Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Joe McCormick. My regular co host Robert
Speaker 2: Lamb is not with me today, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: be reading and responding to some listener messages on my own,
Speaker 2: but Rob should be back tomorrow with the core episode
Speaker 2: for Tuesday of this week. We read listener mail every
Speaker 2: Monday on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. And if you'd
Speaker 2: like to get in touch but you've never done it before,
Speaker 2: why not give it a try. You can reach us
Speaker 2: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Any and all types of messages are welcome. If you've
Speaker 2: got feedback on a recent episode, we love that. If
Speaker 2: you want to provide a correction or add your thoughts
Speaker 2: on something we've talked about, if you want to share
Speaker 2: something random that you think we'd find interesting, if you
Speaker 2: want to suggest a topic for us to cover in
Speaker 2: the future, or if you just want to say hi,
Speaker 2: you can contact us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. Okay, the first message I wanted
Speaker 2: to read and respond to today is about our series
Speaker 2: on Anomalous image. Y so This was a series of
Speaker 2: three episodes we did about weird objects in nature or
Speaker 2: from ancient history that had some kind of illusory resemblance
Speaker 2: to out of place technology. And we use these examples
Speaker 2: that we talked about in these episodes as illustrations of
Speaker 2: why people should think twice before seeing something that looks
Speaker 2: weird and then thinking that it proves aliens are here.
Speaker 2: We got a message about these episodes from James. James says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: love the show. Thank you for being so awesome. I
Speaker 2: love going on the journeys of the mind blowing kind
Speaker 2: with you. So thank you again for doing all you
Speaker 2: do About the point you guys are making about the
Speaker 2: UFO hearings and alien technology at sea. I would like
Speaker 2: to point out that the person's testifying never state quote
Speaker 2: alien and go out of their way to make sure
Speaker 2: they say intelligent non human, not alien. The fact is
Speaker 2: you're claimed that the distances involved between stars is a
Speaker 2: valid point when talking about an alien visitation being near impossible.
Speaker 2: Is a great argument. But what about something that evolved
Speaker 2: right here on good old planet Earth and is as
Speaker 2: intelligent as humans or more intelligent. What if they were
Speaker 2: able to evolve with the ability to travel interdimensionally. We
Speaker 2: have almost four and a half billion years of Earth's existence.
Speaker 2: Life started fairly quickly, and thus there has been a
Speaker 2: lot of time to evolve an intelligent species or multiple.
Speaker 2: After all, it's only a few million years for us
Speaker 2: to go from Lucy to I Love Lucy. Right. If
Speaker 2: they are interdimensionally evolved species from Earth, that would mean
Speaker 2: they're hiding in the same room, so to speak. That
Speaker 2: would be way more interesting than alien visitors. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: let's not rush to judgment based on the alien argument.
Speaker 2: The military officers who testified don't And besides, it's so
Speaker 2: naive for us to think we know everything there is
Speaker 2: to know about physics, biology, or evolutionary processes on this planet.
Speaker 2: I wonder if you would comment on this side of
Speaker 2: the argument for the audience members like me who think
Speaker 2: there is something going on, it's just probably not something
Speaker 2: we can understand yet. Regards James, Well, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for the message. James. I want to partially agree
Speaker 2: with you and then offer some thoughts to the contrary. Now,
Speaker 2: I just want to assure you that when I offer
Speaker 2: my disagreements, it's nothing personal. I'm just trying to honestly
Speaker 2: share my perspective and you can take it or leave it.
Speaker 2: First of all, I strongly want to agree that we
Speaker 2: should always be humble about what we don't know and
Speaker 2: what we can't imagine yet. So you don't want to
Speaker 2: be one of those people who looks at the pyramids
Speaker 2: and says, I can't imagine how ancient people with limited
Speaker 2: technology could have built this. Therefore, where aliens move the
Speaker 2: blocks with tractor beams, failures of your personal imagination are
Speaker 2: not proof of impossibility in reality, and this is one reason,
Speaker 2: as I said in the last Listener Mail episode, I
Speaker 2: have sort of moved away from saying that alien contact
Speaker 2: is unlikely because of the distances of travel between stars.
Speaker 2: I used to be more persuaded by that argument, but
Speaker 2: I don't really say that so much anymore. Instead, I
Speaker 2: think we just don't really know what's possible in terms
Speaker 2: of interstellar travel, so maybe it's better not to use
Speaker 2: a weakly held assumption about the difficulty of that travel
Speaker 2: as the premise in an argument. Now, coming to your
Speaker 2: interdimensional non human intelligence argument, First of all, James, with
Speaker 2: great respect, I think there's a rhetorical move you're making
Speaker 2: in this email that might be causing more confusion than illumination,
Speaker 2: So we'll see what you think about this. You're trying
Speaker 2: to make the case that there's a significant possibility that
Speaker 2: non human and intelligences, maybe interdimensional in nature, exist on Earth
Speaker 2: and are responsible for some UAP sidings or other strange phenomena,
Speaker 2: And the leverage you're using to get to this conclusion
Speaker 2: is first of all, that many different types of life
Speaker 2: forms could be produced by biological evolution. That's true, and second,
Speaker 2: it would be naive to assume we know everything about nature.
Speaker 2: I would agree with both of these premises, but I
Speaker 2: don't think they lead to your conclusion. So I agree
Speaker 2: there are lots of things we don't know about nature,
Speaker 2: but the fact that our knowledge of nature is incomplete
Speaker 2: is not evidence for any particular claim about nature, like
Speaker 2: the one you're making about interdimensional beings. If it were,
Speaker 2: it would equally be evidence that Bigfoot's real, that ghosts
Speaker 2: are real, that fish or psychic and can read our thoughts,
Speaker 2: That there are planet sized protozoa that fly around the
Speaker 2: galaxy eating stars, and all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 2: You can argue for anything by appealing to the fact
Speaker 2: that we don't know everything. So I think that's not
Speaker 2: really a very useful observation, that we don't know everything.
Speaker 2: That's true, but it doesn't really get us anywhere. What
Speaker 2: we would actually be looking for is good old fashioned evidence,
Speaker 2: some positive reason to think that non human intelligences exist.
Speaker 2: So a second thought I had about this type of
Speaker 2: explanation is that when you move from explanations based in
Speaker 2: aliens from another planet to explanations based in interdimensional non
Speaker 2: human intelligences that can slip in and out of our
Speaker 2: physical reality at will, to me, that kind of brings
Speaker 2: to mind the analogy of the car, the analogy that
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan uses of the dragon in his garage. So
Speaker 2: this is something Sagan writes about in his nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: five book The Demon Haunted World. And in this analogy,
Speaker 2: Sagan he says, okay, imagine I come up to you
Speaker 2: and I say, in all seriousness, there is a fire
Speaker 2: breathing dragon who lives in my garage. And you say,
Speaker 2: all right, let's go see it. And then Sagan says, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: well you can't see it. If you look in my garage,
Speaker 2: you're not going to see anything except some old paint cans.
Speaker 2: And ladders because it is an invisible dragon. So you
Speaker 2: might say, oh, well that's okay. Let's spread some flour
Speaker 2: on the floor and then we can see the dragon's footprints,
Speaker 2: and Sagan says, well, no, that's not going to work either,
Speaker 2: because my dragon floats in the air. So you say, well,
Speaker 2: then let's feel around for it, you know, rub the
Speaker 2: scales on its belly, and then Sagan says, no, my
Speaker 2: invisible dragon is made of a different kind of matter,
Speaker 2: a matter that you can't feel by touching. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: composed of weakly interacting particles like neutrinos or something, so
Speaker 2: you could you could pass right through the dragon without
Speaker 2: knowing it. So then you say, okay, well let's use
Speaker 2: a neutrino detector or some other kind of highly sensitive equipment,
Speaker 2: and he says, no, hold on, that won't work either
Speaker 2: because of X, Y, and Z. So one of the
Speaker 2: points Sagan is making here is that an object that
Speaker 2: cannot be reliedly detected by any physical means is indistinguishable
Speaker 2: from an object that does not exist. But I think
Speaker 2: one of the secondary points he's making with this analogy
Speaker 2: is that explanations that are endlessly adaptable, so that they
Speaker 2: can never be falsified. You know, they constantly shrink away
Speaker 2: from any new proposed physical test or attempt to detect
Speaker 2: them that you know, there's always a newly formed excuse
Speaker 2: that's kind of characteristic of claims that we know from
Speaker 2: experience turn out to refer to nothing in the real world.
Speaker 2: And so again with respect, when I hear people say, well, no,
Speaker 2: they're not aliens from another planet. They're from another dimension
Speaker 2: into which they can disappear at any moment. So that's
Speaker 2: what that would explain why they're like hard to detect physically.
Speaker 2: At that point, my invisible dragon sensor is going off.
Speaker 2: There's no way to know a belief like this is
Speaker 2: wrong for sure, but I'm kind of sensing a belief
Speaker 2: that's retreating further and further from sincere attempts to detect
Speaker 2: it with clear evidence. Now, I want to be fair
Speaker 2: to the UFO UAP enthusiast and notice some ways that
Speaker 2: this analogy does not fit. For one thing, there's a
Speaker 2: difference in that Carl Sagan's dragon is just him coming
Speaker 2: up to you and saying there's a dragon there, and
Speaker 2: UFOs or UAPs there is actual, real documentary evidence or
Speaker 2: at least what is purported to be real documentary evidence.
Speaker 2: So it's not just someone saying there are aliens. There
Speaker 2: are photos of objects and videos of things moving around
Speaker 2: in the sky, or photos of things at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the ocean or other just like weird looking things
Speaker 2: that people say, maybe this is evidence of aliens. So
Speaker 2: you've got something to work with there. And here's where
Speaker 2: I would come back to what we talked about in
Speaker 2: our series where we discussed the idea of low information
Speaker 2: and low resolution evidence. And if you haven't heard the
Speaker 2: whole series, i'd recommend going back and listening to the
Speaker 2: three episodes, starting with the core episode on the Eltanan
Speaker 2: Antenna if you want to hear us develop this in full.
Speaker 2: But essentially, we were talking about a correlation that is
Speaker 2: pretty easily observed regarding UFOs and UAPs, which is that
Speaker 2: these pieces of evidence, whether you're talking about photos or videos,
Speaker 2: material or narrative, are almost always characterized by really notable
Speaker 2: deficits of information. Like if it's a photo or a video,
Speaker 2: it's hard to tell for sure what you're looking at.
Speaker 2: You might not be able to judge scale or distance,
Speaker 2: or color or texture. Details are obscured the picture is
Speaker 2: generally low resolution, and there are often also deficits in
Speaker 2: contextual knowledge that you would be able to apply to
Speaker 2: the image. So maybe you don't know enough about where
Speaker 2: and when it was taken, circumstances there, or you don't
Speaker 2: understand the technological mediator of that image. You don't have
Speaker 2: a deep understanding of how cameras and other types of
Speaker 2: sensors are imaging systems work, so you're not familiar with
Speaker 2: artifacts they produce, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 2: for some reason, in cases where those information deficits are resolved,
Speaker 2: where there actually is like a really sharp, high quality
Speaker 2: image or sharp high quality video with a lot more
Speaker 2: visual context, or maybe you either have the knowledge or
Speaker 2: you're able to show the image to somebody who has
Speaker 2: the knowledge about the environment that you're looking at and
Speaker 2: the equipment you're using to document it and so forth. These,
Speaker 2: for some reason tend to be the cases where oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's not even actually a moving object, that's a camera artifact,
Speaker 2: or oh this is actually a distant airplane reflecting light
Speaker 2: in a weird way, or that's a balloon, or it's
Speaker 2: a seagull or a group of stars, in the night sky,
Speaker 2: or an insect moving in the foreground, or a natural
Speaker 2: rock formation that looks like technology, or an animal that
Speaker 2: looks like technology. It's a sea sponge antenna, it's not
Speaker 2: a crash UFO. It's a big rock moved by a glacier, probably, etc.
Speaker 2: Now I would stress that observing this trend does in
Speaker 2: no way proves that we're alone in the universe. In fact,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even prove that aliens have never visited Earth.
Speaker 2: Those are questions with what I would call effectively infinite
Speaker 2: search spaces, So you can really never answer them in
Speaker 2: the negative, because you can never rule out the possibility
Speaker 2: that there's evidence you haven't found yet. The search space
Speaker 2: for evidence is effectively infinite. But I think this trend
Speaker 2: should strongly caution us against using any piece of evidence
Speaker 2: from the low information zone or the low resolution zone
Speaker 2: as if it were a good reason for thinking non
Speaker 2: human intelligences are here and flying around in the skies
Speaker 2: and leaving technology on the ocean floor and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: We can never rule that out with certainty. It's always possible,
Speaker 2: But isn't it more likely whatever weird photo or video
Speaker 2: you're looking at would be more like these other cases
Speaker 2: where additional information made it clear that they had explanations
Speaker 2: from within the known range of causes. That said, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, and as we said in the series,
Speaker 2: you always want to keep an open mind if the
Speaker 2: evidence is actually good. You don't close yourself off to say, like,
Speaker 2: no it. You know, there is a kind of conditioning
Speaker 2: that I think can happen to a skeptic where you
Speaker 2: encounter so many claims that all turn out to be
Speaker 2: false you just kind of assume the pattern will always hold.
Speaker 2: You can't assume it will always hold. But I do
Speaker 2: think it's fair to draw analogies from cases you've looked
Speaker 2: at in the past to similar, you know, reasonably similar
Speaker 2: cases that you encounter in the present and in the future.
Speaker 2: But as I said, open minds are good if the
Speaker 2: evidence is actually good. I just think we're not there yet.
Speaker 2: So if the recent testimony from the US Congress with
Speaker 2: the whistleblowers talking about claims of government possession of alien
Speaker 2: technology and bodies and stuff like that, or sorry to
Speaker 2: accept your correction, non human intelligences, if that ever goes
Speaker 2: beyond the hearsay stage, if there's actual meet some kind
Speaker 2: of physical evidence or first hand eye witness testimony. I'd
Speaker 2: be interested to see what it is and learn more,
Speaker 2: but we're not there yet, so for now I reserve
Speaker 2: judgment and remain skeptical. So thanks again, James for the
Speaker 2: interesting thoughts and whether or not you agree with me,
Speaker 2: I hope I at least made my perspective clear. You
Speaker 2: can write back if you have more questions or thoughts
Speaker 2: to the contrary. Next message is from Tyler. Tyler is
Speaker 2: also responding well. Tyler's responding to a previous Listener Male episode,
Speaker 2: which also had to do with anomalous imagery and explanations
Speaker 2: based in aliens or non human intelligence. And in this
Speaker 2: previous list mail, a listener sent us a picture of
Speaker 2: a McDonald's parking lot I think in Roswell, New Mexico,
Speaker 2: which included a silver statue of an alien. And this
Speaker 2: really got me wondering about a true alien intelligence the
Speaker 2: logic of corporate policy. I was wondering how lenient is
Speaker 2: McDonald's corporate headquarters about what kinds of art you can
Speaker 2: put up outside a franchise location. I would have assumed
Speaker 2: they'd be pretty iron fisted about visual branding issues like that,
Speaker 2: but Tyler and others got in touch to share information.
Speaker 2: To the contrary, Tyler says, hey, guys, on today's listener mail,
Speaker 2: after some speculation on what McDonald's franchisees are allowed to
Speaker 2: put up for displays, Joe wondered if you could put
Speaker 2: up a statue of a t rex. I did ask that,
Speaker 2: Tyler says, the answer is yes, there is a dino
Speaker 2: themed McDonald's here in Tucson. I guess this would be Tucson,
Speaker 2: Arizona that, to the best of my memory, was outfitted
Speaker 2: with Dinah when the first Jurassic Park came out. I
Speaker 2: think some of the other dinosaurs have been removed since then,
Speaker 2: but the tyrant king still reigns. And Tyler attached a
Speaker 2: photo of a McDonald's that looks to be on a
Speaker 2: street corner. And yeah, right there, beside the drive through lane,
Speaker 2: there is a huge t rex sculpture with its its
Speaker 2: mouth is open. It is roaring at the red light
Speaker 2: that is next to its head. So maybe this t
Speaker 2: rex is experiencing some vicarious road rage even though he
Speaker 2: cannot himself drive a car. I'm also noticing there is
Speaker 2: a metal fence all the way around this animal. I
Speaker 2: think that could be to prevent kids from climbing on it.
Speaker 2: But I wonder if there was also a fear of
Speaker 2: auto collisions, because running into a dinosaur in your prius
Speaker 2: would be a really good Hall of Fame insurance claim.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm going to do a couple of messages
Speaker 2: about weird house cinema. This first one came from longtime
Speaker 2: correspondent Jim in New Jersey. Jim says, Robert, Joe and
Speaker 2: JJ I have a Shakespeare movie adaptation suggestion for weird
Speaker 2: house cinema. Last time we were asking about weird Shakespeare adaptations,
Speaker 2: Jim says, it is Scotland, Pa, which is a dark
Speaker 2: comedy adaptation of Macbeth set in the nineteen seventies in Scotland, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: It's currently on Amazon Prime. Scotland, Pa. Is a real
Speaker 2: village that's about five miles outside the town where I
Speaker 2: grew up. It's about two miles from where my mom
Speaker 2: currently lives. I drive through the hamlet every time I
Speaker 2: visit her. The movie didn't premiere in the town, nor
Speaker 2: was it ever shown there. Scotland, Pennsylvania is about two
Speaker 2: or maybe three blocks long, and there's definitely no movie theater.
Speaker 2: The movie is rated R for language, adult content. Heck,
Speaker 2: it's Shakespeare and brief nudity, so it's not for the kids.
Speaker 2: From what I remember of Macbeth in high school, the
Speaker 2: movie follows the plot pretty faithfully, but with some obvious
Speaker 2: time period, location, and language changes. And there are several
Speaker 2: dark humor laughs too. Jim in New Jersey but from Pa, well,
Speaker 2: thank you, Jim. I watched this movie in high school.
Speaker 2: This came out when I was in high school, and
Speaker 2: I think I watched it with my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 2: who is now my wife, and we, yeah, I remember,
Speaker 2: we thought it was really weird. I believe that Macbeth
Speaker 2: and Lady Macbeth kill Duncan, who is the owner of
Speaker 2: a drive through restaurant that sells donuts, by dipping him
Speaker 2: in a deep friar, which is really gross. Uh, and
Speaker 2: they're oh, oh well. The other thing I remember about
Speaker 2: it is that McDuff, the hero who comes and kills
Speaker 2: Macbeth at the end, is played by Christopher Walken, who
Speaker 2: I think is a police inspector. I do not recall
Speaker 2: how they handle the burnham Wood dunsinane thing. One last
Speaker 2: message today. This comes from Pamela. Pamela says Dear Joe
Speaker 2: and Rob when listening to the Weird House episode on
Speaker 2: the Maze, you had me at Weird Twist ending. I
Speaker 2: turned the pod off, and later that evening found the
Speaker 2: movie on YouTube and watched. I feel qualified to give
Speaker 2: you a cold watch review of how the movie worked.
Speaker 2: First of all, I completely forgot it was three D.
Speaker 2: I was baffled and horrified by the dance sequence in
Speaker 2: the club, and this is something we talked about in
Speaker 2: the episode. There is a dance that is quite impressive.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, they're good dancers, but it involved like
Speaker 2: swinging a female dancer so that it looked extremely dangerously
Speaker 2: like her head was going to crash into the floor.
Speaker 2: But she never did. She was all right anyway. Sorry,
Speaker 2: Pamela goes on, I don't even know what to say
Speaker 2: about the intermittent testimonials from the aunt, whose name I
Speaker 2: have already forgotten, except that is a choice, especially since
Speaker 2: it seemed to be from a room that was not
Speaker 2: used for any of the other shots in the movie.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. It's like the predecessor of the
Speaker 2: confessional in a modern reality show, where they put them
Speaker 2: in a special place and make them wear the same
Speaker 2: hair and makeup and outfit so they can edit it
Speaker 2: into whatever they want later. I must also admit I
Speaker 2: had to fight to stay awake during parts, and I
Speaker 2: sincerely hope the dialogue in the book was better than
Speaker 2: that of the movie. More importantly, though I couldn't tell
Speaker 2: what the print on the stair was. Oh yeah, at
Speaker 2: some point in the movie, the monster leaves a strange
Speaker 2: footprint on the stair, so Pamela says, I actually thought
Speaker 2: it was a weird large leaf print, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: until the creature but escaping into the wall that I
Speaker 2: knew there was a creature at all. Parentheses as a woman,
Speaker 2: I need to add, how infuriating is the plot device
Speaker 2: of a woman fainting after seeing something she does not
Speaker 2: understand or is scary. Yep, yep, Pamela goes on. By
Speaker 2: the time we see the giant frog and hear the explanation,
Speaker 2: I was at the sure just want the movie to
Speaker 2: be overpoint. The only people in this movie I really
Speaker 2: felt much compassion for or worthy Aunt because Kitty is
Speaker 2: kind of insufferably wilful, and the frog, who did not
Speaker 2: get enough screen time. I agree about that with the frog.
Speaker 2: The movie was way too long for the week payoff
Speaker 2: at the end in my humble opinion, but I would
Speaker 2: like to make a case for a much better and
Speaker 2: far more entertaining movie that Weird House needs to add
Speaker 2: to the cannon. Nineteen eighty seven's Dolls. It is an
Speaker 2: almost fairy tale like cautionary tale about being a good
Speaker 2: person and a respectful guest or else. Filmed in Italy
Speaker 2: but in English by director Stuart Gordon. Brilliant story of
Speaker 2: a miserable family that breaks down in a terrible storm
Speaker 2: outside the house of an elderly couple that makes dolls.
Speaker 2: Other guests end up trapped there as well. The stop
Speaker 2: motion animation of the creepy porcelain faced dolls is amazing.
Speaker 2: Love all the different flavors of the podcast offered cross
Speaker 2: each week. Thanks for all the hard work. You guys
Speaker 2: are the best. Pamela. Oh well, thank you, Pamela. Thank
Speaker 2: you for the kind words, and thank you for sticking
Speaker 2: it out through the movie to give us your unbiased thoughts.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I really appreciate you getting in touch. I
Speaker 2: think that's going to do it for the mail bag today,
Speaker 2: but we will have more listener mail to feature next Monday.
Speaker 2: On Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week, that's when we
Speaker 2: do our core Stuff to Blow Your Mind episodes, which
Speaker 2: are usually about science and culture in some way. On
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we do a short feature called the Artifact or
Speaker 2: the Monster Fact. On Fridays we do a series called
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema where each Friday we just watch and
Speaker 2: discuss a strange film can be good or bad, well
Speaker 2: known or obscure, as long as it is weird. And
Speaker 2: on Saturdays we run an episode from the Vault, an
Speaker 2: older episode of the show. If you're not subscribed to
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