Transcript
Speaker: As we convene here, UAP are in our airspace, but they are grossly underreported. These sightings are not rare or isolated, they are routine. We don't know where they come from, who made them, or how they operate. The U .S. government is operating with secrecy
Speaker: United States government has gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades, but has refused to share it with the American people. That is wrong, and additionally it breeds mistrust.
Speaker: know exactly what they are. We can't explain how they I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out what that is.
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to UFO Focus. I'm your host, Isaiah. You can reach me with comments, questions, suggestions for the show, or especially your own UFO encounters.
Speaker: ah By email my email address is UFO focus podcast at proton .me That's UFO focus podcast at proton dot m .me. I'd love to hear from you Now then, I'm very excited to introduce today's guest, Dustin Slaughter. Dustin and I actually go way back. We work together as colleagues on a journalistic project, gosh, something like 10 years ago, and um had
Speaker: kind of lost track of each other and then found each other just on Twitter around the UFO UAP p topic. Dustin is not just a casual observer of the topic. He does his own research and journalism.
Speaker: um digging into UFOs and UAP over at his own publication called the UAP register. That's right, the UAP register over on substack where you can support his work like I now do.
Speaker: And today you'll get to see some of the fruits of his labor as we'll be talking about um a really incredible story and just an amazing scoop that Dustin dug up using the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, um as well as other additional research.
Speaker: I'm gonna let Dustin get into his findings in much more detail, and I think fascinating detail. um But just to give you the headline, ah Dustin found a previously completely unreported, unknown to the public UFO incident at a an American nuclear facility called Pantax. And what's more, as he dug into this, he found a history of other UFO sightings at Pantax over decades ah dating back to the 1950s. Now, I still don't know much about who's listening, but I imagine that ah among my listeners are a fair number of people who are pretty new to the topic. And hey, that's great. I especially welcome you all.
Speaker: But so if you are new to the topic, what I just said might sound, well, crazy, right? UFOs over a nuclear facility? Is this science fiction or reality? I didn't used to know this either, and um it is now among the things that have really kind of blown my mind since digging into this topic, but um Yes, there is a rich history, rich and well documented, well researched history of UFO sightings, ah what we might call UFO incursions over at American nuclear facilities.
Speaker: One of the best books you can read on the topic is called UFOs and Nukes, Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites by Robert Lambert Hastings. I've read the book and it's just this kind of encyclopedic catalog of, I don't know, dozens of well -documented um or very credibly sourced reports of UFOs at US nuclear facilities. I think it goes without saying that these facilities are among the most closely guarded and monitored um military facilities in the world. And I hope we can keep that in mind as Dustin relates this incident.
Speaker: um Which happened recently in 2015 and I guess it's kind of a closing thought Remember the Chinese spy balloon last year? remember that There was a Chinese spy balloon that was drifting over the United States and it wasn't detected for a long time and then it finally was detected and they let it drift a while and then um ah The president or the DOD sent a jet to fire a a missile at it or something. They blew it out of the sky over the ocean. Anyway, that was a spy balloon, not a UFO.
Speaker: But there was an interesting lesson to be learned there. Well, one of the lessons to be learned there was that the idea that some sort of unknown object is just kind of hanging out in restricted airspace or especially over something like a nuclear facility, the idea that that there's some world in which somehow that's just not a big deal. Like, oh, well, yeah, there was an unknown thing over this nuclear facility, um but, you know, no biggie. um That is not the world we're living in. This one Chinese spy balloon was a huge deal. The president was embarrassed. They had to send a jet to blow it up. Now, this 2015 incident that Dustin has reported
Speaker: um Dustin is the only journalist to report this. The story was not picked up by, for example, the New York Times or something like that. That says nothing about the quality of Dustin's reporting and really everything about the way news is produced in this country. But the fact that no one has swooped in on this story doesn't make it any less incredible. um And again, this information came to Dustin through the FOIA. He has official official government documentation that this happened. Whatever it was. So with that, let's get to my interview with Dustin Slaughter from the UAP Register.
Speaker: Dustin, this is an honor and a thrill. um The honor's all mine, sir. ah but No, it's it's all mine. This is cool. Well, why don't we um why don't we start with Pantax? In terms of this awesome scoop you got, and so this came out of a FOIA request that you submitted. Why don't we start with, you know, take us through the beginning of that process. What were you looking for? How did you decide sort of how to craft this FOIA?
Speaker: um And what kind of information were you trying to get? What was the thinking that went behind the FOIA request? And then we can jump into what came back. Let me just take a step back. um i have um I'm not the only one in the you know in the and the and the so in the field who has been interested in what the Department of Energy knows about UAP, right?
Speaker: um And so with that with that thinking, I just decided to you know file a rather broad request for records related to UAP ah within the Department of Energy. And it took about two years for this thing to process. um And you know the Toronto documents I got back, there wasn't a lot of interesting stuff in there, but there was one interesting ah report um about an unidentified object that ah breached the security perimeter of the Pantex nuclear facility in near Panhandle, Texas. um yeah when this object yeah so you ahead try to interrupt no I was just going to ask, so right so okay so so you basically you were interested in the Department of Energy, which um you want to say a little bit more about why that? Because I think
Speaker: you know, the average person who doesn't know much about this topic, first of all, might not know what the Department of Energy does, but second of all, might think, what is the relationship to UAP? You go through the history of the field, you know, of the ufology and the study of UFOs, et cetera, et cetera, the Department of Energy is sort of like a missing entity in some respects. Now, that is not to say that there aren't historical accounts of ah phenomena that um We're seen over department energy facilities um because you have plenty of historical accounts of strange phenomenon you know over places like Los Alamos, places like.
Speaker: Well, you know, other other facilities. And so, yeah, I, you know, I think part of the thinking too, was just like, okay, well, we we know that the phenomenon has had an interaction with entities or, you know, ah facilities um related to the Department of Energy in the past. And so let's see what's been going on lately. So.
Speaker: Yeah, so you get this takes two years, which is a long time to wait for documents. And you get this tranche of documents back and um one of the reports flags your attention. Let's talk about what was in it.
Speaker: Yeah, so this this this document was a report ah created by, I believe, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is a ah subset of the Department of Energy that basically handles ah safety and security of nuclear -related you know facilities that are within the Department of Energy's holdings or purview.
Speaker: And so this report was ah dated from 2015. And what this report basically outlined or detailed, it was a heavily redacted report, unfortunately, but there were some interesting. Interesting nuggets, 1 of which is the fact that there is a strange object diamond shaped object ah that breached the.
Speaker: Security perimeter of pan techs and well, it's not exactly clear what the what the path of this thing was. The end result was that once it left the facility. And I don't know exactly how long it was in the facility or anything like that, because all of that was redacted. Of course, but ah once it left the facility, the. Security personnel at the plant follow this thing for several miles and this is it keep you keep in mind this is a, you know, a. ah a federal government produced report, specifically saying that we don't know what the hell this thing was. It was an unidentified object. um And also, so that was kind of jaw -dropping to me. I also you know was kind of amazed that I even got my hands on it on a document like that. And one of the other aspects of this is that the report um basically, there was a section of the report that
Speaker: Had a ah redacted apparently redacted photographs of the object um that were taken from various angles for various viewpoints and. Or vantage points and and some of these um and some of these images were actually enhanced by syndia national laboratories, which was within the department energies holdings.
Speaker: um I may have an update for everyone on that in the near future, but that's as far as I'm going to say right now. That would be very exciting. I want to drill in on a couple details and then sort of zoom out to the bigger implications.
Speaker: So, okay, so I realize a lot of this is redacted, but um do we know like when when we so when we say like this diamond -shaped object was observed, do we know by who or by what kind of sensors?
Speaker: and Unfortunately, not. um So it literally just says something to the effect of object was observed object was observed. yeah um In fact, if you want to give me a second, I can actually pull it up and read it. yeah Okay. Okay. So yeah, the.
Speaker: Initial description of the object um is described as the object was that it was a diamond shape a diamond diamond type shape with it being more round at the top. And that's the only little piece of of the description that's available.
Speaker: um And then the report goes on to detail that ah Pantex facility personnel were alerted to the object and subsequently dispatched to follow it in an effort to obtain as much information about the object as possible. Pantex facility personnel on the ground confirmed the presence of the object and maintained observation ah via Pantex facility vehicle. Pantex facility personnel followed the object for several miles north of the plant until it was no longer visible.
Speaker: A subsequent comprehensive review of the incident was immediately initiated and that's all you get. It's intriguing and we don't we don't know how that's all we get. So we don't know. Presumably this thing is sort of quote unquote flying, but we don't know how high at what altitude. We don't know what speed. We don't have any information about any potential maneuvers. That's correct.
Speaker: That is correct. Yeah. There are so many things that I find absolutely. Oh, and and when when you said that um personnel followed this this thing for um a few miles, do you know how whether that was in car, you know, in vehicles or in um you know aircraft of some sort? Considering that they report you know, ah mentioned that observations were being made from a Pantex facility security vehicle. I'm assuming that, I'm assuming or speculating anyway that they, in order to keep up with this object, they probably use the vehicle, you know, as they were following it north outside of the facility. so yeah
Speaker: And did you find any indicate any media reports? um I know ah about the, um we'll talk about New Fork reports, but did you find any, there were no media reports of this, correct? There were no media reports, but there is, and I'm sure this is, I think you're going to touch on this next, but there there is a long history of of incursions at this particular facility.
Speaker: so Yeah. like Before we get into that, I mean, I just want to reflect on what you found a little bit because I think it's fascinating for a number of reasons. the biggest one ah One of the biggest reasons this just so intrigues me is that, you know, no no disrespect to you, but you, you know, like me, well, much more than me, you know,
Speaker: You're actually doing some research here, but you're not a professional UFO researcher. This is not your day job, so to speak. um This was not part of, um you know, some sort of history of UFOs that you were embarking on, of which there are some very good examples out there.
Speaker: You just kind of went looking at you weren't working from an incident that was already reported and therefore there was some attention about it. You you basically just went looking. What's the expression? You went um one fishing fishing. Thank you. You went fishing and you caught this incredible report.
Speaker: of something unknown, intruding on, an and and you know, I'm not going to use the tech, I'm not going to know the technical language, but a highly sensitive nuclear related facility. um Yeah, they they they these days, they're dismantling, they're literally dismantling nuclear weapons as place. So they mean they have stockpiles of plutonium, like it's, it's incredibly dangerous situation over there. Right. And we would imagine that that this is, you know, the highest kind of security, the highest levels of of monitoring, et cetera. So you find this incredible case. And what I love about this case is it shows that you found this thing that had just no attention at all. Nobody, no public knowledge. And it's super weird. And there's no explanation. um One more question. did you ever
Speaker: um Ask the Department of Energy directly, you know through a spokesperson or whatever like hey Can you explain this? Do you have any update on this? Like what's the deal? Repeatedly? Yeah um Over like, you know over a span of like a couple of weeks. I i kept hounding them um because you know, I have I had some additional questions obviously, you know ah was the was the Uh, the director of do we at the time made aware of the incident. Um, yeah, that's a big question. Um, you know, what, uh, were there other incursions or other facilities in the same time period or, you know, in and around the same kind of sort of time period? Um, you know, those kinds of really important contextual questions and I received no response. And in fact, I actually, um in order to kind of get a better sense of what they may have been talking about as I was sending these requests to the agency, I actually filed and another FOIA request for interagency <unk> agency communications about my media requests. Because sometimes you can glean some very interesting things from that. so And I'm still waiting on that. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker: Yeah. And what about do you know whether is there any indication or any way to know whether this case made its way into the the holdings or whatever of Arrow? In other words, do we know whether now that there's this new office whose purpose is to investigate you UAP reports, do we know whether Arrow has looked into this case? um That's a really great question.
Speaker: um i um I don't know. yeah um But you know I think that i I'm not the only one lately that has really fairly low confidence and arrow to begin with based on the historical report that they could report quote unquote that they produced and disseminated to the public. And and so I'm not ah particularly hopeful that they paid this incident much much attention if at all, um but you know maybe maybe I'm wrong and maybe something will come out in the future. Yeah, but then again, if you know i mean we can still glean some interesting information here. i mean For one thing, we don't know whether Arrow looked into it because we don't know what Arrow has looked into or not. That information hasn't been made public.
Speaker: right And, you know, um the idea that that this is some sort of new era of transparency around this topic is, is you know, this this is a ah great example of of a lack of transparency that we don't know. um You know, we we do know that this incident wasn't included in Arrow's historical report, which had it been easily, you know, um explained could have been a great example of how you know these silly UFO people are getting it all wrong. you know this But we see no mention of ah of some sort of diamond flying over a nuclear facility being attributed to something conventional. Nobody's right. nobody has the The Department of Energy did not get back to you and say, no, no this was a misunderstanding. right Nothing like that. Or you know later on, we figured out what it was or something like that. you know
Speaker: As far as we know you know, there was an investigation that was conducted by DOE, and as far as we know, ah no explanation has been, has been, is available for what happened there in 2015. Yeah, and this is also this case is also a ah sad commentary on the media, I think, because which which I love criticizing um having ah being a practitioner. um Because look, I mean, had the New York Times come out with a headline, a factual headline just saying report shows diamond shaped object flying over nuclear facility. I think this could be
Speaker: I could easily see a world in which this became one of the most talked about cases recent in recent years, at least. yeah um But they didn't. And so one of the the big gripes that I've had about big media companies, big newspapers, etc., through my career working for generally smaller um media companies is that the big companies, the the big city newspapers, that sort of thing had always had this attitude, which was sort of like, well, if we didn't report on it, it didn't. It doesn't matter. as a matter And so, you know, and and so you would find stories as a reporter for like a smaller outlet. You'd find, you know, good stories and they would just kind of go unreported because the newspapers would go. ah We're not going to touch that. They are someone else already.
Speaker: And so it just wasn't brought to public attention. Yeah, yeah it's just arrogance. you know it's It's really astounding. So and yet another reason that I think this is such a fascinating case, um which you touched on earlier, is that this is not and isolated this is not just occurring in isolation. I mean, first of all, there's this incredible history of UFOs, UAP, over nuclear facilities.
Speaker: And that's going to sound crazy to listeners who are new to this topic, but it is this is well documented. Have you read the government itself? Yeah, I mean, it's where, you know, official there's official documentation by the government that that outline these alarming incidents, you know, at you know, at ICBM facilities, um at nuclear facilities, like it's really crazy.
Speaker: Right. And once again, you know, the Aero historical report, there was an opportunity to address this and say, OK, yes, there are several decades of UFO reports related to nuclear facilities. But don't worry, we've explained it all. No, no. In fact, I mean, the I remember particularly I remember, you know, remarking online when that report came out about a specific section.
Speaker: of that report that basically said, ah I was basically criticizing the fact that, um you know, this report stated that the UFO sightings can be attributed to the testing of nuclear weapons. Like that was their explanation for a lot of UFO sightings was like the Manhattan Project, the existence of the Manhattan Project, which doesn't, it just doesn't make any sense. Like it's, it's it's such a nonsensical,
Speaker: ah You know, way to cover up whatever they're trying to cover up and it's just it's crazy, you know, right nonsensical for for among other reasons because why, you know, why would sort of kind of famously one of the best kept secrets ever um sort of be manifesting in bizarre apparitions of UFOs.
Speaker: exactly witnessed by site personnel, by officers, by etc. So let's talk about that extra background and context. You found other incursions at that specific facility too. I did, yeah. Dating back something like 40 or 50 years. That's incredible. Let me just make sure I have Yeah, there's there's actually a a history of diamond -shaped objects violating the perimeter at Pantex. I mean, actual diamond -shaped objects. These are from you know newspaper accounts, um ah from you know eyewitness accounts from plant employees themselves, from um residents who live near the plant.
Speaker: um Let's see here. There's one, so I'm going to read one report, if you don't mind, by a by some former employees at the facility. Please. um this is a ah ah This is a report submitted by a former employee. I don't have the exact date, but anyway, because the sightings were over a span of years. I do not know if it was the same craft or a number of them, wrote one one witness,
Speaker: ah They were over Pantex Ordnance Plant. At the time we still had an active air base and fighters were scrambled a number of times. We lived three miles from the plant so we had a ringside seat. The craft were diamond shaped and changed color. When the fighters got near it would go straight up at high speed.
Speaker: We knew when the planes landed because the craft reappeared. They would sometimes play tag for hours. um Another witness wrote, from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s, UFOs were seen over Pantex Ordnance Plant near Amarillo, Texas. I lived three miles away to the east at the time. During this period, there were over there were about 100 sightings, but those of us that remember don't talk about it much.
Speaker: The airbase was still open and they would ah they would scramble fighters to intercept, but it was always the same. When the jets closed to two miles, the object would go up at high speed. The jets would circle a while, then land. Then sometimes it would come back down to bound to its spot. This was repeated on many nights, always the same type of object that changed colors. So um so you know that's some pretty astonishing stuff.
Speaker: ah And you know it makes about about what happened ah in 2015, did the same type of craft, did this diamond -shaped craft behave similarly? did it you know Did it take off at high speed? And that's what why the security personnel couldn't keep up with it? Or what? I don't know. But it's some really chilling similarities.
Speaker: so Yeah, and those witness reports that you read, are those the ones that you found on New Fork? One was on New Fork, yeah, the National UFO Reporting Center. Yeah, which is a great resource for anyone who wants to start researching this because ah there's some really amazing accounts if you dig if you dig dar ah deep enough.
Speaker: um But yes, ah one ah the support the excuse me the report submitted to New Fork was submitted by a former plant employee. The second account that I read was ah basically from, oh yeah, I'm sorry, it was another another report submitted to New Fork.
Speaker: And then there is a really astonishing newspaper account from the Amarillo Globe Times ah from November of 1957. And if you want, I can go ahead and read that to you as well. Sure. OK. So this is from the Amarillo Globe Times, November 8, 1957. Bright flashing lights hovered for half an hour over the Pantex Atomic Energy Commission Ordnance Plant. 15 miles east of Amarillo on Thursday night, according to plant guards. The brilliant objects were reported to the state highway patrol office by plant guards at 746 PM. A patrolman dispatched to the plant arrived at 815 PM and reported that he too saw a quote, strange light end quote. The patrolman said guards were all shook up. Guards said three objects had been floating over the plant 50 feet above the ground for some time. When I got there, the patrolman said the guard said one of the objects had landed
Speaker: on a nearby road three miles north of highway 60. We drove to the area, but nothing was there. But I'm convinced that the guards saw something land. The patrolman said guards told him they had tried to slip up on the objects by turning off their lights, but the things would just slip away from them when they got near.
Speaker: So that's from a newspaper. Yeah. Anyway. Fascinating. And sorry, what year was that account? It was in November november of 1957. Wow. It makes you wonder you makes you wonder how many other incidents between the 1950s and 2015 have occurred at that facility. you know Yeah, it also takes the Manhattan Project hypothesis and pretty well throws that in the toilet. Yes. It mean just makes no sense. This would have been after the deployment of atomic weapons, um not to mention the 2015 incident.
Speaker: I've sort of been thinking of, of at least my own belief that there is something to all of this, right? As ah just speaking part, as resting on sort of more or less like, it's like a stool with three legs. And I think, you know, one leg is history. The other leg, I might have to rearrange these at some point, but it's something like, you know, history is one leg. The second leg is like recent history.
Speaker: which I'm not sure it makes sense to have those be two different legs, but somehow I think it does. um And then the third leg is probably something like you know persistent government interest in this topic. And you know you you put those three together and you get some pretty powerful stuff. I mean, if we look at this 2015 incident that you dug up, okay, probably the easiest conventional explanation is like secret technology. But the history undermines this argument.
Speaker: How could it be? I think that you're ah that you're your -legged stool analogy is very, very pertinent, I think. Yeah, I mean, you know it's to me, anyway, the most compelling the most compelling evidence ah pointing to the to the reality of these phenomena are that ah there is just so so much documented history from reliable witnesses. um and I mean, and when I say so much, I mean so much.
Speaker: And it's like this this whole you know this huge swath of American history ah that's just missing from the from the public consciousness you know in large part. And I think that's a real shame. so and And so like that's why i you know with my writing, with my reporting and my writing, I try to provide historical context whenever I can, because I think it just sort of bolsters the argument that these phenomena are real.
Speaker: so zooming out a little bit, I'd love to, I mean, and kind of on that topic, I'd love to get your thoughts about um how to convince people who have known, well, i would I won't say no interest, most people actually in my experience,
Speaker: have at least some interest in in the topic. I mean, a lot of people, I think you'll agree, you know, if you sort of bring it up, people immediately go, oh, aliens, you mean aliens, you know, and then, and, you know, it's sort of like, well, I didn't say that, but um but people go to, and and then a lot of people, I think their comfort zone is they'll say, well, the universe is big, like there's probably life out there. And and then I sort of throw cold water on the conversation again. And I'm like, well, yeah, but that's,
Speaker: That's kind of a separate question here. what i What we're talking about is whether there's other life here among you know on Earth or in proximity to Earth. um what is What is your go -to sort of explanation for like, no, this is something to take seriously?
Speaker: Um, well, thanks to, uh, senators Schumer and rounds, um, the bipartisan UAP disclosure act to me is the most compelling piece of evidence. And I think it it is such a, you know, when, when I get, it's such a frustrating experience.
Speaker: whenever I think about the fact that that piece of legislation received almost zero effing coverage and pardon of my french but it's just it just makes me so mad that you know no no real like large like mainstream media outlets reported on this thing I mean you have you know one of the most powerful men in the senate the senate majority leader Chuck Schumer introducing legislation uh And then you know when it when it doesn't pass, he takes the extraordinary step of going on the Senate floor and delivering a colloquy, which is like, what the hell is going on? like That's unheard of. And so um that's to answer your question, I point to the UAP Disclosure Act. Whenever i want to start talking about that whenever you know people want to talk to me about this topic, I point to that.
Speaker: And I have to say that the handful of conversations I've had about it with people, it has changed the calculus when I bring up the UAP Disclosure Act. And then they say, well, why haven't I never, why have I never heard of it? And I go, I wish I could tell you. Yeah, because the media has not covered it ah almost at all, um which is incredible. I mean, it's yeah, I mean, I find myself sort of saying like,
Speaker: No, that happened. it did It's it's a fact like this legislation filled with references to non -human intelligence, all kinds of incredible things. Multiple, multiple times. but Multiple times. This legislation was introduced by, you know, one of the most powerful politicians in the United States in the world, arguably, a very serious politics. I mean, this is also a consummate politician in Senator Schumer. This is this is someone who understands politics.
Speaker: Yeah. Who is clearly not doing this for political gain because there's no constituency. There really isn't, right. There's nothing to be gained by introducing this legislation. There just isn't, you know. that Yeah, this is not a popular, this is not going to, at least not at the moment, um this is not going to advance the careers of these senior politicians. Yeah.
Speaker: You used a ah word that I have been thinking a lot about. You described that legislation as powerful evidence. And I've been thinking a lot about the word the words evidence, but the word evidence and the related word proof. And I think, you know, what what you would hear from this kind of skeptics, right, is like, well, that's not evidence. That's just some words on paper.
Speaker: I could not disagree more. I think that a more journalistic approach to this topic would really move it. I mean, this is why it's also so disappointing that mainstream media, for the most part, still won't touch it. I think a journalistic approach to this topic would yield a very different analysis. Sure, it's evidence. It's evidence of something. It's evidence of interest on the part of these senators. It's evidence of internal conversations on this issue. It's evidence of, well, it's proof of political capital being spent on this issue. Why? Why? If there's nothing there in a trial, a jury is presented with evidence like this, yeah expert evidence. Experts will come on. The juries aren't presented with proof generally. They're presented with with pieces of the puzzle and asked to use their own judgment in assessing the whole picture. That's right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah um you know, and i going back to, you know, ah you know, you're you're touching on um skeptics, you know, naysing and pooh -poohing things like the UAP Disclosure Act. You know, there comes a point where you have to ah you have to assume that either they are being willfully ignorant or they're being willfully deceptive. And, you know, I think that there are I should say, the the I think the loudest skeptics are probably the most disingenuous. you know no Now, granted, i i mean i am a I am a skeptic. I'm not a debunker, but I am a skeptic. And I tread very carefully. I don't make a determination about what it is that I, you know what this thing in a pantext was. I don't know. But it was unidentified. um And that's what I can write about. That's what I can report, is that it was unidentified and that the government has interest in these things.
Speaker: so and And that there's a historical context. And that there's a huge historical, the preponderance of evidence, the preponderance, and that's the term that I like to use with this topic. There's a preponance preponderance of evidence that this phenomenon is real. so Yeah, and and that it ah continues to, that it has defied explanation and continues to defy explanation. It's you know it's funny, in a way it's sort of like, if if you could redefine the phenomenon to use this word that we use all the time, you know, and and you could say like, forget about aliens for a second. Forget about the extraterrestrial hypothesis. If you just define UAPs as defying explanation, I mean, that's really the common thread is a lack of explanation.
Speaker: um of of the ability of even the best experts to answer the the question. And the some of the best, most powerful sensor systems the world has ever seen in history you know though and in world history. I mean, that's right yeah those are you know those these sensors, the the capabilities that our military has these days and other federal agencies, it's just like, it's astonishing. And they still don't know what these things are.
Speaker: Well, as as we kind of wrap up, um I'm curious, what is your evolving understanding of what is going on with its Congress, you know, especially like measures like this UAP Disclosure Act? um What is behind it? I mean, we talked about how it's to no obvious political advantage. It's not getting covered.
Speaker: by the mainstream media, but it's it's happening nonetheless. What do you think, I mean, to me, what it suggests above all else is that some number of elected representatives in high places that they've heard stuff that the rest of us have not heard that is fill in the blank, alarming, ah suspect you know, whatever. What do you think is going on? Why why is this legislation being pushed forward at all? I mean, I... I wish I had a good answer. What we do know is that very credible witnesses, including military pilots, ah allegedly other government whistleblowers from other agencies have come forward to Congress, to certain members of Congress, and have expressed grave concerns about air safety, national security, and um government oversight, you know or lack thereof.
Speaker: about this topic. um And so I think to answer your crush question generally, that's what's what's spreading all this activity. um You know, you have the the Americans for Safe Aerospace Act that was introduced by Robert Garcia, Democrat in the House. um You know, you've got the UAP Disclosure Act, you've got ah the creation of Arrow, the creation of Arrow, um you know, stuff like that. Anyway, I think that there's probably other things going on that we're not aware of. I suspect that there might even be some kind of urgency um for some for some reason that we don't know. ah But that is that is pure speculation. so Yeah. You talked on the Weaponize podcast. They asked um ah Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp asked you about how you got into this. um And i you said that you, like me, I think, um the the sort of turning point was the 2017 New York Times article.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I did have my own experience in around 1989. So I was 10 years old. Yeah. Do you mind sharing it? Yeah, sure. I was coming back to Harrisburg, which is where I grew up. We were coming back from my grandparents' house in Maryland. We had just crossed into Pennsylvania.
Speaker: and We, it was late at night and we spotted these um these lights, you know, performing extreme maneuverability, exhibiting extreme maneuverability. And um we watched them for quite some time. And ah my mother got so spooked that when we got home.
Speaker: She called the news station, she called the police, and we discovered that lots of other people were seeing something that they couldn't explain to. And that was when it I got really, you know, I, that's what, that's what, and that's obviously what piqued my interest in the topic. But then it's sort of, you know, as I got older, it sort of subsided because there wasn't much happening. But then 2017 rolls around, New York Times happened, drops their,
Speaker: they were bombshell articles and and I was sort of back into the game, you know, so. Yeah, I had a very, very similar journey. I also saw um something weird back in the mid 90s. What I saw might be somewhat but like what you saw. so So would you describe, you said lights. So sort of start, would you say like star -like objects, except they're moving in weird ways or?
Speaker: ah Yeah, and they I mean, they were extremely bright. Extremely bright. And they were, you know, not where stars should be. Let's put it that way. Right. Well, and stars don't zip around. They don't zip around. Yeah.
Speaker: um And these were zipping around? They were zipping around um relatively close to the horizon. Yeah. um Yeah. So it was pretty wild. Yeah. Yeah. What I saw was star -like objects moving in a completely inexplicable way. There was, I want to say about five of them or so. And then a friend witnessed it with me. We were both staring at this with our mouths hanging open.
Speaker: um it was just for well i was watching them for maybe a minute or two not quite understanding what i was seeing i actually thought that i was seeing my brain kind of connected the dots between these lights so i thought i was seeing some sort of like maybe a kite that was kind of folding or you know some sort of three -dimensional object and I thought, oh, there must be a is there like a kite in the, you know, and yeah and I just kept staring. And then all of a sudden I sort of realized that this wasn't some um it it was a bunch of lights that were just maneuvering in completely strange ways. So and then I told you what year is this? This was 96, I want to say 96, 97. Yeah, unlikely that they were drones. That's right. Yeah. ah huh Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, it was the middle of Chicago, too. so Oh, wow. The middle of Chicago, yeah. um And i I wrote it off because I didn't see any other intellectual path. It was, I sort of told myself like, well, it can't have been something, you know, out of this world because there is no such thing as something out of this world. And it and it wasn't until that article that I thought, well, gee, you know, maybe um maybe that presumption was wrong.
Speaker: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you have a sense of how do you'd like to proceed? I mean, you obviously have limited time and bandwidth to work on this topic. How how do you kind of see your own sort of work on this research contributions moving forward?
Speaker: um I think that I am going to continue continue with this work um because i just I find it very fulfilling on a personal level. um you know i This is purely a labor of love. In fact, I've like you know i've spent my own money on um FOIA lawsuits you know um against a couple of agencies. And I'm hoping to file lawsuits against more in the near future. But um yeah, this is but this is purely a labor of love. And you know I'm at a point in my life now where you know, I'm in like in my mid 40s and um I just I feel like this is sort of a great way for me to contribute to the world, you know, so I don't know. but I don't know if this is your experience but I have to I sort of go through these these periodic crashes like pretty frequently. I mean like maybe daily where I'm like
Speaker: Ah, like, is this, in am I, did, did I just miss some glaring thing that suggests that there's nothing to this? And then I kind of have to work through the premises again and go back and go, okay, well, you know, the legislation is real. The history is, is, is very, is real and like robustly documented. And you have, this you know, astonishing public comments from officials too, you know?
Speaker: You have astonishing public comments from officials, you have astonishing observations from regular people across around the world over time. um and And I have to cycle back through these things. And it's sort of like I'm like, OK, I can go another step, you know, and then I take another step and then I crash again. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, for me anyway, I know exactly what you're talking about, um although I don't, my crushes are not nearly as frequent as yours, but um I just, you know, whenever I hit a spot like that, I just, I have to, I have to sit down and I have to remind myself again of, of the history, you know, and that's what always kind of buoys me, you know.
Speaker: Yeah. All right. Well, let's leave it there. Cool. Cool. Thank you you so much. This has been fantastic. thanks stu and listen to right I hope I didn't yammer on too long. But um all right, Dustin, this was awesome. Thank you and look forward to keeping the conversation going. Yeah. Take care of yourself. You too, Dustin. All right. Bye bye. And that's it for this episode of UFO Focus. My guest again was Dustin Slaughter.
Speaker: founder of the UAP register, that's uapregister .substack .com. Go there, check out his work, maybe support his work. That'd be cool. And I'm grateful to Dustin for coming on the show. Thank you so much for listening. And if you can, ah please share the show, share it on social media, tell your friends about it. If you are up for it. Give it a nice rating on the Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you happen to be listening. Drop me a line, especially with your UFO encounters. The intro and outro music are by Dave Greening. I'm your host, Isaiah, and I'll see you next time.
