Welcome to Open Minds Radio with Alejandro Rojat. Open Minds Radio is a UFO
news authority presenting evidence and the latest news regarding the UFO phenomenon. Here's your
host, Alejandro Rohat your house Alhondroja, and that is our good buddy Robertine.
And I got to see him. I've seen him like I saw him
last weekend at Phoenix Move On. Luckily he lives in the Phoenix area and
he is so loved. You know, he walks in the room, everybody
wants to say hi and give him hugs, and you know, I talked
to him, hey, and he's like, oh, I'm looking forward to
the conference and you know, have somebody call me and help me register and
everything. And I'm like, yeah, it'll be great, Like but if
I'm alive to be there, And I'm like, oh, I don't think
you have to worry about that, and he said, I don't know,
but he likes. He's been saying that he's not going to be around for
very long for a long time, and I think he's going to be around
a long time because he looks very vibrant and and he gets a lot of
love. That's for sure, which I'm sure helps him out. But it
was great to see him again, was my whole point. And it is
great to be talking to you all again as well. Today we have a
remarkable show. It's going to be great. We have Leslie Kane on the
show. And of course she did the book UFOs. Oh man, it's
such a long title. It's like generals, Astronauts, pirates, he said,
pilots and a whole bunch of very credible, very cool people on the
record about UFOs. General's pilots and government officials go on the record. Nice
you remembers the whole list. I always forget the whole list. It's such
a long list. I try to tell people what the list is and I
can never get it. All right, she should have had pirates, so
that would have been kind of fun. Going back in history. Some pirates
had to see some UFOs, but that would have been channeled information, and
this was straight from the horse's mouth. So this is people writing. We
know John Greenwold might have some other information. Yeah. Also, she recently
had a television show on the History Channel that was focused around her book called
Secret Access UFOs on the Record, and it didn't list out general, some
pilots and all of that stuff, but they were on the show. In
fact, there was the Belgian General, Wilfred de Brower was on the show,
who she has been in contact with, and that's very helpful because really
she is our best connection here in the Western world about the Belgium photos.
So we've talked about that recently, what's been going on with the Belgium photo.
And you know, this guy claimed he had made it, so Leslie
and I talked about that, and you'll get more information on that photo,
as well as talking about of course Governor fIF Simington who was out here in
Phoenix and the governor when the Phoenix flights happened, So we talk about that.
We talked about the TV show why the History Channel treats UFOs so well
because they do, which is great, and also talking about one of some
of the most important aspects of what's been going on lately. Her book has
been getting so much attention. It's been backed by John Podesta, who was
Clinton's chief of staff and was part of the transition team for Obama into the
White House, and he has been outspoken about UFO secrecy and ending the secrecy.
She has also had Michriocaku talk a lot about her book and really champion
her book and the whole UFO thing in the media. And then more recently
another scientist well known as Scientists, this time on Astronomer, Derek Pitts,
has also came out to talk about how great her book is. So this
is good. This is really great because now we have these mainstream, well
known people coming out and talking about UFOs because she really just I think tackled
this whole issue in the right way to get the mainstream to take attention.
So we are gonna be talking all about that. It's gonna be a lot
of fun. A couple other notes. I'm gonna be on the Travel Channel
tomorrow. Yay, so tomorrow at six pm and nine pm Pacific. I
don't know what the east slash P means if that means eastern end Pacific because
they say that, does that mean that they run it at different times in
different time zones. I don't know what the heck's going on with those people,
but I did check that Arizona out. Right now, we're in the
Pacific time zone and it is going to be sick two pm and nine pm
reshown and then it's going to be showing on Saturday, like at four pm.
But it's Ultimate Travel Legends of the Parks, talking about paranormal stuff going
in and on around the country, especially in national parks. So I talked
about more than just UFOs, but I do talk about qfos at the National
Sand Dunes, and we talk about cattle mutilations and the Jersey Devil and the
Brown Mountain lights and Yellowstone and scary stuff going on there, and you're gonna
get freaked out. Well hopefully not. Hopefully he'll just have a good time
and be informed and it'll be a lot of fun. So check it out
on a travel channel. Also check out my Huffington post on dan Ackroyd.
We already told you about how we interview. I was able to get an
interview with dan Aykroyd thanks for the help of our video television director what I
always mess up his title, but he changes his too. But producer producer
Tom Ruffin, who helped us get that done and he filmed it and edited
that which is doing really well. But I wrote about it on the Huffington
Post, but I did more of a paranormal angle, so I wrote more
about the background of the Crystal Skulls and a little bit about ghost busting in
there too, so it's not all UFOs. So you get a little flavor
of all these little things before you watch the video. So if you want
to know more about Crystal skulls, ghost busting, and the UFOs, you
can check that out. Have you explained to our listeners who may not know
what the Huffington Post is? Who doesn't know what the Huffington Post is?
I know we have a very hip listening group here, but just for those
who might not know what is the Huffington Post. To the huffingtonPost dot com,
it's a news outlet, one of the Vegas and best on the internet.
Everybody knows a Huffington Post. Come on, they might not know that
Adrianna Huffington started it, who is pretty cool. You may have seen her.
Most people might know her from the Jim Mayor Show. Is that what
it's called the guy on HBO talks politics? She used to be on that
a lot, Bill Moore, Bill Maher, Okay, I'd answer it that
that answers leave anything out. Just I just wanted to make sure people know
how to get there to find your blog because you hadn't mentioned before. Okay,
yeah, okay, Well just in case you didn't know, now you
know, the huffingtonPost dot com or you can also follow open Minds TV on
Twitter, Paranormal rptr answer a Paranormal reporter on Twitter, any of our facebooks.
We've got open Minds facebooks up, the Yahoo well, the UFO Congress
and everything. So we're all were social networking and the Internet. We are
a very powerful force on the Internet, and so is the Huffington Post.
Our good buddy Lee Spiegel was on the show not long ago, and he
writes for the Huffington Post and he has some new UFO articles up there too,
so check those out. Lee Spiegel's the coolest, very cool guy.
Also, I guess an open Minds News registration for the Congress is up.
We've got a list of a lot of the speakers at the new and improved
website Ufocongress dot com. And we talked about the Billy Mario article you wrote
in that magazine that is out now and people should be getting that, and
we're already working on the next magazine and we're all actually starting to get closer
to wrapping that up, and that's going to be about etis and religion as
a cover story. I just finished that story, which I think you'll find
very interesting. I find it interesting. Yeah, I'm supposed to talk until
I say the news because now they don't know who you are. If this
is the first time they've listened to the show, it's okay. If there's
this ghost voice creeping in, no, I like it better. You can
help me out because I forget things like about the pirates and the pilot the
pirates, and you're able to help me out with that. I think we
need to send that suggestion to Leslie. Yeah, where are the pirates?
What the pirates? A UFOs? All right? Well, without further ado,
We've got this guy named Jason McClellan that works around here and he covers
the news on the radio show because on the website we follow daily headlines UFOs
and the headlines all over the world, and Jason always comes into show to
share the headlines for the last week. Well he does show with pictures too
if you watch online, so there's some showing going on of those headlines.
And so we are very happy to welcome Jason McClellan, our news correspondent,
to share some news with us Hi. Hello Alejandro, and thank you for
introducing me. Hello everyone, this is your Open minds UFO news Brief for
Monday, September nineteenth, twenty eleven. Astronomers announced the discovery of more than
fifty planets last week, including one super earth that may contain water in the
habitable zone, and we talked about that last week. The plant wonderfully named
planet HD eight five five one two B horrible name. But while scientists typically
focus the search for extraterrestrial life on areas that may contain water, that's something
the Kepler Space Telescope does. A new study by a team of researchers led
by a scientist at the University of Tokyo suggests that desert worlds could be a
good place to look as well. According to Discovery News, the researchers feel
that desert worlds could be remarkably resilient for the survival of life. A key
point to the researcher's findings is that desert planets are more resilient to issues that
can result in mass extinction on water planets, like global ice age. The
computer models produced by the team of researchers indicate the habitable zone on desert planets
is three times wider than it is for water planets. Discovering News explains this
means the Kepler metric for habitable zones maybe misleading if applied only to water worlds,
because the wider range of habitability life bearing desert worlds may be more common
in our galaxy than earth like worlds. Look at Arizona, I mean,
coming from Colorado and Colorado, you know, during the summer you've got moderate
temperatures, rain, and so the plants grow, and then in the winter
they freeze. Here. You know, it's like, especially now that I
have a house, it it flores me that when it's one hundred and ten
degrees, I've got to go outside and pick weeds because weeds are going crazy.
And the summer stuff is growing and blooming, and it's amazing with very
little water, you know, the desert out here, although you know there's
not a lot of vegetiation, there's still vegetation and lots of life, that's
for sure. Out there. It's incredible. Life is so resilient. And
you and I talk talk about this a lot that you know, the scope
of NASA and most scientists we're looking for extraterrestrial life is so narrow because we're
looking for, you know, what makes sense to us, what life is
here on Earth in our conditions. But there are so many other conditions out
there that we're not looking at that could yield huge mother load of life that
we had no idea because we're not looking there. Yeah, we're going to
be so forwarded when we find all these creatures all over the place. I
already found them, did you. No, I didn't, but I'd liked
you me too well. More NASA News NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world
with two sons, just like Luke Skywalker's home of Tatooine and Star Wars.
This is the first time an alien planet with two sons has been confirmed,
and according to researchers, there are most likely many more just like it.
The finding was announced at a NATHA News briefing on September fifteenth, and on
the panel of researchers was Lawrence Doyle of the SETI Institute, who was the
lead author of the paper announcing the find and John Nole, visual effects supervisor
at Industrial Light and Magic, that's Lucas's company that did the special effects for
the Star Wars movies, and the name given to this newly discovered planet is
and this is slightly better than the super Earth planet we just discussed this one.
Its formal name is Kepler sixteen B, so at least it's a little
more friendly to say. Yeah. But during the panel when they were making
the announcement, somebody posts the question what is the planet going to be called?
And who's responsible for naming it? And the panel didn't really seem to
have the answer for that. They kind of said, well, I don't
know. I guess it's going to be up to the media and the public
to give it. I guess a nickname, And they're like, what's wrong
with Kepler sixteen B. Well, of course, then people ran with Tattooin
for Star Wars, so that's really what everybody's calling it right now, is
Tattooin. Cool. But this planet has two suns You have two sunrises and
two sunsets. Pretty cool. And they doubt that it has life on it
because the variations are so great with these different different sons and vectures. We'll
just have to build a base there, so at least, you know,
Bigelow can build a hotel there, so you can enjoy this double star.
That would be a huge attraction there. I'd go absolutely, that would be
great, awesome, But yeah, big discovery there, and it was interesting.
I mean NASA, of course, in what's becoming their typical fashion,
keysed it when they sent out the press release announcing this media conference by saying
that, well, they didn't release any details. Yeah, what it was
about. They said it was something to announce a Kepler discovery. But then
they had somebody from SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence on the panel,
as well as somebody from Lucas's Industrial Like and Magic alluding to something of course
much more exciting at least for especially people from our point of you, right,
And you know, it was to create the hype, and they did
a good job with that. You know. Obviously the guy from Industrialite Magic
didn't really have anything important to add other than oh, yeah, we didn't
ever dream that this would be a reality, but it is. So it's
cool. But it got you to watch. Absolutely, I had to watch.
Well, you know, I'm a big fan of the Kepler mission.
That makes it wasn't as boring as the last NASA hyped up response, which
was we discovered something that we already told you about a few years ago.
This was something that had to do with Star Wars, and that's always cool.
You mentioned Star Wars, I'm going to watch. Yeah, suck me
right in yep. The same applies with Fireball, as a Lejandro, twentieth
consecutive week of talking about Fireball UFOs something like that, maybe off to count
because I'm curious, but we have another fire UFO. A fire by UFO
was seen streaking across the night sky over the southwestern United States on the night
of Wednesday, September fourteenth. Thousands of witnesses from Arizona, Nevada, and
California witnessed the incident. The descriptions given by witnesses vary, but many who
saw the mysterious object reported a burning object that was blue, green, yellow,
and orange. New stations and police stations across the Southwest were flooded with
calls and emails about the UFO. Lieutenant Justin Griffin from the Maricopa County Sheriff's
Office and Phoenix witnessed the object and explained to Reuters it took an unusually long
time to get across the sky, but he continued, it's like a meteor.
It's not like we had any flying objects with little green men or anything
like that. The FAA also received several calls about the light in the sky.
According to MSNBC. Spokesman Ian Gregor confirmed that there were no aircraft incidents
reported in the Western Region Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Don Yeomans, who manages NASA's
Near Earth Object program, told the Los Angeles Times the object was primary was
probably a near Earth asteroid and not a cause for alarm, and he went
on to explain, we are fairly confident that it was not a spacecraft or
space junk. Yalmen offered the explanation for the color of the light from the
object, saying the bluish green color suggested the object had some magnesium or nickel
in it. Orange is usually an indication it's entering Earth's atmosphere at several miles
per second, a moderate rate of speed. Similar to Yalaman's explanation, Ed
Crope, director of Griffin Park Observatory in Los Angeles, said the UFO was
most likely a piece of interplanetary debris burning up in Earth's atmosphere. According to
MSNBC, but some witnesses, including journalists Brian maclahattan of ABC fifteen in Phoenix
saw more than just one light in the sky, and they are multiple time
sighted by media sources for the sightings. For example, CBS Los Angeles reported
the first reports came in from Riverside County around seven pm, but according to
MSNBC, witnesses saw the light move quickly from west to east at around seven
forty five pm. So you have a couple interesting things with this sighting.
You have different times reported, and you know, who knows how accurate they
were trying to be with saying around seven at seven forty five, that's pretty
close. But then you have this this journalist who saw two separate objects in
the sky. But you actually were fortunate enough to see this as it was
going through the sky too, Yeah, what did you see? And it
was it was definitely out I've seen especially out here because probably because I spend
so much time, you know, driving across the desert to go home,
across the Indurian Reservation and this is like fifteen twenty miles of nothing that I
drive through, so I get to see a lot and I have seen in
the last year, you know, some of the biggest fireballs or meteorites in
the sky that I've ever seen, but this was a gajillion times bigger than
any of those. This was so incredible. It was something breaking up in
the atmosphere because it was like ten of the Even though it was like ten
individual things, as it was breaking up, it was still each of these
individual things, for the most part, was bigger than anything I had ever
seen. Maybe a couple that were the same. But it was something breaking
up, and as it broke up, it lit up, and then one
of the things kind of sparked and let extremely bright where it even lit the
ground and everything super bright, just like that. Because we had full moon
that night, didn't we well, I think we might have, but the
sky was pretty earlier. Yeah, it was. I don't think this moon
was even up now that you mentioned it, because I don't remember the moon
being up or much moon shine at all. I certainly didn't have any moonshine.
But this thing was really bright and which broke up, So I can
see how everybody in town would have been able to see what I saw.
It didn't take long, that's the thing. What I I saw. It
was around seven thirty seven forty I remember it was I was on the road
during that time, so it was about that time, and it seemed like
it just lit up. I think I noticed it right when it lit up
when whatever this is hit the atmosphere. So that would lead to possibly it
was maybe pieces from an asteroid that multiple pieces though, which would account for
the different times as you're talking about breaking up. Also, Jim Mann from
Phoenix mof On we were talking about it because he was talking about the reports
that he got this weekend and he was saying that, you know, he
thinks that some of these people who thought the object was still, the object
was probably coming straight towards them, so it looked like it was still when
it wasn't, because then it just faded out. So that would make sense
too. So the thing is is because of these multiple sightings, it probably
was then junk from an asteroid or something, all coming in at different times,
although if it was a satellite or space junk. Just this week there
was a story about the different space or satellite secret satellites that are up there
and some of them are being displayed at the Smithsonian and they're really big and
crazy looking, and if one of those broke up and fell into the atmosphere.
They wouldn't admit it, so we wouldn't know. Well, there's one
that's going to be coming in on Friday, but that's one we know of.
That's one we know of. If that was more top secret, they
wouldn't tell us. Well, and the one that's supposed to come in Friday,
it's kind of frightening. Yeah, it's a huge thing. They say,
it's the size of a bus and it's something like six tons or something.
It's huge, and it's going to be coming in and they really don't
know where it's going. Yeah, the trajectory they've given, they've cited anywhere
between Alaska and southern South America. That's like half the world. Yeah,
and this thing could come down, And they said there's like a one in
I don't know, a thirty thousand chance that it's gonna hit somebody that's not
the big yeh, the lottery bigger than that. Everybody thinks they're gonna win
the lot thing. And and they're saying it's gonna break up obviously, but
still they're expecting quite a few large pieces to still be intact when it hits
the ground. Yeah, it is scary, and you know, and especially
with the secret satellite. If they didn't want to admit it, they wouldn't
admit it until it hits the ground, right, because they haven't one in
thirty thousand chances it'll drop in the ocean or somewhere where anybody won't find it,
and then they don't have to worry about it. But then once it
lands in someone's house, oh you know what, it was a top secret.
We couldn't tell anybody, And isn't that horrible? They think it's okay
if it just lands and we litter the ocean, that's fine. Oh well,
at least no one got hurt. But also to make it come down
here, they sent the the instructions to the satellite to spend all of its
fuel. So they just dumped all this fuel into space, and they're gonna
dump the garbage into the ocean. That's just a perfect example of humanity,
isn't it. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's so incredibly How intuitively obvious is
it not to trash you know, our environment down here? Just willing nelly,
let's just drop stuff all over the place. Well, let's move on,
Alejandro. There it seems to be a lot of lights popping up in
our own Arizona skies. It's kind of interesting. I think we have more
people actually looking up at the skies and koat Channel seven, the ABC affiliate
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so the calls poured into their newsroom on Saturday
evening from witnesses reporting a strange lightning sky and a similar light was spotted in
the Phoenix, Arizona sky early Sunday morning. A routine weather balloon was initially
offered by meteorologists as an explanation for the lightning sky, but the National Weather
Service in Phoenix issued a statement Sunday morning to offer another explanation. The statement
announced, after further research, we received confirmation from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility
a launch did occur from Fort Sumner in New Mexico last night and was brought
down over Arizona this morning. The National Weather Service statement offered the research balloon
theory, but concluded this may explain to sighting, not offering a one hundred
percent conclusive identification for the strange light that appeared over both New Mexico and Arizona.
But after seeing the photos, it looks pretty clearly to be a research
balloon, one of the huge kind that NASA uses. Yeah. Well,
and I think you know to your point. And we've seen this on the
news here in Arizona because of that fireball that everybody saw the other day.
People are watching the sky's a lot and they're showing the news is showing people
out with their telescopes and stuff looking so they can hopefully see something like this.
And definitely watch the skies people, because you know, I'm for better
or worse. Try to keep my eyes in the sky a lot and I
get I see it. I remember a friend of mine. I told him,
you know, you can see a shooting star every night. He's like,
no, sir, he just never looks right. And if you look,
you'll see stuff. And there was recently an article on MSNBC or it
was CBS News. It was written by life science dot com Benjamin Radford talking
about how there's been a spike in UFO sightings reports. Yeah, and he
mentioned Clifford Cliff from MOUF on the Mutual UFO Network, who explained that or
tried to explain it, and said that you know, it's likely that because
there have been so many movies related to UFOs lately things like that caused people
to look up at the sky more when they don't normally look at the guy
and see the lights that are there all the time. And you know,
so it doesn't necessarily mean that UFO sidings are they're more in number. It's
just that people are actually looking to see what's there, so more people are
seeing the same objects. But yeah, I need to update my database so
we can get a better idea of where those sightings are and when, and
that's something I want to do hopefully this week, so we can get a
story out and talk about that. Yeah, but definitely look at the sky
people, There's so much up there. If you do take some time and
look up at the sky, you'll see something. There's lots of interesting things
in the sky. But Lehondro. That is it for the news for today.
Remember to check out these stories and many many more at openminds dot tv,
your source for UFO related news. I'm Jason McLellan, your Open Minds
News correspondent, and you've been briefed back to you Alandro. All right,
thank you, Jason. A couple of stories that we want to cover real
quick that we've gotten on the news. Charlie Hickson, of course passed away.
I think we talked about that last week. But this is a guy
who was involved with the Pascagoula UFO abduction to very credible case, and of
course everybody's got a story on this, including you know, major media outlets
are writing about him passing away. But we through Antonio Juneias, he had
an old transcript from one of his speaking engagements, so we posted that transcript
on there with some rare pictures of Hickson talking, so you can get some
more information about that case. A very very interesting case, so you'll have
to check that out. So that's one of the cool things that we've written
about lately that you'll need to take a look at. But we need to
get to our interview, so let's go ahead and without further ADO talk with
Leslie Kane. I am super happy to have Leslie Kane on the line.
Leslie, are you there, I'm here. Great to be with you.
Alejandro, it is good to talk to you. Are twenty eleven Eupologists of
the Year. You got the award at the UFO Congress, and I greatly
appreciated that. It was really fun and really what you've done this year.
I think you weren't getting it at I don't think we're gonna do, you
know, give it to two people or the same person twice in a row.
But I think you deserve it. I don't know about that, but
thank you for saying that. No, I think you've been up to and
you know, with a History Channel covering the book and all the parts of
it, this is all so important and I think it's moving the field in
the right direction. Well great, yeah, thanks, And I do think
the History Channel, I mean, and I you know, production was really
good and I take my hats off to the filmmakers who were really the ones
responsible for creating it. And I'm just happy it was so well received by
people in the UFO field who know the subject. Yeah. Yeah, I
think I won't get into the cases a little later, but let's talk about
some of the attention that it's gotten lately, and especially the History Channel.
How did that happen? Did they approach you with the idem? Well,
this film company called Breakthrough Films are actually composed of people that I've known for
years because they've been sort of following my work and Bud Hopkins's work for i'd
say the last five years. And they've done a lot of filming of both
of us, but never really put anything together. So I knew them very
well. When my book became a best seller last August, they decided they
wanted to make a pitch to the History Channel actually to do something based on
the book. So they pitched, you know, a TV special based on
this best selling book and got the job very quickly. And so they were
basically commissioned by the History Channel to do this, and they had quite a
lot of freedom to do it, you know, with creative license that they
are used to, although of course the difference is they're making this thing for
television and every other piece they've done has been a feature length theatrical release,
documentary. I mean, they're really accomplished filmmakers. So this, yeah,
they've they're award winning. They did a film about Joan Rivers the Summer a
couple of years ago. It was called Joan Rivers, a piece of work
that some people may have seen or heard of. That was a national theatrical
release and it got rave reviews all over the country. You know, they're
really filmmakers, and this is the first time they'd actually done made for TV
piece and there are certain requirements that you have to fill, of course,
when you're working for a TV channel that you know, you wouldn't have to
fulfill if you were working on your own, and so there were certain compromises
that had to be made just just for the you know, to satisfy the
requirements that the History Channel had for a television show. And there might have
been certain things we might have done slightly differently if we had the option,
but basically within the confines of having to do a commercial television piece. I
think they did a really good job, and you know, I think everything
came out very well by and large. Yeah. Well, and luckily they
got, which is not really typical, a two hour show, so they
got a lot of time, absolutely two hours with a lot of commercials.
But so yeah, I agree, and I was, you know, I
was intimately involved with the production from the beginning, so I was really one
of the producers on it and worked closely with them and was really responsible for
lining up the interviews. You know, a lot of these more sensitive witnesses
wouldn't necessarily agree to be part of a piece unless they trusted the people involved
that were making it. So because of my relationships with these witnesses. You
know, they were willing to participate, and you know, I did a
lot of make sure things were accurate, helped the filmmakers design the interviews,
talk to them about what points were important to bring out with each case,
and all that kind of stuff. So I was sort of their resource for
information and for connections to the people that we needed to film. And it
was a really fun adventure and I you know, got to travel to Europe
and go to a lot of different places with the crew, and it was
learned a lot about documentary filmmaking. It was really interesting. But I think
they did a very good rendition of the cases that they covered. Yeah,
they did great renditions. And for people who aren't aware, it's called secret
access UFOs on the record. If they want to find that or go look
it up on the History Channel to see when it'll be on next you can
probably start on them. Eventually they're making a DVD. I don't know how
long it will take. I know that it was on YouTube for people who
don't have a History Channel. I you know, I hate to think of
people watching it on YouTube because the quality is so inferior. But I know
a lot of people that that's been their only option. Yeah, I don't
know if you think there if on YouTube like like full HD, it looks
great. Actually, I don't think are good. Well, there's an option
for people. I think probably the History Channel wouldn't be happy with me for
making that announcement. Yeah, I didn't want to suggest it, but so
I'm glad you did. But it's there, So what can you do?
You know? Yeah, it is Yep, that's what happens. So it's
great. Yeah, people will be able to watch it there and we'll get
into some of the details there. But that's definitely a good score. And
I mean these people who they took it very seriously. Which History Channel really,
I think it's been a pioneer when it's come to covering UFOs because they've
taken it serious longer than probably any other channel. I think that's interesting.
Didn't I didn't actually know that, but I know you monitor these things very
carefully, so I'm happy to know that. And they did not require that
we have any debunkers in this show, right, so I mean, thank
god we didn't have to waste footage, you know, filming these debunkers,
you know, and we didn't have any anybody in that anyway close to that
role in this program, which was I think kind of unusual because usually they
do manage to pop into these shows right, and the networks often require it,
but they didn't all right on this one. So we were very happy
about that. Yeah, I'm sure if you were on another channel, especially
National Geographic, they seem to be the worst, like History Channel was,
I think some one of the first I remember the first time I saw a
show that didn't have any debunkers, Well, maybe the second. I remember
an old one with NBC, but this one, and there were no debunkers,
and I was shocked, because you know, you get you brace yourself
for the debunkers at the end and some of the silly things they're going to
say at but there weren't any. And this was a Foo Fighter's UFO show
on History Channel. And ever since then, History Channel has excluded the debunkers
but stuck with very credible people that they include. And it was a breath
afsh Yeah, that's for sure. Absolutely, that's good and good policy on
their part. How about the filmmakers, were they skeptical or were they really
enthusiastic about the subject They're enthusiastic. I mean, they may, you know,
be slightly reserved about it, but as I said, since I've known
them for so long, you know, they've been exposed to this stuff over
the years, so it wasn't like it was brand new to them. And
one of the directors, Ricky Stearn's parents, actually had least one sighting,
you know, maybe two, And you know, they all get it that
something's up. They aren't necessarily convinced that they're et and you know, we
don't sit around actually and discuss it that much. Quite honestly, they just
want to make a good movie. But they certainly take the subject seriously absolutely
and certainly don't feel that anything anybody should be ridiculed. And you know,
as you can tell from the film that they made, and they're very interested
in it, very curious about it, and have wanted for years to do
something like this. So the book was sort of a catalyst for them to
actually have a way of sort of honing in on the subject and you know,
putting something together. So it was great, and I really respect all
of them. They're a very very talented group of people. Well, that's
one of the great things about the book is that it's kind of like the
new you know, you had Rockefeller put together his briefing, which was great
because you had a listing of great cases and information, which of course Antonio
Huns, my colleague, was involved with. And then you had like even
well kind of on the tail of that, and they even kind of started
in the same place you had career. I thought his executive briefing was real
good. It had a lot of witness testimony. But it's been a while
and now with your book, we really have kind of something. That's why
I usually have several copies. It's the perfect thing to give a skeptic or
someone who's just wondering about the subject and kind of curious, wanting to know
if there's some serious stuff going on here. And that's what's great about your
book. It really serves an important purpose I think right now. Well,
thanks and Alejandro, and that's you know, that's really why I wrote it,
was to serve that purpose, to be the sort of definitive book for
the person who either knows very little about this or has always held the belief
that, you know, it's it's just bunk, and I don't think you
can possibly read the book and come away feeling that it's bunk unless you're really,
you know, blind or something. It's just impossible because of the solidity
of the and the validity of the evidence it's presented. So I was hoping
for to serve that purpose, and I think gets you know, that's really
why I wrote it. It really wasn't a book necessarily for the UFO community,
but it was the book for the mainstream and for the people who really
don't know anything about the subject. And yes, a great book to give
to skeptics, absolutely if they're just willing to read it. I think the
trick is getting rid right, because I don't think most of them would will.
But you know, I was very happy about Derek Pitts. I don't
know if you know that story. Well, that's what I was going to
say next, because this is one of the most important stories. I think.
This is the kind of thing, this Derek Pitts news that gets me
extremely excited. But yeah, why don't you explain that? Yeah, I
mean, Derek Pitts is a kind of a public figure astronomer who's the head
astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which is a very well established Museum,
and it's sort of the Natural History Museum of New York's version, the
Philadelphia version of the Natural History Museum. And he used to go on television
a lot and debunk UFO cases. And the last time I saw him do
that was when Keith Oberman had him on at the O'Hare at the time of
the O'Hare incident, which really wasn't that long ago. It was January of
two thousand and seven. You remember when the Chicago Tribune story came out and
I was monitoring all the media event, and I was so appolled, I
have to say, by Derek the way Derek Pitts handled it when Keith brought
him on, because Keith was very sort of taking it seriously, and Derek
Pitts was laughing and saying, oh, they must have been out drinking,
and you know, it was kind of insulting to the witnesses. And I
think he thought that the event had happened on New Year's Eve because it was
January tewod when they covered it. But anyway, you know, so he
never took the subject seriously. And so what happened was last spring they were
having National Astronomy Day in at least he didn't take it seriously when he was
on television. Let's put it that way. They had National Astronomy Day at
the Philadelphia Institute, the Franklin Institute there, and he invited me to come
speak there about the subject. He thought it would draw people to the museum.
And he said, I'd like to have a public dialogue with you back
and forth about it. And I immediately thought, Okay, he wants to
get me up and debunk me, you know, in public. And so
I said to him, I'm willing to do it under one condition. And
that condition is that you read the whole book, every chapter from Frosty back,
and you promise me that you will actually read the book. If you
promised me that, I'd be delighted to come, and I'd be willing to
discuss anything you want to discuss. But I just need to know that you're
going to read the book. And he promised to read it, and I
trusted him, and I went there, you know, and we our we
greeted each other and everything, and we went right into this public room and
there was a little bit of a small audience there, and he was He
let me talk for a while first about the book in the background of it
and so on, just sort of do my thing for maybe twenty minutes,
and then he came up on the stage and a le hundre. He was
so incredibly supportive. He said he had been completely transformed by this book.
He was asking me all these really smart questions and saying, like, gosh,
I don't understand why the scientific community isn't more involved? Is how could
they not want to look into this? And he was just blown away by
the subject and blown away by the cases in the book. And it was
a completely transformed I mean, you know, a full full transformation there.
And we you know, we're good friends, I mean he was. He
was warm and friendly and supportive and respectful and really honored the issue in a
big way in the UFO issue is being valid. And then he wrote and
so then I approached him a couple of months later and asked him to write
a blurb endorsing my book, which he did for the paperback release which came
out in August. So to me, it's sort of an example of what
can happen when a skeptic actually reads the damn book. You know exactly,
it's so good, You asked him to read the book, and he did
it, because that's the big problem I'm and I even read, well,
yeah, fairly recently, about a year ago, I talked with says Shostack
because he was in town, and you know, he made one of the
typical arguments, there are no astronomers, and I said, well, sure,
you know, there's Peter Sturick's book, which talks about a lot of
US astronomers. He didn't know who that was, he I mean, and
I asked, you have you read any UFO books and he said, well,
and just like Stanton Friedman likes Tobos because he did read one of Stanton's
books. But that's about all the which one, because you know they're they
don't always all cover the whole issue, right, So he he speaks so
much about this subject out in the public without having done any research. He
can't do that in astronomy. He can't go talk about black holes without researching
black holes. It's surprising that they do this. So it's and it's wonderful
that you've got him to read the book. And he obviously was taken aback.
He was really impacted by it and completely gets it. He just got
it. He got the fact that there's something real going on here and it
should be investigated by scientists. And he was saying, to me, let
me think what I can do to you know, we got to mobilize the
scientific community here. He's saying these kinds of things. You know, he
really got the point and it was just very, very satisfying. Yeah.
I don't understand about Seth Shostak either, how he could feel comfortable. And
I'm surprised, you know, saying all that he does without looking into anything.
I mean, it's good to know that he hasn't read anything, because
that's the point that people can make in debates with him. And he was
actually willing to admit that to you. Yeah, he's pretty willing. I
even asked him, you know, you know, would you be willing to
help out in this field, like if someone sent you, you know,
UFO sidings or what you thought about this or that? And he said,
oh, yeah, I'm very open to that. It's just nobody has asked
me. Usually they're they're just angry at me, and I just usually converse
with, you know, the skeptics. So he seemed open. He always
seems like a nice guy. He's a very bright witted guy, very personable.
So maybe if he was pressed to read more he would, but and
he's open. Yeah, he's ready to admit that I just haven't read much.
Well, he did interview me on his radio show. You know,
they said he has a radio program, and I know he had there,
and it was all about the book, so he must have. I think
he read the chapter on O'Hare. He might have been the only chapter he
read, but he was. You know, he must have read, because
he focused a lot on that particular case during my interviews, so that he
had my book and he claims. In fact, I think some people emailed
him and asked him, have you read Leslie Kane's book, and he said
yes. Whether he did or not, I don't know, but probably not
all of it. But at least I know that, you know, he
had it and he interviewed me, so he's at least aware of the book.
Yeah. But you know, I don't think there's any motivation really on
his part too. He doesn't want to be convinced that UFOs should be taken
seriously. That's the very I think that'd be very inconvenient for people at SETI
who want to stay on the paths if they're on. Yeah, you know,
they don't want to have to be have some radical change come into the
way they're approaching things. Yeah. Another good example, although I did want
to mention something else about Pitts, But another good example of someone getting into
trouble, well at least with the UFO community unfortunately, probably not with his
peers is Oberg when he wrote the piece about your book and had obviously not
read the book because all of his arguments were things that really didn't have anything
to do with your book. That's true. They didn't even apply. It
was really basically one argument and it didn't apply right. True. And I
don't know why he would do that because he just it's so selfisfee. Yeah,
for him to do something like that, I don't know why he would
because it just gives me an opportunity to write a rebuttal that makes them look
foolish. Yeah, it's shocking, and thank goodness they did print your rebuttal.
But it probably gives some of these guys, you know, like Chasnak
or maybe not him, but someone similar to say, oh, look,
my buddy Oberg was able to explain everything in the book. So I don't
have to read the book now, because you know, it's all I've been
figured out, even though of course he didn't explain anything right. The other
thing I wanted to mention, though, at least to give you more praise,
well, thank you. He's very very nice of you with the Derek
Pitts thing, because I think really the biggest key at this point, this
is my personal feeling in goal is that getting this credible information out. I
think that the public is taking note, but more that these conventional mainstream institutions
need to get involved with this research. And when you're reaching people like Derek
Pitts and Mitchell Okaku and John Podesta like you obviously are that that when we're
able to add someone like a Derek Pitts to the list of the people who
are advocating this build out there, that is so tremendously important and brings us
one step closer to that goal. Well good, I'm glad that you know,
so the book can be used to do that, and I hope it
can continue to do so, and I'm very pleased about it. We got
a long way to go, though, yeah, that's for sure, but
at least baby steps is some sort of step in the right path. I
agree. No, I agree, And I've gotten lots of letters from your
emails from scientists and academicians and people, you know, some stature who have
been had a similar experience that Derek Pitts had just written to me about how
they've never taken UFO seriously but after reading the book, they've been transformed,
and you know a lot of them were are people in standing in positions is
important. So it's you know, I'm pleased with the response, but I
still feel like we need some kind of larger breakthrough that we're not getting yet.
But I'm going to keep working it trying to make that happen. So
now with Mitchio, he did do he and Derek Picks know each other at
all? I have no idea. I really have no idea. I sort
of wouldn't necessarily think they do. But you know, Michio Koku was really
like the superstar guy who's doing all the TV and you know, writing these
best selling books, and he's very inaccessible, hard to reach. Yeah,
travels a lot lectures all over the place, and I think Derek is much
more just focused on running his museum. Mio came down to Philadelphia, and
he went to the museum. I have no idea. Yeah, okay,
I was just curious about that. But because Mitchello certainly has been very strong
in his support of your book and to me, you know, I recently
posted something on my Huffington Post bog and I included this clip with mitchell O
Kaku where he is really kind of just really going going at it to support
your book and to talk about how important it was. Yeah. Yeah,
and it wasn't. I was so pleased. Oh my god, you can
imagine how I felt when I saw that. Yeah, I would be floored.
Yeah, I was floored, really floored, because he's really basically like
a review. They asked him to come on and review the book. He
gave it a rave, So what more could I ask for? Yeah,
and even defended the topic, you know, being very open about how important
it is to pay attention and how important I mean not backing down. I
mean that the interviewer definitely gave him some out to kind of, but he
wouldn't back down that it's an important subject in how your book exemplifies that.
Yeah, Well he's great. He's been really really great to do that.
I have to say, Well, getting past some of those parts, I
guess, getting into some of the parts of the book, or are some
of the stuff that was in the show. I guess you had mentioned Chicago
hair one thing. You know, it's great to see the graphics that they
did on the show. They really did a great job with some of the
special effects. Yeah, I liked them too. I wasn't happy with the
Chicago hair graphic though, and they knew that because I had told him that.
So oh really, I just thought that the one shot of the you
know, this is going to be boring to people that haven't seen it,
but of the disc covering right above gates C seventeen above the tower, I
just thought the disc looked like it was too low and too large. Okay,
but you know, I'm very picky about these kinds of things. Most
people probably wouldn't notice. But I love the one they had of the thing
coming to the cloud bank. It was from above the cloud bank. I
don't know if you remember that, So I thought by and Lord, I
thought that the graphics were really great too. Yeah, and I thought the
recreations they did were good too. They were not Yeah, with that Chicago
hair. I get to your point. I kind of felt that way.
At the same time, I thought, you know, with perspectives and stuff,
it would be kind of hard, and it did look so cool.
And this was just to remind people on November seventh at Chicago hair Airport,
where people at the United gate and people who worked for United had spotted a
UFO hovering right over the airport at rush hour, the neest time of the
day, afternoon rush hour, just sitting there, yep. And you know,
of course it was a safety hazard, but that didn't really seem to
bother the FAA, which never investigated it or or paid attention to the witness
reports. And the other amazing thing about it was not just that it hovered
for a while, but then it shot up straight through the clouds and cut
a crisp clear hole in the cloud bank above it, which you know,
the witnesses pointed out, we don't have any aircraft that could do something like
that and cut a round hole in a cloud like that, So it was
obviously giving off some kind of powerful radiation. They're you know, doing something
that would allow that hole to be created like that with this really clear outline
and it so that's another really interesting aspect of it. Yeah, And on
the show they had some radio chatter. Were they United employees? Yeah,
I mean there was this one tape in particular, and there were lots of
There was lots of chatter back and forth on the ground, you know,
like pilots in their cockpits and people that were moving airplanes from one rate one
rate to another, you know, people talking to each other. That was
going on. But the most important tape is the one of the United Nations
manager, United Nations United Airlines manager calling into the tower. And the manager's
name was Sue and this poor woman was just trying to call in to report
that there was a disc that was she says it. She was asking the
tower, have you seen a disc covering over Charlie c seventeen Gate Sea seventeen?
They call it Charlie seventeen, I guess anyway, And the guy in
the tower was laughing at her and it became sort of this joke and she
had to convince him that she was hadn't been high and it wasn't drinking,
and you know, it was sort of like she had to laugh along with
him in order to have the conversation keep going. It was just a very
sad thing to listen to, because but very very revealing about the attitudes that
we have about the subject matter. Because even though this thing was happening in
real time, there was actually something hovering above the airport that you know,
couldn't be communicated with. Nobody knew what it was, what it was going
to do, or why it was there. It didn't even look like an
airplane. And yet the guy in the tower was just laughing about it because
she said it was a UFO ye. And it's very interesting to listen to
before, just to you know, as a kind of a metaphor for where
our aviation community is at when it comes to taking this seriously. Yeah,
I mean when I became an investigator, I was shocked. The first case
that I that I investigated, this witness had just gotten back from Iraq.
He was a security guard. When he was doing his rounds outside, he
saw this object in you know, Overlookout Mountain in Denver, which is on
the flight path to commercial planes, and you know, this weird lozenge type
of thing that was doing weird things in the sky. He went inside,
came out later and he saw it again and he was shocked that it was
still there, and he thought, wow, you know, he realized that's
in the flight path. I should call the IA and tell him. And
it was, like he said, part of his training to report unknown.
So he calls in, they don't pay attention. He called everybody, and
nobody paid attention to him. And he was really floored that. You know,
he just got out of Iraq, where you know, you need to
let people know if something hired is going on, and it's a big deal
when something's going on like that, and of course in Iraq it's a life
threatening thing. But so he was surprised that we were the first ones to
take him serious or even to listen to him at all. Well, I'm
glad you were there for him, and you're right. I mean, you
know, you have to raise the issue of what if it's some kind of
terrorist activity or some kind of foreign probe or drone or something like that that
we don't really know about. I mean, you know, it seems very
dangerous to ignore these things outright. It seems irrational. I even called that,
Yeah you did. That was the first time I called them, and
I said, you know, you know, to find out about this,
and I had to keep calling in hound to get someone to pay attention,
and they kept saying, oh, called, you know this line, Peter
Davenport's line and let him know. And I think, else what they do,
That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for. Did you detect
something? I mean? I was also shocked that they're not taking this serious
when, like you said, especially these days, right, And they actually
say in their manual, you know the FAA, which I which I've written
about in my book. You know, they actually have it there in black
and white, and the FAA manual, which is the employee manual for all
everyone who works for you know, who works in aviation, and it says
there, if you see and this is in their safety section, and it
says, if you see a UFO, do not report it to the FAA.
Report it to Peter Davenport or some other organization. And it says even
if it's life threatening, they're told that the FAA does not want to have
it reported to them. But I had to ask to go to a civilian
research group. And every other type of safety hazard you could imagine, everything,
no matter how obscure, is fine. They want the FAA wants those
to be reported, but not UFOs. They're like in a whole separate category.
And you talk about irrationality, Yeah, the word to describe that kind
of you know, and it's right there. They're not trying to hide it.
So it's quite shocking. Yeah. Now in that radio chatter you're talking
about where the lady called the tower, she also mentioned a picture that someone
took, a picture they were looking at that looked just like what they were
seeing. Deep as far as I know, none of these pictures that were
taken have surface. That's correct. I mean, she said there was a
picture taken. That's all she says. She doesn't really go into any description
of it, but she says there was a picture taken, and you're right,
it never surfaced. I mean, there were a couple of phony pictures
of surface that they were proven to be hoaxes. So and nobody's ever been
able to reach this one. And Sue, I mean, we tried to
find her making the film. Yeah, we thought we knew what her last
name is. We looked it up. We couldn't find her. You know,
I don't think I just it's very very hard. I mean, we
really did try. We maybe could have tried a little more, but we
didn't have time. But you know, so no one. Her comment about
the picture, you're right, is really intriguing, But no picture. And
you know, we don't know if she saw the picture or if somebody told
her there was a picture, because she doesn't say that. She just says
there was a picture. So and it was just for me. This case,
you did have like an anonymous witness. Yeah, I mean there were
quite a few witnesses, but not one would put their name on the record.
That's the interesting thing about this case. I'd say there were ten to
thirteen witnesses that actually have spoken to investigators. Obviously there were a lot more
that didn't speak to investigators. Because those witnesses could tell us. I know
that all these other people thought too. But the ones that did speak out
about or to filled in reports. A couple of them actually did written reports
for Peter Davenport like they were supposed to do. None of them would give
their names. And I again, just like the tape was such an interesting
metaphor for the whole problem that we've got, I think the same is true
for the fact that none of them would go on the record. It's just
a statement, an illustration of how far behind we are in this country in
terms of our official handling of the UFO cases. But these people were also
worried about job security that even though there was a safety hazard at the airport,
they didn't even dare report it, They didn't dare go on the record
with their names because for fear of job security. Really, and you know,
it's really a sad statement as to the state of affairs that we have
here, I think, And I mean you compare that to what goes on
in other countries. Of course, you see, there's a real difference that
other countries, they don't seem to have these problems reporting things. So I
think it's a really sad state, mister, you know, because that was
really one of the more recent cases. I mean, we had Stevensville after
that, but this was a very clear, one time, you know,
case that took place at an airport with aviation personnel involved, and not one
of them willing to give their names. That's really a sad situation, I
think it is. And it goes back to I think it was even the
Robertson panel back in the what sixties where they had discussed this could be a
problem, a debunking of UFOs and stuff that they won't get vital intelligence about
possible enemy graph. True. I mean, I think that it's got to
be a concern, and that's one of the I think that's one of that
Nick Pope has made that point too, that in terms of a defense issue
or a national security issue, one of the roles that the public can play
is that they may end up reporting some kind of drone, you know,
that they think it's a UFO or some kind of foreign aircraft that we might
want to know about, and therefore or the public and pay a role in
terms of, you know, keeping an eye out for strange things in the
sky which could be a benefit to the government to know about. But I
think the irrational sort of distaste they have for dealing with UFOs overrides any kind
of possible benefit they might want to derive from public involvement with this, so
they just try to make it all go away. Yeah. Now, I
guess moving on to another subject is another government that did a UFO investigation but
did a really great job is in Belgium in the nineties, the Triangle UFO
wave, And of course you had General debrauer On talking about that and he
was go ahead, go ahead. I don't know if you want me to
just pick it up or you have more to say. Well, I was
going to say, of course, the controversy now is around the picture,
and I know you've been asked a lot about that, but that's probably also
because you're the latest person to have contact with the Brower so you're probably are
us expert on Oh my god, I wouldn't quite. I don't know.
Maybe I don't know, but you know, yeah, I mean basically,
you know, Patrick Farron, who was in the History Channel documentary, who
was originally with SOBEPS back at the time of one of the lead investigators at
the time of the waves, is the person who has really been well,
he's one of the people who has been trying to come to terms and you
know, do some investigating on this issue with the photograph. Another one is
Professor Mason, and you know who's very involved. He's a highly educated I
think he's a physicist who was in Belgium and doctor General de Brower is certainly
in conversation with these folks, but he's not actually actively investigating this. But
you know, so I recently talked to Patrick and I sort of got an
update on what was going on, which I put on my Facebook page,
and I hope people will go in, go on and read it, because
we're having a very lively discussion in my discussion section about this picture. And
basically, you know, it looks like basically as people know, the photographer,
whose name is Patrick Marischal, has come out all these years later and
stated that he hoaxed this photograph and that it was made with a styrofoam model.
The object was made with a styrofilm model hanging from a wire, and
you know, it was of course a huge shock for all of us to
hear that. The issue is that there's a lot, a lot of questions
that remain unanswered that at least raise the possibility that perhaps he's not telling the
truth. Now we have to operate under the assumption at this point that he
is that this picture was a hoax, and certainly nobody's going to go ahead
and use it. I would never use it for anything, you know,
I've taken it off my website. But you know, he's been completely discredited
because he's either lying now or he was lying then, so he's a liar.
But the bottom line is there a whole lot of points which I've listed
on my site, my Facebook site that suggests that possibility, because just for
instance, you know, he's in a fight right now with the guy who
owns the copyright to a photograph and he wants to take him to court and
try to get all this money from him. And he sold the copyright to
this journalist back at the time that he took the photograph, and he seems
to and they've been fighting, and he's refusing to give out certain contact information
for other witnesses he's been asked. He told investigators that he would recreate the
photograph. He did a recreation, but it didn't look anything like the original
photographs. He's claimed that he has photographs of the model that he made back
then, that he has twelve photographs of that model, and he was asked
to produce them and said he would, and he hasn't. Nobody's seen those
his girlfriend at the time. I don't know if people remember the story,
but when he took the photograph, his girlfriend was there outwalking her dog and
she was the one who first saw the object and ran in to tell him.
That was the story that they gave at the time. Now he refuses
to give investigators the name and contact information of his girlfriend who later became his
wife and is now his ex wife. So, you know, there's a
lot more leads that things that need to be followed up about this. That
there's really no evidence that there was a model. But the evidence he does
have is that there is one other person who has corroborated having seen that model,
and this is one of the people that he worked with at the factory.
He worked at a factory at the time. So given that, you
know, we have to assume that he's telling the truth. But I think
everybody is very interested to find out more about you know, why he can't
recreate the picture? Where are the pictures of the original model? Does he
have a motivation for lying about this right now? Which there seems to be
suggestions that he could have a motivation for doing that. So it's not a
really black and white situation, I don't think, but I'm not about to,
you know, argue that it was that he is lying now. I
just think that door isn't completely closed. The only thing is Alejandro, I
don't remember if you remember in my book, but I have a picture of
the object that it was a professor Marion did this extensive study where he was
able to document this kind of halo effect around the object. I don't know
if you remember that, but it was almost like it had a magnetic field
around it, and you could see that it looked like kind of a magnet
would look if it was attracting iron to it, and you could see this
field around it that he was able to document through his in his computer.
And you'd have to ask, you know, how could a styrofoam object create
a field like that around it itself in a photograph, a field that wasn't
even visible to the naked eye but was able to be discerned on computers.
How was it that so many scientists looked at this photograph and we're not able
to see any signs of it being hoaxed. I mean, they couldn't prove
it wasn't hoaxed, but they certainly stated that they there were indications that they
didn't think it was, and that the qualities of the lights, the characteristics
of the lights were very very unusual. They said it would have been extremely
hard to create those characteristics. You know, if somebody was faking this,
so you know, all these things, it just raises a lot of questions
that I think, I just think it needs further investigation. We need to
you know, hopefully the investigators in Belgium will have the opportunity and the time
to just probe some of these questions further and to go back to some of
those scientists who studied them in the lab. Unfortunately, Professor Marion died and
he was the one that got the halo effect, but maybe they could go
to some other scientists and asked, you know, how could this kind of
effect be created with this diyrophil model. Is it possible? Yeah, So
those kinds of questions haven't been really answered yet, and I think I think
it's it's very very interesting to explore. It will be very interesting to explore
some of these questions further and see what we can learn from this. And
you know, we all have to learn how to be very very discerning when
it comes to photographic evidence of UFOs. I'm all for that, and perhaps,
you know, assuming that this is a fake, I think we all
have we have a lot to learn from it. Oh definitely. I was
shocked when I first read this story. I almost thought that, well,
maybe this isn't the right guy, because I didn't have the name. I
remember when I saw Debre speaking about uh, the photograph, he said that
the name. They wouldn't release the name because the witness had asked not to.
And then in the story you know this guy and this was an interview,
he said he had never made any money off of this picture. And
I knew he had sold the copyright, so that wasn't an accurate statement.
Well, yeah, he probably. Well what he meant was, you know,
over all the years that it's been published, the money didn't go to
him because he sold the copyright. But at one point he did make money
off of it. He said he didn't make anything. Yeah, that's true.
When he sold the copyright, he certainly made I don't think he sold
it, probably for very much at the time. And now we'll get back
he's he's mad that he's somebody else has made money on it. And you
know, you could you could draw the it's a possibility anyway that one way
he could get back at this guy who's made all the money is to tell
the guy, well, this photographs a hoax, so you're not going to
make any more money off of it, that's for sure. Undertaking, you
know, I mean you could you could conceive of that happening. You know,
I'm not saying that's what's going on, but it certainly within the realm
of possibility. Anyway. Well, the other thing that struck me was how
much gall of this guy would have to have to perpetrate this hoax on the
military, especially after they really ran with it and were studying it and giving
it the scientists, and this guy sticking to a story and lying to the
government and the military. I mean, you've got to know it's brave end
or dumb or both to do that. And what reason would you have to
do it, right, unless you just want to feel good that you fooled
people, which is I guess why people do hoax is that You're right.
I mean, he did have a and he was certainly seemed believable at the
time to the people that interviewed him, right. Uh, you know,
so it's it's really as it was really a shock. I mean, I
was just absolutely stunned when I heard that news. And I'm very as I
say, I'm just very interested to see what else the investigators can learn about
the whole situation. Yea, And I just think there's a lot more to
it's going to come. This is just the beginning in terms of this situation.
And I really you know, I've always relied on photographs that have been
scientifically analyzed by top level photo analysts. You know, as a journalist,
I always think, well, that's that's pretty good solid, you know,
backing for the photograph being authentic when you have top level scientists studying it in
laboratories. And that's what you had here. Probably this photograph was more studied
than well, the Trent photograph has been studied a lot, but you know,
it was analyzed by so many different people and so much was learned about
it that they said was highly unusual. That it's just hard to imagine that
styrofoam could create that kind of effect. And that's why I really want to
learn more about how that's possible, because it calls into question all photographs and
we all need to learn. You know, what is it that we have
to do to improve our methods of analysis of photographs if this thing turns out
to be a hoax, you know, what do we need to do to
be able to develop techniques that where we can do a better job. And
it's worse now than then because of the technology and being able to use photoshop
and things to fake pictures that really picture alone, unfortunately, is just another
piece of a puzzle, whereas such as in this case, I mean,
the picture is great, it's one of the best UFO pictures out there was
and it kind of a cherry on top, but this is a case that
stands up without the picture. You don't need the picture for this to be
an extraordinary case, with hundreds of witnesses and sightings investigated by the Air Force
police having sightings, so luckily it's a great case without the picture. Absolutely,
And when I talked to General de Brower about this recently, I mean
that was the point he kept making repeatedly and that I want everyone to really
be aware of. Is just the point you made, Alejandro, that the
pity ression of photograph was one person's sighting and there were hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of them that have been well documented, and this in no way has
any impact should have any impact on all the other case evidence that we have
for the Belgian Wave. It's just one event, and you know, as
you say, it remains just as strong a case as it always was.
It's just very unfortunate that we don't have this photographic evidence, but everything else
still stands and it remains one of the most remarkable UFO cases ever, regardless
of the status of the photographs. So I think, you know the debunkers
a are it's certainly in Belgium they're doing this. They're using that the hoax
photograph as a way of trying to just destroy the whole case, which is
which is crazy, but that's what they do, and it's very important that
people be aware that, you know, I don't think, I don't know.
I haven't heard anybody doing that in America, but I know there they've
told me that the Belgian debunkers or wherever the people are in Europe that have
been on this case for years trying to debunk it or really having a field
day right now, trying to dismiss the whole case based on this one photograph,
and that's absolutely unfair to do that. Yeah, you know, you're
right. The Belgium way was absolutely extraordinary, even without the photograph. Yep.
And you could go to that Leslie Knees Facebook and it's under discussions.
The Petit rushan photo from Belgium is what the title is under discussion and you'll
be able to see that there everything you've written about it, and the whole
discussion going on about the picture. Yeah, it'd be great to have people,
you know, come on and give their point of view. And there's
one person that wrote some very interesting questions that he thought he or she thought
needed to be followed up on, and you know, I can send some
of those over to Belgians to the investigators there. So it's been a useful
discussion. Yeah, all right, and then I guess because we've got about
ten minutes or so, I definitely wanted to talk about rendal Sham. One
of the great things on a television show. One of the parts that I
have liked on Rendalsham was Colonel Halt, and I had never personally heard him
say this before, but when he said he got on scene out in the
forest to look at the UFO, how there were all these guys rocking around
and excited looking for the UFOs and stuff, and how he kind of freaked
out and thought that this is going to be a PR nightmare, PR disaster
if we don't get this under control, and how he started kicking people out
right, I mean, and that was his job. I think as you
know, deputy base commander to sort of keep control of what was going on.
But yeah, I guess there's been a lot of kind of rumors and
discussions about because there had been the sighting two nights ago that Pennison was involved
in, and I think people were around the base, were out there looking
for things and you know, and he was actually told to go out himself
and check out the situation. So when he went out there, he couldn't
believe all the people that were already there. That was an interesting interesting and
it just it points to the fact that there was a lot of interest and
a lot of people that were witnesses as well, because a lot of people
were out there milling around. Yeah, and the people that even shouldn't have
been out there. Yeah, he's such a serious guy too. Now having
met him, I can just picture, you know, I wouldn't have wanted
to been one of those guys, you know yet getting yelled at that.
I could see how he would be gotten upset and what the hell do you
guys saying? Well, And I think some of the the his enlisted his
men that were, you know what that had to deal with him at the
time, were not thrilled with the way they were treated. But yeah,
he's a he's a real military guy, and he comes across he's really a
great guy. I mean, I know him very well and he's a totally
wonderful human being, and I trust him. Yeah, you know, I
think he's very careful about what he's reported, and he did file the memo,
and he's very you know, his mind is like an encyclopedic. You've
probably interviewed him before, Alejnso on your show. I don't know if you
notice how sort of encyclopedic his mind is. I mean, you can ask
him about one detail and it's all there in his brain, every little tiny
detail of this event, every name, every place. He's just extremely well
informed, and he's received so much information over the years from additional witnesses people
that have contacted him that you know, this recent report about Conrad, I
guess he was the deputy base commander at the time. You know, there's
just some things that he suddenly has come forward and said that there really wasn't
much going on that night, and it's just it really makes you wonder because
it's in such contradiction to what Holt and others have reported that, Yeah,
kind of makes you wonder what's going on there. Like you said, Holt
is a straightforward guy. He's a street shooter. He means business. He
doesn't mess around. He'll tell you. You know, this is what I
believe out of you know what people have said have happened to Rendal Schim and
this is what I don't. Here's what did happen, and I know happened.
He's very straightforward. And you can tell he's a skeptic himself. I
mean, if he was skeptical when he went out to the force, he
didn't believe the sightings the night before. So when Conrad came out with this
story saying, oh, I'm disappointed in Halt for talking about this and even
almost suggesting that he had made the whole thing up. And in his interview,
Conrad did not take credit for the memo, which he, according to
Halt, he ordered Halt to write right, and he was totally aware of
it because he knew that something had happened. Right, And now he's saying,
oh, I went out, I didn't see anything. There was nothing
to it. He's even saying, oh, maybe it was something that was
hoaxed by guys at the base. Yeah, you know, it's just like
and it is. It's very kind of disrespectful of Colonel Halt. I agree
with you, and then he goes into you know, maybe it was a
lighthouse, the same old lighthouse argument. So it's you know, I haven't
spoken to him myself, so I don't know what's going on. But yeah,
I guess I don't know why he's suddenly came out now either, but
he did. And I know that John Burrows has been trying to get him
to come forward for a long time, and maybe he just sort of got
sick of everybody being on his case and wanting him to say say something.
But it wasn't uh or somebody suggested, which could be true, is that
they knew about the show coming up, your show coming up on the History
Channel, and so some of the skeptics tried to get a hold of him
in order to kind of just get some of that energy, you know,
the media energy from the show, although it really didn't get a lot of
attention. I guess it really didn't. It looks like it. The date
of the article that I'm looking at now in the British press was August sixth,
so it was about two weeks before the History Channel thing air, but
you know, it probably got a lot more play in England than it did
here. Yeah, so that was around the same time, I guess as
the you know, it was only a few weeks maybe a month before the
History Channel show air that the Belt and thing came out, and we certainly
at that point there was absolutely no way we could make any changes to what
we've done on that. So yeah, I mean, both of these things
happened, you know, within a few weeks of the show. But you
know, I don't suspect that there's some conspiracy to undermine the show, but
it's just kind of interesting and discouraging that that that happens, that both these
things happened. Yeah, not really conspiracy, but definitely skeptics. Whenever something
does happen, like Oberg commenting on your book, they take advantage of the
media whatever's going on, because weller journalists, so whatever's hot, they definitely
try to find a new and interesting angle to write about in a way of
undermining it, you know. Yeah, and luckily what got more press,
I think it seems, is the UK files more coming out about the same
time, and you have what is so fun are these this correspondence between the
MOD and people like Ralph Noyes who worked for uh, the you know,
defense for the British and also Admiral Lord Hilton, who was in charge of
the Navy for a while, in charge of NATO forces for a while,
really going at the MOD that you guys need to pay more attention to randalship,
right, I love. I think Admiral Lord Hill Norton is so entertaining
and he just never lets up, never lets up, and you know,
and he made very very good points. You know, he has those two
points that he repeated over and over again that about Rendalstom, which you know,
which make it impossible to assume it doesn't have any for the government to
say has no defense significance. You know, he makes the point that either
either these people responsible for nuclear weapons were hallucinating that night or there was an
intrusion into the airspace of written by an unidentified craft. And either way it's
as a matter of defense interest, right, you know, if these if
these guys are are hallucinating or lying, that's a major concern because they're responsible
for nuclear weapons. I don't know if he was ever supposed to even acknowledge
that nuclear weapons were there. I mean, that's really not something you do
that he did. Interesting he did. Yeah, he went there and he
you know, they said, oh, we're not going to comment on nuclear
weapons. But right because they the Americans weren't supposed to have nuclear weapons.
We I guess it's not completely confirmed, but there's enough people who were at
the base he said they did have him that it's kind of unofficially confirmed there
were nuclear arms there. And of course Lord hill Norton believed that because he
questioned them about it. So which, like you said, if they knew
there were nuclear weapons there, that's a pretty dang big deal. It absolutely
is. And he was certainly a voice of sanity, you know, enough
that it really seemed to make the Ministry Defense change his position. But thanks
thankfully, Nick Pope reopened the investigation when he was in charge in nineteen nine
before and that was a major contribution to the whole thing because he was able
to bring out some really important points and you know, I'm just very glad
he did what he did. And also, you know, one of the
more important points being the fact that there really was high level there were high
levels of radiation there about seven times the normal amount. I forget. I
think maybe one of the points that Conrad made, didn't he state that there
wasn't any real change in radiation. Yeah, he did say something like that.
Yeah, it's an exact case. It's in you know, stark contrast
to what the MD documents show. So I remember noting that when I just
read the article about him. So, you know, I mean, Nick
has really really brought forward some very important information. But you know, he
also makes the point that the investigation was not very well handled at the time,
So we kind of lost an opportunity for doing a really good investigation at
the time because of problems that were happening there over jurisdiction and so the handling
of the crash site and all kinds of problems that occurred. So but anyway,
Yeah, I think the letters by these two gentlemen are really interesting and
fun to read. Yeah, and on Noise and Norton, unfortunately I passed
away there. They're gone now. But luckily we do have Nick Pope,
who really chose the same tenacity that these guys did. He is not dropping
the ball, he's really taking the subject and running also. Absolutely, and
I'm consider him a really close colleague. He's been a real mentor and advisor
for me for many years, and I think he's made a huge contribution.
And he's moving to the United States, which is another advantage we all will
have. Now. Yeah, that's a three year only be really a few
hours drive away from me. That's right. So there you go, and
you'll be lucky to have him nearby. Yeah, I've been lucky for him.
He'll be out of he'll be in California where he won't have to separate
these super hot summers that were barely getting away from here in Arizona. Yeah,
I know you it must get really really hot there in the summer.
Yeah, but it must be coming to an end now, right, it's
yeah, well it's this week. We're finally down to around one hundred degrees
every day. Oh my god. So that's that's a considerable improvement. Oh
my god, that's some sense. Yeah. Yeah, I guess in parting,
you know it's about over. But I did want to say, you
know, I know you were close with Bud Hopkins, who everybody really appreciated,
whether or not you agreed with everything he had to say. I mean,
I always had a great time listening to him or talking with him.
He is a wonderful person and you know, we're definitely sorry for your loss
there. Well, thank you. Yeah, I think he's going to be
greatly missed by many, many people, and you know, in both in
the art world and in the UFO world. And he made a huge contribution.
I think people will always you know, I appreciate it. And he
was a great guy. Yeah, As you say, whether you wanted to
agree with him or not, whether you agree with his methods, his conclusions
or not, you know, he was a pioneer and a wonderful person to
be around and really impacted the lives of so many people that were struggling with
experiences that they couldn't deal with very well on their own. So I think
that was his main concern, was always to be helpful to the people who
were dealing with the experiences. That always came first, more important to him
than the actual research. He saw himself first and foremost as somebody who wanted
to be helpful to these individual people before he saw himself as a researcher.
And I think that's partly that might have been you know, his research methods
might have suffered slightly as a result of that, but the people certainly benefited
from what he did for them. So yeah, I don't know if you
stop, but it was kind of neat that. You know. I was
able to catch Dan Ackroyd recently for a minute and act him a questions and
he brought up but Hopkins. He obviously was aware that he had passed and
had followed his work. That's great. Yeah, I know you did an
interview with him recently and I bookmarked it in my emails because I definitely want
to listen to that. Yeah, it's very short, just a couple of
minutes, but he did mention Bud, which was kind of cool. That's
great, Yeah, really great. All right, Well that is it.
We are out of time. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
It was a lot of fun, lots of great information, and I
hope you know you have a wonderful fall now that we've finally gotten into the
fall season. Well, thank you so much Alejandra for having me and being
so bringing up all these great points about you know, what's happened with the
book and everything. I really appreciate it, and you've been a great supporter,
and you know you're doing great work at Open Minds. I think you're
one of the leading lights that we have in the field right now. So
thanks for everything you do. Oh well, thank you very very much.
And you know what I noticed just recently too, this is kind of interesting
the show. This show is the nineteenth You the last time you were on
my show with September twentieth of twenty ten. Isn't that kind of weird?
And today is September nineteenth. Oh, so it's like exactly a year to
the minus one day. Yeah, well, we'll have to make it an
annual event. Yeah, exactly, we'll have to remembering. Yeah, that
is pretty weird. That's kind of ye. All right, it doesn't feel
like the whole year's past. Way years go by faster as Yeah, they
really fly. I know I didn't feel like that either. I was thinking
just a few months ago, and I was wondering, was it even before
the conference? And yeah, I looked that up sometime at the conference.
So it made it seem like we had talked more recently, you know.
Yeah, and a couple of conferences since, well, at least California.
I guess you certainly did a great job on that conference. Allehundro it was
one. Thank you, thank you very much. Yep. All right,
well, thank you for being on showing me on and I really, I
really always appreciate talking with you. Thanks to everybody, and I hope people
will visit me on Facebook and visit my website UFOs on therecord dot com.
Right, and also so some people know, the book is now at in
paperback, so it's very cheap to get on Amazon because of the paperback it's
easier to carry around and lighter, but still the same book. So just
so the people know that if they haven't had a chance to read it yet,
right, And I'll put those links on the site, and yes,
pick up a few so you can give them to your skeptics and believe her
friends. Okay, thanks very much, Okay, thank you. Remember that
is UFOs on the Record dot com is her website, and or you could
google her. It's pronounced Leslie Kane, so you know, even though it's
spelled k E A N. So if you're going to google Leslie k e
A and Leslie spelt in the traditional manner l E s l i E and
definitely pick up a copy of the book if you haven't because you're trying to
save your pennies and you felt the hard copy was a little too much.
Go pick up the paperback. It's cheap and it is great. I mean,
the material, as you heard on the show, is incredible and it's
definitely stuff that you want to know about. So when you're talking to people
about why you think you know there's something to this phenomena, you'll be able
to find it there. We are out of time, Thank you so much
for listening. Next week our show will be Stan Romanac, so you're gonna
want to be there. Be sure to check Openminds dot tv for the latest
in UFO news. Thank you, Adios Chos.