WEBVTT - Rerun: The Mythology of Area 51 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.560 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:22.400 and love all Things Tech. And we're making Wednesdays the 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.239 new Fridays, just like Loki did on Disney. Plus that 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.400 being said, we're going to be moving a classic episode 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.440 to today Wednesday, because the episode I am currently working 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.200 on is not just technical, it also has a lot 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.440 of historical elements to it, and it's involving a lot 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.960 of digging around in old articles and putting things together, 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.560 and I'm just running a little behind. So our classic 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.239 episode is moving up from Friday to Wednesday, and we're 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.280 going to do an episode called the Mythology of Area 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.560 fifty one. Area one, of course, being the most famous 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.680 secret facility in the world. It is a place that 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.360 is connected to all sorts of different legends, from aliens 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.080 to crazy military experiments and more. And so this episode 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.679 really goes in to explore that I hope you enjoy. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.200 We are in fact going to be concluding our trilogy 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.840 of episodes about Area fifty one in parts one and two. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.559 If you haven't listened to them, already. We really went 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.800 over the history of the facility and what actually goes 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:29.080 on there and covered everything from the reason why it 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.480 was built in the first place to the various spy 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.680 planes and different technologies that were tested at that facility. 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.800 This episode, we're looking at the crazy yes, sir, we 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:48.960 are looking at all of the rumors, conspiracy theories and uh, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:54.880 let's just say unsupported anecdotes to be diplomatic. That's very diplomatic. Yeah, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.040 so so quick rundown, just so that we're all on 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.560 the same page. Area fifty one, also known as Groom Lake, 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.200 is a facility. It's out in Nevada. It's near the 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.640 what Well. It's near the Nevada Test Site, where a 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.040 lot of nuclear tests were held, in fact, some during 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.920 the lifetime of Very fifty one. Uh. It is uh 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.320 run by the CIA and the Air Force. Lockheed is 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.760 essentially the main contractor that does work there. It's not 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.160 the only one. We've seen some other aircraft from different 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.200 companies tested at that facility as well. And the whole 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.240 purpose of it is to be remote from everywhere else 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:39.320 so that secret tests of top secret spy technology can 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:42.959 happen without anyone learning about it. Because, as we've said, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.280 if you want to be an effective spy, part of 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.600 that means people can't be aware of the tools that 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.480 you have at your disposal, right Yeah, And which, as 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.000 we say, that's why it is in a Goldilocks zone 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.360 for its for its purpose, right Yeah. One of my 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.799 favorite points that you made in the previous episode, I 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:05.600 believe was the first installment, was that this was just 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.160 far enough away to be so inconvenient to get to 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.160 that people people wouldn't try. Yeah, it was. It's a 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.960 remote desert location on a dry lake bed, and so 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.239 it was close enough where you could get supplies from 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.720 places like Las Vegas, which is less than a hundred 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.600 miles away, but far enough away where you know your 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.840 your casual traveler is unlikely to stumble upon it, especially 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.560 once you start posting lots of warning signs with scary 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.600 wording on it warning people away. Now, the fact that 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.200 it is remote, the fact that you do have these 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.800 signs that warn people away, uh, the fact that you 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.560 have to bring people in to work at this facility, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.640 and most of them are commuting in maybe on a 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:53.960 weekly basis, which means you have to figure out how 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.200 do you transport them from some place like Las Vegas 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.920 to the actual facility itself. All of that means that 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.720 you're leaving just enough traces to really start to peak 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:09.520 people's interests. Right, Yeah, it's tantalizing. Oh and uh, point 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.880 of order for the listeners out there, Jonathan, we should 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.640 probably tell everybody check out the first two episodes of 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.600 this before you listen to this one. Right, it will 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:25.080 make this make I can't say more sense, but you'll 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:29.200 at least understand the references. Yeah. So so, yeah, we've 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.560 got just enough information for the typical person to say, 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.120 I really want to know what's happening there. And because 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.359 of the security uh features that are in place, including 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.279 roving bands, which we'll talk about a little bit later, 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.719 of security personnel, uh, it means that you end up 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.080 having to fill in a lot of gaps. And when 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.120 that happens, when people are given the leeway to try 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.440 and fill in like that, there's the big here, there 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.920 be dragons on the map. That's where you get the dragons. Right, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:04:59.920 You're like, well, I don't know what's out there. It's 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.640 probably dangerous, so we're just gonna slap dragons on it 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.640 and call it a day. Yeah, which is you know, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:10.000 at heart of valuable instinct to have, right, it's it's caution. 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:15.840 But what's happened here is that as we're gonna see um, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.520 one thing with a grain of truth such as oh 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.240 there's something I'm not allowed to go see, uh, became 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:30.000 embellished and then exaggerated. And many times the people saying 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:36.279 these things sincerely do believe this. They're not hucksters, right, Yeah, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.479 this this isn't necessarily someone who's trying to get a 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.760 book deal or trying to get on the talk show circuit. 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:46.080 It maybe someone who has just enough information to leap 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.960 to some conclusions that are not supportable. And also we 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.679 should say there are times where people make guesses where 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.880 either they latch onto something that is actually true or 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.240 they've got part of the story. So just because something 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.760 is a few arie or a rumor or a conspiracy 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.440 of some sort doesn't mean that there's nothing there. Right. 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.040 So here's a great example, and it's one of the 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.480 more grounded, no pun intended examples of the mythology around 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.120 Area fifty one, there's the myth that there is a 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:22.960 giant subterranean network of UH tunnels and facilities that are 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.200 underneath the ground. So that way, when you get that 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.640 overhead view of Area fifty one, keep in mind Area 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:30.880 fifty one is restricted airspace that goes all the way 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:35.440 up into space. But there are satellites since the nineties 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:40.160 that have taken multiple images of that area. So if 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.280 you know that, in fact, you're going to be photographed 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.159 from space there, that seems logical that you would want 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.600 to go underground, right, So you can understand why people 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.160 would say, oh, well, it makes sense. You you want 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.560 to have that secrecy, You can no longer depend upon 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.479 it above ground, so you have to go below. But 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.240 this raises some logistical issues, right, Yeah, how do you 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:08.560 build an underground base and keep it quiet? Especially as 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.760 we said in the history podcast, Uh, the construction workers 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.280 that were taken out there probably would have known something 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.239 about it because they would have been the ones digging. Yeah, 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.600 I mean, and digging is a big deal. You're talking 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.200 about subterranean network. That's a lot of earth that you 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.280 have to move. And only do you have to move it, 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.360 you then have to figure out what do you do 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:32.480 with the earth you have taken. You know, when you 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:37.040 when you create a whole, that dirt doesn't just magically disappear, right, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.520 you have to put it someplace. And so that's that's 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:45.000 a logistical issue, and it's an enormous type of endeavor 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.920 to undertake. I mean, imagine having to create something a 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.200 network of tunnels that is stable enough to support the 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.840 weight of whatever is above it. Uh not to mention 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.679 the idea of like level upon level of subterranean layer 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:05.160 like Dr Evil style. It's it's an enormous task and 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.800 it would have required such a huge investment and manpower. 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.920 Let alone, I don't even think about the cost financially, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:17.520 just the practical manpower necessary to make it. It's not likely. 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.640 And there there are some rumors that go so far 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.800 as to suggest that there are there's an entire underground 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:28.680 network of tunnels that connect various bases together. Yeah, and really, 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.800 when you think of the engineering challenge that represents and 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.960 the construction that is required, you realize that while it 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.320 might be technologically possible for us to do it, it 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.480 is not really feasible to do it secretly where you 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.120 have not left any trace at all in the whole 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.320 process right now. And I think that's really good distinction, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.560 because it's not just plausible, but it is probable that 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:59.480 there is some sort of below the ground construction at 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.880 Roswell in excuse me, area fifty one, in that when 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.800 you build things, there might be a basement, there might 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.600 be a safe room something like that. But that is 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.880 a far far cry from uh, what what do we 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.800 have here? What's what's the biggest record? Jonathan fifty stories stories? Yeah, 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:25.679 imagine a fifty story skyscraper, but underground. I mean, if 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.640 you've ever seen a skyscraper being built, you know, this 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.560 is a process that takes some time. And we we 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.560 here at hell stuff works. We moved into this. You know, 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.600 we're in an office that has recently, over the last 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.640 maybe five or six years, seen a lot of growth 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.160 with the buildings around us, and so we've actually watched 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.760 year over year as skyscrapers were being built, and it 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.520 takes a really long time. Uh. And I know people 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.960 would say, yeah, but this is a top secret establishment, 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:54.600 you know, you they'd really pour a lot into it. 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.160 If you've ever seen the government at work, the US 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.800 government at work, speed is not one of the adjectives 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.440 you would typically use. Right where if the US everyone 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.679 is a superhero, it would probably not be the flash. 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.960 I mean, everyone knows that maybe the Blob. Yeah, I 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.920 was gonna go safe with Captain America. Well, all right, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.160 I was he I was merely going to all the villains. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.160 I was thinking the Blob or maybe the Jugger, not 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.359 you know, the Juggernauts. Cool though, that's a different podcast. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.960 We We've got to get to one of the one 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.720 of the biggest things here, the biggest conspiracies we hear 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:32.720 about with Area fifty one. Well, first off, spoiler alert, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:38.520 the real conspiracy is are their secret spy planes? Yes, yeah, 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.720 and that's exactly what it's for. And that's crazy. Yeah, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.480 I mean that is the first off, the fact that 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.240 that can even be possible, it's kind of right now. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.400 We talked in the last couple of podcasts about some 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.120 of the the aircraft that were under development there that 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:58.440 remains secret a good twenty years after they had finished testing, 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.840 and that's when they were unveiled. Uh. There was one 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.120 that that I think had a run from three to 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.720 eighty five something like that, and it wasn't it wasn't 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.480 acknowledged by the government until ninety six, which was the 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.120 first time anyone outside of that that program had seen it. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.560 Um And I think that was maybe Tacit blue. But 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.480 it was one of those that just when you saw 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.679 the aircraft, you thought, wow, what a weird looking thing. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.920 I can't believe that this remained secret. Granted they only 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.360 built two of them, and they were under strict rap 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.440 over at one. It never got further out from from 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.240 that area, Like even the tests would be done at night, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.440 so it limited when the potential of even being spotted. 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:46.560 But they were the genuine articles of conspiracy were indeed 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.520 spotted in the sky. And that brings us to as 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.280 we were saying, the biggest part of the area, are 0:11:54.320 --> 0:12:01.400 you talking us? Yeah? Yeah, Officially unidentified flying objects UFOs 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.720 more often than not, uh, they are attributed to being 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:12.600 alien as an extraterrestrial in nature, Area fifty one features 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:17.280 heavily and tons of different alien stories, both both the 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.760 kind that we see on the big screen, like Independence Day, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:24.280 the famous sequence where they go down to Area fifty 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.840 one where they have uh, not just aliens, but they're 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.840 they're hardware that has been studied for years, and you know, 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.040 it's revealed that a lot of technology we depend upon 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.920 today has been reverse engineered from this alien technology. Still 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.480 can't build a decent spaceship though, no, we can't build 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.760 a decent spaceship. However, we have figured out that you 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.040 can introduce a computer virus as long as you have 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:53.640 an Apple MacBook laptop, which to this day, to this day, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.400 my friend, that's still that's still bothered me. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.720 spoiler alert again, guys. But but yeah, so, so people 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.480 people started seeing UFOs, and it is correct to call 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.280 them that because I think there's one of the distinctions 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:14.320 that we're about to make, right. A UFO unidentified flying 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.400 object is simply that. Yeah, it just means that you 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.760 personally cannot identify what that object is. It doesn't mean 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.439 it's unidentify a ball. It may very well be that 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:26.880 there's a small group of people who know exactly what 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.480 that object is, like the like the stealth technology we 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.160 were just talking about. Those stealth programs when they were 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.559 under development, were strict secrets and only a few people, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.320 relatively few people knew about them. Anyone outside that who 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.000 would have seen one of these aircraft flying around, naturally, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.680 they would not be able to identify it. There was 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.120 no correlative they could say, oh, this looked like a 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:53.240 such and such. These things look really crazy. So calling 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.800 it a UFO is perfectly fine, you cannot identify it. Calling. 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.520 Making the leap from UFO to a IN is a 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.560 little bit of a problem. So this brings us to 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:10.559 probably the most famous alien incident in all of the 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.000 United States history. Something that is that factors into numerous, 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.640 I'd say dozens, if not hundreds, of different conspiracy theories, 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:25.240 the Roswell incident. Now, Roswell is in New Mexico, which, 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.600 for those of you who are not in the United States, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.760 is a completely separate state from Nevada. It's in a 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.160 completely different place. And you know, sometimes there's a pet 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.600 peeve of mine, Jonathan, is that people often conflate Area 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.400 fifty one or Groom Lake and the incident in Roswell, Right, 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.800 and so two things that these are incidence separated both 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:55.120 in space and time. Right, Roswell, New Mexico is hundreds 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:59.720 of miles away from Area fifty one, like almost a 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.720 thou miles away, And I think it's somewhere around eight 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.440 hundred miles away and eight actually one thousand, four hundred 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.480 sixteen kilometers according to Google Maps. Thank you Google Maps 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:11.960 for letting me know how far apart Roswell, New Mexico 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.760 in Area fifty one are. That's exactly it. Uh So, 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.920 by the way, don't don't rely upon Google Maps for 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.320 turn by turn directions to Area fifty one. You know 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.600 you'll just end up in Las Vegas. Did you Did 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.280 you do it by d I did it by by driving, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.440 although walking would have been hilarious. Walking would have been like, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.040 at this point people are going to ask you to 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.520 turn around? Uh so, or at this point you've probably 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.560 died of dehydration. So the other thing I said was 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.840 that their separated by time. The Roswell incident happened on 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.120 July second, nineteen seven. So for those of you who 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.680 listened to our first episode about Area fifty one, you 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.200 remember that it was the mid nineteen fifties when the 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.440 c i A settled on Groom Lake as the the 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:00.360 future home of Area fifty one. It was when construction began, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:05.040 So this is almost a decade apart when of these 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.960 two events. So then you have the The actual story 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.520 of the Roswell incident is that some people in Roswell, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.880 New Mexico, I saw some strange floating objects that they 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:18.160 could not identify un identified flying objects. Sometimes they're referred 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.280 to as being kind of disc shaped, but part of 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.960 the problem is that we're so far distanced from the 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.720 initial event that the story has not remained consistent through 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.200 all the different retellings. Yeah, and I can speak to 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.440 a little bit of that because we have we have 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:38.440 some copies of the newspaper articles that changed, and because 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.760 they changed. Uh, there's a very interesting thing here. It's 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.520 the interpretation of that. Uh, people who believe that there 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.920 was some sort of extraterrestrial incident. Somebody, somebody managed to 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.920 drive a spacecraft well enough to get to Earth but 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.280 not well enough to stay above Earth, right, and then uh, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.400 the news found out about it and they got shut 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.360 down there to change their story or did they just 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.720 correct the reporting when they had more information. That's a 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.439 that's a good question, Like did did some gentlemen wearing 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.639 black suits and sunglasses show up at the newspaper and 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.720 say you need to you need to address this. I mean, 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.240 and Jonathan, that's possible. But if it happened, it wasn't 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.000 because of aliens, That's right, So get moving on. We're 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.199 talking about the crash. Just spotting these objects in the 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.760 air wasn't the only thing that happened with Roswell incident. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.480 What specifically went on from there was that some people 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.000 found debris on the ground and it was described as 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.040 being shiny and metallic in nature. No one was really 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.119 sure what it was actually made of at the time, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:50.359 and so this this incident started to become embellished upon 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.640 over time. In fact, there's some versions of the story 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:58.320 where they didn't just find physical debris from some flying object, 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.879 but also bodies. And this is where we get into 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.280 the alien stuff, where supposedly there were these bodies of 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:10.280 creatures that had unusual features and they were whisked away 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.600 by the government. Uh. And ultimately some people say that 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:18.280 that's they went to Area fifty one. The purpose was 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.160 not to study strange materials, although we did eventually get 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.000 some Soviet aircraft at Area fifty one where they were 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.040 tested like the bigs, But it's not meant to be 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.600 a scientific laboratory. That's not the purpose of Every fifty one. 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.480 So it would make no sense to send any kind 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.320 of extraterrestrials there. It also doesn't make sense to send 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.040 extra terrestrial bodies to a place that hasn't been built yet. 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.359 That's a that's a big one. That's a it's a 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.560 bump in the Yeah, it's a little bit of a 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:50.160 little bit of a problem with the story. Now what 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:54.160 the official story from the government was that the debris 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.119 came from weather balloons and that there were no bodies. 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.320 In fact, that we should stay right now, there's no 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.000 evid it's at all that anyone ever came across a body. 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:07.040 That was something that was added to this story over time. Yeah, sorry, guys. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:14.760 That autopsy on YouTube is most likely a hope. It's 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.160 it's yeah, there there are some special effects UH experts 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.879 who have actually commented on it and somewhat derisively. So 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:24.680 we're like, like, they should have hired me. I could 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.200 have done a much better job. But there is there 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.879 There is no no hard evidence that there was even 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.520 from the debris they found when they were looking at it, 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.679 because there really was debris, right and they really did 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.680 find it, but they didn't find enough to have built 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.679 an entire thing, yeah, to carry a person. You know this. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:47.920 So the official story from the government was at these 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.399 were weather balloons. They were meant specifically to UH to 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.760 study the weather at high altitudes. Now, as it turns out, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.199 that's not the real story. But we will get to 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.200 there in a second. We'll be back to talk about 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:12.680 more mythology of Area fifty one in just a moment. So, uh, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.000 this was one of those things where people were saying, 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.400 it doesn't look like any weather balloon I've ever seen, 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.199 which is true. It did. I've seen both balloons and 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.639 the weathers, and this is neither of those two things. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.080 So moving on to the the you know, kind of 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.080 looking at the story another way. One version of this 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:34.600 that I was not aware of until a friend of 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.880 the show, Nate Lenkson, he's the editor of Wired Dot 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.760 Code Dot uk. Uh. He he turned me on to this. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.679 I had never heard about this. It's a book written 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.200 by Annie Jacobson called Area fifty one and Uncensored History 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.919 of America's top secret military base. Now full disclosure, I 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.159 have not read this book yet. I read a synopsis 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.000 of the book and a synopsis of the story we're 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.080 about the cover, So this may not actually be accurate 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.920 to the book itself. I want to make that clear. 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.639 I've also heard that most of the book is pretty 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:11.560 much what we covered in our first two episodes of 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.720 the podcast, a very thorough description of the history of 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.600 Vera fifty one. But there's a section apparently devoted to 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.640 the Roswell incident and every fifty one supposed involvement in that, 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:28.000 in which the story gets even weirder, I think than aliens. 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.679 And this story involves Nazis and communists, so you know, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.200 it's only missing Indiana Jones to make it really a 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.919 Hollywood film. So the story that she tells according to 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.920 a source, I don't know what her source was, Yeah, 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.520 a source. I don't know if she names the source 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.680 in the book. The synopsis, I said, said anonymous, But 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.480 again I haven't read the book. But according to the synopsis, 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.640 the story is that a Nazi doctor, Joseph Mingla, actually 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:03.960 the s S officer who survived the World War two 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.320 and then and then eventually escaped to South America, that 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:12.000 Mingola had worked on behalf of Joseph Stalin doing these 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:18.240 horrific procedures on children, resulting in children around the age 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:22.560 of twelve with abnormally shaped heads, large eyes that are 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.879 of an odd shape, and that the whole idea was 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.399 that they were going to pilot some simple aircraft to 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.240 fly around the United States and land and essentially star 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:37.720 crap up, yeah, scare people, Yeah, exactly, this idea that 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:43.080 they would this idea that they would fake aliens. Yeah, 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.440 in order to create a panic, essentially doing a war 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:50.240 of the World's type event, uh, one step closer to 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.520 reality or of the world's For those who don't remember 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:56.480 or don't know what this is, um, it was a 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:02.400 an Orson Wells project, a radio program that was portrayed 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.080 in such a way that people who tuned in, without 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.240 knowing that it was actually a fictionalized radio program, began 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.720 to think that there was actually, uh, an alien invasion happening. 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.040 It was this sort of famous little blip on the 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:22.760 radar of of people freaking out because they weren't aware that, 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.080 in fact, it was a fictional account, uh, something that 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.879 we still see today, uh with things like Mermaids. At 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:34.280 any rate. That's enough commentary on that. But yeah, the uh, 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:38.160 the story that she relays is that Mingola had done 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:42.960 these these horror horrific procedures and that the bodies found 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.080 at the Roswal incidant, which remember, there was never any 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.800 evidence that bodies were found were in fact human children 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.080 that then were whisked away. I think there are some 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:57.680 big problems with this particular story. Problem. No one Mingola 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.919 was on the run from the Soviets, he did not. 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.160 I mean, the Soviets were the ones who were who 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:07.639 were approaching when Hitler committed suicide, right, they'd rather than 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:12.240 be captured by the Soviets. Um Hitler committed suicide, and 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:16.800 Mingola was trying to escape with records that he had, 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:21.480 uh he had created at Auschwitz. Um So, he eventually 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:25.280 escaped Germany. He did at one point go back into 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:29.560 Soviet occupied territory in order to retrieve some of these documents, 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:34.120 but he evaded capture and eventually escaped to South America 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:39.080 and then moved around quite a bit while Uh yeah, yeah, 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.600 he was being he was being pursued by agents both 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:46.440 Soviet and American. And so it's unlikely that he would 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:51.199 have collaborated with Joseph Stalin and certainly unlikely that he 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:57.040 would have been allowed to escape. Yeah, the Soviets. Um So, 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.280 that already is a problem. Secondly, it would be a 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:05.760 real problem that the idea of people being fooled long 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:09.480 enough to not realize these were humans, right, Yeah, And 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.240 then there's the other there's the other question. Why would 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:16.280 they crash there and not in a more occupied place. 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:19.600 Why not in New York City or something like that why, um, 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:22.960 you know they probably get spotted. But then also, and 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:27.200 this this is a cruel thing to say, but why 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:32.080 would you specifically need that one very evil man to 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:36.240 do that sort of operation? Right? Exactly, It's not like 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:38.479 if you're going to if you're going to do something 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:45.240 so inhuman, uh is there I mean, narratively it's a 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:48.359 great story in the sense that there only one person 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:51.400 is this twisted to pull this off? But in reality 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:53.760 we know, unfortunately that's not the case that if you 0:25:53.840 --> 0:25:58.040 really did have the the will to do something this horrible, 0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:01.840 you could probably do without having to to go after 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:06.160 the devil himself. Right, I mean, the whole story is 0:26:06.160 --> 0:26:10.120 is meant to appeal to our dark imaginations, and it's 0:26:10.119 --> 0:26:11.840 a terrible thing, but it's also one of those things 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:14.360 that you could say, yeah, I can imagine this actually 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:18.240 playing out in some way. Ultimately, you also have to 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:20.840 ask the question, what's the effect you're going for? If 0:26:20.840 --> 0:26:22.800 the effect you're going for is to cause a panic, 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:24.960 I can't think of anything that would have caused a 0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:28.639 bigger panic than having Soviet airmen being able to land 0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:33.639 in U. S. Territory without any alien cover story. You 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:37.960 don't need that to cause a scare. There's really no 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:42.760 benefit here, like the the the entire operation does not 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:47.240 seem to have an actual return on investments, so it 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:51.280 doesn't make sense from that perspective either. So the Nazis 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:54.520 that are involved in in some other conspiracy theories about 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:58.720 Avery fifty one, like the the UFOs that are seen 0:26:58.920 --> 0:27:03.520 are product of, you know, Nazi experiments towards the close 0:27:03.600 --> 0:27:07.800 of the war. And a lot of that comes from 0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:11.600 a very real, uh and kind of frightening thing that 0:27:11.680 --> 0:27:15.280 the United States did with Operation paper Clip, which you 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:19.120 know about when they brought over some surviving scientists from 0:27:19.160 --> 0:27:22.479 Germany right right right when you're when you're when you 0:27:22.520 --> 0:27:26.760 get the rockets scientists specifically who worked over in Germany 0:27:26.800 --> 0:27:29.720 to then come to the United States and continue their 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:34.200 work in science and and rocketry and specifically, but now 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:36.399 they're working for a different boss. They're working with the 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:40.080 United States government, uh and partly because they're getting guarantees 0:27:40.080 --> 0:27:42.000 from the U. S Government that they won't be tried 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:45.920 as criminals for their work for the Nazi regime. So yeah, 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:49.640 there's certain real, real things that were happening in history 0:27:49.680 --> 0:27:53.679 that we're probably enough to help fuel this kind of 0:27:54.359 --> 0:27:58.679 conspiracy here in the United States. But you know, you 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:02.359 didn't have to look far to see real instances of 0:28:03.000 --> 0:28:07.280 some pretty shady dealings on both sides, uh, but without 0:28:07.359 --> 0:28:11.800 having to make stuff upright and now, Also one thing 0:28:11.800 --> 0:28:15.600 that didn't help the government's case, and as far as 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:20.160 their official story goes, is that it turned out they 0:28:20.920 --> 0:28:23.159 they were telling the truth, but telling it slant, as 0:28:23.240 --> 0:28:25.720 Emily Dickinson would say, right they were. They were not 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:30.199 weather balloons that were being uh deployed out over in 0:28:30.240 --> 0:28:33.359 New Mexico. There were balloons though, Yeah, there were balloons 0:28:33.400 --> 0:28:36.360 that were part of a spy program called Project Mogul, 0:28:36.680 --> 0:28:40.640 which was a top secret experiment using high altitude balloons 0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:44.280 that were carrying microphones. And the idea was the microphones 0:28:44.320 --> 0:28:48.560 would be able to detect sounds from Soviet nuclear tests, 0:28:49.040 --> 0:28:51.680 so that we in the United States would have a 0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:54.080 clue when that was going on, and we that would 0:28:54.120 --> 0:28:57.080 help us kind of know how far along the Soviets 0:28:57.080 --> 0:29:01.560 were with their nuclear program compared to our own nuclear program. 0:29:01.600 --> 0:29:04.320 So there was again this need for secrecy. We didn't 0:29:04.320 --> 0:29:06.640 want the Soviets to know that we, in fact had 0:29:06.680 --> 0:29:10.840 developed this technology to listen out for uh, these these 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:14.280 sound waves, um, because we didn't want them to try 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:16.600 and come up with different ways of testing their nuclear 0:29:16.720 --> 0:29:20.400 arms and therefore hiding it from us, so reverse engineering 0:29:20.440 --> 0:29:22.840 it and hearing what we're doing exactly. That's also another 0:29:23.040 --> 0:29:26.720 another good point. So the cover story of weather balloons 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:30.160 was necessary to protect the secrecy of the spy program, 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:32.040 but it had nothing to do with aliens. It had 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:35.160 everything to do with spying it. Maybe it might have 0:29:35.200 --> 0:29:38.440 even been to the government's benefit that people were latching 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.320 on to the aliens story because it took attention away 0:29:41.320 --> 0:29:44.480 from what it was really meant to do. So there's 0:29:44.520 --> 0:29:48.560 not a whole lot of incentive upon the government's part 0:29:48.600 --> 0:29:52.760 to come out and say specifically, guys, no, it's not aliens, 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:55.640 because it helped keep the attention away. But you don't 0:29:55.680 --> 0:29:57.560 want it to You don't want that story to run 0:29:57.680 --> 0:30:02.080 rampant either, because it could legitimately causing either a panic 0:30:02.480 --> 0:30:05.960 or just a growing distrust in the government itself. Sure, 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:09.920 and they don't need any help. That's regardless of what 0:30:09.920 --> 0:30:15.080 what what your political beliefs are. We speaking of beliefs, 0:30:15.240 --> 0:30:18.560 this is going to be a lot of fun for 0:30:18.600 --> 0:30:21.920 me personally, I think for you too. Because one thing 0:30:22.000 --> 0:30:26.280 that always keeps the Area fifty one legends alive is 0:30:26.320 --> 0:30:29.440 that there. It seems like every year there's someone who 0:30:29.480 --> 0:30:34.360 comes out and says, well, I was person exit place. 0:30:34.440 --> 0:30:38.840 Why I know the truth, Ryan, Now I will finally 0:30:38.920 --> 0:30:44.400 reveal it. And you're thinking of someone specific in this case, right, 0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:49.320 I am specifically thinking of Bob Lazar. Yeah, Robert Lazar 0:30:49.560 --> 0:30:52.520 or Bob Lazar, who claimed to have worked on a 0:30:52.560 --> 0:30:55.280 project in which the military had come into possession of 0:30:55.360 --> 0:30:59.640 alien technology, and his job was to reverse engineer that 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:02.160 al and technology to learn how it works so that 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:04.360 we could take advantage of that tech here on Earth 0:31:04.720 --> 0:31:07.800 and thus kind of leap forward what would normally be 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:11.160 the process of developing TEX so instead of you know, 0:31:11.880 --> 0:31:17.040 constantly testing and improving and refining, we could jump straight ahead, 0:31:17.120 --> 0:31:21.040 you know, skip eight steps in that process and jump 0:31:21.120 --> 0:31:24.760 straight to you know, miraculous smartphones that react to our touch, 0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:27.080 that kind of thing. And so he claimed that he 0:31:27.120 --> 0:31:29.360 had worked at a facility that was near Groom Lake, 0:31:29.600 --> 0:31:33.000 so not technically at Area fifty one, but adjacent to it. 0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:35.960 It was the real secret place. It's called S four. Yeah, 0:31:35.960 --> 0:31:38.280 it's it's so secret that it didn't even get a 0:31:38.280 --> 0:31:40.840 full name. Um, it just gets a letter and a 0:31:40.920 --> 0:31:43.960 number of designation and it's he said that it housed 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.880 no fewer than nine spacecraft. Uh. Here's the thing that 0:31:48.040 --> 0:31:51.719 a lot of his his claims to his background don't 0:31:51.920 --> 0:31:55.920 check out right. Like he he claims to have advanced 0:31:55.960 --> 0:31:58.920 degrees from m I. T and from cal Tech, but 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:01.320 there's no record of him there. Now. Granted, some people 0:32:01.360 --> 0:32:05.560 say that that's evidence of the conspiracy. Yeah, that in fact, 0:32:05.760 --> 0:32:08.840 this shows that the government was so interested in keeping 0:32:08.840 --> 0:32:11.560 it a secret that they have wiped clean his background. 0:32:11.600 --> 0:32:13.760 Although to do that you would also have to white 0:32:13.800 --> 0:32:17.880 clean the memories of every professor and every student who 0:32:17.880 --> 0:32:21.760 would have also attended. And you see that this this 0:32:21.840 --> 0:32:24.800 kind of domino effect. How how wide those ripples would 0:32:24.840 --> 0:32:26.800 have to go in order for this to remain an 0:32:26.800 --> 0:32:32.200 effective secret? It becomes unmanageable at some point. Wouldn't it 0:32:32.360 --> 0:32:36.160 be easier at this point? My question would be for 0:32:36.320 --> 0:32:39.600 many of these cases is why did someone go to 0:32:39.760 --> 0:32:44.400 so such great links to keep you alive? Because from 0:32:44.440 --> 0:32:48.280 from a government's perspective, we know that if they're picking 0:32:48.360 --> 0:32:51.240 one kind of skull degree, they'll pick the easier one, 0:32:51.280 --> 0:32:55.160 which is usually an assisted fall off a building or 0:32:55.200 --> 0:32:58.960 something like that. You know, assassination is just off the table, right, 0:32:58.960 --> 0:33:01.600 then that can ever be done? Like, yeah, how do 0:33:01.680 --> 0:33:05.040 you how do you uh, if it did come down 0:33:05.080 --> 0:33:09.480 to there's this one person who has tons of information, 0:33:09.840 --> 0:33:14.280 like it's essentially Snowden. Yeah, there's Edward Snowden of Area 0:33:14.320 --> 0:33:16.840 fifty one, who is ready, he has access to all 0:33:16.880 --> 0:33:20.680 the information. He's ready to spill the beans. Um, and 0:33:21.240 --> 0:33:23.600 you want to discredit him, you don't go to every 0:33:23.600 --> 0:33:28.040 single person in his past. Don't tell anybody about this, right, Yeah, 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:30.800 it's just it's just not practical, right, It's it's it 0:33:30.840 --> 0:33:34.480 would be a monumental task. So essentially what we're getting 0:33:34.520 --> 0:33:39.040 round too is that lazars Um his claims to his 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:43.720 his credentials are suspect, right, and that that is a 0:33:43.800 --> 0:33:46.920 very diplomatic way to put it. Of course, you know, 0:33:46.960 --> 0:33:49.080 we're also showing that his side of it is that 0:33:49.480 --> 0:33:52.280 someone is a racing his past to discredit him. As 0:33:52.360 --> 0:33:57.200 as you said, you know, Jonathan, recently, Mr Lazar in 0:33:57.200 --> 0:34:01.120 the past few years went uh back into the public 0:34:01.160 --> 0:34:03.920 eye now I mean, I guess more into the mainstream 0:34:03.960 --> 0:34:09.040 public eye, and he was asked to react to the 0:34:09.080 --> 0:34:14.160 CIA's official admittance uh of area fifty ones existence, which 0:34:14.160 --> 0:34:15.720 as we know, it didn't happen for a little while. 0:34:16.200 --> 0:34:19.920 And uh he said he was not impressed because this 0:34:20.000 --> 0:34:23.279 was a very tiny baby step forward. I think that's 0:34:23.280 --> 0:34:26.759 the quote he used. And uh he was waiting for 0:34:26.800 --> 0:34:30.520 them to reveal S four, which is the site he 0:34:30.560 --> 0:34:33.200 says he worked at reverse engineering these things. Now, he 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:39.240 has many, many claims. Uh. He speaks at length about 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:46.440 interspecial politics, about injuries he's suffered by technology that we 0:34:46.520 --> 0:34:50.680 won't hear about for several decades. Uh. But I I 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:54.840 really like the point you made that. Um. One of 0:34:54.880 --> 0:34:58.040 the other things people who believe him see his proof 0:34:58.239 --> 0:35:03.399 is um what they perceive as a inexplicable jump in technology, 0:35:03.520 --> 0:35:06.200 right right, Well, the truth is that if you look 0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:10.000 at any technology closely enough, you will see incremental improvements. 0:35:10.480 --> 0:35:14.759 It's very, very rare that we have someone come out 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:17.279 with a brand new piece of technology that has no 0:35:17.360 --> 0:35:22.879 precedent to it, right, Yeah, exactly, Television, perfect example. So, yeah, 0:35:22.920 --> 0:35:25.280 you look at these things like television was really building 0:35:25.360 --> 0:35:28.160 upon the developments of radio, and you think, okay, well 0:35:28.239 --> 0:35:30.960 what about Tesla and Marconi. Well they were working on 0:35:31.400 --> 0:35:35.440 research that had preceded them as well. These are all 0:35:35.760 --> 0:35:38.040 if you if you really dig down into it, you know, 0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:40.000 you look at the invention of the light bulb, you 0:35:40.040 --> 0:35:42.080 look at all of these sort of inventions that we 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:46.120 we take for granted. We like the stories that say 0:35:46.280 --> 0:35:49.160 this inventor came up with this idea and implemented it, 0:35:49.239 --> 0:35:52.680 and now it exists and before it never did. Usually 0:35:52.760 --> 0:35:55.480 the truth is much more complicated, with lots of different 0:35:55.520 --> 0:36:00.440 things leading into that invention, including earlier invention that may 0:36:00.480 --> 0:36:04.520 not have been practical but showed a working concept, and 0:36:04.560 --> 0:36:07.799 then this other inventor like Thomas Edison comes along and 0:36:07.840 --> 0:36:11.600 takes that takes that concept and makes it practical. So 0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:14.160 now it's something that we can actually use as opposed 0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:16.879 to just a cool idea, but we didn't know how 0:36:16.960 --> 0:36:20.880 to to you know, capitalize on it. So you know, 0:36:20.960 --> 0:36:24.600 I think most of the advances we've seen over the 0:36:24.760 --> 0:36:27.720 over the decades have been examples of this where people 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:32.520 have made incremental improvements and maybe grab together multiple pieces 0:36:32.520 --> 0:36:36.040 of technology and then and then package them in such 0:36:36.080 --> 0:36:38.439 a way that it's a really compelling piece of tech. 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:41.880 But if you break it down component by component, you 0:36:41.880 --> 0:36:47.840 start to see the actual process of this creating something, 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:51.160 refining it, tweaking and putting it out again, refining it again. 0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:57.280 I don't see any enormous leaps where someone has jumped 0:36:57.719 --> 0:37:01.400 well ahead of everywhere else. Maybe Claude Shan and his uh, 0:37:01.440 --> 0:37:06.920 his computer science with using binary logic, his approach to 0:37:07.080 --> 0:37:09.759 computer science was pretty much fully formed. But that's kind 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:13.000 of similar to Albert Einstein and his theories of relativity. 0:37:13.040 --> 0:37:16.760 These were ideas that both men had developed over years, 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:20.799 and then they presented them as complete pictures. So to us, 0:37:20.840 --> 0:37:24.200 the outsiders, it looks like a person just came up 0:37:24.200 --> 0:37:28.840 with a brilliant process, fully formed instantaneously. The truth is 0:37:28.880 --> 0:37:31.239 it actually took several years to build that up, and 0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:36.240 even then they were building on previous thoughts and knowledge. 0:37:36.360 --> 0:37:39.200 They were just incorporating it in a new way. Yeah, 0:37:39.280 --> 0:37:42.960 but what about the lasers. Okay, so lasers are an issue, right, Um, 0:37:43.080 --> 0:37:45.760 I'm glad you brought up lasers. One of the things 0:37:45.800 --> 0:37:48.960 that have has often been attributed to Area fifty one 0:37:49.640 --> 0:37:55.120 is energy weapons. So this ties into the strategic defense initiative, 0:37:55.360 --> 0:37:59.680 often referred to derisively as star wars. Yeah, this was 0:37:59.719 --> 0:38:02.440 the Graham in the nineteen eighties, and I promise that 0:38:02.560 --> 0:38:06.280 I will do an episode about the Star Wars program 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:09.560 that will go into full detail. I know, I've got 0:38:09.560 --> 0:38:11.160 a lot of listeners who have asked me to do it, 0:38:11.200 --> 0:38:13.080 and I really want to at some point, but it's 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:15.239 gonna be a little bit further down the road. But 0:38:15.320 --> 0:38:17.080 it's um. You know. The whole idea was that it 0:38:17.080 --> 0:38:19.279 was going to be a system that would shoot down 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:23.120 incoming i C b M S intercontinental ballistic missiles. This 0:38:23.160 --> 0:38:25.799 was the height of the Cold War nineteen eighties. I mean, 0:38:25.880 --> 0:38:29.160 propaganda was ridiculous in both the Soviet Union and the 0:38:29.239 --> 0:38:32.200 United States. I grew up in that era, and I remember, 0:38:32.360 --> 0:38:34.560 like the Russians being the bad guys all the time, 0:38:35.040 --> 0:38:38.200 you know, from from uh everything from Red Dawn to 0:38:38.640 --> 0:38:42.560 Rocky four. So anyway, um, or was it three? It 0:38:42.640 --> 0:38:45.080 might have been three Rocky three? Uh. At any rate, 0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:49.040 the the idea here was that the energy weapons that 0:38:49.040 --> 0:38:52.000 would shoot down these missiles were supposedly under development at 0:38:52.040 --> 0:38:55.160 Area fifty one. Again not really the purpose for Area 0:38:55.239 --> 0:38:58.120 fifty one. I mean you could you could understand them, 0:38:58.239 --> 0:39:01.560 uh testing such a vice because that is kind of 0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:04.520 what they were doing. But they were mostly testing airborne things, 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:09.879 not not ground to air technology. It was mostly aircraft 0:39:10.040 --> 0:39:13.239 that they were really focusing on, and not offensive aircraft, 0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:16.279 just spycraft. Yeah, I mean, there are some of the 0:39:16.360 --> 0:39:19.360 drones they worked on probably had offensive but yeah, it 0:39:19.400 --> 0:39:22.920 was it was mostly again, it was mostly reconnaissance type stuff. 0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:25.759 We've got more to say about the mythology of area 0:39:25.840 --> 0:39:36.359 fifty one after this quick break. So then you have 0:39:36.480 --> 0:39:41.640 the weather control devices, another very popular conspiracy theory of it. So, 0:39:41.760 --> 0:39:45.600 first of all, we don't have any technology powerful enough 0:39:45.640 --> 0:39:49.120 to control the weather. Weather is an incredibly chaotic system 0:39:49.160 --> 0:39:51.239 that we do not fully understand it. Before you can 0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:53.440 under before you can really control something, you have to 0:39:53.480 --> 0:39:57.040 at least have some understanding of how it works. Now, 0:39:57.160 --> 0:40:03.239 people have conducted experiments with weather manipulation, things like influence it, 0:40:03.360 --> 0:40:06.360 like seeding clouds, that kind of thing. But even this, 0:40:06.600 --> 0:40:10.160 we can't be fully sure how effective they are, right, 0:40:10.200 --> 0:40:12.640 Because here's the problem is that you can't you can't 0:40:12.840 --> 0:40:16.600 have a scientific consensus on whether or not something is 0:40:16.600 --> 0:40:19.840 effective unless you're able to have a control group. And 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:22.279 you can't really have a control group with whether I 0:40:22.280 --> 0:40:26.560 mean you can you can have as close to the same, uh, 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:30.759 kind of elements in play in two different and two 0:40:30.760 --> 0:40:33.560 different instances, and one you seed the cloud and one 0:40:33.600 --> 0:40:35.880 you don't, and then you see how much rain results. 0:40:36.200 --> 0:40:39.280 But even then again, whether it's such a complex system 0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:42.000 that you can't you can't be completely certain that the 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:47.080 seeding is the effective agent, right, And you know the 0:40:47.120 --> 0:40:49.960 problem with whether is it's a chaotic system that is 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:54.719 one massive cluster of systems. So any two points you 0:40:54.760 --> 0:40:58.600 pick are ultimately in the same system, so are they 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:01.239 really is there a control tough and stuff. And then 0:41:01.320 --> 0:41:03.759 on top of that, you know things like HARP, which 0:41:03.760 --> 0:41:06.720 I'm sure you guys have talked about, which was designed 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:11.120 to to actually look at interactions in the ionosphere. Now, 0:41:11.120 --> 0:41:15.399 the isonosphere around Earth can conduct electricity. In fact, when 0:41:15.400 --> 0:41:17.840 we get a big electrical impulse in there from something 0:41:17.880 --> 0:41:21.120 like a solar flare or coronal mass ejection, it can 0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:26.200 make the auroras at the polls really active because that's 0:41:26.200 --> 0:41:29.800 that's kind of the convergence point for this electric field. 0:41:30.320 --> 0:41:33.879 And uh, and so there's certainly things that interact with 0:41:34.040 --> 0:41:39.160 atmospheric um phenomena, but we still can't control the weather there. 0:41:39.600 --> 0:41:42.120 Now it doesn't help. I'm just gonna be honest with you, Jonathan, 0:41:42.280 --> 0:41:46.680 it does not help uh to dispel any of the 0:41:46.719 --> 0:41:49.880 speculation about places like HARP, you know, when it was 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:55.480 an operation, because the descriptions from from the government and 0:41:55.520 --> 0:41:59.520 from HARP about what they were doing we're just cartooniously 0:41:59.640 --> 0:42:02.400 vague in some ways. So, yeah, it's a high frequency 0:42:02.440 --> 0:42:06.960 active auroral research program, which already you're you're thinking, they're 0:42:06.960 --> 0:42:08.680 at least a couple of words in there that I'm 0:42:08.680 --> 0:42:11.560 not entirely sure what they're supposed to mean. Um. And 0:42:11.600 --> 0:42:15.200 it really was about beaming energy into the ionosphere. To 0:42:15.800 --> 0:42:18.440 the goal for HARP, at least on the government side, 0:42:18.480 --> 0:42:21.279 that the military funded side, was can we use the 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:24.719 ionosphere as a conduit through which we can communicate with 0:42:24.840 --> 0:42:28.279 distant vehicles like submarines that are under the water. I mean, 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:31.080 they really were hoping that this would be a way 0:42:31.120 --> 0:42:33.720 of doing that. The scientists at HARP were mostly thinking, 0:42:34.280 --> 0:42:36.719 if we can keep getting funding for what we want 0:42:36.719 --> 0:42:39.600 to do, which is to study the ionosphere, then we 0:42:39.640 --> 0:42:42.360 should try and keep that door open for the possibility 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:45.799 that this could be a communications tool, even if we 0:42:45.880 --> 0:42:50.200 don't think it will really work. So um, which happens. Yeah, 0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:52.400 that's that's essentially what happened with HARP. And then eventually 0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:54.879 the military said, you know what, we're done and they 0:42:54.920 --> 0:42:58.279 pulled the funding. So that was the story of HARP. Well, 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:02.080 a lot of those same stories apply to Area fifty one, 0:43:02.200 --> 0:43:06.000 but there's no evidence that there were any weather control 0:43:06.080 --> 0:43:09.560 systems under development. There's certainly no evidence that anything ever 0:43:10.080 --> 0:43:14.279 did any actual weather manipulation. So uh yeah, yeah, that 0:43:14.400 --> 0:43:17.600 just doesn't that doesn't really fly. Um. And then if 0:43:17.640 --> 0:43:20.520 there's a piece of tech and science fiction, there's a 0:43:20.640 --> 0:43:22.879 chance that there's at least some story out there that 0:43:22.960 --> 0:43:26.440 there's something like that underdevelopment at Area fifty one. You know, 0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:30.640 warp coils, teleporters, phasers, whatever you want to think about. 0:43:31.040 --> 0:43:33.680 I realized I was focusing mainly on Star Trek there, 0:43:33.719 --> 0:43:36.160 but but really all of that has at some time 0:43:36.280 --> 0:43:44.760 or another been attributed to area. Warp drives, uh, teleportation devises, lightsabers, Yeah, okay, 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:47.040 thank you. No, we've got story guards, you know, we've 0:43:47.040 --> 0:43:51.680 got there. So moving on another another host of conspiracy 0:43:51.719 --> 0:43:54.560 theories around Area fifty one don't have so much to 0:43:54.600 --> 0:43:57.320 do with what was actually going on at the facility, 0:43:57.400 --> 0:44:01.799 but rather the mysterious chef do we organizations that were 0:44:01.840 --> 0:44:06.839 behind it all. Yeah, like the real life Smoking Man exactly. Yeah. 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:11.160 So a lot of these conspiracy theories involve organizations that 0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:15.960 have no official um uh designation, or they don't they 0:44:15.960 --> 0:44:19.840 aren't officially acknowledged by the government, right. So some of 0:44:19.880 --> 0:44:22.879 them have a designation, but they're not you know, they're 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:25.920 they're not in any government files because that's how secret 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:31.000 they are. And alleged designation. Yeah. So here the big 0:44:31.040 --> 0:44:33.319 one for area of fifty one at least is the 0:44:33.360 --> 0:44:38.799 Majestic Twelve. Majestic twelve is a group that existed many 0:44:38.880 --> 0:44:42.640 years ago, according to the conspiracy lore, and included people 0:44:42.640 --> 0:44:45.440 like President Truman as well as the head of CIA 0:44:45.719 --> 0:44:49.920 and also like top businessmen, like essentially the most powerful 0:44:49.920 --> 0:44:52.480 people in the United States at that time, and that 0:44:52.600 --> 0:44:57.080 their purpose was to solidify power and control worldwide, right 0:44:57.120 --> 0:45:00.360 like this was gonna be like the Trilateral Commission was 0:45:00.440 --> 0:45:03.080 often referred to as being the secret organization for these 0:45:03.080 --> 0:45:04.960 sort of purposes, which is not what it was for 0:45:05.680 --> 0:45:09.520 um uh. There are other organizations that are meant to 0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:12.080 be like think tanks that have often been kind of 0:45:12.120 --> 0:45:15.879 compared to this sort of the Majestic Twelve however, is 0:45:16.120 --> 0:45:20.319 one that appears to have been completely fabricated. Uh. There 0:45:20.360 --> 0:45:23.520 was a UFO enthusiast named William L. Moore who produced 0:45:23.520 --> 0:45:28.080 papers that he claimed proved the group's existence, But a 0:45:28.160 --> 0:45:30.120 lot of people who have looked at these papers have 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:32.759 said that they don't hold up to scrutiny, That the 0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:35.640 signatures that are there appeared to have been copied from 0:45:35.640 --> 0:45:39.520 other documents and then pasted into them into the Majestic twelve, 0:45:39.600 --> 0:45:42.719 the MJ twelve papers, uh, and that there does not 0:45:42.800 --> 0:45:46.040 appear to be any sort of evidence supporting the existence 0:45:46.080 --> 0:45:49.879 of such an organization. So if your organization isn't real, 0:45:50.080 --> 0:45:54.120 then chances are it's not actually the secret one behind area. 0:45:57.080 --> 0:46:02.400 So the so, the the idea that has become you know, 0:46:02.480 --> 0:46:04.560 common currency in a lot of these beliefs is that 0:46:04.640 --> 0:46:09.880 in J twelve did exist, but was had its world 0:46:10.040 --> 0:46:15.279 rocked when news of the extraterrestrial crash in hit them. 0:46:15.320 --> 0:46:20.000 And then they've they've spent the next few decades, um, 0:46:20.080 --> 0:46:21.480 you know what, more and more I think maybe X 0:46:21.520 --> 0:46:24.400 files was inspired some of these well, you know, and 0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:26.640 it's very like m J twelve shares a lot of 0:46:26.640 --> 0:46:32.520 the same kind of traits as other shadowy, conspiratorial uh, 0:46:33.280 --> 0:46:37.000 most likely fictional organization. It's a trope. It's right up 0:46:37.000 --> 0:46:40.399 there with things like the Illuminati, for example. Uh. Then 0:46:40.480 --> 0:46:44.400 you have some real people who really do exist that 0:46:44.440 --> 0:46:48.160 have kind of helped fuel the mystique around Area fifty one, 0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:52.240 not necessarily, you know, purposefully setting out to define the mystique, 0:46:52.280 --> 0:46:54.840 but they're part of it. And those are the Camo dudes. 0:46:55.719 --> 0:46:58.279 That's that's what the folks in the Area fifty one 0:46:58.680 --> 0:47:02.000 u biz, the people who like to watch Area fifty one, 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:04.040 not the ones who are actually working there. What they 0:47:04.120 --> 0:47:07.239 referred to these guys as Camo dudes because they tend 0:47:07.280 --> 0:47:11.239 to be wearing a desert camouflage outfits. You know, they're 0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:13.160 out in Nevada, so they're wearing these these kind of 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:18.799 desert cam outfits. They travel in pairs, usually in in 0:47:18.960 --> 0:47:23.400 four wheel drive vehicles, and they are, uh, the perimeter 0:47:23.480 --> 0:47:26.440 guards essentially is what they serve as. So if someone 0:47:26.480 --> 0:47:30.320 starts to come close to the Area fifty one borders, 0:47:30.880 --> 0:47:34.120 then they may end up encountering a pair of these 0:47:34.200 --> 0:47:38.399 Camo dudes who tend to not appear to be military. 0:47:39.000 --> 0:47:41.279 The best guess is, in fact, they are probably part 0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:45.279 of some contract group that ends up doing security for 0:47:45.400 --> 0:47:50.080 things like military installations. So not not official military personnel, 0:47:50.160 --> 0:47:54.680 but rather private citizens who are part of a contractor 0:47:55.680 --> 0:48:00.200 and their job is to um to firmly suggest to 0:48:00.360 --> 0:48:03.879 people that they should go somewhere else rather than than 0:48:04.239 --> 0:48:07.200 try and get footage of the area. I have a 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:11.000 quotation for you from an incident. This is published in 0:48:11.000 --> 0:48:14.800 the Huffington's post. A UFO conspiracy film crew was detained 0:48:14.800 --> 0:48:18.040 at gunpoint at the Air fifty one Gate in two 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:22.760 thousand twelve. Here's here's the quotation. According to a crew member, 0:48:23.719 --> 0:48:27.000 a camouflage dress guard carrying an M sixteen told a 0:48:27.040 --> 0:48:29.640 member of this team, we could make you disappear and 0:48:29.680 --> 0:48:33.080 your body will never be found. Uh. I'm gonna go 0:48:33.120 --> 0:48:35.839 ahead and say maybe they're playing it up, but the 0:48:35.880 --> 0:48:39.959 point is that, yes, you're not supposed to be there. 0:48:40.040 --> 0:48:44.000 As we said in the first PEW podcast, don't don't 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:46.160 try to go you guys. Yeah, most of the most 0:48:46.160 --> 0:48:50.600 of the reports I've read didn't have a point where 0:48:50.640 --> 0:48:55.320 the the Camo dudes were actively aiming weapons in their direction, 0:48:55.440 --> 0:48:58.960 but rather they were they were visibly armed. Yeah, so 0:48:59.040 --> 0:49:01.600 that's one thing, you know. I was certainly they were armed, 0:49:01.640 --> 0:49:04.160 but they weren't. I don't remember reading a whole lot 0:49:04.200 --> 0:49:06.640 of them either brandishing their weapons like as far as 0:49:06.680 --> 0:49:10.080 I recall, most of the incidents involved their weapons being holstered. 0:49:10.480 --> 0:49:13.640 But they have in the past, according to a lot 0:49:13.640 --> 0:49:17.600 of reports, confiscated film back when film was a thing, 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:23.280 or demanded to have various equipment turned over to them. 0:49:23.320 --> 0:49:27.960 Because again, the facility is all about spy aircraft, so 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:31.640 you don't want footage leaking of either the facility or 0:49:31.760 --> 0:49:34.759 the aircraft that are under development there. Um, So it's 0:49:34.760 --> 0:49:37.279 not necessarily that big of a mystery, but the fact 0:49:37.320 --> 0:49:39.680 that you have these guys who are not easily identifiable 0:49:39.719 --> 0:49:44.040 as belonging to a specific United States government organization, that 0:49:44.160 --> 0:49:48.400 definitely adds to that mystery. And they're not identifying themselves. 0:49:48.440 --> 0:49:53.960 And also to be candid in in some cases not all, 0:49:54.000 --> 0:49:57.280 but in some cases if you were making a film, 0:49:57.520 --> 0:50:00.320 then you want to have that sort of con flick. 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.520 So it it's also possible that in some cases these 0:50:04.560 --> 0:50:07.719 are the threat as it is as it is is 0:50:08.200 --> 0:50:14.000 um embellished, or it's possible that people are purposefully agitating 0:50:14.480 --> 0:50:17.400 the guards. Yeah, it's it's definitely without being there. We 0:50:17.440 --> 0:50:20.480 can't say for sure, but that but but both scenarios 0:50:20.760 --> 0:50:24.000 seem to be plausible to me, Right, I don't know 0:50:24.080 --> 0:50:26.759 what really unfolded. It may be that the truth is 0:50:26.800 --> 0:50:30.360 somewhere in between those two those two scenarios, right, But 0:50:30.400 --> 0:50:33.839 you can't accidentally end up there, no, you purposefully We're 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:36.640 trying to get there. And this is clearly an area 0:50:36.680 --> 0:50:40.080 that is off limits. Uh, and is you know, is 0:50:40.239 --> 0:50:43.600 legally off limits? Some people are and you know, we 0:50:43.680 --> 0:50:46.000 talked about that in the second episode of the history 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:49.080 about how Area fifty one gets a whole lot of 0:50:49.200 --> 0:50:54.000 legal leeway um in in ways that other places in 0:50:54.040 --> 0:50:57.080 the United States simply do not, and that that will 0:50:57.120 --> 0:51:01.080 also adds to this curiosity we have of Area fifty one. 0:51:01.120 --> 0:51:04.239 I think we've really covered kind of what drives that, 0:51:04.680 --> 0:51:08.160 the fact that, you know, human beings are curious, right, 0:51:08.200 --> 0:51:11.040 we want to know things. When we see something that 0:51:11.080 --> 0:51:15.440 we do not understand, Often one of our earliest responses 0:51:15.560 --> 0:51:18.239 is how does that work? Or what is going on here? 0:51:18.320 --> 0:51:21.800 What's really happening? Unless it's really scary, and which is 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:25.080 where's the closest exit? And can I run faster than 0:51:25.120 --> 0:51:28.120 ben Um because you don't have to run the fastest, No, 0:51:28.280 --> 0:51:31.560 just faster than the slowest person. As long as I'm 0:51:31.560 --> 0:51:34.759 not the slowest person in the office, I'm still got 0:51:34.760 --> 0:51:39.640 a chance. Yeah, So I can certainly see and I 0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:42.160 feel it too. I mean I certainly have this curiosity 0:51:42.200 --> 0:51:45.920 about Area fifty one. Heck, just just going from the 0:51:45.960 --> 0:51:50.479 baseline most mundane description of what's going on there, there's 0:51:50.480 --> 0:51:53.600 still so many questions like, how do they how do 0:51:53.680 --> 0:51:56.560 they really maintain that level of secrecy. How much does 0:51:56.640 --> 0:51:59.759 the typical worker at Area fifty one know about what's 0:51:59.760 --> 0:52:03.280 going on? How do they make sure that people working 0:52:03.320 --> 0:52:07.600 on one project remain oblivious to everything else that's happening. 0:52:08.080 --> 0:52:10.480 How do they schedule these things? What is it like 0:52:10.600 --> 0:52:13.839 being a pilot for one of these aircraft? I mean, 0:52:13.880 --> 0:52:15.239 there are a lot of questions that we don't have 0:52:15.320 --> 0:52:18.680 the answers too. So I think, uh, you know, it 0:52:18.760 --> 0:52:21.200 was a lot of fun tackling this this subject, and 0:52:21.239 --> 0:52:23.520 I think it really did merit the three episodes because 0:52:23.560 --> 0:52:28.319 it is such a touchstone for everything from the political 0:52:28.960 --> 0:52:33.400 ideology from the nineteen fifties forward to just a pop 0:52:33.440 --> 0:52:37.680 culture you know touchstone, right, It's it's like that's that's 0:52:37.719 --> 0:52:39.640 the go to for science fiction. Now I have a 0:52:39.719 --> 0:52:43.759 question for you. Absolutely when and now that we have, 0:52:44.680 --> 0:52:48.200 along with the rest of the tech stuff audience explored 0:52:49.000 --> 0:52:52.120 stem discern the the ideas and the reality and the 0:52:52.160 --> 0:52:55.120 miss very fifty one, I have to ask you, what 0:52:55.239 --> 0:52:57.920 would you do if one of the you know, if 0:52:57.960 --> 0:53:00.560 one of the strangest things turned out to be true. 0:53:01.560 --> 0:53:04.520 You know, I like to I would like to think 0:53:04.760 --> 0:53:08.080 that I'm the type of skeptic who, when presented with 0:53:08.320 --> 0:53:12.759 incontrovertible evidence that something I believe to be true is 0:53:12.760 --> 0:53:16.120 in fact not true, and that something I thought was 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:19.960 just purely made up is in fact the truth, that 0:53:20.040 --> 0:53:22.960 I would be able to accept it. Saying that and 0:53:23.040 --> 0:53:25.800 actually doing it are two different things, right, I don't 0:53:25.880 --> 0:53:28.600 know if that's how I would truly react. I'd like 0:53:28.680 --> 0:53:33.320 to think that if suddenly there was just pure evidence 0:53:33.360 --> 0:53:36.520 that in fact the Roswell incident involved aliens, and that 0:53:36.600 --> 0:53:39.000 the aliens were in fact Holstad Area fifty one, and 0:53:39.040 --> 0:53:42.520 all of these crazy conspiracy theories were actually true, I 0:53:42.880 --> 0:53:44.680 like to believe that I would be able to say, 0:53:44.719 --> 0:53:48.120 you know what, I never would have bought into this, 0:53:48.200 --> 0:53:50.359 but it turns out it was right. And I was wrong. 0:53:50.440 --> 0:53:52.160 I'd like to think I could do that. I think 0:53:52.200 --> 0:53:55.759 you would. I like, okay, incontrovertible evidence then would have 0:53:55.800 --> 0:54:00.600 to be something like aliens landing at your house and 0:54:00.920 --> 0:54:03.759 saying like, hey, guys, have you seen our buddies? They 0:54:03.960 --> 0:54:07.000 showed up maybe I don't know, you know, seventy earth 0:54:07.080 --> 0:54:10.200 years ago something around there. Yeah, they checked their watch 0:54:10.239 --> 0:54:13.759 for seventy earth years ago and they're big fans of 0:54:13.840 --> 0:54:16.359 text stuff, and so they heard that we had done 0:54:16.360 --> 0:54:19.400 an episode. Yeah, I feel like you're the kind of 0:54:19.400 --> 0:54:23.680 guy would go, huh, well, yeah, okay, I guess let 0:54:23.680 --> 0:54:25.440 me let me call my boss. I would be like, 0:54:25.520 --> 0:54:28.200 some of um, all right, Well, it turns out I 0:54:28.280 --> 0:54:30.680 was a big fat head and I was wrong about everything. 0:54:31.160 --> 0:54:33.319 That's not everything. But also, yeah, it is true that 0:54:33.360 --> 0:54:38.080 there is, at least there are several conspiracies that we're 0:54:38.120 --> 0:54:41.280 at work at Area fifty one, and we've we've explored those, 0:54:41.440 --> 0:54:45.319 and I guess what what I would want people to 0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:48.040 take away from this is that there really is amazing 0:54:48.480 --> 0:54:53.200 strange science fiction, action thriller movie level stuff there. It 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:56.319 just may not be what people are claiming. It is, right, 0:54:56.600 --> 0:54:59.520 that doesn't mean it's you know, not interesting. It certainly is, 0:54:59.640 --> 0:55:04.000 and it's uh, it's really again an evidence of human 0:55:04.040 --> 0:55:07.600 achievement for both an engineering side and just a secrecy 0:55:07.719 --> 0:55:10.880 keeping side, because it's really hard to keep those secrets. 0:55:11.200 --> 0:55:14.400 So I do suspect that they do that by managing 0:55:14.440 --> 0:55:16.920 how many people are allowed to know any one thing 0:55:16.960 --> 0:55:22.040 at any one time, otherwise you know, loose lips. I 0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:24.360 hope you enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. I 0:55:24.360 --> 0:55:28.759 really enjoy reading, writing researching about Area fifty one. One 0:55:28.800 --> 0:55:31.200 of my favorite articles I ever wrote for How Stuff 0:55:31.239 --> 0:55:33.560 Works back when I was writing for them, was on 0:55:33.640 --> 0:55:36.080 how Area fifty one works. It was also one of 0:55:36.080 --> 0:55:38.759 my longest articles I ever wrote, to the point where 0:55:38.800 --> 0:55:41.760 my editor was suggesting that I cut out a couple 0:55:41.760 --> 0:55:44.920 of segments, but I felt like it really added, you know, 0:55:45.280 --> 0:55:48.040 some character and flavor to the piece, so I fought 0:55:48.080 --> 0:55:51.320 for it and ultimately it all went in. I honestly 0:55:51.360 --> 0:55:53.280 don't know if that paid off. I was not looking 0:55:53.280 --> 0:55:55.839 at the analytics for that article. Maybe people dropped off 0:55:55.880 --> 0:55:58.960 way before then, but it was it was a fun 0:55:58.960 --> 0:56:01.120 experience and I'm glad we got a chance to revisit 0:56:01.120 --> 0:56:04.920 it tomorrow. You will have a new episode of Smart 0:56:05.000 --> 0:56:08.120 Talks with IBM in this feed, and then on Friday 0:56:08.440 --> 0:56:10.839 you will hear the episode that I've been working on 0:56:11.400 --> 0:56:15.000 but has so far been a little slow to come together. 0:56:15.239 --> 0:56:17.760 I can't tell you what it's about just yet, except 0:56:17.840 --> 0:56:22.239 I'll say, Darlin, it's better downwards wetter under the sea. 0:56:22.880 --> 0:56:25.080 But that's as much as I can say. All right. 0:56:25.560 --> 0:56:28.239 If you have suggestions for topics I should cover on 0:56:28.320 --> 0:56:31.920 tech Stuff, whether it's a technology, a company, a trend 0:56:32.000 --> 0:56:37.040 in tech, you know a specific product, maybe let me 0:56:37.080 --> 0:56:39.040 know send me a message. Best way to do that 0:56:39.040 --> 0:56:41.360 as on Twitter. The handle for the show is text 0:56:41.400 --> 0:56:44.320 stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again 0:56:45.160 --> 0:56:53.960 really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. 0:56:54.200 --> 0:56:57.040 For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i 0:56:57.160 --> 0:57:00.400 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:57:00.440 --> 0:57:01.360 your favorite shows.