The Phenom App: How It All Started
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Logan. Every big project starts somewhere, right? For The Phenom App, that “somewhere” was late 2022. It wasn’t some grand vision handed down from on high. It was simpler: a clear need for a tool. A real tool. Something for everyday folks to document the unusual, the unexplained, or even just the stuff that makes you stop and say, “What was that?”
I’ve spent a lot of time in the intel world, and one thing you learn is the value of good data. When I talked with Joe Rogan on JRE #2264, we touched on how critical it is to have reliable information, especially when you’re dealing with phenomena that are hard to pin down. That’s what was on my mind.
The whole citizen science thing was gaining traction. Mobile tech was getting powerful. And you had events like that 2017 UAP story in the New York Times making waves, showing that credible reports could come from anywhere. It all pointed in one direction: empower people to observe and record.
So, we started hashing it out. The core idea: an app that does more than just take a picture. It needed to log location, time, environmental factors if possible, and let users add detailed notes. All seamless. All reliable. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. Cross-platform, secure storage, intuitive UI – big challenges.
We looked at other efforts, too. Not to copy, but to learn. Something like SETI@home showed what’s possible when you get a lot of people contributing to a single goal. Different field, same principle: distributed effort can achieve amazing things.
Those first lines of code, choosing the tech, arguing over database designs – that was the foundation. A lot of late nights, a lot of coffee. But we were driven by that core mission: give people the tools to document the phenomena. It’s been a hell of a ride, and we’re just getting started.
Stay sharp.
Logan