WEBVTT - ET Walks Into a Bar 0:00:00.110 --> 0:00:01.890 Hey, Brent, we'll get to the show soon enough, but 0:00:01.930 --> 0:00:03.630 before we do, I want to tell you a little 0:00:03.670 --> 0:00:05.180 more about that case I've been working on. 0:00:05.750 --> 0:00:08.610 Oh, the Edwards Air Force one? Sure. Yeah. Go for it. 0:00:08.950 --> 0:00:09.190 All right. 0:00:09.490 --> 0:00:13.550 It starts with this mainstream media investigative reporter whose identity 0:00:13.590 --> 0:00:14.230 I'm protecting. 0:00:14.270 --> 0:00:14.930 At least for now. 0:00:14.990 --> 0:00:19.169 So, Ross Goldhart, George Knapp. No, no, and not any 0:00:19.210 --> 0:00:23.610 of the usual suspects either. Anyway, because of some key relationships, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.380 this reporter gets assigned to cover an Air Force demonstration 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.030 in of this highly advanced aerospace platform. The reporter is 0:00:31.050 --> 0:00:33.760 supposed to be there when the test happens, but he 0:00:33.820 --> 0:00:36.620 is delayed in transit. And that delay turns out to 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.540 matter because while he's not there, the test ends up 0:00:39.580 --> 0:00:42.440 going sideways in a way that nobody in the Air 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.300 Force wants it to be reported. 0:00:44.460 --> 0:00:45.000 Here's what happened. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.990 During the flight, controllers pick up this unknown object on radar. 0:00:49.190 --> 0:00:51.710 It's not part of the exercise. It's not supposed to 0:00:51.750 --> 0:00:54.370 be in the airspace. It's moving at a speed that 0:00:54.450 --> 0:00:58.280 makes the advanced platform suddenly look Not very advanced. 0:00:58.660 --> 0:01:02.020 So it's like Nimitz, but with Air Force instead of Navy. 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.120 You've got something anomalous up in the sky. And so 0:01:05.140 --> 0:01:07.440 what's the pilot take on all of this? Okay, so 0:01:07.500 --> 0:01:08.620 you got radar visual. 0:01:08.819 --> 0:01:11.610 But a few seconds later, this pilot radios in that 0:01:11.690 --> 0:01:15.410 something has passed him at extreme velocity. He actually calls 0:01:15.470 --> 0:01:18.530 it a, quote, flying saucer. And instead of asking questions, 0:01:18.790 --> 0:01:22.729 the commanding officer in the HQ shuts that language down hard. 0:01:22.930 --> 0:01:25.369 And all he says to his people there, he doesn't 0:01:25.390 --> 0:01:29.030 want it in any report. He absolutely doesn't want anybody 0:01:29.069 --> 0:01:31.270 to talk about it anywhere near the press. And he 0:01:31.350 --> 0:01:34.330 threatens everybody with what will happen if they talk. So 0:01:34.550 --> 0:01:39.130 no speculation, no hints, no leaks. Nobody says anything unless 0:01:39.190 --> 0:01:40.310 it's to the chain of command. 0:01:40.490 --> 0:01:42.880 Okay, wait. So how do we know any of this 0:01:43.060 --> 0:01:44.699 if the reporter was late to the party? 0:01:44.819 --> 0:01:48.420 By the time the reporter finally arrives, the official position 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.040 to him when he gets there is, hey, sorry, you 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.340 missed it. The test is over. Everything went fine. Nothing 0:01:54.380 --> 0:01:57.540 to see here. Appreciate you coming. Enjoy your long ride 0:01:57.600 --> 0:01:59.960 back home. But he's a reporter, and this guy can 0:02:00.020 --> 0:02:02.740 read the room, and he sees tension, and he knows 0:02:02.820 --> 0:02:03.840 the official. 0:02:03.460 --> 0:02:05.160 Story has a big hole in it. 0:02:05.260 --> 0:02:08.280 So the answer to your question is actually because my 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.940 source has his own source who's inside the Command HQ. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:13.940 And this guy has seen the whole thing, and he'll 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.100 tell him about it later. But that's not the tip-off, Brent. 0:02:17.220 --> 0:02:19.220 This would be a great story if it was just 0:02:19.300 --> 0:02:22.350 radar visual, but it's really just where it starts. So. 0:02:23.290 --> 0:02:25.890 I'm sensing a very big plot twist coming up here. 0:02:26.130 --> 0:02:29.329 Well, the source is driving back from the base, and he, 0:02:29.730 --> 0:02:32.230 at this point, has no real idea what the thing 0:02:32.330 --> 0:02:34.470 is that everybody is trying so damn hard not to 0:02:34.530 --> 0:02:36.690 talk about. Then he sees something that looks like an 0:02:36.990 --> 0:02:40.540 orb going down, and there's this flash behind this hill 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.180 off the side of the road. So he stops his car, 0:02:43.220 --> 0:02:46.180 and he goes there, and he finds a damaged craft, okay? 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.919 Okay, yeah. small enough to be concealed. 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.840 It's advanced enough, he says, that it clearly does not 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.540 belong to any known aerospace program, not ours or theirs 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:56.280 or anybody's. 0:02:56.810 --> 0:03:01.470 And there's an occupant. So now we've got biologics. Yeah, 0:03:01.510 --> 0:03:03.070 we do. Okay, this story is. 0:03:03.610 --> 0:03:06.730 Yeah, it's, well, but it ain't there yet. So this being, 0:03:07.090 --> 0:03:10.910 this occupant is not human, but it's alive. It's injured, 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.420 It appears to be struggling with either Earth gravity or atmosphere. 0:03:15.940 --> 0:03:18.679 Of course, the shock from being in a crash. But 0:03:18.940 --> 0:03:23.500 there's no question that this is an intelligent non-human occupant 0:03:23.740 --> 0:03:27.130 in distress of some kind. And it gets stranger still 0:03:27.550 --> 0:03:31.370 because the communication between this reporter and the occupant is 0:03:31.730 --> 0:03:35.110 not verbal at this point. There's a psionic component. 0:03:35.290 --> 0:03:39.370 There's telepathy. So we're out of nuts and bolts. We're done. 0:03:40.150 --> 0:03:44.650 deep into the phenomenon and into more like consciousness territory here. 0:03:44.970 --> 0:03:46.030 I'm intrigued. Keep going. 0:03:46.390 --> 0:03:50.770 Add a new twist. Just when that's established, the occupant 0:03:50.830 --> 0:03:54.850 starts to speak out loud to the reporter in English. 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:55.460 English. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.580 English, which of course qualifies as extreme strangeness no matter 0:03:59.620 --> 0:04:01.400 how you look at it. So the reporter has a 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.500 choice to make. He doesn't call the Air Force. He 0:04:03.540 --> 0:04:06.340 doesn't call the police. And he actually helps this being. 0:04:06.500 --> 0:04:09.010 But a stranger and more dangerous thing, though, is He 0:04:09.050 --> 0:04:11.290 takes it home with him. But before he does that, 0:04:11.470 --> 0:04:14.590 he disguises his craft so he can come back later 0:04:14.870 --> 0:04:16.690 and retrieve it for himself. 0:04:16.710 --> 0:04:20.150 All right. Time out for a second. Yeah. Let me 0:04:20.170 --> 0:04:22.950 just think about this for a second. Here's what the 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.480 reporter knows so far, just to be clear. He's got 0:04:26.860 --> 0:04:31.219 Air Force intel. He's got radar visuals. He's got all 0:04:31.260 --> 0:04:34.620 of this suppression going on. He's apparently got a crashed 0:04:34.900 --> 0:04:40.570 craft that is hidden somewhere. He's kidnapped the pilot and 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.160 he's got all of this Psy thing going on with 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.480 the alien. Am I, did I leave anything out? 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.700 That's about it. That's the state of affairs at this point. 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.940 Okay. So he calls. 0:04:52.660 --> 0:04:56.250 This source that he has for corroboration, which he gets 0:04:56.410 --> 0:04:59.250 from the inside of the command HQ. So now this 0:04:59.290 --> 0:05:01.810 guy is thinking, Hey, I have got the scoop of 0:05:01.830 --> 0:05:05.669 the century, except at this point, the Air Force comes knocking. 0:05:05.950 --> 0:05:08.950 They know that he has information he shouldn't have, don't 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.200 know how, but they take him into custody and pressure 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.140 him to reveal his source. So suddenly all the stuff 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.380 you just explained is now protecting a source case. So 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.740 you've got a mainstream journalist sitting inside an Air Force 0:05:22.779 --> 0:05:27.560 facility under zero legal authority being pushed to explain how 0:05:27.620 --> 0:05:31.520 he knows about a classified UAP event that officially did 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:32.000 not happen. 0:05:32.020 --> 0:05:35.930 But the last part seems very believable to me. It does, 0:05:36.620 --> 0:05:39.070 but it's going to get one more bit stranger. While 0:05:39.110 --> 0:05:43.810 he's sitting in custody, he receives a telepathic communication from 0:05:43.890 --> 0:05:47.210 this creature. And I don't even know how to explain 0:05:47.230 --> 0:05:51.150 this properly, but somehow the bottom line is this reporter 0:05:51.210 --> 0:05:55.250 and this creature land on an explanation that the reporter 0:05:55.310 --> 0:05:57.529 is going to tell the Air Force that his car 0:05:57.589 --> 0:06:01.830 radio has somehow picked up restricted Air Force communications because 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:06.730 of some freak atmospheric It's a little extreme as an explanation, 0:06:07.010 --> 0:06:09.270 and the Air Force doesn't actually buy it, but it 0:06:09.310 --> 0:06:12.330 does give them a way out. So they release. 0:06:11.990 --> 0:06:15.010 The reporter, but they take his car radio to look 0:06:15.050 --> 0:06:18.470 for unauthorized equipment. As I understand it, they're not done 0:06:18.510 --> 0:06:20.770 with him. They don't believe him. But the last thing 0:06:20.810 --> 0:06:23.460 they want is to have a missing persons report out 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.190 there of a reporter that people know. So somehow this 0:06:27.290 --> 0:06:30.570 reporter and this creature have come to the same conclusion. 0:06:30.610 --> 0:06:33.849 This whole thing has to remain quiet, not because nothing happened, 0:06:34.130 --> 0:06:37.030 but because too much has happened. So I guess this 0:06:37.089 --> 0:06:38.890 is how it was explained to me. A reporter is 0:06:38.940 --> 0:06:42.160 saying that he's thinking that if he goes public, this 0:06:42.380 --> 0:06:44.820 could get him locked up again or discredited or at 0:06:44.860 --> 0:06:50.220 least fired. And the alien creature is thinking that this 0:06:50.900 --> 0:06:54.280 official exposure could put him in a lab or I 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.180 don't know. I don't There's some fear involved and they 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.800 make the classic UFO bargain. They're going to hide the 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:00.810 truth in plain sight. 0:07:01.050 --> 0:07:04.910 What happens to the alien? The reporter hides them for years. 0:07:05.150 --> 0:07:08.970 For years? Yep. Okay. So how is it that I 0:07:09.010 --> 0:07:11.050 have not heard of this case? I have not seen 0:07:11.110 --> 0:07:14.630 anything about this case online. Has anyone heard of this case? Yeah. 0:07:14.710 --> 0:07:17.010 Many people have heard about this case. 0:07:17.250 --> 0:07:17.470 Yeah. 0:07:17.790 --> 0:07:21.190 That's because this case that you just heard is the 0:07:21.300 --> 0:07:25.700 story of the pilot who Of the 1960s sitcom, My 0:07:25.740 --> 0:07:26.380 Favorite Marsh. 0:07:30.220 --> 0:07:33.230 I don't know that show well enough to have seen 0:07:33.270 --> 0:07:36.290 that coming. But you, my friend, are not off the 0:07:36.330 --> 0:07:39.590 hook for that little detour. All right. When we come back, 0:07:39.690 --> 0:08:01.110 Bryce is going to explain why that's relevant. I'm Brent Friedman. 0:08:01.290 --> 0:08:04.010 Years ago, a family friend who became a cabinet member 0:08:04.030 --> 0:08:07.810 in the Reagan administration disclosed to me that aliens are real, 0:08:08.350 --> 0:08:11.570 they're here, and he'd seen them. I'm Bryce Zabel. 0:08:11.910 --> 0:08:15.400 Later, when we were producing Dark Skies, an NBC TV 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.720 series about an alien invasion, we were approached by men 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.220 who said they were from the Office of Naval Intelligence, 0:08:21.780 --> 0:08:23.540 and they wanted to give us inside. 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.040 Information in exchange for access to our show. We didn't 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.550 take that deal. but we have never stopped thinking about it. 0:08:31.140 --> 0:08:32.860 That's why we do this podcast. 0:08:33.260 --> 0:08:36.660 We're working out ideas in real time about how Hollywood 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.740 has portrayed aliens and why. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.880 Every episode is different because there are so many questions. 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.690 We're looking for answers. It's an active investigation. Let's do 0:08:46.750 --> 0:08:47.290 this together. 0:09:04.670 --> 0:09:13.640 All right. 0:09:13.780 --> 0:09:16.819 Let me just explain what we're doing here. We started 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.900 to do a comedy show called An Alien Walks Into 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:24.400 a Bar. OK, so we got all of our comedy characters. 0:09:24.970 --> 0:09:27.890 movies and TV series together, and we started watching them 0:09:27.970 --> 0:09:31.069 through history. One of the first things we were looking 0:09:31.170 --> 0:09:33.890 at was Visit to a Small Planet, which was a 0:09:33.970 --> 0:09:35.330 Jerry Lewis comedy. 0:09:35.630 --> 0:09:38.630 Or so it was. Jerry Lewis as an alien. Yeah. 0:09:38.850 --> 0:09:40.790 And to be quite honest with you, as I started 0:09:40.870 --> 0:09:44.470 watching them, I thought a lot of them were just bad. ALF, 0:09:44.770 --> 0:09:48.350 which people remember fondly, was just horrible beyond belief. But 0:09:48.370 --> 0:09:50.090 there wasn't a lot ufological in. 0:09:50.110 --> 0:09:53.790 Any of these things. So the huge shock for me, Brent, was. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.209 I went and bought the pilot episode for My Favorite Martian, 0:09:59.250 --> 0:10:01.960 which I know. many in our audience are like, I've 0:10:01.980 --> 0:10:04.380 never heard of this thing. It is a TV series 0:10:04.420 --> 0:10:07.570 that ran from 63 to 66, I believe. And it 0:10:07.610 --> 0:10:11.890 was also a Jeff Daniels film from 1999, which nobody 0:10:12.010 --> 0:10:12.950 really remembers. 0:10:13.130 --> 0:10:14.830 I totally forgot about that. Yeah. 0:10:15.110 --> 0:10:17.010 The TV series is a big thing. And again, most 0:10:17.050 --> 0:10:20.160 people weren't alive for it or whatever. Some people who 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:24.000 are listening to us remember it fondly. I just remembered 0:10:24.059 --> 0:10:24.440 it as. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.460 A dumb sitcom. Okay. 0:10:28.059 --> 0:10:33.199 I watched this pilot and I just thought, holy crap, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.729 this thing is loaded with ufological things. 0:10:36.110 --> 0:10:36.420 Okay. 0:10:37.490 --> 0:10:40.770 It starts as a documentary. There's elements of Air Force 0:10:41.210 --> 0:10:46.250 imagery and everything. And it's a radar visual UFO case, Brent, 0:10:46.270 --> 0:10:49.460 when it starts. They put it in the aerospace context. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.040 There's a reporter in this who's being. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.200 Pulled in to watch an X-15 test. 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:56.680 And I'm going to tell you more about that in 0:10:56.740 --> 0:10:59.920 a second. But the X-15 could fly up to 60 0:10:59.920 --> 0:11:01.500 miles on this test. 0:11:02.290 --> 0:11:04.829 Really? I didn't even know that was possible then. Right? 0:11:05.910 --> 0:11:09.890 There's the official suppression in this thing. There's the crash 0:11:09.950 --> 0:11:13.960 retrieval aspect, the aliens among us, the consciousness part of it, 0:11:14.370 --> 0:11:17.550 the idea that the alien– has such a damaged craft, 0:11:17.570 --> 0:11:20.599 he's going to have to reverse engineer things himself because 0:11:20.670 --> 0:11:23.860 the technology doesn't exist here on Earth. What struck me 0:11:24.300 --> 0:11:27.720 is the beats of this show, from the newspaper assignment 0:11:27.980 --> 0:11:30.520 to the Air Force sees something it doesn't want to see, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.590 to the radar confirmation and official denial, to the threats 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.730 that they make to their own people and to reporters 0:11:39.090 --> 0:11:42.950 and others, the discovery of a crash craft. Okay, if 0:11:42.970 --> 0:11:45.670 you take away that it's a sitcom, you realize that 0:11:46.059 --> 0:11:54.209 Somebody in 1963 is floating a very ufological story at 0:11:54.250 --> 0:11:57.209 the time when Blue Book has been around for 10 years, 0:11:57.250 --> 0:11:59.970 and these cases are floating around officially. 0:12:00.650 --> 0:12:04.130 Yeah. It's fascinating. It does sound like a story that 0:12:04.170 --> 0:12:07.699 you and I would write, minus the sitcom element. This 0:12:07.750 --> 0:12:12.880 is a case, again, where truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. Yeah. 0:12:13.580 --> 0:12:17.099 The fact that this show came out and presented something 0:12:17.179 --> 0:12:22.620 that in historical context now seems very credible, but it's 0:12:22.700 --> 0:12:26.190 the setup for a sitcom, which was actually quite popular, 0:12:26.250 --> 0:12:28.190 if I remember. I only saw it in reruns when 0:12:28.210 --> 0:12:31.370 I was growing up. Yeah. Very popular. Okay. 0:12:31.770 --> 0:12:34.500 Now, it'd be one thing to just say, all right, 0:12:35.410 --> 0:12:37.800 let me put it this way. Today, we have a 0:12:37.860 --> 0:12:42.010 lot of stuff, including some comedies that are very ufological. 0:12:42.030 --> 0:12:44.090 And I want to talk about those later. We'll get 0:12:44.110 --> 0:12:44.589 to all that. 0:12:44.990 --> 0:12:45.990 But let's stay with My. 0:12:45.910 --> 0:12:49.959 Favorite Martian for a minute, because back then sitcoms were 0:12:50.030 --> 0:12:52.800 pretty bad. I know that a lot of people find 0:12:52.820 --> 0:12:56.000 them charming and whatever, but they weren't as sophisticated. 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:57.540 They weren't researched. Whatever. 0:12:57.780 --> 0:13:00.040 But here is this one that looks like a blue 0:13:00.059 --> 0:13:03.160 book case. Here's what's interesting about it. As I said, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:08.860 this thing airs in 1963 on September 29th, which if 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.740 you're counting, is less than two months until John Kennedy 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.120 is going to be assassinated. And if you're counting backwards 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.530 from that, Kennedy is reputed to have written this letter, 0:13:19.110 --> 0:13:22.850 this instruction, telling the military that we would need to 0:13:23.190 --> 0:13:25.750 deal with the Soviet Union to make sure that nobody 0:13:26.050 --> 0:13:28.309 started World War III over the sighting. 0:13:27.990 --> 0:13:32.110 Of a UFO. Okay, so that's an interesting context. But 0:13:32.130 --> 0:13:33.590 now let's roll back one year. 0:13:33.610 --> 0:13:39.809 This thing, the actual pilot, apparently- was an unaired pilot 0:13:39.870 --> 0:13:44.829 from November of 1962. So an entire year before it 0:13:44.910 --> 0:13:46.350 actually makes it on the air. 0:13:47.170 --> 0:13:47.469 All right. 0:13:48.370 --> 0:13:55.969 So here's what's interesting. In the My Favorite Martian pilot, 0:13:56.150 --> 0:13:59.530 this reporter played by Bill Bixby, who became the Incredible 0:13:59.580 --> 0:14:02.860 Hulk on TV later. This is his first starring role. 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.180 That reporter, who's called Tim, what is his name? 0:14:07.570 --> 0:14:10.670 Tim O'Hara. So Tim O'Hara is sent out to cover 0:14:10.710 --> 0:14:12.189 the X-15. Yep. 0:14:12.970 --> 0:14:16.450 It's a big deal, and they've got the HQ. It 0:14:16.530 --> 0:14:20.180 looks like sort of the pre-Nimitz Bridge thing, the set, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.120 low budget. But it turns out that on July 27th 0:14:24.140 --> 0:14:26.910 of 1962, what would that make it? 0:14:27.060 --> 0:14:29.840 August, September, October, November. 0:14:30.140 --> 0:14:33.280 So four months prior, back when a writer was probably 0:14:33.340 --> 0:14:37.880 writing the pilot, there was an X-15 test. with Air 0:14:37.940 --> 0:14:42.580 Force Major Robert White, who flew the X-15 up to 0:14:42.580 --> 0:14:47.520 59.6 miles. Now, I remember in dark skies, we had 0:14:47.540 --> 0:14:49.640 the U-2 flying at 60,000 feet. 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.700 Yeah. I think it's seven miles or something. That's crazy. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.550 It is crazy. Here's the crazy part, though. Here's what 0:14:57.570 --> 0:14:59.470 got me turned on that we should talk a little 0:14:59.490 --> 0:15:02.450 bit more about this. So Robert White is up there 0:15:02.530 --> 0:15:06.180 flying Close to 60 miles, which at that point is 0:15:06.220 --> 0:15:09.320 the highest altitude ever achieved. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:09.990 By a winged aircraft. 0:15:10.370 --> 0:15:12.420 I believe it had to be attached to something else 0:15:12.490 --> 0:15:15.430 and then take off from that thing to get up there. 0:15:16.870 --> 0:15:20.670 Time magazine reports on it. And they say that White 0:15:20.970 --> 0:15:25.430 reported that he saw something strange through the X-15's thick 0:15:25.610 --> 0:15:29.680 quartz window. And he said over the radio, and this 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.450 is a quote from the X-15 pilot four months before that, 0:15:33.970 --> 0:15:38.850 my favorite Martian. He says, quote, there are things out there. 0:15:39.350 --> 0:15:41.050 There absolutely is. 0:15:43.510 --> 0:15:43.810 Okay. 0:15:44.170 --> 0:15:48.450 Now, don't know that's a UFO or whatever. And obviously, 0:15:48.490 --> 0:15:52.230 the writer said, what would happen if it was? And 0:15:52.310 --> 0:15:55.660 what would happen? He set up a scenario. But here's 0:15:55.700 --> 0:15:59.300 what White saw. he saw a grayish piece of paper 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.800 about the size of his hand. I think he probably 0:16:01.860 --> 0:16:06.280 means holding his hand at distance. Yeah, wasn't that something 0:16:06.300 --> 0:16:09.200 the size of a hand way out there? And it 0:16:09.260 --> 0:16:12.880 was tumbling slowly 30 to 40 feet from the aircraft. 0:16:15.060 --> 0:16:17.340 At that height, what could that possibly be? 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.780 Before they had said things like ice frost and debris 0:16:20.820 --> 0:16:25.470 from the X-15 itself. But remember, this X-15... It's flying 0:16:25.530 --> 0:16:28.430 like crap. I don't know what its speed is, but 0:16:28.450 --> 0:16:31.870 for it to be flying that fast and debris from 0:16:31.990 --> 0:16:35.670 it is already a stretch as an explanation. But for 0:16:35.710 --> 0:16:39.380 something that looks like the size of your hand tumbling 0:16:39.380 --> 0:16:40.860 30 to 40 feet from. 0:16:40.740 --> 0:16:42.580 The aircraft, I don't know what that is. 0:16:42.940 --> 0:16:47.320 It was never actually explained, and even Time magazine said 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.350 it would remain a mystery. Listen, if nothing else, folks, 0:16:51.570 --> 0:16:55.050 and Brent, this is what is fun about crypto. prepping 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.800 for a show yeah if all we did was consult 0:16:58.140 --> 0:17:01.520 an ai and say tell us about my favorite martian 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.280 and you wouldn't have seen the pilot episode to really 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.859 you've just seen nobody would have broken it down ufologically 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.460 and you certainly wouldn't have been led to the time 0:17:13.500 --> 0:17:17.760 magazine article about the actual x15 test and about how 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.960 the pilot saw something anomalous. 0:17:19.980 --> 0:17:23.590 Yeah So my experience was, like I said, I grew up, 0:17:23.650 --> 0:17:26.130 this was one of the shows that was in constant reruns. 0:17:26.740 --> 0:17:29.180 I found it vaguely entertaining when I was a kid. 0:17:30.100 --> 0:17:31.899 For this show, I went back and just watched a 0:17:31.940 --> 0:17:34.580 few random episodes. I did not go back and watch 0:17:34.619 --> 0:17:37.760 the pilot. I never would have anticipated that it was 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.140 that ufological. And you wouldn't have recognized it if you did. 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:41.220 No. 0:17:42.420 --> 0:17:44.919 But what I did do was I said, oh, I wonder, 0:17:45.100 --> 0:17:47.659 how did it end? How did the show end? Yeah. 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:49.980 I don't know if you looked into this, but do 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.919 you know what the finale of this show was? Does 0:17:53.940 --> 0:17:58.140 he go back home? That's what I thought would happen. Yeah. 0:17:58.220 --> 0:18:02.020 Here's the finale of My Favorite Martian. Oh, wait. I 0:18:02.060 --> 0:18:03.900 think before you tell me. Yeah. 0:18:03.940 --> 0:18:06.530 I'm going to just say, I know in the feature, 0:18:06.869 --> 0:18:10.129 Jeff Daniels plays a guy who's come to Earth from Mars. 0:18:10.570 --> 0:18:14.950 I'm betting that he is still in the feature playing. 0:18:15.630 --> 0:18:19.670 The Ray Walston, Uncle Martin character is still on Earth, 0:18:19.990 --> 0:18:21.830 that he stays on Earth. Oh. 0:18:22.970 --> 0:18:26.050 How much were you betting on that? Oh, good. This 0:18:26.090 --> 0:18:28.530 is why we never put money on these things. Yeah. 0:18:28.830 --> 0:18:34.530 So here's what happens in the series finale. Tim and 0:18:34.570 --> 0:18:39.869 his Uncle Martin use Uncle Martin's time machine. Whoa. Yeah. 0:18:39.890 --> 0:18:42.550 I don't know exactly where that came into play. To 0:18:42.609 --> 0:18:47.520 travel back to the year. Wait for it. 1626. And 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:53.129 through a series of comic shenanigans, they interrupt or disrupt 0:18:53.270 --> 0:18:57.090 the famous real estate transaction where Manhattan Island is bought 0:18:57.130 --> 0:19:01.690 for $ 24. Oh, I did not see that coming either. 0:19:01.830 --> 0:19:05.320 That never happened then. And so the whole show wraps 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:10.199 up with this lighthearted historical mishap, rather than doing what 0:19:10.660 --> 0:19:13.280 we both thought would happen, which is sending Martin back home. 0:19:14.770 --> 0:19:17.850 Or at least staying on Earth and living out his age. 0:19:18.530 --> 0:19:22.469 And by the way, Uncle Martin says in that pilot 0:19:22.530 --> 0:19:26.129 episode that he's an anthropologist. There's a theme on a 0:19:26.170 --> 0:19:31.169 lot of these programs where people are coming to assess 0:19:31.230 --> 0:19:31.630 the Earth. 0:19:32.170 --> 0:19:33.540 Yeah, to study it. 0:19:33.859 --> 0:19:36.500 But Uncle Martin says that he's been coming to Earth 0:19:36.540 --> 0:19:39.899 for 150 years in the pilot. So what they are 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.199 also ufologically doing is extending the timeframe. 0:19:43.500 --> 0:19:44.000 UFOs. 0:19:44.550 --> 0:19:47.699 are not just something that have happened since 1947. This 0:19:48.460 --> 0:19:49.970 guy's been coming for a good long time. 0:19:50.060 --> 0:19:54.600 Time. Yeah. What I thought was interesting about this show, 0:19:54.740 --> 0:19:56.619 other than everything else you laid out, is that it 0:19:56.700 --> 0:20:00.159 really set the template for what is to come. As 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.120 you mentioned, a lot of the shows have the alien 0:20:04.220 --> 0:20:08.750 or aliens as anthropologists or people coming to study mankind. 0:20:09.300 --> 0:20:13.040 But what it does is it domesticates the UFO story. 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:16.900 It brings it into the home. And we're better than 0:20:17.020 --> 0:20:22.609 certainly the television set to introduce aliens to America, actually 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:29.670 to the world, and let audiences realize they're just like us. Yeah. 0:20:30.550 --> 0:20:36.010 I mean, that which is something that was commonly done. 0:20:36.130 --> 0:20:39.070 They're at least human form, Jerry Lewis films. although he 0:20:39.090 --> 0:20:42.450 looks like Jerry Lewis, is still a human-formed alien in 0:20:42.490 --> 0:20:46.100 his thing. A couple of really parting thoughts on My 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:51.840 Favorite Martian. This is the Rotten Tomatoes summary of it. Quote, 0:20:52.220 --> 0:20:56.080 newspaper reporter Tim O'Hara offers sanctuary to a Martian who 0:20:56.100 --> 0:20:58.939 has crash-landed on Earth. The point is you could be 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.110 forgiven for not seeing the ufology angle in that from 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.820 the log lines. Because that sounds like Alf. Alf is 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.100 completely stupid. Alf crashes in somebody's garage. The other thing 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.720 I was just going to say, and I believe that's 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:15.619 what you were just saying, but let me just draw 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:20.100 a line under it. This might, my favorite Martian, actually 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.000 becomes a template of sorts for a lot of things 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.280 that have followed. It is the alien stuck on Earth. 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:29.850 It's the alien stuck on Earth in plain sight. 0:21:30.710 --> 0:21:31.430 Right. 0:21:31.630 --> 0:21:34.990 Walking among us in plain sight. And then in some 0:21:35.010 --> 0:21:38.560 of these sitcom variations of it, and actually in some 0:21:38.580 --> 0:21:43.560 of the feature variations as well, generating constant misunderstandings. In 0:21:43.580 --> 0:21:47.700 the sitcom world, those are weekly misunderstandings. And by that, 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:51.510 I mean everything from the Coneheads to Third Rock, from 0:21:51.570 --> 0:21:52.380 The Sun. 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.890 To Alf to Mork and Mindy. 0:21:55.030 --> 0:21:59.609 They are reporting on us, and it isn't us being 0:21:59.670 --> 0:22:02.690 interested in them as much as we're supposed to say, 0:22:03.970 --> 0:22:07.590 These aliens are observing our behavior and commenting on it. 0:22:07.869 --> 0:22:10.430 It's all very fascinating. One thing I want to do, 0:22:11.350 --> 0:22:13.109 you took us on a detour at the beginning. I'm 0:22:13.130 --> 0:22:16.080 going to take a short detour here. Something interesting in 0:22:16.130 --> 0:22:21.180 this time period was at around the same time that 0:22:21.859 --> 0:22:24.520 My Favorite Martian was running, which was what, 63 to 65, 0:22:24.500 --> 0:22:25.959 you said? Yeah. Yeah. 66, I think. To 66. So 0:22:25.980 --> 0:22:35.280 from 65 to 71, there was another sitcom. called Hogan's Heroes. 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:37.960 I know a little bit about Hogan's Heroes because I 0:22:37.980 --> 0:22:41.240 was a friend with Al Ruddy, who was the creator of, 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.959 I think, co-creator of Hogan's Heroes. He also went on 0:22:45.010 --> 0:22:48.650 to produce The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, won some 0:22:48.810 --> 0:22:52.250