WEBVTT - Majic Kingdom 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.279 I read somewhere that I think it was Sammy Davis 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.240 Junior who had a UFO experience. He did Bill were 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:07.280 talking with Bill about that? 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:09.320 Or yeah he did, because we were talking about the 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:11.600 twenty seventh Day and he goes, yeah, well, you know, 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.680 Sammy saw one, and I was like, what tell me 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.000 about it? And that image of Sammy Davis Junior seeing 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.799 a UFO is really quite amusing. He told Bill about it, 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.160 but he told many other people. He said he had 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.920 seen a group of small silver discs, and this was 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.080 the early fifties, not a single light, but multiple lights, 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.600 multiple objects, and he described them as hovering and darting 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.440 and doing things that aircraft don't do. And then this 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.080 is the word that Bill used, and then poof, they 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.479 were gone. But that sounds pretty familiar to a lot 0:00:41.520 --> 0:01:04.760 of the testimony we get these days. I'm Brice Sable. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.679 Have you ever wondered if there's a secret connection between 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:08.959 Hollywood and UFOs? 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.199 And I'm Brent Friedman. You are listening to sound, light 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:13.280 and frequency. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.800 In this episode, we'll be taking a visit to the 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.280 Magic Kingdom and finding flying saucers. 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.000 And we're going to tell you a story about the 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.720 American TV network that cut the mic on a live 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:30.759 broadcast about UFO investigations. 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.080 So anyway, last week, I'm taking a peloton class with 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.320 Cody Rigsby, and now the guy is usually entertaining enough 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.160 to get me through forty five minutes on a stationary bike, 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.520 but I kind of realize I'm not listening to a 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.000 word the man is saying because my mind's already locked 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.240 in on this episode we're doing. But I couldn't get 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.120 out of my head was this Disney and UFOs last 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.960 episode we got up to nineteen fifty three when the 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.480 CIA's Robertson panel actually recommended the UFO subject be made less, 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.680 i don't know, respectable, and they even floated the idea 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.359 of recruiting mass media, specifically including Disney, to help do it. 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.360 And that was seventy three years ago. But here's the 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.720 thing that hit me while I was peddling away. Disney 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.279 isn't just a historical footnote. Disney is the current epicenter 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.080 of this because today Disney doesn't merely touch alien life, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.760 they industrialize it. Besides Disney branded content, they also own Marvel, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.520 where the cosmos is packed with non human intelligences. They 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.720 own Star Wars with a canteena full of aliens in 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.080 every era, and with the Fox Library folded in, They've 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.240 got Avatar, they've got Alien Planet of the Apes and 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.400 X Files. That's a lot of franchises in the broader orbits. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.040 So Brent, maybe it was just a case of surging 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.480 and dorphins. I don't know, but I've never really looked 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.240 at it this way. But if you go to your 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:55.280 Disney Plus app, you're going to find a lot of 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.400 options that deal with non human intelligence. What do you 0:02:58.400 --> 0:02:59.320 think we should make of that? 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.440 Well, I think there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.359 says that's not a coincidence, and there's even more actual, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:12.919 hard evidence that says there was conversations and possibly some 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:18.399 type of deal made between the Robertson panel and Disney 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.720 way back when. And you could say, well, that was then, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.600 this is now. The obviously Walt Disney is no longer around, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.280 so whatever deal was made back in the fifties, but institutionally, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:36.040 I think there's a reason to believe that maybe whatever 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.720 was agreed upon is still in force. It's fascinating because 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.440 as we've done the research for this episode, you keep 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.440 turning up things post Robertson panel, and just to rewind 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.600 to the Robertson panel, and remember the CIA sponsored it. 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.560 It's nineteen fifty three, and they start talking in their 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.720 four day I guess get together about an educational program 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.720 which is going to have two aims training and they 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.080 act actually use the word debunking. I think it's the 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.800 first time debunking has really shown up. And they say 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.160 we should use television and motion pictures and they list 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.840 potential partners and it specifically lists Disney Walt Disney Inc. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.760 Animated Cartoons, O thing. It mentions his Jam Handy Company, 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.760 and I didn't even know what that was, but they 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.359 were famous for World War II training films. So the 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.599 Robertson panel, you know, it was kind of looking back 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.880 on World War Two, but also looking ahead to Disney. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.520 Remember Disneyland doesn't open for two more years, so Disney 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:39.279 at this point is just a content provider. So what 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.120 happened is in the aftermath of the panel, there's a 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.760 guy at Disney top animator Ward Kimball, and he starts 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.400 talking or other. They try to put together a documentary 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.800 that'll be mentioning the whole UFO area. And we don't 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.320 hear about this till nineteen seventy nine. Stanton Friedman actually 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.719 heard and testified that Ward Kimbolt started talking about this 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.839 and at the time he was saying that Disney was 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:12.480 going to get real UFO footage from the government. And 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.480 what happened to that? Can you even imagine? I can't. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.960 And they didn't get it. That's all you need to imagine. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.599 No footage, Yeah, because I feel like if they had 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.840 gotten footage, we might be in a completely different place 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.680 at this point in time. But I think step back 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.520 for a second and consider what was the motivation of 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.760 the Robertson panel to talk to Disney if it was 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:40.080 not to either a start a disclosure program, right to 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:46.120 soften up the general public, or some type of disinformation meaning, Hey, 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.880 wait a minute, this whole UFO flying saucer story is 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.640 getting out of our control. Let's take back control by 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:58.440 changing the narrative. And let's do that with agreements from 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.280 the people who are making stories that are shaping people's minds. 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.000 Well, just for clarity on that whole thing, Kimball, Ward 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.200 Kimball said he was approached by people who were tied 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.720 into Douglas aircraft kind of interesting and you'll love this 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.400 one the Office of Naval Research. So there's then they 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.919 made again reaching out to say, hey, we need to 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.039 control this narrative, and they were going to have him 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.719 do a UFO picture. Now, admittedly that one didn't come 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.640 together in the way that they wanted to do it. 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.000 They wanted to end with actual footage. They didn't get it, 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.919 but they did have a Disney Tomorrowland series on I 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.279 think one of the mini documentaries they did that had 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.640 this great animation that Kimball had done. Also ended with 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.440 a bunch of flying saucers at the end, so they 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.280 were in the mode. But they were dismissive of that. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:54.760 But I got to tell you it may be harder 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.360 for us to get into what they did or did 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.760 not do in the fifties. But man, in the nineties, 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.240 there are two whopper events that kind of blow your mind. Right. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.679 So we've got the Disney UFO conference in nineteen ninety five, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.600 and then we've got the Alien Encounters experience in the 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:17.240 New Tomorrowland, also from nineteen ninety five. And interestingly, as 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.560 we said, by this point, Walt Disney rest his soul 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.120 had passed away and there was a completely new chairman 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.800 of Disney, Michael Eisner, who will come back to in 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:28.920 a moment in terms of how he may play a 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:30.360 part in all of this arrangement. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.000 We'll do the conference. Last, Let's do what was called 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.160 Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland. This is nineteen ninety five, folks, 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:42.240 and this was a documentary that was commissioned by Disney 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.440 on the idea that they were opening up a new 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.880 ride in Orlando. And it was called The Extra terror 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:55.040 Restrial Alien Encounter Terror spelled ter in all caps, okay, 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.000 And it's a forty minute runtime and as I understand it, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.320 just so you know, this wasn't documentary that was going 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.840 to be put out over the airwaves or anything. It 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.320 was for the ride. And yet I got to tell 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.160 you I got a couple of quotes from Brent. This 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.000 is mind blowing because, Okay, Robert Urich, who maybe not 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.040 everybody knows today, but he was a big deal back then, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.200 and he is the host of it, and he says 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.240 in this documentary that would again meet all the people 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.400 as they got in line to go see this new ride, 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.400 and beyond it, Robert Eurex says, I guess this is 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.360 what they would play, why they were holding. 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.319 People before they went on exactly at it. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.720 So here's what Urik says. He says quote. For nearly 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.959 fifty years, officials have been documenting routine alien encounters here 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.160 on Earth. More than one alien craft crashed and was 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.440 recovered for secret US military research. The most famous case 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.679 took place in July of nineteen forty seven, just outside 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.560 the community of Roswell, New Mexico. Indications are the government, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.520 military and scientific leaders will soon release nearly a half 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:05.439 century of official documentation of ongoing alien encounters on Earth. Okay, 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.280 admittedly it's the Gin people up for the ride, but 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.560 that's pretty dramatic stuff and it kind of fits in 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:12.680 with what we think today. 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.680 And who approved that text that feels like they're reading 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.040 a news briefing, Well, I think Eisner approved it. 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.160 And the reason I say that is I got one 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.760 more great quote for you. Eisner insisted on doing the 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.200 intro to this thing. Okay, so before this quote that 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.800 I just read you from Robert Urich, this is what 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.760 Michael Eisner, who is running Disney, has to say. He 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.160 says this quote and. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.520 Wait, let me just give you some context for everything. Okay, 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.560 in the nineties, Disney was arguably the most powerful and 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:48.400 successful movie studio. So this is the chairman or the 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.160 CEO president of Disney, the person running the show at Disney, 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.920 the most powerful person in Hollywood. Now go ahead, Okay, Well, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.160 we'd also know Eisner had a bit of an ego. 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.520 I mean he liked to on camera and be interviewed 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.360 and things like that. That's not a knock on him 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.920 as a human being, but it might explain what he said, Hey, 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.520 I'd like to do the intro because he figured millions 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.439 of people every year were going to be getting on 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.440 this thing. It's what he said, though. 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.719 Because he participated in this, and clearly nobody asked to 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.000 say anything they don't want to say. I mean, if 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.440 you put dialogue in front of an actor, they don't 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.160 have to say it unless they want to. This is 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:26.240 what Eisener said. Quote at a military installation somewhere in 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.840 the United States. There are those who believe that the 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:32.520 government is hiding the remains of an alien spacecraft that 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.760 mysteriously crashed to Earth. With more and more scientific evidence 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:41.120 of alien encounters and UFO sidings, the idea of creatures 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:45.600 from another planet be as far fetched as we once thought. 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:50.120 Wow, yeah, that's pretty staggering. And I think so, now, 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:55.560 let's examine what this ride, this experience actually was. It was, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.560 by all accounts, not Disney at all. It was, as 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:04.679 you mentioned, it was a terror, an extra terrestrial experience 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.400 that many parents felt was way too intense for kids. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.720 It was all about trying to transport to the leader 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.240 of some alien race down to Earth. Something goes wrong 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.400 and a terrible monster comes. An alien monster comes in 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.520 to the theater and starts wreaking havoc, and people are 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.120 experiencing it behind them, They're feeling it breathing down their necks, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.160 and kids were crying. So again, if we think about 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:36.120 the possibility that there was some direction to embrace alien 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.120 storytelling back in the fifties, this was the end result 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.040 of it, all those years later, something that felt very 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:48.280 real and very terrifying for the audience done at Disney, 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.560 which feels just complete counter programming to everything else that 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:52.679 they had there at the park. 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.079 And let's remember this is forty two years later after 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.959 the Robertson panel. So I don't know what that means, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.480 because it could easily mean that they if they were 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.520 doing it then they'd been doing it all along, But 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:05.880 we don't have a lot of cases about that. Or 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.680 it could be nobody really did what that Robertson panel 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.600 wanted because they wanted it. They just did it because 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.840 they thought aliens were good box office or something. I suppose. 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.600 But it is kind of fishy about that because that 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.719 documentary only mentions the ride for five minutes at the end, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.200 So it's thirty five minutes of UFO stuff and five 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.640 minutes about the ride. Kind of interesting, but maybe they 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.720 were hiding the monster anyway. It only aired in a 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.280 handful of US cities because they did air it at 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.600 random times on a few selected dates in February March 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.000 of ninety five, and it had no advanced notice. Okay, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.120 so if you think about it, who does that? Right? 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.319 Who does that? And I believe it's the director of it? 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.360 He said quote an incredibly odd marketing strategy, considering its 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.480 purpose was to promote a major theme park ride for families. 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.160 Yeah, I mean their approach was let's bury the film 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:03.760 right essentially, But well, then why did they make it 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:04.439 in the first place? 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:04.840 Right? Like? 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.480 It raises a lot of questions. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.200 It sure does. But we've got another example though of 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:15.440 where Disney has done something absolutely insane or at least unexplainable. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.800 And that's right after this or right around the time 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.600 of this. Also in nineteen ninety five, they decide to 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.640 have a UFO conference in Orlando. It's January of ninety five, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.800 and this was a two week long conference. Now, you've 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.439 been to conferences for UFOs. I've been to them too. 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.600 They're usually three or four days at best, and there 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.120 are people that speak, but there's usually a whole lot 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.840 of people there to listen to them, right, That's how 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.840 it goes down. Not this time. They had a huge 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.840 lineup of people that they brought in there, and a 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.840 guy named I believe Don Ecker was the organizer. He 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.200 had been asked by Disney to do it. Ecker was 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.480 very involved in the UFO topic. They brought in guys 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:01.439 like Bud Hopkins, George Knapp, Don Schmidt, than Randall Sitchen. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.000 They brought in, Okay, two weeks, all these folks there. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.800 There's basically two conferences. Week one conference, week two conference. 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.280 They did not advertise it, right, there was no advertising. Now, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.760 I don't know of any conference that I've ever been 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.040 to that didn't say and by the way, send me 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.480 your bio and send me your URLs because we got 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.960 a promo the hell out of this, because we won't 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.080 make any money, all right. So Disney spent a ton 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.320 of money because they had to provide airfare, room and 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.000 board and meals for all these people for two weeks, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.960 all right, according to Ecker, And this just blows my mind. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.360 But Disney never gave it an ounce of promotion, and 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.600 at best, the number of people in the audience was 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.600 never more than ten or twelve people. Wow, it's kind 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.360 of crazy. And the only thing I'm not even sure 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.360 I'm gonna let you take a crack at that. What 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.240 would explain that in your view? 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.360 Either A, they had an intention that then somebody forced 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.920 their hand and said kill that thing, and it was 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.560 too late, so they kept it alive, but they did 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.240 not support it in any way, which is one viable explanation. 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.680 The other explanation is they were actually trying to make 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:17.800 these people that were very interested in the topic feel stupid, right. 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.840 They were trying to send a very subtle message that 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:22.360 you're going to come all the way here for this 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.920 big conference and nothing's going to happen because there is 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.360 nothing about the UFO phenomenon, I'm worth talking about. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.320 That's a fascinating and good guess. By the way, the 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.200 laid author Robbie Graham, who wrote the really terrific book 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.400 Silver Screen Saucers, when he was talking about this incident, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.760 he also was kind of a guest that like, well, 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.680 I don't what would truly explain this. All he could 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.320 do was speculate, which is what we're doing here. But 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.360 he thought it might be an orchestrated chance for intelligence 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.440 agencies to assemble the leading UFO figures under one roof, 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.160 because this is pre internet right, yes, to take the 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.320 current pulse of the field. And there is a certain 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.680 validity in that guess, I think, because obviously, if you 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:04.680 want to take a pulse of the field right now, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.040 just go on x go on Reddit. The field not 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.040 only can have its pulse taken, it's demanding to have 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.440 its pulse taken right So you didn't need to you 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.560 don't need to do that today. So I guess I 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.160 could understand that it would be one way to find 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.400 out what they're thinking or hear their best shot. But 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.240 several people went home early. They were just like, what 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.520 is going on here? And so we have two instances. 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.640 Then okay, Disney puts the documentary out but does nothing 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.280 to promote it at all. Then Disney right near the 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.480 same time holds a two week conference of UFO people 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.560 and doesn't tell anybody about it. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.440 Yeah, it's mind boggling. And obviously there's many different ways 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.360 to interpret it, as we've just discussed, and I think 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.000 at this point it's probably a good moment to step 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.480 back open the aperture a little bit and say, it 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.920 wasn't just Disney that was doing interesting things in the 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.360 wake of the Robertson panel. The wider view of Hollywood 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.080 at that time was that they were making some pretty 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.280 crazy UFO alien movies, a lot of them. I mean 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.160 was that was a real kind of golden era for 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.600 alien and UFO movies. But you know, when I look 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.199 at them, when I look at all these titles and 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:19.800 I look at what they were about, because I haven't 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.160 seen a lot of them, there is no real commonalities 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.399 in the narrative messaging. So it wasn't like there was 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.760 a mandate given and everyone just adopted it. And the 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.560 stories are the storylines are really all over the place. 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.040 But what you really get is that UFOs and aliens 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.920 are being used more as a metaphor for other fears 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.840 at the times, So you've got movies that are really 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:46.040 representing nuclear fears, like Killers from Space in nineteen fifty four, 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.480 which is a low budget sci fi film about a 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.479 scientist who survives a mysterious plane crash only to discover 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.239 aliens have resurrected him to steal atomic secrets for an 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.480 Earth invasion using giant insects and reptiles grown with the 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:05.120 radiation absorbed from our own atomic bomb tests. Right, it's 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.040 just a huge cautionary tale. But then there was the 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.520 communism fear as we were feeling at that time with 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.520 the Red Scare invasion of the Body Snatchers in nineteen 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.520 fifty six about the extraterrestrial invasion where the alien spores 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:22.000 from space grow into large seed pods, each one capable 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.679 of producing a visually identical copy of a human. And 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.560 these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. A 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.919 local doctor uncovers this quiet invasion and attempts to stop it. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.640 This is of course, where the term pod people comes 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.720 from in pop culture to refer to these emotionless humans. 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:44.600 But then you also Again, it gets even crazier when 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.880 you look at some of the other movies that were 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.840 coming out at that time. Nineteen fifty six, Planeted of 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.960 the Vampires, which is basically zombies in space. It conquered 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.520 the world. This is great. It concerns a bat winged 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:04.000 triangular alien named Ballulah or Beulah from the planet Venus 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.960 that uses a mind controlling device to turn people into 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.920 a motionless slaves so it can take control of the Earth. 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.760 That sounds like a documentary. Now. You know what's interesting though, people, 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.240 First of all, the whole idea of Venus, which we 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.240 know basically next to Hell is one of the hottest 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.719 places around then probably doesn't support much life. And it 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.920 is interesting that even in the fifties into the sixties, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.400 when the contact e movement was going on, that's where 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.359 people like Georgia Damski were claiming that they were taken 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.800 on board craft and flowing around the universe. Where did 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.280 he say they were from Venus? Yes, these were comely 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.879 Venusian women that were flying him around the universe. So yeah, 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.720 a lot of crazy was going on in some of 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.080 those films, and you're right, they did take a turn 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.199 for the weird in the middle of it. But at 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:59.399 the same time, I have to say, if you assume 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.000 the Robertson panel is fifty three, than anything that they 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.920 might have had any impact on would be fifty four 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:09.200 or fifty five, probably knowing how long movies generally take. Well, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.119 there was some pretty stupid things before the Robertson panel. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:16.760 They were Zombies of the Stratosphere. Okay, that's interesting they 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.520 had in fifty three when the Robinson panel was meeting 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.679 and having their grave meetings about the UFO issue. Catwomen 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.600 of the Moon was in the theaters, and so was 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.280 Abbott and Costello. Go to Mars, and of course you 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.080 got Commander Cody and the Rocket Rangers and Devil Girl 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.600 from Mars, Stranger from Venus, there's Venus again, Beast with 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.040 a Million Eyes. There's just the fifties were a golden 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.040 period for bad movies about flying saucers. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.280 Well, and I think that's the whole point is we 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.080 know what the Robertson panel was doing, and we know 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.320 that Hollywood was, even before the Robertson panel, making its 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.520 own crazy movies. Switch over to the side of the audience. 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.359 What was the audience supposed to take away from this 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:04.000 prolifer of movies. The general sentiment was this is all 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.000 silly and fun and crazy, right, And so I think 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:09.840 one movie that we do want to kind of drill 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.720 down into is something that you actually have a very 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.760 personal experience with, which was a movie called The Twenty 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.200 Seventh Day in nineteen fifty seven. 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.280 I do actually have that the director of The Twenty 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.760 Seventh Day was Bill Lasher, and Bill Lasher, if I 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.480 can divert for just a second, was my mentor. The 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:31.760 very last television show Bill Lasher ever did was k Obrian, 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.760 a show I created and was my very first television series. 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.840 So he took me under his wing and said, hey, kid, 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:39.719 I'm going to teach you how TV works and that 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:41.760 kind of thing. Well, Bill would be the guy that 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.520 would know, because he directed most of the first two 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.879 seasons of I Love Lucy, He put the Nose Twitch 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.800 into Bewitched, and married Elizabeth Montgomery. He directed a Beach 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:55.359 Blanket Bingo and movies like that. But what was strange 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.720 is that Bill, a guy who was a comedy guy 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:03.639 in nineteen fifty ends up making this movie The twenty 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.360 seventh Day, which is clearly not the day the Earth 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.000 stood Still or anything, which is the one that people 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:12.640 tend to think, Oh, if you're gonna watch one fifties movie, 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:15.840 that probably is it. He didn't make that movie. Well, 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:17.679 let me tell you a little bit about The twenty 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.920 Seventh Day. It's a short film, seventy five minutes. It's 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:25.400 black and white. It's a Cold war science fiction kind 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:31.160 of thing. It's built to talk about the Russia US conflict, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.679 but to do it using flying saucers. Here's the premise. 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:38.200 It's actually one of the first movies to do abductions. 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.560 Five people are abducted in the Twenty seventh Day. They're 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.639