WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.594 --> 00:00:01.094 align:middle line:90% [INTRO MUSIC BEGINS] 2 00:00:04.017 --> 00:00:08.294 align:middle line:90% This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Shumita Basu. 3 00:00:08.738 --> 00:00:13.491 align:middle line:90% Today, what our fascination with UFOs says about us Earthlings. 4 00:00:16.522 --> 00:00:17.022 align:middle line:90% [MUSIC FADES OUT] 5 00:00:20.739 --> 00:00:21.239 align:middle line:90% [MYSTERIOUS MUSIC] 6 00:00:21.497 --> 00:00:25.878 align:middle line:90% A couple years ago, the Pentagon released some pretty startling footage. 7 00:00:25.878 --> 00:00:26.378 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 8 00:00:26.378 --> 00:00:28.218 align:middle line:90% Snickle 6 1 tango. Roger, go ahead. 9 00:00:28.372 --> 00:00:28.872 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 10 00:00:28.872 --> 00:00:31.785 align:middle line:90% It was captured by a Navy jet pilot in 2015. 11 00:00:31.785 --> 00:00:32.285 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 12 00:00:32.285 --> 00:00:35.445 align:middle line:90% Woah! Got him! [LAUGHS] Woohoo! 13 00:00:35.445 --> 00:00:35.945 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 14 00:00:35.945 --> 00:00:39.747 align:middle line:90% A little black dot moving shockingly fast over the ocean… 15 00:00:39.747 --> 00:00:40.247 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 16 00:00:40.247 --> 00:00:44.483 align:middle line:90% Oh my gosh, dude. Wow, look at that. Look at it fly! 17 00:00:44.483 --> 00:00:44.983 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 18 00:00:44.983 --> 00:00:47.164 align:middle line:90% …so fast that even the pilots 19 00:00:47.164 --> 00:00:49.070 align:middle line:90% weren't quite sure what they were looking at. 20 00:00:49.070 --> 00:00:49.570 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 21 00:00:49.570 --> 00:00:50.070 align:middle line:90% [PILOTS TALKING INDISTINCTLY] 22 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:50.570 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 23 00:00:50.570 --> 00:00:52.897 align:middle line:90% The Pentagon released the videos to, quote, 24 00:00:52.897 --> 00:00:56.306 align:middle line:90% "clear up any misconceptions about whether the footage was real." 25 00:00:56.306 --> 00:01:00.357 align:middle line:90% But in many pockets of the Internet, the videos and the Pentagon statement 26 00:01:00.357 --> 00:01:04.669 align:middle line:90% were proof of something else: Alien life here on Earth. 27 00:01:05.657 --> 00:01:10.300 align:middle line:90% The heart of the UFO question is, are we alone? 28 00:01:10.932 --> 00:01:13.731 align:middle line:90% That's national security journalist Garrett Graff. 29 00:01:14.617 --> 00:01:20.658 align:middle line:90% And that is probably one of the most fundamental 30 00:01:21.034 --> 00:01:24.574 align:middle line:90% and long-standing questions in human existence. 31 00:01:25.004 --> 00:01:29.686 align:middle line:90% And it's up there with, you know, "is there a God?" 32 00:01:30.375 --> 00:01:32.080 align:middle line:90% "What happens to us after death?" 33 00:01:32.894 --> 00:01:33.394 align:middle line:90% [MUSIC FADES OUT] 34 00:01:34.484 --> 00:01:38.402 align:middle line:90% Garrett's career has been all about investigating government secrets. 35 00:01:38.402 --> 00:01:38.902 align:middle line:90% [MYSTERIOUS MUSIC FADES BACK IN] 36 00:01:38.902 --> 00:01:42.849 align:middle line:90% He's written books about Watergate, 9/11, cybersecurity. 37 00:01:43.329 --> 00:01:45.148 align:middle line:90% His most recent book is called 38 00:01:45.180 --> 00:01:48.884 align:middle line:90% "UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search 39 00:01:48.884 --> 00:01:51.633 align:middle line:90% for Alien Life Here - and Out There." 40 00:01:52.606 --> 00:01:55.652 align:middle line:90% In it, Garrett looks at the history of UFO sightings, 41 00:01:55.729 --> 00:01:58.712 align:middle line:90% dating back to the flying saucers of the 1940s, 42 00:01:59.127 --> 00:02:02.360 align:middle line:90% through modern times, where we now call them UAPs, 43 00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:04.567 align:middle line:90% or Unexplained Aerial Phenomena. 44 00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:07.387 align:middle line:90% And he talks about what kind of record-keeping 45 00:02:07.387 --> 00:02:09.860 align:middle line:90% has been made public or kept secret. 46 00:02:11.380 --> 00:02:15.337 align:middle line:90% Now, to be clear, by taking UFOs extremely seriously, 47 00:02:15.524 --> 00:02:19.796 align:middle line:90% Garrett isn't saying they're for sure a sign of intelligent alien life. 48 00:02:20.337 --> 00:02:22.055 align:middle line:90% What he is saying is 49 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:25.072 align:middle line:90% there are actually so many possible explanations 50 00:02:25.072 --> 00:02:26.071 align:middle line:90% for what we're seeing 51 00:02:26.486 --> 00:02:31.225 align:middle line:90% that somehow alien life might rank among the least interesting theories. 52 00:02:32.393 --> 00:02:36.441 align:middle line:90% I sat down with Garrett a few weeks ago, before I started my maternity leave. 53 00:02:36.666 --> 00:02:37.166 align:middle line:90% [DRAMATIC STING] 54 00:02:38.585 --> 00:02:39.085 align:middle line:90% [MUSIC FADES OUT] 55 00:02:40.633 --> 00:02:44.534 align:middle line:90% Since 2017, I've noticed this changing conversation 56 00:02:44.768 --> 00:02:46.639 align:middle line:90% around UFOs and UAPs. 57 00:02:47.255 --> 00:02:50.132 align:middle line:90% There was a series of blockbuster headlines 58 00:02:50.132 --> 00:02:52.332 align:middle line:90% from the "New York Times" and "Politico" 59 00:02:52.372 --> 00:02:57.453 align:middle line:90% about a secret Pentagon effort to study UAPs. 60 00:02:57.820 --> 00:03:01.575 align:middle line:90% And there was a moment that really made me, as a journalist, 61 00:03:01.575 --> 00:03:06.988 align:middle line:90% sit up and pay attention, which was in December 2020. 62 00:03:07.021 --> 00:03:10.759 align:middle line:90% John Brennan, who had just wrapped up the better part of a decade 63 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:12.933 align:middle line:90% as the CIA director 64 00:03:12.933 --> 00:03:14.839 align:middle line:90% and The White House Homeland Security advisor 65 00:03:14.839 --> 00:03:16.404 align:middle line:90% during the Obama administration, 66 00:03:16.798 --> 00:03:20.993 align:middle line:90% gave an interview to a Washington economist and blogger 67 00:03:20.993 --> 00:03:22.126 align:middle line:90% named Tyler Cowen. 68 00:03:22.697 --> 00:03:24.688 align:middle line:90% And he says, quote: 69 00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:25.380 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 70 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:30.636 align:middle line:90% Some of the phenomenon we're going to be seeing continues to be unexplained 71 00:03:30.636 --> 00:03:35.444 align:middle line:90% and might, in fact, be some type of phenomenon 72 00:03:35.444 --> 00:03:40.533 align:middle line:90% that is the result of something that we don't yet understand 73 00:03:41.148 --> 00:03:45.328 align:middle line:90% and that could involve some type of activity 74 00:03:45.752 --> 00:03:50.704 align:middle line:90% that some might say constitutes a different form of life. 75 00:03:50.704 --> 00:03:51.204 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 76 00:03:51.204 --> 00:03:54.201 align:middle line:90% There's so many conditional phrases in there. [LAUGHS] 77 00:03:54.201 --> 00:03:55.454 align:middle line:90% So many phrases in it. 78 00:03:55.454 --> 00:03:57.080 align:middle line:90% Translate what you're hearing in there. 79 00:03:57.080 --> 00:04:02.185 align:middle line:90% But for John Brennan to say, "There's stuff out there 80 00:04:02.185 --> 00:04:05.011 align:middle line:90% that we don't know what it is and it puzzles me," 81 00:04:05.011 --> 00:04:08.900 align:middle line:90% was, as a national security writer, a really startling statement. 82 00:04:08.900 --> 00:04:13.255 align:middle line:90% Because there's a 60 billion dollar a year intelligence apparatus 83 00:04:13.255 --> 00:04:17.705 align:middle line:90% that we have to deliver him the answer as soon as possible. 84 00:04:17.705 --> 00:04:22.527 align:middle line:90% You know, tens of thousands of intelligence officers, analysts, 85 00:04:22.716 --> 00:04:28.312 align:middle line:90% sensor networks, signal, intelligence intercept systems, 86 00:04:28.820 --> 00:04:31.177 align:middle line:90% satellites that go out there 87 00:04:31.177 --> 00:04:34.197 align:middle line:90% and solve the thing that John Brennan is asking about. 88 00:04:34.708 --> 00:04:39.229 align:middle line:90% And so for John Brennan to have gone through his tenure as CIA director 89 00:04:39.229 --> 00:04:42.907 align:middle line:90% and White House Homeland Security advisor, and then to say, 90 00:04:43.608 --> 00:04:45.822 align:middle line:90% "this stuff's still weird to me," 91 00:04:46.606 --> 00:04:52.065 align:middle line:90% says that there was something worth digging into for a book. 92 00:04:52.093 --> 00:04:52.761 align:middle line:90% Mm. 93 00:04:52.761 --> 00:04:58.865 align:middle line:90% And so what I tried to do with this book is pull together two separate threads. 94 00:04:59.041 --> 00:05:03.559 align:middle line:90% One is the military's hunt and study of UFOs here, 95 00:05:04.017 --> 00:05:07.902 align:middle line:90% and then this evolving astronomy and science 96 00:05:07.934 --> 00:05:10.487 align:middle line:90% around the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. 97 00:05:11.103 --> 00:05:13.336 align:middle line:90% And I think historians and journalists 98 00:05:13.336 --> 00:05:16.917 align:middle line:90% normally talk about these two things totally separately. 99 00:05:16.917 --> 00:05:17.810 align:middle line:90% Separately, sure. 100 00:05:17.810 --> 00:05:22.507 align:middle line:90% You've got your kooky, weird UFO conspiracy people on this side 101 00:05:22.507 --> 00:05:26.685 align:middle line:90% and then you have your serious scientists just doing serious science stuff 102 00:05:26.711 --> 00:05:28.171 align:middle line:90% on the astronomy side. 103 00:05:28.200 --> 00:05:28.805 align:middle line:90% Mm-hm. 104 00:05:29.131 --> 00:05:31.472 align:middle line:90% They're very related stories, 105 00:05:31.809 --> 00:05:36.771 align:middle line:90% not least of all because the question of, "are aliens visiting Earth?" 106 00:05:37.033 --> 00:05:39.974 align:middle line:90% has a lot to do with, "are there aliens at all?" 107 00:05:40.058 --> 00:05:41.184 align:middle line:90% Yeah. Yeah. 108 00:05:41.184 --> 00:05:44.702 align:middle line:90% And so to me, trying to pull this together 109 00:05:44.702 --> 00:05:51.272 align:middle line:90% really tells a different history of our evolving understanding 110 00:05:51.272 --> 00:05:55.150 align:middle line:90% of our place in the world and the universe than we think. 111 00:05:56.151 --> 00:06:00.292 align:middle line:90% You know, you've come up with four ways of categorizing 112 00:06:00.495 --> 00:06:02.959 align:middle line:90% what we see when we're seeing UFOs. 113 00:06:03.003 --> 00:06:04.747 align:middle line:90% Can you explain your four categories? 114 00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:10.864 align:middle line:90% Yeah, so one is adversary technology being tested against us: 115 00:06:10.988 --> 00:06:14.288 align:middle line:90% Chinese drones, Russian drones, Iranian drones. 116 00:06:14.732 --> 00:06:18.533 align:middle line:90% Surveillance-type technology or military-type technology. Yeah. 117 00:06:18.533 --> 00:06:19.106 align:middle line:90% Exactly. 118 00:06:19.106 --> 00:06:22.141 align:middle line:90% You know, Tony Stark in a mountain bunker 119 00:06:22.141 --> 00:06:24.617 align:middle line:90% building something that the government doesn't know about yet. 120 00:06:24.617 --> 00:06:25.117 align:middle line:90% Right. 121 00:06:25.117 --> 00:06:29.095 align:middle line:90% And we know that some chunk of what we're experiencing right now is that 122 00:06:29.095 --> 00:06:33.659 align:middle line:90% because one of the few things that the Pentagon has said in recent years 123 00:06:33.659 --> 00:06:35.686 align:middle line:90% is that they have discovered 124 00:06:35.686 --> 00:06:40.475 align:middle line:90% a heretofore unknown Chinese transmedium drone, 125 00:06:40.475 --> 00:06:43.684 align:middle line:90% which is to say a drone that emerges from the water 126 00:06:43.684 --> 00:06:46.167 align:middle line:90% and transitions to flight, which was a technology 127 00:06:46.167 --> 00:06:48.913 align:middle line:90% that the U.S. did not realize China possessed. 128 00:06:49.967 --> 00:06:53.043 align:middle line:90% The second category is something that I would refer to 129 00:06:53.043 --> 00:06:56.651 align:middle line:90% with a scientific terminology of "weird stuff." 130 00:06:57.252 --> 00:07:01.762 align:middle line:90% There's just a bunch of weird clutter and trash up there in the sky 131 00:07:02.138 --> 00:07:05.444 align:middle line:90% that we do not pay attention to on a normal day. 132 00:07:06.258 --> 00:07:10.107 align:middle line:90% And this is what we went through with the Chinese spy balloon in February. 133 00:07:10.201 --> 00:07:13.786 align:middle line:90% You know, you remember the military spots the spy balloon, 134 00:07:13.906 --> 00:07:15.598 align:middle line:90% does not realize it's up there. 135 00:07:15.925 --> 00:07:19.362 align:middle line:90% NORAD, the North American Air Defense Systems, 136 00:07:19.526 --> 00:07:22.276 align:middle line:90% you know, changes its radar settings a little bit, 137 00:07:22.477 --> 00:07:24.728 align:middle line:90% starts picking up all sorts of UFOs. 138 00:07:24.888 --> 00:07:29.351 align:middle line:90% The military panics, sends up the world's most advanced fighter jet 139 00:07:29.692 --> 00:07:34.463 align:middle line:90% to shoot down all of these UFOs with quarter million dollar missiles. 140 00:07:34.708 --> 00:07:37.273 align:middle line:90% Then you get into two categories 141 00:07:37.302 --> 00:07:42.891 align:middle line:90% that I think represent probably phenomena, not objects. 142 00:07:43.386 --> 00:07:47.426 align:middle line:90% And one of them is gonna be relatively normal stuff. 143 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:51.648 align:middle line:90% Atmospheric phenomena, meteorological things, 144 00:07:51.648 --> 00:07:52.817 align:middle line:90% astronomical things 145 00:07:52.817 --> 00:07:55.784 align:middle line:90% that we don't just really understand at a scientific level yet. 146 00:07:56.265 --> 00:07:57.826 align:middle line:90% Then you get to the fourth category. 147 00:07:58.126 --> 00:07:59.823 align:middle line:90% And the fourth category might be small, 148 00:07:59.873 --> 00:08:03.357 align:middle line:90% but I think that this is gonna be really, really weird stuff. 149 00:08:03.890 --> 00:08:06.853 align:middle line:90% And it's gonna be physics that we don't understand yet. 150 00:08:07.582 --> 00:08:10.918 align:middle line:90% things that require us to be humble 151 00:08:10.918 --> 00:08:14.044 align:middle line:90% about how much we understand, 152 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:17.966 align:middle line:90% or really how little we understand about the world around us. 153 00:08:17.966 --> 00:08:18.466 align:middle line:90% [CALMING MUSIC FADES IN] 154 00:08:19.323 --> 00:08:22.435 align:middle line:90% You might have noticed Garrett is not starting from a place 155 00:08:22.435 --> 00:08:25.031 align:middle line:90% of totally dismissing the alien life theory. 156 00:08:25.612 --> 00:08:26.862 align:middle line:90% In fact, he says, 157 00:08:26.951 --> 00:08:30.072 align:middle line:90% if he took a strictly mathematical approach to the question, 158 00:08:30.252 --> 00:08:32.521 align:middle line:90% "does alien life exist somewhere out there?" 159 00:08:33.129 --> 00:08:35.128 align:middle line:90% the math would be on the side of the aliens. 160 00:08:35.467 --> 00:08:38.748 align:middle line:90% We now understand, you know, and this is a super rough estimate, 161 00:08:38.932 --> 00:08:46.079 align:middle line:90% that there are one sextillion habitable planets across the universe. 162 00:08:46.411 --> 00:08:49.292 align:middle line:90% That's a billion trillions. 163 00:08:50.264 --> 00:08:54.493 align:middle line:90% Life could be very rare. Intelligent life could be really rare. 164 00:08:55.074 --> 00:08:59.043 align:middle line:90% But do you really think it's a one in sextillion chance 165 00:08:59.111 --> 00:09:00.379 align:middle line:90% across the universe? 166 00:09:00.837 --> 00:09:02.927 align:middle line:90% So if aliens do exist, 167 00:09:03.078 --> 00:09:06.171 align:middle line:90% of all the planets and all the places to go 168 00:09:06.603 --> 00:09:09.057 align:middle line:90% what are the chances they're actually visiting Earth 169 00:09:09.137 --> 00:09:11.018 align:middle line:90% or trying to contact us at all? 170 00:09:11.502 --> 00:09:15.115 align:middle line:90% Sure, it's a story we see a lot in movies and TV. 171 00:09:15.264 --> 00:09:21.206 align:middle line:90% There's the Jodie Foster radio message from space in the movie "Contact." 172 00:09:21.206 --> 00:09:22.262 align:middle line:90% In "Contact," yeah. 173 00:09:22.262 --> 00:09:26.100 align:middle line:90% This very clear, unambiguous radio message. 174 00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:26.600 align:middle line:90% [START CONTACT ARCHIVAL CLIP] 175 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.523 align:middle line:90% Those are all prime numbers and there's no way that's a natural phenomenon. 176 00:09:29.523 --> 00:09:30.023 align:middle line:90% [END CONTACT ARCHIVAL CLIP] 177 00:09:30.023 --> 00:09:31.705 align:middle line:90% Then you have the "Independence Day." 178 00:09:31.705 --> 00:09:32.205 align:middle line:90% [START INDEPENDENCE DAY ARCHIVAL CLIP] 179 00:09:32.205 --> 00:09:35.125 align:middle line:90% Welcome Wagon, Echo One. Approaching alien ship. 180 00:09:35.125 --> 00:09:35.625 align:middle line:90% [END INDEPENDENCE DAY ARCHIVAL CLIP] 181 00:09:35.625 --> 00:09:39.853 align:middle line:90% The alien mothership appearing over the White House. 182 00:09:39.853 --> 00:09:40.353 align:middle line:90% [START INDEPENDENCE DAY ARCHIVAL CLIP] 183 00:09:40.353 --> 00:09:42.119 align:middle line:90% It looks like there's some kind of activity here. 184 00:09:42.119 --> 00:09:42.619 align:middle line:90% [DIALOGUE CONTINUES UNDER SPEECH] 185 00:09:42.619 --> 00:09:43.119 align:middle line:90% [END INDEPENDENCE DAY ARCHIVAL CLIP] 186 00:09:43.119 --> 00:09:44.429 align:middle line:90% "Take me to your leader. 187 00:09:44.429 --> 00:09:47.762 align:middle line:90% I'm here to either make friends with you or conquer you 188 00:09:47.762 --> 00:09:49.995 align:middle line:90% and harvest your organs for food or energy." 189 00:09:49.995 --> 00:09:50.495 align:middle line:90% [LASER GUN SOUNDS, CRASHING NOISES] 190 00:09:52.479 --> 00:09:52.979 align:middle line:90% [SOUNDS FADE OUT] 191 00:09:53.455 --> 00:09:56.842 align:middle line:90% The truth of the matter is there's probably life out there. 192 00:09:56.842 --> 00:09:58.658 align:middle line:90% There's probably intelligent life out there. 193 00:09:59.072 --> 00:10:04.215 align:middle line:90% It has no idea that we're here. and probably doesn't care if it did. 194 00:10:04.669 --> 00:10:08.846 align:middle line:90% Carl Sagan, the famous astronomer of the 20th century, 195 00:10:09.253 --> 00:10:11.996 align:middle line:90% during his lifetime was probably the leading proponent 196 00:10:11.996 --> 00:10:14.322 align:middle line:90% of what's called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, 197 00:10:14.322 --> 00:10:14.893 align:middle line:90% SETI. 198 00:10:15.406 --> 00:10:20.653 align:middle line:90% He used to argue that UFOs were not alien visitors here, 199 00:10:20.653 --> 00:10:23.735 align:middle line:90% not because aliens didn't exist or aliens didn't visit Earth, 200 00:10:24.031 --> 00:10:28.050 align:middle line:90% but because statistically you would expect aliens to only visit Earth 201 00:10:28.306 --> 00:10:30.723 align:middle line:90% every couple hundred thousand years. 202 00:10:31.298 --> 00:10:34.925 align:middle line:90% And that they would be treating Earth as, you know, 203 00:10:34.925 --> 00:10:38.856 align:middle line:90% basically the equivalent of a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike 204 00:10:38.856 --> 00:10:42.008 align:middle line:90% when you're driving from, like, one interesting place to another 205 00:10:42.008 --> 00:10:42.508 align:middle line:90% [BASU LAUGHS] 206 00:10:42.508 --> 00:10:44.966 align:middle line:90% and you need a place to stop off and refuel, 207 00:10:44.966 --> 00:10:47.759 align:middle line:90% or, you know, have a picnic or something like that. 208 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:49.582 align:middle line:90% Yeah. "We'll pull off here," yeah. 209 00:10:49.582 --> 00:10:55.785 align:middle line:90% And that the idea that anyone will notice us, 210 00:10:55.785 --> 00:11:00.382 align:middle line:90% anyone would bother visiting us, or in sort of Carl Sagan's mind, 211 00:11:00.382 --> 00:11:06.865 align:middle line:90% that like, last Tuesday was the day in the last 250,000 years 212 00:11:06.865 --> 00:11:10.592 align:middle line:90% that the alien flying saucers buzzed the USS Nimitz… 213 00:11:10.592 --> 00:11:11.380 align:middle line:90% Right, yeah. 214 00:11:11.380 --> 00:11:13.283 align:middle line:90% …is just astronomically low. 215 00:11:13.283 --> 00:11:14.989 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] Right. 216 00:11:14.989 --> 00:11:18.371 align:middle line:90% I mean, see, this is the argument that appeals the most to me. 217 00:11:18.371 --> 00:11:23.247 align:middle line:90% I mean, the math behind it, statistical probability talk 218 00:11:23.247 --> 00:11:25.276 align:middle line:90% all makes a ton of sense to me. 219 00:11:25.276 --> 00:11:30.355 align:middle line:90% The idea of, I sort of see these as two mostly separate conversations, 220 00:11:30.355 --> 00:11:34.655 align:middle line:90% you know, the is life out there, probability of that feeling very, very high. 221 00:11:34.655 --> 00:11:36.039 align:middle line:90% The other thing you're talking about, right, 222 00:11:36.039 --> 00:11:39.513 align:middle line:90% the probability that this is how we would get contact, 223 00:11:39.513 --> 00:11:41.222 align:middle line:90% or get a sign of contact, 224 00:11:41.222 --> 00:11:43.972 align:middle line:90% that's the one that seems just vanishingly low to me. 225 00:11:43.972 --> 00:11:47.684 align:middle line:90% Yes. And when you get into the science, when you get into this math, 226 00:11:47.684 --> 00:11:49.677 align:middle line:90% what we are probably going to see 227 00:11:49.677 --> 00:11:54.309 align:middle line:90% as our first sign of intelligent life and intelligent civilization 228 00:11:54.309 --> 00:11:59.081 align:middle line:90% is something that is much more mundane and much more ambiguous 229 00:11:59.081 --> 00:12:02.599 align:middle line:90% than either of those two first contact scenarios. 230 00:12:02.826 --> 00:12:07.132 align:middle line:90% What we're probably going to first see is a piece of space trash. 231 00:12:07.627 --> 00:12:11.051 align:middle line:90% We're going to see what the Harvard astronomy chair Avi Loeb 232 00:12:11.051 --> 00:12:16.435 align:middle line:90% compares to the equivalent of a empty plastic bag 233 00:12:16.435 --> 00:12:18.908 align:middle line:90% blowing through our cosmic backyard. 234 00:12:19.677 --> 00:12:21.751 align:middle line:90% And we're not going to have any idea whose it is, 235 00:12:22.153 --> 00:12:26.121 align:middle line:90% whether that civilization exists at all anymore. 236 00:12:26.209 --> 00:12:30.191 align:middle line:90% Because one of the things that was just so poignant to me 237 00:12:30.724 --> 00:12:35.431 align:middle line:90% is life could be very common, intelligent life could be very common, 238 00:12:35.431 --> 00:12:37.033 align:middle line:90% but we could be alone right now. 239 00:12:37.752 --> 00:12:41.597 align:middle line:90% That we're actually an incredibly young civilization 240 00:12:41.611 --> 00:12:44.126 align:middle line:90% in a young solar system. 241 00:12:44.210 --> 00:12:47.167 align:middle line:90% Our solar system's about four and a half billion years old. 242 00:12:47.568 --> 00:12:52.615 align:middle line:90% The universe is about fourteen billion years old. 243 00:12:52.990 --> 00:12:55.836 align:middle line:90% So you end up thinking about the possibility, like, 244 00:12:56.052 --> 00:13:00.494 align:middle line:90% there could be billion-year civilizations of intelligent life. 245 00:13:00.514 --> 00:13:05.072 align:middle line:90% I mean, things that would be technically indistinguishable to us 246 00:13:05.462 --> 00:13:06.373 align:middle line:90% from God. 247 00:13:07.563 --> 00:13:10.032 align:middle line:90% And we could have missed it by a couple billion years. 248 00:13:10.383 --> 00:13:11.426 align:middle line:90% Right, right. 249 00:13:11.426 --> 00:13:14.765 align:middle line:90% And yet that civilization's trash 250 00:13:14.765 --> 00:13:18.665 align:middle line:90% could still be sort of kicking around the interstellar space 251 00:13:18.816 --> 00:13:22.211 align:middle line:90% and every so often swing through our solar system 252 00:13:22.397 --> 00:13:25.149 align:middle line:90% and we'll look up one day and say, 253 00:13:25.414 --> 00:13:28.955 align:middle line:90% "Oh, there's an empty plastic bag from someone else's Walmart." 254 00:13:28.982 --> 00:13:30.135 align:middle line:90% Right, right, right. 255 00:13:30.135 --> 00:13:33.357 align:middle line:90% Well, I think that's what people are most hopeful 256 00:13:33.357 --> 00:13:36.473 align:middle line:90% that they might be witnessing when they see a UFO, right? 257 00:13:36.473 --> 00:13:39.277 align:middle line:90% The sign, the very unlikely sign. 258 00:13:39.277 --> 00:13:42.265 align:middle line:90% And "we better not miss it" kind of thinking. 259 00:13:42.702 --> 00:13:46.499 align:middle line:90% I mean, you've pointed out in your book how a lot of these clusters, 260 00:13:46.499 --> 00:13:49.996 align:middle line:90% these flaps, in sightings coincided with moments 261 00:13:49.996 --> 00:13:54.509 align:middle line:90% when the military was testing some kind of new technology. 262 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:58.051 align:middle line:90% So can you talk about the pattern that you identify, 263 00:13:58.070 --> 00:13:59.217 align:middle line:90% the patterns that we see? 264 00:13:59.403 --> 00:14:06.901 align:middle line:90% Yeah, one of the weird things that comes out of trying to trace the history of UFOs 265 00:14:07.484 --> 00:14:10.461 align:middle line:90% is at any given time, 266 00:14:10.813 --> 00:14:16.447 align:middle line:90% a big chunk of UFO, UAP sightings are our government's own secret projects. 267 00:14:16.970 --> 00:14:22.456 align:middle line:90% And this gets to what, to me, is one of my other, sort of, 268 00:14:22.456 --> 00:14:25.528 align:middle line:90% big, you know, semi-obvious conclusions in the work, 269 00:14:25.925 --> 00:14:28.898 align:middle line:90% which is there is a government cover up around UFOs. 270 00:14:29.414 --> 00:14:31.146 align:middle line:90% It's just not the one that you think it is. 271 00:14:31.512 --> 00:14:35.664 align:middle line:90% There are a couple of layers of cloaks of secrecy 272 00:14:35.983 --> 00:14:41.149 align:middle line:90% that the government puts over its knowledge and understanding of UFOs. 273 00:14:41.498 --> 00:14:45.234 align:middle line:90% One is, you know, it doesn't tell us when it's our own project. 274 00:14:45.674 --> 00:14:48.272 align:middle line:90% The CIA went back and actually tallied 275 00:14:48.606 --> 00:14:53.208 align:middle line:90% that perhaps as much as a half of UFO sightings in the 1950s 276 00:14:53.592 --> 00:14:58.319 align:middle line:90% were actually the U-2 spy plane when it was being developed in secret 277 00:14:58.319 --> 00:14:59.317 align:middle line:90% during the Cold War. 278 00:14:59.879 --> 00:15:01.554 align:middle line:90% It was a UFO. 279 00:15:01.956 --> 00:15:08.963 align:middle line:90% If you were a commercial pilot flying across the Nevada airspace 280 00:15:09.274 --> 00:15:11.510 align:middle line:90% and you looked up, 281 00:15:12.470 --> 00:15:17.353 align:middle line:90% the U-2 was a plane that didn't look like any plane that we knew existed, 282 00:15:17.353 --> 00:15:20.338 align:middle line:90% flying at an altitude that planes did not fly at, 283 00:15:20.582 --> 00:15:22.791 align:middle line:90% at speeds planes were not known to fly. 284 00:15:22.891 --> 00:15:28.126 align:middle line:90% You landed as that commercial pilot and said, "I saw a UFO today." 285 00:15:29.213 --> 00:15:33.176 align:middle line:90% And we know that that's sort of still going on right now. 286 00:15:33.677 --> 00:15:36.008 align:middle line:90% There's another layer, a cloak of secrecy, 287 00:15:36.008 --> 00:15:37.445 align:middle line:90% that the government puts over this, 288 00:15:37.914 --> 00:15:41.315 align:middle line:90% which is some chunk of this is adversary technology. 289 00:15:41.755 --> 00:15:45.031 align:middle line:90% And the government is really squirrelly for obvious reasons 290 00:15:45.031 --> 00:15:50.078 align:middle line:90% about what its sensors and radars and systems detect, doesn't detect, 291 00:15:50.414 --> 00:15:52.900 align:middle line:90% what it knows about some of these things. 292 00:15:52.900 --> 00:15:56.187 align:middle line:90% Sure. It becomes a question of national security at that point. 293 00:15:56.187 --> 00:16:03.322 align:middle line:90% Yes, but then you get to what to me is the core of the government cover-up, 294 00:16:03.322 --> 00:16:06.122 align:middle line:90% which is I think that John Brennan was telling the truth. 295 00:16:06.199 --> 00:16:08.436 align:middle line:90% I don't think the government actually knows 296 00:16:08.436 --> 00:16:11.180 align:middle line:90% what a big chunk of UAP sightings actually are. 297 00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:19.603 align:middle line:90% And that what they are trying to cover up is actually their ignorance. 298 00:16:19.706 --> 00:16:25.569 align:middle line:90% And that's a really uncomfortable answer for a bureaucracy to give 299 00:16:25.961 --> 00:16:30.767 align:middle line:90% when we have a bureaucracy that spends nearly a trillion dollars a year 300 00:16:30.941 --> 00:16:33.754 align:middle line:90% on national defense and intelligence and homeland security. 301 00:16:33.754 --> 00:16:39.743 align:middle line:90% But how much of that can you chalk up to various government agencies 302 00:16:39.743 --> 00:16:42.065 align:middle line:90% just not communicating things to each other 303 00:16:42.065 --> 00:16:46.332 align:middle line:90% again in the interest of national security or just top level secrecy going on? 304 00:16:46.332 --> 00:16:46.832 align:middle line:90% Yes. 305 00:16:46.883 --> 00:16:50.269 align:middle line:90% Versus like incompetence, versus truly not knowing. 306 00:16:50.269 --> 00:16:54.780 align:middle line:90% Yes. And there's actually some great historical anecdotes of this 307 00:16:54.780 --> 00:16:55.280 align:middle line:90% [MYSTERIOUS MUSIC FADES IN] 308 00:16:55.280 --> 00:16:58.394 align:middle line:90% where you have the government not knowing what the government is doing. 309 00:16:58.974 --> 00:17:01.821 align:middle line:90% One such example, the Roswell incident, 310 00:17:01.821 --> 00:17:04.872 align:middle line:90% birthplace of the Area 51 conspiracy theory. 311 00:17:05.651 --> 00:17:08.238 align:middle line:90% It was the summer of 1947. 312 00:17:08.490 --> 00:17:10.755 align:middle line:90% There had been hundreds of reported sightings 313 00:17:10.755 --> 00:17:15.030 align:middle line:90% of flying saucers that year, and people were captivated by the stories. 314 00:17:15.030 --> 00:17:15.530 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 315 00:17:15.530 --> 00:17:19.704 align:middle line:90% They looked something like a pie plate that was cut in half 316 00:17:19.704 --> 00:17:22.880 align:middle line:90% with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear. 317 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:23.380 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 318 00:17:23.380 --> 00:17:28.162 align:middle line:90% With all this going on, a rancher named Mack Brazel came into town 319 00:17:28.162 --> 00:17:32.464 align:middle line:90% in Roswell, New Mexico, saying he'd found some weird wreckage. 320 00:17:32.464 --> 00:17:38.757 align:middle line:90% It would have been a huge crash filled with a bunch of metallic stuff 321 00:17:38.757 --> 00:17:41.969 align:middle line:90% a hundred feet taller than the Washington Monument. 322 00:17:41.969 --> 00:17:46.631 align:middle line:90% It was a train of like 30 balloons all strung together 323 00:17:46.786 --> 00:17:48.932 align:middle line:90% with sensors and electronics. 324 00:17:49.149 --> 00:17:51.711 align:middle line:90% The sheriff says "This stuff looks military. 325 00:17:51.891 --> 00:17:53.941 align:middle line:90% Go talk to the guys at the nearby base." 326 00:17:54.444 --> 00:17:58.077 align:middle line:90% Air Force Intelligence goes out, brings it back to the base. 327 00:17:58.473 --> 00:18:00.088 align:middle line:90% The Roswell Air Force Base, at that time, 328 00:18:00.088 --> 00:18:02.313 align:middle line:90% is the world's most advanced fighting unit. 329 00:18:02.313 --> 00:18:07.416 align:middle line:90% It is the one unit in the entire world equipped with nuclear bombers, 330 00:18:07.416 --> 00:18:13.219 align:middle line:90% those silver-plated B-29 bombers that targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 331 00:18:13.935 --> 00:18:16.908 align:middle line:90% But the base commander didn't know what he was looking at either. 332 00:18:17.256 --> 00:18:20.480 align:middle line:90% He thought, this must be one of those strange flying disks 333 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:21.705 align:middle line:90% people keep reporting. 334 00:18:21.986 --> 00:18:22.486 align:middle line:90% [BEEPING FADES IN] 335 00:18:22.486 --> 00:18:24.360 align:middle line:90% So he put out a press release. 336 00:18:24.360 --> 00:18:24.860 align:middle line:90% [START ARCHIVAL CLIP] 337 00:18:24.860 --> 00:18:27.613 align:middle line:90% Headline edition July 8, 1947. 338 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:31.693 align:middle line:90% The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disc has been found 339 00:18:31.693 --> 00:18:33.705 align:middle line:90% and is now in the possession of the Army. 340 00:18:33.705 --> 00:18:34.205 align:middle line:90% [END ARCHIVAL CLIP] 341 00:18:34.205 --> 00:18:36.484 align:middle line:90% Newspapers that picked up the headline 342 00:18:36.484 --> 00:18:39.107 align:middle line:90% paired it with stories of separate sightings. 343 00:18:39.132 --> 00:18:41.961 align:middle line:90% Military officials quickly retracted the statement, 344 00:18:42.057 --> 00:18:44.138 align:middle line:90% saying the debris was from a weather balloon. 345 00:18:45.239 --> 00:18:49.100 align:middle line:90% But the retraction added fuel to the idea of a government cover-up. 346 00:18:49.831 --> 00:18:53.530 align:middle line:90% Conspiracy theories and hoaxes bubbled for decades. 347 00:18:54.101 --> 00:18:54.601 align:middle line:90% [MUSIC CLIMAXES, FADES OUT] 348 00:18:54.932 --> 00:18:57.399 align:middle line:90% What we understand about 50 years later, 349 00:18:57.713 --> 00:19:02.857 align:middle line:90% when the Clinton administration gets sick of the Roswell conspiracy theories 350 00:19:02.857 --> 00:19:06.179 align:middle line:90% and tries to put out a couple of reports that debunk them, 351 00:19:06.583 --> 00:19:10.525 align:middle line:90% is that there was this secret balloon project 352 00:19:10.525 --> 00:19:14.830 align:middle line:90% being tested in New Mexico at the time at the White Sands Proving Grounds 353 00:19:15.249 --> 00:19:19.857 align:middle line:90% that was the military's attempt to develop a balloon 354 00:19:20.159 --> 00:19:24.097 align:middle line:90% that could detect Soviet atomic tests. 355 00:19:24.345 --> 00:19:28.716 align:middle line:90% Garrett says there are lots of examples of pilots, especially, spotting 356 00:19:28.856 --> 00:19:32.426 align:middle line:90% secret military projects and reporting a UFO. 357 00:19:32.784 --> 00:19:35.143 align:middle line:90% In January 1948, 358 00:19:35.531 --> 00:19:39.684 align:middle line:90% right at the beginning of this modern flying saucer age, 359 00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:41.621 align:middle line:90% Captain Thomas Mantell, 360 00:19:41.981 --> 00:19:44.792 align:middle line:90% who's a pilot in the Kentucky Air National Guard, 361 00:19:44.992 --> 00:19:48.020 align:middle line:90% he goes up with three or four other pilots 362 00:19:48.020 --> 00:19:50.181 align:middle line:90% who were all coming back from a training mission. 363 00:19:50.645 --> 00:19:53.755 align:middle line:90% They're sent off to chase after a UFO. 364 00:19:54.471 --> 00:19:57.589 align:middle line:90% Mantel actually becomes the only one who finds it. 365 00:19:58.050 --> 00:20:03.614 align:middle line:90% He sends these incredibly worrisome and ambiguous radio messages back, 366 00:20:03.664 --> 00:20:08.573 align:middle line:90% you know, "I see this thing. It's enormous. It's metallic. 367 00:20:08.573 --> 00:20:09.878 align:middle line:90% I'm still climbing." 368 00:20:09.963 --> 00:20:13.514 align:middle line:90% And then what the Air Force believes ends up happening 369 00:20:13.514 --> 00:20:17.696 align:middle line:90% is basically, he flies too high, runs out of oxygen. 370 00:20:17.965 --> 00:20:22.140 align:middle line:90% He passes out and the plane spirals down, tears itself apart, 371 00:20:22.156 --> 00:20:23.793 align:middle line:90% and he crashes and dies. 372 00:20:24.364 --> 00:20:29.148 align:middle line:90% And it's this really worrisome moment for the Air Force. 373 00:20:30.554 --> 00:20:32.667 align:middle line:90% Did this thing shoot him down? 374 00:20:32.966 --> 00:20:38.407 align:middle line:90% Is there actually hostile intent from these UFOs? 375 00:20:38.764 --> 00:20:41.013 align:middle line:90% And it took until 1952 376 00:20:41.330 --> 00:20:44.563 align:middle line:90% for the Air Force to figure out what killed Thomas Mantel. 377 00:20:45.015 --> 00:20:48.338 align:middle line:90% And the answer was a Navy research balloon. 378 00:20:48.846 --> 00:20:50.688 align:middle line:90% So there was no hostile intent. 379 00:20:50.688 --> 00:20:53.570 align:middle line:90% It was, in fact, the government's own secret program 380 00:20:53.854 --> 00:20:56.855 align:middle line:90% that the government itself didn't know about. 381 00:20:56.855 --> 00:20:59.266 align:middle line:90% And so dispatched fighters to chase down. 382 00:20:59.400 --> 00:20:59.900 align:middle line:90% Right. 383 00:21:00.192 --> 00:21:03.313 align:middle line:90% So those are examples of UFOs 384 00:21:03.313 --> 00:21:06.170 align:middle line:90% that ended up being explainable in the end. 385 00:21:06.781 --> 00:21:08.444 align:middle line:90% But you said you have reason to believe 386 00:21:08.444 --> 00:21:10.802 align:middle line:90% that there is some large amount of incidents 387 00:21:10.802 --> 00:21:16.874 align:middle line:90% that the government cannot explain and is not fully transparent about. 388 00:21:16.874 --> 00:21:20.205 align:middle line:90% Yeah. So the Navy videos we've seen in recent years, 389 00:21:20.586 --> 00:21:23.277 align:middle line:90% to me, are very clear examples of it. 390 00:21:23.317 --> 00:21:24.402 align:middle line:90% I mean, that is the government… 391 00:21:24.402 --> 00:21:26.586 align:middle line:90% Super compelling to watch and listen to, too. 392 00:21:26.586 --> 00:21:29.100 align:middle line:90% You know, the government being genuinely puzzled 393 00:21:29.100 --> 00:21:30.887 align:middle line:90% about what some of these things are. 394 00:21:30.887 --> 00:21:33.281 align:middle line:90% Now, some of these videos and photographs, 395 00:21:33.281 --> 00:21:37.329 align:middle line:90% they have been able to trace back with further study and identify. 396 00:21:37.329 --> 00:21:41.690 align:middle line:90% There's a famous photo of green flying triangles. 397 00:21:41.690 --> 00:21:46.480 align:middle line:90% Those actually, we've now understood, are regular drones, quote-unquote. 398 00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:50.172 align:middle line:90% But when you photograph them through night vision equipment, 399 00:21:50.172 --> 00:21:54.224 align:middle line:90% they end up looking different than we thought that they did. 400 00:21:54.224 --> 00:21:56.381 align:middle line:90% Oh, that's funny. Again, explainable. [CHUCKLES] 401 00:21:56.381 --> 00:21:57.718 align:middle line:90% Again, explainable. 402 00:21:57.718 --> 00:21:58.218 align:middle line:90% Right. 403 00:21:58.218 --> 00:22:02.067 align:middle line:90% To me, though, there's another category of witness. 404 00:22:02.067 --> 00:22:10.448 align:middle line:90% The people who have no apparent reason to invent a UFO sighting, 405 00:22:10.736 --> 00:22:13.515 align:middle line:90% who actually have a lot to lose, reputationally, 406 00:22:13.819 --> 00:22:15.622 align:middle line:90% for reporting a UFO sighting. 407 00:22:15.912 --> 00:22:22.041 align:middle line:90% The one that really sort of sticks in my mind is 1964, Lonnie Zamora. 408 00:22:22.681 --> 00:22:26.020 align:middle line:90% He's a local police officer in Socorro, New Mexico, 409 00:22:26.020 --> 00:22:27.644 align:middle line:90% actually not that far from Roswell. 410 00:22:28.395 --> 00:22:33.313 align:middle line:90% And he is chasing a speeder on the outskirts of town 411 00:22:33.392 --> 00:22:38.889 align:middle line:90% and he, during the pursuit, hears an explosion 412 00:22:38.889 --> 00:22:40.712 align:middle line:90% and sees off in the desert 413 00:22:41.077 --> 00:22:46.511 align:middle line:90% what looks to him like a overturned car in a ditch. 414 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:49.883 align:middle line:90% So he turns his cruiser off into the desert, 415 00:22:50.708 --> 00:22:57.792 align:middle line:90% he sees two figures outside of it that are not quite fully human size. 416 00:22:58.184 --> 00:23:01.290 align:middle line:90% And as he gets closer, they get into the craft, 417 00:23:01.816 --> 00:23:03.471 align:middle line:90% and the craft flies away. 418 00:23:04.432 --> 00:23:09.322 align:middle line:90% And we know something happened to Lani Zamora in that desert. 419 00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:14.211 align:middle line:90% There were other witnesses who arrive within a couple of minutes, 420 00:23:14.211 --> 00:23:16.180 align:middle line:90% including a New Mexico state trooper, 421 00:23:16.677 --> 00:23:23.577 align:middle line:90% who see him petrified and traumatized by whatever the thing is that happened. 422 00:23:24.432 --> 00:23:27.134 align:middle line:90% Military and the FBI respond to the scene. 423 00:23:27.134 --> 00:23:30.190 align:middle line:90% They see some what appears to be physical evidence 424 00:23:30.230 --> 00:23:36.392 align:middle line:90% of a craft landing in the place where Lonnie Zamora said it did. 425 00:23:37.096 --> 00:23:42.148 align:middle line:90% And there's maybe some very simple answers to this. 426 00:23:42.148 --> 00:23:45.895 align:middle line:90% You know, it's 1964. It's the height of the space race. 427 00:23:45.895 --> 00:23:49.357 align:middle line:90% He's near White Sands Proving Grounds, that government test facility. 428 00:23:49.797 --> 00:23:53.712 align:middle line:90% Maybe he stumbled on part of the Apollo program 429 00:23:53.712 --> 00:23:55.000 align:middle line:90% testing a moon lander. 430 00:23:56.092 --> 00:23:58.747 align:middle line:90% Except it's 50, 60 years later, 431 00:23:58.797 --> 00:24:02.967 align:middle line:90% and we've never seen evidence emerge from government archives 432 00:24:03.327 --> 00:24:05.014 align:middle line:90% of a craft that operates 433 00:24:05.014 --> 00:24:08.339 align:middle line:90% in the way that the thing that Lonnie Zamora says that he saw. 434 00:24:09.639 --> 00:24:15.683 align:middle line:90% And there maybe aren't hundreds of Lonnie Zamoras over the years, 435 00:24:16.267 --> 00:24:17.564 align:middle line:90% but there are scores of them. 436 00:24:18.127 --> 00:24:24.839 align:middle line:90% And to me, that category of witness feels really credible 437 00:24:25.391 --> 00:24:31.607 align:middle line:90% and points to me that there's a mystery here 438 00:24:32.339 --> 00:24:40.196 align:middle line:90% that is, again, weirder and stranger than probably we can imagine right now 439 00:24:40.495 --> 00:24:45.523 align:middle line:90% as the core answer to at least part of the chunk of UFOs. 440 00:24:46.151 --> 00:24:49.609 align:middle line:90% The thing that puzzles me and concerns me 441 00:24:49.701 --> 00:24:54.567 align:middle line:90% is how you have witnesses like these Navy pilots coming back 442 00:24:55.148 --> 00:24:59.437 align:middle line:90% and the Navy not apparently caring that much 443 00:24:59.801 --> 00:25:04.176 align:middle line:90% about the fact that their pilots are tangling in the sky 444 00:25:04.568 --> 00:25:07.079 align:middle line:90% with technologies that we cannot explain 445 00:25:07.079 --> 00:25:11.746 align:middle line:90% and craft that move in ways that appear to defy the laws of physics. 446 00:25:11.746 --> 00:25:16.817 align:middle line:90% That, to me, is something our government should be more concerned about. 447 00:25:17.435 --> 00:25:21.814 align:middle line:90% Well, let's talk about the recent flurry of activity that we have seen interest, 448 00:25:21.814 --> 00:25:23.092 align:middle line:90% at least in Congress. 449 00:25:23.092 --> 00:25:26.641 align:middle line:90% Over the summer, we heard former intelligence officials testify 450 00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:28.250 align:middle line:90% in a series of hearings, 451 00:25:28.250 --> 00:25:30.768 align:middle line:90% and some said that they had reason to believe 452 00:25:30.768 --> 00:25:35.529 align:middle line:90% that the federal government has recovered lots of physical materials 453 00:25:35.529 --> 00:25:36.951 align:middle line:90% from UAP crashes, 454 00:25:37.023 --> 00:25:40.199 align:middle line:90% including non-human biological matter, right? 455 00:25:40.579 --> 00:25:41.628 align:middle line:90% Basically fueling this idea 456 00:25:41.628 --> 00:25:47.058 align:middle line:90% that the government is hiding something very alien-y related to these crashes. 457 00:25:47.058 --> 00:25:47.558 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 458 00:25:47.558 --> 00:25:49.707 align:middle line:90% I mean, what stood out to you from those hearings? 459 00:25:49.862 --> 00:25:53.882 align:middle line:90% I think it requires untangling a couple of different threads. 460 00:25:54.882 --> 00:26:01.255 align:middle line:90% One is, since the 1980s, last 40 years or so, 461 00:26:01.255 --> 00:26:06.573 align:middle line:90% there has been a steady stream of people coming forward 462 00:26:06.644 --> 00:26:11.726 align:middle line:90% with what Ufologists now call foftales. 463 00:26:12.538 --> 00:26:16.863 align:middle line:90% Not folktales, but foftales, friend of a friend tales. 464 00:26:17.351 --> 00:26:21.776 align:middle line:90% "I worked with a guy who said that he saw this thing." 465 00:26:22.131 --> 00:26:25.215 align:middle line:90% And what we have generally lacked 466 00:26:25.215 --> 00:26:28.798 align:middle line:90% are people coming forward with first-hand knowledge 467 00:26:29.330 --> 00:26:33.623 align:middle line:90% and any documentary evidence. 468 00:26:34.526 --> 00:26:39.344 align:middle line:90% Now, one of the other challenges of this is David Grusch, 469 00:26:39.473 --> 00:26:44.899 align:middle line:90% who was that intelligence community UFO whistleblower from this summer. 470 00:26:46.269 --> 00:26:48.884 align:middle line:90% One of his big claims was 471 00:26:49.164 --> 00:26:56.169 align:middle line:90% the U.S. government has a secret UFO crash retrieval program 472 00:26:56.481 --> 00:27:00.184 align:middle line:90% that has recovered non-human technology. 473 00:27:00.561 --> 00:27:03.822 align:middle line:90% We do have a secret UFO crash retrieval program. 474 00:27:03.862 --> 00:27:07.715 align:middle line:90% It's a group of intelligence officers who go around the world 475 00:27:07.783 --> 00:27:10.144 align:middle line:90% and collect crashed UFOs. 476 00:27:11.564 --> 00:27:14.865 align:middle line:90% That's not them saying that they collect crashed alien spacecraft. 477 00:27:15.514 --> 00:27:18.406 align:middle line:90% I would guess that unit today spends a lot of its time 478 00:27:18.406 --> 00:27:21.347 align:middle line:90% running around the world collecting crashed drones 479 00:27:22.357 --> 00:27:24.199 align:middle line:90% from China, Russia, Iran. 480 00:27:24.891 --> 00:27:29.315 align:middle line:90% I also will believe that that unit has a warehouse somewhere 481 00:27:29.763 --> 00:27:32.365 align:middle line:90% where they put the stuff that they don't know what it is yet. 482 00:27:32.411 --> 00:27:32.911 align:middle line:90% Right. 483 00:27:33.596 --> 00:27:39.150 align:middle line:90% I also will believe that there's a man or woman on that unit 484 00:27:39.892 --> 00:27:44.475 align:middle line:90% who has walked into that warehouse, looked at some of that stuff, 485 00:27:44.707 --> 00:27:49.051 align:middle line:90% and says, "This doesn't look like anything that we've ever seen on Earth before. 486 00:27:49.254 --> 00:27:50.505 align:middle line:90% Must be aliens." 487 00:27:51.172 --> 00:27:55.147 align:middle line:90% So every bit of the following sentence can be true, 488 00:27:55.147 --> 00:28:01.278 align:middle line:90% that "I talked to someone on the secret UFO crash retrieval program 489 00:28:01.714 --> 00:28:06.208 align:middle line:90% who says that they have collected unknown technology 490 00:28:06.208 --> 00:28:08.584 align:middle line:90% that they believe is extraterrestrial. 491 00:28:08.996 --> 00:28:11.133 align:middle line:90% That can be an entirely true sentence 492 00:28:11.745 --> 00:28:16.437 align:middle line:90% that doesn't lead to the place where I think the public hears, 493 00:28:16.814 --> 00:28:19.544 align:middle line:90% which is there was a meeting in the Situation Room 494 00:28:20.060 --> 00:28:25.004 align:middle line:90% and a general with a lot of stars on his shoulders 495 00:28:25.110 --> 00:28:27.617 align:middle line:90% stood up and said, "Mr. President, 496 00:28:28.322 --> 00:28:32.752 align:middle line:90% with a high degree of confidence from 17 intelligence agencies, 497 00:28:32.972 --> 00:28:36.851 align:middle line:90% we have concluded that we are in possession of alien technology. 498 00:28:37.661 --> 00:28:41.369 align:middle line:90% And those two things are not the same. 499 00:28:41.369 --> 00:28:42.342 align:middle line:90% Not the same, yeah. 500 00:28:42.342 --> 00:28:44.932 align:middle line:90% And yet I think when someone hears that sentence 501 00:28:44.932 --> 00:28:48.994 align:middle line:90% in a congressional hearing or a media interview, 502 00:28:49.153 --> 00:28:51.306 align:middle line:90% they don't differentiate between those two. 503 00:28:51.306 --> 00:28:54.548 align:middle line:90% Yeah, sure, sure. Well, what do you think is behind that? 504 00:28:54.548 --> 00:28:59.174 align:middle line:90% I do think that we've been told so many times now by our government, 505 00:28:59.174 --> 00:29:02.566 align:middle line:90% we don't have an explanation for this. 506 00:29:03.698 --> 00:29:05.943 align:middle line:90% And people have taken it and understood it to mean something else. 507 00:29:06.091 --> 00:29:10.242 align:middle line:90% Why can't we accept "we don't know" as an answer? 508 00:29:11.410 --> 00:29:14.440 align:middle line:90% Because the answers could be so interesting. 509 00:29:14.632 --> 00:29:16.626 align:middle line:90% Like, we want to believe. 510 00:29:16.626 --> 00:29:17.126 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 511 00:29:17.126 --> 00:29:20.741 align:middle line:90% This is this question that we started off talking about of, are we alone? 512 00:29:20.741 --> 00:29:27.596 align:middle line:90% And there is so much magic and wonder wrapped up in that answer 513 00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:32.263 align:middle line:90% that I think that there's always going to be a chunk of people 514 00:29:32.263 --> 00:29:35.776 align:middle line:90% who want that answer to be true. 515 00:29:36.248 --> 00:29:42.907 align:middle line:90% The second half of this book is about this collapse of truth 516 00:29:43.382 --> 00:29:46.156 align:middle line:90% and trust in government institutions 517 00:29:46.526 --> 00:29:48.872 align:middle line:90% and the rise of government conspiracy theories. 518 00:29:49.188 --> 00:29:52.224 align:middle line:90% What you see after Watergate and the Pentagon Papers and Vietnam 519 00:29:52.224 --> 00:29:54.493 align:middle line:90% and the Church Committee and the Pike Committee, 520 00:29:54.703 --> 00:29:56.220 align:middle line:90% is this rise, 521 00:29:56.328 --> 00:29:59.411 align:middle line:90% literally at the end of the 1970s into the 1980s, 522 00:29:59.891 --> 00:30:05.351 align:middle line:90% of this very dark conspiratorial idea 523 00:30:05.351 --> 00:30:09.909 align:middle line:90% that the government is hiding knowledge of alien civilizations. 524 00:30:10.537 --> 00:30:16.628 align:middle line:90% And in some ways, I think this is where the deep state 525 00:30:16.796 --> 00:30:21.044 align:middle line:90% is really born in our political discussion. 526 00:30:21.605 --> 00:30:25.994 align:middle line:90% And that you have figures, one of the major ones, Bill Cooper, 527 00:30:26.382 --> 00:30:31.916 align:middle line:90% who is one of the founding UFO conspiracists of the 1980s. 528 00:30:32.445 --> 00:30:34.686 align:middle line:90% He was a naval intelligence officer during Vietnam. 529 00:30:34.726 --> 00:30:36.231 align:middle line:90% He saw the documents 530 00:30:36.688 --> 00:30:41.633 align:middle line:90% where the government talked about its contact with alien civilizations 531 00:30:41.633 --> 00:30:45.458 align:middle line:90% and peace treaties with alien governments, yada, yada, yada. 532 00:30:46.102 --> 00:30:48.732 align:middle line:90% Again, no documentary evidence to back it up, 533 00:30:48.732 --> 00:30:51.009 align:middle line:90% but these are the tales that he is telling. 534 00:30:51.746 --> 00:30:58.153 align:middle line:90% He ends up becoming one of the founders of far-right conservative talk radio 535 00:30:58.615 --> 00:31:03.140 align:middle line:90% where he inspires and becomes, really, the mentor 536 00:31:03.140 --> 00:31:08.909 align:middle line:90% to a Austin, Texas public access talk show host 537 00:31:09.269 --> 00:31:10.582 align:middle line:90% named Alex Jones. 538 00:31:11.498 --> 00:31:14.573 align:middle line:90% I believe that you can actually draw this pretty straight line 539 00:31:14.993 --> 00:31:20.997 align:middle line:90% from the UFO conspiracies of the 1980s up to January 6th and the Big Lie. 540 00:31:21.404 --> 00:31:21.904 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 541 00:31:22.850 --> 00:31:25.587 align:middle line:90% How do you convince people to sit with that uncertainty 542 00:31:25.699 --> 00:31:29.491 align:middle line:90% rather than reach for what feels like the sort of fun popcorn answer 543 00:31:29.491 --> 00:31:30.649 align:middle line:90% that it must be aliens? 544 00:31:31.889 --> 00:31:37.854 align:middle line:90% To me, the wonder of it is what it should be all about. 545 00:31:38.154 --> 00:31:43.372 align:middle line:90% I think of the question of "are we alone?" 546 00:31:43.878 --> 00:31:47.729 align:middle line:90% as in some ways being a microcosm and a stand-in 547 00:31:48.249 --> 00:31:51.851 align:middle line:90% for all that humanity still has left to learn. 548 00:31:52.706 --> 00:31:57.786 align:middle line:90% And for me, what is exciting about this subject 549 00:31:57.994 --> 00:32:05.336 align:middle line:90% is realizing the potential and possibility of what civilization could be 550 00:32:06.095 --> 00:32:10.475 align:middle line:90% in 10,000 years, 100,000 years, a million years, five million years. 551 00:32:11.569 --> 00:32:13.812 align:middle line:90% And one of the things I take away from that 552 00:32:13.812 --> 00:32:17.937 align:middle line:90% is why it's so important that we take care of ourselves 553 00:32:17.937 --> 00:32:21.287 align:middle line:90% and our planet and our society and our civilization right now. 554 00:32:22.392 --> 00:32:26.826 align:middle line:90% Because there's this incredibly famous equation 555 00:32:26.826 --> 00:32:29.915 align:middle line:90% in all of this SETI work called the Drake Equation, 556 00:32:29.915 --> 00:32:35.499 align:middle line:90% which is basically this theoretical but real equation 557 00:32:35.513 --> 00:32:41.566 align:middle line:90% for calculating how many intelligent civilizations out there 558 00:32:41.566 --> 00:32:44.163 align:middle line:90% might be capable of contacting us. 559 00:32:44.683 --> 00:32:48.542 align:middle line:90% The major variable in it is what's known as L, 560 00:32:48.954 --> 00:32:55.529 align:middle line:90% which is the length of time a intelligent civilization lasts. 561 00:32:56.554 --> 00:33:02.112 align:middle line:90% And as you play out those variables, 562 00:33:03.082 --> 00:33:09.073 align:middle line:90% it's possible that the ultimate challenge of intelligent life 563 00:33:09.578 --> 00:33:11.831 align:middle line:90% is that it doesn't last very long, 564 00:33:12.133 --> 00:33:15.900 align:middle line:90% that it, on the one end of the spectrum, 565 00:33:15.900 --> 00:33:18.524 align:middle line:90% destroys itself in something like nuclear war, 566 00:33:18.524 --> 00:33:22.503 align:middle line:90% or the intergalactic equivalent of nuclear conflict. 567 00:33:23.419 --> 00:33:30.540 align:middle line:90% Or one of the things I worry about in the moment that we're in right now 568 00:33:31.237 --> 00:33:38.373 align:middle line:90% is that advanced civilizations lose interest in exploring the world. 569 00:33:38.461 --> 00:33:46.246 align:middle line:90% You know, that you end up living in these virtual reality headsets 570 00:33:46.246 --> 00:33:51.073 align:middle line:90% filled with misinformation and disinformation and entertainment, 571 00:33:51.604 --> 00:33:58.875 align:middle line:90% and that you lose that scientific drive to go out and explore the universe, 572 00:33:59.015 --> 00:34:03.388 align:middle line:90% to learn more about ourselves and our world. 573 00:34:03.988 --> 00:34:12.122 align:middle line:90% And, what I hope for my children is that they are able, 574 00:34:12.122 --> 00:34:16.921 align:middle line:90% and future generations are able to retain the curiosity 575 00:34:17.261 --> 00:34:20.438 align:middle line:90% about caring about solving these questions. 576 00:34:20.735 --> 00:34:21.235 align:middle line:90% [OUTRO MUSIC FADES IN] 577 00:34:22.136 --> 00:34:24.948 align:middle line:90% Well, Garrett, this was such an interesting conversation 578 00:34:24.948 --> 00:34:28.330 align:middle line:90% and it made me feel very, very small, but in a good way. 579 00:34:28.330 --> 00:34:28.830 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 580 00:34:28.830 --> 00:34:30.923 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] Thank you so much for your time. 581 00:34:30.923 --> 00:34:32.485 align:middle line:90% What a great chat. Thank you so much. 582 00:34:36.556 --> 00:34:37.879 align:middle line:90% Garrett Graff's book, 583 00:34:37.879 --> 00:34:41.256 align:middle line:90% "UFO: The Inside Story of the U.S. Government's Search 584 00:34:41.256 --> 00:34:43.705 align:middle line:90% for Alien Life Here-- and Out There," 585 00:34:44.128 --> 00:34:45.869 align:middle line:90% is out now on Apple Books. 586 00:34:46.161 --> 00:34:47.974 align:middle line:90% We'll link to it on our show notes page. 587 00:34:48.514 --> 00:34:50.600 align:middle line:90% And if you're listening in the Apple News app, 588 00:34:50.688 --> 00:34:53.697 align:middle line:90% an excerpt from his book is queued up to play for you next. 589 00:34:54.505 --> 00:34:55.743 align:middle line:90% If you like what you're hearing, 590 00:34:55.770 --> 00:34:59.643 align:middle line:90% give Apple News: In Conversation a follow on Apple Podcasts, 591 00:34:59.876 --> 00:35:02.577 align:middle line:90% and please leave us a review. Thanks. 592 00:35:06.656 --> 00:35:07.156 align:middle line:90% [MUSIC FADES OUT]