Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Should we believe any alien abduction stories?

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Should we believe any alien abduction stories? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what would you say if I told you
0:10
Speaker 1: I was visited by aliens? I'd say, what, that's not there?
0:14
Speaker 1: Why you and not me? But would you believe me? Well,
0:18
Speaker 1: it depends. Are they still at your place? Can I
0:20
Speaker 1: come over? Are you getting in your car right now?
0:24
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for social distancing? Now, let's say they
0:27
Speaker 1: just left right before you could talk to him, would
0:29
Speaker 1: you still believe Well, it depends. Did you get any
0:32
Speaker 1: cool alien tech? Now? They left no trace and I
0:34
Speaker 1: did not take a pick. You just have to take
0:37
Speaker 1: my word for it. Well, you know, I think you're
0:39
Speaker 1: an awesome person, but I think it's probably more likely
0:42
Speaker 1: that you ate a bad banana and had a weird nap.
0:57
Speaker 1: I am Orham, a cartoonist and the creator of p
1:00
Speaker 1: HD Comics. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I
1:03
Speaker 1: sincerely hope that we are not alone in this universe. Well,
1:07
Speaker 1: you're definitely not alone, because we are here for you,
1:09
Speaker 1: and we are here with our podcast Daniel and Jorge
1:11
Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in
1:14
Speaker 1: which we take you on a tour of everything that's
1:16
Speaker 1: amazing and beautiful and weird and special in this universe,
1:20
Speaker 1: including the things on this planet, the things on other planets,
1:23
Speaker 1: and the whole universe. Sometimes we bring the universe to you,
1:27
Speaker 1: that's right, all of the amazing things that are out
1:29
Speaker 1: there for us to discover and to see and possibly
1:32
Speaker 1: to meet one day, that's right. And sometimes we talk
1:35
Speaker 1: about how we explore the universe. We go out and
1:37
Speaker 1: discover neutron stars and crazy black holes, and sometimes we
1:41
Speaker 1: talk about how science comes to us. Yeah, because I
1:43
Speaker 1: guess you know, we could be the subject of somebody
1:46
Speaker 1: else's exploration or discovery. You know, we could be the
1:49
Speaker 1: aliens that other people are looking for. That's right. We
1:53
Speaker 1: are somebody else's exoplanets. But yeah, there's a big discussion
1:58
Speaker 1: online and it's been going around for years about this
2:00
Speaker 1: idea that maybe aliens and space and the universe has
2:03
Speaker 1: come to us to visit us and to check us out.
2:06
Speaker 1: That's right. And there's a whole spectrum of ideas here
2:08
Speaker 1: that range from like really interesting totally valid scientific questions
2:12
Speaker 1: like is there intelligent life in the universe? Could you
2:15
Speaker 1: travel to other planets? Is that possible? And other stuff
2:18
Speaker 1: like you know, were the Mayan's influenced by alien visitation? Right?
2:22
Speaker 1: Which they were right depends on whether you call the
2:26
Speaker 1: conquistadorous aliens the technically they are aliens, the original illegal
2:33
Speaker 1: immigrants there, they were undocumented for sure. Yeah. So, and
2:38
Speaker 1: we like to talk about the space and all the
2:40
Speaker 1: things out there and real science and what physicists are
2:43
Speaker 1: actually thinking about and trying to discover and claim is true.
2:47
Speaker 1: But sometimes we also like to talk about what might
2:50
Speaker 1: be true and what people are thinking about and talking
2:54
Speaker 1: about out there. That's right, because an important part of
2:56
Speaker 1: science is keeping an open mind. It's knowing that the
2:59
Speaker 1: universe has the prizes for us. We have been surprised
3:01
Speaker 1: many times in the history of science, discovering that the
3:04
Speaker 1: universe is much stranger and much weirder than we imagined.
3:08
Speaker 1: So it's vital to keep an open mind. But keeping
3:11
Speaker 1: an open mind doesn't mean believing everything you see and
3:14
Speaker 1: everything you hear. It means applying the scientific process and
3:17
Speaker 1: collecting evidence before coming to a conclusion. Because I think
3:21
Speaker 1: that's one thing that we try to do in this podcast.
3:23
Speaker 1: You know that we talked about a lot about ideas,
3:26
Speaker 1: what's possible, but it might not be possible, And you know,
3:28
Speaker 1: I think we hope that maybe people out there get
3:30
Speaker 1: a little bit of a sense of how scientists think
3:32
Speaker 1: about things and what's the right way to think about
3:35
Speaker 1: all of these claims that are out there. That's right.
3:37
Speaker 1: That's precisely why we like taking you to the edge
3:39
Speaker 1: of knowledge. So you see what science knows, what science
3:42
Speaker 1: doesn't know, how science is trying to sort it out,
3:45
Speaker 1: how science changes its mind. Oh, maybe there aren't many
3:48
Speaker 1: other planets out there in the galaxy. Oh my gosh,
3:50
Speaker 1: it turns out there's lots of them. Science certainly can
3:53
Speaker 1: change its mind, but it's always in response to data.
3:55
Speaker 1: It's in a response to evidence. It's not about wild speculation.
4:00
Speaker 1: And so while I love the idea of aliens, and
4:02
Speaker 1: I would love to meet aliens, and I really prefer
4:05
Speaker 1: that when the aliens come of they visit me before
4:07
Speaker 1: they visit Jorge. It's important to treat this topic carefully
4:09
Speaker 1: and to deal with it from a skeptical point of view.
4:12
Speaker 1: I'll make you pack, Daniel, if any has ever come
4:14
Speaker 1: to visit me, or you'll be the first person I text.
4:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hold you to that. Maybe after I pust
4:20
Speaker 1: it on Twitter, then I'll call you. Your wife is
4:23
Speaker 1: gonna be like aliens came to the house and you
4:25
Speaker 1: texted Daniel first. But you know, there are lots of
4:30
Speaker 1: reports out there about alien visitation, and people have written
4:34
Speaker 1: to us asking us to talk about the claims of
4:36
Speaker 1: Bob Blazar an Area fifty one after he got a
4:38
Speaker 1: lot of attention on other podcasts, and we've talked recently
4:42
Speaker 1: about how the Navy has video of weird objects doing
4:45
Speaker 1: things that we don't understand in the sky. So to
4:47
Speaker 1: be on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question should
4:55
Speaker 1: we believe alien abduction stories? And this question is fascinating
5:00
Speaker 1: and it's important because if aliens are visiting the Earth,
5:04
Speaker 1: then boy, that's a big deal. But it's only a
5:07
Speaker 1: big deal if it's true. Right, Aliens existing and visiting
5:10
Speaker 1: the Earth is fascinating, exciting, but only if it's not
5:13
Speaker 1: just a science fiction style. Yeah, you know, I feel
5:15
Speaker 1: like maybe that's something that gets lost a little bit
5:17
Speaker 1: in these crazy stories, is that it's not that somebody
5:21
Speaker 1: got abducted, is that there are aliens. I don't care
5:25
Speaker 1: what happened to you in that ship. I just care
5:27
Speaker 1: that there are you know, they're the actually exists and
5:32
Speaker 1: they're here and they they we are not alone. In
5:35
Speaker 1: the universe. That's a that's a huge headline. That is
5:38
Speaker 1: a big headline, and that's exciting. And I think another
5:40
Speaker 1: common misimpression is that people think that scientists don't want
5:44
Speaker 1: to believe these stories. Like I desperately want to believe
5:47
Speaker 1: these stories. If you met aliens and it really happened,
5:50
Speaker 1: I want to know. I want to go see all
5:51
Speaker 1: the details. I want to learn everything about it. But
5:54
Speaker 1: only if it's true. You you would love for these
5:56
Speaker 1: stories to be true, wow, absolutely, Like I do not wish,
5:59
Speaker 1: you know, mar from Kansas to have an unpleasant experience
6:02
Speaker 1: on the alien ship, but I do wish aliens would
6:04
Speaker 1: come and visit the Earth. I want these stories to
6:07
Speaker 1: be true. I want, But I read plenty of science fiction.
6:09
Speaker 1: I don't need more fiction, right, these stories have special
6:12
Speaker 1: power only if they are really interesting. Well, today we're
6:16
Speaker 1: going to talk about a couple of the more famous
6:19
Speaker 1: stories of alien abduction and talk about whether they what
6:22
Speaker 1: we know about these stories, and also we'll talk about
6:25
Speaker 1: whether or not it's physically possible or impossible for alien
6:28
Speaker 1: life to visit us, And then at the end, Daniel
6:31
Speaker 1: has an interview with professional skeptic about these topics. That's right,
6:35
Speaker 1: because we want to teach you how to listen to
6:38
Speaker 1: these stories, how to read one of these stories, and
6:39
Speaker 1: ask the right questions so you can walk that fine
6:42
Speaker 1: line staying open minded while also staying skeptical. Yeah, so,
6:45
Speaker 1: as usual, we were wondering if people out there believe
6:48
Speaker 1: these stories about alien abduction, or if they believe that
6:51
Speaker 1: they should believe them. And so as usual, Daniel went
6:55
Speaker 1: out there on the internet this time and ask people
6:58
Speaker 1: if they thought they should believe hidion abduction stories. So
7:01
Speaker 1: thank you very much to everybody who volunteered to vote.
7:04
Speaker 1: Folks who also went out and did their own interviews.
7:06
Speaker 1: You'll hear in some of the following snippets Darcy from
7:09
Speaker 1: Western Australia interviewing her housemates about these questions. Now kidding
7:13
Speaker 1: you farmed out the quick question a portion of the podcast.
7:18
Speaker 1: It's genius. It was her idea. Thank you very much
7:20
Speaker 1: Darcy for taking the initiatives. So before you listen to
7:22
Speaker 1: the easy think about it for a second. Do you
7:23
Speaker 1: believe alien abduction stories? And if not, why not? Here's
7:27
Speaker 1: what people had to say. No, I don't know. I
7:31
Speaker 1: think that would be if we had enough evidence. Absolutely,
7:36
Speaker 1: But I think now normally there's really it's really you know,
7:40
Speaker 1: the images of two blurry or you know, the stories
7:43
Speaker 1: have holes and stuff. Unfortunately, because I would I would
7:46
Speaker 1: absolutely love to see aliens. I imagine the first alien
7:51
Speaker 1: induction would not be believed. It would take several of
7:54
Speaker 1: the abductions before we start believing that it's happening. I
7:59
Speaker 1: find it difficult to believe that alien abductions have happened.
8:02
Speaker 1: I think it extremely likely that they haven't. But alien
8:05
Speaker 1: abduction stories are clearly important, I think so really, it
8:10
Speaker 1: would be very unlikely for aliens to re visit. Also,
8:14
Speaker 1: only a couple of people realize it's yes, absolutely, because
8:20
Speaker 1: we're not sure the aliens are real, but we might
8:25
Speaker 1: know you haven't discovered it. So yeah, so almost a
8:28
Speaker 1: hundred sure that there is other life out there, But
8:32
Speaker 1: then again, it's also almost one that we're never going
8:35
Speaker 1: to find it. Some people say that they have seen
8:39
Speaker 1: the military sneaking and the alien bodies, so it could
8:45
Speaker 1: be possible some of them, but just be careful who
8:48
Speaker 1: you're believing. I don't know that alien abduction stories have
8:51
Speaker 1: anything to do with actual alien life. I think you
8:55
Speaker 1: could both believe in the very strong possibility of aliens
9:00
Speaker 1: existing and even in a possibility of first contact. But
9:04
Speaker 1: I think alien abduction stories I just heard a lot
9:07
Speaker 1: about it being like a psychological neurological phenomena, So I
9:11
Speaker 1: think it's more about what the brain does and reacts
9:14
Speaker 1: and when it doesn't really understand what's happening, and then
9:17
Speaker 1: attaches meaning to it after the fact. I guess maybe
9:23
Speaker 1: because you always want to try and give people the
9:26
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. But then again, an extraordinary claim
9:31
Speaker 1: requires extraordinary evidence. No, I don't really believe any of them.
9:35
Speaker 1: I do reserve judgment on UFOs and that kind of thing,
9:39
Speaker 1: but I can't really see aliens doing what people claim
9:42
Speaker 1: have been done to them. I am not too sure.
9:45
Speaker 1: I am very skeptical these stories, partly because it doesn't
9:49
Speaker 1: really make sense for aliens just come probe a couple
9:52
Speaker 1: of people and not too much. And also quite a
9:57
Speaker 1: few of these aliens are points humanlike, so you'd expect them,
10:03
Speaker 1: if they're proper alien life, to be quite quite different.
10:07
Speaker 1: I don't think so. My understanding of the distances and
10:12
Speaker 1: the speed limits that all beings have to abide by
10:16
Speaker 1: means that it's too unlikely, not unlikely, that aliens exist,
10:21
Speaker 1: but unlikely that they can get to us. All right,
10:24
Speaker 1: a lot of awesome answers here. A lot of people
10:26
Speaker 1: are skeptical, and a lot of people I think that
10:29
Speaker 1: it might be a possibility. Yeah, And you can hear
10:31
Speaker 1: people sort of grappling with two different questions. One is,
10:34
Speaker 1: could aliens exist? Could there be intelligent life out there
10:37
Speaker 1: in the universe that totally possible? Is it possible from
10:40
Speaker 1: that point of view? And then are any of the
10:42
Speaker 1: stories we've heard credible? Which are really two very different
10:46
Speaker 1: questions I see, And I think that's a really important
10:48
Speaker 1: distinction for our listeners to keep track of. You know,
10:51
Speaker 1: there's a question of is it possible? And there's a
10:53
Speaker 1: question is to you believe the person industry who says
10:56
Speaker 1: they've seen aliens? That's right, And a lot of the
10:58
Speaker 1: discussion in this space is dominated by few alien abduction
11:01
Speaker 1: stories that really sort of penetrated the culturals, as I guess. Yeah,
11:04
Speaker 1: So take us back, Daniel, because I imagine that alien
11:07
Speaker 1: abduction stories haven't been around that long, Like, were they
11:10
Speaker 1: around in Victorian times or in the Middle Ages? Probably not, right, No,
11:14
Speaker 1: They've only cropped up in the last you know, fifty
11:16
Speaker 1: or a hundred years, and there's a sort of fascinating
11:19
Speaker 1: history of the psychology of them. You know, often they
11:22
Speaker 1: tend to be right on the edge of whatever technology
11:26
Speaker 1: we have available. So fifty years ago people were taking
11:28
Speaker 1: fuzzy pictures. Now we have much better cameras, they're still
11:31
Speaker 1: taking fuzzy pictures of flying saucers. How convenient. Exactly, it's
11:38
Speaker 1: like a I have a retina, you know, three thousand
11:41
Speaker 1: megapixel camera and my phone, but I saw the alien
11:44
Speaker 1: and I just happened to have a polaroid camera with me.
11:47
Speaker 1: Or the aliens know how good our cameras are getting,
11:50
Speaker 1: and now they're getting more slippery rather harder to photograph
11:53
Speaker 1: now that we have better cameras or something they can
11:56
Speaker 1: hack or filters. I think it really says something about
11:58
Speaker 1: human psychology that these stories have cropped up recently and
12:02
Speaker 1: that they're so pervasive and so widely believed. All right,
12:04
Speaker 1: so take us back to the first of these stories
12:07
Speaker 1: that these were. They started kind of in the fifties, right, Yeah,
12:10
Speaker 1: So one of the first stories that really made waves
12:13
Speaker 1: in modern culture comes from Betty and Barney Hill, and
12:17
Speaker 1: these were a couple driving home late one night, and
12:20
Speaker 1: you know, they probably should have pulled off and stopped
12:22
Speaker 1: in a hotel, but they decided to drive through the night.
12:26
Speaker 1: And while driving late at night, like three in the morning,
12:29
Speaker 1: while very tired, they saw some weird lights in the sky,
12:33
Speaker 1: and you know, they saw lights that they couldn't understand,
12:35
Speaker 1: and then they stopped the car and they saw other
12:38
Speaker 1: lights they couldn't understand. But at the time they just
12:40
Speaker 1: sort of drove home, had some weird dreams and shrugged
12:43
Speaker 1: it off. And then it was two years later, under
12:45
Speaker 1: hypnosis that they recovered memories of having been taken into
12:49
Speaker 1: a ship and having all these really specific experiences, some
12:53
Speaker 1: of them quite traumatic and intimate. Wow, And they correlate
12:56
Speaker 1: with each other, like they both had these hypnos interviews
13:00
Speaker 1: and they match. So I like what you're doing immediately,
13:02
Speaker 1: You're asking good questions, right, like how do we understand
13:05
Speaker 1: whether these stories are real or just made up? And
13:08
Speaker 1: so yes, a lot of the details from their two
13:11
Speaker 1: stories match. But you know, they had two years between
13:14
Speaker 1: these supposed experiences and this hypnosis when they talked about
13:18
Speaker 1: what happened that night to get their stories to sort
13:20
Speaker 1: of align mentally. And you know, the important thing to
13:23
Speaker 1: understand is like we don't know whether Betty and Barney
13:26
Speaker 1: Hill are being insincere. They can completely believe these stories
13:30
Speaker 1: that can be a completely honest accounting of what they
13:33
Speaker 1: thought they experienced and also not necessarily be true, right,
13:37
Speaker 1: because the human brain is a weird thing. The human
13:39
Speaker 1: brain is a weird thing, and people have driven down
13:42
Speaker 1: that road since. And it's not that hard to put
13:44
Speaker 1: together another explanation, like there are some weird lights on
13:48
Speaker 1: the tops of mountains, which, if if you're driving late
13:50
Speaker 1: at night, appear and disappear as they go behind trees
13:53
Speaker 1: and look a little strange. And there's a motel with
13:56
Speaker 1: a big glowing orb on top of it is actually
13:58
Speaker 1: a jackal lantern. It looks like an alien ships. Yeah, yeah,
14:03
Speaker 1: And there were TV shows that came out during that
14:05
Speaker 1: time that have depictions of aliens, and their depiction on
14:10
Speaker 1: those TV shows aligns pretty well with what this couple
14:13
Speaker 1: is describing. And so it's not that hard to put together,
14:17
Speaker 1: like a pretty prosaic explanation for what I wonder if
14:20
Speaker 1: it had something to do with these TV shows propping
14:23
Speaker 1: up you know, I'm sure it does. And there's you know,
14:25
Speaker 1: a whole interesting research in psychology about how this happens.
14:29
Speaker 1: And the expert we're going to talk to later, Ben Radford.
14:31
Speaker 1: His background is in psychology because one of the questions
14:34
Speaker 1: you ask when you talk to people is like, well,
14:36
Speaker 1: why do you believe this? And you sort of unravel
14:38
Speaker 1: how they came to believe this thing. And the key
14:41
Speaker 1: thing to understand about this story is that there's zero
14:44
Speaker 1: physical evidence that this happened. Like, they don't have anything
14:48
Speaker 1: they can point to that's concrete that proves that this happened.
14:51
Speaker 1: It's the story that they are telling. It's a compelling story,
14:54
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating story, but it's a story they don't
14:57
Speaker 1: have like an alien hospital, tax a risk or And
15:01
Speaker 1: you know the problem is that they started telling this
15:04
Speaker 1: story years after the events supposedly happening, which makes physical
15:06
Speaker 1: investigation much more difficult. And you know, she talks about
15:11
Speaker 1: the dress that she was wearing on that night and
15:13
Speaker 1: claims that there was a weird powder on that dress,
15:15
Speaker 1: and later people went and looked at the dress, and yes,
15:18
Speaker 1: there is a weird powder on it, but it's not
15:20
Speaker 1: necessarily like clearly an alien powder could certainly just been
15:23
Speaker 1: mold or mites or any sort of thing. I see.
15:26
Speaker 1: So this was the first that kind of the first
15:28
Speaker 1: alien abduction story, not the first person to claim to
15:31
Speaker 1: be abducted by aliens, but the first one is gained
15:34
Speaker 1: sort of wide cultural knowledge, became the canonical alien abduction story.
15:40
Speaker 1: And when you have a situation where a story rests
15:42
Speaker 1: solely on an anecdote told by somebody, then you have
15:46
Speaker 1: to wonder also about their particular credibility, right Like if
15:49
Speaker 1: there is no physical evidence and there are other prosaic explanations,
15:53
Speaker 1: then you have to wonder like, should we believe a
15:55
Speaker 1: story told by this person? And that becomes uncomfortably a
15:59
Speaker 1: little bit personal. Dig into that person's background and try
16:02
Speaker 1: to understand whether they've told similar stories with they're credible,
16:05
Speaker 1: and other parts of their lives, etcetera. I see, And
16:08
Speaker 1: let me guess that this take place somewhere in rural America,
16:11
Speaker 1: out in a corn field. Not in a corn field,
16:14
Speaker 1: but yes, out in the dark woods. I guess if
16:17
Speaker 1: you're an alien and you're looking for humans to fish out,
16:20
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't go to New York City, would you.
16:23
Speaker 1: I think they have a lot of humans in New
16:24
Speaker 1: York City. Yeah, it would be more of a buffet. Yes,
16:28
Speaker 1: and you might fit in better. I mean, I don't
16:29
Speaker 1: think anybody would bad eye and alien walking down the
16:31
Speaker 1: street of Manhattan, right, another reason to be skeptical. So
16:35
Speaker 1: that's kind of the seminal maybe the seminal cultural alien
16:39
Speaker 1: abduction story. But then, um, there's also this character, Bob Lazar,
16:43
Speaker 1: who's who's been sort of in the news recently, but
16:45
Speaker 1: he's also kind of one of the original alien conspiracies. Yes,
16:49
Speaker 1: Bob blazare and he's also wonderful that weaving a tail. Like.
16:53
Speaker 1: The things that these stories have in common is that
16:55
Speaker 1: they are fun to listen to because you're excited, right,
16:58
Speaker 1: You want them to be true. You want to believe
17:01
Speaker 1: they're telling you the story. You want to believe. It's
17:03
Speaker 1: not necessarily like a malicious con but it's the reason
17:06
Speaker 1: that people are receptive is that they want to believe
17:08
Speaker 1: these stories. And so it's kind of like why we
17:11
Speaker 1: go to movies. We kind of want to believe these stories. Yeah,
17:14
Speaker 1: he wanted to suspend disbelief for a moment and be
17:16
Speaker 1: wrapped up in a universe where aliens can come and
17:18
Speaker 1: visit and teach us crazy things about science. Okay, so
17:22
Speaker 1: what's Bob Lazar's story. In his background, Bob Lazar is
17:25
Speaker 1: basically the person who began the whole Area fifty one craziness. Yeah.
17:29
Speaker 1: In nine he claims to have been working at Area
17:32
Speaker 1: fifty one where he was reverse engineering alien crafts captured
17:37
Speaker 1: by the military. What yeah, yeah, And he talks in
17:42
Speaker 1: a very scientific sounding manner about all the technical details
17:46
Speaker 1: of it. And I think this is why he gains
17:48
Speaker 1: a lot of credibility among the media and among the
17:51
Speaker 1: general public, is that he sounds like he knows what
17:53
Speaker 1: he's talking about. He talks about antimatter reactors, element one fifteen,
17:58
Speaker 1: wave guides for gravity waves. Know, if you know any
18:00
Speaker 1: physics at all, everything he says sounds just like word salad,
18:03
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't actually make any sense, but it's very
18:06
Speaker 1: effectively science, kind of like this podcast sometimes. No, it's
18:10
Speaker 1: like a lot of science fiction. You're like, I'm watching
18:12
Speaker 1: that show Dev's. It's a lot of fun, but all
18:15
Speaker 1: the science and it sounds like it was just sort
18:16
Speaker 1: of put in a random word generator and they pressed
18:18
Speaker 1: the button ten times, you know, And it makes for
18:20
Speaker 1: very effective sound being science, but it's not actually a
18:24
Speaker 1: compelling story. If you understand it. Well, what's his background?
18:27
Speaker 1: Is he sort of an engineer actually the trained and
18:30
Speaker 1: are the records of him working in the military. Well
18:33
Speaker 1: that's sort of the fascinating question because he claimed to
18:35
Speaker 1: have gone to m I T and be working at
18:37
Speaker 1: Los Alamos and all this stuff, but the records don't
18:40
Speaker 1: really back that up. You know, m I T says
18:42
Speaker 1: they have no records of him studying there. And you know,
18:45
Speaker 1: he wasn't actually working at Los Alimos, or he was
18:47
Speaker 1: working for somebody who was working for somebody who was
18:49
Speaker 1: near Los Alamos. You know, Oh, I see he has
18:53
Speaker 1: a contractor for the contractor, and you might think, well,
18:58
Speaker 1: who cares? Like if the guy has bits of alien crafts,
19:01
Speaker 1: that doesn't really matter if he went to m I
19:03
Speaker 1: T or Bob's College of Knowledge, right, And of course
19:05
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, except that he doesn't. He has no evidence,
19:09
Speaker 1: he has nothing he can point to. All he has
19:11
Speaker 1: is his story. And so again, his personal credibility is
19:15
Speaker 1: quite important because if you're going to believe him, you
19:18
Speaker 1: have to just trust this guy, Bob. I see. It's
19:21
Speaker 1: kind of like the boy who crip off. If you
19:23
Speaker 1: lie once, then nobody's going to believe you. Afterwards. Yeah,
19:26
Speaker 1: and so there's been a lot of public scrutiny of
19:28
Speaker 1: his background, and you know, he has a revolving series
19:31
Speaker 1: of stories. And I've seen documentaries and listening to interviews
19:33
Speaker 1: from the guy, and he's a very good speaker, and
19:35
Speaker 1: he's very good at telling stories. I wish I was
19:37
Speaker 1: as good at weaving a tale as he was. But
19:40
Speaker 1: in the end, you need more than a tale, right,
19:42
Speaker 1: you need some documentation. You could just be a talented
19:45
Speaker 1: storyteller doesn't mean that it's true. And he's got another
19:48
Speaker 1: level to the story, which is like he has a
19:51
Speaker 1: reason why he has no evidence. The reason he has
19:53
Speaker 1: no evidence is this conspiracy theory to cover up this
19:56
Speaker 1: entire thing. And that's where this like Goverend went went
19:59
Speaker 1: in and it races m I T you know records. Yeah,
20:03
Speaker 1: and the reason he has no bits of the alien
20:05
Speaker 1: craft is because it was all you know, behind the
20:07
Speaker 1: fence in secure areas of military controlled Area fifty one.
20:12
Speaker 1: And so he has a story and then is a
20:14
Speaker 1: story why he doesn't have to back up his story.
20:15
Speaker 1: And I guess my question for him would be, you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: what are the first fifty areas? That's like, what are
20:23
Speaker 1: the first one blinks, you know, like there you go.
20:28
Speaker 1: What was COVID one through COVID eighteen? You know, Yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: they're very important questions that my mind goes to immediately.
20:36
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, if area fifty one is
20:38
Speaker 1: aliens in it, you know area one through five? Wow? Yeah, right,
20:45
Speaker 1: if aliens are prioritized in order fifty one, what number one?
20:49
Speaker 1: What is number one? They probably a black hole in
20:51
Speaker 1: there's something goodness? All right, Well, these are all really
20:55
Speaker 1: you know, compelling and interesting stories and they've been in
20:58
Speaker 1: the guys for a long time and then culture. But
21:01
Speaker 1: I guess the question is is that possible? Is it
21:03
Speaker 1: possible for aliens to have come visitors? And so let's
21:05
Speaker 1: get into that. But first let's take a quick break.
21:19
Speaker 1: All right, Daniel, are alien abductions even physically possible? According
21:25
Speaker 1: to Side, Well, let's break it down piece by piece. Right,
21:28
Speaker 1: let's talk about whether aliens could exist. You know, one
21:31
Speaker 1: of my favorite topics, something we've talked about on the
21:33
Speaker 1: podcast before, and it's essentially an open question. Right, we
21:37
Speaker 1: don't know what the ingredients of life to start are.
21:40
Speaker 1: We don't know what's necessary for intelligent life to get sparked.
21:44
Speaker 1: We don't know how likely intelligent life is to lead
21:47
Speaker 1: to technological life that we could communicate with or understand
21:51
Speaker 1: or could travel the galaxy. So it's a huge series
21:54
Speaker 1: of just questions, and they ranged from like a zero
21:57
Speaker 1: possibility to pretty likely. Yeah, you could imagine a universe
22:02
Speaker 1: in which it's very unlikely, like one in a trillion
22:05
Speaker 1: planets has intelligent life on it, But in that universe,
22:10
Speaker 1: the life on that one in a trillion planet is
22:12
Speaker 1: probably gonna ask, you know, are we alone? Is there
22:14
Speaker 1: anybody else out there? And so that could be us.
22:17
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you could also imagine the universe
22:20
Speaker 1: in which one out of every ten planets has life
22:22
Speaker 1: on it, and one out of every ten of those
22:24
Speaker 1: has intelligent life, in which case the galaxy is teeming
22:28
Speaker 1: absolutely teeming with intelligent life. Because the thing we do
22:31
Speaker 1: know is that there are lots of planets out there.
22:35
Speaker 1: The average star has many planets around it, and the
22:38
Speaker 1: average star has like at least one Earth like planet,
22:42
Speaker 1: and so there are lots of habitable worlds out there.
22:44
Speaker 1: And because there are lots of planets out there, the
22:46
Speaker 1: sort of the denominator is very large, and so you
22:48
Speaker 1: don't need life to be very probable per planet for
22:51
Speaker 1: it to happen a lot in the galaxy. And I
22:53
Speaker 1: think for me, the biggest stumbling block is the distances
22:56
Speaker 1: to other stars, Like you know, for me, it's like,
22:58
Speaker 1: why would an alien spe she's come here because it's
23:01
Speaker 1: so far away from everything else. I mean, what could
23:06
Speaker 1: we possibly have. It's so enticing that they couldn't get
23:09
Speaker 1: anywhere else or make on their own. That's a good point.
23:11
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't have unique resources here, right. Everything
23:14
Speaker 1: we have on Earth is very prevalent everywhere in the
23:17
Speaker 1: high Earth. Yeah, water, you know, iron, uranium, all these
23:21
Speaker 1: things are everywhere in the universe. You could come and
23:23
Speaker 1: get most of the stuff just in the asteroid belt.
23:26
Speaker 1: So if they're just looking for raw resources, they wouldn't
23:28
Speaker 1: even stop by. Yeah yeah, And I mean also we're
23:31
Speaker 1: talking about huge distances, right, like millions of light years away.
23:35
Speaker 1: You know, that's a long way to cross just to
23:38
Speaker 1: sort of like come and say hi or abduct us
23:40
Speaker 1: if you're talking about intergalactic aliens. And yes, there are
23:42
Speaker 1: millions of light years away. Our galaxies hundred thousand light
23:46
Speaker 1: years across, which is still really big, and the nearest
23:49
Speaker 1: star is just over three light years away. So even
23:53
Speaker 1: if we were lucky enough that our neighboring star had
23:56
Speaker 1: life on it, it would take years for light to
23:59
Speaker 1: travel from that start to hear, right, And that's going
24:02
Speaker 1: at the speed of light. That's going on three years.
24:04
Speaker 1: You would have to invest three years going at the
24:06
Speaker 1: speed of light just to get here. I'm just saying
24:10
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't make that. You don't think we're
24:12
Speaker 1: worth it. I would be like, can I call you instead?
24:15
Speaker 1: You know, can we face time? Well, let me make
24:18
Speaker 1: the opposite point. I think if we knew that there
24:20
Speaker 1: were aliens around Proximus Centauri, the nearest star, I would
24:24
Speaker 1: be ad in favor of sending people there, I see,
24:27
Speaker 1: But not you, not me? I got That's what I'm saying.
24:32
Speaker 1: Who would want to go there? I'm sure we could
24:34
Speaker 1: find volunteer. He wants to, he wants to catch them in,
24:39
Speaker 1: put him around. I'm sure we could find volunteers to
24:42
Speaker 1: go to Proximus Centauri. And but you know, the likelihood
24:45
Speaker 1: is that if there is life in the galaxy, it's
24:47
Speaker 1: not that common, and so probably they would have to
24:50
Speaker 1: travel from much further away, you know, fifty hundred light
24:53
Speaker 1: years and so we're talking travel times in the century. Yeah,
24:56
Speaker 1: and that's in going at the speed of light. What
24:58
Speaker 1: do you mean like, most likely you can't. You can
25:01
Speaker 1: go half as fast as that, and then it would
25:03
Speaker 1: take hundreds of years. And that's sort of terrifying because
25:06
Speaker 1: then you can imagine a universe with lots of intelligent
25:08
Speaker 1: life in it, but it's all isolated, like these little
25:11
Speaker 1: islands of life wondering about who else is out there
25:14
Speaker 1: in the universe and never meeting each other. That's sort
25:17
Speaker 1: of sad. Well, that's why they invented face times. Then
25:21
Speaker 1: I don't think my data plan covers out there's no
25:25
Speaker 1: signal past Jupiter. No, but there's a loophole, right, There
25:29
Speaker 1: are ways to get across the galaxy. We think, maybe
25:32
Speaker 1: possibly without breaking the rules about the speed of life
25:37
Speaker 1: and without spending years and years to get there. If
25:40
Speaker 1: maybe aliens somehow invented warp drives or or wormholes. Yeah,
25:44
Speaker 1: we don't know, but we think theoretically that wormholes are possible,
25:48
Speaker 1: and we think the concepts behind warp drives are sound.
25:52
Speaker 1: We don't know if anybody could ever actually build one
25:54
Speaker 1: or make it practical, or if wormholes are stable, or
25:58
Speaker 1: if you can manipulate them or anything. But you know,
26:01
Speaker 1: imagine aliens figured this stuff out. We don't have a
26:03
Speaker 1: physics reason to say it's impossible. It could be easy
26:07
Speaker 1: for them to drop in and say hi or grab people.
26:10
Speaker 1: It could be Yeah, So to imagine that aliens visit Earth,
26:13
Speaker 1: all you need to do is speculate that there are
26:15
Speaker 1: aliens in the galaxy, which again we can't say there aren't, right,
26:19
Speaker 1: And it certainly could be the case that there are
26:21
Speaker 1: intelligent technological extraterrestrials in our galaxy and that they have
26:26
Speaker 1: a way to get here. And again we can't say
26:28
Speaker 1: that they that they do, but we also can't say
26:31
Speaker 1: that they don't. Right, Like, it's possible that they could
26:34
Speaker 1: build wormholes and warp drives. Physics doesn't say it's impossible.
26:37
Speaker 1: Physics can't say it's impossible. But you also can't say
26:40
Speaker 1: that it's likely or that it's a sure thing. We
26:42
Speaker 1: can't really say anything about how likely it is, but
26:45
Speaker 1: we can't rule it out, which means, hey, keep an
26:47
Speaker 1: open mind. That's why I'm hopeful, you know, I'm hopeful
26:50
Speaker 1: that the aliens do figure out warp drives and they
26:52
Speaker 1: come here and they tell us all about it because
26:54
Speaker 1: you don't want to do it yourself. That's what I
26:57
Speaker 1: got grad students for some problems. The grad students do
27:00
Speaker 1: some problems. I'm kinding of the aliens. One like grubhub
27:03
Speaker 1: for aliens, like just dial them up on your app
27:06
Speaker 1: and they will show up at your door. I want
27:08
Speaker 1: Amazon to include alien technology. Amazon Prime Alpha centri deliveries
27:17
Speaker 1: may be delayed due to the limitations of physics. Al Right, Well,
27:24
Speaker 1: I think keep an open mind is always a good idea,
27:26
Speaker 1: and it always a good philosophy to have about everything
27:29
Speaker 1: in life. But also I think another good philosophy is
27:32
Speaker 1: to be skeptical and to you know, don't take things
27:34
Speaker 1: at face value and to ask questions, you know, probe
27:37
Speaker 1: into it. That's right. And so to get a better
27:39
Speaker 1: handle on how to do that, I talk to somebody
27:42
Speaker 1: who has a lot of experience listening to these kinds
27:44
Speaker 1: of stories, um examining them with an open mind but
27:47
Speaker 1: also with a scientific mindset. And so Daniel talked to
27:50
Speaker 1: Ben Radford, the deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer. Now is
27:54
Speaker 1: that another offshoot of Enquirer, not National Inquirer. I feel
28:02
Speaker 1: like they could have chosen a different name, so they're
28:04
Speaker 1: not associated with the prime publication for aidien abduction stories. Well,
28:08
Speaker 1: Skeptical Inquire is a wonderful magazine. I read it a
28:11
Speaker 1: lot growing up, and it's really I did. Yeah, it's
28:15
Speaker 1: put out by the Center for Inquiry, which believes in
28:18
Speaker 1: asking questions and making rational decisions, which is you know,
28:21
Speaker 1: especially important in this time. And they put out this
28:24
Speaker 1: magazine where people tackle questions like, you know, somebody claimed
28:28
Speaker 1: paranormal ability, what do we actually know? How could you
28:30
Speaker 1: investigate it? Or people do experiment studying the paranormal or
28:34
Speaker 1: bigfoot or alien abduction stories, and they try to ask
28:37
Speaker 1: these questions from a skeptical mindset and also with an
28:41
Speaker 1: open mind. Cool. So did Ben define what it means
28:44
Speaker 1: to be a skeptic in the interview? Yeah, so listen
28:47
Speaker 1: to this interview. I had a lot of fun talking
28:49
Speaker 1: to Ben. So here's Daniel talking to Ben Radford of
28:52
Speaker 1: Skeptical Inquire magazine. My name is Benjamin Radford. I am
28:55
Speaker 1: a author and deputy editor of Skeptical Enquire science magazine,
29:00
Speaker 1: and folklorist and investigators class researcher. So I sort of
29:03
Speaker 1: have many different hats. As I was growing up now
29:06
Speaker 1: will read these fascinating stories about you know, the Roosvelt
29:09
Speaker 1: crash and just you know, crazy wild things and crop
29:11
Speaker 1: circles and ghosts and psychics and all sorts of It
29:14
Speaker 1: was very heavy stuff, and I loved it and I
29:16
Speaker 1: was fascinated by it. But as I read more and
29:18
Speaker 1: more of the books, I realized that there was very
29:21
Speaker 1: little actual investigation. There was lots of you know, they
29:24
Speaker 1: say that and it is said that stories, and you know,
29:28
Speaker 1: an anonymous source once said that blah blah blah happened.
29:31
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, how do you know that? You know,
29:35
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just asking how you
29:39
Speaker 1: know that, and how I, as a reader, am supposed
29:41
Speaker 1: to believe that? Right? And so for you, the reason
29:44
Speaker 1: the mystery is compelling is because you want to know
29:46
Speaker 1: if it's true, and so you want to hear about
29:48
Speaker 1: the investigation, if you want to dive into it, not
29:51
Speaker 1: just hear the story. Is that right exactly? And so
29:53
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it's a matter of wanting to
29:55
Speaker 1: uncover the truth wherever the truth may lie. And if
29:59
Speaker 1: you know, this is why I investigate a wide variety
30:01
Speaker 1: of so called mysterious or unexplainable claims arranging from alien
30:06
Speaker 1: abductions to ghosts and what have you. Is because they're
30:09
Speaker 1: inherently fascinating topics and we can apply science to them.
30:13
Speaker 1: And that's what really intrigued me was trying to connect
30:16
Speaker 1: the two. On one hand, we have the scientific process
30:18
Speaker 1: and the ways of learning about the world, and you know,
30:22
Speaker 1: technology and you know, looking at making telescopes and microscopes
30:25
Speaker 1: and and using methodologies to understand how the world works
30:29
Speaker 1: around us. But then on the other hand, we have
30:32
Speaker 1: these sort of wild, fantastic, crazy, wild claims about you know,
30:36
Speaker 1: a Aliams and visiting things, making crop circles and things
30:40
Speaker 1: like that. And I wanted to try and connect the
30:42
Speaker 1: two and say, okay, well, we we have this this
30:44
Speaker 1: amazing method of learning about the world through science, how
30:48
Speaker 1: do we apply that to these mysteries. Well, I'm always
30:50
Speaker 1: telling our listeners that we should keep an open mind
30:53
Speaker 1: about new, crazy sounding science ideas because the universe is
30:57
Speaker 1: kind of bunkers, and the kind of stuff that has
30:59
Speaker 1: turned how to be true are things that would seem
31:02
Speaker 1: fantastical a hundred years ago. So when you look into
31:05
Speaker 1: a claim of alien visitation or paranormal or something. What
31:08
Speaker 1: is your goal? Are you looking to debunk it? Are
31:11
Speaker 1: you hoping that it's true? What is your end goal
31:14
Speaker 1: there when you begin an investigation, Well, Michael is always too.
31:19
Speaker 1: Ultimately is to find out what the truth is? I
31:21
Speaker 1: want to know again, I love a good story. Well,
31:24
Speaker 1: I'll love a good story. But when I hear a
31:26
Speaker 1: good story or an interesting story, I want to go
31:29
Speaker 1: a step further. I don't just want to be entertained
31:31
Speaker 1: by the story and think, Wow, that was crazy, that's wild.
31:34
Speaker 1: I also want to say, okay, but is it also true?
31:36
Speaker 1: I want to take that extra step. But that extra
31:39
Speaker 1: step involves investigation, involves research, involves applying lots of different
31:44
Speaker 1: disciplines to it. And if extraterrestrials truly are visiting Earth
31:49
Speaker 1: and you know, making symbols in corn fields and abducting
31:53
Speaker 1: people and implanting things on them and doing all these
31:57
Speaker 1: experiments things like that, this is important to know. This
32:00
Speaker 1: is this is not a trivial issue, right. These are
32:03
Speaker 1: opportunities to learn something about the universe, not just to
32:07
Speaker 1: tell a compelling story. Absolutely absolutely, and so part of
32:10
Speaker 1: my role as an investigator is to take things seriously
32:13
Speaker 1: and to not not just be dismissive. So then what
32:17
Speaker 1: is the process? How does one apply open minded skepticism
32:21
Speaker 1: to a crazy sounding story you have phoe abduction story
32:24
Speaker 1: or big photo or whatever. How do you do that? Well,
32:26
Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways. I actually wrote a book
32:28
Speaker 1: on this, actually tolled titled Scientific Paranor Investigation, How to
32:32
Speaker 1: Solve Unexplained Mysteries. Came out in like or something, and
32:36
Speaker 1: I talked about that in the book. And you know,
32:38
Speaker 1: one of the goals, one of the first steps is
32:40
Speaker 1: to basically establish the journalistic basics, so you know who, what, where, why,
32:46
Speaker 1: when and how, And some of those are more difficult
32:48
Speaker 1: than others. Right, so you know, it's easy to find
32:50
Speaker 1: out where something happened and to whom it happened. It's
32:53
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult to know what happened or how
32:55
Speaker 1: it happened. But the first step is to establish the basics.
32:59
Speaker 1: Under what circum stances did this happen? Where were you
33:01
Speaker 1: were other people around? What time of day is it?
33:04
Speaker 1: Was it daytime, nighttime? What else was going on? The
33:07
Speaker 1: circumstances really important to understanding the context what might have happened.
33:11
Speaker 1: It sounds almost like the approach that a detective would
33:14
Speaker 1: take and trying to solve a murder, you know, look
33:16
Speaker 1: for other stories to make sure they fit together, find
33:19
Speaker 1: physical evidence if it's available, but try to understand the simplest,
33:23
Speaker 1: compelling story that explains everything and can be corroborated. Yeah,
33:26
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. I mean, the investigative process is exactly
33:30
Speaker 1: the same whether you're investigating a homicide, whether you're investigating
33:33
Speaker 1: an alien induction case or anything else. The basic principles
33:36
Speaker 1: are the same. Established the facts, see how those facts
33:40
Speaker 1: corroborate with other facts, and look for additional evidence. So
33:43
Speaker 1: then what is the standard of evidence, like what accumulation
33:46
Speaker 1: of evidence would convince you that aliens were visiting Earth? Well, again,
33:49
Speaker 1: it depends on the specific claim. You need something more
33:52
Speaker 1: than what's usually offered, which is experience, which is anecdotes.
33:56
Speaker 1: And this is part of the problem is that the
33:58
Speaker 1: bulk of the evidence this offered for these phenomena are
34:02
Speaker 1: people's reports their experiences. There are memories, you know, I
34:06
Speaker 1: was walking through the woods and I saw this weird
34:08
Speaker 1: light in the sky and zoomed off. And I mean
34:10
Speaker 1: I've had people come up to me and tell me that,
34:11
Speaker 1: and and they look at me, like, well, what what
34:14
Speaker 1: was it? Mr? Investigator? I'm like, I don't know. Don't
34:19
Speaker 1: you have a catalog of all possible aliens in your brain?
34:22
Speaker 1: And you refer to I mean, I wasn't there, And
34:24
Speaker 1: so I have to explain to people. It's like, you know,
34:27
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're wrong. It's entirely possible that you
34:30
Speaker 1: saw that. And I have a degree in psychology and
34:32
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with all that. So the question then
34:34
Speaker 1: becomes what did they experience and what's the best explanation
34:38
Speaker 1: for that experience. So a lot of our listeners have
34:40
Speaker 1: written in because they've heard stories told by Bob Lazar
34:43
Speaker 1: on well known podcasts about his experiences and his claims
34:47
Speaker 1: about traveling on alien ships and interacting with aliens. For
34:51
Speaker 1: a well known story such as this, is there anything
34:53
Speaker 1: that you can do to grab onto it to evaluate
34:56
Speaker 1: the story that he tells, to give us a sense
34:58
Speaker 1: for how likely it is to be something real or
35:01
Speaker 1: just some crazy experience he had. Sure, well, you know,
35:03
Speaker 1: Bobblazar and his claims about Area fifty one are interesting.
35:08
Speaker 1: I guess I'm trying to think about it. Of all
35:10
Speaker 1: the words that are running through my mind. You know,
35:14
Speaker 1: one thing about alien stories and ufology is that there's
35:18
Speaker 1: a strong element of conspiracy theory in them, and you
35:21
Speaker 1: don't find this in many other topics. I mean, there
35:24
Speaker 1: isn't a huge notion about conspiracies regarding Bigfoot, for example,
35:28
Speaker 1: or regarding psychics or what have you, Lockness Monster, But
35:32
Speaker 1: in UFO reports and alien inductions there's a very clear
35:36
Speaker 1: and very strong undercurrent of conspiracy theory. And one of
35:39
Speaker 1: the elements of conspiracy theories is that the people to
35:43
Speaker 1: believe in them say, well, I can't give you the
35:46
Speaker 1: evidence to prove it because it's being hidden from me, right.
35:49
Speaker 1: That's basically they're they're setting up an excuse, a reason
35:51
Speaker 1: why they can't give evidence. You know, if someone comes
35:53
Speaker 1: to me and says there's an underground alien bas uh
35:57
Speaker 1: in this in this place and there's alien bodies there,
36:00
Speaker 1: and I say, well, that's an interesting idea of what's
36:02
Speaker 1: your evidence, they say, well, I can't give you the
36:03
Speaker 1: evidence obviously, because it's a conspiracy there being it's being
36:07
Speaker 1: hidden for me, and the fact that there is no
36:08
Speaker 1: evidence is proof of the conspiracy, right right right? What
36:11
Speaker 1: am I supposed to do with that? Is so it's
36:14
Speaker 1: the sort of self reinforcing thing. And that's exactly what
36:16
Speaker 1: happened in the case of Bob blaz Are. So in
36:18
Speaker 1: the case of Area fifty one, you know, it's an
36:21
Speaker 1: interesting blend, right, because are one exists. It is, it's
36:25
Speaker 1: it's known. You can drive by there. I've been there,
36:29
Speaker 1: you can see on satellite maps, there's photographs. So it
36:33
Speaker 1: is an actural place. It's not imaginary, it's not a conspiracy.
36:36
Speaker 1: It's real place. The question is not whether the location
36:40
Speaker 1: is real. The question is what goes on there. Well,
36:43
Speaker 1: it's a military base, and they test technology and a
36:46
Speaker 1: secret plane and designs and and and spy technology, and
36:51
Speaker 1: that's what they do there. And the government and the
36:54
Speaker 1: Pentagon has a vested interest in not letting our our
36:58
Speaker 1: enemies know exactly what technology we have. And so in
37:01
Speaker 1: a sense, there's no real mystery there. So again, the
37:03
Speaker 1: fact that the government has a place that the public
37:07
Speaker 1: is allowed access into should not be surprising. There there
37:11
Speaker 1: are national labs across the country. I live within about
37:14
Speaker 1: ten miles of one. I can't just wander in there
37:16
Speaker 1: and ask to look at their stuff, right, right, And
37:18
Speaker 1: it makes it the perfect place to tell a story
37:20
Speaker 1: about which you can't provide any evidence exactly. Yeah. So
37:23
Speaker 1: so any time that you have a vacuum of information,
37:26
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories will fill it. Right, So any time that
37:29
Speaker 1: someone said no, you can't you know, I can't give
37:32
Speaker 1: you all the information, like wow, well why not? Well
37:35
Speaker 1: even when you explain to them why why not? Like well, yeah,
37:38
Speaker 1: but what a really hiding rights in the case of
37:40
Speaker 1: those are He appeared in shadow and Silhouette on a
37:44
Speaker 1: on a television show saying that he had helped other
37:47
Speaker 1: scientists study crash flying saucers on top secret projects and
37:51
Speaker 1: he he he told this whole story, and of course
37:53
Speaker 1: it was it was a sensational story. You have this
37:56
Speaker 1: guy like, well, I'm a scientist. I can't tell you
37:58
Speaker 1: my name, but I'm a scientist this and I saw
38:00
Speaker 1: alien bodies in this set and the other And of
38:02
Speaker 1: course the public was a maze, like wow, And it's
38:05
Speaker 1: a wonderful story, because who wouldn't want to investigate alien craft,
38:08
Speaker 1: Like as a scientist, I would love to find out
38:11
Speaker 1: the physics behind you know, interstellar transport, etcetera, etcetera. It's
38:14
Speaker 1: so compelling. Yeah, yeah, who wouldn't want to be part
38:17
Speaker 1: of this right, and then you know, it gets into
38:19
Speaker 1: you know, talking about flying saucers and three to four
38:22
Speaker 1: foot tall alien grays and this this whole thing, and
38:26
Speaker 1: you know, after a while, you know, so of course
38:28
Speaker 1: it caused this big store in the UFO community. But
38:30
Speaker 1: after a while people are like, hold on, who exactly
38:33
Speaker 1: is this bubbloz are Well, it turned out that he
38:36
Speaker 1: had actually faked most of his credentials. He claimed to
38:39
Speaker 1: have have worked at M I T. M I T
38:41
Speaker 1: said they never heard of him. LUSS almost national labs
38:43
Speaker 1: that he worked there, but he didn't anything classified. His
38:46
Speaker 1: descriptions of what he saw there were pseudo scientific. I mean,
38:49
Speaker 1: you know, so scientists who work with aircraft would read
38:53
Speaker 1: his descriptions say that's not how that works. This is
38:57
Speaker 1: not you're you're just like you're describing some fans see
39:00
Speaker 1: land and again. So soon after Lazar's story was made public,
39:05
Speaker 1: both skeptics and believers looked into his background, said this
39:08
Speaker 1: guy is not credible. I mean, it's it's an interesting
39:10
Speaker 1: story and you can see why you woul grab the
39:12
Speaker 1: public's attention, But when you dig into it, he offered
39:15
Speaker 1: no evidence, and what evidence he did offer turned out
39:18
Speaker 1: to be largely fabricated in terms of background, And unfortunately,
39:21
Speaker 1: his background does come into play because its entire story
39:25
Speaker 1: is an anecdote that he is telling. If he had
39:27
Speaker 1: hard evidence of wave guides and alien bodies, nobody would
39:30
Speaker 1: really care about whether he went to M I. T.
39:32
Speaker 1: Or whether he worked for Los Almos, or you know
39:35
Speaker 1: what his favorite color was. But since everything he's producing
39:38
Speaker 1: is just his story, then of course his character and
39:41
Speaker 1: his credibility is all that can be investigating exactly. You
39:44
Speaker 1: make exactly the right point. If you have the evidence,
39:46
Speaker 1: then you don't need to make up a story. If
39:48
Speaker 1: he had good evidence that there were crashed bodies in
39:51
Speaker 1: four tall alien grads and this and that, then we
39:55
Speaker 1: wouldn't matter whether he was some stay at home dad
39:58
Speaker 1: or not. In your view, it's the sort of most
40:00
Speaker 1: common prosaic explanation for an alien visitation or an alien
40:03
Speaker 1: abduction story. Well, that's a good question. It really depends
40:06
Speaker 1: on what exactly you're talking about other two. So, for example,
40:10
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at UFOs, and just to be clear,
40:14
Speaker 1: UFOs absolutely exist, I just want to make the fun
40:17
Speaker 1: about that UFOs do exist. UFOs of course meaning unidentified
40:21
Speaker 1: flying objects that is something in the sky that someone
40:24
Speaker 1: doesn't can't identify. They're all over the planes, right, Just
40:27
Speaker 1: because you see something flying in the sky, doesn't you
40:29
Speaker 1: know what it is? And so if you just take
40:32
Speaker 1: it literally, all it means is that something was flying
40:35
Speaker 1: in the sky. Dare to night that for whatever reason,
40:38
Speaker 1: the viewer doesn't know what it is? Well, yeah, you know,
40:42
Speaker 1: why would they know what it is? Is a satellite?
40:45
Speaker 1: Is it a common is a plane? Is it a drone?
40:46
Speaker 1: Is a helicopter? It could be in a number of things.
40:49
Speaker 1: The logical laps here. The logical error is what's called
40:54
Speaker 1: argument from ignorance. Basically, it's the idea that I don't
40:57
Speaker 1: know x, so why must be true? Right? So you know,
41:01
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on at Area fifty one,
41:03
Speaker 1: So Bob Lazar must be right that there's alien bodies.
41:07
Speaker 1: I don't know what that light in the sky is.
41:09
Speaker 1: Therefore it must be alien spacecraft. That's not that's not
41:14
Speaker 1: how that works. Again, that's a logical fallacy. It's a
41:16
Speaker 1: very common one, but it's it's a logical fallacies nonetheless,
41:20
Speaker 1: and so again it depends on what exactly you're talking about.
41:22
Speaker 1: So there are lots of things in the sky both
41:25
Speaker 1: day and night that the average person just walking down
41:28
Speaker 1: the street or camping in the woods at night might
41:29
Speaker 1: not recognize. People have cited venus. There's weather balloons, there's helicopters,
41:34
Speaker 1: there's oddly shaped clouds, there's airplanes. I mean, there's there's
41:38
Speaker 1: any number of things in the sky, and just because
41:41
Speaker 1: from one particular vantage point a given person can't identify
41:44
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean anything. Then. The the other question is
41:47
Speaker 1: in terms of the abductions, and the abductions are a
41:51
Speaker 1: sort of more complex matter, right, because people that are
41:54
Speaker 1: claiming to have been abducted by aliens, that's a whole
41:57
Speaker 1: different that's a whole different subset. Right. They're not just
42:00
Speaker 1: saying I saw something weird in the sky. I think
42:02
Speaker 1: it's a I think it's an alien craft. They're saying
42:04
Speaker 1: aliens came to me and you know, did things to
42:08
Speaker 1: my body. They took me up to a different planet
42:10
Speaker 1: to their spacecraft. Maybe they probe me that, maybe they
42:13
Speaker 1: left an implant in me, and things like that. So
42:15
Speaker 1: it's a much more elaborate story, not something you could
42:18
Speaker 1: misunderstand if it really happened. But this is not just
42:20
Speaker 1: lights in the sky, this is a very intimate experience, exactly.
42:24
Speaker 1: It's it's much more complicated and much more intimate, and
42:27
Speaker 1: in some ways should be much more amenable to investigation, right.
42:31
Speaker 1: I mean, anybody can say they saw something zooming across
42:34
Speaker 1: the sky in a weird light, right, There's not what
42:37
Speaker 1: you can do with that. If someone says that, you know,
42:40
Speaker 1: they were in their house last August ten and spacecraft
42:44
Speaker 1: came over their backyard and alien beams shot down and
42:49
Speaker 1: the two entities looked like great aliens or you know,
42:52
Speaker 1: big eyes round oval eyes came in and took them
42:56
Speaker 1: and being them up to the spacecraft. There should be
42:58
Speaker 1: evidence for that, right. There should be neighbors who saw
43:01
Speaker 1: this UFO land in the backyard. There should be evidence
43:05
Speaker 1: that that something was there. And what you find is
43:08
Speaker 1: that when you're looking at alien abductions specifically, typically they
43:12
Speaker 1: are only recovered later on. So this is where we
43:15
Speaker 1: get into psychology. We get recovered memories. So usually in
43:19
Speaker 1: these cases when people say they were abducted by aliens,
43:22
Speaker 1: it's not like they this happened last night and they
43:24
Speaker 1: reported the police or somebody else the next day. Instead,
43:26
Speaker 1: it's that months or years or in some cases decades later,
43:30
Speaker 1: they go to a UFO conference, or they go to
43:33
Speaker 1: a hypnotist or a therapist as someone who sort of says,
43:37
Speaker 1: i'll relax, you'll hypnotize you, and these memories come out
43:40
Speaker 1: and they start giving these elaborate stories of what had
43:43
Speaker 1: happened to them months or years earlier. And the problem
43:47
Speaker 1: there is that then you get into memory, you get
43:49
Speaker 1: into psychology, and we know for a fact from decades
43:52
Speaker 1: of research that memory is fallible. People don't remember things
43:56
Speaker 1: all the time. People people misremember things, people misperceived things.
44:00
Speaker 1: In some cases, people do what's called confabulation, where they
44:03
Speaker 1: misremember something they saw in a film or on a
44:06
Speaker 1: TV show, or something that someone told them, and they
44:08
Speaker 1: mistake that for their own experience. And I want to
44:10
Speaker 1: be very clear of this doesn't mean they're crazy or stupid.
44:13
Speaker 1: This happens to everyone. This is a common, well known
44:15
Speaker 1: psychological phenomena. So this is not unique to alien abductees.
44:20
Speaker 1: It's something that we all do. It's just that in
44:22
Speaker 1: these particular cases, what they're remembering typically has no outside corroboration.
44:27
Speaker 1: And number two, it happens under the conditions of of
44:32
Speaker 1: remembering stories and making up stories and fantasies, and it's
44:36
Speaker 1: very difficult to corroborate them. And again, if it's something
44:38
Speaker 1: that's happened in the past, then immediate physical evidence can
44:41
Speaker 1: no longer be gathered. And again we're just relying on
44:44
Speaker 1: their story exactly. And this is one of the things
44:47
Speaker 1: that this most frustrating is, you know, someone comes to
44:49
Speaker 1: me and says, oh, well, you know, I was talking
44:52
Speaker 1: to my therapists last month, and you know, they were
44:55
Speaker 1: telling me that, you know, they believe in in aliens.
44:57
Speaker 1: And I saw this this TV show recently, and I think,
45:00
Speaker 1: you know, I'm remembering this, and I said, well, what happened, Like, well,
45:03
Speaker 1: you know, I remember when I was a kid, you know,
45:05
Speaker 1: when I was you know, nine or ten years old.
45:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is thirty years ago. I mean, the
45:10
Speaker 1: opportunity to investigate this is long since past. So it's
45:14
Speaker 1: no wonder that again, even if these are even if
45:16
Speaker 1: these stories are true, and and there's no real good
45:18
Speaker 1: events that they are, even if they're true, they're inherently
45:22
Speaker 1: problematic to investigate because they're not discussed or investigated until
45:26
Speaker 1: until much later. It's a complicated question of psychology. Absolutely,
45:29
Speaker 1: all right, Well, we'd love to hear more from Ben Bradford,
45:32
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back
45:46
Speaker 1: and we're talking to Ben Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical
45:50
Speaker 1: Enquirer magazine, about how to listen to stories about aliens.
45:54
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question about what you like
45:56
Speaker 1: to watch. Do you enjoy watching shows like Ancient Aliens
45:59
Speaker 1: or do you try to avoid shows like that? Well,
46:04
Speaker 1: here's the thing. So I've been doing this sort of
46:06
Speaker 1: investigations and research for about eighteen twenty years now, so
46:11
Speaker 1: investigate a wide variety of things as an expert who
46:13
Speaker 1: in many cases has investigated a lot of the incidents
46:16
Speaker 1: that appear on these shows. It's really frustrating because I'll
46:20
Speaker 1: be watching this there's lots of yelling at the TV
46:22
Speaker 1: where I'm like, that's not how that works. Like I
46:26
Speaker 1: know this, I researched this case, and you're providing one
46:30
Speaker 1: angle to the story and you're leaving out a whole
46:33
Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff. And it's like, so, why are
46:36
Speaker 1: they doing it? Why are they not doing a full,
46:38
Speaker 1: good faith investigation. Don't viewers want to see a real
46:41
Speaker 1: credible investigation. Well, that's a good question. There's a couple
46:44
Speaker 1: of answers. One of them is that unfortunately, the general
46:48
Speaker 1: public doesn't have a good grasp of scientific processes, methodologies,
46:53
Speaker 1: and investigative techniques. So to a lot of people, when
46:56
Speaker 1: they see ghost hunters on on TV shows ghost even
47:00
Speaker 1: truslove routes, or they see, you know, people looking for bigfoot,
47:02
Speaker 1: are looking for aliens. To them, the fact that it's
47:05
Speaker 1: on TV gives it some validity and some credibility. Right.
47:08
Speaker 1: They say, well, these are investigators. It says investigator right
47:11
Speaker 1: there on the screen. I can, I can see it, right.
47:14
Speaker 1: And what they're missing is that typically on these shows,
47:17
Speaker 1: they're not in investigation business. They're in the entertainment business.
47:21
Speaker 1: And there this goes back to what I said earlier
47:24
Speaker 1: is my complaint isn't that these people are investigating these
47:27
Speaker 1: weird things. My complaint is that they're not investigating it correctly.
47:31
Speaker 1: They're not bringing science to it. It's all this sensational
47:34
Speaker 1: mystery mongering. I think there's a fear that if they
47:37
Speaker 1: did a real investigation, it would be boring and simple
47:39
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be entertaining. But I think you're right that
47:42
Speaker 1: often real investigation and there's a different kind of story.
47:45
Speaker 1: But one that's equally fascinating. It does. And you know
47:48
Speaker 1: this is this is an issue that's plague skeptics and
47:50
Speaker 1: and some of my colleagues for for many, many years,
47:54
Speaker 1: is that there's this notion, as you said, that the skeptical,
47:57
Speaker 1: science based, grounded side of things is and interesting and
48:01
Speaker 1: that's not true. Wonderful, all right, Well, thanks very much
48:04
Speaker 1: for giving us a tour of how to listen to
48:06
Speaker 1: these stories, how to think about them, and how to
48:09
Speaker 1: investigate them with an open minded, skeptical mind. Are there
48:12
Speaker 1: any top tips you want to leave our listeners for
48:15
Speaker 1: if they come across the story of alien induction or
48:18
Speaker 1: somebody tells them one, or they hear a podcast about it. Well,
48:20
Speaker 1: there's a couple of tips. One is and it sounds
48:23
Speaker 1: it sounds simple, but just don't believe everything you hear,
48:26
Speaker 1: don't believe everything you see. You know, understand that a
48:29
Speaker 1: lot of the people that are reporting these things are
48:31
Speaker 1: sincere people. I've interviewed dozens, if not hundreds of people
48:35
Speaker 1: who have claimed to have experienced weird things, ranging from
48:39
Speaker 1: seeing Bigfoot close up to ghosts to being abducted by aliens.
48:43
Speaker 1: Most of them are sincere. They're not liars. They're not crazy,
48:47
Speaker 1: they're not hoaxing. They genuinely believe what they experienced and
48:51
Speaker 1: and that that's how they interpreted it. The problem is
48:54
Speaker 1: that their sincere belief in interpretation that that they experienced
48:58
Speaker 1: being abducted or seeing a UFO whatever wrops isn't necessarily true.
49:02
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean they're lying, doesn't mean they're crazy. It
49:04
Speaker 1: just means that the human mind is complex. We misunderstand things,
49:08
Speaker 1: we can misperceive things, we misremember things. It happens far
49:11
Speaker 1: more than people realize, and so people need to keep
49:14
Speaker 1: that in mind. Another point involves media literacy, and that's
49:17
Speaker 1: just keep in mind that what you're seeing on TV
49:21
Speaker 1: is carefully curated, is carefully edited to show a particular
49:24
Speaker 1: point of view. They're not documentaries trying to reveal the truth.
49:27
Speaker 1: It's hey, here's this wild story, and here's the witness,
49:30
Speaker 1: and here's the recreation. Isn't this cool? And it is cool?
49:34
Speaker 1: But there may be another side of the story. Well,
49:36
Speaker 1: thanks very much for your time and letting us your expertise.
49:39
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I great
49:41
Speaker 1: to talk to you. All right, pretty great interview. Thank
49:43
Speaker 1: you Ben for being on the show. What did you
49:45
Speaker 1: get from Ben there, Daniel, I got from Ben that
49:48
Speaker 1: you know we should be careful about. How would we
49:50
Speaker 1: listen to these stories that we're all excited about the
49:53
Speaker 1: possibility that these stories could be true, but before we
49:56
Speaker 1: believe them, we need evidence. And you know, for me,
49:59
Speaker 1: like I can't really believe a single story about alien
50:03
Speaker 1: visitation or abduction without hard, concrete, physical evidence, because it
50:08
Speaker 1: has to be more than just somebody's story. Science is
50:11
Speaker 1: never about an anecdote. Like if I called came and
50:14
Speaker 1: I told you, hey, I invented fusion, but I don't
50:16
Speaker 1: have my lab anymore it disappeared, you'd be like, okay, great,
50:20
Speaker 1: redo it right. You're never going to accept somebody's results
50:24
Speaker 1: just off the story they told you. You need concrete evidence,
50:27
Speaker 1: You need other people to get to examine it. Science
50:30
Speaker 1: isn't about personalities, right, But what if, Daniel, what if
50:33
Speaker 1: two labs claimed to have discovered fusion but also both
50:37
Speaker 1: of their labs, Well, that would be a more compelling story.
50:40
Speaker 1: But then I'd want to build a third lab to
50:42
Speaker 1: reproduce their results. Well, I think what that An interesting
50:45
Speaker 1: point he made was about how you know people should
50:47
Speaker 1: be worried about popular media, you know, taking these stories
50:50
Speaker 1: and sensessionalizing them and just to sort of entertainers into
50:54
Speaker 1: amazes and get us to click on things and watch them.
50:57
Speaker 1: That's right, And so it's important to be media literate. Right.
51:00
Speaker 1: If you hear a podcast about alien arrivals, or you
51:03
Speaker 1: watch that Ancient Aliens show, remember that they are cutting away,
51:07
Speaker 1: that they are not showing you all the investigation, that
51:10
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily taking a clear headed eye, because their
51:13
Speaker 1: goal is not to investigate. Their goal is just to
51:16
Speaker 1: entertain and amaze, which in the end also misleads. All right, well,
51:20
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think that maybe the takeaway
51:21
Speaker 1: point is that, you know, we can't rule out these
51:24
Speaker 1: stories and say they're impossible, because physics does say that
51:27
Speaker 1: it is possible for alien life to be there, and
51:29
Speaker 1: it might be possible for them to come visit us.
51:31
Speaker 1: But we should be skeptical about these stories, you know,
51:33
Speaker 1: ask questions and look for suspicious things about these stories.
51:38
Speaker 1: That's right. And remember another point that Ben made, which
51:40
Speaker 1: is that people who are telling these stories are not
51:42
Speaker 1: necessarily lying. They can be believing them. They can be
51:45
Speaker 1: their honest recounting of their experience. But it doesn't make
51:49
Speaker 1: it necessarily true. Perception and memory can be very confusing.
51:53
Speaker 1: And so while I would love to believe a story
51:55
Speaker 1: about aliens, I'm gonna need some rock, hard evidence, maybe
51:59
Speaker 1: rocks from an alien war world before I come around
52:01
Speaker 1: rock signed by an alien? What would it take, Daniel,
52:04
Speaker 1: I want alien rock and roll? Well, I guess, yeah,
52:07
Speaker 1: I think that's I guess. A picture, I guess, or
52:09
Speaker 1: even a photo would help, right, photo would help, but
52:11
Speaker 1: these days even those things could be manipulated. You need
52:13
Speaker 1: something that independent scientists can really probe, can really come
52:17
Speaker 1: to their own conclusions. All right, Well, we hope you
52:19
Speaker 1: enjoyed that and took away a little bit of a
52:22
Speaker 1: skepticism from all of this. You should be skeptical of
52:25
Speaker 1: us as well, that's right, So keep an open mind.
52:27
Speaker 1: Remember aliens might be out there. They might come and
52:30
Speaker 1: visit you. And if they do, call Daniel first. Should
52:34
Speaker 1: we give him your number? Daniel, tell them to email
52:37
Speaker 1: me to aliens at Daniel and Already dot com. I
52:40
Speaker 1: see you have a hotline email. I got a special
52:44
Speaker 1: red phone you know that, and that buzzes emails just
52:47
Speaker 1: from that address. All right, Well, thank you for joining us,
52:49
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for tuning in and Aliens,
52:52
Speaker 1: don't forget to send us an email. See you next time. Yeah,
53:02
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explain
53:05
Speaker 1: the universe is a production and I heart Radio. For
53:08
Speaker 1: more podcast form my heart Radio, visit the I heart
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