March 30, 2025 • 61 mins
Theologian, Ted Peters, joins me to discuss whether religions can integrate with UAP disclosure and an extraterrestrial presence. Is there a place for reason, logic, UFOs, and religion? Peters believes so. He also does not rule out the possibility that the UFO is generated through the collective unconsciouosness. Skeptical analysis, secularism, and spiritual practices all inform such an integration. While debunking may stifle and undermine a potentially cohesive new paradigm. https://tedstimelytake.com/
Please rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you!
☕️Please help the channel grow.
Rate, Review, subscribe, like, comment, and click the YouTube Notification Bell so you don’t miss a show.
Thank you! https://www.youtube.com/mysticlounge
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/coffeeandufos.bsky.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/coffeeandufospodcast
Coffee & UFOs is available on all podcast platforms.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffee-ufos/id1483348782
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6TtkMEFepnoqbHmQwAY1DT?si=-k5gCDJXTpWwQEOCzZVasw
HALF LIGHT documentary: https://tubitv.com/movies/678744/half-light
Please rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you!
☕️Please help the channel grow.
Rate, Review, subscribe, like, comment, and click the YouTube Notification Bell so you don’t miss a show.
Thank you! https://www.youtube.com/mysticlounge
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/coffeeandufos.bsky.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/coffeeandufospodcast
Coffee & UFOs is available on all podcast platforms.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffee-ufos/id1483348782
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6TtkMEFepnoqbHmQwAY1DT?si=-k5gCDJXTpWwQEOCzZVasw
HALF LIGHT documentary: https://tubitv.com/movies/678744/half-light
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome back everyone to Coffee and UFOs, two of my
favorite things. I have a special guest tonight. His name
is Ted Peters. He is a theologian, and we'll be
discussing the metaphysical relationship to UFOs and the secular take
on that. The intersection of all those conversations, whether UFOs
(00:38):
are a symbol something of our archetypal consciousness, are they
something literal and if so, how do we integrate with
such a phenomena if contact direct contact were to be
made Ted Peters, I'm very excited to have on because
he was literally the first podcast interview you guests I'd
(01:01):
ever had when I was doing Epic Voyages Radio as
a guest host myself many years ago, so it's always
an honor to have him back on. We'll get to
Ted in just a moment. As a friendly reminder, this podcast,
Coffee UFOs is a rebroadcast on the ONEX Network every
Thursday evening eleven pm Pacific time to am Eastern on
(01:23):
Friday nights or Friday mornings. Thank you to Race Hobbes
and Margie Kay for your support of this program and
doing all the rebroadcasts of these podcasts that you do.
I appreciate that. And for everyone who does follow the podcast.
Wherever you listen to this podcast, please give it a
good review, give it a good rating. All that really helps.
(01:45):
And the same thing here on the YouTube platform as well.
All right, so let's get right to it and bring
on our guest, Ted peters Ell.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's good to be with you, and we in California,
we like Pete scoff What do you drink there?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, cheers? Well, we we have I would say eclectic,
but we we have a wide array of coffee choices.
When you go to our counter there is Cuban coffee,
Italian coffee, and it's all various forms of espresso mostly.
(02:22):
That's that's how we roll. Second to that never has
the most chest.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That espresso puts hair on your chest. As my father would.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Say, Oh yeah, either that or it was turning forty.
But I'm not sure which came first. But Ted, thank
you so much for being on here. This is a
really fascinating side of this subject. Often we do spend
the time to discuss the nuts and bolts here, but
the philosophical application of UFO discussion is crucial. We can't
(02:59):
just move forward and expect to have disclosure without this discussion.
So for you, as a theologian, a professor, or writer,
as a pastor, where do you start when you think
about the UFO enigma and how we incorporate that into
our spiritual or psychological lives.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, I've noticed that since June and July of nineteen
forty seven, the media and most UFO investigators want to
ask one question, are they real? And of course that
question implies are they coming to us from outer space?
(03:42):
And right down to the present time, Yeah, the question
hasn't changed. Are they real? Well? I bracket that out
a little bit and say what is the cultural significance
and why is it that what is happening today is
actually the same thing that happened three quarters of a
(04:02):
zetchmig go. As a phenomenon, it doesn't change. And so
I spent a little bit of time looking at culture.
What's the worship between the UFO phenomenon and the wider culture?
What are the thought processes? And one of the things
(04:23):
that sticks out immediately is science. Oh, we've got to
have a scientific approach. Are these machines kind of like
the machines that we make? Are they spacecraft that ferry
people from other planets to hear, and are they like
our our aircraft or are they different? And all the physics,
(04:46):
how is it that they could make right angle turns
at two or three thousand miles per hour? The g
forces are would be deadly to a human being. We
get this array of scientific questions, but I think that
(05:08):
underneath those scientific questions religious questions. Will science and technologies
save the human race from self destruction? Or will they
destroy us? After all of the science that gave us
the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nakisaki, but could
(05:29):
an extra terrestrial science save us from nuclear destruction or
beginning in the late nineteen eighties, save us from ecological
self destruction? Etc?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Do you mean physical destruction?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Questions are buried underneath the scientific stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Do you mean physical destruction or societal?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Oh, a societal you know. I think there were two
movies that are authentic to the UFO phenomenon. All the
rest are science fiction. The first one was The Day
the Ear Stood Still in nineteen fifty one. And remember
the issue there was, will planet Earth, because of its
(06:16):
political rivalries, get into an atomic war in which the
human race will be destroyed? And the spacelane Platu in
that case comes to Earth to warn us against self destruction.
Well that's only six years after the atomic bombs were
(06:37):
dropped on Japan, and so everybody is worried about this.
Will the US and the Soviet Union mutually destroy each
other or not? Could a more highly advanced science and
technology save us from ourselves? There was a big cultural
question and the cult leaders of the nineteen fifties, Georgia
(07:00):
Damski and others, that was the question that drove them
and why people got so fascinated that with this subject.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Do you think that we don't even need extraterrestrials to
destroy ourselves? For instance, just like on a very smaller scale, anecdotally,
if I am using my film, spending a lot of
time on screens, you know, doing a lot of podcasting
(07:31):
or listening to a lot of podcasting and watching TV,
I I honestly, and I heard another podcaster to discuss this,
and I one agree. I honestly do feel that if
I do too much of that for too prolonged of
a period, I feel less smart. I feel that my
(07:51):
ability to cognate, to put thoughts together and you know,
build a wider scope of thinking is blunted. If I
spend more time reading off of screens, you know, using
my brain in some other application, I feel more clear minded.
(08:15):
I feel like I'm thinking better. Are we on a
trajectory where this technology that we have is not only
going to hurt us societally, but actually put us in
a predicament where we are unable to intellectually parlay with
(08:38):
an extraterrestrial species.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Well, I think you're very insightful there with regard to yourself,
and I believe it could be objectively confirmed. There are studies,
undoubtedly 're aware of them, that show that teenagers who
spend more time on their cell phones become more stupid.
(09:01):
That is to say, they can't handle intellectually quite the
number and quality of tasks that the previous generation could.
And I wonder about that. You know, there were a
couple of philosophers a generation or two ago who tracked reading.
(09:28):
What happens? What happened in civilization when reading became available, well,
interiority developed. People would sit by themselves, not in a group,
and read a book, and their minds would be thinking,
and the whole intellectual climate of the human race grew
(09:49):
during the period in which increased numbers of people were reading,
and so did minds mind stretched. I think what might
be happening now when we get a social media overload. Oh,
there's a lot of information going back and forth. But
that contemplation that on the mind all by itself with
(10:13):
a written text, Maybe that's what's what we're losing. And
maybe that's why you feel that way after a long
day on the computer screen. You feel more stupid than
when I had my breakfast this morning.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh yeah, yeah, and and sometimes in a more foggy
kind of kind of a state. Yes, So do we
need to be intellectually more exercised if we're going to
confront an et presence?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well, that's the next question. Let me just say I'd
never heard of that question before, so let me ponder it.
I'm a professor, so I believe in reading, and people
grow intellectually when they read great works. And I just
love sitting with Plato's Republic and thinking Plato's thoughts are
(11:11):
now in my mind, you.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Know what, thousands of years ago.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
But do we need that in order to connect with
an extraterrestrial intelligence or ultra terrestrial intelligence? I don't know.
There is what I call the ETI myth, and that's
this belief that an advanced civilization which has evolved for
(11:39):
a longer period of time than ours, are so much
more intelligent and have achieved so much more in science
and technology that we look primitive in comparison. So I'm
not sure there'd be a big difference from their point
of view as to whether or not we get our
information off the cell phone or if we get it
(12:02):
from reading a great book. According to the myth, if
we're more advanced in science and technology, we'll communicate with them,
because there's an assumption that scientists and technologists make. It's
kind of self serving. It says, really smart people do
(12:24):
science and technology, and stupid people they're the ones that
do poetry and art. Well, these really smart extraterrestrials will
be like the scientists. And if we were to find
an extra terrestrial civilization find that really advanced music or art,
would we be disappointed?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's really interesting. Yeah, I've never thought about that before.
What if they're just like an extraordinarily colorful and introspective
species and they express themselves in and all kinds of ways,
abstract and literal or otherwise, because we always think of
(13:05):
the sleek ufo, the clean inside, the sterile uh approach,
and that that speaks to I think, what what you study?
Because you know, I was raised Catholic, right and one
of the things that I still appreciate about even though
I'm not a Catholic anymore, what I still appreciate about
it is the expression of the mystery through the music,
(13:29):
the stained glass windows, the big arches, those especially the
older buildings, the frank and sense and myrrh. That that
transportive side of it, I think is really beautiful. But
then you know, if the ets, as some think, are
something kind of meant spiritual in some nature or an
(13:53):
expression of our higher self, why would they be so clinical?
Why not.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right like our doctors have right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, Well, when I think about Gothic churches and Renaissance churches,
the largest number of people that were in them didn't read.
And so you walk into the church, and this is
true in the Orthodox tradition especially, you're walking into a
(14:32):
taste of paradise that also is educational. So in a
Gothic church, you start on the left side, and you
look at the stained glass windows, and you follow the
Bible all the way around the church. You don't read,
and you look at the stained glass windows. You know
what's in the Bible by the time you walk out
(14:54):
of the church. And so they had that great function.
And even when people began to read, just the height
and the echo of the voices and all of these
things gave you a little sense of the transcendent. And
(15:15):
the icons in an Orthodox church are not thought to
be art if you ask a Greek or Russian Orthodox
person art. They are windows into the transcendence. You look
through them so to speak to the mystical reality that
lies beyond. And one of the great deficits of modern
(15:38):
science and technology is there's no beyond anymore. What do
you see as much change? And our inner spirit chafed
under that we want more than what we see there.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yes, although I would say the likes of Neil de
grass Tyson that's a pretty good job of keeping the
sort of excitement of discovery alive. Right, like cheats he
how does he cheat?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
How do you see how he cheats? Well, you know
he's a student who Carl Sagan was a prominent atheist.
So on the one hand, we're doing serious science, and
the scientists, especially the astronomers presume that you're in my
mind is structured rationally, so that we can understand things
(16:31):
that are far away because they're structured rationally as well.
But here's how he cheats great distances evoke within us
something that's beyond the rational. It's actually the word beyond,
is it? You know? And so our ancestors before we
(16:53):
had airplanes, thought the sky was holy. I think of
the ancient myths of the Zeus and Jupiter and Thor
and throwing thunderbolts, or the sky god in ancient Egypt.
The sky, just because it was so overwhelming, communicated this
(17:15):
sense of transcendence. And it was easy then in myths
to talk about the overpowering power of the sky. Well,
then you know, a Russian astronaut goes up in a
space capsule, look for God up in the heavens, and
he ain't there. So, you know, if you're a materialist Marxist,
(17:39):
oh yeah, that makes good sense. But right behind the
sky is outer space, and outer space gives us all
that sense of transcendence. Tyson can talk factually about the science,
but he's taken advantage of the background music of the distance,
(18:00):
the mystery, the transcendent aura that comes with that, and
that that's what I mean by cheating, that there's no
way you can't be filled with a sense of awe
because of the grandeur of the cosmos.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Is that the point of UFO or UAPs are they
sort of some kind of viators.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
They mediate between the or merry, the quotidian, everyday stuff
and the transcendent. They come from the sky, they go
back to the sky.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And do you think that they are serving some other
purpose rather than just being scientific scalps? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I do? I do. They're kind of like Tyson. They're
cheating too. You know. On the one hand, it looks
like it looks like a guard variety airplane right with
no wings. But you know, but on the other hand,
it comes from the sky, goes back to the sky.
It could do things that we on Earth cannot do.
(19:08):
And think about the perfection thing and the day the
ear stood still. Remember the engineers are over drilling on
the surface of the flying saucer. I've tried this diamond drill.
I can't even nick it. My father was an automotive
(19:32):
engineer for General Motors, and he said, my dream is
to make a door that when it closes. It closes
so perfectly that you don't see the crack anymore. Well,
that's what it was in that flying And when Carl
Jung wrote his book on the Flying Saucers in nineteen
fifty nine, he said, the roundness and all these other
(19:56):
connotations cannote perfection for us, that is to say, a
science and engineering that is so far beyond that it
cannotes perfection. We want perfection. It's kind of the ideal,
you know that he hangs a book us and the
polic power regardless of the objective reality of UFOs. And
(20:20):
I think they're objective. I don't mean to fold everything
into the human psyche, but I think we want to
project onto them, maybe far more than is there there.
There was a cartoon that I saw some years ago.
There was an alien who was riding a tricycle and
(20:41):
fell over on it, and the other alien says something
and they thought we were perfect.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah. Well, and that brings up a good point too.
I mean, are we over over applying our desire for
perfection because it hasn't always been that way. In so
many mythologies and religions around the world, the gods are
are imperfect. I mean look, look at the mess.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Most myths imperfect, not perfect.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Right and yet and yet, but.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They're not perfect. You know, Zeus was powerful, Buddy was
not moral.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
No, you know, Saturn is eating people. I mean, you know,
it's not like it's not it's it's actually quite gory sometimes.
So to me, I don't know if if we need that.
Do you think we need that as people that we
need that tire you do, because I'm definitely uh agnostic,
(21:43):
you know, atheist in that in that category, I personally,
you know, just my experience, I don't personally need like
a symbol like that I need to follow. Doesn't mean
on an unconscious level there isn't something there, uh, And
maybe that's why I follow UFOs. Maybe that's what I'm
interested in UFOs. Maybe it does that purpose at an
(22:03):
unconscious level.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, even apart from the religious valence, it is an
interesting topic, you know, and it does connect with our
everyday experience and then it expands it in exciting ways.
And we have experience in our society over the last
(22:28):
two centuries, enormous advance in science and technology, and so
it looks like UFOs are one more step. And so
even apart from religious symbolism, There's no doubt we're going
to be concerned about the phenomenon. Nevertheless, you know, as
(22:48):
a theoore, I'll say, Alan, the reason you have these
feelings within you that want to look beyond, that's that's
the telephone God is trying to wring your number.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, uh, he's gonna have to call Collect because people
don't even call collect anymore, do they.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Right, I'm dating myself. I think that we all do
need something to strive for for sure, right, I mean
we can either put that on ourselves or we look
to other people that inspire us, or look to symbols
and historical figures and what have you. Do you think
(23:31):
that these UFOs have literally abducted people and have shared,
you know, passed on to them information that is necessary
for us to hear. Or are those people hearing what
they think they need to hear?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I can out the reality question there. So I didn't
interview Betty and Barney Hill, but I'll bet you that
Benjamin Simon, who did, I Bety heard what they really thought. Now,
I did interview Charlie Hickson that I gather you've discussed
(24:18):
here Mississippi abductee in October eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and
when I interviewed him, I had a taper cord the
whole interview, got all the data right, and I took
it to a detective agency in New Orleans and they
(24:39):
ran a psychological stress evaluator, which is a pretty good
form of live detector. So then I interviewed the detective.
He said, well, I have to tell you that on
everything that Charlie said regarding the details of the abduction,
he honestly believes that he's telling you the truth. I said, well,
(25:02):
did you discover any wise, yeah, one, And Charlie had
said towards the end that he knew they were coming
back for him and that they would pick him up
and they were going to take him to live in
another world. And on that one we got a stress reaction.
(25:25):
So I'm surprised that he was planning on going to
this other world but not taking his wife with him,
and that's probably what caused them.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Maybe that's what yeah, yeah, Or or could it be
that it wasn't fraudulent but more of a wish hope?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, No, I don't think. I don't think
it was a lie. I think he was just you know,
speculating and had a little tension, and that's what registered there.
So my point here is that I think for the
experiencer in many cases, if they firm believe it and
(26:02):
they're not lying, then I think we have to take
it really seriously. But then then we want to sort
through getting back to your question, well, what was objective
and what were they projecting onto it? And I think
in the cases of Betting, Barney Hill and Charlie Hickson,
(26:24):
they're not really contact ease. They just have this extraordinary experience.
But if you look at contact ease such as Georgia
Damski or those who are far more complex, Well, we've
got this message, we've got to stop our nuclear arms testing,
we've got to have world peace. We've got to do
(26:44):
this the next thing, otherwise we're going to self destruct.
Well that's a religious message, moral message, and we all
want to hear it. The last thing we want to
do is to have our president say, hey, we're going
to go to war tomorrow. We don't want to hear
(27:05):
that kind of thing. We want to hear just the opposite.
And then I did notice how right up through the
nineteen eighties, when people did get a message. It was
to stop nuclear arms testing. And then after the ecological crisis,
after the Reagan administration, suddenly, oh, they want us to
(27:31):
protect our environment. The aerial school children in nineteen ninety four,
for example. They want us to take care of the
environment so we don't pollute ourselves to death. And so
is it coincidental that the aliens have a message that
(27:51):
sort of fits the culture of the epoch, or maybe
the aliens watch our news and you know, they or
make their message that what Foction new has just told
them the day before.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm not sure we or they felt they accomplished their
first mission, which was, hey, let's focus on the nuclear's thought,
sure time work. It worked, and now let's try the
environmental thing, which is not really working. What kind of working?
But yeah, I have to ask you so again. I
(28:33):
consider himself agnostic. It doesn't mean I'm not open to,
you know, all kinds of spiritual ideas. We discussed that.
But I do often wonder are we in a kind
of simulation, whether that means you know, some parallel to
like a computer, or that just the fundamentals of the universe.
(28:57):
It created a like it's kind of reality where we're
just like these iterations of reality and we're kind of
just part of this this, this software, this game right right?
And and does that could could could that fit with
your own religious take on on things?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Well, in your sensing that and considering that hypothesis, who's
on the other end, who's the one that designed the
software that you and I are?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I think that's an unanswerable question, So I am my
My question first is like, what's It's almost like asking,
you know, is where is heaven or where as hell?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Like if we can find those places, then we know
something else, right, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah. And if I were maybe a Hindoo her uh uh,
you know in the Dharma tradition where we think or
the Gnostic tradition, this reality is less real than the
other one, then I would say, okay, well, what's on
the other side that's more real than this? Well, it's
(30:10):
the people who design the software of which you and
I are characters in it. Yeah, that's a kind of
parallel parallel. It doesn't sound religious, but you know, it
fits the structure of some classic religious metaphysics. I do
think that God is more real than the creation and
(30:36):
Muslims and Jews and Christians are usually gonna say something
to that effect, But that doesn't mean that the course
of historical events, either in nature and human society are
not real with some purduing significance. I really think it
is real, and as a Christian, because Jesus Christ becomes
(30:59):
a part of history history Israel, history belongs to God's
life and God's experience in that. So I let me
just say, of the various hypotheses, the one you just
gave is probably one that I don't really take seriously.
The ultra terrestrial or you know, double universe or triple
(31:24):
universe theory, which you can you can find amongst people
who know their physics pretty well, I think is probably
I would say a little more realistic, maybe than the
fact that than the idea that we're in a simulation.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Probably okay. And would that be a problem with with
your understanding of the divine if there is multiple parallel units?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
It would? It would? And I, by the way, I
have a colleague who's a physicist, and we actually argue
this quite that. I do think that big bang cosmology,
where you have an onset at beginning, you have an
expanding universe in which things continue to be created. I
(32:13):
find that very compatible with the Bible. But when you
get to Stephen Hawking and other physicists talking about the multiverse,
that every universe is a closed causal system, and we
just happen to be in the one in which life
(32:35):
could evolve. But there are these parallel universes, each which
has its own distinct history because there's nothing that happens
by accident. I find that motivated by atheism and that
it's not scientific. However, I want to say, some really
(32:58):
smart people that I've talked with, such as I'm trying
to think of his name now, Lord.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
At any rate in our book, Lord Lloyd, isn't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It now the different one minute? Who is a physicist
who holds this view? I had a chance to talk to.
Oh no, he says, there's good physical evidence multiverse theory,
and it was beyond my understanding. So it didn't quite
get it. Let me just say it would bother me,
but it doesn't bother other people as much as it
(33:33):
would bother me. And so any rate be that as
it may. You know, Jaylen Honnick and back in the
seventies was looking at the multi dimensional theory, which is
(33:55):
a version of the multiverse theory thinking that maybe UFOs
are coming to us from a parallel universe. Let me
just say that there's a certain rationale for that. I
find it violates Akham's razor. There are too many extra
(34:15):
assumptions there that makes the extraterrestrial hypothesis seem a lot simpler.
Jacque Belet was the one I was trying to think of.
Both Jacques Bele and Jalen heinekend consider that, and that
theory is still around. I think it's okay to consider it.
I think that's more realistic than the simulation theory.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Some people think that these ufo or uap are literally,
or at least some of some of them are literally
of a spiritual origin, meaning there it's like angels or
demons or like the fight between good and evil and
(35:00):
sighs and what's your what's your take on that?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Well? How many versions of of this do you recognize?
I'm aware of the demon theory, uh, for example, But
what are you thinking about when you pose it? You
got examples? Sure?
Speaker 1 (35:20):
We Well, sometimes when people look at the skies and
they're using their their fleaer goggles or whatever, uh, they're
seeing what appear to be kind of like almost like
a battle of that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And then there's those who think that the UFOs are
all just deceivers right, working for Satan here to deceive us.
And there's a there's a lot of creative uh ideas
about what it could.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Be well with regard to a kind of spiritual understanding.
Let me just say members of my family and friends
that hold that view and will actually go out on
a mountaintop in the middle of the night and have
(36:08):
a psychic.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Connection, so they think in the more benevolent terms of.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
It, Yes, they do not demonic, it's benevolent. And so
let me just I'm somewhat familiar with that one. When
it comes to the demon theory, I am categorically opposed
to that for a number of reasons. Just in general,
UFO experiences over the last three quarters of a century
(36:38):
don't report that, if anything, they're benign. More than that,
frequently they're benevolent. I have to say that I thoroughly
investigated one trail into the demonic theory, and it seemed
to have been spawned in the nineteenth seventies by some
(37:02):
fundamentalist creationists. And here's what they said. When I finally
got them to sit down and talk to me, you
know about why do you think that the client saucers
are demanic? All right, here's what they said. Many people
believe in the theory of evolution, and they believe that
(37:27):
on another planet, another civilization has evolved more highly than
we have on Earth, and they have achieved higher levels
of science and technology. And so they come to Earth
and they show us these bright, shiny, highly evolved technological devices.
(37:50):
Satan is doing that. Now, why would Satan do that?
Because Satan wants to tempt us to believe in evolution.
I just fell off my chair. You know that Satan
would go to that length to get us to believe
in evolution. And I thought, again, this pilet takoms raz
(38:13):
just too many ifs, ifs, and ifs and if I.
At any rate, this demon theory was an anti evolution theory,
and Satan was using flying saucers to tapt us. I
just felt that was so preposterous that I couldn't give
it any intellectual credibility. Now, I do want to say
(38:35):
that I've run into some demon theorists here and there
who don't seem to have that particular argument, But I'm
not confident that I understand them well enough to be
able to say, hey, this is a good argument, that's
a bad argument. But I want to say, up until
this point, I've not heard one good argument as to
(38:57):
why we ought to think flying saucers might be. I've
heard some really bad ones.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, obviously, if the devil was able to create such
things such a physical manifestations, and be plenty of other
more convincing ways for him to trick people. Have you
spoken to demonologists or you know, especially Catholics in particular
(39:25):
that I do believe the demons are real, and do
any of them think that there's any kind of technological
aspect to it?
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yes, I have talked to I got very interested. I
wrote a book on sin one time, and I studied evil, satanism,
exorcism and these kinds of things. And I did have
a chance to talk with X sources in great detail
about demonic possession, et cetera. And my answer is on
(39:55):
the basis of that, no, there was nothing technolog logical,
scientific of any sort that comes into play there. And
even though I didn't ask them about flying saucers, maybe
now I should have. Let me just say it never
came up.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So if it was something of important, it would have
It would have probably would because you wrote the book
God's God UFOs UFOs, God's question Mark. So if there's
anyone to talk to you about that would it would
certainly be you. Have you talked to other people in
the field of upology that are interested in the spiritual
(40:36):
side as well?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Oh well, first of all on the demon side. The
answer is yes, there's a view that I don't know
how to adjudicate right now by some of the best
ufologists who are following the disclosure controversy. And here's the view.
(41:01):
Already in the nineteen fifties, when Project Blue Book engaged
in the debunking of people who were making reports, there
was in the Pentagon some Evangelical Christians who believed that
that if the culture, the wider society would think that
(41:25):
we're being visited from outer space, that this would challenge
or destroy their faith, and so that they supported the
whole debunking enterprise right down to the present day. So
that means every generation we replaced the old evangelical Christians
(41:45):
with the new ones, with the new ones, with the
new ones who continue to hold that position.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Wait, can I just pose you there for a second.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
So are you.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Saying that. I think maybe you're referring to immaculate constellation
the people behind the in the deep State that are
religious and they think that there's a spiritual thing.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I don't know that term, but I think I'm talking
about the same thing you are.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Ok So are you saying they kind of infiltrated?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Well, let me just say this is avi that I
find amongst people who know a lot. Okay, let me
just say I find it too difficult to believe. And
in Eleisando's new book, he only mentions one person that
he found in the Pentagon who thinks this way. And
(42:38):
so I have a hard time believing that it's a
powerful influence. That doesn't mean there isn't zero that there
isn't some evidence that some people think this way, but
that enough people would think that way that it would
become a government influence government policy. I doubt Now maybe
you know more about this than I do, But let
(43:00):
me just say I'm doubting it, even though I've heard
people say it. Who who take it really seriously? Do
you have any thoughts about what I'm saying and whether
it's serious or not serious?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Well, over the years, you know, you meet a lot
of people who have you know, supposedly have you know,
insiders that have shared information with them, and that's something
that has come up. So when Louis Zondo in his
book Imminent mentioned this, he did. There's also the implication
that there were others, not just the one person that's.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Right right now.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
I just think what you said kind of got me
thinking maybe others have talked about this. I haven't heard
about it. But it may not have to be an
official government policy. But if you have a loose affiliation
of people in the in the government, you know, particularly
the DoD side of things, if they're having their own
internal conversation decades ago and said, what can we do
(44:02):
because we are religious and this is what we believe,
we think this is maybe they just on their own,
independently organized to start disseminating this information because to churches
literally and spread that kind of fear among religious people
so that it gets passed down and passed down and
passed down.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
What your saying is plausible. In some point we would
see evidence of it. And I'm not saying the evidence
isn't there.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
But evidence yeah, well, because and we do certainly we
know for a fact that government agents have fed misinformation
to move on members and eufologists across the board, people
who are interested in UFOs. But that was more official policy,
(44:51):
and we know that whereas this would be yeah, this
one would be off the book. So how do you
find evidence for that?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Right? Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
What is the most fascinating aspect of all this for you?
I mean, even looking at this.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
For decades, Well, I love the extraterrestrial hypothesis and I'm
glad that it's at the heart and center, and I
recognize that there are other alternative explanations, because, like so many,
I just hope that they're I hope someday we're going
(45:28):
to meet them, and I hope they're the way Georgia
Davski describes them. I hope they're really great, and I
hope they're smart, and I hope they're advancing sides of technology,
all of these sorts of things. But I have to
have to qualify all that by noting that we still
(45:50):
have proof one way or the other, and we keep
going over and over the same experiences and information and
hypotheses again and again that maybe a great novelist or
(46:11):
historian might say, well, this is a human phenomenon, and
this just happens to be our version of it.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Jacques VLAs thinks that that's a possibility. Carl Jung certainly
thought that was a possibility. I would hate to give
up the objective side of it and say, oh, I
still hope there's something there. So I'm part of the
phenomenon that I study.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well. I think that the argument for that there's something
there is on the paper trail. And all the whistle
yeah blowers and witnesses have worked in the government have
seen physical craft, and the credibility of them, you know,
depends on who you're talking to, is pretty solid, especially
in recent recent days. I mean someone like David Crushley.
(46:59):
He didn't see anything himself, but we've had other whistleblowers
in the past come out but nothing happens. They just
say I was there, I saw something.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right, you had that decade after decade, people like David
I don't know personally, by the way, and nothing ever happens,
and then the decade goes by and then we do
it all over again.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yes, but I will say this in defense of the Yes,
we're looking at these cases over and over again. But
we are getting new data, we have new technology. That's exciting.
But if you draw the parallel between let's say an
unsolved murder, right, I mean, we're still looking at the
jackar Ripper hoping to solve that, but it does happen
(47:45):
on occasion where a murder that was committed decade decades later. Right,
So if this is a phenomena that is derived originating
from a con just a separate than us with its
own agenda, I'm aware of what we are capable of.
(48:08):
If it's a cat and mouse game, we just have
to keep at it until we you know, we finally.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, I like you, Alan, I want to keep at it.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Are you do? You do you ever plan up on
following up with with another book.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
To revise mine? Because I I am continually persuaded that
my models of interpretation that I have there continue to
get reinforced with every every decade that goes by, and
(48:45):
so I think I'm on target one. My first edition,
by the way, came out in the nineteen seventies and
I had just met the two Apple White Nettles, and
then I had to revise it after they committed suicide
and then try to interpret what all that was about.
(49:07):
So the book that you know is actually the second edition.
But I can imagine now since twenty seventeen and the
new influx of enthusiastic scientists who are going to set
up experiments and are going to do large data collection
(49:30):
and AI computer analysis, that I think that this is
a period of time in which deserves its own attention.
And I'm hoping that the enthusiasm amongst our scientists might
lead to something. It might not lead to something we predicted,
(49:53):
but it certainly could lead to something of value. So
if I do something, I think what I would do
is maybe revise that book light of the contemporary discussion.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Well, I know you don't like this paradigm, but one
thing I do wonder is if, indeed the government is
are aware of UFOs. Hypothetically, if the UFO, if we
speak to it in that term, if the UFO leads,
if it's a string that you pull on that leads
(50:26):
to the revelation that we are in a simulation, wouldn't
the government want at all costs to cover that up.
Oh wouldn't anyone?
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I want to ask you why you would suppose that.
First of all, you got two steps. One is we're
in a simulation. Step number two, the government has discovered
it and can prove it Step number three, Why would
they want to keep that a secret? I mean, can
you think of a reason why the government wanted to
(51:03):
keep that a secret? Right?
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Because you would have like a lot of millions and
millions of people having total psychotic breakdown. I think because
if people question reality itself, you know, you know, for
those who have have experienced psychedelics, it could be a
(51:25):
beautiful experience. That would also be a terrifying experience, you know,
because all of a sudden, your perception of reality is
just shook. And I don't know if en mass the
world could handle that if it were revealed, you know.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
All right, now, let me ask you this. What we
know about simulations is relatively recent in here in the
history of computing. The UFO phenomenon begins before we have computers.
So are you disconnecting the simulation from the UFO phenomenon
(52:09):
as you raise this? No? No, uh, well, we would retrospect,
I think, so we would look back and say, oh,
we better a simulation all along?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Okay, all right, yes, yeah, That's what I'm thinking today,
at least.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
With coffee, you know, we ought to be able to speculate, right.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, oh exactly. Yeah, and then more coffee we drink,
the more we speculate. Uh. So here's the question, right,
So can religious people and atheists, you know, understand the
phenomena in a shared context. So let's just say, extra
treas wills come down. They're having a conversation with us,
(52:53):
is there? How do we parlay because as a society,
we want to have a kind of a common voice,
you know, So how did the religious people and the
secular people communicate together with the entity?
Speaker 2 (53:06):
I would think that anything that is genuinely scientific, religious
people and atheistic people could share without any problems, you know,
as long as you one thing about science it has
strict rules of what counts as evidence and all of
(53:28):
that kind of thing. And I would think it doesn't
matter whether you're religious or not as long as you
play that game. Now, the skeptics, I don't know if
you read the Skeptical Inquire or not, but you get
a lot of scientists in there who want to say
science is the only way of understanding reality. So all
those people who believe in UFOs are religious koops. Right,
(53:53):
So that's a form of reductionism. I would think that
the humanities person is going to say, well, wait a
minute before you write them off as religious koops. They're
expressing something that's going on in the human psyche, the
history of human self understanding. That's worth paying attention to.
(54:16):
And I think religious people probably ought to feel at
home with all of that too, unless they're a little
on the touchy side. By the way, I was going
to mentioning a couple of these organizations that I've recently
joined that in formed after the twenty seventeen New York
Times article, in particular the Society for UAP Studies, but
(54:40):
also the Scientific Coalition for UP recognize that we really
need high quality scientific investigation. It doesn't matter whether you're
an atheist or a Buddhist, or a Hindu or a Christian.
The science is going to be the same for everybody.
(55:01):
But then when you turn to culture, well that's where
we have an investment, you know. But I think more
and more people are recognizing we've got to turn to culture.
We've got to understand the interaction of this phenomenon which
is unique in terms of culture, and there we're going
(55:23):
to need religious people to make their own contribution that
you can't get from science or others in order to
round it out and be holistic about it. So I'm
really happy these days in ways that I wasn't twenty
years ago, that you can have a partnership between the scientists,
(55:47):
whether the atheistic or not, and deal with these the
cultural dimensions of the UFO phenomenon because the science didn't
solve it fifty years ago. It couldn't.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Well, it was also it had its hands tied. I
mean just look at the Condon Report. Yes, you know
there were you know scientific magazine that that criticized it,
and yet and yet it did the job right, It
put it. It put it back back into the closet.
(56:23):
If you were a legitimate scientists academia and you want
to advance, you did.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Not from a certain point of view, the counter report
solved it. It was over.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Yes, it put us back to Yeah, it's kind of
kind of like the the schedule onening of you know
psychedelic studies. You know, they they they prevented that, you know,
because they're so afraid of you know, where it would
lead psychologically for us as a society that they stifled
(56:55):
decades of research and put us way behind, and now
we're having research that's revealing how effective it can be
clinically clinically used towards PTSD and you know, dealing with trauma.
So and I see I see it similarly because I
feel like it was a fear. It was a fear
of like we can't let the people know. Oh all right,
(57:21):
Terrence McKenna, you're probably familiar, or maybe maybe not, but
Terrence McKenna was a kind of a philosopher, if you will,
on on on psychedelics, and he and his brother in
the jungle and they had this vision of a of
a ufo while they were on mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Oh no, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
And now other other people have similar experiences. And he
didn't see it as a literal nuts in bolt ufo, right,
he saw it as a kind of a mystical experience.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
And it's interesting. I wonder if there is an intersection there.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Well, I don't know anything about psychedelics, but I could
imagine that you have cultural tropes and they would appear
in a vision. If you're going to see something in
a vision and you're going to recognize it, then you
must have picked it up somewhere ahead. Of time.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, so I haven't ever seen a UFO, but I'll
recognize it when I see it because I've seen so
many pictures.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
That's true, you definitely will, Ted. I can't believe that
that's it, that flew right by.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Well, it's so much fun chatting with you. It's a mystery,
but you know, we know enough about it to get
gripped by it, but not enough to solve it and
go on to other things.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Right, Yeah, true enough, and that's why we'll keep getting
at it. And if you want to keep up with
what Ted's doing, please go check out Teed Peter's website,
Ted's Timely take Dot. Come h If you could leave
us with one thought, anything, anything at all, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Keep asking honest questions?
Speaker 1 (59:13):
All right, there you have it. Thanks so much, Ted,
it's great to see you. Okay, take care and thank
you everybody for joining and really appreciate it. If you
are a fan of this podcast, please like, subscribe, and
share your thoughts down below. If you're listening to this
podcast on a podcast platform, please rate and review all
(59:33):
that really helps us continue to grow. A special thanks
to Race Hobs and Margie k at the on Next
network and if you want show updates, please follow me
on Instagram, at Coffee and UFO's podcast. Until next time, everyone,
peace and love and live in the mystery.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
It's good to be in personally. More of us would
think of ourselves that way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I don't have a problem with skeptics.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
It's the bunkers that are on some other level that
I don't understand, especially an inference of a change in
(01:00:33):
local gravity. Saucer shaped craft and they're hovering over.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
The water.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
A Blue Book Special Report fourteen. The better the quality
of the sighting, the more likely to be unexplainable.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Dag
Welcome back everyone to Coffee and UFOs, two of my
favorite things. I have a special guest tonight. His name
is Ted Peters. He is a theologian, and we'll be
discussing the metaphysical relationship to UFOs and the secular take
on that. The intersection of all those conversations, whether UFOs
(00:38):
are a symbol something of our archetypal consciousness, are they
something literal and if so, how do we integrate with
such a phenomena if contact direct contact were to be
made Ted Peters, I'm very excited to have on because
he was literally the first podcast interview you guests I'd
(01:01):
ever had when I was doing Epic Voyages Radio as
a guest host myself many years ago, so it's always
an honor to have him back on. We'll get to
Ted in just a moment. As a friendly reminder, this podcast,
Coffee UFOs is a rebroadcast on the ONEX Network every
Thursday evening eleven pm Pacific time to am Eastern on
(01:23):
Friday nights or Friday mornings. Thank you to Race Hobbes
and Margie Kay for your support of this program and
doing all the rebroadcasts of these podcasts that you do.
I appreciate that. And for everyone who does follow the podcast.
Wherever you listen to this podcast, please give it a
good review, give it a good rating. All that really helps.
(01:45):
And the same thing here on the YouTube platform as well.
All right, so let's get right to it and bring
on our guest, Ted peters Ell.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's good to be with you, and we in California,
we like Pete scoff What do you drink there?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, cheers? Well, we we have I would say eclectic,
but we we have a wide array of coffee choices.
When you go to our counter there is Cuban coffee,
Italian coffee, and it's all various forms of espresso mostly.
(02:22):
That's that's how we roll. Second to that never has
the most chest.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
That espresso puts hair on your chest. As my father would.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Say, Oh yeah, either that or it was turning forty.
But I'm not sure which came first. But Ted, thank
you so much for being on here. This is a
really fascinating side of this subject. Often we do spend
the time to discuss the nuts and bolts here, but
the philosophical application of UFO discussion is crucial. We can't
(02:59):
just move forward and expect to have disclosure without this discussion.
So for you, as a theologian, a professor, or writer,
as a pastor, where do you start when you think
about the UFO enigma and how we incorporate that into
our spiritual or psychological lives.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, I've noticed that since June and July of nineteen
forty seven, the media and most UFO investigators want to
ask one question, are they real? And of course that
question implies are they coming to us from outer space?
(03:42):
And right down to the present time, Yeah, the question
hasn't changed. Are they real? Well? I bracket that out
a little bit and say what is the cultural significance
and why is it that what is happening today is
actually the same thing that happened three quarters of a
(04:02):
zetchmig go. As a phenomenon, it doesn't change. And so
I spent a little bit of time looking at culture.
What's the worship between the UFO phenomenon and the wider culture?
What are the thought processes? And one of the things
(04:23):
that sticks out immediately is science. Oh, we've got to
have a scientific approach. Are these machines kind of like
the machines that we make? Are they spacecraft that ferry
people from other planets to hear, and are they like
our our aircraft or are they different? And all the physics,
(04:46):
how is it that they could make right angle turns
at two or three thousand miles per hour? The g
forces are would be deadly to a human being. We
get this array of scientific questions, but I think that
(05:08):
underneath those scientific questions religious questions. Will science and technologies
save the human race from self destruction? Or will they
destroy us? After all of the science that gave us
the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nakisaki, but could
(05:29):
an extra terrestrial science save us from nuclear destruction or
beginning in the late nineteen eighties, save us from ecological
self destruction? Etc?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Do you mean physical destruction?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Questions are buried underneath the scientific stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Do you mean physical destruction or societal?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Oh, a societal you know. I think there were two
movies that are authentic to the UFO phenomenon. All the
rest are science fiction. The first one was The Day
the Ear Stood Still in nineteen fifty one. And remember
the issue there was, will planet Earth, because of its
(06:16):
political rivalries, get into an atomic war in which the
human race will be destroyed? And the spacelane Platu in
that case comes to Earth to warn us against self destruction.
Well that's only six years after the atomic bombs were
(06:37):
dropped on Japan, and so everybody is worried about this.
Will the US and the Soviet Union mutually destroy each
other or not? Could a more highly advanced science and
technology save us from ourselves? There was a big cultural
question and the cult leaders of the nineteen fifties, Georgia
(07:00):
Damski and others, that was the question that drove them
and why people got so fascinated that with this subject.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Do you think that we don't even need extraterrestrials to
destroy ourselves? For instance, just like on a very smaller scale, anecdotally,
if I am using my film, spending a lot of
time on screens, you know, doing a lot of podcasting
(07:31):
or listening to a lot of podcasting and watching TV,
I I honestly, and I heard another podcaster to discuss this,
and I one agree. I honestly do feel that if
I do too much of that for too prolonged of
a period, I feel less smart. I feel that my
(07:51):
ability to cognate, to put thoughts together and you know,
build a wider scope of thinking is blunted. If I
spend more time reading off of screens, you know, using
my brain in some other application, I feel more clear minded.
(08:15):
I feel like I'm thinking better. Are we on a
trajectory where this technology that we have is not only
going to hurt us societally, but actually put us in
a predicament where we are unable to intellectually parlay with
(08:38):
an extraterrestrial species.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Well, I think you're very insightful there with regard to yourself,
and I believe it could be objectively confirmed. There are studies,
undoubtedly 're aware of them, that show that teenagers who
spend more time on their cell phones become more stupid.
(09:01):
That is to say, they can't handle intellectually quite the
number and quality of tasks that the previous generation could.
And I wonder about that. You know, there were a
couple of philosophers a generation or two ago who tracked reading.
(09:28):
What happens? What happened in civilization when reading became available, well,
interiority developed. People would sit by themselves, not in a group,
and read a book, and their minds would be thinking,
and the whole intellectual climate of the human race grew
(09:49):
during the period in which increased numbers of people were reading,
and so did minds mind stretched. I think what might
be happening now when we get a social media overload. Oh,
there's a lot of information going back and forth. But
that contemplation that on the mind all by itself with
(10:13):
a written text, Maybe that's what's what we're losing. And
maybe that's why you feel that way after a long
day on the computer screen. You feel more stupid than
when I had my breakfast this morning.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh yeah, yeah, and and sometimes in a more foggy
kind of kind of a state. Yes, So do we
need to be intellectually more exercised if we're going to
confront an et presence?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well, that's the next question. Let me just say I'd
never heard of that question before, so let me ponder it.
I'm a professor, so I believe in reading, and people
grow intellectually when they read great works. And I just
love sitting with Plato's Republic and thinking Plato's thoughts are
(11:11):
now in my mind, you.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Know what, thousands of years ago.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
But do we need that in order to connect with
an extraterrestrial intelligence or ultra terrestrial intelligence? I don't know.
There is what I call the ETI myth, and that's
this belief that an advanced civilization which has evolved for
(11:39):
a longer period of time than ours, are so much
more intelligent and have achieved so much more in science
and technology that we look primitive in comparison. So I'm
not sure there'd be a big difference from their point
of view as to whether or not we get our
information off the cell phone or if we get it
(12:02):
from reading a great book. According to the myth, if
we're more advanced in science and technology, we'll communicate with them,
because there's an assumption that scientists and technologists make. It's
kind of self serving. It says, really smart people do
(12:24):
science and technology, and stupid people they're the ones that
do poetry and art. Well, these really smart extraterrestrials will
be like the scientists. And if we were to find
an extra terrestrial civilization find that really advanced music or art,
would we be disappointed?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's really interesting. Yeah, I've never thought about that before.
What if they're just like an extraordinarily colorful and introspective
species and they express themselves in and all kinds of ways,
abstract and literal or otherwise, because we always think of
(13:05):
the sleek ufo, the clean inside, the sterile uh approach,
and that that speaks to I think, what what you study?
Because you know, I was raised Catholic, right and one
of the things that I still appreciate about even though
I'm not a Catholic anymore, what I still appreciate about
it is the expression of the mystery through the music,
(13:29):
the stained glass windows, the big arches, those especially the
older buildings, the frank and sense and myrrh. That that
transportive side of it, I think is really beautiful. But
then you know, if the ets, as some think, are
something kind of meant spiritual in some nature or an
(13:53):
expression of our higher self, why would they be so clinical?
Why not.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Right like our doctors have right?
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, Well, when I think about Gothic churches and Renaissance churches,
the largest number of people that were in them didn't read.
And so you walk into the church, and this is
true in the Orthodox tradition especially, you're walking into a
(14:32):
taste of paradise that also is educational. So in a
Gothic church, you start on the left side, and you
look at the stained glass windows, and you follow the
Bible all the way around the church. You don't read,
and you look at the stained glass windows. You know
what's in the Bible by the time you walk out
(14:54):
of the church. And so they had that great function.
And even when people began to read, just the height
and the echo of the voices and all of these
things gave you a little sense of the transcendent. And
(15:15):
the icons in an Orthodox church are not thought to
be art if you ask a Greek or Russian Orthodox
person art. They are windows into the transcendence. You look
through them so to speak to the mystical reality that
lies beyond. And one of the great deficits of modern
(15:38):
science and technology is there's no beyond anymore. What do
you see as much change? And our inner spirit chafed
under that we want more than what we see there.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yes, although I would say the likes of Neil de
grass Tyson that's a pretty good job of keeping the
sort of excitement of discovery alive. Right, like cheats he
how does he cheat?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
How do you see how he cheats? Well, you know
he's a student who Carl Sagan was a prominent atheist.
So on the one hand, we're doing serious science, and
the scientists, especially the astronomers presume that you're in my
mind is structured rationally, so that we can understand things
(16:31):
that are far away because they're structured rationally as well.
But here's how he cheats great distances evoke within us
something that's beyond the rational. It's actually the word beyond,
is it? You know? And so our ancestors before we
(16:53):
had airplanes, thought the sky was holy. I think of
the ancient myths of the Zeus and Jupiter and Thor
and throwing thunderbolts, or the sky god in ancient Egypt.
The sky, just because it was so overwhelming, communicated this
(17:15):
sense of transcendence. And it was easy then in myths
to talk about the overpowering power of the sky. Well,
then you know, a Russian astronaut goes up in a
space capsule, look for God up in the heavens, and
he ain't there. So, you know, if you're a materialist Marxist,
(17:39):
oh yeah, that makes good sense. But right behind the
sky is outer space, and outer space gives us all
that sense of transcendence. Tyson can talk factually about the science,
but he's taken advantage of the background music of the distance,
(18:00):
the mystery, the transcendent aura that comes with that, and
that that's what I mean by cheating, that there's no
way you can't be filled with a sense of awe
because of the grandeur of the cosmos.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Is that the point of UFO or UAPs are they
sort of some kind of viators.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
They mediate between the or merry, the quotidian, everyday stuff
and the transcendent. They come from the sky, they go
back to the sky.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And do you think that they are serving some other
purpose rather than just being scientific scalps? Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I do? I do. They're kind of like Tyson. They're
cheating too. You know. On the one hand, it looks
like it looks like a guard variety airplane right with
no wings. But you know, but on the other hand,
it comes from the sky, goes back to the sky.
It could do things that we on Earth cannot do.
(19:08):
And think about the perfection thing and the day the
ear stood still. Remember the engineers are over drilling on
the surface of the flying saucer. I've tried this diamond drill.
I can't even nick it. My father was an automotive
(19:32):
engineer for General Motors, and he said, my dream is
to make a door that when it closes. It closes
so perfectly that you don't see the crack anymore. Well,
that's what it was in that flying And when Carl
Jung wrote his book on the Flying Saucers in nineteen
fifty nine, he said, the roundness and all these other
(19:56):
connotations cannote perfection for us, that is to say, a
science and engineering that is so far beyond that it
cannotes perfection. We want perfection. It's kind of the ideal,
you know that he hangs a book us and the
polic power regardless of the objective reality of UFOs. And
(20:20):
I think they're objective. I don't mean to fold everything
into the human psyche, but I think we want to
project onto them, maybe far more than is there there.
There was a cartoon that I saw some years ago.
There was an alien who was riding a tricycle and
(20:41):
fell over on it, and the other alien says something
and they thought we were perfect.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah. Well, and that brings up a good point too.
I mean, are we over over applying our desire for
perfection because it hasn't always been that way. In so
many mythologies and religions around the world, the gods are
are imperfect. I mean look, look at the mess.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Most myths imperfect, not perfect.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Right and yet and yet, but.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They're not perfect. You know, Zeus was powerful, Buddy was
not moral.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
No, you know, Saturn is eating people. I mean, you know,
it's not like it's not it's it's actually quite gory sometimes.
So to me, I don't know if if we need that.
Do you think we need that as people that we
need that tire you do, because I'm definitely uh agnostic,
(21:43):
you know, atheist in that in that category, I personally,
you know, just my experience, I don't personally need like
a symbol like that I need to follow. Doesn't mean
on an unconscious level there isn't something there, uh, And
maybe that's why I follow UFOs. Maybe that's what I'm
interested in UFOs. Maybe it does that purpose at an
(22:03):
unconscious level.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Well, even apart from the religious valence, it is an
interesting topic, you know, and it does connect with our
everyday experience and then it expands it in exciting ways.
And we have experience in our society over the last
(22:28):
two centuries, enormous advance in science and technology, and so
it looks like UFOs are one more step. And so
even apart from religious symbolism, There's no doubt we're going
to be concerned about the phenomenon. Nevertheless, you know, as
(22:48):
a theoore, I'll say, Alan, the reason you have these
feelings within you that want to look beyond, that's that's
the telephone God is trying to wring your number.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, uh, he's gonna have to call Collect because people
don't even call collect anymore, do they.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Right, I'm dating myself. I think that we all do
need something to strive for for sure, right, I mean
we can either put that on ourselves or we look
to other people that inspire us, or look to symbols
and historical figures and what have you. Do you think
(23:31):
that these UFOs have literally abducted people and have shared,
you know, passed on to them information that is necessary
for us to hear. Or are those people hearing what
they think they need to hear?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I can out the reality question there. So I didn't
interview Betty and Barney Hill, but I'll bet you that
Benjamin Simon, who did, I Bety heard what they really thought. Now,
I did interview Charlie Hickson that I gather you've discussed
(24:18):
here Mississippi abductee in October eleventh, nineteen seventy three, and
when I interviewed him, I had a taper cord the
whole interview, got all the data right, and I took
it to a detective agency in New Orleans and they
(24:39):
ran a psychological stress evaluator, which is a pretty good
form of live detector. So then I interviewed the detective.
He said, well, I have to tell you that on
everything that Charlie said regarding the details of the abduction,
he honestly believes that he's telling you the truth. I said, well,
(25:02):
did you discover any wise, yeah, one, And Charlie had
said towards the end that he knew they were coming
back for him and that they would pick him up
and they were going to take him to live in
another world. And on that one we got a stress reaction.
(25:25):
So I'm surprised that he was planning on going to
this other world but not taking his wife with him,
and that's probably what caused them.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Maybe that's what yeah, yeah, Or or could it be
that it wasn't fraudulent but more of a wish hope?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, No, I don't think. I don't think
it was a lie. I think he was just you know,
speculating and had a little tension, and that's what registered there.
So my point here is that I think for the
experiencer in many cases, if they firm believe it and
(26:02):
they're not lying, then I think we have to take
it really seriously. But then then we want to sort
through getting back to your question, well, what was objective
and what were they projecting onto it? And I think
in the cases of Betting, Barney Hill and Charlie Hickson,
(26:24):
they're not really contact ease. They just have this extraordinary experience.
But if you look at contact ease such as Georgia
Damski or those who are far more complex, Well, we've
got this message, we've got to stop our nuclear arms testing,
we've got to have world peace. We've got to do
(26:44):
this the next thing, otherwise we're going to self destruct.
Well that's a religious message, moral message, and we all
want to hear it. The last thing we want to
do is to have our president say, hey, we're going
to go to war tomorrow. We don't want to hear
(27:05):
that kind of thing. We want to hear just the opposite.
And then I did notice how right up through the
nineteen eighties, when people did get a message. It was
to stop nuclear arms testing. And then after the ecological crisis,
after the Reagan administration, suddenly, oh, they want us to
(27:31):
protect our environment. The aerial school children in nineteen ninety four,
for example. They want us to take care of the
environment so we don't pollute ourselves to death. And so
is it coincidental that the aliens have a message that
(27:51):
sort of fits the culture of the epoch, or maybe
the aliens watch our news and you know, they or
make their message that what Foction new has just told
them the day before.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm not sure we or they felt they accomplished their
first mission, which was, hey, let's focus on the nuclear's thought,
sure time work. It worked, and now let's try the
environmental thing, which is not really working. What kind of working?
But yeah, I have to ask you so again. I
(28:33):
consider himself agnostic. It doesn't mean I'm not open to,
you know, all kinds of spiritual ideas. We discussed that.
But I do often wonder are we in a kind
of simulation, whether that means you know, some parallel to
like a computer, or that just the fundamentals of the universe.
(28:57):
It created a like it's kind of reality where we're
just like these iterations of reality and we're kind of
just part of this this, this software, this game right right?
And and does that could could could that fit with
your own religious take on on things?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Well, in your sensing that and considering that hypothesis, who's
on the other end, who's the one that designed the
software that you and I are?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I think that's an unanswerable question, So I am my
My question first is like, what's It's almost like asking,
you know, is where is heaven or where as hell?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Right?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Like if we can find those places, then we know
something else, right, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah. And if I were maybe a Hindoo her uh uh,
you know in the Dharma tradition where we think or
the Gnostic tradition, this reality is less real than the
other one, then I would say, okay, well, what's on
the other side that's more real than this? Well, it's
(30:10):
the people who design the software of which you and
I are characters in it. Yeah, that's a kind of
parallel parallel. It doesn't sound religious, but you know, it
fits the structure of some classic religious metaphysics. I do
think that God is more real than the creation and
(30:36):
Muslims and Jews and Christians are usually gonna say something
to that effect, But that doesn't mean that the course
of historical events, either in nature and human society are
not real with some purduing significance. I really think it
is real, and as a Christian, because Jesus Christ becomes
(30:59):
a part of history history Israel, history belongs to God's
life and God's experience in that. So I let me
just say, of the various hypotheses, the one you just
gave is probably one that I don't really take seriously.
The ultra terrestrial or you know, double universe or triple
(31:24):
universe theory, which you can you can find amongst people
who know their physics pretty well, I think is probably
I would say a little more realistic, maybe than the
fact that than the idea that we're in a simulation.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Probably okay. And would that be a problem with with
your understanding of the divine if there is multiple parallel units?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
It would? It would? And I, by the way, I
have a colleague who's a physicist, and we actually argue
this quite that. I do think that big bang cosmology,
where you have an onset at beginning, you have an
expanding universe in which things continue to be created. I
(32:13):
find that very compatible with the Bible. But when you
get to Stephen Hawking and other physicists talking about the multiverse,
that every universe is a closed causal system, and we
just happen to be in the one in which life
(32:35):
could evolve. But there are these parallel universes, each which
has its own distinct history because there's nothing that happens
by accident. I find that motivated by atheism and that
it's not scientific. However, I want to say, some really
(32:58):
smart people that I've talked with, such as I'm trying
to think of his name now, Lord.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
At any rate in our book, Lord Lloyd, isn't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It now the different one minute? Who is a physicist
who holds this view? I had a chance to talk to.
Oh no, he says, there's good physical evidence multiverse theory,
and it was beyond my understanding. So it didn't quite
get it. Let me just say it would bother me,
but it doesn't bother other people as much as it
(33:33):
would bother me. And so any rate be that as
it may. You know, Jaylen Honnick and back in the
seventies was looking at the multi dimensional theory, which is
(33:55):
a version of the multiverse theory thinking that maybe UFOs
are coming to us from a parallel universe. Let me
just say that there's a certain rationale for that. I
find it violates Akham's razor. There are too many extra
(34:15):
assumptions there that makes the extraterrestrial hypothesis seem a lot simpler.
Jacque Belet was the one I was trying to think of.
Both Jacques Bele and Jalen heinekend consider that, and that
theory is still around. I think it's okay to consider it.
I think that's more realistic than the simulation theory.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Some people think that these ufo or uap are literally,
or at least some of some of them are literally
of a spiritual origin, meaning there it's like angels or
demons or like the fight between good and evil and
(35:00):
sighs and what's your what's your take on that?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Well? How many versions of of this do you recognize?
I'm aware of the demon theory, uh, for example, But
what are you thinking about when you pose it? You
got examples? Sure?
Speaker 1 (35:20):
We Well, sometimes when people look at the skies and
they're using their their fleaer goggles or whatever, uh, they're
seeing what appear to be kind of like almost like
a battle of that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And then there's those who think that the UFOs are
all just deceivers right, working for Satan here to deceive us.
And there's a there's a lot of creative uh ideas
about what it could.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Be well with regard to a kind of spiritual understanding.
Let me just say members of my family and friends
that hold that view and will actually go out on
a mountaintop in the middle of the night and have
(36:08):
a psychic.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Connection, so they think in the more benevolent terms of.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
It, Yes, they do not demonic, it's benevolent. And so
let me just I'm somewhat familiar with that one. When
it comes to the demon theory, I am categorically opposed
to that for a number of reasons. Just in general,
UFO experiences over the last three quarters of a century
(36:38):
don't report that, if anything, they're benign. More than that,
frequently they're benevolent. I have to say that I thoroughly
investigated one trail into the demonic theory, and it seemed
to have been spawned in the nineteenth seventies by some
(37:02):
fundamentalist creationists. And here's what they said. When I finally
got them to sit down and talk to me, you
know about why do you think that the client saucers
are demanic? All right, here's what they said. Many people
believe in the theory of evolution, and they believe that
(37:27):
on another planet, another civilization has evolved more highly than
we have on Earth, and they have achieved higher levels
of science and technology. And so they come to Earth
and they show us these bright, shiny, highly evolved technological devices.
(37:50):
Satan is doing that. Now, why would Satan do that?
Because Satan wants to tempt us to believe in evolution.
I just fell off my chair. You know that Satan
would go to that length to get us to believe
in evolution. And I thought, again, this pilet takoms raz
(38:13):
just too many ifs, ifs, and ifs and if I.
At any rate, this demon theory was an anti evolution theory,
and Satan was using flying saucers to tapt us. I
just felt that was so preposterous that I couldn't give
it any intellectual credibility. Now, I do want to say
(38:35):
that I've run into some demon theorists here and there
who don't seem to have that particular argument, But I'm
not confident that I understand them well enough to be
able to say, hey, this is a good argument, that's
a bad argument. But I want to say, up until
this point, I've not heard one good argument as to
(38:57):
why we ought to think flying saucers might be. I've
heard some really bad ones.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, obviously, if the devil was able to create such
things such a physical manifestations, and be plenty of other
more convincing ways for him to trick people. Have you
spoken to demonologists or you know, especially Catholics in particular
(39:25):
that I do believe the demons are real, and do
any of them think that there's any kind of technological
aspect to it?
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yes, I have talked to I got very interested. I
wrote a book on sin one time, and I studied evil, satanism,
exorcism and these kinds of things. And I did have
a chance to talk with X sources in great detail
about demonic possession, et cetera. And my answer is on
(39:55):
the basis of that, no, there was nothing technolog logical,
scientific of any sort that comes into play there. And
even though I didn't ask them about flying saucers, maybe
now I should have. Let me just say it never
came up.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So if it was something of important, it would have
It would have probably would because you wrote the book
God's God UFOs UFOs, God's question Mark. So if there's
anyone to talk to you about that would it would
certainly be you. Have you talked to other people in
the field of upology that are interested in the spiritual
(40:36):
side as well?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Oh well, first of all on the demon side. The
answer is yes, there's a view that I don't know
how to adjudicate right now by some of the best
ufologists who are following the disclosure controversy. And here's the view.
(41:01):
Already in the nineteen fifties, when Project Blue Book engaged
in the debunking of people who were making reports, there
was in the Pentagon some Evangelical Christians who believed that
that if the culture, the wider society would think that
(41:25):
we're being visited from outer space, that this would challenge
or destroy their faith, and so that they supported the
whole debunking enterprise right down to the present day. So
that means every generation we replaced the old evangelical Christians
(41:45):
with the new ones, with the new ones, with the
new ones who continue to hold that position.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Wait, can I just pose you there for a second.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
So are you.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Saying that. I think maybe you're referring to immaculate constellation
the people behind the in the deep State that are
religious and they think that there's a spiritual thing.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I don't know that term, but I think I'm talking
about the same thing you are.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Ok So are you saying they kind of infiltrated?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Well, let me just say this is avi that I
find amongst people who know a lot. Okay, let me
just say I find it too difficult to believe. And
in Eleisando's new book, he only mentions one person that
he found in the Pentagon who thinks this way. And
(42:38):
so I have a hard time believing that it's a
powerful influence. That doesn't mean there isn't zero that there
isn't some evidence that some people think this way, but
that enough people would think that way that it would
become a government influence government policy. I doubt Now maybe
you know more about this than I do, But let
(43:00):
me just say I'm doubting it, even though I've heard
people say it. Who who take it really seriously? Do
you have any thoughts about what I'm saying and whether
it's serious or not serious?
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Well, over the years, you know, you meet a lot
of people who have you know, supposedly have you know,
insiders that have shared information with them, and that's something
that has come up. So when Louis Zondo in his
book Imminent mentioned this, he did. There's also the implication
that there were others, not just the one person that's.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Right right now.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
I just think what you said kind of got me
thinking maybe others have talked about this. I haven't heard
about it. But it may not have to be an
official government policy. But if you have a loose affiliation
of people in the in the government, you know, particularly
the DoD side of things, if they're having their own
internal conversation decades ago and said, what can we do
(44:02):
because we are religious and this is what we believe,
we think this is maybe they just on their own,
independently organized to start disseminating this information because to churches
literally and spread that kind of fear among religious people
so that it gets passed down and passed down and
passed down.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
What your saying is plausible. In some point we would
see evidence of it. And I'm not saying the evidence
isn't there.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
But evidence yeah, well, because and we do certainly we
know for a fact that government agents have fed misinformation
to move on members and eufologists across the board, people
who are interested in UFOs. But that was more official policy,
(44:51):
and we know that whereas this would be yeah, this
one would be off the book. So how do you
find evidence for that?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Right? Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
What is the most fascinating aspect of all this for you?
I mean, even looking at this.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
For decades, Well, I love the extraterrestrial hypothesis and I'm
glad that it's at the heart and center, and I
recognize that there are other alternative explanations, because, like so many,
I just hope that they're I hope someday we're going
(45:28):
to meet them, and I hope they're the way Georgia
Davski describes them. I hope they're really great, and I
hope they're smart, and I hope they're advancing sides of technology,
all of these sorts of things. But I have to
have to qualify all that by noting that we still
(45:50):
have proof one way or the other, and we keep
going over and over the same experiences and information and
hypotheses again and again that maybe a great novelist or
(46:11):
historian might say, well, this is a human phenomenon, and
this just happens to be our version of it.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Jacques VLAs thinks that that's a possibility. Carl Jung certainly
thought that was a possibility. I would hate to give
up the objective side of it and say, oh, I
still hope there's something there. So I'm part of the
phenomenon that I study.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Well. I think that the argument for that there's something
there is on the paper trail. And all the whistle
yeah blowers and witnesses have worked in the government have
seen physical craft, and the credibility of them, you know,
depends on who you're talking to, is pretty solid, especially
in recent recent days. I mean someone like David Crushley.
(46:59):
He didn't see anything himself, but we've had other whistleblowers
in the past come out but nothing happens. They just
say I was there, I saw something.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right, you had that decade after decade, people like David
I don't know personally, by the way, and nothing ever happens,
and then the decade goes by and then we do
it all over again.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yes, but I will say this in defense of the Yes,
we're looking at these cases over and over again. But
we are getting new data, we have new technology. That's exciting.
But if you draw the parallel between let's say an
unsolved murder, right, I mean, we're still looking at the
jackar Ripper hoping to solve that, but it does happen
(47:45):
on occasion where a murder that was committed decade decades later. Right,
So if this is a phenomena that is derived originating
from a con just a separate than us with its
own agenda, I'm aware of what we are capable of.
(48:08):
If it's a cat and mouse game, we just have
to keep at it until we you know, we finally.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, I like you, Alan, I want to keep at it.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
Are you do? You do you ever plan up on
following up with with another book.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
To revise mine? Because I I am continually persuaded that
my models of interpretation that I have there continue to
get reinforced with every every decade that goes by, and
(48:45):
so I think I'm on target one. My first edition,
by the way, came out in the nineteen seventies and
I had just met the two Apple White Nettles, and
then I had to revise it after they committed suicide
and then try to interpret what all that was about.
(49:07):
So the book that you know is actually the second edition.
But I can imagine now since twenty seventeen and the
new influx of enthusiastic scientists who are going to set
up experiments and are going to do large data collection
(49:30):
and AI computer analysis, that I think that this is
a period of time in which deserves its own attention.
And I'm hoping that the enthusiasm amongst our scientists might
lead to something. It might not lead to something we predicted,
(49:53):
but it certainly could lead to something of value. So
if I do something, I think what I would do
is maybe revise that book light of the contemporary discussion.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Well, I know you don't like this paradigm, but one
thing I do wonder is if, indeed the government is
are aware of UFOs. Hypothetically, if the UFO, if we
speak to it in that term, if the UFO leads,
if it's a string that you pull on that leads
(50:26):
to the revelation that we are in a simulation, wouldn't
the government want at all costs to cover that up.
Oh wouldn't anyone?
Speaker 2 (50:41):
I want to ask you why you would suppose that.
First of all, you got two steps. One is we're
in a simulation. Step number two, the government has discovered
it and can prove it Step number three, Why would
they want to keep that a secret? I mean, can
you think of a reason why the government wanted to
(51:03):
keep that a secret? Right?
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Because you would have like a lot of millions and
millions of people having total psychotic breakdown. I think because
if people question reality itself, you know, you know, for
those who have have experienced psychedelics, it could be a
(51:25):
beautiful experience. That would also be a terrifying experience, you know,
because all of a sudden, your perception of reality is
just shook. And I don't know if en mass the
world could handle that if it were revealed, you know.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
All right, now, let me ask you this. What we
know about simulations is relatively recent in here in the
history of computing. The UFO phenomenon begins before we have computers.
So are you disconnecting the simulation from the UFO phenomenon
(52:09):
as you raise this? No? No, uh, well, we would retrospect,
I think, so we would look back and say, oh,
we better a simulation all along?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Okay, all right, yes, yeah, That's what I'm thinking today,
at least.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
With coffee, you know, we ought to be able to speculate, right.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah, oh exactly. Yeah, and then more coffee we drink,
the more we speculate. Uh. So here's the question, right,
So can religious people and atheists, you know, understand the
phenomena in a shared context. So let's just say, extra
treas wills come down. They're having a conversation with us,
(52:53):
is there? How do we parlay because as a society,
we want to have a kind of a common voice,
you know, So how did the religious people and the
secular people communicate together with the entity?
Speaker 2 (53:06):
I would think that anything that is genuinely scientific, religious
people and atheistic people could share without any problems, you know,
as long as you one thing about science it has
strict rules of what counts as evidence and all of
(53:28):
that kind of thing. And I would think it doesn't
matter whether you're religious or not as long as you
play that game. Now, the skeptics, I don't know if
you read the Skeptical Inquire or not, but you get
a lot of scientists in there who want to say
science is the only way of understanding reality. So all
those people who believe in UFOs are religious koops. Right,
(53:53):
So that's a form of reductionism. I would think that
the humanities person is going to say, well, wait a
minute before you write them off as religious koops. They're
expressing something that's going on in the human psyche, the
history of human self understanding. That's worth paying attention to.
(54:16):
And I think religious people probably ought to feel at
home with all of that too, unless they're a little
on the touchy side. By the way, I was going
to mentioning a couple of these organizations that I've recently
joined that in formed after the twenty seventeen New York
Times article, in particular the Society for UAP Studies, but
(54:40):
also the Scientific Coalition for UP recognize that we really
need high quality scientific investigation. It doesn't matter whether you're
an atheist or a Buddhist, or a Hindu or a Christian.
The science is going to be the same for everybody.
(55:01):
But then when you turn to culture, well that's where
we have an investment, you know. But I think more
and more people are recognizing we've got to turn to culture.
We've got to understand the interaction of this phenomenon which
is unique in terms of culture, and there we're going
(55:23):
to need religious people to make their own contribution that
you can't get from science or others in order to
round it out and be holistic about it. So I'm
really happy these days in ways that I wasn't twenty
years ago, that you can have a partnership between the scientists,
(55:47):
whether the atheistic or not, and deal with these the
cultural dimensions of the UFO phenomenon because the science didn't
solve it fifty years ago. It couldn't.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
Well, it was also it had its hands tied. I
mean just look at the Condon Report. Yes, you know
there were you know scientific magazine that that criticized it,
and yet and yet it did the job right, It
put it. It put it back back into the closet.
(56:23):
If you were a legitimate scientists academia and you want
to advance, you did.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Not from a certain point of view, the counter report
solved it. It was over.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
Yes, it put us back to Yeah, it's kind of
kind of like the the schedule onening of you know
psychedelic studies. You know, they they they prevented that, you know,
because they're so afraid of you know, where it would
lead psychologically for us as a society that they stifled
(56:55):
decades of research and put us way behind, and now
we're having research that's revealing how effective it can be
clinically clinically used towards PTSD and you know, dealing with trauma.
So and I see I see it similarly because I
feel like it was a fear. It was a fear
of like we can't let the people know. Oh all right,
(57:21):
Terrence McKenna, you're probably familiar, or maybe maybe not, but
Terrence McKenna was a kind of a philosopher, if you will,
on on on psychedelics, and he and his brother in
the jungle and they had this vision of a of
a ufo while they were on mushrooms.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
Oh no, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
And now other other people have similar experiences. And he
didn't see it as a literal nuts in bolt ufo, right,
he saw it as a kind of a mystical experience.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
And it's interesting. I wonder if there is an intersection there.
Speaker 2 (57:56):
Well, I don't know anything about psychedelics, but I could
imagine that you have cultural tropes and they would appear
in a vision. If you're going to see something in
a vision and you're going to recognize it, then you
must have picked it up somewhere ahead. Of time.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, so I haven't ever seen a UFO, but I'll
recognize it when I see it because I've seen so
many pictures.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
That's true, you definitely will, Ted. I can't believe that
that's it, that flew right by.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
Well, it's so much fun chatting with you. It's a mystery,
but you know, we know enough about it to get
gripped by it, but not enough to solve it and
go on to other things.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Right, Yeah, true enough, and that's why we'll keep getting
at it. And if you want to keep up with
what Ted's doing, please go check out Teed Peter's website,
Ted's Timely take Dot. Come h If you could leave
us with one thought, anything, anything at all, what would
it be?
Speaker 2 (59:08):
Keep asking honest questions?
Speaker 1 (59:13):
All right, there you have it. Thanks so much, Ted,
it's great to see you. Okay, take care and thank
you everybody for joining and really appreciate it. If you
are a fan of this podcast, please like, subscribe, and
share your thoughts down below. If you're listening to this
podcast on a podcast platform, please rate and review all
(59:33):
that really helps us continue to grow. A special thanks
to Race Hobs and Margie k at the on Next
network and if you want show updates, please follow me
on Instagram, at Coffee and UFO's podcast. Until next time, everyone,
peace and love and live in the mystery.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
It's good to be in personally. More of us would
think of ourselves that way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I don't have a problem with skeptics.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
It's the bunkers that are on some other level that
I don't understand, especially an inference of a change in
(01:00:33):
local gravity. Saucer shaped craft and they're hovering over.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
The water.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
A Blue Book Special Report fourteen. The better the quality
of the sighting, the more likely to be unexplainable.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Dag
Popular Podcasts
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.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
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