Hello, and welcome to Blurry Photos. I'm David Flora, and I've got
a great interview for you today with a returning guest who's here to talk about
her newest book and real quick. In case you haven't heard, my films,
Shadows in the Desert is out now on Apple, TV and Amazon.
You can search for the title on those platforms and rent or buy it,
and if you like it, please leave a positive review, at least on
Amazon. I'm not sure if Apple does that or not, but it would
greatly help me and Derek. And also, if you're a backer for the
Kickstarter and haven't received your rewards yet, it might be because we haven't gotten
an address confirmation from you, so shoot me a message to let me know.
Best way would be the Blurry Photos Facebook page so I see it quickly.
But you can also check out the Kickstarter page for updates and such,
and I think you can send us a message on there anyway. Hope you
guys enjoy the film or have enjoyed it if you've watched it, It's nice
to finally have it out there in the world. Now to the important stuff.
Journalist, editor, producer and author Laura Krantz is back to talk about
her new book, Is There Anybody out There? Laura as the creator and
host of wild Thing Podcast, a long form narrative podcast about the obsessions that
capture our imaginations. She's produced three seasons of the show, each focusing on
a different topic, including Bigfoot, UFOs, and nuclear power, and she
has parleyed these seasons into a book series for middle grade readers, starting with
the Search for Sasquatch and now with is There Anybody out There? Based on
her podcast's second season, looking at the science behind the search for extraterrestrials.
She joins me to talk all about the writing of this new book and her
experience of searching for the answer to the question is There Anybody out There?
Enjoy She's the author of the new book Is There Anybody out There? And
host of wild Thing Podcast. Laura Krantz. You're back. How are you
welcome back? I'm back. I'm excited. What are we going to talk
about? Oh? I know what we're going to talk about. We're going
to talk about aliens. Aliens, aliens. Yeah, you're back to talk
the new book and a little bit on season two of wild Thing Podcast,
which is all about aliens. And their technology. So I listened to season
two and I was impressed with how much of a scientific approach you took to
the subject, because it's often that we get perspectives of very ardent believers in
extraterrestrial activity on Earth, but you talk to several scientists of different specializations.
What was your goal in season two's exploration. Yeah, so the goal with
both season two and with the book was same similar with season one of the
podcast, end with the book, which is like, take this topic which
has fascinated people and is something that people are really really intrigued by, and
try and approach it from a scientific angle. So, if we are thinking
about alien life or extraterrestrial life, what kind of evidence, scientific evidence do
we have that would say that it is definitely out there or definitely not out
there, or maybe out there. And there's a lot of people who are
thinking about this from different perspectives. You know, you definitely have the ardent
believers who are yes, aliens have visited, I have been probed. Let
me show you the scars all the way over to people at NASA who are
like, we just put this giant telescope up in the sky and it is
taking pictures of things that are so far away, and yet we are able
to kind of maybe get a sense of whether those faraway places could potentially support
life. So, you know, it's a wide range of topics, and
it's a wide range of people who are thinking about these things, and I
just wanted to approach that from sort of a more serious perspective. I think
you accomplished that. Well, can you give us a short rundown of some
of the folks you spoke to and their specialties and things like that. Yeah,
So the book starts with a mula mua, which was for anyone who's
unfamiliar, this interstellar object that passed through our solar system in twenty seventeen.
And I mean we almost missed this thing. It was coming in super fast,
and it shot around the Sun and then went right back out again.
So it was if someone hadn't been really paying close attention to the photos that
were coming out of the various in a sort of observatories, we might have
missed it entirely. And for just to start like it is to me it
was just so cool that this thing is coming through our solar system and at
the moment where we finally have the tools to recognize something like this, to
recognize the speed, the trajectory, the fact that it's moving so fast that
it wasn't bound to an orbit around our Sun, which meant it came from
outside our solar system. Like that was really cool. I know that it
was not the first one. There probably been lots, but it was the
first one that we really recognized, which I thought was amazing. So I
ended up talking to, you know, the astronomer who discovered it, or
found the you know, was looking through the photos and saw it. I
ended up talking to doctor Auvi Loeb, who was the Harvard astrophysicist, who
basically said, hey, let's not rule out the possibility of alien technology.
Maybe this is something like a light sale. Then you start getting into questions
of like, okay, well what does extraterrestrial life look like? And then
that just leads you to the question of what is life? And we actually
don't know what I mean, this is a big philosophical question. We don't
know what life is like we recognize it. It's like that famous quote from
the Supreme Court, Whi's like you know, you know pornography when you see
it, It's like, we know, we know life when we see it,
but we don't really know how it arises, what are all the important
things that make it up. We have an idea of what it does,
of how it acts, but what is it? And so and you know,
I'm talking to astrobiologists from SETI and I'm talking to planetary geologists about like
the different aspects of planets that you know, what or what elements of planets
we think would be habitable for life. And it just it kind of was
like I would ask one question and there'd be more questions and more questions and
more questions, and it you know, it was a lot of fun,
but it was a lot of questions. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's
very interesting how a lot of topics, not just paranormal extraterrestrial, but also
the arts, even economies and things kind of when you boil them down way
past the point that you filled the bucket, you are kind of left with
the philosophy of everything, and you're always coming back to like why or what
is or here's all these questions we can't answer, but for some reason we
have all these systems in place. I think that's fun as well, the
just getting down to the philosophy of it. Yeah, And there's an element
too of like we don't know, and I think as humans we're not always
comfortable in that gray area, that idea of like, well, we don't
really have the answers for this, so we're just going to kind of keep
probing, not literally probing, maybe literally probing, but like trying to,
you know, figure things out. But we're kind of operating in the dark
to some degree. I can't remember who the interview was with, and it'll
come back to me after this conversation is finished and then I'll email you.
But it was with a scientist and someone kept asking him why certain things about
the universe and he's like, you know, I can only answer that so
much, and then eventually there's an there there is no answer. We don't
know why. We're still trying to figure that out. And if the scientists
are saying that, you know, they are also they also have to be
comfortable operating in that gray area and trying to figure out answers to things,
and maybe the path they've chosen takes them in the wrong direction, but maybe
not. Yeah, And that's as comfortable as you can operate in the unknown,
I think, and part of the reason why I think people are listening
to this right now and the reason I try to delve into these topics,
it's you try to get as close to why as possible, not only but
is the journey fund but you know, you learn enough to move that dial
a little bit towards what, the why and the answers. But yeah,
that's interesting. That's something I'll circle back to in a few questions actually speaking
of whys. But I would also like to point out that you make the
point early on that it's hard to find tech over vast distances, and this
ties in with what you're saying about omumuh and how we barely you know,
caught that as it came by what else you know? Have we missed?
What do we not know that we don't know? And you talk about how
small the window is for when we could detect actual signals from another civilization and
vice versa. First of all, let's talk about why that is, and
then I'll follow up with another question for you. Yeah. So, one
of my favorite interviews that I did for this podcast and then that information also
made it into the book, was with doctor Frank Drake, who is,
you know, sort of a foundational figure in the search for extraterrestrial life.
He created what's known as the Drake equation. And there's all these different variables
in that equation. You know, the rate at which stars form, and
the stars that have planets around them, planets that are habitable, on and
on and on and on. And one of the last variables is a question
of like would a technolog or a what does civilization have a technology that is
findable and the time period that that is findable. And the example he uses
is of Earth like for a long time, not even that long, not
even one hundred years really at this point, right you know, radar,
we've had radar, we've had radio, we've had broadcast, and those signals
are getting blasted out into the universe, intentionally or not. But as we
switch to different forms of communication, as we get away from broadcasts, as
we you know, things are going more through cables and fiber optics, that
signal that we have been projecting out into the universe is going away. And
his thought was that other civilizations, if they are as advanced or more advanced
than we are, are probably also getting quieter, which means that they are
going to be harder to find, which he seemed a little sad about this,
and I can understand that, like you've sort of he's really been focused
on radio telescopes and radio signals for he was focused on that for the most
of his career, and then to realize that that technology actually wasn't the cutting
edge anymore and was going away, like and then it's like, well,
now how do we look? So Yeah, that was a really interesting conversation
with him. Yeah, it's such a small window, especially if you're talking
one hundred years. You know, that's that isn't faster than a blink of
an eye in the universe perspective. Yeah, and you know, as those
signals move further out, they get diluted to not as noticeable, so you
know, they're harder and harder to find. So by the time they reach
a place where we could observe them, or some other civilization could observe ours,
they might be so deluded that they don't even register it. They're not
even a blip. I wonder if that ever degrades on its journey as well,
you know, if it when you get so far apart from I don't
I'm just trying to visualize it, and I don't know what I'm talking about.
So you know it's gonna be this is going to be great to listen
to. But well, radio is a form of light, and light as
it gets further and further away from the source just becomes more diffuse. So
I would imagine that radio is the same way. Yeah. Yeah, I
am also not a scientist, so correct me if I'm wrong, But that
that makes sense to me. And that's another thing I'm gonna speak about after
this, but the light and its properties. But you mentioned Frank finding that
or seemingly finding that disappointing. Do you find it disappointing as well? Kind
of? I mean, you know, that was just one avenue for which
we were exploring this this or which we were trying to conduct this search.
And I think that as that has fallen away as being a leading way of
doing this, there are other things that are coming online. And I'm thinking
specifically of the breakthrough projects that are happening. These are projects that were founded
by a Russian billionaire or e. Milner, And you know, one of
them involves radio telescopes still and it's radio telescopes all over the world and reporting
information to a central database. So rather than just having one or two that's
pulling in information. You've got them all over the place. There's also you
know, optical telescopes have become much much better than they used to be,
and we also have space telescopes where we can get more information about what kinds
of planets might be habitable and what stars have planets rotating around them, and
sort of that Goldilocks zone as we call it, like the right distance from
the Sun so you're not getting fried or frozen. And then you know,
there's this really cool one called breakthrough starshot and it I mean, this is
like straight out of science fiction. But the idea that we would build this
bank of lasers on on the ground, extremely powerful lasers that we could then
focus on a light sale that gets launched from a satellite above orbiting around Earth.
It would put out all of these little probes that have light sales,
and then we would shoot those probes at you know, a decent fraction of
the speed of light twenty percent the speed of light in the direction of any
potentially habitable planets that are within twenty light years of Earth. And the reason
they pick twenty light years is one it might actually get there in someone's lifespan
and two like beyond that, it's really hard to know what's going on.
But for instance, we could send one of those to Proxima Centari, which
is the next closest star system to Earth. It's four point two light years
away, which with our current technology would take us thousands and thousands and thousands
and thousands and thousands and thousands of years to get there. But with this
breakthrough starshot stuff would take twenty which is kind of awesome. Yeah, yeah,
I mean it's mind blowing. So while the radio stuff is sort of
falling off to some degree, there are other things that are coming online that
might give us the answers we're looking for. That's a that's a great perspective
on it. It's it's optimistic, which I like. Yeah, I mean,
I'm not saying we're going to be like sharing lattes with the people from
gg b X two dot seven, but you never know, yeah they yeah,
but we'll get there now. That's that's really cool. And that was
the distance thing always just blows my mind. And you had that as well.
When you when you put it in perspectives, we can see and understand,
like when you've visited. Was it you see Boulder? Yeah, University
of Colorado, Boulder. They have a scale map of the Solar System,
and I forget what the scale is. It's very small and it's roughly over
you know, you you cover the distance the Solar System within a third of
a mile. So you start at the Sun and then you walk out to
Pluto, which shows you how old this scale map is. Because Pluto rip
no longer a planet. I've had people get very angry when I've said that.
They're like, Pluto's sell a planet. I'm like, it's not.
Don't mess up midemotic, don't shoot the messenger. But when you put it
in that perspective, the farthest that humans, like actual physical humans have gotten
is from Earth to the Moon, which on this scale map is like a
quarter of an inch. Yeah, it's not far, and then you know
you still have like almost a third of a mile to go to get to
Pluto. Like it just yeah, it's crazy. I don't And from the
Earth to the Moon, I don't think people understand the distance there either.
I have heard that you could fit all the rest of the planets in between
the Earth and the Moon and there would be it could do it over.
Maybe I don't true, I've not heard that one, but I mean it's
two hundred and thirty odd thousand miles, I think, yeah, which is
that signific? That's a road trip, my friends. And maybe maybe it's
you know, maybe I'm getting that wrong because Jupiter seems like it would you
know, it could be like hold my beer. But anyways, I don't
know. You hear a lot about stuff, but it boils down to space
being big. Yeah. But there was one guy I talked to who he's
a guy who actually walked me through this solar system model, and he's like,
space is a perfect name for space because it's mostly space. That's what
we got. Yeah. So going back to the thing about radio waves just
being a form of light, one of the experts you talk to explain that
everything gives off light to some capacity. Had you heard that before? I
had not, or if I had, it had not stuck. But like
his explanation of it was so good, and all of a sudden, I'm
like, oh, this just there's sometimes I really want to go back and
like redo like junior high and high school science. Knowing what I know now
and knowing how this applies to the real world because I feel like you're just
operating in a total vacuum. At that point, there were a few smart
science kids and the rest of us were like bo And now I just feel
like I would have gotten a lot more out of those lessons. But yeah,
learning that you are giving off forms of light in you know, it's
not just optical light, which is us seeing each other. It's like infrared
and UV and gamma and radio and microwave, and all of a sudden things
start to make a little bit more sense. I'm no, by no means
a genius on this stuff, and I probably get it wrong all the time,
but I feel like I have. It's like someone opened a door and
unveil the secret world that I had not been part of it before? Is
this what being a Mason is? Like? Yeah? So what so with
that in mind, what what do you think the implication is for extraterrestrial life
or their tech? Knowing that, I mean, I think there is probably
extraterrestrial life out there. I'm almost certain that there's microbial just based on what
we know about microbial life on Earth and where it can live, and like
the incredibly like harsh climates that it can exist in advanced extraterrestrial life. I
don't know. I'd like to hope. So, you know, if we
evolved from microbes, it would stand a reason that that would happen in other
places. The question is is what happens after that evolution. There are these
theories about like you know, species can only get so technologically advanced before it
wipes itself out. The great filter, I think, is what that theory
is coming back to FI. Yeah, and it's like, you know,
did they blow themselves up in a nuclear explosion? Did they poison their own
atmosphere? Like all of the things that I think we think about, and
there's probably like millions of other horrible ways to die. Did their sun explode
right, geez, a rogue black black hole? Yeah? Were they swallowed
by a black hole? Did their planet turn to done and everyone got eaten
by those sandworms? Yeah? You never know. Do we have to take
the gomb jabar at some point? That's what we need to know. But
yeah, I like to think something will be out there. The question is
is are we ever going to cross paths with it? Yeah? And I
think that's what this whole project, like the immensity of space just kind of
blew my mind when you're looking at photos from the James web Space Telescope and
there's that one of all those like it's a sort of a copy of what
was shot by Hubble years and years ago, of all these distant it looks
like stars, And then you realize those are galaxies, and then you really
that that is the like it's like the tip of your finger held out at
arm's length. That's the section of the night sky you're looking at. And
then your mind is just blown and you kind of have to come to terms
with how small and insignificant you are, and the likelihood of meeting someone else
seems pretty small and unlikely. Yeah, I feel like when they keep zooming
out in those pictures and they show the universe and like the Virgo supercluster and
they keep going, you know, and it's all purply and sparkly and stuff.
But why when they zoom they keep zooming out on those Theoretically, you
know, to me, it looks like the X ray of like the inside
of a rock or something like, Yeah, are we just like atoms in
a system at this point? You know, And it just keeps getting smaller
and smaller the further down you go and and when you you know, zoom
it out. We're we're just some kind of a little beyond microscopic things in
a in a rock. Yeah. No, you kind of have to wonder
like, is it just like how how many layers to the future are there?
Exactly? And there's probably no answer to that. There's probably infinite layers,
you know. That's the rust I. Yeah, back to that gray
area that we just kind of have to hang out in and then be comfortable
in. We'll take a quick break and be right back for more with Laura
Krantz. You spoke to a fellow by the name of Pete who talked about
the government asking for about twenty two million dollars for a research program into UAPs
and ets, and I think Pete said, if the government knew we had
aliens, they'd probably ask for more than twenty two million. What do you
think of it? Ceze million doesn't buy shit, Like, I mean,
they lose They lost that the other day with that F thirty five bomber,
that just the stealth bomber, like the guy that was so stealthy they could
they were like where did it go? Like that's twenty two million dollar probably
more. Actually, Yeah, so twenty two millillion does not seem like a
lot of money in the grand I mean, I'll take twenty two million.
If they want to like hand that off to me, I will, and
I'll share some with you. Oh wow, that's generous. Thank you.
I know, I'm very I'm very generous. But that's why we're not already
millionaires. That's what I tell myself anyway. Yeah, but I think if
they were actually really out there looking for aliens, it would be a lot
more money. So if they had them here, then they you know,
somebody could could confirm that they had maybe you know, ten people, the
ten people on Earth who were privy to this information or something. What would
they I don't I guess if they're asking for more money, it's to either
try and reverse engineer what they found or look for more. Like you said,
what do you what do you think they do with that? Or how
much would they would they want being to it? Yeah? I would put
the money in the one hundred millions, if not into the billions. If
they actually had proof of extraterrestrial advanced extraterrestrial life, I think there would be
a big, big, big fund going on there I also think it would
be more than ten people that would know about it. I mean, look,
how many people were involved in the creation of the atom bomb. Like,
I feel like this is a much much bigger project than that. But
I think reverse engineering trying to figure out, like, you know, are
the elements that are in these types of things the same sorts of elements that
you're finding on Earth? Are they something entirely different? Like you would have
a lot of scientists involved in this. I have a feeling, And then
I don't know. There's always people who are claiming that there's bodies with this
stuff, but honestly, sending living creatures through space unless they have figured out
how to go to speed a light, and even if they have figured out
how to go to speed a light, like, you have to go long
distances and you have to keep something alive, and life support systems are no
joke. You're better off sent in robots. They don't have to poop,
they don't get bored, they don't murder their or stab their colleagues for revealing
the end of a book that they were in the middle of reading. Did
you hear about this story? Uh? No, this was in the Antarctic
station. Oh, they were wintering over and one of the one guy was
reading a book and the other one was like, he just told him how
it ended, and so he got stabbed and then they had to like get
them out of there. That is familiar. I thought you made a robot
stabbed a human spoil you know, Hunger Games or whatever, Like, I
can't believe you told me the end. That's great, I mean it's not.
But the thought of aliens or robot aliens stab at each other because you
know spoilers. How you dare? How dare you tell me how the Foundation
trilogy? And asshole? I am reading the secret I am putting out optimism
into the universe. So it would have to be some kind of like interdimensional
thing or something like to get from here to here and be fine, Like
it'd have to be like, you know, kind of a teleportation thing more
than physical flying through space, right like, which you know it's not impossible
with the math. I think I don't know about the math. I'm not
really good with the math. I don't think I want to go back and
take math again. But you know, I think there are some questions about
before we can talk about how things are acting in other dimensions. We have
to figure out if there are other dimensions, and that, yeah, that
is true. Is the sort of the step ladder of science, right right,
Yeah, that and this is something I'm going to bring up here in
a little bit too. But just more speculation to this stuff. And that's
I think that's inherent with living in the gray area that we're talking about.
But I did think it was an interesting point that he may about the money
unless they are there's always people who think there are black programs, you know,
dark dark money going into things that nobody knows about. And maybe they're
you know, because the defense budget it just itself for the United States is
ridiculously huge, so who you know, nobody's keeping track of every single sent
No, obviously, like look at how much we spend on toilets in Iraq.
But I think we're keeping better track of funds than we say we are.
Like, the money is not infinite, right, and it does come
from taxes, and it does come from appropriations, and there are some there
is some accountability. It's not great, it could be better, but it
is also not like the military has infinite resources to get whatever it needs whenever
it wants. It however, like it also has to go through channels.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's true. And yeah, these days
you don't know what they're doing for show and what they're you know, I
don't know. But it does seem like we're moving towards more acceptance of studying
this, which is nice, which I think gets back to the point about
you know, you were asking about Frank Frank Drake and like, do I
feel sad that that channel for looking is disappearing? And part of the reason
I'm also optimistic is because the search for extraterrestrial life has become a more mainstream
science. For a long time, it was pushed to the side. In
nineteen ninety four, there was a senator from Nevada who had like all NASAs
extraterrestrial like SETI researched like he was basically like, you can't have any money
for this at all, stripped it out of the budget, basically just like
cut NASA off at the knees on researching this kind of stuff. Yeah,
and that you know, it's always a risk, Congress is what it is.
But I think the overall acceptance for looking for these kinds of things,
for searching for life or thinking about it in sort of the grand scheme of
like where can life be? What does it look like? Is it my
crobial? Is a big brain like that has become more widely accepted. Yeah,
yeah, which is good. And that senator was not Harry would Read.
He's no, that was. It was Richard Bryan. Richard Bryant.
I think or I might have the first name wrong because Harry Read's been a
big supporter of it. In fact, yeah, Harry Red was. Yeah,
I did I have to go down to Vegas and hang out with the
old Harry. Yeah he was. He's interested, I mean he and I
think what I liked about talking to him is he didn't have any answers.
He's not saying there's aliens out there. He's like, look, I've talked
to these people that I like and respect and trust, and they've had weird
experiences. And these military people are reporting weird experiences. Let's take a little
pot of money and look into what's going on here. Not a ton just
like two you know, let's ask yeah, twenty two million, which you
know, throw it my way. I think that's a very pragmatic approach to
it, like why not? Yeah, especially if something of such implication,
right, if you have military pilots reporting that they're seeing weird things in the
sky, don't ground them find out what they're seeing, right, Like,
don't pretend it's not there. That's dumb. Yeah. Yeah, And this
is where you know, some folks would spin off and say unless they know
what they're seeing, and they don't want them to know. Well, and
you can go to any rabbit hole you go down and go into conspiracy land.
It's just like keep your mind open, but as they say, not
so open that your thanks fall out. Yeah, not everything is a conspiracy.
That'll segue nicely into this next question. You spoke to a decent number
of folks who truly believe ets are either among us or regularly visiting. Was
there any common factor in thought or words or traits that you could tell that
these people shared the believers. I didn't spend enough time with them to like
really get a sense of who they were outside of this fascination. A lot
of are reported seeing the exact same thing, like a cigar shaped object or
a silver disc like those, you know, the descriptions were surprisingly uniform.
I don't know if that is because of what they're seeing is uniform or a
lack of imagination. I'm not entirely sure. Sure, most of them seemed
earnest, most of them, like I didn't feel like there were a lot
of people who were faking it. There were a couple who I was like,
you're I feel like you're taking advantage of an interest in this to further
your own career. Some of the Roswell specialists, I felt that way a
little bit. But a lot of them have seen something weird that they can't
explain and they have questions about. And I think that that is a perfectly
reasonable place to come from for exploration. Sure, if it takes over your
life, if it keeps you from you know, having relationships and having a
job and being a functioning part of society, then I start to wonder a
little bit about what's going on. Yeah, and if this is out of
our purview, you know, let me know. But do you would you
say that there's a need for them to believe or find these things true?
Was that a big factor in their lives? You know? There have been
a couple of studies that have happened recently and Americans on the whole have become
much less religious and much more secular, and I do think that to some
degree, this idea of aliens, this idea of something that's out there that
might be here to help us, that might be looking out for us,
sort of fills that void. I think there is a spiritual element to it
for some people, or people are looking for bigger meaning or feeling like they're
part of something large than just you know, the day to day grind,
and I do think that that is an element of this for some people.
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, and I think that's a good perspective on
it too, is that there is some need to fill a part of something,
even if that means you are an insignificant little spec I think, you
know, it's an interesting and then that gets into sociology and stuff I would
think, and psychology, and there's all kinds of places you can go from
here, I think, with it and still stay in the science fields.
Yes, so we're still trying to find out where this is circling back,
We're still trying to find out if aliens are visiting us, and so it's
nothing but speculation to try and figure out why. Again, coming back to
that why for everything, But you know, that's also arguably the most fun
part. Yeah, what all did you hear from people on their speculations as
to why aliens Aliens are visiting us? Yeah, Oh, that's a tough
one because a lot of it boils down to people thinking that they're special and
they feel like they've had an experience, they've been visited, and this sort
of fits in with that religion stuff too, as well as like you've had
a miracle or a visitation, or you saw God or you know, the
light at the end of the tunnel. Like, there are some overlap here
in terms of the terminology and the way that it's discussed. Some of the
other arguments I heard is that you know, they're coming to Earth to try
and keep us from blowing ourselves up. And actually, you know, this
is a huge theme in alien movies in like the fifties and sixties, especially
in the wake of the atomic bomb and all of the atomic testing. We
were doing this New Age stuff too. Yeah, there were all these movies
that were about you know, aliens coming and trying to stop us from hurting
ourselves and damage thereby damaging the galaxy. I didn't really hear any great explanations
or why they would be coming here. I mean, you know, if
there is advanced alien life out there, then it's not just us in them.
There are lots of places that they could go. So it could be
that, you know, they're just visiting Earth for a good time, or
were like zoo animals were like so backward and unevolved and unsophisticated. That's kind
of like, you know, going to see the monkeys at the zoo.
I don't I don't really buy the idea that they've been to Earth, So
it's hard for me to buy the reasoning for why they would come. The
other thing to think about is sure aliens might have come to visit Earth.
They might have come when Earth was like a mere one or one and a
half billion years old and been like this place is covered with liquid hot magma.
Let's go hang out somewhere else, and they never came back again,
Like why would they only be coming in this very narrow time period where we
are? So yeah, yeah, again that's a that's a small window.
And boy, I've I've heard all kinds of stuff too. But and and
people said on on your podcast that you know, it could be violent.
They could come for resources to strip mind the planet. They that was Hawking.
That was Stephen Hawking that said that one, like, don't you send
the messages out there? Come on? That's fair. It's a conservative take
on it, I think, a very kind of like cautious cautious, Yeah,
cautious take. But does that make sense to you for something to if
they have to physically travel that vast distance, is it just for resources and
violence or would it make more sense to be scientific exploration or like what what
do you think? I would lean more towards scientific explanation or tourisms. I
mean, I guess if they're plopping from planet to the planet and using that
as the next space and strip mining all the resources before they move on to
the next planet. But I mean, I don't know what kind of ethos
that is, Yeah, although I guess it's a human ethos, like let's
hop from place to place. It's not like we have Yeah, And that's
part of I think why people have speculated that before is because that's something we've
done before. So you know, who's to say that they wouldn't do it
as well and we would just be like cattle to them or whatever. But
I mean, obviously they're coming for here for the cows, Like, think
about all the cows that they've beamed up over the years. That's the main
Yeah, like steak, they like a nice wag you and and again this
is just the fun part of it. It's all speculation. There's there's no
no telling well, and I think the yeah, I think the cool part
of all of this is like, and part of the reason that I ended
up doing the book with for the kids, you know, the children,
is there's an element of wonder with all of this, and like the first
step of the scientific method is ask a question, what are you wondering?
And to wonder is very human and I think it's something that children are really
good at and adults kind of phase out of we already have our minds made
up, We've already come to our decisions. Yes, aliens are out there,
No they're not. But encouraging that sense of wonder asking these questions,
like you're going to find to sort of approach the world from a standpoint of
like what if, I think is a really good way to not only understand
your world better, but understand the people around you better too, sort of
thinking about things from different perspectives, wondering what their lives might be, Like,
I just think wonder is so central to being an engaged human, which
is part of the sense that I wanted to create with both the podcast and
the book. That's great, you actually kind of answered the next question because
I was going to turn it back towards this book like season one. You
turned this season into a book geared towards middle grade readers. And yeah,
I think you start at Wonder with a lot of things, and it leads
to critical thinking, It leads to more empathy because you have those different perspectives.
You can think about things in different angles, not just a rigid,
shut, closed minded process. Talk about the book just a little more and
why what it might also be good for that age group and kids of all
ages, just besides that wonder aspect. Yeah, I think the wonder aspect
is a big part. I think too, Like I remember learning about space
and sort of feeling like it was this cold, distant thing, which it
is. But what I wanted to do was sort of use that sense of
wonder to approach it in a way where it's like what we learn about in
space is also what we're learning about here on Earth, Like these things are
not separate. Space is not out there and Earth is not here, like
we are part of a bigger system. Things that are happening here might be
happening on other planets. Like there's just all this cool stuff to learn about
that I think in some ways makes space space more approachable in a way that
I did not feel as a kid. I just felt like it was it
was kind of you had no physics and math and it just felt very off
putting. Yeah, for some reason, it's reminding me of the New Age
stuff again with the as above so below kind of thought that, you know,
the mantra that goes along with New Age teachings and studies. It's it
is interesting to think about and makes it a little more I guess. I
don't know if personal is the right word, but it brings it down to
you to where it's easier to understand and and to follow up on those questions
that you might have. I think it's it's a good, a good cool.
And you know, the book in particular, the art again gorgeous.
I know, didn't he do a good job. He's so amazing, Raphael
Nobrae. You can follow him on Instagram. Actually, he's like he's so
good. He does all these cool illustrations. It's it's really neat seeing this
book and the Search for Sasquatch as well, because it's very vibrant. The
colors, but they're in a theme, like there's a you can see a
color scheme with this, you can see one with the other book and stuff.
I I appreciate those those types of things. But it's a great book.
So tell us where we can pick up a copy of this and find
wild Thing? Yeah, so wild Thing is available wherever you get your podcasts.
I don't think there's any place where it's not available. It's even on
YouTube all it's not it's just the audio. Sorry, guys. I don't
have the skills to do video yet. Someday, someday I will. That
takes so much work, I know. And the book is available I think
pretty much all of the online places that you normally get books, and you
know, I'm trying to encourage independent bookstores to carry it. If you go
into your independent bookstore and you cannot find it, please ask them to carry
it because that's great for me. And also, if you read it and
you like it, please leave me a review because that is really the best
way to get the word out for both the podcast and the book. Review
word of mouth is hands down the best advertising I can get. Yep,
and it's free. It doesn't cost to leave a review or to talk about
this stuff. So again, the book is called Is There Anybody out There?
The author is Laura Krantz. Laura, thanks for returning to Blurry Photos.
I appreciate it anytime. This is a lot of fun. Thanks for
having me. Thanks once again to Laura for coming back on the show.
You can find her book and podcasts at Laura Krantz dot com and by searching
for wild Thing on any podcatcher. I'll also have links to her page in
the show notes for you. You can check out more paranormal topics taken not
too seriously by searching for Hysteria fifty one, which I co host with Brent
Hand. You can find a bunch of trivia by listening to Quiz Quiz Bang
Bang. Just search for that on any podcaster, and you can find the
audiobooks I have narrated by searching for David Flora on Audible or Amazon. Thank
you for listening and for this episode of Blurry Photos, I have been David
Uffloora. Don't stop BLURRYVN