Speaker 1: Who doesn't love UFOs. Some people make an entire career
Speaker 1: off studying some or multiple facets of strange things in
Speaker 1: the sky.
Speaker 2: We call them ufologist, mofonbaby, MoveOn dot org.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a mutual network of enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: It's surprising because so many experts in other scientific disciplines
Speaker 1: start applying their knowledge towards UFOs, like an astrophysicist, someone
Speaker 1: who specializes in chemistry or material science. But our question
Speaker 1: that we ask in this classic episode is how do
Speaker 1: you become a credentialed ufologist? Is there a school? Is
Speaker 1: there an academy? Is there you know, a course at
Speaker 1: Harvard or Stanford or der or something.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because this conversation is definitely way way
Speaker 2: before a lot of the more kind of mass acceptance
Speaker 2: that this could well be a potential reality. So you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, for for many years, this has always been
Speaker 2: looked at as kind of a fringe pursuit. And I'm
Speaker 2: interested to see now where things go if it does
Speaker 2: become a little bit more accepted or there becomes more
Speaker 2: of like an official field of study for this, because
Speaker 2: there is and there isn't in this episode, but it's
Speaker 2: it's largely you know, kind of sneezed at by the
Speaker 2: scientific community.
Speaker 3: It was right after Tom Tom DeLong made all the
Speaker 3: announcements and everything right not right after, but this is
Speaker 3: like a little bit after that. So I bet the
Speaker 3: interest was super high at this time. I don't really
Speaker 3: imagine it's skyrocketing.
Speaker 4: Where it is now.
Speaker 2: And it just again being approached with a lot less
Speaker 2: kind of funny faces being made.
Speaker 1: And we had, you know, I think we all shared
Speaker 1: a mutual sadness about the breakup of Blink one eight two.
Speaker 1: They're back. They're back, So the future isn't always terrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, let's find out how to be a genuine ufologist.
Speaker 5: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 5: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 5: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, Matt,
Speaker 3: You're back. I'm here.
Speaker 4: It's me and Noll.
Speaker 1: Hey, they call me Ben. We are joined, of course,
Speaker 1: with our super producer Paul Decatt, and we hope you
Speaker 1: join us in welcoming back. Matt Frederick, you are here.
Speaker 1: You are you, and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. This episode is meant to answer
Speaker 1: a question that we stumbled upon in our earlier conversations
Speaker 1: with John Goforth. Remember that, Matt, we talked with go
Speaker 1: Forth about Tom DeLong and disclosure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and I think it did come up. How
Speaker 3: do you become an expert?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: What are the means to be an expert in these things?
Speaker 2: I was super bummed to have missed that one. So
Speaker 2: I am going to be learning some new stuff today.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker 1: Hey, who knows we might end the show by becoming
Speaker 1: ufologist ourselves. This question was posed to us by one
Speaker 1: of our co workers, Jason Koch, So shout out to you, Jason,
Speaker 1: and thanks for the recommendation.
Speaker 4: You think work will pay for it.
Speaker 1: That's that's up to debate. Hey, do us a favor
Speaker 1: if you want to help us become credited ufologists.
Speaker 4: Go to gofund me dot com slash stdwy t K.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say right to our bosses, you know
Speaker 1: what do both?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: They do both.
Speaker 1: So that's that's today's question. How exactly does someone become
Speaker 1: a ufologist? We hear about ufologists often. You'll see them
Speaker 1: in things like ancient aliens on History Channel.
Speaker 6: You'll see them quoted in.
Speaker 1: Different television programs like The Old Unsolved Mysteries and so on.
Speaker 1: But to explore how somebody goes from just being an
Speaker 1: average a civilian in the world of UFOs to becoming
Speaker 1: a noted expert of some sort or another, we have
Speaker 1: to first figure out what a ufologist is. So here
Speaker 1: are the facts. The term ufologist comes from. Obviously UFO
Speaker 1: that dates back to nineteen fifty three, when it was
Speaker 1: an abbreviation of the earlier term unidentified flying object that
Speaker 1: came around nineteen fifty basic stuff, And they do what
Speaker 1: it says on the tin. They study reports of unidentified
Speaker 1: aerial phenomenon or flying objects. But there's a weird tricky
Speaker 1: thing here when you think about it, because once you
Speaker 1: identify the thing, are you really still a ufologist, or
Speaker 1: you know, if it's a weather pattern, have you accidentally
Speaker 1: become a meteorist, If it's a bird, have you become
Speaker 1: an ornithologist.
Speaker 2: I'm just fascinated by the fact that these credentials come
Speaker 2: in at ten with instructions.
Speaker 3: I think one thing we're going to notice here is
Speaker 3: that historically, when you maybe are considered a ufologists, you
Speaker 3: probably have a degree in some related field, yes, like
Speaker 3: what like a meteorologist or an other ologist, well, yeah, orics. Yeah,
Speaker 3: physics is a really big one. If you're let's see
Speaker 3: you and if you're an engineer and you make airplanes
Speaker 3: or something to that effect.
Speaker 1: An aerospace engineer, yeah, that could come in handy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll find that the interdisciplinary nature of this is
Speaker 1: both a blessing and the curse for the professional ufologist
Speaker 1: out there. About how many are there, funny you should ask,
Speaker 1: there are no accurate figures on that number. The one
Speaker 1: thing we found that had an indication at least of
Speaker 1: the education level. Going to your point, Matt, about their degrees.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, the Center for UFO Studies conducted
Speaker 1: a voluntary poll amid its donors, and they found that
Speaker 1: of the one hundred and sixty one people who responded,
Speaker 1: one fifth of them had PhD degrees and seventy five
Speaker 1: percent had earned at least a bachelor's degree or higher.
Speaker 1: The most common degrees were in physics and engineering. And
Speaker 1: their jobs, as it's reported in this paper, are you
Speaker 1: pretty white collar professional things. Doctors, lawyers, engineers of course,
Speaker 1: and professors, which is strange because they were dedicating their
Speaker 1: free time to this study of unidentified phenomenon or objects,
Speaker 1: and in their day jobs, these people are considered credible scientists.
Speaker 1: But ufology today is still widely considered a pseudoscience.
Speaker 2: So you can't go to a reputable university and get
Speaker 2: a degree in ufology.
Speaker 6: Not for the most parts, got it.
Speaker 3: And in that survey, these are just people who are interested, right,
Speaker 3: These are people who donated to a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they donate to a thing. They go to the conferences,
Speaker 1: the networks.
Speaker 3: Cool, so they have an active interest in it. They're
Speaker 3: in one of those outside professions.
Speaker 1: They're probably not out protesting in front of the White
Speaker 1: House in the seventies for disclosure. But yeah, no traditional
Speaker 1: colleges or universities offer specific degree programs in what we
Speaker 1: would call ufology. However, there are some courses available online.
Speaker 1: For instance, the International Metaphysical University offers six courses in
Speaker 1: ufology studies, including Introduction to Ethology. It's taught by an
Speaker 1: historian named Richard Dolan, and the online courses have twelve
Speaker 1: lectures each that cover different different ideas. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have the names of them that I think indicate a
Speaker 1: little bit of bias.
Speaker 2: Yeah, things like what are UFOs? It's a good place
Speaker 2: to start of ancient visitation.
Speaker 1: Not as good me it just it feels a little
Speaker 1: like they're stacking the deck.
Speaker 2: I say, I got you, and then the early cover up.
Speaker 2: Does the Great Courses offer this?
Speaker 1: Hey, I've missed the Great Courses. Those things were fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, we can still get them, right, Great Courses
Speaker 2: dot COM's last conspiracy maybe is still active.
Speaker 4: Who knows?
Speaker 3: There are also just so you know, other electure titles
Speaker 3: like weird science, propulsion, energy, space time and Consciousness.
Speaker 1: Is that consciousness separate from space time or space time
Speaker 1: and conscious I.
Speaker 3: Think it's all of it wrapped up together.
Speaker 1: More bang for your buck?
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 3: Digging deeper? The Breakaway Civilization? What is that?
Speaker 1: Would that be? Would that be a hypothetical civilization that
Speaker 1: breaks away from Earth and lives in space?
Speaker 3: I don't know. You gotta take the course.
Speaker 1: Got to take the course. Yeah, and this is the
Speaker 1: this is extant. You can go and take the course. Now,
Speaker 1: you can enroll and you can see some tech stimonies
Speaker 1: from people who've taken the course, and you can read
Speaker 1: about the grading system all you can get all the
Speaker 1: details all you have to do is visit intermetu dot
Speaker 1: com I N T E R M e t U
Speaker 1: dot com. This is not free, No, we should point
Speaker 1: that out. You know what the Breakaway civilization is, it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: It's this idea of this alternate reality that exists only
Speaker 2: in like five hundred million pages of classified documents. So
Speaker 2: it's sort of this like meta reality that supposedly the
Speaker 2: information exists to understand, but we don't have.
Speaker 4: Access to it.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, And when I say reality, I just mean
Speaker 2: you know, cover ups and the stuff that is known
Speaker 2: but not known to us.
Speaker 1: So it's an alternate reality physically earthly, right, just like
Speaker 1: the you know, the behind the curtain kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: I've never heard that term before.
Speaker 1: I like, let's do an episode on that like it.
Speaker 1: We may have to invest, however, if we want to
Speaker 1: use this course as the basis for our future episode
Speaker 1: on Breakaways, because the courses cost around two hundred to
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars each, and this can be you can see.
Speaker 6: How this could become expensive.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: And let's say you decide to become a ufologist, but
Speaker 1: you say, you know what, I don't want to rely
Speaker 1: on self education a lot of people who describe themselves
Speaker 1: as ufologists. You're doing it based on research after an
Speaker 1: event that they have experienced firsthand, or something they've seen,
Speaker 1: something that touched them in their personal lives. So they're
Speaker 1: self directing. And there's nothing wrong with self directed research.
Speaker 1: Some of the most important scientists and philosophers in human
Speaker 1: history we're just on their own, reading books they thought
Speaker 1: were interesting, and writing other things as well. But let's
Speaker 1: say you don't feel completely comfortable doing self education. You
Speaker 1: sign up for something like this program at International Metaphysical University,
Speaker 1: You finish that twelve lecture course and boom, you're out
Speaker 1: of school. You have to get a job, right, So
Speaker 1: what do you do for a living with this with
Speaker 1: this degree?
Speaker 3: Basically, you try and give talks wherever you can give talks,
Speaker 3: or you get in contact with people who have footage
Speaker 3: of something. You study that footage, or you watch the
Speaker 3: sky and you wait and then hopefully write books about it.
Speaker 3: Those are my that's my understanding. Is there anything else?
Speaker 1: I You know, it's funny you say this because it
Speaker 1: reminds me of some of my friends who were who
Speaker 1: became sociologists. They get their PhDs in sociology, and so
Speaker 1: what do you do with that? And they said, teach
Speaker 1: sociology classes. Oh okay, it's so maybe a lot of
Speaker 1: people who become ufologists through this path begin teaching or
Speaker 1: transmitting their own knowledge and experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I can go to the International Metaphysical thing
Speaker 3: and pay four hundred dollars and get my degree. Why
Speaker 3: would I need to learn from you, u afologist guy
Speaker 3: who just got your degree.
Speaker 1: Maybe they are adding more to that base education. Gocha,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's a good question, right. The university
Speaker 1: website notes that ufologists can seek work as lecturers, writers,
Speaker 1: movie consultants, which sounds pretty cool, or political activists similar
Speaker 1: to Tom DeLong and Luis Elisondo working toward disclosure or
Speaker 1: working in the political and government arena on the area
Speaker 1: of UFOs in preparation for contact or landings.
Speaker 3: All right, there we go.
Speaker 6: There are a couple of other things they say you
Speaker 6: can do as well.
Speaker 3: So prepare for contact. I like that a lot you
Speaker 3: could work, I guess. Yeah. This does note that you
Speaker 3: can work as a professional hypnotist and or what does
Speaker 3: this say? A life co coach for people who claim
Speaker 3: to have had abduction experiences.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, and the university, for their part, makes no
Speaker 1: claims about the employment chances after completing the course. You
Speaker 1: know how some universities or colleges for certain courses will
Speaker 1: say ninety percent of our graduates are placed in a
Speaker 1: job within the first six months after graduation.
Speaker 3: And you know, to be fair, this is an audio course.
Speaker 3: You're listening to lectures by Richard Dolan. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 3: You're listening to a podcast essentially by Richard Dolan and
Speaker 3: then taking notes and having discussion.
Speaker 4: So there's no like testing.
Speaker 3: It's all it's an all online course. I'm certain there
Speaker 3: is test. Yeah, but in this case it's a prepared
Speaker 3: lecture essentially like you would get out of college. I
Speaker 3: guess there's just no.
Speaker 4: There's back and forth.
Speaker 1: Yet the course has let's see, the course has several
Speaker 1: quizzes and then they have a mid term assignment and
Speaker 1: a final exam.
Speaker 2: Do you think you could find any of them that
Speaker 2: to try to quiz ourselves, just to see if we
Speaker 2: could do it cold?
Speaker 1: I wonder if we could. We could probably dig into
Speaker 1: it and see.
Speaker 4: I'd be interested.
Speaker 3: Do Let's do a series of two or three episodes
Speaker 3: where we just take this course live on the show.
Speaker 4: I bet they would probably take issue with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, surely that's illegal.
Speaker 3: Well, let's just contact Richard Dolan and see if he'll
Speaker 3: come in and talk with us. I mean, he's an author,
Speaker 3: he's made he's written several books that you end up
Speaker 3: reading or are asked to read or suggested in a syllabus.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well that's a great idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is a great idea there.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to go that route for some reason,
Speaker 1: there are two other online in universities we found that
Speaker 1: offer similar courses. There's the IMHS Metaphysical Institute and the
Speaker 1: Center for Excellence in the United Kingdom. They offer full
Speaker 1: degree programs as well. And Matt, you've looked at some
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Ufology diploma course from the Center of Excellence
Speaker 3: only costs one hundred and twenty seven pounds. That's britty
Speaker 3: sure for the whole course. Yeah, and you can you
Speaker 3: can even finance the course. You put twenty nine pounds down,
Speaker 3: then you pay sixteen thirty three for six months.
Speaker 2: I mean, even if it's a scam, that's a pretty
Speaker 2: affordable scam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can go over. I mean they've got
Speaker 3: some information about what you're gonna learn. But it's I
Speaker 3: would say it's pretty limited as far as I mean.
Speaker 3: It gives you kind of a course syllabus.
Speaker 1: It's like an introduction class, an introductory course rather, so
Speaker 1: it talks a little bit about the history of the
Speaker 1: search for UFOs, a little bit about the present day,
Speaker 1: and then it seems to end on how addressing how
Speaker 1: a student can get involved. But there there are some
Speaker 1: things that will I'm sure drive the more skeptical of
Speaker 1: us in the audience insane. Like in their rite up
Speaker 1: they say, quote, the Ufology Diploma course provides insight into
Speaker 1: the technologies they're likely used to propel UFOs and different
Speaker 1: kinds of craft and their purposes. So they're not saying
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure out what these are. They're claiming
Speaker 1: that they have in fact identified the unidentified objects.
Speaker 3: There you go. Another thing that we should point out
Speaker 3: for this is that this course is certified by the IAHT,
Speaker 3: the International Alliance of Holistic Therapists. That's claimed on the website.
Speaker 1: There, and I wonder what they have to do with ufology.
Speaker 2: Well, so it inherently has kind of a new age
Speaker 2: bent to it.
Speaker 1: It would appear to be the case. Yeah, unless the
Speaker 1: IAHT is more familiar with this sort of stuff, because
Speaker 1: one would assume that most ufology questions are going to
Speaker 1: be related to things like the nature of physics and
Speaker 1: aviation and again meteorology. But perhaps there's more to the story.
Speaker 1: So what do you do if you say, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: seen that. I appreciate it, but I think I want
Speaker 1: something more traditional. I want more formal education, like to
Speaker 1: your point, NOL, I want to go to Rutgers or
Speaker 1: to Yale or something. I learned this. It can be
Speaker 1: difficult for a budding ufologists to find the right path
Speaker 1: of study because of the inherently interdisciplinary nature of this research.
Speaker 1: Like if we go back to our earlier example, should
Speaker 1: a ufologist first study engineering, or should they study physics,
Speaker 1: Should they study meteorology or psychology, or folklore or sociology
Speaker 1: or just all of them at once?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, I mean it is a bit of a
Speaker 2: grab bag because there's certainly science involved in astronomy, involved
Speaker 2: in the idea of studying space, but it's also wrapped
Speaker 2: into a lot of pop culture ideas and a lot
Speaker 2: of folkloric ideas or things that are not quite provable
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of conceptual thought behind it as well.
Speaker 4: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: Sure, making yourself aware of a lot of the folklore
Speaker 3: surrounding the event of a UFO will give you an
Speaker 3: idea as to what are these people maybe think they're
Speaker 3: seeing in their heads when they're viewing some object in
Speaker 3: the air. That's all I wanted to say.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's a dilemma.
Speaker 1: You know, for many people UFU enthusiasts and skeptics light
Speaker 1: this feels problematic. Some of the skeptics in the audience
Speaker 1: now might think these are just wastes of money, or
Speaker 1: even worse, a purposeful con job. As we've said, Matt
Speaker 1: Nolan and I have not taken these courses and we
Speaker 1: haven't yet seen material from them, so you can't really
Speaker 1: comment too deeply on what they actually are. I think
Speaker 1: that idea of taking a test is fascinating. But people
Speaker 1: who actively research UFOs and perhaps feel that they have
Speaker 1: a specific line on it, that they've found a previously
Speaker 1: unexplained whether phenomenon, or they've proven there's extraterrestrial involvement, they
Speaker 1: might feel this type of education is unnecessary or misdirected,
Speaker 1: and they say, well, maybe we're better off studying just
Speaker 1: orthodox meteorology, old school aerospace engineering. Will the time of
Speaker 1: a professional ufologist be better spent in the field chasing
Speaker 1: reports and gathering firsthand experience?
Speaker 4: And I mean anybody can do that.
Speaker 2: You could be a hobbyist ufologist in that respect of
Speaker 2: just paying attention to the clues and writing things down
Speaker 2: and submitting your reports. But it feels to me like
Speaker 2: if you really wanted to be in a position to
Speaker 2: really catch something like this, you would be studying one
Speaker 2: of these other more traditional fields like astronomy, for example,
Speaker 2: that would give you the skills needed to actually see
Speaker 2: a UFO if it.
Speaker 4: Were to be a thing. I don't know, it's interesting
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great point. Oh and that's right.
Speaker 1: We buried the lead a little bit. We should mention this.
Speaker 1: It's true there are professional uithologists, and we'll explore their
Speaker 1: stories after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: So while most mainstream media outlets tend to portray these
Speaker 2: ufologists or people that study UFOs in generalize to crackpots
Speaker 2: or or you know, misguided, there is some truth in
Speaker 2: the idea that multiple places do actually employ professional ufologists.
Speaker 4: And we're not talking about what's that guy from ancient Aliens?
Speaker 3: His name Richard Dolan.
Speaker 2: Richard Dolan not talking about him, he is, though, Slucos.
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or there are so many that we've discussed in
Speaker 3: the past, the Hand of the god s guy.
Speaker 1: Eric von Denikin.
Speaker 2: We're talking about real you know, human people, not television
Speaker 2: presenters say.
Speaker 3: Those are real human pect I know, I.
Speaker 2: Know, but I don't believe it until I see them
Speaker 2: in the flesh. I think they could be just conjured.
Speaker 6: Okay, oh yeah, well we do know.
Speaker 1: The technology exists to completely impersonate them.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're talking about people who get paid money
Speaker 2: currency to spend time trying to determine the true nature
Speaker 2: of these unknown aerial phenomena, or.
Speaker 3: At least at one time, we're paid by a government
Speaker 3: even to do so.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Nick Pope, are we talking about Nick Pope?
Speaker 1: What's going on with this Nick Pope guy?
Speaker 3: He's the real molder, He's the one.
Speaker 1: He's the chosen one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: He is a career civil server, or he was at
Speaker 1: the time in the United Kingdom, and the Ministry of
Speaker 1: Defense gave him a weird job in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 6: He works at a thing called the UFO Desk.
Speaker 2: Yeah pretty cool, yeah, man, And apparently it gets between
Speaker 2: two hundred and three hundred reports a year of sightings
Speaker 2: and his job is to follow up one on one interesting, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bet some of those calls are pretty wild.
Speaker 3: We should say he did or he was or just
Speaker 3: in the past ten because this is uh nineteen ninety one, right,
Speaker 3: m two years before the old X Files comes.
Speaker 1: Out, which is like our favorite show.
Speaker 3: The best show, and I don't care who you are.
Speaker 4: That's that's true.
Speaker 2: All around, but was recently is May twenty ninth of
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, he put out a tweet talking about the
Speaker 2: Pentagon's UFO program and how they also studied poltergeist activity
Speaker 2: and goes back and mentions, when I ran the UK
Speaker 2: government's UFO project, we were the focal point for all
Speaker 2: the quote weird stuff, cropsrop circles, yeah, ghosts, you know,
Speaker 2: weird stuff, wacky stuff. Both the US and the UK
Speaker 2: programs were real life X files.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he so what he would do from nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one to nineteen ninety four, which is great because that
Speaker 1: means he was still doing this when the first season
Speaker 1: of X Files came out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes you think he got on the phone
Speaker 3: with somebody, maybe Chris Carter.
Speaker 1: That would be fantastic. I would We'd love to interview
Speaker 1: all the people we're mentioning at this point too, So
Speaker 1: let us know who you would like to hear from
Speaker 1: in a subsequent episode. So his job was just that
Speaker 1: he would get a report. Somebody would say, oh, there's
Speaker 1: a maybe a crop circle or a haunted place, or
Speaker 1: there's a strange light that's been appearing, you know on
Speaker 1: don Over on Sandwich or whatever whatever British village. I'm
Speaker 1: just making up names.
Speaker 3: I want to go there.
Speaker 1: I want to go to Donover on Sandwich. And so
Speaker 1: he would travel to the place, he would interview people,
Speaker 1: he would verify the precise time of the report, the
Speaker 1: precise location, and he would check those facts against something
Speaker 1: that he called the usual suspects.
Speaker 3: A true investigator and that's what he is. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's a paranormal investigator.
Speaker 4: Have we heard about what his credentials are? No?
Speaker 3: Would you like to talk about this?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 1: What a journalist?
Speaker 2: Right, that's a good I think that's a good start too,
Speaker 2: as far as just being able to kind of be
Speaker 2: a detective and you know, follow the leads and follow
Speaker 2: the clues. I think a journalist would be a great
Speaker 2: way to study this kind of stuff if you so chose.
Speaker 3: What about a podcaster?
Speaker 6: Well, there you go, hey, dream big, right? Got so?
Speaker 1: He also he says that he started from a baseline
Speaker 1: of zero when he was assigned this UFO desk, and
Speaker 1: it was not based on any prior knowledge or personal
Speaker 1: interest on his part. So he was a little maybe
Speaker 1: less I don't want to say less enthusiastic, because he's
Speaker 1: definitely still professional. But he Our point is he wasn't
Speaker 1: going home at night looking at the truth as out there.
Speaker 3: A poster because they weren't out yet, because they.
Speaker 6: Weren't out yet.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, fair play, he got me. I was trying
Speaker 1: to slide that one by you. But don't you have
Speaker 1: one of those posters? Yeah, it's so awesome. We should
Speaker 1: get more around the office. Okay, how many is too many?
Speaker 3: Seventeen?
Speaker 6: Okay, great, so we'll stick to sixty.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So he Yeah, he's a journalist. He's objectively digging into things,
Speaker 1: and if you are an investigative journalist, you still apply
Speaker 1: the same methods to any investigation. So he's doing the
Speaker 1: same sort of leg work that a good reporter would do,
Speaker 1: and he found that there were a lot of simple
Speaker 1: explanations for what people were reporting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, almost ninety five percent of the cases that he
Speaker 3: was presented with, right, And it's always something like what
Speaker 3: a weather balloon and aircraft flight. The things you hear
Speaker 3: about swamp gas, maybe, but probably not very often.
Speaker 1: I still, you know, I have a hard time saying
Speaker 1: swamp gas when it comes up all the time on
Speaker 1: our show. But something about those the A and swamp
Speaker 1: and the A and gas make it really difficult for
Speaker 1: me not to say it in a weird accident.
Speaker 4: Like swamp gas. Yeah, was there another one swamp gas? Oh?
Speaker 3: There you go?
Speaker 4: Swamp gas? You ever did?
Speaker 2: We had a guy that came to our school when
Speaker 2: I was a kid named Okie Finoki Joe. You'd always
Speaker 2: talk about being swamp wise. Swamp would be swamp wise.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not quite sure what he meant.
Speaker 3: I took a tour with Okino Joe. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: a kid. Hey, guy down in an old oak from
Speaker 3: swamp Were you swamp wise? We did a swamp tour?
Speaker 3: Would you get a snake bit I did not then
Speaker 3: you were swamp wise.
Speaker 1: This is a real thing. Yeah, yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a nice and Augusta George. I think
Speaker 4: he just like made the rounds. You know, I don't
Speaker 4: think I ever met.
Speaker 6: I haven't had the privilege.
Speaker 4: I really missed out.
Speaker 6: Is there more than one oak.
Speaker 4: For Joe as possible?
Speaker 1: Is there a lineage like how there's more than one McGruff?
Speaker 3: There must be? There must be, But I mean with
Speaker 3: around the same time. I bet it was. I bet
Speaker 3: it's the same one.
Speaker 6: Swamp gas O.
Speaker 3: Well, instead of swamp gash, just say naturally occurring bioluminescence.
Speaker 1: All right, I think we both know. I'm going to
Speaker 1: stick with saying swamp gas in a bad accent.
Speaker 4: Swamp Oh say it like that. It sounds like you
Speaker 4: got a touch of the swamp cat. There we go.
Speaker 1: Is that our new euphemism for really bad farts and
Speaker 1: terrible flatialism?
Speaker 2: Flatialism and this has been our childish aside for today's episode.
Speaker 1: So important, but yeah, yes, thank you forgetting us back
Speaker 1: on track. Yeah. So those things that like you were saying, Matt,
Speaker 1: that would be the usual suspects, lights, weather, balloons, swamp gas.
Speaker 1: So this is weird though, because it means that five
Speaker 1: percent of these cases could not be explained.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then his real job, why he was employed there,
Speaker 3: is to take that five percent and then go nothing
Speaker 3: to see here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that weird? His job was not to say, hey,
Speaker 1: look at these inexplicable things. His job was to downplay
Speaker 1: the importance of that to the public. Keep calm, carry on,
Speaker 1: God save the Queen, et cetera, et cetera, and the.
Speaker 3: But not only to the media and the public, to
Speaker 3: the lawmakers themselves.
Speaker 1: To Parliament, don't worry about this.
Speaker 4: To what end though?
Speaker 1: You know, it depends on where you're coming from. So
Speaker 1: if you believe that the government is actively suppressing knowledge
Speaker 1: of something, then it's his job to keep people sort
Speaker 1: of blissfully ignorant, right, But like Will Smith and Tommy
Speaker 1: Lee Jones and the Men in Black. But if it's
Speaker 1: if we're looking at it from a more skeptical standpoint,
Speaker 1: people would say it's his job to stop people from
Speaker 1: becoming alarmed unnecessarily. So he's trying to quell panic.
Speaker 4: I see, I see.
Speaker 3: And he's also a first level gatekeeper for whatever other
Speaker 3: governmental organization is going to actually look into that five percent,
Speaker 3: So he, in my mind, he doesn't even have to
Speaker 3: fully look into that five percent. I mean, he's doing
Speaker 3: all the investigation, he's talking to witnesses, he's doing all this.
Speaker 3: But if you get way down into it and truly
Speaker 3: trying to figure out what it is.
Speaker 2: It's worth passing on to someone that can actually do
Speaker 2: something about.
Speaker 3: That's that's in my mind what Nick Pope's like, the
Speaker 3: true reason that he's doing this.
Speaker 4: That seems spot on to me.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 4: Otherwise, why bother.
Speaker 2: Fielding all these phone calls from these wackadoos that think
Speaker 2: they've seen, you know, a spaceman.
Speaker 1: Which I think I think the four of us would
Speaker 1: be very good.
Speaker 4: At that job. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 2: And when I say wackados, I'm saying I'm sure many
Speaker 2: of them are legitimate sightings or legitimate things and concerns,
Speaker 2: what have you.
Speaker 4: But I'm talking about that percentage of people that are
Speaker 4: just talking about swamp gas, you like, out in the swamp.
Speaker 1: I got a message from my cat, the Greenman at
Speaker 1: the end of the world.
Speaker 4: Right seah exactly.
Speaker 2: You know there's gonna be some of that, and you
Speaker 2: gotta give props to this guy because he he took
Speaker 2: it to the to the max. My friends, he felt
Speaker 2: that it was his personal duty to like look into
Speaker 2: everything regarding the history of UFO sightings from you know,
Speaker 2: everything from the you know, like the more of the
Speaker 2: folkloric or you know, pop culture kind of versions of
Speaker 2: stories to these kind of really over the top conspiracies.
Speaker 2: And he had just an encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a sponge.
Speaker 4: Does sound like it would have been a fun job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he as we said, his work with the
Speaker 1: Ministry to Defense at the UFO Desk ended in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. He continued working for a while with the Ministry.
Speaker 1: He moved to the US in twenty twelve and retired
Speaker 1: from that line of work to become a full time
Speaker 1: UFO expert, what people would call a noted ufologist, but
Speaker 1: you see, he doesn't care for the term. He calls
Speaker 1: himself a UFO investigator, not a ufologist. And he's a
Speaker 1: little bit anomalist in his field. Right now, because we've
Speaker 1: talked with people who are fairly prominent, you know, and
Speaker 1: considered experts in the field of UFO studies. We've talked
Speaker 1: to them on this show, and he to some people
Speaker 1: stands out or is controversial because he came to this
Speaker 1: through a professional aspect, whereas again, a lot of people
Speaker 1: were who became UFO panelists or commentators. They were inspired
Speaker 1: by their own UFO sighting, or they were drawn to
Speaker 1: the topic due to a personal interest, and he has
Speaker 1: neither of those. And he Pope himself, notes that some
Speaker 1: members of the community do not trust him. They think
Speaker 1: he may still be employed by the government or some
Speaker 1: organization to function as an agent of disinformation.
Speaker 3: He's the Richard C.
Speaker 1: Dody of the UK, the Richard C. Dody of the UK.
Speaker 1: That's it remind us of Richards.
Speaker 3: Richard Doty is the guy, the mirage man, the guy
Speaker 3: who was sent out there to purposefully feed disinformation to
Speaker 3: people who consider themselves ufologists.
Speaker 1: And that's a real thing, folks. Yep, that actually did happen.
Speaker 1: So this is not entirely unfounded paranoia and paranoia runs
Speaker 1: high in this community, and it's not an unusual accusation.
Speaker 1: You know, it also makes sense because by his own admission,
Speaker 1: his professional task was less to publicize reports and more
Speaker 1: to downplay their importance. And you know, it depends on
Speaker 1: where you fall. If we're being completely fair, you could
Speaker 1: say that he is either suppressing the truth or you
Speaker 1: could say that he is preventing public hysteria. So it
Speaker 1: really depends on what what motivates you would ascribe to him.
Speaker 1: We're we're not ascribing motivations to him, or he's he
Speaker 1: seems on the up and up. He seems like he
Speaker 1: was just at least at that time, doing what he
Speaker 1: was supposed to do as an employee.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, he makes a really really good point
Speaker 3: in some of the writing he's done about these concepts
Speaker 3: of taking an online course to train yourself to be
Speaker 3: a ufologist.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he makes a fantastic point that if you
Speaker 3: are that interested in something and you're already perhaps creating
Speaker 3: images in your mind of what the potentials could be
Speaker 3: for the things you're seeing or studying, you may already
Speaker 3: have drink, like, had too much of the kool aid yourself,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna see things that aren't really there because
Speaker 3: you're gonna have confirmation biases, bias problems, and all kinds
Speaker 3: of other issues in that regard. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And that that does make sense also, that can go
Speaker 1: both ways, right, right, So someone can say, I mean
Speaker 1: the most. Some of the most irritating, irritating mistakes and
Speaker 1: critical thinking come from people who consider themselves skeptics and
Speaker 1: think that being a skeptic automatically means extraordinary things cannot exist.
Speaker 6: Just shoot it down, right, right, It's it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to be objective and people people constantly think
Speaker 1: that objectivity is in the eye of the beholder. Objectivity
Speaker 1: is the process by which someone comes to agree with
Speaker 1: what I believe. Right, Yeah, that's the mistake we make.
Speaker 1: But Pope is out there, as you said, Matt, he
Speaker 1: is an author. You can find his books online, you
Speaker 1: can see interviews with him, and he is one of
Speaker 1: many ufologists. There's one important point though about about Pope
Speaker 1: and ufologists in general, that our complaint department made while
Speaker 1: he was getting coffee and we're getting ready to record
Speaker 1: talking about the strickmeister. Yes, so you can play the department.
Speaker 1: Jonathan thought Strickland at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 3: The quiz the Quiztor.
Speaker 4: That's the that's sort of an alter ego.
Speaker 2: Okay, but yeah, yeah, we still call on Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 2: the quizt.
Speaker 4: It's very confusing.
Speaker 1: It's very strange.
Speaker 6: You should have him on this show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when are you going to come on in Ridiculous History?
Speaker 4: Matt?
Speaker 1: When when do you want to go on the show.
Speaker 4: That's not up to me, Guys, what do you want
Speaker 4: to talk about? Is it?
Speaker 1: Nick?
Speaker 6: Pope?
Speaker 1: Do we have to check with Nick?
Speaker 3: I'm here all right?
Speaker 4: Well, alright, well, well we'll tap you.
Speaker 2: We'll tap you for that in the very near future,
Speaker 2: because we're getting people requesting it pretty heavily at this point.
Speaker 6: Okay, and we have to we have to.
Speaker 1: Do it before you're on some more adventures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as long as you make uh, you let me
Speaker 3: appear as the what was it, the the Southern Genie
Speaker 3: and the shine Bottle or whatever you.
Speaker 4: Will you do it in your Milt Jewlip voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I think everything is predicated on that.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's all right.
Speaker 1: So what exactly what great point did our uh did
Speaker 1: our complaint department bring up? We'll tell you after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Oh, faded breath, let's do this.
Speaker 6: All right, all right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Stuff.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to know. You pay for the
Speaker 1: whole seat, but you only need the edge, I'd say,
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin line. So what Jonathan pointed out, and he
Speaker 1: is one of the more of our colleagues and cohort,
Speaker 1: he falls more on the skeptical side pretty clearly, and
Speaker 1: he said that he believes there's a difference between professional
Speaker 1: and credible, and we often conflate the two. So a
Speaker 1: professional uthologist doesn't necessarily have to be a credible ufologist.
Speaker 1: They're just someone who is paid to investigate these things. Okay,
Speaker 1: And I thought I thought that was a point that
Speaker 1: we had to mention at least once in this show.
Speaker 1: Now we're not We're not calling in to question anybody's
Speaker 1: credibility at this point, but we are saying that just
Speaker 1: because someone is paid to do something does not mean
Speaker 1: they are automatically the.
Speaker 6: Best at it. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, With that being said, we would like to empower you.
Speaker 1: If you are listening now and you say, guys, thanks
Speaker 1: for giving me the lay of the land. I wanna
Speaker 1: do this UFO stuff. I want to be a ufologist.
Speaker 1: I don't have time to mess around with the online studies.
Speaker 1: I've read some books, but I think the best way
Speaker 1: to learn about UFOs is on the job experience. Just
Speaker 1: like Nick Pope, Well, we have some leads for you.
Speaker 3: The first one is are you a member of move On,
Speaker 3: the mutual UFO network already? If you are, you're probably
Speaker 3: paying around sixty dollars a year for membership there. And
Speaker 3: what you can do is, once you become a member,
Speaker 3: you can talk to your state director, so you can
Speaker 3: send an email out to the person that's the director
Speaker 3: of MoveOn near you. You get a copy of this
Speaker 3: MoveOn Field Investigator's Manual. You study the manual. It's pretty big.
Speaker 3: Let's see. You can order one here. Where is it?
Speaker 3: Where I'm try I'm looking for it online? Here we go,
Speaker 3: Here we go. Hard copy Field Investigator's Manual only cost
Speaker 3: you one hundred and five dollars US. So far we're
Speaker 3: at about one hundred and seventy dollars, which is more. Well, no,
Speaker 3: it's less than that first course.
Speaker 1: We were talking about one hundred and twenty seven pounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's see. Oh no, the other one was
Speaker 3: like what one four hundred dollars, oh, something like that.
Speaker 3: So depending on where you land in there, then once
Speaker 3: you've done that and you've studied your manual really hard,
Speaker 3: you can complete the Volunteer in Field Investigator Orientation program
Speaker 3: on the Moufon University and then ooh another thing. Another
Speaker 3: opportunity you can have here is to mentor with a
Speaker 3: licensed MoveOn field investigator, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 4: Does that cost extra?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but all you have to do is
Speaker 3: contact your state director and coordinate with somebody. But you
Speaker 3: can just do a write along I guess.
Speaker 2: I think they have meetups where you can kind of
Speaker 2: just go check out the lay of the land and
Speaker 2: have a little meet and greet.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'd be into.
Speaker 6: That, Yeah, I would. I would love for us.
Speaker 4: To go there.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Is there a chapter here in Atlanta?
Speaker 3: Yes, really, I don't know. I honestly don't know, guys,
Speaker 3: but we can look it up.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there has to be something, at least regional.
Speaker 3: There's a Georgia meetup. Dot com says there's a moofon
Speaker 3: Georgia meetup that's happening on August fourth.
Speaker 2: Oh, no way, that's four days before my birthday twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: My mind exploding.
Speaker 3: Where it is is? Oh, it's in Tucker right off
Speaker 3: La Vista, right street.
Speaker 4: That's totally in our neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Right off seventy.
Speaker 3: Oh, we gotta go right off to eighty yep, that's ay.
Speaker 1: Let me check with Paul. Paul, do you want to
Speaker 1: go with us?
Speaker 3: It's a Saturday, August fourth.
Speaker 1: Paul nodded and.
Speaker 4: Smile and a nod. Yeah, all right, the double whammy
Speaker 4: from Paul.
Speaker 1: Well, if we've got Deccans in then we have to
Speaker 1: we have to see if we can make it to
Speaker 1: this thing.
Speaker 6: It would be a great experience. So there we go.
Speaker 1: You can get firsthand experience even with a mentor investigating
Speaker 1: reports of UFOs under the auspice of the Mutual UFO
Speaker 1: Network or mof on. And again it is not free.
Speaker 1: It is a rather significant investment.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: But let's say you're not in the US, well, you
Speaker 1: are still in luck. The British UFO Research Organization or
Speaker 1: you like this, No Bufora offers a similar program BOOFO.
Speaker 1: And we'd like to hear about other countries programs, because
Speaker 1: I imagine there are other European communities or institutions that
Speaker 1: have stuff like this. There's probably some stuff like this
Speaker 1: in Canada as well as in parts of South America,
Speaker 1: Central America, maybe some parts of Africa as well. We
Speaker 1: want to know, we want to know what's going on
Speaker 1: in your neck of the Global Woods. These licenses, by
Speaker 1: the way, are self determined by these groups. Yes, so
Speaker 1: it's not like, for instance, how you would get a
Speaker 1: pilot's license that allows you to fly in different countries.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's up to that. It's
Speaker 1: organization by organization.
Speaker 3: Last thing to say about that, Move on, meetup. Sorry,
Speaker 3: it's free to the public.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna let's blow this thing up. See how many people
Speaker 3: we can get there. Do you do you want to
Speaker 3: do that or do you just want to let it
Speaker 3: If people are interested, they'll find it. And who knows
Speaker 3: when this episode will actually come out?
Speaker 1: That's true, We need to put it out before August four, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do, all right, okay, yeah, let's blow it up.
Speaker 6: Matt. What's what are the deats?
Speaker 3: It's at the uh let's see co F. E. Er
Speaker 3: Kofer Library. Oh, there's an address. You want to put
Speaker 3: this address.
Speaker 1: In put it out in the world.
Speaker 3: Man, It's at fifty two thirty four La Vista Road
Speaker 3: in Tucker, Georgia.
Speaker 1: The Tucker read H. Kofer Library. There it is, all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's do it. Let's go all right, it's down
Speaker 1: it's down the street.
Speaker 6: From us.
Speaker 1: I think I've actually been to this library, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I have to not during a move on.
Speaker 3: Don't want to give away how close in proximity I
Speaker 3: am to that area.
Speaker 6: But you've been there, you're familiarly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is cool.
Speaker 1: We're actually this spontaneously is happening, folks. We have organically
Speaker 1: decided that we're going to take a field trip.
Speaker 6: And if you are in the area, we would love to.
Speaker 2: See you there, and if not, you can experience it
Speaker 2: vicariously through us, because I'm sure we'll report back unless
Speaker 2: we totally flake on this. But we've codified it in
Speaker 2: podcast Stone, so we have to.
Speaker 4: We have to follow through.
Speaker 1: Now it's basically written in our own blood disagreement.
Speaker 3: This is awesome.
Speaker 1: So so we are going to get We're going to
Speaker 1: learn about move on firsthand. We're going to hear from
Speaker 1: people who are active in these investigations and hear about
Speaker 1: their journeys. There are also, as several of our listeners
Speaker 1: already know, numerous groups and organizations studying various specific aspects
Speaker 1: of unidentified aerial phenomenon, and you can join these groups
Speaker 1: in person or online. They provide literature and other resources
Speaker 1: that could be great of great value to you if
Speaker 1: you're a buddying ufologists. It's also no secret that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of misleading info out there in this field,
Speaker 1: and so the burden of differentiating between legitimate research and
Speaker 1: pure entertainment is going to fall squarely on the shoulders
Speaker 1: of the individuals or groups researching this stuff, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's the like you can read a
Speaker 1: book about algebra and pretty much trust that you don't
Speaker 1: have to double check a lot of the text.
Speaker 6: It's not the case here. You know.
Speaker 1: Nowadays, many academic studies of UFO phenomenon can be classified
Speaker 1: as primarily sociological or anthropological studies, not of the sightings themselves,
Speaker 1: but of the psychology of the witnesses. This is a
Speaker 1: trend We've noticed a lot, and it happens in other
Speaker 1: categories of things that would be called fringe research or
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. It's an immensely valuable undertaking. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to ding it for that, but we can't conflate it
Speaker 1: with studies of sightings or reports themselves. It's a shift
Speaker 1: in the narrative, you know what I mean. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of so like one example, tell me what you
Speaker 1: think about this. I don't know if this matches one
Speaker 1: to one, but I would say writing or studying solely
Speaker 1: the psychological or sociological trends of someone or some group
Speaker 1: of people who report seeing UFOs, it's a lot like
Speaker 1: how it's as if you're writing about how people feel
Speaker 1: about a song or it's cultural impact and saying it's
Speaker 1: the same thing as writing about the structure of the song.
Speaker 6: It's not interesting. Yeah, No, I like that.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I was saying at the top
Speaker 2: of the show too. How And you also said when
Speaker 2: you talk about the ufology as a field, you presuppose
Speaker 2: the discovery of actual UFOs, which turns it into something
Speaker 2: else at that point, doesn't it. It's more like ifology,
Speaker 2: you know. So there's a lot of a leap of
Speaker 2: faith kind of activity going on with this whole field
Speaker 2: of study. But I like the more sociological version of it.
Speaker 2: That interests me more than trying to get the credentials
Speaker 2: to be a UFO hunter. I think just with a
Speaker 2: little imagination and go getterness and that journalistic spirit we
Speaker 2: talked about with our buddy Pope. I think he kind
Speaker 2: of armed and dangerous to go after the stuff yourself,
Speaker 2: if it really intrigues you.
Speaker 4: You know, I.
Speaker 3: Would say, speaking of Pope some on his website right now,
Speaker 3: if you go check it out. I don't remember the
Speaker 3: r L, but just search Nick Pope and it's right
Speaker 3: up there with a wiki. And he discusses how he's
Speaker 3: taken after all this time, taking more of a big
Speaker 3: picture view of a lot of this stuff, and he
Speaker 3: that's exactly what he's looking at now, the sociological meaning
Speaker 3: of even even conspiracy theories, Like he says that on
Speaker 3: his web page. Why why do we as a culture
Speaker 3: tend to believe in conspiracy theories?
Speaker 2: That's one of my favorite parts about our show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: is that very discussion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what he wants to study now, and
Speaker 3: he thinks there should be bigger funded studies on that.
Speaker 1: And those those things are on the way. I would say,
Speaker 1: we had you know, we've had people call us off
Speaker 1: air to do interviews about this kind of thing, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and you've been doing some lately.
Speaker 1: We I think we're gonna end up doing more, To
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: where it's gonna go for us.
Speaker 6: I hope that we I don't.
Speaker 3: The Zoo Crew one was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, we're we might be back on there too.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to drag you guys on there.
Speaker 4: I want to do a morning Zoos show.
Speaker 1: It's it's a thing.
Speaker 4: Can I hit the air the air horn button?
Speaker 1: No, they'll do they're in charge of the sound of time.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: They're actually pretty clear about it too.
Speaker 4: This was a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah oh man, So yeah, so you know, we love
Speaker 1: that stuff. Any way, we can communicate the message and
Speaker 1: we have. We have a great time in those things. Because,
Speaker 1: to steal the old line from Fox News, now, more
Speaker 1: than ever, a lot of things that we're considered implausible
Speaker 1: are becoming increasingly provable and plausible.
Speaker 3: Yep, right, because we jumped timelines and now we're in
Speaker 3: an alternate universe.
Speaker 1: We're in a we have become our own breakaway society.
Speaker 6: Is that what they did?
Speaker 1: Bring it back?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: So, like any serious academic, a true UFO researcher is
Speaker 1: not setting out with a predetermined conclusion. Obviously, this means
Speaker 1: a good investigator is not sitting down and saying, how
Speaker 1: can I prove this craft was made by a previously
Speaker 1: unacknowledged extraterrestrial civilization. But just as importantly, it also means
Speaker 1: that person is not sitting down and saying, how can
Speaker 1: I disprove that this is unusual? You know what I
Speaker 1: mean what they're doing is they're doing exactly what Nick
Speaker 1: Pope did, which is getting all the data, sponging up everything,
Speaker 1: and then following it to a provable conclusion. So it's
Speaker 1: no surprise that most UFO investigators have found numerous mundane
Speaker 1: explanations for sightings. And that's a great thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it sounds like a party pooper thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's it's fantastic because the stuff that we can
Speaker 1: prove gives us more information about the inexplicable, real mysterious
Speaker 1: stuff that five percent, you know. I mean, even Project
Speaker 1: Blue Book couldn't explain everything. Yeah, and they threw a
Speaker 1: ton of money at it.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, guys, there have been humans that have
Speaker 3: been fascinated by looking up in the sky and seeing
Speaker 3: strange things for.
Speaker 1: A long time.
Speaker 3: Now, let's say a long time. We still haven't been
Speaker 3: able to prove anything anywhere. Because if we have, this
Speaker 3: discussion wouldn't even be happening right now. We'd be talking
Speaker 3: about the mid Chlorians and the from whatever far away galaxy,
Speaker 3: the species that we uncovered, or the ship that landed
Speaker 3: that one time that wasn't at Roswell, or wasn't the
Speaker 3: Rendelstrom Forest incident.
Speaker 2: There was a fantastic piece on This American Life that
Speaker 2: I heard the other day where Ira Glass was interviewing
Speaker 2: one of his producers whose name now escapes me, but
Speaker 2: he has a degree in astrophysics and that was his
Speaker 2: first kind of career and then he became a producer
Speaker 2: and a journalist for This American Life. And he was
Speaker 2: talking about how he couldn't help but be bummed out
Speaker 2: existentially at the idea that maybe there is no other life.
Speaker 2: And he was trying to explain to Ira Glass that
Speaker 2: from his scientific background, through his filter, through his understanding
Speaker 2: of you know, astrophysics, how this.
Speaker 4: Was a really big deal to him, and at Ira
Speaker 4: Glass kind of couldn't understand.
Speaker 2: He thought it was sort of a silly thing to
Speaker 2: be quote unquote bummed out about.
Speaker 4: So what is that called the Fermi paradox?
Speaker 2: The idea that if it was there, somebody would have
Speaker 2: found something by now, you know. And then there's also
Speaker 2: a number that is generated I believe that is the
Speaker 2: Drake equation, that is the likelihood of extraterrestrials that is existing.
Speaker 2: And they calculated it on the show, and it was
Speaker 2: something like point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero
Speaker 2: nine to one.
Speaker 4: So basically zero.
Speaker 3: But it was just interesting that life exists or that
Speaker 3: we will encounter that life.
Speaker 2: I can't quite remember the nature of the equation, but
Speaker 2: that was where it stands right now. Apparently based on
Speaker 2: the scientific research and material that's out there, that number changes,
Speaker 2: but apparently it's very very close to zero right now.
Speaker 3: I would take a bummer. I would take issue with
Speaker 3: those people because I think that next to zero number
Speaker 3: is probably that Earth would be visited or that Earth
Speaker 3: will visit some other civilization.
Speaker 1: Right it's the meeting.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh oh, so that life exists, I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure that's almost a certainty. Oh.
Speaker 2: That came up too in the in the piece where
Speaker 2: it was like would you be cool if it was
Speaker 2: just like maybe an amoeba, Like does it have to
Speaker 2: be a sentient creature that you can communicate with?
Speaker 4: Like where do you draw the line?
Speaker 2: And this like existential bummer kind of thing, right, Right,
Speaker 2: So that's a big question here.
Speaker 4: Too, and it's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's all a timescale problem, buddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's certain that there is some form
Speaker 1: of life somewhere out in the universe, just because the
Speaker 1: room is too big for there not to be. But
Speaker 1: because the room is so big, this room being the universe,
Speaker 1: there's virtually no chance that we will ever ever run
Speaker 1: into love. I love the idea of humanity stumbling upon
Speaker 1: some ancient relic and it's very sad and bittersweet, but
Speaker 1: it's still really important. Like, you know, what if someone
Speaker 1: finally lands on Mars and then they find like the
Speaker 1: equivalent of alien graffiti, Zorlac was.
Speaker 6: Here or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's first off, that's the most important thing that ever
Speaker 1: happened automatically in human history. And secondly, it's one of
Speaker 1: the loneliest things. Yeah, what happened to Zorlac?
Speaker 4: Dude?
Speaker 3: He made it to Earth with that one ship full
Speaker 3: of DNA and then seated the whole planet with it.
Speaker 3: You've seen Alien Covenant or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was Prometheus. So if in conclusion for today's episode,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming along with us on this ride. If
Speaker 1: you want to become a ufologist, one of your first
Speaker 1: and most significant steps is going to be determining an
Speaker 1: area of focus. Want to concentrate on a specific event
Speaker 1: like that aerial school sighting, or do you want to
Speaker 1: focus on a typer genre of events. Do you prefer
Speaker 1: to focus on a related trend, such as the psychology
Speaker 1: of witnesses, even though this would not in itself be
Speaker 1: UFO research so much as sociological research. And then after
Speaker 1: determining that you want to read widely, we found a
Speaker 1: great starting point for anybody who's looking for a good
Speaker 1: bibliography on serious UFO research.
Speaker 3: It's called UFO Literature for the Serious Uifologist. It's by
Speaker 3: George M. Eberhardt, and it lists all kinds of different
Speaker 3: books and articles on this particular subject and will help
Speaker 3: you get started. You can also there are a couple
Speaker 3: places online that you can find, but this is a
Speaker 3: real we would recommend this place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. I think it's I want to say
Speaker 1: it's from nineteen ninety eight, which will which means it's
Speaker 1: going to be a little bit data, but it has
Speaker 1: some solid gold classic hits.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Basically a bibliography that's going to get you on
Speaker 3: your feet.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you also want to join organizations and groups with
Speaker 1: similar focus areas like the meet up Matt just found
Speaker 1: for us on air.
Speaker 3: Move on only seventy dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, attend conferences, correspond with fellow researchers, become a part
Speaker 1: of the community. And while the online courses we found
Speaker 1: do still exist, they're not the only operations around. For example,
Speaker 1: and this is more alien life than UFO related, But
Speaker 1: for example, Harvard has a free online course called Super
Speaker 1: Earth's and Life that combines multiple disciplines to examine the
Speaker 1: possibility of life on other planets. But let's end on
Speaker 1: this note. We would like to hear from you. Do
Speaker 1: you consider yourself a ufologist? What sort of studies have
Speaker 1: you found to be helpful? What are some tips or
Speaker 1: tricks you might have for your fellow listeners who are
Speaker 1: considering pursuing this research.
Speaker 3: That's really great. Please please write in let us know,
Speaker 3: send us And that's the end of this classic episode.
Speaker 3: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
Speaker 3: you can get into contact with us in a number
Speaker 3: of different ways. One of the best is to give
Speaker 3: us a call. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
Speaker 3: If you don't want to do that, you can send
Speaker 3: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 5: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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