1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

2
00:00:03,520 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast Lionel

3
00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:10,760
Speaker 1: Friedberg with us, of course, talking about his life with

4
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:13,800
Speaker 1: a shaman. Of course, his book is Forever in My Veins.

5
00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:16,919
Speaker 1: How do you believe the shaman knew these things? Lionel?

6
00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 1: I wish I knew, George. They are obviously tapping into

7
00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:26,200
Speaker 1: a reality or a level a realm that I have

8
00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:31,120
Speaker 1: absolutely no understanding, and even people who study them today,

9
00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:35,479
Speaker 1: and I have friends who who are very very involved

10
00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:38,479
Speaker 1: in trying to study their methods, not only how they

11
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,440
Speaker 1: get their medications, but how do they do this this

12
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:47,120
Speaker 1: incredible psychic the supernatural stuff. There is no way of

13
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:49,240
Speaker 1: knowing how they do that. And if you ask them,

14
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:51,919
Speaker 1: they just tell you. My ancestors speak to me, the

15
00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:55,400
Speaker 1: bones speak to me. We tap into another realm. It's

16
00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:58,280
Speaker 1: the ancestors who guide them, and they are totally tuned

17
00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:00,720
Speaker 1: into a world that you and I can tune into.

18
00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,160
Speaker 1: I you know, it's it's extraordinary, and it really is.

19
00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 1: It opens my mind. I think the most important thing

20
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 1: about it is that it makes me realize how unbelievably

21
00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:14,600
Speaker 1: complex and amazing the world really is, and we live

22
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:17,680
Speaker 1: in a universe that we don't fully understand. The cosmos

23
00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:21,320
Speaker 1: is are very very strange and extraordinary. And these guys

24
00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:23,680
Speaker 1: who live in mud hut in the middle of nowhere

25
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:26,720
Speaker 1: see things that some of the most sophisticated people in

26
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 1: universities and scientific institutions can't explain. It's extraordinary. And you know,

27
00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:35,039
Speaker 1: some of the things that this woman told me, like,

28
00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: for example, this great beast when they when the hunter

29
00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:43,960
Speaker 1: shot the elephant, the herd went crazy and there was

30
00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,840
Speaker 1: there was a female elephant with her calf, and she

31
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,160
Speaker 1: decided to charge, and she came charging towards me because

32
00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:53,240
Speaker 1: I was right behind the guy who tried to shoot

33
00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:55,559
Speaker 1: the elephant. And were it not for the white hunter,

34
00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,480
Speaker 1: the leader of the expedition, I would have been dead

35
00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:04,280
Speaker 1: because he shot that elephant sheet of course, and the

36
00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:07,840
Speaker 1: elephant dropped about six feet away from me, and where

37
00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:09,480
Speaker 1: not for that, you know, I would have been dead.

38
00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:11,200
Speaker 1: It was only that night at the camp and I

39
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 1: was sort of nurturing a drink, and I suddenly thought,

40
00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,160
Speaker 1: how did this woman foresee that that's the great beast

41
00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:21,320
Speaker 1: she talked about? You know, the white um in nineteen

42
00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:23,679
Speaker 1: ninety one, I did a show for POBS with the

43
00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:26,760
Speaker 1: National Science Foundation and we went down to Antarctica to

44
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 1: do a show about Arctic called Secrets from a Frozen World,

45
00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:34,600
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, And you know, one night I went

46
00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:36,560
Speaker 1: up on the top top deck and I was looking

47
00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:39,680
Speaker 1: around making my notes, and I saddenly. I tried to

48
00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:42,320
Speaker 1: describe this world, and all I could say was, it's

49
00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,639
Speaker 1: like living in a big, white, translucent egg. There is

50
00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:48,720
Speaker 1: no color here. From horizon to horizon, it's white. And

51
00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:51,040
Speaker 1: again it struck me. And this is like three or

52
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:53,800
Speaker 1: four decades after that woman had told me the story.

53
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,520
Speaker 1: This is what she foresaw. How did she do that?

54
00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:59,200
Speaker 1: How did she know that? How could she possibly have

55
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,080
Speaker 1: foreseen all of those those things? You know, the most

56
00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:04,440
Speaker 1: evil man in the world that she talked about. I

57
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:07,919
Speaker 1: did a series on the history of aviation and I

58
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,200
Speaker 1: interviewed a pilot who flew a delivery flight of a

59
00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:15,079
Speaker 1: brand new airplane all the way down Africa from Germany

60
00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:19,160
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four. You're talking about Hitler too, right, Yeah,

61
00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:23,720
Speaker 1: And he was actually turned out to be Hitler's personal pilot.

62
00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:26,160
Speaker 1: He was still alive, Oh my gosh. And I interviewed

63
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: the guy at his home near Munich, and he was

64
00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,280
Speaker 1: almost ninety years of age. And when I interviewed the guy,

65
00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,480
Speaker 1: you know, he told me about his entire story and

66
00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:39,920
Speaker 1: his closeness to Hitler. It was incredible. It's like being

67
00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 1: talked about six degrees of separation. This is one. Did

68
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:45,600
Speaker 1: he have any idea when Hitler was like at that time?

69
00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,120
Speaker 1: Must he must have known. But he was a sweetheart

70
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:50,520
Speaker 1: of a man. His wife there was his third wife.

71
00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:54,080
Speaker 1: They were lovely people. There were, you know, extremely nice

72
00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:58,000
Speaker 1: to me and to my crew. They gave us food

73
00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 1: and there was drinking whatever else. Run. But at the end,

74
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:04,320
Speaker 1: once the interview was done about that delivery flight back

75
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:07,040
Speaker 1: in the thirties, he brought out all these photograph albums

76
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:09,440
Speaker 1: and it was like looking at the inner sanctum of

77
00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 1: the third right, because he was in all of these

78
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:14,440
Speaker 1: photographs and there was Hitler and all of these photographs

79
00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 1: of all those major players, and he described every event

80
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:20,280
Speaker 1: and everything. And he said to me, you know, when

81
00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:22,880
Speaker 1: when he married his first wife, Hitler gave him his

82
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 1: wedding party in Hitler's well in the early thirties before

83
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:32,560
Speaker 1: the war, you Hitler buffaloed a lot of people exactly.

84
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:35,880
Speaker 1: He became chancellor in the thirty three and so the

85
00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:39,080
Speaker 1: delivery flight took place in thirty four, and by then

86
00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:42,360
Speaker 1: him and Hitler, you know, the US bankers backed him.

87
00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:45,400
Speaker 1: We know that. I mean, there's so many stories to

88
00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:47,160
Speaker 1: do with that guy. Right, if we go, if we

89
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:50,719
Speaker 1: start uncovering all of that, the termites nest that you

90
00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:54,279
Speaker 1: uncover in that is another whole ball game altogether. So

91
00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:57,280
Speaker 1: how did that woman again foresee that and tell me

92
00:04:57,520 --> 00:04:59,640
Speaker 1: that you would meet a man who was very very

93
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:01,720
Speaker 1: close the most evil man who ever lived. It was

94
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:05,600
Speaker 1: unbelievable everything that this little old lady in her mud hut,

95
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:08,680
Speaker 1: How she foresaw all of this stuff. You know, the

96
00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:10,640
Speaker 1: thing when she said about the great water will try

97
00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:14,039
Speaker 1: and kill me. I did a science show on a

98
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:17,040
Speaker 1: research ship in the Southern Ocean and we got caught

99
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,360
Speaker 1: in a storm at sea. Well, we nearly overturned in

100
00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:23,640
Speaker 1: the ship. Again, she was right, she said, the big

101
00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:26,920
Speaker 1: water will try to kill you. It was phenomenal what

102
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: this woman foresaw about my life. You know, she even

103
00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:31,440
Speaker 1: told me how many times i'd get married. I've been

104
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:33,680
Speaker 1: married twice. She told me that, she told me how

105
00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:36,800
Speaker 1: many kids I would have spot on about everything. Now,

106
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:39,120
Speaker 1: in the course of all of this, how many Shamans

107
00:05:39,160 --> 00:05:41,760
Speaker 1: have you met? And did they tell you the same

108
00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:45,600
Speaker 1: things they have? I have probably met at least one

109
00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,279
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty. Oh my god, and I went. I

110
00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 1: did an ethnographic series in the seventies, and I met

111
00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:55,400
Speaker 1: lots and lots of Shamans. But one of the things

112
00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:57,200
Speaker 1: that this little old lady had told me as well

113
00:05:57,440 --> 00:05:59,440
Speaker 1: was the day will come when you are going to

114
00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:01,760
Speaker 1: get very, very sick. You are going to get very ill,

115
00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:04,080
Speaker 1: and the only way you are going to find a

116
00:06:04,200 --> 00:06:06,839
Speaker 1: cure is to go back to the place where you

117
00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:09,800
Speaker 1: were born. And I didn't know what she meant about that,

118
00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:14,080
Speaker 1: And so let's cut we cut forward, jump ahead to

119
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:18,080
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. I'm sitting here in La watching television

120
00:06:18,120 --> 00:06:19,960
Speaker 1: one night with my wife and the kids are doing

121
00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:22,479
Speaker 1: their homework, and my wife looks at my ankle since

122
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,599
Speaker 1: she said, why why are your ankles are swollen tonight? Well,

123
00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:27,880
Speaker 1: two weeks later I had a biopsy and I was

124
00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:31,840
Speaker 1: diagnosed with kidney disease. Oh my gosh, she foresaw that,

125
00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:34,440
Speaker 1: and she said, the only way you're going to get

126
00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:36,359
Speaker 1: are you going to be able to cure yourself is

127
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: to come back to the land, to your roots, she called.

128
00:06:39,080 --> 00:06:42,960
Speaker 1: She was her description back to South Africa at that time.

129
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:44,880
Speaker 1: I didn't know when when I got ill. I mean,

130
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:46,599
Speaker 1: I had some of the best doctors in the world

131
00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 1: here in La and I had a fantastic nephrologist, and

132
00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,839
Speaker 1: I had a great you know, primary care physician. But

133
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,120
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting any better. And I have a friend

134
00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:59,479
Speaker 1: who's a surgeon who's also from South Africa. He lives

135
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 1: up in San Davaro, just up the road from me,

136
00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:04,599
Speaker 1: about forty miles up the way. And he said to me,

137
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: I am studying. He was studying the ways of the African,

138
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:10,960
Speaker 1: of the Sangoma in South Africa. Because he's a surgeon.

139
00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: He wanted to find out how they knew, how they

140
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,680
Speaker 1: know what kind of medicine and leaves and bulbs and

141
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:20,080
Speaker 1: stuff to pick in the forest. So he was going

142
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: back to South Africa every year to study the stuff.

143
00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:24,120
Speaker 1: And you know what he said to me one day,

144
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,400
Speaker 1: and he said, this is a surgeon and he says,

145
00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:29,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to Africa. I'm going to do some more study.

146
00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: Why don't you come with me. Maybe maybe one of

147
00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,160
Speaker 1: those guys can help you. I said, Dave, you're asking me.

148
00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:37,480
Speaker 1: You're a surgeon, and you're telling me to go to

149
00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:38,960
Speaker 1: Africa and I've got to go and see her which

150
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:41,120
Speaker 1: doctor and he and he or she may help me.

151
00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 1: And he says, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Those

152
00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:46,400
Speaker 1: people are absolutely extraordinant on you. What she had told

153
00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:49,880
Speaker 1: you earlier, and well then I knew, you know that's

154
00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:52,560
Speaker 1: what she said. You go back to your roots. And

155
00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:55,120
Speaker 1: I did, and I met all of these shamans, and

156
00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:58,800
Speaker 1: without exception, they threw the bones and they said, ah,

157
00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:01,080
Speaker 1: the one just coming came along and touched me on

158
00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,560
Speaker 1: my side where my kidney's are, said, the problem is here.

159
00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:07,520
Speaker 1: You know, I diagnosed precisely what was wrong with me.

160
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,240
Speaker 1: One of the shamans said to me, you need really

161
00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:15,880
Speaker 1: powerful mouti. Mouti is the is the generic term Africans

162
00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 1: views in South Africa from medicine for the stuff that

163
00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 1: they that they make themselves. You need some really powerful mootie.

164
00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:25,920
Speaker 1: But you need more than that, You need a fember.

165
00:08:26,240 --> 00:08:29,080
Speaker 1: And this was in a place called Swaziland. Swaziland is

166
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:33,840
Speaker 1: a little landlocked country sitting in between South Africa and Mozambique,

167
00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:36,760
Speaker 1: and I was there with the surgeon friend of mine,

168
00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:39,720
Speaker 1: and this guy said to me, you need a fember

169
00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:41,960
Speaker 1: and I know someone who can do that. This was

170
00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:46,120
Speaker 1: again another sangoma, and apparently this guy was very, very

171
00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,560
Speaker 1: very powerful. Well, I went to his place. It was

172
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:51,559
Speaker 1: it was way up in the middle of the mountains,

173
00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:54,560
Speaker 1: high up in the hills, a big grass hut with

174
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 1: a fire in the middle of the hut and all

175
00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:02,880
Speaker 1: these women dramming away crazily. And this guy, he was

176
00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,360
Speaker 1: a very very powerful shaman and he was all dressed

177
00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:08,960
Speaker 1: up in his animal skins and his beads and whatever else,

178
00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:13,400
Speaker 1: and he took on the personality. His personality changed instantly.

179
00:09:13,559 --> 00:09:16,360
Speaker 1: He came into the hut, he dropped down on all

180
00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:19,600
Speaker 1: fours and it's almost like he became possessed by the

181
00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:22,920
Speaker 1: spirit of an animal. And he came walking on all

182
00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:26,760
Speaker 1: fours on Handy's hands and knees towards me, smelling and grunting.

183
00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:29,360
Speaker 1: And he started smelling my body all the way from

184
00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 1: my feet right up and when he got to my kidneys,

185
00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:36,240
Speaker 1: he started wretching. He started he started vomiting, and to

186
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:40,920
Speaker 1: assist bring a barrel and he basically he sucked out

187
00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:44,120
Speaker 1: of my body. He told me, it's like the movie

188
00:09:44,160 --> 00:09:47,800
Speaker 1: The Green Mile. It's exactly like The Green Mile. This

189
00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:53,479
Speaker 1: guy regurgitated, vomited my illness from my body John Coffee

190
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:56,760
Speaker 1: out of me, you know. He sucked it out of me,

191
00:09:56,840 --> 00:09:59,760
Speaker 1: out of the sides of my body, and vomited into

192
00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:02,560
Speaker 1: the barrel. He had to vomit it out or it

193
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 1: would get him. Yeah, he vomited. He vomited it out. Yeah,

194
00:10:06,760 --> 00:10:08,800
Speaker 1: maybe it would have got him. But how did he

195
00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 1: know what was wrong with me? How did he know

196
00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:14,840
Speaker 1: what to do? You know? And how did he do that?

197
00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:17,800
Speaker 1: And he was he was taken over by another presence,

198
00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:22,240
Speaker 1: a presence of a completely different entity entirely. It was very, very,

199
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,800
Speaker 1: very scary as I was sitting there, you know, just

200
00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:29,000
Speaker 1: no shirt on, just a pair of shorts, and there

201
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: was this guy smelling my kidneys and vomiting into these barrels.

202
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:35,240
Speaker 1: I mean, good lord, I couldn't believe that this was

203
00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:37,560
Speaker 1: happening to me. It was straight out of a sci

204
00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:40,080
Speaker 1: fi movie. It was straight out of indianagens. When you

205
00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:42,880
Speaker 1: wrote the book Forever in My Veins based on your

206
00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:47,760
Speaker 1: visits with these shamans, right, what did you conclude. I

207
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:50,840
Speaker 1: concluded that we really don't know at all, and that

208
00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:54,200
Speaker 1: they're still so very very much more to know. And

209
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 1: I think the most important lesson that I learned is,

210
00:10:56,559 --> 00:10:58,760
Speaker 1: you know, never never judge a cover by its book.

211
00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:00,800
Speaker 1: You look around at these people who live in the

212
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:03,560
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, in the middle of the boondocks and

213
00:11:03,640 --> 00:11:06,040
Speaker 1: little mud huts and villages, and you think, you know

214
00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 1: that they live a primitive lifestyle. It's not that at all.

215
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:12,240
Speaker 1: Some of these people are the most wise and wonderful

216
00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:16,440
Speaker 1: people I've ever met. We don't know it all, as

217
00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:19,120
Speaker 1: I said, as I write in the book, I said,

218
00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:23,120
Speaker 1: with all of our academic institutions, we really haven't figured

219
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:25,800
Speaker 1: out how the world works. And some of these people

220
00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:28,439
Speaker 1: have How do they know the stuff? How can they

221
00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:34,559
Speaker 1: foretell the future? What do those capabilities allow people to do?

222
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,280
Speaker 1: And these are very very simple folk who live their

223
00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:41,640
Speaker 1: quiet lives in the middle of nowhere, and they're able

224
00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:43,480
Speaker 1: to do all of these things, and they're able to

225
00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,559
Speaker 1: be of such use and such value, and they actually

226
00:11:46,679 --> 00:11:50,400
Speaker 1: don't They have no ego about it. You know. It's

227
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:55,440
Speaker 1: an amazing learning experience about the humans. Yeah, they're not

228
00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 1: on a power high or anything. Absolutely not. And they're

229
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:01,080
Speaker 1: not in it for the money, and they're not in

230
00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:03,600
Speaker 1: it for the fame. They do it because they want

231
00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:06,120
Speaker 1: to help you, and they do it because they're obviously

232
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:09,520
Speaker 1: tapping into some realm that allows them to have these

233
00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:13,640
Speaker 1: extraordinary powers. And it just makes one respect so much,

234
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:19,240
Speaker 1: you know, human potential and how decent people can be.

235
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:24,360
Speaker 1: It humbles you, It absolutely humbles you. With Lionel Friedberg,

236
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:26,960
Speaker 1: we're going to take calls verse shortly on his work.

237
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:30,960
Speaker 1: You have spotted a UFO in your career, haven't you.

238
00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:33,839
Speaker 1: I did. I actually filmed one in Canada. Yes, tell

239
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:38,080
Speaker 1: us about that. It was nineteen sixty six. I did

240
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:40,280
Speaker 1: cross the Big Water, as that woman had told me.

241
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:44,000
Speaker 1: I emigrated to North America. I had to immigrate to

242
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:47,200
Speaker 1: Canada because of apartheid. Was very difficultly a visa to

243
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:48,800
Speaker 1: come to the States those days. So I went to

244
00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:51,439
Speaker 1: Canada and I got a job with the National Film Board,

245
00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:53,960
Speaker 1: and I was working on a film about the history

246
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:56,600
Speaker 1: of housing in Canada. And we were in the province

247
00:12:56,640 --> 00:13:00,720
Speaker 1: of Saskatchewan, and we were talking of doing a sequence

248
00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:03,120
Speaker 1: about the development of a little town that was growing

249
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:05,840
Speaker 1: up around a potash plant. Potash should they dig up

250
00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:07,760
Speaker 1: out of the ground. And I think they used it

251
00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:11,960
Speaker 1: and fertilizer and for other purposes. But we had we

252
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,439
Speaker 1: had to, you know, you go and do a story

253
00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:16,480
Speaker 1: about this little town that was developing in the middle

254
00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,800
Speaker 1: of nowhere. And Saskatchewan is as flat as a draft board.

255
00:13:19,800 --> 00:13:22,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's absolutely flat. And so we stayed in

256
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:24,400
Speaker 1: a little tiny motel. It was a small crew, any

257
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 1: three of us, and we drove towards this potash plant

258
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,000
Speaker 1: to go and do do the shooting that we were

259
00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:31,520
Speaker 1: scheduled to do that day. And when we got to

260
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:34,640
Speaker 1: the gate, guide the gates said to us, um you

261
00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:39,320
Speaker 1: up in. And then the mining was creating dust clouds, huge,

262
00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:41,400
Speaker 1: huge clouds of dust. So there was a big cloud

263
00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:44,280
Speaker 1: of dust setting above the mine. This plant was a

264
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,000
Speaker 1: big open pit, and the guide the gates said, you know,

265
00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:49,920
Speaker 1: there's something up in that cloud. We and you know,

266
00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:52,480
Speaker 1: said I wasn't directing. There was another guy the other

267
00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:54,120
Speaker 1: the other guy who was the director said what do

268
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:56,800
Speaker 1: you mean, what is it? Me said, we don't know,

269
00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:59,160
Speaker 1: but it's it's sudden up there and it's been there

270
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:03,280
Speaker 1: all morning. And maybe you guys can continue, maybe maybe

271
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:05,280
Speaker 1: you've got a camera or something that you can see

272
00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:07,440
Speaker 1: what it is. So anyway, we went down to the

273
00:14:07,480 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 1: plant we parked those days was station wagons. We were

274
00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:13,920
Speaker 1: using a station wagon, and I set up a camera

275
00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:17,319
Speaker 1: and the director was talking to the manager of the

276
00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:19,440
Speaker 1: plant about the shooting that was going to happen the

277
00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:21,480
Speaker 1: rest of the day. And I decided to put on

278
00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:24,320
Speaker 1: a very long telephoto lens and trained on this cloud

279
00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:26,080
Speaker 1: see if to see if I could see anything in

280
00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:28,200
Speaker 1: the cloud. And there were a number of people, you know,

281
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:31,160
Speaker 1: crowding around us, you know, just shooting the breeze and talking.

282
00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:34,520
Speaker 1: And my goodness, a little bit of a breeze came

283
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 1: by and that dust cloud moved away, and I saw

284
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:40,080
Speaker 1: the glint of metal, or it looked like metal, the

285
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:44,359
Speaker 1: silvery sheen, just a flash pam, and I thought there

286
00:14:44,400 --> 00:14:47,160
Speaker 1: is something up there, and I started running film. We

287
00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,280
Speaker 1: were running film. It was film those days, of course,

288
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:52,720
Speaker 1: ninety sixty six. And so I turned on the camera

289
00:14:52,800 --> 00:14:56,880
Speaker 1: and I must have run about seven minutes worth, because

290
00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 1: that dust cloud parted completely, revealing the circular object just

291
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:06,040
Speaker 1: sitting up there in the sky. I it's very hard

292
00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,600
Speaker 1: to know how tall it was, how high it was,

293
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,680
Speaker 1: but this thing was gigantic. Now, there were no seven

294
00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:14,600
Speaker 1: forty seven in those days, but it must have been

295
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:19,120
Speaker 1: the size of that because it was huge, huge, no windows,

296
00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 1: mo propulsion systems, no sound, nothing, a triangular sort of

297
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:31,320
Speaker 1: structure underneath the disc connected to the disc, just sitting there.

298
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: Absolutely still. You had a great opportunity to interview the

299
00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:39,280
Speaker 1: late astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the original astronauts I did.

300
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:42,480
Speaker 1: I did a show about we called we called it

301
00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:45,880
Speaker 1: Ancient Encounters, and it was for the History Channel. That

302
00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:51,680
Speaker 1: was with Lady Right. And you know, these seems have

303
00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:55,800
Speaker 1: been seen for centuries. You know, they're on tapestries during

304
00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,600
Speaker 1: the medieval period, They're on paintings, they are on temple

305
00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:03,760
Speaker 1: wall they I have even seen what the Hindus describe

306
00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:07,880
Speaker 1: in the Mahabarata as vimanas flying machines. I've seen those,

307
00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 1: you know, on the on the walls of ankor Wat

308
00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:12,840
Speaker 1: in Cambodia. So these things have been around for centuries.

309
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:17,480
Speaker 1: And um and and Gordon Cooper, I wanted to have

310
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,640
Speaker 1: him in the show because he broke ranks with the

311
00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 1: rest of the astronaut corps. He was one of the

312
00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:27,160
Speaker 1: original Mercury seven and I knew that he had spoken

313
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:30,440
Speaker 1: out or they were all sworn to secrecy. He said,

314
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:32,480
Speaker 1: to hell all of that, I am going to tell

315
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 1: the truth. And so he had little office here at

316
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:40,160
Speaker 1: van Ys Airport here in la and Um I found

317
00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:42,320
Speaker 1: him and I went to see him there, and I said, UM,

318
00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:45,000
Speaker 1: you know, colonel, would would you tell us that story?

319
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:46,920
Speaker 1: And he said, you bet ya, I'll tell you that story.

320
00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:49,360
Speaker 1: He said, we were all sworn to secrecy, who were

321
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:52,640
Speaker 1: told not to talk about this stuff. We all saw

322
00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,440
Speaker 1: stuff in space when we were flying. And he said,

323
00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,880
Speaker 1: but I saw UFOs way earlier than that. When I

324
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:03,520
Speaker 1: was a fighter pilots stationed in Germany. One day we

325
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,800
Speaker 1: were scrambled and we went up and we saw these

326
00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:09,480
Speaker 1: discs and there was no way they were flying F

327
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:11,560
Speaker 1: eighty six sabers at that time. And I think it

328
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:14,240
Speaker 1: must have been round about nineteen sixty two or nineteen

329
00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:16,399
Speaker 1: sixty one or there. No, it was before Mercury, so

330
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 1: it's probably in nineteen sixty and they could not keep

331
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 1: pace with these discs that were flying above Germany. And

332
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:27,200
Speaker 1: these discs would stop and then shoot off at he said,

333
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:30,600
Speaker 1: thousands of miles an hour. He said, there was nothing

334
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:36,000
Speaker 1: physical that we humans had, like these navy pilots I've seen,

335
00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:39,479
Speaker 1: like those navy pilots who described recently that's exactly the

336
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:43,040
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, and Gordon said, we tried our best.

337
00:17:43,119 --> 00:17:45,600
Speaker 1: We tried to get shots, We tried to get photographs

338
00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:47,560
Speaker 1: of these things. There was no way we could do that.

339
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:49,800
Speaker 1: It was almost as though, he said to me, they

340
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:53,119
Speaker 1: almost knew when we were trying to photograph them, because

341
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:54,880
Speaker 1: as soon as we tried to do that, they would

342
00:17:56,760 --> 00:18:00,320
Speaker 1: dam gone. Yeah, it was it was. It was shorty.

343
00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:02,679
Speaker 1: So he admitted, you know, these things have been around.

344
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:05,199
Speaker 1: You know, I think, George, that this is probably the

345
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:09,200
Speaker 1: year of disclosure. I mean, if it might come sixty

346
00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:12,600
Speaker 1: minutes yesterday and I don't know when this this this um,

347
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,919
Speaker 1: you know, folks are going to remember this. But carried

348
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:20,040
Speaker 1: a wonderful story yesterday about the pilots, about about those pilots,

349
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,720
Speaker 1: and and and and and and even you know the

350
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:27,680
Speaker 1: limits incident of San Diego. Uh, these things are here

351
00:18:28,119 --> 00:18:31,720
Speaker 1: and they've been here for a long long time. Listen

352
00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:34,880
Speaker 1: to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one

353
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:37,920
Speaker 1: am Eastern, and go to Coast to Coast am dot

354
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:38,720
Speaker 1: com for more