WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:07.679 Hello, and welcome to Open Minds Radio. This is Alejandro Ah. Thank 2 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:13.160 you so much for joining the show today. This is actually an edited version 3 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:16.679 of the show that we aired live, and I've edited out the news because 4 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:20.480 we had a few glitches there and unfortunately it didn't come across too well. 5 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:23.920 But we are going to be trying some new stuff where we're going to be 6 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:29.760 doing the shows remotely because we're movers and shakers and Jason and I are not 7 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:34.600 always in the same place at once, so it's going to be exciting and 8 00:00:34.759 --> 00:00:38.960 different, and hopefully for those of you who listen to the show on the 9 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.520 podcast, you won't notice much of a difference, but the YouTube's will be 10 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.880 a little different since we'll be on the little computer screens there as opposed to 11 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:52.320 the nice cameras in the studio. But our shows are still going to be 12 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:58.679 as wonderful and great as usual. Another couple of new things I wanted to 13 00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:00.079 tell you about because I know last time I told you there'd be some new 14 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:07.400 exciting things coming up, and they are. So many of you subscribe to 15 00:01:07.799 --> 00:01:15.719 my podcast, my Paranormal Reporter podcast that's Paranormal rpt R, and I update 16 00:01:15.799 --> 00:01:19.359 that with the headlines on all of the areas of the paranormal on a regular 17 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:23.519 basis that you guys can get stay up to speed on what's going on there. 18 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:29.239 However, since some of you are just into UFOs and would rather focus 19 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:34.599 just on that subject, I've also created one that's solely for UFOs where I 20 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.480 put headlines up there all the time from the conventional media to show you know 21 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:42.760 what kind of impact that UFOs have on culture, how many sightings are getting 22 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:49.400 reported out there and some of the credible stuff were or otherwise that's being reported 23 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:53.680 by the media. That's UFO Daily News, So you can find that at 24 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.680 UFO Daily News. So it's all one word if you go search it, 25 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:01.200 or two words if you go search it on Twitter dot com. Now, 26 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:05.439 if you don't want to be on Twitter, that's fine too. You'll also 27 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:09.840 find these at Ufodailynews dot com, so it's fun and exciting. I hope 28 00:02:09.879 --> 00:02:15.080 you like it. Otherwise, the news that Jason went over you can find 29 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:20.319 at Openminds dot tv, and I hope you enjoy this great interview with Peter 30 00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:28.199 Robbins where he gives us a unique insight into the life of alien abduction researcher 31 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:34.400 Bud Hopkins about how he and Peter met, and also about how Bud Hopkins 32 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.000 got involved with all of this and you know, made such a big impact 33 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:46.599 on really society by bringing the alien abduction phenomena to the forefront. Now everybody 34 00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:51.159 knows what it is. So I hope you enjoy the show and this great 35 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:55.159 interview with Peters. Thanks for joining us. Now that's your relationship with Bud 36 00:02:55.199 --> 00:03:01.120 starting. Okay, well, that requires a little bit of backstory to tell 37 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:09.039 you how but Aen I first met in nineteen seventy five. My life was 38 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:15.039 all about being a young painter in New York City. It was all I 39 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:19.319 ever wanted to do was be an artist. And I had now graduated from 40 00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:23.240 the School of Visual Arts and was on their faculty as a painting instructor. 41 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:28.479 I had a little loft down in Chinatown. My work was starting to sell 42 00:03:28.520 --> 00:03:35.039 a little bit. My sister, Helen was a poet and soon to be 43 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:38.639 a singer songwriter, and she lived about a mile north of me in New 44 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:46.280 York's East Village. And life was good. And one afternoon I was going 45 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:49.360 over a bunch of old drawings that I had done when I was a kid, 46 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:53.439 and maybe that was part of the reason I hadn't been sleeping. Well, 47 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:58.840 it was Chinese New Year had just passed, and seventy two hours of 48 00:03:58.879 --> 00:04:03.360 fireworks going on sounded like I was in a war zone. But something triggered 49 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:09.039 inside of me, and a memory returned from childhood. I should say, 50 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:14.000 I grew up in a little community about thirty miles east of New York City 51 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:19.759 on Long Island, had a pretty idyllic childhood, I think, no major 52 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:26.160 traumas, and certainly no repressed memories that I was aware of. But I 53 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:31.319 had one. And what it was was of a UFO siding that my sister 54 00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:36.319 Helen and I had had when we were kids. I was fourteen, as 55 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:40.560 best as I can recall, and Helen was just twelve, and we were 56 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:45.519 playing on the front lawn of the house we grew up in, and it 57 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:51.759 was an absolutely beautiful late afternoon in late spring or early summer, and not 58 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:56.639 a cloud in the sky. Alejandro, and something caught my attention in the 59 00:04:56.680 --> 00:05:01.399 sky, and I looked up and I watched him complet and utter amazement as 60 00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:11.399 five silvery white disc shaped objects flying in quite a precise V type formation that 61 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:17.319 you know we'd associate with like fighter planes or something on display, came without 62 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:26.519 a sound from my right peripheral vision and stopped over the neighbor's house in that 63 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:31.680 same formation, and I immediately said, either look or Helen, look, 64 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:35.680 and we looked up and there they were, as still as if they were 65 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:41.720 painted on the sky. I was a good kid. I was a bad 66 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:46.519 liar. I, you know, collected rocks and bugs and stamps, and 67 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:49.920 it was kind of nerdy. I wasn't into sports. I drew and painted 68 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:57.319 and cooked, and I had watched my share of you know, b science 69 00:05:57.319 --> 00:06:01.920 fiction movies at our local fantasy theater, where I had some of my great 70 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:06.360 movie memories. And you know, I knew about flying saucers as much as 71 00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:13.319 any kid. But also somehow I understood the implied message of the adult world 72 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:16.800 that they were not real. They were science fiction. But these were round, 73 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:23.079 and I can't tell you exactly how large they were, but you know, 74 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:26.680 if they were the size of small private planes, maybe they were a 75 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.360 thousand feet up. If they were like airliners, maybe they were several thousand 76 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:33.319 feet up. But Helen and I both agreed that we could see regular detailing 77 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:40.360 around each one that we could only read like windows, and we were transfixed, 78 00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:43.759 and we looked, and we looked and we looked, and it went 79 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:48.079 on forever several minutes. In any case, you and I have certainly collected 80 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:51.879 our share of accounts of people who have had sightings, and in the countless 81 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:57.560 hundreds I've done, many people describe what I would now call the checklist phenomena. 82 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:00.879 You look up and there is something or things that you have never seen 83 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:06.000 anything like, and your mind immediately rattles off stuff that they're not. They're 84 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:12.079 not planes, helicopters, kites, blimps, balloons, clouds, reflections from 85 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:21.000 the ground, floating debrithe and then you're stuck. And I was absolutely at 86 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:25.360 the most extraordinary moment of my young life. I could not believe what I 87 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:29.600 was seeing, Yet there it was. We didn't say a word. Helen 88 00:07:29.720 --> 00:07:32.160 was standing about six feet to my left, and at a certain point I 89 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:35.240 had had it. Some people would say, well, don't tell me you 90 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:39.480 didn't you stop looking because this is the most amazing thing you've ever seen, 91 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:42.879 and you know it might go away in a second. Well that was just 92 00:07:42.920 --> 00:07:46.639 the case. I went to run into the house to tell our mom, 93 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:55.519 and within moments I felt like I was running through molasses. What had happened 94 00:07:55.639 --> 00:08:00.199 within seconds was so shocking to me and so fascinating, and not scared at 95 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:03.839 all, I should say, unlike these things in the sky, which gave 96 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:07.720 me a great deal of anxiety. I was falling, but in very slow 97 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:13.160 motion. I realize now I had kind of lost motor coordination. And in 98 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:18.120 my last conscious moments, I thought several things that seemed as anomalous as the 99 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:22.600 things that I was running away from, namely, what a beautiful afternoon it 100 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:28.839 was, and how pretty my mom's garden looked. And as I was falling 101 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:33.080 toward our sidewalk, you know, there are the ants in the sidewalk doing 102 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:37.320 their thing, and bang. I was unconscious. Some time passed. I 103 00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:39.960 had wanted to think that it was a minute or two, but I now 104 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.799 realized it was considerably longer. And when I woke, they were gone. 105 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:50.480 My sister was gone, and I had scraped my right elbow pretty bad. 106 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:52.960 But you know, it was impressed that I'd have a great scab, like 107 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:58.200 a fourteen year old might think. And went into the house and intuitively went 108 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.000 upstairs, and I saw my sister room looking out the window at our backyard. 109 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:03.960 It did and wanted to disturb her. And I went into the kitchen. 110 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.039 I told my mom what we had seen, and I think I said 111 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:09.440 word for word, Mom, Helen, and I just saw some things in 112 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:15.799 the sky that looked like flying sausage from the movies, and my mom, 113 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:22.240 God, rest there she did something very smart and very sensitive without realizing it. 114 00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:26.639 I think she just looked at me and appraised me seriously, and she 115 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.120 said, are you sure. I said, yeah, I'm sure that's what 116 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:35.440 they look like, and she just nodded and went back to cooking, but 117 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:39.399 seemed very thoughtful to me. Next thing I knew, I was taking my 118 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:43.360 bicycle to town to get out some books from our local library, which I 119 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:46.360 hated both of them. One of them was flying Sausages landed. I wanted 120 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:52.320 something that was going to tell me they were completely understandable. That afternoon, 121 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.000 Helen asked me if I wanted to talk about what we had seen, and 122 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:58.039 I said no. I wasn't stupid. I knew that if I mentioned this 123 00:09:58.200 --> 00:10:03.919 to my palace junior high school, I'd be laughingstock. You know, no 124 00:10:03.039 --> 00:10:07.960 girl would ever want to have me touch her and never have any cool clothes. 125 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:11.960 I'd be a pariah and of you know, an outcast, and you 126 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:18.240 on, he's just kidding. I love your brother, that's great. Well 127 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:24.879 you got great clothes. Well I can only tell you that. Over the 128 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:30.879 next weeks, I worked very hard to kind of repeat that mantra that I 129 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:33.559 think a lot of people do, which is it couldn't be, therefore it 130 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:37.399 wasn't therefore it must have been something else. And my life started to go 131 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:41.000 on, and I found my kind of social bearings and got into music and 132 00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:46.320 art at a deeper level, and ultimately did have girlfriends and all that great 133 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:52.639 stuff. And I completely forgot about it, and almost fifteen years passed, 134 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.360 and that afternoon it exploded. And I have to tell you when the memory 135 00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:01.679 came back, I couldn't shut it all. It was like playing through my 136 00:11:01.759 --> 00:11:05.399 head like a tape loop. And I thought I must be going crazy because 137 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:09.080 my logical mind said, how could I have ever ever forgotten this? And 138 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:13.919 I really had, you know, kind of broke down a bit and finally 139 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:16.799 sort of got myself together, washed my face, had a cup of tea, 140 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:18.600 and thought, what should I do? Thought there's only one thing to 141 00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:22.960 do, which is to call my sister. However, in thinking it out. 142 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.559 I thought, if I tell her what I've remembered, she'll say yes 143 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:31.200 or no, and I need more. I need her to say it, 144 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.159 and so I called her and asked her if it was a good time to 145 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:39.440 talk, and essentially said, I've remembered something that happened to us when we 146 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:43.159 were kids. I need to know what you remember, but I'm afraid if 147 00:11:43.159 --> 00:11:45.639 I just tell you, you know, you'll say yes or no, etc. 148 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:50.440 So let me set the scene and I began to talk about that morning 149 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:52.159 and what the weather was like and where we were standing on the front lawn, 150 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:56.519 and she stopped me mid sentence, kind of with a rush of laughters 151 00:11:56.519 --> 00:12:00.840 that stop, I know what you're talking about, and then described to me 152 00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:07.480 what we had seen. Well. I had a reaction I can only describe 153 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:11.039 as one of the great split moments of my life. One part of me 154 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:13.840 was going, oh my god, they're real, and the other part of 155 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:16.759 me is going, oh my god, they're real. And then she said 156 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:22.080 something I will never forget. And she said there's more, and you're not 157 00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:24.000 going to like it. Said, well, what she said, Well, 158 00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:30.360 I remember you literally peeling off from my right peripheral vision, and I assumed 159 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:33.399 you're running to house to tell mom. But then within a second or two, 160 00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:37.879 a beam of blue light shot out of one of these things. And 161 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:41.279 the first thing that struck me was, it's a beautiful, clear day. 162 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:45.080 How can I be seeing a beam of light? You know what I mean? 163 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.600 Right down to the ground. It's not like you know, it's just 164 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:54.559 rained. And you shine a flashlight and it's catching on every molecule of moisture 165 00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:58.679 in the air. And I turned around and I saw you in the light, 166 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:01.919 and the light went out, and then you dropped, and then I 167 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:05.799 lifted off, and I remember my hair blowing in the wind, and the 168 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:09.039 bottom of one of these things was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And 169 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:13.919 at that point my mind just kind of cut out, and my first thought 170 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:16.240 was my God, my sister's crazy. And then I caught myself and I 171 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:20.159 said, wait, but three seconds ago, she wasn't crazy. When five 172 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:24.200 discs with windows on them were hanging over the Parker's house. Well, we 173 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:28.120 got together the next day. I had already done a bunch of drawings. 174 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:33.600 And to say my life changed overnight is an understatement. My life changed in 175 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:37.159 a moment and has never gotten back on the same track, and Helen went 176 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:43.600 on to a very distinguished career in the music industry and its Golden Platinum record 177 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:50.080 award winner and wonderful singer, songwriter and performer. And I was completely immersed 178 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:54.000 in UFOs. I played it being an artist for years, ultimately went into 179 00:13:54.159 --> 00:14:00.559 a theater management and then on to become an investigative writer. But about a 180 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:07.279 year past and one afternoon, I picked up a copy of a famous New 181 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:13.000 York weekly, the Village Voice, and there was an article on a major 182 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:18.080 UFO incident that had taken place the year before in New Jersey. Well I 183 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:22.759 had already started to collect UFO books and picked up the Odd magazine, and 184 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:28.639 I realized that there were a core of scientific kind of writers and a whole 185 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:33.519 bunch of new age goofballs and welcome space brothers and contactees. Had no interest 186 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:37.480 in meeting any of these people, but this author I wanted to meet. 187 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:43.720 The article was sensational, it was beautifully written, it was analytical, it 188 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:46.919 was objective, it was well researched, and the author was a guy named 189 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:52.279 Bud Hopkins. Now, remember, I'm a painter in New York City, 190 00:14:52.519 --> 00:14:56.240 and it's a world where many of us know each other's names, and I 191 00:14:56.279 --> 00:15:00.399 thought, I know there's a painter named Bud Hopkins, but chances ar it's 192 00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:03.080 not him. I looked in the New York phone book. There's only Bud 193 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:07.320 Hopkins, and I just cold called him, and I introduced myself and told 194 00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:11.759 him why I was calling. We chatted a bit, and they invited me 195 00:15:11.799 --> 00:15:18.720 over for coffee. And that was in early nineteen seventy six, and we 196 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:24.639 became friends, mostly bonded by our love of art and our fascination with this 197 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:31.120 very improbable topic. Now this is five years before he published his first book, 198 00:15:31.200 --> 00:15:37.279 Missing Time, and I knew he was getting involved in this wildest area 199 00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:43.159 of research, and overnight, in nineteen eighty one, he became Bud Hopkins, 200 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.919 the Bud Hopkins that many of your listeners are familiar with, and his 201 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:52.320 life changed very dramatically as well. From then on, our friendship deepened, 202 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:58.080 and because we already had a great bond of trust and certainly other things in 203 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:00.720 common, he was starting to get a lot of mail, more than he 204 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:04.799 could handle, and he invited me to begin to help him with the mail. 205 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:11.840 And as he realized that I was more and more in tune with this, 206 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:17.799 he gave me more responsibilities. He began to study hypnosis, and for 207 00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:22.360 the first seven years that he did regressive hypnosis. Many people don't know this, 208 00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:27.399 he worked under the very careful supervision of a very highly regarded hypnotherapist named 209 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:33.159 doctor Aphrodite Clamar. Bud did not come to this in any kind of cavalier 210 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:40.039 way. He did it in the most methodical, scholarly sensitive way. I 211 00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:45.240 was very, very impressed with the way he dealt with the people, because 212 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:51.320 that's what meant the most to me. We were both humanists. We both 213 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:56.000 really cared about what these people were going through. And for me, I 214 00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:59.480 had grown up with an abductee in the family, and Helen and I had 215 00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:06.759 already put together parts of her history from her memories. She was doing drawings 216 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:11.519 now of her abduction experiences, and she worked with Bud on and off for 217 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:18.119 several years Hypnotic Regression, member of one of his earliest support groups, and 218 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:23.200 that is how we met and began to work together. Now, you spent 219 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:29.839 lots of time with Bud. I'm sure you talked a lot about his history. 220 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:34.960 How did he get interested in the phenomena? Yes, he discusses this 221 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:40.920 at length better than I ever could, although I will in his very last 222 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:45.079 book, which is one that should be on the shelves of anybody who is 223 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:49.480 serious about the subject of UFOs, and almost more interestingly, anybody who is 224 00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:57.480 interested in a very unique twentieth century American life. It's a memoir appropriately titled 225 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:03.519 Art, Life and UFOs, and it's as fine a memoir as I've ever 226 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:08.640 written. Bud's interest was not sparked. Remember he was born in nineteen thirty 227 00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.519 one, and again he died in August, so he was eighty years old 228 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:19.279 just when the whole thing kicked in in forty seven. He was already a 229 00:18:19.319 --> 00:18:23.640 teenager, but had his eyes completely set on being an artist, and this 230 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:30.200 was something that he ignored as I did. It wasn't until I believe the 231 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.640 mid sixties, and I would have to look it up. It's either that 232 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:38.720 he was driving with his wife or walking on the beach, but he saw 233 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:44.200 it was kind of a gray day, as is often the case in Cape 234 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:48.160 Cod, where he had his second home and spent many of his happiest times 235 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:52.920 over the last fifty years of his life. That he saw a single disc 236 00:18:53.599 --> 00:19:00.480 tracking along the sky and followed it with his eyes, and he does wonderful 237 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:03.960 drawing in the book of just what he saw, and of course it's as 238 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:08.279 good a drawing as you've seen of something like that, and it just it 239 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:12.680 was something he never forgot, but he sort of filed it. Now. 240 00:19:12.759 --> 00:19:18.119 Where he really got involved was in nineteen seventy five, the year I got 241 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:23.680 involved. Bud was a Scotch drinker and he drank Cutty Sark, and we 242 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:30.880 had many Cutty Sarks together. And there was a local liquor store. Anybody 243 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:36.759 that's listening who knows New York but lived on West sixteenth Street, just east 244 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:41.720 of Eighth Avenue, and there was a liquor store on the block run by 245 00:19:41.720 --> 00:19:45.839 a man named George o'barski. George was a kind of cantankerous character. I 246 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:52.799 met him once in World War Two, veteran Catholic religious teetotaler, didn't drink, 247 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:55.759 so it was kind of a joke that he owned a liquor store. 248 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:02.000 And one day Bud went in to pick up a bottle and George was noticeably 249 00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:06.759 withdrawn. They would always chat a bit, and he was affable, and 250 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:10.400 Bud asked him what was wrong, and he wouldn't say, And Bud liked 251 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:12.400 the guy, and he pushed him, and he essentially said, Bud, 252 00:20:12.440 --> 00:20:15.759 you'd never believe me. I wouldn't believe myself. And he went on to 253 00:20:15.799 --> 00:20:22.960 tell Bud a story that I believe ultimately was the one that Moufon rated as 254 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:26.039 the best or as good as any for that year, and the one, 255 00:20:26.079 --> 00:20:30.160 of course, that the article that I read was based on. George had 256 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:37.240 been doing inventory late that night and was there till about two. He lived 257 00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:41.799 in Jersey and was driving home along the Jersey Coast Road on the Hudson River, 258 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:45.599 and I guess if you drew a line from Manhattan over he was probably 259 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:48.640 in the eighties when his radio started to go on the fritz. It was 260 00:20:48.759 --> 00:20:52.720 middle of the night, there were no other cars on the road. Banged 261 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.839 the radio a few times, and he sees a light coming up behind him, 262 00:20:56.240 --> 00:21:00.000 and as light gets closer, the static gets worse, and it passed 263 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:06.000 us is over the car by a very small amount of space, and the 264 00:21:06.039 --> 00:21:08.519 static got at its worst, and then it veered off to the left and 265 00:21:08.599 --> 00:21:15.720 landed out in a field near a new housing development, ironically a round apartment 266 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:21.240 complex named Stonehenge Towers. I believe you can't take that stuff up well you 267 00:21:21.279 --> 00:21:27.839 can. And George slowed down and he watched in complete shock as the thing 268 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:30.799 came down without a sound, and as it was coming down, what we 269 00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:36.640 can only describe as some kind of landing apparatus came out of it and it 270 00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:41.440 settled on the ground. And then some kind of entryway, gangplank, ladder, 271 00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:45.640 whatever you want to call it, came down, and a number of 272 00:21:45.720 --> 00:21:52.920 small beings came down, and he watched as they collected soil and then went 273 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:56.480 back up, and then the thing rose, the gear retracted and it took 274 00:21:56.519 --> 00:22:02.640 off. Well. George arrived home and complet and total shock, he told 275 00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:07.480 Bud told me that he basically got in bed and prayed like he had not 276 00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:11.359 prayed in years, pulled the covers over his head. He's a widower. 277 00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:15.119 He lived with his grown up son, who worked a night shift, and 278 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:18.200 his son came home about dawn. His father was in a terrible state. 279 00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:22.359 He told him what he had observed, and the son said, Dad, 280 00:22:22.599 --> 00:22:26.039 I've got to go check this out for myself and went back and walked into 281 00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:32.880 the field that morning and found the impressions in the soil. Well that afternoon 282 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:37.000 may have been the great turning point in our friend Bud Hopkins's life Like me, 283 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:42.440 he became quite obsessed with the subject. Investigated this case with the skill 284 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:48.720 of a born detective. He interviewed people who lived in the apartment, who 285 00:22:48.759 --> 00:22:52.799 worked in the apartment, He found other witnesses. In fact, one of 286 00:22:52.839 --> 00:22:56.759 the most compelling memories I have was that the man who had been the night 287 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:03.880 doorman that night had observed the lights in the field and he thought at first 288 00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:07.640 they were cars, you know, teenagers parking or something, but they weren't. 289 00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:11.759 And he was very disturbed by it, and he lifted the house phone 290 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:17.119 to call a New York City detective police detective who lived in the building to 291 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:18.240 tell him because he knew he was home, even though it was the middle 292 00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:22.720 of the night, he decided to do it, and as he went to 293 00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:26.440 talk to him, the entire plate glass window in front of him shattered. 294 00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:30.359 Wow. When the police investigated this, there was not It wasn't like a 295 00:23:30.359 --> 00:23:33.480 bullet was shot. They don't know how it chattered or why it chattered. 296 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:38.960 There was no entry, but it chattered, and that was how Bud got 297 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:47.640 involved. It's incredible that he's an artist, but he really found this other 298 00:23:47.799 --> 00:23:51.640 skill and was it through this UFO setting, that he was so good at 299 00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:56.200 the reporting and at the getting the interviews and the writing. Because even though 300 00:23:56.200 --> 00:24:00.839 that's his first case he wrote about, Yes, a lot of people reference 301 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:06.160 it as such a great piece of work. Yes. I talked to him 302 00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:10.799 about this, and one of the things we both agreed was that as children, 303 00:24:10.839 --> 00:24:15.640 as young boys, we had set our sights on this goal of being 304 00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:19.759 painters, and nothing was going to stop us. He went to Oberlin graduated 305 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:25.039 with his BFA as I did, from the School of Visual Arts where I 306 00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:32.079 was teaching, And he had written, but it had been art criticism and 307 00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:40.119 wonderful articles about impressionists or BRANCUSI. In fact, we reference one of them 308 00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:45.039 in the Remembrance that we have out in the new issue of Open Minds. 309 00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:52.319 So he was already adept at expressing himself in words. Also, when you 310 00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:57.240 are trained to make pictures as a writer, I never took a course in 311 00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:03.519 writing, but I learned most of it from I just started making pictures with 312 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.480 words rather than the medium that I'd been trained to work in. His natural 313 00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:14.000 sense of caring about people was, you know, maybe I'm reading a little 314 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:18.640 Freudian stuff into this, But his father had issues, as a lot of 315 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:23.319 guys of his generations did with certain minorities and things, and Bud was very 316 00:25:23.359 --> 00:25:30.440 reactive to that and very inclusive in his place, the way that he saw 317 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:33.000 people in the world. Loved being a New Yorker. I mean, it 318 00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:37.599 is the greatest city, and it's just the most wonderful place to see the 319 00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:44.279 great play of humanity of people from every corner of the world. And he 320 00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:48.839 was just very expressive. He had all the natural tools. In other words, 321 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.319 he had kind of spent years before thinking and living out of the box, 322 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:59.039 and here was the most abiding, mystery imaginable. The thing that really 323 00:25:59.079 --> 00:26:03.839 separated us as far as this goes, is that he never stopped painting, 324 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:08.160 and it stayed the central passion in that other part of his life where at 325 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:11.880 a certain point I just couldn't do it anymore. I felt like I was 326 00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:17.960 faking it. I never really put down the camera, and I'm very proud 327 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.960 of my work as a photographer, although I've not, you know, showed 328 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:26.720 it, but I've taken pictures seriously for forty years. And for me, 329 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:32.160 it was wonderful when he could grab some time to pain, because it was 330 00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.839 like me cooking. I love to cook, and it's for me. Obviously, 331 00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:38.720 it's practical, but it's a form of self expression. It's an unwinding 332 00:26:38.839 --> 00:26:42.720 kind of thing. It's fun, it's an adventure and you get to share 333 00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:48.920 it with friends in a very visceral kind of way. So that was an 334 00:26:48.039 --> 00:26:52.039 anchor for him in a world that meant the world to him. However, 335 00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:57.559 I can tell you the art world, especially as represented by the quote unquote 336 00:26:57.559 --> 00:27:03.039 New York City Art World, an unforgiving mistress. And after a fashion, 337 00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.039 when people in the art world got wind of the fact that Bud Hopkins the 338 00:27:07.079 --> 00:27:12.440 painter was now some kind of well known personage in the world of well flying 339 00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:18.160 saucers, I think a lot of them started to look at him with more 340 00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.960 disdain. And it made me angry because he was a wonderful painter, and 341 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:26.359 anybody that's ever seen his work knows that a very serious painter as well, 342 00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:33.720 and his career as a painter in terms of sales I think suffered as a 343 00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:38.640 result. He has work in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum 344 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:42.599 and collections and museums all over the world. A lot of people don't know 345 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:48.880 that, but especially in our field, but he really did live in those 346 00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:52.680 two worlds and was fortunate enough to have this wonderful old building in Lower Manhattan 347 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:56.440 with a huge studio in it that was also our office. And then in 348 00:27:56.559 --> 00:28:04.079 nineteen eighty nine when he chartered our nonprofit organization, Intruder's Foundation, which was 349 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:11.200 created to assist people who had been through these experiences to study it, to 350 00:28:11.319 --> 00:28:15.119 try to educate others about it, and to become a repository of information on 351 00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:22.319 the subject. That's when his profile changed a little bit. But that became 352 00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:26.920 our headquarters for the Intruders Foundation and support group meetings as well. Over the 353 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:36.759 years now from the Stoneheade case, I think he moved quickly into abduction research, 354 00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:40.680 right, and how did that happen? Well, I'm trying to remember 355 00:28:40.759 --> 00:28:44.920 he again. I would have to refer people to Missing Time, his first 356 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:48.000 book, or art Life and UFOs. And I'm not here to try to 357 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:52.799 sell Bud's books. In fact, I think for anybody that's interested in building 358 00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:56.839 an actual physical library, and we should all be doing that. The Internet's 359 00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:03.359 wonderful, but nothing replace is a real library. You can find these books 360 00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:07.039 online, except for the newest book used for a couple of dollars so that's 361 00:29:07.079 --> 00:29:15.519 where you should spend your money. But at some point he became very interested 362 00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:18.839 in the Betty and Barney Hill case. Now, if you lived when that 363 00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:23.000 case broke in the sixties, even if you had no interest in UFOs, 364 00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:29.440 Betty and Barney Hill became world famous in nineteen sixty five, even though the 365 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:33.119 case broke and happened in sixty one, and you could you know, they 366 00:29:33.160 --> 00:29:38.720 were the subject of countless articles and I think a special issue of Life or 367 00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:45.359 Look magazine or what have you. And for him, the impact on human 368 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:51.880 beings of this kind of contact superseded any interest in studying lights in the night 369 00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:59.920 sky or the configuration or maneuvers of so called, you know, unknown aerial 370 00:30:00.119 --> 00:30:03.839 objects. He wasn't stupid, though, he realized that it was a subject 371 00:30:04.400 --> 00:30:10.920 that was fraught with ridicule. And it's one of the reasons why separate from 372 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:15.000 my friendship and the fact that I just loved the guy as a really, 373 00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:21.720 really good man. He was tremendously courageous. I don't think more than a 374 00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:26.960 handful of us can really appreciate what it must be like to be the person 375 00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:33.559 who is pioneering not just a truly new area of study, scientific study, 376 00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:41.640 but one because of the way that we Americans and the West in general have 377 00:30:41.799 --> 00:30:48.200 been so brilliantly conditioned from the summer of nineteen forty seven on our media and 378 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:53.039 our government and every social force has pounded into our heads overall that this is 379 00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:59.240 nonsense. And don't you think it's interesting that, of all of the subjects 380 00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:03.759 out there, if one is to say I saw something in the sky that 381 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:11.839 I couldn't identify, that there is a social conditioning where many people will look 382 00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:17.960 at you and they will think you're crazy, or you want to feel special, 383 00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:21.160 or you're lonely, or you want to write a book, or you 384 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:25.200 want to be on the Oprah Show. Or rather than okay, you saw 385 00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.799 something in the night sky or the sky that you couldn't identify, isn't that 386 00:31:27.880 --> 00:31:33.519 interesting? I wonder what it was too. So he knew he was getting 387 00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:37.680 into a lonely place to start with, and for some years it was really 388 00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:44.880 him on his own. And I'll tell you what, Alejandro, I never 389 00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.839 had a day there over the many years that I worked with him, almost 390 00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:53.200 all of it on a volunteer basis. For about a year we actually had 391 00:31:53.240 --> 00:31:57.759 little money from a grant to Intruders Foundation, and I made the princely sum 392 00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:01.000 of eight dollars an hour for the same work that I was for free, 393 00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:06.119 and then went back to doing for free for the rest of my life. 394 00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:08.599 But I'll tell you what, there was never a day there where I didn't 395 00:32:08.599 --> 00:32:14.000 appreciate that I was working with a man who was a great man, not 396 00:32:14.039 --> 00:32:19.200 just a great guy, and that history would remember him, and that I 397 00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:22.160 was, you know, a bug on the wall and seeing this happening and 398 00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:29.440 taking shape. I also had the honor of being a proofreader, and when 399 00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:31.400 Bud was working on a book or an article, I would often be the 400 00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:36.920 first one, and it was in a very funny way as a writer infuriating. 401 00:32:37.480 --> 00:32:43.400 Bud was the very best first draft writer I have ever known in my 402 00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:45.720 life. Now, grant that I've not seen a lot of everybody's first drafts, 403 00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:52.640 but it used to drive me nuts. If I could find a colon 404 00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:55.599 that should have been a semi colon in a five page article, I would 405 00:32:55.680 --> 00:33:00.839 rejoice, and you know, mockingly give hell for you know, screwing up 406 00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:04.440 the thing, and he would play along and we would, you know, 407 00:33:04.519 --> 00:33:12.160 just have this great fun exchange. But he was a brilliantly. He wrote 408 00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:19.000 classical prose. He wrote from the heart, but informed by the mind. 409 00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:22.759 And so many of us, you know, when we start to write, 410 00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:28.880 we're concerned about what's my style going to be, or how should I use 411 00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:32.400 a bigger word here, when if you keep out of your damn way, 412 00:33:32.839 --> 00:33:38.400 you learn that the greatest thing you can do is express yourself in as clean 413 00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:44.200 and as accurate and as thoughtful a way as possible. And for him it 414 00:33:44.319 --> 00:33:47.200 was intuitive. And I know for a fact because again I read the first 415 00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:52.519 drafts that so much of his books, and he wrote four books and co 416 00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:57.240 wrote a fifth book. It was the original draft with that some of the 417 00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:00.559 most minor kind of standing at the edges where for me, On left that 418 00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:05.680 he scathed Larry Warren and I worked for nine years on that book. So 419 00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:09.800 there were times I'd go back into some area of text and revised something I'd 420 00:34:09.800 --> 00:34:14.719 written five or six years before, and was still polishing it, you know, 421 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:17.159 at almost a decade's point when we sold it and got it published. 422 00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:22.280 This is not what Bud did, was not the norm. He was tremendously 423 00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:24.800 gifted in a number of areas, and writing was certainly one of them. 424 00:34:27.400 --> 00:34:30.239 I could tell when I first met him, I kind of had this preconceived 425 00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:37.039 notion because he had strong opinions that he was kind of a grouch. But 426 00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:42.480 when I when I met him, I immediately fell in love with the guy. 427 00:34:42.519 --> 00:34:45.960 He was so nice, he was so charismatic. He had this big, 428 00:34:45.159 --> 00:34:51.400 bright smile that lights up the room, and I immediately fell in love 429 00:34:51.480 --> 00:34:55.280 with him. He seemed to be, like he said, a special person. 430 00:34:55.400 --> 00:35:00.480 He had these special qualities. And did other people react that way? 431 00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:07.159 Well, overall, absolutely he did not. How can I say? He 432 00:35:07.239 --> 00:35:12.440 was certainly diplomatic and understood the politics of life and of euthology and the politics 433 00:35:12.440 --> 00:35:15.840 of politics. And he never, ever that I observed, went out of 434 00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:20.039 his way to hurt anybody's feelings, even if he thought they were jerk. 435 00:35:20.599 --> 00:35:27.519 However, he loved people, and he loved being around people, and like 436 00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:30.599 the best people in the field. And maybe you know, you can tell 437 00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:36.199 me your observation on this. He had a world class sense of humor. 438 00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:39.360 He'd have me laughing so hard at times. In fact, he did imitations 439 00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:45.280 impressions of certain well known people in ufology, as some of us are wont 440 00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:47.639 to do. I won't even name their names, but I'd be in tears. 441 00:35:47.639 --> 00:35:52.599 I'd be laughing so hard because he had them nailed, even to the 442 00:35:52.719 --> 00:35:58.159 cadence as well as the words they would use or would have you. And 443 00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:04.280 we were both big fans of I think the finest general audience radio show still 444 00:36:04.280 --> 00:36:07.760 playing, a wonderful show on National Public Radio called A Prairie Home Companion. 445 00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:14.320 It's Garrison Killer's show, and he's the closest thing we have to Mark Twain 446 00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:19.280 these days. And we would listen to that show regularly, and once a 447 00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.039 year Garrison Killer would have a special show, which he still does, and 448 00:36:22.079 --> 00:36:25.599 he's going to be retiring soon. For fans, we're all lamenting it. 449 00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:31.800 Where it was two hours of jokes and we would either never miss that, 450 00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:36.639 or if he was going to miss it, I would make like an audio 451 00:36:36.679 --> 00:36:39.400 cassette of it, having my recorder set up in front of my radio in 452 00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:44.639 that high tech analog manner that we used to do and I sometimes still do. 453 00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:50.599 But a sense of humor can save your life in this work, Let's 454 00:36:50.639 --> 00:37:00.920 face it, serious investigation of the UFO abduction phenomena is chilling. Is the 455 00:37:00.039 --> 00:37:07.840 darkest, most unnerving aspect of everything that comes under the heading of UFO Studies, 456 00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:13.119 and I will tell you for a fact. I mean again, for 457 00:37:13.239 --> 00:37:16.519 me, it's personal and one of the reasons that I am still in the 458 00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:22.360 work is it's a way to honor my sister's memory. We lost her in 459 00:37:22.440 --> 00:37:27.840 two thousand and she was tremendously courageous and very outspoken about this up until a 460 00:37:27.880 --> 00:37:31.079 few days before she died. She would get in anybody's face about this. 461 00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:37.239 And she and I and Bud Oh Gosh, I think in nineteen eighty seven 462 00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:45.760 we were guests on the Heraldo Show and Bud handled himself absolutely brilliantly, and 463 00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:54.480 Heraldo got a little bit silly and with great dignity it. He really had 464 00:37:54.519 --> 00:38:00.559 that gift. And when we learned how ill he was last year, he 465 00:38:00.639 --> 00:38:06.320 had had kidney cancer twenty five years ago, lost to kidney then you know 466 00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:08.920 the countdown of one, five, ten years cancer free, and we figure 467 00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:14.840 he's done with it. And then I guess about eight or nine years ago, 468 00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:19.960 I don't remember, we were going back after a lunch break to a 469 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:27.039 Whole Life expo that was being held at the Pennsylvania Hotel, I think in 470 00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:30.079 the West thirties, and I could take you to within two feet of where 471 00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:32.320 we were standing waiting for a light to change when he told me, my 472 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:36.840 cancer's back. I have leukemia, but I'm told it's really slow. But 473 00:38:36.920 --> 00:38:39.239 I don't know if I want to do anything to you know, chemo or 474 00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:44.639 anything. He ultimately did and it helped him, but my heart sank and 475 00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:49.440 I had like eight years to prepare. But last year we learned that he 476 00:38:49.559 --> 00:38:53.199 had stage for liver cancer. And that is, even if you've got a 477 00:38:53.239 --> 00:39:00.000 great attitude and every homeopathic, natural pathic and people praying and loving you, 478 00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:02.599 the chances are very good you're not going to be here that much longer. 479 00:39:02.639 --> 00:39:07.639 And he told me two things with a straight face. He said, Number 480 00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:14.239 one, I really want to see my eightieth birthday, and that came true 481 00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:20.280 on June fifteenth of this year. He was eighty and we had a lovely, 482 00:39:20.519 --> 00:39:24.000 low key party with fifteen or twenty friends about two hours until he got 483 00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:29.320 tired. We had champagne and cake and he spoke and we hung out and 484 00:39:29.400 --> 00:39:32.559 it was a lovely evening. His second wish, again with a very straight 485 00:39:32.599 --> 00:39:38.559 face, was I want to outlive Dick Cheney, and I completely cracked up, 486 00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:46.280 knowing how much he adored our former vice President, and that wish did 487 00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:50.639 not come true, and I guess I should leave it at that, But 488 00:39:51.039 --> 00:39:57.679 his sense of humor did not fail him, and he was pragmatic above all 489 00:39:57.719 --> 00:40:04.760 else. He knew he was living and had lived a remarkable life, and 490 00:40:05.639 --> 00:40:12.280 was not focused on what comes next, but just so pleased that his wonderful 491 00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:17.800 daughter had become a marvelous woman, and he had a beautiful granddaughter and a 492 00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:24.760 very special relationship with Leslie Kane, and this marvelous circle of friends and thousands 493 00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:34.159 of people around the world who to whom he meant so much because of how 494 00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.719 much he gave them of his time. I think I mention it in the 495 00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:45.960 article in Open Minds. I've written another piece that's published someplace else that in 496 00:40:45.039 --> 00:40:50.559 all the years he did this, and I know he worked very formally with 497 00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:54.719 at least seven hundred people, and I logged in hundreds of tapes of interviews 498 00:40:54.760 --> 00:40:59.639 and hypnotic regressions, quite a number of which I witnessed, and that was 499 00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:08.800 a whole another story. But he how can I say the reality of what 500 00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:15.719 the people were going through was the thing that concerned him most, and literally, 501 00:41:16.199 --> 00:41:20.800 well, the overwhelming majority of people that came to him had not had 502 00:41:20.840 --> 00:41:23.280 a good time. To put it mildly, they were traumatized, they were 503 00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:29.480 frightened, they were upset. Some thought they were going crazy. Others wished 504 00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:36.719 they were going crazy. I'll never forget how upset Linda Cortil, who is 505 00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:42.000 the subject, of course, of the Remarkable Witnessed the True story of the 506 00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:47.000 Brooklyn Bridge Uf abductions, was after months of Bud investigating her case and finding 507 00:41:47.159 --> 00:41:52.239 the first group of other witnesses, and there were even other witnesses that aren't 508 00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:57.239 published who gave accounts but chose not to be included in the book. When 509 00:41:57.239 --> 00:42:01.440 Bud laid this out for her, she just broke down. She just hoped 510 00:42:01.519 --> 00:42:06.760 that he would tell her that she was crazy and that there was some doctor 511 00:42:06.880 --> 00:42:08.920 or treatment or drug that she could take to have this go away. Of 512 00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:14.400 course, that was not the case. He gave so much to so many 513 00:42:14.440 --> 00:42:17.199 people, and it cost him in his personal and private life. I will 514 00:42:17.239 --> 00:42:22.280 tell you that. And that is the way it is with many great men 515 00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:28.400 and women who are willing to sacrifice what will laughingly call a normal life. 516 00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:32.800 And he loved his life as an artist, and I know quietly he was 517 00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:37.800 hurt that other people in the art world thought less of him as an artist 518 00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:44.960 for having this other life, and at the same time he would not give 519 00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:50.079 it up. He did both, and more power to him. Now. 520 00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:54.119 It's funny you mentioned the Perry Companion joke show because I caught it a couple 521 00:42:54.119 --> 00:43:00.960 of weeks ago. Very funny. It's pretty good. I can see. 522 00:43:01.599 --> 00:43:06.599 It would seem that he had a love for people, which drove his passion 523 00:43:06.639 --> 00:43:09.800 in this field. And also he seemed to have a bit of a rebellious 524 00:43:09.800 --> 00:43:14.480 streak too that kind of drove him in this field. Is that true, 525 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:20.480 I would say. I would say categorically. He was a complete independent thinker. 526 00:43:20.599 --> 00:43:23.679 He was proud to be a New York intellectual. He was one of 527 00:43:23.719 --> 00:43:30.320 the most well read people I knew in terms of twentieth and nineteenth century literature. 528 00:43:30.599 --> 00:43:35.840 His books in that house numbered into the thousands, and they covered so 529 00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:42.280 many subjects besides art and UFOs. He was particularly well studied in twentieth century 530 00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:47.519 history. He was an avid museum goer, and one of his conditions over 531 00:43:47.559 --> 00:43:52.960 the years that I have made one of mine whenever I travel is if I'm 532 00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:57.599 in a new city and there's a museum I haven't visited and it's humanly possible 533 00:43:57.639 --> 00:44:01.519 to work that into my lecture. Skilled jewel, get me there. And 534 00:44:01.880 --> 00:44:09.679 I remember joking Nick Pope joking with me years ago when Bud had visited London 535 00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:13.880 and stayed with Nick, as quite a number of us did at the time, 536 00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:15.760 and Nick's who took him to the National Gallery. And you know, 537 00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:20.320 Nick has a great sense of humor too, and he was saying, and 538 00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:23.480 I know Nick would appreciate my saying this because it was with great affection and 539 00:44:25.239 --> 00:44:29.760 a having fun at his own expense to a degree, but just going on 540 00:44:29.800 --> 00:44:34.079 about how much Bud had learned about him from him about art as he told 541 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:37.599 him things as they were walking through the museum, when of course it was 542 00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:42.719 exactly the opposite. And that's another thing. You can speak to conference organizers 543 00:44:42.840 --> 00:44:46.880 and people around the world who brought Bud to a part of the United States 544 00:44:46.920 --> 00:44:52.880 or another country who had the added benefit of going to a museum with him 545 00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:55.519 that maybe they had been too many times or not at all, and having 546 00:44:55.639 --> 00:45:01.480 him educate them to nuances and asked effects of the art that they were seeing 547 00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:07.119 that they otherwise would have never known. When he was a young struggling painter 548 00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:12.239 in New York. He had one of the great kind of romantic jobs that 549 00:45:12.320 --> 00:45:15.800 a young artist would want to have, which was being a guard at the 550 00:45:15.880 --> 00:45:23.039 Museum of Modern Art, and sometimes a night guard. And he always had 551 00:45:23.039 --> 00:45:28.559 his pass to the museum, and we would constantly talk about what was there 552 00:45:29.079 --> 00:45:31.440 or at the Metropolitan, and if there was a particularly good show he had 553 00:45:31.480 --> 00:45:36.639 seen, he would send me to it, and if it was at the 554 00:45:36.880 --> 00:45:39.519 Modern, he would give me his pass because it's rather expensive to get in 555 00:45:39.559 --> 00:45:43.519 there now. And I said, but Bud, what happens if they asked 556 00:45:43.519 --> 00:45:46.199 me, you know, for identification. I don't look anything like you or 557 00:45:46.199 --> 00:45:49.559 anything. He said, don't worry, they never do. I never did. 558 00:45:49.679 --> 00:45:53.199 So it was again another thread that added richness. But there was a 559 00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:59.440 lot of anxiety. There was a fair amount of loneliness. You are sitting 560 00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:05.800 in the damned middle of the most explosive subject in the history of humanity, 561 00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:09.800 as far as many of us are concerned, with a bloody few colleagues or 562 00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:15.440 people that you can really confide in. And there were dark nights, for 563 00:46:15.519 --> 00:46:22.400 sure. My sister and Bud hit it off amazingly well. They were both 564 00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:30.599 outsiders. Helen, in her own way, was the definition of Rebellion. 565 00:46:30.719 --> 00:46:37.239 She was one of the true pioneer female artists in what we now call punk 566 00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:44.639 music, and the legendary CBGB's was a second home to us over the years, 567 00:46:44.719 --> 00:46:47.639 and she performed there more times than I can imagine. And Bud's musical 568 00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:54.199 tastes, although very refined, stopped at about nineteen sixty one. He liked 569 00:46:54.199 --> 00:46:58.599 the fact that my parents had instilled in me a love of the big bands 570 00:46:58.639 --> 00:47:04.639 of the thirties and forties, occasionally used to test me on singers or certain 571 00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:08.079 band leaders and was usually pretty satisfied. He did not like the fact that 572 00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:13.400 I did not think that his favorite big band singer, Vuan Monroe, was 573 00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:15.800 the best big band singer, and that was something that we disagreed on up 574 00:47:15.880 --> 00:47:21.360 until the moment that he left Deserve. But Helen and him hit it off 575 00:47:21.719 --> 00:47:28.679 like crazy, and she got so much from working with him in terms of 576 00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:35.519 doing the hypnotic regression work and making her piece to a degree with some of 577 00:47:35.519 --> 00:47:38.199 the things that had happened to her, and some of the wonderful support group 578 00:47:38.239 --> 00:47:43.280 meetings. And after a while there were so many people that we broke them 579 00:47:43.320 --> 00:47:45.199 into different areas and Helen for a while was a member of one just for 580 00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:51.239 Women, which was brilliant, but never ever pretended to be a therapist, 581 00:47:51.320 --> 00:47:53.599 and when people would kind of accuse him of that, he would get very 582 00:47:53.679 --> 00:48:00.840 rankled. But anybody that understands the dynamics of a support group knows that there 583 00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:07.119 is a de facto kind of therapy that comes from being with people who have 584 00:48:07.239 --> 00:48:10.079 had similar experiences and you're getting through it and trying to be there for each 585 00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:15.679 other and normalize this and go on with your lives. And one of the 586 00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:20.639 only two times that I ever saw Bud come to tears was after my sister 587 00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:27.480 had died. It was terribly difficult for him, more than most of the 588 00:48:27.480 --> 00:48:30.599 people that he had worked with, perhaps because of our years together, but 589 00:48:30.639 --> 00:48:34.440 they had a special bond that not only meant the world to me, Alejandro, 590 00:48:34.559 --> 00:48:37.400 but to my mother and father and my other sister as well. We 591 00:48:37.480 --> 00:48:40.440 all loved him, and my dad and him spent one remarkable day together, 592 00:48:40.480 --> 00:48:45.119 and I'll never forget that either. And my dad is ninety one now and 593 00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:50.559 fascinated by the subject, has read his books and still is waiting to see 594 00:48:50.559 --> 00:48:52.519 a UFO and not very happy that he hasn't yet. I'll tell you that, 595 00:48:54.079 --> 00:49:01.519 yeah, a lot of people are. Unfortunately we're almost out of time. 596 00:49:01.559 --> 00:49:06.519 But this is just a fascinating insight into his life, which is so 597 00:49:06.679 --> 00:49:10.760 special because now that he's gone. But maybe if you could talk about his 598 00:49:10.920 --> 00:49:15.480 legacy, because when I reflect upon his legacy, it's humongous. Yes, 599 00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:23.000 it is. Well, he is the pioneer researcher in what will be seen 600 00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:27.079 in the future if we don't blow ourselves to hell as a species, which 601 00:49:27.119 --> 00:49:30.760 is always a possibility in the world of men as opposed to mankind, he 602 00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:37.559 will be seen for what we know him to be, a true courageous pioneer 603 00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:43.639 who struck out into the dark without really a lamp to light the way, 604 00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:52.159 and with his common sense, his sensitivity, his natural abilities in working with 605 00:49:52.280 --> 00:49:59.239 people, in doing detective work on a level that any major, big city 606 00:49:59.280 --> 00:50:04.000 police department would love to have somebody like that, the fact that he was 607 00:50:04.199 --> 00:50:13.719 incredibly curious and incredibly courageous. His legacy for starters is the fact that these 608 00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:20.679 five books and probably the hundreds of articles, editorials, conference papers, monographs, 609 00:50:21.280 --> 00:50:27.480 commentaries that he wrote, and over the next year's my colleagues and I 610 00:50:27.639 --> 00:50:34.400 in the Intruders Foundation will get more and more of these posted on our website 611 00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:37.440 and try to get them out to the world. More. These books, 612 00:50:37.480 --> 00:50:43.480 I think will stand to a great degree as some of the most important texts 613 00:50:44.159 --> 00:50:52.960 in this field of study, and the pioneering texts that really form a body 614 00:50:53.000 --> 00:50:58.960 of work that is the core of what we would call abduction studies. Then 615 00:50:59.039 --> 00:51:04.079 again, he had, as in terms of a legacy, a wonderful daughter 616 00:51:04.119 --> 00:51:10.000 and granddaughter, and that granddaughter will go on hopefully to continue that bloodline, 617 00:51:10.199 --> 00:51:16.920 and quite a family it is. But then there's something really remarkable that very 618 00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:21.559 few of us will be able to point back to in the afterlife and say 619 00:51:21.599 --> 00:51:28.519 I had that too, which is thousands of people around the world who revere 620 00:51:28.559 --> 00:51:34.599 your memory, either because you help them at some point or another, directly 621 00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:37.679 or indirectly. And he would often just stop what he was doing, and 622 00:51:37.960 --> 00:51:43.960 you might have seen it at the odd conference as I did. Somebody would 623 00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:46.159 come up to him and you'd look at their face, I would, and 624 00:51:46.199 --> 00:51:50.599 you'd have a sense of what it was about, and they'd just go off 625 00:51:50.639 --> 00:51:53.199 and they'd talk. Or if it was a compelling enough case, he would 626 00:51:53.199 --> 00:51:57.119 go to another part of the country at his own expense and visit them. 627 00:51:57.400 --> 00:52:00.159 I should also say, as part of his legacy, in the hundreds and 628 00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:07.920 hundreds of cases formally or possibly you know, the thousands informally, he never 629 00:52:07.239 --> 00:52:15.159 asked a single individual for a single penny. And I took an exception to 630 00:52:15.199 --> 00:52:17.599 this at a certain point, more than just about anybody, I saw how 631 00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:22.719 hard he worked, and this was time taken away from his life as a 632 00:52:22.719 --> 00:52:25.960 professional painter, which was how he made his living. People think because he 633 00:52:27.039 --> 00:52:30.239 was famous, you know, money wasn't a problem. Well think just the 634 00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:34.280 opposite. It was always an issue, and sometimes a very dire issue, 635 00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:37.440 and one that dogged him to the end. And it's infuriating that that's the 636 00:52:37.480 --> 00:52:40.599 way the world is, but it is. And I called him on it 637 00:52:40.639 --> 00:52:45.440 and said, why don't you ask people? You're a professional, you know, 638 00:52:45.440 --> 00:52:52.199 And he said several reasons. Number one, I am concerned that if 639 00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:57.280 I did and they couldn't afford, it would be humiliating for them. I 640 00:52:57.360 --> 00:53:01.239 don't want to be seen to be in this for the money, even though 641 00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:06.400 it would be wonderful if I could make a living doing it. But I'm 642 00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:09.760 sure the moment I asked somebody for a dollar, Philip classt here about it, 643 00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:14.239 and that would be it forever. I don't want to give him that, 644 00:53:14.760 --> 00:53:17.280 And I thought to myself, I don't like the way I'm thinking here, 645 00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:21.559 but what you say makes sense, and I realize, in thirty five 646 00:53:21.639 --> 00:53:25.840 years of doing this work, I have followed that exact same path. Obviously, 647 00:53:27.119 --> 00:53:30.320 I like being paid when I speak or write, but with person to 648 00:53:30.400 --> 00:53:36.400 person, it's another story. And that is the way I was brought up. 649 00:53:36.440 --> 00:53:38.840 In part. We're all here to be here for each other to some 650 00:53:38.920 --> 00:53:43.039 degree, in a not some goofy idealists. I live in the real world, 651 00:53:43.559 --> 00:53:45.800 but for me, people come first, and that is something that was 652 00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:51.960 only reinforced working with him. His legacy is big and it will only grow 653 00:53:52.039 --> 00:53:55.639 larger as the years pass. I'm convinced of that. Well, thank you 654 00:53:55.760 --> 00:53:59.920 so much. We have the article coming out in the magazine, and then 655 00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:02.960 you're also going to be at the UFO Congress in late February. People can 656 00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:08.559 already go register for that. So thank you so much for your contributions to 657 00:54:08.599 --> 00:54:13.960 the magazine and the congress and to the radio show. This was a wonderful 658 00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:20.039 insight into the life of an important person. Well, Alejandro, it was 659 00:54:20.079 --> 00:54:24.679 a privilege to do it. I always like doing your show because it's like 660 00:54:24.719 --> 00:54:29.400 sitting down with a good friend in your living room, because we are good 661 00:54:29.400 --> 00:54:34.840 friends. And I'm really excited about the Congress in February, and for anybody 662 00:54:34.920 --> 00:54:38.639 that's not aware of it, go to the Open Minds website and the International 663 00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:44.119 UFO Congress is coming up. It will be four days with more than twenty 664 00:54:44.119 --> 00:54:47.280 speakers. What did you draw last year? Fifteen hundred or one thousand people? 665 00:54:47.320 --> 00:54:51.039 I mean, it was a phenomenal success, a lot of people. 666 00:54:51.280 --> 00:54:54.599 If you can get there, do and if you do, find Alejandro and 667 00:54:54.639 --> 00:55:00.800 I and say hi. All right, thank you so much. We are 668 00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:05.800 out of time, but like Peter said, you could go to Ufocongress dot 669 00:55:05.840 --> 00:55:09.280 com and you can register for the conference. We're gonna have a lot of 670 00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:15.599 great speakers, including Peter, so check it out openminds dot tv. Thank 671 00:55:15.599 --> 00:55:54.960 you all so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.