1 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:48,520 It is very rare for thousands of people seeing the same light at the same time. 2 00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:50,760 I always refer to it as otherworldly. 3 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:53,960 That was the feeling, you know, when you watch a thing go over and you think, oh my gosh, 4 00:00:53,960 --> 00:00:58,160 you know, what otherworldly really describes it. 5 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:02,120 What makes the UFO so interesting is that it is such a scientific object. 6 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:06,840 But how do we separate reputable witnesses from crackpots? 7 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:13,200 95% of it is bullshit, but if the other 5% is true, it would be the biggest story of 8 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:15,040 all time. 9 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:17,880 The implications are enormous for everyone. 10 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:22,520 If these things are our own government's secret weapons, why would they endanger our 11 00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:23,520 own pilots? 12 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:25,880 It doesn't make any sense. 13 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:31,440 Are we on the brink of full disclosure about visitors from outer space? 14 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:36,400 Imagine if disclosure happens and all of a sudden the entire world starts experiencing 15 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:37,400 these things. 16 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:42,240 I think there's something about to happen and I think the world needs to get prepared 17 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:43,240 for it. 18 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:48,920 I really do. 19 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:55,320 For most people in history who have had a sighting of a UFO, those reports are pretty 20 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:56,320 brief. 21 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:58,880 There's not a lot of narrative to it. 22 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,800 Oh, I was walking the dog, saw something weird in the sky, couldn't figure it out, weird 23 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:03,800 blue light. 24 00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:06,880 That's it. 25 00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:12,040 There are then, however, people, of course, who tell more elaborate things, truly mysterious 26 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:13,540 experiences. 27 00:02:13,540 --> 00:02:17,840 He didn't communicate anything to you while you were taking back into the ship. 28 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:22,520 They start to question their worldview, their concept of reality. 29 00:02:47,840 --> 00:03:06,000 The thing about the UFO phenomenon is it really a tale about stories and story making. 30 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:11,400 Finding a way to turn this stuff into a coherent narrative is at the heart of, I think, humanity. 31 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:14,280 We want to do that. 32 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:15,760 My name is Greg Igiglian. 33 00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:18,640 I am a professor of history at Penn State University. 34 00:03:18,640 --> 00:03:24,720 I teach a lot on the history of madness and mental illness and psychiatry, history of 35 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:28,640 science as well. 36 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:34,920 When I was a kid growing up, I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and I was very 37 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:40,400 sickly and there were times where I literally, I couldn't move. 38 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:47,200 I was really kind of isolated and I began reading a lot. 39 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:49,360 The whole UFO thing really fascinated me. 40 00:03:49,360 --> 00:03:55,120 I would sit there and scour over the images of a flying saucer, like the way people used 41 00:03:55,120 --> 00:03:57,640 to look at album covers or something. 42 00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:02,120 I had this voracious appetite for UFOs. 43 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:05,280 I thought it was going to become an astronomer. 44 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:07,920 But as high school ended, I went to college. 45 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:13,360 I kind of lost interest in the topic. 46 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:19,000 Only recently, I was at a conference talking with a friend and colleague of mine who was 47 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:25,880 working on some stories in Europe after World War II about how, particularly in Germany, 48 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:32,480 right after the war, there was kind of almost a renaissance of interest in the occult. 49 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:36,880 I asked her, I've had to come across anything about UFOs because I'm sure there's tons 50 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:40,280 of people have written about it. 51 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:41,640 Lo and behold, what do I find? 52 00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:48,720 I find that no academic historian since the 1970s had ever really looked at the history 53 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:51,320 of UFOs. 54 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:59,720 The people who looked at it were sociologists, psychologists, folklorists, but nobody's from 55 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:04,720 my tribe, the historians. 56 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:10,440 What's so striking about the phenomenon is so many of the core elements. 57 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:15,920 They were all basically minted by the first five years of the phenomenon. 58 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:17,560 And then there's just a new riff. 59 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,080 There are variations on a theme. 60 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,720 Now they say that it's balloons like this one that have been mistaken for flying saucer. 61 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:29,720 In 1955, aliens supposedly terrorized a family farmhouse in Kelly, Kentucky. 62 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:35,760 Nine disc-like objects flying at a speed of approximately 1,500 miles per hour near Mount 63 00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:36,760 Rainier, Oregon. 64 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:42,240 I looked up and right over my head, virtually, there was a room of lights in the shape of 65 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:43,240 a triangle. 66 00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:44,240 I'll be talking to you something funny. 67 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:45,240 I don't know what color it is. 68 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:46,240 It's a red color. 69 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:47,240 Oh, good God. 70 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:48,240 I'm so intelligent. 71 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:56,240 I've entered an investigation into the identified flying out thing. 72 00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:59,240 There's always things like that going on. 73 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:02,680 They're flying saucers and they've had other things, you know. 74 00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:04,800 But now we've got some things that really fly. 75 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:08,560 And Russia put up the question if I'm not mistaken. 76 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:15,320 So a good example is the idea that the military slash government knows what's going on and 77 00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:17,680 isn't sharing that information. 78 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:19,840 They've lied about it for so long. 79 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:24,560 They've diverted money from legitimate national security programs into keeping this thing 80 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,800 going and keeping it secret for a long time. 81 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:28,800 There's different versions. 82 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:33,800 One is they're scared of creating a mass hysteria, mass panic. 83 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:35,020 People were scared. 84 00:06:35,020 --> 00:06:41,160 People did not know what it was, who was powering them, and that really fueled, I think, the 85 00:06:41,160 --> 00:06:44,920 CIA's concern that they had to squash it. 86 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:50,760 There's the story that no, they're actually in cahoots with the aliens themselves. 87 00:06:50,760 --> 00:06:55,080 Or there's just the plain old simple idea that while they're not sharing the information 88 00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:58,160 about this because these are secret weapons that they're using. 89 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:07,400 That theme, we're seeing it play out right now, right? 90 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:11,360 Now what's really strange is that the New York Times referenced metal alloys that were 91 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:18,200 being housed in specially designed buildings within Bigelow Aerospace's headquarters. 92 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:22,160 Fill in the blank to define whatever these metal alloys were, but the implications were 93 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:23,660 there. 94 00:07:23,660 --> 00:07:29,560 There have been a number of these reports over the years about crashes, where bits and pieces 95 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:32,440 of strange material were collected. 96 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:36,400 Those reports are that I've seen have varying degrees of credibility. 97 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:41,520 Some people that I know, the people who worked in these programs, think it's real. 98 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:46,640 I know that there's a lot of talk about Lockheed having things in there, some special warehouse. 99 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:47,640 I've never seen them. 100 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:50,840 I've not been invited to see them. 101 00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:54,520 So at this stage, there's no evidence for me. 102 00:07:54,520 --> 00:08:01,240 That to me could be potentially the biggest aspect through this entire story. 103 00:08:01,240 --> 00:08:05,960 And yet the New York Times, they just drop that bombshell in one line and move on. 104 00:08:05,960 --> 00:08:08,400 Why would you do that? 105 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:13,120 Let's just say that there were these mysterious metals retrieved from UFOs. 106 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:17,520 Would you give them to the private sector, number one? 107 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:21,920 But number two, would you give them to a warehouse that anybody that's off the Las Vegas Strip 108 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,360 can drive up to? 109 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:30,320 In the realm of government secrecy, none of that makes sense. 110 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:32,320 Hi. 111 00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:41,680 We did some follow-up for the New York Times about crash retrieved objects. 112 00:08:41,680 --> 00:08:47,360 In July of 2020, very reputable sources have told us they believe indeed there are materials 113 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:53,320 that are in the possession of possible aerospace companies or special secret access programs. 114 00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:57,540 My colleague Ralph Blumenthal and I were privy to briefing slides that were actually 115 00:08:57,540 --> 00:09:02,500 used by the Department of Defense program to brief all kinds of people in which they 116 00:09:02,500 --> 00:09:06,620 reference anomalous aerial vehicles that have been retrieved. 117 00:09:06,620 --> 00:09:09,160 They call them crash retrievals. 118 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:15,540 And they even use the word off-world to describe that these are possibly off-world vehicles. 119 00:09:15,540 --> 00:09:19,880 They could be any of the major players, Lockheed, Northrop. 120 00:09:19,880 --> 00:09:26,080 I have a feeling that there's going to be huge boom in tech in the next 10 years due 121 00:09:26,100 --> 00:09:29,540 to the fact that we're understanding a lot more of this reverse-engineered tech. 122 00:09:29,540 --> 00:09:33,620 The full U.S. Senate Intelligence Commission report on this phenomenon is due out before 123 00:09:33,620 --> 00:09:34,620 the end of the month. 124 00:09:34,620 --> 00:09:40,780 This is one of the narratives you see play out again and again and again. 125 00:09:40,780 --> 00:09:41,780 That's right. 126 00:09:41,780 --> 00:09:47,100 There have been narratives about crashes and bodies back since 1947. 127 00:09:47,100 --> 00:09:53,780 And there's no way to know if something is that secret, you know, whether it actually 128 00:09:53,780 --> 00:09:55,700 happened or not. 129 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:59,960 The narrative is that the military has truth and is hiding it from you. 130 00:09:59,960 --> 00:10:05,600 To some degree, it is even less about flying saucers and aliens and some extraterrestrial 131 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:06,600 threat. 132 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:10,920 It's that whatever it is, the military knows and they're hiding it from you. 133 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:13,000 And that's the part that's really scary. 134 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:27,740 As a historian, when you look back at when people first started talking about having 135 00:10:27,740 --> 00:10:34,860 contact with aliens, the stories that completely dominate the UFO scene, even into the middle 136 00:10:34,860 --> 00:10:41,660 part of the 60s, are a very different set of stories. 137 00:10:41,660 --> 00:10:47,240 Those are stories about people meeting aliens out in the field somewhere. 138 00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:48,360 They look like us. 139 00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:52,480 They typically speak our language or they speak to me telepathically. 140 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:57,160 And they come here with this basic message, we're here to help you. 141 00:10:57,160 --> 00:11:02,880 We're here to warn you about nuclear weapons and, you know, stop killing each other. 142 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:06,280 We don't feel as paranoid about the future, about our place. 143 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:11,160 I don't think we're afraid of as much as we used to be. 144 00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:17,020 And when people have these encounters, they come back and they say, this was one of the 145 00:11:17,020 --> 00:11:18,180 most wonderful experiences of my life. 146 00:11:18,180 --> 00:11:22,500 I hope I get to see them again. 147 00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:28,740 The interesting thing to me, though, is that these stories are out there. 148 00:11:28,740 --> 00:11:35,660 But for well over almost two decades, they make almost no mark in popular culture. 149 00:11:36,660 --> 00:11:40,040 Okay, let's talk about encounters. 150 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,680 Because it's easy to take the first step when there's evidence of things in the sky without 151 00:11:43,680 --> 00:11:45,040 logical explanations. 152 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:51,080 But it's a much bigger step in terms of belief when you start reading about these encounters. 153 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:59,880 Well, it's not the area that I focused on and I chose not to focus on it. 154 00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:03,360 Because the angle that I was taking in my reporting was to try to get credibility for 155 00:12:03,380 --> 00:12:06,060 the subject and I knew that that was not the way to go. 156 00:12:06,060 --> 00:12:12,340 Whether it was true or not, it didn't matter, you know. 157 00:12:12,340 --> 00:12:18,380 Even if it were all true, that was not the first step in terms of getting people to accept this. 158 00:12:18,380 --> 00:12:23,980 My wife and I were driving along Route 3 when we saw what looked like a bright star in the 159 00:12:23,980 --> 00:12:24,980 heavens. 160 00:12:24,980 --> 00:12:27,980 And surprisingly, it began coming in my direction. 161 00:12:27,980 --> 00:12:35,080 I could see what I thought was approximately 9 to 11 men looking down through this series 162 00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:36,080 of windows. 163 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:41,080 Well, this was too much for me and I made a hasty retreat to the car, seeming to the 164 00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:43,600 wife that they had seen me, they had seen us. 165 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:48,120 My God, they're going to capture us. 166 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:52,560 I remember very, very vividly stories about the hills. 167 00:12:52,560 --> 00:12:55,400 Their story absolutely riveted me. 168 00:12:55,400 --> 00:13:01,780 I couldn't stop reading even though I couldn't get to sleep properly every night as I was 169 00:13:01,780 --> 00:13:02,780 reading it. 170 00:13:02,780 --> 00:13:17,780 These men started to come up to the car and they're taking me up to the object. 171 00:13:17,780 --> 00:13:24,780 And then there's, sort of in the middle of the room is a table. 172 00:13:24,780 --> 00:13:31,780 And the accelerator has a long needle in its head. 173 00:13:31,780 --> 00:13:37,780 It's bigger than any needle I've ever seen. 174 00:13:37,780 --> 00:14:06,780 I'm not writing it off. 175 00:14:06,780 --> 00:14:27,980 The problem with it is it's very hard to prove it. 176 00:14:27,980 --> 00:14:35,060 There are many other cases, some remarkable stories in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s. 177 00:14:35,420 --> 00:14:40,700 They're not something that gets a lot of attention. 178 00:14:40,700 --> 00:14:52,200 And then suddenly you hit the early 1980s and bam, everything is about alien abduction. 179 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:57,140 Creatures with large heads and huge dark eyes usually appear in the middle of the night 180 00:14:57,140 --> 00:15:00,060 and often perform sinister medical experiments. 181 00:15:00,060 --> 00:15:04,820 I've had eggs removed from my ovaries repeatedly. 182 00:15:04,820 --> 00:15:09,260 My mother and I have both had close encounters of the fourth kind, also known as abduction 183 00:15:09,260 --> 00:15:10,260 experiences. 184 00:15:10,260 --> 00:15:14,580 So what's been happening is we've been transported aboard a UFO of some sort of 185 00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:15,580 craft. 186 00:15:15,580 --> 00:15:20,620 We've undergone physical examination, mind scan process and reproductive processes. 187 00:15:20,620 --> 00:15:24,700 They're creating a hybrid race between humans and extraterrestrials. 188 00:15:24,700 --> 00:15:29,300 So the question then to me becomes why are they interesting now? 189 00:15:29,300 --> 00:15:32,700 Why does this become something fascinating? 190 00:15:33,140 --> 00:15:38,220 There I think you have to start looking at things that are going on in popular culture 191 00:15:38,220 --> 00:15:42,940 but things that are going on in society, technological changes. 192 00:15:42,940 --> 00:15:45,420 And you have a whole host of things. 193 00:15:45,420 --> 00:15:50,980 One of the things that becomes a very big part of public discussion starting in the 194 00:15:50,980 --> 00:16:00,180 1960s into the 1980s is a focus on home invasions. 195 00:16:00,180 --> 00:16:05,340 Playing with basically Truman Capote's and cold blood. 196 00:16:05,340 --> 00:16:10,420 This case becomes sort of this one pivotal moment where people start to say this could 197 00:16:10,420 --> 00:16:14,060 happen to anybody. 198 00:16:14,060 --> 00:16:21,460 The Manson family, Kelly, has become a kind of a flash point for talking about these things. 199 00:16:21,460 --> 00:16:26,100 This is also by the way the age of hijacking. 200 00:16:26,100 --> 00:16:32,220 When people talk about encounters in say the early 60s the encounters overwhelmingly 201 00:16:32,220 --> 00:16:35,780 were outside where outdoors are in my car. 202 00:16:35,780 --> 00:16:41,180 By the time you get into the 1990s the majority of people say my encounters are in my bedroom. 203 00:16:41,180 --> 00:16:46,300 I'll be laying down on the bed and whichever direction I'm facing they will be behind me 204 00:16:46,300 --> 00:16:47,500 every time. 205 00:16:47,500 --> 00:16:52,860 I'm not saying that people are just making things up that's not my point. 206 00:16:52,860 --> 00:16:57,060 All of this seems to lie in this idea of a traumatic experience. 207 00:16:57,060 --> 00:17:06,340 And it's interesting to me that trauma, that term trauma, when does that start to really 208 00:17:06,340 --> 00:17:11,540 become part of the public conversation about experiences that are terrifying? 209 00:17:11,540 --> 00:17:19,140 Well it's there already being talked about after World War II in the wake of the Holocaust. 210 00:17:19,140 --> 00:17:24,180 It's being talked about in the 1970s and the feminist movement about women who are victims 211 00:17:24,180 --> 00:17:26,740 of domestic abuse. 212 00:17:26,740 --> 00:17:33,220 But it's of course institutionalized in 1980 by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual with 213 00:17:33,220 --> 00:17:37,820 the invention of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 214 00:17:37,820 --> 00:17:46,380 And that's exactly when you get John Mack. 215 00:17:46,380 --> 00:17:53,780 I love books so everywhere I go I look for books, especially vintage books. 216 00:17:53,780 --> 00:17:57,580 In 2004 I was a correspondent in Texas and I picked up a book. 217 00:17:57,580 --> 00:18:03,980 I think it might have been in Larry McMurtry's town in Texas where he runs a lot of bookshops. 218 00:18:03,980 --> 00:18:08,860 The whole town is devoted to Archer City which became, you know, the last picture show. 219 00:18:08,860 --> 00:18:15,660 So I picked up a book called Passport to the Cosmos which was a book by John Mack. 220 00:18:15,660 --> 00:18:19,100 Passport to the Cosmos is Dr. Mack's newest book, quite simply. 221 00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:23,020 It's about people who claim they've been abducted by aliens. 222 00:18:23,020 --> 00:18:28,180 John Mack was a Pulitzer Prize winning Harvard researcher. 223 00:18:28,180 --> 00:18:33,540 In the 80s wrote the book Abduction, Human Encounters with Aliens. 224 00:18:33,540 --> 00:18:38,340 That's not an easy topic for an academic because it could ruin your career. 225 00:18:38,340 --> 00:18:42,740 It was very eminent in his field and he'd had a very distinguished career writing about 226 00:18:42,740 --> 00:18:44,740 Alonso Arabia. 227 00:18:44,740 --> 00:18:46,940 He'd been written up many times in the New York Times. 228 00:18:46,940 --> 00:18:49,620 He was an expert in childhood development. 229 00:18:49,620 --> 00:18:51,300 He had a written book on nightmares. 230 00:18:51,300 --> 00:18:54,380 He'd written a book on teenage suicide. 231 00:18:54,380 --> 00:18:55,780 He had been on Oprah. 232 00:18:55,780 --> 00:19:01,740 He was, you know, famous, infamous in some circles at Harvard but very, very well known. 233 00:19:01,740 --> 00:19:06,660 What the source of this is, what these beings are, where they come from, what creates this 234 00:19:06,660 --> 00:19:09,260 intelligence, I don't know. 235 00:19:09,260 --> 00:19:14,980 But there's something profoundly important going on here that is authentic and real. 236 00:19:14,980 --> 00:19:21,020 John Mack is a pivotal figure in this history. 237 00:19:21,020 --> 00:19:29,820 He has a kind of recognized legitimacy that most people in the UFO community did not enjoy. 238 00:19:29,820 --> 00:19:34,420 So the idea is if someone like him is interested in this topic and feels there's something 239 00:19:34,420 --> 00:19:38,980 worthy to look at, we've got to look at that. 240 00:19:38,980 --> 00:19:46,660 Do you, as an intelligent person who's investigated it, believe, I don't know if a better word, 241 00:19:46,660 --> 00:19:48,620 think it happened to them? 242 00:19:48,620 --> 00:19:53,260 Nothing in my 40 years of working with people prepared me for this phenomenon. 243 00:19:53,260 --> 00:19:58,900 In spite of all the criticism that I may be taking it too seriously or believing this 244 00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:04,580 really happened, there isn't a single case where anybody has found another explanation 245 00:20:04,580 --> 00:20:12,140 of what an individual has reported. 246 00:20:12,140 --> 00:20:16,100 The Harvard psychiatrist who's researching alien abduction, I thought he'd make a great 247 00:20:16,100 --> 00:20:18,180 story for the New York Times. 248 00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:23,340 I was thinking about calling him up for an interview and then literally a few days later 249 00:20:23,340 --> 00:20:29,900 I picked up the New York Times and I saw his obituary. 250 00:20:29,900 --> 00:20:32,500 I was shocked. 251 00:20:32,500 --> 00:20:36,500 He was run over and killed by a hit-and-run driver, a drunk driver in London. 252 00:20:36,500 --> 00:20:38,700 I thought it was very strange. 253 00:20:38,700 --> 00:20:44,940 The internet was already well along, so there were suspicions and allegations by people 254 00:20:44,940 --> 00:20:49,100 that he'd been assassinated. 255 00:20:49,100 --> 00:20:53,740 There's no question like a lot of famous people who have worked in the UFO area, whenever 256 00:20:53,740 --> 00:20:59,580 they die, particularly on timely death, there are people who come forward and say this is 257 00:20:59,580 --> 00:21:01,500 part of the conspiracy. 258 00:21:01,500 --> 00:21:08,220 The Men in Black narrative again, it's a common kind of thing that you see take place. 259 00:21:08,220 --> 00:21:13,060 The most common rumor was that another person named John Mack was run down at the same time, 260 00:21:13,060 --> 00:21:18,380 so that shows that John Mack's were targeted and it's not true as far as I could determine. 261 00:21:18,380 --> 00:21:21,620 There was no other John Mack run over. 262 00:21:21,620 --> 00:21:26,860 This is happening on the heels of the popularity of the X-Piles television show with a sort 263 00:21:26,860 --> 00:21:31,780 of burgeoning interest in alien culture. 264 00:21:31,780 --> 00:21:38,820 The early days of the web allows people who have an interest in aliens and UFOs to find 265 00:21:38,820 --> 00:21:44,940 each other more easily, where conspiracy theories or myth can take hold and find purchase with 266 00:21:44,940 --> 00:21:48,220 a group of people that can spread it more widely. 267 00:21:48,220 --> 00:21:51,900 It really was sadly much more simple than that. 268 00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:55,900 He was run over and killed by a hit-and-run drunk driver in London. 269 00:21:55,940 --> 00:21:59,940 He looked the wrong way and died almost immediately. 270 00:22:03,940 --> 00:22:07,820 So you didn't meet him, but what were his conclusions? 271 00:22:07,820 --> 00:22:12,020 What was he saying about these encounters that he found unique or special? 272 00:22:12,020 --> 00:22:17,020 Well, I mean he was a psychiatrist, so he was an expert scholar of the human mind and 273 00:22:17,020 --> 00:22:22,580 psyche and he found that these people were eminently normal. 274 00:22:22,660 --> 00:22:26,140 There's nothing to distinguish them except for the fact that they came to him telling 275 00:22:26,140 --> 00:22:28,140 of these extraordinary experiences. 276 00:22:28,140 --> 00:22:32,660 From the white light hitting me to then being paralyzed to being floated out of my room, 277 00:22:32,660 --> 00:22:35,260 going up into a spaceship, lying on a table. 278 00:22:35,260 --> 00:22:38,980 I was aware that they were putting an instrument in my neck. 279 00:22:38,980 --> 00:22:44,180 John Mack tells us in interviews when you look at what he talked about, his first response 280 00:22:44,180 --> 00:22:45,940 was this is nonsense. 281 00:22:45,940 --> 00:22:47,140 This is utter nonsense. 282 00:22:47,700 --> 00:22:52,700 But what really struck him as he looked more at the people seemed legitimately upset. 283 00:22:52,700 --> 00:22:55,220 I'm remembering what they did to me. 284 00:22:55,220 --> 00:22:58,220 I don't want them doing that to her. 285 00:22:58,220 --> 00:23:01,500 And I just swear, don't touch her, don't take her. 286 00:23:01,500 --> 00:23:04,420 But don't do those things to her. 287 00:23:04,420 --> 00:23:09,660 They were telling stories that were consistent with one another, though these people had 288 00:23:09,660 --> 00:23:11,180 never met one another. 289 00:23:11,180 --> 00:23:14,180 They would hear that another person had had the same experience. 290 00:23:14,180 --> 00:23:18,620 They would become very much disturbed because it meant they couldn't dismiss it as a dream. 291 00:23:18,620 --> 00:23:21,580 They couldn't dismiss it as their private mental illness or fantasy. 292 00:23:21,580 --> 00:23:25,540 And that to a psychiatrist, at least to this psychiatrist, was very powerful. 293 00:23:25,540 --> 00:23:28,020 It was a broad cross-section of humanity. 294 00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:34,020 Men, women, blue collar people, professionals, psychiatrists also, doctors, lawyers, politicians, 295 00:23:34,020 --> 00:23:37,780 and children as young as two years old who would tell stories about little men who took 296 00:23:37,780 --> 00:23:39,620 them up into the sky. 297 00:23:39,620 --> 00:23:43,460 And he realized, of course, that these children were not reciting stories from books they 298 00:23:43,460 --> 00:23:45,140 had read or movies they had seen. 299 00:23:45,140 --> 00:23:46,860 They were two years old. 300 00:23:46,860 --> 00:23:47,860 They were not mentally ill. 301 00:23:47,860 --> 00:23:51,140 He was convinced of that because that was his field. 302 00:23:51,140 --> 00:23:52,140 They were not deluded. 303 00:23:52,140 --> 00:23:54,940 They were not looking for publicity. 304 00:23:54,940 --> 00:23:59,220 On the contrary, they were horrified by what they think had happened to them. 305 00:23:59,220 --> 00:24:04,700 They were traumatized, often to the point of shaking and crying when they revealed these 306 00:24:04,700 --> 00:24:07,500 encounters in sessions that he had with them. 307 00:24:07,500 --> 00:24:12,180 He didn't communicate anything to you about why you were taken back into the ship. 308 00:24:12,900 --> 00:24:16,620 I just remember being able to see that light again. 309 00:24:16,620 --> 00:24:21,740 Basically, he could not find any other explanation other than what the people said had happened 310 00:24:21,740 --> 00:24:24,380 to them. 311 00:24:24,380 --> 00:24:27,340 In these cases, these people have been examined by myself. 312 00:24:27,340 --> 00:24:28,980 They've been tested psychologically. 313 00:24:28,980 --> 00:24:31,820 They are of above average intelligence. 314 00:24:31,820 --> 00:24:32,820 They are of sound mind. 315 00:24:32,820 --> 00:24:37,180 They've been shown as a superior mental functioning by the testers. 316 00:24:37,180 --> 00:24:41,460 So there is not indication of any kind of psychiatric condition that can account for 317 00:24:41,460 --> 00:24:44,700 this that I've been able to find because they don't want to believe it's true. 318 00:24:44,700 --> 00:24:48,100 They would rather believe it's a dream or a form of mental illness than that this is 319 00:24:48,100 --> 00:24:53,020 something real because it's so shattering to their notion of reality. 320 00:24:53,020 --> 00:24:57,460 If you look through John Mack's book, you see these people have these contact experiences. 321 00:24:57,460 --> 00:25:02,660 It was always some type of incredible event. 322 00:25:02,660 --> 00:25:06,700 And then they understood it to be a real thing. 323 00:25:06,700 --> 00:25:12,580 There are experiences from hundreds of years ago that look similar to what people experience 324 00:25:12,580 --> 00:25:13,580 today. 325 00:25:13,580 --> 00:25:23,060 One of the best examples of that has to be Teresa of Avila, who is a doctor of the church, 326 00:25:23,060 --> 00:25:28,460 and she was an Italian nun in the 1500s. 327 00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:34,860 She had this experience that is very well represented in Western art, and it's represented 328 00:25:34,860 --> 00:25:37,260 in statues and paintings. 329 00:25:37,260 --> 00:25:45,220 And it's this experience where if you looked at it, you would see her in kind of ecstasy. 330 00:25:45,220 --> 00:25:49,460 And you see this angel. 331 00:25:49,460 --> 00:25:55,140 There's a very famous statue by Bernini in Rome where there's an angel carrying this 332 00:25:55,140 --> 00:25:56,140 dart. 333 00:25:56,140 --> 00:25:58,420 And you know, it looks like Eros, right? 334 00:25:58,420 --> 00:26:01,460 The god Eros with the dart who's going to get you and you know, you're going to fall 335 00:26:01,460 --> 00:26:02,460 in love. 336 00:26:02,460 --> 00:26:07,860 If you actually read her report of it, it looks nothing like her actual experience. 337 00:26:07,860 --> 00:26:12,700 She says, this is not a normal angel, but usually if I see an angel, it's imaginative. 338 00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:16,340 It's, you know, something in my head, but this thing's actually real, right? 339 00:26:16,340 --> 00:26:17,340 This thing's like fleshy. 340 00:26:17,340 --> 00:26:20,060 It's right there. 341 00:26:20,060 --> 00:26:21,060 And it's short. 342 00:26:21,060 --> 00:26:23,740 You know, it's three feet and it's fiery. 343 00:26:23,740 --> 00:26:24,740 It's on fire. 344 00:26:25,020 --> 00:26:33,540 And it has this prong and it's, it's, you know, thrust the prong into my bowel. 345 00:26:33,540 --> 00:26:38,340 You see this time and time again in history with people who have these experiences and 346 00:26:38,340 --> 00:26:41,820 sightings, what are called contact experiences. 347 00:26:41,820 --> 00:26:47,740 And then what happens is that there is an interpretive framework around that, that the 348 00:26:47,740 --> 00:26:51,900 church then declares as what happened. 349 00:26:51,900 --> 00:26:57,100 The interpretation then gets done after the experience. 350 00:26:57,100 --> 00:27:01,420 That's what's called religion. 351 00:27:01,420 --> 00:27:06,540 And then it's represented like you can say that pop culture back then were paintings 352 00:27:06,540 --> 00:27:09,420 and statues. 353 00:27:09,420 --> 00:27:15,100 Teresa has her event and it gets changed, right? 354 00:27:15,100 --> 00:27:19,380 It becomes something completely different than what she actually wrote about. 355 00:27:19,380 --> 00:27:22,420 And we decide we're only going to look at these parts because we can only deal with 356 00:27:22,420 --> 00:27:32,580 those parts. 357 00:27:32,580 --> 00:27:38,220 John Mack is unusual and important because when he encounters the alien abductees, he 358 00:27:38,220 --> 00:27:45,180 says, I could start to question their worldview, their cosmology is what he called it, their 359 00:27:45,180 --> 00:27:46,180 reality. 360 00:27:46,300 --> 00:27:51,260 He said, but I started to come to believe that I was being called on to embrace their 361 00:27:51,260 --> 00:27:54,220 experiences as something that challenges me. 362 00:27:54,220 --> 00:27:59,580 If this is a real experience, that is some kind of entities, beings, intelligences are 363 00:27:59,580 --> 00:28:04,140 entering our world and affecting hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people according 364 00:28:04,140 --> 00:28:06,980 to polls, then this is something really worth looking at. 365 00:28:06,980 --> 00:28:12,580 So that's what I've been trying to do is get people at least look at it, think about it. 366 00:28:12,580 --> 00:28:15,540 To me, that's the challenge of these encounter stories. 367 00:28:15,540 --> 00:28:18,660 They really confront this idea of belief. 368 00:28:18,660 --> 00:28:22,060 Once you kind of get hit in the face with this and there's a connection you can make 369 00:28:22,060 --> 00:28:29,340 to it where you just realize this is too big to turn away from, it can just grab you. 370 00:28:29,340 --> 00:28:30,580 That's what it feels like. 371 00:28:30,580 --> 00:28:34,540 And I'm the same way, you know, so I understand it. 372 00:28:34,540 --> 00:28:39,020 How did you become a journalist for UFOs? 373 00:28:39,020 --> 00:28:40,980 I never went to formal school. 374 00:28:40,980 --> 00:28:46,100 Actually I went to Burma and I was documenting a lot of human rights abuses in Burma in the 375 00:28:46,100 --> 00:28:47,460 90s, basically. 376 00:28:55,460 --> 00:29:00,020 And when I came back, I was invited to go on a public radio show. 377 00:29:00,020 --> 00:29:03,380 And then I started working with the producer of that show who was really interested in 378 00:29:03,380 --> 00:29:08,100 what I had, and I was eventually hired to work at this radio station. 379 00:29:08,100 --> 00:29:10,460 Were you at all interested in UFOs? 380 00:29:10,460 --> 00:29:13,260 I was curious, but no more than your average person. 381 00:29:13,260 --> 00:29:20,140 I mean, I never, ever would have imagined that I would ever be professionally involved. 382 00:29:20,140 --> 00:29:25,500 What started the whole thing was I was sent a report in 1999 from a colleague in France 383 00:29:25,500 --> 00:29:28,900 called the Cametta Report. 384 00:29:28,900 --> 00:29:35,300 It was a 90-page study on UFO data by a group of very distinguished people in France. 385 00:29:35,300 --> 00:29:39,460 Generals, admirals, police chiefs, scientists, engineers. 386 00:29:40,460 --> 00:29:45,300 They were only looking at official cases, pilot cases, military cases. 387 00:29:45,300 --> 00:29:48,980 Then they spent three years studying all these official cases and they came out with this 388 00:29:48,980 --> 00:29:55,860 90-page study, which basically said that the best hypothesis for all this data they observed 389 00:29:55,860 --> 00:30:01,620 was that we were being visited by extraterrestrial vehicles. 390 00:30:01,620 --> 00:30:03,660 And I was just absolutely fascinated by it. 391 00:30:03,660 --> 00:30:08,860 I thought this is a massively huge story. 392 00:30:08,860 --> 00:30:12,780 This was the first time I went out on my own, pitched this story, and it was published in 393 00:30:12,780 --> 00:30:13,780 the Boston Globe. 394 00:30:13,780 --> 00:30:17,460 And that was sort of what launched me on this journey. 395 00:30:17,460 --> 00:30:21,460 And from that moment on, I was like hooked. 396 00:30:21,460 --> 00:30:23,060 I'm not a UFO guy. 397 00:30:23,060 --> 00:30:24,220 It wasn't my thing. 398 00:30:24,220 --> 00:30:29,980 I was chasing the mob in those days, but this got my attention. 399 00:30:29,980 --> 00:30:32,380 I was hooked on it. 400 00:30:32,380 --> 00:30:37,540 There was a huge outpouring of excitement from the UFO community because I don't think a 401 00:30:37,540 --> 00:30:44,820 journalist had ever taken it seriously enough to publish a long story in a major publication 402 00:30:44,820 --> 00:30:46,820 like the Boston Globe. 403 00:30:46,820 --> 00:30:49,580 Suddenly, my phone starts ringing off the hook. 404 00:30:49,580 --> 00:30:50,580 People are calling. 405 00:30:50,580 --> 00:30:52,340 They're giving me tips about UFOs. 406 00:30:52,340 --> 00:30:56,700 And I realized that this topic touched the pulse of the public in a way that I had never 407 00:30:56,700 --> 00:30:59,060 considered before. 408 00:30:59,060 --> 00:31:05,140 I started going to some conferences, so I would meet members of the UFO community. 409 00:31:05,140 --> 00:31:12,260 And then it was actually introduced to Bud Hopkins. 410 00:31:12,260 --> 00:31:16,780 Bud Hopkins is a guy who already in the early 80s had become quite famous. 411 00:31:16,780 --> 00:31:21,460 The evidence suggests beyond any doubt, as far as I'm concerned, that we're being visited 412 00:31:21,460 --> 00:31:25,420 by some kind of, some form of intelligence, which is higher than ours, and some kind of 413 00:31:25,420 --> 00:31:27,180 technology, which is higher than ours. 414 00:31:27,180 --> 00:31:32,060 We keep it at arm's length conveniently, but it does upset more and more people as they 415 00:31:32,060 --> 00:31:35,100 see the evidence for it. 416 00:31:35,100 --> 00:31:40,420 Bud Hopkins was a very well-known artist before any of this came into his life. 417 00:31:40,420 --> 00:31:45,140 He was an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. 418 00:31:45,140 --> 00:31:48,580 The reason this whole thing started for him was because he had a sighting himself. 419 00:31:48,580 --> 00:31:53,100 I was fully convinced that the Air Force had said they were balloons or something or other. 420 00:31:53,100 --> 00:31:56,100 I never knew what, and I accepted that. 421 00:31:56,100 --> 00:31:59,820 But then when we saw this thing flying around, I was very aware that, okay, there's something 422 00:31:59,820 --> 00:32:02,780 up there that has not been explained. 423 00:32:02,780 --> 00:32:06,700 He saw a disc-shaped object in the sky, and it turns out other people had seen the same 424 00:32:06,700 --> 00:32:07,700 thing. 425 00:32:07,700 --> 00:32:12,980 And then he's in the liquor store one day because he liked to have his evening scotch. 426 00:32:12,980 --> 00:32:16,900 The guy in the store just started talking about this landing of a UFO that had happened 427 00:32:16,900 --> 00:32:17,900 in New Jersey. 428 00:32:17,900 --> 00:32:22,420 And he said that there had been beings that had come out and there were marks on the ground, 429 00:32:22,420 --> 00:32:27,100 and he wrote about it in the Village Voice, a paper in New York City. 430 00:32:27,100 --> 00:32:31,940 And it took off, and he just got so many letters from people who said, I've seen things like 431 00:32:31,940 --> 00:32:33,380 this too. 432 00:32:33,380 --> 00:32:39,020 And I concealed deliberately certain details about the UFO, its color, certain details about 433 00:32:39,020 --> 00:32:43,260 the weather condition, because I wanted to, I was convinced that there were other witnesses, 434 00:32:43,260 --> 00:32:46,260 and I wanted to have some way of checking their veracity. 435 00:32:46,260 --> 00:32:49,980 And in fact, we got something like seven or eight other witnesses who were right about 436 00:32:49,980 --> 00:32:51,940 these missing details. 437 00:32:51,940 --> 00:32:56,660 And so I knew, all right, these things are flying around. 438 00:32:56,660 --> 00:33:03,900 He ends up meeting John Mack, and he introduces Mack to some of these folks who say these 439 00:33:03,900 --> 00:33:04,900 things. 440 00:33:04,900 --> 00:33:10,180 I handed him 20 unopened letters that I had not looked at myself, not read them, not 441 00:33:10,180 --> 00:33:14,100 open them, from people who obviously were writing in because they felt they had experiences. 442 00:33:14,100 --> 00:33:17,820 And I said, John, you open these letters, you read them. 443 00:33:17,820 --> 00:33:22,540 And he called me the next day to say he was quite astonished by this. 444 00:33:22,540 --> 00:33:27,260 John Hopkins trained himself to hypnotize people, but he was an artist, and as he said, 445 00:33:27,260 --> 00:33:29,300 nobody cares what an artist thinks. 446 00:33:29,300 --> 00:33:34,300 But John Mack made people think twice about the whole subject. 447 00:33:34,300 --> 00:33:41,140 Mack was interested in this idea that you wanted to focus on the experience. 448 00:33:41,140 --> 00:33:44,540 There have been critics who said Mack had gone native. 449 00:33:44,540 --> 00:33:49,060 He empathized with his storytellers so much that he promoted their story because of their 450 00:33:49,100 --> 00:33:53,540 trauma and pain. 451 00:33:53,540 --> 00:33:59,420 When they talk about him going native, it does seem to me what any good treatment professional, 452 00:33:59,420 --> 00:34:01,780 any therapist would do. 453 00:34:01,780 --> 00:34:08,340 You try to put yourself in the position in a sympathetic way, even maybe empathetic way, 454 00:34:08,340 --> 00:34:12,500 of looking at problems and issues through the experiences and lives of the people you're 455 00:34:12,500 --> 00:34:19,500 treating. 456 00:34:19,500 --> 00:34:24,500 It's not horrible. 457 00:34:24,500 --> 00:34:26,500 Who's horrible? 458 00:34:26,500 --> 00:34:28,500 Who's a? 459 00:34:28,500 --> 00:34:32,500 I want to talk about it. 460 00:34:32,500 --> 00:34:37,180 When someone says going native, and I look at Mack and what he was first famous for, which 461 00:34:37,180 --> 00:34:42,420 was writing a book about T.E. Lawrence, probably the most famous and gone native account in 462 00:34:42,420 --> 00:34:43,420 history. 463 00:34:43,420 --> 00:34:47,620 He had won a Pulitzer Prize, the biography of Lawrence of Arabia. 464 00:34:47,620 --> 00:34:53,300 John Mack did identify with Lawrence, the person who had a conflict between his inner 465 00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:59,180 life, very intellectual and his outer life, obviously mobilizing Arab tribesmen against 466 00:34:59,180 --> 00:35:04,180 the Ottoman Empire, a very action-filled life. 467 00:35:04,180 --> 00:35:07,180 No prisoners! 468 00:35:07,180 --> 00:35:10,180 No prisoners! 469 00:35:10,180 --> 00:35:17,180 No prisoners! 470 00:35:17,180 --> 00:35:23,340 He said many times, John Mack, that he identified with his struggles, and he tried to emulate 471 00:35:23,340 --> 00:35:29,740 Lawrence's methods, because Lawrence was a master statesman too, very politically savvy. 472 00:35:29,740 --> 00:35:31,940 John Mack was in similar circumstances. 473 00:35:31,940 --> 00:35:38,540 He was a pillar of the Harvard establishment, interested in aliens and UFOs. 474 00:35:38,540 --> 00:35:43,980 We try to shrink the phenomenon into something where it, as far as I can tell, won't fit, 475 00:35:43,980 --> 00:35:47,460 or we're going to have to stretch our notions of the possible. 476 00:35:47,460 --> 00:35:52,940 John really had a lot at stake, given his position at Harvard and his credentials and 477 00:35:52,940 --> 00:35:56,060 you know, all of that. 478 00:35:56,060 --> 00:35:59,260 First of all, Harvard was really no stranger to anomalous research. 479 00:35:59,260 --> 00:36:04,860 I mean, William James, the father of psychology, was attending seances and writing about paranormal 480 00:36:04,860 --> 00:36:07,020 events a hundred years ago. 481 00:36:07,020 --> 00:36:11,500 It's something about John Mack's manner, put them off. 482 00:36:11,500 --> 00:36:14,940 He was a little too popular. 483 00:36:14,940 --> 00:36:19,820 Academia will never forgive professors who spend their lives writing, you know, obscure 484 00:36:19,820 --> 00:36:22,420 papers that never get any attention. 485 00:36:22,420 --> 00:36:28,140 And this guy comes along and he writes a bestseller after trying to get peer-reviewed, you know, 486 00:36:28,140 --> 00:36:30,180 and being rejected. 487 00:36:30,180 --> 00:36:36,780 Harvard ends up doing an investigation into his research practices. 488 00:36:36,780 --> 00:36:45,540 In the end, he is allowed to continue his career. 489 00:36:45,540 --> 00:36:53,260 This is also part of that history of the flying saucer UFO phenomenon, that whenever an institution 490 00:36:53,260 --> 00:37:00,140 that is recognized as respected, whenever they grant this stuff some sort of legitimacy, 491 00:37:00,140 --> 00:37:10,060 as a topic that is worthy of conversation, worthy of investigation, it is credibility. 492 00:37:10,060 --> 00:37:14,980 During that same period of time, Bob Bigelow is starting to put the pieces together for 493 00:37:14,980 --> 00:37:21,540 the National Institute for Discovery Science, NIDS. 494 00:37:21,540 --> 00:37:27,580 Do you imagine that in our space travels, we will encounter other forms of intelligent 495 00:37:27,580 --> 00:37:28,580 life? 496 00:37:28,580 --> 00:37:30,380 You have to go anywhere. 497 00:37:30,380 --> 00:37:32,380 You can find it here. 498 00:37:32,380 --> 00:37:33,380 Yeah. 499 00:37:33,380 --> 00:37:38,420 He and I would meet and during those years, he would share with me things that he was 500 00:37:38,420 --> 00:37:43,900 financing, the kind of research that he had funded. 501 00:37:43,900 --> 00:37:50,300 He was at that time providing financial support, a number of really distinguished academics 502 00:37:50,300 --> 00:37:51,940 and researchers. 503 00:37:51,940 --> 00:37:58,980 You know like Bud Hopkins and eventually Dr. John Mack from Harvard? 504 00:37:58,980 --> 00:38:03,780 When you look at those connections, right, and everybody seemingly is more and more connected 505 00:38:03,780 --> 00:38:10,700 into this story, you see them all essentially gel for decades together and they just keep 506 00:38:10,700 --> 00:38:16,700 popping up in the same programs or the same stories or the same objectives. 507 00:38:16,700 --> 00:38:18,100 Why is that? 508 00:38:18,100 --> 00:38:21,900 Is it that they are just all buddies and friends and they have this budding interest in the 509 00:38:21,900 --> 00:38:26,220 same things or maybe there's something else being played out at this point that keeps 510 00:38:26,220 --> 00:38:29,820 them all together? 511 00:38:29,820 --> 00:38:35,740 I want to be generous but if there's anything we've learned, there is money and a certain 512 00:38:35,740 --> 00:38:41,820 kind of prestige in being at the forefront of this. 513 00:38:41,820 --> 00:38:45,180 From the very beginning, there are drivers of this. 514 00:38:45,180 --> 00:38:50,700 There are people who take up a role kind of self-appointedly. 515 00:38:50,700 --> 00:38:57,900 They take up this role that I am going to be a campaigner for a time they are the bright 516 00:38:57,900 --> 00:38:59,860 shining stars and all this. 517 00:38:59,860 --> 00:39:07,260 But they ultimately fall away and new people take their place. 518 00:39:07,260 --> 00:39:13,940 There's never been some central institution, central agency or a group of people who concertedly 519 00:39:13,940 --> 00:39:18,860 trying to keep this thing alive. 520 00:39:19,020 --> 00:39:23,100 There's always been this kind of interest at an individual level. 521 00:39:23,100 --> 00:39:28,100 I think you'd go so far as to say some people really understand themselves as crusaders 522 00:39:28,100 --> 00:39:30,100 for truth. 523 00:39:30,100 --> 00:39:35,740 In 1947, two crafts crashed into Mexico. 524 00:39:35,740 --> 00:39:41,940 They collided and one crashed near Corona, New Mexico, which is public record. 525 00:39:41,940 --> 00:39:47,380 The second craft crashed way out west of Magdalena, New Mexico and that wasn't found until two 526 00:39:47,420 --> 00:39:49,060 years later. 527 00:39:49,060 --> 00:39:53,020 But the one that crashed in Corona, they also found a live alien. 528 00:39:53,020 --> 00:40:04,020 Live alien was named Eva and he was transported to Los Alamos where he lived out his life. 529 00:40:04,020 --> 00:40:07,700 He died in 1952. 530 00:40:07,700 --> 00:40:12,060 But during that time period that he was with us, he told us a plethora of information about 531 00:40:12,060 --> 00:40:17,340 what they have learned about the universe and what their technology is. 532 00:40:18,300 --> 00:40:23,300 Their technology is probably estimated to be about 50,000 years ahead of us. 533 00:40:23,300 --> 00:40:30,300 They did have some tools and some material in the craft that the Air Force was able to 534 00:40:30,300 --> 00:40:35,300 and the US intelligence community was able to retrieve and reverse engineer. 535 00:40:35,300 --> 00:40:42,300 I don't know that I necessarily have much to say about that except like at risk of, 536 00:40:42,300 --> 00:40:47,100 I don't want to impugn anyone's character but in the sort of post-Brexit, post-Trump 537 00:40:47,100 --> 00:40:54,100 era of social media and fake news, there is something dangerous about allowing uncritical 538 00:40:54,100 --> 00:41:00,340 narratives that undermine public trust in really fundamental institutions like the United 539 00:41:00,340 --> 00:41:06,300 States military and our intelligence communities. 540 00:41:06,300 --> 00:41:11,060 We have to move in a way that's very credible that can penetrate the status quo and can 541 00:41:11,060 --> 00:41:15,860 get through to senators and congressmen and scientists. 542 00:41:15,860 --> 00:41:17,620 I've always advocated. 543 00:41:17,620 --> 00:41:21,940 I started working on this in the year 2000 and one of my initial points to advocate for 544 00:41:21,940 --> 00:41:28,180 was that we need a government agency in order to do proper investigations. 545 00:41:28,180 --> 00:41:30,940 She said that she's an advocate for the story. 546 00:41:30,940 --> 00:41:35,260 So is her journalistic objectivity compromised at all? 547 00:41:35,260 --> 00:41:38,420 Somebody who's interested in UFOs writes a story about UFOs. 548 00:41:38,420 --> 00:41:40,100 Well, there's a plot for you. 549 00:41:40,100 --> 00:41:41,100 There's a dastardly plot. 550 00:41:41,100 --> 00:41:47,060 Of course she's interested in UFOs and of course she helped get that story on the paper. 551 00:41:47,060 --> 00:41:54,340 Is she supposed to cover a story she's not interested in? 552 00:41:54,340 --> 00:41:56,500 How did the initial meeting happen? 553 00:41:56,500 --> 00:42:02,420 It was Putoff Mellon and Jim Semavan who was the CIA for many, many years. 554 00:42:02,420 --> 00:42:07,620 And I had known Putoff for a very long time and I had known Chris Mellon also. 555 00:42:07,620 --> 00:42:10,300 They knew that I was a journalist who took the seriously. 556 00:42:10,300 --> 00:42:15,260 So they were interested in just bringing me down and telling me about the program. 557 00:42:15,260 --> 00:42:18,580 On secret UFO program has just been revealed. 558 00:42:18,580 --> 00:42:22,980 The military spent millions of dollars to look into UFO sightings and those videos are 559 00:42:22,980 --> 00:42:25,860 now being made public. 560 00:42:25,860 --> 00:42:30,500 Christopher Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for 561 00:42:30,500 --> 00:42:33,300 presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. 562 00:42:33,300 --> 00:42:40,020 In 2017 as a private citizen he surreptitiously acquired the three Navy videos Elizondo had 563 00:42:40,020 --> 00:42:44,260 declassified and leaked them to the New York Times. 564 00:42:44,260 --> 00:42:50,180 It's bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that 565 00:42:50,180 --> 00:42:54,180 to get a national security issue like this on the agenda. 566 00:42:54,180 --> 00:42:56,820 Chris Mellon is one of the wealthiest people in America. 567 00:42:56,820 --> 00:43:00,100 He devoted himself to a life of public service. 568 00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:04,100 According to the Senate Intelligence Committees and then at the Pentagon he doesn't need the 569 00:43:04,100 --> 00:43:06,260 money. 570 00:43:06,260 --> 00:43:12,380 He's not out to besmirch his family's reputation, his own reputation by engaging in some kind 571 00:43:12,380 --> 00:43:15,780 of disinformation plot fooling the American public. 572 00:43:15,780 --> 00:43:20,020 He's there because he wants to know. 573 00:43:20,020 --> 00:43:27,140 To the Stars Academy and the people involved in that have definitely assumed the driving 574 00:43:27,140 --> 00:43:28,140 role. 575 00:43:28,140 --> 00:43:45,100 In many ways a kind of now center of gravity for this stuff. 576 00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:47,140 I really don't know the inside story. 577 00:43:47,140 --> 00:43:52,380 I mean I just know that they have moved on. 578 00:43:52,380 --> 00:43:56,060 I think people like Chris Mellon and Llewell is on there are working to try to get as much 579 00:43:56,060 --> 00:44:02,980 as they can you know to have the influence to try to get as much as can be released released. 580 00:44:02,980 --> 00:44:11,660 Having members of Congress briefed speaking to all kinds of people to keep the ball rolling. 581 00:44:11,660 --> 00:44:22,900 I don't know it's just a slow process unfortunately but it's unpredictable. 582 00:44:22,900 --> 00:44:26,500 The thing that defines the UFO is this elusiveness right. 583 00:44:26,500 --> 00:44:33,020 There's a friend sociologist who makes a really good point about UFOs. 584 00:44:33,020 --> 00:44:39,900 The thing that makes UFOs so interesting isn't that they appear it's that they disappear. 585 00:44:39,900 --> 00:44:48,900 The thing that's frustrating for so many is the very key to why it's so mesmerizing. 586 00:44:48,900 --> 00:44:53,500 It's the disappearance. 587 00:44:53,500 --> 00:44:54,500 There goes one. 588 00:44:54,500 --> 00:44:55,500 Now to back to two lights. 589 00:44:55,500 --> 00:44:56,500 There goes. 590 00:44:56,500 --> 00:44:57,500 Boom. 591 00:44:57,500 --> 00:44:58,500 What is that? 592 00:44:58,500 --> 00:45:10,940 I want to take you straight to Nasa headquarters. 593 00:45:10,940 --> 00:45:14,900 Let's just listen and see what might be happening. 594 00:45:14,900 --> 00:45:24,700 And a picture there that you can see the first powered controlled flight on another planet 595 00:45:24,700 --> 00:45:28,060 so cause for celebration. 596 00:45:28,060 --> 00:45:32,980 We've been flying on earth for just over 100 years and now we're going to go to another 597 00:45:32,980 --> 00:45:38,740 planet and fly it's crazy. 598 00:45:38,740 --> 00:45:41,980 You don't need science fiction anymore. 599 00:45:41,980 --> 00:45:43,380 Reality is really exciting enough. 600 00:45:43,380 --> 00:45:52,700 I mean it sounds quaint today to pick up books about voyages to Mars. 601 00:45:52,700 --> 00:45:59,420 We've vastly outpaced the science fiction of the 50s. 602 00:45:59,420 --> 00:46:03,380 It's just a different world now and there's a level of openness and now an acceptance 603 00:46:03,380 --> 00:46:04,380 of the reality. 604 00:46:04,380 --> 00:46:09,620 We've had some big events in the past where you know there were hundreds of witnesses where 605 00:46:09,620 --> 00:46:14,300 the government would still just not comment or ignore it or say it was planes flying 606 00:46:14,300 --> 00:46:16,460 in formation. 607 00:46:16,460 --> 00:46:24,340 Today that could not happen. 608 00:46:24,340 --> 00:46:29,940 The next big line to be crossed is when there is an acknowledgement that it definitely 609 00:46:29,940 --> 00:46:48,820 is not from any country on earth. 610 00:46:48,820 --> 00:46:55,300 There's footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what 611 00:46:55,300 --> 00:46:56,300 they are. 612 00:46:56,300 --> 00:47:01,380 They explained how they moved, their trajectory. 613 00:47:01,380 --> 00:47:06,460 They did not have an easily explainable pattern. 614 00:47:06,460 --> 00:47:10,780 If Russia, China and America all got together and said we're going to acknowledge this, 615 00:47:10,780 --> 00:47:12,500 that this doesn't come from any of our countries. 616 00:47:12,500 --> 00:47:15,620 I don't know if that's ever going to happen but I think that's the direction we're moving 617 00:47:15,620 --> 00:47:18,380 in. 618 00:47:18,380 --> 00:47:23,740 The thing about the UFO phenomenon is it's just not a phenomenon. 619 00:47:23,740 --> 00:47:29,740 It has always been shrouded in mystery. 620 00:47:29,740 --> 00:47:32,900 There are people who view this stuff as a puzzle that can be solved. 621 00:47:32,900 --> 00:47:37,260 We just need to put the pieces together. 622 00:47:37,260 --> 00:47:41,780 And then there are people who see these as mysteries and mysteries are never solved. 623 00:47:41,780 --> 00:47:43,420 I think that's what John Mack felt. 624 00:47:43,420 --> 00:47:48,940 It was a mystery that was just going to constantly be there because what we do as human beings 625 00:47:48,940 --> 00:47:52,380 is work through them. 626 00:47:52,380 --> 00:47:55,260 There's two huge mysteries I think out there. 627 00:47:55,260 --> 00:47:59,300 One is are we alone in the universe? 628 00:47:59,300 --> 00:48:06,060 The second mystery is what happens after we die and maybe they're related. 629 00:48:06,060 --> 00:48:07,060 Those are the two big mysteries. 630 00:48:07,060 --> 00:48:12,380 Have you seen this image captured by the Hubble telescope? 631 00:48:12,380 --> 00:48:17,820 Of the farthest ever view of the universe, every dot is a galaxy. 632 00:48:17,820 --> 00:48:19,940 It's fantastic. 633 00:48:19,940 --> 00:48:23,700 But on one hand it makes you feel small. 634 00:48:23,700 --> 00:48:26,060 Makes us feel really tiny. 635 00:48:26,060 --> 00:48:32,660 But you're also sort of caught up with the sense that there's something bigger out there. 636 00:48:32,660 --> 00:48:36,540 Carl Sagan used to say we are all made of star stuff, right? 637 00:48:36,540 --> 00:48:38,500 We are all made of this cosmos. 638 00:48:38,500 --> 00:48:43,300 And so there's a sense of being connected to something that is bigger than us.