Paranormal Yakker

Interview on paranormal subject

Paranormal Yakker

Roswell UFO Evidence on Trial

July 29, 2025 • Stan Mallow

UFO enthusiast and trial attorney Christopher Johnston delves into the 1947 Roswell UFO incident like never before, presenting it through the lens of legal analysis in his groundbreaking book Roswell on Trial: The Evidence Speaks, You Decide. Blending courtroom drama with real-world witness testimony, Johnston—an expert in astrobiology and space law through the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs—uses his legal expertise to reexamine one of America’s most famous UFO encounters. This compelling discussion on Paranormal Yakker covers topics like UFO sightings, alien encounters, government cover-ups, conspiracy theories, and UFO disclosure, while highlighting how legal standards such as bias, hearsay, and evidentiary rigor can shed new light on paranormal claims. Perfect for fans of UFO documentaries, Roswell theories, courtroom thrillers, and critical thinking, this video explores how to apply logic and law to extraordinary claims. Don’t miss this unique take on the UFO phenomenon, alien evidence, and the search for extraterrestrial truth.

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Hi everyone, I'mStan Mallowwelcome toParanormal Yakker.My guest today isrenowned Iowa-basedtrial attorney andcertified civiltrial specialist,Christopher Johnston,a lifelong UFOlogistwith a background inastrobiology and spacelaw.He is also anactive member ofMUFON and theHollywoodDisclosureAlliance.Both organizations,which I'm proud tosay I'm a memberof also are at theforefrontin seeking fulldisclosure fromgovernments aboutwhat they knowregarding theexistenceof UFOs, UAP's, andthat they have beenand still arevisitingour planet.I'll be talkingwith Christopherabout his book,Roswell, The Truth on Trial,The EvidenceSpeaks.You D ecide.Christopher Johnston,welcome toParanormal Yakker.Thank youvery much.Good morning, Stan.good to see you.When, Christopher,did you firstbecome interestedin exploring theUFO-UAP phenomenaand what was thecatalyst thatsparked thatinterest?Great question.And I always findthe answersomewhat funny.So I was born in'69, so I'm 55 now.So the 70s,especially afterStanton Friedmankind of got intothe Roswell stuff,was in the 70s andmy dad was theworld's biggestsci-fi fanyou want to meet,anything hecould read,anything hecould write.So I like to say,you know, some kidsbonded to playingcatch, some kidsbonded with theirdad going fishing.For me, it wassitting on thepatio and watchingthe starsand he was kind ofan outlandish guyand he wasconvinced,"Oh, UFO any daynow right here inthe backyard."So if I wanted tohang withdad, you know,you get the mutualinterest.So it was really,that was thecatalyst behind it.Kind of afather-son thing,you know,and then as it gotolder, developed myown kindof interestand sub-interestsin the categoryand I just took itfrom there.What was thereabout the Roswellincident thatignited yourcreative juices andacademic curiosityto the point whereyou went fullstream ahead withdevoting thesignificant amountof your time andenergy to writingthe novel you didabout it?Unfortunately, theanswer is not assexy as I mighthave had hoped to,but the reality ofit is when Idecided to write abook, what I wantedto do, acouple of things.I wanted to blendmy passions, whichare trial work andUFOs. I do havesome other ones,but for thepurposes of this, Iwanted to figureout a way to bringthose two thingstogether and at thesame time, maybeshut a little lighton trial procedureand what reallyhappens in the courtroom.So that was sort ofthe thoughtprocess. And truthbe told, when Istarted, my firstthought was, well,Travis Walton, andthen it was Bennyand Barney Hill.The big issue was Ididn't know if thiswas going to be aone-time deal forme or how this wasgoing to go.Roswell, I knew,had the sourcematerial that Icould have writtena 10,000 page bookon it and a lot ofdifferent sources.You get into someof the otherstories, you know,even Travis Walton,for example, gothis friends, we'vegot the police, andit's a great, greatstory, but therejust wasn't enoughthere, I didn'tthink, to create anarrativewith a trial.So Roswell, again,one of the oldestones, the biggestones, a million,you know, witnessesto varying degrees.So I knew thesource materialwould bethere to do this.In your reimaginingof the 1947 crashof a UFO inRoswell, New Mexico,you have ajury trial wherethe incidentitself is on trial,complete withopening statements,witness testimony,closing arguments,placing the readerin therole of jurror.What I would liketo know,Christopher,is that in yourrole as author,who is quiteobviously all ofthe characters inyour novel,how difficult wasit for you to notplay favoritesand give onecharacter or side,be theybeliever or skeptic,an upper hand inwhat youwere writing?That is a greatquestion.You're the firstperson toask me that.Yes, I am.So right now, I'msitting inmy law office.I have a courtroomin here, thus whyit looks the way itdoes behind me.I am aplaintiff lawyer.I'm in my 25th yearof practice.And what do we knowabout attorneys?We have to bezealous advocates.That is the formalform forour clients.So writing thisbook, itwas very hard.I'm not a judge.I don't wantto be a judge.I'm not thisneutral, you know,finder,decider of law.So yes, when Istarted writing asa plaintiff lawyer,so in the book, ina civil case,you're going tohave yourplaintiffs and yourdefendants.For purposesof the book,I set it up withbelievers andskeptics.It just seemedeasier and a littlebit quirky.And as a typicalzealous advocate,when I startedwriting thetestimony,I found myselfreallydrilling down,go, oh, I got itthis time.I got it, boy, I'mgoing to set it upthis way.It frequentlystopped and going,oh, that's not myjob here.My job is to simplypresent the facts.So it was verychallengingto do that.And I should say,you know,I mentioned when Iwrote thetestimony,that's onlypartially true.I wrote all thequestioning,the answers givenby the witnesses,those answers werenot createdin the mind ofChris Johnston.Those answers camefrom priorinterviewsthat thewitnesses gave,prior statementsthat thewitnesses gave.Although my book, Ihave to disclose itas fictionfor anynumber of reasons,the testimonyitself isactually thingsthat weresaid before.So it did, itcertainly took somebrain trainingto think more likea judge and notlike an advocate.So reallyinterestingquestion.Thank you.I thank you foryour answer.I wascurious about that.An incrediblenumber of peoplefrom all sides ofthe spectrum werepart of theRoswell storyand were key in theunfolding of whathappened or didn'thappen inJuly of 1947.You touched on itpreviously, but I'dlike to know whatresources,Christopher,did youuse in researchingand acquiring theinformation youincorporated inRoswell,The Truth On Trial?Everything that Iused waspublic record.Now, I had tocertainly do somedigging for some ofit, but my sourceswere there's alot of opencopyright materialout there,particularly forthe reallyold, you know,the things fromright around thetime of the event.And so that is allpublic record andavailable in a lotof different places.A lot of the .gov's, I was ableto find, you know,pieces ofinterviews and thenhonestly,other people'sbooks, otherpeople's research,which I'mnot a big one.I'm just taking,well, Stansaid, right?So becauseagain, hearsay.So even whenrelying oninformation likethat, I would factcheck the best thatI could asfar as what wasbeing put out byother authors.So I just put my,or, cast awide net foreverything that wasout there.Well, noteverythingwithin reason.And then I selectedout again, I hadgot a two hurdlesin picking mywitnesses.One, I could havewritten 10,000pages and not hadall the Roswellstuff in there.So I had to be veryintentional aboutthe witnesses thatI was calling.One, I didn't wantthe guy or the galthat was way, way,way over here forthe believersand way, way, wayover here for theskeptics, because Iwanted the jurors,the readersto see it as a bitof more of aclose call.So it was veryintentional fromthat standpoint.And then thewitnesses also hadto be able, youknow, cause let'sface it,you know, thestory, Iknow the story.A lot of peopledon't knowthe story.So the witnesses Ichose also had tobe able to carrythe narrative ofthe story.So that's how Iwent about once Ihad the materialselecting who I wasgoing to be using.And in some cases Iknew the names andI went seekingmaterial.And other times Icame across somematerial and had togo seekingthe name.As stated in myintroduction,Christopher, youhave a backgroundin space law.Specifically, youearn acertification in itthrough the UnitedNationsOffice for OuterSpace Affairs,often referred toby itsacronym ANUSA.According to whatI've read about it,their mandate is topromoteinternationalcooperationin the peaceful useandexploration of space.Considering thesad state ofaffairs the worldis in today, I waswondering,Christopher,how successful hasANUSA been infulfillingits mandate?Not very, inmy opinion.And that isn'tnecessarilyspecific just tothe Outer SpaceAffairs, butwhen you getinto the world ofinternational law,which space law is,so you get the UNinvolved andwe have treaties.So we've got thistreaty that we'regoing to not do orwe're going to do,but for themost part, thetreaties aretoothless.You know, for yourlisteners, there'sfive primarytreaties, nowthere's been someaddendumsover the years, butanybody can Google,hey, show me the UNthe five maintreaties of OuterSpace. And they're,they're not writtenhorribly andlegalese, they'repretty easy tounderstand.But for example,one of the big onesthat is coming tomind is we, and bywe, any signatoriesto these treatiescannot mineon the moon.So it's right inthe treaty.Well, what do weknow, at leastChina, and I'm notgoing to saythey're theonly ones.What are we hearingabout right now?Well, we're goingto get up, we'regoing to mine onthe moon, there'sall theserare metals.And the UN, theycan't do anythingabout it except,you know, wave atreaty at them, go,hey, we gotthis treaty.Well, as you saidyourself in thisday and age and inthis world, it'snot too compellingjust to do thingsbecause it's theright thing to do.So I think the UNvery wellintentioned, verymuch, you know,providing abackbone for howthings should be orhow things might beor can be.But as far as whenthe rubber hits theroad, it's kind ofthere's some nicetreaties, butnot a heck of a lotbeing donebecause of them.Regretfully, Ithought that's whatyou might say, butI was hoping thatI'd be wrong, butit is what it is.Now Christopher,although I'mtempted to do it,I'm not going toask youhow you wouldvote if you were amember of the juryat the UFO trial ofthe century.And if I did, you'dprobablyplead the fifth.So I'm notgoing to do it.However, I would becurious to know iffrom the feedbackyou received fromreaders ofyour novel, if amajorityvoted yay or nay.I don't have that.The majority ofpeople that haveread it have allsaid this though,regardlessof what sideyou're on was this.Boy, I alwaysthought this waslike a for surething till I readyour book.Now I'mnot so sure.And the skeptics gothe other way.I said, this is abunch of garbagetill I readyour book.And it's kind ofinteresting.So in that rightthere, that's a winfor me as theauthor becauseeveryone inevery realmhas their kind ofown drives andtheir own desires.One thing that I ama big believer inis weighingevidence and beinga littlemore criticaland not justlooking at aheadlineand going up.See, like in mybook and in anarticle, in fact,that I did forMUFON journal.I took a couple ofUFO scenarios andthen I applied whatare called thefederal rulesof evidenceto the article.And it's, you know,no, not everybodyneeds to be alawyer, but youstartlooking at thingslike bias.You start lookingat financial gain,which istied into bias.You start even themost basic ones.Well, hearsay, youknow, and I can puta quarter in me andI start talking.For example, we arehearing a lot aboutthe congressionalhearings justhappened in ourhappening and weheard a lot aboutMr. Grusch and thatwas kind of kind ofexciting, kindof interesting.But if you really,you strip back, youknow, get rid ofthe headlines.I heard an awfullot of hearsay.I heard a lot oflive interviewed 40plus people andthey said, okay, assoon as youhear that theysaid, all red flag,that's nothing.I can say, well,Stan said it meansnothing now.And I don't want tominimize his roleor what he's tryingto do because hedid say, youknow, hey, I doknow some otherstuff that I couldprobably tell youabout in a skiff,you know, or it'smore confidential.But what reallycame out to theStans and Chrissesof the world waskind of more ofthe same.Well, I've heardand I, this guytold me that's notevidence. Yet peoplewill jump right onand go, Oh, did youhear what he said?No, that's notwhat he said.And that's one ofthe nice thingsabout the book.And if you approachit kind of from across-examinationstandpoint, ithelps at least peelback someof the hoo-ha andcan show peoplereally what are webeing told?Should viewers ofParanormal Yakkerwant to buyRoswell The Truth On Trial,The Evidence Speaks ~ You Decide,how Christopher canthey do that?Sure, thanksfor asking.The easiest way andyes, a little bitof shameful selfpromotion.If you go to my lawfirm website,which isLawGroupOfIowa.com,about halfway downon the homepage isa big red buttonbuy Chris's book,and then ithas a pictureof the book itself.So yes, you cancertainly, it'savailableon Amazon,so folks can go toAmazon, but mywebsite's prettycool too,and there's somestuff to see there,a lot ofhistory on it. So LawGroupOfIowa.com,and look for thebig red button.Perfect.Christopher Johnston,I thank youfor being myguest onParanormal Yakker.Yakking with you has beenan enjoyableexperience and Ilook forwardto seeing yournovel when it'sturned into a movieor series,something I'mpositive willhappen in the nottoo distant future.I hope so.Thank you verymuch. I reallyappreciate it.