Storch and Dalicandro aren't taking any chances on their expedition. They plan to run everything strictly by the law-enforcement book.
"LJ and I complement each other real well," says Storch. "While I'm a little more research-oriented, Bob is a bird dog. You turn him loose and he'll produce intel. I've seen him build cases in fifteen minutes. And when we've blended our personalities together on cases over the years, it's produced results."
But while their partnership has produced results when it comes to busting drug dealers and white supremacists--Dalicandro says he's been shot three times and had his throat slit--they're quick to admit that they need technical people with research backgrounds to make this expedition work. To find the right candidates, they've set up interviews with the people who responded to their ad.
Sitting outside a Starbucks coffee shop on a hot afternoon, the two scan the crowded parking lot, trying to "make" the guy they're supposed to meet in a few minutes. They look like they're waiting for a drug bust to go down.
Storch picks their guy out right off the bat. The applicant, Gene Romanski, is walking into the store when Storch intercepts him. An archaeologist in his mid-thirties with long hair and a mustache, Romanski sits between the two for his interview. He shifts in his seat as Storch and Dalicandro start asking him questions, their eyes concealed behind sunglasses while Romanski squints in the sunlight. Dalicandro talks excitedly, leaning into Romanski. Storch's questions are asked softly. Good cop, bad cop.
But after a few minutes the interview lightens up and the three men start swapping UFO stories and theories. UFOs playing cat and mouse with commercial airliners taking off from La Guardia airport in New York. Flying-saucer sightings during the Korean War. Animal mutilations in the San Luis Valley, with livestock cut up with surgical precision.
"They're very passionate about what they're doing," Romanski says after the interview ends. "And I've got to say that the fact that they're cops is an interesting angle. I was a little uncomfortable at first, but it didn't take long for them to put me at ease. I think that their law-enforcement and military backgrounds gives them a much better way to get this kind of information and promote it as a legitimate enterprise. After talking to them for a couple hours, I'm very interested in going along with them on this expedition."
And he's not the only one. Although the preschool teacher was also a bit leery at first, now she's hooked. "I was afraid that maybe they were a cult or something and they were going to get us out in the backcountry and brainwash us," she says. "But I met with them for three hours, and it didn't take me long to figure out they were on the up-and-up. The biggest draw for me is that they're putting together a really diverse group, and I think it's going to be mentally stimulating."
Storch and Dalicandro take these interviews very seriously; they believe the makeup of the team is crucial to their expedition's success. This is professional business, not some star-gazing camping trip.
"As a person who's conducted criminal investigations," says Storch, "I know that if I'm going after something or someone, I need people with me who can do the job. It's just like when I was working on the SWAT team. I don't want to breach a house with some guy behind me with an automatic weapon and an itchy trigger finger. I won't go into a situation like that if I'm not comfortable with a guy who I feel is eager to take a life. If there's a member on the SWAT team like that who'll jeopardize the mission, I'll get them off. And I approach the expedition the same way."
Dalicandro's job will be to ensure that security is maintained. "I don't want someone out there who's infiltrated the group calling people up on a cell phone and feeding them our intel," he says. "If I don't know who they're talking to, it'll get my hairs up. It would be like if some guy on the SWAT team is calling ahead to the target house and telling them we're coming. And at the same time, we can't have a UFO come around and have the person on watch toking up and too stoned to turn on the camcorder.
"But let me tell you one thing," Dalicandro continues. "It's gonna come off. And when it does, people are going to say to themselves, 'That LJ wasn't such a wacko after all.'
