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John Greenewald Jr - UFOs and FOIA
1.4k Plays1 year ago
John Greenwald Jr is the creator of The Black Vault, a repository of millions of declassified government documents covering the UFO subject and more. He is also the author of the book 'Inside the Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed.'
John YouTube: / @theblackvaultori...
John Twitter: https://twitter.com/blackvaultcom
John Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johngreenew...
SPONSOR: 29 Degrees North - A novel by Dan Quinn A remote town on the southern edge of Colorado plays host to the worst weather change in recorded history. Brandon and Joe are at the forefront of the battle to survive, and with everything and everyone seemingly lost, they venture to a sacred line in hope of survival. But weather patterns that are impossible to predict hinder their chances of making it there, and with the weather system out of control and getting worse by the hour, they find themselves facing not only society on its knee’s, but the brutal force of mother nature in every direction they turn. Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/29-Degrees-N...
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Transcript
Alien Abductions and UFOs: Myth or Reality?
00:00:09
Speaker
They were complex narratives of being taken by alien beings into UFOs on beams of light. The Air Force is trying to cover up with a picture of Venus and the Moon.
UFOs: Extra-Terrestrial Visitors or Cosmic Enigmas?
00:00:30
Speaker
From my own point of view, I'm going to be very disappointed if UFOs turn out to be nothing more than visitors from another planet, because I think that could be something
Vinny Adams on Show Success and Future Plans
00:01:04
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome back to disclosure team. I'm your host, Vinny Adams. Good to see you. It seems like this Wednesday live interview thing is working out really well. So I think going forward, I'm going to try and do that.
00:01:17
Speaker
you know, consistently. I am recording a few interviews now or starting to record a few more interviews, which will go out a few days before to YouTube members and Patreon members because, you know, I've been lucky enough to have people willing to support me in that way. So I feel like I owe them something. So this is just a thank you to them. But all my interviews will come out, you know, within a reasonable amount of time going forward.
Sponsorship and Community Engagement
00:01:43
Speaker
So thank you guys for that.
00:01:45
Speaker
As always please keep the live chat cool calm and collected it is okay to have differences of opinion but let's just treat each other with a bit of respect and not getting to any slang in matches I'd appreciate that. One final thing before I bring my guest in for the past year and a half since I've been doing this show I've had multiple companies and people approach me for sponsorship
00:02:09
Speaker
And I've not resonated with any in the past because it's got to be something that I, you know, I'm happy to promote. But I'm finally able to say that I have got my first sponsor, and it is a novel. It is this novel here called 29 Degrees North. And it's a novel about impending cataclysms in North America and Europe, the kind of Hollywood movie style, easy to read book. I highly recommend it. It's about seven bucks.
00:02:35
Speaker
if you're into reading and you like a good fun novel that you can't put down. The link is in the description. It's pinned in the live chat. If you want to read a book and support the channel at the same time, you're able to do so that way. Okay, guys, cool.
00:02:51
Speaker
Right. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
John Greenwald's Journey into UFOs and FOIA
00:02:55
Speaker
I've been following John's work for many years. This is the first time that I've spoken to him face to face. We've had a few conversations behind the scenes, but we're going to get into it today. Lots of things to cover. If you do have any questions, pop them in capital letters and I'll try and ask them at some point. So let's get into it, guys. Please welcome John Greenwald. John, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, not bad at all. Thank you for being here.
00:03:19
Speaker
Of course, it's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to it. Thank you for the invitation. Anytime, anytime. Well, John, I think the best place to start, and I know I mentioned this to you before we came on, is I'd love to just go back to your early days and what got you into FOIA and the UFO subjects as well. So if you wouldn't mind just giving us a bit of an overview, that'd be great. Thank you.
00:03:40
Speaker
of course, of course. Yeah, it's, it's been a long time now. I always feel so old when I timestamp it. But back in 96, I was 15 years old and still in high school and just fell in love with the mystery of UFOs as we all have. It was not based on an experience, but rather, I was just curious and
00:04:04
Speaker
You know, you look even back then, Google really wasn't a thing at all. It was all to Vista at the time. And, you know, you search and there were still hundreds of thousands of websites. But I was so frustrated by just kind of the lack of evidence and the contradicting stories. And, you know, you didn't know what to believe. And
00:04:22
Speaker
I learned about this thing called the Freedom of Information Act from a website that had the 1976 Iran incident document on it. So for anybody who loves UFO history, the 76 Iran incident is, is an amazing one. And I read it and thought there's no way that that's real. And it said, it was like it read my mind, the web page said, if you doubt that it's legitimate, you can use this thing called the Freedom of Information Act to get it. And I was like, well, what the heck is that?
00:04:48
Speaker
And it taught you how to do it. And I just kind of fired it off. And sure enough, that four page document was real. And I went back to the internet and frantically looked for more because there's a certain, even though we all doubt the government, we know the US government lies, right? I mean, that's provable. It's not even a conspiracy to say stuff like that. So we know that. But there was some kind of legitimacy to have that government document sent to you from the US government.
00:05:17
Speaker
And you read it and you go, wait a minute, they say there's nothing to UFOs. And yet, here's a UFO that turns into not two, but three other UFOs, kind of like a mothership is the only description to really kind of give this.
The Black Vault: A Repository of Government Secrets
00:05:31
Speaker
We have one main craft and multiple ones coming out of it, according to this government document.
00:05:36
Speaker
And you go this can't be real. So I went back to the internet and tried to find more stuff like that. But nobody in 96 was really doing it. There was one website that had some text documents on it. And I think that was the computer UFO network. But there wasn't a website that you could see the documents. And that's what I wanted. And so what I did was I started using the Freedom of Information Act.
00:06:01
Speaker
And then as I was getting the documents, I built the website that I was looking for. So now fast forward 26 years, I've collected about 3.2 million pages, they're all online, you can download them for free. But the Black Vault is essentially the evolution of what I was looking for as a 15 year old kid, but I never found.
00:06:21
Speaker
And that was a free resource you could go on download the information. And in some cases, my records 14 and a half years to wait for a FOIA request to be processed and the documents to come wasn't a UFO related request. But regardless, 14 and a half years is a heck of a long, a long time to wait. And so what I really loved about the idea and why I didn't want to ever let it go, was that what took me 14 and a half years to get
00:06:48
Speaker
Vinny can go online and download it like that. And that's why I love what I do because it gives so many people access to this information and it's unfiltered. It is absolutely how I receive it from the government and people can take it from there. So that's my nutshell story. Now that's amazing, honestly, and I've been researching using documents now for about 13 years and
00:07:10
Speaker
Black Vault was the first place I started, you know, I was going on to the government websites as well, but that was like the main resource. So, you know, you've helped me a lot over the years. So, you know, I have to highlight that. I really do appreciate that. So how, you know, you file these reports and some of them take years. How do you, do you catalog what you've sent? Have you got a good system in place? How does that work?
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, I wish I started when I was 15 doing that I didn't I was about 2000 FOIA requests in when I really and I forget how many years that was but I realized I needed a better system. And so I created my own database and I designed my own back end database. Nobody sees it but me meaning it's not like a public website or whatever.
00:07:52
Speaker
And I just archive, like I archive all the requests that go in and keep track of what's opened, what's, you know, being processed, and then what's closed. So at this point, I'm well over 10,500 FOIA requests since I started.
00:08:08
Speaker
But that doesn't include the follow ups and, you know, the back and forth. So one request could have, you know, five to, to eight to 10 back and forths, but the actual individual cases is over 10,500. And it's it's still a very difficult task to, to keep on top of because there are so many and then a lot of times you get so
00:08:30
Speaker
backed up with waiting times and stuff like that, that you forget about them a lot of times. And I try and keep reminders on the real important ones. But sometimes, you know, you'll go years and then you'll get a response. I'm like, Oh, my God, I forgot I requested that. And and it's, it's a laughable thing, but it gets frustrating quite a bit. So I try and keep up on it and and keep hounding them about cases that start to get a little bit old.
00:08:55
Speaker
Now I can imagine have you ever been sent anything like that? You shouldn't have been sent have they ever made mistakes along the way like anything You know anything like that
Challenges and Triumphs in FOIA Processes
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like to go into too much detail about this. The answer is yes. It's happened a few times. It's nothing. There was no like amazing state secret that came my way. So let me let me make sure I say that. Yeah, but yeah, mistakes have been made. And I'm not out to blow anybody's privacy or especially reveal any classified information. So
00:09:26
Speaker
you know, I worked with with them to get that information back, but they're human, you know, it's more so a lot of times exempted information versus classified information. And essentially, what that means is it's unclassified information, but, you know, it could be as easy as somebody's name or
00:09:43
Speaker
you know contact information that they don't want out in the open and i'm not into doing this for exposing people's cell phone number and stuff like that so mistakes have been made but it nothing nothing extraordinary i haven't seen the the roswell wreckage no i had to ask i had to ask i've got a question we've got a question here from waltz says how many of those requests have been closed
00:10:08
Speaker
Gosh, I don't have an exact number in front of me. I don't have the database up, but I would estimate I've got probably about
00:10:18
Speaker
five, 600 open requests. Right now. That's kind of a rough estimate. But you know, roughly around there. A lot of requests to really quickly on that note, because it's a great question. A lot of times you file a request and it depends on the agency, but some of them can be closed very quickly. So a document could be already tagged for public release, it's just not available online.
00:10:40
Speaker
So you file on a Monday and if the agency isn't like a big one like CIA or DIA, but maybe a smaller office, sometimes you'll get it in a week or two and then they just close it. So it's a lot easier on the processing while other ones are much more complicated and can take years.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I think am I right in saying that a lot of the requests come in on a Friday if you get something I've seen I've seen you tweet out every now and again, you know, it's Friday. What am I gonna get your Friday? We cross our fingers. Yeah, we call it foyer Friday and Generally, they wait for the weekly news cycle to go away and you know drop something towards the close of business day on on Friday and
00:11:19
Speaker
I don't really get the logic, especially this day and age, because, you know, they can write the story through the weekend and publish it Monday. So what's the difference, you know? So I think they still find strategy in that. But yeah, we we do we do have that kind of running joke about foyer Friday. Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I you know,
00:11:39
Speaker
you obviously we we get new cases cropping up here and there and and that so i'd imagine correct me if i'm wrong that you are straight into foyer mode and you're shooting off requests left right and center so what's the kind of process when it comes to that
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, it depends on on kind of a case by case basis. And by case, I just mean what are the what am I going for? What kind of information am I seeking? And that sometimes seems easy, but it's a very challenging thing to try and figure out what could be available. The FOIA allows you to essentially go after anything.
00:12:13
Speaker
And as long as it is a government record, or if somebody sends in a message to specifically about emails, so let's say I write or you write a government person, that becomes foilable. And so you can go after those communications. And I've received a lot of those, which can become very interesting when you see scientists that are not government personnel,
00:12:40
Speaker
And their email addresses and email boxes are not subject to the FOIA. But if they start communicating with NASA, all of a sudden, they become Foyable. And that's where it becomes very interesting, because you can then go after let's say, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson's email box, or Dr. David Spergle, the one that's part of the UAP effort with NASA. And so you just start putting your thinking cap on going, okay,
00:13:07
Speaker
let's try and figure out, you know, what is the best approach to this and emails are a fascinating thing to dig into. Because again, you start opening up into what would be a non FOIA arena, but all of a sudden, it became subject to the FOIA. And so that's great to kind of see that communication. They of course, redact personal information and stuff that again, is on more of a personal nature. So
00:13:32
Speaker
some may kind of cringe and go, oh, wait a minute, are you trying to get, you know, people's personal information and dig into their private communications? And that's not what it's about. But more so what is the again, I'm honing in on the NASA UAP as an example, the investigation.
00:13:47
Speaker
But like, what's going on with that? You know, like, who are they talking to? Who are they extending invitations to take part in? And so you really kind of dig there. But those aren't the only things that are subject to FOIA go after different reports, periodic reports, like annual or quarterly reports. So it really depends on the situation, the topic and the agency. But then you just kind of sit down and try and figure out what the best
00:14:12
Speaker
mode of attack is and kind of go for it. The challenge though is not being too broad. If you say give me everything you got on UAP, generally it's going to get rejected. That's not how it works. So you have to hone in on what exactly you're looking for and it can get very challenging at times, but it's an awful lot of fun to try and figure out the best way to weed something out.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I imagine that's just a skill that you've naturally kind of built up over the years that you've been doing this. And I have to apologize for jumping back onto our previous point, but Yoni's got a great question here. She says, do you let some just fade out if they don't respond or do you keep pushing on every single one? Thank you for all your work, John.
00:14:52
Speaker
And you're very welcome. Thank you for that. It's a great question. No, I never lose interest in the requests. So I will I will continue to ask about updates and when it's going to be processed. Generally, a government agency won't just like
00:15:08
Speaker
you know, put it in the trash can generally have I had the Oh, we never got it. Yeah, I've had that a couple times. And that's very frustrating. But generally, if you have a case number, it'll it'll be completed. The government likes to do a tactic called what we call still interested letters.
00:15:26
Speaker
and the still interested letters which are very, very frowned upon. And the Department of Justice, which which kind of oversees the FOIA efforts has put out agency wide memos, saying, you know, essentially don't use these. But and that was years ago, they still use them. And the agency will some take sometimes take two, four, even six or eight years to then send you a still interested letter and go, Hey, well, you know,
00:15:52
Speaker
this was five years ago, when you requested this, are you still interested? If you are, you have 30 days to get back to us. If you if we don't hear from you, we close the request. And it's so frustrating, because sometimes you may not see it. And they'll close the request. So a little extra information there. But to go back to the question, I never really lose interest, just mainly because
00:16:16
Speaker
I am an advocate for preserving that history. So generally, if I'm going after something through FOIA, there's there's a there's a reason for it. And I just don't like to see that information lost. Now, I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. And I mentioned there about filing new requests when new cases come up this week. Obviously, we had Jeremy Corbell's latest, the the Mosul sphere. So I guess my first question is, have you fired off any freedom of information requests on that?
Analyzing New UFO Images and Pentagon Secrecy
00:16:50
Speaker
I hate to admit that I didn't, I didn't see the broadcast live, I was sound asleep. I get up very early to work. But when I woke up was was surprised to see that they had dropped a new still frame image from a video.
00:17:05
Speaker
And yeah, there's, there's one thing that I will say about Jeremy Corbell, that there's not really anybody that I can think of other than maybe George Knapp, as well, that I can say this about. And that is when they come out, even though it's an anonymous source, and it's leaked information,
00:17:23
Speaker
his track record from 2021 to date has been pretty solid. And what I mean by that is the Pentagon has acknowledged the leaks that Jeremy Corbell has published and George Knapp as well. The Pentagon has acknowledged that it's real information taken by the US Navy, depending upon the case, but taken by the US Navy, and are being utilized by the UAP Task Force.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so that's one thing that I always like to point out about Jeremy, because that absolutely fascinates me to no end. Because generally, when leaked information comes out, even if it's unclassified, or for official use only, generally, it's pretty mum, you know, the government doesn't want to talk about leaks and stuff like that. And in 2021, in the ramp up to the UAP report that that came out that first one,
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, the government was leaking like a sieve, right? There's like a leak in a leak here and a leak here and a leak here. And they just like all these images were flying at us. And the Pentagon was like, Yep, this one's real. Yep, this one's real. Yep, we utilize this one. And I'm like, how is this happening? Like, why? Why are they so quick? In one particular case, I literally got an acknowledgement within hours that the information was real and that it was being utilized by the UAP task force.
00:18:39
Speaker
what I didn't get was a confirmation that it depicted a unidentified object. And that's key here. When discussing all of this, does the government consider it a unidentified aerial phenomena or anomalous phenomena, whatever their new acronym is, can't keep them straight, I give up.
00:18:59
Speaker
But regardless, like do they designate it a true UAP and it's unidentified? Or is this designated UAP, but they determined it's a fill in the blank balloon, drone, whatever it may be. And I never got them to admit to that in 2021. But I did get them to admit that it was real information. Fast forward to this one, here we go again, you know, after a long lull of nothing, we have a new one.
00:19:24
Speaker
So I fired off the Foyas, but also contacted the public affairs office at the Pentagon to try and get comment like I have in the past. Yes, that that does include everybody's favorite person, Susan Goff. But I also wrote the duty officer for the media relations department to essentially see
00:19:43
Speaker
if beyond Susan Gough's involvement, can they speak to the leak themselves? Because I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble. But but this is obviously a viral story. So it's not like the Pentagon's like, Oh, we just found out about this from john. No, I mean, it's it's everywhere at this point with all these media outlets picking it up. So what I want to know is, what's going on? Like, how is it that this is being allowed? And the DoD just sits back and goes,
00:20:12
Speaker
you know, who cares? Yep, that's real information. That's I mean, you go back to Edward Snowden leaks or other people who have leaked information to the general public. A lot of them are in hiding. A lot of them are wanted for multiple, you know, crimes, waiting to see the inside of courtroom. So you don't have that with UAP. And
00:20:32
Speaker
And even though the classification may be different, I know a lot of people probably jump on me that Edward Snowden was leaking highly classified top secret material. And this is supposedly unclassified to the government itself, it's still a leak and a security concern.
00:20:50
Speaker
And so that was what was always confusing to me, where the Pentagon said no, that they weren't investigating it back in 2021. And I just always scratched my head gone. Why? You know, like was this was this wanted? Meaning like, were they okay with it out in the open? Did they want it out in the open? I don't know. I really wish I had the answer to it. But here we go again. And we'll see what happens. But
00:21:15
Speaker
This one, they seem to be very mum about it. They're not talking at all. I haven't gotten any response whatsoever. I granted it's only been a day and a half but I wrote them very, very early yesterday morning when I saw it just to kind of get the comment and as you and I are chatting here the next day midday still nothing.
00:21:36
Speaker
Right. And Jeremy and George, you know, they claim or stated that this image was from a four second video. And there's been a lot of people saying, well, where's the video? And there's been no kind of comeback on that. But would you imagine that that is actually a classified video, even if it's four seconds long?
00:21:53
Speaker
if if what Jeremy is saying is true, that the still would be unclassified. No, I would imagine that that four seconds of a video would not be either. That would be 120 still frames, essentially, right? So you know, you're talking about 120.
00:22:14
Speaker
still frames of a four second video. If one of them is considered unclassified, all 120 would be that's the way I would look at it. Okay, I can't see that anything would pop up in that four seconds that would determine it to be to be classified. But again, that's that's on the assumption that this is truly unclassified. It's not that I doubt Jeremy,
00:22:37
Speaker
But how did he determine that? And that's what I'm curious about. Because information like that, especially when you have all of the graphical display of geo coordinates and stuff like that, the difference between this and stuff in the past is it is a war zone. And it has now put us equipment
00:22:58
Speaker
and a recon flight in a specific area on a specific date. And I can tell you just away from the UAP conversation. Generally, stuff like that is very secretive.
00:23:14
Speaker
And, and it's because you start, you start seeing where the players on the chessboard are and when they were there. And generally, the US doesn't like that. So a lot of times when you see like FLIR videos or recon videos that are shot over enemy territory,
00:23:30
Speaker
we may know that it's a rack, we may even know that it's module, but they'll either redact or blur those outer lines. And a lot of times the blur will then make a classified video unclassified simply by removing that information. So what made it classified was not the visual imagery, but rather the heads up display. So
00:23:51
Speaker
So that I'm, you know, it's not that I doubt Jeremy, but I want to know like exactly how he was able to determine it was unclassified. And the last point I'll give is, even if it is unclassified, there's still generally a for official use only or fo you Oh, designators on unclassified information, especially data that comes from a war zone.
00:24:14
Speaker
active war zone or not. So there's I think there's a lot of unanswered questions on this that may, at this point have the Pentagon, and this is just a guess, I'm just speculating. But now that they're seeing this caliber of information leaking, they may take a step back and go, Okay, before we start confirming all this, let's figure out what's going on and how we're going to handle it. And I think that that's maybe what we're seeing. And because it's potentially not classified, and it's unclassified,
00:24:42
Speaker
I was going to ask before you finished that, I started thinking of the question that, does that mean you can just request it through FOIA? Look, it's not unclassified. If I ask for it, you can give it me. But does it go into sources and methods still a little bit that it becomes like it's not that straightforward?
00:24:57
Speaker
Yes, it gets into a complicated territory. But yeah, essentially, we know the aircraft, but we know the aircraft from Jeremy Korbel would the government sanction giving us that reconnaissance aircraft with the platform on board? Maybe yes, I don't know the answer to that. But these are questions that that essentially lead into can you just
00:25:20
Speaker
assume that all of this is unclassified information. But but now we're we're naming the the recon aircraft over a specific target on a specific date in a war zone. Again, all of those are now getting into a very sensitive territory, even though it was 2016. Can you FOIA that? Yes, you can also do what's called a mandatory declassification review. If it is classified. A prime example of this is the classified version of the UAP report.
00:25:49
Speaker
the 2021 had a classified brother that went along to Congress, in addition to the public. So I went after that through what's called the MDR process, which is slightly different from FOIA. I did the same with the quote unquote 2022 report that was released in 2023. But in the same method, you can do that with videos, you can do that with photos, you can do that anything classified and request them to review it.
00:26:16
Speaker
And the fact that it's been leaked and has circulated does not automatically mean a declassification can take place, you know, that they could essentially still deny the the the release through FOIA or MDR, even though the real ones floating around out there. No, absolutely. I appreciate that. And
00:26:35
Speaker
I'd love to, I could, you know, I could talk about freedom of information for the whole interview, but let's just move it outside for a minute. And, you know, a lot of this subject and a lot of people that have kind of been following this really kind of came into it after the 2017 New York times and TTSA and all that kind of thing. But obviously you've been into this since just after the mid nineties. And so from that period from the mid nineties to 2017, how does that compare to what we've seen in the last sort of five or six years post 2017?
00:27:03
Speaker
How does it look from someone that's been in both? Is it very different or were the moments in that past bit that were quite exciting as well?
00:27:12
Speaker
No, it's very different. I wouldn't hide from that for a second. I mean, it is a different conversation. And I split my answer in two ways to you.
The Evolution of UFO Discourse Post-2017
00:27:22
Speaker
And I'll deal with the the optimist part of me first, which is we have the government and politicians talking about UAP and UFOs. And there is an active effort to investigate whatever these phenomena are.
00:27:36
Speaker
And I think that is absolutely fascinating. Prior to 2017, the whole crux of my research was aiming towards the fact the reality the fact it was irrefutable, that the government was saying, hey, we don't care about UFOs, we don't investigate them, we stopped in 1969 quit bothering us.
00:27:57
Speaker
But for years, I lined up all the pieces of evidence to show that for years and decades after Project Blue Book ended, there was ample evidence that whatever these phenomena were, were still a concern to the CIA, the DIA, and the United States Air Force specifically.
00:28:18
Speaker
had information showing that UFOs were being reported and recorded by the US Air Force, the military agency that's been oddly mum throughout this past couple of years, go back 15 plus years, there were manuals that the Air Force did not want to talk about that had unidentified flying objects in them. That's all provable. They were active manuals. They were not left over. I proved that they were edited in 2000 2002.
00:28:48
Speaker
in 2003, UFO stayed in it. And then it wasn't until the Huffington Post at the time was going to profile it, because they were doing a story on the black vault, and they asked me about some documents, I gave them that. And then literally within
00:29:04
Speaker
days, the Pentagon took the entire chapter out on UFOs, and replaced it with something else. It's one of the most fascinating stories. But my whole point is, is that you had small nuggets of, of wins to show that the government was active in this cover up through 2017.
00:29:23
Speaker
then enter Luis Elizondo, then the a tip story, then everything just kind of fell onto our laps, that there was there were these other efforts going on. So the conversation changed. And that's what was fascinating. Because for me, I just call it the post 2017. ufological era, you know, because pre 2017 is an entirely different history. Post 2017. Now you have we're talking about it. It's in congressional legislation, there's active efforts going on.
00:29:53
Speaker
But here's the pessimist part of me secrecy. Arguably, I know not everybody will agree with me here. The secrecy is deeper. And it has deepened to a point where 100% of UAP information from 2020 and beyond. It's gone. It's 100% classified.
00:30:19
Speaker
And they have denied, I know you want to get away from FOIA, but just to use that, no, no, please do. It's fine. Every legal way to access that information. So even though they released the FLIR, the gimbal and go fast, and that was about a two year effort, which we found out later was actually tied to a FOIA case that I had through DoD and the Navy.
00:30:41
Speaker
And behind the scenes, I had put up the case in an argument to have them release that based on every public statement that they gave about them, which was their undoing, there was no way that they could hold those. So now they've released those three, the security classification guide comes in for UAP. So they have a whole guide about how to classify UFOs that has shut down the release of anything else officially, everything 100%.
00:31:10
Speaker
And there was a story I wrote last year about that very topic, where the Navy specifically said everything that they have classified from top to bottom, they will not release anything. So that's the pessimist side of me where you have this conversation that's changed. And yeah, politicians are involved and all that is fantastic.
00:31:29
Speaker
But in the same respect, we have now found ourselves with a deepening secrecy, all tied to that security classification guide, that's going to be something that will haunt a lot of us as researchers for years to come, because the government doesn't want to release anything. And I tried to get the Pentagon a few weeks ago when they did their arrow media roundtable. Sure. You heard about that. I tried to get them to address their
00:31:58
Speaker
statements of transparency in the hopes that they wanted to share with you and I an openness era of, you know, this is what we're doing. But how do you couple that with the reality of, you know, people like me trying to get this stuff, but it is classified from top to bottom? And how do you marry those two statements? And I have waited ever since Susan Goff did did tell me that she would take my questions emailed because they didn't call on me in the show on table.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, which I wasn't too surprised over. But I was in line, they asked, Do you want to do you want to ask a question? I said, Yes. And they never called on me. But that was one of the two that I wanted to ask was, was how do you marry those two statements? And I and I'm not sure how they're going to answer that. So it's it's, there's a lot of good and a lot of bad is the is kind of the quick way to to explain what's going on right now.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, Christopher Mellon and many other people have talked about the over classification of information regarding UAP. But is that something that you've been surprised by when you've maybe filed a FOIA request and be like, well, I'm not asking for much, but then you've got a
00:33:09
Speaker
know, a no result or something that's clearly overclassifying that. Is that something that's happening? Can you see it when something like that happens? Specifically to UAP, yes. I mean, it's clear over classification because it literally is everything.
00:33:24
Speaker
I wish I was exaggerating with that, but it literally is everything when it comes to UAP. Now, I've been able to extract some documents, PowerPoint presentations that allude to UAP events, but details literally are blacked out, you have blacked out pages top to bottom.
00:33:39
Speaker
So it's very, very tough to get that that information out. So the overclassification thing is absolutely real when it comes to UAP, how do we fix it is is something else entirely. And that's what I've been trying to essentially go through the public affairs office, with my desire to write about this and get answers, which I haven't yet, but also through the legal means, because there's a reason why, why real journal, I don't consider myself a journalist, but
00:34:08
Speaker
real journalists out there working for the big media outlets out there utilize the FOIA. And it's because you can only go so far with a spokesperson. It's the FOIA that truly does produce real results. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's requiring a lot of band aids in a way. But I refuse to say it's broken, because not even with just UAP, it will produce a lot of phenomenal, pardon the pun, information that spokespeople won't
00:34:36
Speaker
So it's still a very powerful tool. But I'm trying to figure out how is it that the three UAP videos were released in the way that they were again, years after they were leaked. But regardless, they finally were officially released. How is it that those are the only three that they can release now everything else is just classified. And I ended up losing my appeal.
00:35:00
Speaker
And the appeal was to their decision to withhold everything else. And it's an untold number of videos. My case for the photos are still open. I kind of expect a similar response. But with specifically to UAP videos, they claim 100% of what they have is is classified. And I don't have an answer to it. I really don't because
00:35:25
Speaker
it is clear that they just don't want the general public to know anything about UAP. But in the same breath, they want to tell you that they're telling us everything about UAP and that it's, you know, explainable in a lot of ways and it's trash and clutter and whatever farce that that New York Times thing was. But they're not really telling you the reality that approximately whatever half or whatever the exact percentage is, they still can't identify.
00:35:54
Speaker
And so they're just going to tell you one side and not the other. So it's reinforcing for me that there's absolutely something there, but that that that deepening secrecy is such a challenge to overcome. And I'm not sure how we can fix it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, we've had statements from Harry Reid and many other people that what we've seen in those three videos is kind of the bottom of the rung, you know, and there's so much clearer and better stuff out, you know, that's that's there within the government somewhere that
00:36:24
Speaker
you know, maybe we won't ever see it. Lou Elizondo has talked about this 23-minute video. Is there any way that that can be put into a FOIA request or is it just too vague because we don't have any real information on where it may reside or who may have taken it? And not just for the 23-minute video, but anything like that, can you kind of shoot off requests in a direction that might actually allude to these videos existing within the Pentagon or the government?
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, and to answer your question, you can absolutely request it. Is it too vague? Very much so. Doesn't mean I won't try and I have a request to open for it. His IG complaint when it was published by the New York Post went into detail about a video that was shared with Neil Tipton, who at the time, you know, was working, he's actually still there, but was working at the Pentagon.
00:37:20
Speaker
and sent an email with the subject that UFO video. And so that's a little bit more specific. And I have been working on that for quite some time. I'm not trying to give a tease. But I'm hoping that that request is coming to a close I have fought considerably hard to get that finalized.
00:37:39
Speaker
I am surprised how it's coming out. Because I'm trying to figure out like, what, you know, who's what's the truth here. And and it's really, really difficult to try and navigate finding that out. Because Luis Elizondo's IG complaint had that that title,
00:37:57
Speaker
But if he was off just by a couple characters, you know, or if it wasn't that UFO video, it was this UFO film. I know that sounds silly, but I'm just using that as a as a juxtaposition, where if you have the wrong quote, and so they okay, well, I'm going to search for that UFO video. And that's negative. So sorry, john, we have nothing. But in reality, it was that UFO film. That's potentially what's what's the problem.
00:38:24
Speaker
So, you know, I've tried to figure out ways to get around those types of games, try and extract those those emails, even the video itself, Luis Elizondo had referenced a drive a folder on one of the drives and I had a FOIA request in for that they denied that it was available or existed on any backup form. But we don't know, you know, that doesn't mean anything. I don't even think I wrote about that.
00:38:49
Speaker
simply because it's why, you know, I, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. Because if it was a backup drive, then in 2017, or 16, or 15, or whatever, who's to say that they backed it up properly, or if, if, if that was even where the data was. So yeah, I don't even think I wrote about it. But I tried to tried to get it. So whatever tidbits come out, from either Luis Elizondo, or anybody that works on the inside,
00:39:18
Speaker
you look for those little little tidbits, those little nuggets of information that you can try and grasp onto, and then file a FOIA and see what you can find out. And that's absolutely what I've done, whether it be the UAP reports that are published, and I go through line by line seeing what you can try and figure out to the New York Post publishing the IG complaint, seeing what I can figure out and just kind of go from there.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I just brought this up from Dan because he just literally had popped this in just before you mentioned it. Have you heard anything about the contents of the Y Project Drive?
Technical Issues and UFO Material Findings
00:39:53
Speaker
Not the contents, no. And that was the one that I was, I'm trying to pull it up here, but that was the one that I was alluding to that
00:40:03
Speaker
The OSD is saying essentially no records. So I'm going to see if I can pull up the letters, see if I have it. But here's the final response. Hold on. And again, I didn't even write about this. So this is all published. I don't think I posted it. No problem.
00:40:23
Speaker
The yeah, they gave it one second John. I've just lost audio. I think it might be my end with me No problem. I'm still getting levels. I don't know if you can hear me or not You there still can you hear me I can hear you
00:40:42
Speaker
Oh, you're back. It's all right. I think it's my iPods running out of battery, my AirPods, sorry. Oh, okay. There we go. Sorry to interrupt you. Not a problem, no. If it is my side, just let me know. I've got levels though, so just let me know if I drop out again. I've got a little bit of crackle on your end that I was getting on my AirPods. Just if anyone in the live chat, can you hear any crack? Yeah, John's audio is distorted. Ryan Sprague, thank you, Ryan.
00:41:09
Speaker
Sure, I can. Well, I haven't changed anything. That's so strange. I thought it was my AirPods, but everyone's saying John's crackling. All right. Well, if you'd like, I can pop out of the room real quick and then come back. Yeah, let's give that a whirl. Thank you, John. Sorry about that. No, no, no, no problem. No problem. Give me one second. Thank you, everyone in the live chat. I thought it was my AirPods, because sometimes when the battery's low, I feel like they go a bit loopy.
00:41:37
Speaker
This is the beauty of live interviews, you know, technical issues. Luckily it doesn't happen too often. Right. Let's see if that's fixed. How was that? That's perfect. Back to normal.
00:41:51
Speaker
I didn't change anything, StreamYard. All right, so back to that yDrive. So I specifically filed on that. And on June 28, 2022, for anybody who wants to verify this, it was case 22F0952. They said no records.
00:42:11
Speaker
But again, I never wrote about it because that's something very hard to chase down. You don't know exactly what was on the drive, which would define the records retention schedule, which would define whether or not it should still be there. John, so that crackles, that crackles come back and it's almost skipping your visuals a slight. I don't, I don't, I don't know.
00:42:38
Speaker
I don't have another audio source. It's just my mixer. So now that's come back. That's all right again now. I don't know if it's a bandwidth thing or people are saying he's crackling and fasting forward and lagging, but you're back normal again. That's really strange. All right. Well, I turn the stereo audio off. Is that any better?
00:43:02
Speaker
I mean, it does sound good again, yeah. I'm just going to check to make sure it's not my end with the speed test. But we can carry on, please. Sorry to keep interrupting, but I know that the chat is saying... No, no, that's okay. I hope it's not my end, though.
00:43:17
Speaker
But anyway, hopefully that all came out. It just, they're not saying that anything is there. To juxtapose that with the story I wrote about the emails, and Luis Elizondo's emails, that was a huge discovery that I feel that they deleted the information prematurely. And that even in a grander scale, I felt was incredibly important because how much information are we losing? But that had specific
00:43:47
Speaker
targets to the FOIA request. So I was able to determine what the records retention schedule were, what the records retention schedule was for Luis Elizondo emails. And it looked like that they deleted them well ahead of schedule. So was that a mistake? Was that just lackadaisical record keeping? Was it some grand conspiracy to cover up his writing and emails? I don't know. But that said, they they were deleted prematurely.
00:44:14
Speaker
with the y drive or the y project folder impossible to know what was on there yeah i appreciate the answer definitely uh now one thing that's obviously quite uh in in everybody's mouths at the moment the conversation piece is crash retrievals and you know we can talk
00:44:33
Speaker
Well, I was gonna say we could talk all day about Wilson Davis, but we can't because there's just probably not much point because nobody really knows ins and outs. But speaking on crash retrievals themselves, has there ever been anything in any of the documents that you found that alludes to that? Is there anything that you can think of off the top of your head?
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, I've had documents for years, even well prior to 2017, and even the ATIP years of the CIA having material of some kind. And I did a video about this on my channel. And essentially, what they had was something that was hand carried to another scientist in the CIA. This was years after Blue Book. Right. And the advice that the scientists gave was redacted.
00:45:17
Speaker
And you couldn't really tell like what it was all about or even what the material was. But you could tell that it was material of some kind. And it was an interesting discovery because keep in mind the timeframe that this is within 10 years of Project Blue Book ending.
00:45:34
Speaker
And yet inside the walls of the CIA, they're still looking at what wreckage a piece of something who knows, but there was material there. And the scientists were obviously intrigued. Through the 1940s, there was a UFO, what they what they called a flying saucer case over Denmark.
00:45:54
Speaker
And the details of the case were essentially non existent. But what was in there were photographs of something that was connected to this flying saucer from Denmark. Now fast forward decades to I believe the 1980s. There was a man by the name of Bob White. And he had a UFO encounter I profiled him on a history channel show that I had produced many, many years ago.
00:46:20
Speaker
And the short of it is he saw this UFO, it shot up towards the sky to another UFO. And as it shot up, it ejected this piece of material. So he goes out and it's glowing red. And he goes out and he thought it was hot. But as as he got near it, he realized it wasn't hot at all, he was actually able to touch it.
00:46:39
Speaker
right picked it up took it to his car put it in his trunk and it essentially stayed and I guess in his attic if I remember the story for for quite a few years and then they ended up resurfacing it through his buddy who was a big kind of UFO guy he learned about the cases hey bring it down well anyway that case from the nineteen forties
00:47:02
Speaker
with the photographs of the picture from the Flying Saucer in Denmark, had photographs of an object of some kind that was eerily similar to the one where this Bob White goes out and picks up an object in the desert. Now, he did not according to him, of course, he could be lying. But according to him, he never knew about these documents from the 1940s. And
00:47:25
Speaker
And so you've got incidents that are separated by 4050 years, I forget his exact incident date, but 4050 years on records that really didn't see the light of day for a while. These guys stumbled upon the documents on the black vault realized that there was a connection. That's how he and I met. And look, I'm not here to say that that's a piece of an alien spacecraft or anything. Sure, sure.
00:47:47
Speaker
But that's pretty awesome that that there's documents that talk about a flying saucer case, where you have material photographs of this material, and then a UFO case from somewhere else, decades and decades apart, and the object that they were retrieved from whatever this UFO was, looked very similar to it.
00:48:10
Speaker
So it was a really weird tie in. And of course, you know, skeptics can easily come up with stories and explanations. They feel Bob hoaxed it. He did pass multiple lie detector tests. We had reviewed all of that before we put them on the history channel.
00:48:26
Speaker
I saw the piece. I mean, it's pretty interesting. And again, people can find identical ways to produce that piece, but that doesn't really necessarily negate what Bob had or the experience. It could just mean that they can make that piece somehow, but regardless could have been from some craft of some kind, alien or otherwise.
00:48:48
Speaker
So it was a really interesting tie in. So to go back to your question about material, there are documented incidents there. There's not a ton of them, but documented incidents of material that they've had. Now you've got I think it was I'm drawing a blank if it was Moultrie who said it.
00:49:05
Speaker
But he said that that that essentially the material that they've seen didn't bring up any red flags, you know, and I'm paraphrasing there, I don't remember the exact quote, but but essentially, it was just that. But what did he admit to? And this is where the FOIA comes into play. He has now said, there's material.
00:49:27
Speaker
So I can use that and say, well, look, your guy just admitted that there's material of some kind, whether there be a Chinese fighter, or a Russian drone, or it doesn't even matter. He referenced that material. And that is gold, because now you can use that in a FOIA request. And if they say, Oh, sorry, we got nothing, then you can appeal it and go, look,
00:49:49
Speaker
you know, one of your guys said it, not me. So you must have something. So was he making it up? Or is there something else to be found? So I think that there's that I think that part of the story is unwritten, meaning that I think that that it's
00:50:04
Speaker
hasn't really come to light in full yet. I think that there's more to the story. And and yeah, I've filed based on that statement. I'm just drawing a blank on the quote itself. So I apologize. But that's fine. That said, you know, all of that is very, very useful when trying to dig and dig and dig and find where that material might be. Yeah, no.
FOIA Strategies and Government Disinformation
00:50:24
Speaker
Something that's I appreciate that that the answer there, but something that's just flowing through the chat right now and it was in my DMS on social media is
00:50:34
Speaker
So many people really want to be able to do their own FOIA requests, but they seem to not know where to start. Do you have anything currently on the Black Vault where it's like a beginner's guide or anything like that? Is there anything you can sort of advise? Yeah, I don't, but I get that request a lot and I'm definitely wanting to do kind of a short video on it.
00:50:57
Speaker
and explain it. I can tell you that your best friend if you're getting into FOIA is going to be a website called FOIA.gov. And essentially, that's the roadmap to every single FOIA office for every single agency that you can FOIA on a federal level. And that's a great way to start because that'll get you to where you want to go.
00:51:19
Speaker
determining what to request is then just simply up to you. And the easiest way that I can explain this, but also the best advice that I can give you is skirt the line between not being too vague, meaning give me everything on UAP. Because they'll reject that as being too vague. Sure. skirt the line between being too vague and being too specific.
00:51:45
Speaker
Because if you believe that something happened in December of 2022, and you say, give me everything that you have on a UAP case from December of 2022, but it actually happened November 30, what happens is is they can come back and say, sorry, john, we have no records. But you were so specific that you just missed the month.
00:52:05
Speaker
And yes, they do play those types of games. And I've learned the hard way. So you skirt the line between not being too broad, but not being too specific, you want to skirt the line in the middle and get as much as you can. And don't be afraid to be creative, to go for for email searches and try and figure out the best
00:52:25
Speaker
way to ask for things and a lot of it is trial and error, you know, it's it's I don't consider anybody a FOIA expert, just simply because I think that that all of us who utilize it, even if you filed more than 10,000 cases, we're learning stuff all the time. And then when you think that you've learned it or mastered it, they change it.
00:52:45
Speaker
And that makes it even worse. So, so the the bottom line is just be patient, you know, and realize that on the other, on the other hand, of all of this on the other side of the telephone or, or the receiving end who gets your email is a human being.
00:53:03
Speaker
And I think a lot of people forget that because they just think everybody's just a big bad evil government person. And they're really not, you know, I mean, a lot of most FOIA offices, they want to help you. Most FOIA case officers want to help you. So just remember, you know, they're just like all of us, for the most part, they want to help you. Sadly, that's not true in 100% of the cases. But just find that out on your on your on your own and realize when they are really bad, get make them give you a reason to not like them. Because most of them are pretty good and want to help you.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah. And that's something that, you know, you talk about the government trust and things like that. And we know that within various agencies and specifically, uh, AFO SI with Richard Doty, that misinformation and disinformation has been prevalent throughout these agencies for decades. So, you know, how do you, how do you kind of keep that in mind when looking at information that you may get in that something might seem off and like, how do you believe everything or not
00:54:02
Speaker
I think you know what I'm trying to get at, I just don't really know how to phrase it. How do you trust them? Yeah. Yeah, the best advice that I can give on that is sadly, you have to trust them to a point, but always question it.
00:54:18
Speaker
Right. So you have to understand that sometimes maybe they are not knowingly lying to you, but they're parroting information from somebody else that wants to lie to you. So trying to weed through that, yeah, is incredibly difficult, whether it be through spokespeople, and those trying to write articles or get information in that way, or going through FOIA, you know, and the best way I can describe it is you're playing a game where they make the rules,
00:54:47
Speaker
they are the referee, and you have to play with your hands tied behind your back. And that really is the reality of it, you know, and when you appeal something, you do get different offices involved, and you get different people involved. There's an expression that I use, which is always appeal. It took me years to know that I was wrong by not appealing. I thought that the moment they said, Sorry, john, we have no records on this, that they just had no records, why would I appeal that?
00:55:17
Speaker
But then after years, I realized no, if you truly feel or have evidence that maybe that's not true, appeal it. And you'd be shocked to see how many times that somebody else at a higher office will look at it and go, Hey, you know what, this search wasn't adequate enough.
00:55:37
Speaker
And then they'll bump it back, they call it remand. So they'll remand the request back to the FOIA officer and say, Hey, we think john has a case here, we want you to re review the documents or research for records, because he has a good case that something exists. Sometimes they'll say, sorry, john, we still didn't find anything. And then you're kind of, you know, left out in the cold a little bit. Other times, then all of a sudden things come up.
00:56:01
Speaker
and things that weren't found the first time are found on the second search, you know, and even though they're not held accountable for that, because it could have just been human error, realize that that part of the process works. So I always recommend to do it. So trust, but absolutely verify and absolutely push if you feel that there's more information because more times than not, you'll find you'll find more stuff, you'll find more to the story.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah, and talking about that, you're currently working on a timeline for the whole ATIP or SAP story, argument, conversation, whatever anybody wants to call it. And do you still have a lot of requests in with regards to the kind of missing pieces from that? Because we have conflicting data, but I'm sure there are still things that could come forth that fill those gaps and smooth out this ever baffling conversation.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, quite a few. And and they're still open and quite a few appeals also. So, you know, you often not you, I often will get chastised, you know, if I say something, and it seems like I don't believe somebody, but but regardless of what I think,
00:57:15
Speaker
the FOIA requests, if they come back negative, I will appeal them, even based on that person that may question whether or not they're being 100% accurate with what they're saying. But I will still cite that in a Freedom of Information Act appeal and still go for it and challenge it and say, hey, this former employee of yours says x, y and z, you says this, this doesn't exist. I'm appealing your adequacy of the search, based on your former employee and go from there.
00:57:43
Speaker
So again, I kind of hold no bias when it comes to the FOIA, I will push it as far as I can. And until they say absolutely no, you know, so to try and make sense of it. Yeah, I've got numerous FOIA requests that are still open, numerous FOIA appeals that are still open. The big one about OSAP, which was headquartered at DIA,
00:58:08
Speaker
What I can't get a solid answer on is if the DIA has released everything on that on on us app. And it's incredibly difficult to try and get answers from them, because their FOIA office is one of the worst to deal with.
00:58:23
Speaker
They are incredibly backlogged by the tune of like thousands and thousands of cases. Right. And so to get them to like, even call you back is is a ridiculous effort. So that that I still have appeals open, using skinwalkers at the Pentagon, the book where it lists a bunch of documents in the back, that stuff is gold, because all that is tied to that former employee that worked for the DIA.
00:58:51
Speaker
And those he's saying those documents exist. So if he says those documents exist, then I can use that because it's a published document, meaning a book, I'm pointing it, there's a bookcase over here. That's why I keep pointing to it. Not that anybody knows that, but it's over there, I swear.
00:59:06
Speaker
But I use that book because it's it's co written by a former DIA employee. And he says that those records are real. The fact that I can cite that again goes into FOIA appeals and requests. Sadly, none of those documents have surfaced yet, other than the durds, which have all been posted with the exception of one.
00:59:25
Speaker
So it's tough to figure out the timeline because you have conflicting information on both sides, right? So it's true. I don't pinpoint like one side being the problem here. All sides are the problem because no one agrees. You know, like they all come out with a story. And that's what makes it difficult is to try and figure out
00:59:48
Speaker
what that timeline is, what documents are actually there? And also what are potentially bass documents or private sector documents versus DIA? And then that leads to a whole new question mark. So it's it's challenging what I what I did with the timeline that you brought up. Originally, it was designed years ago for a tip and an awesome app and to try and make sense of all the different things that were being said and the dates. But recently, I thought, Okay, let's
01:00:17
Speaker
let's expand it to post what I call the the post a post ASAP, and a tip era. So I include all of us app and a tip. So it starts about 2007 2008, and goes to date and it includes all of the stuff since then UAP taskforce, revelations, arrow, a YMSG like this possible list of acronyms to get straight.
01:00:43
Speaker
but to try and and and put all these things together. But for me, like I literally made it for for me, I don't know if anybody else will get value out of it. But I'll get these documents from the government. And you start to see patterns emerge of like, let's say briefings for NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, you start seeing when the UAP Task Force started contacting NASA, that was a discovery had never been revealed before.
01:01:10
Speaker
through a FOIA case that I did, where the task force initiated contact with NASA, they wanted to brief NASA on UAP and requested that the director of the International Space Station program would would be in the briefing.
01:01:25
Speaker
So you start seeing all these like little things emerge and patterns and who does what and where they are and so on and so forth. And it's kind of interesting to see the timeline kind of play out. It is far from over, I could call it a preliminary release. So there's there's still a lot more to be done. So you'll probably see some major events like why did john not put that? Trust me, it's just far from over. But that's that's the intent with that is to just try and make sense of it because it's absolutely confusing.
01:01:53
Speaker
No, absolutely appreciate that. And it's something we all kind of want to understand. Well, what it was all about and how it works. So, no, I appreciate that. John, I've just got to go and shut the door. I've noticed it just swing open, but I'm going to leave you with a question because I can still hear you. So bear with me. Dan has asked, John, what are your thoughts on companies like Enigma? Will data going to these companies be trapped within government systems?
UFO Data Transparency and Independent Research
01:02:18
Speaker
That's a great question Dan. Here's how I would address that. I find it.
01:02:25
Speaker
This is not against enigma, I want to speak more generally here, I find it concerning that companies in the public realm, want to advocate for UFO transparency, and access to data, and get all of your information, those who have had encounters, had experiences, archive it, but in the same breath, make a deal with the US government.
01:02:53
Speaker
and partner with them or share data or share information. And I again, I'm not trying to talk bad about enigma. But I find it really interesting that that's going on. And I go back to the move on slash awesome.
01:03:10
Speaker
handshake that no one knew about for years. Where if somebody went to move on and they reported their information, Robert Bigelow at the time who a lot of people had moved on and I was heavily involved, not as a member or a board member, but rather I was emceeing for their international symposium.
01:03:32
Speaker
And so I got to kind of hang out in some of their meetings and stuff during that time, simply because I was in charge of their symposium and keeping them on schedule and stuff like that. So when the Bigelow days were going on, it was just it was a kind of a bizarre thing, but nobody really thought it was some government program. Now, fast forward, that came out. And the question mark was, well, what information that somebody thought they were giving a UFO research organization, what information is going over to the US government?
01:04:01
Speaker
Was it their name? Was it their address? Was it their phone number? Was it a what was it? And so you think that you're sharing it with a private entity, you know, a nonprofit that that aims for UFO research and transparency and so on. And secretly, it's, it's tied to the US government somehow through Robert Bigelow and bass and, and the DIA that to me,
01:04:25
Speaker
I've said this a couple times, I'll say it again, that to me is one of the most under talked about aspects to that entire story. And how like more people aren't going what, like how did that happen kind of boggles my mind a little bit because I find that fascinating.
01:04:43
Speaker
and concerning all rolled into one emotion because I think that that's that's something that if true, meaning the DIA really wanted access to that data. They're having a private corporation through a contract collect information on US citizens.
01:05:02
Speaker
that to me is mind blowing, you know, and if that's not true, then to what extent was desired and that I keep trying to dig on and, and figure out but it's been however many years and still no answers. So now that we have these these entities coming up, Enigma being one of them that wants to kind of partner with the government or has have these meetings,
01:05:26
Speaker
that is the that is the source of the cover up for decades, right? That is the source of the distrust that the general public has on are we being told the truth about UAP. So now organizations are coming aboard saying, well, we want transparency, we want your experiences, we want all your information, by the way, we've partnered with the US government.
01:05:48
Speaker
And that doesn't, to me, that doesn't drive really well, because it, it's, in my opinion, counterproductive. Same with the TTSA deal. I was fairly vocal about that simply because I knew and know some of the people that had the UAP material that were either purchased by TTSA or on loan.
01:06:10
Speaker
And the problem with that is you are saying as an organization, the government's lying, we're bringing this out to light, we need more transparency, this and that. So they collect all this UAP material and where do they take it? Right back to the US military. Yeah. Now, was that the best option? Some people will argue with me and say yes, it was maybe we can get answers.
01:06:33
Speaker
But we haven't gotten answers yet. And the weird thing about that is the army actually gave me more answers than TTSA has. I've written a few articles about this, tried to get answers from both. TTSA shut me down. The army actually admitted they did testing. And so I have that in writing, published it a year or two ago now.
01:06:52
Speaker
And but the question mark is where is it? So there's, there's these promises of openness and transparency. But we don't see it. And the question mark is why. So that's what concerns me about especially new startups where you don't know who's involved. I know Enigma really wants to keep their upper echelon confidential, which I can respect.
01:07:13
Speaker
But you still have to ask that question. Well, wait a minute, like who really is behind this? And why are we getting in bed with the same entity we are saying is not transparent to us. So for me, I love, you know, I grabbed my popcorn and just want to see how it all plays out because it creates so many questions for me that I don't know if I'll ever have the answer to.
01:07:37
Speaker
No, no, I agree. And one thing that you mentioned all that with Robert Bigelow and Orsap and Bass is that we know or we've been told by people that worked under Bigelow like Colin Kelleher and that there was this huge database that they created. And then people are saying, well, why do we not have access to that database if it was from the government, that's taxpayer money and
01:07:59
Speaker
Where is it? Oh, is it in private hands? Like that's a real thing that crops up all the time. People asking me that. I don't know. So what are your thoughts on that? Have you gone for that database? Have you tried? I have. Yeah. And really the DIA essentially says that it just is not a DIA.
01:08:19
Speaker
asset, I would have to look up the cases, but I know that they've done no records on specific searches like that for the database. And if it is something that that Robert Bigelow currently has, and it was funded by OSAP money or taxpayer money, if the DIA wants to deny it exists,
01:08:42
Speaker
and say no, we didn't want look, ASAP had nothing to do with UAP. Or I think the going line now is they utilized UAP in some of their work, but that was not the the angle of of ASAP. So that's fine, right? Like get the controversy aside, whatever.
01:08:59
Speaker
if all that material is there and it was paid for and financed by the $22 million over the course of of a couple of years that went to bass, my thing is release it all. Yeah, because the government is not going to say anything. They denied that they had any involvement in any of this UAP stuff. Now I want to give the asterisk. I don't want personal information. Take all of that out. Of course.
01:09:23
Speaker
But I mean, if there's information in there, photographs, videos, encounters, dates, times, whatever, throw it out there. Right? I mean, we paid for it that the general the American taxpayer paid for it. So just do it. The DIA if they want to deny it, then just do it. I don't see any problem with that. Some I've seen argue with me when I say that saying, well, you know, he can't do that future contracts, this future contracts that
01:09:53
Speaker
the amount of publicity I feel his corporation would get. If there was some kind of backlash for the DIA openly saying no, we didn't want this. No, we don't have it. No, we didn't finance it. No, no, no. And so Bigelow says, Okay, here you go. And then the DIA creates some kind of ruckus after that. I believe his corporation will be just fine with the amount of worldwide attention that he would get of a massive cover up.
01:10:18
Speaker
that was all rooted to the Defense Intelligence Agency, a military arm of the US government that, you know, was spying on US citizens or their encounters or, or lying to the general public. I mean, the list goes on and on. So that's my long winded way of saying in my opinion, just release it all. I truly think that that information should be with the people. Closing thought, though, if he funded it,
01:10:44
Speaker
then maybe instead of publishing everything that he should talk a little bit about clarity on what was awesome. You know, what was that? What was that aim? Was it really what we have been led to believe? And if so, then I go back to the publish everything thing. But if it was not, maybe we should get some some clarity because it's they're muddy waters. They really are. And especially as as the information that has come out has come out. It's only made it muddier.
01:11:12
Speaker
yeah absolutely and let's just stick before we finish off and i really wanted to ask your opinion on this and your opinion specifically when we talk about or sap we know it's associated with skinwalker ranch and this is a location that throws up
01:11:28
Speaker
So much controversy. Some people are really into it. Some people really are not. And everything in between. So I'd love to know over the years through the NIDS era and so on, right up to modern day, for everything you've seen and heard about, what is your thoughts on what's going on at Skinwalker Ranch? You know, I'm not trying to get out of your question. I truly don't know. I really don't. I've never been there. I'm the type of person that kind of needs to see, to believe. And I would love to be there.
01:11:56
Speaker
I worked for History Channel for a long time and produced for them so I don't want to seem like I'm talking bad about them. I wish that it wasn't a show on History Channel, you know that I wish that there was more independent research with data that look if there was something proved by this locale that we saw it.
01:12:15
Speaker
What I can say though, is that there are other places like skinwalker that have very similar stories. One is the Marley woods. locale. I interviewed Tom Ferrario, who worked with Ted Phillips, the late Ted Phillips, who I was friends with for years and years and years. Ted was an amazing person. And he published a lot of that.
01:12:37
Speaker
data when he would analyze, you know, physical trade, what he called trace evidence with UAP, he published a lot of it. I have most of the reports that were analyzed through Phyllis Budinger, who is an analytical chemist, I've got all those reports. So that's what the kind of stuff that I would love to see with with skinwalker. And I know that they did a lot of stuff with with Marley wood. So there's there's locations that have stories very similar to skinwalker. And
01:13:02
Speaker
I just get I just get skeptical when TV shows and books surround it versus investigation and people saying, Look, this is what it is. And the books can come after. But like show something where you go, look, this is what we recorded. This is irrefutable, you know, and that's published out there, whether it be in a journal or whatever.
01:13:22
Speaker
But that's out there. And then yes books and then yes TV shows. And sadly with Skinwalker, we never saw it. So I don't want to sound like I'm skeptical and just completely shut to the idea. Brandon frugal completely intrigues me just the way I've talked to him a few times. I hope to have an interview with him soon. But he intrigues me just because of why he does what he does and and the experiences he has had and
01:13:49
Speaker
and why he you know invest the money into that i mean that kind of stuff fascinates me so you know i i wish i had a better answer for you like yeah i think it's a total paranormal hotspot but i'm still on the fence on it yeah i think a lot of us are just i was just interested to to hear your aspect you know because you obviously were
01:14:07
Speaker
You're quite familiar with the NIDS days, pre all this, you know, in your face on TV. So no, I appreciate the answer. So John, listen, one really last question is, what does 2023 look like going forward for John Greenewald
Future Content and Ongoing Investigations
01:14:21
Speaker
Jr. and the Black Vault?
01:14:23
Speaker
Man, that's a great question. You know, I have all these plans coming into 2023 and everything just kind of falls flat. I haven't said this publicly, but I'll say it. I was going to post it maybe later. My dad ended up in the hospital the day after Christmas. I'm sorry to hear. Yeah, so the world gets turned upside down when my dad goes into the hospital.
01:14:48
Speaker
So he's he's dealing with that right now, which in turn, you know, kind of through our lives upside down. And why I say that is, you know, 2023, as you look at the last couple of years with how crazy things have been, man, I have no idea what 2023 is going to hold. I hope that
01:15:08
Speaker
I hope that I can really sit down and create the content that I want to create to kind of help the general public make sense of some of these stories. You know, that's what I love to do. A lot of times, you know, I'll get documents that have never been released before. I love that kind of stuff. Who knows what 2023 will bring. Some of the cases I have open would be awesome if I got the released material tomorrow.
01:15:33
Speaker
But as we talked about earlier in the show, I have no idea if it's going to be 2033 by the time some of this is released. So I have no idea. But you know, I just I kind of take it one day at a time. And the UFO field specifically fascinates me to no end, because we have no idea what's going to come tomorrow. You know, we really don't I mean, things are constantly changing and constantly
01:15:57
Speaker
um morphing and evolving and and that's what's the fun of it so what's gonna happen your guess is as good as mine but i'm gonna keep trucking away seeing what i could uncover and and uh you know create more content that i love doing i just absolutely love it i just wish there were more more hours in the day no i i i feel you 100 on that absolutely well listen john thank you so much for being here and discussing all of your work but from one family man to another i really
01:16:26
Speaker
send you all my best wishes for you and your family as well thank you that's number one at the end of the day um so to everyone in the live chat thank you so much for being here this has been a fantastic conversation uh i have a an episode releasing this weekend with matt ford from the good trouble show that premieres this saturday and then
01:16:46
Speaker
I'm recording something on Saturday, which I'll announce next week. And then next week, I think I'm live with Philip Mantel to talk about the alien autopsy. If my schedule's right in my head, it's all over the place. So thank you ever so much anyway, guys. And yeah, take care, enjoy your day, and we'll see you soon. Bye bye for now.