Jacques Vallée: Project Blue Book, space travel and military secrecy | Reality Check

Transcript

[Music] Hello and welcome to Reality Check. I'm your host, Ross Kulart, and today we have a guest I've long wanted to get on the show, and we have the perfect excuse because he's just published his latest book. Jacques Valet. If ever there was a 21st century Renaissance man, he's the chap. He was born in France, but he lives between Paris and San Francisco.

Most of the time in San Francisco, and he's currently talking to us from Paris. He is renowned for his contributions to computer science, venture capitalism, and especially, of course, the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena in the paranormal. Jacques's CV is extraordinary. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Sbon. a master's in astrophysics from Leil University and a PhD in computer science from Northwestern University in 1967.

His early work had him as an astronomer at the Paris Observatory and he co-developed NASA's first computerized map of Mars in 1963 at the University of Texas. at Stanford Research Institute in California. He contributed to the Arpanet, which was the pioneer, the precursor to the internet. He's a true internet pioneer. And from Silicon Valley, he founded and served as a general partner in multiple venture capital firms, including NASA's Red VP Planet Capital, which focused on high technology startups.

His notable venture capital initiatives include electronics for imaging, Acuray Systems, who developed the Cyber Knife for cancer surgery, and Neopotonics, which uses optical network nanotechnology. Aside from, of course, his brilliant financial career, Jacques's a towering figure in the study of anomalous and paranormal phenomena, UFOs, UAPs. His interest was sparked in 1955 when he saw a UFO over his Ponttois's home and intensified in 1961 when he allegedly saw tracking tapes of an unidentified retrograde satellite being destroyed. He worked with the astronomer Jay Allen Heinik who was the scientific adviser to the US Air Force's Project Blue Book. And yes, of course, he was the inspiration for the French scientist character in the Spielberg movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

But it's his books we're talking about today, his learning over many decades. He kicked off with his anatomy of a phenomenon in 1965, which was one of the first scientific books on UFOs. His seinal passport matimagonia in 1969 was the first to propose I think a multi-dimensional hypothesis for UAPs suggesting they might originate from realities beyond conventional spaceime which was a challenge to the conventional extraterrestrial hypothesis and this hypothesis this perspective which has been expanded in works like the invisible college and wonders in the sky it posits UAPs as part of a complex phenomenon influencing human consciousness and culture across history. Now, you'd think at 85 Jacques would want to slow down, but he's actually released another book in his formidable Forbidden Science series. Forbidden Science 6 is called Scattered Castles and it tracks the very interesting years from 2010 to 2019.

Jacqu Valet, I had to do that enormous biography of you because I wanted people to know exactly who you are and why it's such a privilege to have you here. Thank you so much for talking to Reality Check. Well, thank you very much for having me and uh you know listening to this u is uh you know a reminiscence of of many challenges over the over the years and uh it never stops. I mean there are more challenges now. Now Jack, I wanted to get from you off the top.

I've got a pretty cl good idea of where you stand, but I thought I should ask you off the top because I haven't seen you asked this for a very long time. You've got a friend in a group of scientists and ex- intelligence officials who collaborate uh in the old OSAP investigations with for DIA with Robert Bigalow and you keep in touch with those people. You call them the lone stars. And in your book, you talk about how they all take for granted that there is this US government craft retrieval program that the United States is hiding a covert UAP craft retrieval and reverse engineering program. And I had a look at a lot of your interviews.

I've never seen you asked definitively where you stand on that. Do you accept that there is such a program? It um certainly the the information that we got within within the team by the way you know I highly even though we no longer work as part of an organized research. We each do our own our own research and we compare notes once in a while. But I I've kept, you know, enormous respect for the uh for the group and and for the the talents in the group. The the idea of well, you know, all the the information about crashed objects from space, that's not new.

I mean, this we were talking about this in France a long time ago. Okay. uh do the Americans have uh you know something that they've picked up in the desert and so on but it's not um it was anecdotal but there were there were books about that already you know speculating on on this and it's not until um I think the 70s that um that Roswell you know was became back into the news with thanks to Stan Freriedman. You know, Stan Friedman was a respected u engineer and physicist uh who had worked in in high technology and aerospace companies in California. and uh his analysis of Roswell was convincing that there was something had happened there even though there was no witness on site at the time but it became the model.

So this was you know a long time before you know the big group became involved and so on. What we did was to try first with Neds which was as you know not classified and not was sponsored by Mr. Bealo National that was the National Institute of Discovery Science the Robert Bigalow National Institute of Discovery Science NIDS just for our audience. Yes. Uh and uh but this was you know the best we could do uh in in speculating about what those whether those crashes had how many there were and how reliable they could be.

Uh Dr. Highex team uh at Kufos had done research on site in in New Mexico and other people had done that also and it you know it was also a source of confusion. Everybody had their own theories and of course there were skeptics. Uh and the skeptical view was was legitimate because there was no credible witness at the site gathering information that we could take to the lab. However, uh as time went on, certainly, you know, with my own resources, I I I went there and as you know, uh together with Paola Harris, I reinvestigated u a case that we're still continuing to look at.

uh in 1945 two years before uh before Roswell and similar area of of New Mexico. So uh by by now there is a lot of information uh there is a lot of testimony that has been well recorded and and well analyzed. Um the unfortunately within bass that technically should have had access. Now if if we had had access to that we probably couldn't talk about it. Uh so we can we can talk about speculation though.

Um and uh the the the new information is surprising because the new information that you that you're mentioning uh has has to do with actual experiments out in the desert typically or um trying to um corral some of these objects and get them to land or to uh to become visible so that they could be analyzed and uh I don't have a position on that. I have not been at the site. Um and uh but I trust the people who are making those reports. One thing that I like about your book is you offer a transatlantic perspective because you do move between France and the United States. What you you talk also to a lot of people in the French government, the French military, the French intelligence community.

Do they take for granted that the United States is concealing knowledge of the UAP mystery? Yes, but for a different reason. um in the day going back to the days when I was working with Ma Michelle who was you know a French philosopher very interested in science and so on um who was my initial mentor in this I I I kept telling him uh look you know I'm in touch with Dr. high neck and so on. And they um they in in the US, you know, there is all this um all this information about supposed crashed objects and so on. And uh and there is a study um under a blue book, you know, how come France isn't doing anything? And he said, you know, it's a perfectly good question.

And I asked uh my contact at the French Air Force, you know, who is gathering information. This was before the CNES, before satellites, before that. Uh we're talking about, you know, the mid60s. Uh and uh he came back and um he said, "Well, I had another lunch." Of course, it's Paris, so you have lunch with people, you know, you and and then then you you talk seriously around dessert and, you know, coffee and and and and maybe a little bit of recur and um and you get much better information this way. So, um, the man from the the French Air Force said, "Well, you know, I I went to my contact at the US Embassy and I asked him, I said, you know, you guys have are talking about UFOs and so on.

Should we cooperate because we've got files. I mean, we've got observations from pilots, you know, uh, in North Africa, you know, in France and so on." and we could compare notes and and he said my my contact made a couple of calls to Washington and he came back and said look this was again the mid60s so there are lots of bad things happening in the world you know it's cold war u the you know the situation with Russia with the USSR in those days you know is is very much you know and uh uncontrolled and uh we don't need one more thing to distract everybody you know so yes we keep track of of of that but uh we would not so they there was no cooperation at the time as we had hoped uh between France and the US and there hasn't been really since then uh you know on the academic you know whether there is something else. I don't know. But it would it would have to be very very specific and not within the circles that that I know about. What prompted I'm fascinated by GAP, the French agency, quasi government agency that investigates UFOs, UAPs.

Why did France of all countries in the world create well before any other country a formal office for investigating the phenomenon? Well, you know, French academics are very much inspired by rationalism. you know that uh you know the the study of of science as a study of nature and the study of phenomena and but there was it wasn't easy there was a lot of controversy about you know why do we spend that much money there it wasn't that much money it was just one you know one aerospace engineer who's still still alive Dr. Per um and uh that you know I had shared my files with Dr. Per when he indicated his interest in doing this and and we were working together and he then assembled enough um formal information that he could present at at a high level uh within the ministry to convince them to to create a small a small cell you know a small project within the space agency. So what is France's position on UAPs? Do they believe is there a formal government position on UFOs, UAPs? Do they accept that there is a nonhuman intelligence or is it still an open question? as in there was a crisis uh in the uh in the mid to late 80s when many French academics said why are we spending all this money um on this you know the Americans have stopped their project project blue book you know because they didn't really have any answers and so we don't have all the money that the Americans have so why are we doing this way we could the there are so many other things in science that are unknown that would be interesting to study.

And um the uh my my friends in France did a survey of French influential leaders in science and government and law uh and the press and they came back about 50/50. the the weight of the advice and and those were, you know, sort of dayong reviews of the data with each one of of these people. There were about 50 people. So, it was a serious study. The consensus was there probably isn't anything to UFOs because otherwise the Americans would be doing something now.

Uh but the the the public is is very engaged and if we don't do something the public will think we're hiding aliens. So we should we have a duty of information to the public and therefor they restarted the study they were going to close down. I will pin you down. I'm going to pin you down sir. What do you think? Do you think that the United States is concealing knowledge of non-human intelligence? Well, um, you know, that's what's being discussed in Washington right now.

I know the, uh, you know, of course, I've followed every step of this. Uh I I've been asked to uh not to testify but to uh uh to brief some of the the people in the the intelligence committee of of the Senate. Um and uh you know I've had some experience before in my computer career with the way things work you know at the level of Congress. Congress is not a scientific body. It's not their job.

So the funny thing is that we have a lot of scientists, you know, coming forward explaining the science and that's it's of course it's relevant, but that's not what Congress does. Congress is there to to feed into future laws and long-term decisions that involve budgets and maybe science and research. Okay. So I I think there is a misunderstanding there. Okay.

There is no misunderstanding in the skiff you know with the staff with the staffers for the intelligence community and so on. I mean they they they know what we do and we know what they do. Okay. So, uh, with with respect, Shark, you've kind of avoided my question because what you often do is you've deflected you very carefully. I'm waiting to see what's going to come out of I I I'm interested in your personal view and and I want to because I mean for example you're good friends with Gary Nolan, Professor Gary Nolan, a renowned Stanford immunologist and Gary's quite upfront about his personal experiences as a child and his strong belief that there is some kind of a cover up going on that the United States is concealing knowledge of UAPs, knowledge of a non-human intelligence Are you not able to say definitively where you stand on that yourself or are you being a scientist? You're you're hedging your bets.

I could not give you a um a a statement, you know, from the BAS project which was classified and still is. uh a lot of the things that we did you know I was responsible for the the computer side of it and the computer analysis which was cut off after two years two of the five years we needed to implement AI on top of what we had so that that part has been partially declassified thanks to uh the work of uh Dr. Keller and others. So I can I can talk about that. I can tell you what what some of what what we did.

Uh there is no question as you know like like Gary uh I I saw an object when I was 14 and a half or 15. There is no question about that. It wasn't conventional. This was you know bright daylight, blue sky, middle of the afternoon. Um, you know, my mother saw it first, called me.

I saw it. Uh, it was a disc. It was it was not just some point of light in the sky. You know, this was a a stable disc with a a dome on top. The friend of mine about half a mile from my house had looked at it with binoculars.

So, when I learned that, I asked him to draw it and he drew exactly what I had seen. Okay. So that you know both Gary and I share you know share that you know direct experience with I he's had more profound experience with something more you know more personal than in in his environment but I've I've had something like this as I you know as I mentioned in the book in in this book you know with essentially an apparition in in my problem. So the there is no question that's why we don't spend a lot of time arguing with skeptics. I mean they have every right to be skeptic skeptical and that's what the way science works.

You know the the discoverer of pryons you know prize in medicine was laughed at for 10 years by his colleagues at the University of California. you know, medical center, you know, the top research place in the country, one of the three top hospitals until people said, "Okay, you're right. I know a molecule that's this way can turn this way and it can turn deadly just by changing some of its shape." The that wasn't known before. So, this is not unusual in science. I mean you expect that people will criticize.

Now what we what we do know is that um you know to not to escape your question is that those crashes are reported by reliable people you know and I've been there and I've spoken to them. I've I've spoken to people not only in France and California but throughout the US. uh you know I did a number of investigations with Dr. neck. In those in those days, I went six times to Russia, actually twice to the Soviet Union and four times to Russia under professional, you know, uh, professional need and found that people at certain times were quite free to talk about it.

and we published an article in in Russia in the 60s that had four million readers in in the uh in tr which is the union magazine. So I think those those things have been going on for a long time. Now it's delightful that people are coming into into this now and asking all those questions again because in science you know the the answers you got 20 years ago are not the answers you're going to get today. So I I think that's a normal process. I don't have any problem with it.

One of the things I love about your journals is you pepper them with incredible little insights. And one of my favorite quotations that you have in the the latest book is one from Cole Kellaher, one of the scientists who worked with you uh on the I think the Bass project and also the NIDS as well. and he says, quote, "A central working hypothesis is that an ancient parasitic intelligence has been on Earth for thousands of years. A related hypothesis is that there is a small minority of humans endowed with above average discernment. This cadra of humans belongs to a particular gene pool considered dangerous by the phenomenon because they alone can create counter measures to the control system.

What do you think of that analysis by col I'm completely I think it's the fruit of many discussions that we had as as a group. K was was running most of the day-to-day administration and business and research for Bass you know for for the duration and I I worked uh with him and under him in in the part that was my you know my belly week um there there is um it's it's partially hypothetical but uh that's what you have to do in science you make a hypothes is on you. You now science doesn't consist in in you know throwing up hypothesis. I mean that's that's the first half. The second half is designing research that's going to confirm or or shoot down the hypothesis.

And until you've done that you haven't done science. I mean you know hypothesis is a diver. Okay. You have to way of test you have to have a way of testing it. So the implications though of that and I noticed this is something that you develop as well in your book messages of deception uh that you wrote in the 70s and you explore the the psychic and abduction elements of UAPs.

The idea that UAP encounters are a deliberate mechanism to influence human consciousness, culture and societal evolution. a kind of a control system to shape human beliefs and behavior. And you speculated, and I think you were the first to do this, that this doesn't involve physical ETS, but a nonhuman intelligence that operates interdimensionally, or if Colm's right, it's what is it? Um, intraterrestrially using psychic interactions to provoke psychological and cultural shifts. I mean, that's a very different thesis, isn't it? And it's interesting. I It struck me as interesting that Cole had come to a very similar conclusion that the two of you have kind of put to one side the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

Let me ask you this way, sir. Why couldn't it be aliens from another planet playing with us and trying to control us on this planet? Why is it more plausible to you that it's an interdimensional or intraterrestrial if you like phenomenon? So, um, when I first decided to apply the the tools I knew and the tools I had, which included computers at Paris Observatory and later in in Texas in California, um, I tried to do what you're supposed to do in science, you know, start from the data and and begin to look for patterns. Uh that's what you do with an unknown phenomenon and you want to see if it replicates something that we already know, you know, from something else. And so I did that and u in my first two books I I argued about, you know, the extraterrestrial uh hypothesis that this is uh this was a a a good approximation of what people were seeing. Then you know when I wrote Passport to Maggonia which antagonized people on both sides, the the first edition was a complete failure and and then people thought about it and came back and it was reprinted and reprinted and reprinted and uh now people consider it probably the most significant thing that I did.

Uh it's a classic, Jack. It's a classic. I love your book. Well, um I it I I I I knew that I was breaking, you know, my choice. I I was uh was just breaking everything because if if that phenomenon has influenced us in different guises across the ages, then then there are other contradictions that people were kind enough not not to pin me down.

But one of them, but I had to think of them first. Okay. One of them is how come the vehicle is the same? I mean, if you buy a car today, it's not going to look like a car you bought 10 years ago or five years ago. Okay? And the and you know, the guy will tell you in five years it's going to look very different again. Okay? Maybe you should lease the car instead of buying it.

So the um that's what we're faced with if but then you know that kind of difficulty when you overcome it in science it opens up other things because uh the argument I I was reading something this morning from a scientist again saying yeah you know NASA has discovered something that could mean that there is life on this planet. planet next to a star 140 light years away. But anyway, we can't get there. Well, why can't we get there? Well, we can't get there because of Einstein. And you know, Einstein said, "You cannot go faster than speed of light." The people now are saying u you know, I stay in touch with Eric Davis who is my my master in physics.

uh you know my my physics is astrophysics of years ago and uh it still works but it's not up to date okay uh Eric is up to date and Eric says first you have to go do away with time and space as dimensions because there are secondary things you know what's important is the quantum foam and given the quantum form there is no reason why you couldn't go faster than the speed of light uh It's just an arbitrary limit. That was it's true that the the the equations work with C speed of light as a limit. Okay. So that's good science. But there could be exceptions to that.

One of the exceptions was something that we were teaching at Northwestern. Dr. Rhinneck was teaching it to the kids at Northwestern in the the 70s that there could be another universe 5 minutes ahead of us and then it takes them five minutes to come here at whatever you know at the speed of light and uh maybe even faster. So we cannot put limits on that. You know that's one thing that Gary uh you know Dr.

Nolan has said very clearly there will be you know revolutions in science in our last lifetime. You know there will there have been re you know revolutions and there will be more and this is one of them. Okay. So let's let's stop talking about the speed of light as a limit. It it's a limit in the mathematics.

It's not a limit in physics. So when you explain in messengers of deception what you mean why you argue for the um interdimensional hypothesis you you suggest that what they're doing what the phenomenon is doing is it's presenting itself in ways that challenge existing paradigms scientific materialism or religious dogma. It's inviting us humans to think about ourselves, if you like, ontologically. It's encouraging us to question reality. It's a long-term strategy, you suggest, to guide human evolution.

Why? Why would another advanced life form want to guide the reality of a bunch of primitive apes on a rock in this solar system? Well, you you could u meet and interview some very good scientists who say we live in a simulation. This is the way the way they simulate our so you know if you play simulation on the web um you know there is a control system I mean you you put yourself inside the control system or you're not a player if if you're a player you have to uh to be to agree to be part of the control system however in when I first came up with that I was challenged by people here In France, very good biologist from the SBA and couple of other friends who said Jacqu you know there are different kinds of control systems. You know the Nazi death camps were control systems. You know, I spoke to Jacqu Berier who had been a French spy during the war and uh had been one of the people locating Penund, you know, the the rocket center and so on and and was one of the first French atomists. So he was interested in, you know, where they the whether the the Germans could build an atom bomb and so on.

He said that in the camp where he was interned because he was caught as a spy, tortured and and you know kept in those camps, all of a sudden the firemen from Munich were arrested by the Nazi and brought into the camp for three weeks because they had uh talked about going on strike and the Nazi didn't didn't I mean this was a wrong time to go on strike. So they put them there for three weeks and then they went back, you know, to where they came from and they were no longer on strike. So he said, "Jac, you have to realize that even a closed control system can be a teaching center, not necessarily something where you're going to be destroyed or you're going to be uh burned alive, you know. I mean you some people will be burned alive but you know they so there are control systems that are uh that are you know like system of laws or system or a prison and there are systems that are open. A university is a control system.

The rules are not written down anywhere you know on whether you get your PhD or not you know you have to maneuver you have to find the right the right path through the control system it's not written anywhere so we which one which one is it I mean that's a question that's a basic question that's the only question I I think I know someone who would agree with you about us living in a simulation I was watching Lex Fridman uh interviewing Elon Musk and Elon Musk was asked what would be the first question he would ask the ultimate AI and he said what lies outside the simulation uh so it's obviously the big question are we a simulation never underestimate Elen Musk I was uh many years ago I was on a panel with him in Strasburg about the the future of space research church and he was talking about um uh communication on the moon, you know, and they he had a scheme for communicating on the moon, you know, the the the moon doesn't reflect uh radio waves, so you can't use radio on the moon, you know, so you have to use something else. And he was busy uh designing it. It was very interesting. But he was he's very different today than he was then. Clearly, Jacques, what we do know, and we know this from the Tic Tac incident that I know your team were involved in researching.

And one of the stories you tell in your book is an incident involving two United States RC1 135 elint aircraft who were intercepted by a UFO in um the Mediterranean in November 1993. And it's it's an amazing story. I'd never heard it before, but essentially the unknown craft placed itself in formation on the starboard side of the US plane, close enough so that the crew couldn't even see the whole craft. The edges appeared to scintillate, and the surface was composed of panels over inlaid panels that were rectangular and translucent with edges that would disappear, dissolve, or go out of focus as one stared at them. They were luminous like opal with a hint of violet.

And it's interesting because time and time again, and you described this in your book, there's always these guys who turn up in suits and spoil the party by basically making people sign an NDA. So in this case, they're interviewed by men in civilian suits who turn up in a C130 from Germany. They make each crew member sign an NDA. all the material they've obtained, all the data they've obtained is taken into custody. Did you ever find out any more about that sighting? And why why is there this cover up? What why do these men in suits turn up to take away the data just like they did in the 2004 tic tac sighting as well? What's going on? You know, I I I've um run I've raised and run five venture funds in California.

venture funds that are dedicated to uh essentially the first dollar, not not the financial enhancement to a company, but the first the first dollar and the the CEOs of those companies know obviously know of my you know my track record and and they also know that I'm you know interested in strange things. the the reason they create those companies is that they are interested in strange things too, you know, otherwise it would be working for IBM, you know, in somebody's basement. So they uh they uh when their family sees a a UFO, you know, they have they like to have property on the coast looking over the Pacific and so on. And they they see all kinds of things. And this obviously is not reported because, you know, it would be controversial and when you're running, you know, a high technology company in California, uh, you you have to be taken seriously by Wall Street and by, you know, you you have you keep thinking about your next round of financing and which bank you're going to go to.

So, it's not the time to be in the papers, you know, talking about flying saucers. Uh, but they trust me enough uh o over the years. They tell me what they've seen because they think somebody should know about that. I mean, the case I mentioned was um a man who was in California, now is with one of the, you know, threeletter agencies in in in Washington. He was coming back from actually watching some maneuvers in in Southern California and there were reports of strange things among the the firing you know that was going on in the within the maneuvers and his question was uh you know this was not reported you know I saw it because I was there and I was there to watch the the proceedings and to analyze it.

So, I had all the information, but it didn't go anywhere. Why wasn't that reported over to Washington? Know that. Well, uh I said, look, you know, you have those clearances. I don't anymore, you know. Uh why me? I mean, I can't answer that question, but he said, "Yeah, but you've gone to other countries where the same thing happens.

There seems to be, you know, a a layer of just fog over the whole thing that those things are almost accepted as as part of, you know, they show up and they go away and and there is no need to report it. And furthermore, if you report it, you could be in trouble, you know, from your superior officers. So, uh, he was he gave me another example. This was after we had left our telephones, you know, with the waiters and so on and we were sitting in a corner of the restaurant. Um and you know another example where uh a ship had uh encountered an American vessel you know Navy vessel had encountered something.

This was not an image uh and uh had been seen by everybody. recordings had been taken and uh you know some some guys came on the plane you know landed on the carrier uh went to see the commander uh of of that that fleet and confiscated all the data get got back on their flight he said that's not unusual the what's unusual is that I saw for the paper. Nothing was signed. There was no name. That's a violation.

It's a violation of security rules. That's why they why why are they doing that though? I mean, I I we we can tell countries, you know, this is what Congress should be looking at. It's a a violation of military security rules. The paper was not signed. Nobody knows who these guys were.

Presumably the commander was given something that authorized this, but this overrides everything else. Now, um I'm I'm eager to um you know, this was not part of NIDS. This was not part of anything else. This was just a personal conversation with someone you know from who trusts me. uh because he knows, you know, this is unusual inflammation that tends to wash up, you know, and and it gets picked up.

But um it it means that there is another there as as they say, you know, in in some science fiction movies, there is another machine somewhere. The men in black Maybe, although I had trouble taking the Men in Black very seriously. You know, there was there was a a witness in Texas. something had fallen from the sky, probably some piece of some souse or something. And they came to his uh his home, the the guy who's a black officer who had been in Vietnam, and he said, "Uh, well, this obviously came from God, so I'm not going to give it to you because God dumped it in my garden.

If he had wanted you to have it, he would have dumped it at at the White House, Lord." you know and and he uh he kept it. So they the men in black were defeated in that particular case. So you wrote a book back in the 1960s in 1965 called anatomy of a phenomenon which made I think a very creditable argument for rigorous transparent collection and study of UAP's data. uh you looked you argued for physical evidence analysis and interdisciplinary research. Now we're 60 years on from when you first made that plea for that kind of data collection and data analysis.

Have we yet done what you aspired for Jack? You mean in terms of analysis? Uh yeah. Are we really doing is there the kind of empirical data analysis that you aspired for? Um you know a lot of science is empirical data. I mean a lot of biology and a lot uh it's empirical data until somebody has can can build a a system of analysis that that that goes deeper insight. But just to develop this, forgive me for interrupting, but for example, you were doing the great, you know, I think you were involved with NIDS. There was the OSAP project, there was the BASS project.

In each case, the wonderful research that was happening there was frustrated by budgetary concerns or in the OSAP case, um there was obviously some kind of big gag that came down from on high where you couldn't get um special access program status and it effectively hindered further uh ability to take the research any further. somebody doesn't want I mean you describe a a UAP control mechanism if you like whatever the phenomenon is it's trying to control us isn't there at the same time also a human control mechanism that the the powers the the governments of the world notably the United States I think to some degree France even the United Kingdom Russia China there seems to be some collusion to shut down public interest and and and study of this issue. And I I'm just intrigued as to why, you know, why is there that control mechanism there? What's going on? Why why do they not want us to ask these questions? So, um you know, that's I mean what you're presenting is is correct. I mean that's the way it it presents um in in science you know there are many times when you think that nature is against you I mean that uh just as you're going to discover something looking at Mars some clouds come between you and you know between Mars and the telescope or something and it looks like there is something that wants you know I I I blame myself first, you know, that I'm just not smart enough to find because, you know, nobody has come knocking on my door. I mean, admittedly, I haven't, you know, violated any rules or any laws and I won't, but I'm not a a whistleblower in that in that case.

But the the fact is that usually when I when I attack a problem uh and I fail, usually it's because I made a mistake somewhere and I have to go back, get advice, get somebody smarter than than me or better informed or someone I'm infringing on a a discipline that I thought I knew and I don't really know it as well as I thought. So I need I need advice and so on. That's what I I do. I mean networking like this is you know the key to Silicon Valley. So I' I've learned to do that.

I I think that there is a control mechanism outside and in in a way it makes sense uh you know that the the whole question of disclosure What is it that we're going to disclose? You know, we're going to disclose that there is a phenomena. Well, I can introduce you to some farmers in Kansas who have known that for 20 years, you know, and they they they've seen more things than all the pilots in the Navy. Okay? I mean and and they know that and they talk to each other and they talk about they talk to each other. They talk to the insurance companies, you know, if something happens to the cattle and so on. I mean all all those things are going on.

I mean we should stay out of Washington and look at the rest of the country. Okay. So the the the question for me is uh how do I how can I build something not so much in the classical physics you know there are people who do that very well and there is a tradition of that but there is something called information physics you know information and energy uh we we get taught in school that those are two sides of the same coin that information changes into energy and energy changes into information in nature, you know, let alone in the lab. Okay? Nobody has really formally started teaching the physics of information. The physics of information, you know, comes right out of, of course, computer science.

And there are many people who use their computer and they think they're computer scientists because they can run a program. But that's not the point. Okay? The point is you have an information machine. What we built with Mr. Bigalow was a very large information machine that was going to start giving us some answers once we refined it.

And we were cut off at that point. Okay. I think that what we did it's true what you say that we were limited within bass you know bas was given some very specific tasks as was proper but within nids we didn't have and I think nids was uh you know thanks to Mr. Bigo really deserves a credit as a researcher himself who has had experiences himself and he and his family and uh we we went very far very very far with Neds in a way. Bas was a retreat from what we had done at NITS.

There's there's a reference in your book to the Holy Grail and I I I've been told a story. I've been told that um what was coming out of the OSAP project was a proposal by Loheed Martin that they transfer an intact craft to Robert Bigalow and that he spent about a million dollars pre-preparing a warehouse for the receipt of that craft and that this was going to be the next phase of if you like the ORSAP research going beyond ond the the field research the highly wonderful research that had been done by the team on the OSAP project um that they were then going to have an intact craft that they could surveil. What happened, I understand, is that people of deep religious conviction inside the US Air Force in particular, uh, took offense to the idea of any more serious research being done into the phenomenon and they intervened to stop the special access program status being conferred to that project, which effectively gagged any further research. Am I wrong sir? So the there are two two things in in what you said Ross. I mean the first one I cannot confirm.

I was not briefed on OSAP. I was no of course very familiar with with BAS and cleared everybody was cleared at the same at the same level. uh and but this did not come up in my you know if it did I would say you know I can't talk about it because it would be classified it it's not within the classified briefings that I I've had so I I don't know I cannot confirm the thing we've lit at all so I'm not the guy to ask but what was what was the holy grail you were referring to in the book Jacques when you're you're talking about how um if the project gets SAP status there will be a holy grail. So, um the the fact that it is a fact that many people but probably more within the Navy from my my own experience than the Air Force or or the Army uh in those that I met have a a religious uh concern. Okay.

Um I'm you know it may surprise you given you know the fact that I I haven't I've written very little about that but I I tend to share that concern. Uh I think we should take it into account. I respect it profoundly. um that has stopped me from you know uh publishing certain things that I want to think about and I I want to think about and you know privacy of you know uh trying to put long-term some of these long-term ideas together um even though I'm not a you know practicing question that I I have. Can I explore this respect for Yeah.

I mean I I want to take you down that path Jacqu because this is very interesting and I'm glad you've started talking about that because you say in your book there's a quote the phenomenon is hurting people. It is manifest and scary. You use the word evil and what we've called interference you say is very real. And then you go on to say, as much as I thought the Collins elite, which is the the term that you use for the people inside the Pentagon and the intelligence community who are blocking this normally of a strong religious belief system. As much as I thought the Collins elite was wrong in its fundamentalist attitude, I wouldn't blame anybody for talking about demonology here.

That's a really interesting comment because I have to admit I've recently been speaking sir to to people who've been telling me that when they've had confronting and quite terrifying experiences with the phenomenon and I I'm not in the least bit religious myself but they've invoked the name of Jesus Christ or Mother Mary and invoked that to try and tell the phenomenon to leave them alone and go away. And in every case they've said it's left that it has respected that invocation of the name of Jesus or mother Mary. Do you think it's possible the Christians are right? Well I I I don't think all Christians adhere to this. Uh I think it's it's one sort of formal interpretation of um you know of of of the writings um the um most Christians I meet um you know are are open to after all if you know that that's a a question that has gone on for ages. You know, if we if if we stop looking at what the evil side is doing, we're in fact turning the world over to them.

I mean, so uh it would be like saying we're not no longer going to investigate murders, you know. I I think we we should know as much as we can. uh and I think that's the the view certainly of many Catholics. We should know as much as we can about the evil side if if we accept that there is an evil side that's active that's actually impinging on what we think what we do. There's a love there's a there's a lovely quotation you have in your book where you say Colin's elite members believe that no one should be interested in anything that comes from Satan.

I say you say if we're about to do battle with Satan, we might as well learn everything we can about his toys. And I I I like that quote because I mean it is a silly argument that because it involves the possibility of demonology allegedly, we should ignore it. I mean, you're quite right. If even if it's evil, even if it's something malevolent, we should know about it. So that raises the question of what exactly should we disclose because people have taken you know have uh put me on the spot for saying this on on another talk show that we should be we should not disclose without thinking of the consequences of disclosure.

And they say but everybody says we should disclose. Yes, that that's true. But the moment you disclose, you have to answer a hundred other questions. And many of those questions are questions about religion. Uh questions about, you know, the the basic texts.

Uh certainly you know my friends in Israel don't think about UFOs the way uh you know people in the in France or in America think about that and I've had you know enough contact with people in Saudi Arabia during meetings there and so on to know that if you believe in the jin today not the legends the gin today, you know, in sophisticated families, you know, in real have had experiences with the gym. And I was talking to them about how wonderful the uh, you know, Arab legends were. And they said, Jack, you know what Arab legends? You know, we had a Jin and you know who turned one of one of our family members into a crazy automaton. And we had to call, you know, a holy man to read the part of the Quran that addresses a jin and and you you know asking bypassing the the kid, you know, talking to the gin inside the kid saying, "Look, we have to apologize, but recognize that this is a kid." He didn't know that there could be a gin there. He impinged on your space.

He didn't know uh that you should please go somewhere else. Now this is this is talking directly to this is not talking to God. This is talking to the gin. Okay. This is today Saudi Arabia.

Okay. You know sophisticated family that you know has sent one you know one of their sons to Stanford. So this is this is real. I mean, we're we're not just saying, look, you know, UFOs are real. The aliens are here.

That doesn't that's a beginning of a lot of problems. And I'm I'm not saying we should have answers to that. We don't have answers. that we should have a a a a structure within which people can express their concerns, their terror, you know, their own experiences and where we can discuss it. There's another good reason cited in your book for why we should be cautious about what we wish for when we talk about disclosure.

And and that's it's interesting because there are polar arguments in eupfology. There's there's one group in eupfology who argue that whatever the phenomenon is, it's loving, it's kind, it's benevolent, and it bears no threat at all to humans. And that we should we should forget this threat narrative. And they have a go at Lu Lzando all the time for talking about threat. And it's interesting because at the other side of the poll there are incidents that you've spent a lot of time looking at that the Brazilian air force looked at in the Calaras incident and the quite shocking chubba chuba attacks on Brazilian people during the 1970s and the 1980s.

There is no doubt at all is there Jacques that the phenomenon whatever it is has on occasion killed people murdered people. So um I wouldn't say that. Ah interesting that's interesting. what I would what I I said and I know there's a somebody has taken my my word out of context as often happens is is uh you know has made it sort of a joke that I you know I believe um the I think he used the word murder you know they the um what has happened and we've known that for a long time and you know that's something that Ned's looked at that Bas has looked at certainly in the medical files we have uh instances of people losing their life as a consequence of being close to a UFO or being exposed to the light of a UFO and and those are documented medically some of them medically well documented and I've I've partic participated in some of that some of that research obviously I mean that's something that we should be interested in so that's if you like incidental damage it may be that these people have just unfortunately come into close proximity to UAP whatever the phenomenon is and yes but if if if if a six-year-old kid runs after a ball in front of a Mac truck that that that girl is going to be killed and there is nothing we can do about it and there is nothing the driver of the map truck can can do about it. Okay.

What about what about the cases like the chaos clearly accidents? Okay. That there is radiation. There is radiation we don't understand. I mean there are distressing cases though and I've seen the photographs from the Brazilian Air Force where they show people who have been mutilated. Dead bodies.

Dead bodies with holes cut into them. parts of flesh cut away. I mean, that does look like a deliberate injury. And more importantly, in the Calaras incidents, there are descriptions of people being hit with what appear to be directed beams of energy? Yes. Um, uh, can we exclude the possibility that that is intentional? Could, are you suggesting that that's incidental damage? So, I I I asked that question.

remember there there have been expeditions since you know more recently and so on but I was there when the men in who had been in in command you know invited us to the military center that controls one one quarter of the Amazon is of Amazonian you know descent he speaks the the dialects of the Amazon and he understands the territory. Um the um I also spoke to three of his officers separately after the the discussion at the at the military center. We went to a private house where they wanted to show me more about what what they had experienced and what the people they had interviewed. And um we can't do that anymore because they you know they they are dead or they are scattered somewhere else. The the the the leader of the task force died about 10 years ago.

and he was the one who spent the most time because and the reason he invited me and and our group which included Brazilians and and Americans who spoke who had worked in Brazil um was that he wanted to know what was going on in France. you know, he didn't exactly believe what he was told by his American contacts and he wanted to combine it with what people knew in Europe and he knew that I had done research there. So furthermore, Brazil has a common border with France which many people don't realize until they look at the map. Okay. So, uh that's no a lot of funny things like that culturally that are just delightful.

But the um there were there was an intent to hit people. But I also spoke to the doctors uh who had attended to especially one one woman who died you know in their care and u the doctors said she was in in a state that was weak. She had a weak heart. uh we knew that we don't think yes she died as a result of exposure to the trauma of you know a big big scene with UFOs in the sky and so on uh which would have terrified anybody. It was low altitude no craft and so on.

Uh but she died out of the trauma of of the nervous you know reaction to this. Uh but she was not hurt by a beam. She was not singled out to be to be killed. She just died there. Um in other cases, people that I've interviewed, including one guy who was in perfect shape, was an athlete and so on, had been running all night, you know, through the forest.

It's not the jungle. It's not it's not exactly the Amazon forest. It's the border to the Amazon. So in those days it was an agricultural area but unpaved and so on. And uh he was actually targeted by an object.

They call them shupa shupa. You know that was positioning itself within the trees to hit him with a beam. And he was fortunately in good enough shape that so he would hide behind trees. He would run towards a a village. He got to a village and found shelter there.

Uh but it took him a week to recover. He was just completely exhausted. And I published the picture you know that I recovered there of a woman who had been hit. Now she had been hit. But what's what's interesting to the physicists is that he was pinned to her hammock.

You know, when you go there, you learn very quickly you don't want to sleep in a bed for a lot of reasons. And the uh so she was in close to a window. There is no there is no glass in the window because what you want as much air to circulate as possible. you know, it's very warm, it's very wet, you know, and so so she was in the hammock, a light, a beam, a cumated beam, you know, came through the window from that object and hit her in the shoulder and pinned her mechanically down to the hammock. Okay, this is not just a beam.

we can uh we can do I I've spoken to physicists who said well you could generate a force uh you know cimated within the beam and so on I don't know what they're talking about I I I just don't know maybe they're right it would be you know it would be an interesting weapon but you know it didn't it didn't kill her I mean there's a photo. My photograph is of a doctor, you know, looking at this and attending to her. Uh, I was there 10 years later. She was fine. I mean, she was she had recovered from that.

She no longer had it. It all the the thing that really sticks out to me from your book is you've been doing this shark for 70 years, investigating this phenomenon pretty much, ever since you had that sighting as a young boy. Are you any closer to an answer, a definitive answer? Uh, you could ask this um of um you could have asked of of you know a man I worked with uh you know, Professor Sturok at Stanford. We were working on the structure of the sun and the structure of a corona. uh are you closer to understanding it? Uh uh he would have said well we've done a few things but you know there there is another layer that we haven't you could ask uh you know Dr.

Nolan, are we closer to eliminating cancer? And he said, he would say, well, you know, my colleagues and I make progress every day in documenting what cancer is. And we we are saving a few people now that we couldn't save five years ago. Okay? And that's that's the job you know is you you never that if once once you resolve a problem in science so you come up with relativity you've opened up a hundred other problems do you think we're meant to know Jacques I mean do you think the phenomenon wants us I mean you say it's twigging our consciousness I'm treating it as uh you know the faculty were very very interested interesting, very interesting university where I have a privilege of you know being a student and the my professors are not the folks in Washington. I mean they they are doing their job trying to regulate you know the access on a large scale for you know what we can do. My my teachers are in, you know, in Kansas and Texas and you know other places in the Pacific.

Uh, and they they tell me what they've seen. Well, it's a very honorable life's work. Uh it does beg the question though there's a moment in the book and I'll I'll I'll wrap this up fairly soon but there's an exchange you have with Bob Bigalow where he says the cover up must be the work of a supra national group a brotherhood rather than one single agency or country and when I read that it resonated with me because of course we've just had this new whistleblower Matthew Bran come out and he said we have the US as a country have allowed ourselves to be penetrated, co-opted, and corrupted by an internationalist force that serves their interests and views nations, peoples as tools, and means to an end. And it struck me that both Bob Bigalow and this young fellow Matthew Brown have come to that similar conclusion that whatever this is, it's beyond nations. It's it's an internationalist thing.

Super national as Bob Bob Bigalow called it. What do you think? So I've um as you know I've worked in finance for the last 40 years. Um and I I've met uh some some people who were influential in you know the theory of finance and it's it's a topic that's current now in the United States you know with what what's going to happen to the stock market and investment and so on. And in in many cases, not just now, but in many cases, what happens is chaotic. I mean, you really have a feeling that there are so many variables in the system that the the only reason the system hasn't blown up is that we don't really understand what buttons to push and it somehow reasserts itself because there are many actors.

You know there's a theory of actors of financial actors you know what you buy what you decide not to buy until next year you know why you save money or why you spend money or by and that's true at every level and some of the people that I've worked with and some of the people from whom we got funds for venture capital I mean those are the leaders of you know bank investment in unknown future areas. You know venture capital venture is you know and venture has a different exception in French than it does it's a French word. Okay. Um and then it it is in insaxon. the the French think venture is a danger you know you tell your kid don't venture into this kid and in in the US which I find delightful is the venture is you know like the the the great explorers you know the sails of the uh you know of the ships moving across the ocean thinking that there may be an abyss you know where the ship is going to fall any time And that's how you discover India.

And then you realize you were not in India, you were in America, India is somewhere else. But that's that's the way you know venture works. And that's been my world for 40 years. You know, you take intelligent risk. You know, you if you want to take risk, you go to Vegas.

Okay. You But if you come to Silicon Valley, you have a reason to write particular check. And so you have to think about where the where the money comes from and how it's regulated. And there is I'm convinced that there is no superior you know cohort or cabal of extremely wise uh financeers who decide you know now we're going to give presidents to China over India for this and that they there are people who think that but there are people who think exactly the opposite and they're going to be fighting And I've been on enough boards, you know, watching the interaction and the and and the fight on the board. Of course, the the board, you know, report is not going to reflect the the fact that, you know, they were at each other's throat for two two hours.

And the there is an an impression of a great mystery unfolding in finance and the way computers came about the way the the web came about and so on. It's it's not that it's it's not that it's guy you know mostly guys sitting together now fortunately some women as well and uh fighting not so much for the money I mean again the money is I mean the the money is important but I've seen companies that had no money and changed the world in their own area. Okay. And again, it's not the money. It's an alignment of will among knowledgeable people.

And um I think that's that's what we're dealing with. Now in with UFOs, I haven't found them yet. Okay. I don't I I don't think there is a board of directors. Well, without risk there is no reward.

And certainly Jacqu Valet, you you more than anyone in the last 70 years have ventured into the realm of the paranormal and the unidentified anomalous phenomena with rigor and vigor. And I I I think I speak for everyone when I I say thank you for the work that you've done. And I sincerely hope that both of us in our lifetimes get the answer as to what is truly going on because I don't know how you've done it for 70 years, but I find it intensely frustrating that it's so hard to find the answer. Well, you you have the key to to that with all the the people at your meeting now. Certainly, what's going to happen in Washington this next few weeks is going to be fascinating.

So, I salute what you're doing. Jacques, I salute you back, sir. Thank you so much for speaking to Reality Check and congratulations on your latest book and I look forward, sir, to many, many more. And thank you for your contribution to Euphology. Thank you.

And before we go, please don't forget we do our weekly question and answer and we need your questions. So, please send your questions in by email to reality check@newsnationow.com. Looking forward to hearing from [Music] you. Thanks for watching. Go to joinn.com to find NewsNation on your television provider.

And please don't forget to click that red subscribe button to ensure you get more of NewsNation's unbiased and fact-driven news coverage.