From Roswell to Congress: How UFOs Became Impossible to Ignore

For decades, UFOs lived on the fringe—dismissed, mocked, and written off as conspiracy. So how did we get from Roswell in 1947 to Pentagon programs, Navy pilot footage, and Congressional hearings?

In this episode, Peter and returning guest Jess break down the modern history of UFOs (now called UAPs), separating what’s been confirmed from what’s still speculation. From Project Blue Book to the Tic Tac incident and whistleblower testimony, they trace the timeline that brought this topic out of the shadows and into the halls of government.

This isn’t about convincing you of anything—it’s about understanding what’s actually happened… and why it’s getting harder to ignore

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. I am so happy that you're here. And before I start, I want to give a little bit of context. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you probably know that I have been, for a long time, fascinated and maybe a little even obsessed with the topic we're going to be diving into today, which is UFOs, now known as UAPs, extraterrestrial life, government disclosure, all of it. And over the years, I've had plenty of friends call me a conspiracy theorist. And actually, recently this came up in a very personal way. And he like came for me and said I was a conspiracy theorist, and we haven't talked in a while. Not that I find that insulting, but it was in the context. We can talk about that later. But anyway, it's common, like socially online. If you follow me listening to the show, I'm I'm really interested in the alien UFO thing. Um and also spirituality, modern spirit spirituality. Obviously, I'm open to all kinds of philosophies and ideas. Um, but one thing that seems to happen again and again throughout history is that ideas that were once considered completely ridiculous sometimes turn out to have at least a kernel of truth behind them, which I think we're seeing now in the news. Not always, but often enough that it's worth paying attention to. Um, I don't want to go into Pizzagate and Epstein, but if you think about those crazy people a few years ago where it was like, you know, all of that stuff, and then it comes out about Epstein, and you're like, okay, wait, maybe they weren't 100% right, but there was enough there that you can see how they connected the dots. Um and now I feel like we are living in a moment where a lot of things that used to be dismissed outright are suddenly being talked about openly. Governments are acknowledging unidentified aerial phenomena. Military pilots are going on record, Congress is holding hearings, NASA is studying the issue. So the goal of today's episode isn't trying to convince you of anything. Instead, what I want to do is walk through the modern history of the UFO or what's now called the UAP. We'll talk about some of the key moments, the incidents that brought this topic back into the mainstream and the people involved, and most importantly, what has actually been confirmed versus what is still speculation. Because I do feel like people who are not in this deep, or if it's not even on their algorithm, you don't maybe know the kind of progress that's been made. So please come to explore, keep an open mind. That's all that I ask. We're not going to be going down any woo-woo rabbit holes, at least not on this episode. Um, we're gonna try and stick to the facts. Um, because whether you believe there's something extraordinary going on or you think there are more grounded explanations, the reality is this topic has moved from the fringe into the halls of government in a pretty remarkable way. And to help me dive into all of this today, I'm joined by someone who longtime listeners will definitely recognize and remember. Jess is back on the show. Jess was a regular fixture uh on the previous iteration of the show where we spent a lot of time exploring topics like modern spirituality, consciousness, cults, and some of the more philosophical questions around what it means to be human. Um, so we're not necessarily going to talk about all that today. This is gonna be focused on the history and facts of the UFO and the disclosure potentially, but it's really great to have her back. Jess, thank you for coming. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

So good. I think it's been way too long. I don't even know when the last time, when was my last episode with you? I think it was like years ago.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I'm so happy to be back.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah, I'm happy too. And you know what? It's like a journey with the show is like you and I text often, and there's always like I go through these I um I get ideas and then I'll text you and be like, I'm ready. And then I just like it's like a whole thing when you're doing a podcast, is like you really have to be in it because it's weekly, and what I've learned from like the previous iterations is like if you um disconnect in some way, then it ends up being too hard to do. So yeah, thank you for your patience.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I am ready when you are so so excited.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

This is something I first of all, I love having you as a friend for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is when I text you crazy shit about aliens, you're like, you're just right there with me. You're like, I fucking get it, I get it, bitch. You're like there, I don't need to explain it or preface it. And it can be a range of like, you know, David Grush when he was in Congress, like recapping that, or also just like, you know, a random TikTok about a reptilian planet shit. I'm like, I love that about you.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yes, same. I'm glad I have you as my alien friend. I need you.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I never went to the friggin' contact in the desert. Is that where you and Steve go?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yes. So my husband and I have gone there for maybe the past four years. I don't think we're gonna go back this year because it is, you know, interesting. Um, but yeah, we've gone for the past four years, and there's different dichotomies of you know, people that seem really woo-woo, and we are listening to a whole hour of someone who is just convinced that they are from the planet Zephron or something.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yes, Zac Ephron.

unknown 6:18

Zac Ephron.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And he was just convinced that he, you know, was um a lefon in one life and then a unicorn in another. So we go from like, you know, people that are very entertaining and very much believing that you know they are all the things and have all these past lives. But also at Contact in the Desert, um, there's definitely speeches that feel more scientific, more grounded, and we're really into like the consciousness um portion of that and how that also connects to aliens and UFOs. Um so yeah, it's a it's a really fun balance of scientists, uh former government, you know, officials that are there, and also those really woo-woo people. Um, yeah, I don't think we'll be returning this year, but I feel like maybe in the future.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Now might be the best year to go with like Obama and Trump like teasing this disclosure. Like, wouldn't that be the time to go to these places?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

I mean, I feel like it's been teased, and something that does disappoint me about going there is that something's always teased before we're going there, and no one's really talking about like the current thing that's being teased. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Interesting. I would say it's the worst part about being so fascinated by this, not even convinced, like even from an entertainment standpoint. If you're like, wow, that UFO idea is really good. Like you like X Files, you like see the videos on YouTube, and it's like piques your curiosity. If you go in a little deeper, there is always this damn disclosure that's like one year, two years away. And the reason why I stopped paying attention, like, you know, around the time I met Evan was for that reason. I am wasting so many hours of my life fucking diving into this shit and nothing is happening, and you just get tired of it. Um, yeah. That's one thing that's irritating. The other thing is with like contact in the desert as an example, an event bringing people together because of this topic. And then you have people who are like scientific, reputable, not actually necessarily personally interested in this topic, but something happens in their personal or professional lives where they feel like they have to share this experience because it's something that they don't understand. It has a profound impact on them, they become a whistleblower. But you're pairing that with the wack-a-doodles where like I'm a cat from Venus, and then the average person cannot be it, it's it all gets lumped together. So you can't have like a serious, you know, open-minded conversation when one person is like a military pilot and the other person is like the person you mentioned who was like, I was a leprechaun, and I'm also like from a different planet, Zac Ephron.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yes, uh, that perfectly encapsulated what contact in the desert feels like. And I wish there was a little bit less or none of those people that are just like, I went under hypnosis, and you know, my spirit guides told me that I'm an alien. Like, I don't want to hear that. We are going there for the scientific um portion of it. And yeah, I agree that like kind of muddies the water if you want to have a serious conversation about the science around UFOs, UAPs. There's always that whack of personal to do. Like, yeah, okay, okay, you know, but this person seems kind of crazy, so why are they here? So yeah, it doesn't help.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

No, it doesn't. Um, I don't know if it's the science that I find most interesting. I really like hearing credible people describe the crafts or the anomalies that they are seeing. And this is something I've questioned in myself is like why I'm so instantly believe people when they talk about it. Um, there's some people who are like selling books, and it's it could be a very obvious, you know, assumption that the reason why they're telling these stories is because they're selling something, but there's a lot of people like that in the community. But then you have the random person who's like, you know, I was just living my damn life, and this thing happened, it ruined my life, like it ruined my mental health, it ruined my relationships. People think I'm crazy. They didn't make any money, they didn't become famous in a good way. Why would somebody just say that? And that, like Travis Walton is a good um example. He claimed that he was abducted, um, he was missing for a few days, he showed up naked on like a side of a road in a telephone thing. And his story has stayed the same his whole life. Um, he's never made any money, he's never strayed from like the accounts that he gave. And when I see someone like that, I just believe it. Like, I don't I don't know what the motivation would be to, I don't know, one claim something so outrageous, and this was like in the 80s or 90s, and then like never fray from the never stray from that topic, despite so much criticism. Um, and you see this guy in interviews, it's not like he's doing very good.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, I mean, same. Like, why would someone just make up a story, you know, and ruin their own life or credibility?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

It's um it's two, it's two things. It's like the people who are regular people like you and I who are interested can talk about it, people who uh claim to have encounters, and it's up to you to believe them or not. Um that's a rabbit hole. We're not gonna go down it today. Um, I have like my favorite contact um like stories that we can do in another episode, but I want to just focus on the timeline of like his moments that have happened in recent history that we can verify have happened, that we can confirm true or false, basically, and and as the foundation for like whatever conversations we have going forward. So if you're listening and you're like so on the fence about UFOs, or you think it's an eye roll, or maybe you're really into it, hopefully by the end of this episode, I want you to be like, okay, I learned that there are some things that have happened that are definitely moving in a direction like this is not all bullshit. I think that's a good conclusion to come to. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Okay. Let's start with Roswell. Roswell, you know, you Google UFOs Roswell is gonna come up immediately. It was the first really famous UFO um story that was in the media basically in 1947. Um, so I would say this is the origin story for modern modern UFO culture. Basically, what happened in July 1947, debris was discovered on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. That happened. Something was found. Roswell Army Field, the RAAF, issued a press release saying they recovered a flying disc. Now, that actually happened. You can go and see the newspapers. They just reported what they found. Within 24 hours, the Army reversed course saying it was a weather balloon. And by the way, this weather balloon thing comes up a lot. Like, even um, there was a recent um situation over one of the airports in America. Something was happening. There was an anomalous aerial shit, and they they like shut it down. They were like shooting it with lasers, and it ended, they were like, it's a weather balloon. Like it's it's crazy that the weather balloon thing comes up.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, was that the thing where they were saying it was like a Chinese weather balloon or something? Yes, and then it's like, well, why are you letting, you know, other countries fly random things over the US? Like, that's still like a concern, right? Yeah, so weird.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

And why would China, out of all the damn things, send a weather balloon? Like, come on. Um, so in the 1990s, the US Air Force released reports stating the debris was from Project Mogul, a classified balloon program designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The Air Force concluded that there was no alien craft and no alien bodies. So those are confirmed. That's what's been documented. We're not going to pull up screenshots. Obviously, you can do your due diligence if you really want to, but just trust me, this is this is what's already been confirmed. So, what is alleged and not proven is claims of an alien bodies, claims of crash retrieval cover-ups, claims of long-term reverse engineering programs. So none of those have been proven publicly, but that is definitely tied into the narrative around Roswell. And when we when we talk about Roswell now, it's not just about whether or not there was aliens, it's about how quickly the trust changed between what the government first reported it was, which was a disc that fell and there was debris, then to it was a weather weather balloon and the first immediate cover-up. So from the first friggin' situation, there was this um not backlash, but this dance between like, well, what's the truth? And then the newspaper clippings are crazy because it's like they say it was a disc, they use the word UFO. There were people who found the debris, and there was that one guy who said it was like he it was like tinfoil and he would crumple it up and then it would like go back completely flat. Like these were real people. This is before UFOs were like um in the public consciousness. It was a very, very new thing. So something obviously happened, and the fact that they said it was a disc and then quickly said it was a weather balloon. This is where the whole thing starts. Roswell did happen. There was something that crashed, they did friggin' get stuff. Um yeah, that that's all true, which is I don't know. For some people, they might not realize Roswell is an actual thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, and I I dug a little bit further into it. Um, something that was interesting to me was that Roswell happened in 1947 and then in the mid 70s, years and years later, was the first time that that was connected to aliens. So that was interesting, but it was like so yeah, so much time had passed. So I dug into that a little bit more. And the man, Stanton Friedman, who is a nuclear physicist. I'm like, let me say that slowly. Um, and the first one to coin himself later as like the first UFOologist, and he studied with Carl Sagan. He's the one who started investigating this further in the 70s. Um and he is one of the first people to start calling out the massive government cover-ups regarding um aliens and UFOs. So he's a character that'll come up a little bit in history as well. Um and I couldn't find anything like weird about him. I love when again, like these scientists are involved because he was purely just a scientist, had some interest. Um, and then he's discovering, you know, more accounts. And I didn't dig into like the whole alien thing, but just really interesting that it's like years later, but we're getting real scientists involved. Um, and again, he was a starting point of hey, there's a cover-up happening, like something's happening, and through my investigations, like it's definitely being covered up.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Interesting. I had no idea that the alien thing wasn't um instantly connected. But I guess if something fell from the sky that was a disk, only now in 2026 would everybody be like, oh, UFO. Um that is interesting that there was a delay. I'd like to find out more about what he found that connected it to aliens. Like, how did he? It must have been something about the technology or the um, because they'd actually, we didn't even know about the technology. So it must have been about like, did he find or learn about the actual debris and what it was made out of that made him come to that conclusion? Um because that's a pretty big leap. If aliens weren't on the table, how do you go from this is interesting to that's aliens?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Interesting. This is also like Roswell, similar to Area 51, it's such a trope in pop culture when people are thinking about aliens and UFOs. And when something becomes so embedded in the zeitgeist, it almost loses its meaning. Like Titanic when Gen Z realized that Titanic was uh a real event, not just the movie with like Leo and Kate Winslit, that's her name.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Because it's wait, Gen Z didn't know that's real.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

There was like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

This was like maybe COVID. I remember, yeah, there was like this spiral of them being like, oh my god, it's based on a real thing. Like they just they they didn't know. Um, I think Roswell could be one of those things. Like it's such a it's such a famous name and it's so linked to the lore that the automatic dismissal probably happens. And now in like modern-day Roswell, they have um like UFO festivals, it's a big tourist thing. Like there's so many reasons why somebody be like, it's such bullshit. Like, look how much money people are making. There's TV shows about it, documentaries. But then if you go back to 1947, something did happen. And that's where we see sort of the modern UFO story starting and the and the cover-up. The government cover-up also is a big part of the conversation with UFOs and like sort of if if everything that we're about to go through is true, it does mean that there's been decades long. If it's not a conspiracy, it's it's an orchestrated cover-up, which is it's it's hard to wrap your brain around if it is true. And we're not trying to convince you of that. We're just gonna stick to the facts. So Roswell happens. I'm sure there's lots of little moments between then. Something called Project Blue Book um was created. So from 1952, so after Roswell, to 1969, um, Project Blue Book was a U.S. Air Force program that investigated UFO sightings. So they were headquartered in Wright Patterson in Ohio. That is also a base that comes up a lot. Their job was basically to determine if UFO sightings um were real, if they were a threat, scientifically analyze UFOs, and decide whether sightings could be explained by known craft, whether phenomenon astronomical objects, astronomical, astronomical objects are hoaxes. Um, so during its operation, they had over just under 13,000 UFO sightings that were investigated, and 700 remain unofficially unidentified to this day. So that's also a real program. That happened. That's not like a conspiracy thing. That, you know, right shortly after Roswell, there was that immediate um uh like re new narrative that the government put out, then they created Project Blue Book to sort of dive deeper into this. Question. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Um, did the people know about Project Blue Book or was that like a secret investigation?

SPEAKER_02 21:36

So Project Blue Book was never actually secret once it began, but it was publicly acknowledged by the US Air Force while it was running in the 50s and 60s. However, the full details became widely confirmed and accessible in 1969 when the Air Force officially terminated the program and released its conclusion. So at that point, the government publicly stated UFOs posted. No national security threat. There was no evidence they represented advanced technology beyond known science. Okay. How could that be true? But then they also say it's 701 cases were unidentified and they couldn't explain. If it's all part of known science, how could it be unexplainable? That doesn't make sense. And of course, there was no evidence of extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial vehicles. And that was from a report in 1968 through the University of Colorado that helped the Air Force do a study. So they studied it. They were like, yeah, there's a lot of stuff we don't know, but it's definitely not aliens, and it's definitely not something we couldn't do if we wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So I do have a little bit more around the 60s because once I found out about Stanton Friedman, I think that's how I'm saying, if I'm saying his name correctly, um, he was connected to another investigation, and that led me down a rabbit hole to what you just mentioned, Project Blue Book. So in 1961, do you know the story of Betty and Barney Hill?

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Oh, do I know the story of Betty and Barney baby? They're in my new video. Oh, yeah. You tell this story. You tell the story.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Okay, well, you can probably add a little bit more color to it. But when I was again investigating down my rabbit hole of Stanton, um, so the story of Betty and Barney Hill is the first widely published alien abduction case in the US. Um, so they saw a flying craft, and I think Barney had binoculars because they were just coming from Niagara Falls, like totally reasoned have binoculars. Um so I think they like pulled over in their car, looked through binoculars, and he saw a flying craft with humanoids inside, is why you reported. And they also reported missing time. Um, where it gets a little interesting is after they went through hypnosis. So that's sometimes rival pause around like hypnosis, and they had remembered and were able to sketch up a star map in which um an astronomer said it resembled a star system called Zeta.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Zeta reticulate.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Um, which all of that gets a little bit like okay, people can you know potentially question that. But then that's where Stanton Friedman came back in. He was the main investigator in this case, and he did state that the drawing was statistically unlikely to be coincidental. Um, so interesting again, kind of like going back and forth. Um, so it seems like Stanton was investigating that in the early to mid-60s, and maybe that led to his interest to reopen the case of Roswell, where he started um, you know, investigating and going back to, you know, people that still remember that time that were there, reporting on it and wanted to reopen that case in the 70s. So that probably piqued his interest to okay, this is either stories made sense to him. Again, this is a scientist, um, for him to like further investigate other alien sightings.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Betty and Barney Hill were, yeah, the definitely the first pretty insane abductee story. Um, something important to remember that it was the 60s and they were a multiracial couple.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Barney was black, Betty was white, and so I I don't like I don't know how that would affect this story, but I don't know, heightened social tension um can do things to your mind. I don't know. There's there there has been some speculation about sort of how that would um how that experience could lend itself to why a person could hypothetically experience something or make this up. The one thing that always stuck with me about that story is um they never strayed from the story. Um there is this, I'm reading a book right now. Um, I'm not gonna say her name because I can't remember what it is. But there's what they're learning is when somebody has an experience with a UAP, there's the experience that they have personally, and then there's the process of disclosing it to different people, like friends and family, an official report if they decide to do that, and then I don't know, another version. And what we learned with Betty and Barney Hill was like they would say one version to somebody in a different version to another. And it wasn't necessarily like they were lying, but different people collecting the story maybe provided a different space for them to disclose information that might not be comfortable for them in other settings. Like if you have a traumatic thing happen and you're talking to your friend, and let's say, like, you know, there was a violent, I don't want to say something like that. Something traumatic happens to you in your life and your friend's like, oh my God, what happened? You're like, I don't know, this really crazy thing happened to me when I was on the street and there was this guy, and they're like, oh my God. And then you talk to your therapist and you're like, no, this really crazy thing happened, and it made me feel this, and it brought up this. And then you talk to the police, and it's like, he did this to me, he did this to me. So it's the same experience, but you tell it in different ways based on who you're talking to. And I think if you go through abductee stories, you'll see that. I agree with you, Betty and Barney Hill, the hypnosis thing is I that's never a I wouldn't say it's a red light, but it's not a green light for me. Um, and we learned this through the satanic panic in the 80s and 90s, where like people were like, I remember I was in a satanic halt, they were eating babies. So yeah, I actually think in cases of abductions and close encounters, I would avoid hypnosis if you can. Um, I've listened to a little bit of the tapes of Betty, and it's pretty traumatic. I mean, she, you know, sees this ship, she goes on board. They think they give her messages about um humans not ruining the planet. She sees the star map thing is crazy because think okay, so if these two people are making it up and she just randomly draws this, they both drew star maps too, I think, in separate rooms, and then they matched, and then it was Zeta Reticulli, which apparently the grays come from. Um so that was interesting, and just the way they maintain their story. And now I think I think they both have passed. They have a niece or a nephew who does interviews sometimes and sort of like just like reminds people that it was real. Um, I don't think they sold their story, like I don't think there's a movie or anything, so I don't know if they profited off this, but it was definitely the first um big alien abduction story. Um, I was gonna say something else about Betty and Barney, the niece, the nephew, the star map. Um, oh, the missing time. This is this is always linked with abductions and something that as a viewer, you're like, how does that make sense? Like they felt like they were gone for 20 minutes, but they were gone for four hours. And when you watch Age of Disclosure, which is the most recent documentary, they explain that the the there's a hypothesis that the crafts um essentially bend space and time, which is how they're able to move in the ways that they do. So when you're inside of this craft, now people are listening already, like going to the next episode, not listening to this episode, great. Um, but if you if you can if you can at least accept for the sake of this conversation, maybe there's a possibility that there's a craft, and the way that it moves through space and time, so crazy, is they have some kind of way to bend it. And then when you're in the craft, you you experience time differently than when you're outside of it. So people who go inside, it's fast. And then when you're outside, there's a time difference. So um that after Age of Disclosure, when they talked about that theory, I revisited Betty and Barney Hill and was like, okay, that makes sense. A lot of these people don't know why they're missing time. That is a hypothetical explanation, not a guaranteed one, but it is something if you go down that scientific, you know, it's not possible for us, but it could be for them.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Yeah, that really was like a mind opener for me when that um was said in age of disclosure. Like, oh, like that made sense for me. We can get into that a little bit deeper when we get to the age of disclosure. I have one more rabbit hole, like that's connected.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yeah, give it to me, baby.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Project blue book and Stan. So while I was, you know, thinking of the timeline in my head, I'm like, okay, we're in the 60s, we're in the 70s. And then I do think about like, do we want to call it like the soft disclosure of like, are they they, whoever they are, the ones in power, government, are they slowly leaking disclosure to us through movies? Or so that led me to like when was close encounters of the third kind being written? Um, when did it come out? So close encounters of the third kind. They started writing the script in 1973. Because I'm like, what came first? You know, like what were the writers inspired by some of these stories? Or was there already a movie out? And you know, no wonder Betty and Barney Hill like had this experience. They watched this movie, you know. So no, Betty and Barney came first, and then movies started coming out. So that's where like my mind goes of like chicken or the egg, like how much was already out there in our you know, connected collective consciousness, yeah, like knowing about aliens, and then you know, so I'm just piecing those things together. So Betty and Barney, and then that movie was started to be scripted in 1973, and that led me to Jay Allen Heinek, which I'm sure you know him. So he's an American astronomer and professor who became one of the most famous figures in UFO research. Um and he's often mentioned when anyone talks about like government and UFO research. Um, he's an astrophysicist and a university professor. Um, and he became so well known because he served as a scientific advisor to the US Air Force on UFO investigations during the Cold War. So he's really interesting to me because he was just a straight up scientist, a non-believer, basically, you know, came into the government to help debunk or, you know, like find out the true causes of some of these anomalies to be like, no, like this is like literally scientifically why this occurred, what this was in the sky. And he had a shift in views. So early in his career, he's got he was skeptical, again, hired by the US Air Force to help explain things. And then later he was starting to form a belief. So why would this scientist who is skeptical, who's involved in all this research in the government, all of a sudden say I'm a genuine believer, there's something happening. So that helps, you know, in my mind, prove the case of something is going on. We can't just say, like, all of these scientists all of a sudden are going to cuckoo bell and imagining things.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Like, I mean, this is this is the most basic acceptance of you, believe it or not, you have to at least acknowledge something is going on and has been going on for so long. And if you spend 32 seconds looking into this, you will see that there are people who are like really reluctant and resistant to the topic, have to dive into it for whatever reason professionally. They're their minds are changed. That doesn't mean they believe in aliens. It just means what they have encountered is like, I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense. And that that's that's all I think. Any person who is not gonna go down too of the like conspiratory rabbit hole can just be like, something is happening that I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's something that we can do. That doesn't mean that it's not secret government technology, that doesn't mean that it's, I don't know, interdimensional, which some people say. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's aliens, obviously, but you're right. Like these people like Heiken? Heineken? What's his name?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Uh Jay Allen Heinek.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Heinek. Heineken. He um there's lots of stories like that. People who don't believe and then they end up believing. They reluctantly go on shows to talk about it, and they're like, I'm not saying aliens exist. I'm just saying this is conclusion I've come to is I don't know. Um, interesting, you brought up um close encounter uh close encounters of the third kind. Steven Spielberg movie. There is a lot of um lure around that movie and how there was um there was people within the industry and the government that were acting as consultants. The characters are based on real people. And there's people who are deep in the UFO community who are like, not that it was soft disclosure, but it was very, very, very close to what the government was doing in terms of um they knew it was real and then they were trying to understand it. There's something, now this is a woo-woo thing, but there's something called Project Serpo. And if uh for those of you who haven't seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you should see it. Um, there's a scene where they're basically communicating with the aliens through sound, and then they they um make this bass in the mountains and the alien, the UFOs land and they have like this contact, and there's an exchange of astronauts into the ship and aliens. And if you watch the movie, it's just like a like I you would blink and you miss it. It's not really a big part of the storyline. But I recently um came across Project Serpo, which is my brand new favorite conspiracy theory. Absolutely no evidence at all that it was real, but essentially it's um secret US government exchange program with extraterrestrials. So they sent 12 uh military personnel to an alien planet called Serpo in the 60s. I'm just gonna stop there because it's it's it's a whole thing. But um, you brought up uh um Close Encounters, and that's a really important movie. Guess what, bitch? Steven Spielberg has a new movie coming out like in May, and it's age of disclosure. And again, those conversations are coming up because it's like Steven Spielberg as a person is so interested in this phenomenon, obviously has access that regular people don't. And that conversation again is coming up. If it is true that there are extraterrestrials here or that we know about them, whatever. Wouldn't it be a great way to test the waters by releasing close to real content through movies, music, celebrities, and sort of testing the waters? I can't wait to see this movie. I, you know me, I believe 100% they're here, they have been here. Steven Spielberg knows Age of Disclosure is a basically a documentary, as far as I'm concerned. I haven't even seen it. But yeah, that's a really interesting link, is like um Betty and Barney Hill, Roswell, and then we have Close Encounters.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

And Close Encounters, I'm connecting them because um it was highly based on Jay Allen Heinek. So working very closely with him based on you know the work he was doing, and Jay Allen was on, and I don't know about all of these other projects, but he was on Project Sign that was 1947 to 1949. Don't know what that is, have to look it up. Project Grudge that ended in 1951, and then Project Blue Book, um, the 1952 to 1969. So that's how that's all tied in. And I think I need to fly up to Canada to go see the new movie with you.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

You you're not getting it in America, or you just want to see it with you.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Peter and I have never met IRL. And it's like my dream.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

It is my dream, but we tried when I was in the OC for work.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Um something cosmically weird happened because you would think that the gods would want us to come together. And the one time Peter was in literally my town, my work sent me to New York. That's crazy. Right now, so that was like really, really bizarre that we couldn't connect. And I still think about that. I'm like, why?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Yeah, makes no sense.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Why?

SPEAKER_02 39:02

What are the chances? I um my friend just bought a great big beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills, and I want to go, but I'm not going until, you know, Orange Man is gone. Um, but yeah, please come to Canada. Um, okay, so Roswell, um that happened. We dove into Betty and Barney Hill, close encounters, sort of like how this thread starts being woven. And then we're into like 2007 to 2012. Now, obviously, there's a million things that happened between that, but we're just trying to get the tax on the timeline to keep everybody up to date. So I would say this is when the modern disclosure, quote unquote, era starts. So we spoke about Project Blue Book in the 60s. This is when UFOs became culturally radioactive. So this is when they really pushed anybody who talks about UFOs as crazy. Like this was an orchestrated campaign to make sure that the UFO topic, anybody who came forward, was just automatically written off as a lunatic. So between 2007 and 2012, the Pentagon program ATIP quietly studies UAP. So this is another, I guess, iteration of Project Blue Book. And ATIP stands for Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. So again, the U.S. Department of Defense investigated unidentified aerial phenomenon. It was created in 2007, got funding of$22 million between 2007 and 2012. It was sponsored by Senator Harry Reid along with Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Ione. Um it was part of the Pentagon. So they studied um UFOs, etc. Now, this actually didn't come public until 2017. Because in 2017, this is when a really fucking big thing happened. And I remember it was in the New York Times, I think was the um media outlet that broke it. But it was the first time ever, I think, in history, where basically what it was is the Tic Tac incident happened. So um in 2004, USS Nimitz encounter um became the cornerstone of modern UIP legitimacy. So what it is, you've probably seen it, even if you don't realize you saw it, is there's this guy on a plane, whatever kind of pilot he was. And there's this Tic Tac object that comes on the radar and they don't know what it is, and it's going like a million miles an hour, it's going up and down and left and right, and they're sort of talking about it on their headphones, whatever they're called. Like, what is that? I can't, I can't figure it out. And he eventually locks on it and they basically trace it. And in the call, they obvious quite obviously don't know what it is, and it's freaking them out. So multiple Navy pilots were involved, radar operations were involved, infrared targeting footage was later released, and the military chain of command um reporting that was all released publicly in a very public way. And so it was no longer like a farmer who said they saw lights or Betty and Barney Hill that said they were taken onto a spaceship. This is a government-confirmed video that are um that are confirmed to be authentic. Military recordings um that are real. And they said that they were real. And it was in the New York Times, it was widely, widely reported. And I remember like, hello, does anybody care? I still bring up this video, and people were like, eh, it could be. I'm like, it could be what? Like they still have not confirmed what it was. And I don't know why that's not interesting to people. That, you know, we we have taken like that really important step from crazy people on the fringe talking about being abducted to something in the military on radar, a physical object. We don't know what it is. It's doing things we can't explain. The government has said we looked into it, we don't know, and everybody's like, yeah, I don't know. Not convinced.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

I know. And I think it's like almost like weird, perfect timing for them of like, okay, even if there is a real video out, there's so much I don't know, stress on people, so many other things going on, so much AI versus you know, trying to balance your stressful everyday life, where people are just kind of like, okay, I'm mentally exhausted, so I can't even, I just need to move on, you know. So it's kind of like a perfect timing worthy of I keep saying they, like there's like some conspiracy of overlords controlling our minds. But there's something to that where we're so overstimulated, where it's like, okay, I guess that's kind of weird, but I have to go to work right now, and I think you know, and then people might just brush. It off and it's like, wait a minute, like this is real. Like, everyone needs to like really sit and like soak that in that this is really happening and we should care more and push for investigations.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

If you just look at the facts, which is that the government since the 60s has spent millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars that we can at least prove into studying this, that is one thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

They are spending money to look into it because they don't know what the fuck it is. Second thing is um the admission that there are lots that they can debunk and lots that they can say it was a satellite, it was a plane, it was a balloon, whatever. Um, it was a laser, it was a drone. There are hundreds that they cannot explain. Hundreds. So you're talking about the government with the most advanced technology in the world to study shit that's going on in the sky for like a national security standpoint, bombs, planes, rockets, anything that they can see that's coming to protect people, but there are things that are still being observed and recorded that they don't know. That is that is just what we know. So I think if you still hear that, and internally you're like, yeah, that doesn't mean anything. That to me is a little weird. It doesn't necessarily mean it's aliens, but it means that there's something, something there. So ATIP exists. Navy Navy pilots have been reporting encounters. And by the way, let us not forget that they have been trying to report things since Roswell, but there was so much stigma around it that they couldn't. And we'll talk about the new Congress bills that have come out to protect whistleblowers so that they can come out and not lose their jobs. So there were three videos that started circulating publicly: Flear, One, Gimbal, and GoFast. Go on YouTube, go on TikTok, go on Instagram. You can see them. They're pretty um crazy. And then the Pentagon later officially releases them in the full um like their entirety. So this is the moment UFO becomes UAP. Again, we have to stop calling them UFOs because there's so much stigma. Let's call them UAP, unidentified aerial phenomena. So that's another important thing for the layman to realize is like there was a shift because the government realized, okay, we need to admit that we're studying them, but we we can't say we're studying UFOs because people will be like, wait, that's not real. That's what for crazy people. So let's start calling them UAP and take them seriously. The stigma drops and serious people start talking. So this is when we go from around 2021, the government admits we don't know. So the ODNI releases a preliminary UAP assessment, and the key takeaways were that many cases remain unexplained. Reporting mechanisms were historically poor. So they weren't actually, they were collecting the data, but they weren't, I guess, doing it in a way that was robust enough. And no, there was no confirmation of extraterrestrial origin. And I think um it's the shift from denial to uncertainty. So, not a huge thing in terms of like moving the needle, but it moved the needle nonetheless. Like we're going from this is 100% bullshit. Everybody who says it is lying or crazy to know it does exist. We just don't know what it is. And I think to your point of like people, like the TikTok video coming out and it not really landing with people, there's also this idea that UFOs are going to be like the traditional flying saucer landing in New York and the little men are gonna come out. And that's what people think about as ET and UFO. But what we're really seeing is like over the decades, these little, little, little, little data points that have been coming out slowly, trickling, that have been building a narrative and building a case that not necessarily that it's aliens, but there are things that are happening that we can't explain that have been going on for a long time. And after decades of, there's two things. After decades of studying, we still don't know what it is, or after decades of studying, we know what it is, and we're not telling people. Um, you know which one, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

But you know And the other thing that always had given me a pause is I think you mentioned it quickly, that there must be some truth behind this because of the like smear campaigns and bullying and cover-ups with any again air force government person coming out and speaking up and people are terrified to speak up. Like, why? You know, if these are like intelligent government officials, government air force um to be bullied, shut down. It's like what are they trying to yes? Maybe they don't want to cause mass hysteria if they want to get all the facts first, but still, you know, I feel like they're still hushed. And that was I think a lot came out of that um just like recently, you know, with all the congressional hearings of trying to move away from you know, people being in fear of like losing almost like their whole identity and life because they came out and like said something that and they are people that are truly trying to protect us, whether it's aliens or you know, something from just like another country, they're trying to protect us and figure out like what this is. Yeah. And for them to be so shut down is just like very suspicious.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

It's again like the problem with this topic and the stigma around it is it's really hard to make your pitch for why it's real in like a conversation at a party, and somebody brings it up, and you're like, oh, I don't know, and then you want to tell them everything you know in like 30 seconds, but you can't. And even like what you just said, I'm like, you know, we can do a whole episode about you know, people professional, celebrated, reputable people in their communities, in their professions, celebrities, presidents who have come forward and have system systematically been um pushed away, attacked, smeared, people have gone missing. Like it you there is there is a whole history of this. And again, if you're not willing to go down the rabbit hole, that's fine. But at some point, if you completely dismiss all of these things just because you personally have not been given exact evidence that, you know, suits your own personal checklist of what's real and what's not, yeah, there's nothing I can do for you there. I think that that is not an ideal way to live, to be that closed-minded, that you need to personally be proved. Like something needs to be proven to you personally with your own eyes for you to believe it. I don't know. I've always been more open. I think it's possible that there are things that are happening that we can't explain and people experiencing, people are experiencing things that are very traumatic for them. Um, so yeah, government is like, you know what, it is real, we just don't know what it is. And then we move into like 2022 to 2024, which is like the congressional era. So this is when the first pop, the first in history can congressional hearings on UFOs. Though we're talking about national security, we're talking about area, air, airspace safety, we're talking about data gaps, not aliens. They are not going in and talking about aliens, they're talking about what the data has said, which is their shit we don't know, essentially. So we're we're in this like whistleblower phase. So we have in July 26th, 2023, there was a hearing. I remember watching the whole thing. I think me and you were like watching it live. It was really exciting. Um, so the people involved were David Fraver, who was the Tic Tac pilot, Ryan Graves, a Navy pilot, David Grush, love David Grush, um, who is an intelligence officer. And really, I mean, David Grush came and was like, this is what he was saying in Congress under oath, um, and on very like mainstream media. Um, there what he learned studying, going into the Pentagon and researching this is that secret crash retrieval programs exist, reverse engineering of non-human craft, biological materials recovered, which is basically aliens. And the critical distinction was these claims were made under oath. This is the other thing. There was no physical evidence publicly presented in that hearing. So it creates two camps: this is disclosure and this is testimony without proof. So I understand both. Like I believe it, I just do, I always have. But at least if, like for the listener who's listening right now and you don't believe it, I'm curious what your take is with these celebrated and reputable military government officials who are going in Congress under oath and being like, UFO, UAPs are real, we've been studying them, we've been retrieving them, and there is biological evidence of them. What your take is from that? And if you're still like, eh, I don't believe it, then I don't think you'll believe it ever unless there's an alien in front of you. Because I think if you saw it on the news tomorrow with Trump, you wouldn't believe it, and rightfully so, because there's so much fake news and AI out there, which that's a whole other tangent about why disclosure might come now. But um, yeah, we're essentially sitting at a place where Congress has heard that this is all happening. They also talk about scrim. I think they're called scrim scriffs, where there's these little um, there's these areas in the Pentagon. What is a scrim or a skiff? I think it's called a SCIF, which is a, oh yeah. Um, so it's a sensitive, it's a sensitive car compartmented information facility. So a highly secure room or building used by the US government and military to view, discuss, or store classified intelligent information. So these are used for top secret compartmentalized intelligent briefings. So what they did talk about a lot in Congress is like, I can't tell you this now because there's cameras in the public, but we can go into a SCIF after this and I can disclose it. So what we were hearing from Congress members is after these hearings, the Congress members would go into these SCIFs and they would be shown videos, reports, pictures of UAP, unidentified beings, whatever, and then come back and be like, yeah, I know, I know now that it's true. So we're sort of in that phase of Congress is starting to like get the proof. It's not at the point yet that like regular people are seeing and having access to that. Um, but we're we're moving, like if you think about Roswell, it's a weather balloon to Congress being like UFOs are real, and we know that for a fact. That's pretty cool, I think. You know?

SPEAKER_00 55:01

I'm holding on to something right now. So something that came up in the age of disclosure um documentary that I know we haven't gotten fully into yet. Maybe that'll be on next episode. Um but they said something that like it makes me angry. Um so they noted that some government officials in the Pentagon wouldn't even look at scientific data and said studying this was doing the devil's work.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

So we have extremists in the Pentagon talking about demons and Satan. So you believe in God and demons. Totally. Like you're an extremist of like whatever Christianity, especially in like the US, you know, it's the whole Christian Catholic whatever in the government. So you're believing in devils, again, God, Satan, and you're like, I won't even look at it. So this is like what we're dealing with of like we have scientific data, and people are like, no, no, no, we're not gonna talk about that's not real because God told me that I can't even look at that. And then so these are the officials that are not giving out information or saying, no, no, no, that's not real.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

So it's like we can't trust them to either know I would trust, you know, again, the scientists, the you know, Air Force pilots that are seeing it, um, yeah, that are trying to come forward and not just so it's like all these people that again we should have trust in our government officials, which we don't. Um like why would we trust them with telling us the real story about UAPs or extraterrestrials? You know, they believe in Satan.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

I mean, we're also seeing like yeah, we're seeing the amp up of religion and um like there's there's uh videos and stuff of of people praying over Trump in the Oval Office, and they're talking about Ibrahim, like the holy war, like they're really going, they're they're shamelessly going in that direction. That stood out to me in the documentary, too, is like potentially, if this is all real, it would be reasonable to believe that the Christian fucking power that is infiltrated in every area of North American life would have a hand at oppressing this the same way it does the gays and the women and the immigrants. Like, why would these people try to keep those at bay and not um a potential threat to the narrative around religion and God? Like, can you imagine? I mean, this is the thing that they've always said. If they do come out and say, we know that disclosure could be something like this. We can confirm that we're not alone in the universe. We have evidence that there is intelligent life somewhere. That could be it. It might not be like we know that they're from this planet, it might not be like they're in Area 51. It could be that simple. We we we know that. We can't get into details, but we will let you know that we know that that's true. Even that alone, what does that do to religion? Right? Like, does that mean that God doesn't exist? Does that mean that God has created also intelligent life all over the universe? And if your God can create life on other planets, then why can't you accept that maybe he created like different kinds of religion and different kinds of people and trans people and gay people and non-monogamous people? God forbid. Um yeah, that's a I the most plausible explanation if this did all end up being true, would be religion and power. Like, how can we keep this to ourselves to control people for as long as possible? Um makes total sense, I would say. Yeah. Um, because we talked about Congress, I just want to quickly talk about um the types of bills that are currently being passed. So the first is the UAP Whistleblower Protection Act. So um it's been introduced, it's still under committee review, but basically, what they want to do is expand legal protections for federal employees, military members, contractors, and intelligence personnel who report information about how federal taxpayer funds are being used on UAP research without fear or retaliation. So the purposes explicitly include disclosure about UF, you UAP-related funding and research within the whistleblower stature. Um, we also have the UAP Transparency Act, which has been introduced and not passed, um, another version of the bill that I just mentioned, but um, they want to be able to prohibit destruction, alteration of UAP records, um, create a UAP records collection at the National Archives, establish an independent review board for declassification, provide mandatory disclosure timelines unless a national security exception is um certified. Um there's also the congressional hearing with disclosure focus. So it's not a technical law, but these official hearings have been major legislative actions pushing towards disclosure and whistleblower safety. So we're moving to a place where hopefully the stigma is going away slowly, and people are like, okay, we can talk about this without being like laughed out of the room. That's great. And then the next phase will be like, okay, well, if I do come forward and say that I know this, how do I make sure I don't lose my job? So I think we're in a good place. I think that is a good place to sort of like pause the conversation for now. There is the Age of Disclosure documentary that um came out um recently. Basically 2025 American documentary directed by Dan Farah that premiered at South by Southwest and was released on Amazon. Basically, it's narrated by former Pentagon official Louis Alessandro and focuses on claims of decades-long government concealment of non-human intelligence, alleged recovery programs, and a covert effort to reverse engineer advanced technology. So that's something we can dive into um next episode. But like sneak peek, what was your take on that episode um that movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

Um for me, like it opened up some I don't know, like new ideas, right? Because you know that I'm into this stuff, I'm interested, but I wasn't diving as deep as you were.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Nobody does.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Nobody does now. Um so that kind of like expanded my mind a little bit, where as we know, like I I am a believer that something's happening, but something still never made sense. So we kind of talked about earlier, like the bubble effect, and that was something that was like, oh yes, like it like was an unlock for me of like that makes sense to me. Like, why because I'm like, come on, how come nobody can get a freaking good picture of a UAP? Right. And so it kind of explained like this could be an explanation of why like all the pictures are always blurry. It's like, how come nobody can get their phones out? How come nobody can take a good picture? And it explained it. I'm like, and to me, it like made sense. And we can dive into that next time, or if you want to dive into it now, but that may be a longer conversation. So yeah, it had some like major unlocks for me. And I know we talked a little bit about like why are they charging$20? Why isn't this more accessible? Um, I do recommend it though, because it was a really great kind of encapsulation of everything we're trying to talk about now, right? Just like what's going on right now, what it all means, and like the science and congressional hearings like around it and what's really been happening. So it's a really good catch-up for anyone who's like a little bit newer and interested.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Yeah. Don't go into it expecting to see an alien on camera. Okay, just don't. Like it's not, that's not. I think the problem is like these documentaries, people want so bad to like have it finished and see like the UFO, the alien. Um, that's not what it is, but I agree with you. I want to save it for next time because on the next episode, let's do a recap of Age of Disclosure. Talk about some alien species. This is a really interesting topic because there have been, and you know what? If you want to come down the woo-woo path with us, please do. But there are some um famous species that have sort of shown up over and over again over time, maybe some ones that we don't know. So that will be fun to um go over. And then I think after that, um, maybe an episode down the road would be the spiritual element of this new emerging phenomenon. So not only that it's paranormal, but what we're starting to see is a more spiritual component, which I think is really interesting, could be a good way for us to look back at the modern spirituality conversation, bring up the UAP and sort of maybe share a little bit about we where we are on our ascension.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

Amazing. Yeah, so that's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

Yay, we'll see you next week.