WEBVTT - Priests at the Ziggurat 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.680 Strange Arrivals is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.920 and Mild from Aaron making for the best experience listen 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.560 with headphones, George. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.960 Basically, what we're dealing with here is I'll give you 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:17.800 the bottom line. I'm not trying to sell it. I 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:19.560 want to hear your thesis. I'm not trying to sell 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.319 a book. I'm not trying to promote a lecture. This 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.480 is based on what I've come across after intense research 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.319 in the last year, and I have found out that 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.480 the government has retrieved between ten and fifteen flactual flying saucers, 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.080 three of which have been in perfect condition, one of 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.879 which they tried to fly. They have between thirty and 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.559 fifty alien bodies in cryogenic storage. We even have the 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.920 name of the person whose job it is to show 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.320 these bodies to the heads of state and the people 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.520 who are authorized to see them. They represent at least 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.560 five different civilizations. 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:11.600 I'm Toby ball in This is Strange Arrivals, Episode twelve, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:23.480 Priests at the Ziggarat What do you see when you 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.959 look at the UFO world? Do you see scientists and 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.600 researchers who are scoffed at by their colleagues while they 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.360 work to uncover the great mystery of our times, a 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:39.319 professional wrestling style artificial drama created by people playing roles 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.760 in what is essentially an entertainment industry, or something more 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.600 like a religion or spiritual movement guided by a select 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.960 group determining its followers' beliefs. The answer is probably that 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.160 there are elements of all three of these visions. But 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.280 when I look, what I mostly see is something that 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:00.840 resembles a religion. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.240 Stories of UFO sightings and especially UFO contact, people who 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:11.119 claim contact or some sort of connection with extraterrestrial or 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:18.800 ultraterrestrial or interdimensional beings. I think it has gone underrecognized 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:26.679 as an element of American or maybe Western spirituality. 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.440 Host of the Saucer Life podcast, Aaron. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:35.120 Gaullas, these are stories that are things that in another 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.920 time and place might have been considered divine encounters of 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.840 some kind, and so can there be some kind of 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:50.560 way to integrate some of these stories into our conception 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:55.600 of human experiences with the divine, with the supernatural, going 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.920 all the way back as far as we have records 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.640 of those things. At the same time, thinking about it 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:07.320 like that might downplay the role that the popular culture 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.720 and the historical context play in how these stories develop 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:13.560 and what details are there. 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.160 In this season's final episode, I want to look at 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.360 a theme that has come up again and again in 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.800 conversations that I've had in the course of making three 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:29.079 seasons of Strange Arrivals. Belief in UFOs and other paranormal 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.880 phenomena can occupy the same place in people's lives as religion, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.440 and this can affect how they view UFOs. We've heard 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.800 about Robert Bigelow several times during this season. He is 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.280 a billionaire the owner of Bigelow Aerospace and Budget Suites 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:53.600 of America. He once owned Skinwalker Ranch, lobbied Senator Harry 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.200 Reid to fund a Pentagon program to investigate the paranormal, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.240 and reportedly retrofitted storage units in Las Vegas to house 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.600 debris from crash to alien craft. These are just a 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:11.040 few of the things that he initiated or funded. In 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.600 June of twenty twenty, he founded the Bigelow Institute for 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.960 Consciousness Studies, an organization that sponsored a competition offering a 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.479 cash prize for the best evidence of the survival of 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:29.480 consciousness after death. Bigelow founded this institute just four months 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.800 after the death of his wife of fifty five years, Dianne. 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.719 His interest in an afterlife, which his wife shared, predated 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:42.760 Diane's death. In nineteen ninety two, their son committed suicide 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:47.200 at the age of twenty four, a devastating event. In 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.760 January twenty first, twenty twenty one New York Times article 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.760 Ralph Blumenthal, who we heard from earlier this season, as 0:04:54.880 --> 0:05:00.400 John Max's biographer, wrote, seeking comfort. After their son's death, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.680 the Bigelows held sittings with the renowned medium George Anderson. 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.520 Did their son make contact, Not really, mister Bigelow said, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.159 but what I got out of the readings I think 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.799 was that his spirit existed and that he was okay. 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.039 In nineteen ninety seven, he established the Bigelow Chair of 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:25.800 Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, but 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.599 shut it down after a few years when it didn't 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.400 make much progress. He then turned his attention to studying UFOs. 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.599 A lot of what drives Robert Bigelow's interest in the 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.800 paranormal was the death of his son, which is a tragedy, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.599 but that type of loss will definitely push people to 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.800 reach out to try and grab onto something greater in 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.480 hopes that someone you love isn't truly lost. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:57.120 Journalist and host of The Alien State podcast MJ. Benaias 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.760 they're out there somewhere, they're still around for sure. 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:02.440 That's going to drive people. I know it would drive me. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.160 I mean, I've got kids. I know if something like 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.279 that happened to me, I would definitely reach out to 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.320 anything to try and hold on. So we know that 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.040 there's this kind of moments in people's lives, whether it's 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.160 through work, or whether it's through research, or whether it's 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.719 through personal loss, as tragic as it is, that is 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.880 going to propel them to find faith in something larger 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.000 than themselves. And I think the UFO topic, I think 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.760 the paranormal topic in general, is that I think it's 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.920 just our natural tendency as a species to latch onto 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.320 that which is bigger than us that we hope is there. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.560 Clearly, the desire for the existence of a greater power, 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.279 be it divine or paranormal, can lead people down many paths, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.760 with religion being by far the most common, but it 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.239 is not the only path. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.520 What kind of magical thinking do we do reflexibly on 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.680 a daily basis that might not be as extreme as 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:01.240 having a big, perfectly articulated argument why dinosaurs had to 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.040 be on Noah's ark and they were vegetarians and whatnot. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.120 But we might do it nonetheless in smaller, trickier ways, 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:14.080 and this universal kind of touching vulnerability to that. My 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.960 name is Sarah Krasisdean, and I am a writer. And 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.480 you'll find that I have a very strange hybrid accent 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.440 because I am a dual American Australian citizen, and I've 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.880 spent probably about half my life in each country. By 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:30.960 this point. 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.760 I spoke with Sarah about her book The Believer, which 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.760 takes a look at the lives, experiences, and beliefs of 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.880 people from six different walks of life. Death doula ghost hunter, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:51.280 Evangelical Christian at the Creation Museum, Mennonite, a woman incarcerated 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.920 for killing her abusive husband, and UFO believer. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.920 I was hearing the same phrases again and again. And 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.400 what the believer is is exprated together very different stories 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.360 that on the surface have nothing in common. And I 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.520 was hearing this phrase again from all these people, whether 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:14.080 they were the ghost hunters or the euthologists, or fundamentalist 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.400 Christians or Buddhists that this life can't be all there is. 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.600 There has to be something else out there. And whether 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.600 they came at that from a you know, kingdom come 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:30.480 evangelist perspective, or a Buddhist non attachment perspective, or a 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:35.719 personal kind of agency perspective or literal alien perspective, it 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.040 was this longing for something more, for some meaning, for 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.000 something greater than we appeared to be able to produce 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.840 for ourselves in this kind of quotidian daily life. It's 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.800 something that you know again, kind of I see across 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.199 all these stories. I saw across the stories, whether it 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.720 was the paranormal researchers, the ghost hunters at work, or 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.280 some of the ethologists, the kind of inability, which is 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.480 a very human, universal inability. We all do it in 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:08.719 different ways to have difficulty tolerating uncertainty and therefore our 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:13.280 own intractable lack of control over daily circumstances. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.320 Sarah sees a range of beliefs and interests addressing the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:23.360 human need to perceive something greater than ourselves. Again, for 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.360 the vast, vast majority of people, this is found in religion. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:33.400 Religion runs on faith. You don't require scientific proof to believe, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.960 but that's not the case in the worlds of UFO 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.840 and paranormal belief. The people in these worlds value proof. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:47.640 Robert Bigelow, for instance, has used his considerable fortune to 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.680 study the phenomena he is interested in. It's not enough 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:57.480 to believe or have faith, he wants scientific proof. Any 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:02.439 number of cable television shows center O finding evidence evidence 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.360 of aliens who have visited Earth in the distant past, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.200 evidence of more recent famous encounters such as Roswell or 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:15.120 rendelstromp Forrest, more current evidence of UFOs taken by cell 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:19.440 phones or cameras mounted on military jets, or evidence that 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.880 the government is hiding the truth from US abduction researcher 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:28.600 Bud Hopkins claimed that experiencers from around the globe were 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:33.719 left with similar scoop shaped scars and even tiny implanted devices. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.959 The problem is that none of this evidence has stood 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.720 up to scientific scrutiny as proof. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.040 I think that one of the reasons why people are 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.080 getting into UFOs as opposed to say, other religions, is 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.959 because in modern times, you know, we consider ourselves these 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:57.480 kind of rational, scientific minded people, and UFOs can kind 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.960 of take the place of religion. But we can see 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.400 it being real. My name is Jeff Knox. I'm a 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.520 UFO researcher. I tend to focus on the history of 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.439 the topic. I also do a lot of work on 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:13.080 archival stuff and digital preservation, scanning documents, files and preserving 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:14.839 them for the next generation researchers. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.840 Jeff speculates that UFOs offer a plausible alternative to religion 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:26.240 because our current technology and scientific knowledge make further advances 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.839 such as travel to other solar systems seem attainable by 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:31.679 us or someone else. 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:38.000 We can hypothesize interstellar travel, we can hypothesize us visiting 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.600 other planets, and we can think, well, maybe aliens are 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.160 doing the same, they're visiting us, and so UFOs is 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.360 something that kind of fits within our scientific worldview as 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.800 something that's at least very plausible. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.840 About some people who become involved in the UFO topic. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.240 Jeff says, UFOs will act as kind of that belief 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.680 system for them, and it seems more plausible than you know, 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.160 fairies or angels or demons, because life in the universe 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.600 ex stressal life is almost probably a certainty out there somewhere. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:16.480 Another aspect of this dynamic of UFOs as belief system 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.880 is that skeptical pushback against UFO claims can be seen 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:26.400 as an attack against a person's core beliefs. It's understandably threatening, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:31.080 and the response from believers can seem excessive. One person 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.000 who is often on the end of these responses is 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:36.800 UFO researcher Mick West. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.920 Is an interesting thing that blowback because the people in 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.560 the UFO community, a lot of them are very passionate, 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.400 and some of them are super passionate. It's almost like 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.120 a religion, but in some ways it's more than a 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.640 religion because for the individual person in ufology, they're often 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.839 basing that belief on personal experience. So it's like, you know, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.800 if your religion was based upon God speaking to you directly, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.200 it will be that personal. And for someone who's seen 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.240 a UFO or even in some cases feels like they 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.240 were had contact with an alien or even were abducted 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.240 by aliens, is a deeply personal thing, and so when 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.640 someone comes along and they're saying, well, that's probably just 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.679 a bird, they take it very much as a personal attack, 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.640 and so they get very defensive. So I've kind of 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.080 learned that over the years that you have to be 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:34.400 understanding of people's beliefs if you're going to communicate effectively 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.240 with them. 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.840 So here's the thing. If you are a UFO believer, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.800 what kind of proof do you need? What is adequate 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.560 to confirm to yourself that this is in some sense real? 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.280 Because there is no hard evidence right now that is 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.480 going to make the scientific case, or if there is, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.160 it's not public MJ. Benias. 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:03.120 Whatever the phenomenon is, it's by definition kind of unknowable. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.839 You can observe UFOs for five thousand years and you 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.480 will probably never get enough observational data to say, Okay, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.960 we can now make a scientific conclusion here. You can't 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.400 just bring one into a lab. It's never really going 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.880 to happen unless literally something crashes and we're able to 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.080 recover it and haul it into a lab and study 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.360 it or something. We have a lot of stories about 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.720 that type of event occurring, but there's no actual evidence 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:32.000 or data to back it up apart from just anecdote. Unfortunately. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:33.160 That's kind of where we're stuck. 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:39.760 But is scientific certainty necessary for belief in UFOs? When 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.480 I interviewed Diana Pisolka, who is a professor of philosophy 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:48.160 and religion, at University of North Carolina Wilmington. I asked 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.400 her a question about how proof of alien visitors would 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.560 be accepted by religious and non religious people. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:15:01.120 People in religion, practitioners of religion already believe is things 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:05.840 that are non human intelligences. They already had this category. 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.960 They've lived with it their whole lives. Right, they go 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.080 to synagogue, they go to temple, you know, they go 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:17.120 to wherever you know, church, and there they talk about 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:24.600 unseen realities, spiritual realities, things like that. Atheists want hardcore evidence, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.360 They want like a flying saucer to land on the 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.120 White House lawn. But that kind of thing, I'm not 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.640 sure they're gonna get that. They're gonna get some stuff, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.240 some you know, realities like radar signatures and things like that. 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.120 They're gonna get that. They're also going to get a 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.680 lot of reliable, credible witnesses who've seen things as well. 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.480 So her answer seems to be that belief will have 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:54.880 to be based on indications, not proof. Signs like radar 0:15:54.960 --> 0:16:00.000 signatures and stories, the types of things, signs and stories 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.600 that underpin religions, and maybe that's all that Many people need, 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.480 something that supports their faith in the existence of UFOs, 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.480 even if it falls short of actual proof. But for others, 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:18.120 myself included, something more is needed, something that would hold 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:23.680 up under scientific scrutiny or in a court of law. MJ. Benias. 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.800 For me to believe, I need to actually see it. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:28.680 I need to actually research it. I actually need to 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:29.920 speak to the people who are there. I need to 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.600 see more data in order for me to actually believe 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.320 in it. And I think it's a lot of people, 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.680 and I think that's why the UFO topic remains in 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.880 this category of permanent observation and anecdote and never getting 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:41.520 anywhere further. 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.240 If this sounds like things are at an impasse, they aren't, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:51.000 because there is no lack of interpretation and conjecture about 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.760 the types of information that Diana mentioned, and there is 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:59.600 also the promise of more information to come after the 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:18.479 break Strange Arrivals will return in a moment. Over the 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.280 course of three seasons of Strange Arrivals, we've examined a 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.360 host of leading figures in the UFO world. One who 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.080 we haven't, though his name has come up a few times, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.439 is Jacques Vallet. Valet has had a wide ranging career, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.919 including as an astronomer, computer scientist, and venture capitalist, but 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.560 he is best known for his UFO research and theorizing. 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.840 He is the inspiration for the character Claude Lacombe played 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.720 by Francois Truffau in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.000 Vashonieri, please one more question. 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.920 Have you recently had a Close Encounter? We heard John 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.119 Keel complain that Vallet was taking his ideas earlier in 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:12.400 this season. Valat is a critic of the extraterrestrial hypothesis 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.159 and speculates that the phenomenon might be extra dimensional and 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:21.400 responsible for some religious events, such as the Fatoma Visions, 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:26.520 a supposed apparition of the Virgin Mary, who imparted prophecies 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.240 to three farm children in Portugal in nineteen seventeen. 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:36.760 Mick West, I think this is something you see in 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:43.000 UFO researchers, is that they're not really objective and that 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.320 they a lot of people are interested in UFO research 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.120 because they're trying to validate something. They're trying to validate 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.960 a particular belief that they already hold, and so they're 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.880 not really trying to figure out what happened in certain cases. 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.600 They're trying to use certain cases to bolster their argument, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.040 and it seems fairly obvious that's what's happening, even if 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:12.520 perhaps they don't realize it themselves. Jacques Valet has a 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:18.040 tendency to believe everything that the witnesses say. So they've 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:22.639 spin some complicated story about being visited by aliens or 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.240 something happening, or white powder being sprayed on their house 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.119 or something like that, and he believes that it all 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.200 happened exactly as they described it, and then he tries 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.159 to fit that into some kind of framework. And the 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.119 only way you can really do it is kind of 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.600 go really far out there. It's not just simply people 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.160 seeing lights in the sky that they can't explain, which 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.120 might be alien spaceships. I mean, that's almost fairly straightforward. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.520 How do you explain these actual encounters that people supposedly 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:58.399 have and he comes up with explanations about essentially tricksters 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.120 from other dimensions who are going in and perhaps even 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:07.399 altering reality on an individual scale. They're really just not 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.400 based on evidence. That just a way of trying to 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:15.080 fit the stories into reality, and the stories really don't 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.439 comport with reality. And so the simpler explanation is just 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.000 that these stories are not accurate. But if your default 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.920 position is to believe this story is one hundred percent accurate, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.199 then you've got to jump through so many hoops to 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.320 try to make it actually fit in the world. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.399 We saw this dynamic with John Keel's theories about the 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:41.439 super spectrum and ultra terrestrials. The point is that people 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.359 like Valet and Keel and mac and Heinek have served 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:50.400 as interpreters of UFO information throughout the years, and now, 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.760 following the twenty seventeen New York Times article describing the 0:20:54.800 --> 0:21:00.920 Pentagon's UFO program, there is a new generation. The characteristic 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.760 of this generation is that they claim to be privy 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.040 to knowledge that the rest of us are not. 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.480 I happen to be privileged enough to. 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:14.280 Being on the fact that we have been visited on 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:15.280 this planet. 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:21.919 With absolute certainty, that four species, four different species at least, 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.040 had been visiting this planet for thousands of years. 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.720 And the original stuff that a tip did was Foye 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.639 exempt and people, how do you know that? Because I 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:33.640 stood there with the memo in my hand that said 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.080 these are literally I watched the DoD memo that said 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:37.840 it and it was signed. 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.960 Is that it is my belief that the United States 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:45.960 is in possession of exotic material, and unfortunately, that's about 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.399 all I can I can say at this time. Again, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:50.280 M J. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.760 Benias, Ancient history was what I used to teach you, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:58.440 and the ancient Babylonians had these massive temples, and they 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.200 would believe that at the very top of the temple, 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:03.720 the priests could go in there and commune with the God. 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:06.320 You could talk to the gods and the gods would respond, 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.160 but only the priests could do it. If a person 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.040 like you or me walked up the ziggarette and walked 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.840 into this temple, nothing would happen. But if a priest 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:16.240 did it, they would see God and they would communicate. 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:18.679 It's kind of a very similar situation. We're kind of 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.560 trusting people within the no trusting people who claim to 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.919 have evidence of UFOs or evidence of aliens or whatever. 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:27.679 We're trusting them to be the ones to communicate with 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:31.160 the gods for us. But if we try, well, we're 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:34.920 we're not on the inside, we're not part of that community. 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:36.679 We're never going to get access to that. So it 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:38.800 kind of exists in this kind of anecdotal world. Much 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.760 like the priests of ancient days would communicate with gods 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.160 and then come back down and say, like this God 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:45.000 says this, you have to listen to me because I'm 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.399 a priest. I think it's kind of a similar mindset. 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.280 You have this kind of religious system operating within eufology, 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.440 within the paranormal community, within nineteenth century spiritualism, of these 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:00.440 kind of priestly class that functions at this high level, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.240 that has access to allegedly all the evidence from the anecdotes, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:06.800 and then the rest of us who will never see 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:08.359 that ever in our lives. 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.240 A theme in the world of ufology that goes back 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:16.120 decades is the belief that the government knows much more 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:20.080 about UFOs than it is letting on the idea that 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.520 the government will at some point reveal publicly what they 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:28.600 know is called disclosure with a capital D. We talked 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.240 about this a little bit in the previous episode. The 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:36.560 twenty seventeen New York Times article kicked off renewed anticipation 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:41.040 that disclosure was imminent, if it wasn't already under way, 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:46.240 and this heightened excitement about disclosure sets a dynamic that 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:51.400 can be seen in religious movements. In eighteen twenty two, 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:56.080 a wealthy Baptist named William Miller determined that the second 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:59.320 Coming of Jesus Christ would occur in eighteen forty three 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.280 or eighteen forty four. In eighteen thirty one, he made 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:08.399 this prediction public, and over the next decade the movement grew. 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:13.960 He eventually set several time periods or actual dates when 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:16.960 the second Coming would occur, and each would see a 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:21.199 building of excitement and then pass without event, but his 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.800 followers remained until a final date of October twenty second, 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:30.879 eighteen forty four was put forward and then passed. This 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:35.720 was referred to as the Great Disappointment Capital G Capital D, 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:41.160 but some followers remained in daily anticipation of Christ's return. 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:46.840 More recently, in nineteen ninety three, the ninety year old 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:51.159 Monoca Mendel Schneerson suffered a stroke while praying at the 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:56.760 grave of his father, leaving him unable to speak. Schneerson 0:24:56.920 --> 0:25:00.959 was a rabbi in the lubavitre sect of Orthodox Judaism, 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.200 based in the Crown Heights section of New York City. 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:07.960 He was known as the Rebbee, a title given to 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:11.359 the spiritual leader of the sect. There was a wide 0:25:11.359 --> 0:25:15.679 belief in the Lubavitor community that Schneerson was likely the 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:21.000 Masayak or Messiah. After his stroke, the community was consumed 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:24.560 with the expectation that at any minute he would be 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:29.600 revealed as the Messiah. This is from the January third, 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.800 nineteen ninety three edition of The New York Times about 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:37.200 so called messiah beepers. In the pre cell phone days, 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:41.200 beepers or pagers were a way to get a message 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:45.680 to someone who wasn't by their landline phone. The messiah 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:49.560 beeper was to alert people that the Messiah was revealed. 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:53.439 They need the beepers so they know immediately when the 0:25:53.480 --> 0:25:57.800 Messiah has arrived. There's an expectation that at any moment 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.479 there will be a revelation, said heim Alberstam, the audio 0:26:01.520 --> 0:26:06.400 visual expert who oversees Messiah beeber sales. People are very 0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:11.000 tense waiting could happen any second, said schiffra Hendry. 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:18.159 This kind of anticipation is very powerful. It galvanizes believers 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:23.280 and disclosure acts in a similar way. The truth is 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:26.720 going to be revealed soon, or the revealing of the 0:26:26.720 --> 0:26:32.320 truth has already begun. The two congressionally mandated Pentagon UFO 0:26:32.400 --> 0:26:35.840 reports over the past two years were the subject of 0:26:35.920 --> 0:26:40.560 great expectations from the UFO community, thinking that this would 0:26:40.600 --> 0:26:45.120 be the moment that the government secrets were revealed. Both 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:49.959