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Speaker 1: If they still have a disinformation campaign going on. Is

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Speaker 1: it trillions of dollars?

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Speaker 2: Oh boy? Right?

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Speaker 1: Where does it go? Where do those tentacles lead? What

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Speaker 1: are the levers that they're pulling? It really raises a

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Speaker 1: lot of questions.

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Speaker 2: All I can say is whether they spent millions or

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Speaker 2: billions or trillions on it. Whatever they were buying with

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Speaker 2: it sucked us into it. I'm Bryce Sable. Have you

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Speaker 2: ever wondered if there's a secret connection between Hollywood and UFOs?

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Speaker 1: I'm Brent Friedman, and you are listening to sound, light

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Speaker 1: and frequency.

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Speaker 2: And in this episode, we're going to take a trip

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Speaker 2: through a wormhole and make contact within inner dimensional alien.

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Speaker 1: One who happens to look a whole lot like Jody

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Speaker 1: Foster's father.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about Contact today, which we're using as kind

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Speaker 2: of a portal. It's a film, of course, but we're

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Speaker 2: using it as a portal to talk about all kinds

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Speaker 2: of things, like what it's about SETI, the search for

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Speaker 2: extraterrestrial intelligence, but also about what that means, whether there's

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Speaker 2: life out there in the universe, what does it mean

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Speaker 2: for UFOs. We've got some personal stories, but what's interesting

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Speaker 2: for those of you who maybe haven't seen Contact, or

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Speaker 2: haven't seen it for a while. Remember this is the

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Speaker 2: one where Jody Foster plays someone who's listening for signals

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Speaker 2: from space. She finds one and then the games begin,

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Speaker 2: which we'll be talking about. But what I find fascinating

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Speaker 2: about it, Brent, as we bring you in here, is

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Speaker 2: that maybe, maybe, just maybe the aliens don't come to us,

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Speaker 2: is what Carl Sagan, who wrote the book and then

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Speaker 2: inspired the film, But maybe they bring us to them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is one of the key differences between that

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Speaker 1: and certainly a lot of the movies we've seen, particularly

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Speaker 1: the last movie we did, which was Close Encounters. But

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Speaker 1: there's some other really interesting distinctions that Contact has, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, one of my favorite movies, not just

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Speaker 1: in this genre but of all time. I've probably seen

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Speaker 1: it twenty times. There are no UFOs in Contact, there

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Speaker 1: are no aliens, there's an energy being that presents itself

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Speaker 1: as an Nhi. There's a really interesting spiritual element within

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Speaker 1: the show as well. And most importantly, Interdimensional Travel might

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Speaker 1: have been one of the first movies that introduced interdimensional travel.

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Speaker 2: It's really gone down in history where it has improved

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Speaker 2: with every year. People really have found this film. Instead

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Speaker 2: of moving on from it, they found it and re

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Speaker 2: embraced it. Just so everyone literally does understand what we're

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Speaker 2: talking about. If you were to give Contact, the film

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Speaker 2: that was directed by Robert Zamechis and came out in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, if you're due the log line for it,

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Speaker 2: this is what I think it is. When a brilliant

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Speaker 2: SETI scientist deciphers a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence, she

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Speaker 2: must fight political opposition, personal doubts, and humanities fear of

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Speaker 2: the unknown to become Earth's first ambassador to the stars.

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Speaker 2: It's a little high falutin, but it is one sentence,

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Speaker 2: so therefore it's a log line. Yes, well done.

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Speaker 1: Well, We've already talked about a number of unique qualities

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Speaker 1: that Contact has, But one of the most important connections

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Speaker 1: that I think we can make is to Carl Sagan,

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Speaker 1: who was not just the author, but was also somebody

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Speaker 1: that was known in pop culture for his views on

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Speaker 1: the search for extraterrestrial life. And also Bryce, if I'm

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Speaker 1: not mistaken, you have a personal connection to Carl Sagan.

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Speaker 2: I can't wait to talk about this one. I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to do it quite yet, but I did meet

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Speaker 2: Carl set and I was the host of a show

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Speaker 2: about the Voyager to Encounter with Saturn. He was my

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Speaker 2: guest and we got into an argument in the parking

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Speaker 2: lot afterwards about whether UFO should be acknowledged by him

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Speaker 2: or not, which we'll get to but before we do.

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Speaker 2: You know what I think is so fascinating about this

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Speaker 2: is every movie has a story behind the story, but

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Speaker 2: this one is really kind of complex and kind of

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Speaker 2: interesting and compelling. This started in nineteen seventy nine when

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Speaker 2: Carl Sagan and his wife Andrew and decided that they

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Speaker 2: would write a treatment for a feature film because he'd

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Speaker 2: been you know, he was the host, he was recording Cosmos,

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Speaker 2: which was this huge TV phenomenon at the time, and

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Speaker 2: they thought, well, let's capitalize on this. We can sell

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Speaker 2: a movie because we're hot right now. So they wrote

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Speaker 2: one hundred page treatment for a feature film and it

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Speaker 2: was picked. That's a script, yeah, and people that have

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Speaker 2: read I haven't been get my hands on it, but

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Speaker 2: people that have read it have often described it as

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Speaker 2: pretty much a script in narrative form. And it went

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Speaker 2: into development, as we call it in Hollywood development hell,

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Speaker 2: where it sat around. It really didn't sit around, but

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Speaker 2: for seven years, it didn't get instantly made. And over

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Speaker 2: the course of the lifetime of this film, Brent and

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Speaker 2: you and I can relate to this because we have

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Speaker 2: rewritten people, and we have been rewritten. But there were

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Speaker 2: like a dozen screenwriters who took a crack at this

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Speaker 2: script over the years.

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Speaker 1: A dozen in seven years actually sounds small to me.

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Speaker 2: It might even be well, actually that's just the first run, okay,

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Speaker 2: because all right, so Carl Sagan at some point decides,

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Speaker 2: you know, this isn't going as fast as I would

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Speaker 2: like it to have gone, so he decides to write

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Speaker 2: the book. And Carl Sagan, after my little encounter in

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Speaker 2: the parking lot, which, as I said, we're going to

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Speaker 2: get to, Carl Sagan decides to write this book. And

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Speaker 2: he does, and it becomes a really big popular book.

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Speaker 2: And I own one of the original copies it and

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Speaker 2: I read it at the time and I thought, wow,

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Speaker 2: this is really a great piece of writing, and it's

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Speaker 2: really mind blowing and I enjoyed it. So then that

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Speaker 2: book gets optioned and it goes back into the development process.

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Speaker 2: Now remember we're starting in nineteen seventy nine. The book's

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Speaker 2: coming out in nineteen eighty five. It's a big hit,

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Speaker 2: and it goes back into development. Producers change, directors change.

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Speaker 2: At one point Spielberg's going to direct it, At another

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Speaker 2: point George Miller's going to direct it. It ends up

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Speaker 2: with Zemechas of course, it goes on and on. They

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Speaker 2: rack up the dozen writers, and finally it does get

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Speaker 2: made in nineteen ninety seven, and it has been a football.

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Speaker 2: It's been kicked around, everybody's said their vision of it,

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Speaker 2: and I think the thing that is kind of interesting

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Speaker 2: for me because usually I'm sure you probably agree, but

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Speaker 2: when Hollywood writes a project that much, it tends to

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Speaker 2: level it down to almost nothingness, and you just kind

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Speaker 2: of go, that's a really nobody's vision. It's not yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's like nobody's vision. But in reality, I think we're

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Speaker 2: both fans of this film.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely. It was one of the first films, I believe,

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Speaker 1: in this genre that introduced the whole concept of religion

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Speaker 1: and spirituality and made that a focus. But then the

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Speaker 1: irony is correct me if I'm wrong, Sagan was an

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Speaker 1: atheist totally, and so the fact that it was so

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Speaker 1: front and center and the storytelling was interesting but also

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Speaker 1: not just that he was an atheist, but he didn't

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Speaker 1: believe in UFOs.

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Speaker 2: Is that correct? Yeah? But quick story though about Sagan

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Speaker 2: being an atheist. Okay, So the movie is really kind

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Speaker 2: of a bit of a back and forth about science

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Speaker 2: versus religion, and I think that that's really compelling. Science

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Speaker 2: is represented by the Jodie Foster character, Elier Away, who

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Speaker 2: is a scientist. If she can't prove it, tough luck

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Speaker 2: where she got. On the other side, Matthew McConaughey playing

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Speaker 2: a guy named Palmer something Palmer Joss, which is quite

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Speaker 2: a feature name, I guess, and McConaughey is this religious guy,

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Speaker 2: and so they go back and forth. They even sleep together.

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Speaker 2: They're not in the book, but I guess in Hollywood

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Speaker 2: they thought somebody better have sex or it's not a movie.

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Speaker 2: So they do sleep together, and that's compelling in its

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Speaker 2: own right, I guess. But Matthew McConaughey told this story

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Speaker 2: once where he said Sagan ended up on the set

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Speaker 2: and he mesmerized everybody by going on and on about

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Speaker 2: the size of the universe and everything, and everybody is

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Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, this is so interesting and

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Speaker 2: so compelling. And then at the end of it, Sagan goes,

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Speaker 2: and that's why I'm an atheist. And Matthew McConaughey's take was,

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Speaker 2: what you just lost me. That's why I'm not an atheist.

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Speaker 2: You had me all along thinking that's proof for God.

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Speaker 2: So to me, that says something about it worked if

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Speaker 2: it allowed people who were atheists and then also strong

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Speaker 2: believers in God to say it's got me thinking, it's

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Speaker 2: got me talking. And even Jody Foss I believe, said

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Speaker 2: that at the time she was an atheist, but it

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Speaker 2: made her think. So a bunch of atheists making a

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Speaker 2: movie about God via science, yeah, very very interesting. I

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Speaker 2: think that the division between science and religion is one

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Speaker 2: of the core dividers in our culture today and has

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Speaker 2: been for a long time. And yet this movie does

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Speaker 2: something interesting. It bridges those gaps and says the commonality

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Speaker 2: between science and religion is faith right, right, because science

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Speaker 2: cannot prove everything right and much cannot be proven with religion,

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Speaker 2: and it requires faith, it requires a belief. This goes

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Speaker 2: back to that concept of taking the leap of faith. Right.

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Speaker 1: That's just like what Roy Neary did at the end

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Speaker 1: of Close Encounters. That's what Elie araway has to do

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Speaker 1: in order to get to that final destination is take

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Speaker 1: this massive leap of faith that this craft they've built

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Speaker 1: is actually going to carry her safely to wherever the

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Speaker 1: destination is.

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Speaker 2: What's fascinating, by the way, is that on the leap

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Speaker 2: of faith topic is that there are other films that

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Speaker 2: have invoked messages from space. We've already talked about Charlie

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Speaker 2: Sheen doing The Arrival where he literally has the same

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Speaker 2: role as Jody Foster has the guy picking up that

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Speaker 2: first message. But then if you think about it two

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Speaker 2: thousand and one in Space Odyssey, there's a message coming

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Speaker 2: from Jupiter that they pick up. I believe the X

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Speaker 2: Files second season premiere had a message from space. The

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Speaker 2: Three Body Problem, which was just made into a Netflix

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Speaker 2: series last year, starts with us sending a message to

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Speaker 2: space and then it getting returned in a violent way.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, sending a message into space is classic.

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Speaker 2: Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan met his wife Andrewian and I

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Speaker 2: hope I pronounced her name correctly, but they met while

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Speaker 2: designing the gold plate that went on the Voyager spacecraft

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Speaker 2: that showed the naked man and woman and tried to

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Speaker 2: explain to an alien race what humanity was. It had

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Speaker 2: music on it. In some respects, you can say it's

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Speaker 2: kind of naive because you're assuming that if anybody, first

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Speaker 2: of all, nobody will ever find it. But if they did,

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Speaker 2: you don't know who they are. And that's why Stephen

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Speaker 2: Hawking a few years back back in twenty ten, I think,

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Speaker 2: said we should be careful before we start sending messages

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Speaker 2: into space, because maybe the people who get it won't

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Speaker 2: be so nice to us if they show up. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Well, but that also reminds me of another connection here,

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Speaker 1: which is when you talk about Carl Sagan and participating

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Speaker 1: in the Voyager project. I know Sagan didn't work for

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Speaker 1: the government, but he was part of the ad hoc

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Speaker 1: committee to review Project Blue Book back in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: and I'm guessing he was brought onto that because he

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Speaker 1: was a known skeptic. Well, I think probably it's time

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Speaker 1: for the great Parking lot Ufo debate between me and

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Speaker 1: the esteemed Carl Sagan. Here's what happened. Sagan had a

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Speaker 1: stablished himself as kind of a skeptic. As you pointed out, Brent,

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Speaker 1: He'd gone on many shows he had talked about how

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Speaker 1: he thought the universe was teeming with life, you know,

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Speaker 1: the famous billions and billions of planets out there and

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and thank you. So anyway, he

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Speaker 1: said that the problem was UFOs. He didn't buy because

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Speaker 1: he didn't see the evidence and they couldn't be here

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Speaker 1: because the distances were too great, which is we'll get

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Speaker 1: into more in a moment, but we both know that

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Speaker 1: he started out in his young life as a kid,

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Speaker 1: and then into the sixties where he actually did talk

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Speaker 1: about how UFOs could be aliens from space, and then

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Speaker 1: he had a change of heart. All right, so that's

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Speaker 1: the backdrop. Okay, all right, it's nineteen eighty one, it's August,

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Speaker 1: and Voyager two is having an encounter with Saturn, which

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Speaker 1: means it's going to do a close flyby of Saturn.

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Speaker 1: It's going to send back photos. Everybody's very excited. I

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Speaker 1: was an anchor reporter at the PBS station in Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles KSET, and I had been put in charge of

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Speaker 1: caring and hosting a show called Saturn and Beyond. So

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Speaker 1: I thought, what can I do to make this exciting,

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Speaker 1: you know, to get some audience here? And I thought well,

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Speaker 1: Carl Sagan the year before had just recorded and produced

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Speaker 1: Cosmos at that same station. I thought, if anybody has

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Speaker 1: something that they owe the station, it's Carl. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he spent an entire year or more there recording it.

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Speaker 1: So I put a call through and ask him if

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Speaker 1: he would appear as our live guest, and he said yeah.

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Speaker 1: So he came out that night. He was the guest.

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Speaker 2: It was pretty cool. We got to talk about how

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Speaker 2: what was going on, and you know how great the

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Speaker 2: guy is. You know, he was just phenomenal on TV.

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Speaker 2: Tell me what you remember about Carl's persona, what's your

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Speaker 2: take on how he was?

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Speaker 1: I mean, when I became aware of Carl Sagan, he

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Speaker 1: struck me as the prototypical scientist, Like I believed every

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Speaker 1: word that came out of his mouth. He seemed incredibly learned,

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Speaker 1: if not a genius, and there was a bit of

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Speaker 1: arrogance to him, but probably well earned because like I said,

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Speaker 1: he seemed like a very smart guy. But he seemed

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Speaker 1: like an ambassador for space travel. That's how he came

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Speaker 1: off to me.

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Speaker 2: And the guy who sort of has taking his place

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Speaker 2: is Neil the grass Tyson, who is not nearly as

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Speaker 2: charming as Carl Sagan and not nearly as nice. I mean,

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Speaker 2: Neil de grass Tyson sort of just laughs at people

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Speaker 2: that have any belief or experience or whatever with the

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Speaker 2: UFO topic. And Sagan never was that. Sagan was a

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Speaker 2: really cool guy. I mean, it was really happy to

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Speaker 2: have him on the show. I didn't know at the

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Speaker 2: time that he was a pothead. He smoked a lot

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Speaker 2: of pot he wrote he was on he was high

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Speaker 2: most of the time he was writing that famed feature treatment.

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Speaker 2: This is a seventies, late seventies, right, And by the way,

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Speaker 2: this is not a story about me and Carl Sagan

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Speaker 2: getting high in the parking lot, which might get a

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Speaker 2: even better story. But okay, So we did the show.

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Speaker 2: It went great, and then he was charming and he

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Speaker 2: went out and shook hands with the crew and everything,

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Speaker 2: and as the sort of the host producer, I thought,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of my job to be a host,

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Speaker 2: So I said, can I walk you to your car?

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Speaker 2: And I think he had a he's going to do

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Speaker 2: nightline out at JPL, so he had to sort of

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Speaker 2: get out of there and get going. So I walked

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Speaker 2: him out to the car and as I'm walking this

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Speaker 2: guy out to the car. I don't know why this

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Speaker 2: exactly came to my head like something I should do.

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Speaker 2: But I said, you know, I'm not sure I agree

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Speaker 2: with you on this UFO issue. And he's like, now,

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Speaker 2: I don't have the exact words of everything here. My

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Speaker 2: memory is not that good. But he kind of looked

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Speaker 2: at me like, oh, yes, you know one of those

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Speaker 2: very skeptical things that I said, Well, look, you're a

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Speaker 2: famous for saying there are billions and billions of stars

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Speaker 2: out there in the universe. You've even said the universe

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Speaker 2: is teeming with life and that some of it has

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Speaker 2: to be intelligent, and that it's clearly more advanced than

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Speaker 2: we are, even by maybe a million years. But you

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Speaker 2: also insist these other beings could never be here on

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Speaker 2: Earth because the distances are too vast. And he looks

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Speaker 2: at me and he goes he had been smiling up

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Speaker 2: at this point. He got a little less smiling and

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Speaker 2: he goes, what's your point? And I went, well, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's just that if you're going to look for radio

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Speaker 2: signals from other civilizations, I mean, if they're so far

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Speaker 2: advanced from us, maybe they know physics better than we do.

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Speaker 2: Maybe they're already here. And if you're going to be

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Speaker 2: looking for radio signals which you haven't received yet, why

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Speaker 2: wouldn't you want to look into the evidence that we

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Speaker 2: already have here on earth for people who have seen

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Speaker 2: things and pilots from the military and commercial and you know,

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Speaker 2: you know where this goes. It was just me and

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Speaker 2: Carl standing there going volley return, volley return, volley return,

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Speaker 2: and I have to say he didn't budge at all.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't convince Carl Sagan that he should

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Speaker 2: be studying UFOs, and he didn't convince me by the

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Speaker 2: way that they weren't real. And he was trying enough.

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Speaker 2: And then about fifteen minutes in he said, well, I've

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Speaker 2: got to get to JPL and he got in a car,

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Speaker 2: which the one thing I don't remember what the car was, Brent,

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Speaker 2: I remember it was a super cool roadster kind of thing. So, okay,

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Speaker 2: my last image of Carl Sagan is he gets in

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Speaker 2: this hot sports car and he goes motoring off with

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Speaker 2: the top down off to JPL. And I've never forgotten

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Speaker 2: that because he had a way. I guess I would

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Speaker 2: just say this. He could have been really mean about it,

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Speaker 2: but he wasn't. He didn't agree with me, but he

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Speaker 2: didn't make me feel small, which Neil deGrasse Tyson would

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Speaker 2: do if you got in a debate with him. It

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Speaker 2: was just cool. But I just felt like, this isn't

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Speaker 2: there's something not right here, that something's not quite right,

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Speaker 2: because he, as a scientist, should want to look at data,

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Speaker 2: and there was plenty of data from pilots, et cetera,

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Speaker 2: which is going to lead to part two of this story.

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Speaker 2: I guess which you were part of.

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Speaker 1: Well, I was just gonna say for being such a

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Speaker 1: nice guy, he kind of got the treatment from us

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Speaker 1: when we put him in Dark Skies as a character.

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Speaker 2: I feel really bad about this story we're going to

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Speaker 2: tell because you know, in full disclosure, I guess we

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Speaker 2: should just say during the production of Contact, during the

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Speaker 2: early production, Carl Sagan died. He had a virulent cancer.

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Speaker 2: He'd been fighting it for like three or four years

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Speaker 2: and he passed away. Which we didn't know that he

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Speaker 2: was ill when we made him a character in Dark Skies,

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Speaker 2: but he was. Yeah, I had no idea, me neither.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it makes me feel bad in retrospect. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: tee it up and you run with it.

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Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Later on in the first season

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Speaker 1: of Dark Skies, we were looking to, you know, bring

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Speaker 1: in other characters and storylines from pop culture, and even

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Speaker 1: though there was no proof that Carl Sagan worked for

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Speaker 1: the government said he was involved in Project Blue Book,

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Speaker 1: we decided, well, let's say that he did work for

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Speaker 1: the government secretly and that informed his positions, and so

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Speaker 1: we brought him in as kind of the chief scientist

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Speaker 1: working for Majestic twelve.

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Speaker 2: You know, Brent, I have to say, he's in the

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Speaker 2: final two episodes, right. One episode is called Strangers in

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Speaker 2: the Night and he's in that one that's where he

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Speaker 2: gets recruited, and he's in our final episode called Bloodlines.

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Speaker 2: Here's the thing that I thought was so interesting about

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Speaker 2: it though, because it actually mirrors something close to what

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Speaker 2: I think might have happened, which is in our episode

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Speaker 2: where Carl Sagan is recruited, he gets picked up by

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Speaker 2: the Majestic twelve folks and he's freaking out because he's saying,

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Speaker 2: this is kidnapping. You know, you're kidnapping me. And our

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Speaker 2: Carl Sagan was played by a wonderful actor named Joe

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Speaker 2: Erla and he's very interesting he's not doing a complete impersonation.

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Speaker 2: It's good. He's a good actor. So he's playing Carl

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Speaker 2: and he says, you've kidnapped me. They head of Majestic

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Speaker 2: twelve says to him, I want you to understand you're

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Speaker 2: in absolutely no danger, doctor Sagan. We have information you

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Speaker 2: probably want to hear, and if you want to hear it,

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Speaker 2: we'll be happy to tell you. But at that point

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Speaker 2: you're going to be working for us. If you want,

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Speaker 2: I can pull the car over right now and let

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Speaker 2: you out, and if I do, you'll never find out

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Speaker 2: what we know. And the choice is entirely yours. And

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Speaker 2: of course, who can take store number one? And he says,

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Speaker 2: tell me what you know. They bring him in on

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Speaker 2: the whole alien scenario, and his job is to be

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Speaker 2: their chief scientist, as you said, but also to become

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Speaker 2: the chief skeptic to America, falling in the footsteps of

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Speaker 2: Donald Menzel, who had done it in the fifties, who

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Speaker 2: was a Harvard astronomer who it looks like may have

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Speaker 2: been a part of the Majestic twelve organization. He's listed

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Speaker 2: on the documents, but he was America's most public skeptic

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Speaker 2: and debunker right.

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Speaker 1: Well, so here's the interesting thing. Everything we just talked

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Speaker 1: about is obviously purely fiction. We have no idea what

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Speaker 1: Carl Sagan was doing with his personal life, what choices

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Speaker 1: he was making to gain knowledge or not gain, you know,

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Speaker 1: and why he was a skeptic. All of these things

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Speaker 1: are not available to us. But put aside Sagan's personal

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Speaker 1: beliefs and even a potential government allegiance, Contact the movie

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Speaker 1: raises some interesting questions because I think one of the

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Speaker 1: things I'd like to do is turn this back on Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: and the question is who decides what movies get made

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 1: You look at what you described as the Journey of Contact,

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Speaker 1: starting off, as you know, a treatment written in the

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Speaker 1: late seventies, I think seventy nine. You said that, then

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Speaker 1: went through a bunch of development hell, and then that

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Speaker 1: prompted Carl and Ann to write the novel, which then

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Speaker 1: got optioned and eventually turned into a movie. And so

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Speaker 1: I guess the question is did it become a movie

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Speaker 1: just out of what they call on the biz luck

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Speaker 1: and timing right or is there something else going on?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 1: And here's the thing, Look, it's ridiculous to say that

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Speaker 1: every movie or every TV series is part of this

404
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Speaker 1: managed disclosure that a lot of people believe is going on,

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Speaker 1: or disclosure or disinformation. But is there potentially a macro

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Speaker 1: narrative that's taking shape over the course of decades right

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Speaker 1: that you have to pull way back to be able

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Speaker 1: to see the pattern emerging. So if this is what

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Speaker 1: I want to do, if you look at the connections

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Speaker 1: between the last movie we did, Close Encounters of the

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Speaker 1: Third Kind, came out in seventy seven, and Contact, which

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Speaker 1: came out in nineteen ninety seven, a lot had changed

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Speaker 1: culturally and specifically with regards to space travel, because in

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Speaker 1: eighty six was the Challenger disaster, which took the wind

415
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Speaker 1: out of a lot of people's sales and made space

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Speaker 1: travel a little less romantic and a little bit more scary.

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Speaker 1: And there's plenty of dissimilarities between these two movies. You know,

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Speaker 1: you've got physical aliens versus interdimensional beings, you've got physical

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Speaker 1: nuts and bolts craft versus interdimensional travel. But there is

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Speaker 1: this recurring theme between those two movies, and frankly a

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Speaker 1: lot of the movies in between, which is nhi are

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Speaker 1: more involved than humans, but like us, there are benevolent

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Speaker 1: and malevolent Nhi. And so now you say, well, from

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Speaker 1: one movie to another, if you say, well, if there

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Speaker 1: was an agenda, they wouldn't be saying in one movie,

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Speaker 1: well there's they're all good, right, it's it's it's et,

427
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Speaker 1: it's it's the little Gray Space brothers from Close Encounters,

428
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Speaker 1: or they're all bad like Independence Day or going back

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Speaker 1: to Charlie Sheen the Arrival. Right, So, how do we

430
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,199
Speaker 1: how do we account for this? And is there something

431
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:58,199
Speaker 1: to be gained by looking at that larger kind of

432
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: view of the narrative that's slowly been evolving over time

433
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: in Hollywood through a series of movies and television shows.

434
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 2: Great question, and because I have absolutely no good answer

435
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: to it right now, we're going to go to another

436
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 2: break and give me a time to figure out what

437
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: to say, so we'll be right back. I still don't

438
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 2: have a great answer, Brent, but I do have some context.

439
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 2: It is interesting in nineteen ninety seven, Contact, you'd have

440
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,360
Speaker 2: to say, is about good aliens or good in NHI

441
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 2: non human intelligence, whatever they are exactly, although they're clearly

442
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 2: aliens from the Contact point of view. But what was

443
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 2: going on in the in the mid nineties from around

444
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 2: ninety three. On let's face it, you had the X Files,

445
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 2: which had captured everyone's imagination, and there was a giant

446
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 2: conspiracy and the aliens weren't necessarily the good guys. I

447
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 2: had a movie come out at that time called Official Denial,

448
00:24:57,359 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 2: where the name actually the aliens were pretty good because

449
00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 2: I us in that movie. But then you had our

450
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 2: own show, Dark Skies. You had the Arrival Machine, where

451
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 2: they were not good people. They were trying to take

452
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 2: over our planet through nefarious means. You had Independence Day,

453
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: the blockbuster of ninety six, where well, everyone knows an

454
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 2: Independence Day, we fight aliens and we blow things up

455
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 2: and all that. What's interesting is in ninety six, well,

456
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 2: you and I were doing Dark Skies. Time magazine did

457
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 2: a cover story about this. They were saying that the

458
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,959
Speaker 2: alien story had gotten so big that everybody was in

459
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 2: on the act, and we were one of the shows

460
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 2: that was highlighted for doing that. Absolutely. I know I

461
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 2: was quoted in it. I can't remember what the quote was,

462
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 2: and it probably wasn't all that important, but it was

463
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 2: in it. So what's interesting, though, is most of the

464
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 2: product that was part of this explosive new reckoning in

465
00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 2: the nineties was bad aliens, aliens that want our own

466
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:05,360
Speaker 2: planet and want it for reasons where it wasn't exactly

467
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 2: good for us, you know. Even Actually, if you go

468
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 2: back to ninety three when X Files debuted, you also

469
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 2: had Fire in the Sky, the Travis Walton case, which

470
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 2: we'll be doing a show on later in the season.

471
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 2: But that was not good. The aliens weren't good there either,

472
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 2: at least as they were portrayed in the film. And

473
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 2: then along comes Contact that says, you know what, not

474
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 2: only can the aliens be good, they can still have

475
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 2: their own agenda, but they can be on our side

476
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 2: more or less, or at least like they're the Big Brothers,

477
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 2: sort of almost Spielbergian, the benevolent Space Brothers kind of thing.

478
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 2: And I find that whole context very interesting. And at

479
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 2: the same time, I will also say this, I don't

480
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 2: know if this says something about Eufology or Contact as

481
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 2: a feature film, but most people think you can't make

482
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 2: a good alien movie without aliens and some sort of conflict.

483
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 2: But in reality, Contact is considered a very very good

484
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 2: movie and nothing gets well, actually there is, something gets

485
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 2: blown up. The first version of the spaceship, the build

486
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 2: gets blown up yep, So I guess they had to

487
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: blow something up. But otherwise it's very calm, and I

488
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 2: don't know if that's part of an agenda or not.

489
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 2: So I think I've just stalled and I haven't answered

490
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 2: the question. What is your answer? Well, I appreciate the stall.

491
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 2: You took us on a nice detour there. I want

492
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 2: to go back to something our friend JC said to

493
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: us and our infamous encounter with them in your backyard.

494
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 2: He said that the disinformation campaign right was strong, and

495
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 2: that what he was doing was working with the group

496
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 2: from Oni to counter that with a disclosure program, right,

497
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 2: and that what their goal was was to work with

498
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 2: Hollywood to slowly.

499
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: Disclose kind of. I think that was the drip, the

500
00:27:55,600 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: first concept of drip feeding disclosure over time using the

501
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: veil of fiction, right. So I think this is a

502
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: key idea, is if again, if that were true, and

503
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,160
Speaker 1: we go back and we look at just a spectrum

504
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: from seventy seven to ninety seven before we kind of

505
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: really widen the iris in the three episodes we've talked

506
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: about so far, one of the central messages that you

507
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: could glean from looking at just that two decades of

508
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: Hollywood data, is that there is a message, right, There

509
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: is a core message that is above all of the

510
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: narratives or all of the plots, and that is we

511
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: are not alone. But the visitors are not that different

512
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: from us except for their mental and physical capabilities. Rights,

513
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: that's where they are above us. But in terms of

514
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: being like us, there are good ones, there are bad ones.

515
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: There are ones who are trying to help lesser rass

516
00:28:55,480 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: there are some that are predatory, right, And so that actually,

517
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: going even back to Sagan's idea of billions and billions

518
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: of stars out there, it would make sense that there's

519
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: not just one other race in the entire galaxy or universe.

520
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: There's got to be many of them. And what I

521
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: feel like Contact did well is it expanded the conversation

522
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: and it said it doesn't have to just be from

523
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: planets right that are twenty six light years away. It

524
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: can be something where it could be much further. And

525
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: by the way, when we get there, it's not even

526
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: a physical place. Jodi Foster as character Ellie, goes to

527
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: a place that has been digitally recreated or virtually recreated

528
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: from her memories from a painting that she did as

529
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: a kid. Right, which says a lot about the power

530
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: of these aliens or these non human intelligences that can

531
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: pose as her dead father right to connect with her.

532
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: That is a level of sophistication and be even beyond benevolence,

533
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: and which is, by the way, the last point I'll

534
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: make I think part of where I look at contact

535
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: and I see that it introduced this concept of spirituality again,

536
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: not as kind of the central tension between science and religion,

537
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: but also attributing spiritual qualities to the aliens, to the

538
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: point where today there's a discussion that it's either angels

539
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: right or aliens right.

540
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 2: Certainly in the religious community, that is true. You know

541
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: what I just realized where you were talking, You and

542
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 2: I are such undisciplined podcasters that we managed to get

543
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 2: this far into a program and not actually explain to

544
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 2: people what the plot of this movie was. So I'm

545
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: just going to fill in one thing before we go

546
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 2: any further, which is they get a message from space.

547
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 2: We're condensing here, but Ellie gets this message from space.

548
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 2: It goes public. It's not kept secret, it's not the

549
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 2: government keeping it secret. They tell her everybody what it is,

550
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: and then they all get to work to try to

551
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: figure out what it says, and what it is is

552
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 2: a detailed schematic for some kind of machine, not necessarily

553
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: a spaceship. Nobody knows what it does, but they build one,

554
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 2: and a terrorist blows up that first version, and then

555
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 2: a rich guy sort of Elon Musk who's dying in

556
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 2: space played by John Hurt, has built a second one,

557
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: and it turns out that our main character, Ellie, gets

558
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 2: to get on that craft. It does a bunch of

559
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 2: whirrying and stuff when they turn it on, and nobody

560
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 2: is quite sure what's going to happen. Then in an instant,

561
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 2: it stops and there's Ellie and everybody goes, I guess

562
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 2: nothing happened. Only that's where it gets interesting.

563
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: Right, because everything she experiences we experience. But everyone back

564
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: on Earth saw the ball fall in two seconds and

565
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: assumed nothing happened. There was no encounter.

566
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 2: And what's so great about that, though, is the eighteen hours.

567
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 2: They find out that there's eighteen hours of recording of

568
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 2: this digital noise. But it's not like it did only

569
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 2: take seconds. It took eighteen hours, But nobody believes her.

570
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 2: And I've always wondered because eighteen is such a specific number. Remember,

571
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: back during Watergate, Nixon Head is eighteen and a half

572
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: minute gap in the Watergate tapes, and now this is

573
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 2: the eighteen hour gap. I don't know if they were

574
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 2: making any political statement about that, but interestingly enough, that's

575
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 2: not in the book, the eighteen hour thing. It's not

576
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: in the book. The first screenwriter put that in, and

577
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 2: it actually works very well, and there's been controversy over time.

578
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 2: In those dozen drafts or different writers, there were many

579
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 2: different endings to it. It was possible to have an

580
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: ending where it was very clear that she had gone someplace,

581
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 2: and they sort of ended on one where it looked

582
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 2: like the guy in the government didn't want to admit

583
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 2: she'd gone someplace. And she probably went someplace. I mean,

584
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 2: most people came to the belief that she had gone someplace,

585
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 2: but she had gone there in a way that violated

586
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 2: the laws of physics, Which takes me back to Carl

587
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 2: Sagan and the argument in the parking Lot. Yeah, he's

588
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 2: written a book and allowed a movie to be made

589
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 2: about it where what happens in it violates the laws

590
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 2: of physics, as at least he knew them at the time.

591
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 2: And yet that's the building block of the entire book.

592
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 2: So I found that interesting. She gets there wherever she

593
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 2: goes through. At first, in the first drafts, it was

594
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 2: a black hole, you know, she traveled through a series

595
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 2: of black holes. And then as I understand it, Sagan

596
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 2: revised that when he did a little more investigation into wormholes.

597
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 2: Now between you and me, I could I couldn't tell

598
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 2: a black hole from a wormhole if you, you know,

599
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 2: put him in front of my nose here.

600
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: But I think, parent, I think a wormhole has lighting

601
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: because I could see inside of it exactly.

602
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 2: That's good difference, good point of view. And by the way,

603
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 2: the sequence where she actually travels through this collection of

604
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: wormholes is very similar in its impact emotionally to what

605
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,879
Speaker 2: happens in two thousand and one, that sequence that blew

606
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 2: everybody's mind at the end, and it's really powerful, and

607
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 2: you think about what's happening. She gets there and the

608
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 2: guy who isn't really her dad but looks like her dad. It's,

609
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 2: you know, a very efficient way to play an alien.

610
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 2: You get an alien, but you hire David Morse to

611
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 2: play it. But David Morse, her father, says that the

612
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 2: alien race or the consciousness he represents didn't build this. Yes,

613
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 2: somebody else built this subway through wormholes, and they don't

614
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 2: know who it was, which really blows your mind.

615
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's all his point is, it's all just

616
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 1: a test, right for different civilization to see if they're

617
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,760
Speaker 1: ready to rise to a higher level, and I suppose

618
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: become non human intelligence, right, because that alien you're describing

619
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: that turns into her father, the first glimpse of it

620
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: is just this weird vacillating light energy. It's an energy

621
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: being that just manifests and take the form of her father.

622
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: One of the other things I want to talk about too,

623
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: is that that whole experience with her everyone else seeing

624
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: the objective reality, right of the ball falling to the

625
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: ground right in the big device that they made.

626
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 2: And by the way, just to clarify, Brent, because people

627
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 2: are not the machine that Ellie aka Jodie Foster is

628
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 2: in is a giant metal sphere. Yes, I'm sorry. And

629
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: so when that ball drop, the ball drops, it literally

630
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 2: falls into the water or something that it falls, Yes.

631
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 1: It falls, and in just a matter of seconds, and

632
00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: that's the objective reality everyone sees. However, this movie introduces

633
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 1: the concept of subjective reality right, which then takes into

634
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: account quantum physics and how reality is dependent upon how

635
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: you observe it and who the observer is. And so

636
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,280
Speaker 1: I think that's a really interesting thing because her experience

637
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: correlates with what many people who have experienced the phenomenon say,

638
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 1: which is they had a very unexplainable experience that felt

639
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: surreal and strange and was totally unique to them. And

640
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: by the way, that correlates to many abduction experiences where

641
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: there is no actual evidence right, Ellie came back, and

642
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: other than the fact that we experienced it with her,

643
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: she had no tangible evidence she could present, right. And

644
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: so this is another thing that is a common theme

645
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: through all of the movies we've talked about so far,

646
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: or all of the movies and TV shows, which is

647
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: that there is a government cover up going on regarding

648
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: the truth about UAP and the phenomenon. That is touched

649
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: upon in Dark Skies obviously certainly in Close Encounters where

650
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: they try and stage a whole quarantine to keep everyone

651
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: from learning the truth. And in this movie we have

652
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: the whole congressional hearing at the end, where it's not

653
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: just that the government is trying to cover something up.

654
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: They go through a public humiliation process, right to make

655
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 1: her look stupid, right, and to cast doubt on her story. Meanwhile,

656
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 1: they have that eighteen hour videotape that you had, that

657
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: you mentioned, and they have evidence that something happened. But

658
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,879
Speaker 1: also key is they don't even know what it was now,

659
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: they can't even explain it.

660
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 2: It's what it does well is as a movie. And

661
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any science behind this, but

662
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 2: as a movie, it does take you back and forth

663
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 2: where you get to say, what's really going on here

664
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 2: at the end, because as you point out, we do

665
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: experience it with her. We go on that trip, that

666
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 2: journey whatever it is, through the wormholes and we see it.

667
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 2: So you go, okay, that was real. Then they make

668
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 2: you the people are questioning it, and it's like, no,

669
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 2: she didn't really do that. She had all this happen

670
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 2: in her mind. Okay, so now that's the explanation. And

671
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 2: then they find the eighteen hours and now suddenly you're like, well,

672
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 2: wait a minute, could that be what really happened? And

673
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 2: then they point out, well, you know, just if you're

674
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 2: going to put something in a giant electromagnetic machine, you

675
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 2: could probably screw up the time and space on a

676
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 2: digital recording, so maybe it didn't actually happen. And then

677
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 2: you put her inside this hearing where they do everything

678
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 2: they can to tell people not to take her as

679
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 2: a credible witness, and then at the end of the

680
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 2: movie you realize she was certainly very changed by it.

681
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 2: But again, if you wanted to believe that it didn't

682
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 2: really happen, I guess you could still believe that. And

683
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 2: if you wanted to believe that it did you, I mean,

684
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 2: either way you can go. And Robert Semechis, in interviews

685
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 2: that he's done about this film over the years, has

686
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,479
Speaker 2: clearly said he wanted the ending to be that way,

687
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 2: to be a little hard to figure out, and he

688
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: got it. But he also said, and I find this

689
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 2: very interesting. I'm curious what your thoughts were. He said

690
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 2: he thought it prevented his film from being the big

691
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 2: film it really could have been. It was a big film,

692
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 2: but it was released the same weekend as Men in Black,

693
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 2: and it came in number two. And his take was,

694
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 2: if only he'd said it was totally real, that that

695
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 2: would have given an audience more to grab on to

696
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 2: do you think.

697
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: So, I absolutely do think so. I think it probably

698
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 1: would have been embraced more in the mainstream. And the

699
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: same way that the end of Close Encounter is unambiguous. Right,

700
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,879
Speaker 1: he gets on the ship, right, there's no like, there's

701
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 1: no oh, he hit his head and he's imagining maybe

702
00:39:57,880 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: that he's going on to the ship. He gets on

703
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,320
Speaker 1: the ship at the end, and we're left to believe

704
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: that he's off on some wild space adventure as an

705
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: ambassador for mankind. The ambiguity at the end of this movie,

706
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: I really appreciate. It's one of the reasons that I

707
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,919
Speaker 1: love rewatching it because it keeps changing my point of view,

708
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 1: Like you know, so, I think that's great, But I

709
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: think that did probably prevent it from catching on in

710
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: the mainstream. But something else that I think is fascinating

711
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,720
Speaker 1: here is that this idea that the government in that movie,

712
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: the simple concept that they were not willing to disclose

713
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: all of this to the public. When by the way, Bryce,

714
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: and I say this because you wrote the book on disclosure,

715
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: literally with Richard Dolan, they have a disclosure sequence in

716
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: early on in Contact that is a montage event that

717
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: lasts about a minute, right, it has absolutely almost no

718
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: impact at all in culture, everyone's like, oh, okay, there's

719
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 1: intelligent life. That's great, but let's get this machine built

720
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: and see where it takes us.

721
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 2: It is extraordinary. I did well. I'm glad you brought

722
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 2: that up because I wanted to at least get to that.

723
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 2: While this movie is not inherently euphological as some of

724
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 2: the ones that we'll be talking about over the next

725
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 2: weeks to come, it does talk about disclosure in a

726
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 2: way where you could ask, is that really people are

727
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 2: going to respond because it raises a question, is what's

728
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 2: potentially and inherently difficult about disclosure when we realize that

729
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 2: they're looking at our nuclear power plants and our nuclear weapons.

730
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 2: Is that what is disturbing about disclosure? Or is what's

731
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 2: disturbing about disclosure is just people coming to the conclusion

732
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 2: that we're not alone. And I think what Contact seems

733
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 2: to say is the mirror act of learning we're not

734
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 2: alone is not going to freak everybody out. Of course,

735
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 2: the fact that they're way out there and there of

736
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 2: no inherent threat that probably is a little more so.

737
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 2: I will say this. You mentioned it was very direct,

738
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 2: but it was short. Apparently in George Miller's version of things,

739
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 2: there was a much stronger bit about disclosure. It went

740
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 2: on longer, and it went down different alleyways and so forth.

741
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 2: I think George Miller's version was going to be more

742
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 2: like Twin Peaks, I think, or something. It just was

743
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 2: a different It was a different take on the material,

744
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 2: and clearly, as I understood it, he was going down

745
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:32,400
Speaker 2: a different road about disclosure that it would be a

746
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 2: little more disturbing to people. Let's take a quick final

747
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 2: break here and come back with some concluding thoughts. What

748
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 2: do you say about that? I'm all in all right

749
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 2: as we round the corner to wrap this thing up, though,

750
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 2: I just one of the things that I responded to

751
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 2: as we've been talking about that ending is it does

752
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 2: go back and forth. You can believe it, you cannot

753
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 2: believe it. It's about the nature of reality and that

754
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And there's just something that there's a

755
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 2: line that really stands out to me in this film

756
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 2: that I want to pose to people because it kind

757
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 2: of does a very good job of allowing you to

758
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 2: think about what we're up against when we talk about

759
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 2: the phenomenon Ellie has gone through this thing. Well, actually,

760
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 2: I think it's before she's gone through this thing. But

761
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 2: she's talking to Palmer Joss, the Matthew McConaughey character, and

762
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 2: he says to her, do you love your father? And

763
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 2: she's kind of taken aback, like what why are you

764
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 2: asking me? That he goes, do you love your father?

765
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 2: And she goes, well, yes, and he says, prove it.

766
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 2: And I kind of liked that because it does take

767
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 2: you back for a second. It's like, well, of course

768
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 2: it's a fact that she loves her father, but where's

769
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 2: the proof. Yes, where is that proof that you got

770
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: a Christmas card from him, or you send him a present,

771
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 2: or that you told people you loved him. That's not proof,

772
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 2: that's evidence. That's evidence. But then again, all of that

773
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 2: evidence could be questioned by somebody that says subjectively, well

774
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 2: I think I love my father more. I do a

775
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 2: lot more for him than you've done, so I'm not

776
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 2: sure that you do love him. There are going to

777
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 2: be films we talk about that I'm not going to

778
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:22,760
Speaker 2: recommend everybody go out and watch for sure, they're coming,

779
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 2: but this isn't one of them, because this is a

780
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 2: thoughtful one. It is aged pretty well for being thirty

781
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 2: years old. It's got great acting in it. Zamechis does

782
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 2: a good job on it. The only knock I have

783
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: on Zamecha's doing it is the soundtrack sounds to me

784
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 2: just like the Forrest Gump soundtrack. I just can't get

785
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 2: it out of me. Every time I watch Contact, I'm like,

786
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,959
Speaker 2: wait a minute, is Tom Hanks coming into this film soon?

787
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 2: Because it just feels like that. But it makes you

788
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 2: think about those things, and I have spent the better

789
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 2: part of my life in contemplating the phenomenon, thinking about

790
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 2: this science person religion thing. And the reason I find

791
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 2: it so compelling is that there are a whole lot

792
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 2: of scientists who believe science proves God. They believe that

793
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 2: when you see how intricate the universe is and how

794
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 2: large it is, and how the rules of physics and

795
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,839
Speaker 2: things work, that that wasn't just random, that maybe there's

796
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 2: a God that had a part of that. So I think,

797
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 2: as over the episodes that will be in our future here, Brent,

798
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 2: it's good to think about that because there are some

799
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 2: people that think, as you pointed out, that we're not

800
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 2: talking about perhaps extraterrestrials, we're talking about angels and demons.

801
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 2: And it goes back to the Bible with Ezekiel's wheel

802
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: and all that really being a flying saucer. So it's

803
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,359
Speaker 2: a thoughtful, important film. I happen to think people are

804
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 2: sometimes wasting their time with SETI when they should be,

805
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 2: in fact looking into the data from pilots about real

806
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 2: actual UFOs. But we'll leave that for future episodes. I

807
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 2: enjoyed it, and I'll tell you something, and only did

808
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 2: I enjoy it when I first saw it because I

809
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 2: had read the book. I enjoyed it when you and

810
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 2: I watched it. We screened it here at my house

811
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 2: in preparation for this, and I enjoyed watching it that

812
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 2: second time because I saw so many things in it

813
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 2: that I totally missed seeing in the theaters. Yes.

814
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: No, it's like I said, I've seen it at least

815
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,799
Speaker 1: twenty times. I see something different each time, and I

816
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: think twenty times what I leaved that earlier.

817
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I reserved that those numbers are Godfather numbers

818
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 2: for me. But go ahead, Oh no, Godfather is more

819
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 2: like forty or fifty. Oh my godness, all right, Okay,

820
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 2: keep going.

821
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: I know I'm a man of repetition, so I think

822
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: for me, the key thing was, as I said before,

823
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 1: that this incorporation of spirituality right even to a degree

824
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: you could start to say, is it the introduction of

825
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,280
Speaker 1: the afterlife being tied to aliens?

826
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 2: Right?

827
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: Because the alien appears as her dead father, right, And

828
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: so that whole idea that we go searching for extraterrestrial life,

829
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: we go searching for aliens, and what do we find?

830
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 1: We find ourselves? Right, That the universe itself is this mirror,

831
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: and the more we stare at it looking for answers,

832
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: the more we learn about ourselves and our own reality.

833
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 1: And I think that that was the first movie that

834
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:31,240
Speaker 1: even abstractly made me start to think about the UAP,

835
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: you know, phenomenon in a whole new way that I

836
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: had never thought before.

837
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 2: Well amen to that, brother. I feel like we could

838
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 2: probably talk about this world of contact, not to mention

839
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 2: the movie for a long time more. I'm sure it'll

840
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: come up more as we discuss things, But for right now,

841
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 2: I'm ready to sign out. And it's been a pleasure

842
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 2: seeing you for this one, and I just leave everyone

843
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 2: with this thought. Watch the Skies, Watch the Skies, Sound

844
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 2: Light and Frequent See is an iHeart podcast produced by

845
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 2: Stellar Productions. It's executive produced by Nick Johnson and for

846
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 2: Steller Jackie's Abel. Our show's music was written by Anna

847
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 2: Stump and Hamilton Lighthouser. And your hosts and executive producers

848
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 2: are Bryce Abel, That's Me and Brent Friedman Watch the

849
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 2: Skies