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Alejandro Rojas - UFO's, Enigma Labs & SCU
608 Plays2 years ago
Alejandro has spent many hours in the field investigating anomalous phenomena up close and personal. He is the editor and a contributing writer for OpenMinds.tv, and, among others, has been featured on the Travel Channel, Syfy, National Geographic, and E!
Alejandro is the Head of Research and Content for Enigma Labs and also a member of the SCU.
Alejandro Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alejandrotro...
Alejandro Twitter: https://twitter.com/alejandrotrojas
Alejandro Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alebuddha/
Enigma Labs: https://enigmalabs.io/
SCU: https://www.explorescu.org/
Open Minds TV: https://www.openminds.tv/
UFO Congress Conference: https://ufocongress.com/
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Become a YouTube member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMEn...
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Alejandro is the Head of Research and Content for Enigma Labs and also a member of the SCU.
Alejandro Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alejandrotro...
Alejandro Twitter: https://twitter.com/alejandrotrojas
Alejandro Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alebuddha/
Enigma Labs: https://enigmalabs.io/
SCU: https://www.explorescu.org/
Open Minds TV: https://www.openminds.tv/
UFO Congress Conference: https://ufocongress.com/
!! SUPPORT DISCLOSURE TEAM !!
Become a YouTube member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMEn...
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/disclosureteam
Buy me a coffee:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Anomalous Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Anomalous Podcast Network. Multiple voices, one phenomenon.
Personal UFO Observations & Claims
00:00:15
Speaker
One realizes very quickly we've been seeing this technology for decades. I had access to all those programs.
Detailed UFO Sighting Description
00:00:48
Speaker
40 feet long, no windows, no real wings or control surfaces, no obvious signs of repulsion, and yet this object is witnessed now by four separate individuals in two separate aircrafts.
00:01:09
Speaker
Welcome back, guys. It's been a couple of hours since I saw you last. Thank you so much to everyone that joined me earlier for my conversation with Abby Loeb and for coming and joining me for a second time. I'm really excited for this conversation. I've been following this gentleman's work many years now. So yeah, as always, guys, if you have any questions, please pop them in capital letters so I can see them in the live chat. Please keep the live chat nice and friendly.
00:01:36
Speaker
I appreciate that. You always do.
Guest Introduction: Alejandro Rojas
00:01:39
Speaker
So yeah, so Alejandro Rojas is joining me today. He has been working in this subject for many years. He runs Open Minds TV. He is the Head of Research and Content at Enigma Labs and also a member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies. So let's jump straight into it, guys. Please welcome Alejandro Rojas. Alejandro. Hello.
00:02:00
Speaker
Doing great, thank you so much for having me on. I noticed Sully here is from Cardiff, UK. Actually, I'm in Phoenix now, but I live in Cardiff, California.
00:02:10
Speaker
Oh, how strange. It's named after Cardiff in the UK, actually. Oh, right. Okay. Like Twin Towns. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, listen, Alejandro, thank you so much for joining me. Like I said, you know, I've been following your work for many years now. And I'd just like to know sort of your background to start us off.
Rojas' Journey to UFO Journalism
00:02:28
Speaker
What got you interested in UFOs and how it progressed into sort of being involved in the community?
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that the simple story is I always had an interest in science. In fact, I wanted to be a rocket scientist when I went into school at CU Boulder, actually, which they have a great program and have produced a lot of astronauts. I was hoping to be one at the time.
00:02:53
Speaker
But, you know, I fell in love with journalism in college, and that's what really hooked me. In fact, I've been kind of telling this story this way, which is true, and it's kind of funnier, is that, you know, the person who got me into journalism, she was the news director of the radio station at Mesa State College, which is actually where I also had gone. But
00:03:19
Speaker
Sorry, I got distracted. It's always hard not to look at the commenting. People are so funny. But anyway, she had a boyfriend who was really into UFOs. And it was so annoying. And I couldn't stand it. And that cuz he wouldn't stop. But you know, I started listening to him looking into stuff.
00:03:37
Speaker
Uh, and I just noticed there was a lot of credible information that wasn't being covered. I watched all the documentaries, but you know, he was letting me in on some of these very credible people that weren't in these documentaries. So I saw it as a beat, you know, that I didn't feel that the media was telling the full story like they normally would for any other story. I found that curious and to be honest, a bit irrational.
00:04:01
Speaker
that the taboo around the topic. So I decided
Rojas on UFO Journalism Standards
00:04:05
Speaker
to cover it. And of course I was super skeptical going into it, but open-minded, you know, my Native American, I think background has really opened me to the, you know, lots of different possibilities of what might be out there and keeping an open mind about, you know, our reality. Not only that, I think, especially in space science or astrophysics, you know, a lot of times we discover things that we never would have imagined were out there, almost
00:04:31
Speaker
on a regular basis. In fact, I would argue that most astrophysics is like that. So definitely realizing we don't have all the answers. So that's where I started. So I started covering it as a regular journalist. I mean, it's not like I could get a lot of work writing about UFOs. So I started writing for Medium, a couple other places.
00:04:55
Speaker
Uh, then, uh, it started, you know, luckily by the time I, I really, it was like a Richard driver scene where I.
00:05:02
Speaker
you know, we went in my room and I was a total kind of a anti-social for a period of time, reading every book I could get my hands on. And once I felt I read all the books I could read, I decided to join MUFON. I wanted to talk to witnesses and that turned into a big, huge ride for the next decade or so where, you know, luckily the headquarters were out where I lived. So eventually I moved on to helping out the board of directors.
00:05:31
Speaker
including doing PR and being the official spokesperson for MoveOn for a period of time, because the media did have a hunger. And this is what I tell people when people talk about the media. I feel like I've been really successful at getting to mainstream media because I act like mainstream media, if not one, above. I think, you know,
00:05:54
Speaker
It's always important to cite your sources. But in this field, you have to make sure the credibility of your sources are even higher than they would be for a normal story because of that taboo around this topic. So that was really important. And that was one thing we could offer at MUFON was legit information. And that's what the media wants is if you give them something that's weird or too fringe, they're going to make fun of it.
00:06:19
Speaker
But think of the position you're putting this reporter in. Are you asking this reporter then to kind of substantiate what you're saying without evidence? However, if you have something very compelling,
00:06:34
Speaker
like a former director, you know, Defense Secretary of Canada talking about this topic or something like that, you know, that's newsworthy, even if that person is saying something that's kind of weird, that's a newsworthy story. So understanding the newsworthiness is what's really important and people will cover it as we've seen, you know, if you give them something substantial.
Significant UFO Events Discussed
00:06:55
Speaker
So even back in the days that I kind of feel like that we're the dark ages of this field, maybe
00:07:00
Speaker
you know late 90s early 2000s um where people the the media especially was super skeptical you know they were still open to really credible information on the topic so uh that's what got me into it you know uh in freelance I did cover space and science more often that opened a lot of doors to be able to like talk to some astronauts and stuff but uh and do lots of NASA coverage
00:07:24
Speaker
But and I did my best. And I think I have been successful that every astronaut, not every astronaut that I think about it, but almost every astronaut I've interviewed, I've been able to ask what they think about UFOs, including Scott Kelly, who's now on the NASA board. So and this is interesting, too, is that I typically find because when you go to these things, you know, you follow the publicists and you follow their guide.
00:07:54
Speaker
guidelines. And whenever I ask publicists, even NASA, certain NASA PR people, they love UAP. They're like, you know, nobody's asked that question or, you know, we don't know much about this. So they love hearing that. Of course, the astronauts themselves are not as eager to talk about these topics typically.
00:08:15
Speaker
But there is some openness by the general public, which bleeds over to employees of these agencies. And that's a lot of what we're seeing. The interest in a lot of these agencies in the government is similar to the interest in the general public, which is about polls show 50-50 split, if not these days more towards people having an interest than not.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting the one thing you know you mentioned that sort of the end of the 90s early 2000s, a big event back then was the 2001 disclosure project with Steven Greer which obviously wasn't so big for the subjects, but then it feels like it may have simmered down quite quickly afterwards. And then we have this sort of 2013 citizens hearing on disclosure so it feels like we've got you know,
00:09:03
Speaker
bumps along the road and all pre-2017, how did that feel that time? Did you see moments of excitement for the subject and it died down? How was it? Yeah, I think so. I think you're right. So 2001, that was really huge for me, because like I said, I was interested in these stories that weren't being told. And then Stephen Greer brings
00:09:30
Speaker
all of these very credible people who are the type of people that would be newsworthy on many topics, especially this one. There's a packed house of media watching these people talk. But I think CNN did one couple minute piece.
00:09:48
Speaker
There were only a couple pieces of media that resulted from that. And that was really shocking to me. That was a huge motivator for me to get information out there. And it was also, you know, so that that was a big one, certainly. And then, like you said, 2013, 2013 was
00:10:10
Speaker
The problem with 2013, by that time, and a little bit of the problem of 2001, is they still weren't reading the room when it came to the public and the media. So, you know, when you mix in some very credible, established, you know, defense industry people with, you know,
00:10:33
Speaker
people making really wild claims that they can't substantiate, some of whom arguably could be debunked. It makes it more difficult for the media to cover those sort of topics. And the same with 2013 was similar. So I think that they demonstrated researchers can be a little more disciplined. I mean, if we really wanna get the type of coverage that will be really effective to the general public. I think both of those,
00:11:03
Speaker
events were, you know, head turning for a lot of people. So I think they were effective for the population, but the media still didn't kind of pick it up in the manner I think we were all hoping. And so to your point, you know, these were kind of these little moments of
00:11:19
Speaker
of attention, you know, for me, the big moments of attention were like, Stephenville was a really big one for move on at the time, you know, when we were investigating that, that was also a huge one. And then Chicago here was also a really big one. And those are great cases, because those, you know, we've got a lot of data, we've got a lot of mainstream media involved. In fact, both of those events were kind of
00:11:44
Speaker
Made big by mainstream media and and that's what's kind of weird is that you just we it's always a wait and see what is the media going to pick up on. Is it a good case that we can research and provide some good data on
00:11:57
Speaker
or is it something to shy away from? Luckily, you know, they jumped on Stephenville in Chicago hair and there was good information to share. And so those got those, I think were, those were the perfect store where you have the media and the public really interested. And they were kind of little test runs for the New York times, which was the big one, of course, in 2017.
Enigma Labs: Mission & Challenges
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, completely agree. It does seem like it was all sort of leading towards something. And when that happened, yeah, I guess it did seem like it changed the game a bit. And here we are, you know, five, six years later. So next up, I'd love to talk about Enigma Labs because this is an endeavor that I've been keeping an eye on. And I think it's really fantastic how it's been launched and that. So could you just tell us a bit of background about how it came about and its purpose?
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, really some people in the tech industry who wanted to figure out how to help, how, you know, looking at this topic, some of, you know,
00:13:03
Speaker
what can be done. And so talking to different people they have connections with very intelligently, I think, discovered that, you know, one of the big things, and you may have heard this, I'm sure you have, a lot of us science-oriented groups or individuals have been wanting a database.
00:13:25
Speaker
You know, it's something that a lot of the SCU group, the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, came from MUFON, including myself, from leadership in MUFON. And that's what we were always, that was our major goal. But there's limited resources. MUFON had been getting a lot of requests from people to kind of, to do them more.
00:13:48
Speaker
kind of fringe type of stuff kind of similar to that disclosure in 2013 and so which is totally fair that's what the people wanted and so move on decided to kind of open up the topics they were into and so at that time you know a lot of the SCU guys decided well let's focus on science and so that's kind of how SCU started
00:14:10
Speaker
But everybody's been wanting a database. You hear Valet was kind of working on a database, the ATIP team, to the stars, everybody. So it's really smart that they chose that to hone in on. And then luckily, I was brought in and able to kind of introduce them to the scientific community and get us really embedded. So now we regularly talk with a lot of the scientific community.
00:14:42
Speaker
You know that are into this topic that are researching UAP. The reason we've done that is because that's what that's the whole that's the big point of the tool. I mean there's there's two things that we want the to share with the public so the public can have access to information can
00:15:00
Speaker
submit sightings, look up sightings, so that the public has a place to go. But then all of that data, of course, we want to get to researchers because all of us, you know, who have been in this topic feel that that's an excellent way to be able to make some really great discoveries. And in fact, at the SCU, you know, we've been doing that. It took us a long time to manually scrub
00:15:25
Speaker
that data to find the really good cases to start to do some analysis on. And we've got a couple projects going on right now. If you go to exploresu.org, you can go look at our last couple of newsletters. I would highly recommend that. And you can see some of the progress on some of those projects and some really interesting information.
00:15:45
Speaker
But, you know, with Enigma Labs, we're going to be able to greatly speed up the process of, you know, mechanically scoring cases to find out where the good cases are so researchers can have good batches of cases that they can then investigate and research for whatever they're doing.
00:16:02
Speaker
And, you know, it's a citizen science thing, too. Everyone will have at their fingertips, finally, you know, these tools to be able to do their own research and make some discoveries. So super, super excited about it. We've, you know, we're launching things slowly. Yeah.
00:16:18
Speaker
Um, and you know, uh, the, especially the researcher tools will probably be more towards the back end of, of our, of our launch. But, um, you know, right now we have, uh, something I've been working on, which is commissioning a lot of great writers to write pieces about UAP cases and people and individuals to give people a background. So if you go to our website enigma labs.io and look at the library, you're going to see dozens and dozens of articles.
00:16:48
Speaker
well researched and cited on a lot of great cases, new and old. And that's a new blog that we just put up. And that's the other thing I'm working on is a blog. So we're going to have some regular blog articles coming out where we are sharing information that we're gathering, but also, you know, giving you our thoughts or ideas on other things. So for example,
00:17:14
Speaker
completely transparent. In fact, if you scroll down a little bit, the last bug was transparency for data, privacy for the people. What that means is most of our individuals in our organization don't share their name. They want to remain anonymous. And people, you know, SCU is similar.
00:17:34
Speaker
because the taboo still exists, you know? And so, unfortunately, but I always make this argument when people have said, well, you know, I thought everything's about transparency. It is, and we're transparent with the data. What I mean by that is that
00:17:51
Speaker
with the blog, we're going to be sharing like all of the sausage making details. So you'll be able to see how that scoring works. You know, the scoring right now, we are very transparent with the scientific community because we're asking their input, what do you guys think of this? You know, what do you think should be tweaked or changed? And we want to make sure that it's fully transparent because researchers need to understand every minute detail about the data and how the data is gathered.
00:18:17
Speaker
if they're going to write a paper because they have to justify that or speak to that. So it's incumbent upon us to be transparent on all of those things. So it's going to be fun because we're going to be starting to have these conversations in the research community that really haven't happened yet but are really important conversations where we'll be able to talk about
00:18:38
Speaker
you know, all of this stuff. How do we do this? How do we square that? How do we analyze this? How do we figure that or this out? Let alone being able to discuss and debate the findings that people have, which I'm extremely excited about.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah, that is exciting. I'm just going to bring that back up because I want people, all the links for everything we discuss are in the description below. I want people to go check out the blogs, but this piece, I just came across it today and read it. It's fascinating. You know, it gives details on the sightings and you've got a video with
00:19:09
Speaker
the anomaly or anomalies from two vantage points. And this is great. And then, you know, you mentioned that people can submit sightings. It's a really easy interface to give details on your sighting with an option to add videos and images if needs be. So I think it's just really good to have a really user friendly tool like that. So that's really good. What I was gonna ask about, it's just my mind's just gone. Sorry, it's been a long day. It's been a long day. No problem.
00:19:37
Speaker
I worked it out.
Enigma Labs: Data Collection Methods
00:19:39
Speaker
How is it, you know, you get all these sightings coming in from the public. How do you determine like which ones you're going to research over others? Is it like a process of people sitting down? And that's a great point. So we're not necessarily the research group. We will be providing data as we run across it and findings as we run across it. But our focus is not so much the research. It's more of the gathering of the sightings and then getting that output
00:20:05
Speaker
getting that data into our databases, acquiring databases because that's what we're doing also as we're working with a lot of UFO researchers around the world to acquire new databases. We've developed technology
00:20:21
Speaker
where we can take a letter or report and scan that and get all the data out of it and get it into the database. So we're kind of that tech side to get everything into the database for people to use and then work on those tools and ingesting and everything to make that data available for everybody. So we're kind of like providing the tools.
00:20:43
Speaker
essentially for researchers. And then the researchers are doing the work and we hope to create a community where researchers can share their findings and hopefully, you know, work with especially some of these UFO researchers that we work with who are
00:20:57
Speaker
you know, very scientific minded and very accomplished in their fields. So they can also troubleshoot that data, because that's kind of like what we do at SCU, you know, and that's what that's kind of the scientific process, which can be difficult. And I know a lot of people in the UFO world can sometimes have struggle with it, because, you know, the idea of the scientific process is you come up with an idea, you write an argument as to why I'm right. And then people beat it up.
00:21:25
Speaker
And you should have beat it up yourself. And in fact, in your paper, you should have here's where I may be wrong. Yeah. And then, you know, you send it out, people beat it up. And then the whole point is, you know,
00:21:38
Speaker
to have some good data as output. And I think that we've seen that there are skeptics who are always skeptical of cases, even very strong ones. But I think what we've seen is, for example, at SCU, the Navy case, the Aguadilla case, some of the cases we've got papers on are very strong. Does everybody agree with us? No.
00:22:05
Speaker
But the vast majority do, and the vast majority, if not all, yeah, I would say I'll stick with right now the vast majority of scientists agree as well. And it is a consensus sort of thing. So we feel pretty comfortable with those pieces that they're strong. And we do have a consensus from the scientific community that we were on the right track with those papers. And we have been able to demonstrate some anomalous behavior.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah and I think you know the subject has been crying out to be taken seriously by the scientific community so I think the more we see of that it's you know it's nothing but good going forward so you know it's really good to see. I'm all over the shop tonight and my apologies.
00:22:52
Speaker
So yeah, you mentioned SCU again, you know, great bunch of people, you know, I've spoken to Rich Hoffman a couple of times, fantastic organization. And yeah, I think the work they do is fantastic. And obviously you're a part of that. Is there anything they're working on that you can tell us about at the moment that we might have to look forward to?
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think that, let's see, to look forward to one of the great things that we've
Scientific Coalition & Government Networking
00:23:15
Speaker
been working on. And in fact, after I end here, which now that I think about it, we'll have to end somewhat short, but after I end here, we're going to
00:23:23
Speaker
I'll join them for a meeting. But a lot of what we've been doing is behind the scenes networking. And that's been a lot of fun and actually really rewarding. Of course I work on the public education or public relations side of things and
00:23:41
Speaker
And I would say we've had a little bit of input or output, but not a ton of output in the last few months, which hopefully we'll get more here soon. But that's because we've been, especially before and since our conference, we've been networking, bringing people together. And it got out that at our conference, we had Space Force there. We had several government agencies represented there mingling and working with
00:24:09
Speaker
you know, the UFO researchers. And of course, the UAP researchers themselves, I mean, a lot of our organization are people, scientists or engineers who regularly work with the government. And even OSAP, some of our members were part of OSAP. So the government, you know, research group, people like Eric Davis, who's fairly active in SCU.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so that's what we've been doing a lot of networking bringing people together and that's been extremely rewarding and educating people who are getting involved with this. So it's been great. I think the fruits of the efforts are that I think we've been able to really help get
00:24:55
Speaker
people informed and bring people together who are going to help these agencies and these different groups that are getting involved. We've been very open with UAPX and with Galileo. They've been coming to us because they want papers, they want help.
00:25:11
Speaker
And so, and we've been offering that where we can. So I think we've been a really important part in making this cohesive scientific UAP research kind of community, which is extremely needed right now because that's where government agencies are looking to to help them figure out what to do.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, it does. It just brings credibility to the subject. Like I said, it's what we need. I just wanted to highlight this. Two more things. Sorry, just real quick. We do have some papers that we are working on that people can go look at. We'll be updating this website soon where people will be able to see the projects we're working on more easily. But we're working like that. We have a USO project. We have a Types and Shapes project where we're taking that data that I was talking about earlier and doing some analysis.
00:25:56
Speaker
you know, even at Enigma Labs, we're really partnered up with SCU to help on some of those. That's incredible. Yeah, I just wanted to highlight this question regarding Enigma that I missed. It echoes in Lofai says, are people involved in the armed forces encouraged to use Enigma? And if so, a member level could be helpful, for example, normal citizen level one, armed services employees level two. Is that something you've discussed or considered?
00:26:21
Speaker
We definitely want people in the armed forces to use the app. So yeah, great question. In fact, right now we are really looking for people to submit sightings. So if any of you have had a sighting, please go to our website and take a minute and submit that sighting. It's extremely helpful for us because right now we're, you know, we're teaching
00:26:42
Speaker
the machines and we are testing and troubleshooting all of that and the reason this gets to the question is that you know our system is able to identify
00:26:57
Speaker
people who are in the armed forces. So for example, which is a little different from other forms that you'll see is we do ask, give us a little bit of information about the witness or witnesses. And so we can tag things like that, so that those can be searchable. Because of course, to this person's point, you know, those are important, it'd be important to be able to pull up
00:27:20
Speaker
pull out. I specifically want to see military cases like OSAP was doing. So yeah, that could be pulled out. And in fact, you'll see in our library, most of the cases that we've written about are military cases because what I want to lay down there is really the best stuff. So some people have
00:27:43
Speaker
You'll see that in there, that what you're looking at if it's military law enforcement heavy is because what we're trying to do is show that this is the stuff that's been making people scratch their heads. This is the reason Congress is so interested is because of this history of good cases that are out there by credible people.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, I know it's just here in the comments star aquatic says he I see not straightforward to make a report then it is absolutely straightforward as we as we showed on the screen. It's a very user friendly. I'll bring it back up one more time. It's a very user friendly interface. You literally pop in where you saw the sighting when some details about it upload a video or image how many witnesses boom, you know, it really is that simple. Yeah, we made it really
00:28:31
Speaker
I like this feature, too, where we made it very simple in that we have one screen, and then we asked, you want to put in more information? If you do, it goes to a second screen. Oh, right. OK. Some people don't want to take a bunch of time. They just want to take a short amount of time. So that first page is at least give us this. If you have some more time, give us some more. If not, thank you for your contribution.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yeah, so we've kept it very, very simple, very easy for people and you can remain anonymous. There's a check there and then your data is not ported.
00:29:12
Speaker
And you can remain anonymous. Yeah, I think that's really good because I think some people may just in the initial phase just want to get the sighting reported and not go into so much detail that maybe they can do a later date. So I think that's really good. Now, one thing or another thing that I really wanted to talk about was the International UFO Congress that you're involved with.
International UFO Congress Involvement
00:29:31
Speaker
So if you could just talk us a bit about that, that'd be great. Thank you.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, so the International UFO Congress. Well, I used to help the previous owner, the Browns, who owned it since for a very long time. And they held it out in Laughlin. I knew them. And actually, one of the things that I did with Mufon in Colorado when I joined was help them with their doing a conference and we were trained.
00:29:55
Speaker
to do it by the International UFO Congress people. They were local to Colorado. That's how I got to know them. They trained us how to do conferences. And then we did like the next five in Colorado because we really got it down pretty well.
00:30:08
Speaker
And then we started helping Roswell. And then I, in particular, that first they called MUFON and said, hey, will you guys help us with our conference? So we said, sure. I helped them out the next year. MUFON was kind of like, well, I'm not sure it's worth the time. And I said, well, if you guys don't mind, I'll do it just myself because they're a great group of people. I like working with them. And they're like, sure. So I helped them out individually and helped out the Congress because they helped us with doing the MUFON conferences and they're great people.
00:30:38
Speaker
So then, you know, this gentleman who was independently wealthy decided he wanted to make a website. Jason McClellan, one of my colleagues, was already working for him, John Rao, with Open Minds.
00:30:53
Speaker
And so, yeah, he was like, you know, I'm going to figure out the UAP mystery and start this company. And and that was his hobby. He didn't care about making money. He was making money off his other company. So we hired a few of us, including myself, to run the and he bought the International QFO Congress.
00:31:11
Speaker
So with Open Minds, we ran it for a few years until finally Open Minds just kind of ended. It was expensive to do everything he was doing. And my girlfriend then bought my significant under-bought the conference. So I didn't get away from it. And, which is funny because the conference is certainly more populous, I kind of say. I mean, what we used to try to do is represent all of the different topics in the field and not, you know,
00:31:41
Speaker
put our own interpretations on there and just make sure that we didn't have charlatans or people who were serious about whatever it is they were researching and what people in the field were interested in, which can of course get much fringier than I'm typically known for that I work on.
00:31:59
Speaker
even to this date. So it's kind of interesting that way, but at the same time, you know, a lot of those people are my friends. A lot of those people like, let's say, David Childress, who is an ancient alien. He's a friend of mine. He lives in the Phoenix area.
00:32:14
Speaker
We may not. Giorgio used to go to the Congress, the International UFO Congress, for a long time. And so a lot of these guys, even if it's not my expertise or area of interest, they're still good friends. And so I think just a lot of people, especially in UFO Twitter, I think that's important to say. And I do say that a lot. And it's not that I'm name dropping. It's that I'm trying to say
00:32:39
Speaker
people with different opinions can be friends and can get along and hang out and have a good time with each other and debate the topic or
00:32:51
Speaker
And, you know, because so much you see online these divisions where it's like, you've got to be in this camp or you've got to be in that camp. You don't have to be in any camp. You can be yourself as an individual and have your own sets of opinions and ideas and still get along with people who have different sets of opinions and ideas. And I think that's just really, really important as far as a concept.
00:33:13
Speaker
And especially right now, because that professionalism is really what people are looking for. That's what the media looks for. That's what these agencies are trying to get involved, are looking for. There is a level of professionalism where everyone can work together well. And so I think that's important. And that's an important aspect of Congress. But this year was great.
00:33:35
Speaker
This year we had a couple of movie makers, again, friends, but it's kind of weird. I'll get to this in just a second, actually. I want to circle around to that topic, but, you know, James Fox showing his moment of contact for the first time, not technically the premiere.
00:33:52
Speaker
uh the premiere was the day after the conference but you know he snuck it in there so he could show our audiences um also we had Randy Nickerson there uh showing his film the aerial phenomenon and um speaking to it and then uh some of the witnesses from that case in that film um also i think that people haven't heard from ever
00:34:13
Speaker
Um, we had an interview with, uh, we had of course Bryce is able who's doing his podcast need to know that everybody is so excited about. Um, but, uh,
00:34:25
Speaker
Micah Hanks from the debrief who I think is amazing. The debrief is such an incredible website. We're lucky to have it and those guys do some incredible work. Micah has helped us out. Some of those library articles are his actually. A great writer and researcher.
00:34:45
Speaker
So yeah, we had a lot of really great stuff. And then David Marlar, which was really important too, you know, had a talk and then he officially announced his latest effort, which is his national UFO archive center where he's got, you know, the biggest collection of data and it's growing as far as the database, archive of materials. And we're working with him.
00:35:11
Speaker
also to get a lot of that digitized. So yeah, really great event, but it's kind of funny, and this is why I'm circling around, is because a lot of the people we had there, the people like the Nickersons or the Foxes or the Marlors,
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, we have known, and as a community, you know, having worked together for the last couple of decades, it's like family, you know, me and Bryce. Bryce and I, you know, have definitely had some phone calls where we've kind of disagreed about things. Marla and I, not so much, but
00:35:49
Speaker
You know, all of these people, Randy, there's this time where he was really tense at a conference and I was trying to help him out. And I guess what I mean is you have such long histories and that you have these moments of trauma and drama that you live through together.
00:36:07
Speaker
And that's what really makes it feel like a family where we're just so close and it really is kind of funny these days too because when You know sometimes in UFO Twitter or something when you have these different camps people try to Set each other set people against each other saying, you know, well this person said that and this person said that or like with Eric Davis a lot of people were saying hey, you know you sound like you're being
00:36:32
Speaker
You're not on Team Eric Davis, which of course I am. I love the guy. I know him. And people don't realize that these relationships we have are solid and they go back quite a ways. So you're not really gonna get in between us. We go back quite a way. So we're always gonna be talking and working together.
00:36:57
Speaker
and friends and colleagues. And again, it all comes back to working together well despite having differences.
00:37:06
Speaker
That's great to hear. And we mentioned, we had a chat before we came on, just saying that, you know, the one thing I found in conferences is the connections that you make with people, you know, you may not be there to see every single speaker because it might be a part of the topic that you're not interested in. And that's fine. But those little bits in between the speakers where everyone's gathered and talking, they're just incredible. So, you know, I see conferences getting a bad rep sometimes, people saying, well, it's just the same people saying the same thing year in, year out, but
00:37:35
Speaker
go to them. It's not the case, in my opinion, sometimes maybe, but I think it has its value, certainly. Yeah. And that is rare. There are some people I'd admit, let's say like Stan Friedman, he was an anomaly. He was the one guy where we would have a survey. Every year we would be like,
00:37:54
Speaker
You know, we shouldn't bring Stanton again because he's someone that we brought every year But we would have a survey and we would even have people coming up. Why do you have Stanton again? He said the same thing He said for the last 10 years and we were always tell him it's because at the end of the conference We have a survey and who's the top of the list? Everybody wants to see Stan Freeman. So we invite him every year same with Travis Walton Everybody wants to hear what they have to say, even if it's the same thing every year
00:38:20
Speaker
So we listen to the people. So there are instances of that. But typically, other than those couple rare anomalies, we make it a point to bring new people who are bringing new research. And I've never been the only one to choose the speakers. And even now, I've been so busy, I didn't get to have as much of an input.
00:38:39
Speaker
you know, even now with Karen, who runs it, she has that same commitment is to look for people doing different new research that even if it's someone who spoke last year, if it's something I think she's very adamant, it's got to be something new and different. We have David Marlar quite a bit, but you'll notice he did a completely different talk than he's ever done before this time. Yeah, he's an encyclopedia that man. Fantastic. Yes, he's amazing.
00:39:04
Speaker
I'm quite conscious of the time. See, I know you've got this meeting. I just wondered before we leave a couple of topics. I'd love to talk your opinion on the upcoming NASA study about potentially doing some further work next
NASA's Role in UFO Research
00:39:14
Speaker
year. What are your thoughts on that? I'm extremely excited about the NASA study. I think that it's kind of the most important
00:39:23
Speaker
It's a very important, just because it's science. The great thing about science is that it's nature is transparent. Science to be done right needs to be transparent.
00:39:37
Speaker
Eric Davis had even mentioned, because he's got experience working on special access programs or black projects. And he talks about doing science is really hard. It's good to do engineering. In other words, build a plane where all the research has been done. But doing any type of research is really hard in that everybody has to be read in. And with most research, you never know what scientific discipline you're going to need to pull from.
00:40:04
Speaker
But if he wants to consult with someone who's an expert in a field, he found out that he needs more information on, you know, it might take, it's going to take months and tens of thousands of dollars to get that person read into the project. And once they're read into the project and that whole thing has happened, you know, to have your two hour meeting to figure out what you need and then you're done.
00:40:26
Speaker
Um, let alone is it hard for the scientists in the program, but also the scientists outside the program are like, I don't want to go through that. Sorry, I'd like to help, but I don't got the time to do all this. So it makes it really hard. Whereas, you know, especially with NASA, the science they do is, is very transparent. It's very rigorous, extremely rigorous.
00:40:47
Speaker
NASA is probably the most rigorous when it comes to triple checking everything before they make a statement. An example would be, I think the European Space Agency had announced that there was evidence of
00:41:04
Speaker
traces of water on Mars a year before NASA did. It's not that NASA didn't have the same data, it's that they were triple checking everything to make sure before they came on board to say, yeah, we think there's traces of water. Of course, now that's a given, but that was a pretty controversial statement back then.
00:41:23
Speaker
So the transparency, I think, is what's going to be really, really important in the science, because that's where we're going to get answers. They don't have to be worried about classified, the classified world so much. They're just worried about the science, the aviation, the air safety. People forget that. Air safety is something NASA also
00:41:49
Speaker
it works on which is important because people like Ryan Graves who is one of the jet fighter witnesses on the theater Roosevelt he's been a big advocate and he's working with the AIAA and
00:42:05
Speaker
his main thing is air safety, that we're up there and these things are zoom and bias or we have had near misses with these things. We really need to get a handle on at least observing and trying to figure out what they are for an air safety issue, especially for his fellow jet fighter pilots. So that's an important aspect. And then of course the trans medium as far as anything from,
00:42:33
Speaker
leaving the atmosphere or returning into the atmosphere because and the reason that's extremely important is that you know we've got lots of different types of propulsion we use to traverse inside the atmosphere to fly around but we don't have many technologies that we use just rocket essentially to leave and then re-enter the atmosphere so if we're observing something using some sort of novel technology that's
00:43:00
Speaker
going to be very important data. And it's interesting because people like Chris Mellon have alluded to the potential of that sort of data being out there. So that would be interesting to find out. So I'm really excited about NASA's involvement. I think that it seems like they're taking it very seriously. What they really had, it appears, is kind of an exploratory group. Should we do this?
00:43:28
Speaker
seem to be convinced that, yeah, let's create a bigger group to look at this even harder. And so now they have a larger group of individuals who are getting together to kind of figure out, okay, what do we do in this space if there's something for us to do? And that's where they're at. So I would say, you know, now's a great time to encourage NASA. That's my NASA hat. But, you know,
00:43:51
Speaker
that we need your expertise, we need your help with this topic. It's worth it because the public is interested, they're a government organization, that's who they work for, and that there are real concerns here when it comes to air safety. And NASA, yeah, I'm a huge NASA fan, so I'm very excited about their involvement.
00:44:13
Speaker
But what would you say to the people that, you know, NASA does get a bad rep and has done for a few decades being, you know, they know about the UFO subjects. They've been sitting on videos and airbrushing this and that over the decades. So how would you sort of convince someone that, Oh no, this is different this time. Is it, is there a way that you can kind of do that? Well, I don't know that I would convince a lot of those people because some of those people are convinced of things that there isn't a lot of evidence that it's occurred. So they're going on faith.
00:44:40
Speaker
And so you're never gonna, well, it's gonna be difficult to gain those people's trust. So, you know, that is gonna be difficult. I think that
00:44:55
Speaker
Just doing good work is always what's most important. I know even with Enigma or SCU, we certainly have people that are skeptical. And all you can do is do, just like we've said, what we've done is be transparent, be open, work hard.
00:45:15
Speaker
be professional. And I think those with that combination of things, that's how you win people over. And one thing that I've learned from working with NASA is they're ultra professional. I mean, they are they're a pleasure to work with from the PR to the the engineers to
00:45:37
Speaker
Everyone at NASA is a dream to work with. They're there because they're on a shared mission. It's almost like talking to military because they've got a shared goal. They understand their responsibility and that the taxpayer is who, you know, their boss and
00:45:54
Speaker
They're just great people. So I think that they're honest and genuine. And if they're skeptical, which some of them aren't, they'll be honest and genuine about that as well. And so it'll be our job to show them data that is worth looking into. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's a case as well. Let's just wait and see. We can pass judgment now or we can
00:46:19
Speaker
slander them here and there but let's just wait and that's kind of what I tell people let's give them a chance and if if nothing comes of it so be it you know if you want to tell me I told you so if that makes you feel better go for it yeah and I think that
00:46:32
Speaker
Part of the problem, too, is a communication problem that we can all help with, which is a lot of these guys who have been getting some criticism from the UFO community by being skeptical. First of all, skepticism is important in science. You have to be skeptical of your own findings. So that's something to keep in mind. Second of all is there is a communication gap. So in other words,
00:47:02
Speaker
There's the term UFO, which kind of got co-opted to mean alien spacecraft. That's not what it means. That's not what the Air Force meant for it. That's not what I've ever defined. And it's not the official definition. It's unidentified. We don't know what the root of it is. Same with UAP, but that baggage seems to have moved across. So when you hear some of these scientists, they're like, you know, I don't know that there are aliens. I'm not sure I want to do any alien hunting.
00:47:29
Speaker
But what they're doing is misunderstanding. Those same people are also saying, though, however, if we're going to look at what some of these things might be because they might be things that we haven't discovered before, I'm all for that. I'm all for the science of researching things that we haven't identified yet, which is exactly what they're being asked to do. So they are on board for what the task at hand is. It's just a semantics thing. UAP does not equal aliens.
00:47:58
Speaker
And we've got to make sure and educate people on that. When we're interviewed, when we're talking to anyone, UAP does not equal aliens. It's one potential answer of many, many potential answers.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah. And one thing I always try and think about as well is that people say NASA knows this.
Expectations for Upcoming UAP Report
00:48:14
Speaker
Well, NASA is thousands of employees. So, you know, if you look at people 20, 34 years ago who may have had some information or seen some data, doesn't mean that people on this study have any access or knowledge of that. And it's the same I find when people say the government knows.
00:48:30
Speaker
the government is millions, I think, of employees when you look from the government. Great point. That's a really good point. And I have just not run across strong evidence beyond hearsay that that sort of thing is being hidden. We heard from the most convincing person at the UFO Congress, which was a good video where we had
00:48:53
Speaker
Of course, he spoke at the Congress and then we had Lee Spiegel interview him for the Huffington Post, where this Dr. Hoover, who worked in astrobiology with NASA, said, you know, he did believe there was some evidence that was destroyed, but he explained the details. And it wasn't that it was some sort of malicious destruction. It was essentially, you know, there was a scientist who was kind of stubborn, who was saying, this is not the evidence you think it is. I've already had to turn.
00:49:21
Speaker
shown it's not what you think it is and just wanted the issue off the topic. So it was one individual who, you know, I'm not sure if that was the best thing to do, but that's different from what a lot of people think is going on. Yeah, yeah. So my final question before I let you go is we are overdue a UAP report.
00:49:44
Speaker
I just wondered if you had any expectations, any guesses on whether it would be a nothing burger, or we might get some tidbits of information. Anything you're thinking about? I think that a lot of people in the UFO community might not be excited. And I gauge that, because to me, any of this information that's coming out right now is really important.
00:50:12
Speaker
And I was not necessarily a detractor of the last report. And it's great that we heard that Dr. Travis Taylor, who of course is on the TV show, The Skinwalker, but he's also spoken at SCU even before the television show. He's a scientist who's been on our radar who we've worked with.
00:50:36
Speaker
for years because he's extremely credentialed and intelligent. He was much more skeptical a few years ago than he is now because he feels that he's experienced some strange things at Skinwalker that he can't explain, that he's trying to explain scientifically. And I don't believe he's a liar or a hoaxer at all. I think that it's not good for, I don't think he wanted
00:51:01
Speaker
to run across anything anomalous. It just happened and he's honest because I don't think that it's something he feels that he was going to run across or and it's probably caused him some headache. It seems like it has. So he wrote that report and I think he genuinely probably did his best to gather information and write that report. I believe that.
00:51:22
Speaker
Um, and it was interesting in that we had 144 cases, 99% of which can't be explained. So when it comes to the new report, of course, we've had some alleged leaks, who knows, um, you know, how close these people are have been to the report, but.
00:51:39
Speaker
I mean, what I've read are kind of two interpretations of the same kind of information, which is half glass half, you know, glass half full, glass half empty. One side is saying, well, it turns out we're able to explain most of these away. No surprise. So are we, you know, in the general public.
00:51:59
Speaker
And so a lot of it turns out just to be X, Y, and Z. Whereas the flip side of that, which we heard in the Daily Mail was more like, wow, after we investigate, there's still a lot of these we still can't explain, which I think is a more interesting story. Of course, for those of us interested in this topic and still justifies further research and investigation. So to me, that's kind of exciting that we are going to hear there's a
00:52:25
Speaker
good group of cases that they can't explain. And I hope that we're going to be provided some details about these sightings because, you know, in the Daily Mail, especially, there were details shared that if those details are in the report are going to be extremely compelling.
00:52:47
Speaker
And really some some incredible cases if the details aren't in the reports then You know, it will be less exciting but I still you know to me I think this is what the people miss when that first report came out and the general public is seeing the military saying we can't explain 140 plus cases and
00:53:09
Speaker
that we take UAP seriously and this is something that we are not joking about or a serious concern that we have to pay attention to. That's a huge message. And I know for a fact from working with so many in the mainstream that that's very convincing. It's very mind blowing to a lot of the public, to those of us in this field who have been following it. It's no big deal. In fact, lots of people are like, that's boring. We knew that. Well, the general public did not know that.
00:53:36
Speaker
That's huge, you know. And in my research, for example, I've been pinging the Air Force on a regular basis when I'm writing articles and always given the same report. We haven't had any concern since 1969. You know, to finally hear them admitting
00:53:53
Speaker
to what we've been reporting, you know, with evidence for so long is hugely validating. So I have more of a positive view on these reports and I would be surprised if there's not something really kind of
00:54:09
Speaker
mind bending, especially for the general public in this report that there might not be anything that gets the UFO field extremely excited, but I think there'll be stuff that'll get the scientific community talking, which is very important.
00:54:25
Speaker
Yeah, completely agree. Well, listen, Alejandro, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak to you. I really do appreciate you giving the time to me today. To everyone in the live chat, thank you for being here as well. I'm going to be back. Well, I'm going to say I can't say when. It's when the report drops. I will be going live with Christopher Sharp to cover that. But for now, everybody, thank you so much. And we will see you soon. Take care. Goodbye.