Lex Fridman Podcast Clips - "Who contacted Sam Harris about UFOs?" (March 16, 2023)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUrxdeBVTbU
Channel: Lex Clips
Published: 2023-03-16
Extraction: complete English auto-generated YouTube captions retrieved with youtube_transcript.py --timestamps, 2026-08-28
Scope: official excerpt from Lex Fridman Podcast #365, not the complete episode.
Fidelity note: automated captions preserve source timing but may contain recognition and speaker-attribution errors.
Analytical page: ../../sources/eric-weinstein-uap-claims

[00:00:02.960] In raising a question that I'm going to
[00:00:05.640] be talking to you, a lot of people
[00:00:07.040] brought up this topic, probably because
[00:00:08.920] Eric Weinstein talked to Joe Rogan
[00:00:10.520] recently and said that he and you were
[00:00:12.800] contacted by folks about UFOs. Mhm. Uh
[00:00:16.400] can you clarify the nature of this
[00:00:18.240] contact?
[00:00:19.760] Can you can you that you were contacted
[00:00:21.560] by
[00:00:21.880] I've got very little to say on this. I
[00:00:23.560] mean, he has much more to say. I think
[00:00:25.160] he I think he went down
[00:00:27.280] this rabbit hole further than than I
[00:00:29.360] did. Um
[00:00:30.760] which wouldn't surprise anyone. Um he's
[00:00:33.920] got much more of a taste for this sort
[00:00:35.680] of thing than I do. But I think we're
[00:00:37.000] contacted by the same person.
[00:00:39.520] It wasn't clear to me who this person
[00:00:41.280] was or how this person got that my cell
[00:00:43.640] phone number.
[00:00:44.720] Um
[00:00:46.320] they didn't seem
[00:00:48.120] uh it didn't seem like we were getting
[00:00:50.360] punked. I mean, it's the person seemed
[00:00:51.880] credible to me.
[00:00:53.400] And they were talking to you about the
[00:00:54.600] release of different videos on UFOs.
[00:00:56.200] Yeah, and this this is when there's a a
[00:00:58.000] flurry of activity around this. So,
[00:00:59.480] there was like a there was a big New
[00:01:00.760] Yorker article on on uh UFOs and there
[00:01:04.760] was there was uh
[00:01:06.560] the
[00:01:07.200] rumors of con- congressional hearings, I
[00:01:09.120] think, coming and
[00:01:11.040] and then with the the the videos that
[00:01:13.520] were being debunked or not. Um
[00:01:16.920] And so, this person contacted both of
[00:01:19.360] us, I think, around the same time. And I
[00:01:20.800] think he might have contacted Rogan or
[00:01:22.520] other Eric is just the only person I've
[00:01:24.840] spoken to about it, I think,
[00:01:26.800] um
[00:01:27.960] who I know was contacted. And
[00:01:31.440] the um
[00:01:34.280] what happened is the
[00:01:35.480] person kept you know, writing a check
[00:01:38.160] that he didn't cash. Like he he kept
[00:01:40.160] saying, "Okay, next week, I'm going to,
[00:01:42.360] you know, I understand this is sounding
[00:01:44.360] spooky and, you know, you have no reason
[00:01:46.040] to really trust me, but
[00:01:48.120] uh next week, I'm going to I'm going to
[00:01:49.480] put you on a Zoom call with people who
[00:01:51.560] you will recognize and they're going to
[00:01:53.000] be, you know, former heads of the CIA
[00:01:55.240] and, you know, peop- people who just
[00:01:57.120] you're going to within 5 seconds being
[00:01:58.800] on the zoom call you'll you'll know this
[00:02:01.040] is not a hoax
[00:02:02.600] I said great just let me know just send
[00:02:04.440] me the zoom link right and I went that
[00:02:07.600] happened maybe three times you know
[00:02:10.280] there was just one
[00:02:11.800] phone conversation and then it was just
[00:02:13.920] text you know that just a bunch of text
[00:02:16.520] and I think
[00:02:18.680] Eric spent more time with this person
[00:02:21.760] and I'm not I haven't spoken to him but
[00:02:23.480] I know he's spoke about it publicly but
[00:02:26.120] um
[00:02:28.120] so I I you know it's not that my
[00:02:29.520] detector ever
[00:02:31.680] really went off in a big way it's just
[00:02:33.280] the thing never happened and I lost
[00:02:35.760] interest