Hello, and welcome to Open minds UFO Radio. I am your host,
Alejandro Rojas, and I have with me mister Martin super duper Willis. Oh
I think you called me that before. Oh yeah, several times, because
it's true. You're just out there doing it, you know, keeping busy
doing some amazing stuff. Well, thank you. Yes, busy guy,
Yes, you are a busy guy yourself. I am a lot and all
that, all over the place and living the life as they say, that's
right. I'm super excited. By the way. For today's interview, it's
Nick Pope And that was kind of funny because you know, he had gotten
these documents about a tip and everything, and you were like, hey,
you should get Nick, and I was like, already scheduled. So we're
just showing how we think alike. But yes, So it is great because
he clarifies about these documents he got from the government because of FOYA, but
not through FOYA, And we'll have him explain that because the people who actually
foid it were the Federation of American Scientists. But we'll go through all of
that and what is important about these documents and how they once again you know,
support officially, what Louel Azando has been saying about the program he work
with. Now, the media in mainstream has not had really any doubts,
it doesn't seem, but certain UFO researchers do, which is weird in my
humble opinion. I just think it's and we talk about this about how weird
kind of the UFO research community's reaction has been to all of this. I
think our offline conversations are probably more interesting about it, but our online ones
are maybe more colorful. Our online ones are still very interesting, I think,
and insightful. Nick always is hm, well, that's great, looking
forward to listening to that that those documents are pretty interesting, sure for sure.
So before we get to the show though, of course, we have
you on to talk about UFO news and what bit of news would you like
to talk about? First? My friend, Well, I grabbed this from
on a link from the open Minds dot tv. That's a greabsite great way,
yeah, beautiful wow, And it's an article from Sciencenews dot org.
And the title to this is it's time to start thinking the search for ET
seriously, astronomers say, and some scientists are pushing for NASA to make looking
for alien technology an official goal. So this Astronomers in particular that it's pushing
this. His name is Jason Wright. He's been around not that long,
only since twenty fourteen, and he's determined to make something happen with this.
He set up a little, a little mini meeting at the American Astronomical Society
in January. He had a little time in the room and he got some
people together and out to plot a course into putting the scientific field known as
SETI on NASA's agenda. That's what he's looking to do. And so they're
writing a series of papers arguing that scientists should be searching universe for techno signatures,
and that's any sign of alien technology, from radio signals to waste heat.
Now, I didn't realize they search for more than just radio signals,
and that that makes a lot more sense to me, because you know,
searching for other signs of life. You know, you and I have had
that discussion before. Whether you know radio waves is something that would even be
used by another intelligent technology. We have no idea, no idea they could
be using whatever things we don't even understand. So and well, as a
lot of people know, NASA started in NASA started funding SETI of the SETI
program in nineteen ninety two, and it didn't even last a year because it
was canceled by skepticism in Congress. So private organizations picked up the baton,
including the SETI Institute, founded in Mountain View, California, nineteen eighty five
by Jill astronomer Jill Totter. Also in twenty fifteen, the Russian Billionaires Jury
and Yulia Milner launched breakthrough initiatives to join the hunt for et with those little
I'm trying to remember what their solared solar kites, little miniature things. There're
yeah, little solar what did they call them? Solar sale That's what it
is. Yeah, and little tiny things. Well, anyway, the thing
that you know, I kind of stood out to me, this says in
the last five This article goes on to say in the last five years,
scientist's attitudes towards the search for intelligent life have been changed. It's good to
hear Wrights says. SETI used used to have a giggle factor. Raising images
of little green men and talking about SETI work as an astronomer was considered taboo,
if not for academics. Suicide can you imagine that now not so much?
And he is quoted here, I have the pop sociology theory that the
assertion of geek culture has something to do with it. I think that's pretty
funny. Wright says, Now it's like all the top movies are going to
comic books and science fiction. He ends this this article in astro astrobiology and
the search for life has become such a big part of what NASA does the
fact that it won't look for intelligent life has become ever more incongruous with its
other activities. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think there's a misconception that,
you know, the SETI Institute, who did Jill Tarter represents and Sash
Shastak who listened for radio signals, that that is SETI and that's all they
do. But they don't. As you said here, you know, SETI
is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And although the SETI Institute is really married
to this idea of radio signals, although their ideas are expanding, there are
other scientists who in fact they are scientists who have questioned this whole uh,
you know, method of doing it since the beginning. But there are other
scientists with other ideas. And you know what I really like about this article,
because I was not familiar with this term prior to it, was what
was that techno signals signatures? Yeah, techno signatures. I think that's a
better, more broad turn showing, you know, looking for other signatures of
technology, right right, and I you know, with the we have what
the James Web is that what it is that satellite going up that may you
know, we may have some major breakthroughs once that baby gets up there and
running mm hmm. Yeah. You know, the whole search for or the
looking for a heat and that's something I think Marked Antonio has talked about before,
who is a photo and video analysts remove on and also an astronomer.
He's talked about, you know, all these other signatures that give you an
indication that there could be an advanced civilization. And one interesting aspect of that
is, you know, some people like you know, even the famous scientist
Stephen Hawking talked about we should try to be silent. We don't want any
you know, ets to find us. They might hurt us. But Mark
makes a great point in that it's way too late for that. I mean,
besides, they most like we already have, I mean possibly already have.
But you know, we are sending out we are sending out all types
of signs and them. Yeah, you know, just think of it this
way. We're gonna probably be able to figure it out by eventually by looking
out there. Well why can't they look here and see you know what a
what we're all the gases we're putting up there, you you know, but
I mean good one. Yeah, there's the heat signatures. I mean,
we make the planet hotter, not just talking about global warming, which man
is inducing, but also you know, just that the heat generated by our
houses or by the electricity that we create, all of these other things.
So, uh, these create a hit heat signature. The gases like you
mentioned. Of course, we're lit up like a Christmas tree with a light.
We're sending out various signals. So there's a number of ways that we're
just broadcasting. Hey look at us, we're here. So it's quide.
Yeah. So it's great. You know that there are these scientists because there's
this guy first and then there was that Colombo scientists who spoke it said,
who said, hey, you know, we need to take this seriously and
any potential that shows that we may be dealing with an extraterrestrial civilization visiting us
we need to take seriously and look into and not just laugh it off.
And his argument or his paper was taken very well by the set of group.
It seems like, even says Shostak, said, it sounded there was
a lot of reason to it, which was interesting for him to say,
although he certainly didn't appreciate that the media completely getting the story wrong pretty much
when they reported on him. Yeah, they, I think they. I
think it was the the article titles that went out there, you know,
the headlines of the article. We're kind of misleading in a couple of them,
and yeah, that got them riled up. I think, yeah,
yeah, I got It's an embarrassing situation. I mean, sometimes working with
the scientists can be difficult because you have to get everything exactly correct and they
don't, and you know, they just don't want what they're saying misinterpreted,
and that can be difficult because they can have the slightest changing of what they're
saying can have a massively different connotation, and you know, to their colleagues
that could be very damaging because their colleagues will not be potentially happy about what
they say or that can be used against them, because I don't think people
realize, you know, just like people and UFO researchers argue about things or
disagree, scientists are like that too, and they can be very competitive or
you know, just very I guess, passionate about defending their particular stances.
I am sure, I am sure, you know. I was reading also
this astro twenty twenty. It's a Decaytal decadal survey on astronomy and astrophysics.
This is a survey that they're feeling on. Boy, I'll tell you,
your eyes go blurry after you're reading it for a while. But they they're
in part of it. They refer to the government shut down like they're delaying
this and delaying that. And it's pretty interesting. But there's six surveys involved
in this, and boy, I'll tell you when you're you're right. When
they write something, it is so detailed and down to the point, and
so I can understand why they get upset if someone misquotes them or misreads what
they're trying to say when they're trying to cover all the bases. So this
was a survey of astronomy and astrophysics. I don't know a whole lot about
it. Was it finished, No, it's asking people to contribute to it
based you submit to it, and there's white paper submissions and all that.
See, this is exciting. What's exciting about this is that kind of like
what you just talked about in this story, there's a there's an openness to
the idea of extraterrestrial civilizations and even visitation among mainstream science that we've never had
before. Tabby Star. I think that's how you say, it's fun to
say, here's probably that's I think it's even Polynesian or something, so you're
probably supposed to say so. I can't think of at other but there's been
some other situations where it's been the scientists who have said, hey, this
may be alien and uh and so there's yeah, just definitely a more of
an opening. So it'll be interesting. And we have seen this in different
like when organizations have talked to about their priorities, uh this like in that
paper, this priority on the discovery of extraterrestrial life and even the theorizing around
extraterrestrial advanced civilizations that we may see some of that in these papers that are
submitted yeah right himself was part of the group that was suggesting that the Tabby
star could have been, you know, surrounded by the alien megastructure, but
he was also part of the debunking of it when they got more of the
data, which you know, I mean that is that's one thing, you
know, science is supposed to be about, exactly, discovery, You change.
You don't hang on to something when you know when reality strikes. Yes,
when when data it is discovered that counters what you your suspicion, you
know, your your first prior is to examine that data and take it for
what it is and figure out if it's real or not, unlike you know
a lot of people who will then kill them or try to attack the messenger
of that data as opposed to looking at the data itself, especially if it,
you know, counters their worldview. And lord knows, we're used to
that when it comes to kind of ufo mythologies that are out there, by
the way, I use that term ufo mythology, and I want to speak
to this again, although I think we've done it before, but just to
kind of especially when we're talking about science, and I would love to hear
your perspective on this. Someone said, hey, I love you know the
show, but you and Martin sound like your skeptics, Like you don't even
believe in ufoss. You've been told that before, and what is your response.
I have been I have been told And because I was actually I had
Tyler Rogaway on and he was saying, you know how there is so much
out there that is real, why you know, why focus on when when
something you know, try to try to get rid of the debris that you
can figure out what it is so you don't have to bother wasting any time
on that. And I said something like, wow, this is really what
I like to hear. And I got I got a couple of emails from
that boy. You are a you are a debunker, you know. I
think it's I think he made the point for all of us, really,
I mean in what he said, you know, I mean, there is
there is so much out there that can't be explained that is really good,
then why not just weed through the rest of it and you know, the
stuff that isn't good, just forget about it, move on exactly. Yeah,
it's it's not good data people, and that's what we're talking about.
And it doesn't hurt to explore something you have not proven, even if it
is mythology. And I like that term because it's a good term. In
my humble opinion. Mythology doesn't necessarily mean it's not something that is real,
but it is something that we discuss kind of this reality that's been created that
is not confirmed, sometimes dubious, but sometimes it is confirmed, and it
doesn't hurt to explore those things and to let that guide your explanation or exploration.
That's what scientists is that theory or something observed but not proven, and
then you try to discover what that is. But you've got to follow the
data and see what the data tells you and not just blindly accept information even
if you have counter data, because then that's more akin to a religion or
a belief system than it is to actual investigation, which again, you know,
everybody has a right to believe whatever they want. But when we're trying
to research and discover something about, you know, the nature of some sort
of phenomena like we are, then we, like Tyler said, don't waste
your time with the bad information, use the good information and see what you
can find. And it's it's pretty much what a tip, you know,
leading into what Nick and I are going to be talking about that they have
done. You know, I'm sure, just like myself, you get a
lot of really positive email too, And one was very nice that came in
the other day. Someone wrote and said, while you've been doing this for
many years and you haven't sold out like so many others have, And I
just thought, Wow, what a really nice thing for someone to say.
And you know, and that goes I feel the same way about you.
You haven't. You haven't sold out. You try to stick to the facts.
You're doing the UFO seriously show, which I really appreciate, you know.
And and anyway, I just think, you know, anyone can spin
a tail and spend a yard a yarn as they say, and you know,
become very popular just because it's interesting and fascinating and they can hold an
audience and all that. But if you're going away from facts, you're not
doing anyone and yourself and especially the field, you're not doing any good to
anyone. Mm hmm. I agree. And you know what, I kind
of I feel like I was gonna it's funny when you said that, when
you said, I feel like you do that too, because I was going
to give you some kudos for for the same reason that person did that.
You haven't you know, gone off into a tangent. You've stuck to the
real information. And I would also say this, I think that it's important
because this is a little bit of a niche the serious really look at this
topic. It's easy to make assumptions and speculate, and there are a lot
of people out there doing that, and I again, I do not necessarily
fault those people. That is, those sort of things can lead to discoveries,
but there are less people doing like what that person who wrote you said
you're doing, which is sticking to their guns and trying to stick to the
good information. And I feel that the community of people doing that is so
small that it just makes me even more compelled to stick to that. First
of all, it's journalistic, and you know, that's an important thing to
me, but also because it is very revealing. I mean, here we
have the real when you're walking into when you're doing an interview with which happens
you know, I get these calls from the news, local and sometimes national,
and when you're doing those interviews and when you have information that is established,
and you can always do that. If they call about a situation that's
more dubious, you can say, well, we don't have a lot to
substantiate. That may be the case. However, here's another case that this
sort of thing has happened, and we have a lot of evidence to show
that. You know, there's something mysterious related to this other case that is
similar to the one you're talking about, and it allows you then to feed
some information where then you're taken more seriously, and that goes a long way,
a really long way. And that's why we've made some amazing headway I
think in the last year when it comes to mainstream science, like we just
talked about or media in this arena, M right exciting all zis Yeah,
I didn't send my time or I have no idea how much time we have
left deserve? Are we going to be talking about any other? So yeah,
we've got time. If you've got time for another way of two and
a half minutes. Oh, I was going to ask you if you had
anything. Oh, I've always got something. Let's see what I Okay,
Well, there's been a lot of talk about the last episode on Project Operation
paper Clip and we don't have to talk about that, sure, but I
wondered if you want to touch on that, because I watched the screener I
don't know, a month ago or something like that, and I thought,
wow, you could skip this one in this bit it's I've kind of seen
some people talking about about it, and what is your feedback on that particular
episode. So my review on den of Geek of this episode started off the
truth or history be damned as Nazis invade Project blue Book because probably what you're
disappointed about it really did diverge greatly from the reality. Project blue Book had
nothing to do with some of this stuff. You know, there's this whole
aspect where Mimi Heinek's wife is being followed and invests spite on by Russians,
which is also far from the truth. In fact, I didn't get it
in time for this article, but I'll include it in a future article.
I asked Paul Heinik what he felt about that. I had already done that
somewhat, but I didn't have the specifics of the content of the episodes,
and he said, you know what, it doesn't bother me so much.
I mean, that never happened. It is all made up, but I
can see this is a fiction and why they would need to do that.
It makes it exciting and intriguing. But yeah, certainly nothing like that ever
happened with my mom. So here's what I like about it though, is
that getting back to the mythology, they're kind of paying at least some homage
to the popular UFO mythologies out there, and I think even expertly and intelligently
weaving them into the story. And in my last review I highlight some of
these various different kind of mythologies out there that they weave into the show.
And I think this show served that purpose to kind of introduce all of this
stuff but also make the audience think about alternative possibilities to the UFO phenomenon.
For those reasons, I kind of enjoyed what they did. Plus it did
make it more exciting. M Yeah, I was wondering where this whole Russian
thing came from in this series. Yeah, I mean, really practically nowhere.
The German Steff project payper clip did happen. We don't know for certain
that any of the project's paper clip scientists who did build our space program had
anything to do with UFOs though, I mean, there's a couple of rumors
out there, but we're out of time. You'll have to read my story
on Den of Geek to find out more about that. But thank you very
much for joining us again, Martin. Always a pleasure here. All right,
let's go ahead and after this break we'll talk to Nick Pope. I
am extremely happy to welcome back Nick Pope to the show. Hello. Nick,
Hey, there, you are a frequent guest, but well always,
I was going to say especially now, but always you have important things to
say when it comes to this field, and you've got something important going on
right now as well, where you've received these documents, and maybe let's go
over if you don't mind what these documents are and how you receive them.
Okay, this is essentially the latest news in the still unfolding and extremely complex
story of the Pentagon's a Tip program. And we can get into all the
controversy about the names and the roles later, but it's essentially a few months
ago, a Swedish a Swedish researcher that's a bit of a tongue tongue twister.
A Swedish researcher called Roger Glassel noticed a throwaway line in the Congressional Record
dated April ninth last year, and it essentially said that the House Armed Services
Committee had received a DIA letter on the outputs of the ATIP contract. So
I saw that, as did a number of people. And I subsequently understand
that Roger and a whole bunch of other researchers who are interested in this,
and right across the story, Keith Basterfield, Paul Deine, John Greenwold,
Kirk Collins, a number of others. Maybe you did too. A whole
bunch of people put in Freedom of Information Act request for that letter. After
all, it was cited in the Congressional record, so they knew it was
a thing. And if Congress has seen it, why shouldn't we see it
too? Fair Enough, I thought I would go down a different route.
So, because I work now as a freelance journalist and write for many of
the UK's national newspapers, I reached out to the DIA's Office of Corporate Communications
and I essentially asked the same thing. I said, I understand this letter
exists. It's here in the Congressional Record sent from the DIA to Congress.
I would like a copy please, And we went back and forward on this,
I have to say for some months, and every few weeks I would
check in and say, is there any news on this? And clearly there
was a huge internal debate going on about the releaseability. Finally, after months
of doing and throwing between myself and the DIA's Office of Communications, on January
sixteenth this year, an email arrived into my inbox from the DIA saying here's
the letter. And what I received was a one page cover letter, a
one page distribution letter, and a three page attachment. And we can get
into the details of all that in a moment. But I then took the
decision on the basis of the fact that I knew that there was huge media
and public interest in this, that rather than wait and try and write up
this story, I took the decision to immediately publish it. So I tweeted,
I converted the PDF into a JPEG, and I put it out on
Facebook and Twitter almost immediately that I received it, so that everyone could see
the letter, could have the raw data, and I made over the course
of the next few hours a couple of follow up tweets, and of course
that attracted the tension of various media outlets that follow my Twitter, and I
subsequently was contacted by fellow journalists. I collaborated with some articles and some interestingly
as ever, with this, it seems that the British newspapers were leading the
charge. The Metro ran a piece on this, the Sun ran something,
and then Fox News picked it up and I went on Tucker Carlson tonight to
discuss this. But it's an extraordinary revelation and it really is, I think,
a very important piece of the puzzle when it comes to the ongoing debate
about a tip. Mm hmm, yeah, there's a there's a lot.
We'll definitely dissected this article another I guess as far as the revelation of these
documents the second source, which was good because well, but have you speak
to this because this is kind of funny. I know, I was Actually
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was surprised to hear I think you
tweeted about this. Some people were accusing you of having faked these documents.
Well, yes, this this was There were two parallel conspiracy theories. The
first was that I had somehow just faked this document. Actually, that would
have been a criminal offense. Actually, I think faking or tampering with federal
documents is pretty serious crime, so I certainly would not go down that route.
That was one of the theories that I somehow faked the document, the
second theory, and that's easily dealt with because I mentioned earlier that people like
Roger Glassel and Keith Basterfield and others had applied for this under the Freedom of
Information Act, so had Stephen after Good from the Federation of American Scientists,
and the day after I published it, he actually published it and put it
out there. So unless unless Stephen and I and Roger Glassell and a whole
bunch of other researchers had somehow gotten together and decided to pull some immense prank
on everyone, that then that's a complete non starter. Now we are in
a situation where numerous journalists and researchers have acquired exactly the same thing from the
Defense Intelligence Agency. The only difference was that I got it from their office
of Corporate Communications. Most other people, so far as I'm aware, received
it from their Freedom of Information office. But it is obviously the same letter,
so that that's verifiable. The second related conspiracy theory I guess this is
a little harder to disprove, is that somehow I was working with the DIA
as their chosen conduit to get this story out and that's why they chose to
release to me first. I don't think that's true. I suspect that if
we all sat down, we'd find that a number of people got it at
about the same time. I simply chose to tweet it first. I thought,
in this twenty four to seven media society, with social media being so
important, that I would just put it straight out there. So the fact
that I broke the story doesn't mean that somehow I'm in cahoots with the DIA
on it. But yes, it was an interesting kind of twist to this
tale. And what's interesting, I think is an I don't know if this
is kind of struck you, but it has me. I just and we'll
get into the details of the documentary, but just to kind of examine the
UFO quote unquote research community, is that they are so conspiratorial, So no
matter what comes out, there are these like there's this complete conspiracy that a
Tip and Lou are kind of making things up and this is a lie and
they're tricking us, which is one of the problems for them that this document
presents, because it is kind of as if we didn't have enough. It's
corroborating what Lou and Harry Reid and others have said. But it's interesting that
this it's such a large pushback to this, you know, extraordinary kind of
revelatory information around this actual government program. Yes, I think it is.
And I have not actually spoken to Lou since this document came out. I
mean, of course I understand. I think maybe it was actually from you.
I've had so many conversations about this in the last week or two.
I apologize if I'm quoting your own conversation back to you. But so somebody
told me that Lou was pleased that this was out precisely because, of course
it confirmed what he had been saying all along. Of course, I think
it was ridiculous that anyone was would doubt that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
and a career intelligence officer like Lou would somehow have conspired to fool the world.
Clearly they didn't, and clearly we now have absolute proof, I mean,
the chain of custody, to use the current phrase of the moment,
with this document is absolutely clear. DIA sent this document to Congress. There
can no longer be any debate about this. And if this has given people
like Lou who is a loyal and patriotic guy, if it's given him a
little bit of extra top cover that now the DIA has released this to Congress,
so this at least is out there and can be talked about, then
great. Yeah, exactly it was me and yeah I was able to do
to talk to him just a couple of days ago, and he did say
exactly that that's a good way to put it, because yeah, now he
felt more comfortable to talk about this, and he has said, you know,
he shouldn't be the conduit. He can't. First of all, as
you've said, he can't reveal anything that he is bound, you know,
by a secrecy acts not to, nor does he want to, because as
you said, he's a loyal patriot. But when situations like this happen,
then it does allow him to speak to those things more. Yes, it
does. And he's used the phrase I think many times that what he would
like to see as a conversation with the American people about this, and now
we have this letter to Congress, I think this is a hook, another
hook, but a more substantial hook perhaps than we've ever had before on which
to hang that conversation. Mm hm. Now, the other aspect is that
something similar to these documents has been released before, and it was a leak
from George Knapp and Klas in Las Vegas. But there is an important distinction
between what you received and what George had posted earlier, and so maybe you
could talk to that sure thing. Well, George Knapp has obviously done a
lot of excellent investigative journalism on this story. Also, he is somebody who
is closely connected with a number of the key players in this whole situation.
Some time ago, as you say, George acquired and put out a list
of what appeared to be duh's defense intelligence reference documents related to the A program,
and it was partially reacted, and of course it was slightly sanitized,
and in terms of its provenance, this speaks to what you were saying about.
Well, people, people have been skeptical about this, people have been
doubting this. I'm not going to get into and I don't know, and
I wouldn't want to know how George acquired those those documents. But if anyone
was doubting George and the list that he'd acquired. What I acquired a week
or so ago from the DIA completely vindicated George nat because essentially it's the same
list. It's just it's slightly different. One of the items that was redacted
in the original is now unredacted. A little bit of the formatting and things
is different. But you can do a comparative analysis between what I've acquired and
what George Napp acquired some time ago, and it's it's clearly the same thing.
So this I think vindicates what George Napp and Klas put out some time
ago. But now now we have it officially from the DIA, this is
not a leak. This is released officially under the Freedom of Information Act on
a press officer to journalist basis in my case, and it's now out there
and it's completely legitimate, and we can begin to have a conversation about this
and try and unpick what it all means. M hm. And that is
something that you've been paying attention to. And as I think an important note
that we have received there very very very little officially regarding a tip. Sure
we've hear heard from Lou we've heard from witnesses to the Nimitz encounter that was
in that New York Times article that revealed all of this. We've heard from
Harry Reid, so this is anecdotal information. We've gotten leaks from George Knapp,
and some information shared by to the Stars, but very little officially,
which it makes this document one of the very few official pieces of information other
than these little kind of breadcrumbs that you've also been able to find and others
in other documents. Yes, I think if I was asked to list what
we have by way of a tip paperwork officially confirmed as opposed to just rumor,
I would say it's this five page letter from the DIA to Congress.
And by the way, of course, it went to the late John McCain
as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and it went to the ranking member,
Jack Reid. And the distributional list is interesting too, I mean a
wider than I had expected. Distribution list. It went to the Speaker,
it went to the Minority Leader, the Majority and Minority whips, It went
to the Armed Services Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Appropriations Committee.
Really did go far, far and wide. But yes, in terms
of what we have officially, we have this letter, we have Harry Reid's
June twenty fourth, two thousand and nine letter to a deputy Defense secretary,
and we have, frankly, apart from that, we just have a few
emails from press officers at the DoD confirming that yes, a tip was a
program, and that's about it. That's about it, right, So there's
very very little officially. The great thing is is that everything that has been
coming out officially, for the most part, besides a couple of comments I
guess from the press DoD press representative, they have been supportive or corroborative of
what read Elizondo and NAP's leaks have all been in line. Yes they have.
And that's of course, one of the great things that any intelligence analyst
will tell you is is that when you have corroboration from multiple sources, that's
that's an important part of the story. Now, of course, one has
to guard against collusion in those scenarios. But yeah, so far this all
looks good. And then I will touch on this because I did allude to
it just a second ago. One I guess disparity is and John Greenwell certainly
makes a big point of this. I think it was one of the main
people to kind of get to this is that, you know, the the
at least regarding the videos that were released by The New York Times and To
the Stars, lou has said that, you know, the d D releases
videos. That's what the New York Times actually, I said, that's what
Leslie Kane said. She received those from a third party, not from Alizondo
or to the Stars. And so however, the press representative this major I
can't remember her her name, has told people and has told Greenwald that they
did not release those videos. I personally have seen a document that has not
been made public yet that does show that the DoD release the video. So
that's still one area of contention where hopefully will receive some official word on that.
But what is your thoughts on that situation? Yes, I have seen
I don't think there are any problems. Well, you know what, I'm
not going to name her because usually when even though the name is in the
public domain, usually when I deal with the press office of any organization,
the kind of convention is that it's on a non attributable basis. In other
words, you can confirm that you received it from the press officer, But
you're not supposed to then publish their emails and put their name out there.
But I have seen those emails, and for example, I've seen I've seen
an email from one of the DoD press officers talking about the name discrepancy.
We've had, of course, the whole debate about Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program,
Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program, and
of course ORSAP Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program. And I've seen some emails
which basically say things like, you know, just an alternative name for a
tip, or you know, same same program basically a tip the official name.
But yes, I have seen an email where that particular press officer says
words to the effect of we did not release those videos. I think,
of course, without wanting to disparage any press officer, very often you're dealing
with the situation where the press office, well the press officer is never the
subject matter expert, So the press officer is getting advice on whatever questions come
in from journalists from the subject matter expert or experts. And if any of
this relates to intelligence programs, then you don't even necessarily in the press office
get the full story, particularly if My own theory about this was that these
videos were kind of put out there as almost like a te almost like,
hey, we've looked at this and we don't have any ideas, let's put
them out onto specialist aviation forums and kind of see if anyone else, see
if we can't leverage and weaponize the knowledge and experience of the aviation community out
there. So I suspect they did release them, but not necessarily through the
normal official channels. And you know what's interesting about all of this as well,
and I think you can speak to this, and I feel like,
at least with some of the UFO research community, they just kind of don't
get this, is that the media has not had a problem with that issue.
The media has gone essentially to the subject experts who are Lou Alexando and
Harry Reid, and for the most part, the media has taken their word
for all of this and kind of overlooked kind of what the press department had
said, which makes sense to me because as you mentioned, you know,
they are the subject matter experts, and they seem to have enough credibility where
the media is happy with working with them. And what they have to say,
yes, and the bottom line. Of course, right at the beginning
of all of this, The New York Times would never have run this had
they not then sat down with someone in the press office and said, this
is what we've got, this is what we're going to run, but we
do need you to confirm that a TIP existed, and albeit begrudgingly, absolutely,
they confirmed yes, there's a program. Now, I think the really
interesting question comes when we discussed, well, yes ATIP exists, that's now
indisputable, but what was its true nature? And I'm sure we're going to
get into that. We are because although it's a bit subtle, these documents
you found do give us a great insight into that. But before that,
you didn't mention all of the different names for the acronym of a TIP.
And do you make anything of the acronym used in this letter is at the
Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program, which is essentially what again Alessandro has been
telling us. They just added that three letter word, and in there do
you make anything of that? Not really, having served for twenty one years
in government, I know that these sorts of bureaucratic things happen all the time,
projects get renamed, projects have a colloquial name as opposed to an official
name. Somebody slips an end in there, you know, even when you
look at internal documents from the organization owning the program, sometimes things change and
then you find out people are working in silos. So some manager comes along
and says, you know what, I'm going to merge these two programs and
you get another name. I don't think we should get too hung up on
that sort of thing. I mean, yes, details are important, but
if someone's going to try and try and pourch cold water on the whole story
just because somebody says aerospace and somebody else says aviation, or just because somebody
slips an end in there, that I don't think that's significant, right.
That's kind of chasing an insignificant point and then overlooking all of what is significant.
And there is a lot of significant information in these documents. And that's
what I'm really another thing I'm excited to talk to you about to get your
analysis. But before we do that, we do have to take a short
break. So for those of you listening on a KGr or any other radio
station, you'll hear some commercials the rest of you will just hear a short
musical interlude and we'll be right back with Nick Pope. Welcome back to Open
Mind UFO Radio. I'm here with Nick Pope and we are talking about these
documents that he got from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which essentially go over what
the products or dirts that were used by the A KIT program. So when
you look at this list, what does it tell you? Well, I
want to back up a moment and look at the cover letter before I look
at the attachment, because this, to me is the most interesting part of
the story. And this is the part that I think with my government background,
it lacked out me straight to U and there is a total disconnect between
what's said to Congress in the cover letter and what the list of attachments actually
says. And here's the thing. If you look at the cover letter,
they have this line and they say the purpose of a tip was to investigate
foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats from the present out to the next forty years.
So, in other words, here's what happened. I think Congressional staffers were
just as intrigued as everyone else to read the New York Times story about a
TIP when it first broke just over a year ago, and many of those
congressional staffers, and particularly on the Senate and House Armed Services Committee, they,
of course, as you would expect a good staffer to do, culture
of no surprises. No staffer wants their boss asked about something and they don't
have the answer. So the staff has reached out to the DIA and said,
hey, you know, we've seen in the New York Times and the
Post and everyone's talking about this a TIP program. What the heck are you
guys doing. We need we need some briefing on this in case, in
case somebody like John McCain or Jack Reid gets asked. So DIA then sent
the the letter and as I say, they had this phrase and they said
the purpose of a TIP was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapon threats from the
present out to the next forty years. If you're receiving that letter, what
will you think? I think what I would think is, well, this
is it is as it says, it's it's looking. It's a next generation
aerospace program and in tell elligence program looking at the sorts of threats the United
States might face over the next forty years. And you would think they were
probably talking about aircraft, missiles and drones, Russians, Chinese, Iranians,
North Koreans, etc. So that's what the cover letter says. Then you
look at the list of attachments and you get into this surreal X files territory
because the list of attachments covers subjects including anti gravity, invisibility, cloaking,
stargates, warp drive, and wormholes. And if I was sitting in Congress,
I would say, well, wait a minute, that there is a
total disconnect. You're telling us, or you're implying to us, that this
is an aerospace program, but an awful lot of this doesn't sound particularly like
aerospace. This sounds like space travel. I mean, advanced nuclear propulsion for
manned deep space missions. I mean, why are we talking about manned deep
space missions if this is just an aerospace program? Right? And it's kind
of it's well, what's interesting if you're like, Okay, what foreign entities
are they speaking about? If you were to look at the list like you're
talking about, you would be like, wow, they're talking about space.
They're talking about something foreign to this planet apparently exactly, And looking down the
list of thirty eight attachments, there are no papers on things like Chinese factory
capacity. There are no papers on things like Russian engineering skills. There are
no papers on North Korean ballistic missile aspirations. There are no papers on Iranian
leadership, strategic aviation plans, nothing. There is nothing on Russian, Chinese,
Iranian, North Korean, anyone else, aircraft, missiles, drones,
or satellites. All this is all about deep space travel and the absolute,
the absolute smoking gun is that one of these one of these papers is about
the Drake equation. Now, as you know, the Drake equation, formulated
by the astronomer, the radio astronomer Frank Drake, is a mechanism whereby an
attempt is made to calculate how many communicable civilizations there might be in the universe.
Well, look, if this program was about Russian and Chinese drones,
you would not have a paper on the Drake equation as one of the products
produced under the contract, would you. It's it's a total disconnect. So,
in other words, what we are dealing with here is what I would
call spin. The DIA and the DoD have attempted since this revelation came out
to spin this as yes, we did all right, it's a fair cop.
You've got us. There was an a tip program, but it's really
just looking at next generation aerospace threats. And yet now we have official,
the official list of reference documents. The answer is no, that's not what
they were looking at at all. And I hope, I hope that the
people sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee pushed
back against that and spotted exactly what I spotted its trade away. And wait
a minute, people, you know so there's a total disconnect between what you've
told us this program is and the thirty eight things that you list as reference
documents. What's going on? Mm hmm. And well, there's a lot
more to get into that way. But because it does, and a lot
of people have made this comparison that it reads like an X Files kind of
department, which in a way it was more so than I think the media
has really caught on actually fully. But after good who you mentioned earlier,
of the Federation of American Scientists, he told Fox News, I think you're
in this story as well, that this is the here's the quote. These
are the these are the kind of actually told us to Motherboard. These are
the kinds of topics you pursue when you have more money than you know what
to do with. Well, I don't agree with that. I think that
anyone involved in advanced programs of any nature is always or should always be prepared
to think the unthinkable. And this is what we call in government. Even
if we think it's unlikely, the payoff if any of this comes to fruition
is immense. We call it low probability high impact. Now, sure,
a lot of what they were looking at under a tip is what you would
call some fairly far out theoretical physics. Some would probably call it fringe science.
Does that mean we shouldn't be doing it? Absolutely not. I mean
government looks at all of this in terms of threats and opportunities. The opportunity
if we can get any of this to work is immense. The threat if
somebody else gets this to work, like the Russians and the Chinese and we
are not looking at it, is immense. But I think that's just one
side of it. The other side, going back to names, given that
there is this disconnect between what they implied and what they actually did, the
question arises is foreign in the context of how the DA used the term actually
the latest euphemism for what the public would call UFOs. Yeah, which I
think we have ran into in the past as well, certainly with you know,
Foreign Technology Division. It is at right Patterson. Of course we're practice
blue Book was, and so there's always kind of been this relationship there.
In fact, of course we've got the alleged stories or the stories of Colonel
Course, so that are pretty wild. But he of course says he came
across this information while working with the Division of Foreign Technology, So it there
is something to be said that it would make sense that this would be a
the kind of department tasks with looking at an unknown you know technology. Yes,
And in one sense, if you're sitting running a program looking at aerial
threats, I know this might sound fantastical to people, but in one sense
you don't care. Well, you do care, but it doesn't matter whether
the threat comes from Russia or China or from somewhere considerably further afield. If
there's something in your airspace, you want to know what it is. And
clearly they were studying a number of unknowns. And indeed the only time that
the DoD didn't try to spin this was in a couple of emails to researchers
where as well as using this term, and there are variations on it,
like far term foreign advanced aerospace threats, they did throw in for good measure,
including anomally events such as sightings of aerodynamic vehicles engaged in extreme maneuvers with
unique phenomenology reported by US Navy pilots or other credible sources. So you can,
if you look hard, find a couple of places where they've gone further
than saying that this is just about Russians and Chinese, but you have to
look carefully. What's also interesting is that this report came out and as you've
noted before, and last time we had you on was after your article in
the Guardian, this doesn't seem to have completely scared away those in Washington who
may have an interest. No, the Senate Armed Services Committee is, I
believe, still looking at this. They've taken evidence from some of the US
Navy personnel involved in the Nimitz incident, for example. Whether any of this
congressional interest will translate into formal congressional hearings public or otherwise, I don't know
that. I think is the well one of the current big unanswered questions about
all this, what's going on behind the scenes. Let's not forget Congress have
had this letter for over a year now. I think a couple of people
have misread the date. It's not January ninth, twenty nineteen. It was
January nineteenth and January ninth last year. It's just it's taken that long to
get the darn thing out into the public domain. So clearly the Armed Services
Committee has had this and others in Congress have had this for a while.
What's going on behind the scenes. That's an interesting question, right exactly because
even that document you said that clued you into this was from April. So
this thing is kind of persisting and making the rounds, which, again going
back to what Lou has said, I mean, I think that that's really
important in that here again we have information officially that is corroborating everything that Lou
is telling us. And I feel in speaking with him that he has been
honest, careful in choosing his words to make sure he is accurate, and
you know, letting people know when he is speculating, and so that gives
you know, him more credibility. And he's writing like on medium and they're
posting these on to the stars that their goal is essentially to grease the wiels
of government to get more information like this out and have the people responsible for
the different aspects of investigation or paying attention or working with the public to be
doing that. And what's interesting is that we are seeing this kind of behind
the scenes thing happening. So it's a bit exciting. And would you say
it would be accurate to say that it looks like wills are being greased,
that there is a movement behind the scenes in DC, you know, in
Washington on this topic. Yes, I think there is. Lou Like any
good intelligence officer, it's careful to differentiate between what he thinks and what he
knows. He's also very careful like me, when you've been involved in those
sorts of programs, there's a line and you don't cross that line. So
you can encourage Congress to take an interest, and when the agencies themselves release
paperwork, you can speak to it, but you can't preempt that process.
So it is I know, I get that people are frustrated with this and
they want things to move quicker, But my goodness, if people kind of
realized something about government you know, they should realize sometimes how slowly it moves.
But yeah, small moves, and those small moves I think are going
on behind the scenes, and I know that Lou and others are going to
continue to be involved in that process. But all of this absolutely vindicates what
he's said. It vindicates what Harry Reid has said. And clearly this story
has only now been out there about the letter to Congress for a week or
so. It's still early days. There are a lot of journalists and researchers
still digesting this, and a lot more questions have to be asked. A
lot more FOI requests are going in. I know that so interesting times.
M hm. Now, you are in sort of a similar position to Lou
and we've talked about that quite a bit. That's why we had you come
and speak, when you know, to analyze his interview with us at the
International UFO Congress last year. But it seems that you can kind of identify
and I wonder if this is accurate that you've kind of taken a different approach
in that you have chosen to more since your media savvy person kind of greece
the wills in the public arena more so go public to talk about the credibility
of different cases and of the mystery, as opposed to working behind the scenes
to kind of greece the very slow wills of bureaucracy. I've done a bit
of both. I certainly have, particularly in the early days, did a
lot of kind of behind the scenes work that can probably never be be publicized,
and that has played out in things like the declassification and release of the
mods UFO files and a number of other things. I have an advantage over
Lou on this, and that is the fact that the British government has now
declassified and released most of its files, not all, but most, And
because I've got sixty thousand pages with the documents that my former bosses put out
there, many of which I wrote, I have a little bit more leeway,
I guess, to speak publicly about this. Lou has really only got
like a handful of documents that are out there and has to be more careful.
So I think when, if, and when the DoD and the DIA
release more a tip paperwork, I think and I fully hope that we will
see and hear more of Lou as he is more able to speak out about
this. But I think it goes back to this point. You know,
he's careful, he's loyal, he's patriotic, he's not going to speak about
documents that aren't out there yet. So that's that's why I think there's a
there's a difference between him and I at the moment, right, and that
makes a lot of sense. And it goes back to kind of the other
thing we talked about, where we don't have much in the way of official
information about the program, and even he's careful to speak about leaked documents because
leaked, of course, is not something that's officially released, because really we
have nothing regarding any of their UFO work except for a leaked document that's sort
of an analysis of the Knimt situation. But of course Lou is careful to
speak to that because it is a leaked document, although you know, Fravor
and others have confirmed that it is accurate, so we but we still have
no idea about any of the other cases that they've looked into, and Lou
says there's some extraordinary stuff. He's even said there's some better stuff than nim
It. So there's still a lot more to be discovered, hopefully absolutely,
and there are still in the system. Let's not forget. I think over
three thousand Freedom of Information Act requests relating to a TIP, and those aren't
going to go away. I mean, we were able to get this letter
to Congress simply because it was very high profile, and I think they had
to fast track that because it was in the Congressional record. But from the
day the New York Times ran that story, request after request after request went
in. And although I've heard some suggestion that we maybe later this year or
even twenty twenty or beyond, as I say, they haven't gone away.
So I hope that we will. We will get more a TIP paperwork.
No program, looking at this, whatever it's nature, doesn't generate paperwork.
And according to Lou, a TIP is still ongoing. And would it be
true that because it is ongoing, that will kind of hamper our ability to
get information out of it, since it's an ongoing concern. Yes, I
think that's you know, that's part of it. I mean, of course,
this is where there is a discrepancy or certainly disagreement, because Lou is
very clear the program is extant. We were never stood down. When you
look at some of the DoD statements they try to say, or that they
imply at the very least that the plug was pulled on this, but that
may simply mean the funding plug. There are always when you investigate UFOs.
Most of what you do doesn't need additional funds because all the things you need,
like the military radar system, like the imagery analysis resources and capabilities,
they are already there. They are already funded. But yes, assuming that
at or something like it, maybe it's changed names again to throw people off
the trail, I wouldn't discount that. If it is still extant, then
then yes, that makes disclosure more difficult. Well, I think that's we're
out of time, and I thank you so much for coming on the time.
Absolutely flew. I think that all of this is such important information in
analyzing and understanding what's going on. So very very many thanks for your efforts
to get this documentation to the public quickly and for analyzing it and sharing your
expert opinion. Thank you very much. Thank you so much to Nick Pope
for joining us on the show. You can just google Nick to find his
website and he's got lots of great stuff there. I would highly highly recommend
it. It's wonderful that he's out there doing things like talking to Fox News
and they take him so seriously, as they should, because it's rare,
you know, to have an opportunity. I need to talk to somebody in
the government who actually investigated UFOs. Of course, in this case, as
you can tell by his accent, Nick investigated UFOs with the UK government,
the Ministry of Defense, which always kind of makes me chuckle, makes me
think of the Ministry of Magic. But that's what's exciting about all of this.
If you listen to lou Elizondo and what they've been up to, it
is kind of technology so advanced it's almost magical that they believe that they've been
able to witness when they're observing these unidentified objects. And certainly that list that
Nick just talked about includes some really strange stuff, some magical science that he's
going on in this field. So it is all very very exciting, and
I think it's great that we have him as a resource. And unfortunately,
I really think this is an area we should all be paying a lot more
attention to because there's going to be a lot more very interesting revelations I think
coming forward. And the guy in the middle all of all these revelations is
mister lou Elizondo. We'll have him on the podcast soon. We've got other
great shows coming up, so stay tuned. Be sure to follow me on
social media and our Open Mind social media because I'm sharing updates on everything on
a regular basis. I also have a blog, Alejandro t Rojas dot com
that I've started where I'm gonna be posting everything that I write about from space
to UFOs, so you can find it all in one place. Another great
outlet for UFOs is the International UFO Congress, so Ufocongress dot com. There
is a blog and we've been more active in putting information on that blog at
Ufocongress dot com, and of course there's super cool new products there all of
the time. We've got a lot of really exciting stuff going on with the
Congress, not just related to the next event, but also our store and
other really cool stuff that we've been involved with. So lots going on there.
Please do check them out on social media, and you can of course
see me retweet and reshare a lot of that stuff as well if you're looking
for where to find that, but it's pretty easy. You search UFO conference,
and you're going to find us because we're the biggest deal in town when
it comes to UFO conferences, and you'll see why, especially that we're going
to stay in that listing as the number one once you see the speakers that
will have up and we'll have some of those listed in the next month or
so. So very exciting stuff going on. Stay tuned. Thank you so
much to Martin for joining us with the news at the beginning of the show.
I also want to thank the people up at Big Bear Alien Snowfest UFO
congresses out there was a lot of fun. You'll also be able to see
us at the Conscious Life Expo in just a couple of weeks. We'll have
a booth out there with lots of our cool stuff, and any of you
listeners who want to come out, or maybe who are regulars because they get
so many many people to that thing, come and say hi. I'll be
there working at the table with Karen, so come say hi to us and
check out what we got. Otherwise, I want to say thanks to Caleb
Hanks, who creates the opening and close music. A lot of people ask
me, what's that cool music? That's Caleb Hanks At the open Mind GUFO
radio page on the open Mind's website you can see a link. Otherwise,
you can just google Caleb Hanks and you'll find him on Patreon, where he's
sharing a lot of his cool music on a regular basics, so check that
out. Also, thank you to Systematics for the bumper music, and of
course, as usual, thank you the listeners for being here every week.
It's a pleasure to be able to talk to you and share this great information.
Until next time, Audios, mood Tuchos. You must