All Episodes

November 12, 2024 61 mins

What if our understanding of UFOs is far from complete, and these phenomena are linked to dimensions beyond our own? Join me, Mario Magana, as I sit down with seasoned journalist and UFO observer, Keith Thompson, to explore this tantalizing possibility. From his unexpected journey into UFO research at age 12 to his investigations into government disinformation, Keith shares compelling insights that challenge the conventional narratives surrounding UFOs. We'll discuss the societal pressures that lead many to dismiss these extraordinary experiences and the importance of maintaining curiosity in spite of widespread skepticism.

Our conversation takes us through the historical and enigmatic encounters that have shaped the modern mythology of UFOs, beginning with Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting in 1947. We'll challenge the Hollywood portrayal of UFOs as purely extraterrestrial, proposing a more nuanced understanding that includes spiritual and multidimensional interpretations. Keith provides fascinating anecdotes about encounters with "men in black," the mystery of UFO recoveries, and how official narratives might conceal deeper truths about advanced technologies.

Finally, we'll touch on the mysterious world of UFO abductions and the ancient mysteries that continue to baffle researchers. From Dr. John Mack's controversial work on abductions to the construction of ancient pyramids, Keith and I delve into these complex topics with an open mind. By questioning authority and advocating for a more inquisitive approach, we'll encourage listeners to remain receptive to the unexplained phenomena that surround us. Join us as we challenge established beliefs and explore the fascinating possibilities that lie beyond our current understanding.
Keith Thompson website 
Book: The UFO Paradox The Celestial and Symbolic World of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Fan Mail Be apart of the show, or send your suggestions or feedback.

Support the show


Elevate the Extraordinary:
Support U.S. Phenomenon!

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to US Phenomenon, where possibilities
are endless.
Put down those same oldheadlines.
It's time to expand your mindand question what if?
From paranormal activity toUFOs, bigfoot sightings and
unsolved mysteries, this is USPhenomenon?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
From the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of the
1962 world's fair, the spaceneedle.
This is us phenomenon.
I'm your host, mario magana,where we explore the
extraordinary and theunexplained.
In this episode we willdiscover and we will cover
everything all UFO, all UAPs.

(00:44):
Our guest tonight is nostranger to this.
He's an author and independentjournalist, a radio talk show
host, a former talk show host, aformer Senate staff member.
His articles have appeared inmany different places, including
the New York Times, the Esquire, the San Francisco Chronicle,

(01:05):
the Idaho Statesman and thePacific Sun.
A UFO observer, a reporter,keith Thompson, has spent
decades researching andinvestigating UFO encounters and
other unknown aerial phenomena,leading us to this book, the
UFO Paradox, and let me put thisup here real quick.

(01:27):
I want to get this in here sowe can get this the UFO Paradox
the celestial and symbolic worldof unidentified aerial
phenomenons.
It is my pleasure to introduceand welcome to US Phenomenon
Keith Thompson.
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thank you, mario.
It's great to be here, lookingforward to our conversation you
know it's interesting when wediscuss these things.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Um, I know there's a lot of skeptics out there.
Right, there's a lot of peoplewho don't really understand this
.
And how far back does this gofor you?
Like the passion and you doingthe research?
This go for you, like thepassion and you doing the
research prior to you know,doing your normal daily job.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Well, that's a great question, a good place to start.
I've been following this forquite a long time, rather
unexpectedly.
I started out when I was 12years old, in the sixth grade.
I did not see a UFO, but it wasmy turn to give a current
events report in our classroom,that is to say, follow a news
story.
Each of us had that assignmentand when it was our turn we'd

(02:33):
come and stand in front of theclass Maybe we would have news
clippings or other props,depending on what the story was
about and then tell the class astory almost like a reporter.
So at that time, living inNorthwest Ohio, there was a
fairly legendary now that we canlook back on it UFO sighting in
Hillsdale, michigan and it wason the national news for like

(02:54):
three or four days in a rowbecause it was a continuous
sighting.
It was called, as the phrase isoften used, it was a UFO flap,
a period in which UFOs are seenlights in the sky, apparent
objects, interactions, the wholenine yards.
So I told the story about howthis this was reported and it

(03:15):
came to be my turn, or, at theend of the report, it was my
time to take questions fromclass members and one of them, I
can still remember very well,said to take questions from
class members and one of them, Ican still remember very well,
said what do you think they saw?
And I said I don't know.
But I said I pointed out thatthere had been a report that it
might have been only swamp gas,because swamp gas is a

(03:37):
phenomenon that occurs aroundswamps and bogs, where
outgassing can become luminous,catch on fire and so there are
often lights in a swamp.
Well, that did not explain thestory very well.
So I said to my classmate.
I said I don't know what theysaw, but it sure didn't sound
like swamp gas.
Covered the whole story.

(03:58):
At that point my teacher came upin front of the class with me.
Her name was Mrs Lowry.
She said something that I canstill remember as if she said it
today.
She said to the class I thinkwhat Keith is telling us here is
that it's important to keep anopen mind and ask relevant
questions.
And then she turned to me andspoke to me in the way that
teachers often do to students.

(04:20):
She called me by my full name.
She said Mr Thompson, that was agreat report you have the
makings of a reporter or maybe ascientist, possibly even a
detective.
And then she said withenthusiasm follow the evidence
wherever it leads, on any topic.
I couldn't have had a betterassignment from a news director.

(04:41):
If I were a journalist, I wenton to become a journalist, it
happened.
So I chose the reporterdesignation rather than
scientist or detective, although, as you can imagine, all three
have something in common Sure,detective, try to find out who
did it.
And a smart detective doesn'tsay, well, I'm going to exclude
him because he's a friend ofmine.
No, sometimes your friend isthe culprit.

(05:01):
And a scientist doesn't rule outof bounds or off the table
certain phenomena simply becauseit doesn't make sense.
It tries to incorporate thephenomenon or to decide what it
is.
And likewise with thejournalist, you're really
supposed to sort of puteverything in the story and let
the readers decide forthemselves.
That's a pretty high standard.
These days that doesn't getfollowed that much.

(05:22):
So that's how I got interested.
I can't say I became a UFOinvestigator that day, or a
full-time researcher, but it wasin my mind.
From that point on I knew thatthere was a basic pattern, Basic
pattern in UFO sightings.
Mario is something like this.
Ordinary, credible peoplereport extraordinary, incredible
sightings as they do, they arealmost instantly responded to by

(05:48):
official agents of culture,whether it's science, media,
academia, and instead of showingcuriosity about what people are
reporting, even though itdoesn't fit our existing
frameworks, the response verytypically is well, that couldn't
have happened, that wasn't seen.
It was probably amisidentification of some

(06:08):
celestial object like the moon,or this is maybe a hoax.
So I've learned by getting toknow UFO witnesses the pressures
they face to keep their storiesto themselves, because they can
become a laughingstock.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
It's interesting when you say that too, because I was
just going to ask you.
It's like maybe more now sincethe pandemic.
This seems to be more of aforesight.
I know that there is a I thinkthere's a hearing coming out
this week.
For those that are listening tothe podcast, or if you're
listening to us on theterrestrial radio, that has

(06:43):
already happened, but if you'relistening to the podcast, I
believe this week right, thereis a huge hearing that is coming
out about UFOs, uaps, which Iknow that they have the
designation for unidentifiedflying objects versus
unidentified UAP as thedesignation.

(07:08):
Are they still both?
Are we still now?
Is it moved to UAP movingforward?

Speaker 3 (07:14):
That's part of the quandary of all of this, mario.
Good question Is there adifference?
The main difference is the UAPunidentified aerial phenomena
was considered at this point alittle less charged with
symbolic meanings.
Maybe people would notnecessarily assume it meant
little green man, you know, foraliens, but it was considered
more neutral.
But it was created by thePentagon because in 2017, the

(07:38):
New York Times outed thePentagon, which had been saying
for really decades that there'snothing to this phenomenon,
there's nothing in the skythat's not conventional, that
doesn't belong there.
So go home, people, return toyour lives.
We're the Air Force.
We know what's going on in thesky.
But it turns out no, a taskforce existed in the Pentagon

(08:00):
secret no longer secret thanksto the New York Times it had
been studying the phenomena.
So, yeah, you're right.
Now, this week, november 11, forthose who are hearing this
afterwards, a hearing will beheld.
I'll speak of it in the future,because it hasn't happened yet.
It'll be a House, congressional.
The congressional side, theHouse side of Congress, I should

(08:21):
say is having a joint meetingof two committees.
Four witnesses are going totestify.
The question is how muchempirical evidence is really
going to come out of this whatoften happens in previous
hearings, for example, a yearago, a witness will say I have
concluded that it might, that,yes, we have, based on the

(08:44):
evidence I've heard and thesources I've spoken to, yes, the
US is in possession ofspacecraft, non-human spacecraft
and non-human biologicalmaterial.
Can you tell us where this isbeing held?
No, not in public session.
Well, can you tell us whatexactly?
No, not in public session.
Have you seen it yourself?
No, not in public session.

(09:04):
Well, can you tell us whatexactly?
No, not in public session.
Have you seen it yourself?
No, but I've talked to verycredible people.
You're kind of seeing where I'mleading.
I'm not questioning theirintegrity or their sincerity.
If you're under a secrecy oath,you better obey it.
You better abide by it.
So when they say I can't tellyou in public session, they
can't tell you in public session, but it by it sure.

(09:31):
When they say I can't tell youin public session, they can't
tell you in public session, butit leaves a big gap between the
claim and the proof of the claimor the outing.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So whether that's going to be the same after this
hearing is is yet to bedetermined, and I know that your
book, uh, keith thompson, theauthor of the uf, the ufo
paradox and the celestial andsymbolic world of uaps, um, I
didn't have a full chance tolisten to it.
I was cramming as much as Ipossibly can.
I, tongue in cheek, have talkedabout this on this show a ton

(09:56):
that the pacific northwest isthe home of ufos, uaps, the
first sightings, because of thekenneth arnold thing you know,
everyone talks about how, oh,you know, roswell, roswell.
I'm like no, it happened herefirst and maybe there are other
encounters that have happened.
But but I kind of want to puffmy chest and say hey, the

(10:17):
pacific northwest is home to themost paranormal ufo sightings,
obviously with Kenneth Arnoldgoing way back in the day.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Exactly.
I'm also a student of mythology.
I love the Greek myths andother mythologies of cultures as
a way to learn about the psycheof other people.
And in mythology, a creationmyth is the myth that a people,
especially an indigenous people,will tell about themselves, or,
for that matter, modern peoplewho hold the Bible dear, the Old

(10:50):
Testament.
There's a creation story inthere, called Genesis, that
tells the story of how thingscame to be.
The reason I mention creationstories is that you're right.
The UFO phenomenon's creationstory took place with Kenneth
Arnold sighting in June of 1947.
While he was flying over thebeautiful Mount Rainier, one of

(11:11):
the greatest mountains in NorthAmerica, he saw nine objects
flying in formation at fantasticspeed, great altitude.
He was able to clock all ofthat because he was a very
skilled pilot private pilot, buthad professional standing, or I
should say skill level.
He reported that they flew asif saucers were skipping over

(11:35):
water.
He referred to the motion ofthe way they moved, not
specifically to the shape, but,of course, the way that was
mangled by the news media at thetime.
It was reported that he sawobjects shaped like saucers.
In any case, the mostinteresting thing, mario,
happened many decades later,after Kenneth Arnold had passed

(11:55):
away and, by the way, after he'dspent many years being
associated with the flyingsaucers.
It didn't do his career and hissocial standing much good to be
associated with something thatwas considered kooky by many.
On the other hand, he gothundreds and thousands of
letters from people who said Isaw this stuff too, so I need
you to verify it for me.

(12:16):
Well, he wasn't in the businessof doing that.
Either he was the wrong man inthe wrong place, you might say,
or maybe the right man in theright place.
But here's the interestingthing After he died, his
daughter, kim Arnold, cameforward in the.
I believe it was around the1990s, maybe the late 80s.
She appeared on a nationalradio show and she told the host
she goes, I'm coming forward.

(12:37):
My father asked me to do this.
Eventually, I'm coming forwardto tell the rest of the story
that he didn't tell.
My father was always astonishedat the idea that he had
reported nuts and bolts,technological craft.
That's never what he said.
What he told us, his familymembers, was that these objects

(12:58):
moved, that they seemed to bebreathing, they seemed to be
pulsating and they had variousdensities.
They were blue-white light andthey had various densities, from
opaque to translucent, changingtheir shape and form and,
according to Ken Arnold to hisdaughter, beating almost to the
rhythm of the human heart.
He also said to her, kim, itwas like I didn't think it was

(13:23):
from another place, othergalaxies.
I thought it was from anotherdimension.
That's always right here.
It felt to me, kim, like theseobjects were somehow related to
what we call death, where we gowhen we leave this world.
Now, regardless of the factualwhether that's a good
interpretation on his part, thatwas his deep intuitive sense.

(13:46):
Not that it was like spacecraftor high tech, but it was like
almost a living organism thatwas changing its shape and form,
human heart and seemed relatedto death.
So it's more as if this was areligious experience rather than
an extraterrestrial experience.
If it had been reported in theterms which he kept to himself,

(14:09):
by the way, the details he justprovided, he was not interested
in going public with that.
It was bad enough to beassociated with something goofy
like flying saucers.
Okay, there's one additionaldetail that really just messes
things up, but I mean that in agood sense, because it makes us
open up to the full range ofdata.
When he returned to Boise, idaho, that night, which is where he

(14:30):
and his family lived.
He was at Mount Rainier.
He flew back home from hisday's work, landed at the
airport, got in the car, droveto his neighborhood.
When he came into his house andgot settled, suddenly there
appeared in the house orbs oflight, o-r-b-s.
Round balls of light blue, red,yellow, suggestive of

(14:53):
paranormal phenomena.
Some phenomenon that had neverappeared in their home before
and certainly made no senseoutside of a spiritual or
paranormal display was suddenlyappearing in the house.
And again, he didn't reportthat either.
So whatever he encountered youmay say geographically, mount

(15:14):
Rainier that day, it connectedhim to a larger field of reality
such that it followed him home.
It went home with him.
It hitchhiked, if you will.
So that's a part that has neverbeen told about the opening
story of the contemporary flyingsaucer phenomenon, and I write

(15:35):
about this in the book.
So what that requires is thatwe open our minds to the idea
that, to whatever degree, thecreation myth of UFOs is very
different from what we'vethought.
Then this whole phenomenon, tothe degree that we assume it
must be extraterrestrial in theSteven Spielberg close
encounters of the third kindsense, tells us more about what

(15:57):
Hollywood and how Hollywoodlikes to portray this and how
that may be different from whatthe actual phenomenon is in many
cases there's so much when youtalk about uh kenneth arnold's
time, uh, back in the 40s, late40s, uh, I mean I'm sure that
was a strictly, I mean they gotto be the biggest taboo thing.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
And then you go back and you think about this piece
to the, the incident thathappened at uh, maury island,
the maury island incident thatwas.
I mean, some people think itwas a hoax and maybe maybe
wasn't.
Um, you know how these men inblack started to show up uh to
to investigate.
Was this because there was allthese sightings that were

(16:40):
starting to happen that werekenneth's sightings, this
incident, roswell, these thingsstarted to add up.
The government had to probablyspin something up uh to move
forward, to say what is going onout here yeah, there is a.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
It really begins the whole question of whether we can
trust what our government hastold us, and I think, by and
large, we cannot trust it.
There has been deliberatedisinformation.
Now, however, just to say ithas been deliberate
disinformation.
Now, however, just to say it,there's been disinformation.
You know, disinformation almostinvariably depends for its
success on there being kernelsof truth in a larger fabric of

(17:16):
mistruth.
If a cover story for aphenomenon had no details that
were accurate, it wouldn't bebelievable.
So a good disinformationapproach is to take certain
details that were accurate.
It wouldn't be believable.
So a good disinformationapproach is to take certain
details that happen but place itin a larger category of facts
in order to keep it fromconnecting, keep people from
perceiving.

(17:36):
So why has the government takenthis stand of essentially
poo-pooing this phenomenon,disregarding it?
Well, there are two clearhypotheses.
One is they know what it is andthey don't want us to know
because they're afraid we'd befreaked out.
That's basically it, society.
The other is maybe they don'tknow.

(17:57):
And in which other area ofgovernment competence is it
considered a good idea forgovernment officials to say
things like come out and hold anews conference, especially if
you're a military official witha chest of ribbons, right or
metal, right you're the top guyfrom the department of defense,
or joint chiefs of staff.

(18:18):
You're not going to give a newsconference that says, yes,
there is something flying in ourairspace with impunity, at
enormous velocity, conductingright-angle turns, disappearing
on the spot, reappearingsomeplace else.
We don't know what it is, butwe'll keep you posted.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
No, that's not going to be told.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
So I think that there's a large hypothesis, a
large reason to I personallygive a lot of credit to the idea
that this phenomenon, whateverit is, is so far beyond our kin
that they don't know what it iseither, except that it has
enormous advantages in terms ofspeed and technological prowess
and the ability to conductmaneuvers.

(18:58):
So it could be extraterrestrial, but if so they may.
Apparently we're underobservation.
It could be extra dimensional,like the twilight zone.
It could be from otherdimensions, beyond time and
space.
I think what this phenomenon istelling us, at minimum, is we
don't understand time and spacevery well Even without the UFO

(19:19):
phenomenon.
There are really vital debatesgoing on right now around
quantum physics about time andspace, and our preliminary
thinking has evolved a lot sinceEinstein.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
To put it simply, so we're very far from
understanding this, to put itsimply, of what technology has
become since the 1900s, from youknow the, the buggy wagons, and
you know the automobile engines, and now you know, moving into
the, the stealth mode of, youknow the b2 bombers and things

(19:54):
of that nature.
Do, excuse me, do we think thatmaybe there may have been an
inkling of re, like reverseengineering, into some, maybe
some of this UAP UFO type, ifthere was a crash that happened,
that they, you know, reversedengineered, possibly to get
graphite, to get some of thesemetals or these different rare

(20:18):
things to bring us up to speed?
Is that something that youthink may be a path to where we
would say the path to technology?
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Well, up to speed is a great figure of speech.
I love it.
Getting us up to speed right.
About a year and a half ago, aformer military official named
David Grush, g-r-u-s-c-h, cameforward and revealed, after his
own personal investigations intothis phenomenon with using
military intelligence clearancethat allowed him to talk to

(20:50):
people supposedly and I alwayssay supposedly and allegedly he
talked to real people.
That's not the supposed part.
I don't think there's any doubtthat David Grush really dug
deep, made contact with peoplewho did tell him things and they
claim things like I know thosewho are on the inside who are

(21:10):
working with this material, or Imyself am on the inside, but I
don't have whistleblower status.
I have the same securityclearance issues you do.
You can't quote me by name andI can't you know it's the
understanding Well.
so Grush said he has been toldthere are at least 12 recovered
craft, some of which are inpristine condition, so they

(21:32):
didn't crash.
It's hard to say.
Let's assume it's true.
Were they given to us?
Was there a trade?
Did they abandon them?
Did they abandon a ship and gooff in another ship, allegedly
in pristine condition?
Secondly, the thing that a goodskeptic might say, not

(21:54):
necessarily a debunker how is itthat these craft are always is
it only on military land?
How come they never land?
And this is not meant to debunkor ridicule the question how
come it doesn't behave this wayis very often used to dismiss
the whole thing.
So I'm very careful when Iraise those questions.
But it is interesting thatsomehow they always land or are

(22:16):
captured or the crash materialis recovered on ground, where
the military gets in so fastthat there's nobody domestically
to confirm.
Now, with Roswell, I want to bevery clear.
There's a good case that, oh,it's clear, something crashed at
Roswell.
I want to be very clear.
There's a good case of oh, it'sclear, something crashed at
Roswell.
The government has held to thisidea that it was a certain kind
of meteorological balloon.

(22:38):
They've changed their story afew times, by the way, they
officially came out when itcrashed.
They said we have recovered oneof the disks, one of these
disks that have been talkedabout, these UFOs, we've
recovered one.
Then the next day they backedoff.
They said no, that was amisinterpretation.
It turned out to be a weatherballoon.
Well, right, there did they putout the UFO story, knowing that

(23:01):
they were going to retract it?
Why would you lead with thefact that it was a UFO, a craft,
a disc, and then pull back one?
One hypothesis about roswell isthey actually were happy to use
the ufo cover story becausewhat was actually recovered was
either something top secret onour side or something top secret

(23:25):
that had come through russiaand we'd gotten hold of.
In other words, we might havebeen considered something of our
own ownership that we wanted tohide.
So we were willing to call it aflying saucer.
Again, something crashed andthere's also very good evidence
that the military went door todoor in the Roswell area,
knocking on doors, saying haveyou picked up any of the crash

(23:47):
from the crash field?
No, sir, if you have and you'renot telling the truth, you'll
get in very serious trouble.
Now remember this is the late1940s.
World War II had just ended, wewere just entering this very
frightening Cold War period withRussia.
The Soviet Union, who had justbeen our ally, now was our
mortal enemy.
To be told that kind of youknow, you would really think

(24:11):
twice about keeping stuff underyour bed if you'd recovered
metallic foil or something.
So anyway, the Roswell case atthis point, I think, is it's
almost too deep a rabbit hole toget into.
But as far as David Grush, Ithink his claims will probably
be vetted again.
He himself is not speaking atthe hearing.
I don't think Whether he'll bethere or not is an open question

(24:33):
.
But whether there has been anyfurther, you know specification.
Are there dates, people,locations where this material is
being held, physical materialas well as biological material?
By the way, he claims what he'stold is that we have offloaded
the material to the aerospacecorporations.

(24:55):
They're almost likequasi-government.
Mcdonnell Douglas and LockheedMartin are so much a part of our
national security apparatusthey're almost like nation
states in and of themselves.
So the idea is McDonnellDouglas does have it, or other
aerospace companies, and yes,they are attempting to back
engineer it and they may havealready succeeded in back

(25:16):
engineering.
I put it all very tentativelybecause I don't know.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
I don't think many people who claim to know don't
know either, but they, they, um,they promote, promote the ideas
it's interesting, someone whoworked at Boeing in 1997, 98, 99
, you know having to work on aunmanned drone plane back in
those days was called Dark Star,made out of graphite, and at

(25:43):
that point that's when theBoeing-McDonald Douglas merger
happened and obviously Boeingwas in need of McDonald Douglas
because of them not being faredwell as to the military
contracts and they thought ifthey merged with McDonnell
Douglas they would have a betterchance at some of these
military contracts.

(26:04):
Ie, fast forward, we're talkingabout 97.
Now my plane I no longer workat Boeing.
I work, you know, after I gotlaid off, I went back in.
I went in, I went back toschool, got into media.
But this is the interestingpiece that you know us working
with graphite and you know this.
This plane, this unmanned plane, was going to be stealth.
It was, you know, and that'swhat it was.

(26:26):
It was there for.
It was we were building astealth version of the B-2
bomber with graphite Quiteinteresting stuff to work with
in the advanced composites worldand it was like it looked like
black hair, looked like jetblack hair, these fibers that
were pre-impregnated with thecatalyst to cure the graphite.

(26:49):
And when it was done, after welaid it up and put it in a tool
to mold into this wing set.
We sent it to the autoclave toget cured and cooked and off to
manufacturing and the plane went.
But fast forward to moving tothe technology.
It is interesting to me tothink about that and it shows to

(27:12):
us why a lot of us out here arevery skeptical of the
government to say, oh, you know,the retraction of some of these
stories, is the governmenthiding something from us?
Was it a balloon?
Was it russia's?
You know, during that cold wartime, to think, if it was
russia's, you would think thatRussia would say, oh, yeah, hey,
by the way, we lost something,but maybe they didn't because

(27:37):
they knew that this that couldtrigger, you know, world War III
.
And they're like, well, itwasn't a we're not going to say,
you know, don't ask, don't telltype of situation.
Fast forwarding to moving to nowwe're, you know, with the, you
know, know the whole pandemic,everyone's seeing something.
And then the tiktok, the tiktakthing comes out and now we're

(27:58):
talking about evidence that isall over youtube.
I mean these videos and you,these pilots, you know, sharing
this information that finallywas released, uh, or maybe
unclassified.
Maybe you might want to shedsome more light in that regards
To the average Joe and, you know, to the average person who may

(28:19):
be out there, who's never had anexperience of seeing anything
remotely close to anything otherthan, oh look, there goes all
this.
You know Starlink satellites oryou know, I just saw the space
station go by, you know spacestation go by.
You know, for those who areskeptical of ufos, uaps, is this
something that that?

(28:39):
I mean, this tic-tac thing, isthis thing?
What are we seeing here?
I mean, what is like, is this ahoax?
Is this possibly some stealthnew military, you know
phenomenon that maybe we'relooking at, or is this really?
Was that really ufo stuff?
Was that something that we seenow and we're like, wow, that is
, that is the first evidencethat is like raw, pure, not

(29:04):
something in the sky, that it isactually recorded for infinity.
It's there for the entire worldto see now well.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Well, you just touched on all the you know.
Your question contains all thehypotheses beautifully put.
There's no doubt there's aphysical.
These objects are physicalobjects by our criteria.
They appear on radar, theyappear on other sensors.
They leave a heat signature, athermal imprint consistent with
an object geometrically than anyother kind of object would pass

(29:33):
muster.
They leave ground indentations,burn marks on witnesses and at
the same time, the paradoxthat's why I call the book the
UFO Paradox the paradox or thecontradiction is these same
craft or objects of parent craft, but certainly objects that do
appear.
Various shapes, saucer shape,triangle shape, balloon shaped,

(29:58):
cigar shaped, just about everyshape has been reported.
So it raises a question aboutthe degree to which individual
witnesses, through the filtersthat they bring, are seeing
something but imposing their owninterpretations on it.
Something is there In any case.
These same apparent objectsthen disappear on the spot or

(30:21):
they break into balls of light,like in the movie Close
Encounters of the Third Kind.
You may remember that high-resscene coming around the corner
and the lights, you know orbs.
The orbs are very commonlyreported.
So the idea of full-blownSpielberg-type craft, those are
sometimes reported, but a wholerange of luminous phenomena.

(30:43):
And is there something aboutthe light, the nature of the
light, that causes an alteredstate of consciousness in the
witness.
So they're seeing something,but it takes over the
consciousness of the witnessthrough the logic that it
imposes.
I think there is a logic to thisintelligence and I think it is
an intelligence.
I would grant that.

(31:04):
I just don't know that it's,strictly speaking, an
extraterrestrial intelligence.
It has parallels to what wecall poltergeists.
Now people say, oh, why bringpoltergeists in?
We're talking about UFOs.
But what's the question?
What is a UFO and what is apoltergeist?
A poltergeist actually doesappear to be a real phenomenon
manifestations of phantasms oflight and energy that are often

(31:28):
related to unresolved emotionalissues in a household.
That's why in horror storiesthe poltergeist is generally a
haunted house, because a familymight have unresolved family
trauma and it is thought thatthat in some way evokes or gets
externalized.
So is this phenomenon real butin some way closely connected to

(31:51):
our own psyche?
Unreal, but in some way closelyconnected to our own psyche?
The collective psyche is itlike a thermostat that's reading
us and then projecting imagesof ourselves in some way?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
it's, and when you talk, and when you talk about
this, the first thing that cameto my mind was, uh, the movie
men in black, where they tookthe I, I take my pen here and
you know they're like, okay,take a look at this and they're
like that's what I feel likeyou're describing to us, to the
average listener, who may notunderstand.
Is that kind of what kind ofthe same thing, where it's like

(32:23):
an altered state right.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
If you've only seen the movie Men in Black versions
1, 2, and 3, I guess by now Idon't know how many franchises
it been made.
It appears to be comic andludicrous.
But if you really delve deeplyinto the research on the men in
black phenomenon, it would veryoften happen like this Somebody
would see a UFO in the earlysightings, 1950s, 1960s.

(32:47):
Somebody would see a UFO fromtheir home, or they'd see it out
in a field and then they'ddrive home, put the car in the
garage, go about their business.
There comes a knock on the door.
They open the door and thereare two men, usually two, two or
three.
They're wearing ill-fittingblack suits, they have pasty

(33:08):
skin, their eyes seem a littleunfocused, they seem a little
robotic and the witness whoopens the door to them feels
almost as if they are under theinfluence of something.
It's something strange.
And the men in black say MrJones, did you see anything

(33:28):
strange today on your way home?
Anything strange today on yourway home?
Okay, now, right there, ifthere are men, whatever form
they're in, whatever they'remade of, are they human?
Are they non-human?
Are they agents of the sameintelligence coming to like a
trickster phenomenon?
If you saw the sighting earlierin the day and they come to

(33:51):
your home and say did you seeanything strange today?
It would be best not to tellanyone about it.
And then they attempt to smile.
That doesn't make any sense.
So it's again.
It's almost like a secondaryeffect.
You've seen something strangein the sky that caught your
psyche.
Did you bring it home with youand somehow lure these apparent

(34:12):
agents?
And are they human agents?
I know this sounds absurd.
I would never even haveconsidered such a thing except I
got permission from my sixthgrade teacher who said follow
the evidence wherever it leads.
So I report on phenomena, whatpeople report.
I don't believe it ordisbelieve it, but I make notes

(34:33):
and I bring it forward and putthe reports in circulation.
And I find I hear from peopleall around everywhere.
I get letters and emails sayingdear Mr Thompson, can you help
me understand what I've seen?
Well, the answer generally no.
I can't help you understand it.
But I can at least give you apat on the back and say I can
encourage you not just to lie toyourself.

(34:53):
You had a real experience.
Whatever you saw, I don't knowwhat the source of it is.
Something can manifest,materialize and then
dematerialize or demanifest,almost like turning off a TV set
and it resolves into a dot onthe screen and then goes black.
I can't explain that, but I cangive you a little pat on the
back and say you've seensomething, you've experienced

(35:16):
something, and be mindful whoyou talk to it about, not
because you're going to get menin black at your doorstep, but
because everybody knows.
I'll give you a good example.
The movie Close Encounters ofthe Third Kind opens with that
famous scene.
Air traffic controllers aretalking with three different
pilots out there TWA, pan Am andAmerican, I think and they all

(35:37):
are reporting something thatshouldn't be in the sky.
Is this one of ours?
Is this one of yours?
Twa?
The tower says we don't haveanything up there, but we see it
as well.
We see something.
We see it on radar.
Do you want to report this?
We see something, we see it onradar.
Do you want to report this?
Twa, do you want to report anunidentified flying object?
And there's a pause and theresponse comes back negative.

(36:01):
And then he goes to each of theother pilots Do you want to
report it?
No, sir, negative.
And the third guy says Iwouldn't know what to report Now
what was being said in that?
Well, these were three wisepilots who already knew that if
they were to report a UFO, thatwill be translated as oh pilot

(36:23):
claims to see spaceship.
No, an unidentified flyingobject is a description, an
interpretation is spaceshipRight.
So it reported that they saw aspaceship and their neighbors
would want to know did you seethe little green men too?
They knew that they didn't wantany such connection.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Well, they pay a big price for coming forward.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
I'm often asked given your research, do you recommend
that I tell people about my ownexperience, whatever their
experience was?
And I generally respond don'ttell the world, don't hold a
news conference, don'tnecessarily go on a podcast
interview unless you feel that'syour true calling, but tell
somebody in your life, maybeyour counselor, a member of your
family, your mother, yourfather, your priest, your pastor

(37:10):
, I mean your counselor.
Counselor, there are all kindsof people, but get, don't
unburden yourself.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yes, share it with somebody who's not going to mock
you but will help you hang outwith this and help hang out with
the mystery, because that'swhat it is it's interesting
because you think a pilot holdsa high regards to a job title,
right, you know, very welleducated, you know you come out
and say, hey, by the way, I sawthis.

(37:37):
You know, unidentified flyingobject.
They're like, oh, like you said, little green man.
You know, you saw whatever.
Our guest this evening, keithThompson, the author of the UFO
Paradox, the Celestial andSymbolic World of the UAP, I got
to ask you this.
I recently did a radio showpodcast about a guy who's been

(38:01):
abducted for the last 50 yearsof his life.
Where does abduction fall intoyour book here?
In regards to how many peoplehave you encountered who have
shared stories with you?
Our guy talks about the gray.
I mean, he really goes into thedepth.
The story is so crazy thatpeople ask me when I interviewed

(38:24):
him do you believe his story,mario?
And my answer to them is thatis his truth.
Why do I not believe him?
Believe him, I've never had, noone's ever, taken me anywhere.
You know.
Well, I mean, that's not true,but I've never been taken to a
spaceship where I'm like, oh,hey, by the way, I was taken by
the greys.
Well, I mean, this is his story, his story that he shared with

(38:46):
us and quite grateful that hewas able to share his story in
your book.
How many do we do?
You talk about encounters.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
You know people yeah, abductions, yes, I do talk
about abductions.
I even have a chapter calledthe alien abduction impasse and,
by that way, and to give youkind of cut to the chase, I
think there is an impasse in thesubject because we there isn't
clarity on how to explain it.
But I put it this way I'venever had had a UFO abduction.
My goodness, I've never seenanything and, for that matter,

(39:16):
I've never seen a UFO.
I've never seen anything in thesky that struck me as anomalous
.
So it's just for my ownbackground.
I don't comment.
I've had experiences, however,of non-ordinary paranormal
experiences that broaden myperspective about what is real,
but just not specifically theUFO phenomenon.
Broaden my perspective aboutwhat is real, but just not
specifically the UFO phenomenon.
In any case, what I've come toconclude about the abductions is

(39:43):
are they real?
Do they really happen?
Are these real events in realtime?
And I always say, if you or Ihad the same experience, we
would believe it was real.
What I'm referring to is as theexperiences as reported by the
experiencers.
They're describing somethingthat is not merely psychological
, according to any psychologicalsyndrome.

(40:04):
That question has been askedexhaustively, including by the
late Dr John Mack of Harvard,who fatefully got interested in
the abduction subject andstudied it and then ended up
getting in trouble at Harvardbecause Harvard would come to
him and say, dr Mack, john, wedon't want this subject.
And Mack would say to hiscolleagues who were likewise men

(40:29):
and women of science, whohopefully had signed on
precisely to ask difficultquestions and not take things on
faith or push them off thetable in advance because, well,
that couldn't be true.
Dr Mack said the consistency ofthe reports, the consistency of
the details, people being takenout of their beds, out of their

(40:50):
cars, levitated.
They experienced beinglevitated.
They experienced beinglevitated by a beam of light,
again at surface level.
These are absurd, this isludicrous, and I say that
surface level, put those wordsin quote absurd, ludicrous.
We know that doesn't happen,says the debunker.
The debunker pretends to be askeptic, but a debunker is

(41:12):
generally the person who themedia turns to and he or she
will say things.
Well, we know from the laws ofscience that these things don't
happen.
It couldn't happen.
We know the laws of scienceWell, the laws of science are as
accurate and up-to-date as theyare.
There was a time when, in the1700s, villagers were reporting

(41:34):
fiery rocks coming from the skyand would report it to the men
of science and they'd laugh oh,the villagers must have had too
much mead last night too muchbeer.
They're reporting fiery rocksin the sky.
Turns out there were fieryrocks called meteors, and they
land and they had burn marks.
At first the scientists thought, well, the villagers are

(41:55):
burning the rocks and claimingthey fell from the sky.
So yes, that didn't happenuntil it was allowed to happen
through a scientific explanation.
So back to abductions.
I don't know, I can't tell youhow to explain where they're
from, what the source of them is.
But there is a consistency tothe details that the answer is

(42:17):
yes, they're real because theyhappen.
But there are also perplexingdetails, aspects of it that make
it easy for debunkers to saywell, what about that?
Well, what about that part?
So it's easy to find thingsthat don't fit our normal sense
of reality and that makes iteasy to forget that very often

(42:37):
our sense of reality istemporary, it's tentative, it's
provisional.
For example, galileo, using hiscomputations and a device called
a telescope, came to thestartling conclusion that the
Earth circles around the sun.
The sun doesn't orbit aroundthe earth.
He began to broadcast this, soto speak, in his community and

(42:59):
he got a knock on the door fromthe authorities of the time,
from the Vatican, which wasbefore science was fully
developed.
The Vatican called the shots onwhat's real and not.
They told the astronomerGalileo no, that isn't true.
The earth stops saying theearth spins around the sun or

(43:19):
will put you under house arrest.
And he said don't take my wordfor it.
He was wonderfully naive, youmight say, in believing if you
just use my own empiricalmethods, you can see for
yourself.
Look at my computations over mytable and then use my telescope
.
They said no.
They famously refused to lookthrough the telescope, which

(43:42):
would have given them the sameinformation.
So that's an example of humanblinders.
Not being willing to lookthrough the telescope is now a
metaphor for all the ways inwhich modern science says well,
that couldn't be.
We know it couldn't beparanormal.
There is no such thing as theparanormal, telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognitionexcept it's widely reported.

(44:04):
We've all had experiences thatare far beyond chance about
synchronicities.
I think of my old friend Jimfrom high school.
Haven't seen him since highschool.
I'm going to call Jim one ofthese days.
I say Next thing the phone isringing, pick it up.
He goes.
Keith, you won't believe it.
It's me, jim, from high school.
Yeah, I do believe it, jim.
I was kind of just thinkingabout you this week.

(44:26):
We write that off tocoincidence, but coincidence is
the term for the connectionsthat happen between the mental
realm and the physical realmthat aren't supposed to happen.
You have a thought of an owl.
You open the curtains andthere's an owl on your porch

(44:47):
that's never been there before.
Those are called callings.
We get callings from theuniverse and in fact I say the
UFO is a calling from the cosmosto expand our maps, to create
better maps that includephenomena that we haven't yet
explained, but which isinteracting with us even as we
speak explain, but which isinteracting with us even as we

(45:08):
speak, our guest, keith thompson, an author of the wonderful
book, uh, the ufo paradox, thecelestial and symbolic world of
uaps.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
We're going to get really interesting, because I
know you were just talking aboutthe church business there, um,
and how they used to be.
You know astrologers back inthe day and I know that we did a
show long ago called churchversus the stars.
Uh, quite an interestingpodcast, uh, so we thank charis
astrology for that.
Um.
What's interesting to me isthat and we'll get into the the

(45:38):
religion piece, and this may befor a lot of christians or
people that are.
This may be for a lot ofChristians or people that are
religious.
This may be interesting to them.
Where does just hypotheticallysaying this and this is going to
be probably the most absurdquestion of all questions but

(46:01):
could it be that we were placedhere, we were put here on this
planet by some phenomenon otherthan what a lot of people
believe to be God or JesusChrist, by some, possibly aliens
or another life form brought ushere, wrote the book, which is,

(46:23):
you know, what people wouldcall their version of the Bible,
and then, to keep us from goingrogue or going, you know, and
destroying ourselves and say,okay, we're going to put this
here and here's what's going tohappen.
They're going to follow thisbook to keep themselves within
line, the 10 commandments,things of that nature.
Do you believe that there maybe some tie to religion and ufos

(46:48):
, uaps and other life forms thatmay be outside of our?
I mean, this is definitely not.
This is not good for churchbusiness and you know, please
lord, if that, if, if thisquestion is crazy, uh, you know,
don't come for me, but, um, I Iasked because could it be?
Could this be that, becausewe're so locked into our own

(47:09):
little world of being here onthis little planet called Earth
that it could be a possibility?

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well, for those who are religious, what I'm about to
say may seem a little heretical.
I'll give a heresy here.
I think religion, religiousphenomena, are too important.
Religion is too important to beleft to religions.
Namely, I think the UFOexperience is religious in the
deepest sense, not that itnecessarily verifies what's in

(47:39):
the Bible or in establishedreligions, but is of the same
kind of phenomena, same kind ofevents that these books, the
Bible, the books of the Bible,especially the Old Testament,
the books of Buddhism, hinduism.
But see, you've got to expandthe maps considerably.
And when you look at multipletraditions, what was Ezekiel's

(48:00):
wheel?
What was the wheel that Ezekielsaw?
I'm not saying, oh, he reallysaw a UFO.
No, that would be a confusionof two frames of reference.
The modern UFO frame ofreference for describing things
is different from.
It's a way to describe thingsthat might have been seen in the

(48:24):
Bible as well.
So Ezekiel's wheel was seen byEzekiel the burning bush.
What was the burning bush?
What happened to St Paul on theroad to Damascus?
These are they're calledmiracles, or they're moments of
transformation, when somethingbig appears, usually to a

(48:45):
prophet, somebody who goes on tobecome a prophet, because they
tell the story and they areassumed to have the full story
about everything.
Joseph Smith and the Latter-daySaints paid a big price for his
own claims to extraordinaryphenomena.
So I think, yeah, you could saythe abductions are an extreme
form of religious phenomenon.
What do religions speak of?

(49:07):
They speak of gods, very oftencoming from the sky.
We think of God in the heavensRight.
The celestial framework isexactly where UFOs are situated,
although we now have somegrowing evidence that UFOs are
seen coming in and out of bodiesof water.
But in any case, yeah, I thinkyou could say this is is a kind

(49:28):
of religious phenomenon, andmaybe the reason it isn't
recognized as religious isbecause it appears in a form
that feels like it's high tech,and also, we are to a large
extent a secular society, a kindof post-religious society
doesn't mean there aren't manyreligious people in our midst,
but the overall worldview now issort of beyond religion for

(49:49):
many people.
So if what happens to someonewho has a religious experience
but doesn't have a religiousframework, it would be easy then
to explain it in terms ofextraterrestrial.
So these are some of themysteries that you really enjoy
unraveling when you poke deeperand more deeply into these
sightings are.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Uh, you know, keith, it's.
It's interesting that you know,listening to you, you're
blowing my mind.
It to me.
It's a great conversation, uhthis evening, uh, being shared
of things that are more of likeinvestigated, researched, not
more like hey, by the way, I hadthis, and it's refreshing to me

(50:34):
to have someone on to really godown who said, look, this is
what I've done for such a longtime.
I've done the footwork, I'veinvestigated, I've done my
research.
Here's what we are providingfor evidence, and this is what's
great about this and I can'twait to finish reading the book.
My research here's what we areproviding for evidence, and this
is what's great about this, andI can't wait to finish reading
the book.
Here's something that alsointrigues me about a lot of

(50:54):
things, and I know that theworld is so connected nowadays
with cell phones and videocameras and us being able to
have this conversation via theinternet, and what's interesting
is when you go back and youstart to go back in time and
we're we're going to take thelet's, let's go back and take
the us, us phenomenon, uh, timemachine, and go back to when
there was not nothing.

(51:15):
There was the mayans and theincas and these pyramids that
got built and and you talk aboutthe pyramids that were built in
the giza pyramids and the thesepyramids over in mexico.
Like it's crazy to me if I'mlike, okay, wait a second here,
time out.
Like, hey, it's not, like theypicked up the phone and said,
hey, by the way, let me take aselfie of our, our pyramid and
send it over to you.

(51:36):
Like it quite interesting to meto think that how in the hell
were these pyramids built?
Now, now, I know they're like,could this be another phenomenon
that related to you?
Know another, you know, likesome type of phenomenon, an
alien who said, hey, here's themath and here's the science,

(51:56):
here's what it is.
Or was it really that we wereso advanced at one point in time
of our lives that, when we werewiped off the planet, that we
had to start all over again?
So I ask you this because ofyour connection with your book
here well.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
I will say a good researcher is one who knows the
limits of his own thinking.
So I will say, I, you're,you're moving into, um, ancient
archaeology now, sure, and it'simportant to, I mean I it's just
not a field I know really well.
But I do know that grahamhancock is one researcher who
was putting forward originalthinking, empirically based,
evidence-based.
It doesn't mean the evidence is100% accurate, but that isn't

(52:34):
what evidence is.
Evidence is support for athesis.
And then you evaluate theevidence.
Does it stand up?
And does it stand up accordingto what, to what criteria?
But in any case, have we hadcontinents that are lost?
Did Atlantis or something likeAtlantis exist?
And what are the pyramids?

(52:58):
How did they get there?
And another is the cryptologyfield, the cryptids, the Bigfoot
phenomenon.
I am not a Bigfoot researcherand I don't say that because I'm
trying to put the Bigfootpeople down.
It's just that I don't know.
I don't know that body ofevidence very well, but I do

(53:18):
know that there are frequentlyBigfoot or Wolfman-type figures
seen in vicinity Sure, orwolfman-type figures seen in
vicinity Sure.
So it points to a larger.
You call it a meta-phenomenon,a super-phenomenon that
distributes all sorts of localphenomenon.
You can have Bigfoot, yourpeople get some Bigfoot

(53:40):
experience.
You get saucers, you get this,and by that you get means.
Jacques Vallée is a researcherwho was one of the first to
surface the story, back in theearly 1970s, late 1960s, of a
larger perspective.
For all of this, he feels thatthe UFO phenomenon, rather than
being strictly extraterrestrialas we might think, is in fact

(54:04):
the latest manifestation of alarger phenomenon, a larger
intelligence that is in somesense controlling or shaping the
human belief system by exposinghuman beliefs to something that
is just outside our framework.
Just outside, for example, thewhole idea of recovered
spacecraft can beback-engineered.

(54:25):
That would suggest well, it'sclose enough to what we know,
that we can glean from its.
We can it's.
You know the saucers are outhere, that the technology that's
recovered stands here, ourknowledge stands here.
So we try to close the gap.
Can we figure out enough aboutthat?
The idea that it has beenreverse engineered suggests that

(54:48):
it's close enough to what weknow.
But on the other hand, take alook at this idea.
Imagine taking a cell phoneinto the Amazon and you find the
one tribe that has had no humancontact and you agree to make
contact and you give them a cellphone and say this is for you
to make contact, and you givethem a cell phone and say this

(55:09):
is for you Good luck.
How would they begin to backengineer that?
So, while it's tempting andencouraging, there's a certain
solace that comes from yeah,we've got the craft.
Mcdonnell Douglas has them.
We've got to make them revealwhat they've got because or have
already back engineered it arewe using it ourselves?
It's a nice mythology, but it'salso possible that whatever

(55:30):
would be recovered would be sofar beyond our ability to make
sense of our guests as we getclose to wrapping things up.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Uh, kenneth thompson.
Uh, the author of uh.
The ufo paradox.
The celestial and symbolicworld of uap Paradox.
The Celestial and SymbolicWorld of UAP.
I want to finish on this noteGo get the book.
I'm excited to finish readingor listening to this, because I
don't have time to read anymore.
I swear, if you're going to doa podcast, a radio show and

(56:00):
produce it all yourself, ittakes a lot of work.
I want to end on this note.
Here let's talk about thedisclosure initiative, about the
Rockefeller piece.
I want to maybe give someinsight to that for us.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
I'll give a little background Around.
What year was it now?
1993, I think I was alreadyknown for my work in this field.
I'd written some material.
Let me pause about that date.
I'm not quite sure.
But I get a phone call one dayand it was from the office of
Lawrence Rockefeller, thephilanthropist from New York

(56:35):
City, from the great family, theRockefeller family.
I knew that he had an interestin the UFO phenomenon but I
didn't know why he'd be callingme.
So he was planning to puttogether a meeting at his family
ranch in Jackson Hole, wyoming,to bring together leading
researchers.
He chosen me to participatewith the idea of pitching the

(56:56):
then still new Clintonadministration.
Bill and Hillary were bothknown to be interested.
They both had told theirsupporters.
We're going to try to get tothe heart of this.
We want to know what they aretoo.
So long story short.
We're going to try to get tothe heart of this.
We want to know what they aretoo.
So long story short.
We decided to.
The group decided to pitch Couldyou release the material on
Roswell?
Let's keep it narrow.

(57:17):
And the people who weresurrounding Rock, surrounding
President Clinton, did expressinterest.
They were surprised to hearthat the story was as the
evidence was as good as itseemed to be, and so, long story
short, they made an inquiry andthe Pentagon came back with we
don't have anything on Roswellthat is different from what has

(57:43):
been told.
So it was an example of anattempt to get to the heart of
the Roswell story and notsucceed.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Our guest this evening, keith Thompson.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much for blowingmy mind this evening, taking me
on a celestial adventure outsideof the paradox of, you know, my
own studio.
But, man, it's what a greatgift for us.
If they want to find your book,you can get it on all kinds of

(58:15):
different platforms.
I'm listening through PAMP whatis it?
Amazon I've gone through there.
I also have it on audible aswell.
Um is where I'm listening to.
They can buy it on Amazon.
Uh, a copy of it as well.
We'll have links within thepodcast.
If you're a subscriber to thepodcast, if you're not, and

(58:37):
you're listening via the radioshow, the terrestrial radio
stations, I would say, go toyour uh favorite.
I would say go to your favoritepodcasting platform and search
for US Phenomenon with MarioMagana.
Keith, as we wrap things uphere, any parting words to the
average person who may be outthere, that is just the biggest

(59:00):
skeptic of UFOs.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Well, I would make a quick distinction between a
skeptic and a debunker.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I'm a skeptic, I debunker.
Okay, I'm a skeptic.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
I'm a true skeptic.
I think you are too.
I don't know.
Someone says this is true.
My first response is oh okay,that's interesting.
How could I find that out?
How could I verify that?
How did you know that?
How do you, how did you learnthat's true?
Could I have a look at yourevidence?
Could I see it?
In other words, is it somethingthat could be confirmed by
anybody who has the sameevidence?
That's the gold standard ofscience.

(59:29):
To be a skeptic doesn't meanyou're caustic or dismissing or
rude.
That's the debunker.
The debunker is the one whooften claims to be a skeptic but
then will engage in characterassassination and dismissal and
ridicule and scorn.
So as for people who are open,I would say be open-mindedly
skeptical.
Be skeptical of claims, but beopen to the possibility.

(59:53):
There's more here going on.
There's a Zen master in the ZenBuddhist tradition named Suzuki
Suzuki Roshi.
His title was Roshi, and soSuzuki Roshi had a truism, a
parable, if you will, anaphorism in which he said in the
beginner's mind are manypossibilities, in the expert's

(01:00:16):
mind there are few.
So if you're an expert, youknow it all.
You know there's not manypossibilities left.
You've got it all figured out.
His advice was always be abeginner.
Stay with beginner's mind.
There's things we don't know,but keep open to the possibility
that there's more than we know.
But don't believe anythingeither.
There's no need to believeanything without evidence.

(01:00:38):
But don't rule it all off thetable in advance by claiming
that you're an expert.
Our society reinforces acertain kind of expertise.
Well, I can tell you there'snothing to that.
You could just write there.
The haughty scornful wouldn'twant to take the opposite
position now, would you Ifsomebody with authority said

(01:00:58):
well, that's not real.
It takes courage to say well,actually I experienced it, and
so did he, and so did he.
It's very easy to shut down.
Sure, the authorities, figuressay this is where we're all
dealing all the time with thegovernment nothing to see here,
move along.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Nothing to see here, move along nothing to see here.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
People return to your little lives.
We've got it all under control.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Goodbye all right.
Our guest this evening, uh,keith Thompson.
Uh, what a, what a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
We'll'll have all the linksprovided available on the
podcast for my entire team JeffJens, sophia Magana, mark
Christopher and Sophia Magana,obviously, and myself, mario
Magana.
Be sure to look up at the sky,because you never know what you

(01:01:38):
might see.
Good night.
You're listening to USPhenomenon with your host, mario
magana.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

United States of Kennedy
Stuff You Should Know

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.

Dateline NBC

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

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.