Hello, and welcome to Open Mind UFO Radio. Yeah, we're back.
It's been a while. I'm your host, Alejandro Rojas, and I am
joined by Martin Totally cool dude, Willis. Oh, I was ready to
laugh at something corny, but that was corny. Oh, it was totally
cool dude. That's pretty corny. Well, but you are so touched you
overlooked the course. That's right. Yeah, no, that's good. We
remove the tear from my eye. Yeah. So that Super Bowl is really
awesome, hun, I actually watched it online, did you. Yeah,
I loved it because I'm a Broncos fan. I'm from Denver. It would
be Yeah, the first incarnation of this show, which was UFO Think Tank
was it was all started back in Denver and that's where I got involved with
Moufine and everything. So this show is actually a Denver Bronco show by extension.
So well, I lived out in that area, you know, the
Boulder Longmond area, and I know how people are such dedicated fans. A
good friend of mine out there had an orange Ford pickup truck. He bought
it purpose, had it ordered, you know, purposely. You know,
they are total Bronco fans out there. Yeah, but it's a fun time.
I mean the John Elway era, people were just crazy about Elway,
always like a god in Denver. And of course he's managing the team,
which is so exciting. And now and then with Manning. You know who
doesn't love Manning and his storybook ending to his career because he's most likely going
to retire. He has to retire now, yeah, right? Who would
not want to retire after that? Yeah? I mean it's his storybook ending.
If he comes back, it's going to be like that weird last chapter,
you know, where he's going to struggle. He's older. I mean,
it would just be kind of strange. So he's got to kind of,
I think, retire at this point, which is fine because that he
goes off, you know, with a bang and how awesome. Do you
think anybody's like unplugged their iPod because we're talking sports. I don't think so,
because we're not going to be talking sports long. We're done. People.
If you're getting upset, I think that they're nice enough to be like,
well, you know, they're Denver people. We can let them have
their moment and hopefully they're answer for a show. And this is going to
be a great one, because I haven't had one for a couple of weeks.
We've been so busy with the UFO Congress, and each week I've been
trying to fit a show in and thinking I can, and then it doesn't
work out. But I got to tell you, guys, we were so
busy with the conference and you know, with the conference, and I think
it shows we are just so hyper sensitive about every little minute thing. We
want everything to go flawless, not just for the attendees, definitely for the
attendees, but also for the speakers. And I think that's really important.
I mean, I think some people often at these conferences, they're just wanting
it to happen. I mean, they're just wanting it to and so and
I can under understand that. So people are really overwhelmed, and then it
gets difficult for them to see it from the perspective of the attendees or the
speakers. But you know, luckily, since we've been doing it for so
long, what we are very hyper sensitive about is that the attendees have a
seamless experience, and so do the speakers. That is I think really important
that the speakers because it can be scary for a speaker. Many people don't
know this where, especially like Stanton or Travis Walton, who do a lot
of conferences, both of whom are going to have tables at the UFO Congress.
You know, it's scary to go to this place and you're not sure
if they're going to come up with the finances that they say they're going to
come up with. And I've had it happen to me. We've all had
it happen to us where they don't and you're left, you know, stuck
with that, you know, a bill or something like that. So yeah,
Travis is told me about that happened exactly, So it's happened. And
some well known, you know, people who have put on conferences in the
past, people who you know are well known at this point in the field,
have done that, have stuck people with, you know, having to
pay their own way when they promised them they would. So it can be
really difficult. So I want I always I know they're nervous if they haven't
dealt with us before, or and so, and some of these are professionals.
We try to get professionals who haven't dealt with this field before, so
we want to We're really hyper sensitive that everything goes off seamless, and so
that's one of the things that just keeps us so busy. We make sure
we're contacting people and arranging things. So yeah, but this year is going
very well. Well. People don't realize how many moving parts there are,
just something like putting on any type of conference and all they see is the
finished product. But I know what goes into these type of things because I've
been involved with it, and takes so much planning, even up to a
year ahead, and and lots of work on every single little tiny detail,
and I overlook one detail and it's the week the week linked right, and
and then it can be devastating. Although a lot of errors. When there
is an error, it's usually devastating for us. But luckily, you know,
not many people even notice it happened, so this is always nice.
But still, plus with the conference being so long, it's so many speakers.
So yeah, so that's that's kept me busy. And this is really
just a long apology for why I haven't had a show in the last couple
of weeks, because people are always like, when are you gonna have a
show, When are you gonna have a show, So but I think they're
used to this time of year, us being on and off with our YouTube
videos and with our radio podcasts. Yeah. The only thing that could ever
be the fly in the ointment that I could see out there is if you
had bad weather elsewhere in the country and speakers couldn't get out there. That's
the only thing I can imagine. Can you know, from what I've witnessed
as smooth as can be? Well, that happened every year, that happened.
Actually, yeah, February is not the best time of year. Actually,
yeah, elsewhere in the country. So like Tom Reid had to last
year, he got snowed out and h but almost every year someone has to
come maybe on the next plane or come in a little late because of weather.
So yeah, so we'll see, that'll probably happen, and usually we
have to rearrange this schedule a little bit. So it's very possible, if
not probable, that'll happen. However, the weather here is remarkable, So
all of a sudden, it was really chilly a couple of weeks ago.
However, we've got all week long the highs like in the lower eighties.
Yeah, I saw the weather report. I can't wait it was incredible.
I got up this morning and went to the car and it was like,
you know, I had a jacket on. I didn't need the jacket.
There's this slow breeze that just feels good, and it's just the weather's perfect
right now. So I hope it's supposed to stay this way. So it's
gonna be wonderful. People will even be able to get into the pool.
Definitely the hot tub. Wow. So yeah, So it's it's turning out.
It's everything's looking pretty good so far, right, So I guess let
me tell people why the Today's Show is so cool too because of our guests.
So this is a great guest and I'm so happy we were able to
hook this up. There are a little bit of technical difficulties with the with
the scent with U. He was in another country. He's in Spain,
and so the internet was kind of sketchy in the interview, but really it
sounds fine. I mean I was able to hear him just fine. Uh.
There's a couple of times where he kind of just fades out and in
real quick, but no big deal. Really, I don't think anything's lost,
and I think people can understand when but the level you can still hear
him just fine. But this, this is Chris Aback. Now, Chris,
the reason why the timing is so great is that we're going to have
Jacques Valet at the UFO Congress this year. And Chris co wrote the book
Wonders in the Sky was Jacques. So that's Jacques's latest book. Have you
read that one? I have not, No, I plan on picking up
and I hope I can get a signed copy from Jacques himself out there.
Get a copy now, OK, go to the bookstore because I'm not sure
that anybody's going to be selling his book at the conference, and I'll bring
a copy and have him sign it. Yeah, exactly. And so if
you are planning on coming, bring copies of the Jacques Valet books because I'm
not sure everybody's going to have them. And at the beginning of the show,
Chris says his name really cool. He says that like Jacques, Jacque
is VALI probably the right way. Yeah, probably the right way, which
sounds great, sounds much better than the way most of us say it.
But anyway, over time he started just saying it like me. But it's
cool, yeah, because Chris wrote this book and this book is really cool
because the subtitle is Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to modern times. So it
goes into you know, UFO sidings that way into the past, and it
shows that there were similar sightings hundreds, if not thousands of years ago,
then there are now. And that's what Chris and I talk about on this
show is not only sightings but also like paranormal experiences and even alien contact kind
of experiences and beliefs about where these things come from are similar to what was
recorded hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. So, you know,
some of our common beliefs about some of the things that we think are you
know, more contemporary that are more inventions of the modern time, are not
necessarily they actually have you know, stem from stories that are ancient. All
that stuff fascinates me, Yeah, very fascinating. He also has a book
called OO Parts. It's in Spanish, it's not in English, but he
hopes to get it in English and OOPArts if you are. I forget what
the acronym is, but it's an early ancient Aliens acronym for objects that seem
or items that seem like they're out of place, like they're too advanced or
something, and so we talk about some ancient alien type of stuff as well.
So he's just fascinating, a great thinker, great researcher, and I
think this is some really important historical and sociological type of stuff when it comes
to this field. Awesome. All it'll be a great interview to listen to.
Yeah, it's gonna be fun. So he's born in London, but
now he lives in Spain, so yeah, this will be a lot of
fun. I had a lot of fun. And I should say his latest
book is returned to Magonia. And some people may recognize that name because one
of Jacques Vallet's books is called A Sport to Magonia. Oh yeah, so
Chris's book is returned to Magonia. And I asked Chris because I never knew
this, I guess, uh, I don't remember. I didn't remember at
least what what is Magonia? Where's that come from? Suing? He explains
that to us too, right, Yeah, so there we go. So
that's going to be a lot of fun. Before but before we get to
the interview, let's talk about UFOs in the news. What you got for
me? All right? Well, I am a big fan of objects that
drop other objects or expel other type of objects, not necessarily motherships and all
that stuff, you know. I mean you could speculate, but okay,
So back a while back in Spokane, Spokane Valley, this is in Washington.
It was a really great witnessing and videotaping of this object. And it
was the second time the witness had seen this object, and it was a
glowing sphere. And this happened on January twenty six, twenty fourteen, so
you know, every year ago. This is a Moufon report written by Roger
marsh And so this thing traveled toward the house northbound, it stopped and changed
direction to the east, and then it just hovered there and eventually it expelled
this object that was actually larger than itself. It became small and the object
that it dropped kind of faded out. And it's a great video of it,
and you can hear the excitement of the witnesses talking and filming with a
couple of words. You may have to closure years too, but anyway,
I think it's a great sighting and I'm kind of interested to hear if we
know, if someone like say Mark D'Antonio or someone ever took a look at
this. What do you know about that, Alejandro. I don't know if
D'Antonio did. But the investigator on this case was James Clarkson, who incidentally
was one of the UFO one of the speakers at last year's UFO Congress.
He's a great researcher, great guy. I'm a big fan of James,
and he had some interesting things to say. He did say he got assistance
from William Puckett, who was a guy who does some science. I can't
remember his background. It has to do with aerospace or something like that,
but I know he's, you know, a well respected person in like that
scientific community and everything. So, but he's retired from Noah, I guess
so the but yeah, he had gotten some information and about some anomalous radar
returns in the area. They also looked at weather, so which was calm
at the time. Yeah, so there was an intensive, a pretty extensive
investigation of this. Because at first I saw the video, I thought it
looked similar to other videos I've seen, and I thought, you know,
is this a hoax? Is this one of these older videos? But you
know, you're looking at the investigation, which is pretty thorough. It seems
pretty fascinating. Yep, I would call it unexplainable for sure. The video,
I mean is pretty interesting when you see this blinking thing and something dropping
out of it. Yeap, yes, And I don't think there's any way,
you know, Unfortunately the video is only filmed while the thing is stationary,
so you you know, you only have to take the witness, so
you can only take the witness. This account for the try to did the
zigzagging apparently, but but it's it's just sitting there. But I don't think
there's any type of like flair or I don't think a Chinese land would drop
something like that. I just I don't know. I don't know it's interesting.
Yeah, yeah, I don't think so either. I mean, nothing
that I know of. So of course Mark always comes up with something,
so you know, I haven't seen he's in the Open mind UFO forum.
We have an open mind gufoe news right Facebook forum, and he's usually making
comments, and I haven't seen if he's commented on this story yet. Of
course it was only posted on Friday, but I noticed he was in there
commenting about other things this weekend, so I haven't had a chance to really
look through the comments for the weekend, but I got to check that out.
But he got an email. I got an email this weekend. Someone
said to me that marked' antonio does he think anything is f UFO. That's
that someone. Yeah, No, and he doesn't. Well, I don't
think so. I don't know. He does believe, of course in UFOs.
In fact, he thinks he's seen some very strange stuff. I mean
he thinks possibly he's even had alien encounters. And yeah, he's experienced lots
of strange stuff. So he believes, you know, that there's something going
on. It's just that the vast majority of not all, of the videos
and pictures he sees, he thinks there could be answers for what those are.
But the point is too, you know, from a perspective. And
I learned this from Bruce mcabee way back when, because that was my Mark
D'Antonio. And I get frustrated with him when I was an investigator because I'm
like, hey, you know, what's going on with this or that?
And he had explanations and I'm like, but the witness said this. But
then I began to get it, which was that they're looking from a perspective
with the video alone, can I prove it was anything unusual? So they'll
come up with just like we do we're taught to do when you investigate UFOs,
they'll come up with, you know, this could be a street lamp
for instance. I have to then prove that it's not that. And if
I can't prove that it's not something mundane, then unfortunately this you know,
the video is is not necessarily debunked, but it's not that extraordinary because I
can't prove it's something extraordinary. So it's a high bar they have, and
rightly so I understand that, m hm, because if you're going to take
it to a sess shastack, let's say he's going to say that's a street
lamp, Well, no it's not. How can you prove that it's not,
Well, the witness said this. How do you know the witness was
telling the truth? Well, and of course then all you have is anecdotal.
It's not evident. So I mean, and we need that extraordinary stuff
to really standby when you know, if we're going to take these two higher
level right yep, I agree, yeah, but this one though, I
don't know what could do this right, so it's in that gray box as
they say, yeah, I have a feeling. He might say a drone
could do it, but we'll see. Well, yeah, it would have
to have some type of strange lighting to do that, and then to be
able to fade out and down to a little it would have to be very
controlled. I would say, yeah. Yeah, So it doesn't look like
Mark has commented, So I'm gonna put in here this one is weird a
Mark, and then we'll see if he's see if the fish will bite.
Yeah. So hopefully everybody is in our open mind GUFO News forum because we
got lots of great conversation going on in there. So another thing I want
to talk about, really we don't have I haven't been able to write any
stories. Roger Marsh has posted a couple others, but this, this video
you just mentioned really is the best story from the week. But the other
story I want to talk about is, of course the some sad news,
not totally shocking news for many of us who knew that he was kind of
in hospice care already, but unfortunately doctor edgar Mitchell passed away this week well
on Thursday night. Yes, very sad and I spoke with someone that knew
him, I think it was last summer, and they said he was in
poor health, so, yeah, too bad. He's a great loss,
great man. Yeah. Some others who had been in contact with him,
like James Fox, were posting some updates and they said, you know,
he had he was pretty sick. He was what I think eighty five when
he passed. So yeah, one of the few people to actually walk on
the moon, right, How extraordinary is that. And I'm sure a lot
of people know this, although I've never had him on the show, but
I'm sure we've talked about him. I'm sure in the news quite a bit
because he's made a lot of news because he believed. Now he said he
had no direct knowledge, he hadn't seen aliens on the Moon or anywhere he
had gone or UFOs. However, he had spoken with other astronauts and he
was from Roswell, New Mexico, and he says he spoke with several people
in New Mexico in Roswell who told him about you know, what had happened
back in nineteen forty seven. And he says these are trusted people who he
believes, so he believed there was a UFO that crashed. There are an
alien spacecraft that crashed there in Roswell in forty seven near Roswell. He believed
all those stories. He believed that aliens were contacting or flying around here.
I reposted a post of somebody and you have to be careful with these alleged
quotes, so I can't say for sure this is a real quote. Probably
is, though, but it was. We all know that UFOs are real.
All we need to ask is where do they come from? And what
do they want? And that is a quote question credited to Edgar Mitchell.
So yeah, that keeps me going. Actually that same comment, And yeah,
you know, I had a number of conversations with Alan Bean, who
was the fourth person to step on the moon, about walking on the Moon
and what people are calling it a hoax and all that, and he says
he doesn't try to change anyone's mind. But also he was involved in the
nineteen seventy three Skylab UFO picture. I'm not sure Skylab three back in nineteen
seventy three, incredible pictures that they took. He has absolutely no interest in
talking about you. And so that was really good that Edgar actually took and
risked his reputation or whatever and actually would talk about it. So what did
he think was in the picture? Are you talking about Alan Bean? Yeah,
Alan wouldn't really discuss it with me. He said, he didn't talk
about it. HM. So I think he just he just wants to forget
about it. And I talked. I talked to him briefly last year about
it, and I had him actually on He's a very good artist, and
I had him on my other my antique and art podcast, and so that's
how I got to know him. Wow. Interesting has nothing to do with
it. So there's only twelve people to walk on the moon. Of those
twelve people, two of them were very into UFOs and paranormal phenomena, one
being of course Mitchell, who we talked about. The other being Harrison Schmidt,
and he was really into and participated in the cattle mutilation stuff. I
had no idea. Yeah, And actually in my talk where or my video
that I go over the whole Richard Dody UFO disinformation thing. Harrison Schmidt knew
Paul Benowitz who was a UFO guy, and Harrison Schmidt came and to ask
Doty, what's going on with this? This Paul Benowitz stuff, because Paul
Benowitz was saying, hey, you know, the military is looking into my
UFOs and so yeah, Harrison Schmidt kind of followed the field. So two
of them. Some people say that buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong were into UFOs
or stuff like that, but they're not. At least if they were at
some point, they currently they say they're not. So of course Neil Armstrong
is no longer around, but buzz Aldrin is alive, and he does say
he's not into that topic at all. He does make weird statements once in
a while, like well we should investigate these tall spears on planets or stuff
like that. So maybe personally he does believe, but he just doesn't want
to say that per you know, publicly, But publicly he's made it very
clear that on several occasions he's, i think, even on Coast to Coast
and some other stuff, that he's not into and doesn't believe in that sort
of thing. But it wasn't he on Larry King? Yeah, yeah,
during the they're debating about UFOs. Yeah, and it was really frustrating because
he kept going into these long things and there's like, hey, get to
Chase. Yeah, and he was saying, Okay, yeah, there,
it wasn't a UFO. I saw even though I was talking about it being
a UFO. It was this part of the rocket. And so I think
Larry King was very frustrated with them. I think he was because he had
kind of want and made comments prior to that interview that seemed like he was
did think he saw UFO. So that's why Larry King wanted to figure out
what the heck he was talking about. And then he was hemming and hawing
around the topic and finally said no, and he wanted to be very clear,
No, I did not see anything strange. But yeah, he's he's
kind of weird about the topic. Yeah, I can understand what the pressure.
Yeah. So yeah, so I unfortunately I never even got to meet
doctor Edgar Mitchell. Mitchell, he's a busy guy, I know, and
he in the last few years he hasn't been able to travel, so most
of the appearances he's made were via skype because you know, his health had
been failing. So but of course lots of our friends have met and interviewed
doctor Mitchell, and he was well loved and he'll definitely be missed. I
mean, I think that this is some pretty big news for the UFO community.
Yes, yeah, all right, well I think that's all the news
for now. Otherwise, you know, the UFO Congress starts. We're gonna
be moot halling stuff in a week, right wow, So yeah, we're
gonna get rolling. And then a week from tomorrow is the movies, and
I guess I should reiterate the film Festival. We show all of the entries
on Tuesday beginning at nine am, and anyone can come and watch those.
That's at the Weekapop conference center. You know where the conference is. So
if you want to come watch those, come up, you know, come
on down and anybody. If you're gonna see all the films in one particular
category, then you can also be a judge, so wow. JK.
Scott, who runs it, will be there and she'll be organizing that.
So yeah, come and judge if you have the time. And some great
entries this year. And then the top three in each category are showing on
Thursday and Friday night. They're only shown once again, they're not all shown
on Thursday and Friday night. We show the three from the two categories,
so that six films spread throughout Thursday and Friday night, so even if you
can't make it Tuesday, you'll be able to see at least the top ones
on Thursday and Friday. So that's always a lot of fun. I can't
wait. Yeah, so it'll be cool. So I guess we'll see you
there, buddy. You bet I will be rolling out there soon. All
right, Well, thanks so much for joining us for the news. Wen
as always, let's go ahead and talk to Chris. I am very excited
to welcome to the show. Chris. Allback, and you're in Spain right
now, right either, Yeah, i am. I'm in a small town
called Montrill, which is on the southern coast of Spain. And yeah,
it's nice here. It's a good weather all year round. Well that's exciting.
Spain looks beautiful. I've never been there, but it's definitely one of
the places I want to visit one day. Well, you're welcome to pay
me a visit whenever you want. Great, I'll show you around. Well,
it's going to be a goal then to take you up on that,
because you know this is actually I'm excited to talk to you because you've worked
with you know, one of the greats, and of course the books.
At least you know your book with Jacques, the latest one, The Wonders
in the Sky, was excellent. It's one of my favorite books ever.
But and I've been intending to talk to you ever since I got to interview
Jacques, and I was so happy to do that for that book. And
of course now I'm really excited for the chance to meet him. In a
few weeks. He's going to be speaking at our big UFO conference that we
do. Surprisingly, were you aware of that? Actually, yeah, he
did mention it to me. He doesn't do a lot of conferences. I
had a conference myself in Madrid in May and he came to that, which
I was very I was very grateful that he did, because it's hard to
get good, you know, you pologists from the States to come to Spain.
It's mainly a question of money, timing. I mean, it's not
that easy to bring people across from such you know, far away places.
But fortunately Jack's spends a front, so you know, it wasn't too far
for him on this occasion. And yeah, he gave us a great talk,
and I'm hoping that I can I can do another conference like that.
In a year or so. Great. That's exciting. And I understand what
you mean because we used to have more international speakers as well well for our
conference, but it gets so expensive, the five people back and forth,
and it makes it really difficult. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's
just yeah. I mean some people think that, you know, there's a
lot of money and publishing books, and there isn't. It's mainly a work
of you know, it's it's it's hobbyies really and you can't. You can't
make a lot of money from publishing books and magazine articles and so on.
So there are no funds really to support this kind of venture. So it's
a question of luck and the generosity of organizations if they can bring speakers over
from other countries. So I do want to ask, we will definitely get
into your background and the books that you've written, but out of curiosity now
that we're talking about Jacques, and of course this is Jacques Vallet. For
the listeners, I'm sure they know because I've of course been gushing about and
excited about him coming to the conference. However, I do want to ask,
how did you first meet him and begin to work with him? Well,
well, when I arrived in Spain in the year nineteen ninety one,
which was really a massive adventure, and I didn't know where I was going
or what I was going to do. I just had a few books with
me and one was here, I believe it was Passport to Mcgonia, and
I realized that I wanted to spend a lot of time on researching a historical
UFO cases. And the best person to do that with, or at least
contact about that kind of thing, what was Jacq Sali. But in the
early nineties there was no way that I could possibly find his address or anything.
I was totally isolated in a small Spanish town. And this was before
internet arrived. I mean, even if it existed elsewhere in the world,
it certainly wasn't in cafes in Extremadura in Spain. But in the year nineteen
ninety seven, I finally got my hands on a computer and I discovered the
Internet, or what was the internet in nineteen ninety seven. It was a
lot more limited than it is now. And I sent my first ever email
and it was to Jacks Fera and because I just found his email on some
random web page, and he replied and about three years later, when I
moved to Madrid. There I had better internet access. I sort of reinitiated
our correspondence and I invited him to the group that I was forming at the
time. He said, yeah, I want to be a part of that.
And then I went to visit him in Portugal. He came to do
a conference on something to do with cosmology, and I took a train to
to a Porto to go and visit him, and I was with him and
his wife, now suddenly has died, Janine, and we spent a few
days together and it was great. You know. I was like talking to
him about my future projects with books, and I said, why don't we
write a book together? And he said to me no, but I didn't
care. I went back doing them. I went to to Spain and about
a year later I was I was wandering around the supermarket buying cheese and he
called me and he said, I've changed my mind. Let's write something together.
So that's basically it. He was the first guy I ever wrote an
email to, and then I went to visit him in put How cool,
what a great story your first email it? You know, I don't know
whom, Yeah, you know, it's it's nicely, that's really funny.
I don't know who my first email was to. That's really now you have
me wondering who that might have been to. Might have been my mom or
it very likely could have been UFO related or something. But so the organization
you said you created that you invited him to join. Which sort of organization
was that? Yeah, in the year two thousand and three. In April
two thousand and three, I founded a group of UFO experts, writers,
researchers, and so on to try to bring together all of the material published
in centuries past. So we're talking about the early nineties, the nineteenth century,
the early twentieth century, and the centuries before that, anything published which
might give us a clue as to UFO phenomena observed in historical times. And
the groups called my Go Exchange. It's been going on for like thirteen years
now, and we've collected about thirty thousand different objects documents, thirty thousand items
which includes cuttings and manuscripts and pages from diaries and images and so published over
the last three or four hundred years, which seem to show that the UFO
phenomenon has been going on for this long's it's it's something which has never really
gone away. So yeah, we've we've collected all this information together and by
analyzing it, by doing statistical analyses and by researching the individual cases, at
least we can prove that people have believed in practically the same things for at
least three hundred years. So and the term goone Yet, like, what
does that mean to you? What is its important? Well, Magonia itself
originally referred to a place, an unknown place, somewhere outside France. It
could have been in the sky, or it could have been another dimension,
or it could have been an enemy country. Nobody really knows where it was.
But one thousand and five hundred years ago, the French, the superstitious
farmers, that kind of people, believed that ships were coming from this mysterious
kingdom of Magonia. They were coming through the sky and stealing the crops.
And it was connected with traditions about spirits involved with thunderstorms and so on.
But it was a term which Jacques Valet took to describe these historical accounts of
UFOs and encounters, so he used it for the title of his book Passport
to Magonia. So when I started my group, I called it Mcgonia Exchange.
Exchange, of course means that all the members had to send whatever material
they had at home, which most of us as researchers have boxes and boxes
of documents and photocopies and clippings just rotting away in the attic. And because
nowadays it's so easy to scan or just take a photo of the documents that
you have, then they could send it to the group and then we could
share it among all of us. And that's why it's called Macgonia Exchange.
And of course my latest book with Martin Schoff is called Return to Magonia,
which again is sort of in honor of Jacks Valet's original or seminal study,
Passport to Magonia. And now's your first book, OOPArt, Well, that
that's a book which I published in Spanish last September. I wouldn't say it
was my first book, but it was a book which I published in Spanish
with a historian from the Complutensa Diversity called Sanchez Ordo. And what we do
in that book is together as many upats or stories about upas, which of
course are out of place artifacts, that is, objects which seemed to be
too advanced for the time period that they correspond with, like finding a nail
or a hammer in a lump of rock or coal. To bring all those
stories together, analyze them and see which of those could could be proved true
and which of them should be rejected as fakes or misunderstandings and so on.
So yeah, I'm hoping to publish the same book one day, and in
English. So I think it's an interesting topic. Yeah, it's kind of
an ancient alien topic, which of course is really popular, that's right,
Yeah, and still yes these days, ancient aliens. Yeah, it's it's
it's something which I'm very interested in because ancient aliens is a topic that's never
really gone away. So getting into the topics of the book, looking historical
into you know, people stories that are similar to current UFO stories. What
are some of the trends that you've seen. Well, the first thing is
that people have, you know, over the last two thousand years, people
have reported very similar looking objects in the sky. I don't really have any
particular belief about what they represent, but it is true that many of them
seem to be a little bit similar. For example, when I was working
on returning to Magonia with Martin Schoff, we found a series of stories about
the moon which opens up in the middle of the sky, so it couldn't
there's been the moon obviously, and entities came out of the sphere, the
white sphere, and would either dance around the sky or descend to the Earth.
There are a lot of stories which are very similar and which were told
over you know, several generations, which seem to indicate, if not the
presence of an anoomily in the sky, at least it shows how human imagination
works very much according to the same principles, no matter what century we happen
to be in. So that's you know, that's one thing I found also
in my own research into historical accounts of abduction by strange entities, you can
find very similar stories repeated throughout time, even involving babies, hybrids, all
this kind of thing, which is very similar to what abductees are reporting today.
Again, I don't want to say whether this is I can't really say
whether this is true, whether it's actually happening or it's just a part of
natural human imagenation, but it's certainly worth worth looking at, because you know,
it's we're looking at the same stories being told over a very long period,
probably least one thousand years. In fact, there was a seventeenth century
mystic called Jane Lad who wrote not only about her Ufo sightings, but also
about how she found herself transported to a star in the sky or at some
other worldly place where she met angelic beings who showed her children or who showed
her different things about the universe. There's are stories which seem to reoccur with
every generation, which is fascinating, especially because you know, I think a
lot of people have the feeling and even a lot of researchers that a lot
of this is a new phenomena. Well, when we think about how old
uphology might be or the belief in extraterrestrial life might be. On the one
hand, we have sightings that go back to Sumerian time times, and we
can find documents, very old documents from medieval times, ancient Chinese documents thousands
of years old that describe things in the sky that they didn't know how to
identify. But then on the other hand, there's this belief, a corresponding
belief that the universe was populated by intelligent beings, which is an idea that
originated in ancient Greece among a school of philosophy. For example, the atomists
believe that the universe was teeming with life very similar to our own. But
it's an idea that has continued throughout the age years and especially since the medieval
period, people have wondered whether other planets are populated by intelligent beings like ourselves.
So all of this it shows that ufology has very deep roots. It
doesn't mean that UFOs are really here. It doesn't mean extraterrestrials really visit us.
I'm not going to express an opinion about that at this stage, but
it does mean that at least the idea of extraterrestrial visits has been continuous throughout
history well. And I find this fascinating too, because I'm very into the
historical and sociological aspects as well, especially when you know myself writing a lot
about these stories and following you know, the origins of them. Some of
them turn out to be dubious. However, the idea that this is a
part of our history and are you know, mythos is important, and it
seems that academia often shies away from the topic, even though it is prevalent
enough to warrant I think research, just because of kind of the how the
topic is viewed, it doesn't get the attention perhaps that it should. Well,
it depends on what topic referring to. For example, the idea that
the universe might be populated is a sum jack that's well, there's been very
good academic books written just about this idea that maybe we're living in in a
universe inhabited by lots of intelligent beings. Then the idea that people have seen
strange things in the sky, that also gets some degree of attention from scholars,
particularly people who study the history of geological phenomena meteors, comets, and
so on. Where I mean where ufologists get frustrated is that academics don't normally
like to speculate about the nature of UFOs themselves. They don't like to connect
those two dots. The idea that we're living in a universe possibly full of
life, and that maybe the lights in the sky have an extraterrestrial origin,
might be piloted by beings from another planet. This is something that frustrates a
lot of academics. But I don't think that's ever going to change. Well,
there's also the aspect of whether or not people are being abducted. I
mean, like you say, there's this history that goes way back of people
believing they've had some sort of experience being whisked away by strange creatures, and
whether or not that's happened. It's certainly a very prevalent story, and it
seems to me there are so many people these days making these claims, believing
to have had these sort of experiences, that it does warrant some attention,
but it doesn't seem to get that well. The problem is that the people
who pay well, the academics scholars who pay attention to abduction reports don't normally
reach the same clusion conclusions as uthologists do. So they might study it as
a kind of folk law or as a as sociocultural phenomenon, something which corresponds
with UFOs and belief in extraterrestrial visits, which started really around the middle of
the nineteenth century. But the thing is not that people don't look into abduction
claims seriously, but the conclusion they reach don't really satisfy UFO researchers. If
if you look into any archive of university articles, reports on the internet,
or in any in any good university library, you'll find studies of of this
kind of a thing, this kind of phenomenon. Simply they're not published in
UFO magazines. Most UFO writers don't get to see them, and they don't
draw any conclusions that support the idea that UFOs are really abducting us. So
it's not that it doesn't happen, it's just that they reach a completely different
set of conclusions. Well, I don't know. I don't see that.
I don't see that it happens. I don't. I don't even because I
think it would be interesting even at the social psychological all right, especially at
a psychological level, that it should be looked at, regardless of the conclusions.
But maybe do you see that more in Europe, because I don't see
that in the US, I don't see academic studies very very far and few
between. Well, I don't see. I mean I probably have on my
computer about twenty five or thirty academic studies of abduction phenomena, UFOs, close
encounters and so on. I mean, they do exist. There's certainly not
as many good academic studies of this as there are normal generic euthhological studies of
the same kind of thing, and they're not given a lot of publicity either,
so it's not something that you'll find easily. But you know, people
have actually written university theses on this topic. The main thing is though that
their conclusions, as I said, differ from those of most euthologists. But
it's like, for example, the topic of ancient astronaut because this is thing
with vulnerable again in the last three years, a few years, mainly because
of TV documentaries, but you can also find some good serious studies of the
history of this and what it means. I've seen academic reports comparing a belief
in ancient astronauts with racism, for example, the idea that our you know,
why do we have to suppose that our aner desters were too stupid to
build the monuments that some of us think might have come from outer space or
of or have been built by by aliens. So I mean this kind of
study does exist, simply you have to really search for it to find it.
That's the problem. Yeah, Well, and that end is interesting.
It seems like that end is a little more accessible, and there seem to
be just because it is more prevalent, and there's I guess more hands on
you you can do and it's not as fringe as some of the others,
but kind of moving away from that, I guess and moving into the ancient
aliens kind of arena. This is kind of an area where it's more than
just folklore, but you actually have something physical to examine. Although I completely
agree with you, I mean in that one of the things I think that
your stories are some of the things that you've just talked about. Now,
it's just how advanced previous cultures have been in philosophy, in governance, and
and I think that these days we we believe ourselves to be maybe a lot
more advanced in those ways than we were in the past, and we actually
were. Well. I think that the problem with this is that a lot
of people don't really know so much about history, and they don't know a
lot about how cultures have evolved, how science has evolved over the years.
When you look at the development of science, science and scientific they discoveries.
Most of the mysteries of the world, things like the Easter Island statues or
the Great Pyramid do slot in quite well into the into the established and known
history of each of these civilizations. I don't I've never really seen any reason
to say that our ancestors couldn't have created the monuments of Egypt or anywhere in
the world, you know, South America. I think this is one of
the biggest flaws with the ancient astronaut theory. People have to have to start
reading history books again and looking into the origins of this. The thing is,
the ancient astronaut theory was developed first a very very long time ago,
and much you know, it's much older than Eric Vanika and the Ancient Astronaut
Society which I used to belong to when I was younger. In fact,
the ancient astronaut theory was first developed in the eighteen twenty three in France,
and it's never gone away. It's something which has pursised did for well,
it's going to be two hundred years soon. Originally, most of the books
published in the early nineteenth centuries said that our ancestors might have come from another
play planet and brought science with them, and they speculated that that planet had
been a body in our universe that had exploded or was destroyed by a comet
or something, and that the remnants of that planet were scattered across the Solar
System, and a lot of them have fallen onto Earth, and this was
a very popular theory throughout the nineteenth century. The problem is that the theory
existed before and he proofed it, and that's another floor in the ancient an
astronaut hypothesis. Today, the theory exists, and so people served such desperately
for proof to support it. But in my experience, I haven't found any
ouparts that have really convinced me that they could have only come from another planet
or have been built by by an especially advanced civilization. So I don't I
don't know. It's something that interests me a lot. When people ask about
this, I often mention that in the eighteen seventies, a French scientist called
Uflesni said that he thought that Australia itself, the whole continent, had come
from outer space as an asteroid. He believed that maybe Australia had had fallen
from out of space into the Pacific Ocean, that this had caused Noah's Flood
and other natural disasters, and that this explains why there are so many strange
animals on that continent and plants and things that you won't find anywhere else in
the world. But when you look at it, you realize that the only
reason he said this was that it gave White I mean this was according to
him, not according to me. It gave White colonizers an excuse to take
the land away from the from the Australian natives, because they said, well,
if it's fallen into our territory, it must be long to us now.
And so there's been so much written and that that excuse was actually used
to take land away. Yes, wow, the dangers of ancient astronaut theory,
Well that's true, and not much has changed since then, perhaps,
you know, but and it's something that you can find again and again.
There have been a lot of theories in the past which have said, well,
these monuments. For example, there was a guy in the eighteen sixties
who said that the statues on Easter Island could only have come from another planet
that had exploded and just scattered them across the universe. And it was a
way of saying, well, the islanders that we see today in the specific
too stupid to have made these monuments themselves. So if they don't really belong
to them, then you know, we can take them for ourselves, and
that's just just an argument they used again and again. There's a strong political
motivation behind a lot of these a lot of these ancient astronaut theories unfoughtun That's
really interesting and it's funny because as you've been talking, I've been thinking about
it's interesting that Easter Island, some of these other mysteries, histories, mysteries
that were suspected to be extraterrestrial and origins have kind of been discovered, like
they've discovered ways how humans probably did do these things. At the same time,
even though some of these series have kind of been debunked, pretty much,
the ancient aliens theory gets more and more popular. And one thing that
kind of highlighted this as the last episode of The X Files, where at
the beginning Moulder was brooding because he's like, you know, since we've been
away, which has been since the series was on before, they've debunked all
of these different things that he that you know, we're due to aliens,
which is kind of funny. But even though that's happened, the idea gets
more and more popular. Yeah, it is interesting how that's how that's happened.
I mean, obviously a lot of it's because of this documentary series what's
it called Ancient Alien. Yeah, it's it's not something which I generally watch,
and I mean I can I can see the attraction. But as I
said, it's something that's attracted people since the year eighteen twenty three. And
you know, the proof for these ideas has never got any better. In
the nineteenth century, there was absolutely no proof at all, but it was
still a very popular topic, very very popular topic. I mean, even
Madame Blovatski was, you know, it was influenced by this this idea,
and many books were published at that time saying that the Martians had come to
had come to Earth like straddled on a meteorite or something, and they had
an initiate created human civilization. That in the book Up Parts, which I
published with my friend Sanchezardo las September here in Spain, we look at all
of the geological mysteries, these geological artifacts, like for example, when they
found a coin or a chain or nail inside a lump of coal at you
know, at some geological level that would indicate that these objects must be millions
of years old. And the problem is is that most of them. I
mean not all of them, but most of these stories which have been used
a couple of decades by writers like Michael Kremer, who wrote Forbidden Archaeology,
and a lot of other people who believe in either creationism, which is a
group that supports the existence of upat, or people who just want to say
that we want to believe that extraterrestrials would here thousands of years ago. A
lot lot of these artifacts were published in newspapers at a time when the press
was desperately trying to compete with the Europeans who were reporting kinds of giant dinosaur
bones and things like that. It was a period when North America, because
most of these artifacts only appeared in North American newspapers, we find, were
trying to show that there had been a golden age in North American prehistory that
competed with or even was better than the Golden Age of the Old World,
that is Europe, Greece and Egypt and so on. So while the curators
of British or European Ian museums were saying, oh, we have these enormous
dinosaur bones, the Americans were saying, well, our dinosaur bones are much
bigger. And while Europeans were saying, well, we you know, we
have these wonderful Greek monuments and this is the and here we have the Biblical
lands, and maybe the Biblical patriarch arks walked across this land in ancient times.
Then in North America they said, well, oh, here too,
we have this, and we found Egyptian tablets. And then of course Mormonism
sprang up where they said, well based particularly biblical patriarchs also walked here.
So aupats eight from a period when North America was competing directly with Europe to
you know, to establish this this wonderful golden past for itself. But when
you look into the cases the individual artifact, you normally find that they never
existed at all, or they were invented by the editor of the newspaper.
You know. Sometimes you read missus Smith or whatever founder a golden chain in
a lump of coal that indicates that there was an advanced civilization here hundreds of
thousands of years ago. When you look into who this woman was, as
you discovered that she was the wife of the newspaper editor, you know,
what a coincidence and someone and someone, So it's a big topic. It's
an interesting topic, and I'd like to write write about it seriously in the
future, and who knows, maybe a new part of real who part might
material I realize I live in hope, right, And that's what's great about
this stuff because it's something that me and my girlfriend argue about often, where
she's like, well, how did that happen? But just because we don't
know it's origins, and it doesn't mean it's not a genuine mystery, But
it also doesn't necessarily mean it aliens. And which is always my argument,
which is, you know, something that I appreciate even though it frustrats people
about Jacques, who's always you know, been there to say, hey,
wait a minute, we don't know what the origins of X y Z or
the origins of this mystery, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's alien. It
could be something altogether different. Yeah, that's right. But you know,
I mean every scientific fields has it its mysteries. If you look into botany
and astrophysics and geology and biology, every scientific field has its mysteries, has
its frauds and hoaxes, has its wild speculation, has its strange you know
data that no one knows exactly what to do with its advocates and its debunkers.
There isn't a scientific field in the world it doesn't have all of that,
and so it's not it's not surprising at all that euthology also has this,
and it's not a scientific field euthology, but it is one in which
there's a lot of passionate debate about what all this means. So, yeah,
it doesn't have to be aliens, of course, it could be something
else. Entirely. We have to we have to somehow sort of cut away
this obsession that we have with with alien visitors and open our minds to other
possibilities, whether they're you know, whether we should look for more mundane,
mundane explanations psychosocial ones, or whether it's interdimensional travelers who are here on a
shopping spree. You know, we have to open minds to as many theories
as possible. But then you know, present theory is using proper facts rather
than you know, present every crazy idea that occurs to us. I think
a lot of people too, just don't like not knowing. So it's easy
to say, oh, that's aliens, it's done. Everything's that. It's
much easier to have a black and white kind of world where things are either
X, Y or Z, but it's harder to say I don't know,
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's important to look at the origins
of all of this. Yes, that's what interests me. As I said,
I don't know what, you know, I just want to find out
where it all comes from. That's what fascinates me. Well, that's what's
fascinating about your work, because I think that that's terribly important because, like
you've noted, it can demonstrate that the UFO phenomena or the alien abduction phenomena
are not necessarily new things, that these are things that people have been reporting
or talking about for a very long time. Yeah, that's right, And
you know what, that's what I'm interested in particularly, and that's why I
have this group Mcgonia Exchange, which if anyone listening is interested in joining,
you know, they can find me in Facebook or at Chris orbit dot com,
you know, and they can join the hunt for historical cases. And
at the same time, it's the reason why I'm fascinated by the origin of
some of the typical terms that we use the terminology and in uphology because people
don't know quite often where this comes from. In the book Returned to Magonia,
which published with Martin Schock just a couple of months ago, we talk
about the origin of the term flying saucer and how that pre dates Kenneth Arnold
by probably about fifty years or so. You know, the expression, yeah,
flying saucer, I mean, it wasn't invented in nineteen forty seven at
all. It was it comes from you know, originally, the word flying
saucer came into existence to describe the little discs which were thrown for trapshoe to
practice on. And it was an expression that was used from the beginning of
the twentieth century, probably about nineteen oh six, nineteen oh seven, you
can find it, you know, for a decade it's and when I mean
even in nineteen forty seven, people, I mean before Arnold, the term
flying saucer was still in quite common use to describe these discs. So I
find it interesting because most of us realized that UFOs are not usually disc shaped,
and you know, there's this question, why do we call them flying
saucers if they're not actually disc shaped most of the time. And we've reached
the conclusion that is probably because it's it was such a popular expression at the
time, flying sauce, so that people just kept on using it, even
though they were looking at hexagonal shaped objects, cube shaped objects, and so
on. So, you know, the popularity of this pre existing term flying
saucer probably helped shape the evolution of upology. You know, because these days
people associate diss shaped things with spaceships now the term flying saucer. So when
they first started using that term, was it because they were describing things in
the sky that looked like the flying sack sausers. Well, if you look
back to the origins of the sport trap shooting, you find that in eighteen
eighty two, this like it was very similar to Adamski like flying saucer,
was patented by a guy called George Early Goelski, and it was an aerodynamic
disc and it was just used for the sport. But because people saw the
constantly throughout those decades, when Kenneth Arnold described his his object, the term
just stuck with us and then it sort of became more associated with spaceships than
it had been with sport. But it's interesting that you look back in ancient
you know, in historical newspapers and you can see the headlines like the gunners
are blazing away at the flying saucers or they're trying to not flying saucers out
of the sky, and these come from the nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties.
In nineteen forty four, well, there was a Headliner newspaper and it was
flying sources and knocking axis airplanes out of the sky. And the headline referred
to referred to trap shooting and the fact that trap shooting had been adopted as
a sport by the United States Army to train aerial gunners before sending them into
battle. And this program was actually headed by a man called General Arnold,
General Henry h Arnold, and he suggested firing flying saurces into the sky which
people would try to shoot down, you know, on a practice range.
And it was only three years later that Kenneth Arnold became associated with flying sources,
and you know that new extension to the expression flying saurcer was born.
I want to ask you too, before we're done, about another expression,
which is little green men. And I do this talk and I'm going to
be doing this talk at the UFO Congress. This year about these interesting cases,
and I've been talking about how kind of this case, the Hopkinsville,
Kentucky kind of case, popularized that term. But I guess what I hadn't
realized, and I thought I was actually under the impression that that's kind of
where the term got coined in reference to extraterrestrials. But then somebody sent me
a link to some research of yours where that has also been around for a
period of time. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the term little
green men definitely did originate with you know, in the flying source period.
It had been used before nineteen forty seven in different ways. It seems that
it originated as a part of fairy mythology, you know, to describe goblins
and elves and so on, because they were often green skinned or dressed in
green, so people referred to little green men. The first time that little
green man or little green men ever heard in a story, you know,
of a fictional account, would have probably been in Washington Irving Nickerbocker's History of
New York, which is from eighteen oh nine, in which the men in
the Moon have decided to invade Earth. The lunarians regard humans as like primitive
animals with grotesque bodies and horrible white skin as opposed to the p green complexions
of the Moon people. So the people from the Moon consider humans completely incapable
of running the planet themselves. They even say that humans infest like like parasites
or rodents. So the Moon people decide to send a group of little green
lunarians to the Earth to colonize it in the name of the Moon, you
know, which is a little bit like what we were talking about before.
The idea that a race of extraterrestrials might consider us too primitive to to really
have a writer over our own planet is a bit like us saying that our
ancestors as were too stupid to have come up with their own technology. So
yeah, I mean, this is the first time it ever appeared, I
suppose in eight eighteen o nine. But if you look in archives of nineteenth
century newspapers, you find little green men, or someone says, oh,
he's always seeing little green men, or he's always drunk and dreaming of little
green men. Yeah, it was a very common expression at one point,
long before it was ever associated with from other planets. Interesting, would it
be accurate then, to say, though that kind of the term guy kind
of a resurgence, and when UFOs began to get popular again. Yeah,
of course, I mean there was this massive resurgence of of all these different
motifs little green men as aliens and so on. I mean, you know,
the work that I'm doing is to find the historical roots of a lot
of a lot of our UFO myths. For example, Roswell. I mean,
it has so many parallels through throughout the nineteenth century that it's amazing that
people had forgotten them all when when you know, flying sources erupted on the
scene. There's just so much that still has to come to light. I'm
sure too, we're going to find stories about spaceships full of little green men
in some nineteenth century newspaper in the end. So what sort of other topics
do you tackle in your latest book? Right? Well, what we've done
is to gather twenty or so cases which Mark tin Shoff and I consider to
be anomalous in some way. I mean, a lot of people listening to
me might think that I reject the existence of UFOs as some kind of psychosocial
phenomenon, but we do realize that there are some very impressive report, and
in fact I saw one myself. I saw a UFO myself in the year
nineteen ninety six, and I've no idea what it was. It was a
luminous orange rectangle in the sky and just over a village in Spain. So
I realize that something happens, you know, things do weird, things do
happen in the sky. So what we did in this book in Return to
Magonia was to collect twenty historical cases, and we've analyzed them as much much
as possible. What we've done is to take the newspaper report or from a
scientific journal, for example, the seventeen year, seventeen fifty seven or eighteen
thirty two, and we've extracted all the names, so all the names of
the witnesses, the places and so on, calculated the day, the exact
location of the sighting, and then using genealogical records, we've been able to
establish whether the witnesses existed, using other sources of information to see if it
really was raining on that day or it really was sunny just as the witnesses
described. I mean, all of this information is available in archives and Internet
just has opened a whole world of knowledge to us. We can now determine
whether historical cases were probably authentic or not just by studying them using the resources
that have become available in the last few years. So we look at seventeenth
century stories from the sixteen sixties, for example in England, where three volume
of very strange reports like as if They'd come from Charles Fort's penn were published
as a kind of religion just propaganda at the time, or political propaganda.
But using the resources that we have a digital planetarium to calculate the positions of
the stars, the sun, the moon, we're able to show that people
were reporting quite faithfully what they'd seen in a lot of these cases. And
then we just go through time until around nineteen forty seven. So it's probably
the first time anyone's ever like twenty good historical cases together and done a very
deep research into all of them, getting all the details and establishing all the
facts. And it sounds like then some of them, even after your analysis,
remain some mysterious exactly. I mean, this is it. Altogether.
We probably did about forty different studies, and this book brings together twenty of
them, and I'd say that all of them have some kind of anomaly,
some weird effect, something that we couldn't explain. I think there's only one
story there which we could find an explanation for the rest of them really are
quite strange. I mean, one of my favorites actually is from the eighty
seventy three and it happened in Ohio. I don't know why so many strange
things happen in Ohio, but I think Ohio is the state which has contributed
more Fortier or UFO cases to the Magonia Exchange Archive. You know, it's
something happens there, something weird. And do you know the case from eighteen
seventy three that was reported just outside Zainesville. Have you heard of this one
before? No, it doesn't sound familiar. I may have read about it,
but it's not ringing a bell right now. Well, I'll tell you
about this. It's quite interesting. I can read a part of it.
It says one evening, about two weeks ago, while missus Inman, who
was a farmer, and his son were returning to their home from Taylorsville,
they saw a light which they describe as looking like a burning brush pie well
near the zenith, descending rapidly towards the earth with a loud, loud,
roaring noise the ground in the road short or distance from them. The blazing
object flickered and flared for a few moments and then faded into darkness as a
man dressed in a complete suit of black and carrying a lantern emerged from it.
The man walked a few paces and stepped into a buggy which had not
been observed before by either mister Inman or his son. There was no horse
attached to this supernatural vehicle, but no sooner had the man taken his seat
than it started to run noiselessly but with great velocity along the highway, and
it continued to do so until it reached a steep gully into which it plunged,
when buggy, man and lantern suddenly disappeared as missteriously as they came.
And this story is very exciting because we're talking about a mysterious object that flies
across the sky and it lands in front of the witnesses. It opens up,
an entity comes out carrying some kind of torch or lantern, gets into
what sounds like an automobile. In eighteen seventy three, there were no automobile,
you know, the concept practically didn't exist yet, you know, he
sped away in this in this vehicle. So this is the kind of story
we're looking at in the book. Fascinating. The book sounds very fascinating.
I'm definitely going to get it as soon as I can. I don't have
it yet, but I mean, I loved Wonders in the Sky and I
really love this conversation. This was a lot of fun. I'm glad we
were able to finally get together to do this. Thank you so much,
thank you for having me. And people can go to Chrisaarbeck dot com and
we'll have the link of course on the website. But just for those listening
who are impatient, you can go to C H R I, S A
U B E c K dot com and you can also find Return to Magonia,
Wonder and Wonders in the Sky at Amazon. That's right. Yeah,
And hopefully this year I'll be releasing another book, and I'm working on a
thesis at at the moment, it's going to be the complete history of extraterrestrial
visitation and objects and spaceships that have crashed on the Earth allegedly who knows,
or maybe they really really happened from eighteen forty seven to nineteen four forty seven,
and that's going to be the most complete study of its kind. Well,
that's fascinating. It's great because you know, people are always talking about
wanting to because a lot of people rehash old stories. But this is all
stuff that people don't know about, even though they are very old stories,
older than many of them that people are talking about. But these are things
that people you know, they're retrieved from the archives, we think stories people
in modern times don't know about. Yeah, that's right, I mean,
honestly, it's amazing that it begins in eighteen forty seven with the fall of
this artificial object from the sky. It caused a crater and so on.
Then just a few years late, again allegedly a piece of masonry apparently fell
from the sky into Jamaica and it was covered in like hieroglyphics and figures and
things. And even then in eighteen sixty two, people said, well,
this must have come from another planet. And then you know, throughout the
eighteen sixties eighteen seventies, meteorites with writing on the outside or with objects inside
like a book or a device, a mummified alien and stories of this kind
abounded throughout the throughout the nineteenth century, so finally I'm bringing them all together
and showing how how the idea of crushed spaceships really originated one hundred years before
any of us suspected. Wow, they sound like a bunch of doctor whose
stories, and I love doctor it could be maybe I should sell them.
Yeah, maybe they're great. Well, thank you so much for coming on
and and hopefully we'll have you on again sometime in the future. Okay,
thank you very much. Then that was a lot of fun. So I
love the historical and the sociological aspect of this phenomena. In fact, I
find that perhaps the most interesting, because I kind of have this feeling that,
you know, if there's going to be any sort of open contact or
disclosure or whatever, it's not up to us, it's up to If there's
a third party coming here, it's up to them. So we're kind of
spinning our wheels with anything else. I feel. I just don't think and
even if if the government does have some group that is looking into this,
I don't think they have a whole lot of answers, much more than we
all have, because you know, we seem to forget that we're dealing with
a much more advanced civilization most likely. You know, of course, if
there is a visitation like that going on, or if more along the lines
of what Jacques Vallet talks about, it's something that we can't even conceive.
Even if you look at the Skinwalker Ranch. You know, we've interviewed,
We've got one of our top interviews online is actually John Alexander, you know,
retired colonel worked in Army intelligence, investigated Skinwalker Ranch with the Bigelow Group,
talking about how and I've talked to other scientists with the Bigelow Group and
they feel the same way that the intelligence, which they felt it was,
this unknown intelligence, was way smarter than they were. It outsmarted them,
and they really could not, you know, make heads or tails of things
except for that there was some strange phenomena and some strange intelligence that was messing
with them, that had abilities beyond theirs. So they really felt there was
something going on. They just didn't know what it was or who it was,
and it was just too smart for them. So that being the case,
you know, we're kind of chasing our tails, or at least sitting
on the sidelines here watching and learning and you know, keeping an eye to
see if something happened. But what we do know is there is a phenomena.
Whether that phenomena be purely psychological, it's certainly sociological in that there are
hundreds and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people that believe that we're
being visited or they believe they have had an experience with extraterrestrials or any other
paranormal kind of experience. And so because there's all of these people having these
experiences or believing they've had these experiences, and just you know, even if
these experiences are not a physical experience or even a there is no third party
involved, it is an experience, and so it deserves to be studied.
I don't know that I agree with Chris that I don't think that, you
know, a handful of studies is necessarily sufficient. I think that there would
be more studies if this topic was taken more seriously, because I think there
needs to be more studies. I think that abduction phenomenon needs to be much
more closely examined. That's why I don't shy away from covering it, even
though a lot of people think, you know, you're gonna hurt your credibility
talking about alien abduction. But you know what, there are some extraordinary cases
like Travis Waltons or of course like the Allygash guys. But beyond that,
even if those cases didn't exist, why do people feel like they're having these
experiences? Why are these experiences so similar? Are they an effect from the
media. If that's the case, why do people want to have these experiences?
Why does a mind create these experiences and have these media influence experiences?
Although especially with my talk that I'm going to do at the conference about strange
alien cases, these are some cases and just like Chris is talking about,
these are some cases that predate the media imagery. So that would you lead
one to believe that it's not just the mind, you know, reproducing something
that they've seen on television, that it would be some sort of separate phenomena.
So, you know, these are all outstanding questions, are all interesting
questions, and you know, beyond like the couple of people that we're going
to have at the conference, like the actual therapists that are trained therapists that
are working on this, which is just a very small handful, you know,
there should be a lot more therapists and studying this phenomena to figure out
also how to help these people because many people you know Avon Smith, she's
a PTSD therapist, and she says, these people, do you know,
have similar effects to PTSD or perhaps PTSD from their experiences, meaning that they
believe they've experienced a traumatic event or traumatic experience. And I have a degree
in psychology, and I know people can experience PTSD without even having to have
had a real experience. Even someone else's experience can cause trauma in someone's psyche.
So it's all really important stuff to look at. And uh, and
and that's why I think the sociological aspect not only that, you know,
I do talk about ETAs and religion, So it's an effect on religion,
its effect on society. Uh, you know, the belief in aliens and
its effect on technology. Uh. Even sci fi of course has had a
huge influence on science. People talk about that all the time. Scientists talk
about that all the time. So I love the sociological aspect. So I
think that's what's wonderful about what Jacques Vallet does and about what Chris does.
So this is really fascinating. If you haven't read Wonders in the Sky,
definitely get that book. Of course, we had Jacques on the show when
the book came out, but definitely get that book. It's a really great
book. And I am Chris has got me super excited about return to Magonia.
I mean, this is right down my alley and Jacques Valet did write
the forward for this book, and Jacques has told me, you know a
couple of times, you really need to interview Chris, you really need to
interview Chris. So I'm so excited to have interviewed Chris. And as you
can tell with me going on and on about all of this, I'm really
excited about the topic and what Chris had to say so really fun. So
you know what else I'm excited about. I'm excited about meeting Jacques Valet.
So how cool is that? So that's going to be coming up here next
week, like Martin and I were talking about, So we won't have a
show for another couple of weeks. So I apologize for that ahead of time
because I'm gonna be busy with the conference. Not only are we going to
be a week from now, we're going to be loading up the truck and
hauling it out there and setting up the conference. We'll be running the conference
all week, and by this time in two weeks from now, I'm gonna
have to take the day off and I'm gonna sleep most of the day because
you know, we go all the way up until Sunday night, we pack
up the truck and take everything down. So after five days of six days
of this long show, we're not done. We have to take everything down
and load it up and head out of town as soon as possible. So
we're not headed out of We're just headed from one side of town to the
other. But still it's a lot of work. So unfortunately, I won't
have a show next week or the week after. I'm not even gonna pretend
like I might be able to pull it off, because I won't. But
three weeks from now, we'll have a show, and we'll be back and
we'll talk about the conference. Hopefully some of you will be able to come
out to the conference, because that will be extraordinary. I've already heard from
a few of you, and I know you'll be there. So I know
I'm really busy, but do try to say hi. I really do love
it even if I'm busy and I'm like hey, thanks, you know,
and I shake your hand or whatever. I mean, I really really do
appreciate it when you do come say hi. I'm just so happy that there
are so many listeners to the show and so many of you do enjoy the
show. And even if you bug me about hey, word's another show show,
you know what, I love that because it just means that you're really
enjoying what we're providing for you all. And we love providing this, We
love providing the conference, and we love providing UFO the Open Mind GUFO Report.
So and we do have a new one out, so go to YouTube
or to Openminds dot tv and you'll see a new UFO reports. We talked
about the CIA documents a video citing report from Roger Marsh and then also John
Greenwald who's speaking at the conference. Because of as we talked about, you
know, I think on the last show, you know, these at the
these files that the government has supposedly lost. In fact, I'm gonna put
that story up on the Huffington Post here soon. You know, the government
claiming they lost more UFO files. What is up with that? And kudos
to John Greenwald for getting the government to talk about this and admit they've lost
these files or claim that they've lost these files. Right, what's going on
people, so really exciting stuff, So go check out the UFO report.
Otherwise, you can also get updates in your email. Now. The last
few weeks we've sent out weekly emails because of the conference and updating everybody on
what's going to be going on there, but also updating you on website stuff
and on when we have a new Open Mind GUFO report. Otherwise, we
only send out the emails on a bi weekly basis, so just every other
week. So go to open mindsat TV and the upper right you'll see where
you can register put your email address in there to receive the update. Also,
so if you go to ufocongress dot com, you'll see there's a big
section there, big blue section, dark blue where you can put in your
email. It says stay up to date in this little red box and says,
you know, put in your email there so you can get on our
email list, so you can stay up to date on everything that's going on
and all of our cool stories and everything. And it's a good way.
Just so you know, I know, you guys get busy. At least
once in a while you'll get a reminder that, hey, there's a couple
of radio shows you got to catch up on, or you know, here's
the latest ufour report, or some cool stories that we've posted, or maybe
some interviews that we've gotten that are rare or hard to get her stuff like
that. So yeah, so definitely keep up to date by getting on the
email list. Otherwise, everything that we talked with Martin Willis about you can
find at openminds dot tv. Of course, Martin Willis does podcast UFO,
So thank Martin for joining us and check out his podcast. You'll also be
able to meet him at the uf Congress. So he's a lot of fun
to me. He's just he's just a really nice guy. He's he's a
good guy. I'm so happy that he's joining us with the show these days.
But yeah, open mindset TV you're gonna find all of this information.
If you want more about the UFO Congress, check out Ufocongress dot com.
Keep an eye on the news. We're gonna have Fox News, We're gonna
have MSN, We're gonna have MSN's gonna have a story up real soon here.
So we're gonna have a lot of national press covering the event, and
of course, if you're in the Arizona area, we always have a ton
of local news covering the event. So keep your eye open or keep an
eye open on our Facebook and stuff, because we'll be posting this stuff.
And yeah, we're gonna get I think, quite a bit of national media
attention, so I'm really excited about that. Usually they cover the topic or
the conference in a very positive light, so hopefully they'll be doing that again
this year. Although sometimes you get a couple in there that just want to
kind of make fun and what can you do? That's our world today,
So we try our best to avoid that by giving them good data. And
that's the best thing you can do, is just give them good information,
stuff that is strong and compelling and credible, and they love that stuff.
So the media really does want to cover good stuff, if you got it,
But some of them do want to cover the silly stuff. And if
you don't give them good stuff, they'll cover the silly. What else are
they going to do? They need a story anyway. Thank you so much
for joining us again. Thank you to Caleb Hanks once again for the excellent
Open and Closed music. There's been a couple of people to ask, what
is that open and closed music? That is Caleb Hanks And if you go
to the Open Minds Radio website you'll see a link for him. The clerk
Chronicles is the website that he has where he hosts his music and he puts
his music up for free. It is awesome music. I agree with you
people who have been asking. I love Caleb's music. And Caleb Michah Hanks
runs the Gralem Report. He's great, he does a great show. And
Caleb is his brother. They're both very talented musicians. And yeah, Caleb
Hanks has got great and they're both hilarious. They are a lot of fun.
They're really cool guys. But anyway, yeah, check out Caleb Hank's
music. Otherwise, thank you all so much for joining us. We'll talk
to you in a couple of weeks. Adiosmudatos your emotionless sound. The Glass