August 17, 2023 • 28 mins
The recent congressional hearing on unidentified aerial phenomenon–also known as UAPs– gave a high-profile platform to what we used to call UFOs. But why now–and was this a substantive government inquiry or a summertime Washington diversion?
Bloomberg’s Roxana Tiron and Megan Scully join this episode to make sense of the hearing and claims that UAPs may pose a threat to national security. And astronomer Seth Shostak gives his view of theories that some UAPs may be alien spacecraft.
Read more: Close Encounters With UFOs Described to Congressional Committee
Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK
Have questions or comments for Wes and the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
For the first time in more than fifty years, Congress
is pointing its attention toward uf foes. That's right, floating
green triangles, and a sphere like object flying past a
fighter jet. These are just a few of the photos
and videos shown today on Capitol Hill at an unusual
congressional hearing.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
They're calling them.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The touchy subject of unexplained aerial phenomena, also known as UAPs,
has been all over the news lately, in part because
of reports by military pilots and others who say they've
encountered objects that they cannot explain. Of course, we used
to call these unidentified objects UFOs, but that term has
(00:42):
apparently fallen out of fashion of those connotations with little
green men. A US Congressional committee put UAPs front and
center at a hearing in July. It featured Navy pilots
talking about seeing what they described as aircraft of an
unknown origin, and members of Congress asking whether the Pentagon
(01:03):
should ease public concern by disclosing more about these reports.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
How do you know that these were not our aircraft?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Some of the behaviors that we saw in a working area,
we would see these objects being at zero point zero mack,
that's zero air speed over certain pieces of the ground.
So what that means, Just like a river, if you
throw a bobber in, it's going to float downstream. These
objects were staying completely stationary and category four hurricane wins.
These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds one
(01:33):
point one to one point two mock. They would do
so in very erratic and quick behaviors that we don't
I don't have an explanation for.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Many of those unexplained phenomena turn out to have simple explanations,
like weather, balloons or satellites. But the hearing got a
little weird when it veered into age old claims of
a government cover up. A former Air Force intelligence officer
alleged with out evidence that the US has recovered non
(02:03):
human remains from crashed alien spacecraft and has kept it
secret for decades.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Were they I guess human or non human biologics?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
Non human?
Speaker 7 (02:15):
And that was the assessment of people which re acknowledge
on the program I talk to that are currently still
on the program.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
And was this documentary Reverence's video photos eyewitness like, how
would that be determined?
Speaker 7 (02:27):
The specific documentation I would have to talk to you
a skiff about.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So why is this all bubbling up now? Is it
a substantive inquiry or just a summertime Washington diversion. Bloomberg's
Congress editor Megan Scully and Pentagon reporter Roxanna Tyrone are
bravely here to help answer that question.
Speaker 8 (02:47):
You have your true believers, those in Congress who have
said they've seen UFOs or UAPs and who are really
pushing this, and then you have others who just are curious.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
I think they're acting more from a protect the military
perspective than from there might be extraterrestrial life out there.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And later astronomer Seth Shostak tells us how seriously the
government and the rest of US should take claims of
possible visitors from other worlds.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
This is just Okham's razor.
Speaker 10 (03:21):
If you have an unknown phenomenon, you can jump to
the conclusion that it must be alien, or you can
consider the possibility maybe it's not alien, it's just something
you've not seen before.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I'm west Kosova today on the Big Take, Congress puts
its eyes on the skies, Rexana, what is the difference
between a UFO and a UAP.
Speaker 9 (03:57):
Everybody knows about UFOs, it's unidentified flying objects. The Pentagon
is trying to change the understanding of that because military
aircraft pilots have seen not just flying objects, but things
that they cannot explain. So the term is changing to
unidentified aerial phenomena because it could be anything from flying
(04:18):
objects to flares from satellites.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Megan, why is Congress looking at this so closely right now?
Speaker 8 (04:26):
Well, it's been really interesting to watch, and in Congress
that is very divided and where lawmakers can agree on
very little, this UAP issue seems to be one issue
that has some bipartisan support. So you have Chuck Schumer
in the Senate and he's really pushing for requiring the
federal government to collect and also make public this information.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
UAPs generate a lot of curiosity for many Americans, and
with that curiosity sometimes comes misinformation.
Speaker 8 (04:56):
You're seeing a similar effort underway in the House. Basically,
what Congress wants is they want the Defense Department to
be more forthcoming about the information that they're collecting. Everything
is heavily classified, and their safety concerns. There's national security concerns.
I think the Chinese weather balloon, you know, earlier this
year certainly was kind of a precursor to this broader conversation.
Speaker 11 (05:20):
Congress, of course, has the power of.
Speaker 8 (05:22):
The purse, so there's this push to know what do
d spending his money on, how it's allocating this, what
defense contractors might be involved. And they're saying, essentially, you know,
the public has a right to know.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
And what is it that they think the Pentagon is
doing that they want to know.
Speaker 8 (05:38):
Well, it depends on who you ask, right, you have
your true believers, those in Congress who have said they've
seen UFOs or UAPs and who are really pushing this,
and then you have others who just are curious that
there's all these unexplained instances, and it's not just military
pilots who've seen them, it's alsocial pilots. And there's also
(06:01):
concern that, well, if there's stuff in the air that
we don't know what it is, it's incumbent upon us
to know what it is. So our commercial planes aren't
in a position of danger certainly that our military planes aren't.
So it's sort of this complex, multifaceted approach.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
The latest report has about a total of five hundred
and ten of these unexplained events, but they also found
that more than half of them are exhibiting unremarkable characteristics.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
What does that mean?
Speaker 9 (06:35):
It means they're not something that they're worried about, basically,
and then.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
They un explain them, but they don't seem so strange
that they're alarming exactly.
Speaker 9 (06:44):
And then the other ones are you know, twenty six
of them were drones, one hundred and sixty three of
them were balloons or balloon like entities, and then another
six were clutter.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So we have these unremarkable events. Have there been remarkable ones?
Speaker 9 (07:00):
One that is in particular that's always being brought up.
It's called the gimbal. It was observed by a fighter
jet that flew off the USOS Roosevelt in Florida, and
it's so far the most unexplained. It just flew by
the plane and it sort of looks like a tic tac,
and it's being brought up as an example of these UAPs.
Speaker 12 (07:21):
There's a whole fleet of a book on the afa,
My God, Oh, going again for the wind, they win
the hunting and playing out to the west, Oh bade.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Megan. Earlier this summer, there were some pretty splashy congressional
hearings where these questions were front and center, and people
came to testify what happened at those hearings.
Speaker 8 (07:44):
So the first one was before the House Oversight Committee.
This committee has been torn apart over the last several
months by investigations into Hunter Biden, the President's son, by
investigations into the cause of the COVID pandemic, and it
has been really polarized politically. But you had this UAP
hearing and the members on both sides of the aisle
(08:06):
came together. You know, you had Jamie Raskin and James Comer,
who were on very different sides of the political spectrum,
singing from the same hymn book.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Megan, Whenever we're talking about this, it seems like there's
two different things that we're really looking at. One is
the possibility of some sort of object that you know,
maybe a debris or a weather balloon or maybe even
something that another country has flying in our airspace. And
then there's this whole question of alien life visiting the US,
(08:37):
and they tend to get all lumped in together. How
do you distinguish between those two things when the government
is really looking at this, how much of this is Oh,
the government is looking for extraterrest in your life or no.
The government is just trying to make sure that there
aren't things in our airspace that we can identify.
Speaker 8 (08:54):
At least two of the witnesses were fighter pilots and
another was an intelligence officer who worked for the Pentagon
TA for so you know, they came in with some
legitimate credentials, and what these fighter pilots were saying was
that what they witnessed was something that they had never
seen before.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
My name is Ryan Fobbs Graves, and I'm a form
fateen pilot with a decade of service in the US Navy,
including two deployments in Operation and Enduring Freedom in Operation
Inherent Resolve. I have experience advanced UAP firsthand, and I'm
here to voice the concerns of more than thirty commercial
aircrew and military veterans who have confided their similar encounters
with me as we convene here. UAP are in our airspace,
(09:33):
but they are grossly underreported. These sightings are not rare
or isolated. They are routine. Military aircrew and commercial pilots.
Trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification are frequently
witnessing these phenomena.
Speaker 8 (09:46):
There were also asked questions about, you know, did you
see any seams on these objects? And they said no,
sort of the basics of you know, could this be
an aircraft that was built by China or Russia or
some actor somewhere, And by and large they said, you know,
this was unlike anything that we have ever seen. They
had three witnesses to former F eighteen pilots and a
(10:10):
former intelligence officer who had worked for this Pentagon task force,
and he was sort of the primary whistleblower here, the
one who went public with what he had heard. He
himself did not witness any of this phenomena, but he
came forward earlier this summer with information that he had
and filed a whistle blow or complaint, most of which
(10:31):
is classified and we don't know the details of which
he made clear repeatedly throughout the hearing.
Speaker 11 (10:38):
The basis of his complaint is fairly mundane.
Speaker 8 (10:42):
It's not about seeing little green men or even these
unexplained phenomena. His complaint is essentially based on government spending,
and Congress does not like it when the Defense Department
or any other federal agency spends money without them knowing
about it. What this intelligence officer, David Gresh said, and
(11:04):
what I think perked many members ears up, was misappropriation
of funds.
Speaker 13 (11:10):
I mean, I don't want to cut you off, but
how does a program like that get funded?
Speaker 7 (11:15):
I will give you generalities, I can get very specific
in a closed session, but a misappropriation of funds.
Speaker 13 (11:21):
And does that mean fund Does that mean that there
is money in the budget that is set to go
to a program but it doesn't and it goes to
something else?
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Yes, I have specific knowledge of that. Yep.
Speaker 13 (11:29):
Do you think US corporations are overcharging for certain tech
they're selling to the US government and that additional money
is going to programs?
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Correct? Through something called I read.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
What did this program supposedly do?
Speaker 9 (11:44):
He was hinting at the fact that they're trying to
basically reconstruct the technologies that they're in possession of, and
also that they're in possession of non human remains.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
You've said that the government is in possession of potentially
non human spacecraft. Based on your experience and extensive conversations
with experts, do you believe our government has made contact
with intelligent extraterrestrials?
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Something I can't discuss in public.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Setting if you believe we have crashed craft stated earlier,
do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted
this craft?
Speaker 7 (12:20):
As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview,
biologics came with some of these recoveries.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah, were they, I guess human or non human? Biologics?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Non human?
Speaker 7 (12:32):
And that was the assessment of people which re acknowledge
on the program I talked to that are currently still
on the program.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Did he present any evidence of this?
Speaker 9 (12:40):
He couldn't because it's all classified, and he was very
clear about it.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Megan, how do the members of the committee receive this testimony,
especially some of the allegations about the US and extraterrestrial life.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
They listened very intently. Given that the three officials test
fine before them were former military that certainly lent some
credence to what they were saying. But nobody really brushed
aside these allegations. They were taken remarkably seriously. And the panel,
(13:16):
which is a very partisan panel, this was probably, I
would say, of all the hearings that I have watched
this year by this committee, probably the one with the
most bipartisanship.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Why do you think that they were able to come
together on this.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
I think because they're genuinely curious.
Speaker 8 (13:36):
There's enough of these incidences, whether they believe that it
is an alien form or whether they believe it is
a potential you know, enemy aircraft, there's enough interest in
it and enough mystery there that I think that members
came with an open mind and actually some good questions.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Roxanna, What is the Pentagon said about all of this?
Obviously these would be some pretty serious charges if the
Pentagon was spending money without telling anybody.
Speaker 9 (14:08):
The Pentagon basically sort of brushed aside the allegations and said,
you know, we are not aware of any of these
you know, non human technology or remains. And the Pentagon
really does operate on this mantra it is a national
security issue because it could be various things that could
harm the US military and its operations or impede their operations,
(14:30):
and so I think they're acting more from a protect
the military perspective than from like, you know, there might
be extraterrestrial life out there.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
And then members of the committee have also said they've
been denied information from the Pentagon, that they had requested information,
and that the Pentagon rejected their requests. So while some
members of Congress might have more details, maybe members of
the Intelligence Committee. Members of this particular committee were saying
that they weren't getting the information that they demanded.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
After the break. Where does the government's inquiry go from here? Roxanne?
In twenty twenty two, the Department of Defense created this
thing called the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, very pentagon
(15:26):
sounding office. It's supposed to investigate and keep records of sightings.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
What exactly is.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
This so, actually this office was renamed by the Pentagon,
but it was created by Congress in Defense legislation because
they wanted to know more and they wanted to have
a centralized agency at the Pentagon dealing with these issues.
This office is basically tasked to work with other federal agencies,
including NASA, to review these UAPs and to then file
(15:55):
reports and talk to Congress about what they found. But
they're sort of the central office for these.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Events, Megan, what are the next steps from Congress and
asking for clarity for answers from the Pentagon on this question.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
There's this amendment from Senator Schumer that's attached to the
National Defense Authorization Bill, this must pass piece of legislation
that's been enacted for more than six decades now, and
it's in the Senate version of the bill, and it
would essentially ramp up oversight of this area. It would
require the Defense Department to make information public. It would
(16:31):
also give Congress more ability to see what it exactly
it is that the Pentagon is doing. That is in
the Senate version of the bill, it's not in the
House version. So the two chambers need to negotiate differences
in the measure before they come to a final The House.
Speaker 9 (16:47):
Measure has a sort of similar provision also an oversight
provision by the Tennessee Republican by Timbership as well. It's
not the same as Senator Schumer's, but in sort of
a similar vein. But they would have to sort of
melt the two versions together.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And if that passed, and say Joe Biden signed it,
what would be different from now.
Speaker 8 (17:09):
The Pentagon would be required to declassify some of this
information to make it public. So what you've seen essentially
is many of these incidences get witnessed and then it
isn't until years later that the public becomes aware, whether
it be through a whistleblower or from a story in
(17:30):
the media. So this would essentially force the Pentagon's hand,
but we would be seeing more and more information about
these unidentified aerial phenomena.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Did anyone express any kind of skepticism on the committee
about these kinds of questions.
Speaker 11 (17:49):
No, and I was somewhat surprised by that.
Speaker 8 (17:52):
I think that those who maybe skeptics took a route
of asking about this missile appropriation of funds. And we're
more procedural in nature as opposed to talking about what
these objects might be, because remember, these are members of Congress,
and they don't want to isolate voters in their district
(18:14):
who may be true believers in UAPs.
Speaker 9 (18:17):
It's going to be a long process because they've just
not talked about this for years. Like so the first
hearing on NEUFOS was in the sixties, and then the
next hearing was last year. I mean, it took forty
years to talk about this in Congress an open session.
So I think it's just like a very slow moving
train here.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Megan Roxanna, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 11 (18:41):
Thanks, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It's novel for Congress to take out the question of
extraterrestrial life, but other organizations have been on the lookout
for years, like the SETI Institute. SETI stands for the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It's a nonprofit research organization that's
been around since the nineteen eighties. I asked, said he's
(19:04):
senior astronomer Seth Shostak, what he needed of the hearings.
Speaker 10 (19:11):
Of course, the most I should say remarkable thing about
the hearings from me was when this former intelligence officer,
David Grush, claimed that the government had teams of experts
who routinely went out into the field to recover crashed
alien spacecraft and occasionally crashed aliens.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That struck me.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
What did you think of that testimony as somebody who
studies this all the time, did you find that intriguing
or did you meet it with a certain amount of skepticism?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
A lot of skepticism.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
Actually, it's sort of like my next door neighbor claiming
that he's had ghosts living in his attic for the
last twenty years. I mean, you know, it would be
important if true.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
What was it about his testimony that struck you as implausible?
Speaker 10 (20:00):
He didn't say anything that was impossible. Nothing he said
would violate physics, But he didn't offer any any evidence
to back that up. You just saying it. So regarding
him as an authority, people who like to think the
aliens are here would say, see, that's proof.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And that was just one part of the hearing. It
certainly was the splashiest, But there was an entirely different
line of questioning, and that was around pilots who have
seen things while they were flying that they just can't explain.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I mean, I don't doubt them.
Speaker 10 (20:32):
I don't think that the pilots are deliberately fabricating anything.
I think that they're you know, telling it like it is.
So they see something in the sky and they don't
understand it. Well, there are things in the sky that
maybe they wouldn't understand, right, And there's a whole laundry
list of things that you know are up in our
airspace that have nothing to do with aliens, but you know,
they might not be instantly recognizable, even aircraft at a
(20:56):
distance might not be instantly recognizable.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Well, there had been any number of these things that
the Pentagon was eventually able to identify what they were,
but quite a few of them where they still haven't.
And I think people's minds immediately go to alien spacecraft
or something from outer space. Is that where your mind
immediately goes No.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
That's about the last thing I would consider, because this
is just Okham's razor. If you have an unknown phenomenon,
you can jump to the conclusion that it must be alien,
or you can consider the possibility maybe it's not alien,
it's just something you've not seen before.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
What are some of the things that you would think
would explain things that experts who are looking on this,
they just can't figure out what they are, especially craft
that seem to move in ways that defy anything that
we currently know exists.
Speaker 10 (21:50):
Yeah, that argument is always a little bit suspect in
my eyes, because they say, oh, this thing was moving
and accelerating in ways that you know no earthly craft
could out. Surely if it goes from a parent standstill
to mock eight in a second or two, you would say, well,
that's really remarkable. But how do you know that it's
mock eight? In order to do that, you need to
(22:11):
know the speed, And in order to know the speed,
you need to know the distance to these objects, right,
because otherwise, I mean, look, you know, a fly buzzes
across my face here and it's moving so fast, you know,
I say, man, that the fly is going it up
mocked six right, No, it's just very close to me.
So you do need to know the distance. And they
(22:31):
don't have any distance estimates that I've ever seen. And
actually it's quite hard to understand how they would have
any distance estimates. They just have cameras that are giving
you imagery of what's in front of you, but they
don't know how far in front of you.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's a crucial bit of information.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
When we come back. What would it take to persuade
Seth Shostak that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. Another one of
the questions that came up in this hearing was the
idea that the Pentagon has a duty to disclose more
(23:10):
about what they know. This feeling like there's information the
public doesn't get to see, and even the Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer has been pressing that the Pentagon should
tell people more. What do you think of that?
Speaker 10 (23:21):
No, I'm all for that. I mean, more information is
not going to be dangerous. I mean, if the aliens
were really some sort of threat, if there were something
that the Department of Defense would have to worry about
I think that there would be real investigation into it.
But I don't notice that United Airlines is canceling any
flights because it doesn't know what's up in our airspace
and they would too much liability fly around if there
(23:45):
are alien craft that haven't filed a flight plan. So
I think that all speaks to the fact that there
really isn't terribly much good evidence, if any good evidence
here for visitation. It's a very appealing idea, and poles
show that the majority of the American public believe it's happening.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But you know, as I say, when I look.
Speaker 10 (24:04):
At the activity at Laguardian, I don't see any provision
being made for the fact that, you know, the skies
might not be empty, keep them behind that there are
something like eight thousand satellites in orbit around the Earth
that are making images all the time of what's below them.
And they don't need to see these things either. Now
you can say, oh, yeah, they do, but the government
(24:25):
just scrubs all that imagery away. But it's not just
the US government that has these satellites. Many governments have them.
And it's hard for me to believe in a worldwide
conspiracy to keep the most important science news of probably
this century from the public.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I think a lot of our listeners might be surprised
to hear the way you're talking about this. You spend
all your time looking for the possibility of life beyond Earth,
and yet you seem to be very skeptical of the
idea that we've already seen it.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Yeah, well, I think the evidence just doesn't support that
conclude very straightforward. I mean, if I thought, and I'm
sure you can ask just about anybody involved in any
field related to this, if they thought that there was
even the one percent chance that what's reported to be
in the sky or you know, photograph with these cameras
and so had an alien origin, it's spent one hundred
(25:19):
percent of their time working on it. But they don't
do that, And I think that that's a real indictment
of the quality of that evidence.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You know, it may.
Speaker 10 (25:27):
Puzzle a casual observer, but there's no reason to think
that it's extraterrestrial.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
What would you consider to be valid evidence that would
make you think, okay, this is something to look into.
Speaker 10 (25:39):
Well, I mean, it could be evidence, just pictorial evidence
such as it's been presented. But the evidence that's been
presented is ambiguous.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Right.
Speaker 10 (25:49):
If you had, for example, a very simple thing, some
observatory on the ground, whatever it is is, somebody in
the backyard with a camera, or you know, something a
little more classy observed something flying in the sky. Oh,
lights above Arizona, right, I think, but not just one camera,
but several cameras observing simultaneously to begin with.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That would tell you it's not local.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
And knowing the distance between those two observing sites, you know,
you'll probably figure out how far away these things were
and consequently how big they were, So that would give
you some real hard numbers, and that would, I think
change the nature of our assessment of how important those
things are.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
In the years that you've spent looking for evidence of
extraterrestrial life, have you ever seen it?
Speaker 10 (26:38):
If we had, you'd know about it, right, And besides,
we're not looking to see it, right because the assumption
is Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
You know, they're on the order of one hundred.
Speaker 10 (26:46):
Billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Most of those,
almost all of those will have planets. So the idea
that there's some other societies out there is neither far
fetched nor implausible. I mean, I think you know, Earth
developed intelligent life. Other planets could do that too. There's
no reason to think that Earth would be the only
(27:07):
place where intelligence would arise. So yeah, the existence of
aliens is really not what's at stake. The question is
is there any good evidence that we've found such a society,
if you will, or the location of such a society,
or in artifact. I mean, you know, you could imagine
seeing some giant construction around a nearby star and you'd say, well,
(27:28):
that doesn't look like something nature made. You could do that,
So you know, I'm not against to the idea in theory,
but when it's simply arguing on the basis of videos
or photographs that can be explained in far more prosaic terms,
then you've got to say that isn't very good evidence.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Seth Shustak, thanks so much for talking with me, My pleasure.
Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take.
It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. For
more shows from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, podcasts,
or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.
Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
(28:07):
dot Net. The supervising producer of the Big Take is
Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Rebecca Shasson
is our producer. Our associate producer is Sam Gebauer. Raphael
i'm Sieli is our engineer. Our original music was composed
by Leo Sidrin I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow
(28:27):
with another Big Take.
For the first time in more than fifty years, Congress
is pointing its attention toward uf foes. That's right, floating
green triangles, and a sphere like object flying past a
fighter jet. These are just a few of the photos
and videos shown today on Capitol Hill at an unusual
congressional hearing.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
They're calling them.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The touchy subject of unexplained aerial phenomena, also known as UAPs,
has been all over the news lately, in part because
of reports by military pilots and others who say they've
encountered objects that they cannot explain. Of course, we used
to call these unidentified objects UFOs, but that term has
(00:42):
apparently fallen out of fashion of those connotations with little
green men. A US Congressional committee put UAPs front and
center at a hearing in July. It featured Navy pilots
talking about seeing what they described as aircraft of an
unknown origin, and members of Congress asking whether the Pentagon
(01:03):
should ease public concern by disclosing more about these reports.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
How do you know that these were not our aircraft?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Some of the behaviors that we saw in a working area,
we would see these objects being at zero point zero mack,
that's zero air speed over certain pieces of the ground.
So what that means, Just like a river, if you
throw a bobber in, it's going to float downstream. These
objects were staying completely stationary and category four hurricane wins.
These same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds one
(01:33):
point one to one point two mock. They would do
so in very erratic and quick behaviors that we don't
I don't have an explanation for.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Many of those unexplained phenomena turn out to have simple explanations,
like weather, balloons or satellites. But the hearing got a
little weird when it veered into age old claims of
a government cover up. A former Air Force intelligence officer
alleged with out evidence that the US has recovered non
(02:03):
human remains from crashed alien spacecraft and has kept it
secret for decades.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Were they I guess human or non human biologics?
Speaker 6 (02:14):
Non human?
Speaker 7 (02:15):
And that was the assessment of people which re acknowledge
on the program I talk to that are currently still
on the program.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
And was this documentary Reverence's video photos eyewitness like, how
would that be determined?
Speaker 7 (02:27):
The specific documentation I would have to talk to you
a skiff about.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So why is this all bubbling up now? Is it
a substantive inquiry or just a summertime Washington diversion. Bloomberg's
Congress editor Megan Scully and Pentagon reporter Roxanna Tyrone are
bravely here to help answer that question.
Speaker 8 (02:47):
You have your true believers, those in Congress who have
said they've seen UFOs or UAPs and who are really
pushing this, and then you have others who just are curious.
Speaker 9 (03:00):
I think they're acting more from a protect the military
perspective than from there might be extraterrestrial life out there.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And later astronomer Seth Shostak tells us how seriously the
government and the rest of US should take claims of
possible visitors from other worlds.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
This is just Okham's razor.
Speaker 10 (03:21):
If you have an unknown phenomenon, you can jump to
the conclusion that it must be alien, or you can
consider the possibility maybe it's not alien, it's just something
you've not seen before.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I'm west Kosova today on the Big Take, Congress puts
its eyes on the skies, Rexana, what is the difference
between a UFO and a UAP.
Speaker 9 (03:57):
Everybody knows about UFOs, it's unidentified flying objects. The Pentagon
is trying to change the understanding of that because military
aircraft pilots have seen not just flying objects, but things
that they cannot explain. So the term is changing to
unidentified aerial phenomena because it could be anything from flying
(04:18):
objects to flares from satellites.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Megan, why is Congress looking at this so closely right now?
Speaker 8 (04:26):
Well, it's been really interesting to watch, and in Congress
that is very divided and where lawmakers can agree on
very little, this UAP issue seems to be one issue
that has some bipartisan support. So you have Chuck Schumer
in the Senate and he's really pushing for requiring the
federal government to collect and also make public this information.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
UAPs generate a lot of curiosity for many Americans, and
with that curiosity sometimes comes misinformation.
Speaker 8 (04:56):
You're seeing a similar effort underway in the House. Basically,
what Congress wants is they want the Defense Department to
be more forthcoming about the information that they're collecting. Everything
is heavily classified, and their safety concerns. There's national security concerns.
I think the Chinese weather balloon, you know, earlier this
year certainly was kind of a precursor to this broader conversation.
Speaker 11 (05:20):
Congress, of course, has the power of.
Speaker 8 (05:22):
The purse, so there's this push to know what do
d spending his money on, how it's allocating this, what
defense contractors might be involved. And they're saying, essentially, you know,
the public has a right to know.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
And what is it that they think the Pentagon is
doing that they want to know.
Speaker 8 (05:38):
Well, it depends on who you ask, right, you have
your true believers, those in Congress who have said they've
seen UFOs or UAPs and who are really pushing this,
and then you have others who just are curious that
there's all these unexplained instances, and it's not just military
pilots who've seen them, it's alsocial pilots. And there's also
(06:01):
concern that, well, if there's stuff in the air that
we don't know what it is, it's incumbent upon us
to know what it is. So our commercial planes aren't
in a position of danger certainly that our military planes aren't.
So it's sort of this complex, multifaceted approach.
Speaker 9 (06:21):
The latest report has about a total of five hundred
and ten of these unexplained events, but they also found
that more than half of them are exhibiting unremarkable characteristics.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
What does that mean?
Speaker 9 (06:35):
It means they're not something that they're worried about, basically,
and then.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
They un explain them, but they don't seem so strange
that they're alarming exactly.
Speaker 9 (06:44):
And then the other ones are you know, twenty six
of them were drones, one hundred and sixty three of
them were balloons or balloon like entities, and then another
six were clutter.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So we have these unremarkable events. Have there been remarkable ones?
Speaker 9 (07:00):
One that is in particular that's always being brought up.
It's called the gimbal. It was observed by a fighter
jet that flew off the USOS Roosevelt in Florida, and
it's so far the most unexplained. It just flew by
the plane and it sort of looks like a tic tac,
and it's being brought up as an example of these UAPs.
Speaker 12 (07:21):
There's a whole fleet of a book on the afa,
My God, Oh, going again for the wind, they win
the hunting and playing out to the west, Oh bade.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Megan. Earlier this summer, there were some pretty splashy congressional
hearings where these questions were front and center, and people
came to testify what happened at those hearings.
Speaker 8 (07:44):
So the first one was before the House Oversight Committee.
This committee has been torn apart over the last several
months by investigations into Hunter Biden, the President's son, by
investigations into the cause of the COVID pandemic, and it
has been really polarized politically. But you had this UAP
hearing and the members on both sides of the aisle
(08:06):
came together. You know, you had Jamie Raskin and James Comer,
who were on very different sides of the political spectrum,
singing from the same hymn book.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Megan, Whenever we're talking about this, it seems like there's
two different things that we're really looking at. One is
the possibility of some sort of object that you know,
maybe a debris or a weather balloon or maybe even
something that another country has flying in our airspace. And
then there's this whole question of alien life visiting the US,
(08:37):
and they tend to get all lumped in together. How
do you distinguish between those two things when the government
is really looking at this, how much of this is Oh,
the government is looking for extraterrest in your life or no.
The government is just trying to make sure that there
aren't things in our airspace that we can identify.
Speaker 8 (08:54):
At least two of the witnesses were fighter pilots and
another was an intelligence officer who worked for the Pentagon
TA for so you know, they came in with some
legitimate credentials, and what these fighter pilots were saying was
that what they witnessed was something that they had never
seen before.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
My name is Ryan Fobbs Graves, and I'm a form
fateen pilot with a decade of service in the US Navy,
including two deployments in Operation and Enduring Freedom in Operation
Inherent Resolve. I have experience advanced UAP firsthand, and I'm
here to voice the concerns of more than thirty commercial
aircrew and military veterans who have confided their similar encounters
with me as we convene here. UAP are in our airspace,
(09:33):
but they are grossly underreported. These sightings are not rare
or isolated. They are routine. Military aircrew and commercial pilots.
Trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification are frequently
witnessing these phenomena.
Speaker 8 (09:46):
There were also asked questions about, you know, did you
see any seams on these objects? And they said no,
sort of the basics of you know, could this be
an aircraft that was built by China or Russia or
some actor somewhere, And by and large they said, you know,
this was unlike anything that we have ever seen. They
had three witnesses to former F eighteen pilots and a
(10:10):
former intelligence officer who had worked for this Pentagon task force,
and he was sort of the primary whistleblower here, the
one who went public with what he had heard. He
himself did not witness any of this phenomena, but he
came forward earlier this summer with information that he had
and filed a whistle blow or complaint, most of which
(10:31):
is classified and we don't know the details of which
he made clear repeatedly throughout the hearing.
Speaker 11 (10:38):
The basis of his complaint is fairly mundane.
Speaker 8 (10:42):
It's not about seeing little green men or even these
unexplained phenomena. His complaint is essentially based on government spending,
and Congress does not like it when the Defense Department
or any other federal agency spends money without them knowing
about it. What this intelligence officer, David Gresh said, and
(11:04):
what I think perked many members ears up, was misappropriation
of funds.
Speaker 13 (11:10):
I mean, I don't want to cut you off, but
how does a program like that get funded?
Speaker 7 (11:15):
I will give you generalities, I can get very specific
in a closed session, but a misappropriation of funds.
Speaker 13 (11:21):
And does that mean fund Does that mean that there
is money in the budget that is set to go
to a program but it doesn't and it goes to
something else?
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Yes, I have specific knowledge of that. Yep.
Speaker 13 (11:29):
Do you think US corporations are overcharging for certain tech
they're selling to the US government and that additional money
is going to programs?
Speaker 6 (11:38):
Correct? Through something called I read.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
What did this program supposedly do?
Speaker 9 (11:44):
He was hinting at the fact that they're trying to
basically reconstruct the technologies that they're in possession of, and
also that they're in possession of non human remains.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
You've said that the government is in possession of potentially
non human spacecraft. Based on your experience and extensive conversations
with experts, do you believe our government has made contact
with intelligent extraterrestrials?
Speaker 6 (12:09):
Something I can't discuss in public.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Setting if you believe we have crashed craft stated earlier,
do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted
this craft?
Speaker 7 (12:20):
As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview,
biologics came with some of these recoveries.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah, were they, I guess human or non human? Biologics?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Non human?
Speaker 7 (12:32):
And that was the assessment of people which re acknowledge
on the program I talked to that are currently still
on the program.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Did he present any evidence of this?
Speaker 9 (12:40):
He couldn't because it's all classified, and he was very
clear about it.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Megan, how do the members of the committee receive this testimony,
especially some of the allegations about the US and extraterrestrial life.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
They listened very intently. Given that the three officials test
fine before them were former military that certainly lent some
credence to what they were saying. But nobody really brushed
aside these allegations. They were taken remarkably seriously. And the panel,
(13:16):
which is a very partisan panel, this was probably, I
would say, of all the hearings that I have watched
this year by this committee, probably the one with the
most bipartisanship.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Why do you think that they were able to come
together on this.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
I think because they're genuinely curious.
Speaker 8 (13:36):
There's enough of these incidences, whether they believe that it
is an alien form or whether they believe it is
a potential you know, enemy aircraft, there's enough interest in
it and enough mystery there that I think that members
came with an open mind and actually some good questions.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Roxanna, What is the Pentagon said about all of this?
Obviously these would be some pretty serious charges if the
Pentagon was spending money without telling anybody.
Speaker 9 (14:08):
The Pentagon basically sort of brushed aside the allegations and said,
you know, we are not aware of any of these
you know, non human technology or remains. And the Pentagon
really does operate on this mantra it is a national
security issue because it could be various things that could
harm the US military and its operations or impede their operations,
(14:30):
and so I think they're acting more from a protect
the military perspective than from like, you know, there might
be extraterrestrial life out there.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
And then members of the committee have also said they've
been denied information from the Pentagon, that they had requested information,
and that the Pentagon rejected their requests. So while some
members of Congress might have more details, maybe members of
the Intelligence Committee. Members of this particular committee were saying
that they weren't getting the information that they demanded.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
After the break. Where does the government's inquiry go from here? Roxanne?
In twenty twenty two, the Department of Defense created this
thing called the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, very pentagon
(15:26):
sounding office. It's supposed to investigate and keep records of sightings.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
What exactly is.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
This so, actually this office was renamed by the Pentagon,
but it was created by Congress in Defense legislation because
they wanted to know more and they wanted to have
a centralized agency at the Pentagon dealing with these issues.
This office is basically tasked to work with other federal agencies,
including NASA, to review these UAPs and to then file
(15:55):
reports and talk to Congress about what they found. But
they're sort of the central office for these.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Events, Megan, what are the next steps from Congress and
asking for clarity for answers from the Pentagon on this question.
Speaker 8 (16:10):
There's this amendment from Senator Schumer that's attached to the
National Defense Authorization Bill, this must pass piece of legislation
that's been enacted for more than six decades now, and
it's in the Senate version of the bill, and it
would essentially ramp up oversight of this area. It would
require the Defense Department to make information public. It would
(16:31):
also give Congress more ability to see what it exactly
it is that the Pentagon is doing. That is in
the Senate version of the bill, it's not in the
House version. So the two chambers need to negotiate differences
in the measure before they come to a final The House.
Speaker 9 (16:47):
Measure has a sort of similar provision also an oversight
provision by the Tennessee Republican by Timbership as well. It's
not the same as Senator Schumer's, but in sort of
a similar vein. But they would have to sort of
melt the two versions together.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And if that passed, and say Joe Biden signed it,
what would be different from now.
Speaker 8 (17:09):
The Pentagon would be required to declassify some of this
information to make it public. So what you've seen essentially
is many of these incidences get witnessed and then it
isn't until years later that the public becomes aware, whether
it be through a whistleblower or from a story in
(17:30):
the media. So this would essentially force the Pentagon's hand,
but we would be seeing more and more information about
these unidentified aerial phenomena.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Did anyone express any kind of skepticism on the committee
about these kinds of questions.
Speaker 11 (17:49):
No, and I was somewhat surprised by that.
Speaker 8 (17:52):
I think that those who maybe skeptics took a route
of asking about this missile appropriation of funds. And we're
more procedural in nature as opposed to talking about what
these objects might be, because remember, these are members of Congress,
and they don't want to isolate voters in their district
(18:14):
who may be true believers in UAPs.
Speaker 9 (18:17):
It's going to be a long process because they've just
not talked about this for years. Like so the first
hearing on NEUFOS was in the sixties, and then the
next hearing was last year. I mean, it took forty
years to talk about this in Congress an open session.
So I think it's just like a very slow moving
train here.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Megan Roxanna, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 11 (18:41):
Thanks, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 9 (18:42):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
It's novel for Congress to take out the question of
extraterrestrial life, but other organizations have been on the lookout
for years, like the SETI Institute. SETI stands for the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It's a nonprofit research organization that's
been around since the nineteen eighties. I asked, said he's
(19:04):
senior astronomer Seth Shostak, what he needed of the hearings.
Speaker 10 (19:11):
Of course, the most I should say remarkable thing about
the hearings from me was when this former intelligence officer,
David Grush, claimed that the government had teams of experts
who routinely went out into the field to recover crashed
alien spacecraft and occasionally crashed aliens.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
That struck me.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
What did you think of that testimony as somebody who
studies this all the time, did you find that intriguing
or did you meet it with a certain amount of skepticism?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
A lot of skepticism.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
Actually, it's sort of like my next door neighbor claiming
that he's had ghosts living in his attic for the
last twenty years. I mean, you know, it would be
important if true.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
What was it about his testimony that struck you as implausible?
Speaker 10 (20:00):
He didn't say anything that was impossible. Nothing he said
would violate physics, But he didn't offer any any evidence
to back that up. You just saying it. So regarding
him as an authority, people who like to think the
aliens are here would say, see, that's proof.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
And that was just one part of the hearing. It
certainly was the splashiest, But there was an entirely different
line of questioning, and that was around pilots who have
seen things while they were flying that they just can't explain.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I mean, I don't doubt them.
Speaker 10 (20:32):
I don't think that the pilots are deliberately fabricating anything.
I think that they're you know, telling it like it is.
So they see something in the sky and they don't
understand it. Well, there are things in the sky that
maybe they wouldn't understand, right, And there's a whole laundry
list of things that you know are up in our
airspace that have nothing to do with aliens, but you know,
they might not be instantly recognizable, even aircraft at a
(20:56):
distance might not be instantly recognizable.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Well, there had been any number of these things that
the Pentagon was eventually able to identify what they were,
but quite a few of them where they still haven't.
And I think people's minds immediately go to alien spacecraft
or something from outer space. Is that where your mind
immediately goes No.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
That's about the last thing I would consider, because this
is just Okham's razor. If you have an unknown phenomenon,
you can jump to the conclusion that it must be alien,
or you can consider the possibility maybe it's not alien,
it's just something you've not seen before.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
What are some of the things that you would think
would explain things that experts who are looking on this,
they just can't figure out what they are, especially craft
that seem to move in ways that defy anything that
we currently know exists.
Speaker 10 (21:50):
Yeah, that argument is always a little bit suspect in
my eyes, because they say, oh, this thing was moving
and accelerating in ways that you know no earthly craft
could out. Surely if it goes from a parent standstill
to mock eight in a second or two, you would say, well,
that's really remarkable. But how do you know that it's
mock eight? In order to do that, you need to
(22:11):
know the speed, And in order to know the speed,
you need to know the distance to these objects, right,
because otherwise, I mean, look, you know, a fly buzzes
across my face here and it's moving so fast, you know,
I say, man, that the fly is going it up
mocked six right, No, it's just very close to me.
So you do need to know the distance. And they
(22:31):
don't have any distance estimates that I've ever seen. And
actually it's quite hard to understand how they would have
any distance estimates. They just have cameras that are giving
you imagery of what's in front of you, but they
don't know how far in front of you.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's a crucial bit of information.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
When we come back. What would it take to persuade
Seth Shostak that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. Another one of
the questions that came up in this hearing was the
idea that the Pentagon has a duty to disclose more
(23:10):
about what they know. This feeling like there's information the
public doesn't get to see, and even the Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer has been pressing that the Pentagon should
tell people more. What do you think of that?
Speaker 10 (23:21):
No, I'm all for that. I mean, more information is
not going to be dangerous. I mean, if the aliens
were really some sort of threat, if there were something
that the Department of Defense would have to worry about
I think that there would be real investigation into it.
But I don't notice that United Airlines is canceling any
flights because it doesn't know what's up in our airspace
and they would too much liability fly around if there
(23:45):
are alien craft that haven't filed a flight plan. So
I think that all speaks to the fact that there
really isn't terribly much good evidence, if any good evidence
here for visitation. It's a very appealing idea, and poles
show that the majority of the American public believe it's happening.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But you know, as I say, when I look.
Speaker 10 (24:04):
At the activity at Laguardian, I don't see any provision
being made for the fact that, you know, the skies
might not be empty, keep them behind that there are
something like eight thousand satellites in orbit around the Earth
that are making images all the time of what's below them.
And they don't need to see these things either. Now
you can say, oh, yeah, they do, but the government
(24:25):
just scrubs all that imagery away. But it's not just
the US government that has these satellites. Many governments have them.
And it's hard for me to believe in a worldwide
conspiracy to keep the most important science news of probably
this century from the public.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
I think a lot of our listeners might be surprised
to hear the way you're talking about this. You spend
all your time looking for the possibility of life beyond Earth,
and yet you seem to be very skeptical of the
idea that we've already seen it.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Yeah, well, I think the evidence just doesn't support that
conclude very straightforward. I mean, if I thought, and I'm
sure you can ask just about anybody involved in any
field related to this, if they thought that there was
even the one percent chance that what's reported to be
in the sky or you know, photograph with these cameras
and so had an alien origin, it's spent one hundred
(25:19):
percent of their time working on it. But they don't
do that, And I think that that's a real indictment
of the quality of that evidence.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
You know, it may.
Speaker 10 (25:27):
Puzzle a casual observer, but there's no reason to think
that it's extraterrestrial.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
What would you consider to be valid evidence that would
make you think, okay, this is something to look into.
Speaker 10 (25:39):
Well, I mean, it could be evidence, just pictorial evidence
such as it's been presented. But the evidence that's been
presented is ambiguous.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Right.
Speaker 10 (25:49):
If you had, for example, a very simple thing, some
observatory on the ground, whatever it is is, somebody in
the backyard with a camera, or you know, something a
little more classy observed something flying in the sky. Oh,
lights above Arizona, right, I think, but not just one camera,
but several cameras observing simultaneously to begin with.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That would tell you it's not local.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
And knowing the distance between those two observing sites, you know,
you'll probably figure out how far away these things were
and consequently how big they were, So that would give
you some real hard numbers, and that would, I think
change the nature of our assessment of how important those
things are.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
In the years that you've spent looking for evidence of
extraterrestrial life, have you ever seen it?
Speaker 10 (26:38):
If we had, you'd know about it, right, And besides,
we're not looking to see it, right because the assumption
is Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
You know, they're on the order of one hundred.
Speaker 10 (26:46):
Billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Most of those,
almost all of those will have planets. So the idea
that there's some other societies out there is neither far
fetched nor implausible. I mean, I think you know, Earth
developed intelligent life. Other planets could do that too. There's
no reason to think that Earth would be the only
(27:07):
place where intelligence would arise. So yeah, the existence of
aliens is really not what's at stake. The question is
is there any good evidence that we've found such a society,
if you will, or the location of such a society,
or in artifact. I mean, you know, you could imagine
seeing some giant construction around a nearby star and you'd say, well,
(27:28):
that doesn't look like something nature made. You could do that,
So you know, I'm not against to the idea in theory,
but when it's simply arguing on the basis of videos
or photographs that can be explained in far more prosaic terms,
then you've got to say that isn't very good evidence.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Seth Shustak, thanks so much for talking with me, My pleasure.
Thanks for listening to us here at the Big Take.
It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. For
more shows from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, podcasts,
or wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.
Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg
(28:07):
dot Net. The supervising producer of the Big Take is
Vicky Virgalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Rebecca Shasson
is our producer. Our associate producer is Sam Gebauer. Raphael
i'm Sieli is our engineer. Our original music was composed
by Leo Sidrin I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow
(28:27):
with another Big Take.
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.