In-Depth with Richard Dolan: UFO Disclosure, Abductions & USO Cases

Transcript

[music] [music] Hi everyone and welcome back to That UFO podcast. My name is Andy and joining me on today's show is someone who truly needs no introduction to anyone with a passing interest in the UFO topic or the history of the UFO phenomenon. Richard Dolan is one of the most respected and well-known researchers, authors, and speakers in this field. He's the author of the landmark two volume series UFOs and the national security state as well as the infamous ad after disclosure and UFOs for the 21st century mind along with Bryce Zable of course works that have become essential reading for anyone trying to understand how governments, militaries and intelligence agencies have engaged with the UFO mystery over decades. His approach has always been grounded in rigorous historical fact and research, cleareyed analysis, and cuts through a lot of noise and speculation to focus on what the evidence actually shows.

Beyond his books, he's familiar faced from countless documentaries, interviews, his own platform, Richard Dolan members, where all the links are in the description where he continues to explore both the UFO subject and he also goes a little bit off pie as well. I'm going to welcome now to the show Richard Dolan. Richard, welcome back. >> Hi Andy. It's always a pleasure.

Thank you for having me here. >> Very good to have you on, Richard, and genuinely could have you on on a weekly basis for those conversations. Uh but um I want to kick off actually with your your latest venture. Um in the last couple of months, you joined Need to Know with Bryce Sable. Um I just had Bryce on the podcast last month and he was obviously waxing lyrical as we say about you joining.

It's a a wonderful I wouldn't say replacement for Ross Kulart because it's not a like for like substitution but I love the change of direction and I think if you're going to change what it was there's not been many folks better than yourself Richard that could have been brought in. How's it been for you joining Bryce with Need to Know and and that whole transition. >> It's really enjoyable. Uh Bryce and I of course have a relationship going back more than 15 years. We wrote a book together.

So that that's something at least for me uh that that's a special professional relationship and I've done that with no other person. I've never co-authored a book with anybody else. So Bryce will always be kind of close to me on that basis. We've shared a lot. Uh the book we wrote of course was AD after disclosure.

still to this day the only fulllength book that I'm aware of that actually tries to analyze uh the whole process of UFO disclosure and how it might happen and how it might affect our world. Anyway, um I used to follow Ross Colart with Bryce on Need to Know. I thought it was always a very interesting show and I was uh surprised uh that that Ross decided to leave. But looking back, not totally surprised. process >> has a lot going on with News Nation >> and um there's only so many hours in a day.

So Bryce wanted um asked me if I would consider um basically replacing Ross's um role there and we both agreed like I said I would be happy to do it but I can't I can't do a show like that the way Ross did it which is um you know Ross is a is an excellent journalist and he is on top of many if not all of the latest developments in the UFO community. I'm on top of those developments, too, but that's really not my main thing. Uh I I I'm a historian. I look at the long view of things. Uh I try to look at the the philosophy of UFOs, as it were, and I just try to ask those types of questions.

So, uh, for me when I when I'm engaging in a conversation, um, I don't want to put this in a disparaging disparaging way because it isn't meant that way, but I I w I would not be well served if I were to be chasing headlines in this field all the time. There are people who are excellent at that and they need to do that, the current news, but that's just not what I've ever wanted to do. >> Um, I I try to look at a different a different angle of all of this. When I did this with with Bryce and as we've continuing to do it, we just decided like my approach was going to be a little bit more big picture oriented, a little more philosophical and we'll just see how that works. I think Bryce is very very happy with that too.

Uh we have great conversations. I think we have a nice uh chemistry and rapport and it and it works really well. I thought I thought it worked very well with with Ross. So, uh, but it's true like I we just we just look at this in um in slightly different um we have very different similar perspectives actually, but we we approach it maybe a little differently. So, I think that worked just fine.

I'm glad I'm doing this with with Bryce. >> Yeah, it's been working out well. And h has that relationship obviously it's it's been like you say 15 years you've co-authored with After Disclosure AD. Has that brought on any interest in further projects together outside of need to know? I think a lot of folks look at is there a time to write a second volume of ad after disclosure. Things are are different from when you wrote that first time around.

>> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. Honestly, that's a book I look back on that that was written 15 years ago in a in a totally different time. World was very different and it really could benefit from a substantial rewrite. uh whether by Bryce and me or by someone else who wants to write a book about disclosure.

A lot of people can do this. Uh I've thought about it many times. It's not impossible that we will go at it again. The the big uh limitation is probably I'm going to guess me. Uh I'm in the midst of a three volume series on us.

We can chat about that. Uh I'm just finishing I'm I'm publishing in fact the second volume as we speak and uh that should be out soon. the writing's all done. So, I've got that and I just have so many other writing projects that I have on my mind. I keep asking myself, would we ever do a revision of after disclosure? It would be a good project to do and I think it could be worthwhile and it's not impossible.

But he and I, we have not talked about that in a little while. We did discuss it. I I have a feeling if we got into that conversation, we might just get enough um motivation to to go on and do a revised version. You never know. Yeah, I think I think there'd be a lot of appetite for that and from what people say to me and listeners and and and viewers, there's definitely that out there.

And uh what we're going to do for this this interview, if we want to call it that, Richard, because I've had you on the podcast now a few times very fortunately. I appreciate your time. Um I want to discuss some of what's happening right now. And you mentioned you're a historian. You're great at looking back.

The bigger picture, the philosophy, like you mentioned of this topic is so varied, but there's a lot to talk about right now. So, what I'm going to do is split it into two halves where the listeners will get the second half where I've got a whole plethora of questions for you. But I want to dig into to your thoughts right now because like you say, in 15 years since that last book happened, [snorts] so much has changed. And I wonder, this is something that gets brought up often to me. I'm I'm 39 years old, so I'm still relatively young in terms of the UFO topic and what I've seen and what I've heard brought up on the internet, social media.

[snorts] You have a longer view of the UFO topic than me. Have we been here before in terms of where the UFO topic is, the state of play, the way people think about it, and if so, when? And if not, how is it different? >> Yeah, in some ways, yes, and in in other ways, absolutely not. Uh there are certain commonalities between this era and certain times of the past. Just for very quick reference. So back in the even in the late 1940s and in the early 1950s particularly there was a kind of crescendo with the flying saucers as they were called at that time.

Lots of sightings lots of uh buzz about it in the United States and um to a more limited extent elsewhere. But throughout the western world there was questions about this. in the US. Uh there was the kind of crescendo that happened in the summer of 1952 and people wondered what's happening. This got a lot of press coverage and then it just got kind of shut down within the classified world and what we call the Robertson panel.

Nothing really happened. Uh it wasn't until the 1960s that the crescendo happened again. This time it was much more public, much more powerful. Uh it was discussed in Congress for the first time in the mid 1960s. Uh there was uh talk that the University of Colorado which was hired to do a scientific study of UFOs in the late60s like all of that was uh bringing this subject out in the public realm uh as something that to be talked about.

The Colorado study basically shut it down in 196869 said there's nothing to this. So again you had the crescendo and then you had the crash. But then in the 1970s we had freedom of information laws passed in the US that gave renewed hope that if we just declassified the right document uh that could break open the secrecy and there were a lot of documents that were revealed during that time that did show uh a UFO reality and a cover up but that didn't that did not lead to a disclosure either. Uh through the late 80s there were more rumors and um leaks whether true or not true of different types of secret government activities relating to UFOs. Um by the early 2000s there was a whole new disclosure effort led by oh and I forgot the whole Roswell uh event really just became very much publicized during the late 80s and 1990s but that did not lead to anything.

Um and then you have the disclosure movement of the 21st century. People like Dr. Steven Greer, uh Steve Basset and others were leading that charge and there were a series of conferences. It's like we've we've been through this before. There have always been these moments where people have thought if we just present the the strongest argument um put it before the public and get our political leaders to talk about it, we might be able to have a breakthrough.

And there have been all of these attempts. They've some of them just failed outright, others failed partially. Had little partial successes here and there, but we've not gotten to a point of disclosure. So now since 2017, we've had a completely new public conversation on this subject. It's unlike anything that's happened in the past.

Why? It's a really good question. This is something that we even talked about in after disclosure particularly my try my line of thought back in earlier decades was we as a society are more and more getting to a point where it's it could become unavoidable to talk about this if for no other reason than because of the web and connectivity that we have globally which is enabling a kind of conversation about the subject to develop and to continue to grow in a way that it could not have done prior to the age of social media and the web itself. So I think that's a different factor and it I actually think that's the foundation of of how even the New York Times reported on this in 2017. There was enough of a um I would say a I'm going to call it a dissident movement among certain people close to the seat of power who were not satisfied with UFO secrecy. This by the way has always been the case.

always been the case. There have always been people um in the kind of establishment faction that were not happy with the policy of UFO secrecy and and these individuals I think were able to get the New York Times to agree to a story two stories on this in 2017 and it it's opened things up and and it and it has not fully closed and now uh because this is an age of social media because this is an age of toal connectivity. I think it has encouraged a number of people, we'll call them the whistleblowers now, to start coming forward, to start telling their stories. And I think the real tipping point was when Ross Coldart interviewed David Grush a couple of years ago. Maybe that would be the tipping point.

Uh Grush was such a compelling individual talking about uh first of all from his position which was a you know um connected with NSA, connected with the UAP task force, connected with u um you know very classified um positions and uh connected with classified oversight in Cong uh through Congress. Gush is someone you just couldn't could not dismiss and he's talking about yes we have technology and the and the biologics the bodies. So I think that was the turning point in 2023 but it was really just the result of this latest wave of u this latest push which I think was aided and embedded by the digital era we live in and I don't think it's going away as easily as the other ones. I had a conversation recently with uh retired Army Colonel Carl Nell about this. Carl believes that we may be at the end of this disclosure cycle.

It's a very interesting thought and he may be right, but it's not clear to me that we're at the end of a cycle. It it is true the UAP Disclosure Act has failed fundamentally failed we could say to be passed in its full form for three years in a row now. And that is that is not that's not hopeful in in that sense. But I don't think we're at the end. I think this is the difference now is that the disclosure movement has got a much a far greater ground swell of support than it's ever had.

That that is not a trivial thing. And even if it gets keeps getting shut down in Congress, I don't think we're seeing the end of new leaks, new whistleblowers, and new possibilities to challenge the status quo. I I don't think that's going to end. The real question is, can can those leaks be strong enough to actually create a major crack in the system that it results in some genuine openness? Grushia's revelations didn't do it. And you would think, you would think they would.

In fact, let me just close with saying this. When Bryce and I wrote a ad after After Disclosure in 2010, um I think we would have thought and and I think most people would have thought like if they had been able to hear David Grush's interview all those years in advance back in 2010 or 2009, I think most people would have thought, "Good God, this has got to end the secrecy. This is a revelation that is too big to ignore and yet it didn't happen like that did not happen. That is something that really must be studied carefully so that we can understand why did it not happen because I I strongly believe if that interview had happened 15 years earlier maybe we would have been wrong then too but I think most of us would have thought that will cause disclosure and it didn't. >> It did not.

So, um, but nevertheless, the game isn't over either. Um, there will be, I believe there will be more people like David Gush to come forward. In fact, some have already. Matthew Brown is another person who's I think a very powerful whistleblower and there have been others and I don't think that that story is over. So, Yogi Bear, I think, said, "It ain't over till it's over." And I uh I think that's what I I think too.

I think this is this is a process. How it's going to end, when this will take the next step um into a kind of a new more deeper reality of this, I I don't know, but I don't think it's over. >> No. And I'm glad you brought up the the end of the disclosure cycle conversation with Carl Nell. It was really interesting.

I liked your comeback on it. I got to follow that up with Carl Nell at the Soul Symposium and um and he said similar to I think what you came back with that just because this cycle ends doesn't mean the next cycle isn't far away and what that cycle looks like might be different. I think you're completely right that if David Grush had come forward perhaps even in the late 90s to early 2000s that's that's a much bigger or longer lasting impact because I think there was an impact but it was very quick and sudden. Um and then it went away. Um there have been other whistleblowers.

From what I understand, whistleblowers right now are working together in the background. They're not just floating around doing nothing. Um so, and I'm sure that's stuff people will hear about in the near future. And I don't know much more than that. I'm not giving anything away, but from what I'm told, you know, there stuff a foot.

People love to hear the coming soon, don't they? But yeah, it's just it's the the facts in this case. Um, and I wonder what what will it take then if Grush 15 years ago was something that really could have broken down the door of secrecy. What will it take now? And I I'll segue into the Age of Disclosure documentary comes out on the 21st of November. I really hope that it can move the needle. I don't think it will with the public for for multiple reasons.

I I think given it came out back in March or April at South by Southwest and the people who saw it, including listeners to this podcast and I spoke to some of them afterwards, they were very complimentary about the credibility and the weight of the individuals speaking on camera about what they know, what they think, why this is important, why we have to push forward. But I think it's going to be too dry for a general public to hold their attention for 90 minutes, let alone two hours without any incredible footage or huge revelations. And I think people are so desensitized in 2025 to a lot of things, not just the UFO topic that I'll put it back to you. What What are your thoughts on the age of disclosure coming out when it is? And what's it going to take to really move the ball forward? >> Yeah, I think um I think I agree with probably everything you just said there. I haven't seen it all.

I I've seen some clips. Uh it looks really good. I'm sure it's excellent. Uh yeah, that's not going to be the problem. I think the problem you you you touched on it.

A the public's become a bit desensitized. B, it's one thing for a documentary like that to have a number of u fairly prominent public figures, at least members of Congress and maybe more >> to talk about the UFO or UAP subject in a as as reality. >> So that's all that's all important, but will there be a smoking? I mean, we know that Latsky is in there talking about having um been in in uh contact with a craft, having touched a craft. I think that's a big part of it. And that's going to be interesting.

But will that be enough to move the needle as you ask? And I think it it may not. I I mean, it's not impossible, I suppose, but I I would be surprised. It's really weird. our our whole society is just radically different in so many ways than it was a full generation ago. >> And one of those things and this really is not going to sound complimentary, but I really wonder about our social societal attention span and our ability actually to hang on to an extended argument.

You were kind of hinting at this yourself with something that might be a little bit dry. It's 90 minutes. It requires you to concentrate and focus, maybe not stare at your phone while you're watching the show, like all of these things. And you really wonder, are people even going to be paying attention to this? And do will they even care enough to pull themselves away from their latest Instagram feed to watch it? You know, you really have to wonder, uh, it's a different world now. So, I don't think it will.

I don't think I mean there have been a lot of excellent documentaries that have come out over the last several years. several of them by James Fox. >> Um, truly excellent and and it's I think a matter of getting them the kind of public conversation they need and they just don't get No, it's a weird thing. Um, all of us who are part of what we can call the alternative media, which is you and me and probably everyone listening, most people uh there's this tendency to dismiss the establishment legacy media as irrelevant. But I don't think it's irrelevant.

I think it's actually very still relevant and still very powerful and influential. Uh despite the fact that many people don't watch it anymore, but it is still it's like our version of what Pravda was for the old Soviet Union. It is still the organ of official truth. And until I hate to say this, but until the establishment media truly gets on board with these subjects, and and they still haven't. They still really haven't.

Um I I I have a feeling we're not really going to have a national conversation that moves us forward. It's a weird thing to say because we all I I want to say just like anyone else that the establishment media is completely irrelevant, but I don't think it's irrelevant. It It's still quite powerful and they're just not giving the subject the time of day it deserves. They're really not. I mean, we had the two New York Times articles in 2017, one a couple of follow-ups in the Times, which were permitted.

Uh, nothing since 2020. Uh, that was that's been serious. And where's the establishment television media on this? Basically absent. >> They're not really covering this in any way beyond kindergarten level. So, there's still a lot of resistance.

And you know I was thinking about my Gres statement earlier like so what Gres said in 2023 was very powerful and yes had he been covered like this by a national media in uh 2010 or earlier it would have made a big thing but but of course he would not have been because there were people saying things similar to David Grush uh for many years but they were saying them quietly to private researchers who could not get the time the day from the the establishment media back then. So the whole thing is just it has clogged up the establishment media has basically caused a roadblock or clogged up uh the public discussion of this. So it's all over YouTube, it's all over uh Twitter X, it's all over other forms of media, but it's a crazy thing to say, but it's not being discussed by the major networks in any nation. And I think as a result, it's really not getting the attention it deserves politically. I >> I spoke to a documentary team at the Soul Symposium.

Um, and they are from the UK, uh, pretty prominent channel and I I've been speaking to them since this summer. They were looking to get in touch with various different people and asked if I could help out with that. Um, and then in speaking to them in in person at Saul, I got to ask them about how they were planning and pitching this documentary on a pretty serious channel. And I was looking, you're not going to go with the Xfell's music and the Little Green Men CGI and the Flying Saucers. And they were like, well, we're going to kick off with that probably, but what we want to do is then take the audience on our journey.

And I was like, if you really feel you have to, but I went, I think this is part of the issue that if you ask 99% of the general public, um, take two minutes and write down for me what does your your average UFO documentary look like? I think they would all draw something pretty similar in terms of a plan. You know, XFiles music, you know, Little Green Men. Um, see some clips, some of them good, some of them not so good. Some talking heads, some people who come across partially crazy, and then it ends with, who knows, you know, is there something out there? And I was like, I think there's an appetite for something a little bit different. Um, and like you say, there are some very good documentaries, especially from James Fox, out there already.

James has his his documentary, Moment of Contact, New Revelations Extended Edition, coming out in the coming weeks. Um, he obviously has just done an interview with Ross Kulart where he he has a doctor that he has spoken to now on camera who has said, and this was all in the NewsNation clip, that he he was face to face with this alien being with a teardrop head, teardrop eyes, unequivocally an alien entity for up to four minutes. and that that's out there. >> And if that's not grabbing public attention, what is going to >> Exactly. People are watching go, "Oh, wow.

Isn't that cool?" like, and then swipe to the next video. And that's a big issue for me. >> Yeah. You mentioned British media, and I know you're you're over in the UK there, but I just have to say British media has been some of the worst >> uh anywhere in covering this subject. >> Yeah.

I mean beyond bad uh cringe cringe bad uh but you know the all British media is is in bed with British intelligence and it it serves an agenda. I don't think there's any debate about that or any controversy. So that is what they do and that's what they've always done. They're they're worse than the US media which is bad. US media is terrible on this.

But uh I have to say it's it's even worse in the in the United Kingdom. Um, but yeah, the thing is until this subject, it's it's a weird thing. We say we don't need establishment media, but I I've come to believe that many people, maybe most people instinctively still people can can uh disagree here in the comments below. I would like to hear some other opinions. I'm going to read.

I think that large most people still take their queue from what they will perceive as authority and when it's on television news that has the ring of government authority. It really does when you really think about it. Yeah. >> Certainly BBC, but certainly the US major is the same thing. And so it's like when you hear something in the establishment media, it's basically this is what the government considers to be important.

It's a weird thing. America's media was never supposed to be that way, but it it clearly is. But I think people still look to that for for cues. And until they get it, um I don't I don't really know how it's going to change. the the UAP disclosure transparency movement.

Uh this is something I said to Carl in our discussion on this. I think they have to make inroads into the establishment media, which is like as hard as making inroads into the CIA. It's not easy, but I think it's actually got to be a strategy moving forward on this. >> I've not spoken to you since the the hearings happened a couple of months ago now. Um, and for me in the last couple of years, you've had those initial hearings, the the Brain Moltry hearing with Gillibrand, and we then segueed into the Grush hearing with Favor and Graves, which probably was the pinnacle for me of anything we've had in terms of hearings.

And I I feel the most recent hearing was better than the previous one with Elzando, Shelonburgger, Gold, etc. But the the big issue for me and I'd love your take on the the video that was shown compared to the testimony because I was actually quite impressed with the testimony from Wiggins Knap uh Nuselli in Borland. And I feel that video really took away from it. And there's still a lot of debate online. I don't feel that video showed anything anomalous at all other than a military test of a a missile with no warhead going through likely a target balloon or drone.

Um, and it just shows for me how easy you can distract even the UFO UAP community by giving them something. And it's like pigeons will fight amongst themselves. And I'm including myself in that because so many folks had so many different opinions and it took away from the testimony. And all I saw, especially in US media, was people showing that video and talking about that video and the testimony just completely fell by the wayside. And do you think that's a deliberate tactic that's used? >> Yes.

Yeah, I do. I I think uh that's always been a tactic that uh establishment media has always used to kneecap or disable the stories that they don't want to have credibility. You you find the weakest link and you just hammer away at that. So that's an old that's an old game. And yeah, I think the video was was a weak link.

I agree with you. Um I'm trying to remember the specifics. was presented as uh as something that I think was was studied or determined to be a UAP. Am I wrong? [clears throat] I think that's what >> No, you're right. >> So So um it would be it's almost similar to how when Fraver came out with uh and talked about the Tic Tac encounter, you know, to all kinds of people people and skeptics saying the same thing about those videos that were released that that didn't say anything.

It was ridiculous. But the the thing that made that strong then and now to me is you had Fraver's testimony itself, which I think is you can't really dismiss. And same thing with the testimony at the hearings. I think um you know the fact that that video came out as in the context as a UAP encounter that doesn't prove it's a UAP I admit but um I guess I'm not familiar with the any debunking takedowns of that video as um prosaic and maybe that's just my fault that I haven't uh kind of got on top of that. But I mean, we're always aware there's always pros and cons on these videos anytime they come out.

Um, the most important thing in that hearing, well, there are quite a few, but I will just say the one that I think is the most lowhanging fruit that we must follow up on is once again we hear about this contact between Lheed Martin, the CIA, and um, Robert Bigalow's uh, Bigalow Advanced Aerospace um systems company, which we heard yet again about the failed transfer of UAP craft technology from Loheed Martin to to Bigalow that was stopped twice by uh a CIA officer by the name of Glenn Gaffne. >> Now, to me, we've been hearing about this story for several years. I think it's got some legs. We don't have proof, but there are people that could be subpoenaed to offer testimony. Robert Bigalow, for instance, Glenn Gaffne, for instance, uh Luis Alzando, for instance.

Luis Alzando was involved. Uh he was there on the scene during this. He was with Robert Bigalow's company. And um even Mike Gold, who was at the uh the previous hearing that you mentioned, he was he had a connection to this at the time. all of these and I have no doubt if they were interviewed they would be able to come up with yet more names who had connections.

To me that is an incredibly potentially powerful story that is just sitting there right in front of us begging for a hearing. Uh and then there were other there were other stories and uh things that came out during that last hearing of a couple of months ago which I agree were very compelling and very powerful and yes got no attention. No attention while everyone was running in circles around the the video. Was it a hellfire missile? What the hell was it? Um and what was this object? And back and forth. It's it's almost as if all people can really discuss are are pictures and not words.

They can't discuss they can't discuss text anymore. >> Again, I think that speaks to the point we're making around people's attention span that you can watch that video over and over and over again in the space of of 20 seconds and swipe off when you're ready to move on to something else. And it's much easier than than focusing in on George Knap's multiple name drops and the KTC talked about or Dylan Borland's case and going back to it and really paying attention to what's being said, how it's said, the tone of voice, the afflections in a voice. I don't think that the general public have that have that interest. Um, >> I'll just I don't want to I'm sorry for interrupting you.

Uh, let me just say this one thing. I think Borland was the big surprise of that uh hearing for for me and probably for a lot of people. And I just want to say again, he came across, I think, in a very powerful, very credible way. And I thought his this uh the account of his sighting was was quite compelling and the story of how he um argues he was persecuted as a result of, you know, what he knew and and has said, I think is also compelling. His emotions came out and I think that affected a lot of people.

>> Absolutely. And you mentioned obviously George Knap brought up Glenn Gaffne. That's a name that's been mentioned multiple times in this topic in relation to it. Um Dick Cheney has just passed away in the last couple of days as we record this. He is again someone else who has been has been named as a real gatekeeper in terms of the UFO subject.

Do you feel with the passing of some of the old guard like Mr. Dick Cheney that frees up any room for progress in terms of real disclosure? Or is it like you know the old hydra you cut one snake's head off and two spring up? I I think it's the latter. Uh many years ago, I had a conversation with one individual. I shouldn't mention his name, but he's he's known and in the late 90s, he had uh very good access to a lot of individuals who were uh prominent within the military, the intelligence, and in the UFO field. Anyway, I remember him saying uh to me that he um he actually had an insight into how the kind of international aspect of the cover up was working.

And what he discovered, this is just his own take, was that the older generation were more in favor of liberalizing things and moving toward a disclosure and the younger generations were less in favor of that. and his uh understanding was that because they had not made all the money that they want to make on this, the older people were a little more reflective and thought we'll we'll let go on this. So, I don't really think it's it's necessarily a case that the the young generation is always the ones who are idealistic. And I mean, it can be that way, but I'm not sure it has to be that way. And even I don't even know how accurate this person's information to me was at the time, but I was willing to accept that he he might have had a good perspective on it.

Uh with Cheney, I mean Cheney, of course, is a classic manager of the US Empire. He was a um he was one of the key operational managers of the of the US Western Empire when he was uh in power and influence during the 70s and 80s and 90s and 2000. He goes back to the mid70s. He was friends with Donald Rumsfeld back in 1975. Uh they both were powerful back then.

So Cheney has a long history in uh managing the empire. So someone like that would absolutely not be in favor of any kind of disclosure. In fact, Grant Cameron, uh, excellent longtime researcher about all of this, looked at presidential, US presidential policy, uh, talked about a, uh, a time he was able to call in on a talk radio show in the early Bush years when Jake Dick Cheney was vice president and actually got Cheney to talk about UFO disclosure. and and Cheney just said, uh, I wish I could remember this exactly, but it was to the effect of, well, that's not something we discussed, but if it were, I wouldn't be able to talk about it. But, but there's a lot of talk about Cheney, even earlier when he was at the Bush White House, the Bush senior White House as Secretary of Defense, >> uh, stopping dead in its tracks, uh, being dead set against any kind of UFO disclosure.

The the story goes that as the Soviet Union was in the process of dissolving in in the very early 90s, there were discussions within the US White House at that time as to whether or not a UFO disclosure was warranted. You know, it's the end of the Cold War. Maybe the reasons for this secrecy can go away. And as as the account goes, uh Cheney was dead set against that. He was probably the leader of the U anti-disclosure movement.

If it's true, I I think it certainly could be true. I mean, it strikes me as plausible. We don't have proof. So, will there be change? Uh, there's always change. Our society is always in the process of change.

Um, it's it's the UFO disclosure situation is is the closest thing that I can think of to describing this the statement of the uh irresistible force versus the immovable object. You know, secrecy is that immovable object. There is just no logic by which those who are in true possession of the secret could want to reveal it. There's too much power uh and there's too much from that from their point of view risk of destabil destab instability but it is an irresistible force nonetheless because it is just not going away. There's a truth in here a lot of truth to the UFO reality and it's just becoming impossible to ignore.

So how this is going to play out is really the question. You've got the um old guard that is is still clearly not interested in giving any kind of opportunity for this to move forward. I think what you're looking at, especially within the US, is a a real power struggle on this matter. There's there are forces. You had people in Congress in the last hearing referring to this indirectly like mysterious forces that are blocking progress on this.

Who are these mysterious forces? I don't even know if the members of Congress truly know, but there is power and influence behind the members of Congress, behind the White House, um, in any era, uh, and behind the military-industrial complex in any era. And I think they just do not want this to go forward. So how you're you're looking at an empire, the US western empire that especially for the last three years is is showing real fractures that were not necessarily openly visible prior to say 2022. I'm speaking of the Russell Ukrainian war which has shown a lot of fissures in the Western Alliance. Serious serious structural problems.

And so you're looking at an an empire that is showing signs of serious weakness and cracking in various ways. And uh and I think that can create a sense of desperation and a hardening of positions among those in power. And don't think it doesn't affect the UFO system uh and problem. I think it does. So I think you're going to see a greater intrigence versus a greater insistence.

and how that's going to end up is really something that we're all going to have to see in real time. >> I think um I was speaking to someone recently and I can't remember if it was on the podcast or or someone else and we were talking about the idea the toothpaste can't go back into the tube and you know the truth is out there now in some way shape or form. And I agree the toothpaste can't go back in the tube. But what I'm reminded of is I don't know if you watched the Batman movies in the 90s um but Batman Forever with Twoface at the end of the film and I think it's long enough that I can it was with with um Tommy Lee Jones and uh Twoface flips his coin up to decide whether he's going to do what he's going to do at the end of the film. I won't spoil too much, but Batman just takes out a pouch of coins and throws them all up in there at the same time.

And Twoface can't find his coin and scrambles for it. And I feel that's all that's happening in terms of the truth being covered up. That you can get things out there, but then the way to mask that is just put so much BS out there that you have to wade through and find, you know, what where's the real coin in this? Where's the truth? You don't have to put that. >> That's an excellent. >> Yeah, you analogy.

>> Yeah, it's a a great analogy because that's kind of what we are are saying. years and years ago. Um, I remember talking when I was a brand new person in the UFO community 25 years ago, I was I had the good fortune to chat about the the cover up with astronaut Edgar Mitchell of Apollo 14. Well, I was I was able to chat with him about this once in a while and he said the uh the thing is that this is a problem that is kind of hidden in plain sight. It's already out there.

He said all the all the information that people should need is more than available, but it is extremely easy, he pointed out to me at that time, to do exactly as you just described, Andy, for lies and disinformation and misdirection to go out there and just to confuse the matter. And it it's almost the situation where the government doesn't need to do censorship because they're able to change the conversation to confuse and muddy the waters. And I think that absolutely is a situation. It's like we have now too much information to process. We don't know how to process it all.

And that's just as difficult as not having enough. >> What for you? What for you right now is the biggest misdirection or misstep or misinformation that's out there, do you think? >> That's a good question. Well, I don't know if I'm giving a good answer here. I I think in general we have u All right, so there's there's the UFO culture and then there's the the broader culture. So the broader culture is one in which like you have to ask yourself seriously any observing intelligent aliens that are looking at our global culture have got to be wondering how how stupid can these humans get.

I mean it's really it's kind of ridiculous. even even uh entertainment that we consider to be serious level entertainment. I mean, there's so much of it is just propaganda and just nonsense. And then there's just so much terrible stuff. There's a new show on the Kardashians.

There's another show on um is it the Mormon Housewives? like it just gets stupider and stupider and and you just there's no like I I really do think it just lowers our our discourse so so badly. So there's that. But then even within the UFO community, even on YouTube, we're constantly chasing after the next new big thing. And you've got um and this is this does not include you and it doesn't include a lot of people but there are others who I just you think you just sense they're so sensationalistic. Everyone wants to get their clicks.

Everyone's looking for what is the next new thing that's going to like move us to disclosure. Like everyone wants things now and this is a a long difficult battle to fight. This is not an easy fight for genuine UFO truth and disclosure is not an easy fight and I think it's going to take a long time still and people get impatient. We we want results now. We we don't want to think that we're fighting against a incredibly sophisticated opponent or adversary that's probably smarter than we are.

I'm talking about government intelligence groups to say nothing of the ETSs themselves. they also have their own secrecy protocols. So, we're we're dealing with some very formidable opponents if we want UFO truth out there. And um I don't know if there's, you know, what's the biggest area of misinformation or disinformation. It comes out periodically.

Last summer, the uh Wall Street Journal put out a couple of articles that were so horrible, so terrible. >> Yeah. Um, and uh, we don't have to go into the details of it, but you wonder like who the hell was that designed for? Well, I think that was designed for the members of Congress to dissuade them from moving forward on the UAP Disclosure Act. I will I will bet that that was what it was for, and I think it succeeded. It intimidated anyone who might have been on the fence.

So, um, there's a there's always going to be establishment disinformation and misinformation coming out. uh and it's [clears throat] it doesn't fool those of us who've been studying this for any period of time but it's enough to intimidate people who are not conversant with the subject that well. So I don't know if I can have a single answer to your question but it's something that goes on all the time and will not it won't stop. We have to expect it to continue because this subject is just too disruptive on every level. This is a this is the most disruptive subject I can think of.

>> You made a a lot of really interesting points here, Richard, but I'm going to bring in something I was going to ask you about later. Uh, and we touched on it before I hit record that the whole three Atlas situation. I I've seen people on various platforms of of various different genres create content daily updating us on three Atlas. Now, I don't see that there is any content that or any substantial information that you could put out daily shows without making things up or being wildly speculative. >> Yeah.

>> And it's a shame that I think in this and it's just not to my taste, but there's clearly hundreds of thousands of people who like that kind of stuff. But you're it's going to it's going to come out that this object for me is a comet. It's got some anomalous features, but that's because it's only the third ever interstellar comet comet that's come in. Um, we're trying to, you know, I use the analogy and I like analogies. People know this that if you got off a flight, uh so I landed in Milan last week and if I get off the flight and I see two huge grotesque men, massively overweight, uh riding mopeds and I decide based on seeing those two men, everyone in Italy is hugely grotesqually overweight and rides mopeds.

That's kind of what a lot of folks are doing with the whole Atlas situation. It's the third of these things. We don't know that this is actually quite common for whatever this object is and where it's come from. I've seen a lot of folks break down quite scientifically even for a layman like me to understand why the object has gathered speed as it's passed the sun. It's not heading towards the earth.

It's not made any unique moves. It's just the chemical composition of it as to why it changes color. >> Yes, there are some anomalies, but that's where science comes in and you study and then you know for the fourth and five eye atlas and six eye atlas and whatever people want to call them. But there's a disappointment for me where even folks involved in the UFO community who are jumping on the sensationalism of the Atlas, you're missing an opportunity to to rationally pull people into the topic in the right way to say this object is likely prosaic. However, we should be studying it and that is Alob's ultimate message.

As much as some of that's been lost in media and sensationalism and headlines, you can get people involved and say, "What if the next one isn't prosaic? What if the next one turns out to be something interesting? Will we be ready for it? Will we know what to look for? Will we know know not to look for? And what we're going to have is in a couple of weeks or months, some of these channels who have been really bad for the clickbait stuff will just move on and people will follow the next story like you say that they come up with. And that's actually detrimental to me to the UFO topic because what's going to happen for the public, anyone who has an eyebrow raised at this whole three atlas situation when they find out it's not an alien spacecraft heading for Earth, it's just another example of is it a UFO? No. And it's detrimental to the topic. And I don't think people either care or realize are doing damage to it short, medium, and long term. >> That's a good point.

I think it's an interesting uh uh phenomenon. By the way, I I I'm I'm think I'm very much on the page with with Avi Lobe on this. The way he talks about it strikes me as very rational, very reasonable. He's pointed out there are things about this object that do seem very different, very unusual, and and maybe things that you wouldn't necessarily expect from an interstellar object. He's pointed out all of these types of things.

um which may have good arguments about them or which may have prosaic explanations as you pointed out. One example that I I believe I heard from Avi Lobe was that it's coming in on the on our own ecliptic. You know, uh this you have the sun and you have the planets and nearly all the all of the planets follow the same basic um ecliptic. So the same basic [clears throat] level uh you don't have them going in all different directions >> by and large. And so uh and so this thing is coming in.

But it seems to me that most astronomical objects might come in on the ecliptic because I'm going to take a guess, I could be wrong here, that our solar system itself is on the same ecliptic as the galaxy. Milky Way galaxy is kind of a flattened uh disc. And maybe maybe there's just more debris that's going to be close to our plane uh on the galaxy. So, you might expect an interstellar object coming in on our solar systems ecliptic. I could be totally wrong about our solar systems ecliptic being the same as our galaxies, but I'm just going to take a guess.

It's probably similar. U maybe if I'm wrong, someone can tell me in the comments. >> I guess a galactic eye level because you can see it. It's within your field of vision as opposed to it being up above or looking down below. It's just it's there within a a reasonable range.

>> Yeah. Essentially, yes. So, I don't know. Uh there may be other things about this object that also are they seem strange when you first look at them. They may complete they may turn out to be totally prosaic interesting but prosaic and that's fine.

Um I do agree, you know, there's this big part of us. We we want the answer to be anomalous. We want it to be alien. Some people really do. I remember back in 2011, so what is that 14 years ago? There was a comet known as Elanine that was on approach to Earth.

Some people watching this will be like, "Oh god, I remember that." And that was a whole big thing that built up for like six to eight months of um you know, we had enough social media even back then that people just really kind of went cuckoo about this one. And there were people who were making the claim that Elanine was a an alien spaceship and it was an invasion fleet. Like there were people actually asking me back in 2011 literally, Richard, should I be worried about Elanine? And it just it was just it was the most cringy uh cultural experience in the UFO community of that year. But every year happens and we we have something new. So, uh, I don't think we've gone quite as as Looney Tunes with ThreeI Atlas as a lot of us a lot of people did with Elanine, but, um, we're not done yet either.

Three Atlas is still on its approach, so we'll see how bad it gets. But, look, it's it's an interesting thing and and I'm I think it should not be dismissed completely as potentially anomalous. I I have no no shame or embarrassment in saying that. I think it's it's possible. Uh, I would say unlikely, but yeah, let's just keep our eyes and minds open and and study it, as you say, as it as it approaches and see what we can learn.

>> That's my hope that it captures the imagination of some folks who go, "Oh, what if this is something interesting? Maybe it spurs them on to watch Age of Disclosure. Maybe they go and find your books. Maybe they go and find someone's channel. They listen to a podcast. They buy a magazine and it gets them involved in the topic indirectly." And I think that's something that we should be looking for.

Um, couple of things, Richard, though, just to finish off before listener questions. Um, Eric Davis has just been on uh a short clip as part of that News Nation interview between Ross Colt and James Fox. And James Fox speaks to Eric Davis who basically says that um if the president of the United States would wave all of his NDAs and all his obligations to his security clearances, then he would happily come out in front of Congress or whoever and spill the beans on everything he knows regarding reverse engineering programs, crash retrieval programs, NHI programs and the like. And I wonder, do you have, if someone said to you, Richard, put together a three or four person panel for the next hearing and we're going to wave all of their NDAs, wave all their security clearances. Who are the three or four people that you would want up there to speak and tell us what they know? >> Oh golly.

Um, well, I would like to see Halputo off um be one of those people. I would like to these are the people that I no [clears throat] there undoubtedly there are people in the inner inner innermost labyrinth. >> Yeah. >> And I I don't think Halputoff is in that. I could be wrong but I don't think I think he's close closer than most of us will ever get.

So, um, I would def well, as I said earlier, I would like to see a hearing that features Glen Gaffne, uh, Robert Bigalow and, uh, and Lou Alzando again to bring him back and others to discuss this whole potential the story of the transfer, failed transfer of of uh, what could be tic-tac UFO technology held by Lheed Martin and um, it's failure to uh end up in the hands of Robert Bigalow's company. I think that's the whole reason OAP was was started. Frankly, that's what it looks like to me. But anyway, those people I would say um I would love to see Halpado be allowed to wave his his NDAs to speak about this in an open way because there's no question in my mind he knows much much more than he's been able to acknowledge publicly. even though in the last few years he has he's gone much further farther than um he has in the past other people well I think uh a lot of the um the OSAP ATIP crowd I would say Latsky I would like to see him uh talking um you know I would like I would like to see put Latsky, Bigalow, Glen Gaffne.

For starters, I I don't know that they are the the best of the best to talk about the depth of the UAP situation, but of the people available right now who seem like they could be pragmatically, practically brought before Congress and the public. Those are some names that spring to mind immediately. Yeah, not unfair. >> And then one more thing then, uh, Skywatcher is an organization that I think really kicked off 2025 with the NewsNation interview, Jake Barber coming forward, sharing his story in a quite sensational way. We then got the longer interview that was like 2 and a half hours, which I think was really important.

if people took the time to watch that, it really fleshed out the story rather than the the choppy editing of the the 45 minute piece which perhaps moved too quick a pace for a lot of folks to to really sink in. And then Skywatcher gets announced as an organization. Um they they make a big a big commitment that by the end of the year essentially they're going to be able to and I don't want to misquote um Jake Barber but essentially that they would have the technology to to bring objects in either mentally or via technical equipment. Um, and I asked Jake Barber the other week at S. I'm going to stop saying I've been to Saul folks, but yeah.

Um, I asked Jake Barber and he basically said that they're they're still on track to deliver. It might not be by the end of the year exactly, but there's no reason with the 10 terabytes of data they're pouring through just now and the peer review process that they can't present something at least tangible and interesting to the public. And I wonder what's your take on the Skywatcher story, the organization, and and what they're looking to do. >> I've not been able to understand exactly what they're trying to do, honestly. And maybe this is my fault.

So, are they trying to vector in craft with with a desire to capture them? Like at times when I hear this discussed, that is what it seems like to me. And I and I asked myself like how could that be possible? It seems like an absurd proposition. Like I can't think that when Jake Barber talks about this, he means to say we're going to fake out these craft, lure them in, and then capture them. But but sometimes that's almost what it sounds like to me. So I've got to be missing something here now.

Is it that they think they can bring them in like somehow they have the ability to bring them in? You know, maybe like Steven Greer's C uh five protocols. maybe this is seems to be what it's kind of related to. So you can bring them in and coax them into a kind of contact and communication. Is that what they think think that that strikes me as as nearly as naive as the other outcome? So I I'm I have to admit I I'm unsure about how this whole process even makes sense. And then you've got the whole question of the technology that they're using.

Um before we started recording I you know we used we used the phrase dog whistle is is kind of like that but it's really a um it it does make you think of that like we're we've been told that they that u their program has a technological means that is nearly foolproof that can bring these craft in. What what is this? So they're working on the patent. They want to get the IP on this. Sure. But does can it really exist? And how does it exist? Are are aliens, if that's what they are, that easy for us to control? We just just blow the whistle and they come and you throw down the net and you got gotcha.

I I don't know if it's that simplistic that they're thinking. Probably not. But >> uh I have to confess like I've not really been able to figure out how the system is supposed to work, but I don't think that they've been very forthcoming to be fair. I don't think that there's been a lot of uh explanation. So there it's really quite vague.

I don't know what I don't know what to make of it. It it strikes me as unrealistic. But um I I'll withhold my judgment because I don't have all the facts. >> I think for me in terms of the dog whistle and how that I like to kind of war game out in my head a little bit and what what would actually be happening. the idea they're they're signaling.

They flick this switch on this box in my head, I imagine, and aliens get a message on their flying saucer to say, "Oh, yep. They're they're they're shouting on us down there. Okay, whose turn is it to dive down?" That doesn't make any sense to me. However, if you go into the right area, for example, the woods, and you use one of those duck whistles or whatnot, you can attract the attention of any kind of number of animals, different methods. Perhaps they are summoning something that is more biological in nature but not human.

And there's plenty of them around. They seem to be confident this area is particularly sensitive to to these objects. So for me, maybe it is more of a biological organism being summoned and not necessarily a craft of some sort. I don't know that that would just make more sense to me in terms of a technology because then it for me if Richard you discovered tomorrow your own dog whistle technology that you could easily manufacture and send to everyone across the planet. If we all flick this on at the same time are six billion of these objects going to show up above each of us.

I I don't know how that would work. >> That's a really good question. I would think probably not. Right. >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. there there's a lot of demonstration that would need to be done on by this group and by the tech for I think for more of us to consider it a highly credible methodology to do what they say it's going to do. I mean, I'm not I'm not trying to throw cold water on it, but I just don't know enough to say one way or the other. It just strikes me as um doesn't strike me as necessarily plausible. I would like to learn more.

>> Yeah. And hopefully we do learn more in the coming weeks. I think we're in for a lot of news happening, which is great for a podcaster of course and for yourself on Need to Know. I think there's going to be a lot to discuss over the next kind of 8 to 12 weeks, even into early 2026. Um, Richard, we'll finish up part one there.

Um, if you want to grab a break or a drink or anything, uh, we can do. Otherwise, we can carry straight on. >> Oh, yeah. I'm I'm actually um I I don't think I need a break. If if you want to take a quick break, we can, but I'm I'm ready to go.

>> No, I'm good. I'd love to get straight into talking about first off your your new volume of your USO's book. So folks are leaving us at the end of part one. The new episode will be out in a couple of days time with Richard. Otherwise, if you're on any of the paid platforms, you'll hear this going straight through and we can just crack on.

>> Richard, so here here we are in part two. Um time travel and all that stuff. Your USO's book came out now, was it five, six months ago or is my time way off? Yeah, >> in uh I think March, end of February, early March of 2025. So, we're in November. >> So, yeah, about eight months.

>> Uh you announced at the time and beforehand to me and other folks it was going to be a trilogy that there's going to be three volumes. Is that still the same? You've mentioned part two is about to be published. How has that gone? What can you tell us about the second volume of the series and when can we expect even a third part? >> Happy to talk about it. Yeah, the second volume. So all of the cases were written when I published the first volume uh eight months ago.

So that's you know close to 700 total cases and uh I had to had to break those into three volumes. There were just it was too much content. So um I organized the the first volume into u appropriate chapters with each its own introduction uh which gives historical context and kind of extra analysis I guess you could say. Um and um and I've done the same now for the second volume and then the third volume absolutely will come out and I expect the third volume to be out in in the first half of 2026 and then it'll be done. So the first volume covered from the earliest USO cases up to 1969.

And of course USO is unidentified submerged objects. We're talking waterbased UFOs. And what I've tried to do for this study is is to try to put together something like a uh a complete history of the phenomenon. Of course, it can never be complete. Uh I I have [clears throat] no doubt in my mind that there are multiple orders of magnitude of actual encounters and cases beyond what I've captured, what I've collected, but they're just they don't get reported or they're uh I discarded many cases from the collection just because they were too threadbear.

They're just wasn't enough to go on and I didn't I didn't want to include them for that reason. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen or they weren't real. There's a lot that was left out, but I've got 700 cases. So the the first volume goes up to the end of 1969 and the second volume which is about to come out. Uh I'm it's being formatted and prepared for publication right now.

Uh that covers only two decades only 20 years. The 1970s and the 1980s that's it. Uh it's like the middle child. It's the one that I I I uh I wonder if that will get the least amount of attention because it's just kind of in the middle. And you know there'll be a lot of people interested in the earliest USO cases and there'll be a lot of people interested in contemporary ones.

Will they be interested in the 1970s and 80s? I hope so because the fact is that the 1970s and particularly up into the early 80s was an absolutely insane time uh of sightings on so many levels. A it was the most dense sightings of the of any decade, the 1970s. I have more USO cases from the 1970s by far than any other decade. Even though uh that's all pre- internet era, like you got to ask like how would people have reported these cases? How have they come to us? Well, the 1970s uh just blows all the other decades away. Now, a lot of those cases were reported online years later to various online uh websites, but still, you know, I I look at that and I think, what was going on in that decade? So, that's an interesting question right there.

What was it about that time? Um, and then there were other things about the the USO phenomenon that became very noticeable during the 70s and 80s. One of the main ones was the fact that sightings at around that time, actually starting in the late 1960s, started going to predominantly nighttime encounters. Uh, when I looked at all of the encounters that I collected of USOS up until around 1967-68, it was almost exactly 50/50 of daytime versus nighttime encounters. In fact, I think it was 51% daytime, 49% nighttime of the cases that I was able to determine. was it, you know, in daytime or nighttime? So, um, and then it just goes to 3/4 nighttime almost with the snap of a finger.

It's very bizarre, very noticeable. Um, and whereas military cases were even more dominated at night. Since since the uh late 60s, early 70s, military cases are nearly 90% nighttime when they encounter USOs. Almost 90%. It's extraordinary.

So these are trends that were noticeable really for the first time in the 70s. It's it's a signal that something has changed in the behavior of these objects. They've they're adapting to us is what I think. uh also enormous percentage of electromagnetic interference cases during the 1970s compared with any other decade and and not only the the gross number of them but the percentage of cases that involve EM interference is vastly higher. So there is something very significant happening behind the scenes that to this day I think we still don't really have a full explanation for.

These are are questions that I do explore in the book. Uh and they they kind of led me into uh questions of like who are these beings? Like what are they what are they really all about? Uh why do they act the way that they do? Um it it guess it led me into trying a kind of behavioral analysis of these beings through the behavior of their craft as reported in these encounters. And I I do think I've come to some provisional conclusions about that. So that's an interesting thing. And then just the cases themselves are every single one of the cases in in this second volume.

I mean you could you could almost make like a real you could make a movie out of many of them like a fulllength feature movie about many of these cases. And you could uh about a lot of the other ones, you could make a pretty good half hour uh you know, storyboarding of of it that would be full of with of drama and um intrigue as much as any good entertainment that you'd find on on television or on the web. Like these are amazing stories. They're fascinating. Uh sometimes they're disturbing, sometimes they're riveting, sometimes they're mysterious.

Uh it's it's a part of our history that I think all of us, even those of us who've studied the UFO subject for a long time, I don't think we know most of these stories. Uh they found slip by us. So I was really excited in in collecting them and then in uh analyzing them which I've tried to analyze every single one of them and in retelling them in a way that I've I've I felt that they needed to be retold in the way they deserved to be told. I wanted I wanted to be a good analyst but I also wanted to be a good storyteller. These are these are cases that deserve to be told well and and I hope I I have done that.

Uh as with the first volume, I have a great illustrator that's Alan Lavine who did a number of really great illustrations of these cases. They will go in the book just as they as volume one did and [clears throat] as volume three will. And um I'm excited about it. I think it's um I I might like it more than the first volume. I don't know.

there. Each of these little books is like a little baby to me and I I love them all. Um, but this is a good one and I I believe that people will really enjoy reading it. I I really believe that. >> Well, obviously when it comes out I want to get you on to discuss the book, promote the book, share more stories when I've actually managed to read it myself.

But I just want to ask one more thing on on the book. Is there any kind of pattern or number of of times where entities or beings are seen along with us just given the nature that it's involves water underwater? Do you find it's it's less involving entities and just more objects and craft or or what happens there? >> I did uh I have statistics on this that I gathered for for the three volumes. So I'll just speak for that. uh roughly 5% of all the USO cases that I have involve either I think it's a little more than 5% either involve the sighting of a being or an alleged being let's say or missing time and there's a little bit of overlap between those but actually not a lot so the cases where there's missing time which I think are very significant uh usually do not include the memory of a being. It's just I lost an hour, I lost two hours, that type of thing.

And I don't know what what happened. Uh when there are sightings of beings, uh frequently, not always, a lot of these these sightings are of beings that look human. They look as every bit as human as you and me. Uh but there are cases where where people will claim to have seen a craft maybe emerge from the water or descend low directly over the water where at times you could see uh silhouettes through windows if that's what they are of beings that did not look human. So you there's a couple of those.

Uh, by and large I have to say like it's uh I don't they're they're not overwhelmed with stories of of little gay aliens, >> these these beings in the USO encounters. one from the 1970s in in fact was described by one of the few abductees who actually remembered what the beings looked like uh in in the USO cases a South American concert pianist player actually a very uh highly distinguished woman she described them as ratlike her name was Luly Oswald um and it took place in the 1970s is it true well I mean she's a legitimate serious highly accomplished individual who had uh went through hypnotic regression and and had an incredible encounter visually with a USO with another individual in a car. They had missing time and she remembered these supposedly ratlike beings that took her on board and they were not nice. They were not friendly. What did she actually remember? who really you know when you deal with abductions and you deal with encounters with these beings uh I try to remind myself there I think there's a lot of um cognitive manipulation going on when we uh when people encounter these beings it certainly seems like they have first of all if they have an ability to communicate with people telepathically which is what is so frequently alleged by witnesses happens all the time when they have these encounters, you almost always hear uh the idea, the comment that they I heard them in my mind.

I I can't even count how many times I've come across that. So, if they can do that, maybe they can manipulate our minds as well. And so, I sometimes don't really know what to make of the physical descriptions that people will offer when they talk about an an abduction. Like, I'm I'm I'm not inclined to disbelieve them. I'm inclined to believe them, but we should keep in mind the fact that there might be some kind of manipulation going on just so that maybe they don't want you to see them as they are or who knows.

I definitely believe uh you know in looking at the um behaviors of these craft in general, my my conclusion at the time at the current time is that these beings have little to no interest in communicating with us and that they are definitely interested in monitoring and tracking us. uh they definitely have had to adapt to our growing technological capabilities which are quite substantial over the last century. I mean if you really it's only a couple of generations. >> So they've had to adapt to a human species that you know once upon a time we did not have submarines and then we did and we did not have sonar and then we did and we did not have uh aircraft carriers that could go across the ocean powered by nuclear uh energy. Now we do.

Uh, nuclear submarines that can stay under the water basically forever. Now we do. Deep, deep submersibles that can capture more and more of the ocean environment. Now we do. We're getting more and more involved in all of these things.

Our capabilities are expanding all the time. And my realization is that any intelligence that's down in the waters and they convinced they are down there, they're not static anymore than we are. They may be at a very very advanced uh technological and scientific level. I'm sure they are, but they still have to adapt to our changing abilities. And I do think that that's something that's important to them.

I think that actually helps to explain uh in part why they switched to more predominantly nighttime sightings after the late60s. That was in the late60s that our satellite capabilities became way more um advanced. And uh you know we only got the first satellite in Earth orbit in the late 50s. So it's not like the Earth was blanketed with satellite tech, but by the late60s we were starting to turn a corner and have very very excellent coverage. And maybe that's an explanation.

So they've had to adapt to us. And I'm not sure how I got here. Oh, we were asking about you were asking about sightings of beings and the like. I think I think that they are they are not interested in talking to us in in most uh contexts. I mean maybe on a limited basis there can be limited communication that's but uh it would almost be like us trying to talk to a human ancestor from a million years ago.

You know those people were smart. They were discovering how to control fire and they they were the smartest animals on the planet even at that time. But could we really have a conversation with them about many things? No, we really wouldn't be able to. What could we explain to them that wouldn't almost destroy them psychologically and in their development? And I I I've come to suspect that uh these entities, I mean, you think about how they can probably perceive space and time very differently than we do. Um they might they might be able to uh think much faster than we can think.

Uh, you know, we have we have language which is a powerful tool for us and it would allow us to run circles around our human ancestors who might have had proto language but might not have had the sophisticated ability to deal with ideas and concepts and causality in the way that we can because we have this amazing tool called language. But what if what if these other and and that language allows us to think faster and to think more deeply on a lot of matters? Uh because we have conceptual tools that allow us. So if you encounter a being that's got like say a a brain that's maybe 20% larger where it counts than ours or more uh or you know computer enhanced. They could probably think faster. They could probably go deeper than us.

They probably have an understanding of space and time and causality in ways that we just can't really comprehend. You really have to ask like what could they talk to us about that would be practical for them or us. It might not be that easy. They might they might not have an easy way to communicate with us. And I I suspect because when when I look at the behaviors of these craft and they how they interact with us, they whether it's military or not military, they they especially with the military ones like they will come up to the the military vessel, they will shadow it for a while.

They will move in closer and then just when they are closest they they seem to be able to disable our ability to track them. So radar goes off. weapon systems go offline. All kinds of other communication systems will will often go offline. It's as if they engage in a policy of data denial of us, which I think is what they are doing.

I think it is a policy. So, they allow us to see them up to a certain point, but not beyond that and and not to record them uh beyond a certain point. I I think that they have a lot of control over that. And um but they don't want to talk to us. They just want to track us.

That's what it seems to me to be. Uh that doesn't mean that they have a hands-off attitude with our society. There's all kinds of possibilities that are involved with that. Uh including, you know, let's just put this out on the table, some level of infiltration or coordination or management. It's not impossible.

It's not it's not like it's definitely happening, but if you were them looking at humanity, this volatile but fragile civilization that we've built, uh you might be interested in getting in on the inside and guiding it in the way that you think it should be guided. Why would that be impossible? I'm not saying they do that, but I'm going to put it out there. But as far as what we can observe, they are they seem to be mostly handsoff in their attitude and in their behaviors to us except for the occasional abduction and you know maybe they're doing hybridization and things like that. But they're not they're not they're not having an open back and forth communication with us. That's for sure.

Because because all of this is on their terms, not our terms. They they do what they want. They blanket this world. There are sightings around the world every single day over the oceans, over land, everywhere. Everywhere.

And yes, I'm sure many of these sightings that people think are UFOs are prosaic, but not all of them. >> They're just too many. And there's too many good ones. They're not all they're not all just prosaic. I I don't believe that.

So, I think from my perspective, they are everywhere. This is a dense phenomenon. You asked earlier uh what do I think is you kind of asked this what is like missing from our conversation or what's where are we being misdirected. I'll tell you one thing [clears throat] that's missing from our conversation is the daily quantity of good sightings of objects whether over land or over over water every single day. This is uh something that hasn't gone away.

It doesn't stop and it's global. So to me the the story there is we're dealing with an infrastructure of theirs that is probably very substantial and uh would be expensive for us to try to replicate. Uh requires maybe a certain amount of their money or their equivalent of money whatever that is uh and definitely their time and energy and attention. I I think that is definitely it's something that's important to them. They are here and they are doing things that they feel are important and they're not talking to us about it.

Like these are fundamental takeaways that we're really not discussing uh nearly enough in not just in the general society but even in our own uh community. We're really not trying to look at at their motivations, their behaviors, and and we're really not trying to ask ourselves what could this behavior mean. So, that's something that I that I think is important and I I do try to do from from time to time because we've got to be asking these questions even if it's speculation, which it is. It's inevitably going to be somewhat speculative, but that doesn't mean it isn't important. We we need to start asking realistically of what are the based on their behaviors, what are the potential uh scenarios that this involves, you know, and I think to me the most logical uh answer to that is that we as a planet and as a human species both separately for their own reasons have have in a way that I still do not understand been able to get the attention of other intelligences from somewhere else not not native to this world and they are able to find us.

They are able to see just how unique and amazing earth is and how interesting humanity has become and and we have become interesting. We're more like them than we're different. Even though they're I'm sure they're at a different level in many ways, but we're more like them. Uh we use mathematics, we use symbolic language, we deal with concepts and philosophy. We do all of those things.

And and I am sure they have have done and continue to do those things. We have consciousness as an awareness of ourselves as conscious independent entities of our own. Uh we're self-aware. uh so are they like all of these things. So I think they're interested in us now that we have uh we're going on this kind of quasi exponential path of technology ourselves.

We're developing not just nuclear weapons but now we are on the cusp of very strong artificial intelligence which is another leap in our species ability to engage in data management of all kinds of management of all kinds of information. That's power. Management of data is power. And we are becoming powerful. I know there's people out there who want to dismiss us as we're just we're like ants compared to other intelligence.

I don't I don't think that's accurate and I don't think that's fair and I don't think it's smart either. I think that we're actually very interesting. And you know how long will it be before we end up having the ability to discover let's say space-time metric engineering in a way that they maybe they can do. I think they can. Um how else are they going to get here from wherever they are? They and this is the thing skeptics about UFOs are are great at one thing.

They're great at ignoring all the UFO evidence that we have. There's some amazingly powerful cases that really beg an explanation and they beg a scientific explanation because if there are objects that can do non-inertial instant acceleration, zigzag, stop on a dime, take off like a bullet, all of that, they're using physics that we don't understand. That physics might very well incorporate an ability to bend space and time in a way that allows them to travel through the through the stars across the stars. Why not? How they can find us is another question. The universe is big.

It's not like Star Trek where you can just, you know, fire up the engines and go, you know, I think it's a lot more uh complex than that. But I think they figured something out. And we're very interesting to them. I think we're Why wouldn't we be? Why wouldn't Earth be very interesting? Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of life, you know, if you take the grand scale of the universe, but we have an amazing planet. We really do.

We're we have water, we have land. Uh we've been in the Goldilock zone for quite a while. We have an incredible diversity of of life and genetic unique genetic uh permutations. That in itself would be interesting to any any intelligence that could check this world out. But then there's humans uh with our little opposable thumbs and our ability to manipulate the environment and our our ability to to reason is becoming better.

uh at least we're using tools that allow us to reason better with computers and AI. So I think they're interested in us. I think something was triggered over the last century or even a little bit more that you know I sometimes imagine like did they have like a little century an automated century that is observing us for a certain period of time that would send off a signal to them to say okay now the humans have reached this threshold you know >> they Isaac Newton came along and he's got the three laws of motions and they're like okay they're they're coming along it won't be long before they get an Einstein or it won't be long before they at computers. Like I'll bet you that we're following a very predictable trajectory. I'll bet they know our trajectory better than we do.

So, uh, so they came here and I think they're watching the show because it's a hell of a show to watch. George Carlin talked about this, you know, in his last years. It's like, well, I didn't vote for these uh these people, but I've got the popcorn. I'm at I got a front row seat uh watching it all happen. It's it's entertaining if nothing else, but it's also it's a bit of drama.

I think South Park once described Earth as a reality show. Yeah. And that sounds about right. Like we're we're a great reality show if someone wants to watch us, but we also have there's a lot in this world that is probably great of great value intrinsically. I think Rick Rick and Morty Rick and Morty had that episode as well where the giant heads come to Earth and show us what you got and it's like Earth is a tal it's a galactic talent show and it's Earth's turn to you have to entertain them and if you don't they just blow up your planet.

So yeah, that was pretty fun. Um, have you got time to fire through some listener questions still, Richard? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Because we've not got to any of them yet. Um, I've deleted a few as as you as you've touched on various different things.

Um, when can people actually get a hold of your second volume? Do you know yet a rough time? >> Uh, well, as soon as we're done talking, I'm I'm going to go back to it. I'm I'm cleaning it up. As I say, the writing's done. Uh, I I definitely want it out before Christmas. I would like to sell some copies before Christmas.

That would be nice. So, we're you and I are speaking in the first week of November. You know, hopefully in a few weeks. It's hard because look, I'm I'm the writer and I'm the proofreader and I'm the publisher and I'm the desktop publisher. Like I'm doing the whole thing and every step requires certain different uh different things that I have to do.

So I I'm not anticipating a major holdup. So I I think it should be out I'm just going to say before Christmas. >> Excellent. Um, so listen, so much interest, Richard, when you come on the show from different people. I met someone in Milan the other week who's a big fan of yours.

They were they were hoping to see you at the Saul symposium. Obviously, you weren't in attendance. >> Um, but I said to Hal, um, if he could send me in a question, I would happily ask it, and I'm going to do that now. Um, he wants to know whether you have any knowledge of UFO sightings in the Chinese Empire. He says, "We know that officials from that time had to keep accurate records of what was happening in the provinces." >> Yeah.

Yeah. some I earlier this year I I decided to do my own dive into the history of Chinese eupfology. Um but you're talking about the ancient Chinese empire and uh there you know some of those are collected in the volume by Chris Abeck and Jacqu Valet of course wonders in the sky. When you look at ancient UFO sightings that are worth recording, a lot of them come from China and and from Japan also as well as from Europe. Reason being, as you were kind of indicating, China was one of the few literate fully literate societies back then that would have been able to record uh wonders in the sky.

So, there's a few there's actually some of the best ancient UFO sightings in my opinion are Chinese, not European. I think they have some better quality ones. Um, but having said that, I mean, there are there are some ancient sightings that are that are interesting and maybe you could even say good. Um, I'm I'm a little more interesting, a little more up on uh the more recent era of China from the 1960s and 70s onward. Like what we now know is that even during the the darkest depths of Mao Dong's cultural revolution in the 1960s um there were some really interesting Chinese UFO sightings that uh the military encountered that citiz that civilians encountered and we started to learn about those after Mao died and Deng Xiaoping became um leader of the Chinese Communist Party and instituted some reform forms and and a certain level of openness and it led to an explosion of Chinese eupfology in the 1970s and 80s and culminated in the rise of the Fallon Gong in the in the 1990s which was very very brutally crushed in 1999.

Uh China's history of UFO encounters is a really interesting one. It's one that we don't know nearly enough about in the west, but uh this is one of Earth's major civilizations and and one of the most ancient civilizations of all that is very different from the rest of the world in in terms of language first of all, right? So there's always the difficulty of communication in terms of geography. Uh China historically has always been very cut off from the rest of the world. You've got this immense you got the Himalayan plateau. You've got the fact that China faces the Pacific Ocean and to reach Europe you've got the massive Eurasian continent in between and a lot of desert.

So it's always been very difficult to uh get communication between Western society and China and to this day there's still a lot of uh lack of understanding. So it's a really huge topic. Uh, and there's no question that the ancient Chinese empire did record unusual sightings. What's less clear is what they, you know, were interpreting them as being. uh societies in the ancient world, particularly when you're getting into kings and nobility, uh really always wanted to interpret sightings in the sky as port tense often that would support their political situation, whatever that happened to be.

These were always interpreted as signs from the gods in one way or another. And uh so they you know it wasn't like they had um the equivalent of muon out there in old early times asking witnesses how large was the object if you held it at arms length you know they weren't doing that uh there wasn't really a scientific evaluation of these things >> but China in uh recent decades is extremely interesting case study of of eupfology and we could talk about that sometime that's an interesting thing >> absolutely I just had um Samuel Chong on the podcast about eight weeks ago. He was discussing the book The Theabau Prophecies, which goes off on a a tangent I wasn't quite expecting. Uh slightly outside my comfort zone in a good way. Um around Jesus and Christ being two different entities, one NHI being involved, all that kind of stuff.

And how the book in China's gained a lot of popularity. And it was it was an interesting conversation. Samuel's a a lawyer based out in California. Um, obviously he's he's been in the US for many decades now, but really interesting chap. And if you get a chance to catch that, I think that might be something you you would enjoy exploring.

>> That's interesting. China has a large percentage of people in the in the culture who are really into the subject. >> Uh, it got it got strongly repressed at the end of the 90s. The fallen gong, just for people who may not know, is a is like a um spiritual type of movement um that involves uh chiong and um physical exercise as a way to kind of integrate uh mind and body and and soul and spirit. It's a very it's a serious discipline.

It's an amazing discipline. So, Fall & Gong arose in the uh late 80s early 90s uh with definite take on extraterrestrials and UFOs. That actually was an integral part of their philosophy, believe it or not. So, you've got this uh this is the era um of of supposed like openness, postmau. And so, a lot of Chinese people really got into the fall gong.

It actually became bigger than the Chinese Communist Party and was a threat to the party. But I'm I'm mentioning it here because in Chinese eupfology within the fall gong and beyond, you got this schism. You see it everywhere between the nuts andbolts materialist scientific school of eupfology and then the contact side of eupfology and the side of eupfology that is interested in things like prophecy and metaphysical matters. And what's surprising is how incredibly popular the that latter part actually became and I'm sure still is within China, but they just have to be very much on the down low about it. So there's a really strong draw, I think, among the Chinese people, at least it seems to me, uh, to these types of metaphysical interpretations of eupfology.

I I think it I I think it it got the potential to surprise us all, but it's it's really not allowed to be expressed very much. So, in fact, it's really not allowed almost at all to be expressed >> since 1999. So, um, that's an interesting aspect of it. So, I'm not really surprised that there would be this interest in uh in ancient prophecies and things like that, but I don't I don't really know much else about it. So, I don't know what else to say, but yeah, sounds interesting.

>> Long Knife asks uh what is Richard's current thinking on black triangles seen over US bases and test areas. Folks like Rodrik Castle, who was on with UAP Gerb and Ross Coltart talked about this and Dylan Borland of course as well talked about seeing something similar. Yeah, it's uh the triangles have always been a fascinating part of this mystery. You started seeing a lot of triangular craft in terms of sightings during the 1970s. Doesn't mean that they were not seen earlier.

There were sightings of triangular UFOs occasionally reported earlier. The question is who's making these things? So when you when you think of a triangle, we're often inclined to think, well, we're probably making it. uh UF UIP Gerb uh has talked really a lot about um triangular craft and in fact uh uh the late um the uh I I've spoken to him myself um Fuche Edgar Fuche who had a lot to say about the TR3 and B and how these are technologies that we have developed. I I I think that's probably true. Like I think that we're building at least some of these triangles, but I don't believe we're building all of these triangles.

I don't believe I don't believe we're building them all. There there's just too many. And uh but like for example, there's a major phenomenon that has been going on for years and decades of uh you know, people waking up in the middle of the night. I can't sleep. It's 2:00 in the morning.

They go outside. They look outside and they see a black triangle hovering over their neighbor's house, >> for example. Go to the National UFO reporting center. You'll come across these types of sightings. Or the MUON database.

>> They get them from time to time. This is a real thing. This is one subset of the of the larger phenomenon. And what are those triangles doing? Well, I I suspect they're in, you know, they're they're over a residential area 200 feet above someone's house in the dead of night. Well, what do you think they're doing? I think they're probably interested in those people inside that house.

Maybe they're doing an abduction. Maybe they're doing a visitation of some sort. Sort it seems like. Is that human? I don't know. It doesn't strike me as human to have a for this to be a a black project in which you've got your operators going around the world hanging out over neighborhoods at 2 and 3 in the morning dead silent uh undetected every time.

Ah, that's a heck of a thing to think. So, um I I think that you've got triangles that we've been working on and you've got triangles that are not ours. How much do you how much do you think the US government for example and the people who know about this topic know about the abduction phenomenon in particular in terms of who's doing it, why it's happening, and even if they can predict a pattern of when they could happen or even bring it upon themselves. That's a great question and the information that's come to us through any kind of channel is very minimal on this. If you read if you remember the Wilson Davis notes, uh Eric Davis was talking with Admiral Thomas Wilson back in 2002 about this.

And Wilson at the end of the transcript there toward the end he says to Davis, "Well, you know, I was told that the abduction part that's not really even happening." um that there that that was that that was uh not true. >> And when I when I came across that, I thought well, is that what is that actually what they believe or is that what this guy was telling Wilson? Because I don't think that I don't think it's not happening. But um but that is supposedly what Wilson was told. So, it's it's entirely possible that genuine knowledge of abductions may be quite limited. You know, Dan Sherman just did a great interview with Jesse Michael on Jesse's channel.

>> And, you know, one of the things that Dan Sherman did, and I've been a a believer in Dan Sherman's accounts for quite a while. Uh Dan Sherman, his story basically is he was uh trained through the US Air Force to become what was called an intuitive communicator uh working with NSA to be able to receive messages from what what appeared to be alien beings to write down coordinates and um and to write it down in such a way that he he came to believe that he was actually uh collecting information from them on abductions. maybe among other things. So if that's true, then someone knows about this stuff and um but these things are very compartmented and they're very very deeply deeply stovepiped. So um who really knows what this is? This is the grand question.

We're talking about a a very complex labyrinth of secrecy. It's frustrating. Skeptics will say, "Well, that's a convenient excuse excuse. You know, you can say there's so much secrecy and that's why you don't have information, but this is the truth. This is a profound subject.

We're dealing with non-human intelligences uh clearly that are vastly more intelligent than we are, more capable that deal with us on their terms. And uh and it's not difficult to see why this would be the subject of tremendous secrecy from a national security point of view. Like all of that's not difficult to see. And that's what we're dealing with. You know, we we um we have this illusion even even those of us who are very skeptical of mainstream narratives like you, like me, like probably every listener here.

But, uh I think we really overestimate the ability of our society to to get at the truth. uh we we still have this pretense that we've we got something of a of a democratic type of global system here when when we certainly don't. It's a very very very severely controlled system that's fighting elements that want to break that control um but is still doing a really good job at maintaining that control over narratives of all types including this one. So, um, it's tough, you know, it's tough to figure out like how much do these government officials really know or what what does the pres what does Donald Trump know about alien abductions? Like officially speaking, it's a great question. Will we ever really find out? What did what did Joe Biden know when he was president, if anything? What did Barack Obama know? >> We don't really have good answers to these questions.

Uh, we've got a couple of stories that have come to us here and there. Bill Clinton has his story um that he tried to find out and couldn't. I heard this from a few different sources. I'm sure it's true. So, if if the US president can't get all the details that he or in the future maybe she will want, how how do you even know who's running this? >> This is a thing we really don't know.

Presidents are of the United States are powerful, but you know, I think we can all realize they have their limits of power as well. There's only certain things that they're really able to do. And then they have to be in front of the cameras. They got to shake hands with the dignitaries uh do all of that stuff and then how many of the uh special access programs of the hundreds that undoubtedly are there or thousands? Who knows? How many of those are they going to be briefed on in detail and know about and be able to do anything about? >> Like there's only so many hours in a day and uh we have a habit uh we've had a couple of really old presidents in the last many number of years. Like you have to wonder uh Trump looks like he's got a lot of energy but still like you really got to ask yourself how much is are they gonna be briefed on this? >> Can they really do? So like you really are wondering like who actually is running this? Is it is it something like uh SCAK you know or is it a another private entity that has connections with the US government or some kind of uh corporate uh public private combination or is it all mil money? Is it all the Bilderberg people or like we this is where we really we we fall down.

We don't have we don't have enough information on this. We get little tidbits. There's much much more we need to learn. >> A couple of listeners got in touch, including Gray. I know you've sent in a lot of questions, Gray, but I'm going to just summarize this one just for time for Richard, but a lot of folks have this idea the abduction phenomenon has finished or stalled or slowed down.

And and I wonder if I think about that, is that because there was a time where abductions were more rife and for whatever reason, the reason for those has finished and that if it's data collection, for example, they've got the data they need and that's why they've slowed or stopped. Would that make sense to you? >> Yeah, that's that's not impossible. I I wonder about this because we're not hearing nearly as much about abductions as we used to. that seems to be true. But then you have to ask, is that simply because abduction researchers are not doing enough enough enough work? I mean, back, you know, a few decades ago, we had Bud Hopkins and David Jacobs and John Mack.

They were the big three uh and they were publishing lots of good books uh on abduction that were being read by a lot of people. We have another generation of abduction researchers for many years. We had Barbara Lamb. Barbara is still around. I I don't know if she's doing active work anymore.

We have Ivonne Smith uh who's got some books out. There's Kathleen Martin. There's other people doing work on abduction research. Um and I I do get the sense that there are still abductions happening in our century, but it's true like they're not getting as much attention and I'm not hearing about as many of them. Maybe it is.

Maybe it could be slowing down. It's not impossible. But I think, you know, I before I make that call, I would I really think we need to be doing better research on this just because we're not hearing enough about them. It's easy for for uh kind of vague statements to get out there that don't really have a lot of data behind them, but they're anecdotally sounded. They seem anecdotally plausible, and then we just say, "Yeah, yeah, no one's talking about abduction, so they must not be happening." like I don't know that I would want to make that conclusion, but my sense is that there's actually not as much systematic work being done on abductions maybe as there had been in the uh in prior decades.

Maybe that's as simple as that. I' I'd be hardressed to think that they're not happening, but they do they're not getting as much attention. That's true. Like I look at, you know, there was there was obviously a time where where smoking was considered a good thing for you and prescribed by doctors obviously and then for decades there was a lot of research into smoking being bad for you. I would say that that research probably still goes on but not to the same scale because we're very much of the opinion, yes, smoking was not good for you.

>> Um something similar akin to that where abductions perhaps still happen but to a lesser extent. And >> well, let me just add this one thing. Uh, you know, I spoke earlier in my USO research about the 1970s, uh, being a very active decade. And, uh, there were a lot of abduction cases from the 1970s. I mean, Travis Walton's maybe one of the most famous of all is 1975, but there were many, many, many others.

Uh, it was an incredibly active time of abductions, as were the 80s. But it could be that something specific happened to that time period. For example, uh it could be that a new group arrived >> in the 1970s. H >> I I often wonder that uh because there's there are enough behavioral changes at least in the USO cases that I I've studied during this period of time to make me think like is there something what what is different here starting in the late 60s early 70s what has caused this behavioral change could it be a response to our growing technological proess I'm sure some of it that could be but the quantity of sightings in the 70s shot way up and not just with the USOS, but UFOs in general. So, could it be that there was a new group, a new a new uh operation that came in and part of what they did? Uh, could that have been abductions? Could that be the arrival of the actual blackeyed gray aliens? Maybe maybe they're recent additions to this scenario and maybe this is what they're doing.

and uh and it could be that their pro program had a certain time frame uh attached to it. So, um what I would like to to find out is really get into more contemporary abduction research and it's really hard to know like who's who's really at the leading edge of doing abduction research. There's a bunch of recent book there's books but You know what I'm asking is like is there anything that's really trying to be any more systematic about it and I'm not aware maybe I'm missing that. >> Can I just ask you just to expand on that as a final thing? Um do you think the idea then that perhaps something came along in the 70s is that it replaced what was here already for example the way we have the space station and every couple of months or six months a new set of astronauts go on that others return home and they carry on the work. Or would you think it was a whole separate entity or species that turned up alongside whatever else was here? >> I'm not sure what I think, but I I I imagine it could be the latter of those two scenarios that some something entirely new may have come along.

It seems to me that if if you can get a visitation from one, you you could possibly get a visitation from more than one just as easily because, you know, from our perspective, interstellar or any kind of travel through the stars uh seems so difficult that it seems impossible and and by our technology and science, it basically is impossible. We don't really have a way to figure this out. Uh but if if there is a way to somehow bend space and time in some way that we don't quite grasp or even more out there using by means of an interaction of consciousness itself to the very fabric of reality. It's not impossible in my view. There could be let's to use a a a basic word here.

there could be a loophole involved in their ability to come here easily that we just are not getting we're not able to understand. So if one can do that then I would imagine more than one might be able to do that and um maybe that's what's happening. The thing is there's just so many directions we could go with this. You know you have to ask yourself like how long would a typical advanced civilization even last? This is the other thing. So it's not just the distance problem that that u makes this such a difficult subject, but it's the time factor.

Our universe is, you know, roughly about 14 billion years old. And uh that's a long period of time. So how long does the actual could an actual civilization last? Even if it's as long as 1 million years, that's just like a little sliver. It's like a little thin line compared with the actual age of the universe. So you would think any civilization could have risen and fallen and would they even overlap with each other? Like it's a fair question to ask and I don't know what the answer to that would be.

My assumption though is that the quality of the history of UFO sightings that we have had are strong enough to tell me that someone's figured this out and they're able to come here and visit us. This is what I think. and um that there's got to be a there's got to be a way that they've done this. Are they coming from outside of time? Are they coming or or have they figured out a way to be so stable that they can last for more than millions of years? I don't know. I I don't really know the answer to this.

This is a difficult subject. Uh, I started diving into UFOs 30 plus years ago because I couldn't figure out um why our military was taking them so seriously in the 1940s and 50s due to declassified documents that I was able to find. I found out that this was a subject that was being taken seriously. Okay, so that's important. So then I asked myself, did they determine that they were Soviet? Well, doesn't look like they did.

Did they determine that they were ours? And to my uh my feeling is no, they have not determined them to be ours. And and there's a lot of good reasons why they're not just ours if you look at the whole history of this. So So that's just, you know, you start running out of out of options and you start looking at non-human intelligence and you start wondering could they be from elsewhere in the universe and it's a you know, we don't have all the answers. Uh, but I think I tend to think they're from another part of the universe. They exist in space and time at least some of the time.

They've figured things out that we have not figured out. They're they're ahead of us on the curve of the exponential curve of data control and data manipulation. So, they know things that we just don't know and that might be simple to them and and might be impossible for us to understand. So, uh, you know, we have this idea that, well, we can figure it all out. But I I don't know.

Sometimes I wonder if we really can, but that doesn't mean the problem goes away. That doesn't mean that it's not legitimate. I think it's totally legitimate, but we just may be struggling for a while at a genuine deep understanding of what it all represents. I think I think that the last thing I'll say here, because I don't want us to sound like, oh, well, we'll never understand anything. There's a lot of things that we know.

We I can say there's someone here. They're intelligent. They have a program. They have a plan. They don't want to communicate overly much with us.

And uh I think they find us interesting and I think we can we can say that and whether their motivations are to help us or to harm us or to watch us indifferently as everything goes to hell. Uh that's those are are speculative questions and each one of them has their own their own perspective, their own way of looking at it and they could all be true to some extent especially if you have more than one group that's here. Maybe they don't all have the same agendas. You know, I think why people like myself and so many others respect you Richard and enjoy speaking to you, enjoy listening to you, enjoy you on need to know your own channel is because you can say I don't know. And I think less and less that's that's a um a feature that gets lost in this conversation.

There's so many folks that are happy to tell you what they definitely know and what is definitely fact and why everything else you think is wrong. I think in this conversation the ability to say I don't know is is lost on a lot of folks. So yeah, very much appreciate that. >> It it's good to be comfortable with some uncertainty. We really you need that once once we start feeling like we have to answer all the questions, we have to get all the answers.

I don't think that's going to happen. Just imagine if it was a million years ago and you were part of the species we now call Homo erectus. Well, those are very smart people, but they had limits. And could you imagine talking to someone of that uh species and and their attitude is I need to know everything about your society. And you'd be like, well, you know, you're it's never going to happen.

You're never going to get it. you're just not going to be able to understand many of the things that we know because you don't have the cognitive capability to do it. That's the reality. And u I think it might be similar with us. We we tend to think well we can figure all of these things out and we are we're figuring a lot out and we're now using tools like artificial intelligence which may develop a kind of reasoning capability.

Maybe AI will become conscious in a way that we might understand conscious. I don't think that's impossible. So there are things that [clears throat] are down the road that we might be able to be uh assisted by, but to to for us to think uh that we're going to be able to figure all of these things out. I think I think we've been infected by the an idea of progress over many centuries, which it's understandable why we developed this idea. We discovered science.

We discovered that science is very powerful. We discovered that science can give us many answers that eluded us in the past. Yes. Yes. All of that is true.

But we also, I think, may have made a premature jump to this idea that that man or humanity can somehow be perfectable, that we can just keep improving and improving and improving like Star Trek, >> which I I look on as as basically fantasy. And I love the old Star Trek show, don't get me wrong, but it's it's basically fantasy. And we and and in that type of a vision of the future, you know, those people, they they've kind of figured things out. Yeah, there's still mysteries. There's still some conflict, but we're we've all learned to play nice in the sandbox, and we've we've solved our social problems, and we've we've learned so much, and we're just going to keep going and going.

It's a really optimistic view of us that it's great to be optimistic, but um but for us to think that our civilization can just kind of keep going infinitely and progressing and getting better all this time and more knowledgeable, more wise. I uh I've got my I've got my doubts about that. So um so for our ability to understand the full import of this topic that we're all discussing here UFOs or UAP aliens there's always going to be things I think that we just may not be able to understand fully that may be possible. I agree. Good place to leave it, Richard.

And do you want to just once again remind folks how they can follow you, follow your work, and obviously get a copy of USO's volume two when it comes out? >> We'll be out. Uh, we'll have a YouTube channel called Richard Olan Intelligent Disclosure. You can just go check check that out. I put out videos every couple of weeks. Uh, I'm I'm not as active a YouTuber as as others, but I I do what I can.

Uh, I have a website called richolanmembers.com. Uh, there's there's paywall stuff there and there's free stuff there. There's a lot a lot that people can go check out to see what I'm up to. Uh I will post uh just like interesting research that I'm up to. I just I just recently did a video on uh creating a taxonomy and a a map of what constitutes eupfology itself.

Uh I may do that as a a public YouTube uh video because I think it would be interesting to ask ourselves what constitutes eupfology today. So um I do things like that. I just put them up there for the members of my site. I write articles on uh different aspects of uh the UFO and world uh situation. You know, sometimes I go beyond UFOs.

So, uh that's richmembers.com and my YouTube channel. I've got a a Twitter X um account and and there's even Instagram. I I don't manage those, but I have people who put things up for me. Uh they do a good job. >> Awesome, Richard.

Once again, thank you so much. and I look forward to speaking to you when that new book comes out. >> It was a pleasure as always, Andy. Thank you for having me here and and a a greeting to all of the members of your channel. >> That's all for this episode of That UFO podcast.

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[music] All the links are over at thatodcast.com or in the show description below along with merchandise and more. Don't forget, you can also pick up a copy of my book, Atlas of Unidentified Flying Objects, available now in all good [music] bookstores and through online retailers, including Amazon. Big thank you again to all of you for listening and tuning in. Until next [music] time, keep looking up. You never know what you might see.

>> It wasn't a tic tac and not quite a saucer. More like a hub designed by Chzer. a little baroque and quite steampunk like Alice was playing bass for the Parliament effect. The little hovered right inside of my window and when I shoved out the screen, he made it an issue. I don't think he expected me to see his ass, but I'd had some champagne and smoke to it.