WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:03.720 You're listening to an air wave media podcast. 2 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:13.919 It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. A giant, 3 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:19.239 hairy creature. Part eight, Part Matt in Luckness, a twenty 4 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:22.160 four mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland. 5 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:24.640 It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster. 6 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:51.799 Monstert Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. 7 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:55.840 I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. Don Prothero returns 8 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.280 in this episode along with his collaborator Timothy Callahan to 9 00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:03.719 discuss their new book UFOs kim Trails and Aliens, a 10 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:07.200 very skeptical overview of the field of uthology. As I 11 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:09.879 mentioned in the interview, UFOs is a topic some people 12 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:14.239 get very passionate about, some to the point of religious fervor. 13 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:17.519 And I don't mean that figuratively. But if you're looking 14 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:19.920 for a skeptical overview of a field that's often not 15 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.879 given a very thoughtful rebuttal from science, I think this 16 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:24.920 book may be what you need. A link to it 17 00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:27.079 will be in the show notes at monster talk dot org. 18 00:01:28.239 --> 00:01:30.239 I'd like to take longer for this preamble, but I'm 19 00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:32.840 behind on several projects. I must send this out as 20 00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:35.519 it is a note about the audio quality. We had 21 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:37.560 a lot of challenges getting done and ten together for 22 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:39.560 this interview, and ended up having to do the interview 23 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:42.599 on landline. Unfortunately, Tim had a bit of a cough 24 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:44.359 and I hope he's feeling better now, but I wasn't 25 00:01:44.359 --> 00:01:46.439 able to remove that cough from the audio because of 26 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:50.400 the way everyone was connected. So my apologies, but I 27 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:52.079 hope it won't detract too much from what I think 28 00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:55.760 is a fund an informative conversation. Let's get to some 29 00:01:56.319 --> 00:02:02.719 more obstrutle today. We're welcoming Donald Protheroe and Timothy Callahan. 30 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:06.359 Don is a geologist and paleontologist. He's the author of 31 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:10.319 numerous books and scientific papers, including Reality Check, How Science 32 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.319 Deniers Threaten Our Future and Abominable Science, Origins of Yetti 33 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:17.039 NeSSI and other Famous Cryptids. Don's been on the show 34 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:20.240 several times, and we're welcoming for the first time Timothy Callahan, 35 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:23.120 who is a trained artist and has worked for more 36 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:25.400 than twenty years in the animation industry, and throughout his 37 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:27.719 life he's also had an active interest in science and 38 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:30.400 the study of mythology and religious beliefs, and he is 39 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:33.759 the religion editor for Skeptic Magazine, and together they've collaborated 40 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:36.360 on a new book called UFOs, kim Trails and Aliens, 41 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:38.680 What Science Says. Welcome to Monstratalk. 42 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:41.319 Oh, thank you, Joy. 43 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:45.400 Hi guys. So this is a book that's about a 44 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.639 lot of fringe topics. But what's the underlying theme that 45 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:50.520 unites them all within your book? 46 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:53.479 I could say it's probably just that we're trying to 47 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:57.960 approach this topic as a very strict scientific manner and 48 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:01.599 using the methods of science in a rigorous way too often, 49 00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:04.400 and you look at books to talk about UFOs, they'll 50 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:07.080 sometimes talk about rules of reason and rules of logic 51 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:10.159 and rules of scientific evidence, but it's not being explicit 52 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:12.280 about it. And so one of the things we laid 53 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:14.800 out at the beginning of the book is how scientific 54 00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:18.639 method works, and what's testable science and what's speculation, and 55 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:21.520 how what quality of evidence is required to establish something 56 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:25.159 in the scientific community, which is something really necessary because 57 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:28.520 so much of what caused evidence for UFOs and aliens 58 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:31.000 does not pass muster of scientific evidence. 59 00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:33.759 So I know that a lot of these themes come 60 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.319 up on Monster Talk quite a bit, especially with the 61 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:40.919 eyewitness accounts, and when things sort of get into the zeitgeist, 62 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:44.840 they become spotted. Like go to example we always talk 63 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:48.759 about is how Bigfoot really didn't exist as a phenomenon, 64 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:52.439 but once it became part of the culture, every mysterious 65 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.560 animal in the woods was probably a bigfoot. Is that 66 00:03:55.639 --> 00:03:57.520 true in your findings in the UFO world? 67 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:03.000 Yeah, copycat phenomenon going on. It's basically the reality is 68 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.240 that when you look at the history of these reports, 69 00:04:05.240 --> 00:04:08.280 they pretty much only date back to the late part 70 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:12.240 of the nineteenth century, about the time science fiction arose, 71 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:14.319 of course, and they go back of really usuals verns 72 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:17.319 in some ways, and before that, if somebody saw something 73 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:19.279 strange in the sky, they would call it an angel 74 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:21.639 or a demon or some other kind of thing, but 75 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.920 they wouldn't call it a UFO or an alien. And 76 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.199 so we really UFOs and aliens are just a recent phenomenon, 77 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:30.079 less than a little over a century old, and they 78 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:33.120 really reflect the culture that really has sort of got 79 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:35.120 given up looking for demons in the guise that we 80 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:38.279 look for UFOs. And then there's a long history which 81 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:40.800 Tim will I'll probably talk about them. There's a tremendous 82 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.720 amount of copycatting. Once science fiction or science ficture magazines 83 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:49.519 or television or movies introduces a particular alien meme or 84 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:53.000 a particular type of spaceship it, it's copycatted and then 85 00:04:53.319 --> 00:04:56.519 spread through the media to all through the culture, and 86 00:04:56.519 --> 00:04:59.120 then everybody in that generation pretty much expects to see 87 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:02.160 aliens that look like So for example, ah u Well's 88 00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:05.560 original aliens in the War of the Worlds looked more 89 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:09.560 like octopuses or spiders, and that was maybe their earliest 90 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:12.079 meme we know of from science fiction. But of course 91 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.120 the little gray aliens we now associated well Steven Spielberg 92 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.879 movies come from a much more recent generation. Tim you 93 00:05:17.879 --> 00:05:18.600 could talk about this. 94 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:22.279 Yeah, the gray aliens probably has their origin in the 95 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:28.600 episode of Outer Limits called the Balero Shield. And it 96 00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:32.959 was only after seeing this that Barney Hill realized the 97 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:38.120 aliens were these gray aliens that before then his wife 98 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:41.680 had nightmares that he had nightmares that were the aliens 99 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:45.759 who abducted them, had the kind of bluish lips, dark hair, 100 00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:56.040 and Jimmy Duranty type noses. And then the Reptilians don't 101 00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:02.360 really appear until after the TV series V came on 102 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.160 and the idea of them being shape shifting can be 103 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:09.839 traced to that too, since they were mass grading as humans. 104 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:14.480 I think we can probably track the Nordic aliens back 105 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:20.160 to Klatu in the nineteen fifty one movie The Days 106 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:24.319 is Still, where Michael Ronny is this benevolent and you know, 107 00:06:25.079 --> 00:06:26.240 very human looking alien. 108 00:06:26.519 --> 00:06:31.560 Yeah, that actually happens so often in our kind of 109 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.920 area of concern for monsters. I've started calling them scripteds 110 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:38.439 because they seem to come out of movie script Yeah. 111 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:42.839 So what inspired you guys to collaborate on this book? 112 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:43.199 Though? 113 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:45.279 It was it was sort of a funny thing. I've 114 00:06:45.319 --> 00:06:48.519 just done that book, as you know, on Bigfoot and 115 00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:52.319 Nassy and the rest of the cryptosoology culture with Daniel Loxton, 116 00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:54.800 and then, you know, I've been thinking about it for 117 00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:57.839 a while and realized that we pretty much approach this 118 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:02.079 same topic, the UFO topic, the same way we did 119 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:06.199 with crypt zoology, and so I knew I could write 120 00:07:06.199 --> 00:07:07.800 in parts of it, but I really didn't feel I 121 00:07:07.800 --> 00:07:11.079 had the expertise and so many of its gigantic literature 122 00:07:11.079 --> 00:07:14.800 out there, and so many many different stories and places 123 00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:17.120 you can read the debunking of individual stories, but not 124 00:07:17.399 --> 00:07:19.800 all in one place, but Tim had done this for 125 00:07:19.839 --> 00:07:22.000 a lot of years, was Skepting magazine and actually written 126 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:25.079 about a number of the more famous UFO hoaxes and 127 00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:27.600 other types of things which aren't really what they claim 128 00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:29.600 to be. So then I talked to Tim about it, 129 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:31.279 and that's how we ended up collaborating. Then I went 130 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.680 to Indiana. I ended up liking the idea the best 131 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:34.720 and gave us a contract. 132 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:38.839 You started the book with an introduction into the scientific method, 133 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:41.720 and there's a brief look at logic, reason, critical thinking, 134 00:07:41.800 --> 00:07:45.519 Popper's falsifiability ideas. So is there some kind of problem 135 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:47.000 with basic science literacy? 136 00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:52.879 Well, yeah, that was something that I felt was necessary 137 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:55.439 because you really can't assume science literacy and almost any 138 00:07:55.560 --> 00:07:59.639 reading American anymore so much it's been you know, just 139 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:02.639 assume them. It's not really there. And especially because you know, 140 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:05.279 even people who are relatively literate and other topics and 141 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:08.680 may not understand science very well because it isn't explain 142 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:11.480 very clearly even in school level. And so you really 143 00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:13.160 have to spell out a lot of these things that 144 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:16.040 are that are really way real sciences operate, because most 145 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:19.480 people operate with this idea of science and scientists as 146 00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:22.680 there's stereotypes that they get from media, especially the white 147 00:08:22.759 --> 00:08:25.040 lab code and the frizzy right hair and the mad 148 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.480 scientist stereotype, right down to the sparking vandigraph generators and 149 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:31.160 the you know, bubbling beakers. That's the stereotype that we 150 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:34.200 live with all the time, and most non scientists often 151 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:35.320 think of scientists that way. 152 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.799 There's also a tendency for them to say, well, here's 153 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:43.679 a strange thing. You used to explain it, and they 154 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:47.080 get it backwards around but that if we can't explain something, 155 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:48.440 then it must be UFOs. 156 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:52.480 Yeah, that's something we're you know, over and over again 157 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.519 in the book Unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable and the 158 00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:59.639 nature of scientists that are always being an unexplained area 159 00:08:59.679 --> 00:09:02.759 that's on the fringe of what we've so far explained. 160 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:05.480 In most cases we end up finding out what that 161 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:08.240 is and explaining it. But even if we don't, we 162 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:12.320 don't resort to anything paranormal as a comp out. It's 163 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.960 always if it's not explained, it's just in the unexplained category. 164 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:20.120 And that's basically and it implies into a top topic UFO. 165 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:25.200 It's unidentified flying object does not necessarily mean it's unidentify 166 00:09:25.279 --> 00:09:28.279 a bull or it never will be identified. It's only 167 00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:31.279 unidentified at the time it was first seen, and people 168 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:33.120 forget that's what UFO really stands for. 169 00:09:34.039 --> 00:09:38.759 That's I think a problem in all these Fringey forty 170 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:42.080 n paranormal type fields is that so much of it 171 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:45.000 comes down to an argument from ignorance. We don't know. Therefore, 172 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.919 it's this which is really kind of a peculiar construct, 173 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.480 yet it's universal in these fields of study, or seems 174 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:51.679 to be. 175 00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:56.519 Yeah, that's very true because we as you know, as 176 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:59.360 human beings, we like to have answers even when there 177 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:02.000 are none. And if we don't have an answer or 178 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:04.039 we don't have a simple explanation for us something, we'll 179 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:06.960 create it. It's very much human nature to do that. 180 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:09.120 That's what mythology is based on, and so much else 181 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:11.519 is based on as well. When you don't understand something, 182 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:13.320 you don't have an answer, you create an answer, and 183 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.480 that's the mythologizing of the cryptids has been that way 184 00:10:17.519 --> 00:10:20.240 for a long time, and really almost exactly the same way. 185 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:22.879 The mythologizing of UFOs and aliens works the same way. 186 00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:26.120 And as Tim and I've talked about before in other interviews. Really, 187 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:28.759 what this amounts to is the twentieth centuries version of 188 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:33.120 creation myths and the religion of the scientific world, which is, 189 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:35.200 you know, when science takes away a lot of our 190 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:37.879 other gods, that we have put the UFOs and aliens 191 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:38.759 in their place instead. 192 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:42.919 Yeah, that seems to be consistent with just myth making 193 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:45.080 in general. And I think you actually covered that pretty 194 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:49.080 specifically in there and talked about the Roswell effect. 195 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:51.639 I think that was right, were you, Yeah, they call 196 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:55.200 it the Roswell effect, right, Yeah, the Roswell incident is 197 00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:57.399 thoroughly debunked in every sense. S itce been so for 198 00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:00.799 a long time. But what the reality happened is that 199 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:04.080 it's gotten so thoroughly built up by the fringe media, 200 00:11:04.159 --> 00:11:08.840 especially these late night cable shows and all this UFO literature, 201 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:12.120 that people have to believe that there's something there, just 202 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:14.120 because it's talked about so often, even though it's in 203 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:17.600 fact the flimsiest case in the entire UFO literature. And 204 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:19.840 I to SRA how flimsay was in ninety forty seven 205 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:22.600 when it supposedly occurred, it was not even listed among 206 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:25.840 the events that were thought to be mysterious UFO events 207 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:28.120 of that year, because it was already been debunked and 208 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:31.600 on to you with Forgotten and then what stay Forgotten 209 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:34.279 for nearly thirty years until it was resurrected in the 210 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:36.600 nineteen seventies by UFO researchers. 211 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:42.240 It's peculiar to me because that pattern of having the 212 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:47.679 story like it's basically not that complicated of a story, 213 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:51.159 but it keeps growing and growing and growing. So and 214 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:53.279 I think we've talked about that a lot on here 215 00:11:53.399 --> 00:11:56.799 about other monstratories, but the idea that it's one of 216 00:11:56.879 --> 00:11:58.840 the signs that you may be dealing with myth making 217 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:01.720 is that the details keep getting more and more detailed 218 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:05.080 as time goes by, and more and more it just 219 00:12:05.159 --> 00:12:09.440 keeps expanding, and so it literally follows a folklore pattern 220 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:12.000 there and the way that it gets passed around and 221 00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:15.120 expanded upon. So I really like the way that you 222 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:18.559 talked about that. And now you did go into quite 223 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:21.759 a few cases within this book, and it's been my 224 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:25.200 experience that much like with monsters, the UFOs and alien 225 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:30.879 stories have grown these followings of people who are super 226 00:12:30.919 --> 00:12:33.840 interested in the details of particular cases. Did you find 227 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:35.879 it intimidating at all, knowing that if you're going to 228 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:37.840 try to do a general book, you're definitely going to 229 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:40.360 disappoint some people who were experts that have devoted their 230 00:12:40.360 --> 00:12:41.600 life to one case or another. 231 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:45.639 They're going to happen. That's going to happen. It's and 232 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:50.600 there's a kind of a fish story quality to these narratives. 233 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:55.200 By the way, want to have the randals from Forest accident. 234 00:12:56.519 --> 00:13:01.240 The initial statement of Sergeant Peniston was that he got 235 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:06.159 within thirty meters of the object, and then later on 236 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:09.519 he actually got up and touched it, and then after 237 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:12.919 that he was getting messages from it. And then a 238 00:13:12.919 --> 00:13:16.159 few years down the line he decided wasn't the spaceship 239 00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:20.120 after all, it was a time traveling craft in the future, 240 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:27.559 and there was telepathically giving him binary code which he 241 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:33.000 wrote down in books, you know, long books. It's very strange. 242 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:37.759 And now people do get indignant when you attack and 243 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:43.759 how dare you say this thing? And prickly with Varney 244 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:47.840 and Betty Hill, you know there is and again it's 245 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:51.759 one of those things that when you investigate it further. 246 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:54.120 You investigated the Moor in Unravels. 247 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:58.159 It was also on the the Rosal story, the major 248 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:02.759 awitness who actually was witness. Almost everybody else that's in 249 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:04.960 the UFO literature was never at the scene and did 250 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.279 not report anything, but Major Marcel Jesse Marcel was a witness, 251 00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:13.120 and he was by the time the UFO researchers approached 252 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:15.919 him in nineteen seventies of seventy seven, I think it 253 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:18.840 was already thirty years since the incident. He'd been out 254 00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:20.679 of the military for a long time. He was working 255 00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:24.399 as a TV repairman and not making very much money. 256 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:26.840 And then long come all his UFO researchers who want 257 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.799 his story, and the more he embellishes it, the more 258 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:33.200 they pay him. And so every version of his story 259 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:35.919 of what happened the Area fifty one has changed and 260 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.320 gets more and more elaborate as he supposedly remembers more 261 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:42.919 details that he can then supply for these people who 262 00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:45.360 make these books and documentaries about Area fifty one. So 263 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:48.039 it was not Area fifty one, excuse me, Roswell's. So 264 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:50.799 it was a classic case of you know, you know, 265 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:53.039 somehow the money enhances memory. 266 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.960 So before we dig into a couple of particular cases 267 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:00.600 in the book, you also talk about patentnicity and issues 268 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:04.639 with observations and the fallibility of human perception. So do 269 00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:07.720 people overestimate the powers of observation and memory. 270 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.399 Yes, that's very much the case, and that's pretty much 271 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:15.279 the central case, even more so than for cryptozoology, but 272 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.720 for UFOs, virtually the entire field rests, and with a 273 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:23.000 couple of exceptions, entirely on eyewitnessed evidence in supposedly what 274 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:26.759 humans have seen or heard or experienced, And so we 275 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:28.759 have to tack that very directly, and one of the 276 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:30.159 things we do right at the beginning the book, we 277 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:33.320 have a little anecdote that opens the story, which is 278 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:36.679 a famous hoax from nineteen oh nine by a hoax 279 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:41.320 of the name of Wallace Tillingast, and this is through 280 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:43.879 six years after the Wright brothers had flown. He claimed 281 00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:46.200 he had an aircraft that could fly at night, could 282 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:50.320 fly at higher elevations, could fly for hours, and all 283 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:52.679 these other things, and he was going to be trying 284 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:55.360 to enter in an air competition in order to prevent 285 00:15:55.440 --> 00:15:57.480 anyone from stealing his ideas. He was orderly to fly 286 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:00.840 at night, and therefore you couldn't see him do it 287 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.159 in the daytime, and so that was planted. Also the 288 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:06.720 media in New England at that time, in the lay 289 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:09.159 fall of nineteen oh nine, and it wasn't you know, 290 00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:11.320 it was absurd to look at it now, but it 291 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.480 was just a couple of steps ahead the technology the 292 00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:16.080 Wright brothers and Glenn Curtis had in nineteen nine. They 293 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:18.440 had aircraft. They weren't quite able to do it that yet, 294 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:21.399 but he claimed he did. And so for the next 295 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.279 few nights after it appeared in the media, or fifty 296 00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:27.720 thousand people claimed they heard and saw his aircraft flying 297 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:30.200 above them at night, and they claimed they saw a 298 00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:32.919 fly around the Statue of Liberty. They saw it in Boston, 299 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:35.480 they saw it. All of these coasted at the same time, 300 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:38.559 and night after night after night. This kept happening because 301 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.639 the media kept feeding the frenzy until right before Christmas 302 00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:43.759 Eve nineteen oh nine, and then it was exposed and 303 00:16:43.799 --> 00:16:48.039 the entire oaks collapsed. And so the object lesson there 304 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:50.480 is that fifty thousand people can be wrong. They can, all, 305 00:16:50.600 --> 00:16:53.799 because of media conditioning, believe they heard and saw something 306 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:56.240 we now know was not there. And so in the 307 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:59.320 book we lay out very clearly why you eyewitness evidence 308 00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:02.720 is pretty much the worst possible evidence from a scientific standpoint, 309 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:06.920 and that it's so easily distorted, it's so easily influenced. 310 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:11.240 The studies of people like Elizabeth Loftus and other psychologists 311 00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:14.559 have shown that humans are terrible video recorders. We remember 312 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:18.079 things wrong, we put in details that didn't happen. After 313 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:21.039 the time that lapses, our memories change, and we had 314 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:24.000 or subtract details. And the whole idea of I was 315 00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:26.480 his testimony has shown that bridges you can't trust anything 316 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:29.960 human see, even multiple humans, because fifty thousand people were 317 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.240 wrong and about the New England air ship hooks, and 318 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:35.920 so that pretty much did derail the entire UFO community 319 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.240 right there, that they can't believe by witness evidence. They 320 00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:41.319 don't have much left. When I did this talk in 321 00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:44.440 front of a bunch of UFO believers a few months 322 00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:46.200 ago when the book first came out, that's one of 323 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:48.720 the first things I did, and the guy was stunned. 324 00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:50.960 He didn't have anything to say because everything he wanted 325 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:53.400 to talk about was was based on eyewitness testimony. 326 00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:58.319 Another another classic case of that, as the case of 327 00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:04.160 the Phoenix lights. We're very normal, ordinary people swear they 328 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:07.720 saw this formation of lights and a V shape formation. 329 00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:12.079 The lights on the leading winning edge of this wing 330 00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:17.119 going over slowly over Phoenix, blotting out the stars. And 331 00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:19.880 you know, lots of people saw. Fortunately some people took 332 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:23.519 videos of it, but the video camera does not show that. 333 00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:27.559 It shows lights hovering over the horizon, coming on one 334 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:30.559 at a time, forming eventually a line, and then winking 335 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:33.880 off one a time, exactly like what you would expect, 336 00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.880 which was the Air Force's explanation that they had dropped 337 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:42.359 military flares on parachutes. And these aren't These aren't coops, 338 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:47.119 these aren't Charlatans, These are just ordinary folks. We have 339 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:50.440 a tendency to tell ourselves stories. The fact is our 340 00:18:50.519 --> 00:18:55.000 perception is our brain putting together all kinds of stuff 341 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:58.640 to tell a story, you know, even you know vision 342 00:18:58.720 --> 00:18:59.319 for example. 343 00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:01.119 Yeah, I mean, there's even a better sample of this 344 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:03.799 pattern seeking, which of course is that humans of course 345 00:19:03.799 --> 00:19:06.960 are conditioned to recognize faces first and foremost among almost 346 00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:10.079 any pattern we can see. And there's a famous hoax 347 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:13.240 where on the very first Viking missions it flew over Mars, 348 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:16.759 took this very low resolution image of the Martian surface 349 00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:19.279 of the course of the sunlight coming into low angle, 350 00:19:19.319 --> 00:19:22.559 so made fairly large shadows of a hill, and you know, 351 00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.799 it sort of has two little spots and a cross 352 00:19:24.920 --> 00:19:27.240 line across the hill that if you stared at a moment, 353 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.160 it's so like a simple cartoon of a face. And 354 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.720 this con man made a living out of claiming the 355 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:36.440 Martians had carved this face into the surface so we 356 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:39.119 could see it, and that this is a real evidence 357 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:41.880 of life on Mars. And it kept going and he 358 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:43.759 made tons of money if all these people who agree 359 00:19:43.799 --> 00:19:46.160 with him, it looked like a face until the next 360 00:19:46.599 --> 00:19:48.359 mission to Mars went over, and of course the shot 361 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:51.200 of the same hill from a higher resolution at a 362 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.519 different sun angle, and it doesn't look anything like a face. 363 00:19:53.559 --> 00:19:55.559 And then the third time over, of course the details 364 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:58.240 are even more clear, and it's clear with just just 365 00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:01.519 a accident of lighting and the low resolution that image 366 00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:03.759 the first time it was seen, and our tendency to 367 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:06.119 see faces when there are none. 368 00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:10.359 They've adapted that story, and I believe current claims are 369 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:15.400 that the what NASA nuked the monuments of Mars. I believe. 370 00:20:16.359 --> 00:20:18.680 So you know that's. 371 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:20.160 Well, I don't want to. 372 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.960 I guess we have robots on Mars now that aren't 373 00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:23.640 finding anything. 374 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:27.599 Yeah, so I wish it were true. I mean, I 375 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:30.839 wish there were colonies on Mars or ancient ruins on Mars, 376 00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:33.240 and you know, and that would just be wonderful. It 377 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:36.880 doesn't look like the geology and the evidence supports that, 378 00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:40.480 but even microbial life would be a really great fine 379 00:20:40.519 --> 00:20:42.960 And I think we'll get to some of those things, 380 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:46.400 I think as we go through these topics. But what 381 00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:47.920 we're trying to do is kind of give people an 382 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:52.119 idea of what's in your book without like spoiling it. 383 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:55.599 So I think we're getting there. I do want to 384 00:20:55.599 --> 00:20:59.400 talk a little bit about Area fifty one, but it 385 00:20:59.440 --> 00:21:01.319 seems like it's got a lot of different names, and 386 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:03.240 I was hoping maybe you could help us clarify what 387 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:04.720 should we be calling that place. 388 00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:08.119 You still call it Area fifty one. The story behind 389 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:10.799 that is that right after World War II was over, 390 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:14.039 Lockey was starting to build a big spy planes that 391 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:15.880 were designed the course to be flown a real high 392 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:20.599 elevation above Soviet missile and radar they thought, and the 393 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:23.559 air stir planes at the time. And so they were 394 00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:26.279 looking for in a really isolated airstrip that they could 395 00:21:26.359 --> 00:21:28.880 use to build to test these planes. They were, you know, 396 00:21:28.920 --> 00:21:31.039 at the time, they were still testing Edward's Air Force 397 00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:33.559 Base down here in Los Angeles County, but there was 398 00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:37.799 too many prying eyes down here. So the Kelly Johnson, 399 00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:40.880 the chief engineer for Lockheed, was one of the people 400 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:42.680 who took these flights and they flew out of all 401 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:45.240