WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:06.679
<v Speaker 1>Literally thousands and thousands of pages. And at the same time,

2
00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:10.119
<v Speaker 1>while all of this is going on, it's sightings and

3
00:00:10.759 --> 00:00:15.919
<v Speaker 1>personal experiences and encounters. There was a strong interest in

4
00:00:16.120 --> 00:00:20.960
<v Speaker 1>the possibility that the universe was populated by people like

5
00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:24.440
<v Speaker 1>ourselves WHI, which was an idea that started in ancient

6
00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:30.399
<v Speaker 1>Greece in the in a philosophical school called atomism, in

7
00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:34.600
<v Speaker 1>which they truly believed that the world consisted of atoms,

8
00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.759
<v Speaker 1>that material objects consisted of atoms that had swirled around

9
00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:43.039
<v Speaker 1>and come together to form what we see as people

10
00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:47.759
<v Speaker 1>and things and whatever parts of the Earth. And they

11
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:51.880
<v Speaker 1>thought that this probably had happened also elsewhere in space.

12
00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:54.359
<v Speaker 1>So they reached the conclusion that there are other planets

13
00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:58.479
<v Speaker 1>very similar to ours and inhabited like ours. And this

14
00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:03.240
<v Speaker 1>is an idea that kept recurring throughout time in medieval

15
00:01:03.320 --> 00:01:08.480
<v Speaker 1>In the medieval period, it was debated among theologians who

16
00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:12.519
<v Speaker 1>who reached the conclusion. Many of them did that the

17
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:17.959
<v Speaker 1>universe was probably full of extraterrestrial life. This opened up

18
00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:22.359
<v Speaker 1>another debate about whether Jesus Christ had reincarnated every on

19
00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:26.519
<v Speaker 1>every single planet and died an infinite number of times.

20
00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:30.359
<v Speaker 1>What I'm saying is that on the one hand, we

21
00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:32.920
<v Speaker 1>have the sightings. On the other hand, we have a

22
00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:37.079
<v Speaker 1>growing interest in the idea that the universe is teeming

23
00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:43.319
<v Speaker 1>with life. But not until the nineteenth century do we

24
00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:48.120
<v Speaker 1>see people starting to talk about maybe the things that

25
00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:52.120
<v Speaker 1>they saw in the sky were actually visitors to the planet.

26
00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:58.680
<v Speaker 1>And so interestingly, around the middle of the nineteenth century

27
00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:02.519
<v Speaker 1>we have the first story of artificial artifacts and sort

28
00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:05.239
<v Speaker 1>of objects that have come down from the sky, maybe

29
00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:10.039
<v Speaker 1>sculptured into the form of a human bust or covered

30
00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:16.080
<v Speaker 1>in hieroglyphics, very very Roswellian in their descriptions. So we

31
00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:21.560
<v Speaker 1>see the first signs of this around eighteen fifty and

32
00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:26.599
<v Speaker 1>that escalated during the rest of the nineteenth century. When

33
00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:29.800
<v Speaker 1>we get to the eighteen eighties, it's I think people

34
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:34.759
<v Speaker 1>spoke more about artificient objects from other planets landing on

35
00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:40.120
<v Speaker 1>Earth than they do today. It's an massive explosion of interest.

36
00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:42.520
<v Speaker 1>So I've sort of gone off on a tangent a

37
00:02:42.520 --> 00:02:44.560
<v Speaker 1>little bit from your question, I'm afraid, but it's a

38
00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:47.879
<v Speaker 1>really complex subject and there's so much to talk about.

39
00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:54.240
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, and how much of this phenomenon do you think

40
00:02:55.159 --> 00:03:00.000
<v Speaker 2>we have created with our own mind right, Because you know,

41
00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:01.800
<v Speaker 2>when you look back at a lot of these topics.

42
00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:05.240
<v Speaker 2>Like I mentioned earlier, with missing time and screen memories,

43
00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:07.840
<v Speaker 2>that all came from Bud Hopkins in nineteen eighty one,

44
00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:11.400
<v Speaker 2>and then after his book came out, everyone started having

45
00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:16.280
<v Speaker 2>missing time and screen memories. And then with Whitley Strieber

46
00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:20.439
<v Speaker 2>in his book Communion, after that book came out, everyone

47
00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:26.400
<v Speaker 2>started having great alien experiences. Right, So, through your research,

48
00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:30.240
<v Speaker 2>how much of this has been a creation of our

49
00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:34.719
<v Speaker 2>own perpetual thoughts and ideas behind it? And then how

50
00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:38.879
<v Speaker 2>much would you say would be actual, real phenomenon. Now

51
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:42.479
<v Speaker 2>I know that that's an impossible percentage to put on that,

52
00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:44.680
<v Speaker 2>but I just wanted to get your thoughts well.

53
00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:47.280
<v Speaker 1>As far as the sentenges is concerned, Yeah, it's very

54
00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:50.479
<v Speaker 1>difficult to get a number on it. But I think

55
00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:54.479
<v Speaker 1>that logically we can sort of estimate how much of

56
00:03:54.520 --> 00:04:00.240
<v Speaker 1>it in a sense is man made. I mean, if

57
00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:04.759
<v Speaker 1>you sort of compare it to something else like medieval

58
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:08.759
<v Speaker 1>knights and soldiers and people wearing armor on horses and

59
00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:13.719
<v Speaker 1>rescuing damsels in distress. We know that practically all of

60
00:04:13.759 --> 00:04:17.519
<v Speaker 1>the stories that knights in armor were fake, I mean fake,

61
00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.040
<v Speaker 1>They were literature, They were invented at the time to

62
00:04:20.199 --> 00:04:24.399
<v Speaker 1>entertain people. But that doesn't mean that knights on horseback

63
00:04:24.519 --> 00:04:29.839
<v Speaker 1>never existed. I mean jousting happened. They definitely were battles

64
00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:33.639
<v Speaker 1>between people wearing armor. But what happens is, of course

65
00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:37.519
<v Speaker 1>we have thousands and thousands of pages of fairy stories

66
00:04:37.560 --> 00:04:40.639
<v Speaker 1>about that. The same thing can be said about eupology,

67
00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:48.879
<v Speaker 1>because there were genuine sightings reports by astronomers. I think

68
00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:54.160
<v Speaker 1>some of the encounter reports, if they don't reflect dreams

69
00:04:54.680 --> 00:04:58.800
<v Speaker 1>and hallucinations, they seem to indicate that something happened at

70
00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:03.000
<v Speaker 1>some point, really experience things. But of course all of

71
00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:06.319
<v Speaker 1>this interest generated a lot of science fiction, and then

72
00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:10.480
<v Speaker 1>there's a There was always a kind of symbiotic relationship

73
00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:16.040
<v Speaker 1>between between what was reported as fact and fiction published

74
00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:20.120
<v Speaker 1>around the same time. So what happened was science fiction

75
00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:24.920
<v Speaker 1>or proto science fiction. Writers were inspired to create stories

76
00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:33.000
<v Speaker 1>about visiting aliens by people's reports and testimonies and probably hearsay,

77
00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:38.199
<v Speaker 1>and then as people read that that science fiction, they

78
00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:42.279
<v Speaker 1>would be these ideas would crystallize in their brain about

79
00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:46.800
<v Speaker 1>what was expected of an alien or a UFO and

80
00:05:46.839 --> 00:05:50.240
<v Speaker 1>so on, and then they would regurgitate this and come

81
00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:55.399
<v Speaker 1>out with stories that resemble those books, So we have

82
00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:59.959
<v Speaker 1>a situation in which there was probably a physical stimul

83
00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:02.800
<v Speaker 1>for a lot of this. It was something that was

84
00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:07.639
<v Speaker 1>absolutely real, But then so much jump was published and

85
00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:12.240
<v Speaker 1>so much speculation happened that much of that has survived

86
00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:18.160
<v Speaker 1>into modern day ethology. So, for example, the idea of

87
00:06:18.240 --> 00:06:21.560
<v Speaker 1>crop circles. So we know that a lot of crop

88
00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:25.199
<v Speaker 1>circles in the nineteen nineties early two thousands were fake,

89
00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:29.240
<v Speaker 1>or practically all of them done by university students, old

90
00:06:29.319 --> 00:06:32.240
<v Speaker 1>men with planks of wood and so on and so forth.

91
00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:37.120
<v Speaker 1>But the idea that UFOs could leave landing traces goes

92
00:06:37.279 --> 00:06:40.160
<v Speaker 1>way way way back, I mean even circular ones, and

93
00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.800
<v Speaker 1>then not only weird objects from the sky, but also

94
00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:48.000
<v Speaker 1>fairies and goblins. They also had an impact on fields,

95
00:06:48.839 --> 00:06:52.160
<v Speaker 1>at least in folklore, and left sort of circular traces,

96
00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:57.800
<v Speaker 1>as the Devin also did that in several folk tales.

97
00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:04.120
<v Speaker 1>So there's this constant sort of sharing of ideas between

98
00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:09.279
<v Speaker 1>what people saw what they thought they saw. Fiction created

99
00:07:09.439 --> 00:07:15.040
<v Speaker 1>about that, hoaxes, newspapers taking advantage of people's new found

100
00:07:15.079 --> 00:07:20.839
<v Speaker 1>interest in alien subjects. It's just so complex, and that's

101
00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:23.959
<v Speaker 1>one of the reasons why I've spent the last sixteen

102
00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:30.199
<v Speaker 1>years working on untangling it all very tall, It's very difficult,

103
00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:32.680
<v Speaker 1>but that's why I've been doing it bit by bit

104
00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:37.360
<v Speaker 1>and the research group that I founded in two thousand

105
00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:41.000
<v Speaker 1>and threes. It's always worked really well. People are still

106
00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:44.560
<v Speaker 1>finding things and sharing things. I think we've accumulated about

107
00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:49.519
<v Speaker 1>forty or fifty thousand cuttings over the last twenty years.

108
00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:54.439
<v Speaker 1>But some time ago I had to stand back from

109
00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:57.680
<v Speaker 1>all of that and start sorting through it and trying

110
00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:00.680
<v Speaker 1>to work out what was real and what wasn't. I mean,

111
00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:02.839
<v Speaker 1>the great thing is we're living in a period in

112
00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:07.000
<v Speaker 1>which artificial intelligence can help us map these things out,

113
00:08:07.199 --> 00:08:10.079
<v Speaker 1>find patterns in the data that would be very difficult to,

114
00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:15.959
<v Speaker 1>you know, for any individual to find just reading them

115
00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.879
<v Speaker 1>sitting in an arm chair. So I have great hopes

116
00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:23.399
<v Speaker 1>for the future in that sense. I'm actually beginning to

117
00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:26.439
<v Speaker 1>use artificial intelligence now to sort through the data.

118
00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:31.519
<v Speaker 2>So have you done any research into the thought or

119
00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:38.200
<v Speaker 2>the idea that this phenomenon might be us in our

120
00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:41.840
<v Speaker 2>military with highly advanced craft. Definitely when it comes to

121
00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:46.039
<v Speaker 2>the abduction phenomenon, because I've read through the Betty and

122
00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:51.799
<v Speaker 2>Barney Hill documents and Barney his first statements was that

123
00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:55.000
<v Speaker 2>it was a military and that he saw the military.

124
00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:57.799
<v Speaker 1>Beings with a very human nose, a large one that

125
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:03.559
<v Speaker 1>Jimmy Durantemo's said, Actually, yeah, it's I would say that

126
00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:10.080
<v Speaker 1>a percentage of modern claims probably come from stem from

127
00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:15.279
<v Speaker 1>some kind of military involvement, misinterpretation of what they've experienced,

128
00:09:15.399 --> 00:09:18.279
<v Speaker 1>and so on, maybe even some kind of military cover

129
00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:21.519
<v Speaker 1>up at some level. I can't deny it or confirm it, obviously,

130
00:09:21.639 --> 00:09:25.759
<v Speaker 1>but there's no reason to believe that every abductee is

131
00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:29.039
<v Speaker 1>making it up. But then there's no reason to believe

132
00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:32.559
<v Speaker 1>that what they're reporting is exactly what happened. I mean,

133
00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:36.600
<v Speaker 1>I've seen movies in which you get soldiers dressed as

134
00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:40.039
<v Speaker 1>aliens to carry out this kind of thing. I think

135
00:09:40.039 --> 00:09:42.360
<v Speaker 1>there's no reason why that where that couldn't have happened

136
00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:46.279
<v Speaker 1>at some point, Considering it's very difficult to find two

137
00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:48.879
<v Speaker 1>aliens that are the same and two UFOs that are

138
00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:54.600
<v Speaker 1>in the sky. It's it wouldn't surprise me to discover

139
00:09:54.759 --> 00:09:58.879
<v Speaker 1>that people in the military or at some other level

140
00:09:58.919 --> 00:10:03.440
<v Speaker 1>but experiment it with dressing up or at least putting

141
00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:07.480
<v Speaker 1>ideas in people's minds about what they've seen, so yeah,

142
00:10:07.639 --> 00:10:10.159
<v Speaker 1>why not, I mean that that theory. I didn't used

143
00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:14.039
<v Speaker 1>to believe in that at all, but I've read just

144
00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:19.919
<v Speaker 1>so much about about military experiments psychological experiments that it

145
00:10:19.960 --> 00:10:21.320
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't surprise me anymore.