The Back Page Episode 14 About Jacques Vallée

Transcript

Welcome to the back page, your source for the latest on UAPs, UFOs, non-human intelligence, and aliens. So, in this brand new interview, Jeremy Corbel asked Shock Valet about reverse engineered interstellar travel. And Valet just says he gets quote lost explaining that there are secrets, but probably not secrets that big. >> Wait, what does that even mean? Not secrets that big? That's either the biggest downplay of all time or he's hinting that the whole story we're being sold is wrong. >> Exactly.

And that's classic Jacqu file. He never gives you the easy answer. Today we're diving into that new interview and the mind of the man who has arguably been the most influential and enigmatic researcher of this phenomenon for 60 years. For anyone who's just catching up on Jack Valet, it's crucial to understand he's not just some author. We're talking about a serious scientist.

He has a PhD in computer science from Northwestern, an MS in astrophysics, >> and he co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA. That was in 1963. But the big one, the one people forget is his work at SRRI International. He was a key figure in developing ARPANET, the literal precursor to the internet. So when Jacques Valet talks about information, networks, and data, he's not an outsider.

He was an architect of the world we live in now. >> It's wild. The same guy who helped build the logical foundation of our digital age spends his life studying the completely illogical. Oh, and he was the inspiration for the French scientist Claude Lome in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. >> Right.

So, he's been at the center of this both in science and in culture for a very long time. which is why when he sits down for a rare interview like he just did with Jeremy Corbal and George Knapp, uh, everyone listens. Okay, so let's get into the specifics of this new interview. First off, he makes a pretty bold statement about who's in charge. He says flat out that governments do not control the phenomenon.

In fact, they struggle to even understand it. That really pushes back against the common narrative, doesn't it? The idea that there's some monolithic all- knowing group pulling the strings, Valet is suggesting they're just as confused as the rest of us >> completely. It frames it less as a conspiracy and more as a genuine ongoing mystery for everyone, including those in power. Then he brought up something really interesting about his work with NIDS. >> The National Institute for Discovery Science, that was Robert Bigalow's group, right? The one that studied Skinwalker Ranch and other high stranges cases.

That's the one. Jock Valet said that after the project concluded, he Hal Putoff and the other scientists involved were never debriefed ever. >> Never. So what happens to all their data? Their findings? >> Well, because of that, he says they treat all the data as effectively classified. He called the whole situation puzzling.

It's like they were hired to look into the most profound mystery in the world, and then the people who hired them didn't even ask what they found. >> That is bizarre. It suggests either they found nothing, which seems unlikely given the people involved, or they found something so strange that the patrons just walked away. >> It's a huge loose thread. And he also touched on the international angle.

He mentioned that in his conversations with Russian researchers, they don't view the phenomenon as a threat, but he says they are convinced that the US definitely does. Hm. So the threat narrative is primarily an American perspective, at least in that context that tracks with the focus on military incursions and national security we've been seeing for the last few years. And this all circles back to his original quote that opened our discussion. When Corbel presses him on whether we have things like interstellar travel from reverse engineering, Jacqu Valet deflects.

He doesn't say no. He just says there are secrets, but probably not secrets that big. He's pouring cold water on the most sensational claims while still acknowledging that something is being hidden. >> It's a very precise, very careful answer. He's invalidating the extreme theories without invalidating the core mystery itself.

It's a classic valet move. >> And to understand why he answers that way, you have to understand his core theory, which is so much stranger than just aliens visiting Earth. >> Right? He's not a proponent of the standard extraterrestrial hypothesis or ETH. In fact, he's one of its biggest critics. >> Exactly.

For decades, he's argued that the ETH just doesn't fit the data. He has a few key arguments against it. First, the sheer volume of close encounters is way too high for a simple physical survey of our planet. >> It's overkill. Basically, an advanced civilization wouldn't need to show up in thousands of backyards to figure out what's going on.

>> Then there's the biology. The reported humanoid form of the aliens, two arms, two legs, a head is so implausible to have evolved on another planet and seems weirdly ills suited for space travel. And the behavior reported in abduction cases, it's often theatrical, symbolic, and psychologically manipulative, not like a logical scientific experiment. >> So if it's not extraterrestrials, what does Jacqu Valet think it is? This is where it gets into his control system idea, right? >> Precisely. He posits that the phenomenon is more like a control system for human consciousness.

It's not necessarily from another planet, but maybe another dimension or something that coexists with our reality. It's an intelligence that has been interacting with humanity for our entire history. So, in the past, it was interpreted as gods, angels, fairies, jin and in our technological age, we interpret it as extraterrestrials in spacecraft. The phenomenon adapts its appearance to our cultural expectations. >> That's the core of it.

It's a system that seems designed to shape our beliefs and guide our evolution using absurdity and contradiction as tools. It's not here to be understood easily. It's here to make us question reality itself. It's a much bigger and frankly weirder idea. And this isn't a new idea for him.

In the Corbell interview, he briefly mentioned a flying disc at the Fatima event, which is a direct call back to his seinal 1969 book, Passport to Meonia. Fatima. That was the miracle of the sun in Portugal 1917. Tens of thousands of people saw something. But it's primarily known as a Catholic apparition event.

>> It is. But Jock Valet was one of the first to analyze the witness testimony from a nuts andbolts UAP perspective. The crowd reported seeing the sun, which they described as a dull silver disc, detach from the sky. >> A dull silver disc. Okay, that does sound familiar.

They said it danced and zigzagged towards the Earth, casting off different colors of light. Some accounts even describe it as a weird disc that turns rapidly on its own axis. For Valle, this isn't a religious miracle. It's a classic flying disc report from before the term even existed. So, he's arguing that the same phenomenon we see today was happening a 100red years ago, but the cultural software, so to speak, interpreted it through a religious lens because that's what was available.

That's his entire point. The phenomenon is consistent. Our interpretation changes. It's a perfect example of his control system at work manifesting in a way that would profoundly impact the belief system of that specific time and place. This is the essential pattern of Jacqu Valet's entire career, isn't it? He lives in this duality.

He's the rigorous computer scientist who built one of the very first digital databases for UFO sightings, meticulously cataloging every detail. >> And at the same time, he's the theorist who draws connections between modern abduction reports and 16th century folklore about encounters with fairies, the man of data, and the man of myth. >> I think for him, it's all just data. A witness account from 1952 is one data point. A folk tale from Ireland is another.

He sees the patterns that connect them. The things that others dismiss as unrelated. The Arpanet pioneer and the venture capitalist isn't separate from the euphologist. They're the same person applying a multiddisciplinary approach. Which is probably why he resists simple explanations.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis is too neat, too clean. It doesn't account for the messiness, the absurdity, the historical depth. He's comfortable living in that mess. >> He seems to thrive on it. He's always pushing back on whatever the consensus is.

When everyone was sure it was aliens, he said, "Wait, look at folklore." Now that everyone is talking about government conspiracies, he's saying, "Wait, the governments are confused, too." He's the ultimate skeptical believer. And he's still doing hands-on work. There have been recent reports that Jacqu Valet is analyzing metal shards allegedly from UFOs with a mass spectrometer. >> Oh, right. I saw something about this.

The claims about the isotope ratios. >> Exactly. He apparently noted that the isotope ratios in some samples were, and I quote, 100% off from what you'd find in any earthbased iron. Now he's extremely cautious stressing the results are preliminary and the provenence of the material is always a concern. >> But still that's a testable physical claim.

It takes it out of the realm of theory and into hard science. If that can be proven and replicated that changes everything. >> It would be the ultimate vindication of his dual approach. The high strangess of the phenomenon finally meeting the hard data of the lab. That's the thread to watch.

For a man who has spent his life studying the bizarre, finding something verifiably not of this earth would be the most fitting chapter yet for Jacqu Valet.