Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Speaker 2: Michah Hanks back with us. Journalist, author, podcaster, co founder
Speaker 2: and creative force behind The Debrief, which is a news
Speaker 2: site that explores the latest in science and disruptive technology.
Speaker 2: He's a longtime researcher, proponent of the scientific study of
Speaker 2: UFOs and hosts his on weekly podcast called The Micah
Speaker 2: Hanks Program. Michaeh Welcome back to the program.
Speaker 3: George Norri, Happy New Year. How are you?
Speaker 4: I'm great? How about yourself?
Speaker 3: Doing really good? Always good to hear your voice then again,
Speaker 3: of course hosting late night radio, guiding us to the
Speaker 3: morning light every evening as you do, I hear it often.
Speaker 2: So tomorrow we start our twenty third year. Micah, can
Speaker 2: you believe that?
Speaker 3: Unbelievable? But you know, time does fly. I kind of
Speaker 3: like that Pink Floyd song you were.
Speaker 4: Playing, so yeah, really it does.
Speaker 2: How did you get so interested in the study of UFO?
Speaker 3: You know, I think kind of like James Bond was
Speaker 3: described by Ian Fleming. He's a really normal guy who
Speaker 3: finds himself in really interesting situations. I've never seen a UFO,
Speaker 3: but I'm fascinated with the stories that people tell about
Speaker 3: them and George for years, like yourself. I mean, I
Speaker 3: have received the most incredible stories from people, law enforcement,
Speaker 3: military personnel, you, people in all walks of life who
Speaker 3: have seen things in the skies and sometimes also in
Speaker 3: our oceans and under other circumstances that just aren't easily explained.
Speaker 3: And so I'm just very passionate about trying to understand.
Speaker 3: Even if we never figure out entirely what it's all about,
Speaker 3: I want to try and learn as much, collect as
Speaker 3: much data, and try and really put some work behind
Speaker 3: trying to understand what this all means.
Speaker 4: Micah.
Speaker 2: Back when I was a kid, my mother brought me
Speaker 2: a book by the then New York Times science writer
Speaker 2: Walter Sullivan called We Are Not Alone, and it was
Speaker 2: based on his theory of life out there in the Union.
Speaker 4: I read that as a little kid, and I was talked.
Speaker 4: I said, this is what I want to study. Bomb.
Speaker 4: I love this stuff, and yah, you know you've got
Speaker 4: the bug too.
Speaker 3: I do. And it was very similar for me, you know,
Speaker 3: when I was about five years old. Full disclosure, my
Speaker 3: father had books like, for instance, UFO's Interplanetary Visitors by
Speaker 3: Ray Fowler, just a fantastic researcher and you know, really
Speaker 3: a boots on the ground kind of researcher too. When
Speaker 3: reports would come in, he would get up there, he
Speaker 3: would investigate. And that book also Ivan Sanderson's landmark book
Speaker 3: on Abominable Snowman Legend Come to Life, and a few
Speaker 3: others were books in my dad's collection. And I couldn't
Speaker 3: even read by the time I was asking for those books,
Speaker 3: and my parents said, hey, you know, if he's asking
Speaker 3: for books, let's give him some. I don't think they
Speaker 3: knew at that young age that they were going to
Speaker 3: be setting the course for where I would go for
Speaker 3: the rest of my life. But here we are, Mike.
Speaker 2: There are people who know you know your stand on
Speaker 2: extraterrestrial life, But what about for people who don't know,
Speaker 2: what do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, extraterrestrial life probably exists. We can't certainly say that
Speaker 3: there's life out there on other worlds. But I mean,
Speaker 3: I would just put it to you like this. If
Speaker 3: you look at our oceans, you look at octopus, or
Speaker 3: if you look at squid, if you look on land
Speaker 3: in places like Australia, and you see the platypus, the
Speaker 3: strange combination of all these characteristics in a single organism.
Speaker 3: If you look at smaller organisms, you know, you look
Speaker 3: at phytoplankton that exists in our oceans and that sometimes
Speaker 3: can be carried up into the atmosphere. You look at
Speaker 3: the tartar grades. They can make their way up into space,
Speaker 3: and they can sometimes find their way into very unusual places,
Speaker 3: and they look very alien. I would argue that there
Speaker 3: is extreme diversity here on planet Earth. Some of the
Speaker 3: organisms right here on our lovely little mudball planet Earth,
Speaker 3: they look very alien. And I just find it extremely
Speaker 3: hard to believe that with liquid methane oceans on moons
Speaker 3: and circling planets in our own Solar system, with the
Speaker 3: very promising indications right now getting from the James Webspace Telescope,
Speaker 3: when we look at the atmospheres of exoplanets light years
Speaker 3: from Earth, I find it almost impossible to think that
Speaker 3: there isn't life out there. And indeed, if we look
Speaker 3: at the question of intelligent life and where it may exist,
Speaker 3: some of the UFO data is very compelling in terms
Speaker 3: of that possibility. That possibility that life may not only
Speaker 3: exist somewhere out there, but that it might have actually
Speaker 3: made its way into our own cosmic backyard, maybe even
Speaker 3: into our own atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Before you came on, Mike, I had Mike Baron. We
Speaker 2: were getting his reaction to these congressional hearings on the
Speaker 2: UFOs UAPs as.
Speaker 4: They call them. What's your take on those things?
Speaker 3: Well, the hearings have been really interesting. Most recently, of course,
Speaker 3: we had a former counter intelligence officer, Louela Zondo participating
Speaker 3: in those hearings. Also Rear Admiral Tim Galladett, who I've
Speaker 3: met and spoken with, Mike Gold, former NASA official, and
Speaker 3: then also a journal list Mike Schellenberger, very much like myself,
Speaker 3: who is tracking these stories from whistleblowers and get a
Speaker 3: ride up front. One thing I should say, George, you
Speaker 3: know you again also a nightcap veteran and someone who's
Speaker 3: had a long history with us. We had whistleblowers coming
Speaker 3: forward for decades, decades saying that there is something going on,
Speaker 3: something more than what the government is letting us know.
Speaker 3: And some of those former officials during these most recent
Speaker 3: hearings were saying that too. And although the congressional hearing
Speaker 3: got a tremendous amount of attention. Another hearing followed that
Speaker 3: almost immediately thereafter, with a new director of the All
Speaker 3: Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the official UFO hunting unit within
Speaker 3: the Pentagon. Doctor John Kazlowski. The new director, testified before
Speaker 3: members of the Senate and he told some incredible stories
Speaker 3: about some what he called good UAP cases. So, as
Speaker 3: far as what I think about this, not only do
Speaker 3: we have former intelligence officials coming forward saying, look, there
Speaker 3: is a there there, and I think there is more
Speaker 3: going on and the public deserves to really know to
Speaker 3: the extent what's happening, we also have career scientists and
Speaker 3: intelligence officials currently still within government saying, there there, We're
Speaker 3: tracking these phenomena. We don't know what all of them are,
Speaker 3: but there is certainly something worth studying. I mean, and
Speaker 3: that me alone should really indicate to the American people
Speaker 3: and to people all around the world the UFO phenomenon,
Speaker 3: once stigmatized, once ridiculed by the science community, it's something
Speaker 3: that is being taken very seriously. It should be taken seriously.
Speaker 3: Stigmas should be removed, and we should really seriously be
Speaker 3: looking at this phenomenon that has been present and as
Speaker 3: people like you and I know for decades, maybe much
Speaker 3: longer than that too.
Speaker 2: Why do you think they're doing these sharings to kind
Speaker 2: of appease the public or is there something going on?
Speaker 3: As a journalist who follows this, George, I have to say,
Speaker 3: I mean, it is interesting to see this because I
Speaker 3: think back in the nineteen sixties there had been a
Speaker 3: limited amount of congressional action taken with regard to sightings
Speaker 3: waves that were occurring at that time, and of course
Speaker 3: at that time there was also a formal government study
Speaker 3: you and I know it very well, Project Bluebook, that
Speaker 3: was the longest systematic study that looked at this phenomenon
Speaker 3: by as far as I know any government, apart from
Speaker 3: allegations of secret programs that have been made over the years.
Speaker 3: But in terms of why they're doing it now, what
Speaker 3: we really saw over the last few years, and this
Speaker 3: all kind of starting in twenty seventeen, was renewed interest
Speaker 3: after it was revealed that, first of all, there was
Speaker 3: a Defense Intelligence Agency program that was looking at this.
Speaker 3: That was a big shocker for people, and it was
Speaker 3: equally shocking to see this reported in a paper of Record,
Speaker 3: the New York Times, several in fact, the Washington Post,
Speaker 3: Politico and others. Really, these kinds of developments are what
Speaker 3: led me to founddebrief dot org, and that's where we
Speaker 3: report on these issues frequently. But public scrutiny, people being interested,
Speaker 3: people saying wait a minute, you told us you didn't
Speaker 3: study this stuff, and now we're learning that you did.
Speaker 3: That certainly got lawmakers interested, and there is a small
Speaker 3: nexus of lawmakers that are still saying, hey, look, if
Speaker 3: these people say that there is more going on here
Speaker 3: than what the American people have been told, we need
Speaker 3: to look at this. But the other side of this
Speaker 3: that's so concerning to George is that some of those
Speaker 3: lawmakers are also hearing from some of the alleged whistleblowers
Speaker 3: that hey, guess what, there also may be secret programs,
Speaker 3: special access programs the Congress isn't being informed about. Now,
Speaker 3: how can they have oversight of these issues as elected
Speaker 3: officials if they aren't being told about these programs. So again,
Speaker 3: journalistically or in terms of lawmakers looking at this issue,
Speaker 3: people want to know what we haven't been told.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, Mike Bearra thinks that Lewis el Azando is
Speaker 2: a disinformation officer.
Speaker 4: What do you think of that?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, that is a component that has always
Speaker 3: been an issue when it comes to the UFO phenomenon.
Speaker 3: There have been people who have worked in government and
Speaker 3: for various reasons, they will come out and they will
Speaker 3: make claims or they will stir the pot, and they
Speaker 3: will make allegations that sometimes aren't true. And I think
Speaker 3: what really people have to understand about this is that
Speaker 3: a fundamental part of intelligence and collecting information involves counter intelligence,
Speaker 3: which again is a quade, a rabbit hole we could
Speaker 3: go down. I think.
Speaker 2: Remember the early sixties abduction case of Barney and Betty.
Speaker 3: L Sure you do.
Speaker 2: It's one of the best. It still remains one of
Speaker 2: the best. This subject's been going on for such a
Speaker 2: long long time. Are we ever going to get the answer?
Speaker 3: I hope so. I wonder if in our lifetime will know.
Speaker 3: You look at the Barney and Betty Hill case and
Speaker 3: you would think that again, the story that they told
Speaker 3: about meeting individuals seeing a craft that appear to be
Speaker 3: pacing them not unlike what some of the descriptions provided
Speaker 3: by military officers described in recent reports published by the
Speaker 3: Allday Anomaly resolution officer Aero described if you're that couple saying,
Speaker 3: you know, not only did we see a flying object,
Speaker 3: we were taken aboard that flying object. We interacted with
Speaker 3: the occupants on board that thing, and they even claimed
Speaker 3: that there was some physical evidence. You would think that
Speaker 3: something like that would settle the debate, right, and yet
Speaker 3: maybe decades later, we're still talking about that case. The
Speaker 3: thing that I think really has to be emphasized is
Speaker 3: that some of history's best cases, people are still curious,
Speaker 3: but they're also still skeptical. And what I always try
Speaker 3: to is a journalist who covers this, George, I try
Speaker 3: to emphasize to people, Look if the stories and the
Speaker 3: history of upology doesn't do enough, or you go online,
Speaker 3: go to Arrowaaro dot mill and read the reports that
Speaker 3: the Pentagon is now publishing through that office. Read their reports.
Speaker 3: Look at the characteristics that they describe about the UAP
Speaker 3: as the military calls them, that are being studied. Look
Speaker 3: at the resolution case studies where they say we can
Speaker 3: explain some of these things, but look at the number
Speaker 3: that aren't explained. Look at how they say the FAA
Speaker 3: is now providing reports to them. Listen to this weekly
Speaker 3: look at all the pilots who are saying that they've
Speaker 3: encountered these objects. You know, I collect those reports from
Speaker 3: pilots and from civilians, from law enforcement officers, and from
Speaker 3: members of the military myself. And when you read all
Speaker 3: of those reports and you see all of that data,
Speaker 3: there would have to be there. There would have to
Speaker 3: be some kind of fire for there to be so
Speaker 3: much smoke. George.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy one, Micah I interviewed Barney and Betty
Speaker 2: Hill's psychiatrist, doctor Benjamin Simon, and I asked him, I said,
Speaker 2: doctor Simon, were they telling you the truth? He said,
Speaker 2: under hypnosis, they were not lying. I don't know what
Speaker 2: happened to them, but whatever happened to them, they believe
Speaker 2: it to be true.
Speaker 4: And that's good enough for me. Now, that was pretty astounding.
Speaker 3: Doctor Simon should, I think, be commended for the role
Speaker 3: that he played in all that. And unfortunately a lot
Speaker 3: of those recordings, some of them kind of unsettling. But
Speaker 3: the recordings of Vettim Barney Hill under hypnosis and their
Speaker 3: recollection of the events are still accessible online and you
Speaker 3: can listen to those, and it's clear that there's a
Speaker 3: lot of emotion that comes out. And you know, again
Speaker 3: some would say, well, but you know, if it was
Speaker 3: hypnosis and this wasn't waking memory, we should take that
Speaker 3: with a grain of salt. We should be careful. I'll
Speaker 3: also point out that, you know, again, n ICAP, the
Speaker 3: civilian organization, the largest UFO investigative organization at that time,
Speaker 3: they had actually interviewed the Hills before the hypnosis occurred,
Speaker 3: and Barney Hill gave very very detailed descriptions not only
Speaker 3: of the craft that he observed while standing in a
Speaker 3: field outside his car looking through binoculars, but he also
Speaker 3: described seeing the occupants on board that craft clearly through
Speaker 3: the windows. He described their behavior, facial expressions, he could
Speaker 3: see the manner of dress. You know, again, it was
Speaker 3: extremely detailed information that was provided. And again all that
Speaker 3: before the hypnosis that revealed the deeper level of the
Speaker 3: encounter and what they claim to have experienced. But doctor
Speaker 3: Simon again going on the record as a medical professional
Speaker 3: and saying, listen, I don't know what it was that
Speaker 3: happened to them. I can only tell you in my
Speaker 3: professional opinion that these two were not lying in whatever
Speaker 3: happened to them. They certainly believe that it was real.
Speaker 3: You add to that the report and the information from
Speaker 3: before the hypnosis, and again I see why, and I
Speaker 3: maintained myself that it's an incredible case.
Speaker 2: Of all the reports you have looked at, which ones
Speaker 2: do you think are the most compelling?
Speaker 3: I mean, I couldn't say ones. I would have to
Speaker 3: say dozens, George, I mean there are so many. It
Speaker 3: one of course, that has really come to public light
Speaker 3: and that people hear about a lot these days, and
Speaker 3: there are reasons why it is scrutinized, and also that
Speaker 3: it continues to fascinate us. But it's this NIMTS incident
Speaker 3: from back in two thousand and four where Navy pilots
Speaker 3: piloting FA eighteen super Hornets with the USS Knimetz Carrier Group,
Speaker 3: they were conducting these expirit these training operations out off
Speaker 3: of the California coast and for several weeks actually using
Speaker 3: the new phase to rate radar systems that had been
Speaker 3: instituted at that time. They were detecting objects and they
Speaker 3: first thought, well, you know, we're seeing a malfunction. It's
Speaker 3: a new system. This shouldn't be happening. George. I've talked
Speaker 3: with at least one of those radar operators sat there
Speaker 3: and spoken with him in the room with him, Gary Voorhees,
Speaker 3: and he said, it was such a situation for us
Speaker 3: that we shut down the system, booted it back up,
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what was happening. We're still detecting
Speaker 3: these objects out there. So eventually they vector two pilots
Speaker 3: and their weapons systems officers. They fly out there. I
Speaker 3: have met and spoke into one of those two pilots,
Speaker 3: Alex Dietrich, and then they get out there, they see
Speaker 3: this little object. It's kill or tick tact shaped and
Speaker 3: it's moving erratically over the ocean surface. And as Captain Dave,
Speaker 3: or rather Commander Dave Fraber, goes in to take a
Speaker 3: look as he's flying down to get closer to the object,
Speaker 3: it turns toward him, ZiT by and disappears, and then
Speaker 3: they're notified by the radar operators. We've got the thing
Speaker 3: on radar again and it's at our cap point, which
Speaker 3: is a location used for those training exercises that is
Speaker 3: only discussed over encrypted channels. So how did this thing
Speaker 3: know where to go? What was the object? And it
Speaker 3: was of course filmed later that same day by another
Speaker 3: weapon systems officer on board another Fa eighteen super Hornet
Speaker 3: that went out was in the same training area. There's
Speaker 3: a reason why that case is such a landmark. And
Speaker 3: as the gentleman who filmed that object, Commander Chad Underwood. Now,
Speaker 3: Underwood said, you know, the thing was jamming our radar
Speaker 3: while we were trying to film it. In my opinion,
Speaker 3: and this is how he characterized it. When it is
Speaker 3: operating in controlled military airspace during military training operations and
Speaker 3: it is actively trying to jam our radar, that is
Speaker 3: what we would call an active war. Now, I don't
Speaker 3: think that there's war intended by whoever or whatever was
Speaker 3: operating that thing, but he characterizes that to emphasize this
Speaker 3: is not the kind of thing that the military does
Speaker 3: not take seriously. That's what the American people and so
Speaker 3: many others around the world need to understand. Our military
Speaker 3: is having ongoing encounters with objects that behave in that way,
Speaker 3: and we do need to try to get to the
Speaker 3: bottomble what these things are and what that means.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty four, a police officer by the name
Speaker 2: of Lannie Zamora in Scoro, New Mexico, saw what he
Speaker 2: thought was a car crash on the side of the road.
Speaker 2: As he approached it, he realized, this isn't a car crash,
Speaker 2: some kind of object and he saw two beans screwing
Speaker 2: around that got in it and took off. That case
Speaker 2: convinced Jay Allen Heinek that there's more to this than
Speaker 2: he thought.
Speaker 4: What do you think of that one?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad you asked about that jeorce. Did you
Speaker 3: know I've been to where Lonnie Zamora saw that landed
Speaker 3: craft and its occupants. I went there with David Marler,
Speaker 3: who is an incredible researcher who actually also now has
Speaker 3: one of the largest UFO collections in the United States,
Speaker 3: the National UFO Historical Record Center, which I've been there.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be going back there soon. But David
Speaker 3: and I we jumped in his jeep and we went
Speaker 3: out there to the site, and we stood on the
Speaker 3: hill and we walked down into the desert and there
Speaker 3: it is the landing site. What I think happened, I mean,
Speaker 3: I couldn't know for certain, but I do know this
Speaker 3: that you know, a respected law enforcement officer there in SoCoRo,
Speaker 3: New Mexico, had actually been involved in a police chase.
Speaker 3: There had been a vehicle he was chasing first, and
Speaker 3: he sees out of the corner of his eyes something
Speaker 3: going down, and he was concerned because there was a
Speaker 3: T and T shack up on the other side of
Speaker 3: the hill there. He had been worried about that. And
Speaker 3: he goes up as the gravel's spinning. You know in
Speaker 3: that road that Lonnie literally drove his police car up
Speaker 3: is still there. I've been right there to it, and
Speaker 3: so being able to see this and replay these events
Speaker 3: in my mind was fascinating. But he's going up the hill,
Speaker 3: gets to the top of the hill, he sees, like
Speaker 3: you described, what he thought maybe was a car accident,
Speaker 3: and he said, I thought there were a couple of
Speaker 3: kids standing next to what I presume was the overturned car,
Speaker 3: because I saw him, and they looked startled. Their body
Speaker 3: language seemed to indicate they were startled by my presence.
Speaker 3: So he starts to drive closer to try and get
Speaker 3: over there and help, and suddenly this thing starts making noise,
Speaker 3: flame is shooting out of the bottom of it. As
Speaker 3: he says, it lifts off of the ground. And again
Speaker 3: Lonnie didn't know what this object was. He described it
Speaker 3: as being kind of egg shaped, and I would say
Speaker 3: probably not unlike the description of the object that Commander
Speaker 3: Dave Freber and Alex Dietrich described that oval egg or
Speaker 3: tic tac shape. This object begins lifting off the ground.
Speaker 3: It's making a tremendous amount of noise. Lonis the more
Speaker 3: leaps to the ground, thinking it's going to explode, and
Speaker 3: then suddenly the noise dies down. He looks over his
Speaker 3: shoulder and the object is zipping off away toward the mountains.
Speaker 3: I stood there and looked at those mountains and again
Speaker 3: replaying those events in my mind, at the place where
Speaker 3: it all happened. It's got to be one of history's
Speaker 3: absolutely best encounters. And you can see why as the
Speaker 3: man on the ground that the Air Force sent just
Speaker 3: days later. Yeah, Jay Allen, heinez looked at that case.
Speaker 3: He saw the scorch earth, you know, and the upturned
Speaker 3: stones and the gravel, and the disturbance on the ground
Speaker 3: where this thing he'd land that it had landing gear
Speaker 3: that helped it come down. Clearly something happened there. Physical
Speaker 3: trace evidence was left and no less than a law
Speaker 3: enforcement officer was the witness who said he saw it.
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