Jeff Knox : 自身の略歴と UFO 調査活動状況を語る
前置き
Jeff Knox が Erica Lukes の Youtube Channel に招かれ、対談している。
Jeff Knox が UFO 研究者として、どういう人物なのかがよく分かる動画になっている。UFO 業界の一側面という意味で記録しておく。
彼は、仮想通貨で儲けたので、仕事はせずに思うがままに UFO 研究に時間を費やしているという恵まれた境遇だが、病気(障害)を抱えているとも言う。
コメント1
Jeff Knox の喋る内容には、
- どこまでが客観的事実で、どこまでが彼の憶測なのか、その区分けが喋っているうちに次第に不明瞭となり、聞き手には弁別が困難
という欠陥がある。彼の頭の中では事実と憶測が明瞭に区別されておらず、地続きで不明瞭になっていることが推測できる。
コメント 2
Jeff Knox は Erica Lukes と同様に、凡庸で視野が狭く、何事も思い込みや憶測ですぐに断定してかかるという習癖がある。それゆえ彼は思い込みで偏った主張をしていると批判されている。
だが、彼は「自分は正論を述べているのに、相手側は頑迷なので受け入れようとしない」と突っぱねている。これらの点で、彼らは 否定派/懐疑派 と習癖を共有している。饒舌だがその内容は月並みで退屈…という点でも共通している。
手抜き
30:45--34:48 Skinwalker ranch , 1.6GHz の信号
36:00 skinwalker ranch 付近の住人に聞いたら、馬鹿げていると。
40:55 原油やガスのせいではないか。(→ 単なる憶測で証拠不在)
56:30 abduction について(否定)
1:07:40 Bob Lazar について(否定)
FasterWhisper AI(large-v2 model) + DeepL(2024-07 model)
▼文字起こし 展開
Hi, I'm Erica Luks. This is Expanding Frontiers. I'm happy to be here with all of my friends on a very hot and lovely Friday night in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have been a busy girl this week, as always, digging into things, talking to my colleague Jack Brewer at Expanding Frontiers and the UFO Trail Blogspot. We have been working on some research and we're actually putting together some very cool things and we'll be investigating that and putting that forward. (0:00:57)
You can check out our work at expandingfrontiersresearch.org. You can also contribute to our non-profit and that is much appreciated. I want to thank the people that do donate to Expanding Frontiers and also the show. Right now we're just meeting show costs and it would be great to get a little bit more in there. So I appreciate the donations that are made. As my guest this evening tonight can tell us, it is not a cheap hobby to get into UFOs, to want to preserve history and to make sure that you're getting your information out there. (0:01:33)
I love this subject. I'm really excited about Expanding Frontiers and the directions that we're going, which might be a little bit, well, quite a lot off the UFO topic sometimes, but I have such a great crowd with all of you. It's just nice to know that you will follow me and listen to the things that we put forward, even if they might not have to do with the UFO topic. (0:01:56)
I want to say hey to Jack who is in chat, Simon, Jasmine, UFO John Doe, The Earth, Gerald King. Hey from Provo. Nice to see you. And you know it's hot here too. Mystico, Lord Ludacris, Drew Williamson, Peter, Jim. And I also want to give a shout out to Mario who was here behind the scenes, who has been here from almost day one with my show and has supported me. (0:02:21)
It means a lot to me. You guys are literally the reason that I'm here almost every week because I love the times that we're spending together. Michael, how are you? Thanks for your contributions as well to Expanding Frontiers. But I want to say I do this because I have a passion. (0:02:47)
I have a kind of a quest to find information out and to make sure that a topic that I find incredibly interesting, that information is put out in the correct way and that people learn from the mistakes that I have made because I've been very candid about that over the years. (0:03:02)
And that there's a reason for that because you guys don't need to repeat the same things I have. So anyway, I'm going to bring in Jeff Knox. I want to introduce Jeff. Jeff has taken, he's dedicated himself, he's been into the subject. Jeff, you've been into the subject for a long, long time, longer than 10 years, but 10 years was kind of your moment when you said, I'm throwing down the gauntlet and I'm going to go out and travel around and then really put 10 hours a day into UFO research. (0:03:31)
Yeah. I mean, I've been into it since probably eight years old. So I mean, but the last 10 years or so I've been doing it full time, you know, not working and just doing the UFO thing. And about five years before that, I started to like really get really deep into reading and books and stuff again, but I've been studying it on and off since I was a literal child. (0:03:57)
So yeah. Isn't that interesting? I wish I had my drawing, but sometimes I'll show it on the show, but I have drawings from like third grade and it's just this little, you know, the alien and then he's zapping a little ant who's on its back and the ant is saying help. (0:04:16)
And I'm sure that, you know, my third grade teacher was just like, oh my Lord, we got a wild one on our hands. I mean, one of my earliest memories in school, actually, it's like in elementary school, being in the school library, reading through weird paranormal books. Like I still have a vague memory of this yellow book that talked about some magical paint that whenever you painted with it, it would supposedly create whatever you painted in real life. Like it's a weird story, but I mean, I was always interested in the weird things ever since I was a kid. (0:04:48)
So yeah. Isn't that cool. And I think that's just such a great part of being a child and having an imagination and, and you know, the more I've learned around the UFO topic and the shady cast of characters and the games and all that stuff has taken that enchantment away from me. (0:05:01)
And so I'm learning to try to find that again, because there are so many incredible things to study, you know. I agree. It can be tiring when you see just all the hoaxers, the con artists, the shady people involved in the topic. You think, is there really any point doing all this? Like, are we going anywhere? But I mean, the history of the UFO topic is vast and huge. And there's just so much interesting stuff in it to study that, I mean, even if you don't believe UFOs are aliens from space, it's still so interesting and fascinating to actually study this for a variety of reasons. (0:05:44)
You know, it is. And I love, I mean, I love studying people. I love studying the intelligence community. I especially love that my cat, and if my eyeballs just got like Marty Feldman size, it's because my cat is, I put my painting over on a table and my cat is laying on top of the painting, doing his little kneading. (0:06:02)
So anyway, if you, you know, you see something being hurled across the room, you know what's happening. Oh, good. He's over here. Well, I've got my little dog over here. So yeah. I know. And what's your dog's name again? Dorothy. Dorothy. Okay. I heard you did Steve Cambion's show, Truth Seekers, which was an excellent show, by the way. (0:06:22)
I've got to just give him a little shout out, but I could hear and thank you UFO that's awesome for your contribution. But I could hear Dorothy barking and it was just so awesome to watch your face because I think that's... Well, we have geese and ducks and chickens in the backyard and sometimes something sets them off and then it sets her off. And, but yeah. (0:06:41)
You have shape-shifting man beasts hiding in the backyard. You never know. Yeah. I thought I had a dead chicken. It could have been, you know, a poltergeist, a hitchhiking poltergeist like Travis Taylor claims, but no, it was just a raccoon. So. So how long have you had Dorothy? Oh, about 11 years almost now. (0:07:09)
So she's getting a little old, but she's, she's came on a lot of adventures with me. She has spent time in archives, like the Roswell museums, research library, scanning documents with me. And I mean, she's, she's been around, she's been to the Roswell debris field three or four times at least. Like she's been to Travis Walton's crash site. (0:07:28)
She's been, I mean, events, I mean, she's been everywhere. She's, she's my research buddy, basically. Well, everybody needs a research buddy like that. Somebody can keep you grounded for sure. So what was, so you started like, you know, getting into this or finding it fascinating as a child. Like what were some of the books that you really found or TV shows or movies that you found, kind of meaningful during that period of time? (0:07:50)
Well, I mean, so I, around that time period, I first started getting into it. I was growing up in the Bay Area and my dad used to kind of make me watch all sorts of public science, television shows and stuff like that all the time. And there was quite a bit of them in the Bay Area from like UC Berkeley, places like that. (0:08:14)
And I think one of the first things I remember watching was on one of those networks, some show on UFOs came up and I thought it was super interesting. And so then I kind of went to go look for other material. And I kind of looked at some of the earlier, like, of course, some of the kids books, because that's what you'd find in a kid's library at the time. (0:08:27)
But some of like the Time Life stuff. And like, I was a big fan of like the Kehoe books, you know, like he has certainly got his problems. But, you know, I'm actually a big fan of the older books, than the newer stuff, to be honest. It was just like, nonstop case after case, right? Like you look at a Kehoe book, or like a RuPaul book, it's just like, case after case after case after case, it's just like a barrage of just like interesting stories that like you're reading about. (0:08:56)
And I just I love that. So yeah, that's what I kind of first got into it. And I was really into, we started like the whole computer internet thing at a very young age, like first doing like BBSs, like dial-up BBSs. And started to watch like UFO conversations, like on Fidonet, and things like Usenet newsgroups. (0:09:20)
And, and then like, in the mid 90s, started getting to like UFO Mind, which was like a major, like one of the first big UFO websites, and reading things like Glen Campbell's Desert Rat, you know, like in like middle school and whatnot. And then I got kind of distracted for a few years, you know, in my later high school years. (0:09:39)
And when I first started to go to college, where I just kind of paid attention to the topic on the backburner. And then I just kind of went full bore into it again. So, but yeah. (0:09:49)
Are you excited about that? Do you ever have moments like I do where I stand in my, my archive and just go, why? Why God? Yeah, well, I mean, sometimes, but it's less about the actual like material I've collected as far as like books, publications, magazines, like, like, I don't have an issue with the money I spend on that. I've spent an obscene amount of money on like UFO toys and collectibles and alien stuff and ET things. (0:10:24)
And, and sometimes I wonder why. I mean, I, I got a bit of a reputation at things like the Mufon Symposium and like the International UFO Congress and like the, the Roswell gift store for basically being the guy that comes in and buys almost everything they have and leaving with a literal carload full of stuff, like, and having to have help with bags to carry stuff out. (0:10:39)
And I would do this like every single year. So I've got stuff from like these events, right? Where I've literally got dozens of the exact same thing, right? I've got a storage unit full of like alien key chains and ceramic things. And I mean, I just like a ridiculous amount of money. And some of that stuff, I wonder, you know, should I really have spent all that money, particularly buying multiple copies of stuff, but I'm kind of, I guess, OCD like that. (0:11:07)
Like I like to collect multiple copies of the same book as well, you know, and I give them away to people like if like, oh, you need this book, here you go. And so you're an alien hoarder. Yeah, I'm a alien UFO ET hoarder. See, we could we could do a show about hoarding UFO stuff. (0:11:24)
It would be maybe two series. I mean, two shows. But maybe five, Jan and Barry, we could each have an episode. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I don't, I'm not quite like Jan. I hear he has like, just file cabinets, rooms of file cabinets and files and stuff. But yeah, I have so much stuff, I have to get a storage unit to kind of like, keep, keep it all in like, and, and then I've got like, my rooms look kind of like a mad professor's office, right? I've got like, stacks of books and papers, like five feet tall, you know, in various places, like, because I'm a paper person, I like to read, like with my hands, I don't like to read on the screen. (0:12:05)
And so like, even stuff I don't own original copies of, like a lot of old newsletters, like NYCAP newsletters, for example, or like, you know, like UFO investigator, I printed them all out and glue binded them into things so I could read them on paper. I can have a lot of old material I don't actually own stuff for but, and I've collected a lot of like, original stuff over the years, you know, but... That's so cool. (0:12:27)
I love collecting UFO material. (0:12:28)
I mean, you and I are like, obviously kindred spirits, because I just, there's not a day, even if I'm like, completely frustrated, where I just don't go in there and just scoop up piles of, you know, periodicals and research and just go, Oh, my gosh, this is like, so freaking cool. Yeah, clippings, and it's just, I don't know, I... I was very jealous of those boxes of old, old public case periodicals and stuff that you got, like, that's, that's amazing. (0:12:56)
Like I bought in some over the years, like, at various move on conferences, particularly the ones that they would have in California, they would, there'd be like a guy that would always sell a lot of those old magazines and old books. And so I collected quite a few from those conferences over the years, like old issues of like, you know, official UFO, UFO reporter, you know, stuff like that, Fate magazine, etc. (0:13:21)
But I don't have anywhere near as complete a collection of some of that stuff as I would like. But fortunately, these days, more and more gets digitized. And even if you don't have it, you can get access to it. Yeah, that's true. And I, but I will say I'm like you, because I'd like to have a physical copy of that. (0:13:39)
And I think, you know, I mean, I love the old covers for the books and for Fate magazine and different things are just really pieces of art, really. And so I love at night, you know, Jim Klotz was gracious enough a few years back, maybe six years ago to donate a majority of all of his periodicals and magazines to me. (0:14:00)
And so I mean, I have, I mean, I'm sure 2000 magazines, periodicals, blah, blah, blah, stuff from newsletters from all over the world. And then I mean, over, I have to have over 1000 at least books. And then there's the 80, well, 100 boxes of one original research, you know, from Alan Druffle, Gordon Lohr, from different people like that. So it's been like, so amazing. Like, I just am a geek. (0:14:29)
And I love it. And you can relate. It's amazing that, you know, and I'm jealous of that, like, I have not actually gotten any really thing from other people. I mean, I've gotten like a few publications from like the Swords History Group people that like they had duplicates of or they were getting rid of, but like, I don't have anybody's original case files, or, you know, I don't have as many periodicals as you do. (0:14:54)
Like I had to acquire mine, you know, bit at a time, like, I used to have comic stores and bookstores on the lookout for old periodicals and things about UFOs, like, and they would call me, they'd get them in, and I would come pick them up. And so I've had to collect my stuff more kind of like piecemeal over the years. (0:15:09)
But yeah, you sound like you have a great archive. I can't wait to visit it sometime. (0:15:10)
No, I can't wait. That'll be so much fun when you're out here to just have, you know, I mean, it's been I loved having Jan here. Jan Aldrich from Project 1947. You guys can definitely check out that website or the interviews that I've done with him in the past. But it was just fun to watch him go through the files and say, I know this person. (0:15:32)
I remember when this happened. Oh, this is the file that we've been missing. And, you know, and it was just like such a cool experience for me to have him here. And he was here for 10 days. Yeah, Jan's amazing. Like, I love Jan. He's such a great resource. Like, you know, like I get people that say like, I'm knowledgeable. (0:15:52)
And I'm like, man, I'm like an idiot compared to like Jan, you know, or like Barry Greenward or like these guys, like, these guys were doing this before I was even born. Like, you know, I'll spend a lifetime to catch up to those guys. Like, they're just they're so knowledgeable. Like I've had, you know, I've met Jan at Mike's house before and I've talked to him on the phone. (0:16:11)
And like you say, it's just he knows. It's like he knows everything. Like he's all these tidbits of historical information he has. And like I just taking notes and notes and notes and notes. Like I got to find out more about this. I got to find out more about this. (0:16:27)
So yeah, Jan, Jan is fantastic. I love Jan. Yeah, I mean, it's Yeah, it's fun getting to know those guys. And just, I mean, I get spending hours on the phone. I'm again, I'm a total nerd, you know, just listening to their stories. And when I, you know, whether people take this subject seriously, whether there's ET here, okay, I mean, I don't think so. (0:16:44)
But it is it's a fascinating subject. And the history of it is something like you've mentioned so many times that really deserves to be preserved for a multitude of reasons, not simply. And I think the probably one of the smaller reasons to preserve it would be because there's, you know, evidence of a UFO craft, because I don't think that's necessarily the case. (0:17:07)
But it's just it's the history, the players, the intelligence community, disinformation, all of these things, the social aspect of everything. It's a it really is a rich subject. And that's, you know, that's something that kind of fascinates me almost most of the topic is that I'm really into the whole like psychological and social aspects of the topic as well as like the religious or like religiosity that is involved in the topic. (0:17:35)
That's kind of where a lot of my personal side interest and stuff lies like these days, aside from covering the history of stuff. Like, if you follow me on Twitter, I'm always posting papers about like UFO religions and other, you know, social psychology papers and stuff like that. That's really interesting to me, particularly. And because I'm kind of agnostic about what UFOs are, right? Like, I think I want to think that maybe some of them could be ETs visiting us, but I just I just not really the evidence for that. (0:18:08)
Like, I hope that comes out to be true one day. I really, really do. But until then, and I'll be honest, it doesn't even really matter. Like, I still find this topic interesting. (0:18:13)
One of the things I've seen on Twitter recently is like, people talking about what are we gonna do with all these old UFO books and all these old UFOlogists once the truth comes out, you know, like once Grush stuff gets verified, like, we're just gonna throw all that stuff away. Isn't that going to be useless now? It's like, no, it's not like, why would it be useless? Like, it's all part of the history of this topic. (0:18:38)
And it's all still worthy of study. And the thing is, even if, and this is a big if something like Grush's claims would ever be verified, right? That does not verify any of the old previous claims, like each case has to be judged on its own merits, right? You got to judge it individually. So just because so if Grush's claims come true, that doesn't make Balbazar right. (0:18:59)
It doesn't make Roswell right. It doesn't make Corso right. Like, all these people in the past can still be wrong and liars. Even if what Grush was saying was true, for example, Grush or anyone else is saying it's true. So that the history of this topic, it's all part of the history of the topic. And it's all interesting to study, you know, for, you know, social, psychological reasons, you know, methodological, folklore reasons, you know, there's, there's just so many ways to look at this topic. (0:19:25)
And this topic will always be here. Again, this is why I don't think it's going to die. People like, is UFOlogy going to die once the truth comes out? It's like, well, what? Like, what, what exact truth, right? I mean, people always see things in the sky, they can't identify, like, there will always be stuff to investigate. Like, again, even if you prove that there ever was some ET visiting us, like, that's not going to kill the UFO topic. Like, the UFO topic will never die. It's ongoing perpetual cycle. (0:19:52)
It repeats a lot. It goes in loops. But it'll keep going. You aren't kidding about that. Oh, my Lord. Wow. And Serpo again. Here we go. MJ-12. Yeah, yeah, everything comes back again. It's, it's like, you know, the UFO topic is zombie land, right? Like, things, things that should have died a long time ago, just keep coming back up from the grave and just keep trodding along. (0:20:18)
It's like, it's, it's a bit crazy. But it is, it is. And I think it's interesting, you know, that you mentioned that, you know, okay, we've, you know, if we find out with disclosures, like seriously here, then we don't need any of the UFO history and forget the the old timers and yada, you know, all this nonsense. And it almost, to me, parallels what we're seeing with the book burning, burnings taking place all over the country. (0:20:39)
It's like, oh, we don't need to know about Hitler, forget it, let's burn it. We don't need to know. (0:20:44)
And so that really does kind of parallel what's going on. And it does make you wonder, you know, what's, are there people in organizations involved in promoting the conspiracy narrative? And also, you know, wanting to upend democracy? I don't know, that's a deep question. We're gonna have to go into that. (0:21:12)
But anyway. It's definitely fascinating. So and I want to go back because I will be in trouble if I don't ask you your question. So you're asked the questions from the crowd. And so did you have you ever had a personal experience reciting? I mean, so I've seen just like weird things, right? Like fleeting things that I, you know, for example, like, I would be driving, and I would see what looked like light reflecting off a metallic object in the sky for about a second, and then pass under an overpass, and that split second is out of view, it wouldn't be there anymore, right? You know, what is that probably distant plane that the sun reflected off, and then I just can't see it anymore. I don't know. (0:21:54)
I've seen things that people would probably call UFO sightings, but I knew they were not. I've seen like a flare drop out at Area 51 that looked just like 29 Palms video that we recently saw from Jeremy Corbell, but just kind of like the Phoenix light video that everybody's seen. (0:22:11)
Only again, I knew it was a flare drop. I on my road trips, I have a scanner I bring with me and I actually listened to them say they're doing the flare drop. So I've seen a lot of like things that are kind of weird, but after some investigation, I was able to kind of come up with explanations for it. (0:22:27)
I've never seen anything that was so strange that, you know, I couldn't come up with a plausible explanation for it. I'd like to, but yeah. I mean, it is interesting because over the, you know, I had sightings that I thought were unusual, and now that I've learned more, I definitely some of those experiences can be, you know, obviously explained. There's still a couple that I can't explain, but that's my, that's my own thing. (0:22:51)
So I'll figure it out at some point in time. But yeah, I do. It's just because they're not explained doesn't necessarily mean they're anything, you know, super anomalous or unusual. It's just some things are just like weird. Like there's a lot of reasons things can't be explained that don't necessitate it being, you know, ET or non-human or whatever. (0:23:12)
Absolutely. I've been with people that have claimed that, you know, I've been in groups of people like, that's a UFO. Like while they're sitting there watching what they claim is UFO, right? And I'm like, no, man, that's a satellite. Like, look, let me show you on my phone here. Like there's something that boggles the mind is why people don't, it's really easy to install like a Starfinder app, like on your phone, right? Or like flight radar to be able to, flight radar even has like augmented reality mode where you can like point it and it'll say the plane that, you know, is up there. (0:23:39)
Like, like why don't people do this? Like so many of the basic sightings that get posted to TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, whatever, like could be solved if they just checked a couple of apps on their phone before they bothered posting like the video, but people just don't do this for some reason. (0:23:54)
So much more fun to believe it's a UFO than to actually get on flight radar, you know, and figure out where, you know, the flight corridors for airports are and, you know, blah, blah, blah. I mean, there, but to me, like when I started investigating that, that was kind of the fun part was learning where flight corridors were, learning where, you know, you've got rifted airspace, learning about different types of airspace and, and drones and Chinese lanterns and, and people's visual, you know, visions, vision at night and how they misidentify specific things. And, you know, so to me, that was really fascinating. (0:24:26)
And I think people should, instead of like feeling sad that they're not capturing a UFO or, you know, they make a mistake kind of like say, wait a minute, this is a learning experience. (0:24:36)
And this is really kind of cool. Exactly. I mean, I think that's, I've said it before. I think probably one of the most under appreciated things in UFOlogy is just the way like the, the brain and the human like visual system works. You know, I'm fascinated by like visual illusions and various perceptual and perceptual distortion and errors that people get and various types of effects that are kind of well known, like things like, like flashlight effects, like that really would come into play with UFO sightings, but it's just not really something that most people in UFOlogy pay any attention to. (0:25:17)
I mean, some do, like you've got like researchers I really respect, like, you know, like Vincent Wan, Ballester-Omos, like that guy's great. And like the recent book, Reliability of Witness Testimony that get into some of these issues. But the, one of the things I find saddest is like a lot of times when I post papers about this stuff, I get attacked, like, how dare you, like be a debunker? Like, I'm like, but this, I'm not debunking anything. (0:25:39)
I'm just like, this stuff is important to like, understand, like, when you're evaluating sightings and cases and what's going on, like, you can understand this stuff and still think this topic's interesting. So it's... Yeah. But you know, I mean, I think it's interesting because most of the people that are crying debunker and skeptic, I mean, they're probably on somebody's payroll at the end of the day. (0:26:01)
You know, it's like, make sure you're going out there and discredit everybody. And, you know, like we've seen with Elizondo, kind of creating these groups behind the scenes and having your minions that will go out and do your bidding on social media, you know. It's funny that they've got that little small little circle of them that, you know, kind of always pushing the narrative, you know, that who's publishing the stories about Grush? The same people that are all connected to Elizondo, right? Like the people that are doing the interviews, the reporting, they're all connected together. (0:26:35)
It's all a small circle of people pushing the same narrative. Yet it's the skeptics and so-called debunkers that get accused of being on the payroll. I tell you right now, I've never got a paycheck. I'm still waiting. I guess the government accounting department is real slow on that one because I'm not getting paid. Yeah, I hear you on that one. (0:26:56)
I, yeah, I've like you, I've spent so much money on this subject and so much time away from loved ones and my business and things like that. But I've had some grand adventures for sure. And so I want to go back. So 10 years ago, you say, you know, you had, you were into crypto when it, you know, everything was kind of taking a big pumping up and you made money and you decided because you wanted to go research all of this that you were going to quit your job and then go for it and then just travel. (0:27:26)
And so what was, what, where, where did you first go? I mean, so yeah, basically I had, I had some business adventures. Like I basically worked for myself like for long before that. Cause I, I'm, I'm also disabled. So like, it's kind of hard for me to work a normal nine to five. So I've kind of always just worked for myself. And I just, I had some business things that worked out. (0:27:51)
I put money in crypto and that kind of just allowed me to spend 10 years doing this. So I just started to, you know, I started first just kind of going around all the conferences, you know, like I would be a regular at like all the, like the move on, you know, at the McMinnville, the international UFO Congress, like I travel around all these conference, the Roswell event. (0:28:12)
And then I started to go to like the Roswell library a lot, spend time researching in the research library all the time. And I would visit all the just UFO famous kind of locations I could go to, you know, like I probably spent two months camping out at Area 51, just like watching the skies. (0:28:31)
Like I spent about three weeks or so out at the corner of Skinwalker Ranch, like from 2015 to 2020, just kind of watching, you know, what's going on. (0:28:36)
And I must have been exciting for you. And I'll say like, I didn't really see anything unusual. I mean, I picked up that mythical 1.6 gigahertz back in 2015. But I immediately identified what it was like, it was not a mystery. So I mean, I've been to a lot of these places, I like to just visit the historical locations, I don't really expect to see anything myself when I'm out there. (0:29:01)
But it's just kind of interesting, just being there, you know, like this is where a major story happened. And so I just traveled around to all the kind of beautiful locations I could think of, you know, the UFO Watchtower in Colorado and staying up there overnight and just, and I spent most of, until COVID, I'd be out on the road most of the year, probably 80% of the year driving around, you know, doing research and going to sites and going to conferences and collecting material. (0:29:31)
And so fun. I mean, it is fun to actually like stand, you know, in a place where you've heard all of these stories. And then it's either like, wow, this is so cool, or oh my lord, this is kind of dorky. You know, I mean, it's I mean, I like to travel anyway. (0:29:50)
So it's like, it's cool just to go out to like these places, like, like the Travis Walton site, like I don't really necessarily think he was abducted or anything like that. But it's a beautiful place with wild horses, like Dorothy got into it with a wild horse out there. And, you know, this, it's, I particularly like the southwest a lot, like Utah and New Mexico. And, and I, I don't do 100% UFO stuff on my trips. (0:30:13)
I'm also a bit of a geology nerd. And I like to visit like places I like, just in archaeology and anthropology and stuff like that. That's kind of like what my hobby is. I like to think UFOs are my unpaid career. My hobbies are geology, archaeology, anthropology, stuff like that. That's so cool. (0:30:33)
What it's such a fun adventure. I love going places and hearing stories from locals and just kind of observing the culture. But I want to go back because everyone wants to know what the signal was, what you identified the signal at Skinwalker Ranch. So like the 1.6, right? So the 1.6 signal, and part of the problem is there's a lot of like, like ambiguity when they say 1.6, as if 1.6 is the same thing, right? So if you actually notice, for example, on the TV show, sometimes it's 1.645, 1.623, 1.60, like it's, and you know, so 40, 50 megahertz is a pretty wide difference on the spectrum. (0:31:13)
But for the most part, the 1.6 they're typically picking up is right on like the like the GLONASS system, like the Global Positioning System frequency. I think in some cases, it could also just be a feedback error. (0:31:23)
So the software defined radios that I've seen them use on the show, particularly in the earlier seasons, were just these really cheap RTL-SDR devices. And they kind of max out at 1.7 gigahertz. And so once they're starting to get up to 1.6, they start to get problems, and they're not as well insulated. (0:31:47)
So they get a lot of feedback. So I think in some of those cases, it could even be they're getting feedback from either the graphics processor on the laptop they're using or the PC. But most of the time, it's just going to be the Global Positioning Systems that are flying above us like at all times. (0:32:06)
1.6 is also used for rural gas and oil monitoring equipment. So for example, they've got one back at the time, I actually traced one of the signals to a monitoring station that it's not on the ranch, like, like, so I've never been on the other side of the fence. It's private property, and I don't trespass. (0:32:23)
But there's a spot they kind of called like the like the UFO watch spot, that was kind of like this dirt turn off on like the other side of the fence. And like, I would just kind of pull in there and like camp, you know, in my car. And it's also kind of an access road for the oil and gas companies. (0:32:38)
And there's like the monitoring equipment that monitors like the the wells and stuff, and those can use it. 1.6 is also licensed out for first responders for rural like first responders, like ambulances and stuff like that. So whatever it is, it's a human signal. It's not anything unusual, right? And you can pick up the 1.6 signal anywhere. Just to demonstrate it last summer, I, I picked it up in my, you know, room here. (0:33:01)
And I posted a picture of the screenshot, because I always travel with my own software defined radios. And I've got everything from the RTL ones they use to nicer ones, like hack RF ones, blade RF ones, that are a bit higher quality and better equipment. And you can pick up that signal anywhere. It's not that unusual. (0:33:23)
And I started watching the new show, the spin-off, right? And they're also picking it up basically everywhere they're going. I mean, this just kind of shows like it's a, it's a human signal. And I'll tell you, I talked to Seth Shostack, you know, at SETI after they had him on Skinwalker Ranch, and they asked him about the signal. Because people on Twitter, and this is kind of how I got on Twitter last summer, I started off with the whole Skinwalker thing. They were saying, SETI is now investigating the 1.6 signal. I'm like, no, that can't be true. (0:33:48)
So I got ahold of Seth, and he's like, no, we're not. Like, it's a human signal that we have absolutely zero interest in. And he emailed me back, and I posted that, I shared that email too. (0:33:58)
And so it's, yeah, it's not an unusual signal. It's normal human, you know, communication signal, typically for global positioning systems that are up in the sky. And people argue, well, yeah, it's not the US GPS systems. Those are more around 1.574. So it's the GLONASS system, which the Russians developed. But those satellites still go all around everywhere in the world and provide coverage. (0:34:29)
In fact, a lot of like the drones that you'll use for surveying equipment will use different GNSS systems like GLONASS or Beidou, which is China's system, as well as the US one to provide better and greater accuracy on their positioning. Yeah, it's a human signal. That's what it is. Interesting. Well, I mean, as if we didn't know that there was something, you know, to be skeptical about with that. (0:34:54)
And, you know, what else, you know, since you, I had heard you talk on Steve's show about, you know, how, like, Skinwalker was, in a way, I mean, taking... Well, for me, and let me just, let me go back. For me, looking at the Skinwalker myth, the origin story that was definitely inserted by, created and inserted by Knapp, you know, because there was, you know, obviously, that's where it began. (0:35:20)
And, and people can try to go back or the show producers or whoever can try to go back and say, Oh, no, we've got this person over here that's gonna, you know, whatever, but it's, it's all a means to basically hijack, you know, somebody's specific group, Navajo, some ideas and oral history. And it, to me, it's very demeaning. And I don't know, what do you, what are your thoughts on that? If that, if I'm making sense? (0:35:46)
Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, like, there, I think it's problematic, how a lot of paranormal and new age, like communities kind of appropriate these indigenous, like ideas and beliefs and try and like, you know, appropriate them as, you know, I'll tell you, I asked people around Skinwalker Ranch, like, but I talked to some tribal police, I talked to like the neighbors next to the ranch and various other people in the area. (0:36:15)
And, and I will say this contradicts what other people claim, like Ryan Skinner has claimed when he's interviewed people. But everyone I talked to says it's bunk, it's garbage. All the tribal police I talked to said, it's the stupidest thing they've ever heard of, like, they've never seen anything out there. Like, all the native people in the community I talked to out there all said it's all stupid, like, there's no Skinwalker out there. (0:36:40)
There's no, you know, paranormal thing going on. That's, and I don't know how to, you know, you know, compare that to again, like I say, other people say they've talked to a lot of people out there, and they say they have seen stuff, and they do think it's all real. (0:36:54)
But I will say the people I talked to, you know, a few years ago, like, all thought it was kind of silly. And because I would talk to the tribal police quite a bit when I'd be camping out there, they'd pull up kind of behind me and just be like, what are you doing out here, just kind of checking to make sure what's going on. (0:37:05)
And I'd ask them questions. And like, they pretty universally thought it was kind of silly and stupid. And thought I was wasting my time out there. But yeah, I would imagine that would be a hassle for them in a lot of ways, you know, to have people kind of encroaching on, you know, their place property. (0:37:27)
And then also, you know, you see in the new, well, in the series, not spinoff, but it's like your people are claiming that there are these sacred sites, you know, on the property, which is just garbage. I mean, give me a break, you know, okay, let's get some stones and toss them in a little circle. And then we're going to pretend like this is something that is sacred. (0:37:50)
And again, there are, you know, I mean, there are laws in place to protect things like that, even if you're a private owner, if the owner's private, you know, property, and things, their protocols, you have to follow with regard to that. And so it's just, it's again, just shameful that, you know, here you have people that are claiming radiation, but yet nothing's been reported. (0:38:14)
And so you've got, and I remember, and I talk about this on my show a lot, but this just cracks me up. I was at the one of the conferences in Vernal, and which was a lot of fun when I walked in, I can tell you, I really, people were not like, Oh, my, the witch, she's here. (0:38:31)
But I, you know, went up to Travis Taylor, and I said, Travis, you're claiming that there are there's, you know, this radiation that is hurting people that could potentially kill people. And what are you doing to work with community leaders? And, you know, to work with the right people, organizations to make sure that other people in the surrounding area aren't harmed by this radiation? And he just looks at me, well, that's what the TV show does. (0:39:02)
And it's like, science by paranormal television. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that assumes there is radiation that's dangerous in the first place that needs to be reported. As I pointed out on multiple occasions, like I've taken screenshots of like, like they made a big deal about they continue to make a big deal about how he was exposed, right? They show like a little bump on his hand that looks more like, like a heat blister, like an insect bite or something, right? If you actually look at the meter, they show on the screen, he was in safe levels the entire time, right? Like it was basically background level. (0:39:35)
But yet they continue to repeat that claim. And in fact, on the recent spinoff, they bring out this new gamma camera. And again, he makes claims like that's 10 millisieverts like an hour. That's super dangerous, right? Well, I mean, it's certainly higher than normal, but it's about like, you know, probably a few CT scans or something. And again, that assumes you're going to stand in that one spot for like hours at a time, you know, to collect that much radiation instead of just walking through it. (0:40:13)
Like the point is none of those people were ever exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, not that they've ever shown on the TV show anyways. And the amount of radiation you actually need. And I, again, I posted charts of like the effects of different levels of radiation and how long you have to be exposed to get any of the kind of effects that they talk about experiencing on the ranch. (0:40:32)
They would need to expose, be exposed to exponentially more for extremely long distance periods of time in order to get any of those kind of effects. And they're just, they weren't. I think if people are having health effects, it's probably more environmental in the sense of, you know, oil and gas, you know, you know, particulates like BOCs that end up in the air from the drilling and stuff from the oil and gas. (0:40:55)
In fact, the entire basin has like a serious methane leak problem, right? And particularly during certain times of the year, they basically get this ozone cloud over the whole valley because of the way the topology is in that region where all those oil and gas particles just, just collect there. And they don't go away for sometimes weeks at a time until a strong wind comes through the basin and kind of clears it all out. (0:41:22)
So I think what's more likely if people are suffering ill health effects that aren't psychosomatic, it's probably because of the various chemicals and oil and gas products and mining in the region. And we know from studies and other areas that do oil and gas mining, things that are very common are respiratory illnesses, you know, chronic rhinitis problems, which is actually something I think Chris Bartel says he got at the ranch. (0:41:43)
And you get things like migraines, fatigue, nausea, you know, these are all things that keep talking about on the show as I'm experiencing, and these are all common effects of living in areas with heavy oil and gas mining. And the, you know, the Uinta Basin there, the ranches that literally are in what's like called the Altamount Bluebell, like oil and gas field, basically, like that whole region, it's got something like 2000 something like wells drilled into it. (0:42:10)
You know, it's, so I think that's likely that's causing health problems, not, not any radiation that they've never presented any evidence actually exists. (0:42:18)
Yeah, no, I absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more. And it is interesting how, you know, some people who have a vested interest in potentially making money because of creating infrastructure for the new stuff that's going on up there, the Uinta Basin Railway, and all of that, I mean, they, you know, it's the same group of people, you know, and you look at Tom Winterton's father, who's strategically positioned as a senator in the community, and, you know, lots of interesting dynamics going on there. (0:42:52)
But it is a place that is the health effects are, I think, pretty serious at the end of the day for people. And I know, here in Utah, Physicians for Healthy Living is a great organization. I typically watch, I subscribe to their email list, and they talk about the Uinta Basin and the health implications from what's going on with the oil and gas industry. (0:43:17)
So it's quite sad. And it is also, too, when you've got, you know, people like Jeremy Korbel and people that are on the Skinwalker Ranch show saying that this is, oh my gosh, you're getting cancer, or these things are happening because you're exposed to UFOs. That's certainly a great way to, you know, create this kind of a, just a gray area so people can get away with, you know, things to make money. (0:43:44)
Yeah, it's one of the things I try and do with the Skinwalker Ranch show is that I try and kind of, so I still watch the show, yes, I still watch the show, is when I watch it and I see stuff that just doesn't seem true. I like to do threads where I provide all sorts of scientific papers and information to kind of like back up like what I'm saying and kind of provide more resources for people. (0:44:06)
Like recently they talked about something about the soil, right? So I did a long thread of like papers on soil studies of the Uintah Basin and, you know, the area of Utah in general. I've done long threads about like the geology of the region and that's something I think that is, for all the talk about underground and the digging and stuff like, why don't they have a geologist on the TV show that actually knows about this stuff? Like instead of saying stuff that, you know, five minutes of googling would, you know, correct. (0:44:42)
But so that's what I try to do. I try to provide, I do my own googling and because I'm already kind of a geology nerd and stuff, I kind of already dug into this stuff a long time ago and share a lot of these resources because so much of what they say on the show, you're right, is just it's sensational claims. (0:44:56)
They don't really have any basis in like reality or really any understanding of the topic they're talking about, particularly when it comes to stuff like the ground, the dirt, the geology, etc. Like the geology of the Uinta Basin is pretty well studied, I mean, and it's been pretty well studied for several decades now. Like it's, you know, there's been multiple uranium surveys of the area, you know, there's... they made a big deal on a recent episode about magnetic anomalies in the area. (0:45:23)
I was like, well, yeah, that's actually fairly well known that there's a bit of magnetic anomaly in that area of Utah. I mean, there's been multiple gravity and aeromagnetic surveys of the region. And so I posted images and links to all those surveys and stuff for people to actually check out. Because so much what they say on the show, even if it's not untrue, it's not unusual is what it is like, you know, like, yeah, I'm not disputing you found say that in the dirt, but that's not actually that unusual. (0:45:51)
Like selenium, that's not that unusual to find in the area. Like, but yeah, Skinrock Ranch kind of... drives me crazy. But I don't know, I'm still kind of on it. (0:46:03)
Well, welcome to my world. Put some of these comments out because this is cracking me up. I just love... I just love some of the comments you guys make in chat. Skinrock Ranch sits on a huge deposit of BS. Good. Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. Yeah, it is interesting to see how that just, I don't know what captures the imagination and, and I don't understand like I have it. (0:46:35)
Well, actually, here at my studio, the Pilates studio, I have a, you know, like everybody comes in and we talk about the show. You know, oh my gosh, did you see that? And I think my clients have maybe watched like four episodes and they're like, oh my lord, no, that's just not working for me anymore. (0:46:50)
But it is kind of... I would say I've seen all the episodes probably at least two or three times each, you know, I'll go through them because I'll take screenshots and I'll try and dig stuff up about them. But I mean, one of the things that bothers me the most about the show, and I mentioned this on Twitter, I think today that is that they never correct, even when things are explained or properly debunked, like it's never corrected in the show, like they never do on air corrections, right? In fact, not only do they not correct things that they found out to be wrong, they continue to repeat the same false and debunked claims over multiple episodes or even multiple seasons after it was already shown to be incorrect, you know, a long time ago. (0:47:32)
It'd be one thing, you could argue that they were working in good faith that they at least corrected their errors, you could argue that there's no reason they should have been making those errors in the first place, but at least if they corrected them, but they just don't. They continue to repeat the claims even after they're debunked. (0:47:46)
Like I won't be surprised if this recent fly debacle that, you know, has been all over Twitter this last week is continued to be shown the entire rest of the season and the next season, instead of putting out a thing saying we were wrong about that it was a fly. Well, I mean, it's so obvious. It's like, you could see the wings. I mean, it's like, this is what bothers me about a lot of people in this topic, like, like Jeremy Corbell, for example, like, when something you put out turns out to be garbage, just own up to it. (0:48:18)
It would give you more credibility if you owned up to your mistakes. And hey, I was wrong about that. Let's move on. But they don't, they never do. They double down, they triple down, they continue to like promote it. Like, I think he's still claiming stars in the sky are pyramid spaceships. Like, it's like, why don't you just admit you're wrong? Like you would, I'd have more respect for you if you could admit you're wrong about certain things than just to continue to blunder on, like, you know, you weren't shown to be completely inaccurate. (0:48:43)
Well, and I think that's the, I've never understood why they didn't give themselves that wiggle room to be, you know, gracious enough to say, okay, wait a minute, there are really great people that are researchers outside of our little group of people that have something to say that could be relevant. (0:49:04)
And we could all be working together and include, you know, other researchers and people in the community. But instead, it's just like, no, you're a filthy swine, you're this, you're that, you're calling, you know, the great wizard of Oz, you know, a fraudster. And it's like, yep, pretty much because nothing is factual. I mean, it is, like you mentioned, it's been, it has been proven to not be factual, and they continue to repeat inaccurate claims, just in, you know, just to make money and continue the, the, you know, whatever the nonsense is, but it's, it's, it is... It's not just Skinwalker, that's the UFO topic in a nutshell, basically, you know, but yeah, it's, it's, yeah, I think that's, that's crazy. (0:49:47)
Personally, like, I'd love to be proven wrong. If you can prove me wrong about something, that's awesome. Like, I actually love to learn new things, like, and if you have the evidence to show me that what I said was inaccurate, bring it on, I'll be the first person to accept it. Like, like, that's, and maybe that's unusual, but like, I'd like to be proven wrong, if you can do it, like, bring it on. (0:50:07)
Like, I have, I have no problem admitting I got something wrong, if you can show that I got it wrong, and more people should approach it that way, but they just, they don't, and that's unfortunate. (0:50:15)
It is, and it definitely shows you motivations, you know, somebody who's like you, who cares about the topic and, and cares about getting good information out to people. It's like, okay, if I'm, if I'm wrong, then bring it on. And, you know, that's, that's something that we've never heard from that group of people. It's just like, oh, you're going against, you know, against the mob boss, and we got to shut you down, because, you know, the truth, the truth isn't what we're claiming. (0:50:44)
And it's, it's really sad. And it says, says a lot about, you know, that group. And I also think it really does a disservice to those of us who are genuinely trying to find something tangible or credible in the topic. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's one of the things that, you know, a lot of the people that, once you kind of try and be skeptical of some of these claims, you kind of show certain things are wrong, like, you get attacked for it, you know, like, basically being called a skeptic or debunker is like a pejorative, right? Like, like, it's basically an insult in this community when, and it shouldn't be, it absolutely should not be like, why would you not want to get rid of the bunk? Why would you not want to get rid of the garbage and the hoaxers and the liars? Like, so we can focus on other things. (0:51:36)
So we can focus on things that might, you know, be fruitful and something might come from them. And that's kind of a lot of the problem in UFOlogy is like, there's so many of these cases that people have got kind of stuck up on over the years, everything from Roswell to Nimitz, that they just kind of like obsess over for years, decades, etc. (0:51:50)
That really probably, no matter what you want to believe about them, aren't really going to change anything. It's not like going to go forward, like, and people, you know, people are still on Balbazar, you know, people are still on people that are pretty definitively known liars, like, and their whole story is like a fraud. (0:52:12)
Like, you should want to get rid of this stuff. Like, there shouldn't be any negativity towards solving a case, like you should want to solve a case. But the problem is, once you solve something, it's no longer a mystery. And that's no fun, right? People want to keep the mystery going. They want to perpetuate the sensationalism. And but yeah, something that again, I just wanted to mention, like, like Mick West talks about, like crowdsourcing, you should be taking advantage of the community and other researchers and other people out there to help solve these cases. (0:52:41)
You should be looking forward to their contributions and what they can contribute, instead of, you know, attacking people. But unfortunately, that's not the case for a lot of these people. No, definitely isn't the case. It is. It's interesting that they, you know, don't have that they, that people can't be professional enough, and indirect enough and have an ethical backbone to want to engage in this topic and have debates with people who are bringing up valid criticisms. (0:53:12)
You know, it's like, it's that should be that that's the way things are done in a professional setting. And, you know, we've never demanded, we've never expected that from the UFO community. And just think of how, how much progress we could have made, you know, in in some of these, these things had we demanded and expected that we behave in a professional manner, and ethically. (0:53:39)
And, you know, it's like, but we don't we allow things to take place, just because I guess we don't have a backbone or, or enchanted by, you know, the man flying a helicopter or driving a Maserati. And, you know, I mean, all of this stuff, or, you know, Colonel Corso, or just all these people who claim to have, you know, all this insider information, and we let a lot of things pass. (0:54:05)
And this should be one example, this should be one area where we do not let things slide. Yeah, and this is something again, that like you and Jack, like, you know, bring up all the time is like, this is about standards of evidence, right? Like, like the UFO community just does not really approach this in a scientific way. (0:54:24)
Like, even the people in this community that claim to be doing it scientifically, just still like are not really having proper standards of evidence, you know, they don't, they still don't really understand how like burden of proof works. Like, like, you look at even, even groups that claim to be scientific, like SCU, for example, like, they still all start with this assumption that it's a, like an anomalous object, right? Like, that's kind of backwards, right? You should, if you have a explanations first, and if you cannot come to a determination, in that manner, then you can leave it as anomalous. (0:55:05)
But instead, they work backwards, they assume a UFO is like a real, like a true UFO, like a anomalous object that cannot be like human craft. And then they want you to prove that it's not. And so, and that's just not how it works. That's literally backwards. That's like shifting the burden of proof to like the wrong person. (0:55:23)
And it's, so it's even when you get scientific people on this topic, they're still operating mostly from like a belief based system where they're then just like dressing up their belief and the trappings of science, you know, to make it sound more scientific. Right, you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's the UFOlogy could use an overhaul, like I don't think it's destroyed, but there's certainly it would, it would help people approach this more scientifically. (0:55:52)
Absolutely. I could not agree with you more. I know everybody that listens to the show would feel the same way. It does feel the same way, actually, but I want to ask you like about some of the like abduction research. And I want to address, there was a question that was apparently, just find it really quickly, that it's Gitterone, I might be pronouncing that incorrectly, but he asked, he seems to remember you referring to an alien abduction as a gray zone. (0:56:25)
Yeah, like my gray basket or something like that. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, as far as the topic goes, like, like abductions for the, for the longest time or something that I wasn't all that particularly interested in, like, I kind of started off as more of a nuts and bolts kind of like guy, right? Like, like, like many of those people, I thought like abductions were kind of like more woo, like kind of crazy stuff, and didn't really want to get into that. (0:56:53)
Now, I'm interested in it mostly because of like, the lore, you know, the mythology and all that kind of stuff. But the thing is, like, I don't think there's evidence that we can say we're being that any UFO has been a ET or a non-human intelligence or whatever buzzword you want to use today is. (0:57:13)
So if I don't think there's evidence for that, how can I think that they're actually abducting people? The whole abduction thing just never really made a whole lot of sense to me that they're just coming and pulling up people. So, I mean, like, say I'm agnostic, I'm willing to be proven wrong if you could prove me wrong that somebody was abducted, like, I'm open to the evidence if it exists, but I just, I don't think it does. (0:57:35)
The abduction stuff to me is more interesting because I'm interested in things like false memory, memory distortion, you know, other psychological factors that come into play. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people are crazy because they say they're abductions. This is another problem, I think, of this topic is that people have all these, like, false dichotomies where they think you're either saying they're crazy or it's true. (0:57:53)
Like, that's not the only option, right? Like, people can be wrong and honestly believe stuff, and they're not crazy. That doesn't mean they're insane or, like, perfectly normal people can hallucinate, have visual distortions, they can... as somebody who's experienced sleep paralysis, I can certainly see why some people think, like, that would be an abduction experience. (0:58:15)
Right, that's a frightening experience, actually. Yeah, it's like, it's terrifying. Like, I've been, like, laid in bed where, like, you know, you're paralyzed, you can't move. And it's like, I felt like there's, like, entities, like, in the room and, like, somebody coming and then, like, the old hate phenomenon sitting on my chest, you know. And I've gotten this kind of, like, immense feeling of, like, negativity, like, there's almost evil presence, you know. (0:58:40)
And, like, it's a scary kind of situation. And I've had other kind of, like, hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations as well. And there's just so many possibilities that don't come down to people being crazy. Like, the accusation is skeptics are saying these people are crazy, they're nuts, they're idiots. Like, that's, that's just not really accurate. That's just, that's too simplistic of an explanation. (0:59:07)
There's so many other factors going on that doesn't come down to people being nuts or crazy. Right. It doesn't disservice to say it does. So, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for, for addressing that. And I want to say, the Spark lady's asking a question about, you know, we're saying that, you know, people have belief systems. (0:59:28)
We go back and just actually read this the right way, because I will just make it my own version of what she said. Let's see. Okay, where is it? All right. An honest question. We talk a lot about how many members of the community of believers not adhering to standards of evidence, does that issue exist in the skeptical community too? And, you know, I would say, definitely, thanks, Mario, for putting the question up. (0:59:52)
I am, I would say that there are some skeptics who are as, as unwilling to look at facts and reality as true believers are. I mean, it obviously is, is goes both ways. For me, you know, when I see people that are just going to, they're, they're going to live and die on a hill. (1:00:11)
So, but there are people like you and I, who are not skeptics, we want good information. And that's how everybody should be on both sides, or if you have a propensity to, to want to think that this is happening. I mean, it should be a grounded and thoughtful approach to things, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, they're absolutely. (1:00:35)
Now, again, this is a kind of a word that the UFO community uses incorrectly when they love to call skeptics, pseudo skeptics. There are real pseudo skeptics, right? Like, this is kind of one of the reasons why, like people like Truzy had like a problem with the word skepticism and decided to use the word zetticism instead, right? Like, and he started the Zetetic Scholar, you know, publication and whatnot, is because he felt some skeptics were too kind of ideological, like that, again, they wouldn't accept evidence, or they were too stuck in their belief that they wouldn't even look at the evidence. (1:01:05)
And so that does absolutely exist in the skeptic community. Unfortunately, again, when people use the word pseudo skeptic on UFO Twitter, they're almost completely wrong in how they use it. But yeah, everyone, you know, even skeptics are vulnerable to, you know, issues of like belief and what they want to accept and what they want to look at. (1:01:25)
We all process everything through our own biases and our own kind of perceptual filters. And everybody's immune to it. It doesn't matter how educated you are, or how uneducated you are. Like, we're all human, and we're all subject to these things. So it absolutely exists in both communities, you know, skeptical and believers and everything in between. And, and again, I think that's one of those things that it's not like there's just like two sides, like skeptical or believer, right? Like, I mean, like, I'm a skeptical individual, right? (1:01:56)
I wouldn't say I'm a believer, but I'm open to like evidence. It's just I want to see evidence before I accept something to be true. So and it's because I want to believe I believe it's important to be skeptical, because I already have that bias where I really want this stuff to be true. (1:02:17)
I'd love to find out there's alien spaceships, right? Or, you know, we're being visited, like, I think that would be the most amazing thing in the universe. But it's because I have that, that kind of want to believe, I believe I need to be extra careful, and be extra skeptical about like, when I approach claims and look at, you know, verifying evidence to kind of counteract that, that desire I have. (1:02:40)
I think skepticism is important that people should, you know, adopt it. And it shouldn't be a negative word in this community. Because again, it doesn't mean we don't think there's nothing to this topic, right? The opposite. Like, every time I'll say something skeptical about a case, you'll get the responses from people that are like, how can you not believe there's intelligent life in the universe? Like, did I say anything about intelligent life in the universe? Of course, I think it's probable that there's intelligent life in the universe. (1:03:07)
Like, I think that's pretty well accepted by scientists that there's probably intelligent life in the universe. Like, did I say the whole topic is bunk? Because I think that, you know, this specific case is bunk? No, I didn't. Like, it's because I care about this topic that I'm skeptical about various claims. Like, again, I want, I think it's important to get rid of the bunk and the junk that's out there. (1:03:26)
And if anyone actually like, follows me, it should be quite clear, I do care deeply about this topic, I wouldn't have spent all my time, money and effort on it, if I thought there was no reason to study this topic. Right? Quite the opposite, actually, I think there's a lot of reasons to study this topic, for a lot of different and a lot of different approaches to do when studying this topic. (1:03:49)
So absolutely, I agree. And people absolutely, if you guys haven't followed Jeff on Twitter, definitely do that, because he puts out some great threads. I always look at your every day and looking at what you're posting. And, and I really enjoy like seeing some of the the old magazine clippings or just like some old, you know, I mean, you've got some great information out there. (1:04:10)
And I think that people like you, Steve Long, who's in chat, who was just did a great job on the show. A couple weeks ago. Yeah. And I mean, just my I'm really there's so many thoughtful and intelligent people who want to address this in, in the right way. And I really am enjoying like this community that we're creating of people that aren't going to accept nonsense and people that want to find actual information. (1:04:40)
I think there is a really great shift happening right now, as much as I look at some of the Elizondo antics and the you know, Grush and you know, all of that clown show, you know, kind of and just think, Oh, my Lord, this could totally put the topic back. You know, I'm not well, I'm not sure we'll put it back decades. (1:05:02)
I'm not sure if it was ever one, two steps forward, 10 steps back for every event. Yeah, it's, it's a Yeah, I like to think of it kind of as like this skeptical UFO Twitter community. Like there's like, there's a decent group of people, those of us that kind of like have an interest in this topic, but we still kind of adhere more to better standards of evidence and verifying claims and have interest in that kind of stuff. (1:05:29)
And I think a lot of people would be surprised that actually, like a lot of the people that have been on this topic, you know, you look at people like JM, for example, like people that are just like legends in this field are so much more skeptical than your UFO Twitter like individual, like so much of what you see on UFO Twitter, a lot of these guys that have been on this topic a long time think it's just silly, and like bunk like, but yet they obviously have a deep interest in the topic. (1:05:56)
Like, I think if Heineck was still alive, he'd have more in common with the skeptics even to this day than he would have with the average UFO Twitter like person that's kind of credulous. Like, being skeptical doesn't mean you don't have an interest in the topic or you don't think it's valid or that you don't think anything's going on. Like it's just, it just means you're approaching this better. (1:06:18)
So yeah, I absolutely agree. And I always say I just I don't tag, I don't use hashtag UFO Twitter, I don't engage on that. Just I never check UFO Twitter, like the hashtag, like, I don't think I've ever clicked on a hashtag to see what was going on. Right. I just started a few, I like I got Twitter last summer, and I started following a few people. (1:06:40)
And then I'd see comments from other people I like, and I'd follow them. And pretty much my only exposure to that main stuff is that like somebody I follow will end up commenting on one of these more mainstream UFO Twitter characters. And I'll see the post in that that way. (1:06:50)
But yeah, it's, I prefer to really pay more attention to the people I follow directly that approach this topic in a manner that more aligns with what I think is a better way to approach it. Yeah, no, I like I like that. And I feel the same way. So Peter wants me to ask you from Shadowy Spectrums, I have to say Peter does a great show, by the way. (1:07:16)
And he's down in Bogota. But he wants me to ask you about your research, your two years of research, looking into Bob Lazar. Can you hear me? Lazar? Yeah, yep. Sorry. There's like a little lag there. Like Bob Lazar, for example, is something. Yeah, I might. I don't know if my stream cut out for other people, but on my screen, like I disappeared for a minute. (1:07:47)
So yeah, Bob Lazar is something that like I actually when I was younger in the early 90s, like I would listen to Coast to Coast, you know, at night, like I'd stay up all night listening to Coast to Coast when I was like, you know, young. And Bob Lazar, like I was kind of first exposed way back then to Bob Lazar. But I really started to like, go back into him again, several years ago when, you know, there's like Corbell was going to be working on a documentary about it. (1:08:12)
And so I basically spent two years going back over everything, you know, like looking at everything he's ever said, written. I went and, you know, like I went to Los Alamos, like talk to people, I dug really deep into super heavy element research, you know, I talked to scientists that were actually synthesizing 115. Like I talked to Yuri Organician, who literally has a super heavy element named after him about some of Bob Lazar's 115 claims, just kind of like really digging into everything looking for inconsistencies. (1:08:44)
And, you know, the thing is, I didn't, what I did was mostly just kind of verifying stuff that other people had done before me, like I found people like Tom Mahoud's original research, you know, back from the late 90s on Bob Lazar, very useful, like I used a lot of his stuff that I just went personally and went and verified for my own, you know, benefit. (1:09:07)
Like looking at the court cases, like with Bob Lazar, for example. And so a lot of what I did was just verifying information and talking to people. And I kind of thought that maybe you know, I could come up with something that was put Bob Lazar, naively thought I could put Bob Lazar to rest forever. (1:09:32)
But you know, no, like Bob Lazar will keep going on forever. But honestly, like the person doing the best Bob Lazar research these days that's actually coming out with stuff is Signals Intelligence. He's been posting a lot of good articles, and he's really been on this story. And because when I talked to people, a lot of them back then didn't actually want to go on record. (1:09:54)
So I couldn't actually really put anything out there from my communications with them. But he's actually got a lot of people to go on record in the last few years. And it's he's doing just fantastic research on that. It's Signals Intelligence on Twitter, and he's got a medium blog and a website, papooslake.org, I think, where you can go look at a lot of like interview transcripts of Bob Lazar, like court information, just all sorts of documents on him. (1:10:17)
But I pretty much came to the same kind of conclusions a lot of people did like Mahoud and Stanton Freeman. And that just there's nothing to the story. You know, it's just Bob Lazar is kind of like a guy that from his early childhood, kind of perpetually self-promoting himself, you know, and make an exaggerated claims about basically everything. And Wow, that sounds like somebody in Utah. Yeah. And then we found out recently, you know, about like his his first wife was in prison for murder, involved with the Hells Angels and just all that. (1:10:56)
And then his other wife was basically on the run for trying to like rip off a bank customer and a bank, like just this really shady background. Right. And so to believe Bob Lazar was chosen to work for an alien, work on alien spaceships when he neither has really any education besides for some community college stuff with electronics technicians work. (1:11:21)
It's just particularly with all of his serious issues with like credibility, bankruptcy, who he was married to. Like, there's just no way a guy like that would get clearances. Like, it's just and and it's sad is because when Gresh came out, everyone's like, see Bob Lazar was right all along. It's like, I'm sorry. No. Like, again, even if Gresh's claims are true, that does not make Bob Lazar's stuff true. Like, Bob Lazar's stuff is not true. (1:11:42)
And the sad thing is a lot of people in the community take the problems of Bob Lazar and they turn that around and use it as evidence that that's actually exactly why they would have hired him. They want somebody that they could discredit. So they hired a guy that doesn't know what he's doing, that doesn't have any education on this topic, that is shady as hell, just so they could discredit him and he could tell a silly... I mean, like, there's a lot of mental gymnastics people do, like to support the Lazar belief. (1:12:14)
And Lazar is one of the main, you know, it's it's one of the main people in this topic that people get caught up on, right? And that's why I started doing the Lazar work is because I saw so many people just get stuck in this Lazar rabbit hole instead of bothering to look at any of the other UFO material. (1:12:29)
You know, I thought, you know, maybe you could find something new that would really put it off. But I've learned since then, you know, you can't really ever kill a case like it'll just keep... there'll always be people that believe it. You know, there'll always be people that will come up with rationalizations for the problems that you find in it. (1:12:50)
But it was fun. I had fun looking into it and driving around and going to these places and checking out Bob Lazar's business in Michigan. And now he's in Oregon. And tell us a little bit about that. I just when I was actually when I went up to visit the Swords Group back then, I was already in Michigan. I decided I'd drive up to look at what United Nuclear was just to see where it was. (1:13:16)
And I was actually in McMinnville when Bob Lazar came back probably 2019, I think it was. And his employee actually had the hotel room next to me. And I talked to him for a while as well about Bob Lazar's claims and stuff. And I mean, he was kind of evasive. He didn't I don't think he wanted to say anything bad about his boss. He was just kind of like, I don't know if it's true or not. (1:13:38)
But, you know, whatever. So it's. Yeah, I think people waste way too much time on Bob Lazar. People say I'm obsessed because I spent so much time, effort and money looking into it. Well, I mean, personally, I would love nothing more than to people never mention Bob Lazar again. But they are going to mention him and they keep mentioning him. (1:14:02)
And so somebody needs to correct some of that false information that's put out there, because the story that's told by people like Corbella Knapp, just like many people that promote a UFO story, it's a carefully chosen narrative that just really doesn't match the facts at all. You know, like one example of a case is just that the whole like he didn't actually run a prostitution ring. (1:14:25)
He just set up the computers. And that's the story that Knapp and Corbella have told basically forever. But that's just emphatically false. Like his own testimony to the police admits that's false. He didn't just run the computers. He literally owned the thing. He got the money from the thing like he rented the places. He spied on the Johns like he recruited the women to work for him. (1:14:50)
And as you know, it's not the first time he wanted to run a prostitution ring either. Like he's got a history of being interested in this stuff. So it's like you got these people telling one story that just doesn't match reality. And then there's the real story. And that's what happens with a lot of UFO cases when you look into it. (1:15:11)
Like there's a story you get in a documentary or a book, for example, about Roswell. And then you go back and look at the original material, what was actually said contemporaneously at the time. And it just doesn't match the narrative that's being sold to the public now. Right. And yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that, you know, like, begs the question, like, how has George Knapp gotten away with promoting just a bunch of absolute garbage for basically his whole career? I mean, he's, he's, he's some, you know, investigative Peabody award winning journalist and da da da da da. (1:15:45)
And then he's promoting garbage, which if you're really a true investigative journalist, again, you've got standards, you have, you know, you, you don't behave the way he has behaved and, and fall in line with promoting stories that are clearly fictional. And so I mean, what do you, what is your take on, on that? And, and... And it's not just Knapp, right? Like, this is the same thing with, like, people like, like Ross Coulthart, for example, like, or like, Leslie Keen, or you've got people that, yeah, they, they were award winning journalists in the past for whatever it was they won awards for, like, but they also have a long history of telling sensational stories that are unfounded, and many times proven to just be false and inaccurate. (1:16:32)
And there never seems to be any, anything that comes back to them for that. People just continue to, like, believe them. This is something that I bring up just like, again, more recent years with Corbell and Knapp, you know, they keep dropping these cases and these, this, these things for us in their podcasts and whatnot, like the 29 Palms, etc. (1:16:54)
Like, how many times do these people have to get caught selling a garbage story before you start to not take them seriously? Well, unfortunately, it seems to be they can keep telling garbage stories forever, and people will continue to take them seriously. Because as long as they're telling people what they want to hear, people are going to keep listening to it. But that's, that's problematic when you're calling yourself an investigative journalist, or just, you know, journalists in general, like, that's not journalism, like, that's storytelling. (1:17:19)
That's, that's advocacy, right? Like, like, so many of these people that they talk about being UFO journalists, they're not journalists, they're basically PR people. Like, they're putting out stories and narratives that are all like, carefully coordinated and managed, and it's, it's not journalism. Yeah, Knapp is a, is a weird guy that, I mean, he literally built his career on UFOs, right? Like, he may have done his other stories, like in the mafia and all that stuff back in the day. (1:17:54)
But really, after Bob Lazar, it was just like UFOs, UFOs, UFOs, like Bob Lazar kind of put Knapp on the map as far as UFOs went. And then he started the whole Skinwalker stuff, put his book out, which coincidentally, a couple years later, we get OSAP. And, you know, everything seems to like trace back to like, these figures, these same people, and these same origin stories, that is like dominoes falling until we get to where we are today with like, Drush and everyone else. (1:18:18)
One, you know, it's interesting, too, because Lazar and Bigelow had a business together, and yeah, and so and then you've, you know, just, it's the same, the aviary, the same group of Stanford boys, and then, you know, all of, you know, just the, the BS brokers, you know, that's what they are. (1:18:46)
They're just absolute. I mean, it's just nothing credible has come out of any of those people. And I think with Bigelow, it's like, he's just, he's played everybody so perfectly. Oh, here's, you know, he's got this great origin story. I'm interested in UFOs, because of an experience I had as a child. (1:19:01)
And, you know, now my wife has passed away. And I want to know about, you know, life after death, and just, you know, and the hitchhikers. And I mean, just all of this stuff that's actually he's not necessarily saying it's his, his, you know, little group of people. (1:19:13)
Yeah. Yeah. And he's, you know, I mean, he's allegedly studied this more than anyone. And I don't think that's true, by a long shot. I think he paid somebody to go out... There's a difference between spending a bunch of your money on a topic, like, and actually studying the topic, right? Like, I have no doubt Bigelow's probably spent more money than almost anyone, if anyone on the topic. (1:19:41)
But that's because you have it, right? Like, though, like, what do you think he spent money on? People, the people he hired, like, buying branches, like Skinwalker, and... That was a cheap one. So he got a good deal on that. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's, I mean, I can imagine he spent a decent amount of money. I mean, I just, I know what I've spent, you know, doing this full time for the last 10 years, like, but, you know, I don't have the kind of money or resources people like Bigelow, or Fugo, or whoever might have on this topic. (1:20:15)
Some of those claims are questionable at best. But, you know, I definitely think, yeah, I mean, you get the... Well, I get people that tell me Tom DeLonge is, like, the most informed researcher out there, like, he's read more than anyone, like, he's the most well read. I'm like, what? Are you for real? Like, I've got no doubt he spent countless nights going down rabbit holes on the internet, and has read some, like, read plenty of books, but I would not call DeLonge the most read person out there, well read person on the topic either. (1:20:50)
That's just silly. Like, I've read, you know, at least several hundred, if not 1000 UFO books over the last 30 years, like, and that doesn't, and even much more material and periodicals and other stuff, like, and again, I would say my knowledge is nothing compared to some of the people I look up to, you know, like, Baldrick and Greenwood and Swords and those guys. (1:21:17)
Like, it's just silly to claim any of those people are kind of like the most well read and well researched in this topic. Like, that just, that makes no sense whatsoever. No, it's ridiculous. It's a disservice to the people that have been researching this topic forever. And that's kind of what I think is truly sad, is that some of the best researchers in this topic, like, people that I think are just real legends of this field are utterly unknown to, like, the vast majority of UFO people, people interested in the topic, like, you know, like, like Jan's an example, like, if you really study UFOs, you might know who Jan is, but like, the average Joe Blow on UFO Twitter, no clue who Jan Aldrich is, or Barry Greenwood is, or the Swords history group is, or, you know, any of these people that have been in this topic for 50, 60 plus years, you know, and that's unfortunate to dismiss all their knowledge, and everything they bring in place for people like Korbel Knapp and other people that really just don't know anything about this topic at all. (1:22:21)
No, they don't. I mean, and that's the thing I remember doing a show with, I was on, oh my gosh, the radio with Gene Steinberg, the radio show, and we were interviewing, yeah, Leslie Keene. And I was just shocked at the little, and I mean, the, she had no knowledge, really, no knowledge of the subject. (1:22:45)
And I was just asking her questions and just thinking, oh my, this is interesting. And I think, you know, the same could be said if you were to sit at a table, which I have with Brandon Fugel, or sit at, you know, I mean, talk to Tom DeLonge, or Jeremy Korbel, or even Knapp, you know, you could, any of us could outpace them in the knowledge of the subject, because we've actually done the research, and they're just picking bits and pieces to fit their narrative. (1:23:17)
So it really is interesting. And I think for me, the reason, one of the reasons I've loved doing the show over the years is to make sure that people like Jan and Barry have, you know, a place that they're, the people, they're getting out to the public, and their contributions are remembered, you know, because they have been mentors to both of us. (1:23:35)
And I appreciate that. And I wanted to ask you, too, like with the S.W.O.R.D. group, that's a pretty close-knit group of people that don't let a lot of other people in. And so what are your thoughts about that? And do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing that they're kind of closed off to other people coming in and potentially learning from some of the things that they have to share? I mean, I will say how I kind of got involved with them is that I would read Mike's blog, the biggest study that he would have back in the day, and was following him, and I kind of expressed interest and comments that, like, I'm really interested into, like, the whole archival aspect of the topic. (1:24:25)
I'm interested in, you know, preserving the history, getting things scanned and digitized. And I was interested in this group that they were talking about, you know, that would meet. And I actually ended up, like, you know, I did phone interviews with, like, Robert Powell and, you know, people, like, kind of, where they would kind of gauge, like, my seriousness on the topic and, like, you know, kind of where I come from, you know, before I kind of was invited in. (1:24:53)
And then I met Robert at the first SCU back in 2019. And then I went to my first, you know, get together at the house there. As far as it being closed, I mean, I think a lot of those guys are approachable if you were to try to contact them individually and would answer questions. (1:25:11)
But I mean, I think it's one of the reasons is that they kind of just want to keep it to people that are really dedicated to this topic, you know, and that are not as, I guess, credulous as a lot of the people in this topic are. But in a way, it does kind of limit, you know, resources that people have access to, because a lot of those guys just are not really even on social media, right? Like, like, like, Jan will get on Facebook, like, most of those guys aren't on Twitter, like, at all. (1:25:40)
And really, email is like one of the only... email and phone calls, for example, is like, really the only way you communicate with those guys. But... and unfortunately, a lot of them, too, are, you know, I was basically the youngest guy in the group, by like a long shot, you know, I'm still kind of like, I'm not the kind of newest person that's kind of shown up in the group, but now, but I'm probably still one of the younger guys, if not the youngest guy in the group. (1:26:07)
But, yeah, it's sad, because a lot of people that have all this knowledge are getting up there in age. And, you know, who knows how much longer they're going to be with us, and that knowledge needs shared. But again, I do also see the point in kind of keeping it a close knit group, because you don't want to turn it into like a UFO Reddit forum, right? Where just like, it's just overflowed with people posting nonsense all the time. (1:26:39)
Yeah, it's something I am kind of on the fence about, like, it's the same thing with certain like other like this, there's a lot of kind of private research groups, communities, discords, you know, Facebook groups, etc, that are kind of private. And it's not so much that, and a lot of people like, get mad about that. (1:27:04)
Because they, they don't like the secrecy. But again, I say it's not really about secrecy. It's just about, it's about keeping things on topic and serious. (1:27:11)
There does need to be some new blood brought into those groups, I think, you know, get some of these younger guys and, you know, and, and women, and women. Yeah. I'm sorry, guys, I just, it's just a bad habit. I just got to meet everyone. Well, it's true, though. I mean, it is true. Yeah, it's true. (1:27:34)
Yeah, it's definitely true. I mean, it was nice seeing you on the Zoom call. I was so excited. Really, I was like, yes, you know, and that was thanks to Jan Aldrich. And, and I was really appreciative of that. Because, you know, I've heard, you know, I've read books, I've read papers by all of these people. (1:27:50)
And, and, you know, I've had conversations with some of them over the years, they've been on my show. And so it was very cool for me to finally see people's faces and to hear people talk. And, you know, it's that's a good thing. And I would hope that after so many years for me being willing to like you put my own money into this and try to put the best foot forward to, to get Barry's story out and Jan and all these people that, you know, I wouldn't have to try so hard to earn my place at a table where I should kind of surprised that you weren't there before I was like, to be honest, like, because that's how I, you know, so I, I actually, you know, I'd seen you at conferences before, like, you know, years ago and whatnot, like with Mufon and things like that. (1:28:46)
And so I knew who you were. But it was actually like that first Swords meeting I went to in 2019 that, you know, Jan, like, really had all sorts of good things to say about you and was just telling me all this stuff about you. And I was kind of surprised that you were not really part of the group, because you've got all these archives, people have given you the stuff, you're, you've been doing this historical work, like, you know, you'd be a perfect, like, member. (1:29:09)
Well, I was excited. So hopefully, you know, that that will happen, because I think that there are, you know, I can learn from them, I would love to have that opportunity. I mean, I just think the world of some of them, and I would like to get to know the rest of them. But it's important, like you said, to, to bring in people that have shown their dedication, and, you know, being professional, being ethical to the topic and giving, making sure that as older people in the subject pass away, like my, my dear friend, Gordon, that good, the good work that these people have done over the years is remembered by future generations, because we're right at that, that cusp where it's like, okay, you know, the internet, Facebook, social media, all of these things. And, you know, with with one little snap, people will not remember, you know, a lot of the important figures in the subject. (1:30:11)
And so to me, that's why I'm so passionate about interviewing them about making sure that, you know, in preserving the history like you, I know you feel the same way, because I've heard you talk about that before. And so I just think it's really, it's crucial. And I, I care, like you very deeply about them, about Barry, about Jan, about the people that I have had in my life to mentor me, and to exchange ideas with and to grow as a researcher. (1:30:41)
And so I just, I think that, you know, I, that's the part that I really love, and enjoy. So I look forward to hopefully, you know, seeing you at more of those meetings, and maybe actually being invited in person, that could be fun. But I do love Jan for doing that and putting in a good word. (1:30:56)
I had hoped to go in person this time, but it just, it didn't work out. Hopefully next time I can get things figured out. So I can do that. (1:31:01)
Because, like, like the first time I was there, I had my scanning machine. And like, I was just there all weekend scanning, like thousands and thousands of pages of like documents and whatnot. And, and like, I could spend forever there and just scan documents and stuff. But because that, that's why I'm so passionate about like, the archiving, like, not just the physical materials, like, like you've been doing, and like David Marler's been doing, but the digitization of material. So that stuff is all preserved for future generations of researchers, so they can come and look at it. (1:31:40)
As well as the fact that, you know, just not everybody has the resources or ability to travel around to different archives to go looking through material. You know, the more we can get digitized and put online and shared to people, you know, that's more people like it's access to it, right? Like, you know, like Eddie Ballard's classic abduction, you know, two volume study he did measure of a mystery. (1:32:03)
When he sent me a digital copy of that, he was like, probably only 12 people that even read this thing. I'm like, that's a that's tragic, right? Like, this is probably one of like, the most classic studies of abduction phenomenon out there, like, and almost nobody's actually seen it. And fortunately, I was able to get permission with Isaac, and I gave Isaac a copy of it. And it's now up on the AFU website. So everybody can go look at it. (1:32:26)
And because I think that's important. And there's so much good research out there that most people just don't have access to, because they can't travel to places or they don't have copies of it. And that's kind of one of also one of the reasons why I do my post, right, is that because of my involvement with like the Swords History Group. And because I kind of, you know, I don't know everything about this topic, not by a long shot, but I consider myself a good kind of like a research librarian, like, I know how to find the stuff about the topic, like, I'm really good about knowing what's out there, generally, and where to find it, even if I don't know it. (1:33:07)
And so I can, I'm pretty good at digging up like old periodicals, or, you know, old books or whatever. And so I've got access to a lot of material that other people don't as do you, just, you know, it's, that's not bragging, it's just like a factor, just because of the people we work with, the stuff we've been given access to, that I like to share with people. (1:33:25)
And so that's, you know, so I put a lot of stuff out of my post that I can. So that's cool. Good for you. And, you know, I know that Jan, when Jan was here, he was talking about how great you are, you know, and just really had nice things to say about you and, and your work. (1:33:44)
And I think that it is very exciting for him to know that there are younger people that are, are taking this, this seriously and wanting to join in. I mean, because it, you know, like I said, it was a really powerful thing to have him here. You know, we had our moments where when you're with somebody for 10 days of different things, but I thought we got along pretty, pretty famously. (1:34:07)
And it was just a real pleasure to, to, to learn and to have conversations and to get to know him. And I, that's really would be fun for, for me to get to know people like Michael Swords. He's such an interesting fellow. I have, you know, Robert Powell and I have worked on a couple of cases together and things. (1:34:24)
And so I've, I knew Robert from the move on days and I've always, you know, liked Robert has been very nice to me over the years. (1:34:30)
I don't necessarily agree with some of the conclusions he's made on specific cases, but I like, you know, I like Robert. and I also think that, Oh my gosh, who am I? Okay. Who was like totally having a mind cramp that this fellow from that, that wrote was one of the authors of Richard Thieme. Oh yeah. (1:34:54)
Richard Thieme. Yeah. Like he's an interesting guy too. And I've, I've had him on my show. I've actually seen him talk about UFOs at the DEF CON hacker conference before. Did you go to the DEF CON conference? I've been to DEF CON a few times as well as Black Hat. I kind of, I also came from the computer security community, but I'm in the open source software community, but yeah, so that's, I saw him talk about UFOs there one year and he was actually one of the nicest, most talkative people. And I met him again at the SCU conference before I, you know, before the Swords event. (1:35:23)
Yeah. Which is great. I like Richard Thieme. There's so many great people in that group. And that's like, like when you go in person, like, like I just like sit there, like I'm like a sponge. I just like want to sit there, be quiet, soak it all up. You know, like they're just dropping stuff left and right. (1:35:43)
And I'm just like, I just want to soak it all in and listen to all these guys' knowledge about this topic. It's, yeah, it's, it's great. Yeah. It's really fun. You know, I mean, and I love that too. I remember going back to, with Tom Tulene and Jan and visiting Gordon Lohr before he passed away and things. (1:36:02)
And it was just like so much fun to sit there and watch them banter back and forth and then talk about, well, did the CIA and NICAP and, you know, watch the differing differences of opinions between Gordon and Jan and Tom. And then just, you know, just sitting back, just going, whoa. I mean, then there aren't a lot of people like us in the world, you know, but it's fascinating. (1:36:23)
Tom, he kindly sent me a copy of the signed historical proceedings. You know, he, he mailed me out one of the print copies of it, you know, for free, just, you know, his own dime. He sent it out to me. I was like, oh, that's nice. That's cool. And he run, he has the great website of the, the Minot case, you know, the 1968 Minot case where, with all the historical, you know, because he, he did all those historical oral history interviews and stuff with Jan and people that, you know, there's so many people in that group that just have so much knowledge that it's, it's great to listen to them all. (1:36:54)
Jan, Tom is really, I mean, I think if you would ask anybody, I mean, do most people know who Tom Tulene is? And most people would not know who he is at all. And he has done an amazing job over the years to go out to people's places and interview really important figures in the subject. In fact, he shared with me the interview that he did with Junior Hicks. He came out here and interviewed Junior, and that was a really wonderful interview and nice to see. He's a great filmmaker actually. (1:37:24)
So hopefully someday we can see all of his work. I don't know if that's available. Do you know if it is? (1:37:32)
Tom Tulene I don't, because there's actually, there's been a couple oral history interviews they've done that I've seen referenced in documents that I've actually wanted to get copies of myself, because I couldn't find it. There's just a lot of stuff kind of like listed on the sign website, like Project 1947, so that's the sign historical website that stuff that they've got in their holdings that I don't have copies of or have access to that I would like to get access to. (1:38:01)
That's one of the things like in person, there's a lot of scanning just Jan and them have done in the last four years that I would love to get a copy of next time hopefully I see them in person. So there's still so much out there, like even what I have access to and you have access to, there's still so much out there that even we don't have access to that I'd love to get my hands on and to be able to share. (1:38:29)
Jennifer I would too, and I think it is interesting, and I've kind of tried to bring this up, and this would be something that I think all of us should have like a Zoom meeting and talk about because there are specific places where, you know, research or archives holdings are going and what is the intention of the archivist? Is it to look through the material, discard portions of the personal correspondence because they're looking for the UFO case that will make or break the subject? (1:39:02)
You know, what happens to the rest of the material? Because there are people like Tim Beckley who was just a wild and crazy guy who, you know, probably at the end of the day didn't have a lot on, you know, a solid UFO case. But his information, his work, I believe would be very relevant to what I'm trying to look into. And so, you know, how do we make sure that we're, you know, if somebody's interested in Ann Druffill's UFO case in the Los Angeles basin that that's, you know, that it's getting to the right group of people? Does that make sense? (1:39:40)
Yeah. Well, I think that's why I think they should probably do another signed historical workshop like they did. I got this because one of the things with those proceedings are they talk about where certain people's papers are and like what they include and whatnot. And like a lot has changed in the last 20 something years, like archives that went different places, certain people's papers are in different places. (1:40:05)
Like there really does need to be like a updated like resource where we can find out where certain stuff is and who has what. And so it's accessible and available to people. That's something like I get asked frequently is like, do you know where such and such papers are? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Many times I just want to go ask Jan because he probably does know where they are. (1:40:35)
I think there'd be a use in having another kind of like UFO kind of like history workshop where archivists and people get together and we kind of collect this information and kind of maybe keep a database of where stuff is, who has what, what they're doing with it. Because that's just as important because otherwise stuff just disappears and you never know what happens to it. (1:40:56)
We've lost so many good files and people's archives just because they were tossed when they died and their family didn't want anything to do with it or they got destroyed in some manner or you just don't know what happened to it. (1:41:07)
Or they were bought by someone who doesn't want to share it with other people, which really pisses me off. Like I said, I come from the kind of open source software community. So I've always been really big on freely sharing information and stuff being open and available for everyone. And so I don't like it when people hoard stuff that won't share it. (1:41:32)
And sometimes there's obviously clearly motives for that. Like for example, if they happen to be a big proponent of a certain case, they may not want you to see the original files because it kind of contradicts the narrative that they're sharing. But I think that's wrong. And unfortunately, according to Isaac, that seems to be a more American problem that's less of a problem in other countries, like European researchers and stuff seem to be more open with sharing their files. (1:42:00)
Like here in America, though, there's so many researchers want to hoard, hoard, hoard, and different groups want to hoard their files. I tried really hard, you know, several years ago, like back when Jan Harzen was still around, to get him to open up the database a bit for statistical studies. And I tried to get Peter Davenport to do that with New Fork. And like, like Jan was open, nothing ever happened. (1:42:26)
Peter Davenport had this opinion that it's his. He's like, it's mine. I spent my time and money. I'm not sharing it with anyone. Like, what's the point? What? Like, that's ridiculous, right? Like, like, research needs to be published and shared and for other people to look over it and check it out. Like it's hoarding data and information is something that's kind of like a big pet peeve of mine. I'm not a fan of that. (1:42:50)
Yeah, no, I think that's great. I've got to ask you, like, so what, what is your background in the, in, in computer, land of computers and things? Yeah, like I said, I, I started getting on, like, into technology as like a super young kid, basically, and getting on BBSs and the internet early on. And I actually started looking into Linux before it was, before it was even 1.0, back when it was just Linus's project he was working on at university. (1:43:25)
And so I got involved with the open source software community very, very early on. I had a group called Linux in the Classroom that was advocating the use of open source software and the schooling system that I actually gave speeches at, like, Linux World. When I was still in high school, like, they took me to New York to sit on panels and talk about Linux in the classroom and the use of open source softwares in the school system. (1:43:50)
I was actually invited to speak before a Senate subcommittee on open source software. But I was like, 16 years old, and I was kind of just nervous about it. And so I didn't, nervous about doing it. And so I basically sent another guy here in Portland, that was also involved to go and so he went and spoke to them because I was too nervous as a young kid to go do it. (1:44:11)
But yeah, so I was involved in that for a long time. I helped get a book called Open Sources published. That's kind of, I wanted to call it the Open Road Ahead, as kind of a playoff Bill Gates book, The Road Ahead. And it's full of essays about people in the open source software community. You can see me in the acknowledgements there. I helped, I founded an operating system called the ReactOS. It's basically a Windows clone that can run Windows programs and everything. (1:44:44)
And I started out with another guy and helped manage it for a few years. And then I kind of left the project. It's actually still around. (1:44:50)
It's there's videos of former Russian President Medvedev, or whatever that guy's name is, playing around with the operating system that I started with a guy. So I was really heavily involved with that stuff for a long time. But then I kind of, I have so many interests. It's hard to keep me on one topic, right? I bounce around. I went from computer science to studying neuropsychopharmacology and medicinal chemistry. (1:45:20)
And I've studied all sorts of different stuff. I went to school for a bioengineering degree for a while. I basically spent 10 years. I started going to college at 15. And so I spent basically 10 years getting college credits. Unfortunately, I never finished any of the degrees. My closest degree was a quarter away from a computer science degree. (1:45:49)
But then I moved into medicinal chemistry and neuropsychopharmacology for a few years. And then I moved to this. So like, I'm just kind of one of those guys that just always wants to be learning stuff and bouncing around to different things. And I'm not as involved with the open source community anymore. But when I was younger, that's what I did for a long time. (1:46:10)
How fascinating. Were you ever involved in in like, I mean, did you ever get an above top secret? You know, I, I was never an active member there. No, like, I, I checked it, you know, over the years, but it's never really an active member on there. I was never really an active member on, you know, the Reddit communities either. (1:46:35)
I was more just a kind of a guy in the background, you know, doing my research and doing my thing. And that's how a lot of the best kind of researchers are. The guys you, you don't know about, you know, the ones that are just kind of doing their thing, not looking for attention, because like, I'm not looking for attention. (1:46:49)
Like, I don't, if people want to give me attention, that's fine. But I don't do it because I'm like looking for attention. I'm not looking for fame, celebrity money, any of that kind of stuff. And that's how a lot of the best researchers are, the guys you just don't know about, like the guys that, the guys that the hardcore UFO researchers know about, but they're mostly in the background and the rest of the people don't. And that's just kind of what I did for a very long time. (1:47:11)
I mean, it's, it's interesting just to sit back and absorb, like you were mentioning, being at Swords, the Swords gathering and just absorbing and listening and seeing dynamics. And, and there's, it's just a, it's a fascinating process. I've loved doing that as well. And, and except I've obviously had a show, so I've not been behind the scenes, but I mean, but I mean, I have been, but you know, it's, I don't know, I'd love, I don't know, I love hate this subject. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I can, I can see that. (1:47:42)
But yeah, it's been absolutely fascinating. And I want to just like really quickly, because I've got some old books here that you probably have. And I, oh, I forgot to ask, do you have Mysteries of the Sky? Yeah, I do. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. It's a nice Mylar protected cover too. It's like nice hardback. (1:48:06)
It's yeah. Yeah. I've collected a lot of old books over the, over the years, you know, back, back when I had plenty of money to waste, I just would go buy all the old stuff. (1:48:11)
And, you know, in fact, specifically that book, somebody had posted about it, I think it was on Facebook. I'm like, Oh, I've got that book. That's a great, that's a great old book. That's a classic. And like, really? I'm pretty sure nobody's ever heard of this book. I'm like, really? I know that book. So I guess I'm weird. Like I know a lot of the old books and a lot of the more obscure stuff. (1:48:30)
But, and I probably have copies, a lot of the old obscure books. That's so cool. I love it. I mean, I just like, you know, look at all my stuff. I love this. I love, love, hate it. So, you know, but so I'm going to like, show you like some old books. And then you have to give me like, one word. (1:48:50)
I want to, this, this is like a new thing I want to do. But I think it'd be interesting. So one word to describe. Oh, Fine Sauces from Outer Space. Yep. One word. Maybe a couple. Just give me your thoughts. Well, like I said, I, I, I always like the old books I keep up because it's just they're full of so many different cases. (1:49:14)
It's just like a overwhelming maybe is the word of the amount of cases. Okay. I like it. Okay. How about this little gem? Oh, Roger Lear's book. Goofy. Okay. And we get Situation Red. We're going to play the Situation Red game here. Yes, we are. Oh, Twitters. Look at that. Crinzy. Yeah. I'll just say Stringfield, like, I think he did good initial research. (1:49:47)
I'm not as much a fan of his Crash Retrieval stuff he got into in the late 70s. But he's kind of a legendary figure with the early Cryfo stuff and publications. And so it's, it's been a while since I read these books. So yeah, interesting. Worth reading anyway. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Here's John Mack's book. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, pass. Okay, last one. Mirage, man. (1:50:27)
Fantastic. Must read. Absolute must read. In fact, I was just saying a couple days ago, I plan on rereading that book, because even though I read it again, just a couple years ago, like it's, it's such a good book. I just recently retweeted a section from that book, because it's so accurate to everything going on right now. (1:50:44)
It's really a book that everyone in this topic should read. Absolutely. Mark is great. Yeah, no, I like Mark. He was on the show. Oh, gosh, about four months ago. And yeah, I just really enjoyed talking with him. And I remember being at the UFO Congress and seeing him after he just got given a lecture. (1:51:04)
And I think he had so much blowback. I think that was the time when Stanton Friedman got up and read him the riot adjects, something was going on. And he was just, he just looked so down and in the elevator. And I felt kind of bad for him. But I really like him a lot. That was fun to see him. And it was fun to have him on the show. (1:51:19)
So I need a couple discussions with him about the 1933 Italy crash in the last couple of weeks. (1:51:25)
But yeah, talk about that just briefly. The Italy crash? Well, it's, it's basically the Italian version of MJ-12, right? Like a researcher got mailed a bunch of documents anonymously, these old telegrams. And the main issues is the telegrams don't actually say anything about a crash, or retrieval, or it being bell shaped, or any of the things that people are saying about it. (1:51:55)
That stuff actually comes from Pinotti and Lassone's later book. So they published a book on fascism, UFOs, basically about all that stuff. And they in the third edition of the book, they got new information from William Brophy, Jr. Where do we know that name? The Trinity case guy that was making up all sorts of stories about his dad telling him about stuff. (1:52:20)
So Brophy told Pinotti that all this stuff about the Nazi bell, how then it was sent to the Americans after the war, like all that stuff we've been hearing from Grush actually comes from Brophy, the liar from the Trinity case. And he didn't get that information until 2009. So the whole case, everything that we're being told about it, isn't actually even in these original documents. (1:52:41)
And I'll point out these original documents are almost certainly fake in the first place, right? Like I say, they're basically Italy's MJ-12. Like they're anonymous documents that were sent to a UFO researcher with no provenance, like no proof they ever came from an archive. A bunch of Italian researchers with CISU and like Andrade Russo is in the Swords group. (1:53:06)
He's with CISU, basically looked at it, they consulted archivists that are experts on documents from that time period. And like, none of these have like the markings that you would expect from an archive. You know, they originally mailed like supposedly original documents, right? Like, why would this guy have the original telegrams that are, you know, 70 something years old? Why wouldn't he just have a photocopy of them? And the people that have them have refused to give them to any other researchers to further analyze just pictures of it. (1:53:36)
But basically, like Lou Alessandro went and met Pinotti. And Pinotti showed him these, you know, telegrams and told him this story from Bill Brophy. And Alessandro almost certainly was the one that told Grush this story and showed him these telegrams. And now Grush is promoting the story. And this 1933 thing, just basically, there's no evidence that ever happened. (1:53:58)
And it's almost universally accepted as a hoax by ufologists in Italy. And I'm not talking about skeptics, I'm talking about pro UFO ufologists, even they accept it as garbage. And so it's problematic that that's pretty much one of the only actual stories we have coming from Grush that he's actually mentioned any details of, right? Like, they talk about the bell shape, but none of that is actually in the original, like telegrams. (1:54:26)
The only original source material is like these three telegrams, like, and they don't actually say any of that stuff about the case. They basically just say there's reports of an unknown aircraft, you know, like, be quiet about any, if anyone asks you a question, it's like, don't talk about it. There's no actual details. There's no information about a crash, or a landing or that it was bell shaped. (1:54:50)
That's all fabrication added in 2009 by Brophy. So yeah, it's just another one of these cases that, you know, it's been going around the UFO community, but was debunked 20 years ago. And now it's getting a comeback. (1:55:04)
So, yeah, it's so interesting. And I just have to ask you before I let you go. But what do you think about the fact now that we're seeing Congress say, basically, okay, you've got six months, show us the crashed pieces. I think the language of even that request is so ambiguous that for example, even if you had an alien spaceship, you could still not report it, right? Because so they're saying for UAP programs, well, the UAP acronym is kind of like a triple redundant nonsense acronym, right? It's like an unknown of an unknown of an unknown phenomenon. (1:55:39)
Like, what does that even actually mean? Right? Like unknown anomalous phenomena? Like, if it's actually something that's non-human technology, well, then it's not really an unknown, is it? Right? So I could see a way that even if you had a spaceship, you could still get out of having to report it because, well, you just asked if we had any unknown debris. (1:56:06)
We don't have any unknown debris. We have a spaceship. I think it's just the way so much of that language that's being written by Congress is that it's so ambiguous that it allows not just believers to play around with it and read whatever they want into it. It means things never really, nothing ever moves forward. It's just, it's like Weasley word language. Like it's, yeah, I don't think anything will come out of it. (1:56:28)
You know, I think it's interesting because I kind of got the impression and I could be completely off base here, but it was almost a way to say, okay, you guys are out there lipping off and saying that you've got these pieces of crash saucer and you guys are pulling all this crap. So here you go, put up or shut up. Yeah, it could be. (1:56:45)
So I'm hoping for that. I think they could have been more direct. They could have said like, if there's evidence of like non-human produced technology, like, because let's be honest, that's what people want to know about. They don't want to know about UAPs as in like foreign drones that crashed or, you know, a meteorite that crashed or a satellite debris that crashed. (1:57:08)
Like, like if people are being honest when they say UAP, they don't mean unknown. They mean non-human technology. And that's really what they're asking about because these guys don't care about that other stuff. So they could have been more direct in what the request like actual proof of a program looking into non-human craft, because otherwise you're just going to get programs looking into down satellites and foreign technology and all this other stuff. (1:57:33)
And that's, I think that's probably partly intentional that they're kind of confusing things and conflating things like that. So it creates confusion. Yeah, it's really interesting. And I, this has been such a fascinating, I knew this was going to be a great conversation and I'm happy that finally after four years... Yeah, I actually thought you were going to be my first podcast appearance four years ago. (1:57:58)
And then yeah, never happened, but I'm glad to finally be on. (1:58:01)
I'm so happy. Yeah. It's good to talk to you. And it's just so much fun. And thanks for the nice contribution to the show, but it's just so, it's so awesome to find people like yourself, you know, to have conversations with, have grounded conversations and you can educate in so many ways, which you do on Twitter. So definitely everybody out there, make sure you're following Jeff so you can see what he's putting forward. (1:58:28)
It's really, it's, it's cool. And I'm happy to know you and hopefully I'll see you at more of the history team meetings and things, because I really want to get to know Swords, you know, specifically. I've heard about him for so long and it would be fun to chat with him. Yeah. Yeah. I say it's that Twitter can be kind of a crapshoot at times, but I'm glad I got on it because I've met a lot of interested, like-minded people that approach this topic in a way I agree with that I didn't even know before. (1:58:59)
Like, you know, like Steve Long that you just said off, for example, like, so as, as bad as social media can be, I'm glad it's put me in touch with a lot of people like yourself. Yeah. That's, that is a good thing. All that we endure, we find cool people and, and we keep on going. And so I appreciate your work and your effort and your time tonight. (1:59:15)
I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend and a happy 4th of July. Oh, is that what's this weekend? No, not this weekend. It's Tuesday. So I'm so isolated. I don't even pay attention to dates really, or times like I said, I'm on a weird schedule. So, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I, from what I, from what you've said, you're a late night kind of guy. (1:59:33)
So, yeah, but I hope you have, I hope you have fun. Yeah, you too. Yeah. Thank you so much. Take care. I will talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye. All right, you guys, thanks for listening to the show. That was a great conversation with Jeff. I'm definitely going to have to have him back again to pick his brain. (1:59:51)
And like I said, when he was here, it is really, really wonderful to make connections like this and find people that care about the subject, that care about preserving history, that care about moving the needle forward in a positive manner and supporting and mentoring other people. So thanks, Jeff, for being here. (2:00:13)
And I want to thank all of you out there who listen to the show and Shadowy Spectrums and Jack and the Earth and everybody. UFO John Doe, thanks you guys. PL, thanks for subscribing and definitely make sure you do click, like, subscribe. I'm so bad at promoting my show, but you need to do that and make sure you're sharing it with other people so we can get the numbers up there. (2:00:34)
I definitely know that there's some good content and I look forward to putting out more. Just a word to all of you, next week my show will be on Saturday. So it'll be same time, five o'clock on Saturday. And I have a very special guest. The Earth was in chat and just a wonderful... I've been talking to her and did her show and so it will be fun. (2:00:54)
I'll be putting out a preview and her bio very, very quickly so you know about that and the date change. I want to thank Jack Brewer for his wonderful work and we, like I said at the beginning of the show, we're doing some interesting things and digging into areas that other people don't dig because we have a lot of leads in specific areas and this is information when it comes forward that will be a benefit to not only the people in the UFO community but also benefit other people in the world. (2:01:32)
I mean just put that one out there. So go to expandingfrontiersresearch.org and show your support for our non-profits and also read the wonderful blogs that we're putting out. We're going to be putting out video blogs as well so that will be really fun. Thank you very, very much everyone. Thanks Mario and Strange Recon, nice to see you in there and Drew Williams and thank you and Amy. Love you. (2:01:54)
Give Dinah a big kiss for me. So you guys have a wonderful weekend. Happy 4th of July and I will catch you guys next Saturday. (2:01:57)
(2024-12-24)