Hello, and welcome to Open minds UFO Radio. I am your host,
Alejandro Rojas, and I am here with Martin Man on the go Willis.
Yeah, that's me here, fella running from the law. No oh really,
no not really? Okay, good good. You know what's funny is
this weekend at the Phoenix Move On event, they had their their regular monthly
meeting, and this group is really cool. They have great speakers they bring
in all the time, so they have a big crowd. This time they
brought David Hatcher Childress, who I know, well, you know, luckily
he doesn't live far so we've been able to We've got some mutual friends and
stuff hang out here and there, and he's he's such a neat guy.
He's fun. I mean, Ancient Aliens isn't necessarily my favorite show, but
I love Childers. I really Suculos is a fun guy too. He's so
funny. They're they're really cool guys. But you know, they introduced him
as kind of a real life Indiana Jones, and it made me think this
morning that you kind of fit in that a bit because you deal with antiques.
But then I thought, well, maybe you might be more like remember
the scene in Indiana Jones where I think it was the Nazis had Indy and
his dad even so it must have been the third one. And they're like,
and you know, they're gonna look for his compadre, the guy at
the university he works with, and he's like, you'll never find him.
He knows twelve languages, he knows the cultures of every culture around the world.
He'll blend in and you'll you'll never find him. And then the next
scene they show him in his white suit and he's like, hello, Hello,
can someone help me find you know, because he's looking for his hotel
or something. Do you remember that scene? I vaguely yes. I want
to say. I'm almost thinking maybe getting this wrong. Was it the character
of the plays mister Bean. No, it wasn't. I'm thinking of a
whole different movie. Yeah, but I can I can see him. He
played like a serious part in a movie where he like stood out like that.
Boy. Did I ever get this wrong? Well, the last Indiana
Jones had aliens in it, I believe, didn't it. Oh yeah,
yeah, so I think it was a good I'm thinking of but yeah,
that last but you might be more like that character but still you deal with
real life antiquities on a regular basis. I do, and sometimes it's pretty
pretty exciting. Yeah and yeah, I mean I've dealt with Murph Griffin's whole
collection. A lot of people don't even know who he was. And wasn't
that what Kramer found in the dumpster on that episode of Yes, the Murph
Griffin Show, right, Bob set. Yeah, and he did a little
show there, No murv Griffin from Wheel started Wheel of Fortune and all kinds
of other you know, game shows and stuff. But he had he was
an interviewer you know, way back that had a great show, interviewed everybody.
So but interesting guy and he had Roman antiquities that was really an interesting
estate. But I bring that up because I'm here wasting your time when you
have little time because you have to run off and and do some stuff.
So I guess we should move on. But I just wanted people know what
an exciting life that you lead and how lucky we are to have you here
in between these exciting adventures that you have throughout your life. But today my
guest, so my guest is MJ. Benaia's and he has a site called
Tara obscura and he likes to talk about the philosophy of UFOs and hold up
before you change the station, because you're like, what kind of egghead goog
mumbo jumbo are we going to be hearing today? This is actually extremely interesting.
I had a wonderful conversation with MJ was and I think you'll cure what
we kind of talk about is this is really important, a very important idea
and concept, and I think it's it's an almost a more accurate way of
placing this UFO phenomena into American culture. And you might be thinking, well,
there he goes, here, we go with them, what the hell
does that mean? Well, I think you'll see what I mean when you
listen to the interview. But I had a lot of fun. I think
this is a really great interview. MJ is a really neat guy and I
hope to have him back. So yeah, he's got this website Tira Obscura.
He writes for a Mysterious Universe. Occasionally his stories are there, and
his latest article, one that we'll be referring to is euphological belief Systems,
and we kind of will get into this and just kind of you know,
he kind of feels like, you know, there's the nuts and bolts in
the more out there new ag and where do these all fit and how can
they work together? Type of stuff, and that's what we talk about.
So it's pretty fun. Wow, I am really looking forward to hearing this
one. Yeah, it is great. I think you'll love it, and
I think you'll want to have him on your show. It could be yep,
I'm sure you will, which will be great. So that's what we're
talking about. But before we get into that, Martin is actually here to
tell us about some UFO news. Take it away, all right, So
I'm going to talk about a starfish disc starfish and coffee sor right know,
if I'm familiar with that. It's a pretty song. Oh okay, it's
a disc UFO and it was photographed not far from you, Tucson, Arizona.
And so this happened back on December eighteenth of last year, and the
witness was outside his backyard at about eleven thirty am when the object he first
noted He noticed a reflection coming in from the west at about five to ten
thousand feet. I know it's quite a spread, but also you know,
you look at this pature the very first thing I thought of. When you
see a close up of it, it's really odd looking and looks sort of
like an organic figure. But it also looks like it possibly could be some
type of milar balloon. I mean, it's really but such an unusual shape.
I don't know how someone would create something like that, So a quote
from him him, When I first focused on it, I could see that
there was something that was metallic and rotating clockwise in a slow, stable and
consistent manner. Now that kind of goes along with what a balloon can do,
but also I'm sure anomalous objects could do that as well. There was
no sound at all, and he had his phone and he tried to take
a whole bunch of pictures. But if you will look at this article,
you see a lot of different pictures. The thing is in different positions,
and so after about fifteen minutes, he was no longer able to find it
in his viewfinder. So it was moving in a direction that could be again
with the wind. But I want to know, since the story came out
just about a week ago, has anyone come up with any other explanations for
this? Sala Hundro, Well, you know, the Phoenix move on.
Guys are all over it. And I think I mentioned this before that Dennis
Frarmouth, the director of investigations out here, is like one of the best,
if not the best. I feel this guy's great, and so I
did talk to him a little bit about it, and so they're looking into
it. They'll have a full report. I think what I could share is
that he feels more along the lines of a drone, and I think most
people feel that way because it does have these appendages, like you've mentioned.
It appears to be five of them which reach out kind of like drones have
the propellers on each end. However, I'm thinking more of along the lines
of you what you're saying, a mari Lar balloon, And he said that's
his other possibility. He thinks highly that it's probably a balloon. I agree.
I think it might be some sort of party balloon with you know,
just like maybe a starfish or star shape, because it seems solid like there,
it seems like there are these triangular arms that go out to the circular
tips at the each of these kind of appendages. So so I'm with you.
I think it's probably a balloon type of thing, but it looks pretty
weird, so it's kind of fun when I posted it's funny. The director
of mofon who Phoenix move On is actually coming into because we're going to interview
them about the Phoenix lights and we're going to be playing those throughout our conference
coming up here. But he was like he was. He was real quick
to email me and say, hey, we don't know what this is.
We're still investigating it, and and I told him, I know, I
know. We put that story because luckily Roger puts that always at the end,
that you know, these are still under investigation, and often they turn
out to be man made, but they're interesting pictures. Luckily, this guy
had a high definition camera with a nice zoom lens, So I guess who
knows. We'll see what they end up figuring out on this one, right
and right now it's being still investigated. Like you said, in the State
Section Director Diane Gleason is in charge of that investigation. Now, did you
see the other pictures that we had. We had another case with some pictures.
I'm not sure. Yeah, this one is Illinois. This one happened
in December eighteenth, a five point thirty PM. This person saw something that
they thought was a star or a planet. It was flashing, and then
he said it moved to his right. He thought maybe it was satellite,
but then he that it was too big. He was able to take a
couple of pictures, and he said he saw what he thought looked like when
he looked closer, it was five different objects together and then he seemed said
they seemed to kind of mold together and then come apart, so some kind
of some weird behavior. He got a few pictures. He said. He
tried to get some video, but it was too far and he couldn't really
do it. And you know, on the phones usually you can zoom more
on the photo part than the camera or that the video parts, So that's
probably what he ran into. And his pictures kind of show this. I
mean, when you zoom in, you can see one photo where it looks
more like a solid object, and then another photo where it looks like several
different objects, so that one's kind of weird that one is actually has been
investigated. The investigation was done by the Illinois State Section Director James Woolford,
and he said that he felt it was something not man made that he actually
closed this case as an unknown some people have speculated I believe that this was
something, you know, like a star or a planet or something like that.
But it doesn't make all that much sense when you read this whole story
through, yeah, or the pictures, you know, because I kind of
tended to think, well, you know, it happens a lot, especially
as the I think it's called scintillation. As the star gets lower and lower
on the horizon, it twinkles more and more because you're having to look through
more atmosphere right to see the star, and so it's getting distorted more by
pollution or just the atmosphere, everything that's in the sky. So and so
it'll start to look more and more strange. And people will say you could
barely tell it was moving, and then it disappeared behind the mountain or something
after a couple hours, And this is what he said. It disappeared after
a couple of hours. So that's because you know, the planet's moving,
and so the stars move and and we'll set over the horizon. So it's
a common mistake, and that's what this sounded like one of those. But
when you look at the pictures, you know, it does look like in
one it was separate objects, and in another it was not. So yeah,
this is a mysterious sighting. It is a mysterious world. All right,
Well you got any other news, my friend, No, I am
on the run, as you said, I am running behind as usual.
On the run, yeah, Martin, on the run to me A nice
show. You know that song? Right? Yeah? I do band on
the Run by Paul McCartney and ware you go. Yep, that's right.
All right, Well you have a great day. I hope I didn't delay
you and you get yelled at by somebody. But you know this is more
important. I'm used to it. But thanks, You're right it is.
Yeah, all right, Well, have a great day. Thanks for joining
us again. Talk to you later. Martin. Let's go ahead and talk
to MJ. I am happy to welcome to the show. MJ. Benayez.
Hello, Hello, how are you good? Doing well? How are
are you? Are you? Did you have a white Christmas up there in
Canada? Oh? It's the iguam host, it is it. We had
about thirty or forty centimeters of snow a couple days ago, so I've been
shoveling. I think I've shoveled four or five times in the last you know,
twenty four hours so and apparently more is on the way. So yeah,
it is. It's it's been white and it's only getting whiter. Oh
wow, so you'll have a white New Year's as well, Oh for sure.
Yeah, even though actually we're recording before New Year's but this show will
probably air afterwards. But so there's kind of a time space manipulation that is
going on here. Yeah, technically it's it's in the future, but it's
also in the past at the same time, I guess for the listeners.
So mm hmm, you know it just yeah, you know, speaking of
which, and really I want to get into your background first, but it
just comes to mind right now is Doctor Who because when I read you know,
what you write about with philosophy and UFOs and people on either side of
the spectrum and technology and and kind of the idea versus magic types of stuff.
I've been watching the Doctor Who holiday specials because they just became free on
Amazon, a lot of them, and I love Doctor Who. I've watched
everything that's on Amazon, but it's it's what's interesting about that show is they
more so than other sci fi? Is that typical sci fi the technology used
by aliens or people from the future is advanced, but it's recognizable as technology,
where Doctor Who kind of branches at where the technology is so advanced,
in strange and creative that it kind of goes past where it's not even recognized
always as technology and sometimes like magic. Right, And I don't know,
reading your articles where you're talking about the philosophy and you know, the mystical
ideas versus the nuts and bolts, it just makes me think of that.
Yeah, I think, you know, I think Doctor Who is is it's
one of those weird shows because we can't, you know, can we call
it science fiction proper? Right? You know, Typically when you think of
science fiction as a genre, it generally deals with, like you say,
right, recognizable technology, something that humanity could potentially develop, sort of gadgets
and gizmos that that operate following you know, the laws of biology or chemistry
or physics or whatever. And Doctor Who doesn't, Right. Doctor Who often
deals with with sort of heavy philosophical concepts, especially sort of the interconnectedness of
the universe. Right, I think I think it's David Tennant, the eleventh
tenth or eleventh Doctor tenth Who says, you know, time isn't linear,
right, Times is round or circular and has wibbly wobbly bits in the middle,
and it's all kind of tied together and there's no there's no you know,
beginning point or endpoint, right. And these are big philosophical concepts that
that for sure are mystical in nature. And this is where Doctor Who's interesting.
You know, I'm not necessarily sure of Star Trek or or the other
sort of science fiction shows out there sort of deal with this idea of a
more mystical universe. Whether it is mystical or not, I don't know.
I'm I'm in no way an expert on that, but yeah, Doctor Who
is fascinating because they definitely do deal with these magical concepts at times itself.
It makes me think that it's it's possible then, really, just because your
your latest article about you know, UFOs and the philosophy and the nuts and
pulse versus a mystic or not necessarily you're kind of saying, not versus each
other. The mixture. We could be observing alien technology or or even experiencing
extraterrestrial motivations or influence in some way without even recognizing it, of course,
I wrote an I wrote a blog post for a Mysterious Universe concerning this,
right, that we won't be able to necessarily tell the difference between you know,
the laws of physics and an advanced alien civilization. I mean we've all
heard of the Kardashi of scale or Cardish of scale, right, which is
the how civilizations are rated. Right, there's like level one, level two,
level three, and humanity right now is like a zero point eight or
something. And you know, once you get to these high level civilizations that
operate with with such immense technology that to us it would be they would be
gods right to us, they would be We couldn't tell the difference between scientific
technology and just the universe doing its thing, right, it would appear like
the laws of physics to us. So again, you know, if we're
sort of extrapolating here that you know, yes, aliens do exist, and
and they're out there and they're kind of zooming around the universe in some way.
Yeah, how can we tell the difference, Like, is it possible
to differentiate between physics and and alien tech, especially if it's so far advanced.
Yeah, it's an interesting concept that I think science fiction potentially can start
dealing more with, but I think we also need to deal with potentially in
euphology as well, or in UFO discourse, because these are these are questions
that we're starting to kind of piece together, especially when you start looking at
aspects of quantum mechanics or quantum physics, or you start looking at various Eastern
philosophies like Buddhism or Hinduism, that that creates a worldview that is a little
more mystical and spooky and mysterious. How do we differentiate the nuts and bolts
and and and of the scientific, the factual versus the experiential. I suppose
the the time being circular with wibbly wobbly bits in the middle, Like,
how do you separate that? So I think it's a it's a good point.
I think it's a good question. And I guess that's kind of what
I'm trying to wrestle in here, because I don't know, I'm just you're
just a ufologist or whatever. No, And I appreciate that because that's how
I feel. That's what's great with these podcast is I approaches kind of maybe
even socratic, in that I asked questions and that may imply I have answers,
but I don't as long as I've been doing this, and I think
a lot of people are kind of like that. Just because we share our
knowledge doesn't mean that we have any ultimate answers, which is frustrating for a
lot of people. Most people want answers. They don't want to ask questions
or you know, which I think is the most important thing is just to
ask a question, especially when we don't have solid answers, But most people
want those answers out there. I mean, have you ran into that?
How do you deal with that? Well? I think the biggest I mess,
the biggest criticism criticism. I love criticisms, don't get me wrong.
But the biggest criticism I get from other people in sort of the UFO discourse,
other eufologists I guess you can call them, is the how do you
say this nicely? You know, people who come from the more scientific background
of of UFO discourse, right, the more nuts and bolts, the you
know, the ones who do data collection, the ones who I don't deal
with witness reports and and and you know, often shuffle off the weird cases
into the that are sort of a little more metaphysical in nature, and they
sort of push those away and say, you know, that's not scientific,
we can't deal with that. But the biggest criticism I get from that side
especially is sort of the fact that philosophy has no place in the UFO discourse.
You know, what potentially can philosophy do or critical theory do to to
help us get a better understanding of what's going on, because on the science
end, really it's it's all it's only what's recordable. It's only the evidence
that they're looking for, you know, whether it's a dead body and a
some area fifty one hangar somewhere, or something that we can actually tear apart
and study, or a technology that we can reverse, you're like ultimately,
or citing reports that that are you know, that show up on radar or
whatever. It's. It's they want those hard, researchable, reproducible things.
And and unfortunately, you know, UFOs don't follow that system, right.
They're they're kind of more spooky and mysterious and they and they don't necessarily while
they do leave physical traces on occasion, they don't necessarily follow the scientific sort
of method. And I got a lot of criticism for for trying to bring
philosophy into it, because they say it's useless. I'm just adding more crap
to the proverbial UFO pile. And and I struggle with that, right because
ultimately I disagree with them. I think philosophy has a significant place in in
eupology, and I think it's a it's it's a it's a a part of
euthology that really hasn't been explored. I think. I think a lot of
philosophers have dealt with sort of the extratrustrial question, for sure, but no
one has really taken philosophy into sort of this world of so called uphology.
What is euthology? You know, what what is a ufologist? And what
did you do ufologists study or look at? And why do we look at
it? And not only that, you know what implications does studying UFOs or
UFOs themselves have upon sort of human the human concept of self or or human
morals and ethics. So I think these are the big questions that I try
to answer, but I get a lot of pushback from the people on the
more mystical end. You know, the the I called the postmodern Shamans and
all that, you know, the guys who are part of you know,
CE five or C SETI or whatever, you know, they're they're a little
more friendly, right because I think for them it they kind of view the
world in a in a more mystical sense. Let's say, they're a little
more open potentially to this self exploration where you know, scientists, I don't
know, there's a bit of there's a bit of anti philosop sentiment amongst them,
you know, I don't know. I was gonna say, what's funny?
So reading your your last blog post, you talk about like a bridge
where you know, one edd of this bridge is the nuts and bolts you
under. Other end is the mysticism. And uh and sometimes people wander I
think most people kind of wander back and forth, you know. Uh.
And and like you had mentioned, some fall off, some jump off,
and uh, I gotta admit sometimes it sounds appealing to jump off. Uh.
But uh, you know what's funny is is there's kind of this by
location with people though too. Because the nuts and bolts people, what I
found, uh, since I know many of them very well, they have
philosophical per views. Maybe they don't view them that, but they have a
worldview often that is supernatural in a way, and that many of them are
religious or have some sort of I you know, kind of they ask these
extistential questions or they think about them, and so at some subconscious level,
you know, maybe when they're at church, or maybe they do this on
a regular basis, they just kind of keep them separate. They think about,
you know, God or whatever their religious perspective is and how it relates
to UFOs or the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and in doing that, they're participating on
the other side of the bridge. I almost like to have a ghost self
on the other side of the bridge, and a lot of them don't admit
that, or there's just kind of a disconnect where they don't connect those together.
But what's funny is those same guys criticizing you are doing exactly what you're
saying. At some level, they are philosophizing, oh for sure. I
mean, you know, science, science itself is heavily rooted in philosophy.
Before science was science, it was philosophy, right, Yeah. PhD is
a doctor of philosophy and acquisition of knowledge not necessarily a hard set. There
are no rules in science. I mean, it's all theory yeah, and
science itself, you know, and and philosophy as well, you know,
follows very similar patterns. Right, reason, rationality and logic sort of have
to be maintained as one does philosophical work. Otherwise the philosophy tends to fall
apart, just like science. Right, you know, you have to follow
the scientific method. You know, you have to constantly reproduce and and and
and have falsibility and and eventually, you know, if it doesn't hold up
to sort of academic grigor or scientific grigor, right, the theory falls apart.
So yeah, no, I agree, and I think that people generally,
you know. The reason why I refer to it as a spectrum,
it is because it's, like you say, right, you can sort of
exist within sort of various shades of color. Right, you know, just
because you're you're nuts and bolts. You know, you may have a lot
of fistic tendencies, or you may have a lot of you know, mystical
or theological beliefs that that shape your nuts and Bolt's philosophy. And I think
I raised that question, you know. So so let's say, let's say
the UFO issue is is a nuts in Bolts one. So let's say they
are, you know, aliens who are in meat bodies just like you and
I. They're just really smart and they zoom around, you know, space
in mechanical spaceships, you know, just because they do that, just because
there's another let's say, civilization of meat bodies like you and I, who
you know, have free will and agency and they run around and they make
decisions like you and I. Does that suddenly Negate? The mystical does that
suddenly Negate? God does that sounding negate? You know Sam Sarah in Hinduism
does that something Negate? A universal consciousness if there is one, you know
that does just because there's another civilization, does that certainly undo all of that?
Of course not right it It's just there's just another group of meat bodies
running around. So yeah, I agree with you. I think you know,
you really talk to a lot of people in the UFO world and there's
a lot of mixing between religion or theology and science. Well, and the
guys on the mystic side are doing the same, which frustrates the science guys,
which I understand, and that they're on the mystic side of the bridge
and they're thinking and questioning and it's all about self discovery, which is all
great, wonderful stuff. I mean, that's really important. I think the
scientists get upset when they delve into their realm of defining reality kind of in
the nuts and bolts, and they say, well, this is real,
well for sure, and which is rightfully so it's it's not real. I
mean, it's questions, it's ideas. But just because you're questioning and you're
coming up with some interesting speculation doesn't mean that that that that's you know,
everyone's reality that you got to push on them, which many do so so
it is kind of you know, that's where these conflicts rise. I guess
we're stepping on each other so for sure, and I think you I think
what really frustrates, and this has been a big frustration I've heard before from
people within the scientific community of UFO discourse is that the mystical group the more
the more the people who have that more mystical philosophy of UFOs often cite stuff
like quantum physics or quantum mechanics right as as if it's evidence to support you
know, multiple dimensions or or you know, vibration states uh sometimes as they
refer to it or uh, certain entities being able to sort of pierce the
veil of reality, and they come from various dimensions that sort of coexist with
ours. And and you know, often the mystics will say, well,
you know, but quantum mechanics says there's multiple multiple dimensions, so why not,
right, And unfortunately it's not really how it works, right, Like,
it's not how science really works. Just because you know, just because
some physicists have postulated that there's potentially multiple universes, are multiple realities, doesn't
isn't tantamount to saying, well, then maybe there's some beings on the other
side of veil that can you know, interact with us, and they can
they have the ability to sort of communicate through this this universal system of of
of of multiple dimensions or whatever, you know, and it becomes this big
sort of collection of mumbo jumbo. And I can definitely see how it frustrates
that the more science science minded you have eupologists, right, I mean,
I'm sure they find it frustrating because they go, you don't know what you're
talking about, like stop it? And and I agree, I mean,
and I think both sides have to be critical of the other, like a
you know, as a philosopher and as a as a critical theorist. My
job is literally to be critical, so to be critical of the dogma of
science and and really who governs science and and how science runs as a system.
And then as well as be critical of of the the the more theological
mystical side of the UFO discourse. Right, you have to be critical of
them too, because I gotta be honest. When you sort of look at
where all the all the charlatans are, a lot of them are on the
mystical side, right, you don't you don't have to prove anything. You
can just you know, if you're convincing enough, you know, you can
start your own little UFO religion or like, you know, build a ranch
somewhere in the middle of nowhere and just show people lights in the sky.
Like, I don't know, you have to be critical, I think,
yeah, yeah, I appreciate. I think, and the older researchers,
I think start to get to the middle where they they like, let's say
a Jacques Vallet, I think, and you know, you can agree or
disagree. I would love to hear what you think. But that's someone who
who's nuts in bolts, but he is willing to speculate and even almost root
himself in this idea that we don't know. And I don't think the nuts
in bolts of going to answer the questions, and maybe we'll never have the
answers, but at least then be able to become more philosophical about everything.
I I I wholeheartily agree with you. You tend to see this shift where
people sort of approach it in the middle. Right. It's it's potentially,
you know, something that can be answered scientifically and and uses sort of the
more nuts and bolts sort of this right, the the UFOs are a little
more nuts and bolts, But there's also aspects of the mystical right, like
reading you know, Passport to Magonia by Valet, right. You know he
definitely talks a lot about you know, the fairy world. Right, And
and is that simply a previous interpretation of sort of the the extraterrestrial question.
You know, in a time where you know, mechanical spaceships weren't a thing,
whereas in now they are. Therefore, you know, humanity has adopted,
you know, calling them aliens or extraterrestrials, but you know they're simply
that same type of creature, whatever it is, it's just interacting with us
sort of on a cultural level. That's different. I agree. I think
the middle ground is definitely a place where a lot of these guys go.
I've even in an interview with Richard Dolan on on UFO Hub, I believe
he talked about how he is even starting to, you know, take issues
with a little more of the will take issue with the nuts and bolt side
of things, and he's starting to kind of lean a little more into the
middle, right into a more maybe there's something to be said about this concept
of of you know, universal consciousness or whatever. He didn't come out and
say it, but he sort of said it in a sense. And I
don't know, is that where eupology is going, Like, is upology leaving
the old sort of Heineck nuts and bolts they're just mechanical spaceships, extraterrestrials from
other planets, And is it going to something else? Is That's what I'm
trying to figure out here, And I think that's sort of what my blog
is trying to establish here, is that the direction youuthology is going. I
don't know that euphology has ever gone anywhere. I think that, And I
think that your blog really kind of highlights because you compare it to philosophy and
traditional philosophy or other philosophy. And I think that that's accurate in that eufology
reflects kind of philosophy as it's been historically. There's lots of existential questions that
we ponder and we think about, but it doesn't create answers other than how
you experience it and live your life and how you want to live your life.
It reminds me of like the Asians. They didn't have ancient supposedly a
word for religion necessarily because everything was a philosophy. It was an idea.
Here's why I want how I want to live my life, because you know,
I like the way this guy talks about living his life and and I
I feel similarly. And and here's what you know, Buddho or Tao or
who Taoism and Confucius or whatever. These these ideas I I appreciate and I
want to kind of add to and live my own way. The zen is
all about, don't believe me, come up with your own thing. What
I said isn't real. Uh So that's why you've got to and and I
think that that frustrates people. But that's why I think what you're doing is
so important. Is I think that personal philosophy and the personalization of philosophy is
important so you can actually get something out of it. Yeah, and I
think, you know, again, when the more you know, the more
questions science attempts to answer, right, and that science does a good job.
I don't have any qualms with the scientific side of things. I love
science. I mean, I'm currently sitting in front of a laptop talking to
you from you know, thousands of miles away, so you know, there's
no issue here. It's more the dismissive nature of science right towards other systems
of knowledge, which which is problematic and dogmatic especially, but problematic because for
every question science answers, for every sort of law science generates, it only
creates like a whole ton more philosophical questions. I refer to the mind body
problem in the blog posts you're referring to, where philosophers and scientists we don't
really know where the self begins and and sort of the physical connection to the
body begins. Right, So I was using our state, you know,
So we're sitting here, and you're sitting there and you're you're thinking of yourself
and and where do you exist within your body? Right? Where do you
exist? Where is Alexandro exist within his own sort of physical meat body?
And you know often signed to say, well, clearly, you know the
consciousness is in the brain. Okay, great, So where inside the brain?
Well, you know, it's a system of neurons that fire around inside
the brain, and that creates consciousness, at least we think. But the
problem is, you know, these neurons keep flying around, they don't necessarily
connect anything. They they when one neuron leaves, you know, it's sort
of it's entry or exit point, and then it goes into a receptor and
then it connects to the other part of your brain that you know, the
signal occurs, the electric the electrical transfer of data across your lobes. You
know, is that or consciousness? Wells is that where you exist? You
know? And this is a big philosophical problem because we don't know. No
philosopher's been able to answer it successfully, nor has science been able to tell
us where the self is. And if you remove like a piece of your
brain, certain parts, yeah, our personality can change. Yeah, are
you you exactly? This becomes a problem, right, So, you know,
a neuroscience has made great right, neuroscience has really altered the way we
perceive the brain and the way we perceive the mind. But the problem is
if all the self is is trillions of neurons flying around at any given moment
inside your brain, you know, are you then just making decisions based upon
these neurons moving around? And and you know, when you feel like a
cup of coffee or when you say you know you love someone, do you
actually have the freedom to make that decision or is it simply neurons firing?
And then what does that say about ethics? So when somebody makes a bad
decision breaks the law, for example, well did they break the law or
did the neurons in their brain, which they have no control over, make
them break the law? Right? And this creates a lot of philosophical problems
and scientists, you know, generally don't want to deal with those questions because
they just want to find out where the goddamn self is or they want to
figure out why I want a cup of a cup of coffee over a cup
of tea, or why I want to punch that guy in the face as
hard as I can versus you know, go give him a hug. And
if it's if it is about sort of the freedom of choice in that you
know, I exist, the self exists independently of neurons, that's a that's
a philosophical question. Or is it just the self exists because of neurons firing
across a lobe? You know, that's another philosophical question. But they have
huge implications for for what it means to be a person on this planet.
And the UFO question is is very similar. Right. We don't know where
the physical connection of the physical UFO as an objector or as a thing connects
to you know, the person seeing it, are they simply seeing a machine
or as Valet would say, or some others I think Greg Bishop, you
know positive the co creation hypothesis, you know, is the UFO something that's
out there, but the human brain is interpreting it to look like a saucer,
or to interpret it to look like a triangle, or to interpret it
to look like an orb or whatever. So is there some sort of paranormal
halfway point where humanity is extrapolating information onto the UFO object to make it look
like something, and the UFO is simply some mystical event, mystical anomaly that
is using human understanding or human cultural constructs to shape itself so that we understand
what it is or we can see it. You know, I don't know.
I'm not sure what people would think if suddenly, you know, they
just saw a giant like fairy tinker Bell thing fly by, be like,
what the hell was that? I don't know, you know, like why
don't people see fairies anymore? You know, I guess I still do.
But you know, why don't we see leprechauns anymore? Why do more?
Why are there more UFO sighting? Is more? UFO sightings are your versus
leper con sightings? I don't know. I think this is, you know,
a sticking point for sure in science and and the mystical aspects. Well,
and makes me think of a couple of things. First of all,
like that the Hesdelene lights, well we're going to have a scientist speak about
them at the UFO Congress. So these these lights that have been video recorded
by by scientists in Denmark. And I think what's interesting is that, you
know, oh, it's got to be some sort of plasma phenomena. Well,
this guy we're bringing is a head scientists at the this university who's been
studying this for decades, and he disagrees. He believes there's some sort of
intelligence behind it or you know, I had I've had John Alexander on quite
a few times. He'll be at the conference talking. That's what's interesting about
Alexander. He's gonna talking along these lines in that you know, he's people
get frustrated to hear it. But he was an intelligence. He got his
but he's an intelligence together in different branches, and they looked for Majestic twelve,
you know, they look for who's in charge, who is where's this
secret organization? And they found they feel they found there isn't one. However,
he is all about the mystic. He visits Shamans and he's going to
talk about, you know, these other strange, unexplainable things that have happened
to him and his quest for understanding UFOs who he's he's you know, that's
that's an example of someone who's kind of bilocated on both ends of the spectrum.
So it's it's I agree with you. In kind of getting back to
what we talked about Originally, it's almost like a Doctor Who type of thing
that and this happens in Doctor Who a lot, where something occurs that is
so strange and ridiculous that there just is no defining it with the information you
would have on your end, is just not close to enough information to ever
figure out what the hell it is that you just experienced. Yeah, it's
true. I mean, you know, one of the big questions is is
the UFO sort are U full events? There is the UFO phenomenon connected to
a broader paranormal system, right, so so you know, do sightings of
ghosts or or strange lights like Hesselton or you know the brown Mountain lights or
what are those mystery booms or those you know people here like trumpet sounds?
Now, you know, really elluctorate, like is this all connected? Is
there a connection between the UFO phenomenon and then the broader paranormal phenomenon, or
you know, is it not? Is the UFO phenomenon something separate? Is
it? Is it the sort of separate category? And I think the nuts
and bolts guys would and girls would for sure say yeah, it's a separate
thing, because it's they're they're they're they're they're things like you and I,
and they have machines and they use science and they zoom around and you know,
their ghosts or something else or Bigfoot is something else, especially paranormal bigfoot,
which is kind of funny. But you know, all of those other
sort of fourteen and paranormal things are disconnected from the UFO question. The UFO
question still has significant sort of scientific, uh like roots to it. And
I don't know, I think you see this mix right, Like you mentioned
Alexander right who who sees shamans. You see, there's a lot of people
in the UFO community who believe in in in in shamanism and and practice meditation
or or they go to the the ranch c SETI ranch. You know,
I don't know, Like there's so many weird connections in euphology. And to
try and try to say that, you know, all UFO sightings are are
this their their their machines and the rest is all hoe come it is difficult.
I don't know where you draw lines. I don't know where sort of
the sort of more scientific minded uphologists say, you know, well here's the
line this, this is a UFO sighting and and this person who has abducted
their nuts they're there, they're delusional, they're they have a mental health condition,
right, and how do you how do you draw that line? Like
where where is the truth here? And again, you know, I can
be critical. I am generally critical of abduction stories. And however, I
mean, what's the difference between somebody telling me an abduction story and then somebody
telling me, you know, telling me about lights they saw in the sky
and it gets trapped and move on investigated and labels and then own, Well,
like, what is the difference? Does the investigator have access to more
information than than the person telling the story or I don't know? And as
a move on field investigator, which I am one, you know, I
find that the most difficult. It's tough when you hear people's stories because unless
you can prove their lying, which you can sometimes m hm, what you
know? Unfortunately I can't prove someone's delusional, Right, Then what do I
do If I can't prove their delusional? How do I make that call?
And then, on the other hand, you also don't want to push them,
right, You don't want to for someone who potentially does have a mental
health condition, you don't want to tell them it's aliens, or you don't
want them to convince themselves that it's aliens, because there's a there's a bigger
issue here that they need to deal with, but you're only making it worse
by sort of supporting the alien hypothesis. I suppose in their own sort of
mental development, it's really risky and I don't I don't think on my blog,
but we're going to do the mention now. But I sometimes take issue
with sort of these uf not sorry UFO, like the the Experiencers support groups.
I think that there's some risk here, you know, because ultimately,
what if a person does have a broader or greater mental health condition and you're
talking about aliens and and you're pushing the alien sort of story upon them,
and it's and it's and they're sort of just continuing that cycle instead of seeking
proper help. Are you, as a person who's hosting these experience or work
groups, are these these sort of support groups? Are you causing more harm?
And that I think that is I think that right there is a great
question, and it's it's because we host these at the UFO Congress and and
it's something I struggle with because I have a background in psychology, that's what
my degree is in. And then I I have got a certificate in hypnotherapy.
And the issue, I agree with you one hundred percent, and it's
twofold. It's one is that the problem, and it is a bit of
a surprising problem, is that I don't think that the psych psychology community is
doing its due diligence around this issue. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands
of people who believe they have been taken by aliens. This is an epidemic.
It's something that needs to be tackled in how do we handle this,
what's the most healthy way to handle this? How do we diagnose whether what
the issue is with these people? And some it may be a more larger
issue that could cause more problems, and it does. We see this,
We see people hurting themselves. There is self harm. I've seen horrific things
happen and it's scary. But on the other hand, you have people who
may not be real it may be a sort of delusion, but a healthy
one and that they can come to terms and they can deal with it.
I've seen doctor Leo Sprinkle who believes that they're being taken by aliens at least
help them through it to where they feel comfortable and they can live a good,
healthy life. So you're right, I think it's a danger. But
on the other hand, group therapy is kind of our catch all when it
comes to therapy. If we don't know how to deal with it, group
therapy is what we do, and it seems to work PTSD. We don't
know how to deal with it. The best way to deal with it is
group therapy is to get them in a group to talk to each other.
They feel better and they're able to live more productive, happy lives and at
least the group therapy is happening, And so I kind of think, well,
at least it's something, and there's no other place for these people to
go, some of whom feel very traumatized for sure, And like I said,
or I think it needs to be said that people definitely who who who
believe and you know, I don't know, maybe they have been taken by
like I don't know, but what they believe it. If they have been,
they believe it, so we can say that. But for sure they
get catharsis for sure out of going to these groups, you know, you
get the feeling that you're not alone, right, so you walk away feeling
better. I wholeheartedly agree, and I think that it definitely serves a purpose.
I just like you said, right, I think I think that because
psychology as a broader field doesn't know how to deal with alien abduction phenomenon,
and they just don't, right, they just simply and they could they have
processes where they could tackle it, and I figure out the you know,
the best way is to deal with it, because there are some people who
leave from these groups that don't go on a good path. Yeah, and
it is scary for sure, and they definitely need sort of stronger psychological support
from from you know, experts in in professional community professionals. But in regards
to sort of the group setting and getting the feeling of Catharsis, it definitely
helps. I totally lost my train of thought. You know, I was
going to bring up something else though that touched upon that I thought was really
interesting. We'll switch tracks. Sorry, Yeah, no problem, we probably
yeah my fault, I'm I'm sure, but you know what you were talking
about earlier. Also, the problems with the nuts and bolts kind of rejecting
philosophy. Uh, it really it reminds me of Richard Thame, who I
interviewed just a few weeks ago, who is a futurist kind of he lectures
on the future, and and and we got into this conversation, a similar
conversation, and it reminds me of Michael Crichton. This whole idea of us
moving so quickly mainly due to to you know, monetizing the technology that we
moved so quickly, and we we package it and we sell it before,
like in Jurassic Part, before we've even realized if it's something we should do,
if it's the right thing to do. And here we are in this
internet world, and we're all completely plugged in, and we move so quickly
to this and we're all completely exposed. I mean, all of our information
and everything, we've just thrown it in. And I've kind of always gone
in with the idea of that. Okay, I'm exposed. I realize that.
But you know, it seems like our larger systems have relied too heavily
on it, with this illusion that somehow they would be able to protect themselves,
and more or more we learn that that's not possible. I think this
often comes up. I mean when you when you read a lot of futurists,
like futurist blogs or futurist articles. Often, you know, AI comes
up as a as this sort of boogeyman of the future. And there there
are big philosophical questions here for sure, and I think, like, like
you talked about, right, is humanity ready? Right? There's this again,
this ethical There's a few ethical questions for sure that we have to we
have to deal with when it comes to sort of technology and its development.
But is humanity prepared to create an intelligence sort of beyond itself? Right?
The question of playing god comes up often. And then I guess more importantly,
like like you said, you know, with technology growing so quickly,
again, futurists deal with this idea of the singularity, right, So the
machine mind then starts to develop so quickly that we can no longer contain it,
and eventually it comes up with with the conclusion that humanity is a is
a threat, right, and it must then, you know, do its
work to terminate humanity a la Skynet or or you know other terminator esque ways
or matrix ways. And you know, I love futurists because it's it's it's
such an interesting line of work, if I can call it that. But
they definitely talk about a lot of questions philosophically that we're gonna have to deal
with as a species. And I think we we are struggling with now.
Like you said, I mean, you know, you think about you know,
exposing you know, your your data. You know, like take Facebook,
Instagram, all the social media we use. You know, I look
at you look at kids who are you know, sixteen seventeen, The stuff
that they're posting without any sort of regard for for their future, right right,
all the you know, the sexting and the the you know, the
selfies that are you know, highly sexualized and exists forever. You know,
when you're sixteen, you know, you post this picture, you know,
that doesn't go away. It sits forever in some server somewhere, and all
it takes is one person to sort of find it out in a Google image
search, you know, deep deep into Google and pull it up and suddenly
it's back. We're literally creating our own ghosts that that sort of haunt us.
Right. We take this picture and we put it out there, and
then all of a sudden, fifty years later, fifty it's a long time.
Sorry, thirty years later, you know, it rears its ugly head
and we have to then suddenly, you know, either get rid of it
or kill it again or something. So are we really prepared to deal with
all of this data that's out there? Are we making ourselves sort of bigger
than we were ever intended to be? Was humanity's personality or was a person's
personality designed to be spread out over an invisible network that connects everything? You
know? I don't know. There's, like I said, there's a lot
of philosophy that's that's being done on it, and the futurists are definitely raising
those questions in their in their posts and in their their sort of articles and
in everything they write, you know, yeah, and thinking, you know,
I keep bringing you off topic topic, But it comes back to I
think more and more is in on this bridge. The middle of the bridge
is philosophy. It seems like, and I mean, do you think it
would be a fair statement And it seems like it might be a more accurate
accurate statement than others that the study of UFOs is a philosophical study. I
think it definitely is philosophical. I think that when you read a lot of
the UFO work that's done not necessarily like research cases or anything like that,
Like not the specific case work that is uphology, but the broader work that
that tries to link those cases together, or or you know, the novels.
You know, whether you read Johnny Macker or whether you read Valet or
Hiheneck or whatever. They often do sort of extrapolate the case data into a
philosophical sense, like what questions does this then pose for humanity. There's a
great paper out there called Sovereignty in the UFO. If you just google Sovereignty
in the UFO, you'll find it's it's a university like it's an academic paper,
but they create a really interesting They raise a really interesting question concerning UFOs
in general, and is the reason why UFOs are taboo as a subject in
popular culture in the senses of why doesn't the mainstream news, for example,
cover UFO standings or whatever. Is it taboo because it's it challenges human sovereignty
over the planet. It challenges human sovereignty as the only intelligent species on the
planet. If suddenly there's something else that's equally intelligent or more intelligent than us,
running around. Does that then call into question our governance over ourselves,
over our earth, over you know, the stuff we own, over the
way we we divide into countries and and blow each other up. You know,
if the UFO question is answerable and that is an intelligence that is greater
than ours, this completely, this completely ends humans humanity's control over Earth.
We are no longer the sole proprietors of this planet. We become just another
voice in a chorus potentially, And this is frightening I think for people,
and and in this paper they pause it that this is the reason why UFOs
are considered a fringe or taboo topic, because it deals with these issues that
humans are not actually in control of Earth, or at least, you know,
in control of the stuff of the resources and whatever. And I think
that you you see this as as the big philosophical concept in in UFOs and
in the study of UFOs. I think all UFO work often deals with this.
Like when you ask somebody who looks researches UFOs and you ask them like
why do you do this? Like why are you interested in UFOs? You
know, there's there's a few answers. One is, you know, the
most common well everyone wants to see a UFO, which is pretty cool.
Uh, you know, Okay, granted, But the next big question that
they sort of or sort of the next big answer that they provide is,
you know, I want to know what the truth is, you know,
I want to know what's going on out there, and that itself is a
philosophical thought. That's not that's not a nuts and bold scientific thought. It's
much more philosophical because you're not just looking at the stuff in front of you.
You're you're expanding your your You're expanding your thinking to what's beyond yourself,
which is really the goal of philosophy when you really think about what is about
it's it's expanding one's own mind to understand the broader context, the broader universe,
the broader conscious state of I don't know humans, or or or life
or whatever. So yeah, I agree. I think I think uphology and
and the uf and UFO discourse itself is much more philosophical than people are willing
to admit. And I think philosophy has become a bit of a dirty word.
I think you have a lot you have a lot of famous scientists who
you know, take dumps all over it I mean Neil deGrasse, Tyson Hawking,
you know, to the two, you know, one Tyson who's insanely
famous, but Hawking, who is probably one of the most important scientists you
know, of our century, have both said, you know, philosophy is
useless. It's it's it's meaningless. It's just a matter of you know,
language, now, it's not about anything bigger. So funny though, is
Hogeing when he repeatedly, as I'm sure you're well aware, repeatedly warned that
we need to be aware, we need to be wary of of an advanced
civilization finding out we're here, because they may come and colonize us, like
you know the Spanish did or or But that that's a philosophical statement, I
mean, based on his philosophy of I'm and his worldview really well, it's
based upon his Yeah, it's based upon his philosophy that intelligence will always you
know, dominate the less intelligent. Right, It's it's based upon, for
sure, a very human philosophy, a very human worldview. Right in human
history, you know, the weaker always gets sort of devoured by the stronger
in some way. And and again, you know, he's making a huge
philosophical claim here by saying we should not try and contact aliens because they might
come and kill us. Yeah for sure. But again, you know upon
what are you basing this? Are you just basing this upon human philosophical constructs
that that's what we do, or are you basing it upon nature? Right,
which is you know, the bigger bacteria will always eat the smaller bacteria.
I don't know. And is that just the way nature is? You
know, the strong will always destroy the weak? And again these are these
are philosophical claims he's making for a guy who says philosophy is dead right,
Yeah, that's funny and yeah, and although also I think demonstrates I think
the importance of mainstream moving towards the into the astrobiological realms, which they It's
only been recent. I mean, SETI was a joke until maybe contact take
came out. There was a lot they made fun of it, just like
they do the UFO topic. But it's become so mainstream and NASA practically everything
they talk about. They're almost an astrobiology agency now that even though they're looking
for microbes, which frustrates people in the UFO field. I think that this
search that and that the mainstreaming of this this issue is has been extremely helpful
to the UFO field because then it makes people philosophies around, uh, these
ideas which UFOs, whether or not the mainstream science wants to wants it to
be there. UFOs is a part of that philosophy. And then you get
papers like the one that you just referenced. It brings that conversation to a
higher level and it makes people start to think about the philosophies that have been
thought about, you know, amongst the UFO researchers for for a longer period
of time and philosophers themselves. I mean, you know, we we can
look at philosophers from to three hundred thousand, a thousand years ago who have
postulated, you know, what if life exists elsewhere, like what if there's
life beyond humanity? So it's it's it's definitely sort of seeking extraterrestrial life,
I think is very ancient. It's very old. This is this is nothing
new, and it's definitely getting more coverage in the media. And I think
I think extra trustrial life, sort of looking for extra trustrial life is okay
to cover in the media, right, you know, it doesn't. It
doesn't get laughs right. There's no X files music in the background that they
play when they talk to you know, scientists or whatever who have in this
type of study. But once you start dealing with the UFO question, right,
then suddenly everything goes squarely right. The X Files music comes out and
people start to snicker, and there's that sort of that smirk with every question.
I mean, you look at all the blowback Mesrik got for his book
thirty seventh Parallel, Right, he's getting tons of blowback for writing a book
about UFOs. He didn't if he wrote a book about searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.
I'm sure they would have, you know, give him a cigar,
slapped him on the back and said good job. But he's getting he's getting
a lot of hate for writing a book about UFOs. And I think the
two while very much connected as sort of topics and subjects they're they're also very
disconnected in the way culture handles them. It's okay to believe in extraterrestrial life.
It's very okay. In fact, most people do believe there's life elsewhere
in the universe. It's it's not necessarily okay to believe in UFOs, you
know, and and and why is that? Why is there this disconnect?
And there there's going to be a book coming out in the short future hopefully
or the long future where I write a chapter. I wrote an essay for
a book concerning UFOs that tries to address this. Why is the UFO question
the UFO phenomenon a taboo when the search for extraterrestrial life isn't And and I
have my personal reasons or my personal beliefs as to why, but I don't
want to spoil it, so I'm not going to tell you right and you
know, uh, And it brings to mind mitchi Okaku, who I think
is incredible, and he talks about the different k levels of society like you
brought up earlier, huh, of civilization, civilization of at level one Kardashiv.
I always get that something like that. It's the Kardashian scale. Just
kidding, but yeah, that's what And people are probably familiar with it.
I mean, it's being referenced more and more lately, essentially how advanced to
civilization is. But uh, I think that's why he's always been open to
the UFO topic. And he's always shared that and I asked him once,
why do you think, you know? Said he has a problem with that,
and he says, well, they're just astronomers. What do they know.
I mean his point is at they're not theoretical physicists. They can't think
beyond what our current technology is. They're looking at what's out there, trying
to figure out what a rock is composed of or something in space, as
opposed to philosophizing around what is possible out there. And so really that's what
I think it's interesting is that the existence of a microbe on Mars is related
to an advanced civilization having being able to visit our planet and maybe even observice
maybe even you know, land and walk around without us even being able to
recognize that it is from somewhere else. Those two things are related, and
he sees that and others just aren't there yet. Yeah, and I think
you know, the the UFO. You know, people who believe in UFOs
are people who think UFOs are real. Right, there's definitely cultural aspects there
that you know that the academic world doesn't want to deal with. I mean,
you look at the search for extraterrestrial intelligence or the search for external life
on a scientific level. Right, you're dealing with universities, you're dealing with
multinational organizations, you're dealing with people with PhDs behind their names, and and
you're dealing with with with generally sort of scientists who are who are privileged and
come from a privileged place, and they have an Ivory Tower background. And
then you look at the UFO field or ufology. You know, the UFO
discourse it is it's very much not that, right, it's the antithesis to
that. UFO discourse is very democratized. There is no Ivory Tower of upology.
There is no organization that says we we give out master's degrees and PhDs
in in UFO studies. There is no and even if there was one,
no one would take it seriously. But I think ultimately you have, on
one end on the UFO field, this highly democratized, highly varied group of
people who come from walks of life from you know, they can basically afford
their Internet connection every day to people who you know, make millions of dollars
and are former punk rock stars. They make up the UFO field. It's
so varied, it's so diverse. And then you have you know, searching
for life on Mars, for example, which is very academic one. It's
you know, if I find a piece of bacteria, well there's my proof.
But it also again it comes from a certain place, a certain cultural
place, a place of privilege. And and there's gonna be a lot of
conflict there for sure between these two groups of people. There there's going to
be mistrust. You know, people generally who have PhDs, you know,
think certain things about themselves and they think certain things about other people. I'm
generalizing. This is not everyone obviously, but you know, there's there's feelings
of well, you know what do the people who study UFOs know? They're
no one, right, they don't have any academic background. Mostly they're just
people who have have an interest and and that does not a field make And
UFO people would say, what are you talking about? Like that's that's crazy.
What why would you say something so so so elitist? Right? I
think UFO culture and UFO subculture looks upon academic uh, the academic culture and
and as being elitist and as being like, who do you think you are
to tell me you know what I saw or or what I didn't see,
or to tell me whether you know UFOs are real or not be as I've
talked to people who have seen them or whatever. And you're going to have
this, like I said, this, this headbutting between groups. And I
think that's one reason why the UFO field is not taken seriously. Is it's
because it's it's it's a group of people who are very disenfranchised by the broader
sort of academic community as being just a bunch of wackos who chase flying saucers
around. And I don't necessarily think it's fair, but I think what philosophy
can do for that is philosophy this is a bit of an equalizer. You
know, it doesn't matter if you have a PhD behind your name and you're
a scientist. Philosophy can cut you up just as bad as anything. And
you know, if you're making philosophical issues or sorry, if you're making philosophical
mistakes of philosophical you're raising philosophical issues in your work. Philosophy is sort of
this equalizer of people so long as people can understand it. And that's what
I attempt to do with my blog is is I try to bring philosophy to
something that's a little more simple, A little more jestible, but raises those
same questions for people who don't necessarily have a background in philosophy or background in
critical theory. I try to keep it approachable because I know philosophy can be
very, very sticky and difficult at times. But I want to be critical
of the academics because not enough people are critical of them. Mm hmm.
So I guess that comes back to I think what will need to be pretty
much are wrapping up is why have you done this? I mean, UFOs
not a you know, it's it's strife, full of strife and difficulty philosophy
also not something that's necessarily seen as positive. What inspired you to tackle this
and this topic in this manner? Sure? So I've always been interested in
the UFO question, and as a kid growing up, you know, I
was surrounded by you know, the X Files and Twilight Zone and Outer Limits
and then all that stuff. So it was definitely a star trek. It
was definitely a part of my upbringing and always thinking about the extraterrestrial question and
or you know, uh, do you know when Fox Molder wakes up and
he sees all those grays standing outside his window and freaks him out like,
is that real? Did that? Actually? That's so cool? I wanted,
and so I wanted to kind of get into it. And when I
first started, and if you really go back into the Annals of Terror Obscura,
the blog that I that I run, you know, it wasn't very
philosophical at all. It was just my sort of my rantings and musings on
the UFO question. And then I started to realize that there was this big
gap. And Chris Rakowski, who's been definitely a mentor for me, as
well as Ryan Sprague who's a young guy like myself but definitely sort of said,
you know, I think that this is a gap that you should try
and fill. And my background, I have a small background in philosophy,
my my, my actual academic background is in a field called critical theory,
which is sort of a sub subversion of philosophy. It's a subversion, Oh
my god. It's like a sub section of philosophy that deals with more sort
of social and cultural aspects of philosophy. And I was like, well,
you know, no one's really doing this, like, no one's talking about
UFO. It was in a philosophical sense, and why not. So I
start to kind of do my research, and I realized that there's there's a
handful of philosophers out there who'll even talk about the subject in any way.
So I was like, well, you know what, forget it script,
I'm just gonna go do it. So I started to write more philosophical posts
about the UFO question and critical sort of critical theory posts and cultural studies posts,
and I gotta be honest, it's kind of taken off from there.
People have been really commenting saying stuff like this is awesome to keep going.
This is definitely something that needs to be addressed in the UFO field. So
I'm happy to do it. And yeah, it's great. I'm really enjoying
it. Well, good, I'm happy you're doing it. Your last post
was was great. It makes people think. And I have had just a
wonderful time, a great time talking to you now. Really I feel like
you know, and I feel that way with the best conversations, which is
often actually with the podcast that you know, my view of the whole field
has been tweaked a bit, and it certainly has in a positive way.
So I'm so glad that we did this. Thank you so much. It's
been fun. Thank you so much to MJ. That was such a fun
interview. It was a great first discussion, and he's just a really cool
guy. I mean, he felt so flattered to be on the show,
and I felt flattered to have him because I think that he's a great thinker
and it's always fun when new people with new perspectives come into this field and
start to be active, like he is, writing and kind of getting his
message out there. So I had a lot of fun talking to him.
Of course, he does get a little worried, you know that perhaps this
isn't a perspective that a lot of people want to discuss, and I guess
we'll see. I personally liked this angle, as you can tell from the
interview, and so you know, it'd be great to hear some feedback if
you guys felt the same way. You can find his website Tara obscura dot
net to read more, including more about that article that he wrote recently about
euphological belief systems that we refer to in this interview. It's a great read
and I think it's really interesting and you all can kind of see where you
fit in all of this, and I think it helps to kind of it's
always important to understand people who see things differently in order to work together.
I'm a big believer, and I have to remind myself to be compassionate and
to put myself in other people's shoes. And I think that's important because a
lot of people feel strongly and about certain things, and there's reasons why,
and typically those reasons why. Often those reasons why are not nefarious or bad
or negative or selfish. Unfortunately that's not always the case, but sometimes I
think even more than often than not, it is the case. So and
when we realize that, then it's easier for us to work together on things.
And that's why a lot of you know, I get a lot of
feedback with certain people that are on the show, or certain people that we
have at the conference, or certain people I speak positively about who are maybe
very fringe or have some really more speculative ideas, and they're like, why
are you even talking about that person's you know, a goofball and they're so
full of it and this or that. But you know, a lot of
these people, whether or not we agree with or disagree with them, are
really coming from a genuine, honest place. They they really believe these things
they're they're not and they're looking for truth and this is what they feel,
uh, they've discovered, which is their truth. And but they're not out
there to make money or to become popular. They're doing this, uh for
the same reason the rest of us are just looking for answers and looking for
truth. And you know, if someone's coming from a good place like that,
I that's what I appreciate. And I'll always respect those people, even
if they have very different viewpoints than I do, you know, and I
can appreciate those people, and those are people I like to associate with,
even if they have out their ideas. Some of my favorite people have some
pretty wild ideas, and some of you may call them bat poop crazy,
but hey, they're my friends, so don't talk too much about my friends
like that. Anyway. Speaking of friends, you're are my friends. And
I'm gonna get to see a lot more friends at the UFO Congress coming up
here in just a few weeks. As we said before, the schedule is
posted online, and the big news is just about what's going on with the
Phoenix Lights. We're gonna have a lot of stuff on that I mentioned at
the top. Of the show to Martin that the Phoenix move On people are
coming in. We're going to interview them about the Phoenix Lights and we're gonna
be playing and we're also going this is really cool. I think I've told
you guys about this before. The Arizona Historical Society a huge building, I
mean, fancy, fancy place because they have all the historical records for Arizona.
They actually have a Phoenix Lights exhibit. So tomorrow Michael and I are
going to be going down there and we're gonna be filming that exhibit and we're
gonna be interviewing the director of the museum to talk about, well, why
did you do this and how did you put this up and all of that
sort of thing, and so that's gonna be really cool. And then we're
gonna play parts of that that video and interview at the conference. But then
on the anniversary in March of the Phoenix Lights events will be putting together a
video that will put up on YouTube for all of you to see. But
it's really cool that they do this. In fact, the local Phoenix move
On got to be involved with creating this this display and they built such a
strong relationship with the museum that they now do their meetings at the Historical Society
Museum. And I mean they've got this big, beautiful stage with with you
know, cameras and speakers. It's like a movie theater. This place is
super nice. In fact, we're gonna be posting soon. I did a
talk there just last month, and we're gonna be posting that on on YouTube
soon. Here they Dennis, the guy I talked about earlier. He owns
a video company and he filmed and so put it together. It's great.
So thank you so much to the local Phoenix Move on, Stacy, Jim
and Dennis. Thank you so much to Caleb Hanks who puts the music together.
At the beginning of the show. Oh yeah, before I get off
the UFO Congress, so I should say, come please to the conference.
You can go to Ufocongress dot com to get tickets, and be sure to
get your tickets before the end of the month, because if you're planning on
just showing up and getting tickets, which is fine, you can do that,
but you're gonna get a better price if you order them online prior to
the event. And surprisingly, a lot of people, almost half the people
show up and buy their tickets there, which is cool. You know,
that makes it easy, but you'll save quite a bit of money if you
go online now and pre order, and that way we can have a printed
badge for you, which is all nice, and you can be that much
more official and everybody can see who you are. Although some people get,
of course, afraid that the gout's going to know who they are, and
the secret informants that are at the conference will know who they are. And
you know, if you're that paranoid, just to be honest, if you
really think that these guys are there looking at people and who knows, I
don't know if they are or not. I've heard that that happens, but
they're probably going to be able to find your name either way, whether or
not you have it on their badge or not. In fact, if they're
there and they want to know who you are, you can save some tax
dollar money by just having your name on your badge so they don't have to
spend extra time looking up who you are in the first place, or hacking
or whatever they're going to do. I don't know that that really happens.
I'm kind of skeptical, but who knows. It's a crazy world, people,
It's a wild and crazy world. All right, Well enough goofiness,
enough for the show all together, we're just going to end this thing.
I should be back next week. As you all know, it's dicey this
time of year as to win. We're gonna do shows because we're so busy
with this conference. I mean, there's only a few of us, like
two or three of us doing all of this, so we're just swamped.
And but I'll do my best because I love doing the show. It's so
fun to talk to people like MJ. So hopefully I'll have another show next
week. In fact, I'm working on one that I think will be really
cool and important, So we'll let you know more about that when you show
up to listen to the show next week. Otherwise, you guys, have
a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon. Audios move, touch hoose