Leslie Kean — "The Reality of UFOs/UAP" (CUNY Graduate Center / Ralph Bunche Institute)

Source: CUNY Graduate Center / Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies public talk, "The Reality of UFOs/UAP with Leslie Kean." Introduced by Provost Joel Christensen; organized by Eli Koretney. YouTube: https://youtu.be/a9OVSe4ohI0 (~1h50).
Captured: 2026-06-09, full verbatim auto-transcript (timestamps). Date of talk not stamped on the page; internally it references the 2025-26 Trump-administration UAP-disclosure tweets, the NHI-mentioning legislation (UAP Disclosure Act), the 2023 Grusch story, and Skywatcher / Jake Barber — so dated 2026-05-11 (YouTube upload). Provenance only; analysis on ../../sources/kean-career-and-claims.
What this is / topics covered: an academic-venue talk. She endorses "Skywatcher" (ex-intel/military teams who "telepathically or energetically connect with UAP and bring them in… using their consciousness," with "a whole protocol"); frames her current interest as "the connections between non-human intelligence and synchronicities" and "consciousness plays a role in all of this"; says the Jake Barber rollout "wasn't produced properly" ("not Coulthart's fault… not [Barber's] fault"); that her organization "helped advise" the NHI legislation; a journal article linking Peter Thiel's "Katechon" to "an imagined alien threat"; Lazar "investigated up the wazoo"; and "amazing amounts of evidence for the reality of some kind of physical phenomenon" without claiming origin, plus the "six observables." Analysis: ../../sources/kean-career-and-claims.

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[00:00:05.000] All right, there we go.
[00:00:06.880] My name's Joel Christensen. I am the
[00:00:09.080] Provost of the Graduate Center, where
[00:00:11.240] I'm also a professor of classical
[00:00:13.440] studies.
[00:00:14.880] Um so, welcome to the CUNY Graduate
[00:00:17.240] Center. Um I'm going to get you a little
[00:00:19.080] warmed up before we go to the next
[00:00:20.600] speakers
[00:00:21.720] um and try to situate tonight's talk in
[00:00:23.760] the mission of the Graduate Center and
[00:00:25.520] maybe get you coming back for some more
[00:00:27.120] events in the future. So, my thanks
[00:00:29.320] first to Eli Koretney for organizing
[00:00:31.680] this event. Thanks to the Ralph Bunche
[00:00:33.880] Institute and thanks to Leslie Cain for
[00:00:36.640] sharing her work and experience with us
[00:00:39.040] today.
[00:00:40.160] So, the Graduate Center, as many of you
[00:00:42.360] may know, is the PhD-granting hub of the
[00:00:45.200] City University of New York. For those
[00:00:48.000] of you who don't know a little more, we
[00:00:49.440] have over 30 PhD programs, almost 20
[00:00:52.320] master's programs, and a growing number
[00:00:54.240] of certificates.
[00:00:55.800] In addition to ensuring that the people
[00:00:58.400] of the City of New York can participate
[00:01:01.120] in the transmission, preservation, and
[00:01:03.560] most critically the creation of
[00:01:05.519] knowledge, we are also a center for
[00:01:08.400] events that support our fundamental
[00:01:10.560] mission of wielding knowledge as a
[00:01:13.040] public good. So, come back to the
[00:01:16.120] Graduate Center for Music in Midtown, go
[00:01:18.520] downtown this summer for Gotham Center's
[00:01:20.760] Revolutionary Trail, or come back for
[00:01:23.200] one of our many talks and gallery
[00:01:24.720] openings. There's almost too much to do
[00:01:27.520] uh to keep track of. So, I have the
[00:01:29.560] particular pleasure of introducing
[00:01:31.320] today's event, and I want to take just a
[00:01:33.120] moment uh to take the opportunity to
[00:01:35.720] explain why I think it matters and how
[00:01:38.000] it engages with our mission. So, let me
[00:01:40.400] start with a story. Little embarrassing,
[00:01:42.760] but an important one. So, the first and
[00:01:45.240] only blind date I've ever been on in my
[00:01:47.320] life
[00:01:48.440] was arranged by uh mother of a high
[00:01:51.080] school friend.
[00:01:52.680] I went um to this girl's house on a
[00:01:55.200] Friday night, and I showed up and she
[00:01:56.920] wasn't there. and said it was her mother
[00:01:58.920] and she said we have to go to my
[00:02:00.200] daughter's flute concert.
[00:02:03.479] Which was the
[00:02:04.760] most awkward car ride I've ever been in.
[00:02:07.040] And afterwards when we were done
[00:02:09.240] the woman said, "Well, we're going back
[00:02:10.640] to my house now because I have to watch
[00:02:12.920] the X-Files."
[00:02:14.920] I'd never seen the X-Files before. In
[00:02:16.240] fact, it was the first season of it and
[00:02:18.680] I can admit with some guilt that I don't
[00:02:20.760] remember her name, but I do remember
[00:02:24.080] the first, the second, third season of
[00:02:26.080] the X-Files and the way the show
[00:02:27.680] unfolded in years to come. Two of the
[00:02:30.120] models that would close episodes early
[00:02:32.680] on stuck with me. The truth is out there
[00:02:36.040] and I want to believe. In fact, I
[00:02:38.240] eventually had an I want to believe
[00:02:40.240] poster on my faculty office from the
[00:02:42.959] moment I started at UTSA in 2007 until I
[00:02:46.520] left Brandeis University last year.
[00:02:49.160] Now, it may seem a bit surprising for a
[00:02:51.040] Homerist, cuz I pretty much just write
[00:02:52.959] in the Iliad and the Odyssey, to also be
[00:02:54.880] an avid, if not voracious, consumer of
[00:02:57.680] speculative fiction, but I invite you to
[00:03:00.360] consider the desire to believe.
[00:03:03.880] Behind our appetite for magic, the
[00:03:05.720] fantastic, the unreal, and speculative
[00:03:08.080] futures is a deep conviction that our
[00:03:10.880] world is not what it seems to be.
[00:03:13.720] Some of this is a desire for it to be
[00:03:15.440] better, for it to be more, but the root
[00:03:17.480] of faith and doubt and exploration is
[00:03:20.200] that suspicion that there's more to
[00:03:22.280] reality than we know.
[00:03:24.560] And we know from the sciences
[00:03:26.560] that our senses and our cognition
[00:03:29.000] limits what we see and know. We know
[00:03:30.680] from the social sciences that
[00:03:32.320] acculturation shapes what we think we
[00:03:34.120] should believe and we know from the
[00:03:35.600] humanities and the arts that the human
[00:03:37.480] spirit cannot help but quest for more.
[00:03:40.000] To search out the heavens for signs of a
[00:03:41.880] greater universe and within for signs of
[00:03:44.280] deeper selves.
[00:03:45.880] For a university, for a research
[00:03:48.040] university, and for the human project,
[00:03:50.400] these are not idle questions. They're
[00:03:53.160] the building blocks of philosophy and
[00:03:55.280] politics. What the universe is, what we
[00:03:58.840] can know of it, and how we conduct
[00:04:01.160] ourselves with these frameworks are at
[00:04:03.280] the core of the history of ideas. So
[00:04:06.600] today,
[00:04:07.760] I can be so bold as to say that we are
[00:04:09.360] asked to consider that final frontier.
[00:04:12.640] To question what we know, to seek the
[00:04:14.760] truth, and understand ourselves as part
[00:04:17.320] of a much more complicated universe. So
[00:04:19.880] I thank Eli again
[00:04:21.640] for arranging this, Leslie for coming,
[00:04:23.760] and I introduce our next introducer,
[00:04:25.560] Jordan Flowers of the disclosure is a
[00:04:29.400] project organization.
[00:04:31.440] What?
[00:04:32.520] This foundation. I almost got it all
[00:04:34.320] right. Thank you all for being here
[00:04:35.720] tonight.
[00:04:47.640] I promise to be brief so that we can get
[00:04:50.040] on with the real show,
[00:04:51.800] but my name is Jordan Flowers. I'm the
[00:04:53.600] executive director of the disclosure
[00:04:55.120] foundation.
[00:04:56.480] I'm incredibly grateful to be here.
[00:04:58.240] Thank you Provost Christensen and Eli
[00:05:01.480] and Leslie Kane for having me. We are
[00:05:04.680] honored to sponsor this event. The
[00:05:06.640] disclosure foundation is a 501c3
[00:05:09.120] organization. We're dedicated to
[00:05:11.480] pursuing transparency around the
[00:05:14.400] unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP
[00:05:17.919] topic. So what do we do other than
[00:05:21.000] sponsor events like this one? We have
[00:05:24.160] three legs of our stool. So number one,
[00:05:26.919] we do policy research and legislation.
[00:05:30.280] Number two, we do legal support, so that
[00:05:32.680] includes
[00:05:34.080] FOIA responses, trying to get
[00:05:35.480] transparency from the government, having
[00:05:37.800] the legal chops to actually litigate
[00:05:40.480] those FOIA requests, and also
[00:05:43.000] whistleblower support
[00:05:45.000] uh for people who want to come forward
[00:05:46.360] and make protected disclosures to
[00:05:47.800] Congress about this topic. You may have
[00:05:49.560] seen in the news uh several
[00:05:52.360] congressional
[00:05:53.960] uh
[00:05:54.680] uh hearings about this topic and people
[00:05:57.560] coming forward and needing legal support
[00:05:59.400] in order to like navigate that process.
[00:06:01.680] And then finally, uh we do education and
[00:06:03.960] advocacy around the UAP topic. And of
[00:06:07.160] course, this is like a core component of
[00:06:10.280] that uh of that education. So, thank you
[00:06:13.800] again uh to Eli and Provost Christensen
[00:06:17.040] for really having the um
[00:06:19.320] the intellectual courage to engage with
[00:06:21.200] this topic that has been historically
[00:06:23.280] stigmatized. I really appreciate that.
[00:06:26.040] And uh
[00:06:27.800] it it is incredibly value is valuable to
[00:06:30.320] me as like a New Yorker to be able to
[00:06:32.520] have these conversations in a space like
[00:06:35.600] this uh in the city. Technically, I
[00:06:37.720] moved to Connecticut, but I still
[00:06:38.840] consider myself a New Yorker.
[00:06:40.640] Uh
[00:06:41.640] so uh
[00:06:42.919] I think there's a few things you might
[00:06:44.120] find interesting about uh about what we
[00:06:46.880] do uh that I hope will uh will anchor
[00:06:50.240] the conversation. So,
[00:06:52.560] we go into the halls of Congress and try
[00:06:56.000] to educate our leaders about this topic.
[00:06:59.919] Um
[00:07:00.480] I will tell you that no matter what you
[00:07:02.960] hear in the news, when we are on Capitol
[00:07:06.000] Hill meeting with senators, meeting with
[00:07:08.919] representatives, meeting with uh
[00:07:11.640] leaders of the Senate Armed Services
[00:07:13.160] Committee, meeting with members of the
[00:07:14.800] Senate Intelligence Committee, the Vice
[00:07:16.680] President's office, and the Director of
[00:07:18.840] National Intelligence, when that door
[00:07:20.960] closes, there is not a single person
[00:07:24.040] that says, "Oh, is there really any
[00:07:26.080] truth to this? Is there a there there?"
[00:07:28.400] When the door closes, it's yes, we know
[00:07:32.200] that there's a reality to this. What are
[00:07:34.200] we going to do about it? Um I think
[00:07:36.440] that's really important uh for the
[00:07:38.200] public to know. Another thing that you
[00:07:40.520] may not be aware of and something we're
[00:07:42.160] involved with and try to sponsor.
[00:07:43.800] There's a piece of legislation called
[00:07:45.680] the UAP Disclosure Act that's trying to
[00:07:48.520] put a framework around the disclosure of
[00:07:51.880] information with respect to UAP, right?
[00:07:54.120] And there's a few things in there that
[00:07:57.080] you might find interesting. So, this is
[00:07:59.080] a piece of legislation that mentions the
[00:08:01.960] term non-human intelligence over a dozen
[00:08:05.720] times. Now, we helped advise some of
[00:08:08.760] that, people in our organization helped
[00:08:10.840] write some of that
[00:08:12.440] some of that that piece of legislation,
[00:08:14.200] but
[00:08:16.080] that piece of legislation is sponsored
[00:08:18.200] by
[00:08:19.320] Senator Rounds from South Dakota,
[00:08:22.800] Marco Rubio,
[00:08:24.720] Senator Gillibrand,
[00:08:26.840] and Chuck Schumer. These are names, no
[00:08:29.520] matter which side of the aisle you were
[00:08:31.520] on politically, these are leaders of the
[00:08:35.080] party who take this seriously and have
[00:08:37.800] stuck their necks out to try to pursue
[00:08:41.360] transparency with respect to this
[00:08:43.080] subject. So, that's one thing that we
[00:08:45.360] try and do, and I think members of the
[00:08:47.920] public are often surprised that
[00:08:51.120] leaders that they've heard of are are
[00:08:52.720] supporting this. Obviously, recently
[00:08:54.120] there's been tweets from the Trump
[00:08:57.160] administration about releasing
[00:08:58.960] information with respect to this topic.
[00:09:00.839] We're certainly engaged with that
[00:09:01.920] process, and our organization plans to
[00:09:04.760] have a forum in Washington D.C. that's
[00:09:08.600] sponsored by Senator Rounds on June
[00:09:10.440] 25th.
[00:09:12.680] We're we're trying to stipulate, okay,
[00:09:14.600] let's assume this is true. What do we do
[00:09:16.960] about it? If there's disclosure, how do
[00:09:18.640] we handle that? How do we navigate that
[00:09:20.480] process? And having multiple fields and
[00:09:23.400] across disciplinary approach
[00:09:25.880] to that question. How do we deal with
[00:09:27.280] national security impacts,
[00:09:28.760] non-proliferation of technology, the
[00:09:30.960] religious and philosophical impacts,
[00:09:33.120] sociological
[00:09:34.960] and on and on. So, that's what our
[00:09:36.839] organization is trying to do. So, again,
[00:09:38.560] thank you so much for
[00:09:40.840] for putting this on. We are incredibly
[00:09:42.720] delighted to be able to sponsor this.
[00:09:45.120] So, yeah, let's get on with the show.
[00:09:59.680] Thank you, Jordan.
[00:10:01.200] And thank you to the Disclosure
[00:10:02.640] Foundation for co-hosting the event,
[00:10:05.400] co-sponsoring the event, and for the
[00:10:06.920] important work you're doing taking on a
[00:10:08.160] leadership role
[00:10:09.480] in pursuing disclosure
[00:10:11.320] in a thoughtful and responsible way.
[00:10:13.760] And thank you, Provost Christensen, for
[00:10:16.000] the wise and inspiring words
[00:10:18.840] and the way you've been so supportive of
[00:10:20.440] the institute and our efforts to bring
[00:10:22.800] scholarly attention to this important
[00:10:24.360] subject
[00:10:25.840] where where Homer meets UFOs.
[00:10:28.400] Unexpected and inspiring and beautifully
[00:10:30.600] said. Thank you.
[00:10:31.800] Welcome everyone to the CUNY Graduate
[00:10:34.240] Center. My name is Eli Karetny. I'm
[00:10:37.200] acting director of the Ralph Bunche
[00:10:38.520] Institute for International Studies.
[00:10:40.760] It's truly a privilege for me to welcome
[00:10:42.839] you this evening
[00:10:44.240] to a talk
[00:10:45.680] by Leslie Kean on the reality of UFOs
[00:10:48.200] and UAP.
[00:10:49.720] Thanks to our faculty and our graduate
[00:10:51.440] students who are here tonight. I'm
[00:10:53.360] thrilled to see many of my own students
[00:10:54.839] from Baruch College here. Welcome, guys.
[00:10:57.640] Welcome, Grad Center colleagues and
[00:11:00.240] friends from the academic world and from
[00:11:02.760] the UFO community.
[00:11:04.400] Talks like this create new space for
[00:11:06.440] researchers from various disciplines and
[00:11:08.839] from outside the academy come together,
[00:11:11.520] learn together, ask difficult and
[00:11:13.640] important questions, and share wild
[00:11:15.760] stories and experiences.
[00:11:18.160] Big thanks to the Ralph Bunche team for
[00:11:19.920] making this event happen.
[00:11:21.600] Special thanks to Wana Acevedo, soon to
[00:11:23.880] be Dr. Acevedo,
[00:11:25.920] our assistant director of programs, for
[00:11:27.600] helping me every step of the way. Thank
[00:11:30.080] you, Wana.
[00:11:31.800] Thanks goes out also to RBI Director
[00:11:34.040] Emeritus Thomas Weiss,
[00:11:36.480] whose academic work on the strategic
[00:11:38.400] necessity of multilateralism
[00:11:40.760] in pursuit of both human rights ideals
[00:11:43.360] and international security
[00:11:45.240] influenced how I approached the UAP
[00:11:47.880] topic from an international relations
[00:11:49.640] perspective.
[00:11:51.080] I talked to Tom recently
[00:11:53.040] about how in a previous era scientists
[00:11:56.360] like Oppenheimer, Einstein
[00:11:59.080] fearful of the nuclear weapons they
[00:12:00.560] unleashed pushed for ever greater
[00:12:02.600] international cooperation to address the
[00:12:04.960] dangers to humanity.
[00:12:07.720] We can now add to their concerns of
[00:12:09.240] nuclear war the prospect of
[00:12:11.960] environmental catastrophe
[00:12:14.040] and the risks associated with
[00:12:15.320] unregulated AI.
[00:12:17.360] All of which demand
[00:12:19.080] improved institutionalized frameworks
[00:12:22.040] for dealing with transnational
[00:12:23.520] challenges.
[00:12:25.160] Tom laughed at first when I raised the
[00:12:27.320] idea that threats to humanity from
[00:12:29.120] beyond our planet
[00:12:30.840] maybe from beyond our dimension, time
[00:12:32.880] and space
[00:12:34.320] might lead to fundamental changes in how
[00:12:36.080] we think about sovereignty
[00:12:38.480] and international order.
[00:12:40.800] But the more we discuss it, the less he
[00:12:42.680] laughs.
[00:12:44.320] Others still laugh
[00:12:45.960] at least in public.
[00:12:47.880] But behind closed doors, when presented
[00:12:49.800] with testimonials from respected sources
[00:12:52.400] and compelling theories from
[00:12:53.839] well-connected researchers
[00:12:56.120] the laughter gives way to something new.
[00:12:59.120] An openness to learn more.
[00:13:01.680] UAP represent a serious challenge to our
[00:13:04.880] understanding of the world.
[00:13:06.800] They reveal gaps
[00:13:08.400] in our domain awareness. They force us
[00:13:11.240] to revise our assumptions, to revisit
[00:13:13.800] our models for how we make sense of
[00:13:16.160] reality
[00:13:17.920] and how we think about security.
[00:13:20.320] So, as more information about UAP is
[00:13:22.760] made public
[00:13:24.120] those of us who treat the subject
[00:13:25.360] seriously
[00:13:26.640] research the topic with an open mind,
[00:13:29.720] who anticipate significant social and
[00:13:32.400] scientific implications,
[00:13:35.080] we'll be here with open arms offering
[00:13:36.960] workshops and courses and ready to
[00:13:39.720] collaborate
[00:13:41.080] on new research projects.
[00:13:43.440] A few more thank yous.
[00:13:44.880] Thanks to John Torpey, RBI director on
[00:13:47.560] sabbatical this year.
[00:13:49.200] I'm grateful to work with someone who's
[00:13:51.080] so supportive of new initiatives.
[00:13:54.320] John trusted me with the keys to the
[00:13:55.960] institute while he was gone this year.
[00:13:59.800] And I opened the door to UFOs.
[00:14:04.280] But I hope that door stays open
[00:14:07.080] because there's something really
[00:14:09.200] important here.
[00:14:10.920] As an academic institution devoted to
[00:14:12.960] understanding and addressing
[00:14:14.360] international issues,
[00:14:16.200] this is a subject we should be paying
[00:14:18.240] close attention to.
[00:14:21.440] My thanks go out to the Society for UAP
[00:14:24.040] Studies for also co-sponsoring this talk
[00:14:26.760] and to Dr. Michael Sefon for all the
[00:14:28.720] great work he and the society are doing
[00:14:30.960] to develop the scientific, educational,
[00:14:33.920] and cultural foundations this emerging
[00:14:36.560] interdisciplinary field.
[00:14:39.280] Including the publication of Limina,
[00:14:41.280] the society's peer-reviewed scholarly
[00:14:42.920] journal.
[00:14:43.960] We can expect more academic research and
[00:14:45.800] writing on UAP themes,
[00:14:48.040] including a forthcoming book
[00:14:50.000] by the renowned international relations
[00:14:51.440] scholar and fellow board member of the
[00:14:53.160] society, Alexander Wendt, who will be a
[00:14:56.360] guest on the Ralph Bunche podcast
[00:14:58.280] International Horizons, that's a plug
[00:15:00.240] there,
[00:15:01.120] uh in the fall to discuss his new book.
[00:15:04.800] It's my hope,
[00:15:06.720] really is my hope,
[00:15:08.680] that the CUNY Graduate Center can become
[00:15:10.520] a UAP friendly place to pursue rigorous
[00:15:13.080] academic research in this new field of
[00:15:15.360] study.
[00:15:16.640] Growing interest from major institutions
[00:15:18.800] and foundations
[00:15:20.520] means universities will have an
[00:15:22.000] opportunity to play a key role
[00:15:24.680] translating signals from various sources
[00:15:28.400] into coherent research objectives on UFO
[00:15:31.000] adjacent subjects ranging from
[00:15:33.480] to name just a few
[00:15:35.240] consciousness research, frontier
[00:15:37.320] physics, to interspecies communication,
[00:15:40.120] and comparative mythology,
[00:15:42.120] and international relations.
[00:15:43.880] Provost Christensen, I'm eager to
[00:15:45.720] continue the conversations we've begun.
[00:15:48.960] Finally, I'd like to thank Joel Katy,
[00:15:51.680] head of the Future Folklore initiative,
[00:15:53.880] for introducing me to Leslie,
[00:15:56.120] and for the wonderful work he's doing
[00:15:58.080] guiding this year's cohort
[00:16:00.280] as we endeavor
[00:16:01.760] to apply the experiences and insights of
[00:16:04.200] UFO researchers to innovative new
[00:16:07.120] real-world projects.
[00:16:09.040] I came to explore the connections
[00:16:11.200] between non-human intelligence and
[00:16:13.400] synchronicities.
[00:16:15.160] I'm sticking [snorts] around to see how
[00:16:16.320] Future Folklore builds what Joel calls
[00:16:19.360] the paranormal industrial base.
[00:16:22.560] I was on the phone with Joel one night
[00:16:23.880] telling him about a journal article I
[00:16:25.320] was working on linking Peter Thiel's
[00:16:27.880] idea of the Catacon to US foreign policy
[00:16:31.600] and an imagined alien threat.
[00:16:34.839] I said something about how people from
[00:16:36.720] different disciplines are finally taking
[00:16:38.320] the UFO subject seriously.
[00:16:40.920] And how reputable journalists like
[00:16:42.520] Leslie Kean have played such a crucial
[00:16:44.320] role in getting us to this point.
[00:16:47.520] At that exact moment,
[00:16:49.960] really, at that exact moment, Joel
[00:16:52.160] received a text message from none other
[00:16:53.680] than Leslie Kean.
[00:16:55.880] And now we're here.
[00:16:57.880] Some coincidences feel like mediated
[00:16:59.720] events.
[00:17:01.680] It is my synchronistic fortune tonight
[00:17:04.319] to introduce Leslie Kean.
[00:17:13.600] Leslie is an investigative journalist
[00:17:16.079] and author, the 2010 New York Times
[00:17:18.400] bestseller UFOs, Generals, Pilots, and
[00:17:22.079] Government Officials Go on the Record.
[00:17:24.800] She's been covering UFOs and UAP
[00:17:27.680] for the mainstream pub- for mainstream
[00:17:28.880] publications for over 25 years.
[00:17:31.120] Leslie and reporter Ralph Blumenthal,
[00:17:33.520] distinguished lecturer at CUNY's Baruch
[00:17:35.160] College,
[00:17:36.560] have contributed several important
[00:17:37.880] articles to the New York Times on UFOs,
[00:17:40.000] UAP, beginning with a game-changing 2017
[00:17:43.760] front-page story about a secret Pentagon
[00:17:46.520] UFO program.
[00:17:48.760] Leslie's two decades plus reporting on
[00:17:50.920] UFOs was profiled in The New Yorker in
[00:17:53.560] 2021.
[00:17:55.120] She and Ralph Blumenthal broke the story
[00:17:57.480] whistleblower David Grusch in 2023,
[00:18:00.920] which led to an open congressional
[00:18:02.720] hearing.
[00:18:04.480] Leslie has also helped produce two
[00:18:06.040] seasons of the 2025 National Geographic
[00:18:08.760] documentary series UFOs: Investigating
[00:18:11.840] the Unknown.
[00:18:14.160] When future historians,
[00:18:16.360] UFO researchers sometimes like to
[00:18:18.040] speculate about the doings of future
[00:18:20.040] humans,
[00:18:21.480] when future humans look back at our era,
[00:18:24.720] at UFO programs long concealed from us,
[00:18:28.440] social taboos long imposed on us,
[00:18:31.920] Leslie Kean will no doubt warrant praise
[00:18:34.600] for her courage,
[00:18:36.200] determination, and persistence on behalf
[00:18:39.160] of the public,
[00:18:40.680] which in her words have a right to know
[00:18:43.200] about the existence of UFOs.
[00:18:46.440] But for many of us that right comes
[00:18:48.160] along with the duty
[00:18:49.920] to learn more about the subject, and not
[00:18:52.200] just from a commitment to scientific
[00:18:55.160] truth and government accountability,
[00:18:58.400] but also to prepare for the social
[00:18:59.880] changes that may accompany each
[00:19:01.720] unfolding stage of disclosure,
[00:19:04.040] however partial or distorted.
[00:19:07.000] And we don't need to wait for
[00:19:07.880] authoritative confirmation.
[00:19:10.360] There is already so much knowledge out
[00:19:12.880] there
[00:19:14.200] because of the work of people like
[00:19:16.000] Leslie Kean.
[00:19:17.880] After Leslie's presentation, we'll
[00:19:19.560] discuss several major themes in the
[00:19:21.320] field of UAP studies. Then we'll take
[00:19:23.440] questions from the audience followed by
[00:19:25.560] a reception in the lobby.
[00:19:27.680] Please everyone join me in welcoming
[00:19:30.080] Leslie Kean.
[00:19:44.000] Hey.
[00:19:45.200] Thanks for the great introductions.
[00:19:47.600] I particularly wanted to reinforce what
[00:19:49.600] Jordan said about when you close the
[00:19:51.760] doors in meetings that with members of
[00:19:53.560] Congress. I mean, it's absolutely true.
[00:19:57.000] They are way more knowledgeable about
[00:20:00.240] this than most people realize and about
[00:20:02.560] a lot of different aspects of it, too,
[00:20:04.360] not just the nuts and bolts.
[00:20:06.760] So, I was really pleased to hear you say
[00:20:08.800] that. Um
[00:20:10.320] is the sound good? Sounds okay. All
[00:20:12.200] right. So, um as as Eli mentioned, I've
[00:20:16.080] been reporting on this topic for over 25
[00:20:18.560] years. I'm just going to go like really
[00:20:20.040] briefly through a kind of chronology of
[00:20:22.680] sort of the key points
[00:20:24.560] of the journey I've been through.
[00:20:26.200] There's no way I can cover all of it,
[00:20:27.800] but I'll just sort of
[00:20:29.120] give you bullet points of things that
[00:20:30.480] happened along the way and then we can
[00:20:32.720] do questions afterwards. Um and as has
[00:20:37.280] been mentioned, you know, 2017 was a
[00:20:39.320] year where everything changed. And so,
[00:20:41.520] I'm kind of going to focus on the the
[00:20:43.080] pre-2017
[00:20:44.600] era and then the post-2017 era because
[00:20:47.600] pre in those 17 years those initial 20 I
[00:20:50.000] so I started my first story is published
[00:20:51.400] in 2000. And there was 17 years of time
[00:20:54.360] that I spent working on this when it was
[00:20:56.080] a pretty lonely business and nobody was
[00:20:58.040] out there doing it in the mainstream and
[00:20:59.920] it was a very different world than it is
[00:21:01.600] now. So, I just want to take you through
[00:21:03.280] a little bit of that. And first of all,
[00:21:05.480] tell you, you know, that I I'm
[00:21:07.440] approaching this from the perspective of
[00:21:09.200] a reporter. So, that's always about
[00:21:11.080] dealing with the kind of hard data that
[00:21:13.640] I'm trying to get out that's really
[00:21:15.000] credible and that can't be refuted and
[00:21:16.960] that has
[00:21:17.960] great sources behind it and all of that.
[00:21:20.240] Even though there's a lot more to this
[00:21:21.600] phenomenon than just that. But, that's
[00:21:23.640] what I've been focusing on and that's
[00:21:26.040] for a specific reason cuz that's what
[00:21:27.640] creates change among policy makers. So,
[00:21:30.440] anyway, how did I get started in all of
[00:21:32.440] this? Back in the year 2000, I guess it
[00:21:35.680] was or 1999, I was working at a public
[00:21:37.520] radio station in in California.
[00:21:40.560] And a colleague from France sent me this
[00:21:43.360] translation of a French study that had
[00:21:45.440] been done by high-level people there. It
[00:21:47.760] was a It was a group of 13, a four-star
[00:21:50.400] general, a three-star admiral, a major
[00:21:53.320] general, a former head of NASA, the
[00:21:55.080] equivalent of NASA in France, of their
[00:21:57.000] space studies center,
[00:21:58.880] a national chief of police, and and some
[00:22:00.840] scientists and engineers. And they did
[00:22:02.280] this three-year study on military and
[00:22:05.000] pilot UFO cases. Cases that had a lot of
[00:22:07.960] good data around them. So, they could
[00:22:09.800] eliminate conventional explanations for
[00:22:11.840] them.
[00:22:12.760] And I you know, he said do you do you
[00:22:15.160] want do you want to do something with
[00:22:16.320] this? Like, nobody else has it in
[00:22:17.720] America yet. This is I'm giving this to
[00:22:20.240] you as an exclusive. Do you want to do
[00:22:21.560] something about it? And I said, "Sure,
[00:22:22.840] I'll read it." And when I read it, I was
[00:22:25.000] absolutely shocked and blown away. This
[00:22:26.720] this this little white paper that looked
[00:22:29.000] just like that when it came in the mail
[00:22:31.080] changed my life and changed everything
[00:22:33.040] that I became interested in afterwards.
[00:22:35.360] And what was so special about it was,
[00:22:37.040] first of all, the people that wrote it,
[00:22:38.880] which are the people I mentioned. But,
[00:22:41.280] um it was what they concluded after
[00:22:44.080] laying out these cases.
[00:22:45.960] So, they their their goal was to strip
[00:22:47.920] the phenomenon of UFOs of its irrational
[00:22:50.400] layer, which I loved I loved the way
[00:22:52.080] they said that because
[00:22:53.880] the way approach the way people
[00:22:55.080] approached it then was irrational and
[00:22:57.200] nobody was really willing to say that,
[00:22:58.840] but they said it.
[00:23:00.800] This is are the statements that they
[00:23:02.200] made that the cases that they studied
[00:23:04.200] could could be completely unknown flying
[00:23:06.640] machines with exceptional performances
[00:23:08.640] that are guided by a natural or
[00:23:10.320] artificial intelligence. I thought that
[00:23:12.320] was very eloquent. It could be craft of
[00:23:15.280] extraterrestrial origin. That was a
[00:23:17.360] radical.
[00:23:19.040] And in fact, the most logical, rational,
[00:23:21.360] and valid explanation for the sightings
[00:23:23.720] is what they call the extraterrestrial
[00:23:25.320] hypothesis. And in those days, I mean,
[00:23:28.280] to say this was like unheard of because
[00:23:31.200] of the taboo was incredibly strong.
[00:23:33.400] Everybody laughed about the topic and
[00:23:35.600] ridiculed the topic. It was considered
[00:23:37.600] science fiction. And you know, here you
[00:23:40.280] have these authorities making statements
[00:23:42.280] like this. So, I recognized like this is
[00:23:44.280] huge. Uh
[00:23:46.320] they they of course made the point that
[00:23:47.720] they can't prove this. This was a
[00:23:49.400] hypothesis,
[00:23:50.920] but it was worth investigating. And I
[00:23:53.360] thought even if a small percentage of
[00:23:55.280] sightings were extraterrestrial, even
[00:23:58.000] 1%. They said more like 5% maybe
[00:24:00.840] couldn't be explained of all the
[00:24:02.040] sightings people had, but even 1% like
[00:24:04.640] isn't that worth studying? It's like
[00:24:06.320] this is the biggest story it could be
[00:24:07.840] the biggest story ever.
[00:24:09.560] So, that was my reaction to it. And I
[00:24:11.920] thought what if Americans came out and
[00:24:13.600] made these? What if an American
[00:24:15.000] four-star general and you know, an
[00:24:17.520] admiral came to the microphone in
[00:24:19.080] Washington and made a statement like
[00:24:20.560] this? Like what would be the impact? So,
[00:24:22.640] anyway, I recognized that it a big
[00:24:24.200] story. This is what the the report had
[00:24:26.480] come out in France is what it looked
[00:24:28.000] like, but nobody's really paying any
[00:24:29.320] attention to it. And so, I eventually I
[00:24:32.720] I looked into more. I interviewed a
[00:24:34.760] bunch of people. I did some work and I
[00:24:36.440] got the story published in the Boston
[00:24:38.200] Globe in May of 2000, which was based on
[00:24:41.520] that report. Um and it was a huge effort
[00:24:45.400] to do that. I won't go into how hard it
[00:24:47.520] was to get any newspaper to to pay
[00:24:49.840] attention to this. And the only reason I
[00:24:51.800] got in the newspaper was cuz the editor
[00:24:53.560] there had worked with me in the past on
[00:24:55.320] other stories.
[00:24:56.680] And uh she liked my work, so she ran the
[00:24:58.760] story. And from that moment on, it was
[00:25:01.560] like I was just captivated by this
[00:25:03.880] topic. I got a lot of response. Pilots
[00:25:06.080] started contacting me with sightings
[00:25:07.840] that they had. The story was picked up
[00:25:10.040] around the country on the on the wire
[00:25:12.000] services.
[00:25:13.400] Um and again, I mean, this this this
[00:25:15.800] headline in
[00:25:17.440] you know, illustrates how different
[00:25:19.360] times were then. UFOs might be real.
[00:25:22.680] It's like that was as far as anybody was
[00:25:24.640] willing to go. And even to say that was
[00:25:26.320] pretty radical for a newspaper to say
[00:25:28.560] that. But then of course, they got to
[00:25:30.040] add this is what the French say.
[00:25:32.560] Uh you know, we're we're we're writing
[00:25:34.520] that because the French said it. Um I
[00:25:37.320] mean, this was this was the world we
[00:25:38.960] lived in. Um
[00:25:40.680] so part of what motivated me was like,
[00:25:42.880] why is there such ridicule? Why isn't
[00:25:45.480] like Congress all over this French
[00:25:47.200] report? Why aren't they going to request
[00:25:49.120] meetings with these generals and
[00:25:50.920] admirals in France who did this study
[00:25:53.320] and drew these conclusions? You know, it
[00:25:55.520] was like mystifying to me that to me it
[00:25:57.520] was the most exciting thing I could
[00:25:58.840] imagine. And like, you know, so it was a
[00:26:01.800] whole question for me not only about
[00:26:03.640] what is the nature of the phenomenon?
[00:26:05.320] Like just the you know, we're talking
[00:26:07.680] about imagination, you know, to imagine
[00:26:09.920] what this might be, but also it was
[00:26:11.800] about why is it treated this way?
[00:26:14.680] And um those things
[00:26:16.240] were what I was on fire about them
[00:26:17.600] basically. Just briefly, I'm just going
[00:26:19.720] to give you again, this is all bullet
[00:26:21.200] points.
[00:26:22.360] Um
[00:26:23.040] shortly after I did the Roswell glove
[00:26:25.560] story, I was approached by some
[00:26:26.920] executives at the Sci-Fi Channel in New
[00:26:28.840] York, and I got involved with this
[00:26:30.120] lawsuit against NASA, which lasted for
[00:26:32.320] years and years.
[00:26:33.920] It was about a crash retrieval case, an
[00:26:36.480] object that had fallen and and been
[00:26:38.080] taken away in 1965 in Pennsylvania. And
[00:26:41.640] there was a lot a lot of research that
[00:26:43.920] had been done on it, so it was very very
[00:26:45.720] well documented. Uh I just wanted to
[00:26:47.840] mention that that's that was a big
[00:26:49.720] project for me for years. Um
[00:26:52.560] and I got involved working with John
[00:26:54.120] Podesta at that time, who was um
[00:26:57.000] President Clinton's chief of staff.
[00:26:59.800] And prior to this, uh he was very
[00:27:02.880] interested in the freedom of information
[00:27:04.680] and people's right to know and the free
[00:27:06.480] and he did reforms for the Freedom of
[00:27:08.360] Information Act and he became the sort
[00:27:10.520] of supporter of this lawsuit and of my
[00:27:12.480] work. Um and he made this this was a
[00:27:15.200] this was like a my first press
[00:27:16.920] conference ever, like a very younger
[00:27:19.120] version of me there in 2001, um in which
[00:27:22.840] he came and made his statement that's
[00:27:24.520] very famous to people in the field that
[00:27:26.520] the people can handle the truth. I mean,
[00:27:28.560] he really believed that.
[00:27:30.280] Um and he felt that everything should be
[00:27:32.040] released. And the lawsuit went on
[00:27:34.000] forever. This is one of the meetings I
[00:27:35.800] have with him. He was just a very
[00:27:36.960] important person in the in the world
[00:27:39.320] that I lived in it during these initial
[00:27:41.040] years. Um the second story that I wrote
[00:27:44.760] was about aviation safety cases.
[00:27:48.120] And this was an really important element
[00:27:50.600] because everybody cares about aviation
[00:27:53.040] safety. You know, you're not talking
[00:27:54.360] about anything weird here. We're talking
[00:27:56.560] about the impact of these unidentified
[00:27:58.600] objects on aircraft. And a senior
[00:28:01.440] scientist from NASA by the name of
[00:28:03.360] Richard Haynes did this incredible 100
[00:28:07.080] I guess 100-page report documenting like
[00:28:09.400] over 90 cases
[00:28:11.200] of air airplanes that were impacted by
[00:28:14.800] the presence of UFOs, which meant they
[00:28:17.480] could have been pulled off their off
[00:28:19.440] course by them, their
[00:28:21.320] equipment went out, they lose their
[00:28:23.440] transmissions on their radios, they have
[00:28:25.920] to dive to avoid a collision. I mean,
[00:28:27.920] all kinds of very physical
[00:28:29.680] manifestations were documented in this
[00:28:31.720] report. So, I did this uh article about
[00:28:34.880] it. And um here's one line, you know,
[00:28:38.400] just to give you the eloquence of what
[00:28:40.640] he said in this well, I not okay, I'll
[00:28:42.880] read you this one line. In stunning
[00:28:44.800] detail, pilots and crew describe a range
[00:28:47.680] of geometric forms and lights
[00:28:49.600] inconsistent with known aircraft or
[00:28:52.000] natural phenomena. Bizarre objects pace
[00:28:55.280] aircraft at relatively near distances,
[00:28:58.040] sometimes disabling cockpit instruments,
[00:29:00.280] interrupting ground communications, or
[00:29:02.640] distracting the crew. The data include
[00:29:05.520] 56 near misses.
[00:29:07.920] And these cases went all the way back to
[00:29:09.640] the '50s.
[00:29:11.200] We did not have technology created by
[00:29:13.720] humans in the '50s that could do any of
[00:29:16.160] the things that these pilots were
[00:29:17.400] observing. So, that was an important
[00:29:18.960] component, but it was really emphasized
[00:29:21.080] that this needs to be addressed because
[00:29:23.240] there's an aviation safety component.
[00:29:25.440] And that today, after 2017, has become a
[00:29:28.280] very important element of the narrative
[00:29:31.120] and the the focus of work on this topic.
[00:29:33.720] This was just an example of the story
[00:29:36.280] again going out on the wire service. I
[00:29:38.080] used to hate the graphics they would put
[00:29:39.760] in these stories.
[00:29:41.200] They always had to do something silly to
[00:29:42.920] let you know, yeah, we'll run this, but
[00:29:45.040] we kind of get that it's kind of silly
[00:29:46.440] at the same time. So, we're going to
[00:29:47.760] write put this stupid picture there.
[00:29:49.880] Um
[00:29:50.840] this was actually one of the pilots that
[00:29:53.480] was part of that study. This was in he
[00:29:55.160] was a TWA pilot in 1981, and he almost
[00:29:58.680] collided with a UFO. And in this his
[00:30:00.680] picture, he was showing Dr. Haines the
[00:30:03.800] size of the UFO as he saw it directly
[00:30:06.400] from his cockpit. It was the size of a
[00:30:07.960] grapefruit held at arm's length, which
[00:30:09.880] is really big
[00:30:11.600] for a for you know, it was really close
[00:30:13.440] to his aircraft. And um and he This is a
[00:30:16.680] drawing of what he actually saw. The
[00:30:18.560] thing came towards his window and then
[00:30:20.760] veered off.
[00:30:22.480] And he he and his co-pilot actually
[00:30:25.760] um you know, got in a position for
[00:30:27.160] collision. I mean, they thought they
[00:30:28.280] were going to crash into this thing. He
[00:30:30.120] could clearly see what he thought were
[00:30:31.800] windows around the edges, very clear
[00:30:33.920] look at the at the object. And the
[00:30:35.880] interesting thing was he said it kind of
[00:30:38.600] just appeared out of the sky
[00:30:41.360] as if it had come from somewhere else.
[00:30:43.520] He didn't He It like it just suddenly
[00:30:45.600] manifested in the way he described it
[00:30:47.600] was a bending of the atmosphere. It was
[00:30:49.680] some kind of distortion in the
[00:30:51.080] environment that this thing came out of.
[00:30:53.920] And this was a pilot who didn't have any
[00:30:55.800] interest in this topic and he he filled
[00:30:57.520] out this amazing, you know, this very
[00:30:58.840] interesting form for Dr. Haines. So,
[00:31:01.480] there were cases like that like there
[00:31:03.040] are hundreds and hundreds of cases like
[00:31:05.280] this. And I spent years, you know,
[00:31:07.480] becoming acquainted with them. This is
[00:31:09.400] just a interesting picture of a near
[00:31:11.120] miss with a
[00:31:12.680] a a glider a glider that was taken from
[00:31:14.800] another airplane which shows, you know,
[00:31:16.840] these things get close to airplanes and
[00:31:18.440] we got to pay attention to that.
[00:31:20.440] So, in summary, I spent the first 10
[00:31:23.960] years before my book came out, you know,
[00:31:26.400] discovering that there is amazing
[00:31:29.200] amazing amounts of evidence for the
[00:31:31.640] reality of some kind of physical
[00:31:33.640] phenomenon.
[00:31:34.880] I'm not saying and I didn't say that
[00:31:36.640] they were aliens or that they're
[00:31:38.120] extraterrestrials or anything. What
[00:31:40.360] there is a physical phenomenon that we
[00:31:42.080] don't know what it is.
[00:31:44.200] Just like a Obama said.
[00:31:46.760] We don't know what it is. And but it's
[00:31:48.640] so real and it's so mysterious and it's
[00:31:51.520] so sophisticated
[00:31:53.480] uh that it it needs to be investigated.
[00:31:56.120] These were just These are just some of
[00:31:57.400] the areas of of areas in which you can
[00:32:00.400] find data in which you know, the data
[00:32:02.680] exists. There are great photographs of
[00:32:05.240] UFOs. There are many cases of physical
[00:32:08.160] trace evidence that have been studied
[00:32:10.040] which means when a UFO lands on the
[00:32:11.680] ground, it leaves effects on the ground
[00:32:14.280] and then it takes off again. So, you
[00:32:15.640] can, you know, marks in the soil, burned
[00:32:18.000] vegetation, radiation, all kinds of
[00:32:20.520] evidence that documents the presence and
[00:32:22.960] allow scientists to learn something
[00:32:24.680] about what it was that landed there.
[00:32:26.720] Radar visual sightings where multiple
[00:32:29.080] qualified witness see the same thing
[00:32:31.000] that the radar is picking up. And of
[00:32:33.280] course, the effects on planes which we
[00:32:34.880] talked about, effects on people who get
[00:32:37.240] too close to the objects. Whoops.
[00:32:39.640] And
[00:32:40.680] the treasure trove of government
[00:32:42.640] documents, just so many documents that
[00:32:44.880] have been released through the Freedom
[00:32:46.240] of Information Act that already those
[00:32:49.120] documents alone establish the reality of
[00:32:51.800] this phenomena. There's hundreds of
[00:32:53.760] them. You just, you know, it's takes a
[00:32:55.760] lot of time. Who has the time? But it
[00:32:57.800] takes a lot of time to go through them
[00:32:59.320] all.
[00:33:00.200] And they use the word UFO in these
[00:33:02.480] documents. They describe cases of, you
[00:33:04.800] know, pilots trying to shoot them down
[00:33:06.560] and all kinds of things. And there is no
[00:33:08.840] way that those documents explain what
[00:33:11.560] these objects are. They just describe
[00:33:14.320] them and they call them UFOs.
[00:33:16.760] There are mass sightings of UFOs in
[00:33:18.920] waves in which hundreds and hundreds of
[00:33:20.520] people see the same thing over a period
[00:33:22.480] of time, which are very compelling
[00:33:24.680] because these hundreds of witnesses
[00:33:26.120] reporting the same thing.
[00:33:27.840] And all of these objects demonstrate
[00:33:30.440] what has be you know, what some members
[00:33:32.320] of the government have called beyond
[00:33:33.880] next generation tech technology or even
[00:33:36.120] beyond that. But all of them are
[00:33:38.240] extremely sophisticated in what they're
[00:33:40.120] demonstrating in terms of how they
[00:33:41.960] maneuver.
[00:33:43.160] And when you go back to the 40s, 50s,
[00:33:45.600] 60s
[00:33:47.040] you can only you can argue really
[00:33:49.640] rationally that nobody on this planet
[00:33:52.320] could do what these objects were
[00:33:53.720] demonstrating then. Maybe now it's
[00:33:55.640] harder to argue that.
[00:33:57.520] But um the same things were observed
[00:34:00.040] then that are observed now. It's just
[00:34:02.320] documented decade after decade after
[00:34:04.600] decade.
[00:34:05.880] So this is the this is what I was
[00:34:07.280] grappling with. I kept trying to put out
[00:34:08.879] articles. I was writing press
[00:34:10.480] conference. I was involved in this
[00:34:11.840] lawsuit, doing documentaries, doing a
[00:34:14.000] whole lot of stuff to try to get the
[00:34:15.560] word out about this issue.
[00:34:18.200] And one of the turning points was in
[00:34:19.840] 2007. I organized a press conference
[00:34:22.639] with James Fox at the James Fox is a
[00:34:25.080] filmmaker the National Press Club and we
[00:34:27.520] brought in all these people from around
[00:34:29.440] the world.
[00:34:30.720] Uh
[00:34:31.960] pilots who had encountered the objects,
[00:34:34.320] people from governments around the world
[00:34:35.879] who had studied them. They really
[00:34:37.720] fascinating case
[00:34:39.440] conversations and case reports and so
[00:34:41.600] on, which I don't have time to go into
[00:34:44.000] now, but it was it was really incredible
[00:34:45.960] and it got major coverage on CNN and
[00:34:48.040] other networks, which in those days
[00:34:50.200] never happened.
[00:34:52.000] So, you know, we we were operating in a
[00:34:53.800] world like now they love to cover this
[00:34:56.399] stuff on TV, but then they didn't. They
[00:34:59.080] never did. And so, that um press
[00:35:02.440] conference was moderated by Fife Fife
[00:35:05.160] Symington, who was sitting there.
[00:35:07.280] Um and he was he was a former governor
[00:35:10.360] of Arizona, who had actually witnessed a
[00:35:12.520] UFO himself, but it took him 10 years to
[00:35:15.080] have the to have to be able to say it
[00:35:17.080] publicly. It That's the state of the
[00:35:19.480] world at the time. He felt like he
[00:35:20.840] couldn't say anything when he was a
[00:35:22.000] governor. He actually ridiculed it, even
[00:35:24.360] though he'd seen it himself.
[00:35:26.400] Um and he was advocating at our press
[00:35:29.160] conference in 2007
[00:35:31.160] for a government agency to be set up to
[00:35:34.200] study UFOs.
[00:35:36.520] And it just so happened that that was
[00:35:38.480] the year in which the Defense
[00:35:39.960] Intelligence Agency was beginning to
[00:35:42.080] work on setting up its own program in
[00:35:44.280] secret, and of course we didn't know
[00:35:46.120] that.
[00:35:47.160] So, that press conference inspired me to
[00:35:49.080] write this book because I wanted the
[00:35:51.040] people at the event to have more They
[00:35:54.240] all had so much more to say than they
[00:35:55.600] could say in a 5-minute statement at
[00:35:57.280] this press conference. So, my book came
[00:35:59.560] out in 2010,
[00:36:01.360] and it included contributions by 18
[00:36:04.360] other people, many of them who were at
[00:36:06.440] that press conference that we covered we
[00:36:08.120] did in 2007.
[00:36:09.920] Uh there were five generals who wrote
[00:36:11.720] chapters in this book. There was the
[00:36:13.720] former head of accidents and
[00:36:15.440] investigations from the FAA, the former
[00:36:18.360] governor of Arizona, an Air Force
[00:36:20.120] colonel, and many very high-level
[00:36:22.320] people. And this was like a breakthrough
[00:36:24.000] because
[00:36:25.040] it's the first time our, you know, that
[00:36:26.760] our culture in any kind of a mainstream
[00:36:28.800] way had seen people at this level come
[00:36:32.000] forward about encountering these objects
[00:36:34.400] or studying these objects.
[00:36:36.240] And it looked at what other countries
[00:36:38.080] were doing. It looked at explored, you
[00:36:39.840] know, the secrecy and how the US
[00:36:41.520] government's been handling it and what
[00:36:42.960] the history of it has been and it was a
[00:36:44.920] very, um, it got a lot of attention
[00:36:47.120] because, I think, because of all these
[00:36:49.200] high-level people that were included.
[00:36:51.560] So, that opened up a lot of doors for me
[00:36:54.440] and from that moment on I started to get
[00:36:56.360] to know some of the insiders, uh, in the
[00:36:58.920] field, which means people who have high
[00:37:01.960] clearances, who have been working behind
[00:37:04.000] the scenes for decades, who've worked
[00:37:05.680] with government agencies and and
[00:37:07.920] independent contractors and know a lot
[00:37:11.520] about what's going on, but they can't
[00:37:13.480] talk about it because it's classified.
[00:37:15.120] So, I I started having conversations off
[00:37:16.960] the record with a lot of these people.
[00:37:19.080] And that kind of propelled me forward to
[00:37:22.280] 2017. And I want to talk about what
[00:37:24.200] happened in 2017.
[00:37:26.440] But first, I know that everybody likes
[00:37:28.880] to see pictures of UFOs. So, I just want
[00:37:30.680] to show you a couple
[00:37:32.570] >> [gasps and sighs]
[00:37:32.720] >> because
[00:37:34.200] all the time, you know, the debunkers
[00:37:36.200] love to say, "There is no photographs
[00:37:38.760] except blurry ones. Why are they all so
[00:37:41.200] blurry?" And, you know, and this was a
[00:37:43.560] constant cry during the beginning of my
[00:37:46.440] work on this. So, I just wanted to show
[00:37:48.560] you this
[00:37:49.600] two photos that are not blurry and are
[00:37:51.840] really, really beautiful, in my opinion.
[00:37:54.480] This one was on the cover of the French
[00:37:56.720] report that I talked about in the
[00:37:57.960] beginning. It was taken by a Costa Rica
[00:38:00.720] mapping plane. In 1971, the camera was
[00:38:04.560] attached to the fuselage outside
[00:38:06.800] underneath the plane and every 20
[00:38:09.120] seconds the camera would automatically
[00:38:10.840] take a picture of the ground below on a
[00:38:12.800] very big negative. So, it was really
[00:38:14.840] clear, it's like 8 by 10, cuz they
[00:38:16.600] wanted to capture all the detail of the
[00:38:18.280] ground. This was so So this disc was
[00:38:21.880] over [snorts] a lake. That's why it
[00:38:23.480] looks so black.
[00:38:25.000] Um and uh
[00:38:27.680] here's a close-up.
[00:38:29.200] And it is just a very clear image of a
[00:38:32.000] of a disc. And it was studied by a bunch
[00:38:34.720] of scientists who did papers on it. And
[00:38:37.040] it was only in one frame.
[00:38:39.600] Pictures were taken every 20 seconds. So
[00:38:41.520] there it was. It wasn't there before and
[00:38:43.240] it wasn't there after. And they
[00:38:44.880] calculated a lot about the height and
[00:38:47.480] the speed and all kinds of things. But
[00:38:48.840] it's just a really nice image in my
[00:38:50.480] opinion.
[00:38:51.640] And this one was taken in 1987
[00:38:55.880] in uh Connecticut, not far from here,
[00:38:58.440] when there was a wave of of UFO
[00:39:00.440] sightings in the mid-80s in in the
[00:39:02.280] Hudson Valley area, but also in
[00:39:03.840] Connecticut. Um and this was taken by a
[00:39:06.560] police officer. And I really love the
[00:39:08.120] picture because
[00:39:10.160] it's just the the the colored lights
[00:39:11.920] assembly are on the edge of a larger
[00:39:14.080] craft and you just can't see the center
[00:39:16.040] of it because it was so dark.
[00:39:18.080] Anyway, there are good photos of UFOs.
[00:39:20.240] But I'll tell you the government has
[00:39:21.720] even better ones that they're not
[00:39:23.040] sharing with us.
[00:39:25.000] Um
[00:39:26.040] so after my book came out, I spent a
[00:39:28.160] number of years learning more about what
[00:39:30.600] was happening in other countries, which
[00:39:32.280] was really important to me. How are
[00:39:34.320] other countries handling this in
[00:39:35.640] contrast to how the UF handles USA
[00:39:37.800] handles it. And I went and visited
[00:39:40.520] countries. And this is sort of an
[00:39:41.920] amusing picture to me because this these
[00:39:44.040] were the military officials in Chile,
[00:39:46.280] right? They invited me to give this
[00:39:48.680] briefing or talk to this high-level
[00:39:51.720] group of military. And it was because
[00:39:53.760] there was nobody in America that was
[00:39:55.920] that they could ask to do this. There
[00:39:57.760] were no officials in America that would
[00:39:59.520] represent the topic. It's not the case
[00:40:01.600] now.
[00:40:02.800] But so they had they got Leslie Kean to
[00:40:04.400] do it, you know. And it was an honor.
[00:40:06.800] But um I learned I spent a lot of time
[00:40:09.440] in Chile with the official government
[00:40:11.680] agency there and I learned about how
[00:40:13.080] they worked. Same thing in France. I
[00:40:14.760] went to France and met with the head of
[00:40:16.120] that agency, and really got familiar
[00:40:18.520] with how foreign governments handled
[00:40:20.280] this. And
[00:40:21.360] And um John Podesta, I would bring back
[00:40:24.880] information to John Podesta,
[00:40:27.640] and we would craft I'd craft these
[00:40:29.440] dossiers and and you know, outlines of
[00:40:31.800] how I thought we could we could learn
[00:40:33.440] from these other countries, and how we
[00:40:35.440] could model our own agency on what they
[00:40:37.680] were doing, and it was not difficult and
[00:40:39.600] it was not expensive to do it. So, that
[00:40:42.080] was a kind of a mission I was on, not
[00:40:43.960] knowing that there was concurrently an a
[00:40:47.320] government agency that was working at
[00:40:49.160] the Department of Defense in secret.
[00:40:51.560] So, that's what I learned about in 2017,
[00:40:54.720] um
[00:40:55.800] when everything changed.
[00:40:58.080] Uh
[00:40:59.240] I had been operating in this as a lonely
[00:41:01.400] person in this very taboo world of
[00:41:05.840] you know, nobody really caring, even
[00:41:08.040] though I did so much work, it didn't
[00:41:09.800] really change a whole lot, you know, to
[00:41:11.920] be honest.
[00:41:13.200] Um
[00:41:14.320] but in 2017, I was invited by some of
[00:41:17.200] these insiders that I mentioned who had
[00:41:19.160] who had come to trust me over the years,
[00:41:21.640] to meet with um a man named Luis
[00:41:23.840] Elizondo, who goes by the name Lou,
[00:41:27.080] who had headed up a working group within
[00:41:29.440] the Department of Defense for number of
[00:41:31.480] years that was studying UFOs. And he had
[00:41:34.240] decided to resign that job because he
[00:41:36.520] was not getting the support he needed to
[00:41:38.480] continue the work. He was not able to
[00:41:40.520] get the information out. Uh it was just
[00:41:43.400] he was up against it when in terms of
[00:41:45.440] the pushback he was getting and the
[00:41:47.320] inability he felt to make a difference
[00:41:49.840] with his by staying within this closed
[00:41:51.920] world.
[00:41:53.200] And so, he decided he wanted to resign
[00:41:55.560] and bring some of this information out
[00:41:57.040] into the world. And I was invited to
[00:41:59.160] meet with him because of the possibility
[00:42:01.440] that uh we could get a story into the
[00:42:03.600] New York Times or some some newspaper
[00:42:06.000] that would give it exposure.
[00:42:08.440] And this meeting was absolutely
[00:42:10.560] life-changing for me. Um
[00:42:13.080] I sat opposite Lue Elizondo for 3 hours.
[00:42:16.320] He was terrified of what he was doing.
[00:42:18.480] He didn't know what the repercussions
[00:42:20.000] were going to be. He'd never been public
[00:42:22.600] before. He was a counterintelligence
[00:42:25.000] official, high clearances,
[00:42:27.480] worked worked with all kinds of special
[00:42:29.280] access programs. I mean, really had a
[00:42:31.080] access to a lot of information that had
[00:42:33.200] nothing to do with UFOs.
[00:42:35.200] But, he always had worked in the
[00:42:36.680] shadows. He was uninterested in being in
[00:42:38.680] the public, but he felt an obligation to
[00:42:40.720] So, he didn't know what was going to
[00:42:41.840] happen to him.
[00:42:43.160] And I was shown all the documents and
[00:42:45.600] all the interesting, you know, all these
[00:42:47.040] documents about the program, the reality
[00:42:49.080] of it. I was shown Lue's performance
[00:42:50.720] reviews,
[00:42:52.160] uh Harry Reid, who was the Senate
[00:42:54.400] Majority Leader, was the the official
[00:42:56.560] who really made this possible, this
[00:42:58.560] program possible. And there were letters
[00:43:00.320] from Harry Reid concerning the program,
[00:43:02.360] all kinds of fascinating documents that
[00:43:04.880] have since really I think since most of
[00:43:06.800] them have have been released to the
[00:43:08.200] public. A letter that came uh Lue
[00:43:10.760] Elizondo wrote a letter to Secretary
[00:43:12.240] James Mattis, Secretary of Defense, his
[00:43:14.560] resignation letter. Uh Mattis was his
[00:43:16.920] good friend. He But, he still could
[00:43:19.000] never get an appointment with Mattis to
[00:43:20.520] talk about UFOs.
[00:43:22.440] So, he wrote this eloquent letter, and I
[00:43:24.440] was able to read that before it had ever
[00:43:26.160] been given to Mattis. It was just
[00:43:28.080] mind-blowing for me. After all these
[00:43:30.720] years
[00:43:31.920] to discover there actually was a
[00:43:33.800] program, and that I had the opportunity
[00:43:36.240] to facilitate uh bringing that forward
[00:43:38.840] into the world. And it was extremely
[00:43:40.640] important and and mind-blowing to me to
[00:43:42.400] see
[00:43:43.600] the documentation for this. Because it
[00:43:45.920] showed the Department of Defense really
[00:43:47.640] took it seriously. And the One of the
[00:43:49.920] other cool things about it was the these
[00:43:51.920] videos that have I mean, I'm sure a lot
[00:43:53.920] of people have seen them now. I was
[00:43:55.920] shown by Dr. Hal Puthoff, who's a
[00:43:57.960] physicist who was a consultant to the
[00:44:00.040] program,
[00:44:01.600] three videos that were Navy videos that
[00:44:04.320] were taken of UFOs, official videos. And
[00:44:07.160] um that was also absolutely mind-blowing
[00:44:09.600] to me because there had been no videos
[00:44:12.000] released by our government in the past.
[00:44:14.760] And these were going to be taken out of
[00:44:16.840] the Department of Defense and provided
[00:44:19.000] to me if I could get the story done. So
[00:44:21.280] anyway, I don't want to go on and on
[00:44:22.680] about it, but it was such a moment and
[00:44:24.600] there was so much that happened. These
[00:44:25.880] are After the meeting was over, I
[00:44:27.600] snapped this photo.
[00:44:29.560] Hal Puthoff had already left, but the
[00:44:31.200] other two people that were present were
[00:44:33.000] Christopher Mellon, the former Deputy
[00:44:34.840] Assistant Secretary of Defense under
[00:44:36.480] Clinton and Bush. He was the He's the
[00:44:38.280] tall guy who was actually the one that
[00:44:39.680] invited me to the meeting and worked
[00:44:41.200] closely with Lou for years and helped
[00:44:43.960] Lou with his transition out of out of
[00:44:46.520] government. And the other gentleman is
[00:44:48.760] Jim Semivan,
[00:44:50.400] a who was 25 years in the CIA and
[00:44:53.520] absolutely wonderful human being who was
[00:44:55.480] also present for that meeting. And these
[00:44:57.040] are all the These are the kinds of
[00:44:58.160] people that I have come to know very
[00:45:00.240] well over the years.
[00:45:02.120] Um so,
[00:45:04.280] to make a long story short, I took this
[00:45:06.080] story to my colleague Ralph Blumenthal,
[00:45:08.840] who's a who was with The New York Times,
[00:45:10.800] and we were able to get the story
[00:45:12.040] published
[00:45:13.480] in December of 2017.
[00:45:16.400] And this is what it looked like online.
[00:45:20.840] So, um the story
[00:45:22.920] included two of the three videos that I
[00:45:25.720] was shown.
[00:45:28.440] And I want to show I don't know,
[00:45:30.440] probably a lot of people in this room
[00:45:31.600] have seen these videos, but for those
[00:45:33.080] who haven't,
[00:45:35.680] um I want to show you one of them right
[00:45:37.560] now.
[00:45:38.640] Um and also just make the point that the
[00:45:41.440] importance of the article was that it
[00:45:43.360] was establishing the fact that the
[00:45:45.000] Department of Defense was investigating
[00:45:47.120] this top investigating UFOs and
[00:45:49.240] collecting data on them. And that gave
[00:45:52.840] everyone else permission to take them
[00:45:54.320] seriously. And it gave members of
[00:45:56.240] Congress permission to
[00:45:58.480] in fact, they were like, "Why don't I
[00:45:59.720] know about this?" Like, "I want to know
[00:46:01.040] more about this." You know, it kind of
[00:46:02.720] put it took it up to another level in
[00:46:04.800] the in Washington. So, this is one of
[00:46:07.040] the videos that was released.
[00:46:09.400] It's known as the Gimbal video.
[00:46:11.680] It was taken in January of 2015 off of
[00:46:16.240] uh the USS Roosevelt off of
[00:46:18.360] Jacksonville, Florida.
[00:46:20.480] And um I I'll just put it on and you can
[00:46:23.320] hear the pilots commenting on what
[00:46:25.240] they're what's happening when they're
[00:46:26.640] filming it.
[00:47:03.160] I think that's a lot of what
[00:47:05.000] why so many people were interested in
[00:47:06.760] the story. This is what it looked like
[00:47:08.520] in The New York Times. It was on the
[00:47:09.920] front page in the lower lower side um
[00:47:13.240] and the inside had a whole
[00:47:15.800] long section about AATIP, the agency.
[00:47:20.040] And I want to share another video with
[00:47:21.720] you right now because we were fortunate
[00:47:23.480] enough to work with Helene Cooper on
[00:47:26.000] that story. In fact, the story never
[00:47:27.840] would have happened without her. She is
[00:47:30.080] a Pulitzer Prize-winning Pentagon
[00:47:32.000] correspondent for The New York Times.
[00:47:34.280] And she repor- reports on international
[00:47:36.360] affairs and military and and national
[00:47:38.920] security issues. She's on the front page
[00:47:40.680] of that paper all the time. Some of you
[00:47:42.600] may recognize her name. She has been
[00:47:45.400] writing a lot about Iran lately. She's
[00:47:47.320] just one of their absolute top
[00:47:49.480] reporters. And we were fortunate enough
[00:47:51.520] to be able to do that 2017 story with
[00:47:54.080] her.
[00:47:55.280] And she rarely would talk about it, but
[00:47:57.440] I was able to get an interview with her
[00:47:59.240] for the um National Geographic special I
[00:48:02.000] was working on, National Geographic
[00:48:03.480] series I was working on. And I just
[00:48:05.320] wanted to play that for you because she
[00:48:07.040] she really she describes the moment when
[00:48:08.880] the story came out. And I think she's so
[00:48:11.720] wonderful. I just wanted you all to get
[00:48:13.720] have an experience of watching her. So
[00:48:15.800] here she is.
[00:48:20.360] At the end of the interview with Senator
[00:48:22.560] Reid, I walked out of the Bellagio and
[00:48:25.720] there's a bridge from the Bellagio over
[00:48:27.560] the strip to whatever is on the other
[00:48:29.480] side and it's a pedestrian bridge. And I
[00:48:31.560] called Leslie and Ralph and they were on
[00:48:33.880] the phone with Lou. So we're in uh this
[00:48:36.320] four-way phone call and I was like he
[00:48:38.080] confirmed everything.
[00:48:40.120] Harry Reid had never spoken out before
[00:48:42.200] about this program. So this was like the
[00:48:44.440] first moment in which he came out on the
[00:48:46.520] topic. And that was a big deal.
[00:48:48.800] We were ecstatic because that moment we
[00:48:51.400] knew we had it. It's like no matter what
[00:48:53.640] happens next, we have the story.
[00:48:58.600] The lead up to the actual publication of
[00:49:01.360] the story on December 17th was
[00:49:04.520] torturous.
[00:49:06.240] Our editors were constantly saying make
[00:49:08.280] sure we put skeptics in there, we put
[00:49:10.440] people challenging this notion.
[00:49:14.480] This caution by our editors were
[00:49:16.560] starting to naturally get on our nerves.
[00:49:19.120] It's like run the story already. We've
[00:49:20.920] like dotted every possible eye we can
[00:49:23.800] dot.
[00:49:24.920] And we knew at this time that political
[00:49:27.720] was chasing the story as well.
[00:49:32.120] It's Saturday morning. Still haven't
[00:49:33.600] posted the story. I think it's 11:00 or
[00:49:35.560] 12:00 and we're hearing from Lou and
[00:49:38.440] from other people that Politico is about
[00:49:40.880] to post and I'm on the phone with the
[00:49:43.120] guy who's the Saturday editor going
[00:49:45.640] publish just publish already. And he's
[00:49:48.600] he's tinkering around with what kind of
[00:49:50.480] headline do we want? JUST LIKE POP UP IN
[00:49:52.520] THE MORNING. AND HE FINALLY posted the
[00:49:54.960] story.
[00:49:57.800] The story is up and I'm like, thank god
[00:49:59.760] it's up. I put my phone in my
[00:50:01.280] pocketbook. I go into Costco and I'm
[00:50:03.960] buying, I don't know, what tenderloin
[00:50:05.880] for Christmas. And I'm in there for
[00:50:08.280] about an hour and I come back out and my
[00:50:10.400] phone is like has blown up.
[00:50:14.320] And a freaking exposé published over the
[00:50:16.400] weekend in the New York Times revealed
[00:50:17.680] the existence confirmed the existence
[00:50:20.000] Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification
[00:50:21.920] Program. People were calling me and they
[00:50:23.400] were like the tats and it was just like
[00:50:25.960] the response was huge.
[00:50:28.880] It was a firestorm. Tens of millions of
[00:50:31.160] dollars for the project were pushed
[00:50:32.800] through. It was all over the place.
[00:50:35.440] Unveiled the existence of a real-life
[00:50:37.480] X-Files department. It was all over the
[00:50:39.600] world.
[00:50:45.480] It just went like wildfire.
[00:50:50.920] It was quite a moment. It really was
[00:50:52.920] exciting and it changed everything. And
[00:50:55.200] people who have only gotten involved
[00:50:57.760] since 2017 may sort of take it for
[00:51:00.200] granted but it was
[00:51:01.800] so different before that.
[00:51:04.160] Briefly,
[00:51:05.720] the What did the AATIP program in the
[00:51:08.600] I mean they were collecting a lot of
[00:51:09.880] data and among the This is one of the
[00:51:12.280] the key things that Lou Elizondo brought
[00:51:14.120] forward after he left with what he
[00:51:15.480] called the five observables. We now
[00:51:17.720] consider there to be six but they're
[00:51:19.600] basically characteristics of the objects
[00:51:22.040] that are observed over and over and over
[00:51:23.840] again.
[00:51:25.040] Anti-gravity lift meaning they have no
[00:51:26.920] visible means of propulsion. These these
[00:51:28.800] round objects can just fly without any
[00:51:30.720] wings or or apparent air you know,
[00:51:33.000] they're they're not aerodynamic. They
[00:51:35.000] can stop on a dime and then
[00:51:36.560] instantaneously accelerate really fast
[00:51:39.600] at G-forces that nobody could survive.
[00:51:42.640] They have hypersonic velocities. They
[00:51:44.880] have low observabilities which means
[00:51:46.880] they can they can disappear and come
[00:51:49.560] back, you know, it's like
[00:51:51.560] changing shape. Transmedium travel is a
[00:51:54.560] big thing where they can travel from
[00:51:56.640] outer space to our atmosphere and then
[00:51:58.920] into the water. The same object can do
[00:52:01.200] all of those things and do them fast,
[00:52:03.760] too. So,
[00:52:05.080] and what was been added more recently is
[00:52:07.640] the sixth one, which is biological
[00:52:09.320] effects on people and perceptual
[00:52:11.280] effects, which means consciousness is
[00:52:13.440] affected and consciousness plays a role
[00:52:15.760] in all of this. And that's a whole other
[00:52:18.120] area of study, which is fascinating, but
[00:52:20.800] we're not going to get into it. But, I
[00:52:22.200] just wanted to let you know that
[00:52:24.360] this was one of the important things
[00:52:25.400] that Lou brought out of the program,
[00:52:27.200] which has become part of sort of the
[00:52:28.640] cultural narrative about all of this.
[00:52:31.400] The next story that Oh, this was this
[00:52:33.320] was also part of the first story. I just
[00:52:35.040] wanted to briefly touch on this because
[00:52:37.560] this was the famous Nimitz Tic Tac case,
[00:52:40.520] which took place in 2004 from the um
[00:52:43.120] Nimitz aircraft the carrier group, the
[00:52:46.280] fighting group.
[00:52:47.800] Um and this was a big part of the story,
[00:52:51.120] too, in 2017. We are actually breaking
[00:52:53.280] news about this case, which was one of
[00:52:55.080] the most well-documented UFO events
[00:52:57.360] ever.
[00:52:58.480] And uh Helene and I had dinner with
[00:53:01.120] David Fravor before doing the story.
[00:53:03.160] I'll never forget that night because he
[00:53:04.680] hadn't really come out before. And
[00:53:07.360] Helene was blown away listening to him
[00:53:09.240] describe this. I mean, I was kind of
[00:53:10.720] used to it, but not she wasn't. And um
[00:53:13.480] you know, it was really, really amazing.
[00:53:15.520] Briefly again, I want to play a video
[00:53:17.360] for you of these the pilots involved
[00:53:19.440] with this incident.
[00:53:21.240] And this is again from our National
[00:53:22.440] Geographic series describing what they
[00:53:25.120] witnessed during that event.
[00:53:35.160] We were flying in
[00:53:37.400] a tactical combat spread formation.
[00:53:40.880] Two aircraft. Each aircraft had two air
[00:53:44.320] crew.
[00:53:46.120] As the radar hits on the USS Princeton
[00:53:48.440] scope start to march towards each other,
[00:53:51.320] they get so close that they can't
[00:53:52.600] differentiate them, and that's called a
[00:53:53.920] merge plot.
[00:53:55.360] A merge plot is when you would expect to
[00:53:57.640] merge with this other aircraft. And if
[00:54:00.560] you're in a combat situation, that's
[00:54:01.880] obviously a very tense moment.
[00:54:06.160] So, when you do that, you start looking
[00:54:07.480] outside. So, we're kind of doing this,
[00:54:08.840] looking around to see where it's at,
[00:54:10.240] because it's somewhere around you and
[00:54:11.480] you don't know.
[00:54:13.080] And I look down, I go, "What is that?"
[00:54:15.520] Close your eyes and imagine a long
[00:54:18.120] cylindrical white object with rounded
[00:54:20.480] ends.
[00:54:21.560] Roughly 40 ft long that looked like a
[00:54:23.640] giant Tic Tac.
[00:54:26.600] It was white, and pure white.
[00:54:29.040] It had no windows, no wings, no visual
[00:54:32.880] signs of propulsion.
[00:54:35.000] And this thing was going like this, and
[00:54:36.600] I I described it as like if you put a
[00:54:38.080] ping pong ball and it was bouncing off a
[00:54:39.720] wall.
[00:54:42.680] This particular object was not following
[00:54:46.120] any of our rules. It didn't have a turn
[00:54:48.560] radius that we would expect. It didn't
[00:54:50.480] have a period to accelerate and
[00:54:52.440] decelerate. It just seemed to zip so
[00:54:55.040] quickly that it was again really
[00:54:57.040] disorienting, really confusing for us.
[00:55:03.520] David said it was the WTF moment.
[00:55:06.160] >> Yeah.
[00:55:06.880] Yeah. Oh, there were were definitely
[00:55:08.520] some
[00:55:10.080] WTFs on the radio.
[00:55:12.760] Not in a scared way, but like, what the
[00:55:14.800] [ __ ] is that? Like, we're seeing
[00:55:17.200] something for the first time.
[00:55:23.880] Just to go on, um our next story in
[00:55:26.360] 2019,
[00:55:28.080] the three of us all again with Helene
[00:55:29.680] was about pilot sightings. We expanded
[00:55:32.200] the the coverage of that, and we uh
[00:55:34.560] introduced Ryan Graves to the world, who
[00:55:37.320] has since become a major figure in the
[00:55:40.240] landscape of of work on this topic. He's
[00:55:43.280] founded organizations and worked with
[00:55:45.160] members of Congress on legislation.
[00:55:47.680] And uh, you know, we met him in a hotel
[00:55:50.080] room in New York and he was terrified to
[00:55:52.160] come forward, but he decided to do it.
[00:55:54.640] Uh,
[00:55:55.840] uh, again, it's just so wonderful to
[00:55:57.600] have been
[00:55:58.760] able to bring these people forward and
[00:56:00.560] watch them develop in the world and
[00:56:02.640] become absolutely important to the whole
[00:56:05.000] unfolding of this issue and he's one of
[00:56:06.520] those people. The article was very
[00:56:08.840] popular because it dealt with actual
[00:56:11.720] encounters and it described what they
[00:56:13.280] were like, which people like to hear
[00:56:15.280] about. Um, there's one incident, for
[00:56:18.040] instance, where Graves described a pilot
[00:56:20.560] and his wingman who were flying in
[00:56:22.320] tandem about a hundred feet apart from
[00:56:24.640] each other.
[00:56:26.120] And they were over the Atlantic Ocean
[00:56:28.080] and something flew between them, right
[00:56:30.760] past the cockpit.
[00:56:32.360] And it was a sphere encased in a cube.
[00:56:36.560] What what I mean to say is, you know,
[00:56:38.280] did I say that right? A
[00:56:39.920] a sphere, yeah, that had a a cube inside
[00:56:42.520] of it. And this thing was seen a lot by
[00:56:43.920] these these pilots. Um, and they would
[00:56:46.280] stay aloft for long long periods of
[00:56:48.000] time. And um,
[00:56:50.560] a lot of there's a lot more I could say
[00:56:52.240] about it, but it's, you know, this was
[00:56:53.840] what that story focused on and that
[00:56:55.520] story was actually read by more people
[00:56:57.800] than the first one. Um, it was the 10th
[00:56:59.880] most read story in the New York Times
[00:57:02.080] for that year.
[00:57:03.800] Cuz they they tabulate all their's the
[00:57:05.520] 100 most read at the end of the year. We
[00:57:07.160] were number 10, so that was pretty cool.
[00:57:09.080] At that point, a UAP task force was set
[00:57:11.600] up by Congress. Um, it was kind of an
[00:57:13.480] extension of the program that had been
[00:57:15.120] in the Department of Defense that we
[00:57:16.400] wrote about in 2017.
[00:57:18.560] But it it was a bigger, more solid
[00:57:21.040] effort. Uh, and they were tasked with
[00:57:24.720] doing work on this and providing reports
[00:57:27.120] to the public. And the media started to
[00:57:29.400] get really interested in this in
[00:57:31.080] anticipation of this report that was
[00:57:33.120] going to come out in June of '21.
[00:57:35.640] We
[00:57:36.560] um and the the Congress were at the same
[00:57:38.200] time getting lots of classified
[00:57:39.720] briefings and getting much more
[00:57:41.520] interested in this.
[00:57:43.160] Uh and lots of other important people
[00:57:45.560] were kind of drawn into it from all
[00:57:47.280] different a lot of different areas, but
[00:57:49.080] the focus was really on Congress.
[00:57:51.760] Um and uh 60 Minutes did a piece on this
[00:57:55.400] in '21. It was the first time they'd
[00:57:57.040] ever covered it. It was a big deal. The
[00:57:59.520] New Yorker did this big story and all
[00:58:01.560] the major networks were on it in
[00:58:03.600] anticipation of this report. Um and the
[00:58:07.280] whole thing was building and building
[00:58:08.920] and building and credibility was
[00:58:10.360] building and more more members of
[00:58:11.760] Congress were speaking out about it and
[00:58:13.480] it was just uh you know very exciting.
[00:58:15.840] Um the report came out in 2021 and what
[00:58:19.160] was important about this was the Office
[00:58:21.200] of the Director of National
[00:58:22.280] Intelligence.
[00:58:23.600] It really wasn't that big a deal this
[00:58:25.280] report. There was all this hype, but it
[00:58:27.200] really wasn't that interesting, but they
[00:58:29.080] had looked at 144 cases and only were
[00:58:32.320] only able to explain one of them.
[00:58:34.600] And this report established without a
[00:58:36.960] shadow of a doubt that the UFOs are real
[00:58:39.280] physical phenomena. I mean that was
[00:58:40.960] clearly stated in this report. These
[00:58:43.560] objects were real and they were not they
[00:58:45.640] had not been explained. They're not
[00:58:47.160] saying what they were,
[00:58:49.160] but they were saying they exist and it's
[00:58:51.640] like beyond any question now whether
[00:58:54.280] that they're whether they're real or
[00:58:55.680] not. And I had spent 17 years prior to
[00:58:58.400] '17 trying to just establish the simple
[00:59:00.640] fact that they were real and people
[00:59:02.200] wouldn't even accept it. So it was very
[00:59:03.840] exciting for me to see this finally
[00:59:05.760] officially stated. But the other point
[00:59:08.760] that was so interesting about the study
[00:59:10.200] was the big point of discussion at this
[00:59:12.120] particular moment as things evolved was
[00:59:15.240] whether these objects could be Russian
[00:59:17.560] or Chinese because
[00:59:19.800] people in our government knew they
[00:59:21.040] weren't ours and they were willing to
[00:59:23.080] say that. So therefore maybe they're
[00:59:25.040] Russian or Chinese which would be really
[00:59:26.840] scary.
[00:59:28.000] But nonetheless, that was sort of the
[00:59:29.400] going point of of discussion at that
[00:59:31.480] point that people were speculating
[00:59:33.000] about. And this report kind of laid that
[00:59:35.680] to rest that it was not.
[00:59:37.880] There were two sentences in the report
[00:59:39.360] that were very significant. One, this
[00:59:41.080] first one said, "We currently lack data
[00:59:43.280] to indicate any UAP are part of a
[00:59:45.600] foreign collection program or indicative
[00:59:48.160] of a major technological advancement by
[00:59:50.320] a potential adversary."
[00:59:52.400] So, we don't have any our intelligence
[00:59:54.360] is not tell us that these are Russian or
[00:59:55.960] Chinese is what they're saying.
[00:59:57.956] >> [clears throat]
[00:59:59.000] >> And secondly,
[01:00:01.080] "Some UAP observations could be
[01:00:03.040] attributable to developments of
[01:00:04.560] classified programs by US entities."
[01:00:07.160] Because some people say, "Well, maybe
[01:00:08.200] they're US technology."
[01:00:10.080] "We were unable to confirm, however,
[01:00:12.240] that these systems accounted for any of
[01:00:14.400] the UAP reports we collected."
[01:00:17.240] So, therefore, they're not Russian,
[01:00:18.680] they're not Chinese, and they're not
[01:00:19.880] American is basically what this report
[01:00:21.760] was saying. So, therefore, what are
[01:00:24.200] they? Where are they from?
[01:00:26.440] And so, um that was
[01:00:29.160] at the same time this was happening, a
[01:00:31.120] lot of legislation was being put
[01:00:33.040] forward. I mean, there's everything was
[01:00:34.400] building.
[01:00:35.560] Um and as as Jordan mentioned, you know,
[01:00:37.720] the legislation's an extremely important
[01:00:39.760] part of this, and many people were
[01:00:41.400] helping, such as the people Jordan works
[01:00:43.400] with, and others were helping behind the
[01:00:45.440] scenes to create the legislation and
[01:00:47.840] help the Congress put it together.
[01:00:50.400] Um and there were many different bills.
[01:00:52.240] Some of them the um having to do with
[01:00:54.440] whistleblower protections and and
[01:00:56.120] transparency and and lots of things. I
[01:00:58.720] mean, you know, I don't have time to go
[01:00:59.600] into all of them, but they're always
[01:01:01.400] working on legislation. And these are
[01:01:03.440] the kinds of statements that were now
[01:01:04.960] coming out, which were inconceivable,
[01:01:08.240] you know, before 2017. Senator Mitt
[01:01:10.240] Romney said on television, "I don't
[01:01:12.880] believe they're coming from foreign
[01:01:14.320] adversaries. If they were, what Why that
[01:01:17.280] would suggest that they have a
[01:01:18.320] technology which is in a whole different
[01:01:20.480] sphere than anything we understand. And
[01:01:23.800] frankly, China and Russia just aren't
[01:01:26.080] there, and neither are we, by the way.
[01:01:30.160] So, Marco Rubio was another person, you
[01:01:32.280] know, famous Marco Rubio who is now the
[01:01:34.800] Secretary of State who was weighing in
[01:01:36.480] on this. He was briefed at very high
[01:01:38.240] levels, classified briefings repeatedly.
[01:01:41.400] Um and
[01:01:43.240] uh he made the point that
[01:01:45.560] either dozens of credible individuals,
[01:01:48.000] and there were dozens going to members
[01:01:49.720] of Congress by this point. I mean,
[01:01:52.200] in in classified settings, sharing
[01:01:54.440] information that we the public didn't
[01:01:56.040] have access to.
[01:01:57.680] So, either these dozens of credible
[01:02:00.080] individuals with high clearances and and
[01:02:02.840] incredible credentials
[01:02:04.960] are revealing the biggest story in human
[01:02:06.880] history, this is what Rubio said, or a
[01:02:09.480] sizable cohort of high-level government
[01:02:12.000] officials holding top security
[01:02:13.720] clearances are crazy.
[01:02:16.840] And he he reflected on this and said,
[01:02:18.960] you know, what incentive would so many
[01:02:20.920] people with with that kind of
[01:02:22.520] qualification, and these are serious
[01:02:24.760] people, this is a quote,
[01:02:26.440] what incentive would they have to come
[01:02:27.920] forward and make something up?
[01:02:30.440] And so, this is where we were at. This
[01:02:32.280] is where we're still at. Um another just
[01:02:34.760] to give you a few more bullet points of
[01:02:36.440] things that happened between
[01:02:38.600] starting in '22 until the present, and
[01:02:40.440] then we'll we'll close this up. Um the
[01:02:43.400] the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
[01:02:46.760] was set up, abbreviated AARO, AARO,
[01:02:49.720] which was a again a sort of extension of
[01:02:51.760] the UAP Task Force, but it was a much
[01:02:53.840] bigger operation under the control of
[01:02:56.520] the Department of Defense. And it was
[01:02:58.640] mandated by Congress to provide reports
[01:03:01.480] and do investigations, provide
[01:03:03.200] information to the public. Uh a good
[01:03:05.920] effort to try to make something come out
[01:03:07.720] of it, but unfortunately, most people
[01:03:09.960] over the years have not been able to
[01:03:12.040] trust this organization. It's been more
[01:03:14.000] of a kind of a
[01:03:15.480] an operation to hold information back
[01:03:17.760] rather than bring it forward and that's
[01:03:19.480] a whole complicated scenario but many
[01:03:23.440] qualified people went and provided
[01:03:25.200] information to Arrow and what they did
[01:03:26.880] not like what happened with that
[01:03:28.160] information after they provided it. It
[01:03:29.880] really has not been
[01:03:32.280] something that people trust but on the
[01:03:34.800] other hand it's very good that it was
[01:03:36.160] set up and then that the Congress took
[01:03:37.920] it seriously enough to want to set this
[01:03:40.280] organization up and they still they're
[01:03:42.400] still operating. Another thing that
[01:03:44.920] happened in 23, NASA got involved with
[01:03:47.760] this. Who would have ever imagined NASA
[01:03:50.120] taking UFOs seriously? They spent a year
[01:03:53.520] they they they put together an
[01:03:54.880] independent study team and spent a year
[01:03:56.880] looking into this
[01:03:58.600] with only looking at unclassified data.
[01:04:01.760] Data that is available to everyone.
[01:04:04.320] And so they could only get so far but
[01:04:06.200] they did draw the conclusion that they
[01:04:08.320] thought this presented a unique
[01:04:10.000] scientific opportunity. This is their
[01:04:11.920] wording that demands a rigorous
[01:04:14.440] evidence-based approach.
[01:04:16.640] And so that was a wonderful thing that
[01:04:18.000] NASA was willing to say yeah, we got to
[01:04:19.840] we got to look into this more.
[01:04:21.880] Um at the NASA press conference which
[01:04:24.360] this picture shows
[01:04:26.200] which when which they made this
[01:04:27.640] announcement about the their year-long
[01:04:30.040] looking into this uh Sean Kirkpatrick
[01:04:33.000] from the head of the who was it then the
[01:04:34.760] head of Arrow
[01:04:36.520] presented this really interesting little
[01:04:38.160] video because Arrow generally didn't
[01:04:40.440] want to acknowledge that there were
[01:04:41.880] things they couldn't explain. So
[01:04:43.680] everybody was surprised when Sean
[01:04:46.280] Kirkpatrick uh made this
[01:04:48.760] showed this little video there which I
[01:04:50.200] just want you to see.
[01:04:52.320] It's very short.
[01:04:55.760] Wait a minute. Okay.
[01:04:58.120] This is an example of one that I showed
[01:05:00.120] at the hearing recently. Uh this is a
[01:05:02.960] spherical orb metallic in the Middle
[01:05:05.560] East 2022
[01:05:07.840] by an MQ-9.
[01:05:09.920] And we'll come back to the sensor
[01:05:11.320] question that David raised here in a
[01:05:12.960] moment.
[01:05:14.760] This is a typical example of the thing
[01:05:17.280] that we see most of. We see these all
[01:05:20.000] over the world and we see these in and
[01:05:23.440] making very interesting
[01:05:26.120] apparent maneuvers.
[01:05:28.720] So this is the head of the Defense
[01:05:30.480] Department agency
[01:05:32.600] saying there are objects all over the
[01:05:34.640] world
[01:05:35.960] making it strange maneuvers and they
[01:05:37.680] don't know what they are.
[01:05:39.640] So that was pretty significant for them
[01:05:41.120] to acknowledge that. In 23 as I believe
[01:05:45.360] somebody mentioned earlier, maybe it was
[01:05:47.560] Eli, Ralph and I broke the story of
[01:05:49.920] David Grusch who was a whistleblower
[01:05:52.560] impeccable credentials. I'm not going to
[01:05:54.520] go into all his background because we
[01:05:56.320] just don't have time, but you know,
[01:05:57.960] extremely well respected, worked for
[01:05:59.960] numerous government agencies, high
[01:06:01.920] clearances
[01:06:03.320] very smart guy and he was part of the
[01:06:06.400] UAP task force. He represented the
[01:06:08.680] National Geo- Geospatial Intelligence
[01:06:10.880] Agency and the National Reconnaissance
[01:06:12.880] Office as their representative to the
[01:06:14.760] task force. And during that time he
[01:06:17.200] investigated the question of crash
[01:06:18.920] retrieved objects.
[01:06:20.920] He came to understand through many
[01:06:22.720] interviews and viewing documents and and
[01:06:25.680] photographs and so on that there are
[01:06:28.480] programs connected to the government and
[01:06:31.240] which possess crashed technology of
[01:06:34.440] non-human origin.
[01:06:36.400] Whether that be intact craft or or s-
[01:06:40.280] pieces of craft, but he was became 100%
[01:06:43.080] convinced
[01:06:44.920] through his knowledge basically, not
[01:06:46.880] that he'd seen it himself, but through
[01:06:48.440] the people he talked to and what he was
[01:06:49.920] shown that we do possess these these
[01:06:53.040] crashed vehicles.
[01:06:55.040] Um and this was a big big deal that this
[01:06:57.200] came out. Uh
[01:06:58.600] it it took the dialogue now away from
[01:07:01.120] the focus of Russia are they Russian and
[01:07:03.160] Chinese into do we have these do we
[01:07:05.960] actually have these crashed objects?
[01:07:08.520] Um at the same time uh legislation was
[01:07:11.920] introduced the UAP Disclosure Act which
[01:07:14.920] Jordan was talking about earlier,
[01:07:16.520] extremely significant by Schumer and
[01:07:19.640] Rounds and others. Um and we can talk
[01:07:22.200] more about that later. As Jordan said,
[01:07:24.600] it described non-human intelligence. It
[01:07:26.560] took It took at face value all these
[01:07:29.040] characteristics of the phenomena that
[01:07:31.800] many people might not have, but these
[01:07:34.080] guys knew they had been briefed and they
[01:07:36.840] they were trying to lay out a pathway
[01:07:38.560] forward towards complete disclosure of
[01:07:41.160] this.
[01:07:42.120] Um
[01:07:43.720] a month after our story came out about
[01:07:46.000] David Grusch, he was invited to testify
[01:07:48.560] in an open hearing before Congress. This
[01:07:50.520] was the first of the significant
[01:07:52.120] hearings that took place. There was one
[01:07:54.240] prior, but it really was didn't amount
[01:07:56.360] to much.
[01:07:57.400] Um
[01:07:58.440] and what was so meaningful to me was
[01:08:01.600] there at this hearing was David Grusch
[01:08:04.080] in the center there, Ryan Graves on on
[01:08:06.440] his on his right, and David Fravor on
[01:08:08.840] the other side. These were all three
[01:08:11.000] people who had come forward through
[01:08:12.600] stories that Ralph and I had and Helene
[01:08:15.400] had had put together. So,
[01:08:17.440] there they were sitting before Congress
[01:08:19.240] years later in sworn testimony, and the
[01:08:22.400] key person at this one was Grusch who
[01:08:25.520] swore before Congress that these
[01:08:28.359] programs existed in which crash
[01:08:29.960] retrieved objects had been retrieved,
[01:08:32.480] that there may have even been bodies,
[01:08:34.440] referenced the pilots of the craft.
[01:08:37.480] Uh he had also given you know, there's
[01:08:39.960] so much behind the David Grusch story
[01:08:41.839] that makes him very credible, but he had
[01:08:43.799] provided testimony to the Intelligence
[01:08:45.960] General, the Intelligence Community
[01:08:47.799] Inspector General, which wrote a report
[01:08:49.640] on what he told them.
[01:08:51.279] Uh they they
[01:08:53.359] uh said that his case was credible and
[01:08:55.200] urgent, which is a very high-level uh
[01:08:58.000] you know, qualification they gave to it.
[01:09:00.120] They interviewed a lot of other people
[01:09:01.759] about him and he suffered a lot as a
[01:09:04.560] whistleblower.
[01:09:05.960] The harassment and all kinds of
[01:09:08.680] negative effects that he had to live
[01:09:10.440] through as a result of speaking out
[01:09:12.319] which has motivated Congress to try and
[01:09:14.200] create
[01:09:15.880] better whistleblower protections for
[01:09:17.720] people like him. But he was the first
[01:09:19.759] one to come forward. Since then many
[01:09:21.279] others have have confirmed what he said
[01:09:23.680] basically. One of them was Lou Elizondo
[01:09:27.279] who again the same person we wrote about
[01:09:29.400] in 2017 who headed up that who was part
[01:09:31.600] of that original Department of Defense
[01:09:33.640] program.
[01:09:34.880] He came out in 24 and this with a a book
[01:09:37.839] and this is what a story that Ralph and
[01:09:39.520] I wrote about about his book in the New
[01:09:41.520] York Times.
[01:09:43.080] It was on the New York Times best seller
[01:09:45.640] list for 19 weeks which is unbelievable.
[01:09:49.160] A lot of people were reading this book
[01:09:51.000] obviously. It was called Imminent.
[01:09:53.560] And
[01:09:54.800] it's really fascinating. I recommend it
[01:09:57.200] to everyone.
[01:09:58.600] And in this book he he was you know he
[01:10:01.280] had been inside the Department of
[01:10:02.440] Defense high clearances. He knew what
[01:10:04.240] was going on Lou did.
[01:10:06.680] And he too had suffered terrible
[01:10:08.560] repercussions just like
[01:10:10.680] Grusch had as a result of speaking out.
[01:10:13.840] And just to read you the thesis kind of
[01:10:16.360] the thesis of his book right here as he
[01:10:18.360] says it in the beginning and again this
[01:10:20.760] is confirming what David Grusch said.
[01:10:23.480] Unidentified craft with beyond next
[01:10:25.640] generation technology including the
[01:10:27.760] ability to move in ways that defy our
[01:10:30.400] knowledge of physics and to do so with
[01:10:33.320] an air water and space
[01:10:35.720] have been operating with complete
[01:10:37.440] impunity over all over the world since
[01:10:40.400] at least World War II.
[01:10:42.640] These craft are not made by humans.
[01:10:45.360] Humanity is in fact not not the only
[01:10:48.400] intelligent life in the universe and not
[01:10:51.160] the alpha species.
[01:10:53.640] And that is a shocking thing to to face.
[01:10:57.520] We are not the alpha species like we
[01:10:59.360] think we are.
[01:11:00.600] And there's a very powerful intelligence
[01:11:04.440] that exists that is more more advanced
[01:11:07.720] than we are. And so that's kind of a
[01:11:10.280] a shocking thing and we, you know,
[01:11:12.040] there's a whole movement to try to
[01:11:14.440] gradually acclimate people to these
[01:11:17.360] what I believe to be true and what many
[01:11:19.240] people believe to be true.
[01:11:21.040] Um there is
[01:11:24.640] Okay.
[01:11:27.120] Why won't Why won't Why isn't this
[01:11:28.760] moving? Let's try again. Huh, suddenly
[01:11:31.040] this computer has frozen
[01:11:33.480] and I can't advance the slide.
[01:11:36.400] Uh I don't know if anybody can help me
[01:11:37.920] with that, but I was going to What I was
[01:11:39.480] going to talk about next was another
[01:11:41.440] hearing that took place in November of
[01:11:42.880] '24 in which Lou Elizondo testified
[01:11:45.320] before Congress under oath about these
[01:11:47.400] very things that he wrote about in his
[01:11:49.320] book.
[01:11:50.360] Um yeah, I don't know why this won't um
[01:11:53.600] this won't move because I have one more
[01:11:55.360] video I want to show you guys.
[01:11:57.640] And so I yeah, it just suddenly like
[01:12:00.960] like see that Those are Those are how I
[01:12:02.520] was doing and suddenly won't move.
[01:12:04.000] Should I restart it or something? Let's
[01:12:06.000] try that. I don't know why it would you
[01:12:07.920] know So it's 46, right? Yeah, so what do
[01:12:10.160] we do? 46
[01:12:11.120] >> What will people see all kinds of weird
[01:12:12.520] stuff if we restart it? Oh, now what did
[01:12:14.800] you do? Did you fix it? That's where
[01:12:16.760] That was the next one. Yeah.
[01:12:19.880] What then the clicker is here. Okay.
[01:12:23.920] Okay, there it is. Did you fix it?
[01:12:27.280] It looks like you did. No, it's okay. I
[01:12:28.800] think it's moving now, right?
[01:12:30.720] That's not a video. That's just the next
[01:12:31.960] slide. That's just a Okay, we're going
[01:12:33.440] to go very quickly here because that was
[01:12:35.240] just the the Thank you. That's the final
[01:12:37.520] um
[01:12:38.680] uh the the hearing we had in '24 in
[01:12:40.800] which Lou and others testified before
[01:12:42.640] Congress.
[01:12:44.400] All these hearings were extremely
[01:12:45.720] important and there was another one in
[01:12:47.480] September of '25. These are
[01:12:50.040] whistleblowers, witnesses,
[01:12:51.640] investigators, people who have seen, you
[01:12:54.000] know, military people,
[01:12:55.840] uh
[01:12:56.440] all of whom are under oath and
[01:12:59.440] also who are confirming what David
[01:13:03.000] Grusch originally said about the crash
[01:13:04.600] retrieval program, but also talking
[01:13:06.240] about other
[01:13:07.720] other elements of this. Um the thing
[01:13:10.120] about the what they call the legacy
[01:13:12.200] program, which are these programs that
[01:13:13.960] have existed for decades and possess
[01:13:15.680] these craft,
[01:13:17.640] they are supposed to be under
[01:13:19.560] congressional oversight. And so there's
[01:13:21.480] all kinds of issues of legality there,
[01:13:23.920] which really is what makes them
[01:13:25.040] whistleblowers. They're accusing these
[01:13:26.760] these programs of of breaking the law by
[01:13:29.240] not
[01:13:30.560] letting Congress know about what's going
[01:13:32.560] on. It's It's It gets pretty complicated
[01:13:34.560] on a legal level.
[01:13:36.360] Um
[01:13:37.560] but
[01:13:38.800] this was also a very interesting
[01:13:40.360] hearing.
[01:13:41.520] And finally, as also as Jordan mentioned
[01:13:44.720] earlier,
[01:13:45.920] our president on February 19th
[01:13:49.720] put this tweet out. I don't know if he
[01:13:51.520] calls it a tweet anymore because it's
[01:13:53.360] not on
[01:13:54.720] whatever, but uh
[01:13:56.200] he he said he was going to he was
[01:13:57.600] directing his agencies to release
[01:13:59.880] information about UFOs.
[01:14:02.160] And everybody was excited about this.
[01:14:03.680] And then more recently on April 29th,
[01:14:06.600] he pledged again
[01:14:08.800] to release a significant amount of
[01:14:10.520] material related to UFOs and UAPs.
[01:14:14.360] And he said this is all of you're going
[01:14:15.920] to find this very interesting. And I
[01:14:17.680] think he kind of likes the fact that
[01:14:19.680] people are so eager for this.
[01:14:21.840] Um everybody is kind of waiting to see
[01:14:23.920] what happens right now. I mean, this is
[01:14:25.720] like now. This is one of the big next
[01:14:27.640] steps that people are focused on.
[01:14:30.320] And one of the members of Congress, Anna
[01:14:32.480] Paulina Luna, has actually provided a
[01:14:34.360] list of 46 specific videos, file names,
[01:14:39.560] handed them over to the executive branch
[01:14:41.120] to say, "These are what we want." To
[01:14:42.880] make it easy for them because they don't
[01:14:44.520] have to go look for them. They're all
[01:14:45.800] named in this list.
[01:14:47.560] Um so, the members of Congress are
[01:14:49.240] working hard to try to
[01:14:51.480] you know, encourage the executive branch
[01:14:53.240] or put pressure on them. There have been
[01:14:55.520] behind, you know, closed door meetings
[01:14:57.320] that have been going on in Washington at
[01:14:58.800] the White House.
[01:15:00.240] And uh it'll be very interesting to see
[01:15:01.960] what happens.
[01:15:03.640] Um
[01:15:04.800] so, just to step back a couple of
[01:15:07.240] months, I just want to show you one more
[01:15:08.640] thing and then we'll we'll end.
[01:15:10.640] The last story that Ralph and I did for
[01:15:12.440] the New York Times was about this
[01:15:14.280] documentary that came out in November of
[01:15:17.120] last year called The Age of Disclosure.
[01:15:20.120] And I just wonder, how many people in
[01:15:21.600] this room have seen that movie?
[01:15:24.200] Okay, maybe maybe more than half, but um
[01:15:27.520] it's really good. It's really powerful
[01:15:29.960] and I was able to go to a private
[01:15:32.640] screening of that movie on Capitol Hill
[01:15:35.800] with the key members of Congress who are
[01:15:37.720] the ones that are working so hard on
[01:15:40.160] this issue.
[01:15:41.640] Um
[01:15:43.080] and these were the people that were
[01:15:44.160] there.
[01:15:45.520] These people are champions for this.
[01:15:48.320] It's a bipartisan effort. There are
[01:15:49.960] others, but these are sort of the the
[01:15:51.640] main ones doing it. And I was able to
[01:15:53.440] speak with Representative Burlison at
[01:15:56.200] that meeting. And I still I still speak
[01:15:58.560] with him, but what was interesting about
[01:16:00.440] speaking to him again, this is just a
[01:16:01.640] couple months ago, was he said, you
[01:16:03.000] know, we've really done it with the
[01:16:04.120] hearings. We've had these incredible
[01:16:05.800] hearings. But what we need to do now, he
[01:16:08.920] said, is we need some receipts.
[01:16:11.840] We need some physical or hard evidence,
[01:16:13.920] which is what everyone wants.
[01:16:16.120] And so, here's the sentence he said to
[01:16:18.320] me which I thought was really
[01:16:19.360] interesting. He said, "Behind the
[01:16:20.600] scenes, I'm trying to find the receipts.
[01:16:23.320] In private conversations, I've been
[01:16:25.560] given enough information to find them,
[01:16:28.360] but I just don't have access."
[01:16:31.480] So, this is the situation that that
[01:16:34.080] Congress has the information about where
[01:16:36.560] to look. They just can't get access to
[01:16:39.000] this stuff. And a lot of that is because
[01:16:41.280] it's in the hands of of aerospace
[01:16:43.640] companies and contractors. It's not like
[01:16:46.960] So that the complexity of getting access
[01:16:49.440] to this material is really difficult.
[01:16:52.120] Brilliance has been going around to some
[01:16:53.880] of the locations and and there's just so
[01:16:55.840] much that goes on behind the scenes. Um
[01:16:58.880] I don't know if I ever explained about
[01:17:00.120] changing UAP by the way. Unidentified
[01:17:03.480] anomalous phenomena is the current
[01:17:06.040] language that's used and it's really
[01:17:07.880] good because
[01:17:09.600] it encourage it it it it it covers a
[01:17:12.160] broad spectrum of phenomena, right?
[01:17:14.560] Unidentified flying object is limited,
[01:17:17.040] but anomalous phenomena refers to all
[01:17:19.520] kinds of things that UAP can take all
[01:17:21.880] kinds of forms. They're not always
[01:17:23.960] flying. They're not always objects. They
[01:17:26.560] can be small orbs. They can be gigantic.
[01:17:30.080] They can be non-physical. I mean there's
[01:17:32.440] just such a range. So I I never really
[01:17:34.360] explained to you all why that changed,
[01:17:36.280] but I think it was really good that they
[01:17:37.840] did it. And the word UAP UFOs a lot of
[01:17:41.680] baggage people associated with aliens
[01:17:44.160] and stuff, which is really not what it's
[01:17:45.720] about. So anyway, I just wanted to end
[01:17:48.600] by showing the trailer of this movie Age
[01:17:52.280] of Disclosure.
[01:17:53.720] Because it kind of um shows us shows you
[01:17:57.040] all where we're at today in terms of
[01:17:59.280] these people. These are all government
[01:18:00.960] high-level government people that were
[01:18:02.320] interviewed in this film saying
[01:18:04.440] everything they thing they can say
[01:18:06.000] that's not classified. Basically going
[01:18:07.880] as close to that line as they can.
[01:18:10.360] Um and this so this is sort of the state
[01:18:12.560] of knowledge that we have now. And
[01:18:16.200] the goal is of course to increase
[01:18:18.080] transparency and to provide actual data
[01:18:20.800] and hard evidence for the public and
[01:18:22.760] that's what Congress is working on and
[01:18:24.720] so many others are working on.
[01:18:26.800] I mean not they're helping the Congress,
[01:18:28.800] but there's so many people involved with
[01:18:30.240] this movement now. So I just wanted to
[01:18:32.360] show you this trailer because I find it
[01:18:34.680] to be pretty powerful.
[01:18:39.200] The American people are ready
[01:18:42.080] to receive the truth.
[01:18:48.000] Humanity is not the only intelligence in
[01:18:49.840] the universe. Humanity is not the only
[01:18:51.640] intelligent species. We are absolutely
[01:18:53.960] not alone. Non-human intelligence
[01:18:55.600] exists. UAPs are real. They're here and
[01:18:58.800] they're not human.
[01:19:01.000] I spent 25 years as a senior official
[01:19:03.320] with the CIA.
[01:19:04.240] >> I worked on highly classified UAP
[01:19:06.360] program.
[01:19:07.040] >> 28 years as an astrophysicist.
[01:19:09.000] >> I served as the fourth director of
[01:19:10.920] national intelligence. Director of
[01:19:12.240] aviation security in the National
[01:19:13.720] Security Council.
[01:19:15.200] >> admiral after 32 years of service.
[01:19:16.960] >> People that come forward with this
[01:19:19.200] I I feel like they've taken their their
[01:19:20.680] life in their own hands.
[01:19:22.840] I was recruited to a highly sensitive
[01:19:24.840] government program
[01:19:26.400] that investigated unidentified aerial
[01:19:28.360] phenomena.
[01:19:30.040] For over 16 years on behalf of the US
[01:19:32.200] government, I worked as a senior
[01:19:33.800] intelligence official on a unidentified
[01:19:35.600] aerial phenomenon topic. We learned that
[01:19:37.920] the US government was involved in a
[01:19:39.760] long-running secret war with other
[01:19:41.800] nations
[01:19:42.920] to collect and reverse engineer vehicles
[01:19:46.560] not made by humans.
[01:19:48.640] I have seen with my own eyes non-human
[01:19:50.800] craft and non-human beings.
[01:19:59.040] The first country that cracks the code
[01:20:01.160] on this technology will be the leader
[01:20:02.760] for years to come. China has established
[01:20:04.680] its own version of a UAP task force. You
[01:20:07.240] think for a second that they wouldn't
[01:20:09.120] consider using it to achieve their ends
[01:20:11.360] of domination? This is similar to
[01:20:13.000] Manhattan Project. This is the atomic
[01:20:14.920] weapon on steroids.
[01:20:17.240] This is so secret, very, very few people
[01:20:20.280] in our entire government that been
[01:20:21.920] allowed access to it. Even presidents
[01:20:24.840] have been operating on a need-to-know
[01:20:26.400] basis. But that begins to ramp out of
[01:20:28.640] control. It's not acceptable to have
[01:20:31.160] secret parts of government that no one
[01:20:32.640] ever sees.
[01:20:33.560] >> be careful that the government doesn't
[01:20:34.840] try to deceive.
[01:20:36.320] Cuz there's no telling what they'll pull
[01:20:37.680] on you.
[01:20:40.000] This is the biggest discovery in human
[01:20:42.840] history. You had information being
[01:20:45.080] locked away that could change the
[01:20:47.200] trajectory for species.
[01:20:49.360] >> It has so many beneficial impacts
[01:20:52.480] including
[01:20:54.000] clean energy.
[01:20:56.520] We should have disclosure today.
[01:20:59.240] We should have disclosure tomorrow.
[01:21:03.880] The time has come.
[01:21:15.080] What else you want to know?
[01:21:19.840] And that's Lou Elizondo for those who
[01:21:21.520] didn't know that. Um
[01:21:23.880] So, I think we will end there. This is a
[01:21:26.560] famous statement that Philip Corso made
[01:21:28.560] in 1997.
[01:21:30.680] And I think it applies today. Um so, we
[01:21:33.320] will we'll end there and we'll hopefully
[01:21:35.120] we'll have be able to have some time for
[01:21:36.120] questions. Thank you so much.
[01:21:52.040] Can I just sit over there?
[01:21:53.000] >> Yeah. Okay. Choose a seat to your
[01:21:54.600] microphone.
[01:21:55.680] I think you're perfect.
[01:21:56.960] Thank you so much for this.
[01:22:05.240] Thank you, Leslie.
[01:22:09.120] Dick, thank you, Leslie
[01:22:11.480] for a fascinating presentation and for
[01:22:14.600] all the work you've been doing over the
[01:22:16.240] years on this important subject.
[01:22:18.960] We got a late start and I want to make
[01:22:21.360] sure we leave enough time for questions
[01:22:23.640] from the audience. So, maybe uh
[01:22:25.960] we had talked about a few
[01:22:27.800] which themes we would be important to
[01:22:29.880] discuss
[01:22:31.160] um and one of the things that we agreed
[01:22:33.160] would be uh something
[01:22:35.480] that you guys would be interested in
[01:22:36.600] hearing about was the the chapter in
[01:22:39.040] your book written by a really prominent
[01:22:42.280] international relations scholar who I
[01:22:43.680] had mentioned in my introduction named
[01:22:45.320] Alexander Wendt uh who has a book which
[01:22:47.760] be coming out in the fall. Uh he wrote a
[01:22:50.000] chapter in your book which was an
[01:22:51.600] adaptation uh of of a seminal article he
[01:22:55.480] wrote in 2007 for a prominent poly sci
[01:22:58.520] journal. Uh the article was titled UFOs
[01:23:01.560] and sovereignty. If anyone's interested,
[01:23:03.640] happy to direct you to um to that paper.
[01:23:06.760] Uh the chapter of the book was important
[01:23:08.320] for several reasons one of which was
[01:23:11.160] uh it gave us a glimpse into
[01:23:13.760] uh the roots of um what we're calling
[01:23:17.400] the UFO taboo. So maybe um
[01:23:20.720] briefly explain again we don't have that
[01:23:22.360] much time. Um
[01:23:24.280] give us a a sense of from the
[01:23:26.320] perspective of the state um why secrecy
[01:23:29.840] and and denial was was the kind of
[01:23:32.320] operating procedure for so long.
[01:23:36.160] Respond?
[01:23:37.480] Yeah.
[01:23:39.880] Okay, thanks. Yeah. Um so yeah, I mean
[01:23:42.800] of course cuz that is a big question
[01:23:44.360] like why is this all why is there
[01:23:46.040] secrecy, right? Um and and the taboo as
[01:23:49.320] well. And what what Alexander Wendt
[01:23:51.080] explores from political science
[01:23:52.640] perspective, he mentions um
[01:23:55.760] first of all that the the origins of the
[01:23:57.520] taboo are really uh political.
[01:24:00.560] That there is something he calls
[01:24:02.120] authoritative anxiety
[01:24:04.720] about acknowledging some other
[01:24:07.000] intelligence that's more advanced than
[01:24:08.640] we are.
[01:24:09.720] Um there's a subconscious fear of what
[01:24:12.560] the reality of UFO might mean for
[01:24:14.760] government
[01:24:16.040] which makes a lot of sense. He mentions
[01:24:17.920] three main problems. The first one is
[01:24:20.040] the physical threat which is something
[01:24:21.920] that we do talk about. It's talked about
[01:24:23.720] all the time now because government
[01:24:26.240] recognizes the national security issues
[01:24:28.320] that are involved here. So, there's you
[01:24:30.640] know, we're dealing with superior
[01:24:31.920] technology. Uh
[01:24:33.840] And what about a government that can't
[01:24:35.560] protect its people from this superior
[01:24:38.520] technology? That's something they don't
[01:24:41.080] want to have to admit to anybody, you
[01:24:43.400] know, we can't protect you from this. We
[01:24:45.200] don't know what it is, but it's way more
[01:24:47.080] advanced than we are. That alone is
[01:24:49.200] threatening.
[01:24:50.400] The other threat is the the idea of a
[01:24:52.600] world government, you know, that that no
[01:24:55.760] that perhaps if if if if they The
[01:24:58.200] question is why aren't they
[01:24:59.280] acknowledging? Why don't they want to
[01:25:00.480] face the fact that they might be
[01:25:01.640] extraterrestrial? I mean, that's what
[01:25:03.040] the taboo boils down to.
[01:25:05.040] Uh and so, we don't want to Our
[01:25:06.960] government doesn't want to even consider
[01:25:08.480] that possibility.
[01:25:10.080] And And the second reason might be that
[01:25:13.080] a world government would start to
[01:25:14.800] develop if if, you know, this this
[01:25:17.040] presence became known or if they
[01:25:19.920] you know, became part of our culture,
[01:25:21.760] interacted with us in some way that, you
[01:25:23.680] know, individual states would lose their
[01:25:26.080] boundaries and their distinctive
[01:25:28.520] aspects and we might move towards a
[01:25:30.760] world government, which nobody wants.
[01:25:32.320] But, the key thing that's really
[01:25:33.800] interesting to me is what he called the
[01:25:36.640] anthropocentric nature of modern
[01:25:39.120] sovereignty. The fact that only humans
[01:25:42.360] have the authority to govern.
[01:25:44.600] And actually, this is not This is a
[01:25:46.440] fairly new concept because in older
[01:25:48.480] cultures, uh they thought of as
[01:25:51.160] governing or they thought of nature as
[01:25:52.920] governing. It wasn't always such a
[01:25:54.840] human-centered world. But, it is now.
[01:25:58.560] Um and so, if if we were to If the
[01:26:01.040] government is to acknowledge some kind
[01:26:02.720] of extraterrestrial or interdimensional
[01:26:04.680] presence,
[01:26:06.200] it's almost like the materialization of
[01:26:08.240] some kind of God energy or some energy
[01:26:11.600] that um you know, is so far beyond us
[01:26:15.440] that it threatens the very
[01:26:16.960] anthropocentric nature of our
[01:26:18.920] sovereignty. And here's just one quote
[01:26:21.200] I'll read. It creates a deep unconscious
[01:26:24.040] insecurity in which certain
[01:26:25.880] possibilities are unthinkable because of
[01:26:28.480] their inherent danger.
[01:26:30.680] And that makes a lot of sense. He sort
[01:26:32.160] of says it's like psychoanalysis.
[01:26:34.400] It's akin to the denial that you face in
[01:26:36.560] psychoanalysis. You don't want to
[01:26:38.040] unearth a lot of things. And so there's
[01:26:39.680] this
[01:26:40.480] deep level fear that is kind of being
[01:26:43.000] repressed.
[01:26:44.560] That's his thesis. Um
[01:26:47.080] because of what might be revealed and
[01:26:48.760] what the implications might be if we
[01:26:50.680] were to acknowledge that there is
[01:26:52.440] something that is non-human and that's
[01:26:54.880] advanced. And that's why the taboo must
[01:26:57.280] be maintained in order to make it
[01:26:59.520] possible for the government to avoid
[01:27:01.880] that acknowledgement. I mean, at a
[01:27:03.400] deeper level. So I I I don't know if you
[01:27:05.960] would agree agree with that, but
[01:27:07.440] >> And and and and Professor Wentz talks
[01:27:09.760] about um the nature of the state system,
[01:27:12.600] the nature of sovereignty, and how these
[01:27:14.760] considerations um they they lead to or
[01:27:17.520] potentially lead to people questioning
[01:27:20.080] the authority of the state. State has um
[01:27:23.680] difficulty in acknowledging not only
[01:27:25.920] what they do know, um but also the fact
[01:27:28.440] that they don't know. And and the the
[01:27:30.440] uncertainty and the fear, as you said,
[01:27:32.600] uh associated with that kind of
[01:27:33.880] acknowledgement um has led to this
[01:27:36.680] deliberate effort on the part of the
[01:27:38.680] state um for decades to uh to impose
[01:27:42.320] what what's been called the taboo. So I
[01:27:43.920] wonder as just a a quick follow-up,
[01:27:45.840] those considerations uh
[01:27:47.760] remain in place. So how do you account
[01:27:50.680] for the fact that something seems to be
[01:27:52.040] changing? What's changing from the point
[01:27:53.840] of view of the state in terms of uh the
[01:27:56.400] taboo seeming to
[01:27:58.640] to be lifted?
[01:27:59.480] >> I think it's more individual people who
[01:28:01.520] are part of the state that recognize the
[01:28:04.040] reality of this and believe that the
[01:28:05.720] world has a right to know. Some of the
[01:28:07.200] members of Congress that we were dealing
[01:28:08.800] with, some of the people that are, you
[01:28:10.640] know, working with Jordan's organization
[01:28:12.680] and others.
[01:28:14.120] So, it's not so much the state yet
[01:28:17.120] because there's a lot of pushback and it
[01:28:18.480] hasn't it hasn't broken through. And I
[01:28:19.920] think when people talk about the word
[01:28:21.360] disclosure, that's what they mean.
[01:28:23.200] They're talking about the state
[01:28:24.800] acknowledging this and saying, "Okay,
[01:28:27.520] this is the way it is. We're going to
[01:28:29.320] what we're going to tell you that and
[01:28:31.640] that's it. You know, we're we're going
[01:28:33.160] to announce this to the world."
[01:28:35.400] Hopefully in connection with other
[01:28:36.800] countries. But when it becomes a truth
[01:28:38.520] that the state presents, that's
[01:28:40.640] disclosure. So, still there's tremendous
[01:28:43.520] resistance to that, but there are
[01:28:44.600] individual people that are fighting for
[01:28:46.360] it now.
[01:28:47.440] Um just simply because if this is a
[01:28:49.840] scientific truth,
[01:28:51.880] who would argue that the people of
[01:28:53.680] planet Earth don't have a right to that
[01:28:55.560] information, right? It doesn't make any
[01:28:57.680] sense. It's like
[01:28:59.800] why can a bunch of generals
[01:29:02.200] or whoever who might have very serious
[01:29:04.480] concerns and they need to be respected
[01:29:06.320] and they're understandable, but
[01:29:07.720] nonetheless, the basic fundamental truth
[01:29:10.200] that we're not alone belongs to everyone
[01:29:13.240] and it changes this the sense of who we
[01:29:15.120] are in the universe. And eventually, it
[01:29:17.160] will become known to everyone.
[01:29:19.960] But nobody has the right to prevent
[01:29:22.720] people from knowing that. And I think
[01:29:24.360] everybody respects the national security
[01:29:26.320] problem. You have to keep something
[01:29:27.760] secret cuz we don't want our adversaries
[01:29:29.760] to develop that technology. But
[01:29:31.760] nonetheless, it's about the fundamentals
[01:29:33.720] that people have a right to know. And
[01:29:35.760] so, I think eventually it's going to
[01:29:37.480] happen, but it's not at the state level
[01:29:39.200] yet. And there's a lot of fears and
[01:29:41.240] concerns that need to be addressed. So,
[01:29:43.160] it takes time. And and we're talking
[01:29:45.360] about
[01:29:46.320] the perspective of the state and and
[01:29:48.000] what this means from a from a security
[01:29:49.640] perspective, what sovereignty means, but
[01:29:52.240] the state that we we still are living in
[01:29:54.200] a world with 190 plus states. So, these
[01:29:57.680] these state decisions are made really on
[01:29:59.840] on a case-by-case basis. And then we're
[01:30:01.520] talking about how the the American
[01:30:03.320] government has has dealt with the issue
[01:30:04.720] over time, but uh but not all states
[01:30:06.840] have dealt with the issue in the same
[01:30:08.080] way. So, you uh there were two chapters
[01:30:10.640] in your book that I felt were really
[01:30:12.640] instructive on this question of
[01:30:15.360] uh
[01:30:16.240] the way different states, different
[01:30:17.640] governments have have handled this uh
[01:30:19.440] this issue over time. Um and one chapter
[01:30:22.720] um
[01:30:23.520] described how the Belgian government
[01:30:25.920] handled the uh the Belgian flap in I
[01:30:28.640] believe in 1990. Uh and you compared
[01:30:31.360] that to uh to how the US government
[01:30:33.840] handled the Hudson Valley flap uh in the
[01:30:36.480] '80s. So, I think it's a
[01:30:38.400] an interesting thing to compare. Maybe
[01:30:39.720] you could take us to back to a pre-2017
[01:30:42.360] world where the US government really
[01:30:44.160] there was a fundamental difference in
[01:30:45.360] how we were treating these cases as
[01:30:47.160] compared to, for example, the the
[01:30:48.600] Belgian government.
[01:30:49.280] >> Right. Yeah, it's really interesting,
[01:30:50.360] too, because today if there was we'd
[01:30:52.520] actually call it a wave cuz it lasted
[01:30:54.160] for years. Um none of these things could
[01:30:56.680] happen without the documentation that
[01:30:58.560] would occur now if we had a wave of
[01:31:01.080] sightings in the Hudson Valley, right?
[01:31:02.960] Everybody would be videotaping it, and
[01:31:05.120] it would be all over the place, and I
[01:31:06.360] don't think anyone would they would
[01:31:07.400] really try to cover it up. But, in those
[01:31:09.440] days, yeah, it was really stunning.
[01:31:11.520] There was a wave of sightings Hudson
[01:31:13.880] Valley in Connecticut in the mid-'80s, a
[01:31:15.840] similar wave in Belgium a few years
[01:31:18.200] later.
[01:31:19.280] And the Belgian government
[01:31:22.240] uh the Air Force was completely open
[01:31:24.280] about it. The Air Force worked closely
[01:31:26.640] with the Gendarmerie in Bel- in Belgium,
[01:31:28.840] which was the it's like the police and
[01:31:30.640] army combined into one unit. They worked
[01:31:33.720] with the equivalent of our FAA in this
[01:31:35.760] country. They all worked together, and
[01:31:38.480] they worked with the scientific
[01:31:39.560] community openly. And the scientists
[01:31:43.000] collected volumes and volumes of data
[01:31:45.560] for the government, and which all
[01:31:46.960] shared. Not only were they provided data
[01:31:49.640] by the government, but they collected
[01:31:51.320] their own data and provided that to the
[01:31:53.320] government. So, it was this cooperative
[01:31:54.880] effort. All of it was made public. These
[01:31:57.360] sightings were seen all over the place
[01:31:59.160] in the particularly in one area of
[01:32:00.560] Belgium for a long period of time, well
[01:32:03.240] documented, and there was a press
[01:32:05.800] conference given after maybe 6 months or
[01:32:08.000] so and of investigation into this. The
[01:32:10.480] Air Force was actually sending up jets
[01:32:12.640] to try to get close to the objects and
[01:32:14.560] see what they were, and they were not
[01:32:16.560] hiding any of that. So, there was an
[01:32:18.720] active proactive effort to try to figure
[01:32:21.440] out what these objects were, and they
[01:32:23.160] never did. They never figured it out.
[01:32:25.320] But, they had a lot of great
[01:32:26.480] documentation for it. Volumes and
[01:32:28.520] volumes and volumes of interviews and
[01:32:30.160] drawings and all kinds of things.
[01:32:32.480] Okay, flashback a few years before that
[01:32:34.520] to the Hudson Valley wave where the same
[01:32:36.280] kinds of sightings were occurring.
[01:32:38.400] Um and the same behaviors in a lot of
[01:32:40.920] the objects, too. It's really
[01:32:42.200] fascinating to read about it. One thing
[01:32:44.680] being that people could flash would
[01:32:47.280] flash lights at these objects. They had
[01:32:49.920] been both in Belgium and in America.
[01:32:52.600] They would flash lights at the objects,
[01:32:54.560] and the objects would flash back.
[01:32:56.840] It's really incredible. All kinds of
[01:32:58.720] things like that. But, in in the Hudson
[01:33:00.480] Valley,
[01:33:01.920] uh hundreds of people were seeing these
[01:33:04.040] things just like in Belgium, but nobody
[01:33:06.120] paid attention to it.
[01:33:07.920] They would go to the police, and the
[01:33:09.640] police didn't know what to do. They
[01:33:11.040] would get all these reports. And there
[01:33:13.280] was one I think one night where there
[01:33:14.880] were like 13 different you know,
[01:33:16.200] numerous police officers saw the same
[01:33:18.480] thing from different vantage points in
[01:33:20.320] the state, and they could track where
[01:33:22.200] the objects were going.
[01:33:24.160] Um but, there were no there was no
[01:33:26.120] government involvement. No scientists
[01:33:28.600] were called on to look into it. Uh when
[01:33:31.240] anybody called the a local airport for
[01:33:34.080] radar, they would just say, "No, there
[01:33:36.320] we don't have anything." And if the FAA
[01:33:39.040] was pressed, really forced to respond,
[01:33:41.560] they would say, "Oh, there these were
[01:33:42.960] just planes in formation, or they were
[01:33:45.320] helicopters." Or they would come up with
[01:33:47.760] these ludicrous
[01:33:49.800] explanations that did not fit what
[01:33:52.160] people were seeing. I mean, they they
[01:33:54.040] were in so many ways they just did not
[01:33:56.120] fit. And these people were left alone
[01:34:00.240] with this absolutely life-changing,
[01:34:03.200] often frightening, experience of seeing
[01:34:06.160] these gigantic triangular craft hovering
[01:34:09.240] right above them.
[01:34:10.840] Uh people would pull over on the Taconic
[01:34:12.920] Parkway. Like uh cars were lined up as
[01:34:15.360] they stood there and watched, you know?
[01:34:17.520] And yet nobody paid attention. No
[01:34:20.280] involvement. There was a few stories
[01:34:21.840] about it in the media, but these people
[01:34:24.160] were left on their own to deal with
[01:34:26.400] this. And so, yeah, that's sort of the
[01:34:29.640] contrast. I mean, it was
[01:34:31.840] J. Allen Hynek, who who was the the key
[01:34:34.720] person in Project Blue Book for two
[01:34:36.400] decades who looked into this topic. The
[01:34:38.240] last essay he wrote before he died was
[01:34:41.600] about his absolute astonishment at the
[01:34:45.160] non-reaction that, you know, that the
[01:34:47.280] government had to these incidents in the
[01:34:49.880] the Hudson Valley. He just couldn't
[01:34:51.440] understand it. The apathy, the denial,
[01:34:54.280] the disinterest.
[01:34:56.360] It was like it tormented him. He just
[01:34:58.880] didn't get it. So, um
[01:35:02.040] yeah, so that his essay's really worth
[01:35:04.040] reading. I mean, it's historic. I quote
[01:35:06.120] a lot of that in my book. But anyway,
[01:35:07.800] when you look at the way Belgium handled
[01:35:09.400] it versus the way we handled it, it was
[01:35:10.920] like night and day. Um and that is an a
[01:35:13.520] a good example. I again, I don't think
[01:35:15.280] that would be the case now, but it
[01:35:16.880] certainly was the case not just then,
[01:35:19.400] but in the decades before, too. And even
[01:35:21.600] in the '90s. And even in the 2000s.
[01:35:24.720] You know, there were great cases
[01:35:25.760] happening in the 2000s
[01:35:27.880] uh in which they like the O'Hare Airport
[01:35:30.280] case. And again, I'm not going to go
[01:35:31.560] into it, but they would make [snorts] up
[01:35:33.520] explanations for for these events. Uh
[01:35:36.920] you know, doing everything they could to
[01:35:38.480] avoid it. So, that's the difference.
[01:35:41.040] Thank you. It's really interesting to
[01:35:42.040] hear kind of how things were in a
[01:35:43.960] pre-2017 world. Very different. How
[01:35:46.440] things are now. And yet
[01:35:48.920] to a certain extent, the taboo still
[01:35:50.320] remains in place. There's still tension
[01:35:52.320] within the government about what to
[01:35:54.200] tell, how much to tell.
[01:35:56.320] Um but you know, one final question and
[01:35:58.840] I know many people in the audience are
[01:36:00.560] are are eager to have their questions
[01:36:03.080] addressed. But one one question is kind
[01:36:04.880] of the big question.
[01:36:06.520] Um
[01:36:07.360] from from the perspective of those who
[01:36:09.240] know most, those the insiders, those who
[01:36:11.960] work for the government agencies, those
[01:36:14.400] who are kind of well-connected
[01:36:16.600] researchers that have been you know, at
[01:36:18.400] this for a long time. Some of the
[01:36:20.200] smartest minds.
[01:36:22.000] What are they thinking in terms of
[01:36:23.520] what's actually going on? You know,
[01:36:25.240] what's what's behind the UAPs? What are
[01:36:28.000] they? Where are they from?
[01:36:30.280] Um
[01:36:30.840] you know, what are the what are some of
[01:36:31.760] the latest hypotheses in terms of you
[01:36:33.760] know, giving us an account of
[01:36:36.080] what what actually are these things?
[01:36:38.360] Right. We we all That's what we all
[01:36:39.680] really want to know and
[01:36:41.400] who are they? Not just what are they?
[01:36:43.366] >> [laughter]
[01:36:44.000] >> Um and I don't you know, we don't know
[01:36:46.520] how much very very deeply embedded areas
[01:36:50.280] within government agencies may know
[01:36:52.760] about that. I mean, we don't really
[01:36:55.280] don't know what they know.
[01:36:57.240] We do know that the insiders, many of
[01:36:59.800] whom were in that that trailer for Age
[01:37:02.520] of Disclosure and were featured in that
[01:37:04.320] film, have theories about it. But I
[01:37:07.360] don't even think they even they they
[01:37:09.040] Nobody would ever say they know what
[01:37:10.960] these things are. But there are various
[01:37:12.960] hypotheses that have been put forward
[01:37:14.760] about it. And Hal Puthoff
[01:37:18.640] who actually was at the meeting I had
[01:37:20.760] with for the Times and he was also in
[01:37:22.520] the Age of Disclosure movie,
[01:37:24.800] who has been deeply involved with this
[01:37:26.440] at high levels for
[01:37:27.800] I don't know, 50 years or something,
[01:37:29.480] forever.
[01:37:30.720] Um
[01:37:31.960] and he's written papers about propulsion
[01:37:34.040] systems, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, he
[01:37:35.520] wrote a paper for the Journal of
[01:37:36.760] Cosmology
[01:37:38.800] in which he proposed various
[01:37:41.520] possibilities as called
[01:37:42.640] ultraterrestrials.
[01:37:44.440] It's like the thinking that these are
[01:37:46.520] extraterrestrials which was the only
[01:37:49.200] thinking that went on basically except
[01:37:51.480] for a few exceptional people like
[01:37:52.960] Jacques Vallée. Uh but back in the day
[01:37:55.760] when I was working on this and in that
[01:37:57.360] French report, it was all about the
[01:37:59.320] extraterrestrial hypothesis, basically
[01:38:01.400] proposing that these were craft coming
[01:38:03.400] from other planets basically.
[01:38:05.760] And we know that it's much more
[01:38:07.320] complicated than that. And um some of
[01:38:09.920] the
[01:38:10.800] the the ultraterrestrial theory which
[01:38:13.480] Hal Puthoff proposed in this paper
[01:38:16.440] involves the the idea that they could
[01:38:19.320] either be isolated humans that are more
[01:38:22.640] advanced than us that somehow have
[01:38:24.400] developed this advanced technology but
[01:38:26.440] have been living in some other part of
[01:38:27.840] the planet. I mean, I know it sounds
[01:38:29.240] crazy.
[01:38:30.600] But or that they're like stranded
[01:38:33.680] They're they're There are these sort of
[01:38:35.760] ET very advanced beings who have been
[01:38:39.000] living on this planet for a long time
[01:38:41.000] before we even came around. And rather
[01:38:43.440] than coming from other planets, they
[01:38:45.120] actually live here and they're just able
[01:38:47.480] to hide themselves. Some people proposed
[01:38:50.040] they live under the ocean because these
[01:38:51.760] objects are seen a lot coming in in and
[01:38:53.640] out of the water.
[01:38:55.040] Um
[01:38:56.360] that they have bases in mountains. I
[01:38:58.360] mean, it all sounds pretty crazy to talk
[01:39:00.200] about actually. But you know, other
[01:39:02.440] theories are that they're
[01:39:03.520] interdimensional beings. They're inter-
[01:39:05.240] They're they're time travelers. I mean,
[01:39:06.840] there's so many options like you know,
[01:39:09.000] people see them coming out of what
[01:39:10.560] looked like portals. Like the the pilot
[01:39:13.120] back in '81 when before we anybody knew
[01:39:15.400] anything was seeing that. Um are they
[01:39:17.840] coming from some other bleeding through
[01:39:19.440] from some other dimension? I mean, Hal
[01:39:21.960] Puthoff in this paper explores all these
[01:39:23.760] possible options. And then more very
[01:39:26.600] lately people have been talking a lot
[01:39:28.200] about demons or angels. A lot of the
[01:39:30.680] religious people
[01:39:32.360] think that maybe these are demons and
[01:39:34.400] that we shouldn't be studying them and
[01:39:36.040] we should be afraid of them and we
[01:39:37.640] shouldn't be giving them any energy. And
[01:39:39.400] some people think maybe they're angelic.
[01:39:40.960] I mean, it's a big mess of what what
[01:39:43.800] they are. We don't know.
[01:39:45.920] So,
[01:39:47.360] there's a lot of reasons though to
[01:39:48.720] believe that it's not as simple as
[01:39:51.040] beings traveling in some dis-shaped
[01:39:53.200] craft from another planet. I mean, that
[01:39:54.960] just cannot explain the frequency of
[01:39:58.040] sightings that we have, the density of
[01:40:00.360] sightings.
[01:40:01.640] And a lot of people have reported who
[01:40:04.160] claim to have encountered with them that
[01:40:06.000] these
[01:40:07.200] whoever these beings are have concern
[01:40:09.440] about our planet both in terms of the
[01:40:11.480] environment and in terms of the nuclear
[01:40:14.360] risk that we are living with through our
[01:40:16.960] nuclear power nuclear power plants.
[01:40:20.000] And that's a whole another story cuz
[01:40:21.400] they've shown up a lot at nuclear power
[01:40:23.200] plants. And so, people think, well, why
[01:40:25.240] would they if maybe they have an
[01:40:26.840] investment in caring about our planet
[01:40:28.520] because they are here, too.
[01:40:30.720] Uh I mean, anyway, this this sounds
[01:40:33.320] weird, but this paper was written by a
[01:40:35.160] physicist who is brilliant. And these
[01:40:38.560] are the kinds of things that are
[01:40:39.440] discussed among these people, as you
[01:40:42.160] mentioned, you know, the insiders, but I
[01:40:44.000] don't think anybody really knows uh what
[01:40:46.160] the answer is. At least nobody that I
[01:40:48.440] know, you know, knows. It's been amazing
[01:40:51.200] to hear some of the ideas from from Dr.
[01:40:53.560] Puthoff and and also from Jacque Jacque
[01:40:55.760] Vallee, who you mentioned, um making
[01:40:57.640] their way into the discourse. Um you
[01:40:59.920] know, hearing um
[01:41:02.040] congressmen and women in in in the UAP
[01:41:05.040] Caucus, yes, there's a a UAP Caucus, uh
[01:41:08.000] using phrases like inner-dimensional
[01:41:10.600] entities, um is really striking uh and
[01:41:13.800] it makes me think of um
[01:41:16.040] uh some of the ideas in Jacque Vallee's
[01:41:17.600] work, including including the idea that
[01:41:20.200] um
[01:41:21.200] there there's a parallel between the UFO
[01:41:23.040] phenomenon, the UAP phenomenon, uh and
[01:41:25.440] traditional folklore. Um and both uh
[01:41:28.400] Puthoff and Vallee and others who
[01:41:30.360] embrace this idea of there there being a
[01:41:32.400] some kind of inner-dimensional uh
[01:41:34.520] component to this uh talk about how
[01:41:37.880] there is a psychic element uh and as
[01:41:39.920] you've you know been covering throughout
[01:41:42.960] in all of your work, there's of course
[01:41:45.000] physical element and one doesn't
[01:41:46.960] necessarily exclude the other. Somehow
[01:41:50.120] both things are can be true at the same
[01:41:52.160] time. And in the way consciousness is
[01:41:54.680] part of the story. There have been the
[01:41:56.080] five observables and now a sixth as you
[01:41:58.400] mentioned in your presentation. The
[01:41:59.880] sixth
[01:42:01.000] is the impact on consciousness kind of
[01:42:03.280] the the biological impact. Those that
[01:42:05.800] that encounter the phenomenon. So it's
[01:42:07.960] really fascinating to see how
[01:42:10.760] the study of UAPs also
[01:42:13.120] turns to questions about consciousness
[01:42:15.960] and and even spirituality.
[01:42:18.680] I mean it cuz there's so much more to
[01:42:20.440] the phenomenon than what I talked about
[01:42:22.800] which is the hard corn what we call the
[01:42:24.600] nuts and bolts, the physicality of it.
[01:42:27.320] And that's what has to be brought
[01:42:28.960] forward. That's my job is to bring that
[01:42:30.880] forward to influence policy makers cuz
[01:42:32.640] they're not ready to talk about some of
[01:42:34.480] this other weird stuff even though they
[01:42:36.200] do it in private.
[01:42:37.920] So
[01:42:39.840] there's much more to the phenomenon than
[01:42:42.360] just
[01:42:43.480] physical technology.
[01:42:45.480] There's a whole other realm of it which
[01:42:47.760] I'm sure many of you are aware of. And
[01:42:50.440] let me just read this one quote from
[01:42:51.800] Jeffrey Kripal and then we'll go to
[01:42:53.160] questions because Jeffrey Kripal is a
[01:42:54.880] professor of philosophy and religious
[01:42:56.880] thought at Rice University. Absolutely
[01:42:59.960] brilliant.
[01:43:01.360] Incredible academic who has uh written
[01:43:03.800] numerous books uh dealing with the sort
[01:43:06.440] of bigger questions around UAP and all
[01:43:08.520] kinds of other
[01:43:10.120] unexplainable consciousness related
[01:43:12.680] phenomena. And he sort of sums it up in
[01:43:14.960] this one quote which I thought was
[01:43:16.280] really beautiful. And it's he says, "How
[01:43:19.240] is it seemingly objectively physical?"
[01:43:21.760] He's talking about UAP. "How are UAP
[01:43:24.080] seemingly objectively physical but also
[01:43:27.960] engages with our perceptions to suggest
[01:43:30.560] it is also simultaneously in some other
[01:43:33.080] world.
[01:43:34.360] It can't be fully labeled as technology.
[01:43:37.840] The curse under which the Pentagon
[01:43:39.840] labors comes from the fact that it can
[01:43:42.120] only deal with threats.
[01:43:45.920] And the UFO seems to possess both a
[01:43:48.400] material or physical and a mental or
[01:43:51.720] spiritual dimension.
[01:43:53.760] The phenomenon clearly violates our
[01:43:55.920] present ways of dividing reality up into
[01:43:58.800] mind and matter.
[01:44:00.880] I continue to think that this
[01:44:02.400] fundamental non-duality is their
[01:44:04.600] ultimate power and provocation.
[01:44:08.560] Wow, amazing. Yeah. I encourage everyone
[01:44:11.240] to read Jeffrey Kripal's books. They're
[01:44:12.720] really, really incredible. Um yeah, so.
[01:44:15.560] Thank you, Leslie. Uh so we we still
[01:44:17.400] have some time to take some questions
[01:44:18.760] from the audience. Um please uh raise
[01:44:20.960] your hand. We have
[01:44:22.440] uh both Ina and uh and Laura have have
[01:44:25.760] microphones.
[01:44:29.640] Hi.
[01:44:30.960] Thanks so much, Leslie. Um I think
[01:44:33.280] moving forward uh
[01:44:35.480] journalists, investigative journalists
[01:44:37.080] are going to be even more important to
[01:44:39.000] investigate the things that do come out.
[01:44:41.160] Um but I have two questions touching on
[01:44:43.800] the aspect of consciousness. Um
[01:44:46.080] I'm curious whether psi like you're
[01:44:49.480] aware of what exactly was done in the
[01:44:52.400] reverse engineering programs and whether
[01:44:54.200] psionic like
[01:44:55.920] like which is like
[01:44:57.440] using consciousness in relation to um
[01:45:00.600] these craft, whether that was an aspect
[01:45:02.560] of the reverse engineering that they
[01:45:03.920] tried and um
[01:45:06.120] my second question is like will you ever
[01:45:08.920] like
[01:45:09.960] investigate Bob Lazar? If he's like
[01:45:12.240] somebody who um
[01:45:13.960] you want to kind of get them nuts and
[01:45:15.840] bolts up or whether there's any truth to
[01:45:18.720] like similarities in what you've heard
[01:45:20.320] from Bruce engineering and what his
[01:45:22.320] experience was.
[01:45:24.400] Thank you for the questions. Um so the
[01:45:25.840] psionics that he's referring to means
[01:45:28.080] people that go out in the field and
[01:45:30.040] they're able to telepathically or
[01:45:31.800] somehow energetically connect with UAP
[01:45:34.680] and and bring them in, call them in or
[01:45:38.160] even get them to land. And there was a
[01:45:40.560] whole program called Sky It was called
[01:45:42.520] Skywatcher,
[01:45:43.960] you know, of these and there's some
[01:45:45.520] people here in the audience who know a
[01:45:46.760] lot about this and they went out in the
[01:45:48.360] field and were doing this. Um, and they
[01:45:50.960] developed a whole protocol as to how to
[01:45:52.960] bring There was a former intelligence
[01:45:54.720] people, military people, to bring in
[01:45:57.160] UFOs by using their consciousness in
[01:45:59.560] some way to interact with them. But that
[01:46:01.640] really doesn't have anything to do with
[01:46:02.800] the reverse engineering because reverse
[01:46:04.600] engineering is physically reverse
[01:46:06.720] engineering the actual technology that's
[01:46:08.720] retrieved at these crash sites. So, it's
[01:46:11.600] to try to understand how the technology
[01:46:14.000] works so that we can build it ourselves.
[01:46:16.320] And that's a separate fact in a separate
[01:46:18.360] from the actual consciousness element of
[01:46:20.640] relating to them that way.
[01:46:22.520] And in terms of Bob Lazar, I mean, he's
[01:46:24.280] already been investigated up the wazoo.
[01:46:27.240] So,
[01:46:28.480] it's not I don't think we'd be
[01:46:29.680] productive. I have nothing to add to
[01:46:31.200] that to the investigation that's already
[01:46:33.000] been done on Bob Lazar. Um, I don't
[01:46:35.080] really have a firm conclusion about him
[01:46:37.000] one way or the other cuz I just haven't
[01:46:38.760] spent a lot of time
[01:46:40.640] looking into it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I
[01:46:42.400] think he Yeah.
[01:46:49.320] I I really like Jake Barber. I mean,
[01:46:51.160] he's one of the psionic people that, you
[01:46:53.520] know, or he was part of the group that
[01:46:55.080] was working with the psionics to bring
[01:46:57.480] them in and he was actually a witness to
[01:46:59.480] the crash retrieval program. I mean, I
[01:47:02.680] spent time talking to him. I have great
[01:47:04.720] respect for him and I really like him.
[01:47:06.360] Unfortunately, there was some coverage
[01:47:08.760] of his uh case and his of him on
[01:47:11.520] NewsNation that really didn't do justice
[01:47:13.480] to him, unfortunately. It wasn't his
[01:47:15.560] fault.
[01:47:16.720] And it wasn't Ross Coulthart's fault
[01:47:18.360] either, the journalist who was involved,
[01:47:19.720] but it just wasn't produced properly.
[01:47:21.440] But then there were these in-depth
[01:47:23.560] interviews done with Jake Barber by Ross
[01:47:26.040] Coulthart, which are all on YouTube if
[01:47:27.960] anybody wants to get a sense of who he
[01:47:30.200] is. But yeah, I I have a lot of respect
[01:47:32.480] for him. I think he's telling the truth.
[01:47:45.920] Can I Can I ask my question?
[01:47:49.240] I just have a quick question. Has anyone
[01:47:51.320] looked into the whole idea of going
[01:47:53.520] faster than the speed of light? And if
[01:47:55.960] that if that can happen, that that you
[01:47:58.480] can actually go back through time.
[01:48:00.840] And I wonder whether
[01:48:02.600] I mean, this is just a fantasy idea, but
[01:48:04.560] that could these be humanoid types that
[01:48:07.840] have lived are living way in the future,
[01:48:10.480] but they know how to go back
[01:48:12.360] faster than the speed of light, and they
[01:48:14.320] can come back and visit,
[01:48:16.240] you know, our our planet, see what's
[01:48:18.000] happening.
[01:48:19.640] Yeah, I mean, definitely, that's one of
[01:48:21.920] the That's a theory that a lot of people
[01:48:23.680] have explored, and Hal Puthoff, the
[01:48:25.400] physicist, writes papers about
[01:48:28.600] using general relativity theory to
[01:48:30.520] explain how
[01:48:32.440] um
[01:48:33.400] you know, faster-than-light travel can
[01:48:35.440] occur. I'm not a physicist, but yes,
[01:48:37.480] it's definitely been discussed and
[01:48:39.120] explored um in at a level that I don't
[01:48:42.080] really understand. But they In the movie
[01:48:43.880] Age of Disclosure, there's a very nice
[01:48:46.320] section where they they analyze all of
[01:48:48.360] that. So, there are theories. The
[01:48:51.040] problem with it is it requires so much
[01:48:53.000] energy, apparently, for these craft to
[01:48:55.240] be able to move long distances through
[01:48:57.720] space.
[01:48:59.440] But it's so complicated, but absolutely,
[01:49:01.560] the idea of the of of the the future
[01:49:03.520] humans coming back
[01:49:05.520] is a is a one of the leading theories
[01:49:07.440] about um to explain this that a lot of
[01:49:09.680] people believe. And there's a biologist
[01:49:11.480] named Mike Masters who has written
[01:49:13.240] numerous books about it and analyzed it
[01:49:15.480] from an evolutionary perspective and a
[01:49:17.840] genetic perspective and really looked at
[01:49:20.600] the future human theory. Um, so, yeah.
[01:49:24.960] Thanks, Elise.
[01:49:27.105] >> [laughter and gasps]
[01:49:27.840] >> Hi. Thank you. Thank you. It's a
[01:49:29.640] fascinating presentation. So, my
[01:49:31.800] question is that all these crash sites
[01:49:34.160] have been found. Has there been any
[01:49:36.600] evidence
[01:49:37.840] of or hypotheses of what kind of
[01:49:40.600] life form or how it I mean, were there
[01:49:43.160] any dead aliens found in the crash
[01:49:45.360] sites?
[01:49:46.720] Is there any information about that?
[01:49:50.240] Yeah. I mean, it's a great question
[01:49:51.720] because it's really hard for anyone to
[01:49:53.560] accept that we might have these life
[01:49:55.360] forms or bodies, but David Grusch
[01:49:57.520] testified before the international, um,
[01:50:01.400] you know, before the Congress under oath
[01:50:04.600] and to the ICIG, the Inspector General,
[01:50:07.440] that yes, these bodies have been
[01:50:09.240] retrieved at some of these crash sites.
[01:50:11.000] And it's only
[01:50:12.200] rational, if you think about it,
[01:50:14.320] if there's a vehicle that's crashed,
[01:50:16.160] they're going to some of them at least
[01:50:17.600] are going to have pilots. Some of them
[01:50:18.920] may not. Some of them might be drones or
[01:50:20.640] whatever, but he said, and again, we
[01:50:23.400] don't have proof of this,
[01:50:25.440] and many people are critical of it
[01:50:27.600] because we don't. And you have to either
[01:50:29.520] be willing to accept what these
[01:50:30.960] high-level people say they have learned
[01:50:33.920] and trust them or you don't. And he and
[01:50:36.560] others have said that yes, we do have
[01:50:39.680] bodies that have been recovered and and
[01:50:42.400] um
[01:50:43.640] in the film, you heard Jay Stratton say,
[01:50:45.960] I have seen with my own eyes, um,
[01:50:49.160] what did he have? Physical craft and and
[01:50:50.920] bodies, non-human bodies. And he is
[01:50:53.640] somebody who's is one of the most
[01:50:55.720] high-level people in this area in terms
[01:50:58.880] of what he knows.
[01:51:00.520] So, yes, bodies have been recovered if
[01:51:03.680] you're willing to accept what people
[01:51:05.280] tell you about that, but we have not
[01:51:07.280] been shown any proof of that. And maybe
[01:51:10.040] someday we will. We'll see.
[01:51:14.560] Hi. Can you Can you
[01:51:16.520] Can you hear me? And yes, so I I thought
[01:51:18.440] it was very interesting, but I I I'm
[01:51:20.400] kind of surprised that you are not
[01:51:22.360] talking about alternative explanations
[01:51:24.080] in something like this.
[01:51:25.480] Um I mean there there is a very easy
[01:51:28.200] alternative explanation, which is maybe
[01:51:29.800] they don't know for sufficient like the
[01:51:32.160] amount you would need to know for
[01:51:33.280] something so extraordinary. So uh if
[01:51:35.800] it's so extraordinary this thing, you
[01:51:37.080] really need to have complete proof. And
[01:51:39.280] if you don't have it, you don't want to
[01:51:40.640] make it public. And I'm saying this in
[01:51:42.800] particular because the evidence you
[01:51:44.160] showed today is kind of
[01:51:46.320] not very conclusive at all. So even
[01:51:48.680] though you say for certain that you know
[01:51:50.840] uh that there is kind of this life and
[01:51:52.960] so on and so forth. Uh it's very
[01:51:54.720] difficult to believe. And it it is more
[01:51:56.760] difficult to believe if we look at the
[01:51:58.360] documentary in which basically with this
[01:52:00.720] kind of Oh, sorry. With this kind of
[01:52:02.880] tone is talked with like so strong uh
[01:52:05.360] like putting people who are like the
[01:52:07.640] true believers. So from my point of
[01:52:08.920] view, if I
[01:52:11.040] it would help much more if you are
[01:52:12.920] presenting the evidence in a way in
[01:52:15.400] which you present the alternative
[01:52:16.680] explanation at the same time and
[01:52:18.360] presenting this a more as a kind of more
[01:52:20.160] probabilistic thing than deterministic
[01:52:22.000] because it's very difficult uh I mean as
[01:52:24.280] as this is presented especially in the
[01:52:26.040] in the documentary of the trailer, it's
[01:52:28.080] it's difficult to to take this for
[01:52:29.960] granted especially because it's
[01:52:31.160] extraordinary. So whenever something you
[01:52:32.920] claim something extraordinary, you
[01:52:34.160] really need to prove with extraordinary
[01:52:36.440] uh strength. And I think this was
[01:52:38.080] completely lacking here.
[01:52:41.520] I don't know what the question I'm I'm
[01:52:42.840] not exactly sure what the question was.
[01:52:44.600] I'm so sorry.
[01:52:46.200] Can you Can you say it in one sentence
[01:52:48.000] or did you
[01:53:03.360] What is the question?
[01:53:07.200] I think there's an emphasis
[01:53:08.320] extraordinary claims require
[01:53:09.880] extraordinary evidence. And without the
[01:53:13.320] the evidence being presented, um it's
[01:53:15.840] hard I think in in your situation it it
[01:53:18.120] it's it's it's it's hard to overcome the
[01:53:20.320] skepticism when the evidence isn't isn't
[01:53:22.560] available. Absolutely. And I that's a
[01:53:24.040] completely legitimate position to take
[01:53:26.440] and I understand it. I mean, the only
[01:53:28.240] reason I accept it is because I know
[01:53:30.440] these people. I've talked to them
[01:53:32.000] myself. You know, a lot of these
[01:53:33.960] insiders and I've been following it so
[01:53:36.640] closely and I trust the members of
[01:53:38.600] Congress who tell me, you know, two
[01:53:40.160] dozen whistleblowers have come in, but I
[01:53:42.440] have access at that level. So, if
[01:53:45.000] absolutely legitimate to object to the
[01:53:47.880] fact that yeah, these people are saying
[01:53:49.960] this, but we have we have not seen any
[01:53:52.280] proof of it.
[01:53:53.720] And that's that's a legitimate point to
[01:53:56.120] make and that's why the members of
[01:53:58.240] Congress are trying to get that for us.
[01:54:00.680] But, we don't have anything yet. All we
[01:54:03.080] have is people telling us that this is
[01:54:05.360] true. Yeah.
[01:54:10.440] Yep.
[01:54:31.600] You know, but so what you're saying is
[01:54:33.640] that you think I should present more of
[01:54:36.160] the opposite the other side of the
[01:54:37.800] people who don't accept this. Is that
[01:54:39.800] correct?
[01:54:41.480] Yeah. So,
[01:54:43.400] I mean, there are people like Arrow, you
[01:54:46.400] know, who will say we don't have any
[01:54:48.720] evidence of anything that's
[01:54:49.960] extraterrestrial, but they'll say I
[01:54:51.480] mean, it's it's complicated. They'll say
[01:54:53.040] it with a language that
[01:54:55.440] gets them off the hook. But yeah, I
[01:54:56.920] mean, that's a that's a legitimate point
[01:54:58.480] to make. I mean, I have found over the
[01:55:00.240] years and I'm I've been required to do
[01:55:02.920] York Times stories to include comments
[01:55:05.640] by people
[01:55:07.040] who don't agree, but they're often not
[01:55:09.040] informed. And I haven't I just find that
[01:55:11.680] if I have a precious, you know, 1 hour
[01:55:14.200] time to give a talk, it's not really
[01:55:15.960] what I want to focus on.
[01:55:18.400] But it's a legitimate criticism. I mean,
[01:55:20.440] I could I could quote Neil deGrasse
[01:55:22.280] Tyson saying things like, "Well, if
[01:55:24.280] they're real, they should go get an
[01:55:25.640] ashtray off of a UFO." And you know, I
[01:55:28.120] haven't found a lot of legitimate
[01:55:32.000] objections that I would feel were worthy
[01:55:34.400] of bringing, but I think the one really
[01:55:36.280] important one is the one point you make,
[01:55:39.040] which is we don't have proof of any of
[01:55:41.160] this. We don't have data of any of this.
[01:55:44.200] Are are we going to believe what these
[01:55:45.600] people tell us or not?
[01:55:47.680] And so,
[01:55:49.120] you know, it's a legitimate criticism to
[01:55:50.960] make that we don't have that. But I I
[01:55:52.400] don't know how useful it would be for me
[01:55:53.840] to spend a lot of time
[01:55:55.880] quoting if that's what you're saying,
[01:55:58.120] quoting or talking about people who
[01:56:00.480] refute this. I don't think that would
[01:56:02.520] really be of much interest to people,
[01:56:04.280] but it's out there in the culture. You
[01:56:05.760] can go read what these people say.
[01:56:08.120] Um so, I don't know. I don't know what
[01:56:10.200] else to say to that.
[01:56:12.040] I mean, uh If if I could just say
[01:56:13.960] briefly and then then I'll take a
[01:56:15.520] question from Leah and then I you know,
[01:56:17.360] it's almost time to go. We'll we can all
[01:56:19.120] continue the conversation you know, out
[01:56:21.080] in the lobby as the reception starts.
[01:56:22.880] But what one thought that's been made by
[01:56:25.560] researchers in the field is that
[01:56:27.680] testimonials are also a kind of data and
[01:56:29.720] to the extent that consciousness is part
[01:56:31.960] of trying to understand what's happening
[01:56:35.040] with the phenomenon,
[01:56:36.640] it's not only physical data, which of
[01:56:39.080] course is is crucial,
[01:56:41.560] but data is also the testimonials of the
[01:56:45.080] of experiences.
[01:56:46.880] And and we have an abundance of data
[01:56:49.880] stretching back many, many decades and
[01:56:52.560] fascinating patterns in the data um that
[01:56:55.800] researchers um are spending a lot of
[01:56:58.800] time and thought uh and and discovering,
[01:57:01.920] you know, interesting insights in the
[01:57:03.760] way that um
[01:57:05.560] the the data lines up and reveals uh
[01:57:09.160] certain interesting insights in the
[01:57:10.600] nature of consciousness and and what we
[01:57:12.240] might be dealing with.
[01:57:14.240] Yeah, that's absolutely true. There's so
[01:57:16.120] much to this. So, I appreciate the
[01:57:17.960] comment um and we can talk more about
[01:57:19.960] it. Yeah.
[01:57:23.160] Okay?
[01:57:24.400] Okay. Um
[01:57:25.760] hello, good evening. So, before I ask my
[01:57:28.120] question, I want to say thanks a lot.
[01:57:29.840] It's It was really interesting to hear
[01:57:32.200] you talk about UFOs.
[01:57:34.760] And um my question is so, there's a
[01:57:37.440] thing called the dark forest theory
[01:57:39.880] where it is said that the universe is
[01:57:41.760] silent because there are basically space
[01:57:44.680] hunters or predators that hunt down
[01:57:46.920] whoever sends out signals from planets
[01:57:50.200] to look for extraterrestrial life.
[01:57:52.720] And since we've been sending so many
[01:57:55.280] things into outer space,
[01:57:57.480] do you think that there's any chance
[01:57:59.080] that these UFOs are here to potentially
[01:58:01.880] hurt us?
[01:58:05.240] I I wouldn't be in a position to say,
[01:58:07.920] but that being said, some of the um
[01:58:11.800] insiders like Lou Elizondo have sort of
[01:58:14.760] hinted that there's sort of a dark and
[01:58:16.880] somber side to all of this. Jim Semivan,
[01:58:20.120] the same thing.
[01:58:21.720] Um what that means, I don't know.
[01:58:25.600] But,
[01:58:27.080] there is a scary side to it. And they've
[01:58:29.680] acknowledged that without telling us
[01:58:31.240] exactly what they're referring to. Um
[01:58:34.640] and you know, James, you're well aware
[01:58:36.320] of that from talking to Jim a lot. I
[01:58:38.000] mean, you know, there's there's
[01:58:39.800] something going on there that that has
[01:58:41.800] been hinted at. And if you you read the
[01:58:43.440] book Imminent, Lou's book, he kind of
[01:58:45.640] spends time on that, but they can't
[01:58:48.560] they can't reveal a lot that's
[01:58:50.040] classified. They're always up against
[01:58:52.000] this these these classification
[01:58:53.880] problems. Um so
[01:58:56.240] I I don't know of anything specific, but
[01:58:58.480] I also, you know, I have a caution about
[01:59:00.840] it.
[01:59:02.880] Because of what these people have said
[01:59:04.480] and hinted at, you know, I don't know if
[01:59:06.760] you would agree with that, but yeah. So,
[01:59:08.880] I don't know what else I can say about
[01:59:10.120] it cuz I really don't know.
[01:59:16.760] Uh thank you so much. Uh
[01:59:19.880] This has been a fascinating talk and
[01:59:21.600] conversation. Um from what I understood
[01:59:24.320] from the the talk,
[01:59:26.160] um
[01:59:27.520] the data that we have now is that this
[01:59:29.440] extraterrestrial origin, we don't have
[01:59:31.800] technology to verify that, but what we
[01:59:34.440] can guarantee is that it's not Chinese
[01:59:36.760] or Russian technology. That's what I
[01:59:38.880] understood. And then my question had to
[01:59:41.200] do with uh all related disclosure.
[01:59:44.640] I it seems that there's a lot of willing
[01:59:46.200] intention to that we get to know more
[01:59:49.160] more what's going on here in the US, but
[01:59:51.520] I was also thinking uh you have been
[01:59:53.560] going to all these countries for talks,
[01:59:55.640] for conferences. Uh
[01:59:57.520] there are some other countries or many
[01:59:59.360] other countries that maybe are also
[02:00:00.600] researching this.
[02:00:02.200] If there will be an opportunity maybe uh
[02:00:05.120] that we can get to know more and maybe
[02:00:06.720] that it's a very delicate topic, but
[02:00:09.200] they could work together internationally
[02:00:11.560] to to see what what we are finding out
[02:00:14.000] and maybe we could
[02:00:15.480] we could get to know more together.
[02:00:17.560] Thank you. I mean, that's such an
[02:00:19.400] obvious and and wonderful point to make.
[02:00:21.360] We should be working on this
[02:00:22.840] internationally cooperating in with all
[02:00:25.080] these different countries. Um the
[02:00:26.640] problem is as David Grusch said, it's
[02:00:28.480] kind of turned into this sort of secret
[02:00:30.280] cold war
[02:00:31.880] where our adversaries are trying to
[02:00:34.120] We're all trying to get our hands on
[02:00:35.520] that technology because whoever has it
[02:00:38.560] has a huge advantage over the rest of
[02:00:40.560] the world. So,
[02:00:42.720] um you know, it's a problem. Um and and
[02:00:46.320] our government officials have to balance
[02:00:48.920] the desire for international cooperation
[02:00:51.440] with the fact that we are dealing with
[02:00:54.080] uh adversaries that don't always have uh
[02:00:57.040] you know, the the best intentions. Let's
[02:00:59.000] put it that way. So, it's very very
[02:01:01.160] tricky. But yeah, I mean, ideally, why
[02:01:03.840] isn't this something that the United
[02:01:05.440] Nations is is taking on and trying to
[02:01:07.840] bring all the countries together and
[02:01:09.600] share information and
[02:01:11.920] uh which would be you know, such a
[02:01:13.880] wonderful thing to have happen. But the
[02:01:15.600] issue is the technology itself and the
[02:01:17.680] power that that has um and the
[02:01:21.000] the desire to protect people from other
[02:01:23.440] countries getting access to it. So,
[02:01:25.640] great point, but it's so complicated.
[02:01:28.520] Um all of these things I mean, I went up
[02:01:30.360] through this this talk like with these
[02:01:32.480] made it all sound kind of simple, but
[02:01:34.280] it's everything about this is very
[02:01:36.280] complicated. And that's one of the
[02:01:38.520] questions that's complicated as to what
[02:01:40.080] extent can we cooperate with other
[02:01:41.800] countries. And we do have our allies and
[02:01:43.800] we do cooperate with the Five Eyes
[02:01:45.400] countries and other allied nations, but
[02:01:48.680] uh unfortunately, it can't really be a
[02:01:50.120] global thing at this point um because we
[02:01:52.960] just don't trust some of these other
[02:01:54.160] countries that that have the ability to
[02:01:57.120] reverse engineer these things. China
[02:01:58.800] being the main one.
[02:02:01.160] So, you know, again, there's a lot more
[02:02:03.400] known to others that I don't know about
[02:02:06.080] about that. Because again, I I don't you
[02:02:08.600] know, I don't have access to a lot of
[02:02:09.840] the information, but
[02:02:14.240] very quickly, uh
[02:02:15.680] David Grusch has referred to
[02:02:17.360] disinformation campaigns that have been
[02:02:20.760] ongoing. What's the best way that the
[02:02:23.800] public can sort of
[02:02:26.280] uh
[02:02:28.960] look at media and look at information in
[02:02:32.760] a way that
[02:02:34.440] is not impacted by that. How can they
[02:02:37.440] best
[02:02:38.800] understand that
[02:02:40.480] there's an effort being made to dissuade
[02:02:42.840] them from looking at the subject to
[02:02:44.520] begin with.
[02:02:45.680] Yeah, so how can you mean how can you
[02:02:47.200] tell when it's disinformation? It's
[02:02:49.120] really great question cuz there's a lot
[02:02:51.080] of it. I think that the best way you can
[02:02:53.200] do First of all, find the people that
[02:02:55.200] you know you trust.
[02:02:57.000] Um and that you know, there are people
[02:02:58.960] out there that go on podcasts and
[02:03:00.920] contribute and you can trust them, in my
[02:03:03.400] opinion. And so you have to find out who
[02:03:05.240] those people are that you trust and that
[02:03:06.920] you're really interested in.
[02:03:08.720] And then you just have to keep relying
[02:03:10.600] on what they tell you. And if something
[02:03:11.920] weird comes out, you know,
[02:03:14.240] by s-
[02:03:15.240] people I maybe I won't make mention any
[02:03:17.360] names right now, but you you can check
[02:03:19.320] it out with the sources that you trust.
[02:03:21.680] You can check it out with organizations
[02:03:23.720] like the Disclosure Foundation. People
[02:03:25.960] that are deeply involved who who kind of
[02:03:28.080] know what's going on. So I would caution
[02:03:30.120] people
[02:03:31.200] to do that. Because yes, there's a lot
[02:03:33.680] of crazy stuff out there. Uh and that
[02:03:36.480] was one of the, you know, the first I
[02:03:38.160] had to spend a couple of years learning
[02:03:40.000] how to discern in the beginning, you
[02:03:41.480] know, how to discern what the wheat from
[02:03:43.240] the chaff, right?
[02:03:45.040] There's a lot of stuff out there that
[02:03:46.880] you don't want to get caught up in. And
[02:03:49.800] um
[02:03:50.360] yeah, so I think just rely on the
[02:03:52.360] authorities that you trust. Find out who
[02:03:54.360] they are and keep checking it out. And
[02:03:56.920] hopefully you won't be led astray down
[02:03:58.800] these sort of crazy paths.
[02:04:01.000] Um
[02:04:02.080] of, you know, and you can also decide.
[02:04:03.920] Some people enjoy exploring these sort
[02:04:05.760] of conspiracy theories, you know, going
[02:04:08.040] down rabbit holes that you'll never get
[02:04:10.440] to the bottom of, but they just enjoy it
[02:04:12.800] and that's okay.
[02:04:14.320] Uh you know, everybody has a different
[02:04:16.200] way of of a different way that they want
[02:04:18.160] to be involved. But if you want a
[02:04:19.640] hardcore information, you've got to be
[02:04:21.400] very careful, like you're pointing out.
[02:04:23.960] And check it out at the right places and
[02:04:26.040] see what's what's going on with it. So
[02:04:27.960] I'm glad you raised that question.
[02:04:30.560] Just a very uh quick question. Um so I
[02:04:33.680] read, I believe in your 2024 article
[02:04:35.960] about David Grusch, there were another
[02:04:38.560] like couple sources there. I believe
[02:04:40.480] one's name was Jonathan Gray. So, I I
[02:04:43.840] just wanted to ask like if you have any
[02:04:45.360] updates about these other whistleblowers
[02:04:46.840] sources
[02:04:48.200] like
[02:04:49.320] him for example.
[02:04:50.840] And also if you had any other
[02:04:53.400] publications in the in the
[02:04:55.440] works.
[02:04:57.000] Well, thanks. I mean yeah, Jonathan Gray
[02:04:58.800] was one source who came forward in the
[02:05:01.400] story Ralph and I did about
[02:05:03.720] David Grusch. Very powerful insider, but
[02:05:06.680] he is not
[02:05:08.440] he's not going to say anything else
[02:05:09.800] publicly. He's no longer in government,
[02:05:12.360] but uh
[02:05:13.920] he suffered repercussions for coming out
[02:05:16.240] as so many people do. So, I'm still in
[02:05:18.400] touch with him. I talk to him regularly
[02:05:20.680] and I talk to a lot of people like that
[02:05:22.400] off the record. Um which really inform
[02:05:25.200] help inform my my my you know, knowledge
[02:05:28.440] base about all of this. So,
[02:05:30.400] there are many whistleblowers who will
[02:05:32.000] not go public.
[02:05:33.880] And he's one of them.
[02:05:35.560] Um and in terms of I'm I don't really
[02:05:37.520] have any thing I'm writing right now. I
[02:05:40.200] mean I I'm doing things like organizing
[02:05:42.720] press conferences and and doing
[02:05:44.440] interviews on podcasts and
[02:05:47.120] investigating different things and
[02:05:48.600] always hoping to get more stories in the
[02:05:50.360] New York Times when they come along, but
[02:05:52.360] it's increasingly difficult to do that.
[02:05:55.080] Um
[02:05:56.400] the Times doesn't seem as interested in
[02:05:58.320] covering this topic as they used to be
[02:06:00.680] unfortunately.
[02:06:02.200] So, yeah, nothing specific, but I have
[02:06:04.960] my fingers in a lot of pies and some of
[02:06:07.080] them you know, get baked and some don't,
[02:06:09.560] but that's how you how it works. So,
[02:06:11.160] thank you for the question. Yeah.
[02:06:19.560] I just have a question. Um with all the
[02:06:22.160] sources that you have and that you've
[02:06:23.480] built around this area, if
[02:06:26.520] just through your conversations with
[02:06:28.000] them, I don't know how often you you
[02:06:29.920] speak to these people. Um
[02:06:32.400] but if they have offered any opinions on
[02:06:35.920] anything going on with like the missing
[02:06:37.760] scientist situation,
[02:06:40.280] especially with some of the things you
[02:06:41.840] said about some of these sightings and
[02:06:43.160] them being around energy sites, and I
[02:06:45.240] know some of these scientists having
[02:06:47.760] their work been around
[02:06:49.920] um energy, I just didn't know if
[02:06:53.520] the people that are kind of like in the
[02:06:54.800] know have
[02:06:56.400] offered any thought about what they
[02:06:59.640] think might be going on.
[02:07:01.520] Yeah, that's a really it's a very
[02:07:02.880] interesting thing that's being discussed
[02:07:04.360] a lot right now, these missing
[02:07:06.320] scientists and the people
[02:07:09.480] know. I mean, there's been a lot of
[02:07:11.480] discussion that I've been privy to
[02:07:13.360] behind the scenes about what might or
[02:07:15.280] might not be going on, but
[02:07:17.360] nobody really knows. I don't know
[02:07:19.560] anything beyond what's out there in the
[02:07:21.600] in the public arena on that. I mean,
[02:07:23.440] it's I find it really interesting and
[02:07:25.640] mysterious and I hope more gets learned
[02:07:28.400] about it, but um particularly Neil
[02:07:30.640] McCasland, who was
[02:07:32.280] you know, the the general who was had
[02:07:33.920] been interacting with Tom DeLonge. Um
[02:07:36.840] So, I don't I don't have anything really
[02:07:38.360] to add to the dialogue that's already
[02:07:39.840] out there. But, people are discussing it
[02:07:42.000] behind the scenes. I just don't think
[02:07:43.360] anybody behind the scenes that I'm aware
[02:07:45.160] of knows anything about it really.
[02:07:47.680] So, we'll see where it goes.
[02:07:52.200] Hi, uh I had a question about
[02:07:54.920] There's been a number of news stories
[02:07:56.360] about
[02:07:57.920] like drone sightings at airports. I
[02:08:00.080] think there were some in like Denmark
[02:08:01.400] and Scandinavia. Do Do your sources
[02:08:03.840] think that those incidents are connected
[02:08:05.960] to the UAP phenomena?
[02:08:08.240] Well, that's such an interesting
[02:08:09.280] question cuz you know, we had all those
[02:08:10.920] drone sightings in New Jersey, right? A
[02:08:13.000] couple of years ago. Uh it was a huge
[02:08:15.520] news story.
[02:08:17.520] Um I don't think most of them believe
[02:08:20.960] that they were like alien spacecraft,
[02:08:23.720] but nonetheless,
[02:08:26.600] it's hard to explain what they were and
[02:08:28.400] how they were able to operate the way
[02:08:29.920] they did and they were, you know,
[02:08:31.600] Langley and all kinds of places and
[02:08:33.400] maybe there were some UAP mixed in with
[02:08:36.200] drones.
[02:08:38.200] I don't I don't know. I don't I just
[02:08:40.120] followed that story, but I don't have
[02:08:41.840] any particularly deep insight into it.
[02:08:44.000] If anybody else in the audience does,
[02:08:45.680] they're welcome to comment, but it
[02:08:47.720] remains a mystery. It's not solved like
[02:08:50.160] what they were and why they were here
[02:08:51.680] and how they were able to operate the
[02:08:53.000] way they did. We don't have the answers
[02:08:54.960] to that. And they were, you know, they
[02:08:57.120] were in the Midwest, too. I mean, they
[02:08:59.160] were they've been all over the place,
[02:09:00.440] these drones. So,
[02:09:02.760] I don't know what to make of it.
[02:09:04.600] Um but nobody your question being have
[02:09:07.120] the insiders said none of the insiders
[02:09:09.400] have told me that they believe that
[02:09:10.840] they're UAP, you know, or alien or in
[02:09:13.440] some some exotic kind of
[02:09:16.960] non-human craft, but they don't know,
[02:09:19.360] either. They're not writing that off.
[02:09:20.880] They're not ruling that out. Let's put
[02:09:22.240] it that way.
[02:09:24.840] Yeah.
[02:09:28.160] I Can I ask a question? Should make this
[02:09:30.400] last one, maybe.
[02:09:31.320] >> this last question. Isaac, please, you
[02:09:32.760] have the honor of the last question.
[02:09:34.400] >> in the other room. Yeah. Uh first I want
[02:09:36.320] to thank you both for your work you've
[02:09:37.600] done today and giving us the opportunity
[02:09:39.840] to
[02:09:41.000] be involved in this process.
[02:09:43.160] I wanted to ask is will there ever be uh
[02:09:48.200] an agency or an official program
[02:09:50.960] that will
[02:09:52.960] that regular civilians who experience
[02:09:55.920] the sightings of UAPs and UFOs will have
[02:09:58.160] the opportunity to give their digital
[02:10:00.160] evidence or their accounts and stories?
[02:10:03.440] Because I only see
[02:10:05.720] avenues for government officials
[02:10:08.640] to tell their stories, but there's
[02:10:10.000] nothing for civilians.
[02:10:12.200] Yeah, it's so important. I mean, there
[02:10:14.320] are organizations for civilians out
[02:10:16.760] there like MUFON, you know, the Mutual
[02:10:19.080] UFO Network, which has been around
[02:10:20.600] forever and which is, you know, collects
[02:10:22.640] data from civilians and is willing to
[02:10:25.600] investigate cases
[02:10:27.680] and provide support. And there's also
[02:10:30.040] the National UFO Reporting Center. And
[02:10:32.520] you know, there are these civilian
[02:10:34.040] groups
[02:10:35.440] that people can go to.
[02:10:37.680] But
[02:10:39.040] I think we need a higher level kind of
[02:10:42.600] organization that will incorporate
[02:10:45.400] reports better than what we've got now.
[02:10:47.520] I mean, there there are there are
[02:10:49.400] organizations that take reports from
[02:10:51.240] pilots, but they're and that includes
[02:10:53.680] commercial pilots, not just military
[02:10:55.960] pilots, but
[02:10:57.800] it's really a hard I don't know. I don't
[02:10:59.560] know what Jordan you or or
[02:11:02.280] Joel or James would say. I mean, people
[02:11:05.040] ask me this all the time and all I can
[02:11:06.840] think of is like MUFON or NUFORC
[02:11:09.760] for civilians, you know, and it just
[02:11:11.440] doesn't it seems like there should be
[02:11:12.760] something better to that collects data.
[02:11:15.320] I mean, there there is the John Mack
[02:11:17.120] Institute and the archives at the at
[02:11:19.520] Rice University, which collects data on,
[02:11:22.160] you know, experience or
[02:11:24.160] stories, people who have encountered the
[02:11:26.320] phenomenon.
[02:11:27.720] And you know, abductions and all kinds
[02:11:29.720] of personal experiences that people have
[02:11:31.680] had. They're going to be doing studies
[02:11:33.000] with that information.
[02:11:34.960] But just sightings,
[02:11:36.800] I don't know. People want to be able to
[02:11:38.800] report them and get recognized and have
[02:11:41.080] somebody look into them and
[02:11:43.520] I mean, I guess MUFON is probably the
[02:11:44.920] best one.
[02:11:58.680] Like Enigma, yeah.
[02:12:07.440] It's gone. You don't know what's going
[02:12:08.320] to happen to it and you don't
[02:12:09.400] necessarily even have an interaction
[02:12:10.680] with a human necessarily. So, I think it
[02:12:13.080] I think you're right. I mean, Rice
[02:12:14.760] University is the closest we've got to
[02:12:16.560] that because but they're dealing more
[02:12:18.200] with the experiences.
[02:12:20.280] So, um yeah, we need to get something
[02:12:23.120] going and uh we're going to have to ask
[02:12:25.000] Eli to set it up within the academic
[02:12:26.680] community. That's your assignment.
[02:12:30.240] Thank you so much, Leslie, for
[02:12:32.000] fascinating talk. Thank you, everyone.
[02:12:34.640] We can continue the conversation out of
[02:12:36.720] the lobby, everybody. Thank you so much.
[02:12:39.000] Thank you.
[02:12:39.880] Thank you, Eli.
[02:12:46.800] Um