0:06

Report them on identified blind on the on

0:08

identified. The real dynamic are they get weapons

0:10

being handed in. My our own are borrowing

0:12

of an anti. American people are becoming

0:15

more and more money and very

0:17

alarmed by the you Evo Tories.

0:19

And why use those Them All of

0:21

this has been kept from the world.

0:24

exploring, earnest, our future and the mysteries

0:26

of our universe. Com Brown, why can't

0:28

you explain to everybody and use allergies?

0:31

Screenings are disclosure. The future is now.

0:33

This is my guy makes from the

0:35

high mountains of Appalachia in a bunker

0:38

below ground. Lock on One and all

0:40

it is the Micah Hanks program. Glad

0:42

as always and excited in fact to

0:45

be getting behind the microphone and going

0:47

in pursuit of the anomalous. Another

0:50

week on the quest, my friends and of

0:52

course broadcasting around the globe by a podcasting,

0:54

apps and our friends over the next radio

0:56

network. You know, with all the madness going

0:59

on in the world right now, we're going

1:01

to skip all the dismal news and dive

1:03

right into the you a piece subject because

1:05

they've been a lot of developments in recent

1:07

days. And. Then a little later

1:10

in the program we're going to be joined

1:12

by Robert Power of the Scientific Coalition for

1:14

You A Peace Studies. He has a very

1:16

important new book out you F O's a

1:18

scientist explains what we know. And. Don't

1:20

know. so we have a lot to talk

1:22

about. Oh and before I forget. For.

1:24

Those of you who don't follow me on

1:27

social media a lot of you actually follow

1:29

me on twitter or X and that's where

1:31

a lot of the you A P dialogue

1:33

occurs. But many long time listeners out there

1:36

are no, I love science and especially the

1:38

side of science. the borders the anomalous, not

1:40

necessarily mysterious, Was. Certainly rare.

1:43

And. So over the weekend because my

1:45

brother and I have the same birthday

1:47

april seventeenth and Calebs wife also has

1:50

a birthday on April twentieth, we were

1:52

all celebrating together and we have gone

1:54

down to visit some friends outside of

1:56

Marion, North Carolina. And. we had

1:58

a big bonfire on there property and I was

2:01

doing a hike up into the woods in the moonlight

2:03

that evening with a couple of

2:05

friends and we start seeing these little lights

2:08

glistening on the forest floor and

2:11

immediately it dawned on me what we were

2:13

looking at these of course are the

2:15

very famous but very rare blue ghost fireflies

2:17

these only show up in certain places

2:19

at certain times of the year and

2:21

we were able to see these it's only

2:23

the second time I've ever seen these

2:25

before myself and because

2:28

of that they're kind of hard to photograph

2:30

too but I did manage to get a

2:32

couple of pictures which I put up on

2:34

my Instagram account so if you don't already

2:36

you might want to go ahead and follow

2:38

me mica underscore hanks on Instagram that's

2:40

my preferred place to share updates on

2:42

my ongoing adventures out there an exploration

2:45

of our world's weirdness and occasionally I post guitar

2:47

videos and things like that or videos of the

2:49

band playing when we go out and we perform

2:51

over the weekends so you can keep

2:54

tabs on all that stuff over there on Instagram but

2:56

now getting back into UAP news first

2:58

I want to just address the

3:00

recent FOIA documents that were released

3:03

by John Greenwald at the Black

3:05

Vault John's relentless pursuit of the

3:07

truth has resulted in

3:09

another very interesting set of exchanges

3:11

and these take the form of

3:13

mostly a memorandum for record that

3:15

discusses attempts by the all-domain

3:17

anomaly resolution office to get

3:20

whistleblower David Grush to

3:22

come in and speak with them now

3:24

yes these documents do seem to show

3:26

that arrow had I think it's fair

3:29

to say a little trouble trying to

3:31

coordinate an official meeting with

3:33

David Grush and unfortunately I

3:35

think that's been the main focus that most people

3:38

have placed on this they have said well these

3:40

documents show that this guy could have gone in there

3:42

he could have told them everything and he

3:45

seems to have done everything he could to prevent

3:47

that but I think really

3:49

it's very important to point out that

3:52

there is a deeper reading that should be made here

3:54

and this has to do

3:56

with the fact That David Grush

3:58

is also explaining in. These email

4:00

correspondences that were included as an

4:02

attachment with this memorandum for the

4:04

record that was released by a

4:06

four year to John Greenwald. Yes,

4:08

They also describe what David Grush

4:10

concerns had been. He was

4:12

afraid that some of the information that

4:15

he says that he knows and that

4:17

he provided officially and classified documents but

4:19

he provided as part of his whistleblower

4:22

complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General

4:24

last year there. He was concerned that

4:26

Arrow may not have had the authority.

4:29

For some of this information. And

4:32

the arrow investigators that he is corresponding

4:34

with say Yeah! We have been cleared

4:36

to receive all you A P information.

4:39

After which at one point in one

4:41

of the exchanges, Grush clarifies Yes, but

4:43

there are aspects of some of the

4:45

programs that are not explicitly related to

4:47

you. A P. And I'm not

4:49

sure if Arrow has the authorities to be

4:52

able to receive that. In. Other

4:54

words: my read on what he's

4:56

saying and this is remains a

4:58

serious point of contention and confusion.

5:01

But. I think that what Grush was saying

5:03

is that you and the Arrow Office have

5:06

the authority to be able to receive any

5:08

information related to you a piece. And.

5:10

The deity has clarified that. But.

5:13

While speaking to Sen Kirsten Gillibrand

5:15

during a Senate hearing, Doctor Kirkpatrick

5:17

himself said that Arrow currently doesn't

5:19

have Title Fifty authority. Now.

5:22

I reached out to the D O D a

5:24

while back and factors was right at the same

5:26

time that the Arrow historical Report came out. And.

5:28

To my knowledge, the debrief was the

5:31

only outlet that attempted to try and

5:33

clarify this matter. And in an

5:35

official statement provided to me by Susan

5:37

Gosh, she said again that yes, Arrow

5:39

has all of the authorities that it

5:41

needs. Which. Never explicitly clarified

5:44

that they had Title Fifty authority.

5:47

There. She also had conveyed some additional

5:49

information to meet. This seemingly was intended

5:51

to reassure me that they did have

5:53

that authorities. They. Had access to everything

5:55

related to you a p they needed, but I

5:57

still felt that the language was a little strange.

6:00

But I think a really important point

6:02

it should be made here is that

6:04

at the time that these email exchanges

6:07

occurred, this was right after the public

6:09

senate hearing were shown. Kirkpatrick made that

6:11

statement about Title Fifty Authorities and even

6:13

else as has been conveyed to me

6:15

he had been mistaken when he may

6:18

those statements. That. Hadn't been cleared

6:20

up publicly at that time, and therefore brush

6:22

would have been operating under the same presumption

6:24

that many of us have been for a

6:26

long time. And that was that He was

6:28

concerned Arrow did not have the authorities to

6:30

be able to receive some of the classified

6:33

information they were asking him for. So.

6:35

Despite what the Pentagon has said and how

6:37

they have tried to clear all this ups,

6:40

an important point is that even Sean Kirkpatrick

6:42

was allegedly confused. So it's no wonder that

6:44

David Rush would have been at the same

6:46

time. Furthermore, And this

6:49

is another important point. In these

6:51

documents that were released to John Greenwald,

6:53

we also have a series of signal

6:56

communications between Song Kirkpatrick and Chris Melon.

6:58

Now a lot of people. Have.

7:00

Been asking having ten they actually

7:03

release private communications between a

7:05

d of the official like Sean

7:07

Kirkpatrick and a former government

7:09

official like Christopher Melon, who is

7:11

now a civilian using a

7:13

personal cell phone for this communications.

7:16

And those communications can a signal

7:19

conversation be revealed. In. A

7:21

for your requests. Well. My understanding

7:23

is that within the context of how

7:25

these documents were released to John Greenwald

7:27

him. He's talked a lot about this

7:29

on Twitter recently, so he's already clarified

7:31

some of this online. But. If

7:34

the exchanges that occurred on signal

7:36

in question were merely screenshots of

7:38

that communication that were included as

7:40

an attachment with this memorandum of

7:42

record that was released as a

7:45

Foi request release to John Green

7:47

Walls. In. That context? Yes.

7:50

These. could be released that's exactly what

7:52

happened this wasn't just some bodies personal

7:54

device and their private communications with a

7:56

government official released and even their name

7:58

was shown know these were actually included

8:00

as part of an attachment with this memorandum.

8:03

So it's about the context in which this

8:05

was all revealed. But now that

8:07

brings us to another point. Because again,

8:09

if screenshots were taken and these were included

8:11

as an attachment to this memorandum for the

8:14

record, Sean Kirkpatrick, when he took those screenshots,

8:16

he knew what he was doing. One

8:18

might infer that he was essentially providing

8:20

a paper trail if and when these

8:23

documents ever ended up becoming subject to

8:25

a FOIA release, or if for

8:27

some other reason they ended up being released. In

8:29

other words, it's no mistake that these

8:32

portions of this conversation between Kirkpatrick and

8:34

Mellon ended up being released. They were

8:36

released because screenshots had been taken and

8:38

those were intentionally included as part of

8:41

a memorandum for the record. So again,

8:43

to me, one might infer

8:45

from this that the intention all along had

8:47

been, or at least we

8:49

might say the presumption, had been that Sean

8:51

Kirkpatrick and Arrow wanted people to see all

8:53

this. Now the really

8:55

funny thing is, if I'm correct on those

8:58

suppositions, then we would also have to presume

9:00

that Sean Kirkpatrick and Arrow thought that this

9:02

information getting out there through FOIA or whatever

9:05

else would clearly show how much

9:07

trouble they had had trying to get David

9:09

Grush to come in and talk with them.

9:12

In other words, it would clearly show that they

9:14

were doing their job and it would seem as

9:16

though Grush was trying to avoid them. Whereas,

9:19

in fact, given the context that

9:21

I provided earlier, again, not only

9:23

David Grush and significantly as he

9:25

states in these emails, his attorney,

9:27

Charles McCullough, a gentleman who I

9:29

have met at the Seoul Foundation

9:31

conference in Palo Alto last fall,

9:34

but also a gentleman who had previously

9:36

served in the intelligence community himself. So

9:38

somebody who certainly understands these laws and

9:41

the potential restrictions in terms of what information

9:43

can and cannot be shared. Yes,

9:46

he of course had these same concerns because

9:48

at the time, even Sean

9:50

Kirkpatrick was allegedly confused

9:53

about the title 50 authorities or the lack

9:55

thereof that Arrow had. And

9:57

so again, even if that had all been a misunderstanding,

10:00

both on Kirkpatrick's part and David Grush.

10:02

Grush was simply operating out of an

10:04

abundance of caution. He was trying to

10:06

ensure that the information he provided to

10:09

Arrow was something he could lawfully provide

10:11

to them. And so at

10:13

one point in the email exchanges, he even says,

10:15

why don't you guys just go to the Inspector

10:17

General that I filed my whistleblower complaint

10:20

with? And if you have all the

10:22

authorities that you need, see if you can get the information

10:24

that way. The reason for that

10:26

being not so that he could get around

10:28

having to provide this information to Arrow, but

10:30

so that he could ensure that he didn't

10:32

do anything unlawful, or that he

10:34

didn't get Arrow in trouble by providing

10:37

this information if they were not equipped

10:39

to be able to receive it. Again,

10:41

if the ICIG determined that this information

10:43

could be passed along to Arrow lawfully,

10:45

then they would easily have a workaround

10:47

for the entire situation. So

10:49

not only do these emails actually clarify

10:51

a lot of the concerns that Arrow had

10:53

had about why Grush wouldn't come in, now

10:55

to me it is as plain as day

10:58

why he wouldn't go in and talk to them. He was

11:00

trying to do the right thing, believe it or not. But

11:03

despite all that, they have tried to make it

11:05

out to look like he was just trying to

11:07

avoid communication, and therefore obstructing the

11:09

investigation, which frankly I do not think is

11:11

true at all. I think that if you

11:13

look closely at what these documents show, it's

11:16

abundantly clear, and he states why David Grush

11:18

did not want to go and talk to

11:20

Arrow. He was trying to work out of

11:22

an abundance of caution. But

11:24

the other thing that these FOIA documents

11:26

clearly convey is that in

11:29

the signal exchanges between Chris Mellon and

11:31

Sean Kirkpatrick, Chris Mellon

11:33

is doing everything he can to

11:35

be kind and accommodating of Sean

11:37

Kirkpatrick, whereas by contrast,

11:39

Sean Kirkpatrick seems like the

11:41

most irritable person in all

11:43

of history. I mean, it's a

11:45

bit baffling, Chris Mellon is going out of his way to

11:47

be nice, and Sean Kirkpatrick is

11:50

snippy and short-tempered, and so

11:52

here again I presume Arrow and Sean Kirkpatrick

11:54

felt that the release of these documents might

11:56

actually make things look good for them. If

11:59

anything, it only- shows how confused everybody

12:01

was about what Arrow could and could not

12:03

do, and it makes Sean

12:05

Kirkpatrick out to seem, well, frankly,

12:07

pretty miserable. Chris Mellon, by

12:10

contrast, again, somebody who seems to really

12:12

be trying to assist Arrow in its

12:14

investigations, somebody who's being extremely complimentary of

12:16

Arrow and of Sean Kirkpatrick, he's doing

12:19

what he can to try and help

12:21

facilitate this interview with David Grush. And

12:24

Kirkpatrick even turns around and

12:27

accuses Chris Mellon of

12:29

doing exactly the opposite of what he's

12:31

obviously trying to do, as evidenced by

12:33

these communications. Kirkpatrick tries to say, you

12:35

literally are hindering our investigation, so get

12:38

out of our way and let us

12:40

do our job. Now

12:42

interestingly, in the days since

12:44

that FOIA release came out, over on

12:47

his sub-stack, Chris Mellon, along

12:49

with his son, has published a

12:51

really interesting article titled Another Signal

12:53

Exchange. I want to quote briefly

12:55

from this article. I have it linked in the show notes.

12:57

You should really go and read this entire thing. But

13:00

as Mellon notes here, recently, as a

13:02

result of a FOIA request, the Department

13:05

of Defense released some signal exchanges I

13:07

had with Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, former director

13:09

of the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office.

13:11

The release surprised, but did not offend me,

13:14

because I'm a strong supporter of government transparency.

13:17

However, it also reminded me of another signal

13:19

message that the public might find of interest

13:21

that is also pertinent to the alleged recovery

13:23

of off-world technology. Now

13:25

what Mellon essentially did here was he got

13:28

permission from this individual to release a

13:30

portion of this signal exchange. He went

13:32

even further though, and actually had

13:34

it approved for public release

13:37

by the Defense Office of Pre-Publication and

13:39

Security Review. As Mellon

13:41

states, my purpose in releasing this document in

13:43

the wake of the government's blanket denials regarding

13:46

the possession of off-world technology is

13:49

simply to help others understand why I

13:51

and some others consider these allegations worthy

13:53

of investigation. In the

13:56

screen grab that Mellon includes here, we

13:58

see communication between an individual individual who

14:00

is described only as a senior U.S.

14:02

government official and Christopher Mellon. And

14:05

this official says, blank and I are

14:07

making huge progress getting into the crash

14:09

retrieval program. It's written as C slash

14:11

R. Presumably that's what this

14:13

means, crash retrieval program. He

14:16

plans to meet with you at some point. The

14:18

blank would be slight jawed if

14:20

they found out what we now

14:22

know. Christopher Mellon makes a response

14:24

after which the senior U.S.

14:26

government official response and says, right now

14:28

we haven't gone that far back. We're

14:30

dealing with the recovered UAP that

14:32

landed in Kingman, Arizona in the 1950s.

14:36

We're vacuuming up info as blank gets

14:38

read in. We now know

14:40

the management structure and security control systems

14:43

and ownership of the crash retrieval. We

14:45

also know who recovers landed or

14:47

crashed UAPs under what authorities.

14:49

We also know that a still highly classified

14:51

memo by a secretary of the United States

14:54

Air Force in the 1950s is

14:56

still in effect to maintain the cover

14:59

on UAPs. And then this individual

15:01

follows up by saying, we also know the SES-2,

15:04

who is the Air Force gatekeeper

15:06

and then gives the name. That

15:08

name is redacted. Although in a

15:10

small enclosure here, Mellon explains that

15:12

the name was redacted here, but

15:14

provided to Congress. So

15:16

this information presumably has been provided to

15:19

lawmakers. And as he

15:21

goes on to note, as you can see,

15:23

this senior government official claimed they were being

15:26

granted access to an alleged U S alien

15:28

technology recovery and exploitation program. I

15:30

won't comment on the organization they worked for, but

15:33

I can confirm the individual had plausible

15:35

access and was high ranking considerably

15:38

more so than whistleblower Dave

15:40

Grush. So this

15:42

is indeed a very interesting revelation. And

15:45

it kind of goes to show that while many again

15:47

kind of only took a

15:49

peripheral view of the documents

15:51

released to John Greenwald and said, aha,

15:53

see David Grush wasn't willing to come

15:56

and talk to Arrow, as

15:58

I hope I've already demonstrated not only. only does

16:00

a deeper reading show us why that was

16:02

the case and that in fact David

16:05

Grush was doing exactly what he thought he

16:07

should be doing based on legal counsel he

16:09

had been provided by his attorney at the

16:11

time and based on their

16:13

then current understanding of the

16:16

authorities granted to Arrow and what they could

16:18

and could not lawfully receive, yes,

16:20

there's a good reason why those communications,

16:22

or the lack thereof, between David Grush

16:24

and Arrow occurred the way that they

16:27

did. But although the Pentagon

16:29

has subsequently confirmed to me and

16:31

to others that yes, they

16:33

have all the authorities they need and Sean Kirkpatrick

16:35

himself even said that. Again

16:37

it seems to be a little unclear as

16:39

to whether they really do have all the

16:41

authorities. At one point in those communications with

16:43

Chris Mellon, Sean Kirkpatrick even

16:46

says that of course the limitations

16:48

in terms of Title 50 apply

16:50

only to the manner in which information

16:52

is exchanged, incoming versus outgoing. He says

16:54

of course we have the authority to

16:57

receive all UAP information but

16:59

in light of that I do find it interesting

17:01

that Grush and his attorney still had concerns based

17:03

on what seems to be ambiguity in the language,

17:05

stuff that still to an extent is kind of

17:08

confusing. But in addition

17:10

to all that then we have Mellon

17:12

come out surprised that portions of his

17:14

personal communications with Sean Kirkpatrick were released

17:17

but in the furtherance of transparency

17:19

he then goes on to release

17:21

additional documents that show communications on

17:24

signal between him and another high

17:26

ranking official, someone who actually outranks

17:28

David Grush and they're talking about

17:30

an alleged crash retrieval program. Communications

17:33

cleared for release through Doppser which he cites

17:36

as being part of the reason why these

17:38

inquiries ended up being made going all the

17:40

way back to 2017 in the first

17:42

place. There were people in government who

17:44

said they had knowledge of these programs

17:47

and guys like Chris Mellon felt that this needed

17:49

to be investigated. Alright that's enough news for right

17:51

now at least that's all we have time for.

17:54

There are certainly other developments I'd like to get into

17:56

but we'll have to save that for another time although

17:58

I do want to remind you if you are

18:00

somebody out there who has had

18:02

a first-hand encounter with something you

18:04

can't explain, unidentified aerial phenomena, and

18:06

I say aerial rather than anomalous

18:08

because we are talking about UFOs,

18:11

if you've seen something please consider sharing

18:13

your sighting over at

18:16

uapsightings.org. Don't forget

18:18

we are building a database and making

18:20

sure that information about UAP sightings is

18:22

freely available to the public for all

18:24

to see and for scientists to be

18:26

able to work with. And on that

18:28

note, here in a moment when

18:30

we come back we are going to be

18:32

joined by a scientist and a gentleman who's

18:34

been on the program with us before in

18:36

the past, Robert Powell of the Scientific Coalition

18:38

for UAP Studies joins us to discuss his

18:40

new book, UFOs, a scientist explains

18:42

what we know and don't know. All

18:44

that and more awaits right here on the

18:46

Micah Hanks program. UFOs,

19:38

a

19:40

scientist

19:43

explains what

19:49

we know and don't know. Welcome

19:51

back. As the UFO controversy

19:53

continues, it might

19:56

be good to shift our attention over

19:58

from the government and its investigations. and

20:00

over into the area of science because

20:03

right now I'm joined by Robert Powell, a

20:05

founding board member of the

20:07

Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. Robert,

20:10

of course, who's been with us here on the program in

20:12

the past has studied the UFO subject for 17 years. His

20:16

work is now encapsulated in this new

20:18

book, UFOs, a scientist explains what we

20:20

know and don't know, which

20:22

provides a scientific rationale for the

20:24

reality of non-terrestrial craft that

20:27

are intelligently controlled. So let's dive

20:29

right into things. Robert Powell, welcome back,

20:31

sir, and how are you? Hi, Mike. I'm

20:33

doing well and like always, I always enjoy

20:35

being on your show. Yeah, you know, I

20:37

know I've had you on quite a few

20:40

times and there's a good reason why you

20:42

are a return guest and also a frequent

20:44

return guest. You know, you've

20:46

been very influential on my own approach

20:48

and also the way that I try

20:50

to apply a scientific mindset, not a

20:52

professional scientist myself, but in

20:55

terms of applying scientific thought to

20:57

the way that we approach this subject, you really

20:59

have not only laid the groundwork for me, but

21:02

for a lot of researchers. These

21:04

are all things that are the focus of a new

21:06

book that you've written that we're going to be discussing,

21:08

which I have recently read. It's all fresh on my

21:10

mind. But first, I want to talk

21:12

a little bit about the next time I'm going to see you,

21:14

which is going to be in Huntsville, Alabama, here in just a

21:16

few weeks. And that, of course, is at the 2024 Anomalous

21:19

Aerospace Phenomena Conference there in Huntsville, Alabama,

21:21

put on by the SCU. Yes,

21:25

it's May the 31st

21:27

through June the 2nd.

21:30

And not only will

21:32

it be in Huntsville, Alabama, but for

21:34

those who cannot physically be

21:36

there, we also will have

21:38

a virtual conference,

21:42

which is a combination of using

21:44

Zoom and another software package

21:47

called Hoova. And

21:49

it actually allows the people who

21:51

participate to interact with each other

21:53

during the conference, just as if you were

21:55

at a conference. So it allows for some

21:57

great networking. Yeah, I enjoy

21:59

this. I've used that before in the

22:02

past. It's a really good way to be able

22:04

to interact with people, whether you're there at the

22:06

conference or whether you are only watching online. I

22:08

know a lot of us who are going to be there

22:11

at the conference, of course, I'll be attending. And I'll, as

22:13

it turns out, have a little bit more of an active

22:15

role this time than merely being an attendee as I was

22:17

last time. But indeed, I'll be

22:19

watching the app and interacting with people quite a lot

22:21

on there myself. And that's a

22:23

great thing because some of the conference organizers who will

22:26

be doing that will be able to

22:28

take questions and things like that from people watching

22:30

at home. And so again, I think that for

22:32

those who don't like to travel, ever since really

22:34

COVID, a lot of people have been doing more

22:36

of the online attendance for these kind of conferences.

22:39

But you're going to be able to see everything,

22:41

experience all of these excellent lectures, and

22:43

glean all of this knowledge that's going to be

22:45

represented at this event right there from the comfort

22:47

of your own home. So it's really important, I

22:50

think, for people, if they want to support putting

22:52

science toward this subject, to consider attending,

22:54

whether in person or online.

22:56

And of course, Robert, I guess all the

22:58

information is right there at explorescu.org. Right.

23:01

It's all at explorescu.org.

23:04

And I use that HUBA app

23:07

also. So even though I will physically

23:09

be there, I still get on the

23:11

app and interact with the people who

23:13

are there virtually. So you

23:15

still get to network with a lot of

23:17

the people at the conference. Certainly. And also

23:19

ask questions. You know, I mean, that really

23:21

seems to be a fundamental part

23:24

of the whole science process, is

23:26

making observations, asking questions. And

23:29

I think very importantly, asking questions from

23:31

people who maybe have a little bit

23:33

better knowledge or experience

23:35

in these areas. And

23:38

so with an organization like SCU, it's

23:40

really a great opportunity to speak to

23:42

scientists who are involved actively in various

23:45

areas of research involving UAP,

23:47

whether it's field investigation or

23:49

it's data analysis. You know, you

23:51

can interact with them and you can ask some questions

23:53

of the actual presenters as well. Absolutely.

23:56

So, yeah, I hope everyone, if

23:58

they're not able to attend, attend

24:00

physically, that they attend

24:02

virtually and interact

24:04

not only with the people at the conference,

24:06

but other people who are attending virtually. Indeed.

24:08

And of course, I'll be moderating portions of the

24:11

event and also some of the discussions so

24:13

people can ask me questions too. And just

24:15

like I would on the podcast here, I

24:17

always try to be interactive with

24:19

people and answer questions. But again, this is going

24:21

to be a really good event. And look, I

24:23

mean, speaking from experience, I was at the one

24:25

in 2022, Robert, you know, it

24:28

was a who's who in terms of

24:30

some of the key players who

24:32

were there in attendance at the event. I

24:35

mean, former government officials, you know, scientists and

24:37

others who were very active in this community. And I

24:39

think that a huge takeaway for many of us was,

24:41

you know, we'll all remember having been there in 2022.

24:45

And that's one of the reasons. Yeah, we

24:47

had the head of UAP task force

24:49

dropped in. David Gretsch was

24:51

there, although we did not know who he was at

24:53

the time. Isn't that something? We found out later he

24:56

was at the conference. Yeah, you never know who's going

24:58

to show up at one of these things. So

25:00

again, I look forward to seeing you and

25:02

Rich Hoffman and all the SCU team there.

25:04

And of course, everyone else will be in

25:06

attendance down at the Rocket City Tavern. And

25:08

all that information, again, is at explorescu.org. We'll

25:10

have that link right over there on the

25:12

website. Before we get into some of

25:14

the discussion about your book, I mean, we've had a lot

25:17

going on in recent days. And so Robert, your

25:19

opinion matters to me. I've got to ask

25:21

you the Aero Historical Report. It was finally

25:24

released. You know, many of us from

25:26

the early days of the inception of Aero

25:28

had had high hopes. And

25:30

I had reasons for thinking, you know, maybe this

25:32

is the government study. Maybe not really the one

25:34

that we all wanted, but maybe it's the one

25:36

that we needed or deserved. That

25:39

I think hopeful attitude of mine has

25:42

waned somewhat in recent days and in

25:44

part due to some of the issues

25:46

with the recent report. But I

25:48

won't say anything more about that. I'd love to get your

25:50

opinion about it. Yeah,

25:52

I mean, I could talk for 30

25:55

minutes on the problems with that report.

25:57

But, you know, just, Micah, the

25:59

report. Sort. It. Came out

26:01

with this statement that we have

26:04

no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence right?

26:07

But what? people? Forget. To think

26:09

about is like in science first. you

26:11

have to define okay, what evidence are

26:13

you looking for? So. When

26:15

they say there's no evidence. What?

26:17

Evidence for they looking for? Are

26:19

they talking about? No evidence in

26:22

terms of a crash saucer? Are

26:24

no evidence in terms of a

26:26

dead alien? Or. Are they

26:28

talking about something a lot more

26:30

scientific? Such, we do not have

26:33

any evidence of extreme accelerations in

26:35

our atmosphere that are beyond our

26:37

capabilities, right? And so because they

26:39

didn't define it, they can't really

26:42

draw a conclusion. But

26:44

you're. Beyond. That. It

26:47

was just filled with Arab

26:49

side. I put my twitter

26:52

feed up there. there's close

26:54

to us and grid errors

26:56

in the references know either

26:58

incorrect references are references that

27:00

don't exist or were you

27:03

know, wrong dates? Ah, wrong

27:05

names on individuals. If. This

27:07

had been someone's ah, paper.

27:10

In just at the university. I.

27:12

Mean it would have been a d minus

27:14

if if not I f for failure at

27:16

I don't think most professors would even have

27:19

read through the paper. When. You

27:21

open up your references. And

27:23

the links are all broken. Unicef.

27:27

Who does that? You put of an

27:29

excellent posting on Twitter a while back where

27:31

you had to miss run after the

27:33

report, mouth where you went down the

27:35

list of some of these issues, the gotten

27:37

dates, significant events and you a p

27:39

history rounds They got the names of some

27:42

of the former leadership of programs like

27:44

Project Blue Book wrong they had like

27:46

you Said Miss cited several different references or

27:48

I pointed out a few issues to

27:50

and wrote a lengthy article about you

27:52

in one of the key problems I'd seen

27:54

which was some of the flawed. Past

27:57

conclusions of efforts like the Condon

27:59

Committee. Simpli at restated in

28:01

the new report without any additional investigation,

28:03

but it goes a little further than

28:05

even the report itself because. The.

28:08

Media. And. Again, I'm

28:10

speaking as a member of the media

28:12

myself. most of the media that reported

28:14

on this and importantly, I think who

28:16

were first tasked with reporting on this

28:18

based on a briefing that was provided

28:20

to seven members of the media just

28:22

before the report was issued. They didn't

28:24

seem to be any fact checking whatsoever.

28:27

And again, this is a fundamental component

28:29

of the way that the media interacts

28:31

with and also covers these kinds of

28:34

developing issues. Any kind of an issue

28:36

you have to fact check, you have

28:38

to make sure that the information presented

28:40

is true and accurate. I didn't see

28:42

any outlets. Are doing that. It

28:44

was entirely left to members of the

28:46

U S O communities, and you and

28:49

Chris Mullin also has certainly done that.

28:51

is that concern you? That

28:53

there seems to be so little concern for

28:55

whether the information in that report was true

28:57

and accurate. That was

29:00

actually the most disturbing part

29:02

of the whole thing is

29:04

if you know the sunlight,

29:06

it's blogger twitter block. Ah,

29:08

that's The first thing I

29:10

notice is that these major

29:12

newspaper outlets outlets Washington Post's

29:14

Political New York Times. They

29:16

basically did nothing to double

29:18

check the information they were

29:20

provided. They just put it

29:22

out Carte blanche into this

29:24

day, To. This day? As

29:26

far as I know, none of them. If

29:28

combat in said, we examine this a

29:31

little more and found that they were

29:33

Arabs and. Yeah. It's it's really

29:35

concerning to me because again, if ever this

29:37

subject is going to be taken seriously and

29:39

we have to know the or the gnomes

29:42

in the unknowns, we need to know the

29:44

facts and the fallacies. Or, and it doesn't

29:46

seem to me that at least on the

29:48

general popular reporting levels. If. There is

29:51

really much concern about those kinds of fact,

29:53

and that has been a problem for a

29:55

long time when it comes to the subject,

29:57

and that's one reason I'm so glad to

29:59

see everything from. The recent government investigations to

30:01

the media's interaction with them and their

30:03

reporting on this issue and also how

30:05

science can be applied towards this. All

30:07

these things are address for comprehensively your

30:09

new books. You f O's a scientist

30:11

explains what we know. And

30:14

don't know Now listen Robert. Right off the

30:16

bat a lot of people would say well

30:18

thought things were called you a P now

30:20

and yet there's U F O as in

30:22

the title. Why choose to stick with the

30:24

old Us both other than the new you

30:26

a piece. Of a couple

30:28

of reasons, the number one reason is

30:30

I wrote the book. For. Not

30:32

just the whole world. But. For

30:35

the public at large and most

30:37

of the public at large still

30:39

thinks of these as you Athos,

30:41

not you ate pizza. That is

30:43

probably the primary reason, but a

30:45

secondary reason is it least for

30:47

me personally, The. Words You a foul

30:49

better describes what we're talking about in the

30:51

words You and Pete. You get into that

30:53

in the book a little and although that

30:55

comes up later in the book. maybe we'll

30:58

discuss their right for at the outset because

31:00

there are still a lot of questions about.

31:02

that's why. do you think the U F

31:04

O described these phenomena better than you a

31:06

P or on it in a fight Anomalous

31:08

phenomenon as we now understand that turn to

31:10

mean. While the cancer

31:12

and identified and novelist or nominate

31:14

could be any damage that could

31:16

be a ghost that has affected

31:18

be a the aurora Borealis if

31:20

you didn't know what it was.

31:23

I. Mean, it's it's. just. Is.

31:25

What this why? It's it's huge.

31:27

While you a foul calls you

31:30

for one thing it's flying and

31:32

it's an unknown. Object

31:35

flying in the atmosphere which is what

31:37

we're dealing with. Your on.

31:39

I prefer the use of that term to

31:41

again. we really all kind of know what

31:43

we're talking about. When somebody says you fo

31:45

there's actually to me more confusion about you,

31:47

a piece of them. I think your book

31:49

is, to my knowledge, one of the first

31:52

written references. That. explains sort of the

31:54

origin for that a modern use of

31:56

that it actually was traced back to

31:58

j stratton he didn't korea the term,

32:00

but he seems to have been the one who

32:02

first began to institute its use

32:04

in terms of reference to these phenomena

32:06

from within government. Now, he said

32:08

that publicly on television before, but I don't know

32:10

of very many written references to that apart from

32:13

the explanation you provide of that in your book.

32:15

And of course, you had gotten to know Jay

32:17

and spoken to him. You and I both met

32:19

him there at the SCU conference in 2022. In

32:22

terms of the scope of the government's recent

32:24

investigations of all these phenomena, do you think

32:26

that the institution of a

32:28

new name and also seeing the new

32:31

arrow and its institution, the UAP task force

32:33

before that, has anything really

32:36

fundamentally changed in the way that

32:38

the government has approached trying to

32:40

resolve these phenomena recently as opposed

32:42

to those past government investigations? You

32:45

know, that's an

32:47

excellent question, Mike. And

32:49

I didn't really touch on that

32:51

in the book exactly, but I

32:53

think the answer is yes. It

32:55

has changed in terms of the UAP

32:57

task force when it existed, right? Because

33:02

I believe, and especially from talking to

33:04

Jay, that the UAP task force, even

33:07

though they may have been more

33:10

secretive even than Arrow in terms

33:12

of giving information to the public,

33:14

but within the government itself, they

33:17

were really trying to

33:19

resolve what are these

33:21

objects. And they were

33:24

giving that information to Congress, which of

33:26

course is why in the book, and

33:28

I explained this, that they changed the

33:31

word to UAP because there

33:33

was so much stigma with the word

33:35

UFO that they were not

33:37

able to go before Congress and say,

33:39

we need to brief you on

33:42

UFOs, right? That would have been a difficult

33:44

sell. So it's much easier to say, we're

33:46

going to brief you

33:49

on UAP. Right Now we

33:51

are talking with Robert Powell. Again, he is

33:53

an executive board member of the Scientific Coalition

33:55

for UAP Studies, and he's the author of

33:57

this new book we're discussing with him right

33:59

now. Are you oppose a scientist? Explains

34:01

what we know and don't know. Lots more

34:03

to get into with Robert here in a

34:05

moment. when we return right here on the

34:08

mike, I explained them. So

35:00

what do we really know

35:02

about unidentified aerial phenomenon? With

35:05

Robert Powell our guest for

35:07

first call you oppose. The

35:10

I wanna know what we know and what

35:12

we don't know and that's exactly what his

35:15

new book covers will get back into That

35:17

and just a moment. First one our minds

35:19

you, if you aren't already an Axe subscriber,

35:21

you're only getting a half of the story

35:23

because every single week we have an additional

35:26

podcast that goes out and of course those

35:28

monthly specials. Pussy Get the

35:30

ad Free experience. When you become an

35:32

ex subscriber, you don't have to listen

35:34

to the ads uninterrupted play and every

35:36

week with all of the shows all

35:39

on your personalized Rss feed that includes

35:41

this show. Also some folks when they

35:43

sign up there initially confused they say

35:45

hey i'm getting the same shows is

35:47

what's on your public seed. Well.

35:49

that's because a lot of people have said i'd

35:51

like to be able to get all the shows

35:54

in just one place without having to subscribe to

35:56

to separate feed so when you become an ex

35:58

subscriber you get this show X

36:00

podcast every week and the monthly

36:02

specials all appearing on one podcast

36:05

feed and don't forget you also

36:07

get back catalog access to close

36:09

to a decade of those

36:11

podcasts dispatches from here in the heart of

36:13

the hollow earth that I've been

36:16

delivering to listeners now for quite a while.

36:18

So you've got a lot of listening to get caught up

36:20

on and right now we got to get caught up with

36:23

Robert Powell again. Robert sticking with

36:25

that subject there for a moment the recent

36:27

government investigations and obviously I'm sort of going

36:29

in reverse order with the way

36:31

that this information is laid out in your book but

36:34

I think that there's another significant point I'd like to

36:36

raise with you here. You

36:38

have been involved in the investigation of this

36:40

phenomena for a long time and we're going

36:42

to go back in a moment and look

36:44

at your experience with MUFON and how that

36:46

kind of shaped where you are currently with

36:48

SCU and the direction that the scientific investigation

36:50

of this phenomena is headed. But

36:53

you reveal in the book that prior to the

36:55

2017 revelations first reported by

36:57

the New York Times and Politico

36:59

that revealed the DOD's renewed interest

37:01

in all this. You

37:03

actually reveal that you had spoken to an

37:05

official who had worked with ATIP and

37:08

also that you had been preemptively investigating

37:10

what is now recognized as one of

37:12

the most widely studied and talked about

37:15

modern UAP cases and really one truly for

37:17

the books in terms of the history of

37:19

this subject going all the way back several

37:22

decades. I mean its significance still stands

37:25

amidst all those other reports and this of

37:27

course is the 2004 Nimitz incident. It

37:30

is a tremendously significant case. You were investigating

37:32

this beginning in 2016, is that right? That's

37:35

right. Summer of 2016 is when

37:38

I began investigating the

37:41

Nimitz, F-18, USS Princeton

37:43

incident as I like to refer

37:45

to it. Yeah, yeah. It's

37:47

an incredible case. I mean again in

37:50

terms of not just military encounters but

37:52

really more broadly speaking it

37:54

is one that is so significant and it

37:56

also resulted in a very lengthy investigative

37:59

report was published by SCU in

38:02

a nutshell. We've discussed this before in the

38:04

past, so maybe a briefer description

38:06

of why this is important, but can you discuss

38:08

the significance of that case and the elements that

38:10

really make it so worthy of attention? Yeah,

38:13

here's what really makes this case

38:15

worthy is not

38:17

only do you have witness

38:19

testimony, you have radar information,

38:22

and you have three instances

38:25

of extreme acceleration within a

38:27

four-hour period of time. So

38:30

historically, there have been incidents

38:33

where we have information,

38:35

sometimes it's witness testimony, sometimes

38:38

it's radar, where

38:40

we find an object

38:42

that's accelerating faster than anything

38:45

we can accelerate. And

38:48

so that's what really makes this case

38:50

so unique. I mean, the

38:52

first case were the radar operators

38:54

who said that the object dropped

38:56

from 28 to 80,000

38:59

feet depending on which number you want

39:01

to use, because there's questions as to

39:03

which of those numbers is correct. But

39:05

either way, it makes no difference. When

39:07

you drop in less than a second

39:09

from either of those altitudes to near

39:12

the surface of the ocean, you

39:14

are accelerating in extreme rate

39:17

of speed. It's like hundreds

39:19

of G-forces. One G-force

39:21

is what you and I feel right now

39:24

as we sit in our chairs. With

39:27

six G-forces, we would black out 13

39:30

G-forces, the wings of an F-35

39:32

are ripped off of it.

39:35

So you can imagine hundreds of

39:37

G-forces. So

39:39

that was the first instance. And then the

39:41

second instance was you have four

39:45

Navy pilots, right?

39:47

And these guys are naval graduates

39:49

from Annapolis. You

39:52

have two, one with

39:54

Fraber as the pilot in his WIDZO,

39:56

the guy in the back, who

39:58

engaged this tic-tac-shaped

40:00

object. And then

40:02

you have the other F-18, which

40:05

is sitting at 20,000 feet watching this

40:09

engagement happening. So

40:11

both pilots from two different

40:13

angles see an object

40:15

disappear from sight within two seconds

40:18

or less. It's

40:20

just basic trigonometry at that point

40:23

to calculate how far that object

40:25

has to travel in two seconds

40:27

or less to disappear from the

40:29

human eye sight. And

40:32

that is also hundreds of G-forces,

40:35

is what that calculation shows. So

40:37

that's the second event.

40:39

And the third, of course, is the

40:41

video itself, which was actually much more

40:44

tame. In the video, those G-forces are

40:46

in the 40 to 50 G-force

40:49

range. So that's what

40:51

really makes this case so significant,

40:54

is the quality of the

40:56

witnesses and the information

40:58

provided. And the one thing the

41:01

audience should remember is

41:04

when Fraver and the

41:06

other jet go to engage this object,

41:09

they were told where the object was

41:11

by the radar operators on the

41:13

Princeton, 50 miles away.

41:16

So they didn't just happen to run into

41:18

this object. They were directed towards

41:20

it. And it was there just like

41:22

the radar said. So I think

41:25

it's just one of the best cases in

41:27

UFO history. It's incredible. I mean, even

41:29

just hearing you describe it right there,

41:31

I still kind of get chills thinking

41:33

about it. And I've replayed, again, my

41:35

own mind's eye kind of version

41:38

of the events as they've been described. I've

41:40

replayed that in my mind over and over

41:42

and over again. And it is

41:44

truly just a landmark case. But now, Robert, you have

41:46

investigated a lot of those because

41:48

you have a deep history of involvement

41:50

with this. Again, coming from

41:53

a background in R&D and

41:55

also eventually coming into one

41:58

of the largest civilian UFO investigative groups. groups

42:00

move on and becoming their

42:02

director of research, you kind of predicated

42:05

your entire involvement and investigation into

42:07

the Nimitz case on years and

42:09

years of similar investigations of what

42:12

equally are some very important cases.

42:15

Let's go back in time and let's talk about

42:17

how you first got into this and

42:19

how you became really a director

42:22

of investigations for such a large group

42:24

and then eventually your departure from that. The

42:28

way I originally got into it is I

42:31

had read J. Allen Hynek's book when I

42:33

was a teenager of the

42:36

UFO experience. Excellent book if no one

42:38

has read it. It is.

42:40

And so, but then you know after

42:42

that you got to live life, you know,

42:44

go off to college, get a job, get

42:46

married, have children and

42:49

I was fortunate in that I was

42:51

able to retire early. So I

42:53

retired early and I made this list, okay, what do

42:55

I want to do? And on

42:57

that list one of the items was

42:59

go back and see if there's anything

43:01

to this UFO subject. So

43:04

I did that by joining

43:06

the largest UFO organization at that

43:09

point in time which was the

43:11

mutual UFO network. So

43:14

I joined the organization and

43:16

within I think a month of

43:18

joining it they posted a job

43:21

for their director of research. And

43:24

some of the key things they had in the

43:27

job, Micah, you'll get a kick out of it

43:29

was like tell us how

43:31

these craft propel themselves, you know,

43:33

that's your job as director of

43:35

research. Figure out where they

43:37

come from. Figure out why

43:39

they're here, right? So when

43:42

I applied I said, you know, these

43:44

three questions I'm not going to answer those because

43:46

we're not going to figure those out. I

43:49

said, you know, I can't

43:51

do that from a science viewpoint,

43:53

right, because it's

43:55

not something science can answer, where they

43:58

came from or how they propel. themselves,

44:00

right? Unless you got really lucky.

44:03

So I thought I'd never get the job. But lo

44:06

and behold, they offered me

44:08

that position. So I took it. And

44:11

that's, that's really how I got

44:13

my feet wet into the UFO

44:15

subject. And then within

44:17

just months of that, I

44:21

met a guy by the name of Dr. Michael

44:23

Swords, who really tutored

44:25

me in the scientific knowledge

44:28

of the UFO subject, because he

44:30

has spent his life studying the

44:32

subject. Yeah, which, and that, of

44:34

course, colonnaded in a previous book that the two

44:36

of you co authored, and there were a number

44:38

of contributors, but again, UFOs in government, which I've

44:40

always said is a favorite of mine. But yeah,

44:43

that was an incredible contribution in itself. Yeah,

44:45

so, so and I'm so glad I

44:48

met Mike, because he kept

44:50

me on the straight and narrow path in terms

44:52

of what was real and what wasn't on this

44:54

subject. Much like you've done for me, I think

44:56

really. So you know, the cycle continues. In

44:59

your new book, you talk about one of

45:01

the things that you were actually doing with

45:03

the MOFON data at that time, which fascinates

45:06

me, and that is the use of natural

45:08

language processing, and how applying

45:10

this again, this fairly nascent in terms of

45:12

UFO investigation. I mean, if you speak to

45:15

Jacques Vallée, he'll point out that again, as

45:17

a computer scientist, you know, we've had AI

45:19

for years, and he was studying the very

45:21

beginnings of our entry into that area of

45:24

study decades ago when he was working with

45:26

Heineck. But we can now apply that

45:28

to the phenomenon because of the level of advancement

45:31

we have. So the question

45:33

I have is, how did you

45:35

apply natural language processing? And

45:37

what did it help you do? As

45:39

well as what did it help you

45:41

reveal about the cases in MOFON's database?

45:44

Okay, so let

45:46

me give the audience a little idea

45:48

of what natural language processing is. Take

45:52

for example, if you go into

45:55

Facebook, right, and you use

45:57

the word bomb, and you use the word

45:59

revolution and things like that. An

46:04

FBI natural language processing algorithm

46:06

will pick that up. They're

46:10

looking for these keywords. When they see

46:12

those keywords, they go, aha, this is

46:14

something we need to pay attention to.

46:17

Well, it's the same thing on a

46:19

UFO report. When you and

46:21

I read a UFO report, you

46:23

can usually tell how strong the

46:25

report is, how real

46:28

it seems versus something

46:30

that perhaps is not

46:33

a true report, but maybe stars

46:36

in the sky or what have you.

46:39

So what we do with natural

46:41

language processing is we

46:43

take those reports that we know are

46:45

really good. And the

46:48

computer looks at the

46:50

wording that you used and

46:53

the type of words. And

46:55

you go through iterations

46:57

over and over of, OK, how

47:00

do you which words are the

47:02

good words and which are the

47:04

weaker words. And when

47:06

it was all said and done, the

47:09

words that were important were

47:11

words that were very descriptive

47:14

and non-prejudicial. So words like

47:16

azimuth, air

47:18

force, things

47:21

like that. While the prejudicial

47:23

words were words like

47:25

alien, mothership, those

47:29

type of words. So it basically

47:31

looks at the language the witness

47:33

used and the number

47:36

of witnesses and then makes a

47:38

determination. Now, that doesn't mean it's

47:40

infallible, but it helps us separate

47:43

out the 97% or so of cases

47:48

that are not likely to be real. And

47:53

segregates that into 3% of the cases, which

47:56

are really strong. And So I

47:58

Looked at those two groups. We separated

48:00

them and it was a distinct difference

48:02

between the three percent. In. The

48:04

Ninety Seven percent in terms of what was

48:07

described them, what they saw, As

48:09

an example, triangles. Are.

48:12

Much more often seen.

48:15

In that. Group. of higher

48:17

quality witnesses they in in the

48:20

regular a group. So.

48:22

It, it definitely works. Yeah.

48:25

That's also something important I want to point

48:27

out for those who have not yet purchased

48:30

your book and who I hope are going

48:32

to and will have a link to that

48:34

by the way in the show notes they

48:36

are but this there are a lot of

48:39

really good graphs, a lot of really excellent

48:41

data visualizations throughout your books. It will show

48:43

you what happens when you process this information

48:45

and how trends can be spotted and how

48:48

if you take a large database of information

48:50

involving you a P sightings that have been

48:52

properly vetted. And that again,

48:54

something like natural language processing is been

48:56

used to help maybe tease out which

48:58

ones are the best. qualifying cases for

49:00

investigation, how that data can be used

49:02

to show new things and how we

49:05

can learn new things even from old

49:07

cases. There's a lot of that in

49:09

your book, and that's something I certainly

49:11

appreciate. In addition to how you can

49:13

apply these kinds of organ fairly nascent

49:15

techniques, tools, algorithms, things like this, and

49:17

and as you point out in the

49:19

books, I mean we're just

49:21

beginning to scratch the surface, something that we

49:23

are so rust for new investigations and new

49:25

discoveries. and there's all the tools now available.

49:28

We just have to kind of go back

49:30

to the data and look at. It's not

49:32

something the to I'm bet you point out

49:34

in the book to Robert is that there

49:36

are certain criteria that the help us kind

49:39

of defined really good you A P cases.

49:41

One of those components involves high strangeness I

49:43

think is a jail and Hynek would have

49:45

called as can you discuss what That isn't

49:47

what it's relationship to a U S O

49:49

investigation would. Involve. Rats.

49:52

That so the high strangeness. What?

49:54

What's the value of a high

49:56

strangeness? And Fleming. tell

49:59

the audience what i mean by high

50:01

strangeness. Please. High strangeness

50:03

would be, I see a

50:05

disc-shaped object in the sky, and then

50:07

it turns 90 degrees and

50:10

flies with the flat face forward,

50:12

right? That's totally non-aerodynamic. Or

50:15

I look at the sky, and

50:18

there's a barbell flying through the sky,

50:20

right? Or the

50:23

object stops above my car, and my car

50:25

stops. These

50:28

are things that happen that

50:32

makes you believe the witness

50:34

because it's so crazy that

50:36

why would he make up that kind of story,

50:38

right? For example, a

50:41

witness says, my car died

50:43

when the UFO was there. When

50:45

the UFO leaves, it starts

50:47

up all by itself, right? OK,

50:50

you can make a car die with an E

50:52

impulse. We can do that today. But

50:54

once the E impulse is turned off, the car

50:57

doesn't start back up until you start it back

50:59

up, right? So these

51:01

are strange events that

51:04

we don't have an explanation for, but

51:07

they tell us something about

51:09

the witness. Why would a witness talk

51:13

about something that's already so strange with

51:15

a lot of stigma and add such

51:17

a strange component to his story unless

51:19

it really happened? So that's kind of

51:21

the concept behind that. Yeah, very good

51:24

description by Robert Powell, our guest, and

51:26

of course the author of a new

51:28

book. But I want you to

51:30

read if you want to be able to understand

51:32

the science applied toward UFOs. We'll have

51:35

that linked in the show notes. And Robert will be

51:37

joining us again here in a moment to wrap up

51:39

this discussion on the MacaHanks program. Thank

51:54

you. mysterious

52:15

technologies in our skies

52:17

and make no mistake Robert Powell lays out

52:19

the case for why we

52:22

are indeed dealing with technologies not

52:24

just swamp gas and balloons and

52:27

things along those lines. We're talking about

52:29

actual mysterious technologies

52:32

that sometime behave

52:34

in extremely anomalous

52:36

ways. So really

52:38

as scientists how do we reconcile with these

52:40

phenomena? That's what we're trying to do with

52:43

the new book by Robert Powell. UFOs

52:46

a scientist explains what we know

52:48

and don't know. Again I think this

52:50

is probably about as good an attempt

52:52

by a scientist as any that I've read

52:55

to shed some light on the strangeness of

52:57

a UFO subject. Robert

52:59

picking up right there on that subject of high

53:01

strangeness there is a really good example I think

53:03

that you provide in the book and

53:05

the pseudonym you give to this individual is

53:07

Gavin but he essentially is a contractor who

53:10

while in his civilian life on

53:12

a hunting trip he and several

53:14

others observed what you described earlier

53:17

a flying barbell shaped aerial craft

53:19

of unknown origin. There

53:21

was video attempted to be obtained

53:23

which although he didn't get a good

53:25

visualization of the object and what it

53:27

looked like there was still some important data that was obtained

53:30

through other what we might say sensor

53:32

capabilities that the video inherent

53:34

to the video and its operation that he was

53:37

able to glean from attempting to

53:39

film this object but there were a lot of other things

53:41

too. Can you talk a little about this case how

53:43

it came to your attention what it involved and

53:45

what you learned from investigating it? Yeah

53:48

this particular case was

53:50

actually brought to my attention

53:53

by a guy who was a friend of mine

53:55

by the name of Phil Leach. So

53:58

Phil brought it to my attention. He

54:00

wasn't move on investigator and the case

54:02

was so amazing as a fuel I'm

54:04

I'm going to fly up to meet

54:07

the guy I want to see, this

54:09

I want to talk to and purse.

54:12

Right? So I flew up to.

54:15

Get verified Basically that this guy

54:17

was legit. So. When I get

54:19

there. He is a d

54:21

out the contractor he he has

54:24

various patterns and does work for

54:26

the d of the he. He

54:28

has the entire engineering group that

54:30

works for him so that tells

54:32

me the guys legitimate Now he

54:34

wants to remain anonymous because. He

54:37

doesn't want to risk losing any of

54:39

as the of the contract but while

54:41

I was there he gave me a

54:44

tour of the deal with facility that

54:46

was building his equipment. Which. Was

54:48

really amazing. I had to act

54:50

like I was interviewing for a

54:52

job with him in order to

54:54

get into the Saudis. He showed

54:56

me around but well. If

54:58

it was raining so ah so then

55:00

the next thing we would go to.

55:04

Yale. His lab. So he

55:06

could show me his camp so that that's

55:08

a little background of. Okay, That

55:10

I know the skies for German

55:12

right? But here's the story, right?

55:15

He and in two guys are

55:17

out hunting black bear in Ontario,

55:19

Canada. When. He's

55:21

in the truck. In

55:24

the back seat and he sees

55:26

a light coming behind here. It's

55:28

about nine thirty at night. Drawn

55:30

on out blogging road. It's

55:33

so remote. Bit. The cell

55:35

don't even get a signal from anywhere

55:37

by. Your a lot

55:39

of a pickup truck at nine thirty

55:41

at night. going down and old logging

55:44

road and there's a light behind you.

55:47

In. Your first suspicion is a

55:49

helicopter. You're. Not going to

55:51

feel too. Well, it

55:53

eats right. It's like, who is

55:55

out here at nine thirty at

55:57

night? Doesn't sound good. So

56:00

they're continuing down the road. This

56:02

light comes around to the front. And

56:05

as it gets closer to them, it's within

56:07

about 450 feet based

56:09

on where the tree line was. And

56:12

they see that the light

56:14

is this gigantic barbell object,

56:16

about 150 feet across with

56:18

a kind of purplish plasma

56:22

that extends six inches around

56:24

the entire craft. So

56:27

the scientist, first thing he does is he pulls

56:29

out his Motorola phone so he can take a

56:31

picture. Well, as soon as he pulls it out, the

56:34

Motorola phone is like in a boot up mode.

56:37

So, you know, he can't take a

56:39

photograph. So then he grabs his

56:42

Sony camera, turns

56:45

the camera on, as soon as he turns it

56:47

on, the camera turns off. He

56:49

turns it back on, the camera turns off.

56:52

So it dawns on him that

56:54

there's probably some EM field that's

56:56

interfering with his phone and his

56:58

camera. So

57:01

then he, you know, he observes it

57:03

through the sight on his rifle and

57:05

spends, you know, several minutes just observing

57:07

this craft. And

57:10

then, you know, the craft is moving away

57:13

and talk about strangeness beyond just being

57:15

a barbell. If the barbell

57:17

moves, it slowly turns into

57:19

a circle as it moves away.

57:21

So that's pretty strange. Okay,

57:25

so it gets far, it's about a

57:27

quarter mile away now. And

57:30

so he says, I'll try my

57:33

camera again. So he grabs his Sony

57:35

camera again and he

57:37

turns it on. And this time it

57:39

stays on, right? And

57:42

the reason he did that was because

57:44

as an object gets farther away from

57:46

you, the magnetic field drops by the

57:48

inverse square law. So he

57:51

turns it on and

57:53

he's recording and he

57:55

thinks he's getting a visual recording.

57:58

But as a result, After the object's

58:00

gone and he replays the camera, all

58:03

that's on there is the audio. The

58:05

video is just gibberish.

58:09

So he suspects that there's

58:11

still enough EM field

58:15

to affect the video, but not

58:17

the audio. And there's

58:19

not enough EM field to cause the camera

58:21

to turn itself off. So

58:26

when I was there, we sat down with

58:28

the camera, hooked it up

58:30

to an oscilloscope, and we

58:32

looked at various frequencies

58:35

picked up on the camera. And

58:38

one of them that was picked up was every 11

58:41

milliseconds. There was a little

58:43

spike. It was indicative

58:45

of a low frequency that was

58:47

being emitted by the object. His

58:51

suspicion, and I would probably agree

58:53

with him, is that that was

58:55

probably an artifact of the

58:57

plasma interacting with the atmosphere. But

59:00

there's no way to know for certain. So

59:03

he still has this camera. He won't release

59:06

a copy of it, and he keeps the camera

59:08

in his safe. And he's still

59:10

working on it to this day. Wow.

59:14

A neat story. It really is. Nick, you

59:16

mentioned plasmas. If memory serves, the account that

59:18

you give in your book kind of describes

59:20

that there's sort of like a trail or

59:22

like a kind of a plasma sort of

59:24

tail that is emitted by the object. Luminosity.

59:28

And he believed that this might have

59:30

been the source of the apparent frequency

59:33

that you were able to observe on the oscilloscope. So

59:35

the interesting thing about that to me, and I know

59:37

that, of course, there would be some debunkers who would

59:39

say, oh, how convenient. You tried to film it, and

59:42

you didn't get anything. But I mean, there

59:44

are still other sensor capabilities, and it

59:46

very well may be that there could

59:48

be some valuable information gleaned from the

59:51

attempt to film the video based on the

59:54

frequencies that were emitted by the object. But

59:56

let's back up a moment because you mentioned that, again, there

59:59

seemed to be a high. high-power EM field. Can

1:00:01

we talk a little bit about electromagnetic

1:00:04

fields, you know, how they propagate, what that

1:00:06

would have meant, what the effects would be

1:00:08

on electronic equipment in the environment, all

1:00:10

these kinds of things. Brett, so if

1:00:12

you were in this strong EM field,

1:00:15

it's possible that that EM field induced

1:00:18

a current into his camera. So

1:00:20

in the camera, with

1:00:23

that current and voltage that

1:00:25

was being induced to it, when

1:00:27

he turned it on, it may

1:00:29

have immediately turned itself off, right?

1:00:31

It's a safety precaution. But

1:00:33

the only way we know that is we have

1:00:35

to get the designers of the

1:00:38

Sony camera to basically say, okay,

1:00:40

here's our, you know,

1:00:43

here's a schematic of how this

1:00:45

camera operates. Here's the safety features

1:00:47

in it, and here's what

1:00:49

would be required to turn, to

1:00:52

cause the cameras to turn itself off. You

1:00:54

need X amount of voltage, X amount of

1:00:56

current, certain frequency, whatever

1:00:58

it happened to be. But that's real

1:01:00

hard to do because most

1:01:03

of your companies, they

1:01:05

sign NDAs with their employees

1:01:08

because, for example, Sony doesn't

1:01:10

want Panasonic to know

1:01:12

how their camera works and vice

1:01:14

versa. So it becomes very difficult

1:01:16

to get information, you

1:01:18

know, at that level on

1:01:21

a camera system, for example. I

1:01:24

suppose that through experimentation, you

1:01:26

know, you could induce a field

1:01:28

in a lab environment, and you could gauge, you

1:01:30

know, what it would take to shut down the

1:01:32

camera and get it to operate

1:01:34

within those parameters and replicate the circumstances.

1:01:36

But I guess more fundamentally, my assumption

1:01:39

would be that there was a pretty

1:01:41

high yield electromagnetic field that was being

1:01:43

produced by this large craft or object

1:01:46

as it passed overhead, and even at that half

1:01:48

mile distance, it was still

1:01:51

capable of affecting the electrical systems on board

1:01:53

that camera and on his cell

1:01:55

phone. So I assume that's a pretty

1:01:57

strong EM field, right? Oh, a very strong EM field. strong

1:02:00

because I mean the

1:02:02

main indication of the strength of

1:02:04

the EM field is that you

1:02:06

have a six inch plasma

1:02:09

all around the object. So

1:02:11

that means you're generating enough

1:02:13

power to basically

1:02:15

create a plasma

1:02:18

that far away through the

1:02:21

atmosphere, right? And often when you

1:02:23

do a plasma it's in a

1:02:25

like in a near vacuum state.

1:02:28

So to do it in you know

1:02:32

a hundred feet altitude something like that

1:02:34

where the air is still thick that

1:02:37

requires a lot of power to do that. It

1:02:39

certainly does and you know these are some of

1:02:41

the other characteristics that you point out in the

1:02:43

book. If we look

1:02:45

at this and we kind of take a bird's eye view

1:02:48

of the various characteristics, hyper acceleration

1:02:50

that we've already talked about, you

1:02:53

know electromagnetic fields and other means

1:02:55

of inducing effects in the

1:02:57

environment. We have these high

1:03:00

strangeness factors. We have a

1:03:02

pretty good idea, a pretty good picture

1:03:04

that emerges of what UAP or a

1:03:06

UFO entails. So as

1:03:08

a scientist how do you think that

1:03:10

we should really apply our understanding of

1:03:13

physics, astronomy and other

1:03:15

fields to the study of these things

1:03:17

based on that kind of target package that you outlined in

1:03:19

your book? And you

1:03:21

know like that's why the history

1:03:24

of the subject is important because

1:03:27

if you want to set up a

1:03:30

system to try to monitor

1:03:32

and gather information. So if you know

1:03:34

it puts out a high EM field

1:03:36

then you know you want a broad

1:03:39

based spectrometer as part of your field

1:03:41

equipment that you're going to take with

1:03:43

you, right? And if

1:03:45

you know that batteries

1:03:47

can get discharged well perhaps you want

1:03:50

a fair day K around some of

1:03:52

your equipment to keep it you

1:03:55

know operating. So

1:03:57

these type of clues tell the

1:04:00

scientists how to set up its

1:04:02

system out in the field. Yeah,

1:04:05

these are all really really useful in terms

1:04:07

of better application of science toward the study

1:04:09

of these phenomena. I'll

1:04:11

ask you this too Robert, do you think

1:04:14

that past investigations or I think the way

1:04:16

I would word this would be how have

1:04:18

past attempts at applying science toward this phenomena?

1:04:22

You know, what have those shortcomings of

1:04:24

those attempts been and how

1:04:26

can we approve the way that we apply science toward

1:04:28

this phenomena so that we can learn more things about

1:04:30

it and perhaps also resolve the

1:04:32

broader question about what these things are and where they're

1:04:34

from. I think

1:04:38

like probably the

1:04:40

the biggest short-term

1:04:43

problem for most scientists

1:04:45

would be the amount of money that

1:04:47

it takes to really put

1:04:50

the proper systems together, right? So

1:04:52

you could put a proper system

1:04:54

together but the

1:04:57

odds of you seeing a UFO

1:04:59

right is remote,

1:05:02

right? You have to be at the right place at

1:05:04

the right time. But one of

1:05:06

the a system like this, you're talking about a

1:05:08

system like the one Galileo has developed that's probably

1:05:10

a $50,000 system.

1:05:13

Well, you can't how

1:05:16

are you going to you

1:05:18

know do this short

1:05:20

of building a hundred of

1:05:22

these systems. Now you're talking 50 million

1:05:25

dollars, right? And and you're

1:05:28

talking about maintaining those systems.

1:05:31

So there's an annual ongoing

1:05:33

expense. So it's

1:05:36

a big expense to

1:05:39

try to do this but that's why

1:05:41

I think Congress needs

1:05:43

to basically allocate funding

1:05:46

to academia and scientific

1:05:48

organizations to begin doing this

1:05:50

type of work. Yeah, it's important

1:05:52

of course that we have the DOD and

1:05:54

currently the efforts of the all-domain anomaly resolution

1:05:57

you know even with the issues even with

1:05:59

the baggage. with its own

1:06:01

current assessments, it is important

1:06:03

to try and resolve these phenomena in the interest

1:06:05

of national security. But again, my

1:06:08

long-term hope is really that we're going to

1:06:10

see more involvement from the sciences and perhaps

1:06:12

also a way that government can participate in

1:06:14

the subsidization of that. You know, perhaps we

1:06:16

can you know, uplift that effort with some

1:06:18

funding because like you said, it's not going

1:06:20

to be cheap if we really want to

1:06:22

figure out what all this is. I mean,

1:06:24

and it seems to be one of the

1:06:26

greatest problems that humankind has ever faced. Robert,

1:06:28

I got to say this is an excellent

1:06:30

new book. UFOs, a scientist explains what we

1:06:32

know and don't know and that's available on

1:06:34

amazon.com, correct? That's correct. It

1:06:37

is available on amazon.com. We'll have that linked in

1:06:39

the show notes. It's always such a great time

1:06:41

catching up and talking to you and I want

1:06:43

to congratulate you on this new book and everything

1:06:46

else you've been doing. And as

1:06:48

always, I look forward to seeing you down

1:06:50

there in Huntsville at the SCU's conference this

1:06:52

year. Yeah, me too. Looking forward to seeing

1:06:54

you again, Micah. And as always, there will

1:06:56

be some additional commentary for X subscribers, always

1:06:59

a little more to get caught up on

1:07:01

as you round out your week

1:07:03

in pursuit of the anomalous. And hey, you

1:07:05

can always get the latest updates from

1:07:08

yours truly over at micahenks.com and over

1:07:10

at the debrief.org. And

1:07:12

let me remind you again, if you have seen unidentified

1:07:15

aerial phenomena, please

1:07:18

consider filing a report. Don't

1:07:20

be one of the people who sits there

1:07:22

in the audience with your hand down. Raise

1:07:25

your hand. Stand up. Share what you've seen.

1:07:27

We will guarantee anonymity, but

1:07:29

make those citing reports over at uapsidings.org. We

1:07:31

might be able to help scientists like Robert

1:07:33

Pal if we do so. All

1:07:35

right. That wraps things up. As always, you guys take

1:07:37

care. I'm Micah Hank and as always,

1:07:39

until next time, stay stringed out there.