Hello, and welcome to Open Mind Radio. This is your host Alejandro Rojas,
and I am joined by the wonderful Jason Super Jason McClellan. Today,
I'm wonderful and super wonderful. What no, I said, just the super
Jason. And because you were recently at New York Comic Con with all kinds
of superheroes, or at least people dressed like superheroes, and yeah, does
that rub off on you where you feel kind of a bit like a superhero?
No, And in fact, I think you feel even less like a
superhero if you're not dressed in the cogeplay that they're dressed in. Yeah,
everybody's a superhero but me? Yeah, is it? Most people dressed up
there? It was a lot of us play, like a lot more than
I was expecting. Yeah, yeah cool, Yeah, some really really good
costumes and tons of people. Man, I mean, nothing keeps growing every
year. It's almost as mobbed inside the event as San Diego is now.
In San Diego is you know the this Mammoth Comic Con and New York it's
it's it's growing at an incredible rate, and almost to that level. You
don't have surprise it as much in my opinion, really you don't notice is
as much from the outside that means San Diego, because New York is New
York City. I mean it's gigantic and there are millions of people going around.
So the convention center where this event is held, it kind of contains
the entire event where San Diego. Kind of that event takes over the entire
city. So you don't have to be at the convention center. You're down
the streets, you're at a restaurant. I mean every restaurant, every hotel,
every place, Superheroes all over associated with absolutely, so that you kind
of get more of a feel of this gigantic event taking over a city or
New York that's not really possible, right, right, And I mean it's
funny too because everything's mobbed in New York. Yeah, I mean there's just
so many people. You've lot of people. Definitely can't be like claustrophobic,
no, no, and if you are, you've got to get over it
pretty fast. Yeah, exactly. So cool. That sounds like a lot
of fun. And I think one of the most important things you got to
do, at least for our field, is you got to meet Jillian Anderson.
Well, you're you're being a little too kind saying meat. No with
it, well not really. See with a with a photo op, you
get maybe half a second to go and stand by the person. They snapped
the photo and then you're done. Did you get to say hi? At
least? Uh? Yes? I said hi, and I don't think she
said hello. But when I was done, she said thank you. And
it looked like you were touching her. Did you get to put your hand
on her shoulder or something? I don't think I actually touched her. Oh,
okay, I was going to, but they might have had security throw
me out. Yeah that you wanted to, don't touch She looked really pretty.
She looked good. Yeah, yeah, she's looking pretty good. Yeah.
But that was a lot of fun. And I wore my alien T
shirt in the photo too, so I got that in there. It was
fun. Yeah, that's sweet. Well, cool job man, good job,
thank you. So our guest for today, I'm not even sure you're
aware. Do you know who the guest is for this week? No,
tell me hello. It is Nancy Burns. So she is the wife of
Bill Burns, and she's so funny because she's like, well, I don't
really do interviews, I'm not very interesting and what people don't realize, although
if you were a subscriber to UFO magazine you do realize this, like Jason,
you were, that she is the editor or was the editor of UFO
magazine. So of course she's an editor of you know, probably the longest
running UFO specific magazine because Fate's been around forever, and very popular magazine.
So yeah, So I talked to Nancy and she is has a lot to
say and really fascinating stuff. So a lot of fun Nancy Burns on the
show today, and you're a good person to talk with her about that because
you know a thing or two about popular UFO magazines. Yeah, yep,
given that we did Open Minds magazine, which by the way, you can
still get the archives and buy lots of those and they're really cool. So
yeah, so we have this commonality where you know, she was an editor,
she went to go seek stories. She didn't write them, unlike you
and I wrote stories, and also sought to get stories from people on the
outside. So yeah, so a lot of fun and really interesting and she's
been around for some interesting stuff and it seems like maybe she's maybe a tag
gun shy, maybe should I say, just because you know how it is
in this field where even if you don't seek to create enemies, you people
just kind of get disappointed with your work and and you do find enemies.
And we know what that's like, don't we, Jason, something that can't
be avoided. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes people just kind of be mean about
stuff. Those jerkis so a lot of fun. Of course, Jason and
nor I like to create enemies. So we like to think everybody's our friend
until they say, screw up me and I'm not talking to you, and
then we'll be like, well, but we still like you and we want
to talk to you. But so we talked to Nancy and had a lot
of fun because she thought that we were mad at her for some reason.
Were you ever mad at Nancy? No? But I love these rumors.
Yeah, dude, the rumors are kind of fun. I guess. Yes,
I need to start keeping track of all these various rumors. Yeah,
and you were a subscriber to UFO magazine. I certainly will, and a
lot of people were. And one of the things I think we got to
clear up was what happened to UFO magazine because a lot of subscribers, like
you started to see them coming far, you know, not coming out as
frequently, and then it ended and we're probably left wondering what happened. So
we got to talk about that. Excellent. That sounds like a great interview.
Yeah, and almost more interesting too, or equally interesting, is how
they got involved with it. So yeah, so it's a lot of fun.
We'll talk to Nancy about all this stuff. But before we get to
Nancy, why don't you and I talk some UFO news. That sounds like
a great idea. You know What's funny every time I get to this section
and I'm like, well, in transition over to UFO news, I always
think of the little graphic in music on spacing out little UFO news. Excellent,
that's a good vision to have in your mind. Yeah, so why
don't you go first? Well, Alejandro, I want to just throw this
one out there because I think this is a big deal. The fact that
last week NASA announced that they are infusing nearly fifty million dollars into search for
extraterrustrial life. Now, this is big news to me because I think astrobiology
is an incredibly important field for not only searching for signs of past and president
extraterrestrial life, but also looking here and getting a better understanding of life and
what life is and how life works and where it could possibly exist. I
think it's incredibly an important field. It's great science, and I think it's
going to be vital in not only discovering but also convincing the public at large
that extraterstrial life does exist. Now, fifty million dollars is awarded to seven
different groups, including some of NASA's own groups, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
the Goddard Space Flight Center, but also the Seti Institute was awarded some of
this money. So these teams are receiving approximately eight million dollars in grant money
and this is going to last them for five years of astrobiology research. So
thank you NASA. I know a lot of people are skeptical of NASA and
might not be the biggest NASA fans. They might suspect that NASA isn't truthful
with us and withholds information. I am not of that opinion. I know
some people are, but that aside, I think it's fantastic that money is
being spent in this field of science that I think is incredibly important and will
yield results very quickly. See I agree with you about NASA. I love
NASA. I have a glow in the Dark NASA T shirt that I love
to wear. Were at camping nice last weekend, so that was a lot
of fun. But I have mixed feelings about this story. It frustrating on
one end, and I'm disappointed with NASA when it comes to astrobiology. I
think they do a crappy job with it. To be honest, I think
there's a lot of other people doing much better work when it comes to astrobiology.
And here's some of my points. One giving money to SETI Seti's gotten
nowhere. I hope they do something more worthwhile I'm not. I think they
do a great public service reaching out and talking to people, and I love
them for that. I think they have brilliant minds. I really like them.
But the radio signal thing is a waste of time and kind of silly,
and I hope they do branch out and try some new and different things
and come up with new ideas. That's what's exciting about this news. Hopefully
people get some new ideas. The other thing I mean, when it comes
to astrobiology, like the rovers not being able to look at things at a
microscopic level. That means they're a waste when it comes to astrobiology. All
they can detect is chemicals and minerals that might indicate, but they can't confirm
or observe that unless it's like a fossil or something. And even then,
like the interview with Robert Hoover, which I'm getting to, even when they
observe fossils like they did in the past, they've destroyed them and not done
further research. So I'm really disappointed. And here's one thing I'm really disappointed
with too. It's because the other story that came out of of course our
buddies at the University of Sheffield and the University of Buckingham at the Center of
Astrobiology, they had another story come out where once again they say they have
proof of extraterrestrial life. This is nothing new, They say this periodically,
but their evidence is growing and growing and growing. So we talked about a
year ago when they talked about this and this experiment they did where they retrieved
some stuff from the stratosphere and they had some arguments as to why the biological
entities that they found out there could not have been from Earth, and now
they have more evidence in that. You know, this guy from Professor Milton
Waynewright from the University of Sheffield talks about how those were the only things up
there. If there was wind or something that blew these things up there,
they would see pollens, they would see a lot of different things, but
they're not seeing that. So how did they all get filtered out? And
we're just getting these little you know what they're calling dragon particles, these little
what they say they're calling biological entities, single cell organisms. So I think
what they're doing is amazing and it would have been great to see NASA throw
them some money or incorporate them because I think they're really on the cusp of
something. I'm really excited about what those guys are doing. Well, I
get it's about it's about, you know, piling up that evidence. Yeah,
it does keep mounting. And until we can actually get people to these
bodies and the proper scientific equipment there in person, for these people to physically
take specimens and do the proper analysis, everything is always going to be marked
up as most likely contamination. You know. I hate how absolutely everything even
when you see like this detailed fossil or something that they took all the necessary
precautions, they still say, oh, that's contamination. It could be and
it could not be. But you know, until they actually get people there,
I don't think they're going to be convinced. Yeah, and you know,
we had because Richard Hoover, who had worked with the University of Buckingshire
in fact, he was what was he He was like a temporary he worked
with him for a while, but he's a NASA scientist astrobiologist. We had
him at the conference last year and he talked about also, you know,
the evidence that he feels that as a mass that NASA's kind of just not
taking serious yet. Yeah. It's always interesting with things like this. There
have been so many great stories and stories that involve nasta's own people like Richard
Hoover, that you know, just get kind of pushed to the side.
So I am very confused by responses like that. But I'm hoping that,
you know, future research will pave the way to conclusive evidence that people just
can't ignore anymore. Yeah, it is exciting. I mean that's why I
feel so you know, happy that we had Hoover there last year. You
were able to get him. You were really persistent to talk to him and
to get him to come to the conference. And that's so cool because I'm
just amazed by what they're doing and it seems like they're really getting close to
something, and to me, it seems like they're really kind of the most
cutting edge and most prompt when it comes to astrobiology. So really cool.
I'm happy that you were able to get him. That I think was really
one of the biggest highlights of the Congress that in the last few years.
And what I really like about some of the research that those guys are doing
is that they are up against this huge opposition and their work is constantly criticized,
but you know what, they keep at it and they keep coming back
more and more and more. It's just great that you know, they don't
they don't get I mean, they probably do get frustrated, as they should.
It's frustrating, but they don't let that stop them. Right. So
the first story I want to talk about even not I kind of slipped in
that astrobiology when Night we wrote about both all of this, so people can
go check those out. But this is really cool. I think you probably
saw this since you got back, But American University, Leslie Kane had put
this on Facebook that she was going to speak speaking at American University. So
I went and looked it up and wrote about it, and this is really
really cool. So there is a professor there, John Weisskopp, and he
has a honors colloquium colloqui. How do you say it, quem colloquium,
colloquium colloquium. I think that's what it is. I loved hearing that progression.
That was great, and that's called alien contact science and science fiction.
So he's not clear necessarily on his views of this, but I think the
panel that he's bringing to the university does show that. It's called UFO's Encounters
by General's Pilots and Government Officials of course, very similar to Leslie Kyne's book,
UFO's General's Pilots and Government Officials go on the record and American University,
if people don't know, this is in DC, and this is like a
big deal. This is like where we're world leaders and it's one of their
things. They like to have world leaders on their campus and they go there
and talked it was This university was created by charter by an Act of Congress.
I mean, this place is a big deal in DC when it comes
to politics. And they are having a UFO panel in November. They're going
to have leslie Kine there. They're also going to have Charles Holt of course,
the Rendalsham witness, the man who is the deputy base commander during the
Rendalshim event. They're going to have Tom Kerry, who's really Don Schmidt's research
partner and an author and one of the leading experts on roswell. And then
they're going to have doctor Richard Haynes who works with the National Aviation Reporting Center
on anomalist phenomena NARACAP and he is a former NASA researcher. He was actually
chief for Space Human Factor's Office at NASA's Ames Research Center. And these are
all pro UFO people that are and very very credible people that are going to
do this panel on UFOs in November. And it's going to be hosted by
Miles O'Brien who was a CNN anchor. He made some news most recently where
sadly he had an accident and his left arm was amputated from above the elbow
down, but he had this amazing positive attitude about it and I think shocked
the world. If you follow the news, you probably saw this where he
was just had these really positive aspects. So he's going to be hosting.
And what's great about this is that he did some UFO reporting a few years
ago. He did a whole week long, different story each week, and
he talked about his UFO siding. So he's had a UFO siding. He
says, he's a pilot. He knows what things should do. And he
saw like, you know, this bright thing flying across the sky and then
it took off at quick speed at common citing that people have and so really
really cool. I think this is important and this is going to be a
big deal. I mean, it just blew my mind that this is going
to be held at American University. Yeah, that's very cool. I'm glad
to see that they're doing this. I'm glad to see it's you know,
on a platform like that. And more and more universities are addressing this topic
and having guest speakers and special lectures on the extraterrestrial topic, this one being
in DC. It's good to have. It's kind of on a national platform
with a former CNN anchor as a moderator. I think that's cool. So
I hope that this generates some attention, and I hope the university actually appreciates
it and continues to have events like this. And I think it's so cool
that Leslie. I mean, I love the way Leslie approaches this field.
I think it's important. I think it's it's what quite frankly, I think
it's what mouf On should be doing because they say they, you know,
their mission is the scientific study of the field. And I think people hesitate,
you know, because the kind of stuff she does isn't always the main
focus of what we would call you the UFO enthusiast or something like that.
But she is demonstrating because she gets more attention and serious attention than anybody.
Her book is a New York Times bestseller, she has gotten positive comments from
Mitchell Okaku other big astronomers, and what she's doing is getting the big time
attention that you know is needed. So I really got to say it's wonderful
that she does what she does and hats after her. Yeah, I agree,
absolutely. Looking a move on a couple other things, who we could
talk about another thing that I disagree with move On with and I want to
get your idea real quick. Just that move On put out their UFO alert
and they change their system luckily thankfully, because it wasn't as accurate. I
don't think they now they do it by population, which is much more accurate.
So you can see that on our website. They posted a new story
with these multiple UFOs showing up in Georgia, but it kind of a cheesy
picture. I'm not a big fan of this case. But the Colorado,
Utah case that you wrote about, Jason, of course, is a really
awesome case. That's incredible, and it's kind of cool because Roger did post
a story Roger marsh from mofon on a bunch of cases in Colorado and Utah
of similar sightings. Their researchers are saying they're mostly Google loon balloons, which
I completely disagree with. I think that's it's kind of silly to even be
saying that, quite honestly, but I do agree that most of what they're
spotting here is most likely balloons. However, I note that at least one
move On investigator tried to get Ahold of nine News and tell them that nine
News ignored them, which I would have done also because you have to have
some evidence. And what the reporter reported doesn't sound like a balloon because he
says it sat there for fifteen minutes before a bright flash and then this thing's
speeding off at great speed. You know, these other cases may be a
balloon, probably are balloons, but his you got to explain that. You
got to explain how a balloon would do that, and you've got to prove
that these are loon balloons. They could be any balloons. Why are they
saying loon balloons? I don't get that. Well, that's because it's trendy
now, you know. Yeah, they've they've come forward and claimed responsibility for
UFO sightings in the past, and now they're more public with the distance and
what they are and where they launched from and things like that. So yeah,
it's going to become kind of a trendy thing like Chinese lanterns. But
yeah, I think that's, you know, really kind of sloppy. It
You can't just choose some facts to pay attention to and ignore others. I
mean that. Yeah, again, we say this with all sightings. It
comes down to how much you want to believe the witness testimony or not.
If we are to believe the newscaster who went out and recorded these things for
fifteen minutes saw them hovering and then shoot off at incredible speeds, that's not
a balloon. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. And he didn't
get a video of that, so we have to rely on his testimony,
so which of course can be difficult. But you can't You definitely can't go
tell this reporter, hey, we think that you were totally wrong and you
didn't see what you see and you should report on this. Uh yeah,
right, Okay, I'm gonna write a story about how, oh it was
a balloon and I was completely fooled. I didn't see this thing shoot off.
I mean, that doesn't make sense. The other problem I have is,
I know part of the reason they're calling it a Google balloon is because
in September, I think it was, yeah, September, there was a
couple of sightings that they did find were Google balloons. But they were able
to go to this flight flight Radar twenty four thing that tracks the Google balloons,
and they were able to show that the Google balloons were there because they
saw the signature, the transponder signal. So in these cases, if you're
gonna call them Google balloons, which is even possible maybe one or two were
you have to go get that data. Otherwise all you can say is it's
most likely an unidentified balloon. But you can't say Google balloon, for God's
sakes. And then when it comes to the nine News reporter, I think,
yeah, you got to look for some other explanation there. I agree.
I mean, the responsible thing to do is say, look based on
the appearance and things like that. In many other cases, these turn out
to be balloons because that's what the behavior and the appearance would lead us to
believe. But this one little nugget, this important nugget hanging out there,
is the fact that the eyewitnesses saw these things shooting off. You can't ignore
them. Yep. I agree. So some more work needs to be put
in on this one, I think. So any any other news or anything
you wanted to talk about before we move on to the interview to there,
Jason, No, I don't think there's anything else I need to talk about
except thank you for calling me super and wonderful or whatever you called me today.
I really appreciate you called you wonderful and super Jason wonderful and super.
Yeah, if I didn't feel like a superhero at Comic Con, I assure
do now, good good, all right, So, without further Ado,
let us listen to the interview with Nancy Burns. I am so excited to
have on the show Nancy Burns, who who feels like she isn't as relevant
to this field, which I think is silly because you were the editor for
UFO magazine for so long, right, but I'm not the original editor by
any stretch. But how long did you edit for REFO magazine? Ten years?
Wow? That is a long time. Yeah, yeah, you know
because with our magazine, a lot of the people who worked here weren't in
the field before we started. But by editing and being involved with in a
magazine, you learned so much. You have to read so many stories,
yes you do, and you you have to make decisions. That's I think.
The only thing you bring to the table is your taste and your your
In my case, I try to make sure that it's the truth if at
all possible, because our field is fraught with uh con artists, you know,
and hoaxers and people who are troubled, who are out and out to
uh, you know, government plans, and then I think we have a
nice, healthy group of real solid citizens who are honest and true. And
that's kind of what what I wanted to publish the magazine for that healthy group
in the middle. Yeah. But you know, I the thing is,
I came into the magazine under the auspices of the Eckers Don and Vickie Ecker
and that colored everything about my entrance in the field. It just completely you
know, I was under the I was under the guidance of two people who
had worked really hard to make a magazine, you know, which they've done.
You know, that's a huge legacy. Were they the one who started
the magazine? Just Vicky Vicky? Yeah, because Vicky her friend Sherry Stark
started it in I believe nineteen eighty six, I believe, I know.
And you know, by the time Bill and I came into their lives because
of the Corso book, they had gotten to the point where they were just
sick of it. They were done. They had just basically had their fourth
or fifth burnout, and so we came in and you know, the rest
is history. So there's yeah, there's that, but yeah, but it's
very rocky, and that's why I wanted to ask you the question, how
did you get hired? In other words, how did open Minds come about?
It's not I know, I'm not supposed to do that, but you
you're already doing this. I was expecting that, and I got to answer
because I you know, just just really, yeah, you can do it.
So it started with really, you know, my boss John Reyo,
he had made himself a lot of money, and he makes a lot of
money with his other businesses, and he just wanted something to do. I
mean, he's kind of in a semi retired mode and gets bored with the
regular day to day. He actually, this is interesting. He went to
Las Vegas with his wife. She was going to a conference. He was
bored. He wandered down the street and saw there was a UFO Crash conference
going on. This is the one that the Bill probably spoke there at some
point, but that was Woods perhaps, yeah, the Woods conference. He
thought it sounded ridiculous, but he would pop in there. And not a
lot of people knew about this conference because really, the Woods weren't the best
at networking and getting the word out not only that, Alejandro, I have
to tell you, before you guys came into the business, the conference,
the conference business was petering out into true I would agree, Oh my goodness,
you have no idea. I just wrote a piece about all this because
I'm starting to try to come out of the shadows of this thing and try
to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Because you know,
the fellow that we licensed the magazine from pulled the license this past let's
say this year, and we basically have found ourselves, you know, the
magazine had to and it's a very again, it's a rocky road, and
the rocky road ends and it kind of a crash at the end. So
and I wanted to ask about this because and you know, we'll finish off
even though we're going into a tangent, but I think this is important.
So you all at some point, did you and Bill own the magazine?
No, we never owned it. Okay, See, how could I put
this? You know, you don't probably handle the financial part of the magazine.
You only do the editorial. I would bet, right for the most
part, that is true. I mean I'm aware of the financial part,
but you're correct. Yeah, So you're aware that it's expensive to make a
print application, right, So that's that's the only real thing you need to
be aware of. And it's expensive, and you can make crucial mistakes.
At various times. We were monthly, which is really killer, you know.
It's it's many. It's twenty or so thousand dollars a month just to
get the thing on the press, off the press, into the mail trucks,
so forth and so on. So it's a very expensive operation and everything
has to be kind of working in coordination. Your subscriptions have to be coming
in, your advertising has to becoming in that sort of thing. So it's
a financial it's a financial thing that you have to learn how to do.
And when we so basically what happened was the Ackers had fallen apart on the
financial part. By the time they met Bill in ninety seven, their finances
were crashed. It happens all the time in the magazine businesses. No fault
of the Eckers, but it's hard and so another thing that happens back in
the day, the distribution of a magazine is the rougher part of the of
the equation. That's where truckers and unions and burly guys who call you up
and will make you a deal. And so the Eckers made a deal for
you know something, if you print an extra thirty thousand, we'll put your
magazine right up front in the stores. A deal like that. And unknown
to the Eckers, they had involved, you know, they had their own
house of mortgage involved in this deal. Yeah, so it was a crisis
when they met Bill, and they met Bill only to interview him for the
Day after Oswell in nineteen ninety seven. And so Bill is a kind of
person who can put things together. He can, he's he's he's he knows,
you know, he knew the people who were involved with the Day after
Roswell book, they were a movie company, and he, you know,
he brought the idea to them that, you know, maybe they would want
to buy a magazine. And that's what happened. They bought the magazine and
they retained ownership of it. Uh. And at a certain point after a
few years, they wanted to sell the magazine. They wanted to sell it,
I think from the from the beginning. But they sold it to Bill
or they sold it to a group of five of us, including me and
Bill. Uh. And the Eckers and one other fellow for a dollar.
They simply wanted they wanted out of them, of the UFO business, partly
because they were doing a lot of work with Christian groups. Uh, this
is a this is a this is a motion picture licensing corporation, and they
licensed, they used to license movies to girls, Scouts and church groups.
And so they wanted away from the UFO magazine name. And in fact,
you know, that's probably a smart thing because, as you know, the
UFO field dips into every other field. It doesn't stay the UFO field.
It dips into new Age, and it dips into demonology, it dips into
conspiracy, and so if you're a purely Christian kind of situation, you're not
going to want to go go into those places. So they want it,
they want it rid of the magazine. So I'm answering your questions and I
never get a chance to talk about this, and so I'm thrilled to be
able to answer in a long way. Yeah. Well, that's what's great,
because I don't think people know this, and I think people are extremely
curious. Well I know they are, because you know, because we had
a magazine, people would always ask us about UFO magazine, and we didn't
know details. But you know, we subscribed here at the office, and
some of us as individuals were subscribers, and so we ended up fighting all
the time. There was endless fighting behind the scenes. It wasn't a good
match. The Eckers are independent, the Burnses are independent. We clashed.
We didn't. And then here's the big thing, and this is the legacy
that I'm now having having fun with. The Eckers had created their friends and
their enemies lists, their friends list, their enemies list, and I coming
in felt that I had out of loyalty, I had to kind of abide
by those two lists, you know, and I didn't know anybody in the
field zero and so I just simply you know, it's it wasn't written down,
but every editorial meeting, uh, they would definitely you know, let
us know who they liked and who they didn't like. And I now am
like, in the case of yourself, I'm only now making friends with people
after the magazine kind of blew apart this year and we lost our license.
I'm now making friends with people that I felt that I shouldn't have been friends
with before, just out of loyalty. Loyalty is a huge thing for both
Bill and myself. We really, you know, we'll stand there and be
loyal till the last person leaves the room, basically, even though it's not
necessary. But that's but because of that, So there's that I had to
honor. You know, like Donaker would get gets into a lot of fights
with people, and I felt that, like it happened so much in this
field, and it's so hard to remain friends. I'm embroiled in a debate
with dand Freedman right now, but we stay friendly. I don't think I
have any enemies. The closest would be maybe Michael Horne, because you know,
I'm at my WIT's end with that guy, and he's just been so
blatantly deceitful with some things that he's went. But I don't know that i'd
call him an enemy so much. Well, here here's the thing. When
you started, but I'm done with the guy, I understand that. And
and if you have, if you bring on an editorial assistant, you would
like that assistant to not start up Michael Horn again saying we should investigate this.
I don't agree. Yeah, Well, so when you came into the
field when you started to see. But I don't mind so much what you
don't get. You know, if if I brought on someone who wanted to
go do that, I would say, go for it. I would just
say that there there will be some boundaries because for instance, you know this
week, you know, they'll they'll focus him. And if guys will focus
and they'll come at and try to blitch you with stuff and and the buseys
bully tactics that I'm just not gonna fall prey to. I'm just not going
to let that happen. And so i'd have to tell that person, well,
just so you know, you know, we're going to limit that conversation.
But you write whatever you want, you know, because I don't like
to push my view. You know, we try to be real German.
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. When you first started,
did anybody give you a list of friends and enemies? No? Okay,
I came though. I was. There were there were three euphologists, essentially,
people who've been in this field for a long time who and I don't
know. I I think out of the three, I probably had the strongest
personality. You're familiar with the other two Marizio Bayada, who, oh goodness,
yeah, who certainly has his own opinions and stuff. No, no,
no, no, no, way, worse, way worse. I
don't know that. Well are you friends with him? I would say that
I. Well, here's and you know, I don't know if people,
not many people really know the whole background. But the difficulty came he he
doesn't speak English very good. He at least my views were very different,
and you know, I didn't certainly didn't agree with his conspiracy theories, with
his enemies, you know, he created Oh yeah, I'm sure that's where
you're going to go. But oh yeah, anybody who's his enemy has to,
you know, be in with the government or something like that. I
liked him as a person and stuff, but what happened was, you know,
he just couldn't start up the magazine, which was his job, so
and so he had to move on and the job was his only ticket to
stay in the country, so he had to go home. I didn't know
that. Yeah. So the other person, just so you're aware, was
Antonio Junez, who he's amazing. His mind is like an encyclopedia in this
field. He's been a journalist in this field for a long time. He
and I, because he was much more journalistic, were more aligned and he
was absolutely amazing. So he was the other guy there. But he doesn't
really have much in the way of enemies either. So you always get people
who kind of get wary of you or just disappointed maybe in the way you've
covered something, and he had that, but no real enemy. So that
was kind of the scene. And I'm kind of bold enough where it's been
my thing since the get go. I mean, I was the Moufon spokesperson
before I came here. That's exactly what I was doing. So of course
Moufon has a lot of enemies and people disappointed with them, so I learned
how to be very diplomatic. So I've always been really diplomatic and allow people
to share their views. I like to share the facts, not call out
hoaxers. But you know, the facts speak for themselves in many cases,
so a lot of hoaxers feel I'm calling them out when I'm just sharing the
facts and the facts don't play well from them. But so that was the
kind of landscape there. I didn't know that Mauricio was involved at all.
I kind of I think I might have forgotten that because it was early on.
So he was gone before things got rolling, because he was supposed to
be the guy to get stuff rolling and he really couldn't. So okay,
so let me fill you in on our relationship with Mauricio and this you'll be
fascinated. I think I know some of the history, and I'm fascinated with
at least the side of things that I do know. Right well, you
know, the thing is that if another thing about coming into this UFO field
is if you're lucky enough to have a successful book or a successful TV show,
or a successful magazine or anything successful, you'll suddenly get your share of
wolves and sheep's clothing, people who come at you saying, I want to
be your friend. What can you know? I love this story, I
want to interview yours whatever. And so when and before there was UFO magazine,
there was the day after Oswell and and and I'm Bill's wife, I'm
Bill Burns' wife, and so let's see here. People saw a gold mine
in that book. And for people who aren't aware, because that's what's interesting
about this field. There's people coming into this field. Yeah, I love
the time. And so you got to update. I'm on the history and
of course some people don't know. Yeah, you all wrote the book on
our bill helped with Corso writing the book about Philip Corso and his involvement with
extraterrestrials and ets from the Pentagon. And it was a New York Times bestseller,
right it was on the front page of the New York Times around the
fourth of July. When we timed the book, we actually had to hustle
that book into production really quickly, and back in the day, there was
always nine months. It was always like a baby. Your book took nine
months from you know finished to hand, you know, physical book, and
so we really really worked hard to do that, and there was no index,
partly because of the rush, and then because we've you know, Bill
and I have been book packagers since book packages are a term for book producing.
We are agents and illustrators and we do all kinds of book stuff since
I think eighty one when we started our company nineteen eighty one, shadow On
Press, and so as packagers, we knew things like there's a fiftieth anniversary
coming up, it'd be really nice to you know, have the book ready.
We knew that would be important, and so we entered the field,
you know, and again we entered the field with Lordie. There is more
behind it. There's the uninteresting stuff is that I'm a novelist and I was
working on a novel about the UFO phenomenon. That's kind of how Bill got
interested, because I was sharing my research with him. And this is before
the internet, and this is when we came west. We came west to
in nineteen ninety. I believe we moved to California for twenty years, almost
twenty years. And I was at that time, in nineteen ninety writing a
book about UFOs and stuff because I was born in nineteen forty seven and felt,
you know, I felt I could use the idea of being switched at
birth, and I was going to make a fictional thing and so forth and
so on, and so I have the kind of interest just because of my
birth here and because you look at what year were you born? Seventy three,
which was another big UFO year, actually was it? Yeah? Well
see also, everything that happens in seventy three just kind of feels kind of
friendly to yourself, right, It's kind of like your year your mom might
have saved the front page women you were born and stuff, and so,
you know, so nineteen forty seven resonates with me because it's just, you
know, I came here and so I think I've gone off. I've gone
I've skidded onto a cult sect. But anyway, so of course the Corso
Book comes along. We do the Corso Book, and our lives are forever
changed because now we are. For example, when we went to Roswell to
do the you know, to introduce the book, that's the first time we
met Stanton and he was in the back of the room, angrier than a
than a you know, than a pile of beas, because he had gotten
I'm sure he'd gotten the galleys. Kevin Randall was there. He's a big,
handsome man, I think, you know, you know, Bill and
I are both short, and Kevin is a good looking guy. And he
had his arms folded the whole time I was talking to him, and he
had you know, I had a cowboy hat on. I became see it,
yeah, and he just these guys were the leaders in the field.
They are the leaders in the field. They were not having any of this.
And Bill's kind of you know, of course, I was a little
guy. He's a weird little guy, comes out of nowhere, and and
he came with his whole family to the Roswell fiftieth thing and all that,
and and and so you know, I'd like to tell these stories. And
I'm thinking of, you know, I'm kind of putting the stuff together now,
and I'm just kind of scanning stuff in and you know, and that's
the other thing, Alejandro. You also were born before the internet kind of
happened, and so all of your baby pictures have to be scanned if you
want your grandkids to see them on the internet. Yeah, and so I'm
scanning stuff. I'm literally living in front of the scanner, scanning stuff in
so but anyway, so you had a question in there somewhere and I think
I lost. We all lost, arthurriads. No, it was kind of
the inception of UFO magazine. And and actually you were gonna You're talking about
how you know, you had list and how this came all this came about,
and how you inspired the ire of so many people, which I can
see especially with these guys, because you know, it's kind of a you
know, this field largely was led by and a lot of the old timers
are grumpy old men. And I think you really got a kind of and
you know, and I think you'd probably admit since you're you're a bold and
open person, I think you won't you won't take offensive. I say,
Bill Burns can kind of be one of those grumpy old men. Well no,
I think just the opposite. He came in as a young, crazy
guy, like a New yorkhow oh, but these you know, well,
and maybe it's just because he gets a he's gotten embroiled and battles and and
started some here and there. Well, here's the thing. The Corso book,
frankly is full of inaccuracies. And there was never here's the big thing.
I think, you know, it's full of inaccuracies because it's kind of
hard to explain it happened. We had to do it quickly. Corso has
a firm, solid core story that we did as much research as we could
in the short period of time we had. And Corso had done a lifetime
of research, and so that's sort of. But Corso had never experienced New
York publishing big time. This is Simon and Schuster, this is and it
was a New York Times bestseller. For fourteen weeks. That means every single
week, you know that they keep records of number one to number fifteen.
I believe they go beyond the top ten. So this is in the nonfiction
list. This is way before Amazon New York Times and it went. It
was on there for fifteen weeks, fourteen weeks it stayed above number fifteen.
And so that's phenomenal. And except for Whitley Strieber, I don't know of
too many other people who have been you know, front page and all that,
and so so even Corso didn't really expect, you know, that NBC
would be following him around in Roswell et cetera, et cetera. And so
in the course of that weekend in nineteen ninety seven, we became mortal enemies
forever with Linda Moulton How and Paula Harris. That's that's never gone away since
that weekend because Bill and I, particularly you know, behind the scenes,
set up kind of exclusive interviews with so that Linda Moulton How could could have
Corso on coast as she would be the she'd be the one kind of bringing
him to the Coast audience. It was sort of like a favor to Linda
art Bell wanted Corso on. Obviously everybody wanted Corso, and we let Linda
be the conduit and we did that. We had to do that with Corso's
son being very angry about this. He despised Linda Molten how because she kind
of came in like a journalist does, with her notebooks and her tabbed dividers
in her notebooks, and she had a lot of questions and she had,
you know, an agenda. She wanted to be the one who was kind
of interviewing Corso for Art Bell on art Bell And I won't tell today right
now, because already I'm in difficult territory. I won't tell the horrible stuff
that happened to everybody while that interview was going on and what we all had
to do to make that interview happen. But once Linda got the interview,
she basically never spoke to us again. It was sort of like you don't
exist in my book. And in fact, she hardly spoke to us that
weekend once we cleared the way and set it up. So I feel very
hurt by that, and you know, and Paula Harris was the same way.
Paula Harris speaks Italian. Obviously Corso is Italian, and they kind of
they kind of hit it off because Corso was a great old guy who missed
his wife, who was a redhead. Paula Harris has reddish hair, and
they just hit it off and went toddling off and and she was able to
take him to Italy. Uh. Well, he has fond memories because he
was essentially right in charge of Rome once we liberated Rome, so he had
a history there right right. Yeah, good friends with Maditio. Madicio and
Paula obviously see things very well, see the thing. Yeah, but we're
in a we were in a huge lawsuit that we won because they stole everything.
They basically tried to steal everything and and take it to uh, you
know, publish it in Italy. And you know, in other words,
there are that you have to abide by if you're in the big publishing world.
You really can't, you know, take somebody's copyright. It's not considered
kosher. You just don't do that in this in this country. And Marizio
just said, you know, basically I'm going to do the thing. In
other words, he had Simon and Schuster on as he lost. Obviously there
was I don't think there was a settlement, a financial settlement. But he
was going to try to print the book. He did, he did,
he did, he don't Italian. Yeah, they did, they all did.
They took it away, they called it something else, so forth,
and so on and and and then if you were to see all of course
those original stuff, the stuff they did publish, you'll see what a package
or what a co writer or what a ghostwriter, or what a writing partner
will do, if that writing partner's professional, And you'll see that it's a
smooth narrative. It's at least hangs together intellectually from the first page to the
last page. And Corso's books that he published or they published, wouldn't be
like that. They'll just be a pile of notes. You'll see the difference.
So I've got a copy of those original Courso notes. Oh good,
I don't even remember how but so yeah, yeah, that's a couple of
questions. So uh and and I can see. And I think that's one
of the problems, especially with the old timers getting extremely territorial. That's the
other thing they do, is there to territorial over the phenomena in general.
And these are two things that I decided I'm not going to do this because
all that gives is heartache campaign and these are things you can't control anyway.
So whenever anything UFO comes that they feel is really controversial or sheds a bad
light on the UFO field, they get all ruffled feathers and it's like,
you can't control this field. I mean, it is what it is.
All you can do is cover it, share your opinion, share your research,
but you can't control those sort of things. So, yeah, a
lot of people get so upset. But you did say that there were a
lot of inaccuracies in the book. But why did that happen? Was it
because Corso Corso's memory, he couldn't remember the details. Is that what you
were getting? I think he was only interested in kind of one thing for
that particular book, and that was the technology. What he specifically had hands
on experience with was a bunch of stuff that he didn't understand that he was
tasked with seeding into industry, and he didn't care at all about the Roswell
crash. All he knew was he had stuff in his hands that Trudeau said,
do something with. Now A thing I've found out about Corso over my
own experience of going through his stuff is that he I think was a bit
of an exaggerator. Was a bit of an exaggerator. I was gonna say,
is he he exaggerated? I think exaggerated his own importance. I think
this stuff probably existed, and Trudeau probably told him to seed industry, which
is you know. But at the same time, I don't think Trudeau patted
him on the head as many times as he said, you know you,
you know you're you're my man. And in other words, Courso inflated.
If it's it's his right, everybody else is dead and and and Courso was
in army intelligence and and that should be a signal to everybody that what he
helped release with this book was done in complete. Whatever he didn't, he
didn't break any ohs. He's not a whistleblower. He was allowed to get
this information out because the Pentagon fully supported this book. Uh Strom Thurman knew
about all this and knew about it when the book was coming out. He
was relatively old and senile, but he did give a forward. He knew
it was for UFO or this stuff. I don't I think I think the
stuff stopped being UFO stuff so early and it became stuff from it. It
was not manufactured here, I think is what they not made here? I
think they had they had terms for the stuff. And so so when it
comes to let's say, not caring about the Roswell story at all except his
little experience with it, he said that he the bodies kind of passed his
his In other words, how can I put this? For sake Kevin Randall
and for Stanton Freeman, the Roswell story is important. And these inaccurates,
the inaccuracies, inaccuracies that came in where they were a result of Bill and
Corso and Simon Schuster's lawyers, everybody trying to put this story together cleanly.
And of course you're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna make mistakes about how many
all the anyway, So, when Corso was premiering this book in Roswell,
people were coming up to him one after the other, and he was comparing
notes, and he was comparing notes with people in ways that would shock you,
Like he and Whitley had a lot more to talk about than people would
have thought. Phil Courso's son Phil Junior, and Whitley really hit it off.
And I think there's more to the story that may never come out,
because I don't know whether you've ever kept track of whatever happened to Phil Corso
Junior at various times, seeing this money thing happening, seeing this potential gold
mine, he began to look around to see who he could sell the story
to. Everybody everybody had the wrong idea about how you sell a story.
Phil Courso had had given his life rights over to the movie company and they
guard those with the passion, and Phil sort of thought, well, I
don't care. I don't want them to have it anymore. I'm going to
give my life story rights to John Alexander. I'm going to give my life
story rights to Steven Segal. And he did. He did all these things.
And so you know, my husband Bill uh eventually became a lawyer,
an attorney. He's a he's got a he's got the degree, but not
the I didn't didn't do the bar or he didn't do the bar in California.
And so when he takes the bar, then he's an attorney, I
think, but he's I don't know how it goes. But so so there
was there was. If this book had not been made any money, if
it hadn't sold many copies, none of this would have happened. Nobody would
have cared, nobody would have bothered little for Phil course, so there wouldn't
have been any art bill show and stuff, and so you know, that's
what it is. But these the so lifetime enemies. One could say,
yeah, so anyway, so well hopefully, I mean, I think that
people have loosened up a bit, uh in that if they disagree, they
still become like I think of like you know, Ruben Uriarte with the Mexico
Roswell, who I don't think Stanton really cares for the story, and I
know Kevin Randall, you know, despises it, but they're still friends.
So at least I think that that people have loosened up, especially over the
years. Yeah, I agree. You see each other at conferences all year
long. It's like you got to start interacting, and they're all good people.
So it comes down where I was, you know, I was gonna
I was gonna add that because if let's say Kevin Randall or Stanton Freeman believes
that you're doing your research and maybe you're getting blinded by your research. But
you really are honest and true and you're really trying. Then of course everybody
can agree to disagree or this or that. But if if you're coming into
this field as an out and out scam artist, well then and that's of
course they thought was going on with the Corso story. But over the years
they I think understand that Bill is not a scam artist. He tried very
hard to get it accurate. He never had a chance to do a revised
edition. I'm telling you that that whole Corso UH circus went off with other
people pretty early in UH and each person you know so so so at Core
I think it's an important story, and at Core I thought it is always
Rubens, how did you all meet Corso? So? How did you get
this story? Because I mean, the way from an outsider, my perspective
is Bill got there first. For whatever reason at all, he became Yeah,
he became friends with Corso, and Corso decided to let him do it.
No all is fair, that's that's but I mean my point was I
didn't believe it in a can or anything. Bill was the one who got
to do the story, so so be it. And it looked like at
least to me seeing interviews, it was the book was as accurate as it
could be, and I didn't see any other because of course there's speculation of
oh, Bill was the guy in there trying to cover up for the government
and change things and lord and keep the real story from coming out, which
I think is kind of silly, But well, what would be the real
story? Do you think? Well, that's the whole problem with the theory
is it doesn't make any sense because you still have this man with an incredible
background coming out and saying these extraordinary things, and that's really what you have
to contend with. And I think it was, Well, all of those
things that I questioned about Corso, I'm just gonna blame those on Bill Burns.
I think a lot of that story. I love that. I love
that. That's that's easy. And here's the cool thing. Bill came into
this, not again, nothing to do with UFOs. Corso has multiple stories
and at least three important stories. But one of them, i'd say,
yeah, yeah, one of them is pretty pow prisoners of War. And
that's how Bill got involved. Because before the Corso book, Bill had Bill
has been a co writer with lots of different people, and one of the
and and in every other case, well not every other case, but in
many of the cases he has become lifetime friends with the people he co writes
books with. Bill's the kind of person that most of the people from our
business have been friends with us for thirty or so years. Now ye're in
year out. We do more books, we do this. And one of
that situation is a fellow named Jim Sanders, James Sanders, and James Sanders
got himself yanked into the TWA eight hundred, the shooting down of t w
A eight hundred. He got yanked into that story because his wife was as
a stewardess or a flight attendant. She was actually a trainer of flight attendants.
And when the thing went down, one of her pals got to her
this little sample from the back seats that proved that a missile went through the
plane. It left a missile trail of missile debriy. And so she ended
up with this. In other words, his wife, you know, had
evidence, so forth, and so on and so so Bill wrote that book
with Jim Sanders, the Shooting Down the Flight eight hundred book. And but
Sanders True Love, among other things, was the Pow story. And that's
how Courso came into our lives because they were all doing this movie company was
doing they they had the movie company had bought Jim Sanders information, you know,
they were going to do something with him. And they had Phil Corso's
life rights because Phil Corso was one of the important whistleblowers that telling the world
that we consistently left prisoners of war behind. Sometimes we use them as Manchurian
exchange types. You know, it's a it's a it's a nasty part of
our history, but it's a true part of our history. And Courso testified
to this, et cetera. So Bill was writing that book, the book
with Corso about the prisoners of war and stuff, and Corso mentioned this is
ninety six, ninety five, ninety six. Corso mentioned to Bill when they
were they were doing all the interviews for the Pow stuff. Ah, yeah,
and I and I took care of all that junk from Roswell. Yeah.
And it was like, what you know, and I'm born in ninety
four, ninety seven and I'm you know, so Roswell forty seven is it's
part of our little household history old stuff. So Bill knew immediately that that
was critical and important. Wow, so we convinced the movie company to put
aside the Pow stuff for now and put aside the Rome stuff. And then
Courso also had a lot to do with kennedy assassination. Put aside all that
stuff. Courso was amazing character and they're all true stories. And so therefore,
why wouldn't the roswel story be true? I mean, why would this
man suddenly with the Stellar. He's a very right wing guy, always saw
the CIA in bed with the communists. He was an FBI kind of guy.
In spite of you know, he loved over. Those were some of
that fascinating parts of the book. Yeah, when he's talking about espionage and
the whole thing, how they all fight each other and all this espionage against
each other in counter intelligence against the Navy and the Air Force, and you
can't trust the CIA if they get it, you know, the Soulvias have
it so and you see it now, you see it's all kind of each
each and and then when they did Homeland Security to kind of bring all this
together, they just basically made another silo and they're all going to be shooting
at each other basically they're all trying to funny secrets. Yeah, I'm a
real news hound. And that book, you know, is one of the
books I feel that that had some of the best insight into how all of
that works. Well, that's Bill's specialty. Bill is really good at putting,
you know. He's he he can he can retain from his let's say,
his PhD. He can retain medieval history. He's medieval. His PhD
is and linguistics and medieval medieval England. And so he can give you the
history of law and and and tie that to how the government is breaking the
law. And he can tie and so he brings that. That's what he
brought to the book. And why did we go off on the course,
so say, but anyway, so why of course a lie about one little
thing that meant nothing to him? The POWs meant a lot to him,
and so did the Kennedy assassination mean a lot to him? And this and
then of course, as you all know, we all we thought there was
going to be no end of the lawsuits coming from industry, but there were
never. There was never a peep. It's just sort of like, yeah,
okay, now the world knows how some of the stuff happened. And
I to this day I wish I knew for sure if it was, if
it's true, because I'm not still I'm still not convinced. I'm going to
be more skeptical than everybody else probably, but you know, oh, so
you're still skeptical, unsure of Corso's story yourself. I'm unsure of it all.
I'm unsure of the whole UFO thing, to be honest. Know what,
Yeah, I'm a I feel for you because I have a hard time
landing on any one answer on anything. Anything is so enigmatic but so terribly
interesting. Courso is a great example of how I feel about this field.
Such an amazing story. Yeah, and people will say, well, why
would he do this? And why do you do that? I don't know.
Yeah, just because I can't figure it out doesn't mean that it's all
right. He was never writing that book. He was writing the book.
He was always going to going to make himself seem important. So, yes,
he was in Rome. Was he the leader of Rome? Was he
really pulling you know, swords out of his he had he had special uh
he you know, mafia knives or not mafia Sicilian knives and things. Yeah,
he's a he was a short guy who liked to you know, puff
himself up, but he was also hilarious and as and I think he was
a relatively honest person, but within the intelligence community, like you know,
honest to what are Yeah, he told me once that the way that you
become a good spy or a good you know, citizen in the in this
government is that when somebody tells you something and says I don't want you to
tell anybody, you you have a way of listening. And I kind of
learned this. I think you have a way of listening and not really putting
it in long term memories. You kind of forget it. It's like you're
never going to tell anybody. You've said you're not going to tell anybody.
And so he said, that's how that's how it is. And so maybe
I'm not a scatter brain. I'm actually a great spy, yes exactly.
Yeah, So I did want to because know this this is all so fascinating
that but uh, and it does play into how you guys got into the
field and how you came to get UFO magazine. But just to kind of
finish up on that, it sounds like then, Uh so the guys who
the gentleman who? Well, did he buy the five of you out?
Then did this one guy buy you guys out and become the sole owner?
Well? No, he always retained the license. Oh he sold us.
He didn't sell us the magazine for a dollar. He sold us the license
for a dollar, and that he could pull anytime he wanted, and he
did. And why did he do that? Did he pull the license?
Uh, because he'd gotten a dispute with you all or because he wanted to
sell the magazine? I think the latter. And I also think because he's
of a certain age, he's kind of retiring. He loves to be in
Europe. He's not a hidden man. People thought this was a big mystery.
He's a successful man. His name is Peter Kuiper and he's k u
y p e or and like the like the liquor. And he's a very
successful man. And I think he just wants to retire and wants to begin
to divest himself of stuff. And I just think or or and he was
looking for a loophole. And what happened, of course, that you know
that gave him the loophole was digital publishing. We just simply and also we've
been doing this thing with no staff and just you know, I hit a
burnout wall after ten years of just like, uh, I don't think but
anyway, but now you know, So he just pulled it. I think
because probably he wanted to retire. Maybe he thought he had a buyer.
Who knows. I know he thought he had a buyer in my boss for
a period of time. I think, yeah he did. I think he
just thought that for sure he would do it. But little does he know.
See, one of the things we did is we went because my boss's
company, you know, they do advertising with big magazines, and part of
it when it comes to advertising is you have to sell x amount of magazines,
so they deal with big magazine. So we went through one of the
big publishers, which is even more expensive. So we're dealing with, you
know, a big company that handles this stuff. So my boss wanted to
do the best of the best and make it look beautiful and be wonderful,
which it was, but he was spending so much money. That's what it
came down to. That's what happened with Peter Kaiper and and the A and
so and this guy you know, then comes to John after John is losing
money already on the magazine, say hey, do you want to buy UFO
Magazine? And it's like, yeah, yeah, right would buy something that
doesn't make money, And it seemed to parents and that UFO Magazine was struggling
financially as well, so that was just not going to happen. And so
I guess UFO Magazine's dead unless he does find a buyer. Well that's a
good question. Well, we're not a lass. He got a little bit
like mister Potter in It's a Wonderful Life. At the end he was sort
of like, you can't associate yourself with it anymore or used ufon and Bill
was saying, hello, it's in our history. You can't like erase our
history. We did, in fact work for it. I think. Well,
and when people think UFO Magazine, they think the burns. That's nice,
that's it doesn't make the Effors happy. But but well that was a
long time ago. So yeah, but you know, memory don't last that
long. I know, I know I'll be I'll be watching that very same
thing happen. But the the so in my mind, and I'm sure you
probably well, you tell me this, you guys. How many issues did
you put out? Okay? And that was? Were they monthly or bi
monthly? Bi monthly? Yeah, because as you said, it's a lot
of work. And we, right, we put the first one together.
We were like, there's no way we can put all this together in a
month, right? And how many pages was it? Is? It?
Ours was typically I think around one hundred No, pretty long, I mean
it was like around because we did eighty pages every time. Yeah, we
were we were around eighty ninety I think, yeah, yeah, And what
happened? Yeah? And and when when when we shortened it to seventy something?
See, that's the thing. When when we inherited it in ninety seven,
it had had its run for several years, very glossy and you know,
heavily, you know, all all color and one of them when we
took it over and we never changed this. We we we made half black
and white, half color, really cheap paper. Uh. And just because
I thought, and I still think, that people cared about the content,
they didn't care about I mean, how beautiful a picture are you going to
put of a cattle mutilation? You know, it's pretty icky stuff? Or
every time, you know, every time we get these. I'm sure you
do the same thing every time you open up your email and there's a there's
an image and it's some kind of a blob of light and the poor person
taking it says, you know, you have no idea what I really saw.
Well, it made it hard, yeah, because we you know,
wanted it to be beautiful as well, and our graphic designer really pushed us,
so it was it was just as difficult getting the content is getting together
you know, the graphics too, right right, make it that way.
So it's another aspect that's very difficult. Are you you know? Are you?
How can I put this? The future? What is? What?
Are? I wonder what I'm going to do? And I wonder what the
well A radio has has blossomed on the internet. We're on radio right now,
we're talking and people will then go to internet sites and stuff. But
there your site, I think, has a has a whole new life of
its own, doesn't it In terms of the news is still there right yeah?
And I think that's what's really sustaining us is that, Uh, there
really isn't a UFO news hub out there. There isn't yet, But you
should be it, don't you think? Well, and we are so,
I mean right now, I think we definitely are. I mean some people
have been starting to call us, you know, almost like mainstream media,
which is it is nice because we do interact a lot with mainstream media more
and more, which is also nice. But so that's great. I really
appreciate that. And like you know, I'm mister Pollyanna, you know,
I love everybody and Stephan. You have like UFO digests out there and everything,
which is great, but they do a lot of opinion pieces and a
lot of other stuff, which is good. You know, I think that's
great. People should definitely check them out. They may be somewhat similar to
as UFO Chronicles, who we work with quite a bit, because he,
you know, does a kind of an aggregate of news out there. But
you know, we every day are focused on all the news going on.
And really that's what you know you had asked me about burnout when I was
on your show. That's what I can't pull myself away from because even with
mouf on, John Schushler was the one who used to send out emails and
information about UFO stories and got me into it. And once he stopped.
I picked that up and I couldn't stop. So I've been doing that ever
since. Then. I started up my own web page and podcast, UFO
Think Tank, and really that all evolved into Open Minds to where we do
that now every day, where we post all of the stories that are out
there and then write about some of them ourselves. And even when I got
my own burnout a couple of years ago, I even left Open Minds for
nine month period or something like that. Yeah, I couldn't stop. I
was still. That's exactly. That's that's that I'm glad to hear this,
because yeah, it's like breathing. I created a website called UFO Daily News,
and I still kept posting news on there because it's like, I don't
know, I watched the news and I can't help but want to share it
with people. Yeah, me too. When I see the whole out there,
I'm like, you know, there's people need this news and information.
And there are some other news outlets out there here and there, but they
get so clicky and they're not inclusive, and then it's like, oh,
we're just going to share it with our friends and researcher. It's worse there's
number one. Number one. You and I probably appreciate more than most that
this field has a very distinct history that shouldn't be lost in time. Just
just what how how you were curious about the history of Upho Magazine and one
thing leads to another. It's also the history of the UFO field. And
you know, the you know, like Terence McKenna is in the pages,
the old pages of Upho magazine crop circles that that phenomenon sort of started again.
Uph Magazine started in eighty six, and Vickie was careful to to include
everything. She included new age stuff, she included conspiracy stuff. And when
Don came into the picture, he was a he was a former uh uh,
let's say, uh, you know he was he was he was more
interested in nuts and bolts, and so the magazine kind of, you know,
thank god, stayed in that arena. But they did, in fact
cut off like a like a disease limb. They cut off everything to do
with spirituality and all that stuff that was too woo woo. But then but
then alien of deduction kind of began to become a thing. During those years,
Whitley Streeber and and babies being taken away from women, you know,
in the in the night, you know, fetuses and stuff. So you
know, so there's this weird history about this. It's a it's a hit.
Oh and then the biggest thing I'm proud of is Colin Bennett. I
love Colin Bennett. He's a great thinker, and he ties all this stuff
together. This is part of our mythology, our American mythology at this point.
And and so when you talk about some some sites are clicks. Some
sites only specialize in hybrid interactions, and some sites only do nuts and bolts,
And so it's a I can't stay away from it either. That's what's
fascinating about the whole thing. And I yeah, but the thing is you
at least joined moufon and did this with an Well, I joined the magazine,
so my eyes were open. But but for me, I'm I'm kind
of aware of how much I've lost in terms of how many kooties have gotten
stuck on me now and how I can't go back to mainstream. I don't
think just like Bill does not get he thinks he doesn't get the right response
for some of his nonfiction books that are not in this field. At all
because of UFO stuff. So it's but I think we are going to be
You're going to be the one probably to break into the mainstream. I really
think so. And that's what I wanted to ask you. Because it's called
open minds. Do you feel an obligation to keep your mind open and to
look at everything? Well? And you know, you know who challenges us
on this is Mike Clellan and he wrote a story and he did an excellent
job with his story. I think about abduction and how his feeling and he
showed how there are abduction researchers who feel lots of people who see UFOs have
also been abducted, they just don't know. It pretty out there story,
but it's a it's a valid story, like you said, you know,
it's part of the mythology. It's worth writing about and sharing with people.
And I love the story because he went and did interviews. He got interviews
from all of the leading abduction researchers and you know, so it's a very
journalistically done, great story. And he came to us and how this came
about is he's like, you guys don't cover enough of this sort of stuff.
And we told him well, it just doesn't come across our desk that
much. You know. It's not that we're against it. And maybe our
bias, you know, keeps us from writing that stuff, and but we're
not against it, and it's not a conscious thing we're doing. And if
you wanted to write something about that, we would love to review it and
guide you and print that. So he called us on that, and I'm
glad he did, and he wrote a story and we and I think he
did a great job. So yeah, sometimes people do question we are open
minded. Do a lot of people say, well, you debunked too much?
Well, you know what you're looking for answers number one, blind faith
exactly, that's number one. That's your number one mandate, I think,
is to debunk if it's if it's possible, because it's the stuff you can't
It's just like blue Book, it's the stuff that they can't debunk that we're
focusing on here. We can care less. I mean. But on the
other hand, we as Americans are too quick to be told it's swamp guts
and then everybody walks away and says, oh yeah, thank god, we
all want we all want it to be debunked. Really, because we only
okay, we want the ones that are hovering over our house to be debunked.
Yeah, but if it's on the other side of the world, you
know, maybe not maybe you know, but I mean we're just really yeah,
looking for answers, keeping open mind and covering that stuff when it comes
around because it is interesting and it is part of the mythology. And I
think that's great. And I don't know, you can't blame its too much.
I mean, we have videos on on Dan Burush and you know a
lot of really out there stuff that you know, even you know, we
personally don't feel ash. Yeah, we real deal. But that story haunts
me because I really when because because I can't forget who, I forget who
brought us that story, but very much made a big, the theatrical kind
of thing about it, you know. In other words, Ron Garner his
name is, he was. He brought us the story, and he made
it very serious, and he made us sit down and in a darkened room
watch Veris and stuff, and we investigated like crazy and came up to we
came to our own conclusions and wrote a cover story on it and felt that
it was completely hogwash and and The reason I bring this up or talk about
this one is because Project Camelot drives me crazy because they do it all.
They do everybody, and they give them all the same level. There there's
no editorial. It's like, we're gonna take everybody in and we're just gonna
let you judge. And I think when you find out something's not true,
you owe it to your readers to tell them that. Why waste people's time?
You know, why ask other people? I mean, if you know
for a fact it's not true, if you saw the person kind of you
know, making stuff up as as they're going along, that's your you know,
why be a reporter if you don't report that that you know, I'm
not believing so anyway, So yeah, and so yeah, I agree,
And I mean people get you know, what we brought to the public.
This guy Frank I can't remember his name right now, but it got an
Air Force guy, old and old many he just kind of makes stuff up.
And when Antonio interviewed me, knew this, but we posted the interview
and it went wild. Yeah, people get so upset. But you know,
there's so many holes and changing of the story and and well and the
same thing with you know, people burish. Luckily these days, borish was
more popular before. But you know, one of the funny things is is
my boss was really into his story and he really liked it, and he
treated him so nice. Oh nice. They came to the conference. I
remember that. I remember reading about that because they funny. Yeah, and
because yeah, well this was weird because there was his wife's name was Marcia
Kane, and there was another lady named Marcia Kane who was their same name,
which is weird. So they came in to check in. They said,
you know, it should be under Marcia Kane. It was actually under
his name. They said, Marcia Kane's already checked in. They got upset
and left. People saw them because you know, our conference, we have
so many people. There's people all over the place. People saw them walk
in to their little red car and drive away. He writes this big thing
that the government had people waiting for them in their room, and so m
J twelve whisked them away in a black helicopter. Ah, yeah, well
that's the see, that's the thing. It's it's yeah, I lost my
train to flow. Because that's shocking, really, isn't it? Funny?
Yeah? Well, the thing is, yeah, I can't think I was
gonna say I was going to add something to that, but but you're sorry.
Yeah, but yeah, anyways, Yeah, that's interesting. But that's
a demonstration of well I guess something. Yeah, yeah, when you know
something, and we certainly share that. We share when we know stuff and
sometimes people don't like it, or I always share when Michael Horn tries to
kind of be completely fraud false and his claims, and well, well that's
and then of course what you're going to run into or get mad and blow
it off. And it's like, oh yeah, a lot of these people
that we're mentioning, they are themselves little economic empires, you know. They
they bring in the they well you know, they bring in they fill the
auditorium and oh but what yeah and the controversy. Yeah, so anyway,
this brings them in the spotlight. So I guess before I let you go,
now that we're on this topic, and I know because we've been talking
for a long time and we could probably go on forever, But like you
said, you'd like to share the truth with Who are the Charlatans out there?
Is there are there any some that really catch your eye that where you're
like, everybody needs to know that this person or that person is. I
want to give you the a chance to say warn my audience on who to
stay away from. So I'm in trouble with like an additional group of people.
If you want, you don't have to, if you don't want to,
if you would like to, there are so many more I don't want.
Well, here's the thing. Each of these entities, they have economic
reasons to keep on making their story bigger and bigger. And you know,
you know that sometimes somebody will come to you with a really good story and
it's real and it's true, and then they become famous and then they have
to keep making that story bigger and better and then you know, so there's
a lot of that. That's a really big problem. What you just said
too. I think people would be shocked to find out how much that really
happens. And it's so sad. Yeah, well what else can they do?
You know? I mean, if you if you're only one story,
you have to make it worse and worse and worse and bigger and so forth
and so on, because you're going to ask for donations and then you're going
to ask for more donations and well, maybe you'll agree, but I think
Travis Walton is an example of someone who doesn't blow up or create more stories,
and he does well with you know ther that's true. That's true,
and and it's a profoundly life changing thing that he could say, oh,
you know what, the aliens came back. I saw him. Yeah.
Last Well, on the other hand, have you talked well, he's he
is ripe with additional information. Let's just put it that way. More things
seem to be happening to him, and I think there's a there's a deeper
well there than he has even lit on. And I think, you know,
I think there's many more interviews with Travis. I'm kind of we have
future theaters, so we still keep our hand in. But because it's future
theater, and like Open Minds, it's not UFO magazine, we can go
to other things a little bit. We have an audience that gets really mad
if we stay too far away from UFOs. But we're right now exploring spiritual
thing a bit. And I have to say, someone gave sent a link
last night to a movie that I've thoroughly enjoyed, and it's all about channeling
and I've always liked channeling the least of all the things in the field.
I have felt that so many people come in and they just kind of put
on a funny voice. Why the funny voice, and they've just you know,
But this movie is. The minute I saw it was about channeling,
I was going to turn it off, but out of respect for the person
who sent the link, I watched it and I was I found it totally
gripping, and I think it's called tuned in. I should give you the
exact thing since I watched it last night. It's really shockingly fascinating. And
if you're a person who feels channeling is kind of icky, you might want
to check this movie out. It is astounding and you might stay with it.
And looking as we speak, I believe it's called tune to end.
And in fact, let me just kind of let me find my little pile
of stuff here. Okay, oh yeah, yeah yeah, digital Yeah,
So are you staying with it? You're staying as editor for a bit,
right, yeah? Indefinitely. Really the plans are you know, we can
run pretty tight and that we have the Congress, we're looking at options,
possible options for twenty sixteen to grow it. We just got, you know,
the Guinness World Record for the biggest conference, so I know, I
know, and I believe we'd be in the book the Guinness World Record for
the smallest. I believe we went well. We sponsored the least attended smallest
one ever, I believe. Oh wow, I don't know. They get
pretty small. No, this was bad. Literally, at the end of
a showing in one of the movies, you know, there are only three
people left in the audience, and two of them were billing me. You
know. It's this is called tuning in. That's the name of this video.
And I don't have too much more information, but if you can just
go on YouTube or google tuning in, you will find this, you know.
I And the director is David Thomas, uh so you can kind of
put him in there too. I don't know. And this was from two
thousand and eight, so and it's people that you've probably heard of. There
were these five channelers. One is a guy who channels a thing called Bishar,
so forth and so on. And I'm going I'm personally right now doing
my research. I'm going down each of these people trying to find the holes
in their story because it's a very compelling movie. You won't have You won't
be wasting your time if you watch this, I think, so okay,
I'm gonna check it out. Yeah, it sounds very interesting. This was
not so bad, Alejandro. I told you this was completely fascinating. I
know people are gonna love this. They're gonna hate it. They're gonna know,
they're gonna you're crazy. They're gonna love I know my audience, they're
gonna love this. And I knew they would. I knew you would have
a lot. I've been fascinated getting the history with I know there's tons of
people who want to hear them because they're asking us all the time, what
happened with UFO magazine? What happened? So tons of people are gonna want
to know this whole history. Yeah, and history with you all and Courso
it's it's it's very fascinating. Well, let me let me make sure I
say this at the end. I'm saying this about Linda Moulton Howe and Paula
Harris. I don't like to I don't really like to knock down other people
who are working hard. And I'm saying both these things as a way of
kind of making a bridge if possible. If they were to hear such things,
I would like to bury the hatchet and you know, start a new
I don't. I'm not doing this to say either of those two people.
They've got a huge body of work, each of them. But this corso
thing, you know, personally has made it so that I've never been able
to be friends and stuff. So I wanted to just kind of put it
out there that way. I'm a person too, I guess, but and
I you know, I believe you know, Paulin and I have been able
to stay friends. We've at times been very close, even though we don't
see eye to eye on everything. Yeah, and uh, I know she
I think has more problems with that than I do, because I don't mind.
But I sometimes feel like maybe she's kind of like Alon and Drew and
keeps me at a distance sometimes. But I understand what you're saying, so,
uh, and I think that it's important that you said that. Yeah,
Well that's the thing I think this, and it's okay to disagree,
Yeah, but but try to support your fellow journalists here and try to get
the story out and expect each other for the exactly exactly. Try to go
as a group. If we go as a group, we will become the
mainstream you wait and say, but but not if we're you know. Of
course, of Courso said this, he never had to worry about uh,
disinformation because the u ful field takes care of that. They there on the
back. So he was right, yeah, yeah, exactly nice. Yeah,
Well, thank you so much. Yet, this has been wonderful.
I think we'll definitely need to talk again because this has been so fun and
I'm sure there's more we can we can talk about. Thank you so much
for coming on the show, and I think that many many other people should
interview you because you have a lot of great stuff to say. Thanks for
being so persistent, and I know I'm glad I was and I knew it
would be great and it has been. Thank you. Thank you so much
for to Nancy for joining us. I think she was a great interview.
She is a really cool lady. What a history, I mean, some
really interesting stuff. I personally because I'm fascinated with you know, her and
Burns and there work in this field. And I'm also fascinated by the history
of UFO magazine because it was such a big deal in this field has for
so long, and so I thought this interview was completely fascinating and she's great.
She's a lot of fun. So thank you so much to Nancy for
joining us. You can go to read more about her and Bill at futuretheater
dot com. Future theater dot com knows funny business. Sometimes people have an
underscore dash or something like that. Nothing like that, just future theater dot
com. This is her and Bill Burns podcast on DarkMatter Radio. They're also
on the PSN Radio network, which also broadcasts UFO Think Tank or I'm sorry,
Open Minds UFO Radio formerly UFO Think Dank Radio. But so you can
hear both of us on the air there at PSN. So you can go
listen to Nancy and Bill interview different UFO people on their own podcasts. So
really cool. Thank you again to Nancy for being on a show that was
awesome. Speaking of awesome, I do want to mention for any of you
that live in the Sedona area, I'm actually going to be speaking at Sidona
mofon on Friday, and I'm going to be talking about official government UFO investigation
agencies. So these are active official governmental organizations. I'm going to talk about
them and why they got started, the details behind that, and really the
amazing UFO cases that got these guys rolling. So that's going to be a
lot of fun. And I'm also speaking in Phoenix move On in December,
so on different topics, but we'll talk more about that later. So if
you can make it, that would be a lot of fun to see you
all. Also, you can see Jason, Maureen and I on a brand
new episode of Spacing Out that we just launched Friday. Of course, we
have one up every Friday, and I don't think I've mentioned this before we
but we have a Chinese UFO Files video up too, where we talked about
the history of UFOs and China and some really interesting and cool stuff when it
gets to the history there, including how the Chinese government helped get eufologies started
in China, printed their first UFO magazine really for a long time, and
also that paid to get UFO sightings translated for Wendell Stevens to create a book
on Chinese UFOs. So really really cool stuff. I think Antonio and I
talked about this before on a show we did a show on it. I
think if not, we should have, but really cool stuff. So you'll
have to check that out on our YouTube channel. Of course, these stories
and everything you could get to at openminds dot tv. Again, we've got
the UFO Congress coming up. The rooms have not sold out yet at the
host hotel, but I'm sure they're getting really close. It's about the time
of year when they do and are sub people signing up for the conference is
at pace with last year, which was our biggest one ever, So we're
really starting to get a lot of registrations and I'm sure that hotel's gonna fill
up, So go to Ufocongress dot com to register and look up the hotel
and reserve yourself a room. You can also find that information at open mindsat
Tv. It's gonna be an awesome year. We're gonna have some really really
cool stuff this year, so it's gonna be a lot of fun and a
lot of people are gonna be able to make it that haven't been able to
make it before, like other podcasters like Martin Willis, who you know,
I'm on his podcast every week talking news, and also Angel Espino and I'm
on his too, talking news sometimes. So a lot of friends we haven't
met face to face or you don't get to see often are gonna be there,
so it's gonna be a lot of fun, so be sure to register
for that and remember past videos. You can watch at our video portal at
open mindset tv. It only costs a couple bucks and you can watch some
of the incredible discussions. We've got really the first one twenty eleven videos going
up now, and some of the other videos we've done, and we've got
new videos going up there every month. If you just want to have full
access too, you can subscribe for something like five ninety nine and then you
have full access to all videos and we put more up every month for you
there too, So check that out the video portal at openminds dot tv.
All right, thank you all so much for listening. Thanks to Caleb Hanks
for the opening and closed music. You could go listen to more of his
music at clerk Chronicles dot com. You'll find a link on the radio page
at Openminds dot tv. Thanks Gala, but let's check out some of his
music now. As we wrap it up, thank you all so much for
joining us. We will talk to you next week with another great show we're
gonna have. Travis Walton we're gonna talk about his upcoming conference and his upcoming
SkyWatch at the location where he was taken. I'll be there, Maren will
be there. Hopefully we will not get taken, but if we do,
we're gonna have our video guy Michael with us and we will film the entire
thing and put it up on YouTube. Even if we don't get taken,
we're gonna film this stuff and put it up on YouTube. So either way,
it's gonna make a great YouTube video. So we'll talk to you all
next week. Audio smooth atos your motions,