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21: Disclosure Team #69 , Sean Raasch & Jay Christopher King
369 Plays3 years ago
Sean Raasch is a UFO researcher, experiencer, video blogger, singer and songwriter. He has spent most of his life as a singer and songwriter, but for the past year he’s been on a mission so to speak out on UFOs. Sean had his own encounter in YEAR 2020.
His own experience led him to found Witness Citizen which provides daily YouTube Channel interviews and updates and is also active in ufology on Twitter. He has been pushing for transparency including calling members of Congress, including live on air! Via Witness Citizen, he has interviewed Lue Elizondo, Steve Bassett, and many more.
Jay Christopher King is co-founder of The Experiencer Group.
The Experiencer Group is a unique and private member site dedicated to support, curiosity and community for those who’ve lived through anomalous events of any and all kinds. Have you seen a non-human entity, a UFO or maybe a ghost? Have you had out-of-body or near-death experiences? Do you believe you've ever had precognitive or highly intuitive visions, or sense things that other people seemingly can't? We're open to thoughtful people who've encountered all of these and other forms of what is sometimes called "high strangeness".
Sean Twitter: https://twitter.com/WitnessCitizen
Sean Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/witnessciti...
Witness Citizen YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCscu...
Witness Citizen Website: https://www.witnesscitizen.com/
Jay Twitter: https://twitter.com/JayCKing78
Jay Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayckingjc/
The Experiencer Group Twitter: https://twitter.com/ForExperiencers
The Experiencer Group Instagram:
His own experience led him to found Witness Citizen which provides daily YouTube Channel interviews and updates and is also active in ufology on Twitter. He has been pushing for transparency including calling members of Congress, including live on air! Via Witness Citizen, he has interviewed Lue Elizondo, Steve Bassett, and many more.
Jay Christopher King is co-founder of The Experiencer Group.
The Experiencer Group is a unique and private member site dedicated to support, curiosity and community for those who’ve lived through anomalous events of any and all kinds. Have you seen a non-human entity, a UFO or maybe a ghost? Have you had out-of-body or near-death experiences? Do you believe you've ever had precognitive or highly intuitive visions, or sense things that other people seemingly can't? We're open to thoughtful people who've encountered all of these and other forms of what is sometimes called "high strangeness".
Sean Twitter: https://twitter.com/WitnessCitizen
Sean Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/witnessciti...
Witness Citizen YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCscu...
Witness Citizen Website: https://www.witnesscitizen.com/
Jay Twitter: https://twitter.com/JayCKing78
Jay Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayckingjc/
The Experiencer Group Twitter: https://twitter.com/ForExperiencers
The Experiencer Group Instagram:
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Transcript
Introduction to Anomalous Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Anomalous Podcast Network. Multiple voices, one phenomenon.
Guests and Book Club Introduction
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the channel. It is Sunday. I hope everyone's having a great day. Uh, I'm looking forward to this conversation. A couple of good friends of mine who we actually hung out last night, everyone Priscilla's channel had a great conversation there for UAP book club. Uh, and they're here again tonight, so let's not waste any more time and let's bring in mr. Sean rush. Sean, how you doing, mate? Pretty good. Thanks for having me, sir.
00:01:04
Speaker
Hey, my pleasure, man. And Mr. Jay Christopher King. Jay, thank you for joining me, man. Hey, it's great to be here. Great to see you, Vinny. And great to see you, Sean. Good to see you, Jay. Oh, that was a good mute there. It's like I called the cops. I didn't think they'd be there that quick. I was just saying we had a great time over on Book Club last night. That was really good, man. Yeah, that was fun. I love the group of people.
00:01:33
Speaker
And I'm looking forward to switching up the books a bit too by different authors. I just love that because in the end, it seems like we always wind up just talking about bigger questions, which I really appreciate. Yeah, yeah. And for anyone that isn't aware, we were discussing Trinity, The Best Kept Secret by Jacques Vallée and Paola Harris.
00:01:55
Speaker
That was a great conversation. I recommend going to check it out over on Quantum Witch Cafe. And then next month we're all reading Above Top Secret by Timothy Good, which I've never read. I ordered my copy today. So yeah, that should be fun.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I'm looking forward to that. I really enjoyed his book, Earth and the Alien Enterprise, which I think may have been his last book before retiring. He's still alive, but he's by all accounts in poor health and has kind of retired from the field, et cetera. But amazing writer, really enjoy it. So I look forward to a buff top secret for
Importance of Personal Research
00:02:35
Speaker
sure. It'll be fun.
00:02:37
Speaker
Excellent, excellent. The first thing I really wanted to talk about is the importance of research. Now whether this be a case or an era, Sean, you know, this is your field, you're up there with the best of them. So can we just talk about how important it is to actually research rather than maybe you see something somewhere and you
00:02:59
Speaker
believe it or some people might just believe what they read or see so yeah let's talk about the importance of you know looking deeper into things yeah well uh to me i i guess i could take it back to when i first uh started getting into this stuff and when i had my own experience it didn't take me too long to look at the field and see it you know basically
00:03:21
Speaker
You know, see that there's all different directions and places that this community goes as far as theory, speculation and everything. And for me to be able to make any sense out of that or get truth of it just from, you know, the characters in there or solid statements of I know this or I know that.
00:03:42
Speaker
I wouldn't be able to feel good about it myself, you know? So the only way I really knew to start digging for my own truth and really at that time,
Sharing Experiences and Data Correlation
00:03:53
Speaker
it was to make sure I wasn't crazy, you know, that there really is a phenomenon. There really is odd stuff that happens and it's possible and it's not just me. So I couldn't take someone's word for it, you know? So I had to go find it and that was just finding documents, government documents.
00:04:14
Speaker
finding out that the situation of somewhat of a cover up is real. And people a lot smarter than I have had encounters. And it's happened many times over and over again. And not just from reading someone's book or an article or a video, but actually reading the document as it is before somebody takes it out of there and writes their own story with it, whether to make it
00:04:42
Speaker
More fantastic than it is or less, you know, so I think it's important to figure things out for yourself You know, so you feel good about what you know, you know, otherwise you're relying on people that may have Some sort of prerogative whatever it is, you know Yeah, well said what about you Jay? yeah, I mean the the importance of research is is absolutely critical and You know it kind of
00:05:13
Speaker
What's a, what's a way to say this, you know, it separates a, you know, in older generations, we'd say it separates them in from the boys. You know what I mean? And I think that there's really something to that, you know, the, and the adults from the children in some, in some ways, you know, in,
00:05:30
Speaker
Prior in earlier days, in working with Richard Dolan, I was kind of taking more of a document edge to what I was looking into, as Sean does now. And I think that that is incredibly fruitful and super, super important. However, with the experiencer group, of course, my current research is largely in conversation with other experiencers and comparing notes.
00:05:59
Speaker
on a daily basis, hearing new accounts every day. It's wild how many data points are correlating over so many different people that don't know each other, that have strange, shared
00:06:17
Speaker
data points from their histories that, that, you know, at a certain point, I was reading actually the communion letters earlier today. Uh, Whitley Strieber's book that he and his wife put together from letters that they got from experiencers after communion was published. All right. And the book's largely out of print, but you can get a Kindle copy of it these days. And it's a, it's an amazing resource because you're looking at people that, that
00:06:45
Speaker
weren't on the internet at the time. This is largely compiled starting in 1986. And there weren't many resources for these cases, right? There weren't many resources for where to go. And in reading these letters, people are totally unguarded about the high strangeness effects and how wild things can get, you know, as we know.
00:07:10
Speaker
And it's amazing because I was reading those and I was correlating them to people in the experiencer group and thinking like, oh my God, you know, that's like Chrissy or that's like this person or whatever, you know what I mean? And seeing that is incredibly, it's amazing. It's amazing seeing those kinds of correlations happen.
00:07:32
Speaker
For me, I think that there's a lot of work to be done with experiencers in terms of just building the community and opening these doors and normalizing that kind of conversation. And that's critically important, and being able to bring that into the public is incredibly important. And at the same time, one of the wonderful side effects of doing this work is that everybody that's involved in it gets to do their own version of
00:08:00
Speaker
kind of boots on the ground research in a way, and being able to talk to other people about the cases. Yeah, I suppose it must be important when you're speaking to an experiencer to have good information. So I guess the research side of things is valid in that respect, just as it is in many other aspects and areas. So yeah, it must be important. So just for anybody that, I mean, I feel like we've seen, but go on. Yeah, I just wanted to add like, you know,
00:08:27
Speaker
It's unfortunate that the public, I guess, is for the most part so far behind of where the reality of the situation is right now. I mean, the fact that there is a phenomenon really, you know, to someone who puts in the time to figure things out, you know, it's real. There's a phenomenon, right? So we should really, as a collective, be at the
00:08:49
Speaker
the
Holistic Understanding of UAP Phenomena
00:08:50
Speaker
next chapter of where Jay is where he's taking in experience your accounts and the you know the interactions had so we can get farther down the whole of of what this actually is versus if it exists you know like it's like take a car for instance it's like we're still trying to figure out if we can make a car and have it work versus
00:09:12
Speaker
We know that it works, now we're trying to make really nice ones. So I really appreciate where Jay's at because he's done with that. He's like, yeah, I know, okay, it's real, it's yours. So let's move on, let's move past that and try to dig deeper in this mystery and figure out what's actually happening. And I'm getting there myself, to be frank.
00:09:39
Speaker
No, absolutely. And I mean, a lot of your research, Sean, is looking at government documents and stuff, which I might class as kind of a nuts and bolts side of things, whereas Jay's is the experiencer thing. And now, Sean, you're looking at both sides. How do you combine the two? You know, because we hear about people, well, this person does nuts and bolts and it's all separated, but it really needs to come together, I think, to push the subject forward. So how do we go about that?
00:10:08
Speaker
For me personally, you know, I don't know that I'm the person that would have the answer for that, necessarily, but I think, you know, bringing the two worlds together would just
00:10:22
Speaker
If I put my best foot forward, it would just take a sense of being humble with each side of it and not assuming anything on either side of it. But I feel like the majority of it, at least nuts and bolts, when we say that, even though Jay's made this point before, these things don't have nuts or bolts.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, okay. You're right. But, you know, I feel like what a lot of people in that crowd, so to speak, and this is an assumption, and not going to be valid for everybody, but they're still trying to figure out if there's a reality to this or not, you know, versus, you know, more on the experiencer side, they're past, they're beyond that, you know, and they're now trying to figure out what the entities are or what's happening.
00:11:11
Speaker
you know with the experiences. So I feel like but there's you know a responsibility on both parts if we want there to be some sort of coming together and on the the experiencer side there has to be some sort of meet you know meet you where you're at and have some understanding and empathy for someone not being able to go farther in their studies on such a incredibly complicated and
00:11:42
Speaker
you know, basically just drastic thing to believe and move forward with, you know, it's not a normal thing. You know, so having that empathy and meeting people where they're at in the nuts and bolts side to maybe take a step farther out of the circle and just, you know, test themselves on what they really want to do with this. I completely agree. I think, I mean, it's absolutely crucial meeting people where they're at. And I think about that.
00:12:12
Speaker
myself on a pretty daily basis because often in the experiencer group and just in general on Twitter and in the online communities and things like that, people
00:12:23
Speaker
have become aware of the work that we're doing. And I'm sure this is true for both of you as well sometimes, just given the field in general, that you'll get DMs and stuff like that from people that are having an emergency. They're having a crisis. They're trying to come to grips with some of these situations that they're having or just becoming aware of the data and being suddenly in kind of a castle made of sand.
Gary Nolan and 'American Cosmic' Discussion
00:12:51
Speaker
And being able to meet people where they are, whether it's some troll on Twitter, whether it's somebody that's in the nuts and bolts vein, whether it's somebody like Jeff Kripal or Jacques or somebody like that, being able to try to have different levels of dialogue in certain ways is incredibly important in terms of being able to smooth
00:13:19
Speaker
kind of smooth out the field in a way and try to bring about the kind of productive dialogue that we really want to be having. And as far as like how do we put all this together, meeting people where they are, and also there's also practical considerations like the work that Gary Nolan's doing.
00:13:35
Speaker
For example, in terms of being, you know, he's outed himself, finally, as being the long rumored pseudonym, one of the pseudonyms in Diana Pasulka's American Cosmic, which was a very brave act for
00:13:52
Speaker
a guy that has his own lab at Stanford University at an Ivy College. That's amazing, right? And the work that he's been doing in terms of material studies and analysis, and there are private aspects to things that he's been doing that
00:14:14
Speaker
have been long rumored and people can't really go into public detail about them. But if some of that stuff comes out in the days ahead and months ahead, it'd be absolutely amazing in terms of marrying material science and or quote unquote nuts and bolts and the realities of experiencers, which I look forward to for sure.
00:14:35
Speaker
No, I completely agree. We've been quite spoiled recently with the amount of appearances that Gary Nolan's given, but I was very conscious that he recently said he's actually taken a step back for the fear of just constantly repeating himself, which is completely understandable. I've been lucky enough to get him onto a panel coming up towards the end of May on my channel. So hopefully, like you said, if we can get some more information out of him that doesn't feel like it's just a repetitive vein from what he's been saying for so long then.
00:15:04
Speaker
That'd be great. And when he's surrounded by other scientists, maybe the conversation will go that way rather than one-on-one with someone like myself asking him questions. Maybe we'll get something different. We can hope. Absolutely. I look forward to that conversation a lot. He's such a brilliant guy. And he's got a great sense of humor. He's thoughtful. I look forward to that quite a bit.
00:15:28
Speaker
I've grown to hope that we as a community can learn to treat people like that when they come along with a certain amount of respect because it's exactly what we need. You know, people like Gary Nolan, someone as brilliant as him, Avilobe, we need those people in this field. And, you know, sometimes our actions, you know, can kind of repel those sort of people. And we have to
00:15:56
Speaker
you know, try to remember that it's long overdue. So if we can just keep our shit together. Yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes because these people were held in such high regard by a lot of other people, a lot of expectation is put on them that they need to constantly give us something or deliver something to us, which, you know, is not the case because they owe us absolutely nothing. And I think that gets forgotten sometimes, you know. Yeah. We can do, we can all do something, right? Like you don't have to sit and wait.
00:16:26
Speaker
Like I'm an impatient person. So if I was sitting here and waiting, I guess I would kind of not be very good on Twitter either or with these people, you know, like, because that's not my type of personality. So, you know, what helps me is keeping busy myself, like searching for my own truth, whether it be documents or old publications or, you know, experience or accounts or whatever it is.
00:16:54
Speaker
because there's so much, one thing I've learned about research is there is so much information.
00:17:02
Speaker
available online, whether it be government wise, not even our own government, like Australia, Canada, other governments, the UK. And then there are so many old, like bulletins and, you know, newspapers and books, there is so much that you can, you know, try to draw from and learn from. And if you really want to know what's going on, if you really
00:17:32
Speaker
want to know what the truth is, there is no reason for you not to put some of that on us on yourself and start getting into that stuff. And when you do, you'll find yourself almost, um, you know, too busy to worry about if someone's coming out with that video this week or not, you know,
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I'm reminded of, I went to art school and then I went to film school and I'm reminded of one of the most annoying teachers that I've ever had. He was one of my foundational teachers in art school and his name was Brooke. And he had this quote that he said almost every day. And he said, if you're bored, you're boring.
00:18:10
Speaker
Right and and I kind of I would tend to agree with that what's in the field of ufology because it's like if you're if You feel like there's not enough content coming at it at you. Like I don't know what to tell you I don't know what to tell you. There's more podcasts. There's more books. There's more research to be done and
00:18:29
Speaker
then any one particular person can do and so if on any one particular day you feel like it's slow news day well guess what you know there is an incredible body of literature and an incredible body of free research available online you know
00:18:45
Speaker
You start digging. I mean, just look up. If you get bored one day, look up Keith Basterfield. He's a really under known Australian researcher that is an absolute treasure. He's been quietly doing his blog for many years and he has so much good research. He published those FOIA DERDS the other day. It's the OSAP DERDS the other day. 36 out of 38, as I recall. That's amazing work.
00:19:14
Speaker
or people like Isaac Coy, you know, Sean was mentioning old ufology journals and that guy has been, he has kind of like a very quiet website.
00:19:23
Speaker
that has thousands and thousands of old UFO magazines that he's lovingly transferred into PDF form. There's so much out there that people can entertain themselves with. And it's one of the beauties of our field in general that people are so passionate about it that we have these rich resources.
00:19:46
Speaker
No, absolutely. I mean, I think some people I've spoken to say, well, I'm just overwhelmed because I don't even know where to start. I mean, you've just given some fine examples. But for me personally, quite a few years ago when I was just, I wasn't doing any of this, but I was looking at documents.
00:20:03
Speaker
It's overwhelming until you just open some files and before you know it, all you're thinking about is what you're reading and what's next and what can I look at next. It's not scary once you start digging in. It becomes addictive. I spent many a long night in front of a screen just going through documents. It's fun. It's exhilarating.
00:20:23
Speaker
I think you get the nail on the head. It can seem daunting until you start reading that first file and you're just thinking about that file. And then by the time it's done, you're like, I gotta find another one. And then you'll start to see little things here or there that point you in a certain direction of overarching knowledge over the topic. And I don't mean knowing what any of this is, just that it is.
00:20:53
Speaker
And once you're there, you're off. When I first started, I wish somebody could have told me, go here. And here are the documents. And this is how you can find them. I wish somebody was available like that. I tried to find somebody like that. That would help me in that way. But it was just no dice. So for the record, I'm here for anybody else that's looking for a way to do that.
00:21:23
Speaker
going to FOIA reading rooms, utilizing the archives. I don't want to have figured that out just for myself, because A, there's people out there that'll do a much better job if they just have the resources and want to. And the more people that realize that there's easy access like that, the just more brains we'll have on it, the better off we'll be.
00:21:50
Speaker
And you've got your own website now with a lot of the documents there. So people don't even have to go and find them in all these separate, you know, government websites and reading rooms that you mentioned. So maybe that's a good place for people to start. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Of course. Go to my website. I think, I think I've added all possible links for both of you guys in the description below. So, uh, yeah, if I haven't, my bad, but I think, um, now,
00:22:16
Speaker
Jay, one thing I really wanted to talk with you about was your recent appearance at Rice University for the Archives of the Impossible.
Archiving Paranormal Research
00:22:24
Speaker
I mean, great event, fantastic that you were a part of it, amazing speakers, some of my favorites. How did that all come about for you? That was absolutely amazing. And it partially happened because of a conversation that we had on Witness Citizen with Leslie Kane.
00:22:44
Speaker
And Leslie was on our show, on Sean's show that I weekly co-host, right? Back in, what was it, January? I think she was on the show and she just kind of lightly encouraged us to come down, you know, and it was very offhand.
00:23:02
Speaker
But when somebody like that tells you you should probably do something, it's kind of important to listen to them. And so after the show, I was sitting there and I was thinking, maybe I should do that. Is that something I should do? And by the next day, I already know Jeff Cripal. And so by the next day, I emailed Jeff.
00:23:24
Speaker
and said, oh, you know, is there room, etc. And it turned out that, you know, there were, and it was a small event because of COVID restrictions and things like that, they had to keep it to about 120 people that were allowed to show up.
00:23:40
Speaker
And many, many more people were live streaming it online. They have a really great AV department down there at Rice. But oh my gosh, like being down there, it was like ufology heaven, you know, and a lot of us were staying in the same hotel. And so walking down to get coffee and
00:24:00
Speaker
Jacques Vallée has already been up for hours having one-on-one meetings with people down there, you know, bumping into Michael Masters or Leslie or Diana in the elevator.
00:24:14
Speaker
you know, on your way to the gym or whatever. It was unbelievable. It felt like a strange ufology heaven, I have to say, or paranormal heaven in an odd way. And I'm so glad to have been a part of it, you know.
00:24:32
Speaker
me getting on to one of the panels actually happened while I was already in Houston. My, my co-founder of the experiencer group Stuart Davis was going to be on a panel and he had to back out because of a family emergency. And so at the last minute, Jeff himself emailed me, I was already down there.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so I woke up in the hotel the first morning and I have this email from Jeff that's like, hey man, can you do me a favor and be on this panel? And of course, it's a huge, huge honor. And also, of course, incredibly anxiety producing, right? Because it was good that it felt like ufology heaven or paranormal heaven because
00:25:18
Speaker
I needed that feeling to kind of outweigh the amount of anxiety that it produces to be sitting there and feeling like you're talking in any kind of intelligible way and you're looking out in the audience and there's Jacques and there's Jeff and there's Leslie and there's Diana and there's Whitley and all the other wonderful people that are there, you know.
00:25:39
Speaker
Um, but absolutely amazing event. And they're there, they have loose plans to have possibly at least two more that maybe every other year they're thinking about having similar conferences down there. I don't think that that's, you know, it'll, it'll take some time before, before that really comes into play. Um, but, but, uh, I'm looking forward to more events with, with those folks for sure.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds incredible. And just in case anybody isn't aware, what are the archives of the impossible? Oh, yeah. OK, so Jeff Kripal, who who is the I think I believe he's the associate dean or he's the temporary dean of humanities for Rice University down in Houston, Texas. He also runs his a he's a religious studies professor. He's kind of a philosopher. He's a wonderful author.
00:26:35
Speaker
and he runs what's called the GEM program. And it's one of the rare kind of tucked away places where people study the paranormal and esotericism within academia. And he's built this amazing wing and it's becoming kind of more powerful and more amazing by the year. But he established
00:27:03
Speaker
Rice University has an incredible library and archive system, and they're very, very well endowed. They're very well funded. And so he was talking with Jacques Vallee years ago, and Jacques Vallee had no idea where he was going to put his archive. And Jeff said, well, you know, let me make some calls and I'll see what I can do. And Jeff was able to kind of
00:27:25
Speaker
figure out a way so that they could allocate some funds so that this important documents, important paperwork, diaries, files from people associated with ethology, people associated with mediumship, people associated with remote viewing, all sorts of folks can have their important documents down there. And it's a way of
00:27:55
Speaker
legitimizing what we're all doing, the research that we're all doing. So some of Whitley Strieber's paperwork is going to be there. Leslie Kane has done an incredible job in terms of getting the NARCAP files there and the files of a guy named Stuart Alexander, who's a very successful physical medium working in the UK.
00:28:15
Speaker
Jacques Vallée's files are there and they're embargoed for, I think, another seven years or so. And I met with the guy that actually organized, that is the one person or one of the very few people that actually knows what's in Jacques' archive.
00:28:35
Speaker
And man, I spent so much time trying to figure out different ways to be like, so, you know, trying to get and his mouth was shut. But he's a great guy. His name's Tim. And he does his own great work in Jeff's program. So this is an incredible resource. It's an incredible program in general. And, you know, for some people within our field, Jeff is an unknown figure. But in the wider
00:29:00
Speaker
academic world, he's kind of a towering giant for this kind of material. And he's basically like a huge thought leader when it comes to
00:29:13
Speaker
Academia in states and in legitimizing the field for sure. It's just so good to see big institutions on the academia side being so open to hosting these kind of things as well. You know something we've been crying out for I think for quite some time. So yeah, really good to see Sean wake up.
00:29:34
Speaker
I'm here, brother. I'm just listening. It's fascinating, isn't it? And I hope, like Jay said, I hope we get to see more events coming out of Rice over the years. Just a compound on what you said, Vinny. The fact that they're willing to take a risk in Rice University and to have a
00:29:54
Speaker
An event like that, hopefully, you know, that catches on because there's so many universities and there's so many more people that have done investigations and have files and archives just like, you know,
00:30:07
Speaker
James McDonald at Arizona. He's got boxes of files there. That could be an event where they open his files and do something there. So there's opportunities all over the place. So hopefully that courageous step that was taken by Rice spawns more events just like that. And what would you do to get your hands on Valet's archive?
00:30:35
Speaker
I'd be almost, you know, I'd be like circling back around, I'd be overwhelmed. But then, you know, I'd probably start reading one and be like, oh my gosh, yeah, I wonder what's in there. You know, I know that he has files probably from all over the world. And there are definitely a couple areas I'd be very interested in learning more about.
00:31:01
Speaker
I'm getting mental pictures of Sean in like total jewel thief garb, you know what I mean? Dodging lasers, getting into the Fondren library, finding this stuff. I love it. Knowing me, I'd get there and I'd all be in like French. That's true. No, I bet it. I mean, there'd be all sorts, like you said, different countries, but I imagine there's a lot of documents that he would have used when writing all of his books over the years as well. I mean, what a treasure trove. Absolute gems in there.
00:31:31
Speaker
Well, we can wait seven years and see what happens then, I suppose. Let's switch it up a bit. I wanted to speech you about your fantastic interview that you both did recently with George Knapp and Colin Keller.
OSAP Program Interview Insights
00:31:44
Speaker
Now, I mean, we all know George Knapp. He's one of the best investigative journalists in the subject for decades. But Colin, you know, he only really came out again. And I say again, because, you know, he's been in the field for many years, but very much behind the scenes. But obviously, when the book Skim Walkers of the Pentagon came out towards the end of last year, he started doing these interviews. But I got asked a lot of times last year, who would you like to interview? And I always said, Colin Kelleher. And then he pops up and it's great. But
00:32:13
Speaker
Did you get any major takeaways from my interview? Anything that really stood out that made you kind of go, Oh, sure. Um, you know, just to go first, I think the major takeaway I got from it is just how, um, under reported ASEP was in the work that they actually did.
00:32:32
Speaker
They made the point to say, you know, when the first New York Times article broke, they connected ATIP to the funding and all that and focused on a small percentage of what was happening behind the scenes with UFOs and investigating the paranormal.
00:32:52
Speaker
you know, even with these dirts out that we, you know, Jay was talking about the Basterfield released, like I went over the biological effects one on one of my episodes. I cannot believe that that stuff is not being talked about like on the news, but yet, you know, we get, you know, new new segments about blacked out versions of the preliminary assessment, you know, about we can't see the shapes, you know, but
00:33:22
Speaker
we have like, there's so much material that would make like headlines, but they don't take it on. It's like, and it's not like some researcher just, this is a government funded project that looked into these biological effects. There's abductions specifically mentioned in this document, a move on document that lists historical physical cases is in this document
00:33:51
Speaker
that was made with government money. And so to me, it's just like, holy cow, was there a lot more going on than we even knew about. And things can get conflated, but the fact is that it happened. And my big takeaway is just how much time and effort Colm has put into this, how smart of a person he is, how much more he knows that I'd like to know,
00:34:22
Speaker
And, uh, you know, in George snap, um, that I've wanted to talk to him ever since I started this, I, I've been emailing him and trying to get him for months. And a couple of times I thought I scared him away, but somehow I didn't. Um,
00:34:37
Speaker
And finally the timing was right. And such a thrill to talk to somebody like that who makes everything he does look so incredibly easy. Truly look up to that guy's professionalism, especially in this topic, which is not easy. So yeah, those are a couple of things.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in terms of takeaways for me, I agree with Sean. And of course, column for people that don't kind of recognize, of course, he's a behind the scenes guy. But this guy,
00:35:21
Speaker
And there's this strange fine line because he likes being a behind the scenes guy. And at the same time, he's co-written a couple of these books and he does clearly like getting credit for the OSOT program, right? So I think it's important to get people to recognize that this is essentially like the next generation's help put off.
00:35:41
Speaker
you know, Hal put off as well in his 80s and then you've got column in the next generation and he's basically doing the same kinds of explorations that Hal has been paid to do for decades, you know, in this wider framework of follow the evidence where it leads. And he's a complete total badass.
00:36:04
Speaker
You know, and, and just being in that situation of looking at George and looking at column, you know, it's like, we're the one guy has 24 news Emmys, right? And the other guy's column, column effing Keller. And, and I was saying to, to Stewart yesterday, it's like, it's like, you're one of those police procedural shows where you're brought in to be interrogated.
00:36:32
Speaker
you know, and you're like chained to the table or something like that. And then these two slick dudes in suits sit down in front of you to play good cop, bad cop or whatever. And then you're there and you're supposed to interview them for some reason. Do you know what I mean? Like it's extraordinarily intimidating being in a situation like that, you know, but I really enjoyed it. You know, I think George is a treasure.
00:36:58
Speaker
I think column is absolutely fascinating and the work he does is absolutely fascinating. And, you know, one takeaway, I guess, from there is just without going into column clearly wants to helm another project like awesome. Yeah, I think that that's one of the takeaways there. And
00:37:22
Speaker
I think that if people really want to kind of investigate and look into the stuff more, maybe they should look into the Bigelow Institute of Consciousness Studies, or they could look into Bass a little bit more, because the guy's doing really good work, and it's not as if he's too bright and inquisitive of a person to stop pursuing good leads, let's put it that way. Yeah, and obviously he did good work with NIDS as well back in the day.
00:37:52
Speaker
I have tried to speak to him and George, and maybe it's the same for me as what you had, Sean, where you get into conversations with him. It doesn't lead to setting up a day. And at that moment, I'm in that point where I'm just waiting to hear back. No rush, of course, you know. Yeah, it's just persistence is key. But, you know, just every now and again, oh, hey, just checking in. Anything's open up. Be my honor, you know.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah, because it's literally like, I thought it was going to happen like months ago and it didn't. And just let it be and just do your thing and check in once in a while. The one thing I know is he doesn't like talking about himself. No, that's the thing you mentioned being persistent as well. I'm not very good at being persistent with people because I feel like I'm just annoying them.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, well, who cares? No, I don't want to come across that way. You know, I know what it's like when you get bombarded with things and I'm sure they get a lot of it. Well, you know, a lot of people may not know this, but I spent most of my time in my professional life in sales. You know, my last job was pretty high ticket sales and I did a lot of self-training for that. And one thing I learned is
00:39:16
Speaker
you have to be willing to not take a deal, a sale, so to speak. And with like a guest, I say, you have to be willing and know that you might not get the interview when you go and ask for the interview. And just realize that everybody's just a person and everyone wants to just have a human connection and just be honest with each other. And as long as you do that, everything will work out, however that is.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Here's a point that I really always find really interesting. And I like to get different points of view on it is we put a lot or I say we people in general seem to put a lot of emphasis on videos and UFO videos. For me personally, I don't I prefer data and stuff like that. You know, I think in this day and age of video can only give you so much. You can only tell you so much. And it still would warrant a lot more
00:40:15
Speaker
data to back it up. So what are you guys' thoughts on this? When people say, if we see a clearer, compelling video, that's it. We've got disclosure. Well, it's not. So yeah, I'd like to know your thoughts.
00:40:29
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, I think, you know, a great video is a great video. And at the same time, having had experiences myself, you know, Sean has other people, you know, it's, it's difficult to square away for people or, you know, the idea that that
00:40:51
Speaker
The video doesn't, doesn't show you how weird these situations actually are to experience. They don't show you the web of connections that happen there. And so in a way, when I think about kind of the simplistic kind of 2001 idea of disclosure, not the Stanley Kubrick movie, which was a total mind screw, but I mean kind of like the Greer
00:41:17
Speaker
you know, Stephen Bassett era of disclosure, where as if, as if it was going to be some Christmas present that people could just open on December 25. And it'd be like, Oh my god, we have disclosure. Look, it's right here. Like it was going to be like a bicycle or something like that. Do you know what I mean? And I and when you see how this how strange things get and how much is going on seemingly, you know, then
00:41:43
Speaker
it's going to be a developing, complicated conversation for decades, possibly centuries, to adapt to these other kind of realities, right? And so when I see a video, I think, oh, you know, I do see how much mileage Ralph and Leslie and Lou and Chris Mellon got off of those original Fleur videos.
00:42:09
Speaker
And at the same time, you know, which was amazing, but at the same time, I think that there are so many competing interests that have kind of leveled up since then. That if we got that 23 minute video that Lou keeps talking about and other people keep talking about the confidential UAP task force videos, things like, or videos, things like that, I don't know that.
00:42:34
Speaker
you know, there's still going to be people that are paid to debase things that are literally paid to debase things. And then there are other people that do that work for free.
00:42:43
Speaker
There are other people that seemingly have organized themselves where they want to be unpaid agents of the MOD or whoever the heck to sit around and talk poorly about situations like this. We all know how easy it is to edit an image these days.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's my take on videos. I love seeing a cool video. I love seeing a cat video. You know what I mean? A great video is a great video, but it's going to take more than that. I'm sure of that. Sean? Yeah, I am more or less on the same boat with you there. I mean, the way I think of it is
00:43:30
Speaker
You know, think of it like the best, clearest video that, that, you know, most people would want to see as far as being the clincher for them. Right. And then, you know, think of how the people would react to that. And when I think of that, I think a lot of the reactions would be, this is fake or CGI or, or whatever. Right. And then the other thing I think of is.
00:43:56
Speaker
whatever it is, isn't gonna look like anything that you are imagining right now. So I think it could be, what you see visually is gonna be the least important aspect of the phenomenon, basically. So if you're banking on a video, I think you're banking on being underwhelmed over and over again, because of the phenomenon, it isn't about what you see.
00:44:26
Speaker
You know, it's about the experience you have, you know, during interaction or encounter. And, you know, the other things that the phenomenon is capable of visually is, you know, really not important in the long run. But it's unfortunate because it's been propped up as, you know,
00:44:50
Speaker
One of the most important things that people should look for, look for, you know, and I play this segment on my show called the what the heck is that, you know, or I go, what the heck is that? You know, and then we play some, uh, some videos I find online. And, um, you know, it's interesting because every one that actually has like a real saucer or something, you know, that sips through and it's like, that could, that could be real and you would never even know.
00:45:18
Speaker
You would never know because you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe it. And that's just how it works. Almost the more real something looks is you're just going to think it's completely fake. Along those lines, I think that a compelling occupant video,
00:45:41
Speaker
the others, aliens, extra, you know, however you want to frame this stuff, like a compelling video of Greys or Mantis or whoever else, like that, that could unlock a lot of weird doors in terms of like the public consciousness. But like Sean's saying, like that, that also, it doesn't mean that people would believe it. It would just look like an op the entire time, you know?
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah and I mean I suppose in your line Jay when I mean you're an experienced yourself but when somebody new you speak to comes and tells you their story about maybe interacting with an entity of some description. I mean I'm not saying that people come up and talk to you and they're blatantly lying about things but how do you discern between
00:46:32
Speaker
You know, someone who's telling the truth or someone you may be unsure of. I mean, that must be a really difficult process. It can be challenging. It can, it can be very challenging and I try.
00:46:45
Speaker
everybody that's kind of a principle at the experiencer group, we try to remain as open-minded as
Experiencer Support and Community Importance
00:46:52
Speaker
possible. And we also recognize that there are some people that are having experiences that are, there's a lot of overlap with mental illness. It's just absolutely true. That's true. And there are people that are having honest to God
00:47:11
Speaker
wild encounters with non-human intelligence and or out of body experiences or near death all there are so many different kinds of situations and they could be having a mental health crisis along with that you know it's not necessarily a lot of people online they say oh it's one or the other but if you know how much this can like break open people's brains to be dealing with the ontological shock of some of these situations it causes depression it causes anxiety people
00:47:41
Speaker
There are so many people with substance abuse issues because they can't face this stuff. Marriages break up. There are so many issues that way. And so there's a spectrum, right? And being able to, like we were talking about before, being able to meet people where they are is extraordinarily important.
00:48:00
Speaker
And at the same time, there are very specific data points that you can look at. And the more people you talk to, I've spoken with thousands of people at this point about this stuff. And after a while, you start, you think to yourself, oh, yeah, that resonates with this case and this and this and this other thing. And then every once in a while, you get somebody that may just completely be off the map.
00:48:29
Speaker
And that could be because they just had like their, whatever their specific thing is, it just isn't that usual, even within this wild realm where nothing is usual, right? And sometimes that person might be making something up, right? But honestly within the group and from what I see, it happens so infrequently because one of the cool things about having a group like that is that
00:48:58
Speaker
People that are fakes don't want to be around a bunch of authentic experiencers. You know what I mean? It seems to weed itself out in a way. I was just going to say that the people that fake it won't have the same amount of conviction to work through what they experienced or are pretending to experience. So it's only a matter of time until they get out of there or whatever. Going back a little bit on the video thing,
00:49:26
Speaker
You know what videos are really good for is attention. Right. So if you, if you get a video that gets like a lot of attention, like the New York times that era, those Navy videos that brought a lot more people to the topic who are then like, okay, what is this? And then went into.
00:49:48
Speaker
you know, researching or, you know, having podcasts or doing things that were productive and positive that helped put a community of tools on the topic to try to figure things out, you know, because you're not going to get that kind of interest without that.
00:50:05
Speaker
I wouldn't think, you know? So, I mean, I do think like the videos are really great for that, are really great for that, especially when it's an authentic like Navy video and it's paired with the testimony of someone like David Fraver, like, so that alone, obviously, as we can see, we've all been through it, it's not gonna be enough to convince the entire world.
00:50:32
Speaker
that it's time to, you know, change your life and focus on other things or whatever. But that's definitely enough to get a lot more people interested to put in the work to figure it out for themselves. Absolutely. I suppose a lot of people do come into this when they see stories like the Nimitz case when with the New York Times, for example. But then I think also with with the experience, the side of things, people
00:50:58
Speaker
I mean, for me personally, it seems like more and more people are coming forward, but have I really been paying attention? Jay, would you say that you're getting more of an influx of people, you know, as each year comes by?
00:51:10
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, the Experiencer Group itself has only been around for about 15 months now. And originally, it was invite only. And so we opened it up to other people starting in May of last year. But that said, we were doing private groups before in different configurations before that happens.
00:51:39
Speaker
seed community that that we invited came from somewhere and it was a lot of confidential groups and happened during the beginning of the pandemic and around then and even before. But yeah, people are definitely coming out of the woodwork. There's I think that one of the things is that you see a different level of you see different levels of people being able to kind of walk into these situations. And so
00:52:10
Speaker
Without, of course, we have a privacy policy at the Experiencer Group, so I can't kind of name people unless they out themselves as members and things like that. But there are people that are very high functioning people that have
00:52:25
Speaker
you know worked on things like you know these supercomputers that we hold in our pockets or or people that are associated with enormous businesses and and being able to see them putting the dots together is is is really crucial and important yeah and what advice would you give to somebody who's had an experience and they're a bit unsure a bit nervous about coming out i mean
00:52:50
Speaker
How do they get in touch with you guys? Is that something you're open to? Is it new members?
00:53:03
Speaker
in terms of advice for people wanting to come out of the experiencer closet as it were, I think one of the most crucial components, Sean and I, we were talking with Mike Clowand a couple weeks ago, and Mike wrote an amazing book called The Messengers, and he wrote another more recent book called Hidden Experience, and brilliant, brilliant guy, and he
00:53:27
Speaker
He actually is one of the crucial people that, that, that convinced me to, to come out myself as an experiencer. And it was through support groups. It was through support groups. He was, and he said to me, you know, one door closes and another door opens. He said, I have, I, I've known Whitley for years. Whitley back in those days, that was hard for him.
00:53:53
Speaker
Mike Klond himself came out of the experienced closet about 15 years ago. And he said it was a completely different picture for him than it was for Whitley. Now, there are absolutely going to be people that it's just not going to be their past, either because of their jobs or because of the partner that they're with or their kids or whatever other considerations are there. But one thing that I would say is that
00:54:20
Speaker
One of the most amazing things that can happen is being able to have kind of an interpersonal disclosure between you and a loved one, whether it's a parent or your partner or a close friend or something like that, finding somebody looking amongst your group around you and thinking like, who can actually hold space for this? Who can take this kind of a conversation?
00:54:47
Speaker
And who do I know that loves me enough to be able to kind of be able to hold this and have a productive conversation about it? I would say my advice would be to potentially start in a place like that. And if you don't even feel like you have something like that around you, to those out there,
00:55:10
Speaker
That's why we created the Experiencer Group. There are other groups out there as well, but it's important to look around and find that kind of solid base because it's lonely. It can be really lonely to navigate these multiple realities.
00:55:31
Speaker
You know, you're dealing with kind of two different worlds. You're dealing with the world that you deal with when you go to your job or the grocery store or you're hanging out at home. And then there's the other world that can open up for people at three in the morning or whatever, you know, and that can be.
00:55:50
Speaker
It's literally alienating. It's a challenge. So yeah, interpersonal disclosure. Find somebody that you have a loving relationship with that respects you and just think to yourself about whether they can hold space for that conversation or not. I would just add to that how incredibly accurate.
00:56:14
Speaker
that is just as he's talking just about how isolating it could be. You know, especially when you don't really know anyone, you don't have any friends or whatever that have had that kind of experience and maybe even, you know, typically would make fun of people that would talk about that kind of stuff. What do you do? You know, and all I can talk about is my own experience. And when I went to
00:56:45
Speaker
UFO, Twitter, whatever. And with my experience and I saw people doing shows and stuff and I basically came out on my show, you know, and I had maybe, you know, I'd get 50 views on a video or whatever, you know, over the course of a few weeks, not very many people. But that that's how I did it. And
00:57:08
Speaker
What made me feel okay with doing that, or at least trying it, is the community that was around. There was enough people that made it feel okay.
00:57:21
Speaker
Um, so with that being said, I think it's important for, um, us to watch our behavior on things like social media, uh, because there may be someone like myself or somebody else looking in from the outside that just had some sort of experience and what are they going to see? You know, are they going to see.
00:57:43
Speaker
people just slinging crap at each other? Are they going to see genuine, honest people that are trying to figure something out and take it seriously? So it's a safe place for you to enter. Then they can then find somebody like Jane, the experiencer group, or just at least take a baby step in following certain people and their opinions on different things. And in the end,
00:58:06
Speaker
It's going to be up to you in coming out, like Jay said, is not going to be the right decision for everybody. But most of all, you shouldn't feel guilty if you don't, you know. It shouldn't be like I have to or I'm not being, you know. I don't know. It's not easy, but you just have to make sure it's right for yourself, you know.
00:58:32
Speaker
And if anything, I would definitely steer people to groups like the Experiencer Group because they're so welcoming, loving, non-judgmental, and all that. And if anybody's watching who's thinking about it, it's most important to know that you are not alone. You may feel alone, but you are not alone. And there's so many other people
00:59:02
Speaker
who've had experiences that feel the same way you do, that feel as confused as you do, that feel as isolated as you do. So just find them, because that'll make you feel better. Absolutely, 100%. And I agree with you about the online aspect in terms of how you treat other people, because one of the things that, and this is a very sensitive topic,
00:59:29
Speaker
The amount of people that I've talked to that have had suicidal ideation because of just feeling like they don't belong, that there's nobody that can understand the situations that they've had like this, the depression that can happen from these forms of ontological shock is
00:59:55
Speaker
it's really difficult to overstate. And so it can be a pretty childish format, what we're dealing with online. And of course, a lot of times we're talking on Twitter, which limits how many characters you have, and it really kind of
01:00:11
Speaker
preferences, quick hot takes, that's kind of what the algorithm works with. But it's really important to realize how sensitive these situations can be. And being a bigger person,
01:00:30
Speaker
and realizing that we're in this together and we're all just trying to figure out these great, huge mysteries. Realizing that we're in that together is incredibly important, and trying to bring love into the equation is absolutely crucial. I really appreciate you talking on that sort of sensitive side of the subject as well, because I think it really is helpful if people hear this. There you go. And I have got all the links in the description below,
Contact and Community Information
01:00:59
Speaker
We do go out on the anomalous podcast network as well. So could you just give us the web address of where people can go to if they want to? Sure. For me, theexperiencergroup.com is a great place to go. People can also find the work that we're doing on Twitter at forexperiencers, at fourexperiencers. And Sean.
01:01:27
Speaker
Uh, I have my website is witness citizen.com and everything I have is witness citizen. So if you need to find me, you can do that. I can always email me S R A S C H at witness citizen.com. Um, if anything, like, um, you need somebody to just talk about your experience with, I'll listen to you. You know, sometimes that's all it takes and know that, uh,
01:01:56
Speaker
I'm just trying to be as honest and driven with integrity as possible. Um, so I'm trying to be that light as best as I can. Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you both so much. I really do. I'm just going to give a quick shout out to Christian Thompson for the super sticker. Thank you so much for the support man. Um, and thank you to everyone else that's been here on in the live chat tonight on YouTube.
01:02:22
Speaker
You know, there's been no trouble in the chat and that's always good to see. So I really do appreciate everybody being here and everybody that listens or watches after the fact. All your support is just greatly, greatly appreciated. So with that, gentlemen. Can I end on a joke? Yeah, go on. Knock, knock. Who's there? No one. No one?
01:02:55
Speaker
The Breakfast Club returns. Yeah, of course. Listen, Jay, thank you so much, brother. As always, it's a great time. Love speaking to you, man. And thank you so much. Me too, as well. I love your work and I really appreciate getting to know you. You're a good friend. Thank you so much, man. Enjoy the rest of your day. You too. Talk to you later. Bye bye.
01:03:20
Speaker
Well, that was a fantastic show. I love those conversations. Thank you to everybody, as always. I'm going to be back in a couple of days' time with multiple members of the Anomalous Podcast Network to just have a great conversation. Yeah. Then I am going away for a few days to Scotland to film a documentary on Beleskin House. And then the week after, the 13th, 10 days from now, I've got Mr. Rick Doty joining me.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, so lots coming up guys, but that's the end of this one and I will see you all soon. Take care.