WEBVTT - INTERVIEW 1: Colin Dickey 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:04.760 Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:16.639 Audience for full exposure listen with headphones. In October, in 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.840 the midst of the pandemic, I spoke by zoom with 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.680 author Colin Dickey. He is the author of ghost Land 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:29.240 about American haunted houses, and teaches at National University. I 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:34.400 spoke with him about his latest book, The Unidentified Mythical Monsters, 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.920 Alien Encounters and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. I'm Toby 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:45.280 Ball and this is Strange Arrivals. My name is Colin Dickey. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.479 I am the author of The Unidentified Mythical Monsters, Alien 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.440 Encounters and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. So how did 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.680 you come to write this book? Like what one interest 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.680 led you to to do in the research and then 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.120 in the writing. Um. I think I've always been interested 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.920 in the way in which a set of beliefs to 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.760 ideas which you could maybe call sort of like fringe beliefs, um, 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.360 you know, for for lack of a better term, the 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.720 stuff that's not taken seriously by by mainstream science or 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.200 journalism or religion or or kind of you know, the 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.600 usual kind of authorities, and and thus gets sort of 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:25.840 shunted into the side in terms of you know, superstition 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.360 and that kind of stuff. Um. But but I found 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.680 that that those kind of beliefs often really whether or 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:34.280 not one beliefs that they're true or not, they have 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.680 a pretty enormous effect on culture and and and the 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:39.959 way you know, the world works, and you know, they 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.720 have sort of material effects. And I've found that it 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.360 seems necessary to talk about these things again, not necessarily 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.720 in terms of are they real or all they are 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.240 they you know, fake, although you know, that's an interesting question, 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.600 but but more so like what do these beliefs do 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.440 in in the world and how do they affect the 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.200 world around us? Um, you know, even for those of 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.360 us who don't necessarily believe in these things. And I 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.480 you know, my my previous book, ghost Land in American 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.840 History and Haunted Places was similarly based around this question 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:12.720 of you know, I think whether or not you believe 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.799 that ghosts exists, it's sort of undeniable that the sort 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.280 of language of of ghosts and haunted places are are 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.480 things that sort of drive American culture and sort of 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.400 say a great deal about our history. So I think 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.120 that's kind of how I gradually sort of got more 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.399 and more interested in these kind of you know again 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.799 quote unquote fringe topics for lack of a better word, 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:39.200 did you have sort of a central thesis for this book, which, 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.239 for people who haven't read it is, you know it 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:46.080 um it encompasses sort of a variety of different you know, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:51.600 quote unquote fringe topics, including cryptids and UFOs. Is there 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:57.600 some sort of central organizing thesis you have, Well, it's funny. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.040 It's started out so so this this book in particular, 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.000 in the wake of the election. UM. You know, there 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.799 was a lot of discussion about the ways in which 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.720 social media companies like Facebook had had been responsible directly 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.079 or indirectly for pushing a lot of conspiracy theories into 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.839 the mainstream. And you know, at the time, I thought, well, 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.000 you know, that's that's undeniably true, and I think that 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.160 these companies have a real obligation that they aren't taken seriously. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.239 But at the same time, I wanted to push back 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.920 on the idea that the rising conspiracy theories was somehow 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.760 unique to a social media era and UM, and what 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.000 I wanted to do was to do a kind of 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.360 genealogical history in some sense of UM you know, a 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.280 set of French beliefs and or you know, conspiracy theories. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:50.040 And in the beginning I cast a pretty wide net. So, 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.880 you know, my the first draft of the book, UM, 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.280 you know, had everything from you know, anti submitted conspiracy 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.040 theories like the Protocols of the Elders Desigon to um, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.240 you know, flat Earth spiracy theories, as well as UM 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.120 cryptids and UFOs and and as I worked through the 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.000 material and kind of you know, worked on the book, 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.320 I I've found that I kind of didn't want to 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.320 go that wide. I wanted to kind of narrow it down, 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.880 and so, you know, so I started to kind of 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.800 pair back my my list of subjects. But I couldn't 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.119 quite get away from the fact that that the three 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.200 topics that ended up being sort of the driving force 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.200 of this book, UM, you know, not just cryptis and aliens, 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.719 but also the lost continents of Atlantis and Lamaria UM 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.760 all were kind of interrelated in some form historically. You 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.120 know that that you know, the the rise of the 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.960 modern UFO movement comes out of um, you know, uh, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.840 Ray Palmer's magazine Fate, and Ray Palmer before that had 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.160 introduced the world to the Shaver mysteries and um, you know, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.560 the Shave of the with these sort of kind of 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.960 sci fi but maybe supposedly true things about these sort 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.359 of weird underground races that controlled, you know, our mind 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.680 and thoughts and that sort of thing. And and Palmer 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.880 had had titled the first installment of the Shaber Mysteries. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.479 I remember Lamuria, so sort of I couldn't get two 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.640 UFOs without first talking about Lamiria, this sort of fabled 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.240 lost continent sort of the Pacific Ocean version of Atlantis 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.720 that you know, has a long history in and of itself. 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.800 So this is a long answer to your question, but it, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:27.840 you know, I mean, it did start with a kind 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:29.880 of wide net. And I found these kind of three 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.680 topics intertwining in such a way that I wanted to 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.080 try and figure out a way to account for them, 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.480 a kind of you know, a kind of hypothesis that 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.680 would that will encompass these kind of three areas and 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.240 why they seem to be so interrelated to one another. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:49.960 So while you're talking it, you know, there there are 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:55.960 certain figures in the book who seemed to drive, um, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.880 certain of these ideas. Do you have any sense about 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:06.000 like why certain ideas like make it into sort of 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:11.599 wider fringe belief while others kind of die on the vine. Yeah, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.159 and I think that that again, I mean I that 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.000 was one of the questions that really drove me to 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.320 try and sort of figure out why, you know, you know, 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:19.840 how this book was going to work, and sort of 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.560 figure out like why does you know, for example, one 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:24.680 of the things I talked about in the book, that 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.680 the Gloucester Sea Serpent was this extremely well documented cryptic 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.599 siting um in the the eighteen teens, I think eighteen 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:36.839 seventeen um that has been more or less ignored by 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.880 you know, a lot of kind of you know, mainstream 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.240 understandings of cryptics in favor of the Lockniff Monster and 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.000 Bigfoot and um, you know a couple of others. So, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:46.560 you know, partly I was just like, you know, why 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.440 was this thing, which which by any objective standards is 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.400 much more well documented than than Bigfoot or the Yeti 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.880 or whatever. Nonetheless, um kind of get you know, place 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.320 second fiddle. So yeah, so I really wanted to kind 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.000 of try and understand in those and I think what 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:06.120 I found, um was that in a lot of cases, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:11.680 these beliefs are you know, these Um, these beings, these objects, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.320 whatever you want to call them, light up a kind 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:21.600 of central kind of narrative that works for the person 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:23.320 who believes in them, you know, I mean I think 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.560 that's that's a kind of abstract way of saying that. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.040 I mean, they they do, they do something for people. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.520 They they explain the world in a way, you know. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.960 I mean, I think for for everyone who actually has 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.960 you know, has had a UFO sighting in some form 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.800 and another. Um, there are a bunch of other people 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.840 who haven't, but who you know, and to to quote 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.720 the X files want to believe because the idea of 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.320 you know, UFOs will uh, it's it's pleasing, you know, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.880 I mean, you know, the possibility is exciting, or you know, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.200 what it says about our relationship to the government sort 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:57.640 of checks out in their belief, you know, I mean 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.960 like it it does something for them in a way 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:02.080 that goes beyond I think just you know, the question 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:06.560 of of documentary evidence. So you've got you've got a 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:16.040 long narrative section on UFOs. Since can you talk a 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.760 little bit about sort of your take on that you know, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:25.360 history and timeline. Yeah, I mean, the idea that there 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.360 are unidentified objects in the sky. I mean those that 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.440 that belief goes back you know, millennia, you know, I 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.400 mean you can find it in you know, ancient Greek 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.000 and Roman writing. So it's it's it's not as though 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:42.480 when Kenneth Arnold sees, um, you know, seven bat wing 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.920 shaped silver objects flying over Mount Rainier, that that's the 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.640 beginning of um, you know, UFO sightings by any means. 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:52.520 So so to start there is in some sense a 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.520 little bit arbitrary, but it also is the moment at 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:02.200 which those strange objects in the sky become crystallized as 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.560 a certain kind of thing, you know. But prior to that, um, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.640 you know, I mean again you can go back millennia 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.080 and you you have objects in the sky which are 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.920 you know, omens or their signs from God's or whomever 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.000 you know, And and that's sort of one stable narrative trajectory, right, 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:18.840 um you know, or they are you know, sort of 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.400 magical in some sense or another. And what happens in 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:29.000 is that suddenly these things are no longer considered to 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:33.200 be I guess, supernatural. They're they're sort of they're sort 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.400 of paranormal while also being sort of scientifically plausible. And 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.640 I think that sort of changes how we start to see, 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.199 you know, what a UFO is or what a thing 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.319 in the sky might be in a way that's that's 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.680 sort of new and different. So there's this sort of 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:54.559 progression of I don't know, sort of sort of conceptualizing 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.000 what the UFOs are like. You kind of start off 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:04.320 with the contact e these who you know, by modern standards, 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.760 I kind of feel like, seem a little quaint. Um, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:14.199 But there's you know, past that or beyond that, there's 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:22.280 this sense that, um, that that people's ideas about UFOs 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:28.000 and how the government's dealing with them are um, reflective 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.960 of sort of what's going on in government in non 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.760 sort of fringe things and people's perceptions of that. And 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:41.360 I think you brought up in the book, you know, Vietnam, 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:47.600 uh CO, Intel, pro Watergate, Um. You know, there are 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:52.120 lots of examples. Um, So what what was your what's 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.960 your sense of that? Yeah, I mean one of the 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.800 things that that became really early on, you know, clear 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.520 to me really early on, is I think that in 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.800 a lot of ways, you know, belief in encryptids parallels 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.199 belief in you know, parallels of belief in UFOs, and 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:08.240 you see that again in terms of just you know, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.000 who believes what and that kind of stuff. But but 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.120 very early on it also was made clear to me 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.800 that there's there's one really specific way in which they're different. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.040 Is that, you know, you either believe in the Lockness 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.240 sponsor you don't. But what you you don't believe that 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.480 the Lockness monster is the existence of the Locknes sponsors 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.160 being covered up by the government, Whereas if you believe 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.280 in UFOs, almost by default you believe that the government 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.480 knows more than they're letting on and it's being um, 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.640 you know, hidden from us in some some fashion. And 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.440 I found that to be again, you know, considering that 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.760 both of these ideas you know, prior to World War Two, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.040 we're pretty synchronous, you know, in terms of the shape 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.040 of of of the narrative that a company of these 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.360 beliefs suddenly in the wake of World War two, and 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:57.679 and for me, I think really in the wake of 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:03.920 the Manhattan Project, which was this incredibly successful attempt to 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:10.199 keep a completely unknown and unknowable and world changing technological 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.199 weapon entirely out of the public eye until it was used, right, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.320 you know, I mean, like you know, the the amount 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.440 of secrecy required to keep the Manhattan Projects secret, and 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.240 the success that they had, you know, sort of gave 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.360 the world a sense that, um, you know, and specifically Americans, 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.240 well you know that that the American government was capable 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:35.040 of doing absolutely unheard of things in utter secrecy. And 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.280 you know, and again, I don't think it's a coincidence that, 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.720 you know, so much of the modern UFO lore is about, 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.239 you know, the deserts of New Mexico and Nevada and Arizona. 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.080 You know, precisely where you know, the Manhattan Project was 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.280 located outside of Santa Fe, Right, So, um, so I 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.760 think that that the Manhattan Project suddenly makes the the 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.240 the idea that the government is capable of of covering 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:03.520 up something beyond belief quite plausible. And so the arrival 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.600 of of you know, the kind of modern UFO myth 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:11.880 really becomes to reflect that idea that it is absolutely 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.440 within the realm of plausibility that the government has uh 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:22.559 these sort of secret, supernatural, paranormal things going on at 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.520 all times, and and it's only a matter of time 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:44.079 before we all know about them. You know. One of 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.440 the things that that you cover in your book is 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:53.320 the story of Paul Benowitz and William Moore and and 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:59.120 Richard Doughty, And what what's your sense of how that 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:05.760 fits into what you were just talking about the story 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.600 of Paul Bennowit's again, I mean, you know, so so 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:10.440 what I was just talking about, you know, is is 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.880 I think UH sort of a credulity among people about 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:16.839 what the government is capable of doing, you know, the 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.360 lengths of UH secrecy that that it can sustain, which 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:26.440 which frankly, I myself have difficulty going there a lot 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.120 of the times because you know, I mean I look 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.720 at actual conspiracies, like something like Watergate. You know, Watergate. 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.000 As soon as you know, Woodward and Bernstein and the 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.520 New York Times started asking questions about Watergate, the whole 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.600 thing fell apart. You know, it was, you know, barely 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.120 two years later before Nixon resigns. Right. So It's like, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.400 once you actually start asking around about government secrets, it's 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.920 usually the case that if they are big enough, UM, 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.600 and they are momentous enough, you'll find people who can talk. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:57.560 You know, I mean, you know, you you you can 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:02.600 find secretaries, you can find janitors, you can find bookkeepers. 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.600 You know, somebody knows something that you know, it is 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.400 willing to talk. So that's why I've always been somewhat 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.120 skeptical about, you know, some of this sort of more 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.840 outlandish government conspiracy theories. And then I came across the 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:19.960 story of Paul Benowitz, and I was frankly flabbergasted by 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:27.760 the depths of cynicism and um uh sort of disdain 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.680 with which a you know, a government operation would treat 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.920 um not just an American citizen, but a a veteran 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.640 and someone who you know worked for the government and 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.880 deeply loved his government. And this idea that you know, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.120 as Paul Benowitz began, you know, living on the edge 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:49.320 of Curtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, began to see 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:54.000 things above the skies of Curtland Air Force Base and 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:59.360 photographing them and distributing them to you know, his UFO believer, 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.800 you know networks the government. It seems to me, I mean, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.040 you know, what I presume is the most sort of 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.440 Okam's Razor example, you know, explanation is that there was 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.960 some sort of you know, top secret craft of some 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.680 kind being you know, um, I don't know tested out there, 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.000 you know, but that that the Air Force could have 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.480 Paul called in Paul Benewitz and said, you know, look 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.600 what you saw was classified, and you, being a good patriot, 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.000 we're just going to ask you to just you know, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.240 stop sending out those those images. You know. And I 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.400 have no reason to think that Paul Benowitz, who's who's 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.120 not only was a patriot, but his livelihood. His company 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.520 was a Air Force contractor, so there's no reason he 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.880 would have sacrificed his livelihood. Um, But they don't do that. Instead, 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.880 they say, we are going to pump this guy with 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.400 an elaborate campaign of disinformation to the point where, you know, 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.320 they gave him a computer that they said was receiving 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:00.160 extraterrestrial communications of unknown origin and could he help them, 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.920 you know, decode any of it and so and then 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.840 they just bombarded this computer with just gibberish that they 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.120 were broadcasting from across the street to make him think 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.040 that he was getting alien signals, you know. And so 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.200 you know, things like that, where it's just this very 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:19.320 bizarre and elaborate, sustained campaign to take a you know, 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:25.600 a law abiding and patriotic American citizen and basically, yeah, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.200 more or less drive him crazy, you know, like to 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.120 to like push him to the point where nobody would 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.280 take him seriously because he was advancing these wild and 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.840 unverifiable um theories about aliens, and that just seems to me. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.600 I mean it's a it's a really sad and tragic story. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.920 I mean, there's there's so much like pathos involved in there. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.600 And also I think it does speak to a kind 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.520 of weird cynicism that that seems to drive some levels 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.800 of the U. S. Government. Yeah, you know, it just 0:17:55.840 --> 0:18:00.399 seems so unnecessary. Like you were saying, I was struck 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.400 by that too. It's like, this seems like a lot 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:09.800 of effort two do something that's completely unnecessary, and you know, 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.000 with malintent. I guess you know my take in some sense, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:15.640 as they were testing out to see what they could 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.520 get away with, you know that that again it was 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:19.800 not only was it unnecessary, but I think that there 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.600 was some elements um, you know among um you know, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.320 the Air Force intelligence officers involved of like you know, like, uh, 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.320 you know what happens if we do this, you know, 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.160 like it was it was a little sort of guinea 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.200 pig experiment that they carried out on this this unwitting 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.159 uh you know, a guy who ended up, you know, 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.360 really really suffering through what seems like, you know, sort 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.240 of a lot of the hallmarks of of you know, 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:48.399 clinical psychosis as a result. So, and I'm just gonna 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.680 read like a brief part and this is actually um 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:59.720 is in the context of cryptid hoaxes, but I thought 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:04.199 it was sort of widely applicable. It's a you're you're 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.919 talking about Kevin Young's maxim quote hoax has proved that 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.120 believing is seeing end quote. Whatever is in those documents 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.639 is what you choose to put into them, whatever you 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.399 need them to be. And you pick up the quote again. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.600 The hoax is rather a kind of coded confession, revealing 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.080 not only a deep seated cultural wish, but also a 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.920 common set of themes or faints or strategies that add 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.240 up to a ritual that that seems to me to 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:39.119 be fairly certainly widely applicable to almost all the stuff 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.600 that you're talking about in here. Oh yeah, and and definitely, 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.960 I mean, and you know, Kevin Kevin Young's book for 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.240 for those of you who don't know it, Bunk is 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.320 absolutely fantastic. What Young is interested in is is particularly 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:58.320 hoaxes that that reflect American ambivalence about race. So you know, 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.200 various white authors who of you know, published fake memoirs 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.600 as you know, uh, you know, black or Native American 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.200 writers or something like that, and then have been sort 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.000 of found out and that kind of stuff. And so 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.160 so what Young is sort of tracing, which I think 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.960 is is really valuable and important, is the way in 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.320 which as that Coaches sort of implies, you know that 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.520 that the idea that a hoax is a kind of 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.720 attempt to make a myth into reality. You know that 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.399 if you have a kind of and again this is 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.520 sort of you know, his argument, not not so much mine, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.080 but I'm paraphrasing his argument, which I agree with that 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:35.680 you know, if you have a sort of narrative about 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.320 up inner city crime or urban poverty or whatever, and 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.719 then a white person comes along and writes a memoir 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:43.920 as a black person sort of burying out these these 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:46.960 myths and these sort of misconceptions, then you know, that's 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:48.760 that's what the hoax is there to do. The hoax 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.480 is there to sort of make the false thing look true. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.400 And and so with my book, you know, when I'm 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.600 moving into you know, things like cryptos and UFOs, I 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:00.919 mean there's a lot that I talked about where I 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.520 don't I don't have any evidence to to believe that, 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:05.280 you know, a given story as a hoax. I don't 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:06.800 have a I don't have a good explanation. I think 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.240 there's a lot that remains unexplained, and so I, by 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.879 no means want to assert that the you know, the 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.000 whole field is full of hoaxes. But you know, we 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.359 do have a number of very obvious documented hoaxes. And 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.359 in fact, um, you know, one of the again, one 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:27.160 of more tragically you know, weird stories is this guy 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.879 and Calsco Montana who buys a gilly suit, which is 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.600 a you know, sort of extreme camouflage where you know, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.080 the suit is supposed to make you look like a 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.199 pile of leaves, you know, so you can sort of 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.879 lie prone and you know, be a sniper or whatever. Um, 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.880 and he wears the suit and he wanders out onto 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.680 the freeway at night, hoping that a motorist will catch 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.680 just a glimpse of him and um and believe it 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:52.800 to be a big foot you know. So it's a 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.520 it's a bigfoot hoax thing. But um, he uh he 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.320 gets hit by uh not one but two cars actually 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:03.160 ends up dead, you know, it ends up you know, killed. 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.720 And so there's this this really strange sort of story about, 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:09.480 you know, an attempt to create a hoax, to kind 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.000 of gin up a belief in a thing which this 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.399 person knows to be false that ends up backfiring in 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.600 this horrible way. And so I think that when you 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.159 catalog a lot of the history of of hoaxes, you know, 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.720 um UFO photos where where it's sort of clearly a 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.560 hub cap or side view mirror or something like that, 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.800 and you you sort of aggregate all of them in 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.879 this kind of kind of compendium, which you get is 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:39.200 again and again a sort of aching desire to make 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.800 a thing true at all costs, even to the point 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:44.879 of sort of you know, inventing the whole the thing 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:50.040 from whole cloth. That's interesting going back to the whole 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.440 Doughty in Benewits. You know, one of the big differences 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.000 that although it's a big hoax, is that he you know, 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.760 it's not coming from this sort of sincere hope to 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:04.359 make something that you wish was real, have other people 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:09.200 also believe it's real. It's just this absolutely cynical exercise. Yeah, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:11.119 that's that's a good point. And yeah, and at the 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:12.919 same time it makes me think just you know, what 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:14.760 you're saying just makes me think it's But it's also 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:19.480 an attempt to see, like how I guess I guess 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.520 the thing is, the more people desire something to be true, 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.600 the easier it is to to feed them lies. Right, 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.320 you know that, you know, the people buy things because 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:30.840 they they want to believe that they're true. And so 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.919 I feel, like with with Doughty trying to sort of 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:37.320 spread these these hoaxes throughout the UFO community, is also 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:39.840