1 00:00:01,360 --> 00:00:04,440 Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 2 00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 3 00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:09,520 Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 4 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:12,680 Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 5 00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:16,840 Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 6 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:17,799 Speaker 2: our adversaries. 7 00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:21,720 Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 8 00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:23,520 Speaker 1: theories large and small. 9 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:26,280 Speaker 2: Could they be true or are we being manipulated? 10 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:31,760 Speaker 1: This is mission implausible. Today we have the bad astronomer, 11 00:00:31,800 --> 00:00:35,560 Speaker 1: Phil Plate. He's an award winning astronomer, educator, and science writer. 12 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:38,760 Speaker 1: He's worked with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope team, 13 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:41,800 Speaker 1: and he's written several well received books. So welcome, feel 14 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:42,720 Speaker 1: glad to have you with us. 15 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:44,080 Speaker 3: Thank you so nice to be here. 16 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:46,560 Speaker 1: So, Phil, you do a lot of work on debunking 17 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:50,760 Speaker 1: common misunderstandings of science and astronomy and educating people on 18 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:53,320 Speaker 1: why astronomy is so important. Can you give us just 19 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:55,120 Speaker 1: some sense and background on your work and the kind 20 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:56,760 Speaker 1: of examples that you talk about. 21 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:00,040 Speaker 3: Well, these days, mostly I'm doing straight science, just talking 22 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:03,000 Speaker 3: about all the wonderful things that are happening in the universe. 23 00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:06,760 Speaker 3: Basically in astronomy. I do still occasionally have to dip 24 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 3: my toe into the debunking pool, and this is something 25 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:11,960 Speaker 3: I used to do all the time. As a matter 26 00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:13,880 Speaker 3: of fact, I guess I could say I was a 27 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,959 Speaker 3: professional skeptic, a critical thinker. And it all started in 28 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,240 Speaker 3: the nineties when I started seeing just silly ideas about 29 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:26,160 Speaker 3: astronomy online. And this was when online was not what 30 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:30,560 Speaker 3: it is today. But I started just debunking these ideas, saying, hey, 31 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:32,800 Speaker 3: you know that's not how this really works. Why does 32 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:35,560 Speaker 3: the moon look big on the horizon as opposed overhead? 33 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:39,399 Speaker 3: And read up on how that works. And in two thousand, 34 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:46,360 Speaker 3: Fox TV aired a moon landing denial show called Conspiracy Theory? 35 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:48,240 Speaker 3: Did we land on the Moon? And you know, if 36 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:50,320 Speaker 3: they'd been honest and just said yes, it would have 37 00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:51,320 Speaker 3: been a very short show. 38 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:54,160 Speaker 4: It has been estimated that as many as twenty percent 39 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,680 Speaker 4: of Americans believe we never went to the Moon. Is 40 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 4: it really possible that NASA to see the world. According 41 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:04,920 Speaker 4: to a former astronaut, it's entirely possible. 42 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:08,680 Speaker 5: Regarding the Apollo mission, I can't say one ercent for 43 00:02:08,760 --> 00:02:11,120 Speaker 5: sure whether these men walked on the Moon. 44 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,320 Speaker 3: I wrote it up on my website and it became 45 00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:18,600 Speaker 3: really popular. That was my first big sort of viral moment, 46 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:23,120 Speaker 3: and ever since a UFO's moon landing. When it comes 47 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:26,880 Speaker 3: to science based conspiracy theories or urban legends and that 48 00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:29,040 Speaker 3: sort of thing, that's when I would come storming in. 49 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:32,000 Speaker 2: I'm going to start up a discript basy talking about 50 00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:38,919 Speaker 2: espionage astrology, not astronomy and effectiveness. So let's jump back 51 00:02:38,960 --> 00:02:42,720 Speaker 2: on our time machine. And Hitler was a great believer 52 00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:47,600 Speaker 2: in astronomy in the cult and especially Googles, And when 53 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:52,800 Speaker 2: World War II was just starting, the Nazis, surprisingly enough 54 00:02:53,480 --> 00:02:58,359 Speaker 2: took astrology is a war effort and they banned private 55 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,360 Speaker 2: use of astrology. All had to be done by the 56 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 2: state as part of the propaganda effort. I was actually 57 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:08,120 Speaker 2: surprised to find that there's been a long history of 58 00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:14,240 Speaker 2: using astrology and other bogus science for propaganda efforts that 59 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:18,200 Speaker 2: sometimes have been quite effective, is as real conspiracies and 60 00:03:18,240 --> 00:03:21,760 Speaker 2: real conspiracy theories to actually further a political agita. And 61 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:25,600 Speaker 2: I was wondering if your sense of like how astrology 62 00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:32,000 Speaker 2: is used to basically they drafting off of real astronomy 63 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:34,960 Speaker 2: to make political purposes or to to you know, to 64 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 2: make money things. 65 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 3: If I knew that, I'd be a million well, I know. Yeah. 66 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:41,840 Speaker 3: So astrology, I mean, just to be clear, is nonsense. 67 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,400 Speaker 3: There's no aspect of astrology that works. This has been 68 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:50,480 Speaker 3: tested over and over again, including using tests that astrologers 69 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 3: themselves have come up with, and then double blind studies 70 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 3: where they say, here will agree to these rules, and 71 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:59,720 Speaker 3: then they cast their horoscopes or whatever, and what they 72 00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:02,000 Speaker 3: do is no better than random chance, which is exactly 73 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,640 Speaker 3: what astronomer has been saying. But Nancy Reagan used a 74 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:10,640 Speaker 3: personal astrologer to schedule, yeah, quickly, that's right, to make 75 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:12,920 Speaker 3: appointments for Ronald Reagan to meet with people or to 76 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:17,040 Speaker 3: do things or not do things. And this is all 77 00:04:17,320 --> 00:04:20,719 Speaker 3: silly until it's not silly anymore, which is typical of 78 00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:26,160 Speaker 3: conspiracy theories and scientific nonsense, pseudoscience or anti science, whatever 79 00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,479 Speaker 3: you want to call it. With astrology, you've got a 80 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:32,159 Speaker 3: pretty good head start because, first of all, astrology has 81 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:35,159 Speaker 3: been around for thousands and thousands of years. The constellations, 82 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:39,599 Speaker 3: the zodiac, the zodiacal constellations, we base these on the 83 00:04:39,640 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 3: Greek constellations. We're already talking about twenty five hundred years 84 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:47,279 Speaker 3: or so, and most ancient civilizations had their own versions 85 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:49,440 Speaker 3: of this, the Egyptians and the Babylonians, the Chinese. I 86 00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:51,279 Speaker 3: could just go on and on. So a lot of 87 00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:53,840 Speaker 3: people believe this stuff, and it all kind of boils 88 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:56,719 Speaker 3: down to people want to remember the hits and forget 89 00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,440 Speaker 3: the misses. So you know when they say, my astrologer 90 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,240 Speaker 3: said I was going to to come into money, and 91 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:03,720 Speaker 3: then I found a twenty dollars bill, and it's like, yeah, 92 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:05,440 Speaker 3: how about all the other times they said you'd come 93 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:08,800 Speaker 3: into money and nothing happened. You forget about those. Plus 94 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:12,039 Speaker 3: there's a desire to believe, a desire to sort of 95 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:15,880 Speaker 3: give up your responsibility about certain things and let whatever 96 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:17,479 Speaker 3: is going on over your head take care of it. 97 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,360 Speaker 3: So you've got a big head start. There's leverage with people. Yeah, 98 00:05:21,400 --> 00:05:23,920 Speaker 3: you've got a pretty good place to put your crowbar 99 00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 3: and pry things open. And we're seeing that now. People 100 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:32,840 Speaker 3: are believing almost anything they're being told and it's all nonsense. 101 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:35,200 Speaker 3: But if it's coming from the people you believe and 102 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:39,240 Speaker 3: the people you have put your trust in, you believe it. 103 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 2: So the British intelligence services knew that the Germans were 104 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 2: using astrology to their benefit. And so they hired a 105 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:51,200 Speaker 2: guy called Lewis DeWitt and they actually established inside British intelligence, 106 00:05:51,279 --> 00:05:54,800 Speaker 2: they established a small division form, but they sent him 107 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,200 Speaker 2: to the US where he made all sorts of predictions 108 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:00,960 Speaker 2: about the Nazis about to fall. And he met in 109 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:03,840 Speaker 2: Cleveland with a group of American astrologers and it's sort 110 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:06,280 Speaker 2: of unclear what really happened, but he either bribed them 111 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:13,159 Speaker 2: or persuaded them to begin casting rogue British astrological projections 112 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:16,240 Speaker 2: to help get the US into the war, you know, 113 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 2: to push you the US to join World War two. 114 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:25,279 Speaker 3: That is absolutely terrifying and it makes me super uncomfortable 115 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:27,960 Speaker 3: to know. And we are talking World War two and 116 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:30,320 Speaker 3: Nazis and all of that. So yeah, sure that had 117 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,240 Speaker 3: to be defeated. But that stuff tends to linger. 118 00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:35,440 Speaker 1: So why do you think there is so much science 119 00:06:35,440 --> 00:06:36,839 Speaker 1: skepticism these days? 120 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:39,600 Speaker 3: It Waxes and Waynes. In the seventies there was all 121 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:42,520 Speaker 3: sorts of nonsense, you know, astral projection ESP and all 122 00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:44,440 Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, and that kind of went away, 123 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:48,080 Speaker 3: and then the moon hoax thing was huge for I 124 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:50,039 Speaker 3: don't know about a year in two thousand and now 125 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:52,600 Speaker 3: that's basically gone away. It's still out there, but it's 126 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:54,760 Speaker 3: not a big deal. But what we're seeing now in 127 00:06:54,800 --> 00:06:58,000 Speaker 3: the past few years is different. And if you want 128 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000 Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory, I might posit that there has been 129 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:05,839 Speaker 3: a concerted effort to destroy I can't say anything about 130 00:07:05,839 --> 00:07:09,560 Speaker 3: other countries, but in America, to destroy people's trust in science. 131 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:13,480 Speaker 3: And this has all come not all, but the vast 132 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:17,600 Speaker 3: majority is coming from the Republican Party, which is downplaying 133 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:21,119 Speaker 3: climate change, building up anti vaxxers. You know, anti vaxx 134 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:24,120 Speaker 3: for a while was kind of a crunchy granola thing. 135 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:26,400 Speaker 3: There's a whole history of that, and so it was 136 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:28,600 Speaker 3: a left wing thing, but then it got co opted 137 00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:31,320 Speaker 3: by the right, especially when Gardasil came out, which was 138 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,520 Speaker 3: a vaccine against a type of virus that can give 139 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,560 Speaker 3: you cancer. But there are sexual overtones to that, and 140 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:40,360 Speaker 3: the right wing took that up in their social case. 141 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:44,400 Speaker 3: And so now this has spread to everything. And there's 142 00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:50,960 Speaker 3: not any aspect of science, evolution and versus creationism, because 143 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:55,880 Speaker 3: a lot of these are religious based, and the right 144 00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:58,800 Speaker 3: wing Party of the United States has co opted religion, 145 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:02,840 Speaker 3: and now the GOP denies everything when it comes to science. 146 00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:06,040 Speaker 1: It's horrifying. So it's anti science, but it's also anti expert, 147 00:08:06,080 --> 00:08:07,440 Speaker 1: anti elite. 148 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:10,320 Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what makes me think is a concerted 149 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:13,560 Speaker 3: effort because it's coming at all levels. Right, they're attacking universities, 150 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:17,520 Speaker 3: they're talking about scientists and the elite. That's the perfect 151 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 3: word of this anti elitism. It's like, oh, you just 152 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:21,800 Speaker 3: think that because you're part of the elite, and it's like, no, 153 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,120 Speaker 3: I just got an education, and you know, I see 154 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:27,080 Speaker 3: what's going on, and so I see this all the time. 155 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:29,880 Speaker 3: People argue with me. I go on. I used to 156 00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:33,040 Speaker 3: go on TikTok and leave comments. People would say I 157 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:34,400 Speaker 3: saw this light in the sky and I think it's 158 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:36,920 Speaker 3: UFO and I'd be like, it's Venus. You're looking right 159 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:38,640 Speaker 3: at Venus and you're looking at the right direction, and 160 00:08:38,679 --> 00:08:40,520 Speaker 3: there it is in this guy. And they're like, no, 161 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:42,200 Speaker 3: it was doing this and this, and what do you know? 162 00:08:42,280 --> 00:08:44,760 Speaker 3: And it's like, been an astronomer for forty years, I 163 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:46,920 Speaker 3: think I know when I see Venus, but they don't 164 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:50,319 Speaker 3: believe me. So it's mind boggling that people would rather 165 00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:54,520 Speaker 3: believe they're in group than think for themselves. 166 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,920 Speaker 2: Is this something innately human? Or is this something that 167 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:01,480 Speaker 2: you see sort of different now being pushed by political 168 00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:04,880 Speaker 2: forces or certainly the Russians are doing it. 169 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,119 Speaker 3: What's your sort of sense of this As a scientist, 170 00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:10,720 Speaker 3: I'd say it's both. Sometimes there is an innate need 171 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:17,800 Speaker 3: to find some sort of outside force that is affecting us, 172 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:23,000 Speaker 3: and certainly human our brains have evolved to seek out patterns, 173 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:24,920 Speaker 3: and it happens in astronomy all the time. I mean, 174 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:26,880 Speaker 3: you look at it at four stars in the sky 175 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:30,679 Speaker 3: and say, yes, that's the Great Hunter or a microscope 176 00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:32,640 Speaker 3: or something like that. And so we have the constellations, 177 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:35,240 Speaker 3: and we see it when you see faces in clouds. 178 00:09:35,679 --> 00:09:37,240 Speaker 3: And this is another thing I've dealt with a lot 179 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:40,920 Speaker 3: in astronomy, because we see rock formations on Mars gas 180 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:43,760 Speaker 3: clouds in space and they look like things we're familiar with. 181 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:46,240 Speaker 3: They look like faces or whatever. And so that's a 182 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:48,480 Speaker 3: fun aspect of this. It's when people start believing that 183 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:53,880 Speaker 3: there's more to it. Coincidences happened. And on the flip side, yeah, 184 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:57,040 Speaker 3: there are people out there who are absolutely trying to 185 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:03,480 Speaker 3: manipulate others into believing stuff that is clearly wrong. It's 186 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:06,120 Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, you know when you deny the evidence 187 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:10,240 Speaker 3: of your eyes, and that's what's happening now, and so 188 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:16,720 Speaker 3: it's easy for evildoers to use that unbrelative to manipulate 189 00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:20,560 Speaker 3: people into denying the evidence that they think might be 190 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:25,560 Speaker 3: real like science, and believe in something that's incredibly wrong, 191 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:30,720 Speaker 3: like ivermectin, Cure's COVID or anything that comes up that 192 00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:32,600 Speaker 3: we've seen in the past few years. In the height 193 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:34,240 Speaker 3: of COVID, I was living in Colorado and I had 194 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:36,480 Speaker 3: a couple of horses and some goats, and I was 195 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:38,000 Speaker 3: always worried that I was going to go to my 196 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,920 Speaker 3: local feed store and they weren't going to have it 197 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:42,920 Speaker 3: when I needed it, And I thought, this is it 198 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:48,160 Speaker 3: seems that seems silly. But again there's an undercurrent of 199 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:53,600 Speaker 3: serious trouble here when anti vaxxers are telling people not 200 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:56,679 Speaker 3: to get the COVID shot, to not worry about polio 201 00:10:56,880 --> 00:11:01,320 Speaker 3: and whooping cough and measles and these horrific diseases, and 202 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:03,800 Speaker 3: it's people say how common is this and they're like, gommin, 203 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:06,679 Speaker 3: because we have vaccine for them. Why do you think 204 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:08,120 Speaker 3: this is? Oh? 205 00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,520 Speaker 1: So, I think bad actors, either for money or for 206 00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:14,000 Speaker 1: political purpose, often try to use fear. Fear works obviously, 207 00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:17,120 Speaker 1: but I'm wondering what should we worry about. And I 208 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:19,000 Speaker 1: know you've looked at asteroids and things like that. What 209 00:11:19,360 --> 00:11:21,760 Speaker 1: things in science are things that we actually should be 210 00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:22,680 Speaker 1: paying more attention to. 211 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:26,600 Speaker 3: Well, in the medical field, I think that's all pretty clear. 212 00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:31,640 Speaker 3: In astronomy about yeah, yeah, well, there's there's lots to 213 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,800 Speaker 3: worry about. When it comes to astronomy. There are a 214 00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:39,000 Speaker 3: handful of things to be concerned about. I say, being 215 00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:41,760 Speaker 3: concerned means maybe we should pay attention to this versus 216 00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:45,640 Speaker 3: worrying like this is going to happen and an asteroid impact, 217 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:50,079 Speaker 3: for example, we don't need a gigantic dinosaur killer asteroid 218 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 3: impact to wipe us out. There are and only be 219 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,200 Speaker 3: worried about that. That is, that's a once in a 220 00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:58,720 Speaker 3: fifty million year event, so that's probably not going to happen. 221 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:01,080 Speaker 3: And plus those giant asteroids, we know where almost all 222 00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:02,559 Speaker 3: of them are, so I'm not too worried about that. 223 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:06,720 Speaker 3: The other side, on the other side of this, twenty thirteen, 224 00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:10,600 Speaker 3: over Russia, there was a nineteen meter asteroids something in 225 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:13,040 Speaker 3: the size of a big house came screaming in and 226 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:16,880 Speaker 3: exploded twenty thirty miles up in the atmosphere and caused 227 00:12:16,920 --> 00:12:18,800 Speaker 3: a lot of damage on the ground. And if that 228 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:22,800 Speaker 3: thing had been moving faster, had been bigger, maybe made 229 00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:25,760 Speaker 3: of metal instead of crumbly rock, it would have done 230 00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:28,680 Speaker 3: a huge amount of damage. And those sorts of impacts 231 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:30,960 Speaker 3: happen every couple of decades. 232 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:31,600 Speaker 1: Now. 233 00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:34,880 Speaker 3: Luckily, the Earth is very large, seventy something percent of 234 00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:39,439 Speaker 3: it is water. What's not water is typically uninhabited. Antarctica 235 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:41,439 Speaker 3: is a big empty space, so there's a surface area 236 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:43,120 Speaker 3: of the Earth where these things can come in and 237 00:12:43,160 --> 00:12:47,240 Speaker 3: not do any damage. On the other hand, chel Yabinsk 238 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:49,640 Speaker 3: was a city of is a city of a million 239 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:53,079 Speaker 3: people or more, and this thing shattered windows and caused 240 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:58,840 Speaker 3: over a thousand injuries. So that happens, how often is 241 00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:02,920 Speaker 3: not too And the small ones we can't really do 242 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:05,440 Speaker 3: anything about. But the bigger ones that are coming in 243 00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:07,360 Speaker 3: at the size of a football stadium, and those can 244 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:11,040 Speaker 3: do much more damage over a region as opposed to 245 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:13,280 Speaker 3: a locality, And those are the kind of things that 246 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,360 Speaker 3: we're looking at more carefully and saying, what can we 247 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,679 Speaker 3: do about that? Smash it with a rocket. We've done this. 248 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:22,480 Speaker 3: The dart mission not too long ago, slammed a spacecraft 249 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:25,800 Speaker 3: into an asteroid and moved it. It worked, worked really 250 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:28,600 Speaker 3: well actually, so if there's something in one hundred meter 251 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,920 Speaker 3: side scale, we can probably prevent that from hitting the Earth. 252 00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:34,319 Speaker 1: Which is when you say we give us a little more. 253 00:13:34,679 --> 00:13:37,040 Speaker 1: I never I don't know about that. Who's we? Was 254 00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: it humans and humans? 255 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,080 Speaker 3: The Dart mission, the Double Asteroid Redirect t Test so 256 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:46,920 Speaker 3: many acronyms, was a NASA mission that basically approached an 257 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:49,640 Speaker 3: asteroid and hit it really hard. It was actually the 258 00:13:49,679 --> 00:13:54,000 Speaker 3: moon of a small asteroid and changed its orbit, changed 259 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:56,760 Speaker 3: the orbital period by quite a bit. And the European 260 00:13:56,760 --> 00:13:59,000 Speaker 3: Space Agency is doing a follow up mission called Hero 261 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,920 Speaker 3: which is launching soon, and we'll go there and make 262 00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:06,080 Speaker 3: close up measurements and really see what happened. There are 263 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:09,160 Speaker 3: a lot of space agencies now India has one China, 264 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:13,400 Speaker 3: and it's possible that we can get together and if 265 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:15,600 Speaker 3: there's something big enough, we can all do something about it. 266 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:19,320 Speaker 3: Or one country just takes the reins and says we're 267 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:23,720 Speaker 3: going to do this. That is fraught with international issues 268 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:26,480 Speaker 3: because okay, here's an asteroid coming in. It's going to 269 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:28,520 Speaker 3: hit the US. So NASA's going to launch a rocket, 270 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,960 Speaker 3: we hit it, we change its trajectory, and we find out, oh, 271 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,280 Speaker 3: now it's going to land in China. Oh that's a problem. 272 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:39,000 Speaker 3: So given the time skills here, this is something I 273 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:41,560 Speaker 3: think about. This is something I'm concerned about, but not 274 00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:43,400 Speaker 3: something I lie awake in the middle of the night 275 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,240 Speaker 3: sweating about. This is something that we're getting better at 276 00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:48,400 Speaker 3: detecting them and better at figuring out what to do 277 00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:49,640 Speaker 3: about them. 278 00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:51,760 Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back. 279 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:09,560 Speaker 2: So Phil, let's talk maybe just a little bit about 280 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,840 Speaker 2: satellite there. I'm assuming they have overt missions, but they 281 00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:15,360 Speaker 2: may have covert missions. And I've read about something called 282 00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:19,560 Speaker 2: the Kessler syndrome or the Kessler effect where killer satellite 283 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,080 Speaker 2: which sort of I guess put badly hit shrapnel in it, 284 00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,960 Speaker 2: which destroys other satellites, that creates more shrampnel, that destroys 285 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:31,360 Speaker 2: our ability to operate in low Earth orbit, which means 286 00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:34,200 Speaker 2: we go back to like manual tie writers and VCRs 287 00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:36,760 Speaker 2: and things like that. So what's your sense now, the 288 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:43,320 Speaker 2: space race and an espionage and national rivalries with using 289 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:47,200 Speaker 2: satellite technology or modern technology to impact how we all 290 00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:47,760 Speaker 2: live today. 291 00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:50,320 Speaker 3: The Kessler syndrome is a real thing, and the idea 292 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,400 Speaker 3: being that, sure, you could have an anti satellite, which 293 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:56,560 Speaker 3: is basically an explosive device in space, and you pull 294 00:15:56,680 --> 00:16:00,240 Speaker 3: up your satellite next to your enemy's military saturate or 295 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,720 Speaker 3: something blow years up and the shrapnel will shred their satellite. 296 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,960 Speaker 3: The problem is, satellites are orbiting the Earth at eight 297 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,640 Speaker 3: kilometers a second five five miles per second, which is 298 00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:14,280 Speaker 3: very fast, twenty thousand miles an hour, and they're moving 299 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:17,800 Speaker 3: in a certain direction, typically roughly west east, the same 300 00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:19,520 Speaker 3: direction to the Earth spins, but not always. There are 301 00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:22,840 Speaker 3: some in polar satellites that go north south. But now 302 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:26,880 Speaker 3: you've got this expanding cloud of debris, thousands of small 303 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,600 Speaker 3: parts and it doesn't matter how big they are iffle 304 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,360 Speaker 3: like a paint moving at twenty thousand miles an hour, 305 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:36,160 Speaker 3: Slamming into your satellite could destroy it. Huge energy is 306 00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:40,000 Speaker 3: involved here. A bullet is small, but it's moving really fast. 307 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:42,120 Speaker 3: That's why it's doing so much damage. If you have 308 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,640 Speaker 3: a thousand pieces a cloud of this debris which is 309 00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:49,400 Speaker 3: now miles across and screaming around in lower th orbit 310 00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:52,320 Speaker 3: at that speed, the odds of one satellite hitting another 311 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,080 Speaker 3: satellite are very low that it's only happened a few times. 312 00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:58,320 Speaker 3: The odds of this cloud of debrisating something are much 313 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:01,360 Speaker 3: much larger, and when they do, they create another cloud 314 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:03,400 Speaker 3: of debris, which then increases the odds and what you 315 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:06,159 Speaker 3: get as a runaway effect a cascade. That's what the 316 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:09,480 Speaker 3: Kessler syndrome is. The movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock and 317 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:13,359 Speaker 3: George Clooney, was based on this idea. The basic idea 318 00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:16,960 Speaker 3: of that movie was the premise was correct. But yeah, 319 00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:19,720 Speaker 3: this is a very big concern. If we had as 320 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:22,040 Speaker 3: many satellites as we did twenty years ago in space, 321 00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:24,320 Speaker 3: that would be one thing, a few thousand or even 322 00:17:24,359 --> 00:17:29,439 Speaker 3: ten thousand. But right now SpaceX is launching thousands of 323 00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:32,800 Speaker 3: Starlink satellites. Then their plan is to launch tens of thousands. 324 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:36,680 Speaker 3: There are other what they call mega constellations of satellites 325 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,399 Speaker 3: that are being planned, and these things they can fail 326 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:42,560 Speaker 3: and they can hit other satellites. The more you have 327 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:45,679 Speaker 3: up there, the more likely acclision is. Now there's plans 328 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:47,720 Speaker 3: to diorbit these things. If they start to go wrong, 329 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:50,200 Speaker 3: they just bring them down, let them burn up. Tens 330 00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,600 Speaker 3: of thousands of satellites it's just you have that many 331 00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:56,480 Speaker 3: the chances of a collision go up and up, and so, yeah, 332 00:17:56,520 --> 00:17:57,400 Speaker 3: this is a concern. 333 00:17:57,800 --> 00:17:59,840 Speaker 1: It wasn't there reason reporting that the Russians were looking 334 00:17:59,880 --> 00:18:04,199 Speaker 1: at possibly nuclear explosions in space. You could conceivably use 335 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:07,280 Speaker 1: nuclear weapons in space. It doesn't necessarily kill people right away, 336 00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:09,000 Speaker 1: but it creates these kind of problems. 337 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:11,879 Speaker 3: We've done this. Starfish Prime was a hydrogen bomb that 338 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:15,280 Speaker 3: was blown up over the Pacific Ocean in the nineteen fifties, 339 00:18:15,400 --> 00:18:19,240 Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four i think, and it was done to test, Hey, 340 00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:22,360 Speaker 3: what happens when you do this? And it turns out 341 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:27,280 Speaker 3: that you get a tremendous blast of high energy particles 342 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:30,440 Speaker 3: electrons and gamma rays and things like that that interact 343 00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:33,800 Speaker 3: with Earth's atmosphere and cause an electromagnetic pulse. And this 344 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 3: is the kind of thing where you hear about this 345 00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:36,960 Speaker 3: in science fiction all the time. Oh, it's an EMP 346 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:39,520 Speaker 3: and it blows out our computers. And it turns out, yeah, 347 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:42,200 Speaker 3: that's what these things do. You have a tremendous pulse 348 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,280 Speaker 3: of energy, it passes through your satellite and it creates 349 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,920 Speaker 3: electric charges inside the satellite that can fry the circuits. 350 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:53,119 Speaker 3: And this is a decent concern. A good solar storm 351 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,520 Speaker 3: can do this, which is something a lot of solar 352 00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:58,880 Speaker 3: astronomers and engineers are concerned about. The sun blasts off 353 00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:01,640 Speaker 3: these big storms. It's a sensely like detonating a hydrogen 354 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,399 Speaker 3: bomb in space, very similar. So yeah, you can do that. 355 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,359 Speaker 3: I wouldn't recommend it. First of all, it's against international law. 356 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,480 Speaker 3: We've signed the Outer Space Treaty so as Russia, I believe, 357 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:13,679 Speaker 3: and that makes it illegal to detonate those things in space. 358 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:15,560 Speaker 3: On the other hand, what are you going to do 359 00:19:15,560 --> 00:19:19,119 Speaker 3: about it? Somebody blows up a nuke. The repercussions are awful. 360 00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:21,520 Speaker 3: You could blow out a lot of satellites. Military satellites 361 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:23,879 Speaker 3: are hardened typically against such things. But what do you 362 00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,119 Speaker 3: do if Russia decides to do that or a rogue 363 00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:30,080 Speaker 3: president of the United States says I'm going to bomb Greenland? 364 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:31,320 Speaker 3: How do you stop them? 365 00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:35,040 Speaker 2: Okay, Phil, we have to talk about UFOs at least 366 00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:38,800 Speaker 2: a little bit. What is your take on the recent 367 00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:44,359 Speaker 2: space of sightings of aerial phenomenon or perceived sightings going 368 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:47,280 Speaker 2: on around in Jersey and let's pretend they're real. What 369 00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:49,879 Speaker 2: would we actually see? Scientists and how could we prove 370 00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:54,120 Speaker 2: it or verify that there's stuff up there that isn't 371 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:55,280 Speaker 2: just drones through airpor. 372 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,720 Speaker 3: My overwhelming take on this is frustration to see the 373 00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:01,280 Speaker 3: stuff that's been going on for decade and it's just 374 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,360 Speaker 3: the same stuff over and over again, and you cannot 375 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,320 Speaker 3: debunk it is whack a mole. All this new stuff 376 00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:10,159 Speaker 3: is not new. The only thing new about it is 377 00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,800 Speaker 3: that these are we're seeing lights in the sky and 378 00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:16,440 Speaker 3: it's probably drones. And I remember thinking when drones started 379 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,399 Speaker 3: to become popular a few years ago, I thought I 380 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:20,760 Speaker 3: would hate to be a UFO researcher now because this 381 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:22,920 Speaker 3: is going to destroy anything you can do. It is 382 00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:25,120 Speaker 3: like trying to build an astronomical observatory in the middle 383 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:27,040 Speaker 3: of a football stadium with all the lights around you. 384 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,159 Speaker 3: There's just going to be so many things up in 385 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:32,560 Speaker 3: the sky now. And watching these videos, you know, everybody's 386 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:34,640 Speaker 3: taking their videos and posting them online. And I'm looking 387 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:38,320 Speaker 3: at that and going, that's Venus, that's Jupiter, that's the moon, 388 00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:42,240 Speaker 3: that's an airplane, that's a drone. Those are spotlights. I 389 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:46,280 Speaker 3: see a lot of circling circles of light, five or 390 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,040 Speaker 3: six of them in a circle. Spinning around on a 391 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:50,879 Speaker 3: cloud bank, on a low cloud bank. I'm thinking those 392 00:20:50,880 --> 00:20:53,960 Speaker 3: are spotlights. There's probably a movie theater or somebody trying 393 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,240 Speaker 3: to get somebody's attention, and people are losing their minds 394 00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,639 Speaker 3: over the stuff. So this is all nonsense. 395 00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,159 Speaker 2: But what do we as a scientist, what do we 396 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:06,639 Speaker 2: have that like can actually see the Have we got 397 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:10,080 Speaker 2: radars that are going up, We've got weather saurights, We've 398 00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:12,919 Speaker 2: got people on the you know, landing airplanes. 399 00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:16,199 Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a concerted effort to observe 400 00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:18,720 Speaker 3: these things and to see what they are. If somebody's 401 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:22,160 Speaker 3: got a radar installation that they're using to shoot radar 402 00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:24,120 Speaker 3: up into the atmosphere and see if and when there's 403 00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:26,879 Speaker 3: a UFO sighting, that would be really hard to do anyway, 404 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:29,320 Speaker 3: because UFO sighting seemed to be sporadic. How would you 405 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:32,360 Speaker 3: know where to put your radar assembly. 406 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,480 Speaker 2: They're around an airport, right, I mean, yeah, sure, you. 407 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:37,439 Speaker 3: Know, and it's like, yeah, an airport where there are 408 00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:40,120 Speaker 3: tons of airplanes flying around, and you see a light 409 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,080 Speaker 3: moving in the sky and its first guess is probably 410 00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:46,439 Speaker 3: an airplane. And you have, for example, the Navy released 411 00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:51,040 Speaker 3: a bunch of footage declassified this stuff, and these have 412 00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:53,120 Speaker 3: been these are known what they are. One of them 413 00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:55,200 Speaker 3: is an airplane in the distance. One of them looks 414 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:57,239 Speaker 3: like an object that is moving against the wind at 415 00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,760 Speaker 3: a rapid speed with the sea in the background. The 416 00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:01,720 Speaker 3: plane was looking down on the saying and it turns 417 00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,600 Speaker 3: out that's likely a balloon, And it's just perspective making 418 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:06,479 Speaker 3: it look like it's moving really rapidly, just like when 419 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:08,439 Speaker 3: you're driving down the street and it looks like the 420 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:10,600 Speaker 3: trees are whizzing past you and it's no, they're really not. 421 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:15,679 Speaker 3: They're stationary. You're the one moving. So there are lots 422 00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:18,760 Speaker 3: of ways of looking at these things and everything comes 423 00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,359 Speaker 3: up negative. There are things you can't explain because we 424 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,520 Speaker 3: just don't happen to know what they are. That maybe 425 00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,840 Speaker 3: it's a balloon, Maybe it's a flock of birds. Maybe 426 00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:30,119 Speaker 3: it's an alien spaceship coming down to slice up our 427 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,000 Speaker 3: cows and probe people. But I would always put that 428 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,560 Speaker 3: at the bottom of the list. You think mundane first, 429 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,280 Speaker 3: eliminate the more obvious things. And again with these videos, 430 00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:43,960 Speaker 3: I'm seeing people saying they're flying saucers or whatever, and 431 00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,680 Speaker 3: I'm thinking there's a hundred other things that you guys 432 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:50,520 Speaker 3: don't know. First, like they don't know how their cameras work. 433 00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:52,640 Speaker 3: They zoom way in and they see this sparkling ball 434 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:54,840 Speaker 3: and it's yeah, it's a star and it's out of focus. 435 00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,520 Speaker 3: That's what you're doing. So this kind of stuff is 436 00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,400 Speaker 3: what makes it so frustrating. And if aliens did come, 437 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,440 Speaker 3: I guess that was the second part of your question. Yeah, 438 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:06,560 Speaker 3: how would you know? And that's a good question if 439 00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,399 Speaker 3: they didn't want to be seen. If you have the 440 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,359 Speaker 3: technology to go from star to star, which is way 441 00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,840 Speaker 3: beyond what we think is even possible right now according 442 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,440 Speaker 3: to physics, chances are you're going to have good science 443 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,880 Speaker 3: to absorb radar. I mean we have that technology now. 444 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:25,880 Speaker 3: The stealth bombers and fighters absorb radar. So if you 445 00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:28,359 Speaker 3: ping them with radar and nothing returns back to the 446 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:30,639 Speaker 3: dish and you just don't see them, it might not 447 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:33,000 Speaker 3: be that hard to avoid us, and you wouldn't need 448 00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,760 Speaker 3: to land necessarily, even you could do remote sensing. We 449 00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,320 Speaker 3: do that now. Then people always ask me if you 450 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:40,800 Speaker 3: don't believe all of this footage, and I'm like, you 451 00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:42,880 Speaker 3: have terrible footage. But that's why I don't believe it. 452 00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:44,320 Speaker 3: But if you don't believe all this footage, what is 453 00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:46,120 Speaker 3: going to convince you landing on the White House line? 454 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,359 Speaker 3: And I'm like, yes, that is the standard of proof 455 00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:50,960 Speaker 3: that I am looking for. If you're going to make 456 00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:54,200 Speaker 3: a claim that is so extraordinary, it goes against everything 457 00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,680 Speaker 3: that everybody's been claiming for fifty years. And you want 458 00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,520 Speaker 3: me to believe that they're aliens. I want them to 459 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:02,560 Speaker 3: land on the White House lawn. I want them to 460 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,840 Speaker 3: have biology that is very different than ours, and when 461 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:07,720 Speaker 3: our scientists study it and they say, wow, they have 462 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,440 Speaker 3: six DNA pairs or something like that, six base pairs, 463 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,680 Speaker 3: very different than any life on Earth, a metal alloy, 464 00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,560 Speaker 3: or they can tell us something like what's the next 465 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:19,600 Speaker 3: star that's going to blow up? It's like that light 466 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:21,520 Speaker 3: is on its way to Earth. There's no way we 467 00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,200 Speaker 3: can know what star is going to blow up next, 468 00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,239 Speaker 3: and they can. They have faster than light travel. They 469 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:26,399 Speaker 3: can say, oh, it's going to be this star, and 470 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,480 Speaker 3: then two years later we see it something like that. 471 00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:29,800 Speaker 3: That's my standard of proof. 472 00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,760 Speaker 1: I think if something really is really happening to the 473 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,560 Speaker 1: United States or to the world are coming from people 474 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:37,040 Speaker 1: will look at it and experts will look at it. 475 00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,600 Speaker 1: It'll come out. It doesn't need me to try to say, hey, 476 00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:41,600 Speaker 1: I think there's something going on there. 477 00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:44,560 Speaker 3: I'm pretty familiar with the sky and so if I 478 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,840 Speaker 3: saw something like that, I'd be like, now, that's very interesting. 479 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,280 Speaker 3: That's not a satellite, it's not a meteor. Could it 480 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,679 Speaker 3: be a drone? And think about how higher drones and 481 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,520 Speaker 3: how fast is this moving. I can work that math out, 482 00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:57,840 Speaker 3: and if I can't, I can go online and ask 483 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 3: people about it. And that's kind of the difference between 484 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:04,560 Speaker 3: scientist and a conspiracy theorist. If I don't understand something, 485 00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:08,359 Speaker 3: I seek more information. When a conspiracy theorist doesn't understand something, 486 00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:12,720 Speaker 3: they wedge it into their already preconceived framework and say, 487 00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:14,520 Speaker 3: the government's lying to you, and this is clearly this 488 00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:16,720 Speaker 3: this when it's it's not clearly that at all. 489 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:19,960 Speaker 1: Just hold on for a short break. We'll be right back. 490 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:33,160 Speaker 2: So, Philip, I was wondering, how do you feel about 491 00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,800 Speaker 2: astrology and how do you for someone who believes in astrology. 492 00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:39,800 Speaker 2: What's your easiest way to say, Look, here's the difference 493 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:41,920 Speaker 2: between astronomy and astrology. I think a lot of people 494 00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:42,520 Speaker 2: mix them up. 495 00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,439 Speaker 3: Five thousand years ago, they were the same thing. It 496 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:46,679 Speaker 3: was the study of the stars and how they affected us. 497 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:51,600 Speaker 3: And eventually astronomy became a science when we started understanding 498 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,320 Speaker 3: the motions of the planets and gravity and how all 499 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,200 Speaker 3: that stuff work. People want to believe in the sort 500 00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,600 Speaker 3: of thing, and I get that. I get that desire 501 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,480 Speaker 3: to believe in something greater than ourselves. But in the 502 00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,160 Speaker 3: case of astrology, it just falls short. And it's very 503 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,520 Speaker 3: easy to read your horoscope and think, oh, this pertains 504 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,600 Speaker 3: to me. But again, we have tested this over and 505 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,280 Speaker 3: over again, including again using tests that astrologers have come 506 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,480 Speaker 3: up with, and when these tests are done correctly, they fail. 507 00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,080 Speaker 3: And when I was part of the skeptic community, part 508 00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,879 Speaker 3: of the critical thinking movement back in the two thousands, 509 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,560 Speaker 3: we did a lot of testing on this. And it's 510 00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:35,520 Speaker 3: funny how the skeptical movement had this bizarre almost group 511 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:42,000 Speaker 3: of people including scientists and magicians and mind readers mentalists. 512 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,159 Speaker 3: But the thing about magicians and mentalists is they know 513 00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,520 Speaker 3: how to fool people. They know what tricks make it 514 00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:50,679 Speaker 3: look like magic, make it look like something else is 515 00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,879 Speaker 3: going on, and what's really happening, And it's exactly the 516 00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,600 Speaker 3: sort of thing that han men do. I'm not saying 517 00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,320 Speaker 3: astrology is necessarily a con saying it's wrong. And so 518 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,680 Speaker 3: we tested this and I see mentalists do things that 519 00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,760 Speaker 3: I cannot figure out. How did that person know the 520 00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,879 Speaker 3: date on a coin in my pocket? And they're telling 521 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,760 Speaker 3: you the whole time, this isn't real. And so even 522 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:17,159 Speaker 3: when it seems like a horoscope accurately predicts you, there 523 00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,760 Speaker 3: are a thousand people out there whose horoscopes completely missed 524 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,920 Speaker 3: the mark, and you're the one that it worked with, 525 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,120 Speaker 3: and so you're the one who's now a believer. That's 526 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:27,040 Speaker 3: how these things work. 527 00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:32,639 Speaker 2: So certain zodiac signs are naturally inclined to excel in 528 00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:41,200 Speaker 2: espionage due to their unique traits and skills. Gorpio, Capricorn, Virgo, Gemini, 529 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:47,159 Speaker 2: and Pisces are the zodiac signs possessing qualities ideal for 530 00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,880 Speaker 2: covert operations and intelligence gathering. 531 00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:53,760 Speaker 3: It's just funny that we rely on these super outdated 532 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,520 Speaker 3: constellation ideas. I just wrote about this for Scientific American, 533 00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,159 Speaker 3: that these zodiac signs no longer correspond to where the 534 00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,520 Speaker 3: sun is in the sky. That's what the zodiac signs are. 535 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,359 Speaker 3: When you say you're a Libra. Then when you were born, 536 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,680 Speaker 3: the son was literally in that constellation. But over the 537 00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,080 Speaker 3: past twenty five hundred years, these constellations have shifted, and 538 00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,359 Speaker 3: so when you say you're a Libra, the son was 539 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,480 Speaker 3: actually in Virgo more likely when you were born. 540 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,840 Speaker 2: Maybe this is for people of a different generation. But 541 00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,960 Speaker 2: there was someone called Gene Dixon, and there was something 542 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:28,480 Speaker 2: known as the Gene Dixon effect, and she carently claims 543 00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,119 Speaker 2: to have and has some evidence that she predicted Kennedy's assassination, 544 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:36,280 Speaker 2: although it was a vague prediction before JFK was assassinated 545 00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,680 Speaker 2: and Dallas. But I have looked into this, and there 546 00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,720 Speaker 2: is something in scientific literature called the Gene Dixon effect. 547 00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,680 Speaker 2: It basically what she did is she just threw so 548 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,240 Speaker 2: much shit out there that so she also predicted that 549 00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,400 Speaker 2: we would have World War three in nineteen fifty eight 550 00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:56,480 Speaker 2: with China. She threw out so many predictions that some 551 00:28:56,560 --> 00:29:00,680 Speaker 2: of them came true, and she would then advertise those 552 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,200 Speaker 2: and the ones that didn't come true. She just sort 553 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,680 Speaker 2: of like God thought, right, And I think that for 554 00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,840 Speaker 2: pseudo science today. QAnon for example, right, I mean threw 555 00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,080 Speaker 2: all sorts of predictions, almost none of them came true. 556 00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,240 Speaker 2: Maybe a couple did. I mean, you know, it's you know, 557 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:16,520 Speaker 2: monkeys and typewriters. 558 00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,040 Speaker 3: And this is what I was talking about earlier, that 559 00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,160 Speaker 3: people tend to remember the hits and forget the misses. 560 00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,120 Speaker 3: So if you make a ton of predictions, and the 561 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,200 Speaker 3: beauty of this too is you can be super vague, 562 00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,240 Speaker 3: and a lot of astrology is vague. 563 00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:27,680 Speaker 6: And a lot of. 564 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,120 Speaker 3: These these psychics and the speakers to the dead, James 565 00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,080 Speaker 3: van Prague and a few others, John Edwards, that were 566 00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,400 Speaker 3: popular fifteen twenty years ago. Now, these guys would do 567 00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,240 Speaker 3: that same thing. They would just throw things out on 568 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,440 Speaker 3: you and the audience there, did you lose somebody recently? Yes, 569 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:42,600 Speaker 3: this is why they're there. 570 00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:43,000 Speaker 6: In the audience. 571 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:45,640 Speaker 3: I'm sensing a ja or an m. Is there is that? 572 00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:46,400 Speaker 1: Yeah? 573 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,840 Speaker 3: Because John and Mary and James and Margaret these very 574 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,600 Speaker 3: popular names, and they would just throw stuff out like 575 00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,720 Speaker 3: that and zero in on something until they started getting hits. 576 00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,320 Speaker 3: And even then the hits were like not great. 577 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:03,160 Speaker 7: And is somebody now pregnant? 578 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:04,800 Speaker 1: Who died? 579 00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,800 Speaker 7: Was so the person who passed was pregnant? Yes, okay, 580 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:12,600 Speaker 7: there's a reference to two people. There's two people, So 581 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,760 Speaker 7: I don't know if we're talking about two people involved 582 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,120 Speaker 7: in this case, but two people perpetrated it, or two 583 00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:21,200 Speaker 7: people are passed to be passed. You're telling me this 584 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,520 Speaker 7: is a husband and wife that was pregnant that was killed. Yes, 585 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:24,760 Speaker 7: did this make headlines? 586 00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:25,360 Speaker 8: Yes? 587 00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,440 Speaker 7: Okay, they're telling me to talk to you about Scott 588 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,680 Speaker 7: or skip or something. 589 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:33,840 Speaker 1: S K. 590 00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:35,959 Speaker 7: I don't know who that is. 591 00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:36,920 Speaker 8: I don't know who that is. 592 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,960 Speaker 7: So she's just a friend of yours, like a contemporary. Yes, yes, 593 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:41,680 Speaker 7: and it's her dad passed, but her mom's life. 594 00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:43,840 Speaker 9: No, both of the parents are alive. 595 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,600 Speaker 7: No, she's with an older male that's passed, like a father. 596 00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,760 Speaker 3: But people, first of all, they wanted to believe in 597 00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,880 Speaker 3: this stuff. And second, yeah, it's like you called it, 598 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:56,800 Speaker 3: the gene diiction effect, and we've seen it over and 599 00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,880 Speaker 3: over again. A mentalist friend of mine who is amazing. 600 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,240 Speaker 3: If you see one of his shows, you just cannot 601 00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,640 Speaker 3: believe this guy is not psychic, and he's not. He's 602 00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,600 Speaker 3: just really good at figuring out this sort of thing 603 00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,920 Speaker 3: and working people that way. He said, anybody in the 604 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,760 Speaker 3: audience here, anybody been hit by lightning? And nobody said anything, 605 00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:17,600 Speaker 3: and he laughed, and this was a skeptic audience, and 606 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,120 Speaker 3: he said, I always ask that. He said, nobody ever has, 607 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,080 Speaker 3: but someday somebody will have been. And boy, oh boy, 608 00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,480 Speaker 3: am I going to be a miracle worker that night? 609 00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,280 Speaker 3: And I thought, yeah, can you imagine somebody pulling that 610 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,600 Speaker 3: out and when you finally get that hit, that's going 611 00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 3: to really seem like that person is psychic. And yeah, 612 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:36,479 Speaker 3: and we see this over and over again. Look at 613 00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:40,080 Speaker 3: how many times Donald Trump has lied when he was 614 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,880 Speaker 3: president and people just forget and he's, oh, yeah, he 615 00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:45,640 Speaker 3: was wrong about this. It was always two weeks and 616 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,600 Speaker 3: in two weeks, we'll have an infrastructure plane. In two weeks, 617 00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:49,640 Speaker 3: we'll do this knowing that in two weeks the news 618 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,040 Speaker 3: that's five news cycles away, and people forget. So it's 619 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,920 Speaker 3: very easy once you've honed your audience, once you prime 620 00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:00,200 Speaker 3: them this way, that you can make them believe than 621 00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,800 Speaker 3: almost anything, no matter how nonsensical. 622 00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,240 Speaker 6: What you're saying is, guys, this is your producer, John Stern. 623 00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,840 Speaker 6: There's a conspiracy theory that I heard a couple of 624 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,400 Speaker 6: years ago that Elon Musk's whole thing about going to 625 00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,959 Speaker 6: Mars is a red herring. He's building up all of 626 00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,400 Speaker 6: his space force not to go to Mars, but to 627 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:23,240 Speaker 6: go to an asteroid and drag that asteroid into the 628 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,719 Speaker 6: orbit of Earth, and that asteroid is mostly gold and 629 00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:31,480 Speaker 6: in doing so control the Earth's economy. So is that 630 00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:33,680 Speaker 6: feasible on any level? 631 00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:35,719 Speaker 3: There are a lot of asteroids out there. There are 632 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,200 Speaker 3: a lot of them made of metal. NASA has already 633 00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:40,440 Speaker 3: launched a mission called Psyche, which is on its way 634 00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,200 Speaker 3: to an asteroid called Psyche that we think is mostly metal, 635 00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,560 Speaker 3: and it's quite large, and there are smaller ones that 636 00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:50,200 Speaker 3: will have a lot of interesting metals in them, platinum 637 00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,240 Speaker 3: and rare earth metals. Finding one that has enough gold 638 00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 3: in it to control the Earth's economy strikes me as 639 00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:01,040 Speaker 3: being unlikely. There's probably more gold in minds that you 640 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:05,440 Speaker 3: could get for much less effort and expense. So yeah, 641 00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:07,520 Speaker 3: if you want to go to asteroids to mind the metal, 642 00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:09,640 Speaker 3: and this is something that has been tried already, there 643 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,320 Speaker 3: have been a few startups that have tried to identify 644 00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,480 Speaker 3: asteroids and build ships that can go to them to 645 00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,160 Speaker 3: mind them. It turns out mining an asteroid is really tough. 646 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,640 Speaker 3: It's not as simple as they make it seem in 647 00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,360 Speaker 3: science fiction shows. But it's possible, and this is something 648 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,840 Speaker 3: we may be doing in one hundred years finding that 649 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:30,520 Speaker 3: much gold. I don't think so. Using to control the economy. 650 00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:32,720 Speaker 3: The guy's got two hundred and fifty billion dollars. He 651 00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,520 Speaker 3: already controls the economy. Conspiracy theories are like a pyramid 652 00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,800 Speaker 3: built upside down, is how I always say it. You've 653 00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 3: got this one sort of idea that everything rests on, 654 00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,560 Speaker 3: but that idea doesn't make sense. There's no balance there, 655 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:45,400 Speaker 3: and you build all this stuff on top of it, 656 00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,120 Speaker 3: It's gonna fall over. It's much better to flip that 657 00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,680 Speaker 3: pyramid over, get all your basic facts and build from there, 658 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,720 Speaker 3: as opposed to making up wild ideas and trying to 659 00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 3: get everything to fit. 660 00:33:55,760 --> 00:34:00,160 Speaker 2: So there was this strange relationship between Harry Houdin me 661 00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,760 Speaker 2: and yes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, right, the friends, and 662 00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,280 Speaker 2: then they became bitter enemies. Oh yeah, and who Deny 663 00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,160 Speaker 2: whose job it was was to convince people that he 664 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,600 Speaker 2: could break the laws of physics, that there was a 665 00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,680 Speaker 2: supernatural because it was like Penn and Teller, because he 666 00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:19,880 Speaker 2: knew there was no magic. He was he was against 667 00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:22,160 Speaker 2: this kind of thing. And in fact, I've got a 668 00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,640 Speaker 2: quote here when he's talking about astrologists, he says, these 669 00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,920 Speaker 2: call them human leeches, sucking every bit of reason and 670 00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:34,239 Speaker 2: common sense and money from their from their victims. And yet, Sir, 671 00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:38,319 Speaker 2: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character who was the 672 00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:43,600 Speaker 2: absolute hitome of rationality. Right, everything is a rational explanation, 673 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:48,200 Speaker 2: whatever it is. But Who Deny could not make Sir 674 00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,360 Speaker 2: Arthur Conan Doyle believe that he could not break. 675 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:52,840 Speaker 6: The laws of physix. 676 00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,239 Speaker 2: Good, right, he died thinking Who Deni was secretly supernatural 677 00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,040 Speaker 2: and that there was a supernatural So. 678 00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,120 Speaker 3: I almost mentioned Who Denie earlier when we were talking 679 00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,720 Speaker 3: about the skeptic movement, because Houdini was in many ways 680 00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,360 Speaker 3: one of the pioneers of magicians coming out and saying no, 681 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,800 Speaker 3: this is all nonsense. And Penn and Teller are a 682 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,759 Speaker 3: good example of people doing it now. James Randy, Back 683 00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,200 Speaker 3: when I was a kid, the Amazing Randy would go 684 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,920 Speaker 3: on the Carson Show and would debunk a lot of 685 00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:18,440 Speaker 3: these things. 686 00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:25,680 Speaker 8: Would you welcome, please, the Amazing Randy. What do you 687 00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,040 Speaker 8: think of the phenomenon that's going on now that is 688 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,720 Speaker 8: getting a lot of the channeling or if somebody speaks 689 00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,200 Speaker 8: through or they'd become the entity or the body or 690 00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,439 Speaker 8: the voice of somebody who's been dead twenty five they're 691 00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:37,120 Speaker 8: called channelers. 692 00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,839 Speaker 5: Let's face it, this is spiritualism warmed over. Spiritualist used 693 00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:42,719 Speaker 5: to be sitting in the dark with your hands overlapping, 694 00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:44,920 Speaker 5: play the Rock of Ages, and they could do anything 695 00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,000 Speaker 5: in the dark. Edgar Bergen used to do the same thing. 696 00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,360 Speaker 5: He changed his voice and he sounded like Charlie McCarthy. 697 00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,719 Speaker 5: No one ever said Charlie McCarthy was alive. And yet 698 00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,080 Speaker 5: these people are paying three hundred dollars a session to 699 00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:57,600 Speaker 5: go into these meetings. And these channelers themselves had got made. 700 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,279 Speaker 5: One of them said on a TV interview not long ago, Look, 701 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,560 Speaker 5: we can't prove that it's real, but you can't prove 702 00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,080 Speaker 5: that it isn't. It's a perfectly non falsifiable situation. 703 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,320 Speaker 3: Especially towards the end of his life, Randy was taking 704 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,040 Speaker 3: on speakers to the dead, These people who would say, 705 00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,120 Speaker 3: I'm sensing a presence at your father, blah blah blah. 706 00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,000 Speaker 3: And we call them psychic vultures, these people who would 707 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,240 Speaker 3: prey on the emotions of the bereaved. It's just awful 708 00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,520 Speaker 3: to watch that happen. And I've certainly met and dealt 709 00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:29,000 Speaker 3: with enough people who have come into conspiracy theories as 710 00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:33,480 Speaker 3: con artists. The Moon landing, remember Planet X, this giant 711 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,320 Speaker 3: planet in two thousand and three that was going to 712 00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,680 Speaker 3: come by the Earth and destroy humanity. Utter one hundred 713 00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,480 Speaker 3: percent nonsense, not a spec of truth to any of 714 00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:43,520 Speaker 3: the stuff. But there was this one guy who came in, 715 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,319 Speaker 3: became part of this sort of cult following around this 716 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,200 Speaker 3: one person, and then schismed off and started his own thing. 717 00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:52,680 Speaker 3: It seemed to me that it's possible that this guy 718 00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,400 Speaker 3: was a con man and not part of the believers, 719 00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,640 Speaker 3: but eventually grew to believe it. And there's a Moonhax 720 00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:03,320 Speaker 3: denier the same. It came in clearly using con artist 721 00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:07,640 Speaker 3: tricks to worm his way into this, but then later 722 00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,839 Speaker 3: on really seem to believe it. And of course it's 723 00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:13,400 Speaker 3: much easier to sell people on stuff if you believe 724 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:14,320 Speaker 3: in what you're selling. 725 00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,560 Speaker 2: So magic in espionage, especially in how we do things, 726 00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,520 Speaker 2: if you're unders fail. It's something that we have looked at. 727 00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,080 Speaker 1: There are stories, but it's true because I was involved 728 00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,479 Speaker 1: in it in places like Russia where we're under full 729 00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,600 Speaker 1: time surveillance at all times, we have to continue to 730 00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:34,080 Speaker 1: meet people or achieve our goals or accomplish things even 731 00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,160 Speaker 1: while under surveillance. And so we actually brought in magicians 732 00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:39,440 Speaker 1: to talk to us about are there ways of which 733 00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:42,680 Speaker 1: when someone is watching you can do things while they're 734 00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,320 Speaker 1: watching you to get away with things? Can you distract 735 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,279 Speaker 1: them or like you create the slight of hand, all 736 00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,040 Speaker 1: these kind of things. You're looking for ways to get 737 00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,920 Speaker 1: people who are perceiving you to misperceive what they're saying. 738 00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,319 Speaker 2: Well, in espionage, you never know when you need to 739 00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,000 Speaker 2: make a white tiger disappear. 740 00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,239 Speaker 1: So, Phil, thank you so much for spending time that 741 00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,600 Speaker 1: it's a really interesting and keep up what you're doing, 742 00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,439 Speaker 1: keep up educating the public. I think it's an important time. 743 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:07,719 Speaker 1: I think we as a people need to get back 744 00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:09,760 Speaker 1: to focusing on rationality and sciences. 745 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,640 Speaker 2: Thanks for being up frontman for us for keeping people 746 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,799 Speaker 2: from realizing that we do have space ariens trip at 747 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:21,200 Speaker 2: Area fifty one where we are first engineering their technology. 748 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 3: I'm not at liberty to talk about that. 749 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:34,560 Speaker 9: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'sha, John Seipher, 750 00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:39,960 Speaker 9: and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner mission implausible. 751 00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:43,280 Speaker 9: It is a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures. 752 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,960 Speaker 6: For iHeart Podcasts,