WEBVTT - The Eltanin Antenna 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.200 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:15.840 is Robert. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.480 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. And oh boy, I'm 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:24.159 excited because it's Anomalous historical photograph Day on Stuff to 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.880 Blow Your Mind. Today, we are going to be talking 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:33.640 about a moderately famous underwater image that has been classified 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:38.040 by some as an anomaly. Now, I think it's debatable 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.760 whether the word anomaly could or should still be applied 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:46.199 to it, because I guess normally anomaly is defined as 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.400 something that is different from what is normal or expected, 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.800 or at least appears to be different from what is 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.160 normal or expected. I don't know if you can still 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.560 apply that to a photo that you pretty much have 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.080 conclusively identified and soared into the mundane category now, but 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.720 still looks weird. Maybe we can adjudicate that later in 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.240 the episode. But anyway, one thing that is interesting about 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.400 anomalist photographs in our culture is that the anomaly kind 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.720 of has a secondary definition beyond just something that is 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.360 or appears to be different from what is normal or expected, 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.040 and that secondary definition is proof of aliens confirmed. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.600 Yes, yeah, this is a this is a topic we've 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.360 we've touched on a little bit before. I mean, things 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.720 have come up, like, you know, supposed ancient etchings or 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.160 carvings of dinosaurs. I remember we did at least in 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.360 that one episode on that in the past. And then 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.120 you can also apply this to things like photographs of bigfoot, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.040 photographs of strange lights in the sky, and so forth. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.160 And granted, especially in those two categories, you often get 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.080 into situations where there is often a strong case to 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.200 be made for intentional fiery on top of all the 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.160 other things that can be going on with a photograph, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:10.120 you know, actual photographic anomalies, atmospheric anomalies, and so forth. 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:15.960 Today's episode deals with an image that is not a 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.840 work of fakery. It is an actual image that was 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:26.120 gathered through scientific exploration. But without proper expertise, you can 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.440 easily see well basically anything you want out of it. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:37.160 You know. The thing about an anomaly like this quote 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:42.040 unquote is that, yeah, whatever your preconceived notions happen to be, 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:47.000 you can easily attach them to this thing, especially if 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.200 you don't have that expertise and you don't have that 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.600 sort of I don't know, general open mindedness about what 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:53.919 it might be right. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.120 This is one of many cases where if you don't 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.640 have the requisite contextual knowledge, something that is initially just 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.080 a weird looking photograph can take on all kinds of significance, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.800 and in fact, there has been a historical mythology built 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.600 around this one weird photo we're going to talk about today. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.960 But I think before we get into the photo we're 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.680 talking about in today's episode, since this is going to 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.359 touch on the idea of proof of aliens confirmed and 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.040 UFO lore and all that, I feel like it's fair 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:29.359 to sort of just announce where we're coming from. We've 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.200 talked about this somewhat on the show before, and we've 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.320 actually gotten some recent listener mail where people were asking 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.560 us to address the recent news about so called UFO disclosures, 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.720 So to do that at the top, Rob, I don't 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.440 want to speak for you, but I think we're probably 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.640 on roughly the same page here. You can correct me 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.960 if I'm wrong. Despite the recent flurry of excitement, and 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.880 if you haven't kept up with it, the short version 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.280 is there was recently whistleblower testimony in front of a 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:00.480 House Oversight subcommittee in the US Congress from a man 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.520 who claims that people have told him that the US 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.960 government knows aliens exist and we are in possession of 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.360 crash spacecraft and alien bodies, etc. There is no hard 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.800 evidence publicly available. He's saying people told him this. So 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.719 despite the excited media coverage about this, my personal position 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.520 remains basically unchanged. And I would characterize that as regarding 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.320 the topic of alien contact or alien visitation of Earth 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:37.119 with curiosity and open mindedness, but strong skepticism. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.720 Yeah, yeah, and I do want to drive on. It's 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:41.960 perfectly all right to be excited by all of this. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.520 I mean, the idea that somebody's testifying about this in 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.120 front of the House Oversight Subcommittee is pretty exciting, and 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.880 he's saying some pretty exciting things, and you can't help 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.200 but ask, well, if true, what does that mean? And 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.240 raises a lot of questions. But yeah, I think there 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:05.160 are some legitimate questions to be raised before you really 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.640 take all that to the bank. And plus, as we've 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.760 talked about on the show before, the idea of alien life, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.960 it's a complex question, you know. The deeper you go, 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.600 there's obviously a big difference between saying yes, I think 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.240 there is something else alive in the universe and saying yes, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.920 I think there are other life forms. They're technologically advanced, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.120 they have spaceships, and they have visited us. And oh, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.400 some of our secreted advanced technology today is based on 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.120 things that we were able to pilfer from their crashes. 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.640 So like, is their life? Is there intelligent life? To 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.919 paraphrase Arthur C. Clark, Any answer to any such question 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:41.279 I think is equally mind blowing. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 Right, that's right, And I think it's very good to 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.160 disentangle those two questions. One the question of whether aliens 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.640 exist at all somewhere out there. On that question, I 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.479 think we just don't have enough information to decide. So there, 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.640 I don't even really lean one way or another on 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.040 that as of today. I think it's just totally open question, 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:04.000 not enough information to judge. 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.080 Yeah, I mean there you could basically say well, there is, 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.320 there isn't. And to get more directly to the Arthur C. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:14.880 Clark quote about this, like either answer is just absolutely 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.680 stunning to say that we are completely alone in the universe, 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.359 that we are the anomaly our planet of life, or 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:23.520 to say oh, yeah, there is somewhere out there, there 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.599 is a planet of life. And it may be just 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.080 so far from us. It's so far from us that 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:34.039 also questions of when become complex to think about. But yeah, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.240 it could be out there and we will simply never 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.680 know about it, and it will never know about us, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.440 you know. I mean, it's all this is just mind 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:41.720 blowing to contemplate. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.360 But while I think alien existence overall is a totally 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.320 open question, visitation is a question where I guess my 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.599 standards are a little bit different, and I do start 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.160 to have a lean on that question. I will say 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.400 I'm not one of those people who thinks it's like 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.920 gross or shameful to even investigate the idea of of 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:08.200 alien contact on Earth, like I sometimes see skeptical scientists 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.160 like getting angry about like Avi Lo coming out in 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.119 the news and saying, Oh, I'm combing the seafloor looking 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.240 for metal spheres to run tests on them, and I 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.000 think maybe they're aliens. I understand their frustration with him 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.880 sort of maybe jumping the gun on the conclusion and 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.400 over hyping results to say I think there are aliens. 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.080 But I mean, I think it's fine to investigate if 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.800 that interests you, as long as you are objective about 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.200 what you find and you don't misrepresent or overhype in 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:40.520 conclusive results to the media, which I think is a 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.720 legitimate thing to get kind of annoyed about. And that 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.360 is the main thing that I think a lot of 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.040 skeptics find annoying about that sort of project. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.920 It is kind of interesting that if a scientist is 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.880 talking about putting like shrimp on a treadmill or something 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.320 to that effect or of that sort of nature, there's 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.880 always the follow up question, oh, have you said if 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.840 you have you solved the problem of cancer yet? Have 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.840 you have you? I guess you've You've You've tackled all 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.240 of these other big scientific problems. But generally I don't 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:16.800 hear that criticism leveled at UFO scientists and so forth. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:18.760 They're not like, well, wait, why are you not not 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.080 curing cancer? Why are you looking for UFOs? I don't know. 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.800 You can interpret that how you wish. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.600 Well, that is interesting, I mean, I guess I would say, uh, scientifically, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.120 and looking for evidence of alien visitation of Earth is 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.920 like a kind of a high risk, high reward strategy. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.680 It's sort of a gambit. It's like you, I mean, here, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.559 I'm speaking with you know, my personal opinion I'd say, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.240 you are very very likely wasting your time, but on 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.080 the off chance you're not, you will make the most 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.840 important discovery in human history. 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.600 True. Yeah, So it's a it's a big gamble. It's 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.040 it's like, you know it's the Latto, right, you know 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.600 that the odds are just astronomical, but the prize is enormous. 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.160 So you go ahead and you your ticket, you scratch 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:01.480 it off. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.080 But anyway, but coming back to the question of evidence 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.080 for alien visitation, I would be you know, I'm not 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.640 like somebody who doesn't want to find out about this. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.520 I would be extremely interested and excited if there were 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.079 any good reason to believe aliens ever came to Earth. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.400 But I have been interested in this topic and never 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.479 seen evidence that was even close to convincing. And furthermore, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.040 what I have seen is like a pattern of behavior, 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:33.239 a pattern of behavior from alien contact advocates of presenting 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.760 bad evidence as good or promising that there is good 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.320 evidence somewhere else, maybe being hidden from you, maybe soon 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.160 to be revealed, and you'd be really convinced if you 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.360 saw that, but for some reason you can't. And so 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:52.240 that pattern of behavior, I would say, has conditioned me 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.920 like it puts my guard up about any explosive claims 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.040 on this subject, even if they're being listened to by Congress. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.440 So you know, at this point, I'm still I would say, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.520 I am still waiting for good evidence, and I reserve 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.920 judgment until good evidence actually shows up. That you know, 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:11.600 like that people can look. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.800 At I like how you're always up for the possibility. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.440 For me, if I'm being honest, there's some weeks where 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.280 I'm like, this is not a good week, y'all. If 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.440 we are going to discover that the alien visitations have 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.600 been occurring and there's like definite proof that, I just 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.840 would prefer that it happened like maybe next month, because 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.120 I've got a lot going on right now. 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.960 Well that's a good point, i'd say. Also, yeah, there 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.920 are some weeks I'm more ready to meet the grays 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:38.640 than other ones. 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:40.680 Now, one thing I want to stress is, you know 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.560 we're talking about here is the sort of questing for 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.680 objective evidence and how often there is a lack of 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.199 objective evidence here. And I do want to stress something 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:55.720 that we've touched on before regarding subjective experiences. Subjective paranormal 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.120 experiences are certainly real to those who experience them, and 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.640 they can clearly be life changing in a number of ways. 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:03.720 So you know, you or people you know may have 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.400 had these experiences. You may have seen something you couldn't 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.480 completely explain. And as humans, we've always had such experiences, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.720 and we can apply skepticism and scientific logic to why 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:18.040 these experiences occurred. You know, in short, supernatural or the 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.000 other worldly explanations are rarely necessary, but we still have 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.079 to acknowledge the impact of the experience. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.240 Right, And this is a thing that I think makes 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.240 the UFO subjects kind of difficult because a lot of 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.480 people who are very devoted to belief in UFOs have 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.199 in some sense had like an experience of their own 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.000 or they think, you know, they're like personally connected to 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.840 this subject. And so it's very important to stress that, like, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.040 while you've got to keep your skeptical standards of evidence 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.720 up when you're actually saying have aliens really been here? 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.720 You know, you want to have a high standard of evidence, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.280 but at the same time be sensitive to people and say, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.360 like us looking for that standard of evidence is not 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.360 a personal critique of you as a person have had 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.360 an experience. You know, it is very common for people 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.120 to have strange experiences that they don't know how to explain. 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.360 And it's even if maybe aliens are not the best 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.679 actual explanation according to the evidence we have, it's not 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.000 unreasonable that some people would, I don't know, seek an 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.800 explanation of that sort when they've had a very powerful, 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.239 unexplainable experience. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.520 Right, something you can't explain happens. You look for answers. 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:27.520 You also look for patterns in the world around you. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:29.920 But as you look for answers, you also encounter pre 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.360 existing scripts to try and make sense of what that was. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.960 And if it's lights in the sky, well, there are 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.480 a few ready made scripts that are probably the easiest 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.240 to absorb, that have like social support, some of them 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:46.480 are religious, some of them do relate to things like space, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:48.599 aliens and so forth, and so it makes sense that 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.560 you would latch onto those to make sense of what 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.920 happened to you. And yeah, then you go out into 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.400 the world, you look for patterns, you look for supporting information. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.280 Now here's where we're going to start moving back toward 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:03.080 our anomalist photo of the day, or supposedly anomalous photo 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.800 of the day. There is a counter to everything we've 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.000 been saying so far, which is sometimes people will say, well, okay, 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.920 maybe you're not impressed with everything you've seen so far, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.120 but what about this photo of a triangular arrangement of lights, 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:22.559 or this video of a white object moving across the sky, 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.720 or this object on the seafloor that looks like a 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.440 piece of alien radar equipment, etc. There are a lot 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.480 of pieces of media out there, a lot of photo 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:36.000 and video and sometimes sound recording and stuff where people 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.320 can say this looks weird or this sounds weird. I 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.160 can't think of anything that I know of on Earth 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.600 that would produce an image like this, So shouldn't all 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.440 of that stuff count as evidence of aliens? And this 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.640 brings me to a concept that I've been thinking about 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.400 recently that is really just based on an offhand phrase 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.080 I heard when I honestly, I don't remember exactly which 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:02.760 interview this came from, but I was listening to a 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.080 series of interviews with a science writer and skeptical UFO 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:12.040 researcher named Mick West. West He's written articles for skeptical 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.240 publications about all kinds of subjects, written about Kim Trail's 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.920 and things like that, but also about UFOs of late, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:24.640 and has done analysis of popular UFO or UAP videos 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.119 to try to figure out if you can actually identify 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.400 what is it we're looking at in this video, where's 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.480 some kind of weird object appears to move across the sky, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.680 and in many cases he is able to identify, in 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.960 some cases he's not. And so I apologize if I'm 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.720 not using West's exact preferred terminology here, but this is 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.440 just what I heard him say offhand in one moment, 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.720 and it was the idea of something called the low 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:53.280 information zone. I think maybe another way to think about 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.840 the same idea would be to call it the zone 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.480 of low resolution, with low resolution referm ring in the 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.600 specific sense to photographs and other attempts at imaging that 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:09.120 produce a blurry or fuzzy or indistinct product, but also 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.080 to think about low resolution in a broader sense, where 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.680 it would refer to records or pieces of media, or accounts, 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:21.440 any type of evidence that contain lower than desirable ratios 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:26.720 of identifying detail and are generally lacking in context and clarity. 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.320 I think this concept is really useful when talking about 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.280 UFOs or UAPs, where it seems to me West's sort 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:40.280 of generalization is that all of the pieces of evidence 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.960 for aliens or other non human intelligence making contact on 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.320 Earth that remain somewhat interesting or still seem kind of 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.280 unsolved or viable tend to exist in this zone of 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.600 low information or low resolution, where there's a lot of vagueness, 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.120 lack of verifiable detail, or lack of context. Essentially, there's 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.880 not enough information in them that a reasonable observer can 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.600 be confident that they understand what they're looking at. Meanwhile, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.240 when there is evidence in the sort of high information zone, 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.360 say when there's like really good video that's in focus 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.520 and has proper foreground background for scale, and has a 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.680 lot of information in it, it seems like it's specifically 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.280 those cases that are more likely to turn out to 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:33.680 have provable, clear, identifiable, mundane explanations. These turn out to 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.920 be plastic bags or balloons or airplanes or stars or 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.720 well known digital artifacts produced by cameras and other types 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:43.400 of sensors. 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.600 Yeah, this is also where intentional fakery tends to come 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:48.200 out as well. 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.680 Oh yeah, and I thought this was interesting because I 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.240 do not at all want to represent myself as a 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.240 UFO expert. I'm not in any way, but It just 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.800 sort of squares with my experience as a generalist researching 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.920 extremely variegated, supposedly anomalous phenomena throughout history. You know, we've 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.200 covered a lot of subjects like this on the show 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.160 at some point, especially with things that have been claimed 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.159 as proof of aliens or proof of the supernatural or 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.840 whatever it seems. It's very often in the cases where 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.520 information quality is high that you're most likely to nail 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.840 down an alternative explanation to figure out, ah, here's what's 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.480 going on. It does have an explanation, the explanation is 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.920 mundane or within the range of known causes and so forth. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.200 And it's in cases where the information quality is very low, 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.520 where details are vague or uncheckable, where crucial context is missing, 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.119 and so forth, that you end up having to shrug 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.320 your shoulders and say, I don't know what we're looking at. 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.000 I don't know what this is, don't know what the 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.400 explanation is. And in that case, if a UFO enthusiast 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.399 is so inclined, they could say, ah, you don't know 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.920 what it is. Therefore proof of aliens confirmed. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.639 Yeah, this reminds me too of you know, you can 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:07.960 also look at various signals that have been it seemed 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:11.640 to be observed, you know, coming from elsewhere in the cosmos, 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.920 sounds that have been recorded coming from the deep ocean, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.000 things where you know, there's some there are some, definitely 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:24.119 some strong hypotheses regarding these various anomalies. But at the 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:25.920 end of the day, can you one hundred percent say 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.919 what it is? Well, not necessarily, and therefore the window 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.119 is left cracked at least a little bit, maybe maybe 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.520 cracked a lot, a lot further open, depending on your 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:42.080 willingness to interpret it a certain way. But it remains 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.160 open somewhat to some of these more far fetched explanations. 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.160 And then you can go the extra mile and say, oh, well, 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.240 prove to me that the bloop is not the sound 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.240 of mighty Cuthulea rising in the deep. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:19:06.040 Yeah, elder gods, disprove or except so, I guess the 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.160 question from a reasoning standpoint is if you accept and 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.240 I think most people will probably recognize this at some level. 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.159 You be kind of familiar with this, even beyond like 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:17.720 UFOs and stuff. This is just kind of true in life. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.280 If you accept this pattern is generally true, that evidence 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.960 one could hold up as viable in terms of proving 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.879 something weird. A weird explanation tends to exist in the 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.960 low information zone, whereas evidence in the high information zone 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.359 is very likely to end up pointing to a mundane explanation. 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.040 Should this pattern itself influence how you think about evidence 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.720 of alien life, I would say personally, I don't think 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.440 it should bias at all your starting assumptions about whether 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.320 aliens exist, because, as we said again early on, that's 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.399 that's just like not really within our search space for 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.280 evidence at least so far, so open question there. But 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:05.119 think it probably should increase your resistance to putting apparently 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:10.440 anomalous but low information observations into the could be alien's basket, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.400 because you know this pattern exists. There's lots of stuff 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.800 like this. There are many analogies. But usually the higher 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.840 you are able to turn up the resolution on what 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.639 you're looking at, the more information you can add, the 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.119 more context you can get, the more the sharper you 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.320 can make the contours of the image itself. The less 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:34.560 likely it is that aliens are going to seem like 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.919 a good explanation, and the more likely you are to 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.399 be like, oh, that's a plastic bag, or like oh, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.920 that's a recognizable animal. And I think maybe that'll bring 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.720 us to the case today, a case of an underwater 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:53.560 photograph that has been dubbed the Eltannin antenna, or maybe 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.000 if we don't think it's an antenna in the end, 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.280 should we call it like the eltannan object. 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.840 Ah, yeah, that's fair. I have wondered that everyone keeps 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.000 calling it the l ten and antenna. Why not just 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.520 call it the Eltenna. It seems like that like the 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.720 natural direction to go in. But but yeah, the the 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:11.960 this is going to be a good one to discuss 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:16.439 because it is a thing that an image that that 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:22.040 was completely embraced by ufologists and and sort of paranormal 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.800 interpretations and continues to be held up in many circles 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.760 as being this kind of icon of the paranormal, in 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.760 proof of something. You know what that's something is depending 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:35.879 on you know, your exact case that you're making for 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.359 like the secret nature of reality. And yet at the 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.040 same time we know exactly what it is. I mean, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:49.000 experts who know their way around deep sea organisms and 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.320 and the sorts of things you'd expect to find in 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.040 the deep ocean do not seem to have had any 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.000 They don't seem like they've had any doubts about this 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:01.320 for a number of decades. In fact, it's not that 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.439 long after the image was taken that we have a 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.520 pretty solid and convincing answer that everyone seems to be 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.200 satisfied with outside of the paranormal investigation world. 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.359 Yes, I would say, to be as fair as possible 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.800 to the people who want a paranormal or alien explanation, 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.760 you can't know for sure what it is because, like 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.080 you can't go back and check it, Like this was 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:28.440 a sort of transient phenomenon somewhere in the bottom of 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.240 the ocean, so we can't go back to the exact 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.159 spot and say, oh, is it still there and check it. 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.960 But I'd say ninety nine point nine percent sure we 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.320 know what it was. There's something else that would explain 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.400 this photo and would be found naturally in the place 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:44.200 where it was taken. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:46.960 All right, let's roll out the story here. And the story, 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:49.000 I have to say, does start off with a number 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:53.840 of elements that already sound kind of supernatural, because the 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:58.040 story concerns the us NSL Tennant, an ice breaking cargo 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.679 vessel named after a star in the Draco constellation, and 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.080 I believe the name L ten And derives from the 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.760 Arabic for the great serpent. That's all just too good 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.399 off to a good stard. Yes, yeah, so it already 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:16.080