Hi Everyone,
Earlier today I saw this in my feed and didn’t realize it had been out for almost a week. This is my interview from late June with George Knapp in which we discussed the 75 year anniversary of the Kenneth Arnold sighting, of Roswell, and the start of the UFO era. I enjoyed this conversation with George and am glad we can post it here.
Richard
God it annoys me that C2C banned various countries from subscribing to them. I had a subscription for years before they changed their policy for no real reason. I loved listening along.
Richard,
Regarding why we never spoke about UAP prior to 1947: notwithstanding the valid hypothesis that the advent of the atomic age and modern technology may have brought about more interest in our civilization on the part of ET, we shouldn’t discount the affect that changes in our world had on us at that time as well, which brought about a new, post–WWII, UFO cognizance zeitgeist, if you will. We tend to look at the UFO phenomenon myopically, if not solipsistically, when it comes to the question of when it first came into being, or how often it historically occurred. Observation is a two way street, which involves not only the presence of that being observed, but the observer’s ability to see and comprehend, both physiologically and cognitively, as well as psychologically, that which is being observed. And let’s not discount the possible effect that the observer may actually have on that being observed, which as we learned from early quantum mechanics experiments, is much more complex and involved than was initially realized. And despite the rationalistic approach that science now takes regarding how the act of observation affects that which is observed, can we truly discount human consciousness as a factor? Has Skinwalker Ranch not only shown us that Schrodinger’s cat may in fact be both alive and dead relative to us opening the box, but that the cat may also be controlling how and when we open the box?
For the better part of a decade immediately prior to the dawn of the modern-day UFO era, much of the world’s population was singularly focused on the very real, 24/7, menace of invaders from another country coming over the horizon–invaders which could not only bring death and destruction by land or by sea, but by air (a warning of which would have required a third signal to be lit in the Old North Church less than 200 years earlier). Habits die hard, especially ones that have existential significance. Essentially, we had been retrained as a species to be vigilant of air-borne threats as well as land and sea borne ones–something that we never had to do before in our history. Though the term “see something…say something” is a modern-day phrase associated with a newer type of threat, it is a notion that has nonetheless existed since the dawn of civilization. The difference being, of course, is that we never had to look up before to see the potential threat–after WWII (and the age of long-distance aircraft and rockets) we did.
Also keep in mind, that UFO flaps appear to come in waves with periods that can sometimes be measured in decades as opposed to years, meaning that during the years spanning the dawn of the post-WWII, electronic, mass media age and the previous, not-so-mass media, age of manually operated printing presses, broadsides, and town criers; only a hand-full of UFO flaps may have occurred (in areas with minimal population no less), which locals likely attributed to the divine, and as such didn’t even notify anyone beyond a handful of gatherers at the following Sunday’s church service–the 16th century Nuremberg sighting notwithstanding. Moreover, and more to your point about the advent of the age of technology, prior to the industrial age, human’s simply were not sophisticated enough to look at such unknown phenomena in terms of devices. Hell, by the first half of the 19th century, mankind’s greatest engineering marvels included such things as the clock, cotton gin, steam engine, and Morris Canal. How could people of such limited technological sophistication see a UFO as anything else other than being a divinely inspired image or apparition? Would the UFO narrative have changed if the sighting of Our Lady of Fatima occurred in 1950 instead of 1916? We see things in terms of what we are most familiar with, and understand. Even today’s scientists all too often do the same thing relative their specific areas of expertise, often leading to erroneous conclusions, and quite frankly, bad science.
It was only after the advent of the Age of Reason, which unshackled science and philosophy from the bonds of religion, leading us to the age of modern-day material science and engineering, and subsequent industrial revolution, did humans start seeing unknown marvels such as UFOs in terms of mechanical devices–but even then, only in terms of what they could comprehend at the time. And though speculation over the existence of beings from other worlds date back to some Greek, Roman, and Renaissance philosophers, the notion of their existence on earth via physical craft didn’t even begin to creep into the collective consciousness until the end of the 19th century and early 20th century through the work of fiction, which was governed by our ability to conceptualization such craft in our imagination using our limited understanding of science, physics, and engineering at the time–something we still do to this day (again, often leading to bad science, but some good entertainment). Of course, there is speculation that some of the gods associated with our most earliest civilizations, such as the Anunnake, may have been ET, themselves, which again lends itself to the notion that humans were not sophisticated enough at the time to grasp the possibility that those beings were not divine in nature.
We simply do not know how many times the earth was visited by ET prior to WWII other than it was likely a lot based on the limited amount of evidence we have, which intimates that such events did in fact occur, but were likely misinterpreted, if not even recorded at all. Prior to the modern age of UFOs, we weren’t consciously or technologically sophisticated enough to be fully aware of anything outside the realm of our emmediate perception, never mind cognizant of the UFO phenomenon itself, which begs the question: “Are we even now?”
Just a thought.
D.A.
Thanks for this great post, D.A. I think your points are right on.
I think you’ve touched on something there regarding religious visions. Can any of them now be ‘trusted’ as what they appeared to be in the light of what we suspect about ET’s ability to manipulate our senses?
I appreciate your comments here, D.A. But i just want to point out that in our ‘modern’ western mentality, it is thought that ‘we’ have it figured out and those folks from other times and places in the past were not able to perceive ‘reality’ as correctly as we do now.
I am going to wager that in a few hundred years, if we are even around as humans, 2022 analysis will be seen as a ‘primitive’ understanding of the phenomenon as well.
Just a thought i have had over the years.
Thanks, rita
Richard I get why certain people with clearances can not come out and say what they know but why couldn’t Leslie Kean or Ralph Blumenthal say in a interview that they learned that crash retrievals have occurred and alien bodies also were recovered? Neither of them have clearances. Why were they SO HESITANT in that one famous podcast to just come out and say what they have been told? What is your read on why neither would come out and say out loud what obviously they know?
I agree with you here, Lauren. I think by now at least that one of them can just come out with it. I do know that for a while they had been trying to maintain their credibility with the NYT in order to get more articles in there. But it’s been two years now. Unless they have another bombshell to release, I agree with you.
National security….therefore the public can’t know. I’ve always wondered, given this context, exactly how much more unsecure would the public be if we knew about the existence of the ET reality?
Great webcast!! George Knapp is a great interviewer, and you are a great source of information who can put things in their proper contrast. You all work together well.
I can only speak for myself- but I suspect that Elizondo’s book is going to be a deal breaker. Depending on what material he’s permitted to publish without violating his gag orders- and with his legal counsel I feel he is going to push to publish as much as possible- it may well prove groundbreaking. Even if as -some assert- he is still a government asset working off the books- if that’s the case- then the government is pushing for this steady release of material into mainstream media. I think change is coming. We all want it tomorrow but I see it steadily becoming reality- to what end I just don’t know… I also believe there is push within congress to pass legislation protecting the NDAs and careers of military or non military that comes forward with UFO/UAP (or UAUP?) within government or non government run programs… if this is the case and should that pass it would be a game changer without a doubt.