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foreign

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tassel you might have heard of ashtar

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you can almost guarantee you've not

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heard of Reinhold Schmidt

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Reinhold Schmidt

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um it was a uh a grain buyer worked and

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worked in agribusiness out in Nebraska

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and in 1957 November of 1957

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he had or claimed to have an encounter

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and this is this is first week of

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November of 57 so this is right in the

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middle of the huge wave of sightings

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that were sort of centered around the

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Levelland Texas flap right

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so Reinhold Schmidt is driving along

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in Nebraska and he comes across a landed

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Flying Saucer and I'm sort of

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compressing the story a little bit but

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he meets The Flying Saucer people

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they're a group of men and women in

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jumpsuits and things like that they all

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speak English they all speak English

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with a German accent which is very

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strange he

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um tries to find somebody to tell the

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story to ends up going to the police

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with it he is committed to a psychiatric

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facility for evaluation

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um and a lot of times that's you know

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sort of oh my gosh they took this

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seriously and we're trying to shut him

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up they let him leave on his he was able

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to check himself out so it wasn't like a

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sort of criminal psychiatric hold sort

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of thing

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um but

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he keeps telling the story writes a

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pamphlet about it goes on some some

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lecture tours and then what is

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fascinating to me about this

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is is he he hooks up with

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um with some other

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contactees

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um Daniel fry is uh is one of them there

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are some others he hooks up with on

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these lecture tours there's some great

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newspaper articles from the late 50s and

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early 60s where

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my favorite one is he uh he's going to

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lecture at a high school for like a high

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school assembly which is

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educationally negligent on the party oh

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man I would have killed to see that in

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my gymnasium are you kidding me all we

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got was don't do drugs don't drink and

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drive and you know be positive those

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were like the assemblies we had fun join

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the Navy you know it was yeah another

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big one but not join the Galactic

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Federation right that would have been

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very cool so he's telling me about how

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he's been on on subsequent trips with

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the uh with the space people and um they

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took him to Egypt and he was able to

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read some ancient Scrolls in one of the

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pyramids that um you know and and the

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high school this is all reported in the

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paper high school student asked well how

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were you able to read it and he's like

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it was in English and the students are

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like but why would it be in English and

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then the students just start peppering

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him with these questions and knocking

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holes in his story it's

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it's hilarious skeptical High School

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right it was just I mean his stories

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were so goofy that you know he did basic

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astronomy was wrong and you know he was

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getting wrong stuff that these students

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learned in their science classes so they

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called him out on it and then he hooks

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up with a movie director who had been

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interested in in

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um UFO stuff a guy named Ron Ormond

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and Ormond had directed some sort of low

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budget movies probably the most

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well-known one was uh the Mesa of lost

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women

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but Ormond makes a movie called The Edge

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of Tomorrow don't try to Google it all

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you'll get is the Tom Cruise movie

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um but it's called Edge of Tomorrow

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about Schmidt's contact experience and

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Schmidt stars in it as himself it's

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crazy it is wild it's like imagine Ed

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Wood sort of an Edward movie but and

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you're excited because oh wow this is

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going to be a

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um a a great uh

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you know contact e movie and it's not

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commercially available I was able to

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watch a copy with the promise I'd never

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share it with anybody else because the

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rights are apparently owned by a mining

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company somewhere it's very strange but

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um but the problem is with this movie is

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that most of it is just Schmidt sitting

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with an interviewer who's asking him

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questions and it's like the the worst

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example of telling not showing in a film

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yeah screenwriting 101 yeah it's it's I

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want more on the spaceship set and the

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very very 1961 looking looking spaceship

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crew it goes out into theaters it has a

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Hollywood Premiere that is not very well

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attended mood is kind of low at the

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Hollywood Premiere because

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um during it Schmidt is actually out on

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bail having been indicted for fraud he

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is an actual

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saucer felon he's a flying saucer felon

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a a flying saucer fraudster and he had a

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previous criminal record of of petty

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theft and and ripping people off but

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what he did was he started talking in

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his lectures about how the the aliens

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had shown him various places on Earth

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where valuable crystals could be mined

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in order to heal various diseases

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and he was hitting up mostly

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elderly women

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to invest and buy shares in his mining

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company which did not exist

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so after you know investing lots of

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money this little old lady goes to the I

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think she goes to her bank and the

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bank's like we're calling the FBI and so

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Schmidt is uh is arrested he's put on

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trial

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the newspaper accounts that this is in

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the early 60s the newspaper accounts of

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the trial are

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um are hilarious Schmidt must have

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gotten the worst lawyer

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money could buy because

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as part of their defense

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they showed the jury

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the movie Edge of Tomorrow

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as part of the defense

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also part of the day that's the first

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one it's insane and also as part of the

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defense the

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um the defense attorney

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cross-examines The Little Old Lady Who

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is the victim of all the or alleged

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victim at the time alleged victim of all

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this and brings her to tears in front of

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the jury

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it turns second okay this very very

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sympathetic person

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we're gonna look like absolute monsters

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between that and my Flying Saucer movie

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I think we've got this Kate Zona it's

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it's like

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Order would be you know they're season

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24 do something like this with Law and

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Order this would be outstanding but um

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get the SVU folks involved on a alien

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probing case that would take wolf if

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you're listening if you're listening we

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got something for you you call our

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people we've got to check out the saucer

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life please right that's right I um I'm

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willing to work a deal so Schmidt is uh

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is convicted of uh fraud and and selling

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securities without a license and selling

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securities that don't exist which I

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think is a separate crime

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he uh goes to prison for

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four or five years something like that

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um he dies

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um in the early 1970s he never tries to

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make a flying saucer comeback or

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anything and I'm not sure there's any

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wider significance to this story other

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than

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um the the degree to which when you know

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debunkers and and sort of hardcore

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this sort of no fun style of Skeptics

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talk about UFO people being frauds and

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there ought to be laws and this is

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Criminal it's like look there's no it's

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not fraud if you sell somebody a book

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and some of the stuff in the book isn't

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true you paid 10 bucks for a book you

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got a book you know it might not be true

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there were real crimes out there that

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were committed um Schmidt is one example

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there are there are some others

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um some of these crimes are UFO related

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like this some of this the crimes are

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like these are sleazy people who were

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involved in the UFO thing

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um I think sometimes we can go overboard

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on

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accusing people who might be making up a

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flying saucer story with somebody who's

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an actual criminal who's done legally

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actionable harm so I've just always

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loved uh the Schmidt story just got

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so much kind of fun goofy stuff it's not

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fun if you're the little lady who got

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ripped off but

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um other than that yeah it's just one of