Hello, and welcome to Open Minds Radio. This is your host Alejandro Rojas,
and Jason is out this week. But even better than Jason, I
have with me Maureen Elsberry. Hello, Maureene, Hi, thanks for having
me on. Well, Jason in the City of Sin yep, he's out
sinning it out sin in his little heart away. So we have an awesome
guest today too, because it's me, oh man that always gonna let out
the secret. That's right. Our guest is also Maureen because we don't get
to hear from her a lot on the radio program, so we'll talk to
her. She of course does spacing out for Open Minds and she's covered some
really interesting stories in our magazine and elsewhere, so we'll talk all about that.
So this is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited. How
about you? Oh me too? All right, Well, first let's talk
about our favorite stories of the week. And you started off all right,
Well, this is kind of a ridiculous story, but it made a lot
of headlines. Is this guy in China hoaxed? He said that he had
encountered a ufa along a river and there were five aliens, one of which
was electrocuted by a fence and he captured it and put it in his freezer.
So he released these pictures and it's the most ludicrous looking alien you've ever
seen. I don't know how anybody sort of fell for it or what he
thought the goal was, but he had good intentions at heart. He said
that he is a fan of UFOs and aliens and wanted more people to believe
that aliens exist. And I think he kind of went about that the wrong
way. He's showing a fake alien. However, so the government then got
involved with ale Hundra and arrested him for hoaxing. And they said, yeah,
so he had to go to jail for five days for fabricating lives and
disrupting normal behavior. So I don't know, it's it's been all over the
place, and he's still makes news headlines. Even Simon Peg, who did
the movie Paul, said he felt a little bit responsible because, uh,
the man said that he was inspired by Paul. Yeah, and how about
like that hoaxed picture of the alien standing by the river. It's so it's
this glowing UFO with all these glowing little aliens, and he has his bike
underneath the UFO and it looks like a cartoon. I mean, I don't
know what he was trying to do, but need so awful. Yeah,
become a little more skilled if he's you know, gonna Obviously we don't promote
hoaxing at all, but oh, I don't know this, this was ridiculous.
What's funny is is it went so quick and he fessed up so quickly.
I mean, he didn't hold out very long that you never got to
see how much people believed it, if there were any people out there to
believe it. And I kind of feel that even though this picture and the
alien are so terrible, there probably would have been some people to believe it.
Oh yeah, you know, Unfortunately, some people don't research into things
and believe things that face value, even if they are extremely, extremely ludicrous.
Yeah. What's funny too, is ITM said that when he created the
hoax and everything, that he uh, he called the police way back then,
which was three months ago. So I guess he did this three months
ago and the police kind of ignored him and they didn't come and talk to
him and throw him in jail until the whole thing went viral. Yeah,
then they have to look like they're gonna do something about it, responsibility,
maybe discouraging people from doing the same. Yeah, well, what do you
got for me? Well, I wanted to talk about the alien's genitals too.
Oh okay, sorry, I was gonna leave that part out because that
is so weird. I don't know what the heck he was stragg to do
there, but that is that was a pretty weird thing too. I don't
I haven't seen that being reported in the news. Is strange in the comments
commented on it, and you know, I encourage everyone to go look at
the photos. We have all of them on our website because it's just it's
almost it's it's funny. I mean, it's funny that this guy thought that
you could pass this off as an extra trust real bean. Yeah awful.
So my story is and this is kind of fun because of course, and
we'll talk about this when we get into spacing out. Of course, we
do do a lot of kind of debunking stories, but at least we're pretty
skeptical. But it's just that, you know, most of the time media
covers UFO stories, they're bunk. They're they're silly stories like the Chinese one
or or others where it's fairly obvious what it is, or prosaic answers come
to light. But this, I think is a really important sighting that was
reported last week that unfortunately has been made fun of a little bit. Both
of these stories we're talking about were released by the Sun, and even though
the Sun reports UFOs a lot, they always put in some kind of silly
spin. This was an important siding that was reported by pilots, several pilots,
and it was released in a report by an organization in the UK that
analyze is near misses like near collisions of aircraft in the sky. And unfortunately
the Sun was the first report on this, and they threw in this Scientology
thing that it was over the Scientology headquarters. It's actually a few miles away
where these sightings occurred. It is I guess the nearest airport to the Scientology
headquarters, so that people go into the headquarterst fly into this airport. But
really there's no tie in with Scientology. The Sun threw that in there to
be silly, And of course scientific has this whole mythology or alleged mythology,
of being connected with aliens because a few people who have left Scientology have said
you know, I got to the upper levels where I got the secret information
and then they told me that this is all about aliens, and so I
got pissed and left. It's what a few of them have said, and
they released the files. Well, the whole time, Scientology has denied any
link with aliens and denied these files. And so they actually got their lawyer
to call the Sun and tried to sue them, and the Sun had to
apologize, but they did it in a funny way. They apologized not to
the Scientology. They apologized to the aliens for linking them to Scientology. So
they should apologize to everybody for doing that, because they've painted this what is
really a cool sighting. Three different sets of pilots on three different aircraft reported
seeing these flying discs, silver flying discs flying around when they were coming in
for a landing in the West Sussex area in England. It's called the Gatwick
Airport. So they all talked about this. They all called in because they're
coming into their approaches at the airport and they call in and say, hey,
we've got this weird thing going on, this weird silver thing, can
I still land? It was caught on radar. Six objects were on radar
for a second and then they disappeared. So there's radar, there's all of
these these sightings. Nick Pope chimed in on this, and he did say
that none of the theories of possible balloons or toys or model airplanes seem to
fit, and that he thinks this is really interesting and it demonstrates what he's
been saying the whole time is that UFOs do show some sort of danger to
airspace because if we have these unknown things flying around, what if we have
more near misses like what happened in this instant. So it's a great story.
It's one of the most credible that's come along in a long time.
Essentially, this board that evaluates near missus eventually had to say, even though
we think it might be a toy or something, we really don't know what
it is. So they had to report it in their final analysis as an
unknown. Yeah, and I think this is a really great sighting. And
again, some of my favorites are pilots that are coming forward identifying things,
and again you have evidence they showed up on the radar. But the fact
of the matter is is they are very familiar with airspace and what should be
or should not be flying around and yeah, it's too bad that it was
clouded by the media, but that's no surprise there, and hopefully this gets
a little more attention. It seems like it was talked about briefly one day
and then faded away and haven't heard too much more about it yet. Yeah,
great case. And what's interesting This one happened in late December, but
the report just come out, came out the other day, so that's why
it made news. However, last week we reported on not just that sighting,
but there was one in Ireland, a video that's pretty interesting. There
was a photograph in Scotland, and then two near London. One of those
we just posted today. So a lot of sightings out there in that area.
Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I feel like London or the
UK area always has a lot, very heavy amount of activity and sightings and
you know, maybe people are just reporting it more over there, but who
knows. I mean, it's been an interesting year so far for sightings.
And we should say cheers to our Irish and Scottish and English listeners because we
have quite a few. They're awesome of course, and we love pubs.
The latest UFO setting was at a pub, so it just makes me kind
of crave a beer. Actually. See. Yeah, a lot of great
stories from that area, really interesting stuff. So that is the news.
Let's get into interviewing this interesting young woman named Maureen Ellsberry. And maybe that's
the first topic that I will touch on. I had, you know,
Ryan Sprague on recently, and I'll ask you the same because you're in your
twenties. I won't go into detail of your exact age because you know,
I know how women don't always like that. But getting younger people involved,
I think we've we've been doing pretty good at that with open minds more so
than a lot of the field. What do you think it takes. What
do you think is different about the younger people. Well, you know,
I'm not afraid to say my age. I'm twenty nine. Oh my gosh,
I know, last year of the twenties here, But you know,
and I think what's really important is engaging different types of media. And with
the advent of social media that people have been able to share more and you
have to make it interesting, you know. And I think that once people
start seeing that, there is a lot of credible information out there and it
is presented in a way that's easily digestible for them. Well, then they
get more interested, and then they start, you know, branching out from
the more fringe and reading books and starting to do real research. And you
know, I think that that you just have to keep with the trends,
so to speak, in the way you present your information. And that's a
big part of trying to get younger people involved. And unfortunately, you know,
people we have a stereotypical laziness in the generations that you know, video
games and they're hiding behind TV and all of this, that it's hard to
reach out to them. But once you get I'm hooked. I think that's
the key is getting more people involved. Videos. YouTube's helping a lot,
you know, just staying on top of the media. Now, I mostly
look at all of these facts and figures when it comes to politics and stuff
like that, but I look at the differences in the generations, and one
of the differences with the younger generations is that they're a little more cynical.
Do you think that when that applies to this field as far as because you
you're a pretty social person too, You're out there with lots of have lots
of friends and meeting lots of people, that this whole distrust of the government
is kind of ingrained in the younger generations. Well, I think that's that's
probably partially true, especially lately, that people are are more sensitive to not
believing everything they hear and say. But but I don't know, I think
that that's existed forever as well, So I'm not sure that that's the biggest
factor right now. Mm hmm. Well what about the idea of government conspiracies
then, do you think with the younger groups it's kind of that's kind of
a given a little bit. I think that it's it's more of they think
that something's happening. The government's not telling us everything, uh, and so
there is somewhat of a cover up. But I think that a lot of
people believe that there's more of a cover up than actually is going on.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely feel that way. But what's interesting too,
is, Uh, when I was growing up, you know, even it
was still kind of this idea of moving towards the government may be stupid and
they do everything wrong, but they're they're too stupid essentially for these conspiracies and
there's not necessarily these big conspiracies, and it's kind of evolved in that.
And I like John Alexander because he says, how can you have it both
ways? But they're not only stupid, but they're also involved in these conspiracies
where they keep everything secret. So it's kind of twofold where this mythos has
come into Now. Yeah, well, and then you have I mean,
just everything's a conspiracy these days. You know that every tragedy that happens,
then you know, goes viral that people are are posting these conspiracy theories about
you know, the Boston bombings and the Aurora shootings and just everything and posting
pictures and actors, and it takes over for a lot of people. I
think, I want to know what you think about this too. I was
reading in an article recently about lots of the conspiracies and it talks about how
when people feel powerless, they're more likely to go the conspiracy route because or
when they can't understand instance, let's say the Boston bombings, where they just
really can't comprehend how these two kids would do that. So it's kind of
the way the brain works where they're looking for answers, so they just go
conspiracy. Do you think a lot of that happens with the younger groups where
they can't understand this stuff that's possibily always you know, it's hard and I
really, honestly, being full time in this field, it sort of takes
over to the point where I try to stay away from too much conspiracy theory.
I mean, it's you can't avoid it, but I don't let it
take over my life personally. So if you were to kind of answer that
question, and you did so a little bit before, but let's say if
some of these organizations move on or something like that, said, how do
we get younger people involved? What would be your answer? Oh? Well,
like I said, but it's really the answer is to change the way
evolve, you know, change the way you present the information to make it
more digestible. And that's again, like I said, a lot to do
with very visual graphic media on it. You got to keep them engaged that
way. That makes sense, and I think that's one of the things and
I think that's a message that people have to get, is you have to
change and evolve, and a lot of these organizations don't want to change or
evolve. Then you know, as we get older, we don't want to
do things different, and we say no, the kids need to listen to
us. But if you act that way, then you're not going to get
the youth. Yeah, and it's hard to say too. I mean you
have to make the events more interesting. Like a lot of people don't want
to sit and listen to a conference presentation for two hours, younger people,
and so by presenting it in a more interesting I think Ancient Aliens starting to
get a lot more younger people interested because it's a very visual show and presents
a lot of information, but also in a way that makes it engaging.
But yeah, Alejandro, that is the big mystery question that's been asked by
everyone. How do you get the younger people involved? And I mean,
I think personally within open minds in the UFO Congress is that we have started
to see a lot more younger people showing up to events and engaging and it's
great. I hope it continues. Yeah. Yeah, and we try to
change or try a lot of different things. And I think you know a
lot of people are asking I think they're not asking fully what they want.
How do I not do anything different but still get the younger people, and
of course that's just not going to work. All right. Well, let's
get into some of the stories that you've written about lately, and in particular,
I'd like to hear about the Alley Gash. I think that's such a
great case. It really is, and it was really interesting to do more
research into this case. The Allied Dash abductions happened in nineteen seventy six,
and I should note that this is just under a year after the Travis Walton
case, and of course that received a lot of widespread media attention, which
is why some people were, you know, a little confused about this case.
So basically, these four men, identical twins Jim and Jack Wiener,
and their friends Charlie Fultz and Chuck Rack went on a ten day canoe trip
in the Aligash Wilderness, which is in northern Maine. And the first,
I think it was the first or second day, they were at a campground
with a bunch of other campers and they spotted a strange light in the sky
and they saw it sort of implode in a sense, and they didn't really
think anything of it, you know, just oh, that was strange,
and they moved on. The Algash Wilderness is very isolated, very remote.
You have to be flown in there. There's not a lot of planes or
traffic or people anywhere. So a couple of days goes by and they are
at a new campsite on a lake and nobody's around. They hadn't caught enough
fish that day, and fishing is actually illegal at night, so they went
out on the lake anyways, sneaky guys, and they saw a light,
the same light that they had seen two days earlier. And this is really
strange because one of the men sitting in the canoe decided to take a flashlight
in sos the UFO. I don't know why. So they remember seeing the
light come close, and the next thing they know, they're standing on the
shore and they see the light disappear. But they don't really remember anything how
they got to the shore, what happened. And they had had a huge
bonfire and it was now Embers, so they were like a significant portion of
time was missing from their memories. They continued on their trip and didn't think
much of it. Now. It wasn't until let's see, I believe it
was Jim Wiener started having nightmares about extraterrestrial beans in his room that he decided
to seek help, and he approached the abduction researcher Raymond Fowler, and Fowler
almost passed on the case because he was like, oh, you know,
and I'm busy too much going on until he found out that Jim was an
identical twin. And so, you know, a lot of abduction researchers promote
the idea that because extraterrestrial species seemed to be so interested in reproductive organs or
aspects, that they're particularly interested in the twin connections. And what happened after
that was, you know, he looked up on their backgrounds and everyone seemed
to be reasonable. He didn't feel that there was a reason for them to
hoax anything. And he talked to people who said that they do remember when
they returned from the canoe trip, them speaking about this mysterious event that occurred.
And so they all underwent hypnosis regression therapy, and they revealed a pattern.
You know, they weren't talking to each other about what happened in their
sessions, and basically it came out that they were taken aboard this ship.
The beam overtook the Canoe took them all up. They were subjected to experiments
medical, they were basically sexually assaulted, had tissue samples, firm samples taken,
and they all described these creatures with big bug eyes, skinny and that
they were all being told to do things the telepathy. And it's really interesting
because everything was so detailed. You have four witnesses and they're all revealing similar
things. Could they have been, you know, led to believe that more
happened than did Possibly, it's hard to say, especially with regression, but
they all took light detector tests and they all passed. So the one thing
you can say is is they definitely firmly believe that something did happen to them.
Skeptics will say that you know that they had a motive because they were
all artists and they then started selling U a faux art, or you know
that that they were led to believe these things based on sci fi movies and
or maybe they was elaborate hoax. You know, Like I said, the
Travis Walton case had just occurred, had a lot of media tension, but
it's really intriguing. I think there's a lot of evidence there that something strange
happened. And what a lot of people don't talk about is that they all
started having more experiences after this, and it was uncovered that they probably had
had experiences since childhood as well. M M. Yeah. This is a
fascinating case in that you have all four of these people and like you said,
I mean they reported similar things in separate regressions, right right, and
they were you know, asked very specifically not to share anything that went on,
to keep it so they don't contaminate each other's testimony. But you don't
have a lot of multiple abduction cases that are this detailed and that you know,
people have path light detector tests and you have the transcripts or I recommend
people read the Olgash Abduction book by Follower because the transcripts are all in there
and it's just such a detailed interesting thing that would occur that it's kind of
terrifying. And you know, I abductions are a very a tough subject.
You know, it's hard to swallow, so to speak, but you know,
you can't deny seeing a pattern here and in a lot of other abduction
cases, and maybe something's going on, especially these early ones. And I
love Ray Fowler because he worked on a lot of these early cases. He's
kind of like an unsung hero in this field because he's not really out and
about and doing lots of lectures or stuff. But you look at his books.
He did a lot of these early cases. And I've also the other
thing that fits with Travis Walton for this one. I've met these guys,
or at least most of them, and just like Travis Walton, they're real
salt of the earth, you know, regular guys, really neat just die
your every average, everyday people. These guys are actually pretty witty too,
and that they're they're kind of jokesters, are funny guys. But yeah,
this is another really interesting case and and I mean it's an example and maybe
you would agree that it's a standout case in an arena where there's a lot
of cases that are just more dubious, right, right, And that's a
very nice way of putting it, so to speak. And again with abduction
research is you you really have to look at all the different facts, keep
an open mind, you know, but you come across ones that are just
you know, oh, I don't know how to phrase this in a sense
of you have to use your gut instinct when you meet people too, And
unfortunately, there's a lot of people who, again, like you said,
it's tobious that anything happened, or they may be mistaking other experiences for abduction.
So when it comes to that, like when it comes to abduction,
I mean, what is your feeling about abduction? Well, you know,
it's really that's like I said, it's it's a really tough one for me.
I try to keep an open mind, and I've really read some cases
that have led me to believe that maybe something is occurring. But it's also,
like I said, it's so hard to swallow sometimes that I always say
that, you know, if somebody tells me their abduction experience, that just
because I don't understand it doesn't mean that person's crazy or that it didn't happen.
So I try to be objective and listen and learn. And again i've
it's it's strange that abduction was never sort of a focus that I thought I
would get into, and it's happened a lot to become much more prominent in
my UFO research. Right, I felt the same way. Actually when I
got involved with this stuff, I was extremely skeptical, but like you,
I found some cases that are hard to ignore. What are some of the
other good abduction cases do you think? Oh? Well, I think the
Pasca Goula abduction case is really interesting, and Travis Walton, of course,
you know, we know Travis very well and he's just such a great guy.
I mean, that's really tough. There's a lot of them to go
into, and I think that a lot of the more historical cases seemed more
plausible to me now, and I don't know if that's because people are more
exposed to the idea. So again you have people who are making things up
and or hoaxing. But the historical cases, it was less prominent, not
a lot of people knew about it, and patterns started to emerge where people
all over the world were sharing similar experiences without knowing, you know, any
details behind it. What I like about the Walton case too is that it's
a little different in how it worked, and same with past with the I
mean with allay ash and that there are slight differences and overall, at least
with Ala Gashes similar I guess to Betty and Barney Hill and that they were
taken and experiments done on them and then put back unharmed, you know,
and Walton didn't have the experimentation aspect of it, so his is a little
different, which I like because then it's like he's not copying. But the
creatures were a little different in these early ones in their description, whereas nowadays
it's the same creatures doing the same thing. It gets a little more difficult,
right, right. There's typically I think about four different different type of
creatures that have been described by people. Obviously you have the more sinister mantis
like beans, you have the grays, of course, and some people report
seeing multiple species in the same encounter, like Whitley Strieber. Yes, like
Whitley Streeber. It's all kinds of them. So yeah, that's what it's
a little bit hired about abduction. And the other thing is that at least
with some of these early cases, like these fowler ones and stuff, they
were a little I think more careful about the regression therapy that they did,
especially with like Betty and Barney Hill. I mean, they had psychologists that
were doing this work and they were careful not taking contamination, where when you
have amateurs doing it, then that contamination is more likely, right, which
also is a little bit more difficult, So I agree, and I don't
know. For me, I think that very few of them do I find
compelling as far as evidence of a phenomena otherwise at least an extraterrestrial possible phenomena,
But others seem to be possibly a psychological phenomena that might be more prevalent,
right right, I think that that is very on the money. Do
you think there's a lot of hoaxing? You know, I don't as much
think that there's a lot of hoaxing as there is, Like I said,
sometimes people having experiences that can be explained by a much more terrestrial or psychological
explanation, And that's definitely not the case always, you know, but but
you do come across that a lot, right, Yeah, it seems to
be. I'd agree with you totally. So when it comes to you know,
looking at UFO cases overall, you know, and spacing out you guys
every week look at the news and speak to these things, and sometimes there
are critics in that, you know, say we're explaining things away, right,
yes, and that we're you know, people will say, well,
this should be quote called closed minded because you just report on sightings that you
can prove or something else, and that's not true. We're not trying to
debunk everything. Basically, the reason a we're presenting on news that is making
headlines in the mainstream media, and a lot of times things can be identified
and it's not a st debunking. It's as saying, well, you know,
actually this was probably a you know, Chinese lantern or a blimp or
something like that, and moving it into the identified category. And the reason
why that's so important in my opinion, is because then it makes the cases
that can't be explained stand out and you don't just believe everything you see.
You know, sometimes there's a much more terrestrial explanation. And yeah, so
we get we get quite a bit of criticism for that, but look,
I mean there are great cases and if I can identify something, then I'm
gonna say it. I'm gonna be excited about it and say this UFO is
unexplained. Could it be military or something more extraterrestrial in nature. I mean,
that's what research in journalism is all about. You have to be responsible
and you know, the the mainstream media reports all these things, well,
that's what the majority of the general public is going to see, and so
by making people aware of things that can be trying to make them more aware
that they go out and look for the good cases, you know, And
unfortunately, like you said, this Scientology case is a great signing, but
the Sun you know, covered it up with Scientology. It looks like crazy
in the sentence, you know, in the headline, right, yeah,
I know that exactly. So one of the comments too, I saw recently
which makes me think, and it's well. Before sharing my reaction to the
comment, I'd like to know yours, someone said you need to uh something
like you need to do what your readers want. Oh well, I mean,
I don't forget why everyone is so. You know, you go in
to watch a program that is established and the purpose of spacing out is to
talk about the news media. We cover a lot of things in the past.
We've you know, covered a lot of interesting special events with military people.
Is that why would we change what that particular show is about to format
to please one or two people? You know, we have plenty of other
content on our YouTube channel, serious interviews that we're trying to encompass the whole
range of the spectrum. And again this goes into getting younger people involved too.
Spacing Out is kind of aimed at the general public and a younger audience
as well. We want to make people happy, but we also have to
follow the formula that we've produced the show on m Yeah, and what I
you know, there are a lot of people already out there like that.
That's why I love, you know, working with our whole group, you
know, our video guys, you and Jason and Antonio, we're all trying
to be journalistic and we in our approach. There's a lot of other sites
you can go to where they're going to tell you everything's an alien, everything's
in abduction, and they're going to tell their readers and listeners what they think
their readers and listeners want to hear, whereas we're trying to report and be
true to the reporting and the facts, which I think is really important.
So I mean, I guess these people who want to be told what they
want to hear can go to some of these other ATHLETs. Well they'll be
told that. And these other outlets know that they think they'll get these people
because they do that all right. And also it's about self integrity in a
sense where I'm not going to change my belief because someone believes different than me.
If I've done on my end the research and the facts presented to me
that I've formulated my opinion. If new news comes out that changes that,
then great, I'll change my opinion. But I'm not just going to change
it because Alejandro, you tell me that you think I'm wrong, you better.
You talk about bridging other topics, and a lot of what Spacing Out
tries to do and we try to do on the website a bit is bridge
with space science. Why do you think that's important? Well, I mean,
on the first perspective is because if we're studying unidentified craft in the extraterrestrial
phenomena, and we believe that life out there in the universe, well then
it's important to study space. I mean, that's right, the basis the
groundwork for it. And you know, in a sort of selfish respect,
I'm so fascinated by space and the exploration of space that we think that maybe
possibly in our lifetime, we will be able to discover life on another planet,
scientific evidence of life on another planet. Yeah, And I mean,
I guess in this field, it seems like a lot of people feel that
science hate uphology and these other ideas bad extra trestrals and I and so they
feel they have this animosity, you know, it's just versus them type of
thing. However, You've been able to interview some people in the mainstream around
space science, and do you feel that that is the case. Yeah,
you know, and I think that one thing we see in the UFO field
is a lot of people will say, well, science, they're not looking
into it. What we already know life exists out there. We've already discovered
it is visiting us here, so why would we go looking for life out
there? They believe that, you know, the alien creatures that were or
exterrestrial beings that are present in so many cases, well they know where they
came from because they were told telepathically or whatever sorry I shouldn't say, or
whatever, that there's no point in going to look for life, even if
it's microbial. No point. So I think that they tend to shut down
a little bit some people when it comes to the idea of allowing you know,
and a lot of people believe NASA is part of a big government conspiracy,
and so they sort of got a sour taste in their mouths in the
regards to space research. Yeah, and I like working with these people like
Ben McGee who were friends with you know, and some of these others who
we've talked to, some of these other scientists, and even though they're skeptical
in some cases, they're not as skeptical as people would think. They're also
often very open to speaking to whoever about whatever ideas. And I find it
refreshing because they tell me they help me understand science better and where science is
going, and what cases are more interesting to them and why so we can
help to be more compelling when we're presenting our information, right, right,
I think that's extremely important. One thing I found was interesting is we had
doctor Michael Dennan who presented at our conference, and he's more skeptical and more
science minded, but he was mobbed after he talked with people wanting to discuss
ideas with him. And that was really refreshing and I hope that that sort
of trend continues in a sense. Right, He didn't shy away, he
came out, he stayed with the group wherever group activities were going on.
Was very open, really cool guy who just wanted to talk. Yeah,
And I think that we see that a lot that this field can get a
little bit not cultish, but cliquish, and where people will tend to attack
other people for their belief if they think, you know, that they are
on the other spectrum, if they're more skeptical. When half the time a
lot of these people, like again like doctor Dennin, are very open to
discussing this with people and there's no sense in attacking. It's like the idea
of why can't everyone just get along? Yeah? Those bastards. Oh,
I like just saying that word. It's fun, but of course I'm kidding.
But yeah, at least not about anybody who's anti us. Yeah,
but nobody is. People love us. We're great. So when it comes
to I guess the future of this field, and it seems like there's a
lot more media attention going on, do you think that's positive? Yeah,
in the long run, I think it is. I And I told you
this this morning, Alejandro, is that I had a friend this weekend say,
oh my goodness, did you hear the news about the Prime Minister of
Canada And they were referring to the honorable Paul Hellier, which we've reported on.
We've had a matter of conference, and they were really excited about it
and It's a trend I see all the time. It's working full time in
the field, is not a nine to five jobs. It follows you everywhere.
I have people constantly asking me questions about different cases and sightings, and
they're excited or coming up to tell me their sighting stories. And these are
you know, my friends that I you know, if I'm hanging out at
the bar or something that somebody I would never expect. That said. We
had a UFO siding over our neighborhood when we were young, a huge disc
like craft, and they're serious and you'd just be surprised how many people have
experiences. And it's a lot more acceptable and tangible than the media lets it
out to be. I think, mm hmm. Moving here to Phoenix,
did you find there were a lot more people that had seen the Phoenix lights
and you had expected. Did you even know what the Phoenix lights were when
you moved out here. I did know what the Phoenix lights were briefly,
you know, but I didn't know the extent. And now again it's the
same thing where, oh, I know this person or my barber saw the
Phoenix lights and it was a lot of people, and you know, of
course there's the two different siding sort of that happened that night with you know,
the flares and then the blooming craft. And this was seen not just
over Phoenix, it was seen all over Arizona from the east or excuse me,
the west, all the way down to Phoenix. And it's really intriguing
case that I think we'll never really get to the bottom of. Now.
When you what was it that inspired you to even get inspired your interest in
this field? Did you have a sighting? You know, I've seen strange
things that I can't explain, but like Antonio, yeah, like Antonio,
No, I think that when I was younger, I was really fascinated by
the unusual and the strange, and that has definitely continued into adulthood. And
I had no idea how interested I was in an extraterrestrial life until my mom
and when I got in the field. Finally my mom found a bunch of
drawings of UFOs and aliens that I had produced when I was about eight nine.
So it's been, I think, a lingering presence in my brain and
then I happened to fall into it. I was working for a multimedia company
and the woman I was working with owned at the time, NICKI Irvine the
International UFO Congress, and then one of our clients was UFO TV, and
so I started getting involved that way and then came to work for Open Minds.
Well. I helped start it at the beginning and happened to know people
in the fields already. It was kind of a stroke of strange luck.
I guess, Yeah, how weird, huh, because I had volunteered with
the Congress a couple of times, so that's where I met Niki. But
who knew that we would end up, you know, running this conference.
Yeah, it was interesting. Now it's I This February was my fifth UFO
Congress. Wow, that's a long time. I know. It's strange how
quickly time goes by. And I had no idea how deep and involved I
was going to get into this field. I would have never thought that,
you know, this would be my life, so to speak. But it's
an interesting adventure, that's for sure. It's funny you mentioned those pictures she
drove because you have one here at your desk, And you know I mentioned
Antonio because on the last facing out you guys interview him about these accusations that
he's an aliens due to something oh my goodness video at the hearing. But
because of your pictures when you were a kid, people have alleged that you
may have some alien background too. Yes, I have been told that some
people believe that I am an abductee, but I'm not admitting to it,
or that something happened in my childhood. And really, for me, I
can tell you I had night terrors all the time, and when something's so
prominent in your life again like now where this is my full time job,
I dream about work all the time. So yes, I have weird alien
dreams, but I don't feel personally that that that is the case. It
maybe because I have a really hard time with the abduction experience as an idea
of something that's going on. But no, I think that, you know,
I was influenced as a kid by you know, watching I had ET
on VHS time, and I was terrified of ET. But Antonio, yes,
I have been There's been comments that since I have big eyes or something,
that I'm actually an extraterrestrial alien myself. And I hate to break it
to you, but my parents would beg to differ well, and that reminds
me of the spacing out you kind of made some some interesting you know,
you sounded like you were a little skeptical of Antonio's rebuttal there to not being
an alien. Were you convinced by him? Oh? Well, you know,
I was trying to approach the cases and in a little bit of a
Stephen Colbert interview, which it didn't last that way long because I honestly think
that I did a little comedy in it, because the allegations are so ludicrous
in my opinion, that Antonio would be a reptilian alien. It's sadly a
lot of people believe that, and you know, I really think that we
cannot prove that until he'd get a DNA test done. Yeah, we're trying
to get him to do one. And you know, I'm I don't like
to discriminate. I like everybody. So even if he was a reptilian,
he would I would not treat him any different and I would still respect him
and as a colleague. Yeah, And that's what I tried to tell everyone,
at least at the end of the interview, is is that Antonio has
put a lot of work and research. He's been in this field for longer
than you know, he's older than dirt, so that he's done a lot
to push credibility in this factor, and you know people are ignoring that and
thinking that he's mind controlling Stephen Greer during the system hearing. I don't know,
right, So I guess finally, your overall feelings about the future of
the field overall, I mean, not just media, but if you see
hope or where do you think there should be movement where perhaps you feel there
isn't. I think that there is movement in the field in the world.
You know, we have a lot more countries coming forward and taking the subjects
seriously and organizing official UPHO investigation outposts like in South America. But it's going
to take a lot, I think for it to become more of a credible
subject. I think it's starting to, and you're getting more people who are
willing to come out and speak about the subject or their experiences. But you
know, mainstream media is going to be mainstream media, and I think that
getting over the ridicule factor is going to be quite a leap, you know,
So hopefully that'll happen eventually. But I see more interest from the general
public in the field, and people are starting to take it a little more
seriously, and this trend hopefully will continue. And again it's with space exploration
and we're finding so many more habitable planets that people are much more accepting the
idea of life other life in the universe. And do you see any sort
of disclosure officially from the military or the government anytime soon. That's a tough
one because you can argue that maybe there has been a bit of disclosure.
I think that we're going to see more files released eventually, and we'll see
more information. But no, I don't think disclosures, official disclosure is going
to happen in our lifetime. I don't think that someone is going to come
out and say, yep, UFOs landed on the White House lawn. We've
been working with aliens for one hundred years and it's happening. No, I
don't think that'll happen. If it did, do I think the public would
be shocked? No, not really. I think that people would be accepting
of it. Yeah. I think the public is moving a lot towards kind
of feeling that these realities are something that are possibly happening, and comfortable with
that pretty quickly. Right. Same with religion. I think religion will be
accepting of that. After the Vatican came out and said, you know,
we also believe life's out there, and I think a lot of religion have
ideas that tie into the idea of extrastrial life. And then I guess,
actually, I will ask one more question in that this space science and the
astrobiology we talked about some of the people in this field and you spoke to
this feel like, oh what a wasted time and all of that. But
do you feel then if science NASA were to find finally evident of life off
off planet, do you think that would be significant? Oh? Most definitely.
I think that I think it will happen and I will see it.
And there's a lot of missions going around that are are making that idea of
possibility that we could discover this, and I think that that's extremely important.
Why would it not be? Hey, I'm with you, and I think
it will open up people's acceptance to the possibility. Hey, weol if there's
life, then most likely there's intelligent life, right, And I think that
the next hurdle is is physics and people accepting that, you know, how
could we travel from another planet? Well, I mean we're getting really close
to star Trek warp drive being a reality. I believe his name is Al
Kubiere was coming out with information about that recently, and it's physics as we
know it right now, that who knows what could happen sort of bending the
space and time continuum up there. It's hard to wrap your mind around it,
but you got to be open to the idea that we don't know everything,
right, we don't know nada. All right, Well, thank you
so much, Maureen, very insightful, interesting information. Well, thank you
for having me on my pleasure, and we will talk to you soon.
In fact, yeah, we'll talk to you probably in a minute here.
Oh right, thank you very very much for listening, and thank you to
Maureen for joining us today. And as usual, you know our YouTube,
we are keeping really busy. So you've got this spacing out with Jason and
Maureen in their interview with Antonio about being an extraterrestrial. We have a Hime
Moussan video up there, like Maureen mentioned, we have the Paul Hellier video
actually is up there. We also have some really cool UFO F photographs that
we've highlighted in some videos to give you some history over a couple of famous
sightings, one of them from Salem in nineteen fifty two and one of them
near Edwards Air Force Base in nineteen fifty four. So some really interesting pictures,
so check that out. So check it out YouTube. It's always got
something going on. And of course check out the magazine. The Aligash story
that Marine's talking about, you'll be able to find in the magazine. And
if you go to our website Open Mindset TV, you can click the magazine
button and buy some back issues or subscribe going forward because it's only like thirty
bucks and the magazine is awesome, and then it'll be sent to your house
and you'll always have it. You're probably going to want to get three or
four subscriptions so you can give them out to family and friends, very important
people. I also, before I'm done, one to think, as usual
the gentlemen who have provided our music. So thank you to Caleb Hanks with
the opening music and two Earth minutes for the clothes, and thank you all
for listening, and we will talk to you next week. People. Adios.
Chuck us Sais stands School