss came up to me and said, as of today, we're all going home will be in contact with what kind of work from home, we can do. And we'll let you know when we can come back. And it was March something. And at the time I was working for the local public school district. And that's not a job that you can do from home because we worked transportation. So we were busing kids. That's not a work from home position. So it it was a struggle to have my boss and I because I was her admin assistant, find work in air quotes that people can do at home for the time being, because at that moment in 2022, we had no idea what was going on. And we had no clue that it was going to last for two years. It was it was an insane time.

Kit Heintzman 04:04
What are some of the adaptations that happened in working from home?


Linda Smith 04:09
Well, at first, we made all of the bus drivers and bus attendants go online from home and do any of the Safe Schools trainings that were not mandatory. But were there in the library at their disposal. And we just said, Do as many as you can fill in the days during the times that you're expected to work. Just go through them one by one and just start doing them. And that way that at least could track their time because we're all still getting paid. And then my boss gave me busy work, which I really didn't have to do because Safe Schools kind of tracks who's on it and what they've completed. But she made me create a spreadsheet Have who did what? And how many videos and then I just made sure that all the other spreadsheets that I had that I was able to access to Google sheets were updated, like the employee contact information. Just silly things like that just to pass the day.

Kit Heintzman 05:24
Could you explain what Safe Schools is?

Linda Smith 05:26
Safe Schools is a public schools, training, video database, they have certain ones that every year, it's mandatory for everybody to take. So just, there's a specific group of videos that they require every employee of the school district to take. And then throughout the years, sometimes they'll throw in, okay, now, we need you to do these. And then there's a whole library of extra ones that if you just want to take them, there's a lot on bus safety. There's a lot on hazardous materials and what to do, like if a child vomits, or there's blood, shooter training, all the sad stuff as far as what can happen in a public school. And then there's stuff that's related to administrative that I had to take. It's just a giant library of training videos for the school district, and several school districts do use them.

Kit Heintzman 06:43
Staying in the kind of pre pandemic world, what were your experiences of health and healthcare infrastructure like before 2020

Linda Smith 06:55
I went when I had to go, I had no urgent medical needs, you know, you go for your annual checkup. Everything just seemed like the norm that I was used to. Um, I don't know, I, I had no problems going to the doctor or getting anything. I always had health insurance. I never had to worry about any of that. Sure, as hell didn't expect this.

Kit Heintzman 07:29
What were some of your initial early reactions to the pandemic?

Linda Smith 07:34
Oh, boy, it was any everything and anything from at first I was, I thought it was a prank at first, rarely, very widespread. Punk show, I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to come out somewhere and say, just kidding. And then it went to confusion, fear, anger. Some of those conspiracy theory things did fly through my head. And then I started knowing people whose family members were actually passing away from it. And then I didn't know what to think after that. I'm just one of those that follows whatever the government tells me to do, and I stayed home. I still to this day, don't know what actually really did cause it. I mean, there's still stories floating around. But it was created ma'am. And created. It was an escaped thing from a lab. I have no idea. I just know that I've been through it and I don't like it.

Kit Heintzman 08:49
What was isolation like for you?

Linda Smith 08:53
If I had been alone, I probably would be in a padded cell by now. I have my husband with me, thank God I think it was a very difficult way to really learn to get to know yourself and your husband. In a very isolating type of way, it's trial by fire at that point. And you either make it or you don't. It's not easy to be stuck in a house with someone every single day all day with very little to do. I mean, you can just watch so many TV shows you can paint so many canvases, which is I do arts and crafts on the side just to keep me I call it my mental therapy. You know, after a while it's just you run out of things to do. So it was very difficult for both of us, and he works from home. He's been working from home since 2017.

Kit Heintzman 10:00
What does he do?

Linda Smith 10:02
He works from Verizon, he's tech support. And I've always been an outside of the house worker. So for me to have to work from home was just utter torture.

Kit Heintzman 10:17
Did you change up the layout of your household to accommodate both of you working from home?

Linda Smith 10:23
I had a laptop, so I didn't really I could pretty much sit on the couch and do what I needed to do. So no, at the time, we were living in a two bedroom apartment, which was a very small, I think it was like 900 square feet. So it was small to begin with. And then having the two of us My husband is six, two. He's, I call him Sasquatch. It was just it felt even more confining. It was, it was definitely not something that made me feel comfortable.

Kit Heintzman 10:59
How are you getting your needs for like consumer goods met in Oh,


Linda Smith 11:05
I became I became an expert at ordering online, everything. There was the grocery shopping, which was Instacart did all of that online. Amazon for whatever else I couldn't find for the to the supermarket. And then DoorDash. It was very bizarre having people do that all for me. And then I kind of liked not having to go to the supermarket to go food shopping. I raised three kids, I hated going food shopping. And now I had somebody to do it for me. But they never pick exactly what you like. Like to the exact it was sometimes a little frustrating.

Kit Heintzman 11:53
Did you have much of a chance to speak with or see your children in the last couple of years?

Linda Smith 11:58
No, they live in Florida actually. So the past five years that I've been here in New Mexico, it's only been through phone calls texts or through Facebook Messenger video chat.

Kit Heintzman 12:13
How are you feeling about having adult children during the pandemic out in faraway?

Linda Smith 12:21
Well, I'm a worrywart to begin with so that just added to it. I am- My superpower is I worry about worrying. So now you add the pandemic and grown children and grandchildren into the mix. And how I am not in a straight jacket. I don't know. I- It made my normal worrying about their well being 100 fold worse. It just it was constant. I hate it.

Kit Heintzman 13:02
Do you have a sense of where that tendency to worry comes from?

Linda Smith 13:09
I think it's genetic. Because my grandmother, my father's mother was a constant worrywart. And she had a a big part in my race being in my upbringing. So I think it's just a genetic thing that's in our DNA in my family. That's just my guess. I don't know, my mother. My mother worried but she never showed it. She was very quiet, very introverted type of person. And my father's mother was the complete opposite. She was loud. She was you knew when she was in the room, and she was constantly worrying about every two is the typical helicopter grandmother. And I think that's where I get it from.

Kit Heintzman 14:06
Have you gone back to work in person yet?



Linda Smith 14:09
I did. We only stayed home. For about three months. We finished the school year out. And then July we all went back into the building. And even those full school was not in session. They weren't virtual. We still had to transport the special needs kids because that was a totally different. They need to go to school for their IEPs, their special needs. So we were busing. I believe only special needs kids. And then the following school year, we started back up and it was in small segments. First it was just Elementary, then it was elementary, middle and then all of it full swing.

Kit Heintzman 14:58
Do you have much of a sense of how special needs students were accommodated during a pandemic, perhaps different hours?

Linda Smith 15:04
They know nothing changed as far as how they were accommodated because they need that structure. So I don't know what was going on in the schools. But we, in transportation, we had all the PPE that was needed for the attendant on the bus who was in real close contact with the kids. They were given disposable gowns, masks and face shields, and gloves. And then we also always had masks on the bus for the kids who didn't have them. But it was hard for the special needs kids to keep their masks on because they don't like those things in their face. So our drivers and our attendants were very well covered.

Kit Heintzman 15:55
What are some of the ways that you pass the time when you're at home?

Linda Smith 16:00
My husband and I binge watch on Netflix and Disney and Amazon Prime. So many things that I don't even know what we watched in the past two years, it has been so many things. But yeah, we we binge watch a lot.

Kit Heintzman 16:20
What was helpful about that?

Linda Smith 16:24
I think it was an escape. It was a big escape for us to be able to put ourselves in, because we like all that sci fi we're both Star Trek, Star Wars, Mandalorian all of that fantasy type science fiction stuff. We're both very into that. And there was times where we would if we ran out of things to to a series to watch, we'd go back to some of our favorites like Avatar, or a Star Wars movie or Star Trek series or- It was our escape.


Kit Heintzman 17:02
What are some of the ways you maintain social ties with people outside of the home?

Linda Smith 17:08
Well, being that I don't really have any friends. It's just my family. It was just texting, video chatting. That's pretty much it. We lead a very sheltered life. My husband and I it's very quiet with the two of us.

Kit Heintzman 17:28
How do you like the quiet?

Linda Smith 17:31
I used to hate it when I was younger. And now it's it has taken me quite a few years to embrace the fact that I'm an empty nester. I didn't like it at first. And now I've gotten so used to the quiet that if I'm around a lot of people, it just stresses me out. So I appreciate and I really enjoy the quietness.

Kit Heintzman 18:02
You'd said you were living in a smaller apartment. When did you move?

Linda Smith 18:07
We moved in last year in May we bought a house.

Kit Heintzman 18:12
What was that like?

Linda Smith 18:16
Um, it was fine. I mean, but I don't think I don't think that the movers wore masks. I don't remember it was a year ago. New Mexico was not like Florida and California where we were almost always wearing masks everywhere. We had a very strict governor who made sure that we were protecting ourselves. But I don't remember if they wore masks or not during the move. It was pretty quick. We hired a moving company, local moving company, they came in. They put everything on the truck and they drove to the house. They took everything out. And that was it. It was within three hours they were done. It was nice to get back into a house again.

Kit Heintzman 19:14
So last time you had lived in a house.

Linda Smith 19:17
So we were in the apartment for only a year we had had a house before that. And then I was unemployed for a little bit and we couldn't keep up with the mortgage. So instead of working with the mortgage company, we kind of panicked and sold the house and moved into an apartment against my wishes. I'm not an apartment person. I've never lived in an apartment until I moved here. And I don't like it. It's just not me. So I've always lived in a house.

Kit Heintzman 19:50
And is that why you decided to go back into a house?

Linda Smith 19:53
Yes. We had the push was, besides the smallness of the apartment, we had a very rude Neighbor Above us that just, we couldn't tolerate it anymore. And it was starting to affect, the noise was starting to affect my husband's job because he would have to constantly put the customers on hold, because they were making so much noise upstairs. And so that was another push it would it really made us push to go by house again. I hate apartments.

Kit Heintzman 20:43
What are some of the things that you gave up because of a pandemic that you miss?

Linda Smith 20:54
My husband and I used to run while we still do, it's just we didn't do it for a while. But every month ever since I moved here, he was already here living in New Mexico. And he was already on the executive committee. There's a group that has been running for 20 plus years. It's called New Mexico UFO and paranormal forum. And he and a few other people were on the executive committee, and every month they would have a speaker and they'd have an open share meeting. And then I moved here, and they put me on to the committee. And that was the first time in a long time that I was part of a group that we would meet on a regular basis. So that's how I got to know a lot of people here in New Mexico. That was pretty much the only thing that we gave up during the pandemic, because we then during the pandemic started a radio show, through a friend of ours who was the producer. So we were still in contact with people, it was just virtually instead of in person.

Kit Heintzman 22:02
What was the radio show about it?

Linda Smith 22:04
My husband and I would interview same thing with people who were either investigating UFO experiences, or had experiences themselves or anything in that paranormal realm. It was all about that.

Kit Heintzman 22:21
What brought you to your interest in this kind of work?



Linda Smith 22:23
[Laughs] My experiences myself, myself, my sister, my mom, my father, my kids. We've all had either a sighting or an experience with the phenomena. It's been a lifelong thing for me.

Kit Heintzman 22:46
Is there anything about that you're willing and comfortable to share here?

Linda Smith 22:50
I wrote a book about it. So it's, it's all out there. I'm open to talk about pretty much anything. Ask away. Oh, my dirty laundry is already out there.

Kit Heintzman 23:05
I guess maybe inter- like, introduce me to what your experiences have been.

Linda Smith 23:16
So my very first memory and a lot of people have said to me well, you were very young. How is it that you remember that? I have my very earliest memory of anything when I was little was when I was two years old. My father was holding me. And I was waving to my grandfather in the hospital because he was in there for heart attack. I'm not sure why I still have that very strong memory because I was only two. But I have it and I can still if I close my eyes, I can still see the hospital and my grandfather waiting from his hospital window. My very first memory of having anything weird happened to me was when I was three, I was probably three and a half because my sister wasn't born yet. And I she was born four years after I was I was always a very nervous kid, very highly sensitive, which some people call highly sensitive person, HSP. I'm very sensitive to noise, my surroundings everything. And I did not like to dark I still don't. So I would always wake up in the middle of the night and walk through the hallway to my parents room to sleep with my mom. And I remember this one particular night I got into the hallway right in front of her bedroom door. And I was looking down and I saw four, I use the word glowing, they weren't really glowing. It was like illuminating feet. And my first reaction was, oh, it's the dog. It's not the dog, because it was like a bluish white. And I went back to sleep. But in my head, I heard somebody say go back to bed. It wasn't until later on, when I got older, and I started remembering all of this, it wasn't feet, it was two beings that were a little bit taller than me. And I'm, I'm a short person. And I was very short when I was little. So maybe they were, at most four feet high, two little beings standing in the doorway of my parents bedroom. And I kind of walked in on whatever they were doing. Or were about to do. And I heard them telepathically tell me, go back to bed. And I did. And nothing that I can remember until I was a little bit older, my sister and I were in our bedrooms upstairs now on the second floor. And she and I would, on several occasions, just suddenly look at each other. And my sister one night said the kings are coming. I still to this day, do not know why she called them that. But we would jump into our bed, pull our blankets or sheets right up to our face, and just in the dark, just wait for whatever was going to happen. And we had multiple things. Or experiences happened my sister to this day, she's 54, she will not talk about it. She says it triggered such fear in her that she will not even speak about it. She said they did something to me. And that's all I can get out of her. And I on the other hand, have had nothing but good memories of it. And to the point where it was educational for me, trainings, learning. And it sounds crazy to say but to me, having experiences extraterrestrial experiences on a ship seems normal to me. Some people just look at me and go, what the hell is wrong with you. They don't use that word, they use the F word. I didn't want to throw that out there. So it took me a long time to openly talk about it in public and I didn't really openly talk about it until I moved here in 2017. My mother has had experiences My mother actually was the what's the word? She kept a log. She kept a written log of every time she saw a ship or a set of ships when we lived on Long Island. So her diary or log of sightings, plus the experiences that she wrote down that my boys had with a friend of theirs. My father, I used to have clients that would come to the house I had an experience with a client and I lost her because she was so scared of what she saw she never came back. My mother's diary was the aid that I needed to then write my side of the story and all of my experiences. So I combined the two together and I published the book in 2018 about it and I named it The Kings Are Coming in- because of my sister saying that one time so

Kit Heintzman 28:56
What's your relationship with your sister like?

Linda Smith 29:03
The funny thing is my therapist asked me that same question today the exact same question I would say that it's strained only because- How do I say this without crying. I always saw her as the good. The white sheep and I was always I in my mind. I was always considered the black sheep for my father. So for me, we get along. It's just that we we have two different views on everything. And I kind of feel like she still talks to me because she is my sister, she feels like she has to. But we are two totally different people. And having our parents both passed away. Just us communicating is like the only way we can keep whatever is left of our relationship there. So it's strained, my sister can be very overbearing to me sometimes because she's just like my dad, she's very bossy and loud, and she's in your face. And she has to be the wanting control of whatever is going on, whether it's an event or whatever. So, and I'm not like that I'm not. And it bothers me because it's, she's, it's my kids, and it's my events, their events. And I just feel like she has to be the one in charge of it. So I just let her to avoid confrontation. So it's, it's there, it's just very strained.

Kit Heintzman 31:11
What's something you've been doing to take care of yourself.

Linda Smith 31:16
I just recently went now to go back to therapy, because between the pandemic and the isolation, and me getting COVID I just told my therapist today that ever since I have had COVID. And I think I got it again in April when I went to Florida. My husband and I are both struggling with memory issues. And it seems to have aggravated all the stuff that I had gone to therapy for many years ago. It's like it bubbled it all back up to the surface again. So as of today, I am now starting therapy. And I just recently found out that I have ADHD at 58 years old. I know you don't just get ADHD I know it's a lifelong thing. But I had like a, an aha moment as to oh, well, that explains all the struggles that I've had throughout my life. And now I'm angry about it, because why didn't any medical professional in all the years that I've been going to see a doctor, not one of them picked it up? Not one. So the past five months since January have been odd for me. Good and bad. Sorry.

Kit Heintzman 32:50
You have nothing to be sorry for. What are some of the things you would like out of your interactions with medical professionals?

Linda Smith 33:09
What do I want out? What do I want them to see? Or?

Kit Heintzman 33:13
What do you want from them? What would- What would make for a positive experience for you with a medical professional?

Linda Smith 33:27
I honestly don't know. I guess maybe some clarity. I don't know. I know I grew up in the 60s and 70s when autism and ADHD wasn't really looked at as much as it is now. It's not in everybody's face like it is now. So there's that. So I kind of give them that. ADHD still to this day is more associated with very hyper bouncy, loud boys, not girls. And I think because my mother was not a very aggressive person. And she I don't think she knew how to advocate for things that I may have needed, because I don't think she was very aware of whatever as well. So there's all that I think, had I been born in a different era, maybe in the late 70s or the 80s, I would have gotten the help a lot sooner. And on top of all that the person who diagnosed me with ADHD suggested that I get an evaluation for autism because the two usually work together. So that's another thing that I'm working on getting now. So I guess to answer your question, I want clarity so that I can understand myself better

Kit Heintzman 35:01
I would- We really are in a moment where there's a shift where there are a lot more diagnoses of ADHD coming out.

Linda Smith 35:10
I know.

Kit Heintzman 35:12
I'd love to hear more about what it means to you to be on the receiving end of that at this stage in your life.

Linda Smith 35:21
I'm angry because I wish that I had known sooner to get the help sooner, maybe I wouldn't have struggled and been such a bad student. I don't know, I had such a hard time at school. And on top of that, I always heard and I just told my husband as recently I grew up hearing, Linda, stop that Linda, sit down Linda, don't do that. Linda, be quiet. I was made to sit and behave and be quiet and not have a voice and all of that. And I wish I had known maybe if everybody knew why it was such a- I don't know. The way I was that maybe I wouldn't have the childhood trauma that I'm dealing with now. I'm just very mad at everything because not a bad person, but I was made to feel like I am that person. Oh, God. I feel like somehow or another I've been, um, that the system failed me. I had been overlooked, misdiagnosed my entire life.

Kit Heintzman 37:12
So I think it's a really normal experience in this ableist culture, to feel like we're bad people for not performing. Especially someone imagined

Linda Smith 37:32
Exactly. Girls are expected to beha- at least the generation that I grew up in girls were supposed to behave, and look and act and speak in a certain way. Children I heard all the time children are to be seen and not heard. I was never allowed to have an opinion or a voice about anything. And if it wasn't for my husband, who wants me to have a voice and an opinion, I'd still be struggling. It's only the past five years that I've started to speak more.

Kit Heintzman 38:08
What's that journey been like for you?

Linda Smith 38:11
I still struggle with it. I fought him tooth and nail about publishing my book because I said no, that's airing my dirty laundry. I don't want that out there. You know, I wasn't allowed to draw attention to myself, I wasn't allowed to have an opinion of voice. I that would have been seen in my family as taboo. Oh my god. It's like when the 60s and 70s, even the 40s and 50s. When you talk about cancer, everybody went [Whispers] "it's cancer". The same thing with my book. I literally argued with him almost every single day until we finally published that book. I didn't want anything out there to bring attention to myself. It has been a struggle past five years. There's a lot of things that I have a trouble I have trouble expressing. And then when I do then I feel like oh my God, why did I say that? I'm still struggling with finding my voice.

Kit Heintzman 39:13
How did it feel to have the book go out?

Linda Smith 39:21
If it wasn't for my husband doing all the marketing, I probably would have a case full of books in the house still. He's the one who makes sure that everybody has it or buys it or it's I mean, it's on Amazon so anybody who comes across it can find it and buy it but as far as physical books and selling those, none of them would have been sold if it wasn't for him marketing it. It feels very weird to say that I have a book.

Kit Heintzman 39:55
Why?

Linda Smith 39:57
Because to me it's airing dirty laundry, it's just goes back to what was ingrained in my head.

Kit Heintzman 40:11
I want to know more about your husband encouraging you to share your story and like, what, what this process has been like.

Linda Smith 40:23
It's been hard because we've known each other for 26 years, we were friends before we were a couple. And his mother knew my mother and we had a lot of mutual friends. And having had a very difficult time with my father, I was not accustomed to the attention that he was giving me. So I fought it for a long time I still I even fought it in the very beginning of our relationship. Having been with him for five years now. I probably wouldn't be to where I am right now, if it wasn't for her support. He's even though I don't tell him. He's my number one fan. He knows it. I just I gave him a hard time in the beginning. And only because I was struggling with myself. So I without him, I would not be where I am today.

Kit Heintzman 41:48
With your experiences of trauma, how do you do you think of the pandemic as a traumatic experience?

Linda Smith 41:59
Oh, it possibly in the beginning, I think was trauma, a little bit of trauma for me. But not to the extent of my elevator accident that I had, which was trauma and my childhood trauma. It wasn't as bad as those. It was just something that put a hitch in my giddy up

Kit Heintzman 42:35
What did the New Mexico UFO and Paranormal Society do when the in person meeting shut down?

Linda Smith 42:44
Nothing, we didn't do anything, we came to a dead stop. That's why we're starting it back up in July, because we have so many people saying now that we're not, we're not made to wear masks. And we don't have to, you know, there's not limited groups settings anymore in public. And we're back to quote unquote, normal. When are we going to start it up? So we just met recently, the the four of us on the committee, the board members, and we're starting in July again. Because we've had nearly two and a half years.

Kit Heintzman 43:24
How are you feeling about starting up live again?

Linda Smith 43:28
I mean, I'm excited to see everybody because we haven't seen any of our members for so long. But I'm a little I'm a little hesitant because being in a very large room with a lot of people does get to me, it always has. Some people say that I'm an empath and I absorb everybody's energy and then it just gets stuck in me. And it takes me a couple of days to recuperate after that. So that's where my hesitation comes in.

Kit Heintzman 44:08
Do you remember the last time you were in a big crowd?

Linda Smith 44:12
Yeah, was there our last our last meeting, which was January of 2020?

Kit Heintzman 44:23
What was that like?

Linda Smith 44:26
I mean, back then I was used to it. You know, I've had two and a half years of nothing. It would still even then it would drain me. And I would like the next day I was I was just mentally exhausted. But I was more more accustomed to doing it because we would meet every single month I just have to get used to again.

Kit Heintzman 45:08
The past few years have been it's been a lot of pandemic but it's also been a lot of other stuff.

Linda Smith 45:16
Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 45:18
I wondering if you would share some of the other things that have been taking up space in your mind and heart over the last two years?


Linda Smith 45:27
Ah I miss my kids terribly. I used to see them almost every day so there's that there's there's that little bit of resentment that I moved here to be with my husband. I don't know it's just, I really do miss my kids. My kids are the only blood relatives that I have besides my sister that are still alive. I feel like I'm missing out on watching my grandchildren grow. Haven't seen them in five years. I even had one that was well, there was only one that lived with me for a little while now they're back in Florida. I had a brand new baby grandchild born last August. I've never met her because they're all in Florida. So I mean, I've I've grown [Phone rings in the distance] somewhat being here, but yeah, and I still have that. I feel like a piece of me is missing because they're in Florida. So it's bittersweet

Kit Heintzman 47:05
Do you have thoughts on when you're next get to see them?

Linda Smith 47:08
Well, I saw I went in April I went to Florida, which was the first time I had been on a plane in five years. That was an experience because I hate flying. I went to go to my youngest daughter was 26. She graduated from nursing school. So I went to go see her and I got to see two of my grandchildren who I had not seen in six years. So they're now 13 and 12. And it was it was so nice to see them but I didn't let myself get attached because I knew I wasn't gonna get I don't know when I want to move back to Florida but it's so expensive to live there it's so expensive.

Kit Heintzman 48:20
Given that you're you already had a fear of flying, what was what was traveling during that feeling like?

Linda Smith 48:37
I wasn't even concerned about the COVID part I just don't like taking off in a plane. So my biggest thing was let me just get through these flights because it's never a direct flight from New Mexico. So I had a layover had to get on a second plane to get to Florida. My only concern was just let these flights be successful so that I can get to my destination enjoy my time with my family and then just have two successful flights home so I could get home. That was the only thing that I was concerned about.

Linda Smith 49:07
Do you know what it is that you worry about on the planes crashing?

Linda Smith 49:17
My one of my biggest fears that and tornadoes. And I've never I only had one weird experience on a plane when I was younger. It was 1976 and we were on our on a flight from New York to California to go see my mom's mom and the landing gear got stuck. So we had to turn around and re land back in. I don't know if it was San Francisco or wherever. And as we're landing I see a line of fire department lined up waiting for us just God forbid that landing gear didn't go down so we could land they were ready with the phone just in case. That was the only time I ever had an issue on a plane. So I don't know why I have such a strong fear of crashing, no clue. Maybe it's because I'm not in control. I'm not driving. I don't know. No, I can't explain it.

Kit Heintzman 50:16
Oh. I think in sort of a mainstream circle, there's been more attention paid to UFOs in the last couple of years.

Linda Smith 50:36
Oh, yeah.

Kit Heintzman 50:38
What's it been like for you watching that? Watching the mainstreams reaction.

Linda Smith 50:44
Um, I get a little excited every once in a while, just because then I can finally feel more comfortable talking about it to a complete stranger if it ever happens, and the group that my husband and I know. And it's not just people here in New Mexico, it's the community in general, people who have been on TV on ancient aliens on George Nori, whatever TV, ancient alien TV shows, whatever. We know that we don't know them personally. But we know them because we have the foundation, the human origins foundation. I didn't bring that up yet. And the New Mexico UFO and paranormal forum. So we know those those big names, and the locals. And I forgot where it was going, Oh, public, we've always hoped that disclosure from the government would happen. It wasn't until just recently with the Senate hearing couple of months ago, that or a month ago, that they finally the government finally said yes, they do exist. And we have been watching them. So to me, that's about probably the only disclosure we're gonna get right now. But it makes me feel more validated. That what I had been trying to say for years, is actually real, and not just something that I made up as a kid. Because I have met several people over the years since I came out with my story that have had almost the exact same story as me. Which made me feel better to.

Kit Heintzman 52:32
what's it like when you can meet someone who can validate that shared experience?

Linda Smith 52:39
It's surreal. Because there's a part of me that says, are they just saying this to make me feel better? Or did it really happen? And then when they have details that nobody knew that are similar to my story, then I finally feel validated. It's, it's a little bit of a relief for me. Because I used to be made fun of.

Kit Heintzman 53:09
Would you share something about the toll it takes to be disbelieved, dismissed made fun of?

Linda Smith 53:20
Well, that started with my father, who didn't really, he kind of dismissed all of my emotions, etc. So I was kind of used to that. It, it's, it's exhausting to try to constantly convince somebody that what you're saying is real. But it got to the point where I just stopped, I stopped talking about it completely. My mother didn't even know about mine and my sister's experiences when we were younger, we kept that a complete secret. Because we thought we were gonna get in trouble. That was the most bizarre reasoning that we had. But if you knew my father, we were in trouble for everything anyway. So we kept all of that secret. I mean, how do you explain to your parents that when you're 10, and 11 years old, 12 years old or eight, however old we were, I forgot now that there's people or beings from somewhere else coming and taking you in the middle of the night? How do you really explain that? I don't know. It was the 70s. We're not on acid. So I stopped. I didn't say anything to my friends about believing in spaceships or whatever, which you do what? Because I used to be made fun of so I gave up and I just kept it between me and my sister. And it wasn't until 1994 December of 1994. My mother had been Going to a quote unquote, book club. That's what she told us. There was one particular night that for some reason, it came out that the book club was actually a group of people discussing books on UFOs. And aliens and whatnot. Erich Von Daniken was one of the books. My sister and I were both sitting in the dining room at the table with my mom. And we both just looked at each other and said, Well, we have to tell her now. And my mother was said, What? What? Tell me what? So we had to tell her exactly what happened to us when we were younger. And she said, Why did you ever tell me because we thought we were gonna get in trouble. Somehow or another, being taken when you're younger was our fault. At least that's what we thought in our head. And that was the first time that it was open to me to my mom and my father. And then that's when from, it was so bizarre. And I don't know if it's because it was out in the open. But from that moment on is when my mom started documenting everything. And the amount of crap that happened after that, with all of us, in separate times, just exploded. There were so many incidences between night, December of 94, until my mom passed away in 2005. Losing It was unbelievable. And we weren't the only ones on Long Island that were seeing these things. It just felt like we were it was happening to us a lot. But none of my none of my friends. It's not like we had an open conversation about it. Until 2007 17 When I moved here, that's when it finally was really out. It's more accepted here.

Kit Heintzman 57:08
Why do you think that is?

Linda Smith 57:09
Because of Roswell. I think New Mexico has been trying to show the world since the 40s. That it something really did happen here. It's not just sci fi. And I think that's why they're more open to it here. It's very Native American here too. And they they have more beliefs about Star people than the general population anyway. So when I first moved here, I said I finally met my, my tribe. Because I didn't have that in New York, or Florida was a nice release or relief.

Kit Heintzman 58:05
What are some of the things you do for the various organizations you work with?

Linda Smith 58:09
So my husband many, many, many years ago tried to start what did he call it? It was the E-Star. He tried to start a global initiative for disclosure. And that just didn't work out. So when we moved when I moved here to be with him. I said, Look, you've been trying to do this for at least 20 years. I have event experience, large event experience. Why don't we just put a foundation together and start doing annual conferences. So we excuse me, we did, we created the Human Origins Foundation. And we had our first human origins conference, right before the pandemic. And we had about 250 people there. We had speakers. And it was very well received. Then the pandemic hit. And we had one virtual conference which to me it was crap. It's not the same as being in front of people in person and being online that the atmosphere is just totally different. And then we didn't have anything the year after, and we're now working on the third one. So the Human Origins Foundation. My husband and I are the co founders and the executive directors of that, trying to get speakers together for the public. And the New Mexico UFO, UFO, New Mexico UFO paranormal forum, my husband and I on our on the executive committee with two other people and the four of us get speakers and put the meetings together every month.

Kit Heintzman 1:00:04
How does the pu- does the public engage much with what you do?

Linda Smith 1:00:08
In New Mexico? There? It depends on who we have as a speaker, but our smallest group is usually 50 people. And our largest group was because of one of our guest speakers that we had, which were two Navajo Rangers that came to one of our meetings, we had over 100 people in that room. So yes, they are very engaged here in New Mexico. And our conference is usually well received, but COVID, thank you COVID, has totally just destroyed the possibility of us having a conference. So we're trying again in 2023.

Kit Heintzman 1:00:56
What do you think it will take for 2023 to work out?

Linda Smith 1:01:00
Well, now that the Senate Committee has publicly expressed their, their findings and that, yes, UFOs are real. And even the Vatican has said that they believe in extraterrestrial life. So I'm hoping that with those two things out there publicly and a lot more people openly expressing their beliefs, and even randomly putting things on Facebook, that pictures that they take that 2023 has more of a chance of being more successful. Because disclosure is actually starting to happen publicly by the government, which is the biggest problem we've all had for years. Their denial of it.

Kit Heintzman 1:02:00
How do you feel about trusting the government?

Linda Smith 1:02:07
I don't. I- The older I get, the more I see, and the injustice that this government shows for its people is just so blatant in your face. I'm only here because this is where I was born and I was raised. I don't trust our government at all.

Kit Heintzman 1:02:39
Would you point to some of the injustices that provoke that distressed?

Linda Smith 1:02:44
Let's see, how about all the mass school shootings that we've had just in this year alone, 27. And it's only May. And they don't want to do a damn thing about it. The pro-life, the turning over Roe versus Wade, you're forcing women to have children. But you're not even making sure that those children are safe enough to go to school. That says a lot about what how much you actually value your citizens and your children. We're just pawns for them. We're just a slave race for the government. As long as you have enough children being born against women's will, to hopefully make it into the workforce to keep your pockets lined.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:46
How do you feel about how do you think the federal government handled the pandemic?

Linda Smith 1:03:56
It was a shit show. Sorry, that's just how I feel about it. If you knew that something was coming, that was that bad. Why do you have so many discrepancies with professionals that are out there? Australia they should completely shut down everything. Not here. It was up to each individual governor to do as they pleased. I'm just beyond disgusted at how everything is done here. But yet we're the greatest country in the world. Don't get me started on that nonsense.

Kit Heintzman 1:04:52
Because you have a wealth of experience and exposure with people who to seriously engage with conspiracies, how- How did already having sort of like connections to people with that worldview shape your response to the pandemic?

Linda Smith 1:05:19
It didn't, because I've always been an independent thinker. I, I, when I was younger, I was the follower, I will tell you that. But as I got to be an adult with children, and I started seeing things through the eyes of a parent, I stopped being a follower. And I started seeing with my own eyes and taking my own views on it. And now as I got older, and I really see things, I those conspiracy theorists, which are from one end of the spectrum to the other, in the group of people that we know, some of some of this stuff is just laughable. And just, in my opinion, so outlandish one, come on. No. I think that there's somewhere in there is the truth. But it didn't affect my view at all. I just listened to both sides of these conspiracy theories and just use my own brain.

Kit Heintzman 1:06:33
How did you determine what was going to be the safest course of action for you?

Linda Smith 1:06:39
Well, the safest course of action for me is based just on my own common sense. I used to work in the medical field, if there's going to be whatever that's airborne out there. I'm going to protect myself with PPE the best way I can if I need to go out if that's me, it was just common sense. I'm not going to go out there and expose myself to something that might be out there. Maybe not out there. I don't know. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Kit Heintzman 1:07:09
You've mentioned contracting COVID in January 2022. Is that right?

Linda Smith 1:07:14
Yes.

Kit Heintzman 1:07:16
Tell me about that experience. How did you? How did you notice that you have it and when to get tested? What was-

Linda Smith 1:07:22
No, I literally just started a new job. Like, the day before I started having symptoms. And I said, really, now is when I'm out of the whole two years now, the second day of my new job. Now I'm gonna get COVID. I was pissed to start off with, but I came home from my first day at work to find my husband who had said, he wasn't feeling good the day before. And I just took it as my husband, I both have allergies. He has severe allergies. So I thought maybe he was just having a severe allergy session, or whatever. But I came home from my first day at my new job, and he's in bed with fever. I said, great. Nice. Okay. So I think I went to Walgreens and got at the time they were free, though, at home tests. And I, you're allowed to take four home. Four? No, I got to because there was two tests in each one. And I had him test. And it was positive. I still wasn't really feeling anything at that point. It wasn't until the next morning that I woke up with a sore throat like I've never had before in my life. It was like I had swallowed glass. And then I took and then that my nose started. But it was a weird feeling in my nose. It was like, it was like it was burning. It was very strange. And I took the test and it was positive. So I took a couple of days off from the new job. And then I was thank God I had a laptop but they had given me and I worked from home as much as I could. But I was exhausted. It was horrible.

Kit Heintzman 1:09:31
What was it like looking working from home I was sick?

Linda Smith 1:09:39
Horrible. I learned really fast in that short period of time that I was working from home that that Job was not meant for me. It was a completely different job than transportation transportation was Go Go Go Go Go. Now. I didn't even have time to think if maybe I had had Take, it was a constant thinking and doing and then I get to this job which was paying me double what I was doing in transportation. And all I was doing was managing the their calendars, the two VPS that I was their assistant, and making appointments and meeting setting up meetings and calendar of email management. That's all I was doing. And I felt very unproductive. And I didn't like it at all. So I stayed until April. And now here I am unemployed. Not for lack of trying, that's for sure. Not easy.

Kit Heintzman 1:10:57
What's your emotional, oh, oh, sorry. No, go.

Linda Smith 1:10:59
No, I said it's not easy at my age to find a job. I have too much experience and nobody wants to pay. They think that I'm going to be like this crazy. Looking for this crazy salary. What was my emotion what?

Kit Heintzman 1:11:14
I wanted to know what your emotional reaction was when you found out your husband tested positive.

Linda Smith 1:11:22
I was in total disbelief because he's been working from home. So that meant that I brought it into the house. Because I was still working outside of the house. So then I felt guilty. I said, Oh my god, I may I brought it in here, because it's the only way he would have gotten he's been working from home for years. But I don't understand why now. I had been working outside the house almost the whole two years. Why now? So I felt angry. I felt guilty, confused. And then I said what the hell, we already have it. Let's just hope that we don't get to the point where we have to go to the hospital. He got it much worse than me. For some odd reason. I'm the one with hyper high blood pressure. I'm the one that has asthmatic symptoms when I get bronchitis. But he got it worse. I don't know.

Kit Heintzman 1:12:29
What were some of the ways you cared for one another. Well, that was going on.

Linda Smith 1:12:35
I I was more mobile than him. So I was more of the caregiver. But that's just my nature anyway. I just made sure that he had everything that he needed, whether it was Tylenol or water or whatever tea near him so that he didn't have to get up not that our house is huge, but I didn't want having I didn't want him to have to drag himself into the kitchen to make something when he was clearly very affected by it. Very tired, exhausted. Headache, the fever. I've never gotten fever. So I just made sure that he had everything and if he was up and feeling okay, then he would ask me if I needed anything. So it was a rough. I think he was sick for like two weeks. I was okay after a week.

Kit Heintzman 1:13:37
And you said you'd both gotten sick after getting vaccinated and boosted right.

Linda Smith 1:13:41
I had just I got I got sick January. I want to say 18th ish. And I had just gotten my booster January 2 Or third. So I got sick almost two weeks after. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:14:05
How did you come to decide to get vaccinated?

Linda Smith 1:14:10
So at the school district, if you decided to get vaccinated, then you didn't have to go for random COVID testing on a regular basis. And I said, I have had one swab of my nose already. I didn't like it. I'm gonna get vaccinated. I didn't go when it first came out. I think it was Pfizer that first came out. It wasn't until a few months later that the school district had gotten together with Walgreens, I think and they had this massive open door at the arena near our house. It's a huge arena and every employee for the school district that wanted to get vaccinated they were offering the one shot Johnson and Johnson. So I said, Okay, I'll go for that one. And that's what I did. That was the only reason why it's because I was tired of getting randomly picked to have my nose swabbed it's not a very comfortable thing to go through.

Kit Heintzman 1:15:17
What was-

Linda Smith 1:15:19
No, go ahead.

Kit Heintzman 1:15:20
I just wanted to hear more about that, like, fair like environment that they set up.



Linda Smith 1:15:26
Oh my god, it's a huge arena. It's like, it's like, I don't even know it can have a hockey game there. So they can. It's a an all event type arena. And they just opened it up and had a swarm of people go through there. They had probably, I want to say 10 or 15 sections, and there was two people giving injections at each section. So let's say maybe 30 People at the most giving injections. And there were well over 1000 people that were there getting that shot. It was crazy, but it went smoothly.

Kit Heintzman 1:16:17
How long did you wait?

Linda Smith 1:16:19
Not very long at all. I got there early in the morning. I think it was like nine o'clock. There was already a lot of people outside and we were just slowly wasn't really that slow. I got in I got online, I followed the crowd through this maze. Got to the floor of the arena. And that's when I saw how many people were inside. already sitting there after their shots. And I just followed I got it and one of the lines got up there. I don't know if I gave my ID or not. She gave me the shot. She filled out the card and said Go sit down for 15 minutes you went very smooth.

Kit Heintzman 1:17:04
What was the physical experience of getting the shot like?

Linda Smith 1:17:08
Like getting any other shot, I had no reactions at all nothing. And when I went went right back to work after that. You know, you hear all the horror stories about what's what can happen or whatever. And of course that's in the back of my mind because I'm worried about everything. But I had nothing.

Kit Heintzman 1:17:36
You had mentioned earlier that one of your daughters is training as a nurse are trained to be-

Linda Smith 1:17:42
My only daughter, my youngest. I have two boys and then a daughter. She just graduated nursing school. She's going for her NCLEX June 7. And she already has a job as a NICU nurse. So and she got COVID the first time around and 2020 when it when it first hit.

Kit Heintzman 1:18:07
What was it like when she told you about that?

Linda Smith 1:18:11
I was a nervous wreck because it had just start- COVID had just started. And she didn't tell me until after she had had it and recovered. Because she knows I'm a worrywart. Her husband, her husband, her boyfriend. Wow, that was a Freudian slip. I'm hoping he becomes her husband. They've been together for two years. He's a paramedic for the local fire department. And she was in nursing school. So they're both in the medical field. He got it and he brought it home. He must have gotten it on one of his calls. And he had it worse than her. But she didn't tell me they had it until after they had both recovered.

Kit Heintzman 1:18:55
Did you-

Linda Smith 1:18:55
Everybody in my family has had it now. Yes. What were you saying?

Kit Heintzman 1:19:02
Did you let people know when you caught it?

Linda Smith 1:19:06
I think so. I think I told whoever needed to know at the time. I didn't tell them right away because I was feeling like crap. But you know as I got better I started telling people.

Kit Heintzman 1:19:25
What's it felt like having family members in health care?

Linda Smith 1:19:30
Um, I don't know. I've always had family members since I was it's just in my family. They're either cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons, nurses, pharmacy, pharmacists, it's, there's a lot of them in my family. So it's, it's just normal. It has helped me because I understand things better having family members and growing up up with that medical terminology all my life so I think it's helped me be more aware enough to take care of my kids my mother when she got sick.

Kit Heintzman 1:20:22
I'm curious what does the word health mean to you?

Linda Smith 1:20:30
Being disease free being the healthy human being that our bodies are supposed to be being at your best.

Kit Heintzman 1:20:44
What are some of the things you'd like for your own health?




Linda Smith 1:20:50
Well, first of all, I need to stop being my own worst enemy. The worrying doesn't help me. I think if I can get if I can somewhat neutralize the mental traumas that I have gone through in my life, then I will probably be what I should be. Because physically, I feel fine. It's mental , all mental.

Kit Heintzman 1:21:20
What would you like to be that's different?

Linda Smith 1:21:25
I don't want to have to worry constantly. But that's been a lifelong thing of mine. That's that's just been me my whole life. A worrywart. I want to be able to- I guess know what it's like to function as a neurotypical type of person. Not that being neurodiverse is wrong or bad? I don't know. Maybe that's normal for me. I don't know. I don't know. I just maybe want more clarification on how to handle things better. And then I'll feel a little better about it.

Kit Heintzman 1:22:12
What does safety mean to you?

Linda Smith 1:22:20
I guess being proactive about life in general. I mean, if you know the dangers are out there, then you make the necessary precautions so that we don't have mass shootings. I've worked in public schools since 97. And I have always said, this needs to be done that should be done. My father was a fireman, my father was an aux- auxilary policemen. We've always been around safety type people, government people. So I've always learned from him, what should be in what shouldn't be as far as safety. He's always told me. When you go to a restaurant, make sure you figure out where the exits are, before you even sit down. Know where your exits are being proactive. That's what safety means, to me, making sure that we don't end up with somebody getting killed for whatever reason, and being aware of your surroundings.

Kit Heintzman 1:23:28
Is that something you've internalized? That feels pretty normal to you now?

Linda Smith 1:23:32
Oh yeah, so first thing I do when I work, walk into any building, whether it's a restaurant library, or whatever, I look for where the exit signs are, where, besides the door that I walked in, will I be able to go if God forbid I need to escape?

Kit Heintzman 1:23:57
Do you feel safe?

Linda Smith 1:24:00
For the most part, yeah. Because I'm hyper vigilant. That's the only reason why I feel safe.

Kit Heintzman 1:24:12
What are what are some of the other ways that hyper vigilance manifests?

Linda Smith 1:24:18
In anxiety and depression. That's pretty much it in my constant worrying. But I've always had to be hyper vigilant when you when you're raised with a very angry parent. You're hyper vigilant and you always have to read the room before you walk in there. So I've been like that my entire life. But it's exhausting.

Kit Heintzman 1:24:54
How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Linda Smith 1:25:00
For the planet, for this for society or for myself?

Kit Heintzman 1:25:04
All three, go bananas.

Linda Smith 1:25:06
Oh shit, you really, really get me today. I think that if we don't, for the planet as a whole and the human beings that are on this planet, I think that if we don't wake up and start appreciating the natural resources that are here that we are depleting at a ridiculous rate, we're not going to have much time left on this planet. And if we don't learn to love each other, and accept our differences, then we might as well just blow up the whole planet. Because there's nothing different between me and somebody from India. I don't care how much melanin you have in your skin. I don't care what your sexual orientation is. We're all human beings. And we're all sharing this planet. We have to get along every part of history. There's nothing but war and aggression towards somebody else, because I have a bigger dick that you. Excuse my French, but there's nothing but peeing contest throughout history. Who's better? Who's stronger? Who's got who's more violent? Who can kill more? Why? What are we getting from that? Nothing. We're getting society, generation after generation of people who want to just conquer and take away? Why can't we just love each other and get along and share? Why what what are we getting out of it? If we don't wake up, we're going to end up killing every single person on this planet for what? To show that you're bigger and better. I just don't understand why we can't love each other and get along. That's it my rant is over.



Kit Heintzman 1:27:35
What are some of the steps you think that we might be able to take so that we could extend more care and understanding to one another?

Linda Smith 1:27:43
I think we need to just accept each other for who we are. And stop trying to make it about well, that's wrong. But that's your opinion, what of what's wrong? That's not it's doesn't it's not wrong for me. If you want to be polyamorous and have, I don't know, six boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever. It doesn't affect me. So why do I have to treat you any differently? We're all human beings. We all bleed blood. We all breathe oxygen. We all eat and we all shit. What is- What does it matter if I'm bisexual, transgender, non binary, gender conforming, cisgender, black, white, red, pink, purple, blue, it doesn't matter. We are all in a spiritual sense, we are all the same. If my what I'm doing doesn't affect your life, why do you have to stick your nose in it? Let's just share the land like the Native Americans used to do live off the land in peace and stop trying to conquer each other. It hasn't gotten us anywhere. We've divvied up this world with invisible lines. For what? If I crossed that invisible line? I'm still on the planet Earth. Doesn't matter if it's Russia, Ukraine, Hungary. I know we're all still human beings. We all still have to get along. Or Everybody just push those nuclear buttons and let's get it over with because you're not getting it. It's 2022 and we're still fighting over stupid crap. It makes absolutely, you know, no sense to me?

Kit Heintzman 1:30:05
What does spirituality mean to you?

Linda Smith 1:30:13
That's a hard one for me because I was raised in a very strict Catholic family. For the longest time, and I, when I got into I think my oldest was nine or 10 years old is when I stopped, I stopped going to church, I couldn't I didn't believe in this invisible god that is so loving, but yet lets children get murdered on a regular basis. So I stopped going to church, I do believe that there is some some kind of source out there. I don't know what I don't even know if it's maybe an alien presence, I have no idea. There is something that connects us all. That's pretty much all it means to me.

Kit Heintzman 1:31:17
What's important to you about humans understanding our own origins?

Linda Smith 1:31:26
If you don't, if you're not clear as to where we came from, and how it all started, which there's still debate on that, too, whether it's we crawled out of the ocean from an amoeba and became a human, or we were placed here, by an alien race as a slave race. I mean, there's so many different stories of how humans became humans. But if you, if you don't understand the beginning, you can't fix the end. We're just going to continue on that cycle of conquering and killing and genocide. I mean, how many different ethnicities do we have to kill? Because the quote unquote, white person is better? Who decided that? I don't know. between religion and politics, we're screwed, because everybody's got their own opinion of which one is better. So if you don't know the beginning story, you can't fix the end. And that's what we're trying to do with human origins Foundation, is get everybody's opinion in the pool, and let somebody make their decision themselves.

Kit Heintzman 1:32:59
What do you hope people will do once they've made that decision for themselves?

Linda Smith 1:33:05
I hope that they can see that, regardless of what story you believe in, the human being is still the consistent subject in that story. And we all have to share this planet. Where are we going to go? You're going to colonize Mars that is inhabitable right now so that you're going to recreate what we have here, only to fuck up that planet now? How many planets a goal we're going to jump to before we realize we have to love each other, get along and just accept each other for who we are, instead of blowing up every planet and conquering all over the universe and still not getting the message. I sound like a raving lunatic, but just get along.

Kit Heintzman 1:34:07
What are some of your hopes for a longer term future?

Linda Smith 1:34:13
It sounds very cliche, but I would like world peace. I really would. I really would love to see everybody just living on off the land, the right way, sharing, not forcing people to pay taxes on a pretend piece of land that they really don't own. Why do we have to pay taxes? We're all living off the land. I shouldn't have to pay you. You shouldn't have to pay me. We share the wealth. And then by then what I mean by wealth is the natural resources, the food, the air, the water. They've done it in the past. US, Native Americans didn't have to pay taxes because they shared everything with everybody until they got conquered. That's my hope. As corny as it sounds, I just wish we could all get along.

Kit Heintzman 1:35:23
Do you think of the pandemic as a historic moment?

Linda Smith 1:35:29
Yeah. But I don't think now that everything is starting to now that the dust is starting to settle, and people are starting to get back to what they think is their normal life, I don't think that I don't think the message really hit that wake up with each other over whatever was out there. I don't think they got the message. There was that short period of time after 9/11 when the towers collapsed, that everybody, there seemed to be a common theme between everybody that everybody was nicer to each other. Why does it have to take a tragedy for people to have a short term period of where we're nice to each other? Why can't you be like that every single day? Is it going to hurt you to be that way every single day? Or do you enjoy being a fuckup? And an asshole and being mean to everybody? Does that make you feel better being like that, and then Oh, my God, they blew up and 6,000 people died, and let's be nice to each other for three months and then go back to being a jerk. Why? Why does every tragedy have to happen for people to give prayers and thoughts? Spew out a few memes be nice to each other for a little bit? And then back to the shit again? I don't get it. Maybe I'm stupid. I don't know. My mother felt the same exact way.

Kit Heintzman 1:37:24
How so?

Linda Smith 1:37:25
The same way, just why can't we just all get along. My father was the biggest bigot out there. And my mother was like Mother Teresa, and Gandhi all rolled up into one she just wanted everybody to get some get along. And he would be the first person to call somebody that was darker skin than him a monkey or a nigger. And that's what I grew up with both sides of the coin right my own house. And only to find out after everybody had passed away, I did my DNA test. And if my father knew that the majority of my DNA was all of Africa, he'd be shitting himself. I have more DNA from Africa in me than my skin tells you. I have Native American blood in me. I didn't know that until I had my DNA test done. I have blood from Egypt, DNA from Egypt, from Iran, from Asia, from Easter Island, for God's sakes. You will look at the map of my DNA. And there's only one spot that's not in my DNA. And that's Greenland. Or ice, Greenland. Yes. If my father knew that that was the case, maybe he would have been a little nicer. I wouldn't be so quick to call everybody names because they were not light skinned.

Kit Heintzman 1:39:24
How do you think historians will remember this moment?

Linda Smith 1:39:28
The pandemic? Well, that really depends on who you talk to. Because there's so many different views on there's so many different theories of what caused this pandemic. It goes from the possible to Are you serious, you really thinking that? I mean, some of the stories that I've heard are just so absurd that I just I laugh and shake my head and go watch TV. Watch a movie, get out of get away from that thought. Because just I don't understand how people can think such strange things. I have no idea how they will look back on this. I really don't. I hope it's something that they learn from it. But I don't know, I have no idea.

Kit Heintzman 1:40:28
What are some of the lessons you think we could learn from right now?


Linda Smith 1:40:35
Like I said before, to stop, wait, stop waiting for a tragedy to just turn on the niceness. Just be nice. Just be accepting. Treat people the way you want to be treated instead of bullying and trying to kill everybody because they're different than you. Because to the other person, you're different. Is it okay, if they bully you or tried to kill you? You wouldn't like that. I think everybody just needs to take from this. It does. You don't need a tragedy, or a pandemic, to just start being nice and accepting and loving.

Kit Heintzman 1:41:35
Sometimes, when I asked the question I'm about to ask I asked people to think of a historian of the future and use the metaphor of like, think of an alien. Think of someone who is curious and open, but doesn't know very much about what's going on in your world. So imagine a historian far enough in the future that they have no lived experience of this moment.

Linda Smith 1:42:06
So probably at least 1000 years?

Kit Heintzman 1:42:09
Sure.

Linda Smith 1:42:10
Okay.

Kit Heintzman 1:42:14
What, what would you tell them they cannot forget about this moment?

Linda Smith 1:42:20
What would I tell them? Well I'm sure if they, they wouldn't even need me to tell them anything. If they were to look through the document in written history, or recorded history, it would just it would almost be like us trying to figure out what happened to the dinosaurs that supposedly roamed this earth? How were they annihilated? Did aliens come and take them up the planet to save them? Where did they blown up? I don't know. I think that's what the future is gonna look at us and look at the recorded history and go What the hell was wrong with these people? They didn't learn anything through any war to any mass killing, do any almost nuclear accident. And then a pandemic came and wiped out. I don't know how many people died already about a million people, if not more, and they still didn't learn their lesson. So what happened to the humans on Earth? We came here and there's just trees. I would think that any alien life that came here in the near future, and we're not here, would probably think we were the dumbest mammals on this planet. Because we don't learn, we don't. You don't see zebras killing other zebras because they have only one stripe. You don't see Tigers killing their own because they're missing a few stripes. You don't see apes killing other apes because the head of that particular ape clan is not a Silverback. We're the only mammals that kill each other because we're different from each other. Why? So whatever historian is going to see this in the future is going to say we are the dumbest, intelligent life form on this planet. And I use the word intelligent very loosely. When you get me mad, I get very animated.

Kit Heintzman 1:45:01
Given your given your experiences with extraterrestrials, do you have a sense of how, how you think they feel about us so they being within whatever causing that you feel comfortable speaking to.

Linda Smith 1:45:20
So I haven't, that I can remember, I haven't had any malevolent experiences at all. I know quite a few people, including my husband, who have had not so nice experiences with the what people out there call the Draconians, or the lizards or whatever the hell they are. I've never had that experience. The ones that I have had experience with extensive experience with and have learned from them. I do believe that there is a group of benevolent group out there that is really watching out for us. They have on film documented craft, interfering with nuclear warheads that were being shot out of the ground, I guess, because maybe they thought that they were live rounds, I'm not sure. But they do have it. Bob Lazar has it on on video, that they have interfered with nuclear warheads. So I know that there are groups of beings out there that really don't want us to die. They don't want us to get rid of all of us on here. Now, if you talk to several different people that I know, some will say, Well, yeah, that's because we're their slave race. And we're here to work for them. And then there's the other side that says, Yeah, because they care about us. I believe that they do care about us. I even have a small belief that some of them may be us in either another dimension or from the future. And they know that something is coming. And they're coming back to make sure that we don't kill each other. I'm hoping for that one. But then I think there are other ones that think we're just like I said before, stupid. You have a war, hundreds 1000s People die. And you continue to have wars. We're not very intelligent. I'll tell you that. I'm gonna need a nap after this is very, very stressful.

Kit Heintzman 1:48:09
I'm so sorry.

Linda Smith 1:48:11
Oh that's okay. I'm glad that somebody's actually interested in what I have to say though. That's a first for me.

Kit Heintzman 1:48:18
I want to thank you so, so much for the generosity of your time and everything that you've shared. And those are all of the questions I know how to ask at this moment.

Linda Smith 1:48:31
[Laughs] Okay.

Kit Heintzman 1:48:32
If there's anything you'd like to share, that I haven't made room for anything you want someone 100 or 1000 years from now to hear you say please take some space to do that.

Linda Smith 1:48:55
I guess maybe if 100 years from now, you're listening to this, just remember that not all of us were out there to kill each other. There are people that still love each other. That wanted peace, and lost that battle. Or maybe we won. I don't know. But we're not all bad. That's it.

Kit Heintzman 1:49:22
Thank you so much.

Linda Smith 1:49:24
Thank you.