March 13, 2026 • 40 mins
Mark Rodeghier has been President and Scientific Director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies since 1986. He shares what he has discovered and learned over the years investigating the UFO topic.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 2 (00:09):
And the unexplained.
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(00:41):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hey everyone, it's and Ron and Each week on Beyond Contact,
we'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
As we talk with the top experts. Hian, Welcome to
Beyond Contact. I am Captain Ron, and today we're speaking
with doctor Mark Rodeger. Mark has been the president and
scientific director of the Jay Allen Heinez Center for UFO
Studies since nineteen eighty six, though he's actually worked at
the center since nineteen seventy four. Soon after its inception,
(01:31):
he works professionally as a consultant in statistical analysis and
data analytics. He has investigated a wide variety of UFO areas,
including cases involving vehicle interference, physical trace evidence cases, abduction cases,
especially the psychology and the sociology of abduction experiencers. And
(01:52):
he has led the KUFOS investigation for the Roswell crash
back and I believe nineteen eighty nine he did that.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Hey, Mark, welcome darkin Ron. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Great to see you, great to talk to you. You've
done great work. Again, as I mentioned, you know a
lot of people are sort of unsung heroes in this field,
and you carrying on the legacy at j ellen Heinek
is amazing. We like to dive right in here beyond contact.
So I want to ask you right out the gate.
You know clearly you've been looking at this phenomenon for
(02:23):
a long time, at least fifty three years by my math.
So I want to know, after looking at this UFO
topic for that long period of time, do you have
any idea what's happening.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
I have ideas that I might be or things I
might be leaning for. But let me start by saying
you know, I don't know what's happening. No one does,
of course, because we don't have definity proof or any
hypothesis my time travelers, extra dimensional crazy psychology theories, straightforward
(02:56):
alien By the way, aliens is almost the most straightforward.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Sure, there's no magic involved, nothing supernatural. It's just nuts
and bolts. They just need time and technology. That's that's easy.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Yeah. You know, something much hotter, which my Italian colleague
Massimotiaterni physicists thinks about, is living plasma, right, glowing balls
of life that actually might be alive. Let's face it,
that's further out then and again, just you know, straightforward.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Is visiting the much so I agree, I am.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Honestly open to any possibility because nothing's proven yet. That's said.
One thing that's happened during my career in the UFO
field has been but has become much more plausible that
aliens or their technology could be there. First, we know
(03:55):
about all the exoplanets that are out there, We know
about the possibilities life and extra biology is being studied,
and we know more about our biology and the the
idea of the faster than light barrier, which which still
holds despite romols. We don't know. If you can tratle
faster than light, it doesn't really make any difference if
(04:15):
you can have self replicating rolls, you know, and look
at the AI.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Was like a von Newman probe kind of thing exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
And so but it's super advanced, you know, way beyond
what we can conceive. And so they've had time to
populate the galaxy and if they're incredibly intelligent, they can
create artificial beings that are combination of biology and you know,
machine that they could ask that we could be seen
when things land on the ground and you have a
(04:43):
close encounter who says it's a biological creature completely that.
So therefore, you know, an extraterrestrial civilization have sent their technology,
you know, broadly put here. And the answer is, of course,
there's enough time for them to do it in terms
of travel, the technology would be there. The and the
(05:05):
the limiting factor to really these days when you studied
the Dragon coursion, it was usually a lifetime of a civilization,
you know, and it was, well, they live long enough
to do this. My answer would be yes, if they
start out sending out chromes like that and their self
duplicating they're working and functional on their own, they don't
(05:26):
need direction. Then they can outlive the civilization.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right that civilization could be long gone and blown themselves
up or whatever, and yet their technology is still gone.
And that makes more plausible sense to me than than
than just about anything.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yeah. Now, now that's said, Okay, you know our extra
dimensions possible? Yeah, maybe, and maybe there're something's coming directly
from there, are you know, is it? Are there possible?
By the way, I do think some of that, let's
put aside, a living plasma, but certainly to some of
the UFO events appear to be some kind of weird
(06:07):
plasma ish ionize stuff that we don't understand. The hes
style of Norway stuff and the sightings there, many of
them are like that. And that's one of the few
areas where it's almost like the UFO laboratory where you
could go there and measure things. The sightings happen regularly enough,
so I'm sure some of those are happening as well.
(06:29):
So it's it's a broad spectrum, but you know, I
still I still think a part of it is likely
to be extra for us with I would say that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So yeah, I've I've kind of moved to fifty one
percent sure that I think that that's probably happening as well.
You know, I think you've said that many of these
direct witnesses that have had these sightings, or even people
have had direct alien contact. You said that they're the
kind of people that you'd believe just about anything they say,
But when they say they saw a spacecraft or an alien,
(07:03):
suddenly we think, well, I don't believe them. It's such
a hard thing for people to grasp. Do you think
that's the problem or do you think it stems from this,
you know, incredible stigma and negative connotation that's been placed
on this subject for seventy years.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
In terms of believing witnesses exactly. You know, let me
start with something that even as a kid, it struck
me so back in the sixties and I was reading
UFO books and I reading citing it couch, and I
thought to myself, well, if this was anything else, we
would believe this Poston, because they would have a sighting
(07:41):
in broad daylight, without any strange stuff going on. You know,
they would just be in their car or someplace in
a UFO was zip by and they would see it.
And I would think, well, yeah, why should I believe
that they saw something? Now I'd become more sophisticated than
I know that there are nuances to this and people
make mistakes and so forth. Well, I think fundamentally the
(08:03):
ULFA witness data are fairly accurate when people report this
is particularly daylight siding, you know, nighttime sidings, and it's
no more difficult to side. Okay, as far as the
stigma involved, sure, it's way less than it was. I mean,
when when I was first involved in the field, people
would not want to report UFO sighting. They wouldn't even
(08:24):
tell their spouse because they were worried about what even
their closest person in the world that would think. And
that of course that has changed over time. It's so
easy to report things online now at various online reporting photos.
So but but there's a lot of stigma there about
(08:45):
the experience, not so much the witness I don't see
a lot of these days, a lot of people saying
much about the witnesses. A few and you know, a few,
but generally the the sensible critic of comments on the
on the UFO UAP subject simply, witnesses are mistakement, you know, Yeah,
(09:07):
they're probably the regular site. These are normal people, sure,
but people just make mistakes. It's anecdotal evidence. We can't
you know, count now close encounters strange experiences, you know,
that's a whole other area. When people have very intense
in counties, whether it's an abduction experience, so they they
(09:27):
feel somehow connected to the UFO that they saw light,
they feel a message.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
From it, or they blink a light and the light
blinks back at them. There's a communication sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah, those are C five cases where you know c
e foors or abductions and CE five or where you
try to communicate, like you said, and it blinks back
at you. Those are on a different scale. And that's
where going back to your first question about hey, what
do I think about that? I think where there could
be some other level of reality, you know that we
(10:01):
who fundamentally don't understand that is another component of this.
What I'm sure of is that the UFO phenomena is
not a unified thing. It's got many separate components, and
part of it could be this strange reality that we
can't lasp at all, and that even parapsychologists may be
more close to studying that over the years, you know
(10:24):
than than people in the UFO understood.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
We need to take a quick break here. When we
come back, we're going to ask Mark more about these
cases of alleged direct alien contact. You're listening to Beyond
Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact and we're
(10:56):
speaking with Mark Rodeger from KUFOS. Mark, this is one
that's even tougher than just the UFO sightings. We've been discussing,
what about this idea of the abduction cases or direct
contact experiencers. What do you feel is the best evidence
we have for this phenomenon originating from a non human source, the.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Best evidence, and there's not a lot of it. Of course,
are still instances where there is some external evidence beyond
what the people say, and I'll give you a couple
examples of that. But there are many cases where people
recover memories about their experience, not through it knows their
(11:40):
focused meditation, but they actually have some memory about what
happened to them. The first case that I investigated with
doctor Eine in nineteen eighty, my first abduction case was
one where a fellow was riding from a college and
Central ele No, visiting his girlfriend there back to Chicago.
Consciously remembered seeing the UFO, and he consciously knew he
(12:05):
had missing time, but he didn't remember a lot else,
and that that was an instance for hypnosis was required.
But there are other times where people remember even more,
but it's memories, okay. Better cases are ones where the
person had missing time and then missing time is documented
(12:25):
by other people where there's just no way that they
should have been missing, but they but they were missed.
Or there are they get up in the morning and
their clothes are on backwards, yeah from what they went to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Tay I've heard they have even like had not their shoes.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
On, yeah, exactly, or there's weird stains on the bed
now on. One of the difficulties is, you know, how
do you document push your clothes were on backwards? Because
basically you get up and you say, what what's this
and then you you know, you just take the clothes
off and put your regular clothes off for the day
and away you go. So these kind of things are
hard to documents. But think about it's the same thing
(13:04):
with that I said earlier about where this is in daylight.
Forget the fact that I'm not an abductor you and experiences.
But okay, if I wake up tomorrow and my jam
at bottoms are backwards, you know, I mean, I'm not
going to not notice that, right, I'm not going to
have done it myself. I don't sleep walk or something,
so it's clearly strange. And my spouse didn't sneak in
(13:26):
and I didn't do it, so their instance is like that.
Now notice the difference though, So you were missing for
a while, or your closer on backwards, or there's a
weird stain on you know that wasn't there? What does
that mean? This is the thing. We have UFO data
of all type sightings and so forth, and we have
the things I'm talking about, and of course people have
(13:49):
to have traumatic experiences. Yea, we might talk about that,
but there's you know, we know that some experiences are
not pleasant and not not the kind of thing that
you want experience. But does that mean that some other
intelligence caused it? Extra terrestrial? You know? The NHI is
the current term non human intelligence. So was it caused
by a non human intelligence and some kind or what?
(14:12):
And the answer is, the actual data doesn't tell you.
It just tells you something really strange happened. Now, there
are cases, one of the absolute best ones Steve when
though hypnosis happy to be used for those that It
was the buck Ledge buff buck Ledge case from Vermont
and investigated by one of the best, Walter Wett, who
(14:34):
also was the first investigator on the famous Hill case.
And so we got the case at Kupos and we
folded it onto wall and because we got a contact
to someone, is said, I'm having memories. I'm having memories
coming back to me about what I experience. And so
while contacted them and what briefly what happened is the
(14:58):
two camp councilors, the classic, you know, two camp counselors
at a summer camp on Lake Champlain and a girl
and a boy who were not dating. We're the only
ones that camp because the rest of the camp was
off with a big swim meet. There's just like that movie.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I said, it's right out of a script exactly.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, Okay, So they're basically they're alone, it's sunset, they're
out on the dock on the pier, you know, just talking,
not getting nothing romantic, and they see a UFO coming
toward them. And it's a good old of this shape
UFO and it comes close to them instantaneously. The UFO's gone,
it's dark and they hear the campers coming back. So
(15:38):
there they at sunset, they see the UFO and then
just boom, snap your fingers. The time is advanced. They're
still there. It's dark out all the rest. Because of
the circumstances, they never talked about the event. Okay, over
a dozen years go by until this fellow contact that
the guy contacts us and says, I'm getting these splashbacks
(16:00):
and I'd like to investigate it. So Walth works with
a good hypnotist, works with the guy, and up comes
an abduction case all right, without telling the woman involved
what happened. Walth finds the woman. She agrees, with some
reluctance to undergo hypnosis because she's not really having as
many flash better. She gets hypnotized and under hypnosis, their
(16:24):
experiences are very ingluous. Why glu you know, to show
you the congruence. And one she says, well, I'm sitting
on him like a chair. I say, bob over there
on a tape and he's laying there, but you know
he's got his shorts on, but he's sure he's off.
That's you know, that's just that. And then Bob says, yeah,
(16:47):
they had me on a table. My shirt was off,
and I glanced to my left and there there she
was there. It was cast No, you know, communication between
the two, between the hypnotists or anything. Now does that?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (17:00):
It doesn't prove anything, really, but when you hear that,
yours have to work up and you have to say, well,
I don't want to discount everything. And that's why I
think some abductions absolutely can be real. By the way,
that's a find name.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thought extremely Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Abductions could be real. That means that something some nhi
is actually abducting people. That's disturbing, it's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And you know, I also always love multiple witness cases.
Like the way you describe that case. That makes it
so much stronger for me. That two people and then
they end up having the same story. That's very compelling,
and I can't just dismiss it out of hand. I
agree it's not proof by any stretch of the imagination,
but I don't think we just throw it away. I
(17:48):
think there's something there of value. You know, I think
you guys, did a small study yourself on a group
of like thirteen or fourteen abductees that we're having regular abductions, right,
can you tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Back in the early nineties abductions with hot hot hot,
it was like everybody was looking into it, including academics,
and so I decided that we needed to do a
serious study about the psychology of abductees and sociology. Who
were these people. With a lot of work, we got
about twenty nine or something, but it was a small group,
(18:21):
roughly around thirty people. The bottom line was all of
them were basically normal.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
We used cluster analysis, which looks at variables and tries
to find similarities between groups of things. In this place,
the group was people, and we did find two groups
on the MMPI exam. One group was completely normal in
every measure, just like you and me walking down the street,
the assuming.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Work speak for yourself. Yeah, wait, come on, exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
The other group had some tendencies towards dissociation and so forth,
but nothing serious, not mentally ill, but they were a
little a borderline. But the bottom line was we found
a core group that were normal.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Okay. So you had these two groups of people that
were thirty. But then there's another smaller thing that you
did when you put together a monitor, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
In the same vein. You know how today people want
to go out and measure UFOs in the field, of course,
like the GALLEYO project and so forth, And I completely agree.
So in the nineties we said, you know, I'd like
to gather physical data on UFOs. I'd like to gather
physical data on abductions. And not only that, what better
(19:37):
way to do it. People say they're abducted regularly, so
I don't have to try to find a UFO. The
UFO is coming to them. So the person is in
part our sensor. But we can't just relig on their testimony.
We have to measure things.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
That's perfect, Mark, Let's stop right there. When we come back,
we're going to pick it up and find out how
you got measured, what you measured, and what your results were.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast am Paranormal podcast network. We're back on Beyond
(20:23):
Contact speaking with Mark about studying abductees. And you guys
had a small group of people that allegedly had have
these experiences. So you came up with this monitoring device,
tell us what that would actually monitor.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
So we were fortunate to get a fairly large summer
money to do this from a sponsor who's anonymous, and
we put together a device very attractive because we put
it the people better and it looked like a nice
little box that you know, you might store if anything.
It measured the magnetic feel, the electric feel, the gravity accelerate.
(21:00):
It measured microwave radiation. It measured the temperature, that measured
the infrared temperature. It measured the admittity, that measured the
barometric pressure. All of those things were being measured once
per second. We had to find people who met strict
criteria for this study, and we could only find over
about two and a half or three years after a
(21:21):
lot of tests, and thirteen people that would do this
and they have a sting in our own for six
to eight months to have enough time for an event
to happen or more than a thing. And so the
way it worked was this, each person kept a journal
on their experiences. Now this is back in those days,
so it was on paper. Yeah, I know, what's that.
(21:44):
We printed it up in a bound buy very nice
and they felled out. We had to be sure they
were going to be diligent about that because we were
spent a lot of time and effort. So we worked
very hard to find people that not only had experiences,
but we're going to be cooperative and easy enough to
work with and so forth. Then again we developed you
(22:05):
know that we being neglected. We developed this device. It
ran on our cord you know, and all that it had.
And again we're way back when, right, So we used
phone lines to send the data back every day, you know,
who didn't have high speed internet. We had a full
time project engineer, Tom Dooley, who's been in the field
a long time.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Tom was the full time guy who downloaded the data
every day and made sure that all of that. We
had to find a local investigator who would be like
the sponsor for the case and would install it and
work with this and so forth and so on. So
that was a lot, a lot of effort that I
and another fellow Rock Sly Attech went through to screen
(22:47):
people and find the ones who would good work in
a project. We did it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It went.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
The first active case began a long time ago and
we completed it about two and a half three years.
We were hoping to find external data analysis analysts, not us,
as you said, Ron, you know, I'm my business who's
doing data analysis? As it were, But because of the
(23:15):
stigma Tasher and subject, we wanted to find people not
involved with the project who would analyze the data so
there was no bias involved. Now since then, it turns
out that we were being too scrupulous. As it were,
we were too concerned because in fact, para psychologists analyzed
our own data all the time, and the criticism of
(23:35):
them is not that they analyzed their own data, it's
other things, but not fat So eventually we decided it
was hard frinding the statisticians who would do this, and
for a variety of reasons. By the way, and if
you can imagine, the files are very large. So if
you keep a device in your house for six months
(23:56):
and you record the data once every second, you have
about sixteen million rows of data.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Geez man.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
They analyzed people did have events. I'm happy to report.
They could check no, nothing happened that day. They could
check maybe, or they could check yes, and we had
several yesses. Now we're still writing the paper, okay, so
I'm going to have to tantalize you in the audience
to simply say I can't reveal the results here on
(24:23):
the show.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Well, was there at least a correlation that, yes, something
happened with our data when they reported they had an event.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
That's what I can't reveal. That's the key going. We
have to publish this, and you don't reveal published up
until you actually publish it down. Okay, but what I
can tell you is this, it's actually pretty amazing. Until recently,
nobody else is trying this but us.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It's remarkable to me. I always felt that if something
like that ever happened to me, I would go to
every lab in the country and say, look, I want
to be I'll live here, film me, test me, record
me everything, and I'm price more abductees don't feel that way,
because that's what That's how I would feel immediately.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Yeah, No, that that well, we could get to that
in a second. As far as other investigators, you know,
David Jacobs tried to put cameras video camera.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then it always got turned off or the thing
turned them off.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
By the way, I can tell you, we never added
the problems with the device failing because of what appeared
to be, you know, an experience that did not happen
to us. We had other problems, technical problems or because
this was not easy to pull off in those days,
but but not the kind of problems where the the
NHI you know, interfer with the functionality of the device.
(25:37):
And Dave, Dave was not the only person who tried
to do something, but but it wasn't systematic. It was
our one thing like a camera or something. Recently, there's
a there's a guy named Jim's Sagala who has now
developed of course it's the technology is way better a
small device or an app on the phone that can
do this. So finally, but it's taken many years for
(25:59):
people to try to to do what seems to me,
you know obvious. Here's another obvious thing, you know, Len
you mentioned, Hey, if you were somebody who was experiencing things,
you want to go get checked out, you want to
get tested. Well, in fact, people say, you know things
were done to me, right They sometimes they say they
maybe drink a liquid and they did this, and they
(26:20):
did that and you know, aintal proving unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Or implants even yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Or implant or implants and we know that they have stuff.
People have study that obviously, okay, But in terms of
what is done, if something is done to your body
that is intrusive, then in theory, if I take you
into a lab right after it happens, I might be
able to measure something that shows that something has happened.
It's nonstandard, you know whatever that means. Maybe there's something
(26:47):
in your system that's good. Well, we don't know, because
no stuffy's happened. So the ideal wady to treat the
human body as a sensor is to be able to
take somebody right after an experience to be examined. You know,
Gary nowen to the hest of the government initially did
this with this MRI and so forth and looked at
(27:09):
their brain. But what I'm talking about is way more
difficult because it requires you to have the resources available
and the willing people available to say, you know, last night,
I had an experience and I'm willing to come in
and have you guys, you know, throw the book at
me as it were in terms of medical tests. But
(27:29):
that's the ideal way to study it. But once you
stated that way, you go, well, obviously nobody's done this.
There's no way you can do that for all the
many several reasons. Why, you know, if somebody wants to
be ambitious, there's a study.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I would love to see that happen. I'm kind of
surprised no one's done it. I realize it's very impractical
and expensive and all of these limitations. But you would
think for all the people who claim to have had
these experiences, one of them would have been able to
really really document this. He let me ask you this,
what do you feel about government disclosure.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I'm for it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Good.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
You know that's not a facetious combat.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Actually, I've actually not had anyone say no, I'm against this.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Well, you know, my my colleague, professor of political science
at Ohio State, Alex Wentz, who has just written a
book is going to be published I think late this
year by an academic press. He actually is arguing, and
maybe it's not good that we know about disclosure and
all the rest, that it might not be good for
(28:33):
the stability of society. And by the way, that is
the main reason that those maybe on the inside or
some on the outside would say disclosure is not in
everybody's interests. Obviously, there could be people on the inside
and say no, disposure is not in anybody's interests if
we want to keep it secret. We want to exploit
(28:54):
the information. But I know that there would be others
who would just say, this is what I've just said,
which is well, I don't know. You know, maybe basically
humans can't handle the truth, right.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think that's very possible. I can imagine legitimate reasons.
I can't think of any reason that they would want
to share this information.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
Let me look this way. If you start covering stuff up,
whatever it is, this could be in your own personal life.
You know, I'm having an affair and I thought about
revealing it to my wife, and you know, and maybe
I should come clean, and but I haven't done. And
the more time that goes on, the harder it is
to finally say I've been having an affair for the
(29:35):
last four years or whatever it is. Well, it's about
a billion times worse once you've covered it up. In
the nineteen fifties, let's say, yeah to now say, oh,
find a way about seventy years ago we started lying
to you about UFOs. You wouldn't put it that way,
but anybody listening would go, oh, so you were lying.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So how do we trust anything the government says going
for If that comes out, the only good thing is
they would say, well, those people are dead now and
they're the ones that did that. We didn't know they could.
So hopefully we'll get something someday. Listen when we come back,
we're going to ask Mark about how UFO sightings have
changed over the last half a century. You're listening to
Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(30:19):
Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact. We're
(30:40):
speaking with Mark from KUFOS. Mark. Since twenty seventeen, there's
been a certainly a huge amount opening up in the
UFO space. Of course, one would think we would see
of giant uptick in UFO sightings, or at least in
the number of reports as people feel more comfortable about
making a report about this. But that's not actually what
(31:01):
we've seen, is it.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
No, it isn't. And actually that's a very astute comment.
Ron and the period from nineteen forty seven till the
Sember of twenty seventeen, when things change we call the
modern era of UFOs or apology, And you say, well, well,
what was the year before that? It was a pre
modern era. That's airship sightings, ghost rockets. Right, that's the
(31:23):
pre modern era. Kenneth Arnold forward is the modern era.
This era is the era of public legitimacy. Interesting, even
though there's a stigma, clearly there's public legitimacy of various types,
including the interest by thogress, the interest by serious scientists,
by the media. Why Garrett Graft put a good book
(31:44):
on you. So that's how I revert to it. Now,
how things have changed your arms movie writ in your comment,
and not enough people are talking about this. You would
think that, right, there have to be more signings, of
course since twenty seventeen, because there's more. There's clearly more interests,
in more openness to the subjects, some more people would report.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Less trepidation about reporting it. Right.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
You would also think there'd be more searches on Google
for UFOs UAP. Neither of those things is true. There
are fewer searches than they were before Deceenter twenty seventeen,
and there are no more. They're probably no less, but
there's no more sightings than there were free December twenty seven.
Feen now related to this as actually research I did
(32:28):
about two or three years ago was about did the
COVID pandemic affect the number of your forward courts? And
we did that because there have been theories about what
caused UFO reports to rise and fall, but particularly what
would cause large flaps or waves of UFO citing. And
of course one answer could be, well, yeah, the aliens
(32:48):
came here in bigger numbers, so of course we saw
them and that was the best what caused it. But
the other theory was no, it's social psychological caused by
stress and society, like financial crises, the oil shot in
nineteen seventy three, et cetera, et cetera. Well, the pandemic
was perfect to test his theory. So I and two
(33:09):
other folks here at Kupos who looked into it, published
a paper in the Journal of Scientific Respiration and showed no,
no increase flat pre and post pandemic, and there was
an increase. It was the damn Starlink satellites that are
up there. I was fortunate enough my wife and I
saw one. Yeah, they're very impressive, going over the chain
(33:31):
of the train and those satellites, but those caused an
increase in sightings for upon for New Fork until they
got things under control and told people, you know, hey,
this is what they look like, you know, stop reporting them.
So for COVID didn't affect it, and then right, the
new renewed interest hasn't effected. So what does that get
at Well, it really is an interesting puzzle and there's
(33:54):
we could come up with all kinds of conjectures, but
it's one thing that certainly seems to be true is that, yeah,
interest in UFOs, just plain interest doesn't cause people to
see and then look for at UFOs, and that's fundamental.
That doesn't tell us about what UFOs are, but it
does tell us something about the phenomena as a whole,
(34:17):
which again I don't think you know, has increased a
lot recently at all. Over the years, it's changed in
terms of what people see, what types of the ufotes.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Very interesting. I want to know what your take on
Roswell cases now today in twenty twenty six, How do
you feel about Roswell.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
You know, many serious people, new people in the field
who I respect, really think that Roswell had to be
explained as a MOVA alone or something like that. You know,
that is the best explanation that the folks at the
air base and all these just may in a state.
How I have personally interviewed two people involved, and including
(34:56):
Bill Rickett, who went to the site and handled them
with here burial, and of course Walter Hout. I read
extensively and listen to the tapes and the test of
one without it, and I thought about it, and we
debated it for years of FUCOS internally that Don Schmid,
Kevin Randall, and it is inconceivable to me that the
(35:18):
UH description by Jesse Marcel and others in Vall would
match the Mogil balloon. Put this puts aside the fact
that the Volga balloon can't be it because the one
everybody points to was not launched with the full balloon
train that would have caused all the debree it's thought about.
So I think that there is no rational explanation for
what was without I didn't say it was an alien spacecraft.
(35:41):
I said there is no explanation for what was the folt.
And I believe that what the folks there said about
this material being strange. But I am a scientist in
our rationalist and I can't tell you what they found.
I can only tell you what it was. It Lisewell
is not explained in my mind.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, I think that's one of the great great cases too,
before the argument that it could have been in something
off world. I want to ask you this, and you, guys,
you're surrounded by books every time I see you there
in your background could see books. What do you think
are the five most not even five? Just give me
a couple of books that you think are like the
ones to read for people on the UFO topic, if
(36:25):
they're new to this. You'd be the guy to ask.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I guess, even though it's an old book and it's
not because he was on mentor Alan Heynez's book, The
UFO Experience is a great place still to get a
grounding in the subject because UFOL cases are still UFO cases,
you know, no matter well when they occur, they're you know,
the phenomena as he described, it is still what we experienced.
(36:49):
So I guess, God, that would be number one. Number two,
I would say, if you want to also get a
really excellent introduction to the history of the subject, it
would be the book, again by partly some people at Kuthos,
Robert Powell always involved from the.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
SEU group and others, is the book UFOs and Government
So if you want to know what has happened to
the how did the US government and other governments, not
just the US government, how do they treat the subject?
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Get a good background of that. It's a pretty extensive book,
but it's easy enough reading, so that will give you
the history of the subject to say, okay, you know,
now I really understand what's happened on the subject. Surprisingly,
there is no good general book on the UFO subject recently,
like they used to write, like, oh, give me an update,
(37:40):
So I guess I would say, I don't know. If
it was my top five, I would simply say that
the most recent book, but at least as a broader overview,
would be that Derek Raft book the journalists who wrote that.
And then finally the book called Just Ufo What a
Scientist Knows About UFOs by Robert Howell is another good
(38:02):
overview book on the subject. So you could do a
lot worse than reading those books.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Excellent. We now listen, your background is in statistics and analytics.
Have you used those skills to call this UFO data
that you have access to? And what stands out to
you from that?
Speaker 5 (38:20):
I have, and in many ways, and I think that
what stands out really is the shift in the phenomena
that I toured in the late nineteen seventies early nineteen eighties.
The way I always put it is that my first
major work in the deal is study vehicle in their parents.
Cases of people's cars are stuff by UFO, and I
(38:41):
that my monograph I was published in nineteen eighty one,
and about the moment it was published, those cases dropped
off the face of the earth. And I'm not exaggerating,
and like they declined slowly, but surely they're only about
fifteen percent of what they used to be. But it's
not just those close encounters in general have the climb,
(39:05):
and it was a worldwide trend that occurred, and so
that it's a statistical trade, right, So that's why I
panted my mind. But it really it's telling us something
about UFOs. Of course, it's not caused by whigs supporter,
not caused by new technology. Yeah, cars have changed, but
when I say close encounters, I mean seeing little creatures
(39:25):
by the UFO leaving a trace on the ground. Those things,
they're not affected by the new technology electric battery cars
or whatever like my stuff. So basically huge change in
how the UFOs appear to us, how they interact, how
they behave, and we don't have a clue as to why.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Is incurved interesting yet another puzzle in this in this
UFO world. I'll tell you, Mark, thanks so much for
taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it,
and we appreciate all the work you're doing. I know
it's sort of an unsung position, but trust me, we
all appreciate the work you've done and I appreciate that.
You Guys can find Mark at koufos dot org and
(40:09):
you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at c
D Underscore Captain Ron. Stay connected by checking out Contact
Inthdesert dot com. Stay open minded and rational as we
explore the unknown right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
A and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com.
You're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM
Paranormal podcast network, where we offer you podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And the unexplained.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Get ready now for Beyond Contact with Captain Wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM, employees of premier Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:41):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Hey everyone, it's and Ron and Each week on Beyond Contact,
we'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
As we talk with the top experts. Hian, Welcome to
Beyond Contact. I am Captain Ron, and today we're speaking
with doctor Mark Rodeger. Mark has been the president and
scientific director of the Jay Allen Heinez Center for UFO
Studies since nineteen eighty six, though he's actually worked at
the center since nineteen seventy four. Soon after its inception,
(01:31):
he works professionally as a consultant in statistical analysis and
data analytics. He has investigated a wide variety of UFO areas,
including cases involving vehicle interference, physical trace evidence cases, abduction cases,
especially the psychology and the sociology of abduction experiencers. And
(01:52):
he has led the KUFOS investigation for the Roswell crash
back and I believe nineteen eighty nine he did that.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
Hey, Mark, welcome darkin Ron. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Great to see you, great to talk to you. You've
done great work. Again, as I mentioned, you know a
lot of people are sort of unsung heroes in this field,
and you carrying on the legacy at j ellen Heinek
is amazing. We like to dive right in here beyond contact.
So I want to ask you right out the gate.
You know clearly you've been looking at this phenomenon for
(02:23):
a long time, at least fifty three years by my math.
So I want to know, after looking at this UFO
topic for that long period of time, do you have
any idea what's happening.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
I have ideas that I might be or things I
might be leaning for. But let me start by saying
you know, I don't know what's happening. No one does,
of course, because we don't have definity proof or any
hypothesis my time travelers, extra dimensional crazy psychology theories, straightforward
(02:56):
alien By the way, aliens is almost the most straightforward.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Sure, there's no magic involved, nothing supernatural. It's just nuts
and bolts. They just need time and technology. That's that's easy.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Yeah. You know, something much hotter, which my Italian colleague
Massimotiaterni physicists thinks about, is living plasma, right, glowing balls
of life that actually might be alive. Let's face it,
that's further out then and again, just you know, straightforward.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Is visiting the much so I agree, I am.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Honestly open to any possibility because nothing's proven yet. That's said.
One thing that's happened during my career in the UFO
field has been but has become much more plausible that
aliens or their technology could be there. First, we know
(03:55):
about all the exoplanets that are out there, We know
about the possibilities life and extra biology is being studied,
and we know more about our biology and the the
idea of the faster than light barrier, which which still
holds despite romols. We don't know. If you can tratle
faster than light, it doesn't really make any difference if
(04:15):
you can have self replicating rolls, you know, and look
at the AI.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Was like a von Newman probe kind of thing exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
And so but it's super advanced, you know, way beyond
what we can conceive. And so they've had time to
populate the galaxy and if they're incredibly intelligent, they can
create artificial beings that are combination of biology and you know,
machine that they could ask that we could be seen
when things land on the ground and you have a
(04:43):
close encounter who says it's a biological creature completely that.
So therefore, you know, an extraterrestrial civilization have sent their technology,
you know, broadly put here. And the answer is, of course,
there's enough time for them to do it in terms
of travel, the technology would be there. The and the
(05:05):
the limiting factor to really these days when you studied
the Dragon coursion, it was usually a lifetime of a civilization,
you know, and it was, well, they live long enough
to do this. My answer would be yes, if they
start out sending out chromes like that and their self
duplicating they're working and functional on their own, they don't
(05:26):
need direction. Then they can outlive the civilization.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Right that civilization could be long gone and blown themselves
up or whatever, and yet their technology is still gone.
And that makes more plausible sense to me than than
than just about anything.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yeah. Now, now that's said, Okay, you know our extra
dimensions possible? Yeah, maybe, and maybe there're something's coming directly
from there, are you know, is it? Are there possible?
By the way, I do think some of that, let's
put aside, a living plasma, but certainly to some of
the UFO events appear to be some kind of weird
(06:07):
plasma ish ionize stuff that we don't understand. The hes
style of Norway stuff and the sightings there, many of
them are like that. And that's one of the few
areas where it's almost like the UFO laboratory where you
could go there and measure things. The sightings happen regularly enough,
so I'm sure some of those are happening as well.
(06:29):
So it's it's a broad spectrum, but you know, I
still I still think a part of it is likely
to be extra for us with I would say that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So yeah, I've I've kind of moved to fifty one
percent sure that I think that that's probably happening as well.
You know, I think you've said that many of these
direct witnesses that have had these sightings, or even people
have had direct alien contact. You said that they're the
kind of people that you'd believe just about anything they say,
But when they say they saw a spacecraft or an alien,
(07:03):
suddenly we think, well, I don't believe them. It's such
a hard thing for people to grasp. Do you think
that's the problem or do you think it stems from this,
you know, incredible stigma and negative connotation that's been placed
on this subject for seventy years.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
In terms of believing witnesses exactly. You know, let me
start with something that even as a kid, it struck
me so back in the sixties and I was reading
UFO books and I reading citing it couch, and I
thought to myself, well, if this was anything else, we
would believe this Poston, because they would have a sighting
(07:41):
in broad daylight, without any strange stuff going on. You know,
they would just be in their car or someplace in
a UFO was zip by and they would see it.
And I would think, well, yeah, why should I believe
that they saw something? Now I'd become more sophisticated than
I know that there are nuances to this and people
make mistakes and so forth. Well, I think fundamentally the
(08:03):
ULFA witness data are fairly accurate when people report this
is particularly daylight siding, you know, nighttime sidings, and it's
no more difficult to side. Okay, as far as the
stigma involved, sure, it's way less than it was. I mean,
when when I was first involved in the field, people
would not want to report UFO sighting. They wouldn't even
(08:24):
tell their spouse because they were worried about what even
their closest person in the world that would think. And
that of course that has changed over time. It's so
easy to report things online now at various online reporting photos.
So but but there's a lot of stigma there about
(08:45):
the experience, not so much the witness I don't see
a lot of these days, a lot of people saying
much about the witnesses. A few and you know, a few,
but generally the the sensible critic of comments on the
on the UFO UAP subject simply, witnesses are mistakement, you know, Yeah,
(09:07):
they're probably the regular site. These are normal people, sure,
but people just make mistakes. It's anecdotal evidence. We can't
you know, count now close encounters strange experiences, you know,
that's a whole other area. When people have very intense
in counties, whether it's an abduction experience, so they they
(09:27):
feel somehow connected to the UFO that they saw light,
they feel a message.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
From it, or they blink a light and the light
blinks back at them. There's a communication sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah, those are C five cases where you know c
e foors or abductions and CE five or where you
try to communicate, like you said, and it blinks back
at you. Those are on a different scale. And that's
where going back to your first question about hey, what
do I think about that? I think where there could
be some other level of reality, you know that we
(10:01):
who fundamentally don't understand that is another component of this.
What I'm sure of is that the UFO phenomena is
not a unified thing. It's got many separate components, and
part of it could be this strange reality that we
can't lasp at all, and that even parapsychologists may be
more close to studying that over the years, you know
(10:24):
than than people in the UFO understood.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
We need to take a quick break here. When we
come back, we're going to ask Mark more about these
cases of alleged direct alien contact. You're listening to Beyond
Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact and we're
(10:56):
speaking with Mark Rodeger from KUFOS. Mark, this is one
that's even tougher than just the UFO sightings. We've been discussing,
what about this idea of the abduction cases or direct
contact experiencers. What do you feel is the best evidence
we have for this phenomenon originating from a non human source, the.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
Best evidence, and there's not a lot of it. Of course,
are still instances where there is some external evidence beyond
what the people say, and I'll give you a couple
examples of that. But there are many cases where people
recover memories about their experience, not through it knows their
(11:40):
focused meditation, but they actually have some memory about what
happened to them. The first case that I investigated with
doctor Eine in nineteen eighty, my first abduction case was
one where a fellow was riding from a college and
Central ele No, visiting his girlfriend there back to Chicago.
Consciously remembered seeing the UFO, and he consciously knew he
(12:05):
had missing time, but he didn't remember a lot else,
and that that was an instance for hypnosis was required.
But there are other times where people remember even more,
but it's memories, okay. Better cases are ones where the
person had missing time and then missing time is documented
(12:25):
by other people where there's just no way that they
should have been missing, but they but they were missed.
Or there are they get up in the morning and
their clothes are on backwards, yeah from what they went to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Tay I've heard they have even like had not their shoes.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
On, yeah, exactly, or there's weird stains on the bed
now on. One of the difficulties is, you know, how
do you document push your clothes were on backwards? Because
basically you get up and you say, what what's this
and then you you know, you just take the clothes
off and put your regular clothes off for the day
and away you go. So these kind of things are
hard to documents. But think about it's the same thing
(13:04):
with that I said earlier about where this is in daylight.
Forget the fact that I'm not an abductor you and experiences.
But okay, if I wake up tomorrow and my jam
at bottoms are backwards, you know, I mean, I'm not
going to not notice that, right, I'm not going to
have done it myself. I don't sleep walk or something,
so it's clearly strange. And my spouse didn't sneak in
(13:26):
and I didn't do it, so their instance is like that.
Now notice the difference though, So you were missing for
a while, or your closer on backwards, or there's a
weird stain on you know that wasn't there? What does
that mean? This is the thing. We have UFO data
of all type sightings and so forth, and we have
the things I'm talking about, and of course people have
(13:49):
to have traumatic experiences. Yea, we might talk about that,
but there's you know, we know that some experiences are
not pleasant and not not the kind of thing that
you want experience. But does that mean that some other
intelligence caused it? Extra terrestrial? You know? The NHI is
the current term non human intelligence. So was it caused
by a non human intelligence and some kind or what?
(14:12):
And the answer is, the actual data doesn't tell you.
It just tells you something really strange happened. Now, there
are cases, one of the absolute best ones Steve when
though hypnosis happy to be used for those that It
was the buck Ledge buff buck Ledge case from Vermont
and investigated by one of the best, Walter Wett, who
(14:34):
also was the first investigator on the famous Hill case.
And so we got the case at Kupos and we
folded it onto wall and because we got a contact
to someone, is said, I'm having memories. I'm having memories
coming back to me about what I experience. And so
while contacted them and what briefly what happened is the
(14:58):
two camp councilors, the classic, you know, two camp counselors
at a summer camp on Lake Champlain and a girl
and a boy who were not dating. We're the only
ones that camp because the rest of the camp was
off with a big swim meet. There's just like that movie.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I said, it's right out of a script exactly.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, Okay, So they're basically they're alone, it's sunset, they're
out on the dock on the pier, you know, just talking,
not getting nothing romantic, and they see a UFO coming
toward them. And it's a good old of this shape
UFO and it comes close to them instantaneously. The UFO's gone,
it's dark and they hear the campers coming back. So
(15:38):
there they at sunset, they see the UFO and then
just boom, snap your fingers. The time is advanced. They're
still there. It's dark out all the rest. Because of
the circumstances, they never talked about the event. Okay, over
a dozen years go by until this fellow contact that
the guy contacts us and says, I'm getting these splashbacks
(16:00):
and I'd like to investigate it. So Walth works with
a good hypnotist, works with the guy, and up comes
an abduction case all right, without telling the woman involved
what happened. Walth finds the woman. She agrees, with some
reluctance to undergo hypnosis because she's not really having as
many flash better. She gets hypnotized and under hypnosis, their
(16:24):
experiences are very ingluous. Why glu you know, to show
you the congruence. And one she says, well, I'm sitting
on him like a chair. I say, bob over there
on a tape and he's laying there, but you know
he's got his shorts on, but he's sure he's off.
That's you know, that's just that. And then Bob says, yeah,
(16:47):
they had me on a table. My shirt was off,
and I glanced to my left and there there she
was there. It was cast No, you know, communication between
the two, between the hypnotists or anything. Now does that?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (17:00):
It doesn't prove anything, really, but when you hear that,
yours have to work up and you have to say, well,
I don't want to discount everything. And that's why I
think some abductions absolutely can be real. By the way,
that's a find name.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thought extremely Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
Abductions could be real. That means that something some nhi
is actually abducting people. That's disturbing, it's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And you know, I also always love multiple witness cases.
Like the way you describe that case. That makes it
so much stronger for me. That two people and then
they end up having the same story. That's very compelling,
and I can't just dismiss it out of hand. I
agree it's not proof by any stretch of the imagination,
but I don't think we just throw it away. I
(17:48):
think there's something there of value. You know, I think
you guys, did a small study yourself on a group
of like thirteen or fourteen abductees that we're having regular abductions, right,
can you tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Back in the early nineties abductions with hot hot hot,
it was like everybody was looking into it, including academics,
and so I decided that we needed to do a
serious study about the psychology of abductees and sociology. Who
were these people. With a lot of work, we got
about twenty nine or something, but it was a small group,
(18:21):
roughly around thirty people. The bottom line was all of
them were basically normal.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
We used cluster analysis, which looks at variables and tries
to find similarities between groups of things. In this place,
the group was people, and we did find two groups
on the MMPI exam. One group was completely normal in
every measure, just like you and me walking down the street,
the assuming.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Work speak for yourself. Yeah, wait, come on, exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
The other group had some tendencies towards dissociation and so forth,
but nothing serious, not mentally ill, but they were a
little a borderline. But the bottom line was we found
a core group that were normal.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Okay. So you had these two groups of people that
were thirty. But then there's another smaller thing that you
did when you put together a monitor, right, yes.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
In the same vein. You know how today people want
to go out and measure UFOs in the field, of course,
like the GALLEYO project and so forth, And I completely agree.
So in the nineties we said, you know, I'd like
to gather physical data on UFOs. I'd like to gather
physical data on abductions. And not only that, what better
(19:37):
way to do it. People say they're abducted regularly, so
I don't have to try to find a UFO. The
UFO is coming to them. So the person is in
part our sensor. But we can't just relig on their testimony.
We have to measure things.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
That's perfect, Mark, Let's stop right there. When we come back,
we're going to pick it up and find out how
you got measured, what you measured, and what your results were.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast am Paranormal podcast network. We're back on Beyond
(20:23):
Contact speaking with Mark about studying abductees. And you guys
had a small group of people that allegedly had have
these experiences. So you came up with this monitoring device,
tell us what that would actually monitor.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
So we were fortunate to get a fairly large summer
money to do this from a sponsor who's anonymous, and
we put together a device very attractive because we put
it the people better and it looked like a nice
little box that you know, you might store if anything.
It measured the magnetic feel, the electric feel, the gravity accelerate.
(21:00):
It measured microwave radiation. It measured the temperature, that measured
the infrared temperature. It measured the admittity, that measured the
barometric pressure. All of those things were being measured once
per second. We had to find people who met strict
criteria for this study, and we could only find over
about two and a half or three years after a
(21:21):
lot of tests, and thirteen people that would do this
and they have a sting in our own for six
to eight months to have enough time for an event
to happen or more than a thing. And so the
way it worked was this, each person kept a journal
on their experiences. Now this is back in those days,
so it was on paper. Yeah, I know, what's that.
(21:44):
We printed it up in a bound buy very nice
and they felled out. We had to be sure they
were going to be diligent about that because we were
spent a lot of time and effort. So we worked
very hard to find people that not only had experiences,
but we're going to be cooperative and easy enough to
work with and so forth. Then again we developed you
(22:05):
know that we being neglected. We developed this device. It
ran on our cord you know, and all that it had.
And again we're way back when, right, So we used
phone lines to send the data back every day, you know,
who didn't have high speed internet. We had a full
time project engineer, Tom Dooley, who's been in the field
a long time.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
You know.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Tom was the full time guy who downloaded the data
every day and made sure that all of that. We
had to find a local investigator who would be like
the sponsor for the case and would install it and
work with this and so forth and so on. So
that was a lot, a lot of effort that I
and another fellow Rock Sly Attech went through to screen
(22:47):
people and find the ones who would good work in
a project. We did it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It went.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
The first active case began a long time ago and
we completed it about two and a half three years.
We were hoping to find external data analysis analysts, not us,
as you said, Ron, you know, I'm my business who's
doing data analysis? As it were, But because of the
(23:15):
stigma Tasher and subject, we wanted to find people not
involved with the project who would analyze the data so
there was no bias involved. Now since then, it turns
out that we were being too scrupulous. As it were,
we were too concerned because in fact, para psychologists analyzed
our own data all the time, and the criticism of
(23:35):
them is not that they analyzed their own data, it's
other things, but not fat So eventually we decided it
was hard frinding the statisticians who would do this, and
for a variety of reasons. By the way, and if
you can imagine, the files are very large. So if
you keep a device in your house for six months
(23:56):
and you record the data once every second, you have
about sixteen million rows of data.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Geez man.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
They analyzed people did have events. I'm happy to report.
They could check no, nothing happened that day. They could
check maybe, or they could check yes, and we had
several yesses. Now we're still writing the paper, okay, so
I'm going to have to tantalize you in the audience
to simply say I can't reveal the results here on
(24:23):
the show.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Well, was there at least a correlation that, yes, something
happened with our data when they reported they had an event.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
That's what I can't reveal. That's the key going. We
have to publish this, and you don't reveal published up
until you actually publish it down. Okay, but what I
can tell you is this, it's actually pretty amazing. Until recently,
nobody else is trying this but us.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It's remarkable to me. I always felt that if something
like that ever happened to me, I would go to
every lab in the country and say, look, I want
to be I'll live here, film me, test me, record
me everything, and I'm price more abductees don't feel that way,
because that's what That's how I would feel immediately.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Yeah, No, that that well, we could get to that
in a second. As far as other investigators, you know,
David Jacobs tried to put cameras video camera.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then it always got turned off or the thing
turned them off.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
By the way, I can tell you, we never added
the problems with the device failing because of what appeared
to be, you know, an experience that did not happen
to us. We had other problems, technical problems or because
this was not easy to pull off in those days,
but but not the kind of problems where the the
NHI you know, interfer with the functionality of the device.
(25:37):
And Dave, Dave was not the only person who tried
to do something, but but it wasn't systematic. It was
our one thing like a camera or something. Recently, there's
a there's a guy named Jim's Sagala who has now
developed of course it's the technology is way better a
small device or an app on the phone that can
do this. So finally, but it's taken many years for
(25:59):
people to try to to do what seems to me,
you know obvious. Here's another obvious thing, you know, Len
you mentioned, Hey, if you were somebody who was experiencing things,
you want to go get checked out, you want to
get tested. Well, in fact, people say, you know things
were done to me, right They sometimes they say they
maybe drink a liquid and they did this, and they
(26:20):
did that and you know, aintal proving unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Or implants even yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Or implant or implants and we know that they have stuff.
People have study that obviously, okay, But in terms of
what is done, if something is done to your body
that is intrusive, then in theory, if I take you
into a lab right after it happens, I might be
able to measure something that shows that something has happened.
It's nonstandard, you know whatever that means. Maybe there's something
(26:47):
in your system that's good. Well, we don't know, because
no stuffy's happened. So the ideal wady to treat the
human body as a sensor is to be able to
take somebody right after an experience to be examined. You know,
Gary nowen to the hest of the government initially did
this with this MRI and so forth and looked at
(27:09):
their brain. But what I'm talking about is way more
difficult because it requires you to have the resources available
and the willing people available to say, you know, last night,
I had an experience and I'm willing to come in
and have you guys, you know, throw the book at
me as it were in terms of medical tests. But
(27:29):
that's the ideal way to study it. But once you
stated that way, you go, well, obviously nobody's done this.
There's no way you can do that for all the
many several reasons. Why, you know, if somebody wants to
be ambitious, there's a study.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I would love to see that happen. I'm kind of
surprised no one's done it. I realize it's very impractical
and expensive and all of these limitations. But you would
think for all the people who claim to have had
these experiences, one of them would have been able to
really really document this. He let me ask you this,
what do you feel about government disclosure.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
I'm for it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Good.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
You know that's not a facetious combat.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Actually, I've actually not had anyone say no, I'm against this.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Well, you know, my my colleague, professor of political science
at Ohio State, Alex Wentz, who has just written a
book is going to be published I think late this
year by an academic press. He actually is arguing, and
maybe it's not good that we know about disclosure and
all the rest, that it might not be good for
(28:33):
the stability of society. And by the way, that is
the main reason that those maybe on the inside or
some on the outside would say disclosure is not in
everybody's interests. Obviously, there could be people on the inside
and say no, disposure is not in anybody's interests if
we want to keep it secret. We want to exploit
(28:54):
the information. But I know that there would be others
who would just say, this is what I've just said,
which is well, I don't know. You know, maybe basically
humans can't handle the truth, right.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think that's very possible. I can imagine legitimate reasons.
I can't think of any reason that they would want
to share this information.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
Let me look this way. If you start covering stuff up,
whatever it is, this could be in your own personal life.
You know, I'm having an affair and I thought about
revealing it to my wife, and you know, and maybe
I should come clean, and but I haven't done. And
the more time that goes on, the harder it is
to finally say I've been having an affair for the
(29:35):
last four years or whatever it is. Well, it's about
a billion times worse once you've covered it up. In
the nineteen fifties, let's say, yeah to now say, oh,
find a way about seventy years ago we started lying
to you about UFOs. You wouldn't put it that way,
but anybody listening would go, oh, so you were lying.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So how do we trust anything the government says going
for If that comes out, the only good thing is
they would say, well, those people are dead now and
they're the ones that did that. We didn't know they could.
So hopefully we'll get something someday. Listen when we come back,
we're going to ask Mark about how UFO sightings have
changed over the last half a century. You're listening to
Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(30:19):
Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact. We're
(30:40):
speaking with Mark from KUFOS. Mark. Since twenty seventeen, there's
been a certainly a huge amount opening up in the
UFO space. Of course, one would think we would see
of giant uptick in UFO sightings, or at least in
the number of reports as people feel more comfortable about
making a report about this. But that's not actually what
(31:01):
we've seen, is it.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
No, it isn't. And actually that's a very astute comment.
Ron and the period from nineteen forty seven till the
Sember of twenty seventeen, when things change we call the
modern era of UFOs or apology, And you say, well, well,
what was the year before that? It was a pre
modern era. That's airship sightings, ghost rockets. Right, that's the
(31:23):
pre modern era. Kenneth Arnold forward is the modern era.
This era is the era of public legitimacy. Interesting, even
though there's a stigma, clearly there's public legitimacy of various types,
including the interest by thogress, the interest by serious scientists,
by the media. Why Garrett Graft put a good book
(31:44):
on you. So that's how I revert to it. Now,
how things have changed your arms movie writ in your comment,
and not enough people are talking about this. You would
think that, right, there have to be more signings, of
course since twenty seventeen, because there's more. There's clearly more interests,
in more openness to the subjects, some more people would report.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Less trepidation about reporting it. Right.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
You would also think there'd be more searches on Google
for UFOs UAP. Neither of those things is true. There
are fewer searches than they were before Deceenter twenty seventeen,
and there are no more. They're probably no less, but
there's no more sightings than there were free December twenty seven.
Feen now related to this as actually research I did
(32:28):
about two or three years ago was about did the
COVID pandemic affect the number of your forward courts? And
we did that because there have been theories about what
caused UFO reports to rise and fall, but particularly what
would cause large flaps or waves of UFO citing. And
of course one answer could be, well, yeah, the aliens
(32:48):
came here in bigger numbers, so of course we saw
them and that was the best what caused it. But
the other theory was no, it's social psychological caused by
stress and society, like financial crises, the oil shot in
nineteen seventy three, et cetera, et cetera. Well, the pandemic
was perfect to test his theory. So I and two
(33:09):
other folks here at Kupos who looked into it, published
a paper in the Journal of Scientific Respiration and showed no,
no increase flat pre and post pandemic, and there was
an increase. It was the damn Starlink satellites that are
up there. I was fortunate enough my wife and I
saw one. Yeah, they're very impressive, going over the chain
(33:31):
of the train and those satellites, but those caused an
increase in sightings for upon for New Fork until they
got things under control and told people, you know, hey,
this is what they look like, you know, stop reporting them.
So for COVID didn't affect it, and then right, the
new renewed interest hasn't effected. So what does that get
at Well, it really is an interesting puzzle and there's
(33:54):
we could come up with all kinds of conjectures, but
it's one thing that certainly seems to be true is that, yeah,
interest in UFOs, just plain interest doesn't cause people to
see and then look for at UFOs, and that's fundamental.
That doesn't tell us about what UFOs are, but it
does tell us something about the phenomena as a whole,
(34:17):
which again I don't think you know, has increased a
lot recently at all. Over the years, it's changed in
terms of what people see, what types of the ufotes.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Very interesting. I want to know what your take on
Roswell cases now today in twenty twenty six, How do
you feel about Roswell.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
You know, many serious people, new people in the field
who I respect, really think that Roswell had to be
explained as a MOVA alone or something like that. You know,
that is the best explanation that the folks at the
air base and all these just may in a state.
How I have personally interviewed two people involved, and including
(34:56):
Bill Rickett, who went to the site and handled them
with here burial, and of course Walter Hout. I read
extensively and listen to the tapes and the test of
one without it, and I thought about it, and we
debated it for years of FUCOS internally that Don Schmid,
Kevin Randall, and it is inconceivable to me that the
(35:18):
UH description by Jesse Marcel and others in Vall would
match the Mogil balloon. Put this puts aside the fact
that the Volga balloon can't be it because the one
everybody points to was not launched with the full balloon
train that would have caused all the debree it's thought about.
So I think that there is no rational explanation for
what was without I didn't say it was an alien spacecraft.
(35:41):
I said there is no explanation for what was the folt.
And I believe that what the folks there said about
this material being strange. But I am a scientist in
our rationalist and I can't tell you what they found.
I can only tell you what it was. It Lisewell
is not explained in my mind.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, I think that's one of the great great cases too,
before the argument that it could have been in something
off world. I want to ask you this, and you, guys,
you're surrounded by books every time I see you there
in your background could see books. What do you think
are the five most not even five? Just give me
a couple of books that you think are like the
ones to read for people on the UFO topic, if
(36:25):
they're new to this. You'd be the guy to ask.
Speaker 5 (36:28):
I guess, even though it's an old book and it's
not because he was on mentor Alan Heynez's book, The
UFO Experience is a great place still to get a
grounding in the subject because UFOL cases are still UFO cases,
you know, no matter well when they occur, they're you know,
the phenomena as he described, it is still what we experienced.
(36:49):
So I guess, God, that would be number one. Number two,
I would say, if you want to also get a
really excellent introduction to the history of the subject, it
would be the book, again by partly some people at Kuthos,
Robert Powell always involved from the.
Speaker 6 (37:06):
SEU group and others, is the book UFOs and Government
So if you want to know what has happened to
the how did the US government and other governments, not
just the US government, how do they treat the subject?
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Get a good background of that. It's a pretty extensive book,
but it's easy enough reading, so that will give you
the history of the subject to say, okay, you know,
now I really understand what's happened on the subject. Surprisingly,
there is no good general book on the UFO subject recently,
like they used to write, like, oh, give me an update,
(37:40):
So I guess I would say, I don't know. If
it was my top five, I would simply say that
the most recent book, but at least as a broader overview,
would be that Derek Raft book the journalists who wrote that.
And then finally the book called Just Ufo What a
Scientist Knows About UFOs by Robert Howell is another good
(38:02):
overview book on the subject. So you could do a
lot worse than reading those books.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Excellent. We now listen, your background is in statistics and analytics.
Have you used those skills to call this UFO data
that you have access to? And what stands out to
you from that?
Speaker 5 (38:20):
I have, and in many ways, and I think that
what stands out really is the shift in the phenomena
that I toured in the late nineteen seventies early nineteen eighties.
The way I always put it is that my first
major work in the deal is study vehicle in their parents.
Cases of people's cars are stuff by UFO, and I
(38:41):
that my monograph I was published in nineteen eighty one,
and about the moment it was published, those cases dropped
off the face of the earth. And I'm not exaggerating,
and like they declined slowly, but surely they're only about
fifteen percent of what they used to be. But it's
not just those close encounters in general have the climb,
(39:05):
and it was a worldwide trend that occurred, and so
that it's a statistical trade, right, So that's why I
panted my mind. But it really it's telling us something
about UFOs. Of course, it's not caused by whigs supporter,
not caused by new technology. Yeah, cars have changed, but
when I say close encounters, I mean seeing little creatures
(39:25):
by the UFO leaving a trace on the ground. Those things,
they're not affected by the new technology electric battery cars
or whatever like my stuff. So basically huge change in
how the UFOs appear to us, how they interact, how
they behave, and we don't have a clue as to why.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Is incurved interesting yet another puzzle in this in this
UFO world. I'll tell you, Mark, thanks so much for
taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it,
and we appreciate all the work you're doing. I know
it's sort of an unsung position, but trust me, we
all appreciate the work you've done and I appreciate that.
You Guys can find Mark at koufos dot org and
(40:09):
you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at c
D Underscore Captain Ron. Stay connected by checking out Contact
Inthdesert dot com. Stay open minded and rational as we
explore the unknown right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
A and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com.
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