Speaker 1: Joining us now is someone who has spent their life
Speaker 1: during reconnaissance and surveillance. He is now into drones, and
Speaker 1: I think you're going to find this very interesting. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about what happened in the Great Drone
Speaker 1: Mystery back in the I guess is about a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago back on the East Coast, as
Speaker 1: well as what has recently happened with some drones. Scene
Speaker 1: of the military basis where Warpete and Rubio live and
Speaker 1: the threat really that it presents to all of us,
Speaker 1: and how it is completely upending really the military order,
Speaker 1: I think. So joining us now is John Ferguson, and
Speaker 1: he's got a couple of different places where you can
Speaker 1: find him. He's got Saxon Unmanned as his company, and
Speaker 1: they have Saxon Unmanned dot com. He also has a
Speaker 1: website about his personal story, John Bferguson dot Com, which
Speaker 1: is very fascinating. We will try to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that as well. And he's also got another
Speaker 1: bus Java John's dot net just in case you're looking
Speaker 1: for some coffee. But thank you for joining us, John.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, it's very nice to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's begin with the Great Drone mystery. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of people trying to tie this into UFOs and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, they've got lights on them, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll let you know. It's direction of the guard, so
Speaker 1: that might be a tip off. This is not something
Speaker 1: from another galaxy. But tell us, you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at this investigation, what was your take on all
Speaker 1: this stuff?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, again, thank you for having me on
Speaker 2: you know, the whole drone thing back in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four and twenty five. You know, I just remember common
Speaker 2: sense kind of a guy, and I just got really
Speaker 2: tired of hearing are the people that we elected to
Speaker 2: run this country and elect or run our states, We're
Speaker 2: out there saying that they're coming out of the water
Speaker 2: and they're running and flagships and all that stuff, And.
Speaker 1: We had sheriffs who said, I can't catch them. It's
Speaker 1: like a supernatural or something.
Speaker 2: I just thought, oh my gosh, this country is in
Speaker 2: so much trouble if these are the people that are
Speaker 2: running the country. So I just wanted to give a
Speaker 2: common sense approach, you know, and really just show America
Speaker 2: what as a manufacturer, a subject matter expert, And again
Speaker 2: I've been. I've been in unmanned system technology for over
Speaker 2: three decades, right, so I'm one of the few people
Speaker 2: in the United States that has not only sub surface subsea,
Speaker 2: but ocean surface and tactical robot crawlers and unmanned aerial
Speaker 2: aircraft experience, right. So I'm really kind of a different
Speaker 2: person than most. So I just wanted to give a
Speaker 2: common sense approach. The thing is is that myself and
Speaker 2: two other gentlemen have been working for quite some time
Speaker 2: on trying to uncover the fact that some of the
Speaker 2: old Soviet era nuclear warheads had come up missing. One
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two of them that came up missing,
Speaker 2: and they were put into the black market. And the
Speaker 2: gentleman that I was working with had accidentally been exposed
Speaker 2: to one of these warheads and became very sick, and
Speaker 2: so from that point forward he was tracking these things
Speaker 2: to try to find out where they were. And so
Speaker 2: that's when they brought me in. And the information that
Speaker 2: we had is that they were here and that they
Speaker 2: were planning on using it as a false flag operation.
Speaker 2: And so when all of these elected officials were out
Speaker 2: there saying that they're aliens or little Green men or whatever,
Speaker 2: and you know all this other stuff. I just felt
Speaker 2: compelled to just say, look, folks, I couldn't say at
Speaker 2: the time what exactly it was. I just said, look,
Speaker 2: I do believe that they're not looking for anything nefarious.
Speaker 2: Don't try to shoot them down or I'm sorry. I
Speaker 2: don't think they're nefarious drones. I don't think they're an
Speaker 2: abstracal nations drones. I think they're looking for something very specific,
Speaker 2: and I believe that they're looking for the radioactive warhead
Speaker 2: that we have been working on. We knew it was, yeah,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, so I had some synthesist letters
Speaker 2: from the Biden administration, and of course I didn't cease
Speaker 2: and I didn't desist, but we we you know, we
Speaker 2: kept going with our investigation, and we proved that this
Speaker 2: is what they're looking for, right, and you know, they're
Speaker 2: flying there, they're respecting somewhat of our FAA guidelines on
Speaker 2: unmanned system flight operations. They had lights on, you know,
Speaker 2: They're they're trying to to somewhat fly within our rules. Right,
Speaker 2: So I knew that they weren't in adversarial nations. And
Speaker 2: then what what what administration would allow huge large aircraft
Speaker 2: like that fly over our critical infrastructure without permission, like
Speaker 2: this aircraft behind me. It's fourteen foot wing aircraft, one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty to uner grand at its base model.
Speaker 2: You know, could you imagine an an adversarial nation flying
Speaker 2: dozens and dozens of these over our critical infrastructure and
Speaker 2: our country just gone. I don't know, so, you know,
Speaker 2: it just it didn't make sense to me. So that's
Speaker 2: why I did that video. And then still to this day,
Speaker 2: a lot of people had asked me, whatever happened did
Speaker 2: they find the nuke? And I was like, wow, I
Speaker 2: don't know. And so we had also recently uncovered that
Speaker 2: that is still out there and it is still in
Speaker 2: the hands of the bad guys, and they are planning
Speaker 2: on using that thing September October of this year. So
Speaker 2: we met with the authorities to try to bring this
Speaker 2: to light and get these folks to investigate this, and
Speaker 2: every time we brought it to the authorities, we've been
Speaker 2: shut down. So it's all been dismissed. So we turned
Speaker 2: over all of the black and white, the emails, the photos,
Speaker 2: the videos. You know, there was a Pentagon report that
Speaker 2: stated that they had thought in the nineties that one
Speaker 2: of these assets was brought up over So what we
Speaker 2: did is we proved to where it was processed, who
Speaker 2: owned it, who sold it, who they sold it to,
Speaker 2: how they packed it, how they shipped it, how they
Speaker 2: brought it over here, who received it over here in
Speaker 2: the United States, and then we lost track of it
Speaker 2: from there. So you know, these are acts. It's not
Speaker 2: conspiracy or anything.
Speaker 1: And so who is this? Who are the bad actors that? Can?
Speaker 1: You say? Who they are?
Speaker 2: You know, all of the bad guys that people speculate
Speaker 2: here in the United States are real, you know. Please,
Speaker 2: I don't want to seem like I'm a politician and
Speaker 2: dodging a question, but for my own safety, I sure
Speaker 2: I think I should leave it at that. But all
Speaker 2: of the bad actors that you know exist there. You're right,
Speaker 2: they're there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well that's one of the things that really
Speaker 1: concerns me. When you look at Iran, for example, and
Speaker 1: the drones that they have. You know, who knows how
Speaker 1: many drones they've got. They were giving drones, selling drones
Speaker 1: to Russia in the Ukraine War, so they were making
Speaker 1: more than they thought they actually needed. So I imagine
Speaker 1: quite a few of them that are there, and it
Speaker 1: really has changed the face of warfare, hasn't it.
Speaker 2: It absolutely has. And you know that's she heat drone is.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a it's an adequate drone. And I
Speaker 2: try to impress upon people that a drone doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be this highly technologically advanced piece of equipment, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, my gosh, they're building drones out of cardboard.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and they're working, right, you know, they're building
Speaker 2: them out of balsa wood, which they've been doing for decades. Right,
Speaker 2: So the only thing a drone has to do is
Speaker 2: do its job. I know that sounds very basic, but
Speaker 2: it just has to fly. You know, there's a five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars module in that aircraft, any aircraft, really a
Speaker 2: commercial aircraft, that tells the drone exactly what to do,
Speaker 2: when to do it, how much power to put out
Speaker 2: to wherever, and you can fly them completely one percent autonomously.
Speaker 2: You can. You can plug in the ordinance and tell
Speaker 2: it what to do and just letter rip and you
Speaker 2: can pack up and go home and and it'll just
Speaker 2: go out there and just do the job. So it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be technologically advanced. Again, it just has
Speaker 2: to carry a payload and do its job, and that's it.
Speaker 1: It's really been an equalizer as and it's like the
Speaker 1: improvised side roadside bombs that we saw in a rock,
Speaker 1: except this is a lot more flexible, a lot more
Speaker 1: reach that we've seen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The drones that you sell at Saxon, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about your product line. You know, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the large one behind you. What type of drones do
Speaker 1: you sell? How big are they, what are they capable
Speaker 1: of doing? They carry a payload of you know how
Speaker 1: much and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the drones that that we build. You know,
Speaker 2: I've developed a couple of different technologies that try to
Speaker 2: help save lives. I've built subs, power pack systems, tactical crawlers,
Speaker 2: and my drones are are kind of unique in the industry.
Speaker 2: And the reason why is because I've managed projects overseas
Speaker 2: for submersible vehicles that have a cost of one point
Speaker 2: two to one point five million dollars a day costs
Speaker 2: and so you know, I've seen fifty cent parts drop
Speaker 2: a project for two weeks, so there's one four hundred
Speaker 2: and forty minutes in the day. And when you have
Speaker 2: a project that's one point five million dollars in value
Speaker 2: or in cost per day. You know, every minute has
Speaker 2: a huge dollar sign attached to it. So I developed
Speaker 2: my tech my aircraft to be you know, modular, robust,
Speaker 2: you know, very rugged, very dependable, and it's designed to
Speaker 2: to save lives or to you know, provide intelligence that
Speaker 2: you know, our our war fighters wouldn't normally get in
Speaker 2: the battlefield with a high level of dependability. Right.
Speaker 1: So, and of course you did that when you were
Speaker 1: in the Marines. You were doing recon and you were
Speaker 1: doing it in the water yourself, right, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to make sure that I don't over
Speaker 2: oversell what I did in the Marine Corps because of
Speaker 2: stolen valor and all that other stuff. But I mean
Speaker 2: I was a scout swimmer, you know. I wasn't like
Speaker 2: a Navy seal or a force ricon guy, you know,
Speaker 2: I was. I was low level reconnaissance scout swimmer guys.
Speaker 2: So they would drop us off in the water and
Speaker 2: we would swim in and attack the beach or the
Speaker 2: pier and do the reconnaissance and uh and then set
Speaker 2: in lanes for the boat company the raiders to come
Speaker 2: in and attack the objectives. So so yeah, I've I've
Speaker 2: done a lot of reconnaissance types missions and and that's
Speaker 2: really how I developed my companies because I wanted to
Speaker 2: kind of be back in the Marine Corps have the
Speaker 2: follow orders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a guy that I worked with at
Speaker 1: Texas Instruments. I was a little bit older than I was,
Speaker 1: and I told you this as we were talking off
Speaker 1: air before the interview began, and they would do that
Speaker 1: to him in Vietnam. They would take him and way
Speaker 1: out and you know, behind enemy lines and drop them
Speaker 1: in the jungle and they'd have to find their way
Speaker 1: out to them several days and they're you know, trying
Speaker 1: to move at night and sleep during the day, and
Speaker 1: he'd wake up and there's spiders all over him and
Speaker 1: enemy patrol just a few feet away. And he said
Speaker 1: it was a really harrowing experience, and you know, they
Speaker 1: would just work their way back and right about what
Speaker 1: they saw. And he said, what was really strange about
Speaker 1: that was then after you did that, they would fly
Speaker 1: you to Hawaii for a couple of week vacation. Then
Speaker 1: it was back into the jungle again. It's just like
Speaker 1: whips on them back and forth. These different experiences, So
Speaker 1: you were doing stuff kind of like that, I guess,
Speaker 1: except in the water. And then now, as you point out,
Speaker 1: with the drones, they can do that kind of surveillance
Speaker 1: without endangering people's lives. So that's that's an important thing.
Speaker 1: But talk a little bit about what you know in
Speaker 1: terms of the drones we see that are happening in
Speaker 1: this Mid East war right now that's going on with Iran,
Speaker 1: and how that has changed the battlefield and the threats
Speaker 1: that presents to critical infrastructure here in the United States.
Speaker 1: If probably not something that's difficult for somebody to get
Speaker 1: across the border with. And it's also we have to
Speaker 1: be concerned about cartel's as well as hostile nations attacking
Speaker 1: our infrastructure, don't we.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's it's very serious. You've brought up a
Speaker 2: really good point. You know, again, from the beginning of warfare,
Speaker 2: we've always sent out reconnaissance teams to collect data, and
Speaker 2: you know, those folks have always given their lives to
Speaker 2: try to collect that data. And you know, you don't
Speaker 2: need a big drone like this to go collect information
Speaker 2: on an objective anymore, right, A two or three thousand
Speaker 2: dollars drone that you buy at Best Buyer, Amazon will
Speaker 2: do all of that for you. So you know, these
Speaker 2: drones will fly over and they'll take pictures of critical
Speaker 2: infrastructure or the potential battlefield, and all of those images
Speaker 2: have Geotag images on them. So you can take all
Speaker 2: of those images and put them all together in this
Speaker 2: software and you can create a map. And this map
Speaker 2: could be accurate down to less than an inch. Right,
Speaker 2: So every military map you'll ever see or pilot's map
Speaker 2: will always have you know, for the most part, they'll
Speaker 2: always have elevations on them, and that's very important for
Speaker 2: covering concealment, you know, depressions, et cetera. And so these
Speaker 2: drones can fly over a target and you can get
Speaker 2: the digital elevation model that tells you the elevations, right,
Speaker 2: you can get the altitudes or the height of buildings
Speaker 2: or vehicles, and you can build a three D map
Speaker 2: off of these. And so anytime you're going to go
Speaker 2: an attack and objective that you will need to have
Speaker 2: that data because maybe you want to blow up a building,
Speaker 2: but you don't know how big of a missile you
Speaker 2: need to use or whatever, but that information will tell you, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's more information that you'll collect in minutes over what
Speaker 2: any human being can collect in the same amount of time.
Speaker 2: So that's very important, especially allowing drones to fly over
Speaker 2: here domestically over our critical infrastructure. Now, the Ukraine and
Speaker 2: the Russians have done an amazing job, not that I
Speaker 2: agree with that whole war, but the Ukrainians and the
Speaker 2: Russians have done a fantastic job of revolutionizing the battlefield
Speaker 2: because you can take less than a thousand dollars drone
Speaker 2: and strap a grenade to it or some form of
Speaker 2: an explosive and you can set it out on its mission,
Speaker 2: and that can absolutely devastate the battlefield. And so you know,
Speaker 2: the Iranian drones, I mean, these things are they're just
Speaker 2: adequate drones, and they're highly capable, and they're terrifying, and
Speaker 2: that's what they're used for now. The cartels, the Marine
Speaker 2: Corps has published a few years ago during the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: that the cartels were sending one hundred drones an hour,
Speaker 2: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week with fentanyl,
Speaker 2: you know, coming into the United States. And I spent
Speaker 2: several years working on the border to combat and narco terrorism,
Speaker 2: human trafficking, and child sex trafficking. You know, I just
Speaker 2: volunteered a lot of my time to do that, but
Speaker 2: I also work south of the border doing the exact
Speaker 2: same thing, and so I got a different perspective on
Speaker 2: the stuff coming into the United States than most people do. Right. So,
Speaker 2: with you know, all of this fentanyl and all these
Speaker 2: nasty drugs and weapons that the cartails are bringing in,
Speaker 2: they can just do it with drones. And the problem
Speaker 2: is is that our counter drone defense is great. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of great companies out there building it, but
Speaker 2: it needs to get better, and it needs to get
Speaker 2: better fast because you know a lot of these things
Speaker 2: can slip through the wire. But mostly it's pretty good.
Speaker 2: But you know, we we get those incursions.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, if we're going to be starting
Speaker 1: wars everywhere with everybody, it's going to be not just
Speaker 1: drugs coming across, but it's going to be things like
Speaker 1: bombs and that that thing that's coming across as well.
Speaker 1: So the drones that you have, like the large one
Speaker 1: behind you, what would that be used for?
Speaker 2: This is a great platform because it carries fifteen to
Speaker 2: twenty pounds, and you know that fifteen to twenty pounds
Speaker 2: can be a sensor, or it could be some form
Speaker 2: of a munition. Of course we don't do that, got
Speaker 2: to clarify that. But you know, it flies for eighteen
Speaker 2: plus hours, not that you would fly a drone for
Speaker 2: that long, but it's again it's very highly reliable. But
Speaker 2: a drone is really just a platform to give a
Speaker 2: sensor a ride, and give it a good ride, a
Speaker 2: smooth ride. Right. So again you can put we can
Speaker 2: use this for agriculture, we can use it for construction,
Speaker 2: asset management, you can use it for search and rescue.
Speaker 2: It's largely built for ISR, which is intelligent surveillance reconnaissance.
Speaker 2: So you can put that little vault her at gimble
Speaker 2: there to go gimble in there. You can zoom thirty
Speaker 2: times zoom power down to a location, so you can
Speaker 2: really get a you can get a good sense of
Speaker 2: what's down there and if there's uh, you know, targets
Speaker 2: of interest or whatever. You can loiter over a battlefield
Speaker 2: as a loitering munition, so you can you can stay
Speaker 2: aloft for many hours and wait for the bad guys
Speaker 2: to come through, you know, or you know, find people
Speaker 2: lost lost in the mountains, you know, so they're just
Speaker 2: there's nothing you can't do with these things. The only
Speaker 2: things that limit you on drones is your imagination.
Speaker 1: Wow, well, in our area, we've got our own personal drone,
Speaker 1: but I can't fly it because it's got so many
Speaker 1: hawks around here. I look at these people, said, how
Speaker 1: are we going to defend the kind of stuff is like, Well,
Speaker 1: if it's really small drones, you just get a bunch
Speaker 1: of predatory birds, don't you know. But they wouldn't do
Speaker 1: too well against the one that's behind you.
Speaker 2: But are very intelligent. I've done work with birds and drones,
Speaker 2: and their birds are so intelligent. You would never realize
Speaker 2: how intelligent they actually.
Speaker 1: Are, you know. There was an interesting novel a few
Speaker 1: years ago by Daniel Suarez is called Kill Decision. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're familiar with that or not, but
Speaker 1: he was really ahead of his time. It's about a
Speaker 1: decade ago, and in it he was talking about drones
Speaker 1: and the use of warfare, and it was very interesting
Speaker 1: the way he constructed it because he had a confluence
Speaker 1: of some military industrial types along with some people who
Speaker 1: were entomologists insects, right, and so they came up with
Speaker 1: a kind of a way to signal with each other like,
Speaker 1: you know, mimicking insects. That was that allowed them to
Speaker 1: do swarm swarms of drones. Where are we in terms
Speaker 1: of that? Do you think in terms of drone swarms?
Speaker 1: That's the thing that is really concerning, And of course
Speaker 1: you know when we look at warfare that that is
Speaker 1: a real issue. What about drones drone swarms and being
Speaker 1: able to lock onto a target and kind of have
Speaker 1: some communication between them in terms of artificial intelligence and
Speaker 1: that type of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's again, that's a great question. You know, this
Speaker 2: aircraft behind me here, it can swarm. You know, that's
Speaker 2: just software, right, so you know the autopilots will actually,
Speaker 2: I mean again, the five hundred dollars autopilot will allow
Speaker 2: you to swarm this type of an aircraft. It's five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars, right, So it's very insignificant. A lot of
Speaker 2: people say that the Shahed drone is a thirty forty
Speaker 2: or fifty thousand dollars drone, but I could I guarantee
Speaker 2: I could make that drone for less than twenty grand, right,
Speaker 2: But that drone can swarm. Swarm technology is wonderful and
Speaker 2: you get to see all kinds of pretty stuff on
Speaker 2: you know Super Bowl halftime shows and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful. There is some technology issues that we have
Speaker 2: with with swarming drones and when you have the larger drones,
Speaker 2: the swarm. Yeah, that's a that's a problem. But is
Speaker 2: it likely that we're here domestically in the United States
Speaker 2: going to get hit with big drones like this in
Speaker 2: a swarm. Not really, it's highly unlikely. But a lot
Speaker 2: of people have seen the videos where you got little
Speaker 2: bitty small drones that can acquire a target and have
Speaker 2: an explosive and you know, take take personnel out right
Speaker 2: and using AI it can choose who to take out.
Speaker 2: There are certain laws of physics that you can't overcome
Speaker 2: that you can't you know, your your battery life, your
Speaker 2: power consumption, and the power discharge from the battery to
Speaker 2: keep the thing in the air is really limiting on
Speaker 2: your amount of flight time. So those little bitty drones,
Speaker 2: they only will get maybe three to five minutes of
Speaker 2: flight time, So you can't watch it find a target,
Speaker 2: acquire the target, then prosecute the target in three to
Speaker 2: five minutes. It's just it's just not going to work.
Speaker 2: So I don't think people need to be too concerned
Speaker 2: about that at this time. The battery technology is not
Speaker 2: out there yet. But that's not saying that we should
Speaker 2: not be concerned about adversarial nations getting a hold of
Speaker 2: small drones and utilizing them here in the United States.
Speaker 1: And of course that video that was done was part
Speaker 1: of a Ted talk thing I think somebody did work.
Speaker 1: They were talking about those assassination drones, determining ones which
Speaker 1: people are going to target, you know, and using that
Speaker 1: against politicians in Congress or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's something that is down the road. It's just incremental
Speaker 1: increases in technology, I guess. But the other aspect of it,
Speaker 1: and you know, we've had a couple of things that
Speaker 1: have come out in the news recently that had some
Speaker 1: domestic connections. One of them was the fact there's drones
Speaker 1: flying over the House of Well, let's see if I
Speaker 1: got the clip here, which one of those is Atlance
Speaker 1: over the military basis here he got warpete and pointed
Speaker 1: to the drones because they're flying over the military bases
Speaker 1: where these guys are living. Because we had a lot
Speaker 1: of Trump administration people have now moved on to military bases,
Speaker 1: and so they had these drones that were spotted over
Speaker 1: that military base. Talk a little bit about that, what
Speaker 1: was behind that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know a lot of people around the United
Speaker 2: States are getting wrapped around the axles on this thing.
Speaker 2: And of course it's very ominous to think that an
Speaker 2: adversarial nation can fly drones over our most critical infrastructure.
Speaker 2: And are you know, executive leadership in our country right?
Speaker 2: This happens all the time. It's not new to have
Speaker 2: people who are ill equipped and ill informed to fly
Speaker 2: their aircraft over these bases when they're not allowed to.
Speaker 2: You know, the Chinese have of course, the administration is
Speaker 2: working on getting the Chinese spy drones out of here.
Speaker 2: But they have a soft where built a software packet
Speaker 2: that's integrated into the system where that it won't allow
Speaker 2: you to fly into a no fly zone and those
Speaker 2: are clearly marked on the maps. When you plan your route,
Speaker 2: you can bypass that, but you are electing to bypass that,
Speaker 2: and if you break the law, then you know that's
Speaker 2: on you. And we also have what we call remote ID,
Speaker 2: what's a little module that is in every aircraft sold
Speaker 2: here in the United States that shows law enforcement of
Speaker 2: you know, who owns the aircraft and then I believe
Speaker 2: it shows the location of the pilot's ground station. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if that's correct, but you know, these people
Speaker 2: can fly drones over military bases, and I think it's
Speaker 2: just people doing stupid stuff. Again, I'll go back to
Speaker 2: one of my original statements. Do you honestly think that
Speaker 2: this administration or any other administration would allow this large
Speaker 2: of a drone to fly over the base without permission?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we just had that situation done Tomar a Lago.
Speaker 1: You had somebody who was sounded like they were kind
Speaker 1: of out of it. There's no fly area there, and
Speaker 1: they sent up jets dinner scept them and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy, we kind of wake him up.
Speaker 1: You know, basically, it's not any attention. But what was
Speaker 1: really alarming to me was I saw these comments like
Speaker 1: just blow him out of the sky. You know, this
Speaker 1: guy doesn't deserve to live, and is like, WHOA, let's
Speaker 1: back up a little bit here. But but yeah, they're
Speaker 1: very quick to scramble the jets for things like that.
Speaker 1: And of course, even if it's flying over the homes
Speaker 1: of politicians, high level politicians like that, there's going to
Speaker 1: be pretty hardened targets what's not hardened, I think are
Speaker 1: the utotally power plants or things like oil refineries here
Speaker 1: in this country. There's so many issues with that. They
Speaker 1: immediately started talking about, well, we got to worry about
Speaker 1: our AI data centers, So we're going to have some
Speaker 1: automatic guns that are maybe driven by AI that are
Speaker 1: going to shoot these things down. It's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't ever talk about it for us though, you know,
Speaker 1: they're worried about our high ranking officials. They're worried about
Speaker 1: the artificial intelligence it's going to be used to spy
Speaker 1: and surveil us, but they're not really worried about whether
Speaker 1: or not we can turn the lights on. That seems
Speaker 1: to be the common thread with all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, I would challenge you to go back in our
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty year history and find any administration
Speaker 2: that gives a damn about the American people.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right.
Speaker 2: But you know you can shoot these drones down. The
Speaker 2: problem is that we trip over our own bureaucracy here
Speaker 2: in the United States where other countries don't. You know,
Speaker 2: you can disrupt the frequency with these drones and they
Speaker 2: have frequency hopping, so typically we use two point four
Speaker 2: or five point eight or nine hundred, you know frequency
Speaker 2: here to fly our aircraft. That's pretty common, right, There's
Speaker 2: a lot of other bands. But you know, when you
Speaker 2: hit a drone with some sort of frequency disruptor, you know,
Speaker 2: they can frequency hop and they can switch to a
Speaker 2: different preak and continue on. So those are difficult. You
Speaker 2: can shoot them with lasers, you can shoot them with
Speaker 2: microwave pulses, or you can just shoot them with bullets.
Speaker 2: The problem is, okay, if you've identified the drone and
Speaker 2: you're going to make that decision to take that drone down,
Speaker 2: but what about the family of four that's in the
Speaker 2: cessna that's ten thousand feet you know, just because you
Speaker 2: shoot some form of an energy weapon or whatever frequency
Speaker 2: disruption weapon you know, at the drone, it doesn't stop
Speaker 2: at the drone. Right, So they don't want to drop
Speaker 2: a manned aircraft over, you know, because of a drone, right, right,
Speaker 2: So what I propose is things that we do on accident,
Speaker 2: we should be able to do on purpose, and that's
Speaker 2: crash one drone into another, right. You know, you if
Speaker 2: you can take an unmanned aircraft like our smaller one
Speaker 2: and you can fly that into a drone, that needs
Speaker 2: to be taken down. You have more control and their
Speaker 2: software that will you know, select that target and then
Speaker 2: you can automatically engage that target using another aircraft. That way,
Speaker 2: it's just going to have a less of a probability
Speaker 2: of having you know, adverse effects on the civilians you know,
Speaker 2: in the area. And that's that's what I propose. But
Speaker 2: we have to really shore up our defensive posture here
Speaker 2: in America regarding Unmann systems.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's something that we've had this debate
Speaker 1: for a long time. It began a long time ago
Speaker 1: with EMP, you know, electromagnetic pults. You know what if
Speaker 1: somebody flies a new can expose it in the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: takes out all kinds of electronics and maybe takes out
Speaker 1: some of these big unique transformers that have a very
Speaker 1: long lead time to get them replaced, and only made
Speaker 1: a couple of places in the world, you know, incredibly expensive,
Speaker 1: difficult to replace. And so there's some very simple things
Speaker 1: that could be done to protect against DMP, but they
Speaker 1: don't do that. So I imagine they're not going to
Speaker 1: do much to protect the infrastructure against drone attacks either.
Speaker 1: And there's so many critical places of critical infrastructures we're
Speaker 1: seeing with this situation with Iran. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: a refinery, it's very you don't need much of an
Speaker 1: explosive to get that thing going. And so when you
Speaker 1: look at these vulnerable infrastructures like you know, power generation,
Speaker 1: power transformers that are that can be taken out and
Speaker 1: cause massive cascading effects, and nobody's really doing anything about that,
Speaker 1: are they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, all of the reconnaissance on America
Speaker 2: is pretty much done, right. So, you know, the company DGI,
Speaker 2: they build an amazing aircraft. I mean, everybody loves the aircraft.
Speaker 2: They're easy, they're dependable, you know, they're they're just good aircraft.
Speaker 2: But the problem is is that they got caught spying
Speaker 2: on on well through their drones. So pretty much every
Speaker 2: country in the world has had those DGI drones uh
Speaker 2: flying everywhere. So all of our all of that data
Speaker 2: you know, goes back has gone back to China, right,
Speaker 2: And that's why the Biden and Trump administration was working
Speaker 2: on getting them kicked out of the United States and
Speaker 2: you know, critical infrastructure now you cannot use those types
Speaker 2: of Chinese drones because they were caught collecting our data.
Speaker 2: So all of our power lines and refineries and you know,
Speaker 2: sewer plans and construction sites and hospitals and every single
Speaker 2: thing you could ever possibly imagine has already been mapped, right,
Speaker 2: And so there's no requirement anymore really to select targets
Speaker 2: to map because they've mostly all been mapped, right. And
Speaker 2: so there's nothing that the government can do now about
Speaker 2: that other than just you know, stop the spying. They
Speaker 2: just there's nothing else you can do. It's all been mapped.
Speaker 2: So what these drones have done is they have really
Speaker 2: tested our weaknesses here in the United States, and the
Speaker 2: media has done a great job of telling everybody in
Speaker 2: the world, you know, what our weaknesses are. And that's
Speaker 2: why I've said a couple of times on this show,
Speaker 2: is that we've got to really beef up our defensive
Speaker 2: posture here in the United States regarding unmanned aircraft because
Speaker 2: you know, almost every nation in the world has suffered
Speaker 2: some form of an invasion at one point or another
Speaker 2: right throughout history. You know, I think we're probably past
Speaker 2: due for another one. And and I think I don't
Speaker 2: want to I don't want to strike fear into Americans,
Speaker 2: but I do want Americans to understand that this war
Speaker 2: that we're fighting, this environment that we're in, the technology
Speaker 2: that is being utilized, and couple that with AI that
Speaker 2: I do believe that we are going to really get
Speaker 2: hit with drones as some form of a drone attack
Speaker 2: very soon. I don't know when I agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when you look at it, you talk about
Speaker 1: how everything is already mapped out. A good example of that,
Speaker 1: I think is the fact that we have these very
Speaker 1: sophisticated systems in the Gulf States that were there, and
Speaker 1: some of the very first ones that got taken out
Speaker 1: there was I believe it was a billion dollar radar
Speaker 1: facility that was kind of the nerve center, the eyes
Speaker 1: and ears of these anti ballistic missile systems, and that
Speaker 1: was one of the first things that they targeted. They
Speaker 1: knew that we operate in an environment. Now, as you
Speaker 1: point out, everybody knows everything about everybody. All the stuff
Speaker 1: is exposed, and they know where the targets are and
Speaker 1: it's not that difficult. As you were pointing out, you
Speaker 1: got some get some very inexpensive devices to drive the
Speaker 1: drone and you've already got it mapped out as to
Speaker 1: where it is. And that's what they did at the
Speaker 1: opening rounds of the retaliation strikes from Iran, they went
Speaker 1: right after a lot of very high value targets and
Speaker 1: radar targets and things like that. And so that's something
Speaker 1: that's very different. As you point out, you know, in America,
Speaker 1: we've gone through a couple of world wars without anything
Speaker 1: happening on our soil. So we think, well, we're we
Speaker 1: don't have anything to worry about. But now there's this
Speaker 1: asymmetry to the warfare that I think is really going
Speaker 1: to bite us.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, well, you know, there's some information that
Speaker 2: was just quietly released about Iran taking delivery of over
Speaker 2: five hundred what do they call that, my gosh, starts
Speaker 2: with an S season missile or whatever they just took
Speaker 2: over from China, from North Korea, of North Korea. And
Speaker 2: these are hypersonic type missile that you can't you can't
Speaker 2: really shoot down. And they have taken over five hundred
Speaker 2: of these, right, they've taken delivery of all of these,
Speaker 2: and and there's and they can reach you know, here
Speaker 2: in the United States and most definitely Israel. Right, So
Speaker 2: you know, this this whole conflict with Iran, you know,
Speaker 2: I I hope and pray that this will be you know,
Speaker 2: this will be ending very very very soon. But we
Speaker 2: we do have a very high probability of this thing,
Speaker 2: you know, escalating out.
Speaker 1: Of looks like it's are you doing that in terms
Speaker 1: of reports carg Island getting hit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. So. One of the things
Speaker 2: that I really just absolutely despise is, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: on the mainstream media and a lot of shows, you know,
Speaker 2: you have these old generals and old retired senators and
Speaker 2: you know, people of authority who are very respectable people,
Speaker 2: but they're they're going out on the news and they're saying, well,
Speaker 2: the Trump's administration is going to do this, and this
Speaker 2: is going to happen, This is going to happen, This
Speaker 2: is going to happen. I was never a high level,
Speaker 2: you know person in the military. I mean I I
Speaker 2: was mischievous and I always got in trouble, so you know,
Speaker 2: I bounced off rank structure like a yo yo. So.
Speaker 2: But but I was a good marine. Right. But again,
Speaker 2: I just close my ears when I hear all this
Speaker 2: stuff because nobody knows the decisions that are being made
Speaker 2: inside the administration, right, I get that. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of fun to talk about it and speculate. But for
Speaker 2: these people that go up and just say, well, we're
Speaker 2: going to do this and this and this, yeah, I
Speaker 2: just yeah, I just I can't listen to it because
Speaker 2: nobody really knows. But if we're speculating, you, you know,
Speaker 2: this truly does with all of the things that are happening,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of things that we don't know
Speaker 2: that's happening behind closed doors, especially in Iran, that I
Speaker 2: do speculate that this could get very messy. And I'm
Speaker 2: hoping what is it tonight at eight o'clock?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, we're recording this on Tuesday, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, Tuesday, but of course earlier this morning, they
Speaker 1: already attacked carg Island. So I mean he's kicking stuff
Speaker 1: off and escalating.
Speaker 2: I'm anticipating, yeah, yeah, I'm anticipating that they're not going
Speaker 2: to have an agreement by eight o'clock tonight.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, That's what I'm concerned about. And again,
Speaker 1: the other thing that is concerning is that as you
Speaker 1: watch government officials, and I know maybe part of it
Speaker 1: is they're trying to project confidence or whatever, but what
Speaker 1: comes across is kind of a detached Hubris that thinks
Speaker 1: that we can't be touched, and that really is disturbing
Speaker 1: because that is an invitation for disaster. I think, whether
Speaker 1: we're talking about, you know, civil defense, and of course
Speaker 1: you point out the American government doesn't do anything about
Speaker 1: civil defense. So it's a great book about that a
Speaker 1: few years ago called Raven Rock The Plan to Save
Speaker 1: Themselves and let the rest of us die, not about
Speaker 1: how there was no civil defense plan ever really during
Speaker 1: the during the Cold War for people, and of course
Speaker 1: I don't really think there is now at this point either.
Speaker 1: You see other countries like Germany as they're trying to
Speaker 1: escalate the war, and it seems to me like Germany
Speaker 1: and France and these different European countries want to escalate
Speaker 1: the war and so but they are at least doing
Speaker 1: civil defense drills and drills about how to do mass
Speaker 1: evacuations and things like that. Not in the American government.
Speaker 1: They're not going to do anything like that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we discussed at the beginning of this
Speaker 2: show that there are at least one, maybe two nuclear
Speaker 2: warheads here in the United States. Act. Okay, fact, so
Speaker 2: we also have enough or carfentel in the United States
Speaker 2: to kill every man, woman, and child on the planet
Speaker 2: ten times over. And you've got to let that sink in, right,
Speaker 2: And I always said that it was just in the
Speaker 2: United States. There's enough phenol in the United States to
Speaker 2: kill every man, woman, a child in the United States
Speaker 2: ten times over. Well, the news, the mainstream media had
Speaker 2: done like a really quick blurb on that and said
Speaker 2: it's enough in the whole world. Right. So you know
Speaker 2: that we also let over thirty million people into this
Speaker 2: country in the Biden administration and there were some that
Speaker 2: were bad, right, So to say that we can't be
Speaker 2: touched is not something that I would get on board
Speaker 2: with because everything that we need to be touched is
Speaker 2: already here. And you know, we found doing the border
Speaker 2: work that I've done, we found that China was bringing
Speaker 2: shipping containers in through the cartels with you know, millions
Speaker 2: of rounds of ammunition and small arms, and the uh
Speaker 2: Iran and truck drivers were distributing those containers all around
Speaker 2: the United States. So, you know, again fact, not conspiracy
Speaker 2: or speculation or anything like, Like, I did the work, right, So,
Speaker 2: so everything that they need to do some form of
Speaker 2: nefarious assault on this country is already here. So are
Speaker 2: they going to you know, pull up a container ship
Speaker 2: and launch a bunch of drones out of a container ship?
Speaker 2: You know, one hundred percent intent, zero percent probability. You know,
Speaker 2: we have those big gray things off the coast the
Speaker 2: Navy that won't let that happen, right, So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just so many different I mean, we saw
Speaker 1: in so a tax i. Forget it was a Ukrainian.
Speaker 1: I think it's Ukrainians doing it to the Russians when
Speaker 1: they destroyed so many of those very high value planes
Speaker 1: on the ground. The way they did that was they
Speaker 1: had some semi trailers that had like a false ceiling
Speaker 1: in it, right, and they opened that up and these things,
Speaker 1: you know, they park them not too far away from
Speaker 1: the airport and then fly all those drones in that
Speaker 1: were hidden and concealed in the eighteen wheelers. So, I know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways that you can do
Speaker 1: things like that. Right.
Speaker 2: You think the Ukrainians did that by themselves?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. They really resourcel aren't they.
Speaker 2: I'm curious. Yeah, there's a lot to read between the
Speaker 2: lines there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there is, there is, isn't there. Well, again,
Speaker 1: things have changed so much and we don't really really
Speaker 1: understand it. And I thought it was interesting when you're
Speaker 1: talking about how a little tiny part can completely scuttle
Speaker 1: the whole mission of a substandard. We certainly have seen
Speaker 1: that with the aircraft carrier, haven't we the gerald Ford
Speaker 1: class that they had the toilet issue. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: they had not an Achilles heel, but they had Achilles
Speaker 1: something or the other right that caused a problem. And
Speaker 1: now we got the same situation with the spacecraft the Artemis.
Speaker 1: They were seeing their toilets aren't working. So we are
Speaker 1: looking at an SHTF kind of scenario with so many
Speaker 1: different areas, and it seems to be always the really complicated,
Speaker 1: sophisticated systems that they build that seem to be taken
Speaker 1: down by the very very simple bug that's in it
Speaker 1: somewhere right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was managing a project over in
Speaker 2: West Africa and our cost, I think our cost was
Speaker 2: like one point two million dollars a day. And there's
Speaker 2: these little fuses called Pico fuses. We had some Peko
Speaker 2: fuses go out in one of our subs and that
Speaker 2: dropped the whole entire project for about two weeks. So
Speaker 2: if you can imagine fifty cent part dropping one point
Speaker 2: two million dollar project. And boy, I'll tell you what
Speaker 2: some heads rolled over that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well it certainly is interesting. Talk to you.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your personal story. You've
Speaker 1: got a website, John B. Ferguson dot com. What's that about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that should be going live, I hope here in
Speaker 2: the next couple of hours. But you know, I have
Speaker 2: somewhat of an interesting story. You know, it came from Kansas,
Speaker 2: and I had a lot of sorry, my let me
Speaker 2: get out of here. So sorry about that.
Speaker 1: That's all right, So kind of like Dorothy got swept
Speaker 1: up in the air with the not a tornado but
Speaker 1: a drone. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, coming from a small town in Kansas,
Speaker 2: you know, I had lived under a stepfather that was
Speaker 2: very abusive and actually he tortured me, and and you know,
Speaker 2: I suffered through many years of that and it's interesting,
Speaker 2: but I have this story about all of this abuse,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up and and you know, my father
Speaker 2: rescuing me and and and that had affected me considerably
Speaker 2: and still, you know, even still to this day, you know,
Speaker 2: you suffer those you know, those effects, right. So one
Speaker 2: of the things that.
Speaker 1: You know how old were you when that was happening.
Speaker 2: Third grade, third grade when the divorce happened. And in
Speaker 2: my fourth grade year, I was an angry child because
Speaker 2: I was retaliating against this divorce and a kid was
Speaker 2: picking on me, so I broke his nose. So they
Speaker 2: took a box and they put it in the auditorium
Speaker 2: and they put the desk in the box. And for
Speaker 2: the whole entire year, I had to stay at that
Speaker 2: desk in that box and the auditorium and not you know,
Speaker 2: communicate with other and they would funnel all of the
Speaker 2: children in during the lunch hour next to the box,
Speaker 2: and they would all ridicule me, you know, for they
Speaker 2: did this for the entire year because you know, when
Speaker 2: they were going to have lunch in the auditorium, right,
Speaker 2: And so I missed out on my fourth grade year.
Speaker 2: And I always was you know, left left behind academically, right,
Speaker 2: And then you know, coming home, uh, you know every
Speaker 2: night to being tortured by my stepfather was you know,
Speaker 2: it was a it was a really ungodly uh situation
Speaker 2: for me, and I can't believe I actually survived the
Speaker 2: whole thing. But but then, you know, I was always
Speaker 2: kind of not really taken serious. And so when I
Speaker 2: got into my high school years, I had retaliated and
Speaker 2: I joined the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps whipped
Speaker 2: me into shape and taught me how to set goals.
Speaker 2: And so I came from you know this, uh this,
Speaker 2: you know, tortured young child and who shouldn't have ever
Speaker 2: survived all the way through high school and into the
Speaker 2: Marine Corps and then became a deep sea diver and
Speaker 2: ailating summerciable vehicles. And now you know, I get a
Speaker 2: meet with presidents and kings and queens and sovereign councils,
Speaker 2: and you know, I've tried to achieve and I try
Speaker 2: to do this and be very humble, uh you know,
Speaker 2: and not narcissistic, because those are big keywords for me.
Speaker 2: But now I've traveled to eighty seven countries around the world,
Speaker 2: and I've got to go and meet some of the
Speaker 2: most amazing people in the world. And I've been asked
Speaker 2: to take my story and get in front of those
Speaker 2: who who may need to hear the story of my survival,
Speaker 2: but not only my survival, but my abilities to achieve goals.
Speaker 2: And they try to become somebody and and here in
Speaker 2: the state of Kansas. You know, God willing, I you'll
Speaker 2: probably run for office here Burundi and South Sudan, have
Speaker 2: you know, asked if I could be an ambassador, the
Speaker 2: US ambassador to their countries, which certainly is a possibility.
Speaker 2: But I want to make sure that it's not about me,
Speaker 2: but it's about the survival, and it's about the willingness
Speaker 2: to really focus and try to achieve and try to
Speaker 2: get out of that nasty situation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that really is amazing. That story about what
Speaker 1: happened here in the fourth grade is amazing. My wife
Speaker 1: was a elementary school teacher and they had an open
Speaker 1: classroom situation, so she could hear couldn't avoid hearing what
Speaker 1: was going on the next room. And there was a
Speaker 1: very abusive teacher in the adjacent room, and there was
Speaker 1: this little kid who she just picked on him and
Speaker 1: make him stand in the trash can. Said you're nothing
Speaker 1: but a piece of trash. What happened to you is
Speaker 1: way beyond that. I mean, she saw that, and she
Speaker 1: said she went to the principal. She said, you've got
Speaker 1: to do something about this. You've got to stop her,
Speaker 1: and he goes. I know, she's very abusive, but there's
Speaker 1: nothing we can do about it. She's got tenure, and
Speaker 1: so carry got out of it was.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, step Daddy, you know, you would put aluminum
Speaker 2: foil over the bens in my room, which was the
Speaker 2: size of a closet, And during the summers, I couldn't
Speaker 2: get any air, and my sheets were sticking to my
Speaker 2: back because I'd sweat, and I'd stick my face out
Speaker 2: through the screen just try to get air. And I'd
Speaker 2: chew ice all night just to lower my court temperature down.
Speaker 2: And I in the same during the winter, but I
Speaker 2: was always kicked out of the house during the day,
Speaker 2: so I was never allowed to come back in. They
Speaker 2: would lock the refrigerator so I couldn't get food, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was whipped with a gite fishing rod
Speaker 2: and the hook had hooked into my leg and gripped
Speaker 2: my leg out, and I mean just all of this
Speaker 2: just horrible stuff that But I think it made me
Speaker 2: the person that I am today. And that's not necessarily
Speaker 2: like a good thing, right, but it's given me the
Speaker 2: strength with the Marine Corps. It's given me the strength
Speaker 2: to fight through it and not become a serial killer or.
Speaker 1: Well, its the Rain's not to fund a biopic for you.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know, I don't know. But the
Speaker 2: big thing is that, you know, I never really ever
Speaker 2: thought that I would stand on a stage and talk
Speaker 2: to people about my story, but uh, you know, I've
Speaker 2: been asked to do that by the Mexicans, you know,
Speaker 2: come up and talk about what they're fighting down south
Speaker 2: and the border, and you know this story, and you know,
Speaker 2: I've I've I've been in a situation I was smuggled
Speaker 2: into China because I was dying. I've I've flatlined, I've
Speaker 2: crossed over twice. And so I'm writing this book called
Speaker 2: nine Lives in County because of all of the different
Speaker 2: countries I've been to. I've been in situations where I've
Speaker 2: stood at the the edge of death and and I've
Speaker 2: I've tripped over that line a couple of times. And
Speaker 2: just recently, I just came back from an African nation
Speaker 2: trying to help stop some genocide over in an African
Speaker 2: nation that I won't mention, and I got dysentery and
Speaker 2: almost didn't make it there either. So this was just
Speaker 2: a couple of months ago. Wow, the hell of a
Speaker 2: diet program for me, though, I lost thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet that's one way to do it, isn't it.
Speaker 1: But you said you flat lined a couple of times
Speaker 1: and crossed over. You have a near death experience. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a few times, a few times. And that's
Speaker 2: why the book is called nine Lives in Counting, because
Speaker 2: I've been in those situations where I've I've crossed over
Speaker 2: into you know, I've crossed I've stepped over that line
Speaker 2: several times.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And and you know I've left my body. I turned around,
Speaker 2: I looked, I saw my body laying there, and I
Speaker 2: just remember this. It's crystal clear as it as if
Speaker 2: it just happened fifteen minutes ago. And you know, I
Speaker 2: just said the Lord's prayer and and I just said, Lord, please,
Speaker 2: not here, not now. And you know I have a family.
Speaker 2: I can't leave. I can't leave, not here, not in China,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh and and I clearly I survived.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people said, well, did you see
Speaker 2: the white lad And I said no, but I smelled
Speaker 2: a lot of sulfur. That's a that's a joke. That's
Speaker 2: a joke, okay, But it was a it was a
Speaker 2: very wonderful feeling to you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: yet it's kind of like you were laying there and
Speaker 2: somebody were stacking rocks on your chest and being crushed,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, somebody just started lifting
Speaker 2: those rocks off of you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But I I knew that that God had I knew
Speaker 2: he had other plans for me, you know.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, there's an interesting, interesting book by a pastor
Speaker 1: in Austin and he said, uh, he thinks this is
Speaker 1: something you know, the medical equipment that we've got now,
Speaker 1: he said, he thinks that is something that is really
Speaker 1: he sees it as an evangelism opportunity because he said,
Speaker 1: even though you got a lot of people interpret it differently.
Speaker 1: He said, if you look at what they're saying, there's
Speaker 1: some amazing experiences that some people have had, and some
Speaker 1: people who are different religion, they weren't projecting what they
Speaker 1: came across. They weren't projecting that from what they expected
Speaker 1: for example. And he said, if you if you look
Speaker 1: at it, the common experiences that are they said, they
Speaker 1: really line up with the Bible. And so he sees
Speaker 1: it as an evangelical tool, you know, to talk to people.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, it's it's not sufficient, but it
Speaker 1: is interesting and it is something that we're seeing happening
Speaker 1: more and more, I guess because of the ability to
Speaker 1: revive people of the medical technology that we've got we
Speaker 1: used to not have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I never made it to the point
Speaker 2: to where I saw family members or I saw God,
Speaker 2: or I saw Jesus or you know anything like that.
Speaker 2: You know, I you know what. Everything that I experienced
Speaker 2: was what I felt, and you know, I felt a
Speaker 2: huge presence, you know, I knew and it gives me
Speaker 2: shivers just talking about it now. But but you know,
Speaker 2: I know that that there's a God, you know, and uh,
Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about that. I know what
Speaker 2: I know. And you know, people can listen to listen
Speaker 2: to my story and they can choose to believe me
Speaker 2: or not. And that's okay because I know in my heart,
Speaker 2: in my mind that there is something so much larger
Speaker 2: out there and it's and it's peaceful, it's it's not
Speaker 2: it's not anything other than just warmth, love and peace,
Speaker 2: and that's all I That's all I know about it.
Speaker 2: And I know and I have this this feeling in
Speaker 2: my mind that that I'm meant to do something, you know,
Speaker 2: here in this life. Maybe I've already done it. Maybe
Speaker 2: I haven't done it yet. Maybe I'm doing it now.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But you know when I when I
Speaker 2: ultimately decide to check out, I will I will know
Speaker 2: if I've accomplished because I'm sure he'll let me know.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he'll let me know if I've accomplished the mission.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, it certainly is interesting to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And drones are one of those things that are really
Speaker 1: exploding in terms of their influence in our lives, and
Speaker 1: I hope it's going to be a positive one. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, we already have a lot of the one
Speaker 1: of the things that I find really fascinating. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of YouTube videos of course, people flying over
Speaker 1: volcanoes are going really fast with the really super fast
Speaker 1: drums that they can fly through obstacles and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so it can make some very interesting video of that's there.
Speaker 1: But it is something that has completely changed the calculus
Speaker 1: for UH, for war and UH and also for terrorism,
Speaker 1: and it's something we should really pay attention to. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us again. John Ferguson before
Speaker 1: we go, tell us briefly a little bit about the
Speaker 1: coffee Java, John's dot net or Java, is it John
Speaker 1: or John's. I think it's John.
Speaker 2: It's Java, John's with an sky.
Speaker 1: That's something about that.
Speaker 2: Piloting submersible vehicles, traveling around the world two thousand and
Speaker 2: two was kind of a different time, somewhat different than
Speaker 2: it is now. But I wanted to just stop traveling
Speaker 2: as much and get home. So I started a coffee roastery,
Speaker 2: and my wife and I ran it, and it's still
Speaker 2: in operation today. So we roast fresh coffee daily. And
Speaker 2: I actually consider myself one of the first Patriots coffee
Speaker 2: companies because during the war, my platoon commander, he was
Speaker 2: on his sixth tour in Iraq and he had suffered
Speaker 2: a traumatic brain injury, and he started the Wounded Warriors Regiment,
Speaker 2: not the Wounded Warriors nonprofit, but the regiment. So he
Speaker 2: was helping injured men and women come home. So I
Speaker 2: wanted to do the same. So we decided to build
Speaker 2: a chopper, a motorcycle called the Chopper of Honor in
Speaker 2: honor of all of those men and women who have
Speaker 2: you know, been injured or killed in the war, and
Speaker 2: I would take their story and I would put their
Speaker 2: picture and their story on the coffee bag, and we
Speaker 2: would sell those coffee bags and the proceeds would go
Speaker 2: to those families. So and I still do that today.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we've we've been roasting coffee since two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, and I'm starting to scale the company now,
Speaker 2: you know, along with Saxon, the you know, the drone company.
Speaker 2: But I think it's important that we just do our part.
Speaker 2: We try to create jobs, growth and help those that
Speaker 2: need it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's pretty good track record you've got there. You've
Speaker 1: gone for twenty four years, I guess, and so that's
Speaker 1: pretty good for a business. A lot of businesses don't
Speaker 1: make it that long. You know, the first five years
Speaker 1: is really critical. Tell me a little bit about since
Speaker 1: you got a small business and you're doing coffee and
Speaker 1: you've got to import that, how are the tariffs affecting
Speaker 1: you and you know, and what what do you think
Speaker 1: is what are you looking for in your business in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, we're going to see I think
Speaker 1: transportation costs explode here in the next few months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what are you thinking about as a small businessman
Speaker 1: when you look at all this economic chaos that's being
Speaker 1: unleashed on the world right now.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. You know, I'm an optimistic individual, but
Speaker 2: I'm only optimistic in til it affects my checkbook. But
Speaker 2: you know, coffee prices have gone up, you know, considerably.
Speaker 2: Where I'm being affected more is we were manufacturing our
Speaker 2: our drones in Poland. But then we've we've we've fell
Speaker 2: out of love with those folks because they were selling
Speaker 2: our aircraft behind our backs, and you know, they were
Speaker 2: they were doing us pretty dirty. So we and then
Speaker 2: of course when President Trump got back in office, and
Speaker 2: of course we are really undergoing the Made in America initiative,
Speaker 2: we decided it was just a good time for us
Speaker 2: to repatriate our manufacturing back here to the United States.
Speaker 2: And that's why we're absolutely we're doing that right now.
Speaker 2: So everything's just gone up. The transportation prices are just
Speaker 2: un bearable, you know, this the fuel price and everything.
Speaker 1: And what about being able to get components, you know,
Speaker 1: and it turns even things like aluminum that's being affected
Speaker 1: by what's happening in the Gulf right now.
Speaker 2: Are you having any shortage chet everything? Well, you know, again,
Speaker 2: it's the tariffs are a huge issue. But right now,
Speaker 2: you know, we're getting requests for drones, for very inexpensive drones.
Speaker 2: We're not getting a request for like two or three
Speaker 2: or five or ten. We're getting requests for fourteen hundred,
Speaker 2: five thousand, seven ten thousand drones at a whack.
Speaker 1: Right, what are people doing with that many drones?
Speaker 2: Were sending them to the battlefield or.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's the government that's doing that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, or or interceptor type drones so that you know,
Speaker 2: they can intercept drone on drone, which is literally what
Speaker 2: I was saying at the beginning of our interview here.
Speaker 2: But the problem is that the we have this thing
Speaker 2: is nda compliant. They have to be made in America.
Speaker 2: And that's okay, that's that's wonderful, but it's more expensive.
Speaker 2: The problem is that all of the lithium batteries that
Speaker 2: we use, all of the lithium cells are they're manufactured
Speaker 2: in in China, right, All of the most is the copper,
Speaker 2: the windings, the magnets, you know, those are all manufactured
Speaker 2: in China. So we're really being stifled by not only
Speaker 2: the disruption in the relationship between China and the United
Speaker 2: States right now. But also all of these conflict that
Speaker 2: are happening around the world are there's this massive influx
Speaker 2: of requirements for drones, and these manufacturing companies that are
Speaker 2: manufacturing these components they can't keep up. So it's a
Speaker 2: great industry to be in because you're busy, but it's
Speaker 2: not great when you can't fulfill the requirements that you
Speaker 2: have here in the United States, right So, it doesn't
Speaker 2: do any good to get in order for five thousand
Speaker 2: drones and get them delivered in a month or two
Speaker 2: or three or six when you can't get them.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do any good to have domestic drones if
Speaker 1: you don't have any source of domestic batteries to run
Speaker 1: them with. That was my whole issue with the tariff stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well your goal is this, but you
Speaker 1: don't even have a way to get there. You're just
Speaker 1: going to slam the door shut on what's coming in
Speaker 1: right now without having prepared to make sure that you
Speaker 1: got the raw materials, to make sure that you've got
Speaker 1: the components that are not manufactured here. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't do it all at once. Well, I've said so
Speaker 1: many times, we need to send a copy of Leonard
Speaker 1: Reid's eye pencil to the White House.
Speaker 2: You know, the Chinese, they subsidize their drone technology. I mean,
Speaker 2: they've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of really smart
Speaker 2: engineers just sitting around thinking up, you know, cool stuff
Speaker 2: to do, right, And that's why they're leading in the
Speaker 2: drone industry on the commercial side, not so much the
Speaker 2: military side, the commercial side. And you know, with all
Speaker 2: of the tariff stuff that Trump's doing, and all of
Speaker 2: the investment that he's bringing back into the country, and
Speaker 2: all of the dose stuff, and there's all there's all
Speaker 2: this money that's supposed to be coming into the United States.
Speaker 2: You know, why don't we just shave off two or
Speaker 2: three you know, billion of that and invest that into
Speaker 2: our drone manufacturing facilities that are manufacturing American made drones
Speaker 2: here in America. You're creating jobs, you're creating growth, you're
Speaker 2: creating sustainability, you're making people happy, and you have you
Speaker 2: would be building one of the most incredible defensive defensive
Speaker 2: technologies in the United States. So why don't we do that?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I would do, But I'm not
Speaker 2: in the White House.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not in the White House. Either, my approach
Speaker 1: would be just to get the government off of our back.
Speaker 1: And I think we kind of figured out ourselves that
Speaker 1: seemed to always be the advantage that Americans had over
Speaker 1: planned economies where the government's going to decide, because usually
Speaker 1: what happens with the government, we see with our own
Speaker 1: is a malinvestment. I mean, you can see malinvestment with
Speaker 1: China in terms of the housing market and the real
Speaker 1: estate market that they did there. But so yeah, my
Speaker 1: instinct is always go back to the free market. How
Speaker 1: about if we get freer rather than more subsidized. That's
Speaker 1: kind of my bias as I look at it.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sorry. I again, I have been working
Speaker 2: in these Central African nations for many, many, many years.
Speaker 2: You know, I got sick and tired of dealing with
Speaker 2: the United States bureaucracy. Right when the drone stuff came out,
Speaker 2: the FAA had a very challenging job, and that's how
Speaker 2: to integrate these into our airspace. And I knew that
Speaker 2: the FAA was going to have to stifle drone growth
Speaker 2: in America. Right, so I went overseas, and we have
Speaker 2: this thing called bb loss beyond visual line of sight
Speaker 2: and everybody was like, oh my gosh, I want to
Speaker 2: do bb loss. You know, well, I've been doing it
Speaker 2: for years overseas because I wasn't going to be stifled
Speaker 2: by the FAA, right, And again, nothing bad about the FAA.
Speaker 2: They have to do it right or they're going to
Speaker 2: cause you know, loss of life. Right. So here in
Speaker 2: the United States, I go and work in these Central
Speaker 2: African nations to try to you know, build relationships between
Speaker 2: these African nations and the United States and US because
Speaker 2: I don't want to rely specifically on our economy. I
Speaker 2: want to merge two economies so we can all grow together.
Speaker 2: And like, we get African water machines that make water
Speaker 2: out of humidity. So there's African villages out there that
Speaker 2: have never had a clean glass of drinking water their
Speaker 2: entire lives. So we bring these water machines over there
Speaker 2: and they get to have a clean glass of water,
Speaker 2: something that we take advantage of here in America. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I try to think outside the box and not
Speaker 2: just specifically in our own economy. I like to create multiple,
Speaker 2: many economies and that way everyone gets to benefit.
Speaker 1: And I think this was missing with this Fortress America approach.
Speaker 1: That is there. You know, we just can't understand how
Speaker 1: when we interconnect with things and we have free trade
Speaker 1: and we have freedom to do things, what a powerful
Speaker 1: thing that is. But if you're going to shut it down,
Speaker 1: and if you're going to get territorial and tribal about
Speaker 1: things and you're going to regulate everything, you're going to
Speaker 1: regulate it to death. And that's what I'm afraid we're
Speaker 1: seeing right now. But we're way over time, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need to cut this off. But it's been really
Speaker 1: fascinating talking to you, John Ferguson, and again the website
Speaker 1: so Or he's got Java John's dot net, saxons Onmann
Speaker 1: dot com where you can see the kinds of drones
Speaker 1: that they manufacture there and if you want to hear
Speaker 1: his life story, he's working on John Bferguson dot com.
Speaker 1: I'll be checking that out. Thank you so much, John,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating talking to you.
Speaker 2: It's been wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Likewise, thank you, byebye. The common Man they created common Core,
Speaker 1: dumbed down our children. They created comment Past track and
Speaker 1: Control us their Commons project to make sure the commoners
Speaker 1: own nothing and the communist future. They see the common
Speaker 1: man as simple, unsophisticated ordinary. But each of us has
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