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by

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my name's Nick Pope I used to work for

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the British government

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I worked for them for 21 years at the

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Ministry of Defense and for much of the

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early 90s I was responsible for

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researching and investigating the UFO

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mystery I'm here at this conference to

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talk about one of the most interesting

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cases in the British government's UFO

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FILES the Kelvin incident this was a

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case where two hikers were out walking

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in Scotland and they saw a large

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diamond-shaped craft hovering a short

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distance above the ground and they took

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some photographs and then this object

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shot off to the horizon at incredible

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speed

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now they contacted a national newspaper

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and the journalist took the photos and

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was writing up a story but then things

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got very interesting and effectively the

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whole story was was killed the photos

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disappeared the hikers who had seen this

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object and taken the photographs never

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spoke out again and have have never been

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traced and for many years there was a

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blown up copy poster sized copy of the

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best photo on my office wall on the

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office wall of the UFO project in the

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Ministry of Defence and then when the

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Freedom of Information Act came in one

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of the things that people were expecting

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and looking forward to was well we we

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going to see this photo that everyone's

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been talking about and they didn't it

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disappeared and the Ministry of Defence

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said we have no record of this

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photograph

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what survived was a poor quality

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photocopy of a line-drawing a tiny

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little black and white thing what was

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missing was the huge full size color

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spectacular image the best UFO

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photograph ever taken and the only UFO

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photograph ever taken that has survived

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a proper scientific analysis that

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declared this was a genuine image there

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was no trickery this was a real object

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and and it was big and we in the

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Ministry of Defence did not know what

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this was my best guess as to what

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happened as to why this photograph

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disappeared why the witnesses dropped

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off the radar is that rightly or wrongly

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senior officials in the Ministry of

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Defence in military intelligence

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believed that they had encountered some

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secret prototype stealth aircraft or

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drone maybe a American maybe British and

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that this was highly classified and that

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they felt therefore that this should not

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be made public now I know from my

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position in the Ministry of Defence and

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from my contacts in military

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intelligence that this was not an

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aircraft or a drone in you know we

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didn't have anything like that neither

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did the Russians the Chinese so I think

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that was a false theory but I suspect

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that the people that were responsible

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for the photograph disappearing

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genuinely believed that this this was a

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secret prototype of

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of some sort so I think even though what

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they did was unfortunate I understand

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why they did it I think they did it out

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of loyalty to to you know the the UK to

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loyalty to one's country the Ministry of

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Defence is inherently secretive

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organization the default position is to

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say nothing however there was a

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fundamental culture change and it was a

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real culture shock to us all when the

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Freedom of Information Act came into

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force and the UK's Freedom of

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Information Act came many many years

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after the American Freedom of

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Information Act so this this was a you

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know something of a surprise to us but

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it was Prime Minister Tony Blair who

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brought in this particular piece of

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legislation I think that it affected the

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Ministry of Defence more than most

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government departments I mean as I say

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the you know we are an inherently

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secretive Department of State and there

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are many exemptions to the Freedom of

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Information Act defence national

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security intelligence these exemptions

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are far more likely to apply to the

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Ministry of Defence than than to other

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government departments agriculture

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fisheries food what you those those

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sorts of things so a lot of what we did

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was top-secret and remains top-secret

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but things are changing the Freedom of

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Information Act has has fundamentally I

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think shifted the debate about a lot of

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this whistleblowers and and you know the

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internet social media mean that we live

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in a fun

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mentally different world to certainly

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the the secretive government world that

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I certainly was used to and this does

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mean you know through genuine legal

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declassification under foi and through

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less sort of you know proper processes

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like whistleblowing

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but it does mean that information that a

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generation ago would have never seen the

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light of day is now coming into the

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public domain and and we we live in a

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new world and it's it's you know it's

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it's an interesting place the chances of

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us being alone in the universe are

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vanishingly small and and also the

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chances of there being one other

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intelligent civilization in the cosmos

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are as unlikely as as the vanishingly

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small chance that we're alone so likely

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what we are dealing with is a universe

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teeming with life a huge variety much of

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it unintelligent but some intelligent

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and and civilizations the reason I say

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this is that when one looks at evolution

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and natural selection what we find is

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that in terms of survival strategies

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well you know if we look at the only

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model that we have planet Earth and we

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look at survival strategies some animals

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get to be strong some get to be fast

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some a well camouflaged but some are

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smart and intelligence seems to be a

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very good survival strategy and and one

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would suspect that it's it's I think a

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reasonable assumption that a universal

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law of natural selection and evolution

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that

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intelligence would would arise elsewhere

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in the universe and and would evolve and

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in a universe 14 billion years old and

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it's interesting to speculate what a

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civilization say look at the difference

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between us and the Romans 2,000 years

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and we've come from you know that the

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gladiators and the Circus Maximus

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through two stealth fighters and space

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probes and nanotechnology and computers

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and social networking and just in two

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thousand years imagine a civilization

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near the universe 14 billion years old

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that's say a million years ahead of us a

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hundred million years even a billion

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years what would they be like would they

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even bother interacting with us at all

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or would it be as as one scientist said

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like trying to explain quantum mechanics

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to a chimpanzee and we're the

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chimpanzees so I don't know that there

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is likely a big universe out there with

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a whole bunch of civilization some

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biological some post biological we may

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well be dealing with artificial

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intelligence because again that seems to

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be you know when one looks at the the

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process of evolution that seems to be

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something that we're moving towards and

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the next you know 20 50 years may be

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pivotal there as to why governments

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would keep any of this secret I mean

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well there's two questions

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firstly why isn't there the archetypal

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landing on the White House lawn

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why don't extra terrestrials interact

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with us well you know partly that maybe

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because we are we are just

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the anthill that that somebody may try

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to avoid stepping on but may not

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necessarily want to sit down and talk to

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but the other thing is to a genuinely

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advanced extraterrestrial civilization

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millions of years ahead of us there may

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be very little new and exciting in the

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universe there comes a point I suspect a

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sort of sealing a cultural scientific

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technological ceiling where just about

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everything that you can discover and

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invent you've done to such a

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civilization or civilizations new and

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emerging civilizations like us here on

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planet earth might just be the last

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interesting thing in the universe and

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therefore the very last thing that you'd

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want to do is is contaminate that that

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newness by interacting it's it's the

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anthropological argument that that if

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you're observing animals in the wildlife

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you don't interact with them you kind of

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put yourself in a hide and that's what

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we do if we want to do a documentary on

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on lions and you know whatever and this

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might be the same situation we might

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genuinely be observed but by a

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civilization that does not want to

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interact with us because then you get

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that cultural contamination and the very

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thing that makes us unique and

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interesting then disappears you gave a

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sort of homogenization of cultures

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across the cosmos that ceases to be

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interesting but you know two advanced

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civilizations questions like you know

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who are these people on planet earth

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where are they going what's their

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journey going to be

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that's interesting that's exciting and I

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can understand why they don't land on

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the White House lawn now to flip the

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question the other way around you know

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that explains I think the

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extra-terrestrial secrecy if that's what

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we're dealing with the government

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secrecy in a sense is much more simple

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the answer is is essentially that no

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government ever likes to say we don't

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know all of our societies and our power

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structures here on planet earth are

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essentially part you know it's the

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pyramid structure at the top of the

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pyramid we have our leaders whether

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they're you know presidents or kings or

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whatever we call them we have our our

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leaders our elite and at the base of the

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pyramid we have you know the greater

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numbers of ordinary people just living

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their lives for that power structure to

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persist leaders need to project an image

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of strength authority power knowledge

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now and for those leaders for those

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elite to say we're dealing with

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something here in the UFO phenomenon but

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we don't know what it is it's better

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than us it's faster than us and you know

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we send our Jets up to try and chase

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them but they run rings around no

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government could ever come out and say

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that because what that really says the

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message is we're not in control we are

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not at the top of the food chain and as

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I say no government you know which which

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persists by projecting its power and