July 10, 2021 • 45 mins
After years of rumors, recent releases have confirmed the US government knew much more about UFOs than they'd originally let on. And, despite the recent waves of revelations and classifications, Uncle Sam is still refusing to release everything. When pressed on the issue, the government stated that disclosing certain files would pose "an extraordinarily grave threat to national security" -- so what exactly is on these files? Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the U. S. Navy is huge. It's incredibly powerful,
but like any other organization, it worries about a lot
of stuff. You might be surprised to learn, as we
were that the name. One of the things the Navy
is worried about is the release of UFO files. Yeah.
Is it because they know they're outclassed by some other force,
(00:22):
whether it's of this Earth or not? M m maybe maybe? Maybe? Uh?
Is it because it might expose some of their own activities.
That's a possibility as well. Well, let's find out together
on this episode. This is our last one for now
of our UFO playlist. But guess what, there are more
(00:44):
episodes on this topic that you can find in our
feed You just gotta hunt for him. So good luck
and enjoy this episode. From UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. Can turn
back now or learn the stuff they don't want you
to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome
(01:18):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They called me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this stuff.
They don't want you to know, as we have been doing.
At the top of the show, we're gonna we're gonna
do a little bit of of a Twitter roll call.
(01:39):
That's where we find some tweets from you and your
fellow listeners. Just give them, give them some time on
air to see what you all think about them. Who
would like to do the honors today? Let's go to
in DAG fifteen. In DAG fifteen fifteen, says Yo. So
Harvey Weinstein got twenty three years and everyone's talking about coronavirus.
(02:02):
Was this planned or something? This is the same thing
as Wendy Williams fainting during the wildfires? Interesting? What is
he saying that coronavirus is the Wendy Williams fanning in
the wh during the wild Yes, the coronavirus is the Hey,
look over your smoke screen, and the real thing is
Harvey wind cover story. Yeah, I don't that seems wrong.
(02:23):
I don't know. I feel like generally that would go
the other way. That's what I'm thinking. But and that
is not too you know, well, it's it's not to
say the the victims of Harvey Weinstein are not important
that is just to say that's it's going to affect
a lot more people, the coronavirus. Weinstein went to jail, yes,
(02:44):
you know what I mean, It would it would feel
like more of a one to one cover story comparison
if Weinstein somehow did not go to jail and got
you know, put in mental institution or rehab, like when
he went to that when he tried to go to
that sex addiction rehab and then dropped out early. That
(03:05):
also happened. Uh, you know, probably so we could go
have some sex. Who knows. And the reports of we
may have talked about this off air, may have talked
about what you guys, but the reports of his uh,
the reports of his surgery bits unmentionables. Oh yes, yeah,
it's really like like the like the descriptions, descriptives and
(03:27):
it had the pleasure so painful for survivors that have
to mention that. But his his bits his Australia as
a train wreck, uh in a medically bizarre way. But yeah,
it could it be a cover story. We know that
those we know that those do occur. We've had a
lot of people actually right in to say that. See
people have said the coronavirus is a cover story for
(03:49):
something different. Many political partisans are saying coronavirus is a
alarmist story meant to distract from what they see as
the d n C conspire ring to push an establishment
candidate over the one that they feel is closer to
their values. But the thing about those cover stories is
(04:09):
you never really know until it's too late to do anything. Right.
So here's another one. Here's another Twitter shout out from
technol Music. Technolo Music says, guys, big fan, I got
some stuff they don't want you to know and would
love to share it with you. Guys. It involves black
hat s e O, search engine optimization, bots, elections and
(04:31):
what we expect in the upcoming elections. I know how
all that stuff works intimately because I used to do it. Yeah.
Big shout out to Technology Dash Internet God. Um, I
I do not know who you are, genuinely, technologe. You
seem to have a lot of followers Technology Internet. If
(04:51):
we should say that Technology Internet out, I apologize, man,
but that's uh. You know you've intrigued us. We would
love to know if you want to send things, detailed things.
Our email is conspiracy at I heart radio dot com.
And you know, we've got that phone number that you'll
hear at the end. And if you would be more
comfortable using an encrypted info drop site, then I can
(05:15):
set one of those up when we can communicate that way,
or proton mail or proton mail as well. This is
not a commercial proton mail, but they do good work.
It's proton mail where you like molecularly deconstructed and then
reassemble it on the other side, or something almost exactly that,
just with encryption. Yeah, it's pretty secure. A lot of journalists,
especially in dangerous authoritarian countries, use proton mail. And this
(05:38):
concludes our Twitter roll call. On with the show today
we return fellow conspiracy realist once again to the controversial
and fast moving get it world of UFO revelations in
recent years. In recent months, Western governments have done something
kind of hilarious. Uh, They've revealed internal documentation that flatly
(06:00):
contradicts their earlier stated policies. Remember in the days after
Blue Book, the famous Project Blue Book, where where in
the government collected all these reports of unidentified flying objects.
In the years since then, Uncle Sam's main official line
had always been we did this, we didn't find anything.
(06:22):
We don't waste money on it anymore because your taxpayer,
that's your money. We spend it on good stuff like bombs,
maybe weaponized diseases. But recent weeks later confirmed that the
US Navy at the very least as well as the
Pentagon were in fact closely monitoring what they called U
a p unexplained aerial phenomena, while simultaneously claiming they were
(06:45):
doing no such thing. Isn't that just like a synonym
for UFO? How is that? Is there anything that sets
it apart? Well, it doesn't have this stigma, so it's
just sort of like a stand in. Then it's sort
of like a less charged version of the same exact thing. Well,
it's it's more broad too, because it doesn't have the
implication that there's a physical object. It's a craft of
some kinds that could just be weather, which is often
(07:09):
the explanation for UFOs as well. So it's interesting that
there's a separate term. I wonder who pitched that in
a meeting. I don't know. Yeah, this this is interesting though,
because this is still a developing story, we want to
give you a real quick walk through on some stuff
for a deep dive into some of this information please
check out our earlier episode not sponsored by Blink one two.
(07:33):
But when we talk about revelations, what do we mean?
Here are the facts. In The New York Times exposed
the Pentagon's previously secret mysterious UFO program that was known
as Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or a a d
i P at TIP, A TIP I'm gonna go with
(07:55):
at TIP. This program catapulted an individual who was previous
a quite unknown by the name of Luis Alesando um
right into the public eye. Alexando, a former employee of
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
or DOOSTI uh and a former U. S. Army counterintelligence
(08:16):
special agents. Yes, and Luis Alizondo, as we will refer
to as Elizondo henceforth he uh. He was the head
of this a t I P year or at TIP
as we have named it. Now, this was a really
interesting thing. It was a program type of program that
we've discussed before on this show called a Special Access program.
(08:40):
It was allotted somewhere between twenty two and twenty nine
million dollars and it was it got its start or
is initiated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and here's the
here's what it was gonna do. It was going to
study unidentified aerial phenomena, these things we call now you
a P s UM also UFOs. And this guy, like
(09:02):
we said, he just got thrust out there. He had
to start immediately answering questions about this thing that nobody
knew about. Really interesting too, because when he started answering
this it was after the fact. He was an ex
government employee. And Louis made a lot of claims. I'm
calling Louis because that's what the History Channel refers to him.
As we'll get to it. Uh, he claimed that not
(09:26):
only was Uncle Sam cognizant of these various instances of
U A P, but he claimed that they retrieved the
holy grail of ufology, which would be physical evidence. He
said there were metal alloys and other materials the government
had recovered. According to the d O D, this program
(09:47):
was ended in two thousand twelve after five years. However,
that's what they said about the kind of investigations that
took place during Blue Book, and that was true for
some of the time, but not true for sever years.
So of course, you cannot blame people for saying they
don't believe the official line, and he said Alsando was
(10:08):
an ex government employee. He resigned from that program in
October of twenty seventeen, and he said he resigned in
protest of government secrecy. What he saw is opposition to
the mission of the program and his personal belief that
in both the d D, the Pentagon, and the Halls
of Congress, uh, this mission was not being taken seriously.
(10:30):
He felt kind of like maybe with someone's pet project,
if that makes sense, uh huh. And then you know,
he left the government. He said, I don't like your mission.
I'm going to a place where I can find a
real home, where I'm gonna really gel with what this
company and the service is all about. Slab City City No.
(10:52):
He started working with To the Stars Academy that if
you're a listener of this show, you may be familiar.
If you're a listener of Joe Rogan experience, you're probably familiar.
If you're a listener of really important I might say
early two thousands music, you may be familiar. Um to
the Stars Academy is the private UFO investigation group created
(11:13):
by created by Tom DeLong, who is currently also famous
for being a founding member of the band Blink one two.
He is retired from Blink one D two. However, To
the Stars Academy still is involved in the music business.
But I talked about this before we did. But and
you may think, oh wait, a u a UFO slash
(11:37):
u AP focused company created by a former musician. I
don't need to worry about that. They're never gonna do
anything groundbreaking. They've definitely done some some stuff, That's what
I'm saying, because in uh, they kind of shocked the world.
They shocked us. Yeah. Eighteen, To the Stars Academy released
(11:58):
a thirty second video of U. S Navy pilots encountering
a UFO. This was different from many similar instances of
alleged UFO footage. Well, I say alleged of UFO footage
because the some of the people who were involved directly
on the Navy's side confirmed that this was legit, and
(12:20):
you may remember the one. I mean it was. It
was remarkable as well, because it was very clear that
the pilots we're seeing something that was very unusual, and
the way they were commenting on it really rang true. Yeah,
and they had none of the usual disadvantages that you'll
see in a lot of UFO reports. They were not
on they were not on the ground, they were not inexperienced,
(12:42):
you know, they were familiar with all the things it
could be, and they couldn't answer the question. This was
one of those very small percentages of UFO reports that
did not have, even on the very skeptical end, a
satisfying answer. They're commenting about the way it's moved ing.
It's like a little blip on their radar, like a bogey, right,
(13:03):
and they're well, look at it, go, look at it, flip,
you know, like they're saying all these things, at these
like very um firsthand um observations from people that are
experts and such things context exactly, then they did as well. Absolutely,
the footage was recorded on the East coast of the
United States in so that's what happened. All of that
(13:24):
is real. Those are factual events. There's another factual thing
we have to mention here about Alesondo and about to
the Stars. That is, despite the fact that these this
footage is real, has been confirmed that thirty seconds actually happened.
Despite all that, there was still an enormous problem of
credibility for both Alisondo and for To the Stars. Academy itself. First,
(13:50):
Alisando's post government career has led to some criticism, both
from skeptics and from people who are more true believers
in the UFO commune, Citty, and that's because you know,
his life didn't stop when his government paychecks stopped, if
it ever did, which is another theory about it. Alazando
(14:11):
joined the cast of a show on the History Channel
called Unexplained. And you know how those kinds of shows
go on the History Channel, uh, which is not ading
on them, it's just very much on the entertainment side
of the spectrum. Uh, think of George Sukalos. Right. So
this has prompted some critics to imply or insinuate that
(14:34):
his goal is to turn a profit rather than to
pursue the truth. But to be fair, those two are
not mutually exclusive. Yeah. And there's the other point here
that's been made before, which is possibly this story kind
of like as our Twitter friend identified earlier, this concept
(14:58):
of putting for worth a bit of disinformation to be
a smoke screen or to throw people off a track. Um,
we hopefully we'll talk about a little bit later in
the episode. Um. Not, it could be that his motivations
are not just profit there to purposefully put out bogus information. Ah. Yes, yeah,
but again that is complete speculation. Who knows his intentions.
(15:23):
What's tricky about that, though, is that even if he
comes out later and says I was working as a
disinfo agent, you know, shout out to dot net, I
was working as an agent miss or disinformation and I
am going to confess at all. What if he said
that in a tell all documentary, you know that people
(15:46):
had to buy, then you wouldn't trust them again, right,
because you would still unless unless there is a harsh
air gap, a clear separation between profit and uh prescience
or prophetic figure, then people are always going to ask
that question. And it's a valid question to ask us
asking It is just us describing the lay of the land.
(16:08):
He's like, we interview that like sold like UFO tours
or something, or like UFO Vision quests. Doctor Stephen Greer, Right, that,
you know, again not throwing shade directly, but it does
call into question when your whole purpose for espousing a
certain belief is to sell quite expensive seminar packages. Yes,
but in the case of Elisondo, who knows how that
(16:32):
opportunity to be on the History Channel came about, it
could have been a tremendous opportunity for him, uh, money wise,
while like we said, kind of while still pursuing the
truth and seeking the truth. We just have to keep
all of that stuff in mind as we as we
continue along here. One last point, and it's something that
some of our fellow listeners will know, but many of
(16:53):
us may not be aware of this. A lot of
times when people end up being pundits or subject matter
experts on entertainment shows like that, they get in that
old uh they're they're in that old frog and slowly
but boiling water kind of thing. They meet some producers
who are maybe not a ethical who say, we believe
(17:16):
in your mission, we want to help you, and then
along the way they just slowly nudge them further and
further away from something that's more documentary or fact finding
into something that's more entertainment. There's also absolutely nothing preventing
a lot of those companies from taking someone's statement out
of context or even what's called frank in biting And
(17:38):
you guys, can you describe frank and biting for everyone? Yeah,
it's sort of like um taking little syllables and snippets
of things people say. Uh, it's typically done in reality
television where you cut away from the person's visual and
then you hear the sound of their voice saying a
thing that sounds believable, but it's really just a snipped
up mishmash of different things they've said to of a
(18:00):
certain meaning. And this is something you have to do
in true crime podcasts a lot where maybe a fact
is slightly wrong and you don't have your host in
to do a fix or something. You know, that's that
would a much more magnanimous version of of reason to
do this. Well, I guess what I'm saying is that
concept of frank in biting. It's something you can do
(18:20):
with editing tools, whether in video or audio that if
you have control or rights over the materials you have
has been said, there's very little anyone can do about that.
And it's not inherently nefarious, is what you're saying as well.
I mean, you can do it to help the person
sound like they said the correct thing, and you could
(18:42):
argue still maybe there's some ethical gray area there if
they didn't really say it, maybe you should just you know,
find a different way to say it. But what's done
a lot of times in reality television, where it is
more nefarious is to actually have someone say something that
they didn't really say right, so uh a hopefully fictitious.
An example would be on a reality show. Let's say
(19:02):
we have someone who says, so and so is my
best friends. I would never sleep with his wife. Uh,
but I love having this conversation because when I get
to air this out, we can dispel any rumors. And
(19:22):
so the producers could take that and just pull the
words out and they would say I love having sex
with his wife, and it would be smooth enough that
if you didn't know the situation, you would think, Wow,
what a dirt bag to say that, and you would
never know that they made one sentence out of like
two or three. We're just saying that can happen. That
(19:45):
can happen, So maybe, uh, maybe Alesando was in a
situation like that. Maybe we're being too hard on this.
We just have to admit those things can happen in
the world of television. And there's no denying that Alesando
did incredibly important work and may still be doing it right.
But the problem with credibility, or we should say, the
(20:07):
criticisms of credibility. Don't stop with this individual. We're gonna
pause for word from our sponsors, and then we'll turn
our eyes briefly to the Stars Academy. To the Stars Academy,
not literally to the stars. Welcome back, everybody, let's continue
(20:31):
with to the Stars. It was originally launched as a
record label, which is, you know, that's a cool thing.
Record labels are cool. They're not quite as profitable as
they once were, but you can still do uh some
great works with within one of those Yes, that was um.
Then you know, over time it evolved into kind of
(20:53):
a mixed media a more general entertainment company. And you know,
as of the time that we're discussing here twenty seventeen,
they existed as a public benefit corporation. Now that is
a fun status to have, like a nonprofit. Uh, they
can still make money, so they're they're kind of a
corporation that in their charter and their mission statement and
(21:17):
their goals, they can list public benefit as one of
their goals in addition to stuff like making the most
money possible for shareholders. It's like a legal way of
saying we're we're the good guys. Uh. So they did
that now. They they've published graphic novels, they've published books.
(21:39):
They've also of course done a number of TV shows, films,
and still as a record label doing albums. Right, the
company is responsible at least partially for reinvigorating public interest
in UFOs, as well as serious, serious research on the subject.
I mean, even if someone's critical of them, they can't
(21:59):
take that away from them. They are they are driving
force that conversation. A Losando is as we record, still
with to the Stars Academy. What's his official title? According
to the current website, he is the Director of Government
Programs and Services and in Government Programs and Services, so
(22:21):
he's kind of like their government expert, their subject matter
expert or government liaison. Yeah. And underneath that, just it's
really interesting, they have the team a little tab you
can click on under that lists all of his his
background there just to let you know, like he really
has had a lot of experience. He does, he has
a wealth of experience. Uh. It's also weird because I've
(22:41):
seen it in different places on the website where he's
described as the director of Global Security and Special Programs.
So maybe that title has changed over time, but as
of March of Uh. The latest news from to the
Stars is that they have announced a partnership with an
equity firm, try Point Global Equities, to sell shares in
(23:02):
their organization. And talking about investments in that way, it
makes people a little skittish, you know what I mean.
Now you're messing with the money. More than one person
has learned the hard way that that's not the best idea.
Uh So it's weird. When you go to the I
want to see what you guys think about this. When
you go to the website to the Stars Academy dot com,
(23:23):
the first thing that comes up is invest now. You
have you have a menu button, you have a two
buttons on the landing page at same invest now, and
you have one that says play video minimum investment fifty dollars,
price per share five dollars. Huh interesting, you know, h
(23:47):
I don't like it to to the Stars. I don't
like it seventy share minimum by it. But but that
that being said, Ben, if you go through that team,
the team that they've got down there, there's a dude
named Steve Justice, which, first of all, incredible names. Justice,
come on, he's the chief Operations Officer, Aerospace Division Director
(24:10):
this dude. He's retired, and he retired from skunk Works
at Lockheed. He worked there for thirty one years. Uh,
come on, if you're going to have somebody earn your
team that knows this kind of stuff, that's the guy
Steve Justice. And you know, I don't want to sound
too credulous or something, but if you look at especially
(24:32):
the board members, I get the sense that they're not
in it for the money, which I like, you know
what I mean, I think they're there. I can't say definitively,
but it feels like they're in it because they believe
in it. Dude. Yeah, Jim Simmonvan he spent twenty five
years as an operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency,
(24:53):
the director of Operations. I mean, come on, that's yeah.
I don't think that dudes in the for the money.
That that guy's espionage city and he's just like, what's
going on over here? Or did they infiltrate immediately and
Jim is the inside guy. I just don't. That's the thing.
I just don't. This is just my opinion. There's just
(25:17):
one person's opinion. I try to keep opinions out out
of the show, but I feel like people never really
leave the CIA. Yeah, I feel like you're always maybe
you're officially retired, but you're always kind of on call,
you know what I mean. I feel that way. I
feel like that's absolutely the way, especially if you're at
the top. But you know, I never officially been in
(25:39):
the CIA. Add to the problem of credibility for the
organization is that they have a they ever reported multimillion
dollar operating deficits, something like thirty seven point four million
dollars in the hole. And this leads people, especially again
people are already more on the skeptical side, to say,
(25:59):
like this is a money grab instead of an actual
legitimate enterprise. But again for the skeptics, they did get
ahold of a thirty second thirty six second video that
is legitimate that no one can explain, including the US government,
and the US government admitted it. So they did that
(26:20):
that happened, right. It is weird to have a piece
of evidence like that that you no, it's real. You're
sitting there, You're looking at you like, Okay, there's something here.
But I can't I can't prove that this is real.
I just it feels real, it looks real, it sounds real.
But is it real? So that's where we're at, folks.
Alsando confirmed a secret program, the Navy admitted it, and
(26:42):
while it was the most significant disclosure since the declassification
of Project Bluebook, at least in this country, nothing much
seems to have come from the claims. Yet that mysterious
footage remains unexplained. The pilots went on record confirming stuff
they couldn't explain. They made their own guesses. But then
the story just sort of stopped. So that's the end, right,
(27:07):
We're done with this episode. I'll finished, or are we?
You see this January the Navy had something else to say,
and we'll tell you what it was after a word
from our sponsor. Infuriating. Here's where it gets crazy. So
(27:30):
in January of not too long ago at all, UH,
independent researcher Christopher lamb Right got a response to his
fo I requests Freedom of Information Act request seeking more
information on the strange sighting b Navy pilots that we
discussed earli the episode that it took place on November
four of two thousand and four. UM. What he was
(27:54):
looking for, specifically was more information on the video footage
and some presentation slides from the Office of Naval Intelligence. Yeah,
the Navy shut him down. People who know who, who
are familiar with the foil request they can take forever,
(28:17):
you know, often don't get the results you want, right,
And the Navy, the Navy came back with with a
line that we really like the wave. VICE reported this,
we have we have a quote. So here's what the
Navy said. So, the Navy said it had quote discovered
certain debriefing slides that are classified top secret. Of review
(28:39):
of these materials indicates that they are currently inappropriately marked
and classified top secret under Executive Order one three five
to six, and the original classification authority has determined that
the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage
to the national security of the United States. Let's stop
(29:00):
right there. I think about that exceptionally grave damage to
national security? What the hell is on these slides? What's
in that footage? Right? Why is it exceptionally grave? Does
that imply that regular grave was fine? You know what
I mean? So so VICE followed up and asked about
this denial, and that's when Pentagon spokesperson Susan go elaborated
(29:25):
a little and she said, the Department of Defense specifically,
the U S. Navy has the video quote like the
full video, because there's more than that thirty six seconds. Apparently,
as Navy and my office have stated previously, as the
investigation of U a P Unidentified Aerial phenomenal sightings is ongoing,
we will not publicly discuss individuals sighting reports observations. However,
(29:49):
I can tell you that the date of the two
thousand four us S NIMITZ video is November four, two
thousand four, so I could tell you the date. Uh.
I can also tell you the link to the the video
that's been circulating since two thousand seven is the same
as the length of the source video. We don't expect
to release this video, but everybody else involved directly has
(30:13):
said that they there's an eight to nine minute or
even longer video. And then additionally, some of the I
don't know, it gets sticky, like what what are they hiding?
That's the question, because they didn't really say, they just
said as secret it could be exceptionally dangerous to national
(30:35):
security and favorite boogeyman. But what I mean, what do
we think A lot of people are There's a lot
of conjecture about this, and it feels like a lot
of it is pretty solid. Early's valid, understandable. Yeah, it
feels it feels very solid. I was reading another link
(30:55):
a political article that we had used for the research
of this show, just kind of going back over it
right now. It was from September of nine, and in
this case it's a Republican House Homeland Security Committee member.
He's actually the ranking member of the Intelligence and counter
Terrorism Subcommittee, and he was asking specifically about some of
(31:18):
these sightings, about some of these things. And the quote
that comes at the end of this article from Walker
from Representative Walker says, quote, if the Navy believes that
China or Russia possesses advanced aerospace technologies that represent a
national security vulnerability, the American people have the right to
know what their government is doing about it. So then
(31:41):
they're saying that if there is a if if this
is a mundane thing and there's some kind of let's
say defense or war uh warcraft gap, then the public
needs to know about it. Yeah, if they're if they're
really saying, you know, as they've stated there, this could
(32:02):
have this grave damaged to national security. Um, it's it
either means that somebody else has some kind of technology
that's dangerous to us, or means we have some kind
of insane technology that it would be dangerous if other
countries knew we had it, right, I mean, because they
would like preemptively strike or something, or they would there
(32:23):
be retaliation, or it would just be less useful. Yeah,
I say, there would be less of the element of surprise.
I got any Oh, in the third option, there is
that there's some kind of outside exterior force that is
a danger to all of humanity, which is the most
exciting one, though the least likely. All Right, questions are
exciting when you do what we do. If you are
(32:44):
on the front lines of trying to keep people from dying,
then questions rightly should terrify you. So worst case scenarios,
they don't know what it is at all. Uh So,
you know, people have plenty of people have speculated that
there is more footage, right, and that's what was being denied. Um.
Popular Mechanics had multiple witnesses from the Nimitz incident who
(33:09):
said that they definitely saw something that was much longer
and a lot more clear, higher resolution, which you guys
as editors, taught me a long time ago as one
of the trickiest things about a lot of at least
the video stuff. Uh, you know that resolution once you
get past, once you get to a certain degradation, it
(33:30):
doesn't matter what it is because the answer is moot.
But we are talking about two thousand four technology on
an aircraft. True. Uh, there's there's something else that I
want to put in a that's been reported in a
couple of different places. Witnesses said that after the incident,
shortly after the incident, unidentified people who had some kind
(33:52):
of credential showed up in a helicopter and took the footage,
just swooped it up. And still those people have not
been tied to any official government agency. But not everyone agrees,
you know, they're there are also people who witnessed it
who said, clearly what I saw was not of this world,
(34:13):
you know, and they you know, they're again they're educated
and observation, they've seen the physics, and they're saying, you
just can't do a forty five degree move like that.
But there are other people who are more skeptical, like
Commander David Fraber said, you know, longer videos of this
incident don't exist, I would have heard them. People are
being alarmist but no matter how you slice it, no
(34:36):
matter where you fall on the spectrum, the answer is
simply this. There is more to the story. The Navy
is not letting it out. They say it's dangerous. There's
literally stuff they don't want you to know. Yes, yes,
Why would there not be longer video? Rights? In what?
In what version of this would there not be longer video?
(34:59):
The only way is if somebody hit record on a
device and then hit record again after thirty seconds where
it stopped recording. Do we have a story as to
how they got hold of the video in the first place.
I think that is that is probably classified within the
halls of To the Stars Academy. Well, from what I remember,
(35:21):
and this comes back from some of our conversations with
other people in the environment. From what I remember, Tom
Delong's account was that he had met with people surreptitiously
in like hotel rooms and stuff, and that someone slid
him the tape through an official channels. So it's definitely
a leak. I mean, maybe it's just the best, the
(35:43):
good part, you know. Yeah, But see, this is why
it screams dis info to me. It screams dis info
to me because it is this tiny, little tantalizing snippet
that was given to Tom DeLong in a hotel somewhere
by someone I don't know. After all, I mean it
(36:05):
because of the nature of the resolution of the footage,
you could certainly fake a video like that pretty easily
with plug ins and you know, just downgrading the video
quality or doing any number of things. I'm pretty terrible
at it, and I'm confident that I could make it
because the voice you just hear the voices. You don't
even see their faces. You just see like a static
(36:25):
shot from within the cockpit. Right, Yeah, it's it's the
observational um camera. I guess that they're using the equivalent
of like a like a dash cam and like a
uber or something kind of. But they've got a hood
and it is a really or heads up display and
it is a really sophisticated system. It's just you know,
with with an Adobe suite, you could you could recreate
(36:49):
all Another interesting thing about that, why is there just
the video? Because those they don't just have a camera
slapped in front of the jet fighters. They have multiple
monitor ring systems. There's a suite, So I would be
interested in seeing any other onboard sensor reports. So yeah,
I mean, it's way less sexy than a video, but
(37:10):
it would go a long way towards helping explain what
this was. It would be better data, at least, I mean,
because surely there, if it's locking in on this bogeye
or whatever, there would be a record of its trajectory
and the way it moved and stuff, and you should
be able to generate a report on that, I would imagine, right, yeah, absolutely.
And here's another thing that's a little screwy about this.
(37:32):
The Pentagon repeatedly changed its story since the original exposure
past the point of fog of war or miscommunication internally, right,
which can totally happen. That could totally happen. Sometimes agencies
can just be wrong about what their messages. But as
recently as last month, the Pentagon said that a tip
(37:53):
had nothing to do with UFOs what we would call UFOs.
Alizondo has said that he is quote not able to
comment further on the existence of a longer video due
to my obligations involving my n D a nondisclosure agreement
with the government, and the fact that I am no
longer employed with the US government. However, he follows as
I stated before, people should not be surprised by the
(38:16):
revelation that other videos exist and at a greater length.
So to unpack that, he said, I can't. I guess
what he's trying to do is skirt the line of
n d A and say, well, I can't say if
there's a longer version of this video that we're talking about,
but I can say you shouldn't be surprised if other
(38:37):
longer videos exist, which is, you know, uh, that can
make a pretty good meal for lawyers, you know what
I mean. If that ever, that would be interesting in
the courtroom, you know. Uh. So so there we go.
I mean, what what what do you all think? I
don't know about you guys. I would I would say
(38:58):
one of two things, or most likely one, like you said, Matt,
maybe there's in a rival military that has some kind
of maybe like a sub launched nuke or missile that
has some previously unknown abilities. Or maybe there's something that
(39:19):
the US did observing this stuff and they don't want,
like to your point about the element of surprisal, maybe
they don't want rival militaries to know just how they
how good they are at monitoring things like that's the
reason a lot of intelligence was classified in the years
before Five Eyes was public knowledge. Yeah, it's true. Yeah,
(39:40):
hiding the surveillance technology. So are they hiding there's technology?
Are they hiding someone else's what's going on? Something else's,
something else's. Yeah, we want to hear from you. Tell
us if you think it's some kind of new sophisticated
uh ua V technology, because it well, it looks like
(40:00):
like it was probably a smaller craft, but it did
look odd in that video. I don't know. I for
a while there, I was convinced it was some kind
of drone. Right. The shape of it is almost like
got that triangular kind of vibe to it, right, Yeah,
but odd odd Quick question you guys, to derail and
take us into the spet realm of speculative fiction. Have
(40:23):
you guys seen the trailer for the new season of
West World yet? Yes? I think it looks awesome. Okay,
you don't think so, you seem yeah, no, I think so.
I'm did you say that with a big question mark
at the hand. I am looking forward to it and
it's coming out. It will be out by the time
this episode released. The show will Yeah, okay, but I
(40:45):
just I just like that it's in the real world,
and it's like you know, and it's got all these
crazy max and drones and stuff, and we haven't really
seen much of that on the show up until now.
I'm excited. And it's got Jesse Pinkman from breaking that
which I'm whatever. His name is the real actor, guy
Aaron Paul. That's it. He's He's fantastic. Look, this show
is not brought to you by West World or HBO
(41:08):
or any of the other things that we mentioned today
Tom DeLong at least Angels and at least at the
time that we're recording it. However, maybe one day in
the future you will hear a West World add on
this episode. In your mind will be blown if we're
still around. I mean, who knows, how are we going
to become a quote grave threat to national security? I
(41:31):
hope not extraordinarily grave threat. I got I gotta ask
you guys. You know how Tom DeLong had a very
distinct vocal style as one of the singers of link
Wanity two. Let's six call a little nasally. I guess
you know. So the guy that replaced him in the band,
who was in the band Alcohol and Trio, he does
like a perfect copy of that, and how how do you?
How do you do that and live with yourself? Like
(41:51):
he's just totally doing his best Tom DeLong impression. It's probably,
I mean, it's cool to be a working musician's probably
living with himself all the way to the bank. Maybe yeah.
Or maybe he already got picked because he naturally sings
like that. Maybe, so it's sort of like Peter Gabriel
versus Phil Collins. You know, Phil Collins was the drummer
for Genesis and sang all the backups, and then when
(42:11):
he took Peter's place as the lead singer, he sounds
just like Peter. But it's because they kind of came
up singing together. So maybe it's not as rip off
he as I think. I quite enjoyed seeing them live.
The drummer Travis Barker is a monster. Oh yeah, Travis
Barker has that invisible touch too, And uh, you know,
I'm I'm excited that you're excited. Well thanks man. So everyone,
(42:34):
if you can hear this, please reach out to us
on Twitter or Facebook where we're conspiracy stuff, or let's
say Instagram where we're conspiracy stuff. Show tell us what
you think about this serious UFO slash u AP program
that was occurring there, about this specific case of some
kind of unidentified aerial phenomena, and um, what you think
(42:58):
about this whole possibility that there's a longer video out
there somewhere. Have you seen it? Can you send it? Yeah,
that's exactly what's gonna ask. Send it our way. Have
you any of those channels if you'd like, or hey,
you can give us a phone call and tell us
all about it. Our number is one eight three three
std W y t K. Leave a message. We will
(43:22):
hear you. And oh hey, guess what, it's that special
time we are going to hear the latest message that
has come in. I'm just pulling it up right here.
All right, Hey guys, I just wanted to say I'm
a fan of the show. Well what you guys do,
keep up the good work. And uh and here's my
(43:42):
bend bowling impression. Right m hmm. Thanks whoa that one?
That one was unexpected. Ben your you're five nailed it.
Thanks so much. Spot On. We found out some somewhere
on the Internet that people do a drinking game based
on our various idiosyncrasies. What's what's uh so what's yours?
(44:06):
Do you know? Is it? Is it that? Yeah? Wait?
What's knowles? Knowles is funny question and yours is? But
what if? Okay, I thought mine would have been using
the words situation. I say that a lot, or I
say like, you know, it's a UFO type situation or
a paper cup type situation. You know I could see
that maybe randomly bringing up an HBO show that was
(44:30):
not random, that was drone based. Okay, that was very
aprod drone get it? I thought it was there, but awesome. Yeah,
And if you have if you have thoughts, if you
have full video, if you have more insight into to
the stars, U A P or U f O, let
us know. If you hate social media, that's fine, we
(44:52):
totally get it. Uh. And if you hate phones, that's fine,
I get it as well. We have one last way
to contact us other than mid I at a crossroad,
send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
(45:25):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
So the U. S. Navy is huge. It's incredibly powerful,
but like any other organization, it worries about a lot
of stuff. You might be surprised to learn, as we
were that the name. One of the things the Navy
is worried about is the release of UFO files. Yeah.
Is it because they know they're outclassed by some other force,
(00:22):
whether it's of this Earth or not? M m maybe maybe? Maybe? Uh?
Is it because it might expose some of their own activities.
That's a possibility as well. Well, let's find out together
on this episode. This is our last one for now
of our UFO playlist. But guess what, there are more
(00:44):
episodes on this topic that you can find in our
feed You just gotta hunt for him. So good luck
and enjoy this episode. From UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. Can turn
back now or learn the stuff they don't want you
to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome
(01:18):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They called me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and most importantly,
you are you. You are here and that makes this stuff.
They don't want you to know, as we have been doing.
At the top of the show, we're gonna we're gonna
do a little bit of of a Twitter roll call.
(01:39):
That's where we find some tweets from you and your
fellow listeners. Just give them, give them some time on
air to see what you all think about them. Who
would like to do the honors today? Let's go to
in DAG fifteen. In DAG fifteen fifteen, says Yo. So
Harvey Weinstein got twenty three years and everyone's talking about coronavirus.
(02:02):
Was this planned or something? This is the same thing
as Wendy Williams fainting during the wildfires? Interesting? What is
he saying that coronavirus is the Wendy Williams fanning in
the wh during the wild Yes, the coronavirus is the Hey,
look over your smoke screen, and the real thing is
Harvey wind cover story. Yeah, I don't that seems wrong.
(02:23):
I don't know. I feel like generally that would go
the other way. That's what I'm thinking. But and that
is not too you know, well, it's it's not to
say the the victims of Harvey Weinstein are not important
that is just to say that's it's going to affect
a lot more people, the coronavirus. Weinstein went to jail, yes,
(02:44):
you know what I mean, It would it would feel
like more of a one to one cover story comparison
if Weinstein somehow did not go to jail and got
you know, put in mental institution or rehab, like when
he went to that when he tried to go to
that sex addiction rehab and then dropped out early. That
(03:05):
also happened. Uh, you know, probably so we could go
have some sex. Who knows. And the reports of we
may have talked about this off air, may have talked
about what you guys, but the reports of his uh,
the reports of his surgery bits unmentionables. Oh yes, yeah,
it's really like like the like the descriptions, descriptives and
(03:27):
it had the pleasure so painful for survivors that have
to mention that. But his his bits his Australia as
a train wreck, uh in a medically bizarre way. But yeah,
it could it be a cover story. We know that
those we know that those do occur. We've had a
lot of people actually right in to say that. See
people have said the coronavirus is a cover story for
(03:49):
something different. Many political partisans are saying coronavirus is a
alarmist story meant to distract from what they see as
the d n C conspire ring to push an establishment
candidate over the one that they feel is closer to
their values. But the thing about those cover stories is
(04:09):
you never really know until it's too late to do anything. Right.
So here's another one. Here's another Twitter shout out from
technol Music. Technolo Music says, guys, big fan, I got
some stuff they don't want you to know and would
love to share it with you. Guys. It involves black
hat s e O, search engine optimization, bots, elections and
(04:31):
what we expect in the upcoming elections. I know how
all that stuff works intimately because I used to do it. Yeah.
Big shout out to Technology Dash Internet God. Um, I
I do not know who you are, genuinely, technologe. You
seem to have a lot of followers Technology Internet. If
(04:51):
we should say that Technology Internet out, I apologize, man,
but that's uh. You know you've intrigued us. We would
love to know if you want to send things, detailed things.
Our email is conspiracy at I heart radio dot com.
And you know, we've got that phone number that you'll
hear at the end. And if you would be more
comfortable using an encrypted info drop site, then I can
(05:15):
set one of those up when we can communicate that way,
or proton mail or proton mail as well. This is
not a commercial proton mail, but they do good work.
It's proton mail where you like molecularly deconstructed and then
reassemble it on the other side, or something almost exactly that,
just with encryption. Yeah, it's pretty secure. A lot of journalists,
especially in dangerous authoritarian countries, use proton mail. And this
(05:38):
concludes our Twitter roll call. On with the show today
we return fellow conspiracy realist once again to the controversial
and fast moving get it world of UFO revelations in
recent years. In recent months, Western governments have done something
kind of hilarious. Uh, They've revealed internal documentation that flatly
(06:00):
contradicts their earlier stated policies. Remember in the days after
Blue Book, the famous Project Blue Book, where where in
the government collected all these reports of unidentified flying objects.
In the years since then, Uncle Sam's main official line
had always been we did this, we didn't find anything.
(06:22):
We don't waste money on it anymore because your taxpayer,
that's your money. We spend it on good stuff like bombs,
maybe weaponized diseases. But recent weeks later confirmed that the
US Navy at the very least as well as the
Pentagon were in fact closely monitoring what they called U
a p unexplained aerial phenomena, while simultaneously claiming they were
(06:45):
doing no such thing. Isn't that just like a synonym
for UFO? How is that? Is there anything that sets
it apart? Well, it doesn't have this stigma, so it's
just sort of like a stand in. Then it's sort
of like a less charged version of the same exact thing. Well,
it's it's more broad too, because it doesn't have the
implication that there's a physical object. It's a craft of
some kinds that could just be weather, which is often
(07:09):
the explanation for UFOs as well. So it's interesting that
there's a separate term. I wonder who pitched that in
a meeting. I don't know. Yeah, this this is interesting though,
because this is still a developing story, we want to
give you a real quick walk through on some stuff
for a deep dive into some of this information please
check out our earlier episode not sponsored by Blink one two.
(07:33):
But when we talk about revelations, what do we mean?
Here are the facts. In The New York Times exposed
the Pentagon's previously secret mysterious UFO program that was known
as Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or a a d
i P at TIP, A TIP I'm gonna go with
(07:55):
at TIP. This program catapulted an individual who was previous
a quite unknown by the name of Luis Alesando um
right into the public eye. Alexando, a former employee of
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
or DOOSTI uh and a former U. S. Army counterintelligence
(08:16):
special agents. Yes, and Luis Alizondo, as we will refer
to as Elizondo henceforth he uh. He was the head
of this a t I P year or at TIP
as we have named it. Now, this was a really
interesting thing. It was a program type of program that
we've discussed before on this show called a Special Access program.
(08:40):
It was allotted somewhere between twenty two and twenty nine
million dollars and it was it got its start or
is initiated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and here's the
here's what it was gonna do. It was going to
study unidentified aerial phenomena, these things we call now you
a P s UM also UFOs. And this guy, like
(09:02):
we said, he just got thrust out there. He had
to start immediately answering questions about this thing that nobody
knew about. Really interesting too, because when he started answering
this it was after the fact. He was an ex
government employee. And Louis made a lot of claims. I'm
calling Louis because that's what the History Channel refers to him.
As we'll get to it. Uh, he claimed that not
(09:26):
only was Uncle Sam cognizant of these various instances of
U A P, but he claimed that they retrieved the
holy grail of ufology, which would be physical evidence. He
said there were metal alloys and other materials the government
had recovered. According to the d O D, this program
(09:47):
was ended in two thousand twelve after five years. However,
that's what they said about the kind of investigations that
took place during Blue Book, and that was true for
some of the time, but not true for sever years.
So of course, you cannot blame people for saying they
don't believe the official line, and he said Alsando was
(10:08):
an ex government employee. He resigned from that program in
October of twenty seventeen, and he said he resigned in
protest of government secrecy. What he saw is opposition to
the mission of the program and his personal belief that
in both the d D, the Pentagon, and the Halls
of Congress, uh, this mission was not being taken seriously.
(10:30):
He felt kind of like maybe with someone's pet project,
if that makes sense, uh huh. And then you know,
he left the government. He said, I don't like your mission.
I'm going to a place where I can find a
real home, where I'm gonna really gel with what this
company and the service is all about. Slab City City No.
(10:52):
He started working with To the Stars Academy that if
you're a listener of this show, you may be familiar.
If you're a listener of Joe Rogan experience, you're probably familiar.
If you're a listener of really important I might say
early two thousands music, you may be familiar. Um to
the Stars Academy is the private UFO investigation group created
(11:13):
by created by Tom DeLong, who is currently also famous
for being a founding member of the band Blink one two.
He is retired from Blink one D two. However, To
the Stars Academy still is involved in the music business.
But I talked about this before we did. But and
you may think, oh wait, a u a UFO slash
(11:37):
u AP focused company created by a former musician. I
don't need to worry about that. They're never gonna do
anything groundbreaking. They've definitely done some some stuff, That's what
I'm saying, because in uh, they kind of shocked the world.
They shocked us. Yeah. Eighteen, To the Stars Academy released
(11:58):
a thirty second video of U. S Navy pilots encountering
a UFO. This was different from many similar instances of
alleged UFO footage. Well, I say alleged of UFO footage
because the some of the people who were involved directly
on the Navy's side confirmed that this was legit, and
(12:20):
you may remember the one. I mean it was. It
was remarkable as well, because it was very clear that
the pilots we're seeing something that was very unusual, and
the way they were commenting on it really rang true. Yeah,
and they had none of the usual disadvantages that you'll
see in a lot of UFO reports. They were not
on they were not on the ground, they were not inexperienced,
(12:42):
you know, they were familiar with all the things it
could be, and they couldn't answer the question. This was
one of those very small percentages of UFO reports that
did not have, even on the very skeptical end, a
satisfying answer. They're commenting about the way it's moved ing.
It's like a little blip on their radar, like a bogey, right,
(13:03):
and they're well, look at it, go, look at it, flip,
you know, like they're saying all these things, at these
like very um firsthand um observations from people that are
experts and such things context exactly, then they did as well. Absolutely,
the footage was recorded on the East coast of the
United States in so that's what happened. All of that
(13:24):
is real. Those are factual events. There's another factual thing
we have to mention here about Alesondo and about to
the Stars. That is, despite the fact that these this
footage is real, has been confirmed that thirty seconds actually happened.
Despite all that, there was still an enormous problem of
credibility for both Alisondo and for To the Stars. Academy itself. First,
(13:50):
Alisando's post government career has led to some criticism, both
from skeptics and from people who are more true believers
in the UFO commune, Citty, and that's because you know,
his life didn't stop when his government paychecks stopped, if
it ever did, which is another theory about it. Alazando
(14:11):
joined the cast of a show on the History Channel
called Unexplained. And you know how those kinds of shows
go on the History Channel, uh, which is not ading
on them, it's just very much on the entertainment side
of the spectrum. Uh, think of George Sukalos. Right. So
this has prompted some critics to imply or insinuate that
(14:34):
his goal is to turn a profit rather than to
pursue the truth. But to be fair, those two are
not mutually exclusive. Yeah. And there's the other point here
that's been made before, which is possibly this story kind
of like as our Twitter friend identified earlier, this concept
(14:58):
of putting for worth a bit of disinformation to be
a smoke screen or to throw people off a track. Um,
we hopefully we'll talk about a little bit later in
the episode. Um. Not, it could be that his motivations
are not just profit there to purposefully put out bogus information. Ah. Yes, yeah,
but again that is complete speculation. Who knows his intentions.
(15:23):
What's tricky about that, though, is that even if he
comes out later and says I was working as a
disinfo agent, you know, shout out to dot net, I
was working as an agent miss or disinformation and I
am going to confess at all. What if he said
that in a tell all documentary, you know that people
(15:46):
had to buy, then you wouldn't trust them again, right,
because you would still unless unless there is a harsh
air gap, a clear separation between profit and uh prescience
or prophetic figure, then people are always going to ask
that question. And it's a valid question to ask us
asking It is just us describing the lay of the land.
(16:08):
He's like, we interview that like sold like UFO tours
or something, or like UFO Vision quests. Doctor Stephen Greer, Right, that,
you know, again not throwing shade directly, but it does
call into question when your whole purpose for espousing a
certain belief is to sell quite expensive seminar packages. Yes,
but in the case of Elisondo, who knows how that
(16:32):
opportunity to be on the History Channel came about, it
could have been a tremendous opportunity for him, uh, money wise,
while like we said, kind of while still pursuing the
truth and seeking the truth. We just have to keep
all of that stuff in mind as we as we
continue along here. One last point, and it's something that
some of our fellow listeners will know, but many of
(16:53):
us may not be aware of this. A lot of
times when people end up being pundits or subject matter
experts on entertainment shows like that, they get in that
old uh they're they're in that old frog and slowly
but boiling water kind of thing. They meet some producers
who are maybe not a ethical who say, we believe
(17:16):
in your mission, we want to help you, and then
along the way they just slowly nudge them further and
further away from something that's more documentary or fact finding
into something that's more entertainment. There's also absolutely nothing preventing
a lot of those companies from taking someone's statement out
of context or even what's called frank in biting And
(17:38):
you guys, can you describe frank and biting for everyone? Yeah,
it's sort of like um taking little syllables and snippets
of things people say. Uh, it's typically done in reality
television where you cut away from the person's visual and
then you hear the sound of their voice saying a
thing that sounds believable, but it's really just a snipped
up mishmash of different things they've said to of a
(18:00):
certain meaning. And this is something you have to do
in true crime podcasts a lot where maybe a fact
is slightly wrong and you don't have your host in
to do a fix or something. You know, that's that
would a much more magnanimous version of of reason to
do this. Well, I guess what I'm saying is that
concept of frank in biting. It's something you can do
(18:20):
with editing tools, whether in video or audio that if
you have control or rights over the materials you have
has been said, there's very little anyone can do about that.
And it's not inherently nefarious, is what you're saying as well.
I mean, you can do it to help the person
sound like they said the correct thing, and you could
(18:42):
argue still maybe there's some ethical gray area there if
they didn't really say it, maybe you should just you know,
find a different way to say it. But what's done
a lot of times in reality television, where it is
more nefarious is to actually have someone say something that
they didn't really say right, so uh a hopefully fictitious.
An example would be on a reality show. Let's say
(19:02):
we have someone who says, so and so is my
best friends. I would never sleep with his wife. Uh,
but I love having this conversation because when I get
to air this out, we can dispel any rumors. And
(19:22):
so the producers could take that and just pull the
words out and they would say I love having sex
with his wife, and it would be smooth enough that
if you didn't know the situation, you would think, Wow,
what a dirt bag to say that, and you would
never know that they made one sentence out of like
two or three. We're just saying that can happen. That
(19:45):
can happen, So maybe, uh, maybe Alesando was in a
situation like that. Maybe we're being too hard on this.
We just have to admit those things can happen in
the world of television. And there's no denying that Alesando
did incredibly important work and may still be doing it right.
But the problem with credibility, or we should say, the
(20:07):
criticisms of credibility. Don't stop with this individual. We're gonna
pause for word from our sponsors, and then we'll turn
our eyes briefly to the Stars Academy. To the Stars Academy,
not literally to the stars. Welcome back, everybody, let's continue
(20:31):
with to the Stars. It was originally launched as a
record label, which is, you know, that's a cool thing.
Record labels are cool. They're not quite as profitable as
they once were, but you can still do uh some
great works with within one of those Yes, that was um.
Then you know, over time it evolved into kind of
(20:53):
a mixed media a more general entertainment company. And you know,
as of the time that we're discussing here twenty seventeen,
they existed as a public benefit corporation. Now that is
a fun status to have, like a nonprofit. Uh, they
can still make money, so they're they're kind of a
corporation that in their charter and their mission statement and
(21:17):
their goals, they can list public benefit as one of
their goals in addition to stuff like making the most
money possible for shareholders. It's like a legal way of
saying we're we're the good guys. Uh. So they did
that now. They they've published graphic novels, they've published books.
(21:39):
They've also of course done a number of TV shows, films,
and still as a record label doing albums. Right, the
company is responsible at least partially for reinvigorating public interest
in UFOs, as well as serious, serious research on the subject.
I mean, even if someone's critical of them, they can't
(21:59):
take that away from them. They are they are driving
force that conversation. A Losando is as we record, still
with to the Stars Academy. What's his official title? According
to the current website, he is the Director of Government
Programs and Services and in Government Programs and Services, so
(22:21):
he's kind of like their government expert, their subject matter
expert or government liaison. Yeah. And underneath that, just it's
really interesting, they have the team a little tab you
can click on under that lists all of his his
background there just to let you know, like he really
has had a lot of experience. He does, he has
a wealth of experience. Uh. It's also weird because I've
(22:41):
seen it in different places on the website where he's
described as the director of Global Security and Special Programs.
So maybe that title has changed over time, but as
of March of Uh. The latest news from to the
Stars is that they have announced a partnership with an
equity firm, try Point Global Equities, to sell shares in
(23:02):
their organization. And talking about investments in that way, it
makes people a little skittish, you know what I mean.
Now you're messing with the money. More than one person
has learned the hard way that that's not the best idea.
Uh So it's weird. When you go to the I
want to see what you guys think about this. When
you go to the website to the Stars Academy dot com,
(23:23):
the first thing that comes up is invest now. You
have you have a menu button, you have a two
buttons on the landing page at same invest now, and
you have one that says play video minimum investment fifty dollars,
price per share five dollars. Huh interesting, you know, h
(23:47):
I don't like it to to the Stars. I don't
like it seventy share minimum by it. But but that
that being said, Ben, if you go through that team,
the team that they've got down there, there's a dude
named Steve Justice, which, first of all, incredible names. Justice,
come on, he's the chief Operations Officer, Aerospace Division Director
(24:10):
this dude. He's retired, and he retired from skunk Works
at Lockheed. He worked there for thirty one years. Uh,
come on, if you're going to have somebody earn your
team that knows this kind of stuff, that's the guy
Steve Justice. And you know, I don't want to sound
too credulous or something, but if you look at especially
(24:32):
the board members, I get the sense that they're not
in it for the money, which I like, you know
what I mean, I think they're there. I can't say definitively,
but it feels like they're in it because they believe
in it. Dude. Yeah, Jim Simmonvan he spent twenty five
years as an operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency,
(24:53):
the director of Operations. I mean, come on, that's yeah.
I don't think that dudes in the for the money.
That that guy's espionage city and he's just like, what's
going on over here? Or did they infiltrate immediately and
Jim is the inside guy. I just don't. That's the thing.
I just don't. This is just my opinion. There's just
(25:17):
one person's opinion. I try to keep opinions out out
of the show, but I feel like people never really
leave the CIA. Yeah, I feel like you're always maybe
you're officially retired, but you're always kind of on call,
you know what I mean. I feel that way. I
feel like that's absolutely the way, especially if you're at
the top. But you know, I never officially been in
(25:39):
the CIA. Add to the problem of credibility for the
organization is that they have a they ever reported multimillion
dollar operating deficits, something like thirty seven point four million
dollars in the hole. And this leads people, especially again
people are already more on the skeptical side, to say,
(25:59):
like this is a money grab instead of an actual
legitimate enterprise. But again for the skeptics, they did get
ahold of a thirty second thirty six second video that
is legitimate that no one can explain, including the US government,
and the US government admitted it. So they did that
(26:20):
that happened, right. It is weird to have a piece
of evidence like that that you no, it's real. You're
sitting there, You're looking at you like, Okay, there's something here.
But I can't I can't prove that this is real.
I just it feels real, it looks real, it sounds real.
But is it real? So that's where we're at, folks.
Alsando confirmed a secret program, the Navy admitted it, and
(26:42):
while it was the most significant disclosure since the declassification
of Project Bluebook, at least in this country, nothing much
seems to have come from the claims. Yet that mysterious
footage remains unexplained. The pilots went on record confirming stuff
they couldn't explain. They made their own guesses. But then
the story just sort of stopped. So that's the end, right,
(27:07):
We're done with this episode. I'll finished, or are we?
You see this January the Navy had something else to say,
and we'll tell you what it was after a word
from our sponsor. Infuriating. Here's where it gets crazy. So
(27:30):
in January of not too long ago at all, UH,
independent researcher Christopher lamb Right got a response to his
fo I requests Freedom of Information Act request seeking more
information on the strange sighting b Navy pilots that we
discussed earli the episode that it took place on November
four of two thousand and four. UM. What he was
(27:54):
looking for, specifically was more information on the video footage
and some presentation slides from the Office of Naval Intelligence. Yeah,
the Navy shut him down. People who know who, who
are familiar with the foil request they can take forever,
(28:17):
you know, often don't get the results you want, right,
And the Navy, the Navy came back with with a
line that we really like the wave. VICE reported this,
we have we have a quote. So here's what the
Navy said. So, the Navy said it had quote discovered
certain debriefing slides that are classified top secret. Of review
(28:39):
of these materials indicates that they are currently inappropriately marked
and classified top secret under Executive Order one three five
to six, and the original classification authority has determined that
the release of these materials would cause exceptionally grave damage
to the national security of the United States. Let's stop
(29:00):
right there. I think about that exceptionally grave damage to
national security? What the hell is on these slides? What's
in that footage? Right? Why is it exceptionally grave? Does
that imply that regular grave was fine? You know what
I mean? So so VICE followed up and asked about
this denial, and that's when Pentagon spokesperson Susan go elaborated
(29:25):
a little and she said, the Department of Defense specifically,
the U S. Navy has the video quote like the
full video, because there's more than that thirty six seconds. Apparently,
as Navy and my office have stated previously, as the
investigation of U a P Unidentified Aerial phenomenal sightings is ongoing,
we will not publicly discuss individuals sighting reports observations. However,
(29:49):
I can tell you that the date of the two
thousand four us S NIMITZ video is November four, two
thousand four, so I could tell you the date. Uh.
I can also tell you the link to the the video
that's been circulating since two thousand seven is the same
as the length of the source video. We don't expect
to release this video, but everybody else involved directly has
(30:13):
said that they there's an eight to nine minute or
even longer video. And then additionally, some of the I
don't know, it gets sticky, like what what are they hiding?
That's the question, because they didn't really say, they just
said as secret it could be exceptionally dangerous to national
(30:35):
security and favorite boogeyman. But what I mean, what do
we think A lot of people are There's a lot
of conjecture about this, and it feels like a lot
of it is pretty solid. Early's valid, understandable. Yeah, it
feels it feels very solid. I was reading another link
(30:55):
a political article that we had used for the research
of this show, just kind of going back over it
right now. It was from September of nine, and in
this case it's a Republican House Homeland Security Committee member.
He's actually the ranking member of the Intelligence and counter
Terrorism Subcommittee, and he was asking specifically about some of
(31:18):
these sightings, about some of these things. And the quote
that comes at the end of this article from Walker
from Representative Walker says, quote, if the Navy believes that
China or Russia possesses advanced aerospace technologies that represent a
national security vulnerability, the American people have the right to
know what their government is doing about it. So then
(31:41):
they're saying that if there is a if if this
is a mundane thing and there's some kind of let's
say defense or war uh warcraft gap, then the public
needs to know about it. Yeah, if they're if they're
really saying, you know, as they've stated there, this could
(32:02):
have this grave damaged to national security. Um, it's it
either means that somebody else has some kind of technology
that's dangerous to us, or means we have some kind
of insane technology that it would be dangerous if other
countries knew we had it, right, I mean, because they
would like preemptively strike or something, or they would there
(32:23):
be retaliation, or it would just be less useful. Yeah,
I say, there would be less of the element of surprise.
I got any Oh, in the third option, there is
that there's some kind of outside exterior force that is
a danger to all of humanity, which is the most
exciting one, though the least likely. All Right, questions are
exciting when you do what we do. If you are
(32:44):
on the front lines of trying to keep people from dying,
then questions rightly should terrify you. So worst case scenarios,
they don't know what it is at all. Uh So,
you know, people have plenty of people have speculated that
there is more footage, right, and that's what was being denied. Um.
Popular Mechanics had multiple witnesses from the Nimitz incident who
(33:09):
said that they definitely saw something that was much longer
and a lot more clear, higher resolution, which you guys
as editors, taught me a long time ago as one
of the trickiest things about a lot of at least
the video stuff. Uh, you know that resolution once you
get past, once you get to a certain degradation, it
(33:30):
doesn't matter what it is because the answer is moot.
But we are talking about two thousand four technology on
an aircraft. True. Uh, there's there's something else that I
want to put in a that's been reported in a
couple of different places. Witnesses said that after the incident,
shortly after the incident, unidentified people who had some kind
(33:52):
of credential showed up in a helicopter and took the footage,
just swooped it up. And still those people have not
been tied to any official government agency. But not everyone agrees,
you know, they're there are also people who witnessed it
who said, clearly what I saw was not of this world,
(34:13):
you know, and they you know, they're again they're educated
and observation, they've seen the physics, and they're saying, you
just can't do a forty five degree move like that.
But there are other people who are more skeptical, like
Commander David Fraber said, you know, longer videos of this
incident don't exist, I would have heard them. People are
being alarmist but no matter how you slice it, no
(34:36):
matter where you fall on the spectrum, the answer is
simply this. There is more to the story. The Navy
is not letting it out. They say it's dangerous. There's
literally stuff they don't want you to know. Yes, yes,
Why would there not be longer video? Rights? In what?
In what version of this would there not be longer video?
(34:59):
The only way is if somebody hit record on a
device and then hit record again after thirty seconds where
it stopped recording. Do we have a story as to
how they got hold of the video in the first place.
I think that is that is probably classified within the
halls of To the Stars Academy. Well, from what I remember,
(35:21):
and this comes back from some of our conversations with
other people in the environment. From what I remember, Tom
Delong's account was that he had met with people surreptitiously
in like hotel rooms and stuff, and that someone slid
him the tape through an official channels. So it's definitely
a leak. I mean, maybe it's just the best, the
(35:43):
good part, you know. Yeah, But see, this is why
it screams dis info to me. It screams dis info
to me because it is this tiny, little tantalizing snippet
that was given to Tom DeLong in a hotel somewhere
by someone I don't know. After all, I mean it
(36:05):
because of the nature of the resolution of the footage,
you could certainly fake a video like that pretty easily
with plug ins and you know, just downgrading the video
quality or doing any number of things. I'm pretty terrible
at it, and I'm confident that I could make it
because the voice you just hear the voices. You don't
even see their faces. You just see like a static
(36:25):
shot from within the cockpit. Right, Yeah, it's it's the
observational um camera. I guess that they're using the equivalent
of like a like a dash cam and like a
uber or something kind of. But they've got a hood
and it is a really or heads up display and
it is a really sophisticated system. It's just you know,
with with an Adobe suite, you could you could recreate
(36:49):
all Another interesting thing about that, why is there just
the video? Because those they don't just have a camera
slapped in front of the jet fighters. They have multiple
monitor ring systems. There's a suite, So I would be
interested in seeing any other onboard sensor reports. So yeah,
I mean, it's way less sexy than a video, but
(37:10):
it would go a long way towards helping explain what
this was. It would be better data, at least, I mean,
because surely there, if it's locking in on this bogeye
or whatever, there would be a record of its trajectory
and the way it moved and stuff, and you should
be able to generate a report on that, I would imagine, right, yeah, absolutely.
And here's another thing that's a little screwy about this.
(37:32):
The Pentagon repeatedly changed its story since the original exposure
past the point of fog of war or miscommunication internally, right,
which can totally happen. That could totally happen. Sometimes agencies
can just be wrong about what their messages. But as
recently as last month, the Pentagon said that a tip
(37:53):
had nothing to do with UFOs what we would call UFOs.
Alizondo has said that he is quote not able to
comment further on the existence of a longer video due
to my obligations involving my n D a nondisclosure agreement
with the government, and the fact that I am no
longer employed with the US government. However, he follows as
I stated before, people should not be surprised by the
(38:16):
revelation that other videos exist and at a greater length.
So to unpack that, he said, I can't. I guess
what he's trying to do is skirt the line of
n d A and say, well, I can't say if
there's a longer version of this video that we're talking about,
but I can say you shouldn't be surprised if other
(38:37):
longer videos exist, which is, you know, uh, that can
make a pretty good meal for lawyers, you know what
I mean. If that ever, that would be interesting in
the courtroom, you know. Uh. So so there we go.
I mean, what what what do you all think? I
don't know about you guys. I would I would say
(38:58):
one of two things, or most likely one, like you said, Matt,
maybe there's in a rival military that has some kind
of maybe like a sub launched nuke or missile that
has some previously unknown abilities. Or maybe there's something that
(39:19):
the US did observing this stuff and they don't want,
like to your point about the element of surprisal, maybe
they don't want rival militaries to know just how they
how good they are at monitoring things like that's the
reason a lot of intelligence was classified in the years
before Five Eyes was public knowledge. Yeah, it's true. Yeah,
(39:40):
hiding the surveillance technology. So are they hiding there's technology?
Are they hiding someone else's what's going on? Something else's,
something else's. Yeah, we want to hear from you. Tell
us if you think it's some kind of new sophisticated
uh ua V technology, because it well, it looks like
(40:00):
like it was probably a smaller craft, but it did
look odd in that video. I don't know. I for
a while there, I was convinced it was some kind
of drone. Right. The shape of it is almost like
got that triangular kind of vibe to it, right, Yeah,
but odd odd Quick question you guys, to derail and
take us into the spet realm of speculative fiction. Have
(40:23):
you guys seen the trailer for the new season of
West World yet? Yes? I think it looks awesome. Okay,
you don't think so, you seem yeah, no, I think so.
I'm did you say that with a big question mark
at the hand. I am looking forward to it and
it's coming out. It will be out by the time
this episode released. The show will Yeah, okay, but I
(40:45):
just I just like that it's in the real world,
and it's like you know, and it's got all these
crazy max and drones and stuff, and we haven't really
seen much of that on the show up until now.
I'm excited. And it's got Jesse Pinkman from breaking that
which I'm whatever. His name is the real actor, guy
Aaron Paul. That's it. He's He's fantastic. Look, this show
is not brought to you by West World or HBO
(41:08):
or any of the other things that we mentioned today
Tom DeLong at least Angels and at least at the
time that we're recording it. However, maybe one day in
the future you will hear a West World add on
this episode. In your mind will be blown if we're
still around. I mean, who knows, how are we going
to become a quote grave threat to national security? I
(41:31):
hope not extraordinarily grave threat. I got I gotta ask
you guys. You know how Tom DeLong had a very
distinct vocal style as one of the singers of link
Wanity two. Let's six call a little nasally. I guess
you know. So the guy that replaced him in the band,
who was in the band Alcohol and Trio, he does
like a perfect copy of that, and how how do you?
How do you do that and live with yourself? Like
(41:51):
he's just totally doing his best Tom DeLong impression. It's probably,
I mean, it's cool to be a working musician's probably
living with himself all the way to the bank. Maybe yeah.
Or maybe he already got picked because he naturally sings
like that. Maybe, so it's sort of like Peter Gabriel
versus Phil Collins. You know, Phil Collins was the drummer
for Genesis and sang all the backups, and then when
(42:11):
he took Peter's place as the lead singer, he sounds
just like Peter. But it's because they kind of came
up singing together. So maybe it's not as rip off
he as I think. I quite enjoyed seeing them live.
The drummer Travis Barker is a monster. Oh yeah, Travis
Barker has that invisible touch too, And uh, you know,
I'm I'm excited that you're excited. Well thanks man. So everyone,
(42:34):
if you can hear this, please reach out to us
on Twitter or Facebook where we're conspiracy stuff, or let's
say Instagram where we're conspiracy stuff. Show tell us what
you think about this serious UFO slash u AP program
that was occurring there, about this specific case of some
kind of unidentified aerial phenomena, and um, what you think
(42:58):
about this whole possibility that there's a longer video out
there somewhere. Have you seen it? Can you send it? Yeah,
that's exactly what's gonna ask. Send it our way. Have
you any of those channels if you'd like, or hey,
you can give us a phone call and tell us
all about it. Our number is one eight three three
std W y t K. Leave a message. We will
(43:22):
hear you. And oh hey, guess what, it's that special
time we are going to hear the latest message that
has come in. I'm just pulling it up right here.
All right, Hey guys, I just wanted to say I'm
a fan of the show. Well what you guys do,
keep up the good work. And uh and here's my
(43:42):
bend bowling impression. Right m hmm. Thanks whoa that one?
That one was unexpected. Ben your you're five nailed it.
Thanks so much. Spot On. We found out some somewhere
on the Internet that people do a drinking game based
on our various idiosyncrasies. What's what's uh so what's yours?
(44:06):
Do you know? Is it? Is it that? Yeah? Wait?
What's knowles? Knowles is funny question and yours is? But
what if? Okay, I thought mine would have been using
the words situation. I say that a lot, or I
say like, you know, it's a UFO type situation or
a paper cup type situation. You know I could see
that maybe randomly bringing up an HBO show that was
(44:30):
not random, that was drone based. Okay, that was very
aprod drone get it? I thought it was there, but awesome. Yeah,
And if you have if you have thoughts, if you
have full video, if you have more insight into to
the stars, U A P or U f O, let
us know. If you hate social media, that's fine, we
(44:52):
totally get it. Uh. And if you hate phones, that's fine,
I get it as well. We have one last way
to contact us other than mid I at a crossroad,
send us an email directly. We are conspiracy at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
(45:25):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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