(UFO/UAP) Grant Eckhart "Faith and UFOs" part 1

[00:00:02] From the darkest reaches of space to the deepest corners of your mind. Welcome to From The Void. If we found out tomorrow that we weren't alone in the universe, what's the first question you'd ask? I think mine would be, what do they believe? And then I'd probably spend the rest of the day

[00:00:28] wondering why I assumed they'd believe in anything in the first place. My guest today is Grant Eckhart, a Lutheran pastor at Jacob's Porch, a campus ministry serving Ohio State. Grant writes a substack called Ministry in the Weird, and he's taught college students about what he calls ET theology, which, as a Lutheran pastor's kid who grew up loving the X-Files, is a class I would have signed up for

[00:00:53] immediately. In part 1 of our conversation, Grant and I talk about how a Lutheran pastor ended up writing and teaching about UFOs and what the possibility of life beyond Earth might mean for people of faith. If there are other intelligent beings out there, what would that mean for the way Christians think about creation? And what would it be like to hear how another civilization makes sense

[00:01:18] of its own existence? I'm John Williamson, and this is part 1 of my conversation with Grant Eckhart. Grant, welcome to From the Void. This is the first for From the Void. I've never, well, no, that's not entirely true. I have done one in-person interview, but it was more like Adam and I just kind of sharing like our favorite horror movies. But this is the first interview

[00:01:48] I've done in person, so welcome. Thank you. Good to be here. Fan of the show, and it's been good to get to know you, John. Thanks, man. You too. And you have the most fascinating life, I must say. When I first met you, I was doing a talk on one of my other podcasts, and we were chatting afterwards, and you're like, yeah, I'm actually a bigger fan, more so a bigger fan of the other one you do. And I immediately just thought, oh, of course he's talking about the

[00:02:15] one on spirituality because he's a pastor, you know? And you're like, no, no, no, the one on UFOs. And I was like, wait, really? So tell people a little bit about yourself, what you do. And ultimately, how does a Lutheran pastor get into aliens and UFOs? It's a wild story, John. I love it. Yeah, my name's Grant Eckhart. I'm an ELCA Lutheran pastor, ordained 20 years here this next year.

[00:02:45] Served congregations in Cincinnati, Texas. And now I've been serving at Jacob's Porch, which is the Lutheran campus ministry here at The Ohio State University. 14 years. We're now an ecumenical campus ministry. So we have a Presbyterian, Methodist, pastors and staff, Episcopalian. And I love being here back to my alma mater, did undergrad at Ohio State. And so always a Buckeye

[00:03:13] through and through. So yeah, I love what I do here on campus. And you asked about how I got involved just in a UFO interest. And really, it's a recent thing for me. I mean, I've enjoyed sci-fi as much as the next person. But never looked at it, never read the material, didn't know who Whitley Strieber was,

[00:03:34] or how put off, or Bob Lazar. Never even knew about any of that stuff. But I got a knock on my door one fateful day, probably almost two years ago now, from a professor at Ohio State who I've known for a while, because I've been here so long, and there are lots of faculty and staff. And he came up to me

[00:03:57] and he said, Hey, can you be a chaplain with us on an expedition to Peru? And I said, What are you talking about? You know, I've never been asked to do that before as the, you know, a Lutheran chaplain at Ohio State. But he said, Well, we're gonna be seeing some weird stuff. And you know, some of us are Christian, and we just want some spiritual care. And I said, Well, you know, that's what I do. And I'm

[00:04:22] happy. But this seems so strange. What are we actually doing? And he said, Well, we're gonna go look at some presumed alien bodies. Okay, okay. And when I realized he wasn't kidding, I said, What's going on? And he said, Well, we got contacted by so and so down in the like the Peruvian Navy at the

[00:04:47] University in the University of Ica, near Nazca, Peru. And there's some teams of researchers from different universities that are going down there like paleontologists, ethicists, DNA expert, like this whole stuff in Ohio State had a team. And, and he said, So yeah, you're gonna go down there with us. We don't know if these things are real or not. But the Peruvian Navy thinks they're real. And we've

[00:05:14] gotten CT scans, and MRIs. And we want to, you know, we're taking this seriously. And so it's funny, I went and I talked to my bishop and I said, Hey, I'm, you know, this is campus ministry. So there's always, you know, we're doing goofy stuff down here. But this is a little, you know, even outside of the box for us or for me. And so, you know, told her the story and said, Well, they're asking me

[00:05:38] to be their chaplain on this thing. And the bishop said, Well, okay, that's, this is your role. That's why we want you there. You've been invited in, you're not pursuing this. But then she said, So you can go with my blessing, but just don't, she said, Don't, don't Indiana Jones this Eckhart. We'll see what happens. So then for about like three or four months, we're getting MRI scans and more CT scans back and we're printing them off at OSU and, you know, and everything is looking pretty legit.

[00:06:08] Long story short, it does turn out that at least the material we saw, and I presume most, most everything down there, perhaps not, but was a forgery. And so they're still researching everything down there, but learned that I was on like an inner pole list because I was doing videos with this, these professors as we were getting information over on the university and here at Jacob's porch. We've done a couple of videos that was pumping up the black market sale

[00:06:38] of these doll bodies. And so that's why we ended up on this list. And then as soon as we found out that they were fake, because they were super high quality fakes, enough to trick these, the highest instruments. But once enough people got on the ground, it turned out they were fakes. We said that publicly. Then everybody was calling us, you know, we knew you were a CIA spook. And I'm like, what? What? No, I'm not. What are you talking about? We're just telling you what we're finding out.

[00:07:06] So then that kind of fades away. But then because we did some sessions here, the students told us like, well, I didn't know we could talk about aliens here. We're all interested in aliens. And this was now like over a year ago, end of 2025 school year. They said, you know, Pastor Grant, can you do a session on comparative studies between alien lore and Christian theology? Because we'll do that between Christian theology and Hinduism or whatever. I'll do those quite

[00:07:33] frequently. And they said, can you do alien lore? And I said, I don't know much about it, but I just, I'm getting into it. So I spent all summer reading all the main texts and I love it because I do like sci-fi. And then, uh, we started a class, um, this last fall, had a bunch of students and faculty come and now it's still going on. And now we're meeting on Mondays and there's a whole bunch of students, faculty, several faculty members that are leaving it. We're getting, you know, 50,

[00:07:59] 60, some people plus that are coming here on Monday nights, uh, to talk about, um, philosophical, theological ramifications of disclosure. And I'm loving it because I'm meeting all these great people. I get to talk about Jesus and it's just a captivating subject. Yeah. And on top of that, uh, mentioned, you mentioned this thing to me once I thought was fascinating. You mentioned that you would have these, uh, you know, these, these gatherings,

[00:08:28] these classes, whatever you want to call them. And, and you said, uh, you were kind of surprised by the attendees because during the day, uh, you would get one group and in the evenings you get a different type of group. Yeah. The, um, I did two sections. I did this for maybe eight weeks and I did a half to like a lunch section and then an evening section. And I kind of thought it'd be mostly undergrads and some of our graduate students. And they typically came to the evening sessions, but

[00:08:53] in the afternoon sessions, we were getting a number of professors that were coming out. Um, and, uh, you know, and friends of professors and it kind of became a small group because they're all about my age. And after the class ended, they were like, can we keep meeting? And I said, yeah, let's do it. You know, I'm enjoying this and let's, let's keep meeting. And so we've continued to meet now for

[00:09:18] about a year as like a core group. And now it's that core group of kind of faculty, grad students, some staff that are now leading, you know, this larger group that's coming from all around Ohio. Dude, that that's wild. And one of the stories, I mean, some of the things that you've, you've found out is that, you know, obviously there are other, uh, academics who are, who are, uh, interested in the subject. And there are some academics that, uh, we won't, we won't name names,

[00:09:45] obviously, but like who have had some very interesting experiences, uh, you know, some work experience and some unusual places, um, that would have blown my mind. I know I'm sure it was probably, uh, quite surprising for you. Like, as you're encountering this for the first time, you're like, Whoa, what? Like repeat that. Yeah. I mean, you know, the, what has surprised me

[00:10:08] is that there was a lot of pastoral care or just care even in general needed for experiencers. And there are experiencers who are faculty staff at Ohio state students. And once we started having this group into the place, you could talk about it and a word spread that, Hey, they will listen to you there and they will care for you. You know, it's not like you can believe everything, but I can listen and I can be hospitable to somebody. And these people,

[00:10:36] as far as I came with my pastoral instincts tell are very sincere and, uh, telling their story. One of the faculty members even said, this is like the most important thing I have going on in my life right now, because I can't talk about this anywhere, especially at the university. Uh, cause I might lose my job, but I can talk about it here and you'll listen and you'll follow up. You'll pray with me if I want. Um, you know, and so it's kind of become this odd,

[00:11:07] it was a kind of an interest, theological interesting, but it's turned into this kind of care community for all these experiencers. And I had no idea there were so many just here in the university area. And some of them even have taught me about the significance of Ohio state or even Ohio within, you know, UAP alien lore. Like I had no idea that, you know, you hear about project blue book.

[00:11:33] I'd never, J. Allen Hynek, right? J. Allen Hynek, uh, was an OSU professor and you have the wow signal, uh, from over there. You got Alexander went, who's a professor here who writes extensively on sovereignty doctrine with UFOs. He's like a heavy hitter internationally as a poli-sci, uh, magnate. Um, and then just the, you know, the, the ancient background with, uh, Adina or Hopal or the mound builders, all that I never really put all that together, but they're like, this is a Ohio is actually a huge

[00:12:02] hotspot and Ohio state is too. So don't be surprised that there's so many experiencers here. I was like, okay. I mean, I'm still surprised. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, and, and the benefit of having like one of what, two of the largest universities, uh, you know, in the entire country, you know, I think it's what Ohio state and Texas. And so like, it's quite a large school with a large, you know, populace. And so, um, you know, the odds are pretty high that you're going to run as some,

[00:12:30] some kids who have seen some stuff. Yeah. And now we've got the UFO club, all like everybody's coming to this and then everybody else is connected to other people. We have the head of the Ohio paranormal society who's coming. We've got all these experience. I mean, all these folks, because we're saying this, there's like faculty, OSU faculty, clergy person, you know, and this is a real thing. And it's a sensible conversation, um, that it's like attracting

[00:12:59] all these folks. I'm just still surprised every Monday. Yeah. Great people love these people. Super interesting. I mean, I, every once in a while, like when we haven't chatted in a while, like you always come with some new stories that are just like, what, you know? So it's like, you, you keep me entertained because I'm just like, I don't have that direct connection to the, uh, you know, you're, you're right in the thick of it. And so, uh, um, so yeah, so like one of the things I want to

[00:13:26] ask you about though, and you kind of touched on this a little bit is the fact that obviously the, the UFO buzz is hot and heavy right now, uh, since what, 2016, 2017, when the, uh, New York Times article came out, the Navy confirmed that yes, UFOs are real, although they, they won't go as far as to say that they're extraterrestrials piloting them. Uh, they won't say what is piloting them,

[00:13:51] but they, you know, um, which is further than I thought, uh, we'd ever get in my lifetime. I've been fascinated with this topic since I was a little kid. I used to get Omni magazine, you know, and, uh, uh, you know, sitting in the library, reading those and trying to theorize about, you know, like, you know, are UFOs real, you know, grew up on the X files, all that good stuff. Um, I never thought I'd see the day when the government acknowledged anything, you know,

[00:14:17] I thought for sure they're gonna, they're gonna lock down this level of secrecy indefinitely till the wheels fall off, you know. Um, and we can talk about why we think maybe that that has changed a little bit. Um, partly I think it's because, you know, technology continues to evolve and now everyone is walking around with a phone in their pocket, you know, that has a camera on it and the cameras keep getting better. And so it's like, you know, it's a little bit easier to capture

[00:14:43] evidence. Um, I think these days and so it gets to the point, I think where it's, you know, you, you have to have a conversation about it at least. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, things have picked up. Yeah. Since the, the, the GoPro, you know, uh, those, those videos and, uh, a lot of people, uh, across the street talk about how the David Grush testimony before Congress was really the next

[00:15:09] iteration of the, the latest round of, uh, you know, UFO disclosure. And I hadn't, I mean, it happened, it had happened months or more before I even realized I didn't follow when it's happening. And then I felt like I had to get caught up. And so maybe last summer I spent a couple days and went and through and watched all the Senate hearings and the house oversight, you know, committee hearings. Uh, there's like three or four of them. And I thought this, there's a, there, there, like if

[00:15:38] people are totally blowing it off, anybody can do what they want, but you're kind of not paying attention. Like I wasn't paying attention. I had no idea. And then if people bring it up, Hey, I saw your blog that you're writing about UFOs, what's going on. I said, well, are you tracking any of it? No. I said, well, you know, you don't have to, we're all, we got to work and we got kids and all that kind of stuff, but we can't easily blow it off. I mean, either everybody's lying under oath and a lot of people should go to jail, uh, which is a possibility.

[00:16:05] Um, or there's definitely something going on that needs paid attention to. So I went through and I cataloged and did a lot of early blog post articles on all the summaries of all those things, just because it was kind of me catching up. And that's what hooked me to be, just pay attention a little more. I just follow a little more, some podcasts, some hearings, just keeping my eye on things in a way that I never would have, you know, before two years ago. Yeah. It's, it's interesting to me too,

[00:16:33] because I've been working on, um, an episode that'll come out this season. I'm not sure if it'll be out before or after this episode, but I interviewed, I got an opportunity to interview, um, Dwight Eisenhower's great granddaughter who firmly believes that he in fact was briefed, read in, um, and, uh, had some level of communication with extraterrestrials. Um, and she, you know, part of, part of the, uh,

[00:16:59] the construction of this episode was also that she very quickly ran through a lot of content, uh, and, and mentioned a lot of different things that folks in the UFO community are, are, are going to pick up on pretty quickly, but folks who are maybe a little bit more casual to it may not understand. So I was like, you know what, I gotta go back and, and explain some of these things. Commentary after. Yeah. She makes a comment of the Washington flat or something.

[00:17:26] Right. Or like, you know, the, uh, I forget what the name of the treaty was that allegedly, um, either Truman or Eisenhower signed. Um, and so I'm like, I should probably provide some context to some of these things. And so, um, while I was working on that, you know, it, it, it occurred to me as somebody with a history background, this is not like, you can't treat this like normal history, meaning, um, all right. Like we, uh, we follow the, the, uh, the research wherever it leads.

[00:17:54] And there are multiple sources that we know are credible that we can use to, you know, confirm this, this thing. Um, with this, it's like, you know, there are a little bit, little leaks here and there. And so specifically the older ones. So like the, the Eisenhower, you know, uh, the rumors around Eisenhower and Truman and, and, and, uh, the things that occurred back in like the 1940s and fifties, what you can do though, is you can look at what additional information has been released

[00:18:24] since then that maybe confirms or doesn't confirm some of the thing claims that were made way back when. And what I found was there are a lot of things that have been confirmed since then. So like one of the things they talk about is you have this high level of compartmentalization, you know, uh, and, uh, you know, and the fact that, uh, presidents are, you know, four to eight years

[00:18:49] at best. And so, you know, after like Nixon, you know, it was decided that, Hey, maybe presidents don't really need to be read into this. And so you're like, yeah, because you know, like if you look at presidents within our lifetime, you know, a lot of them have asked, or been asked, you know, Clinton, uh, Obama, like, uh, Bush, like every president basically

[00:19:15] gets asked that question. And most of them seem at least like they don't really know what's going on. Yeah. And so like, and this is probably a good segue into, uh, one of the documentaries that we, we watched recently that really like for UFO buffs probably had a lot of stuff they already knew in it, but really was the first time that somebody in a documentary had really succinctly kind of laid out

[00:19:40] the map. Um, there was definitely some new stuff that we can talk about, but one of the things that did a great job in is, you know, I'm just picturing Lou Elizondo at the board, you know, where he's like mapping it out, but like the way that it's compartmentalized and the way that it was intentionally structured. So that way you can't even use a FOIA request to get some of these records. So, um, talk a little bit about, cause I, I, I came down, uh, to Jacob's porch here. You guys, uh,

[00:20:06] had a presentation of it. Uh, your friend Steven was here too, who's a, who's a professor and, uh, and, you know, and, and, uh, works, uh, at least partly, you know, in this field. Um, talk a little bit about the, you know, your take on the documentary, maybe some things that, that you learned that were new to you and ultimately, um, you know, what, what, what did you, what was your takeaway, I guess, from age of disclosure? Yeah. Age of disclosure was a great documentary. Um,

[00:20:36] and even that night and, and you were here when we screened it, we had, um, a number of interesting people in the room. You mentioned, uh, Dr. Steven Brown is a good friend, philosopher, professor across the street. He founded what's called the invisible, sorry, the visible college. Cause Jacques Vallée, um, years ago would coin the phrase, the invisible college of all these secret PhDs that were talking about UAP stuff, but nobody really knew who they were. So in this

[00:21:02] latest iteration, uh, Dr. Brown started this international group called the, uh, the visible college would have, which has PhDs all across America, you know, some Harvard MDs. And then they invited me on. And so I'm the only, they'd be like, I guess a token clergy person. So they invited me to come on, uh, for that. And through that network, um, there's a lot of kind of relationships that have opened up with people from the soul foundation that came up from Danny Sheehan's group that came up for

[00:21:32] that movie. Um, and these are, you know, you think of the disclosure is a huge, this huge, big, maybe global thing. I'm sure it is, but it seems like it's a small community in terms of people who were really out on this and talking about it. Um, people I see on TV talking about it, I've met or I'm in chats with, you know, on, on my phone. I'm like, well, they're on CNN and this guy's asking me questions about Jesus, right? You know, it's just, just kind of weird, you know, uh, world we're

[00:22:02] living in, but I appreciated the movie age of disclosure because it, um, in terms of how our epistemologies work and how do we know what we know a lot of people rely and myself too, on the experts to say something, the people in the know, we want to heal, hear the people that have the imprimatur that have the rank that have the PhD that have that kind of clout say what's going on.

[00:22:28] Um, and that's kind of what is required to get to the next level. And I think in that movie, that documentary, you've got 34, um, mostly military ranked CIA, FBI senators, uh, all those kinds of people that continue to say over and over again, uh, there's a, there, there, you know, we have seen craft. There is a, you know, a reverse engineering, uh, program. And at the time it was

[00:22:57] the highest, uh, documentary grossing documentary on Netflix, I believe. And looking back now, that's been what, six months ago or more. Yeah. I kind of, I think it did move the needle. Everybody thought it was going to move the needle a lot. I mean, it came out two years before at the Cannes Film Festival and then it took like a year and a half to two years to actually come out on Netflix. And there's a long story there of delay, a little bit of conspiracy why it was delayed. Uh,

[00:23:25] and people talked about it for awhile and now it's not much talked about. Um, which when I saw it, I thought, I thought this is what people were waiting for. Like these, this level of person to say this kind of thing. Um, and I either conclude that people are like, yeah, we already know this stuff. Yeah. I got to get to the store. I got to do my job. Like, do you just figure it out? It's not going to be, it's not going to surprise you when it comes out. When there's a big splash,

[00:23:51] I'll look over while I'm paying my bills, but, um, yeah, we're good. Don't worry about us. Um, I think that's probably what's going on. Like people aren't going to be as shocked as perhaps others might assume. Um, or it's just kind of ignored again, you know? Yeah. Uh, or maybe a mix, but, um, but I thought the level of, it wasn't what was said. Anybody been tracking UFO lore for awhile, all that stuff had been heard before, but it was who was saying it.

[00:24:18] Yeah. Um, and the format to be a public documentary. Yeah. And I think the, the, the, the key piece for me, at least watching it, that was kind of new. And like you said, we, like we've heard people who were like, uh, a friend of a friend or a colleague of a colleague. And now we're hearing like, no, these are first person witnesses, which is, as you said, the next step. Um, I think the piece

[00:24:45] with, um, I forget the other, uh, scientist name, but, uh, Hal Puthoff and then Eric Davis. Yeah. Where they talk about literally working on, you know, and for the legacy program and working on actual craft and sort of explaining the breakthrough and, and figuring out sort of how it works and why they look so fuzzy and images. Um, I thought was, was, uh, was pretty big at the time,

[00:25:10] because no one's really come out and said that yet. Right. One of the complaints is why is it everything always grainy and fuzzy? Neil deGrasse Tyson, you know, this ship and stuff. Well, it makes sense that if there is advanced tech, that tech blurs photos. Yeah. You know, I mean, that is, that seemed to make sense to me. Yeah. You know, that there, we can't get a clear shot, speed, velocity, materials, all those things just don't quite line up. Yeah. You know,

[00:25:38] and the bubble, you know, that gravitational bubble, especially an outcome and Eric Davis going to, I mean, I love Eric Davis. He's the kind of guy that just says whatever. And I don't have to been tracking him lately. Uh, Dr. Brown with the visible colleges down in Washington, DC two weeks ago for the UAP disclosure fund. And, you know, if you know, folks like Tim Galiudet and, you know, Eric Davis was there and, uh, Ross Colt heart. And so they were all hanging together. And he said that

[00:26:06] Eric Davis is now just saying even more, you know, just being, maybe he feels like there's a little level of protection for him. Interesting. Or he said so much and he hasn't been disciplined or he's in on it and leaking stuff. I mean, that could do, but you know, he's just, if you track Eric Davis and particularly right now, he's just going off and oh yeah, I worked on that craft. Here's the species. This is what they're saying. Um, he famously last year in a briefing before

[00:26:35] Congress, this wasn't under oath, but it was in the room with, uh, some, uh, Lou Elizondo was hosting it and Admiral Tim Galiudet was there and Eric Burleson and Tim Burchette and some of those, the usuals that are part of this, uh, government on UAP disclosure situation. Eric Davis was sitting there and representative Burleson asks him, so have you talked to species? How many species? What species? He's like, well, there's at least four and you know, the reptilians, the mantids, the Nordics

[00:27:04] and the greys. Yeah, they're, they're great. They're already, you know, and Admiral Galiudet just looking at him like, oh, you just said that out loud. You know, like I didn't think we were supposed to say that. Yeah. Um, and you know, so that he doesn't quite do that in the documentary age of disclosure, but he and how put off both are pretty open and honest about, yeah, we have this anti-gravitational technology. We can make these bubbles, all this stuff, you know, reverse engineering,

[00:27:34] all that kind of stuff. I, you know, it's, you know, it's interesting about that. Um, I was just watching a video. There was a, um, uh, UFO YouTuber, um, video popped up in my feed and so, you know, it, it got me, you know, it was one of those click situations and I was like, oh, I'm listening. He shows some clips, um, some more recent clips of, of Grush and I'll be honest, I haven't, um, I haven't, you know, caught a pit, you know, stayed up with all every interview he's done.

[00:28:00] Yeah. But he gave a more, he shows a clip of a more recent interview that Grush has done. And even he goes way further. Like he gives way more specifics, uh, than he ever did in the initial. So it's like, yeah. Is, is there a level of comfort where they're like, okay, we're, we're public now. So if something crazy does happen to us, everybody's gonna know, you know? Yeah. They've been out enough. You wonder if that gives them freedom. It's really hard to know.

[00:28:28] And this is, you know, I mentioned the word epistemology before, like, how do we know what's going on? And it, it really is challenging. And especially when you get into like the gatekeeper level, like the figures that we're talking about from the documentary, um, I get more and more skeptical of, will it come from the top down? Like the real stuff. Yeah. You know, like maybe, and I, I feel like I'm in this, like almost becoming this weird conspiracy

[00:28:53] person, but as they've been releasing now the fourth tranche of these UF UAP, uh, documents on the war.gov, um, they, uh, they mix in clearly some fake ones with the real ones and false documents with the real documents. Right. So right there. And it's, they're obviously think like you guys had all this time to scrub it. And you gave us these, these are fake. These are known to be fakes. Some of them were

[00:29:21] new and interesting, especially about some of the Apollo missions and some of the things they saw up there. That was fascinating to me, but why are they mixing in, you know, truth and obvious fakes that it doesn't take a CIA, you know, the eighth grader could figure this out probably, you know, but these are professionals that are releasing these. And so that just tells me like at that level, they want to release a certain narrative, what they want this to be and have enough doubt in it.

[00:29:48] So it can only be marginally trusted. If you even want to use the word trust. And I was sitting in a, uh, a, uh, what they call a one pager white paper for a PhD candidate at Ohio state last year. And he's working on a UAP and conspiracy theory and comparative studies, all these kinds of things. And, uh, he went through his presentation and then what happens in

[00:30:14] that is the public or especially the faculty, then they can slam you. I think they, they push you back and they push back on what you're saying. And that's a good thing. That's what you want. So that you have to be, you have to respond preparing this PhD student and somebody, like a few people, faculty were pushing really strong back on, um, he was talking about Grush and, um, and Jake Barber, especially, and the whole Jake Barber story and pushing back on, this is just a conspiracy theory. You know, what is this based on? And there are some things it's

[00:30:42] based on, but, and, and, uh, so then they stopped and then I spoke and I said, I said, well, from a religious perspective, I said, if we can only, uh, tell what's true from gatekeepers, you know, and gatekeepers aren't bad. I'm pro gatekeeper in a lot of ways, but like, you know, PhDs, military, I said, you know, Christianity, uh, wouldn't, you know, was a, was a conspiracy theory for its first

[00:31:08] 300 years until it got the imprimatur of the emperor. Then it got more legitimate. And yet people could, at a gut level, discern a little bit of what's true and what's false and all of this can get sucked out rabbit holes and, and, and false kind of things. But I do kind of wonder if there's going to be a narrative that comes from top down, but I'm enjoying getting to know these people here on the ground from the grassroots level, you know, cause there's just, people are just open and you, you still know

[00:31:37] what's going on. You still can't put it together. But to me, it just has more of the ring of truth and it's not a controlled release, um, than what's coming, you know, through these other channels, even the age of disclosure, disclosure documentary, which was excellent. Yeah. But I think Lou Elizondo did a great job with that and putting that together. But I always ask the question, why is this the story they want to tell? Why did they pick these people? And that doesn't mean they discount it, uh, cause a lot was learned, but anyways, that's now my brain did not function like this two years ago.

[00:32:07] Now it is. No, that's, that's, that's a fascinating point because really all you have to do is release, you know, muddy the waters one time and that plants the seed of doubt moving forward. And, and so, and, and there are, we know there are disinformation agents, you know, uh, the most famous one who's gone public is probably Richard Doty. Um, and, and, you know, and he said, yeah, the, the government

[00:32:32] absolutely did this, you know, uh, and probably continues to do it. The thing that's interesting to me that I keep thinking about those, you know, what, what the motivation would be behind it. Right. And, and I think a lot of the motivation in this country, unfortunately, is the, the, the military industrial complex. And so like, right. Yeah. Fortune tellers, let me tell you, they knew they saw it coming, but like,

[00:32:59] you know, we, we spend infinitely more money on defense. I think we're over a trillion dollars now a year. And they still can balance the budget, find out where the money goes. No. It's terrible. Yeah. And look, half it goes into black budget projects and we don't know what they're working on, but like, that's more than the last I checked them, the next six countries combined in terms of how much we spend. And so like, you know, so I have no doubt that some of what we're

[00:33:27] seeing in the skies is, is our tech. Um, you know, we had the stealth bomber for 10 years before they publicly acknowledged that we had it, you know? And, and of course that's, that's a good thing if you are, you know, if that toy belongs to your military, because you don't want your adversaries to know what cool stuff you have. And so I have no doubt that there's a percentage of what we're seeing that is military, uh, technology that they're testing out, you know, whatever. But, you know,

[00:33:56] and, and that's, that is a, uh, a theory that's been floated out there, especially since the New York times article. But the problem with that is, is that these sightings go away further back, uh, way further back, you know, uh, World War II pilots, uh, saw these strange objects and that's where the term Foo fighters comes from. Yeah. Yeah. They saw these things in the sky. So to sit here and say that these are our toys would have to be, you'd have to acknowledge that we have had that

[00:34:25] technology since World War II, since the 1940s, if not earlier, and somehow have never used it in war. Like we've had a world war that would have been coming handy so we didn't have to drop a nuke and yet we didn't use it. And, but maybe it's Russia's and Russia hasn't used it yet in Ukraine. And like, it just doesn't hold weight. Right. You know, yeah, it doesn't add up for me. I was just thinking as you

[00:34:52] were talking about, I got an email, uh, a week ago from somebody that asked me to be, uh, either personally or preferably to find a Catholic theologian, uh, to be in a documentary that they're putting together right now on the magenta spacecraft, uh, uh, spaceship crash. Have you heard of this? Yeah. It was in the thirties and presumably, you know, falls in Italy and the Pope gives it to the U S and that kind of then, and out of that, you kind of get this rise

[00:35:19] of occultism and fascism and all this other kinds of things. Who knows what connections, um, are there, but thinking that it goes back to, you know, to that era and that there was some, some kind of advanced something back then. It just, and then if you're going to take seriously, which, you know, it's hard to know where to connect religious material into crashed ships. Um, I do

[00:35:45] think there's a much bigger spiritual dimension to all of this than just spaceships and, you know, beings from Mars or something. Um, but it goes, you know, that goes back hundreds of years with the Merkaba tradition and, you know, Ezekiel's wheels, all these kinds of things. Um, at least by then there wasn't a crashed ship retrieval program with the U S government at least. Or satellites. Or satellites.

[00:36:11] Yeah. And again, you can look at Dr. Beatrice, uh, Bill Rial's work where she's been looking at all those plates, uh, glass plates, astronomical plates and photos, uh, of, uh, beyond the planet in the fifties before we had satellites. And there's all kinds of stuff moving up there. Uh, that's now been peer reviewed and passed on. I don't think many people paid attention to that, but that was a pretty huge study. Um, yeah, I don't know where to go with, uh, you know, what's,

[00:36:38] uh, not human, what is, or why the, you know, there would be things that we got, uh, you know, beware of gifts, you know, like a little bit of that, like, why are we getting these? What was, what were they up to if that is in fact the scenario? Yeah. Um, but yeah, if it's the government, okay, I get it. The security secrets, you probably show something. Yeah. Um, in fact, you know, why I get most frustrated by going back to the UAP drops,

[00:37:03] but related to this is why are you stripping all the metadata from all the videos? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I can get, maybe you have some secret things. I don't know that you don't want the, an enemy of the U S to have, but you can at least keep on there spit, you know, speed, wind, altitude, stuff that everybody knows you have, right? Just keep that metadata. So we have something to go

[00:37:31] on. Like these videos are almost, they're interesting, but they're almost useless without knowing speed, direction, altitude, all that kind of stuff. It's not helpful. And there's no reason to withhold at least that data for these images. Well, and, and, uh, you know, if you, if you in fact had an extraterrestrial body by showing us that it's, it, you know, that has nothing to do with technology.

[00:37:57] And so, um, so that it kind of makes you scratch your head a little bit too. So it kind of leads me to my next question, which, uh, you are uniquely equipped to, uh, help, help discuss, uh, which is the two sort of historical reasons why, uh, you know, people discuss why, why, you know, full disclosure hasn't happened are in my mind, kind of two things. Um, it would cause severe economic collapse and

[00:38:26] religious collapse, or, or, or at least, you know, a, um, the chaos within, within religion. I don't particularly, uh, believe that to be true. I think, um, I think it would change our perspective, you know, in this world to know that we're not alone or have that confirmed to us. Uh, but that in no way, shape or form, uh, damages or changes my spirituality.

[00:38:52] Uh, I personally am one who believes that, you know, if there is a, uh, a creator out there that of course that creator would continue to create into infinity. And so, uh, to, to create a construct this massive universe. And we don't even know how big it is. We, we can only see so far with current technology. Um, and so we have no idea. And furthermore, we don't even know what most of

[00:39:19] the universe is made up of. Like there's this, uh, dark matter and we're not even sure a, that it even exists and be, if it does what it is, you know? So there's a lot of things that we don't know yet. Um, but for it to be empty and have us be the only life, uh, just seems insane. What a waste of, you know? So anyway, from a religious standpoint, what is it, you know, I know you've been writing extensively on this. You've had a lot of discussions specifically on this topic. Like,

[00:39:47] how do you think this affects religion today? Yeah. You know, it's, I guess, and a simple answer is, um, in terms of can people take it? I think people can. Um, but that's just kind of an anecdotal, my perspective on talking to more and more people, but I'm talking to people who are interested in it. So that's a slanted kind of perspective.

[00:40:12] Um, you mentioned the help put off, uh, he talks about how he was part of a study group who looked at the economic, spiritual, global implications, and they determined, uh, we can't disclose because it would be too unsettling. And my question is always like, who did the analysis? What were the factors? I've never seen that report. Right. Uh, if it even exists, but, um, I can imagine that it

[00:40:36] would be, uh, devastating to the petrodollar and, uh, you know, if there's free energy that's out there. So that makes my life better, you know, if I can get free energy, it doesn't make the oil company's life better. Um, you know, uh, for the profit margin. Well, let's talk about that real quick because you hit on something. I think that is, that is an interesting thought experiment. Uh,

[00:41:01] I was tinkering around with AI, uh, not too long ago and I, you know, we were kind of going back and forth and I was like, let's see how far we can take this, this, uh, this idea. And so one of the things I talked about with it was free energy and ultimately what, uh, impact that would have on the world. Like if we had limitless energy that did not cause pollution, that didn't cost us anything,

[00:41:27] you know, uh, free zero point energy, whatever you want to call it, what impact would that have? And the ultimate outcome is that society would have to obviously massively adjust, but ultimately, uh, it would end in the, the end result would be something like universal basic income. And I'm like, okay, so explain. Cause I've heard this term used before. And, uh, as we sort of like talk through it, I'm like, this sounds great. Why, why would we,

[00:41:56] why would, why wouldn't everyone want this? Yeah. I mean, when you look at UBI, I mean, I've been kind of for it and kind of against it. And I'm kind of curious, you know, with, when you, if you did universal basic in income, uh, it seems like it would create inflation. Cause you've just increased it. Say everybody gets a thousand dollars a month. Now you just increased it. Well, now the, the, the threshold for inflation, everything is just going to be, you know, adjust to

[00:42:26] that. I mean, it'd be more expensive. Um, but that's, that's dependent on like what the dollar is worth, what OPEC says oil is worth, how energy is flowing. So if you can add to UBI as it was proposed to last, like, you know, presidential election and cycles, but you add something like a free energy to it that I think it does actually work because that would really, I don't know, I'm not an economist fairly. Um, but it would, um, provide a means to, you wouldn't have that

[00:42:56] triggering the, the petrodollar and OPEC and inflation. You'd have endless supply. Endless supply. So it couldn't affect that in that way. Right. Um, and so it, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me. Um, and I think it's more, again, I don't, this is all just kind of speculation. I think it's more about that kind of disruption. Yeah. To, um, the financial systems that it actually is about, you know, neighborhoods erupting in fire because people

[00:43:22] can't handle this. Right. It's the one percenters who are like, but I want to, I want to maintain my billionaire status, you know? And so a hundred percent, you know, so that's why it doesn't change. And then this is like, oh, well, the, the peons down there at the bottom that are running around our high-stack campus, none of them are mature enough to handle it. I'm like, it could be unsettling, but, um, I think generally people would be fine. You know, from a religious

[00:43:50] perspective, you know, I, I was, uh, wrote, uh, a blog with a Catholic theologian, uh, last week we released his name's Jordan Daniel Woods, super smart guy. And we said like, how will the, the question was, how will the church handle UAP disclosure? Yeah. And we kind of just keep up with a simple schema. It's like, well, it's done. Well, it will do what it's always done before historically when encountering new things like new technology, new astronomy,

[00:44:18] new, what up, new science. Um, it will either schism over it or it will, uh, syncretize it or it will synthesize it, you know? And schism is just when you can't, you know, two groups can't reconcile something and it's better to schism than to taste. It'll create a new Wisconsin synod is what you're saying. Right. And then there'll be those that want to paste it over and syncretize it, which is

[00:44:47] kind of lazy synthesis. Like, no, we, we all mean the same thing. We can all stay together just for the sake of, you know, unity and unity is not something to be underestimated for sure. But, you know, uh, Dr. Wood and I were saying the church, I hope would put the harder work in and do the harder thing, which is the work of synthesis of hold these realities together. And maybe there's a, you know, a resourcing of theological traditions that we hadn't looked at in a while that could provide a way through, go deeper, get very specific on terms. Um,

[00:45:17] is there a way to, you know, can we be patient, not panic, do the hard work for the people and for the sake of the church? Um, because we've already made, uh, the strongest claim ever that the creator of the universe became a human. Right. And, you know, that's, and then died and rose and ascended back into, you know, up to the heavens. Like that's already the biggest claim, you know, I mean, I mean,

[00:45:44] whatever alien lore we want, but I don't know that gets better or bigger than that. So in some ways, nothing should surprise me. I personally, you know, angels and demons and all the things. And so this doesn't particularly trouble me. I mean, I would be troubled if they were massively threatening or if we confirmed that, but that's not the ontological shock that everybody talks about. That's like a survival of my family kind of thing. Um, but I don't always like the threat narratives

[00:46:12] either. I think those get pushed too much and maybe it's not that at all. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, time will tell, but partly I love doing this work now in advance of a major disclosure, not only because I love the theological stretch work it does with my mind. I've never thought about the connections here. I find it fascinating and livening. It actually helps my faith. Yeah. Um, so, and maybe I'm just weird and everybody else that way, but I, I don't think

[00:46:40] I'm that weird. I think people, many will be generally fine with this. Yeah. I tend to agree with that. And, and, uh, to go back just a little bit to the universal basic income thing. Um, you know, if we're talking about species, uh, or, or alien extraterrestrial races that are potentially thousands of, if not millions of years ahead of us from a technological perspective who have already

[00:47:07] perfected zero point energy. Like the more I think about that, the more I think about like, what would the eventual long-term outcome, uh, be if, if no one had to work for a living anymore. And that got me started down this path of like, well, then a lot of people go to university, you know, because they want to get X degree, uh, and learn about this particular topic because

[00:47:32] that's going to be their job. Right. Well, then suddenly you have a situation where I think people still, you know, want to learn, they still want to gain knowledge, but then it becomes a different sort of situation where you're doing it because you have a love of it, you know? So all the things that you then spend your time on are things that you do purely because it's something that

[00:48:00] you enjoy. And so like, would I still podcast if I didn't need to make income? Absolutely. I already don't make money doing it. So like, obviously it's something that I do because I love fascinating ideas and I love interesting people and I love having these types of conversations. So of course I would still do it. And so I think, I think the, um, I think life would shift in such a way that,

[00:48:23] that you would see people truly pursuing the things that truly bring them joy and, and probably do it better because they're freed up in a way that they weren't, they, it was never possible before. Yeah. No, I think you're onto something. In fact, my wife just, And people would be happier. I think they'd be happier. I mean, my wife and I speak a couple of weeks ago, like if you could do any job, money wasn't a factor, what would you do? I'm like, I probably keep doing what I'm doing. Yeah.

[00:48:49] I like what I do. I like my friends. Like, you know, Hey, I'd probably do this. I might not always have the financial pressure of main, you know, keeping the building together as much, take that little headache out. But I kind of love what I'm doing. And you know, you think about biblically, you know, the book of Genesis, there is work whether in the garden and there's work after they get kicked out of the garden, there's work before the fall, there's work after the fall. So there will be work. And, but the difference is after the fall, then childbirth, birth and work

[00:49:16] are both toil. So, you know, not that, not that this would like undo the fall or something like that, but I do wonder if there would be an element, if there was a UBI free energy, if some of that toil could be taken away, even have that toil. Um, and I think, uh, yeah, everybody'd be a lot happier. I mean, healthcare, all the things that crush everybody. Stress and anxiety. And anxiety of like, if I don't, can't pay my bills for the healthcare that might be, I even have

[00:49:46] insurance and it's not paying enough. And you know, I look at my students graduating, there's no way they're gonna be able to buy a home anytime soon. Like all that kind of stress is crushing. Yeah. You know, if you can get it. And that goes away. Right. And at the same time we're talking about this, I always still go back to a conversation that I had with my theology professor when I was out at the G2 in Berkeley, uh, Ted Peters, he was a theology professor. I didn't know till afterwards that he was a MUFON guy for 30,

[00:50:15] 40 years taking testimony of, uh, from witnesses of UAP. And he's now that he's retired as professor, all he's writing on is UAP. But I called him up a couple of years, like, you know, in the midst of this and a year or so ago, and I was like, I had no idea, Dr. Peters, you were into this and he, yeah, that because his humor, but one thing he said to me, because we were going, we were talking about UBI, but kind of this, how much, how much better things could be. But I thought he had a good word. He said, he's like, you know, when we started, when I started into the UAP conversation in the sixties, it was all the aliens are going to save

[00:50:45] us, you know, from the environment and from the nuclear weapons. He's like, then in the eighties, we had the satanic panic. And so you had demons and then you had all the, you know, that you've covered a bit and you know, and then we've had, then all the, then all of the aliens were, were demons. And he said, you just always need to keep one theological eye on what's, is there a salvation narrative here? And, you know, and he's like, that's where I would put the brakes on too much of

[00:51:11] at least eternal salvation of some kind, or like this will all fix everything. Now, I do think the way we're talking about UBI and fantasy, I think it would fix a lot of problems. Yeah. But at the same time, just to bring up that, like, you know, just as, you know, uh, vice president Vance is talking about all NHI are demons and you have, you have a lot of pastors and they're all demons, you know, um, on the opposite end of that, they're all

[00:51:37] benevolent and going to save us. I'm always getting a little weird that I want to encounter them, whatever they are, whoever they are. And maybe they're all angels and demons. This is all spiritual. I don't know. But if the new species encounter them on their terms, get to know them before I make any prejudgments. Um, and we can do UBI with, without them. Yeah. Um, but the free energy really would be a help. Oh my gosh. And it's, it sounds like, I mean, you listen to help put off in Dave, Eric Davis,

[00:52:04] we can already do it. We just, you know, have chosen not to. Yeah. Yeah. Just let that one thing. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what I'm saying. I'm like, you know, I just think about, uh, you know, about the, the, uh, implications of how that spins off into everything. You know, it's like suddenly, um, you know, films look totally different, right? Because now it's not, it's not this, uh, you know, uh, somebody, one of my friends and I

[00:52:32] were talking about sort of the, uh, oversaturation of the Marvel, you know, thing for a while. And it's like, and, and, and now like the, uh, the standard, my brother and I, that's it. My brother, Andy, and I were talking about this. We're talking about just the absurd, um, uh, you know, expectations that now exist for what is considered a successful movie versus not. And it's like, well, it didn't

[00:52:58] make $500 million. So it's not successful. It's like, really? And so like, then you have this situation where they're spending ungodly amounts of money on the budget to begin with. And so then it sort of creates a scenario, which then you have to make that amount of money just to get your money back. And so it's like, for me to take my family to see a movie is for 13, 14 bucks a ticket now.

[00:53:24] Right. You know, I mean, that adds up. I can't even, you know, we did go, we have seen a few movies, but we don't go much because of this piling on effect of the cost of everything. Yeah. And so like, I think about things like that where, you know, acting is obviously something that, you know, uh, unlimited energy can't provide for us, right? That, that is a distinctly human experience. That is both provided and experienced by human beings. And so, but you know, if everyone,

[00:53:52] you know, if money is no longer, you know, uh, a driving factor, then again, once again, people who are continuing to act are doing it because they love doing it and they love telling a cool story. And so, you know, the entire film industry changes as a result of that as well. Right. Yeah. That's like the famous Matt Damon speech back to the reporter asked about his mom, who's a teacher who was like, you know, criticizing teachers and Matt Damon says, you know, oh, you

[00:54:22] think a teacher is doing this for the money or a teacher is like a teacher does it because they want to teach who would take that salary, who'd do it. And so I think your point is right. Like I would probably do something very similar to what I'm doing now. You'd probably be more podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. We, we'd find those things because I think we are, there's, we're kind of built for work. Yeah. I like vacation as much as the next person. I just got back from one and I loved it. And also I was like, I'm kind of get, I'm ready to get back and to get back into things. Yeah. You know,

[00:54:52] like we all need a break, some people more than others, maybe a break can last a long time. But at some point you'll be like, I want to learn about that. I want to engage with people. You want a purpose. Yeah. Exactly. I think, you know, I think, I think the, the idea of, of having a purpose, you know, certainly still exists. I think you're right. I think, you know, it's, it's inherently built into us. I think it just, it shifts, it changes because then your purpose, it can truly

[00:55:16] be the thing that you're most gifted at versus the thing that provides enough income to keep your family afloat. You know, like I work at a huge bank. I'm good at my job. Is it my passion? No. Like, do I like working for the man? No, but like, it's something I'm good at because I can use some of my transferable skills, you know, to, to be good at. Um, but certainly not my passion, you know, drop that, but you still do something. Right. You know, I've still used those skills for something,

[00:55:45] you know? Um, and I would still, I mean, you know, I'm a lifelong learner. I would still, be a seeker of knowledge no matter what it would just, I would have more time to dedicate to that then, you know, right. If only in the banking industry, there could be a way to tie this in. I know customers, you know, they come in and talk to you about, tell us some goat stories. Yeah. I'm like, I got you. I got you. Oh man. I had, when I, when I still worked in the branch, I had a guy who was my favorite customer and, uh, this little old guy and he would come up,

[00:56:16] he'd come into the branch basically just to check on his accounts and stuff. And if you saw him, you'd be like, this guy doesn't have a dollar to his name. You know, he drives this beat up Honda, he's dressed like an old hippie. He's got his little captain's hat on and stuff. Nicest dude on the planet. And then you find out this dude is loaded, loaded, just, you know, like accounts with just a million dollars sitting at it, you know, like, and he's got like a dozen

[00:56:42] accounts and he's just living off the interest and the interest rates now are terrible. So that tells you something he's just collecting on the interest. Right. But he was like the most interesting guy ever. He, uh, I think it is, is, you know, before he retired, he was an antique stealer. And so he'd go out and find rare pieces for people, you know, and, and he would tell me the

[00:57:06] stories, but like his, his true love was music. And so he, he would tell me stories about how he met, uh, uh, you know, Paul McCartney at one point, he met John Lennon, uh, you know, before, right before he died. Um, he met Jimi Hendrix, you know, backstage, like, you know, back in the sixties and all this stuff. And so like, yeah, it's like, you know, uh, there's a way, there's a way to tie those things in, you know? And I chose to that wearing, I think we are inherently curious beings

[00:57:37] and sometimes the amount of work and stress we have is can crush that and we get, you know, less curious and less interested, but I think left to our own devices, if we were free, we do want to hear other people's stories. We want to hear what they encounter. We want to have a new experiences ourselves and do it sometimes by ourselves, but some, a lot of times with somebody else. Yeah. We're a group of people that we are relational. There's a, do you remember, do you remember the

[00:58:01] concept of the horror movie host? So I did a, I did a, um, episode on this last Halloween and, uh, cause it's something that's always fascinated me because, you know, we're of the age where we didn't encounter it a ton. Like we had that overlap between like the eighties, nineties, and then the two thousands when, you know, uh, cable and streaming really took off. But back in like the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and so on, um, you know, these regional,

[00:58:29] uh, networks, you know, like your, your local, uh, NBC affiliate or ABC or whatever they would have, you know, their, their regional, you know, like, uh, our NBC is, you know, based here in Columbus. You know, I think when I was a kid growing up, it was in like whatever the big city was north of us. But like on weekends, they would have to find something to broadcast late at night. And the cheapest thing to license were horror movies, particularly bad ones, which, you know,

[00:58:58] it's kind of like pizza, right? Like it's still kind of fun. Right. And so like these horror movie hosts would start to pop up and in these different regions. So all these different regions across the country had their own like horror movie hosts. That's where like Elvira, if you remember her, that's where she came from. She, uh, was kind of paying homage to, um, Vampira who was like the OG from out in California. Yeah. And so like, um, there's Sven Gulli who still, who, uh, is still

[00:59:27] kind of around. Um, we had, we had ours. It was Fritz, the night owl. Um, I don't even know that he's like 90 something years old. Um, he's still around. He's, he's still those conventions and stuff, but like, and a lot of these guys still do, but obviously as, uh, cable took off and, and, you know, obviously now streaming, you know, few people watch, you know, live TV anymore and, you know, uh, not as many of these regional affiliates are playing these B, you know,

[00:59:56] horror movies that, you know, they, they started to disappear. But when I was a kid, this is a long way. I tell you the story, but, um, growing up when we were younger, um, I think it was like TNT or AMC. One of those cable channels had a horror movie host and it was Joe Bob Briggs, who's my favorite. That was my guy. And he played this Southern guy, we're a bolo tie. You know, um, the guy has an insane memory recall. Like he doesn't use notes and people think he uses a teleprompter because he

[01:00:26] just like pulls out all this information off the top of his head. Um, but they recently brought him back. Not, I shouldn't say recently is several years ago. Uh, shutter, the horror streaming service brought him back and he was like, how are we going to do this? We don't have commercials. It's a streaming service. They're like, don't worry about it. It's clearly people our age who are like, we'll figure out a way. So they still break into the, the movie and he'll, he'll interview like the director. He'll like give you all this information

[01:00:54] about it. But he, he's famous for these, uh, diet tribes. He, he, he goes on, um, like, especially at the top before the movie even starts before he even intros it, he's a wealth of this information. So he's always going off about something. And, uh, one of the things he went off on was, cause it's called the last drive in with Joe Bob Briggs. And he's talking about the drive in theater and how special that experience is. And we still have one. We have the South side,

[01:01:22] which I love. So I get out there as often as I can, but it's a, it's a different experience. And he talked about, he, he had this great spiel about how every, you know, every so often, somebody is always like, oh, it's the death of the drive in. And yet they've opened more than they've closed. Yeah. I would have never known that either. I'm like, really? Especially during the pandemic,

[01:01:44] they were utilizing those for. Yeah. So like South side was, was packed. I remember I took, uh, my daughter, we went to see, cause they have two screens. So they have a double feature on the front one, double feature on the back. So the front one, I think is usually like kids, family back when it's more like adult stuff. So like horror movies are back there or whatever. So we went to see a cartoon and, uh, you know, it was just, it was packed. Like they have two,

[01:02:10] two lines coming. They had to make a third one. Cause there were so many cars that need to get so like they're doing really well. But anyway, point to all this is that he was talking about how, you know, oh, the drive-ins always going to die. They always say that. And yet, um, it doesn't. And he's like, listen, he's like, the reason it won't die is because sure you can sit at home alone and watch a movie, but there's something special about when you watch a really good movie, you want

[01:02:37] to, you want to share that experience with somebody. And, uh, there's only one way you can do that. You know, it's like, and one of those ways is to go to a drive-in theater and sit with a buddy or your, your wife or your boyfriend, whatever. And, uh, and have that experience where you're sitting there. I remember I was sitting with a group of friends. We were watching a cabin in the woods. Oh yeah. And literally I've never, it was the funniest thing. We're all like, what? Ah, you know,

[01:03:03] and, and there's like some commentary going on and it was just this really fun experience that would not have been, it would have been a, still been a good movie by myself. It was enhanced by the fact that I was sitting around with some of my really good friends and we were just all thoroughly enjoying the creativity of it. And what I love about that is you can do that in your, like you're a car in a theater. You can't, you know, talk, you gotta be silent and it cuts that off. Um, I love that a

[01:03:30] car, you can do that. In fact, we're trying to, you know, I met this other movie that's come out recently disclosure day Spielberg's yeah. Let's talk about that. You know, we had, uh, I saw it three times. Um, not because my favorite movie of all time or something, I've never seen it three times, but it was because people wanted to talk about it. Yeah. They wanted to talk about it. They know that, you know, I talk about this stuff a lot. So with the group of pastors on one viewing,

[01:03:55] the next day, it was like some, some faculty and students here from Ohio state. Then my kids later, but while we couldn't talk about it in the theater and have that the ultimate to drive an experience of reacting and chatting during it in your own car, we did all go out and spend, you know, an hour or two having a meal afterwards and talking about the movie. And that just made it so much better than, you know, the three minutes you have walked to the car, which think, oh, good. Okay,

[01:04:21] let's go home. Yeah. To make it more relational and communal to have conversation. And now the Odyssey's come out and that, you know, you've seen that now and had conversation afterwards. And these are rich movies for lots of discussion, but I kind of, you know, hope that we can recover some of that because disclosure day was a conversation worthy movie. You know, we haven't, you and I haven't talked about what we each thought of it. I mean, it was a filmmaking,

[01:04:48] the Spielberg movie. I liked it. It was fun. It was great. It was like the best piece of filmmaking I've ever seen. No, but that's not the point. Like I enjoyed it. Um, and I think it's the kind of disclosure that a lot of people want, like, okay, they're going to roll out the alien. Yeah. Uh, they're going to finally show us all the files, you know, not to make the spoiler alert

[01:05:11] on this podcast, but you know, the ending was just very satisfying in this and it was kind of also over the top. And I'm like, that's what, you know, but it doesn't come like the government's fighting that in the movie. And then, uh, you know, it's the, the folks on the ground that somehow get the message out. I like that general kind of narrative of like, you know, the rebels against the empire, that whole kind of thing, uh, resonates. Uh, but I thought it was a great movie. I loved,

[01:05:40] um, the, uh, the time and what did they call it in the movie? I should remember now, but the, uh, the monastery they were at is like St. Catherine. Oh yeah. Yeah. Lucia actually a Franciscan. I mean, that's a famous, uh, saint. Oh, that's part of that. I did not know that changed the name on it. Yeah. Yeah. And she's known for, you know, being on her deathbed and not being able to get to mass. They mentioned this in the movie, but she was a, you know, she's an early follower of St. Francis,

[01:06:07] really in touch with animals, you know, all that kind of stuff that you see in the movie is kind of exemplified in that, uh, in that saint who then, you know, bi locates herself to go to mass. Cause she can't, you know, I mean, it's a very interesting and she, I think she's the patron saint of televisions. I think they say that she could bi locate to watch mass, you know, from a distance. Um, but yeah, but I thought it was a good, you know, a good movie. I've, I've talked to a

[01:06:33] couple, you know, uh, friends who are more on the know, uh, you know, of such things and their take is like, this is the story that the government wants us to think about it. That's all about crafts and alien body from a different planet. And that's what they're hiding when this is definitely much more interdimensional, angelic spiritual, um, you know, reality warped, uh, than what that is.

[01:06:59] But in terms of just the extraterrestrial hypothesis, that's about as good as it's gonna get. And I thought it was a fun ride. I don't know. What did you think about the movie? I thought it was really good. I thought I obviously there was a pretty, pretty heavy message, you know, at the end. Um, yeah. Or, or listen, listen. Yeah. So I thought, man, you could take that so many ways and, and they intentionally just ended just like that, you know? And, um,

[01:07:25] so I thought that was interesting. I also thought it was interesting. Um, how many like Easter eggs, uh, were in, in, in, in that movie, like Spielberg clearly did his homework. Um, yeah, especially when they're, they're rolling through, you know, the, the broadcast of all the footage, you know, like I started laughing and I'm the only nerd in my house who knows all this stuff, you know? And I'm like, oh, that's the, uh, the alleged time that Nixon took Jackie Gleason to go see it, you know? And, uh,

[01:07:53] cause they're like, uh, you know, um, Kecksburg was in there with the Golka from Germany. Yeah. Like they have, they just paced right through them. But for, you know, those that have read a little bit of alien lore, you're like, yeah, you know, I liked how they explicitly said, oh, you know, Nixon screwed this up by taking Gleason. That's why no other president has gotten right in. You know? I mean, that's, I thought that was pretty funny to pin all that on Nixon.

[01:08:20] Right. He took some actor, you know, Some actor. Right. They were drinking, you know. Yeah. Gleason's daughter that can be found about later. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, man. I mean, that's, that's wild. So you, you wonder how many of those stories are actually true, you know? Um, but yeah, I thought it was really well done. I thought it was, uh, you know, I thought

[01:08:45] as a vehicle to sort of prep society in a way that like ratchets down the, uh, the scare factor, um, that was, that would be a really good piece of, uh, art to do that with. Um, you know, I think, I think you're right though. I think, uh, I think it would be enough for most people to confirm that there are craft and aliens, you know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like the,

[01:09:14] you know, the way I've discussed previously in previous podcasts, like people can accept that there are UFOs now, but they're not quite ready to go to the abduction piece. You know, that's a, that's a bridge too far, you know? Yeah. And that's, you know, in that movie in particular, it was, uh, you know, you had the young boy and girl that are abducted. They're not hurt. Um,

[01:09:39] but it's a scary thing. They're given these abilities. And so it's kind of a more benevolent alien abduction. Yeah. And like, that's what I could get by. It does mess with your life. Maybe I wouldn't want to have happened to me, but then you get these abilities at the right moment, the right time it's revealed and you help society kind of move forward and, you know, you can do all those things. Um, but yeah, you start getting into like John Mack's work. Yeah.

[01:10:05] Really streber. And it's like, man, the abductions, a lot of them are not pleasant. Right. And that, you know, there's like a malevolent and benevolent and the, the abduction piece in particular, uh, is, is, you know, I think worrisome, um, you know, what people report on some things that happened to them or, you know, it's like that, that stuff makes me nervous. That's why they don't go there too much. Yeah. You know, with that. Well, there's, I mean, there's the whole question,

[01:10:33] uh, surrounding like what, what's the purpose, you know, like, you know, we, you could go to, uh, you know, the jungle and find some new species and study it for a while and learn everything you probably need to know. But yet these abduction experiences continue to happen, uh, over and over and over again. Um, you know, I've, I've met people who have claimed that, you know, they've experienced an abduction and it's like, well, so what is the end goal? Like, is it a reproductive thing that some,

[01:11:01] you know, some people have, um, have proposed, you know, who knows, but yeah, that's all kinds of crazy theories. Mm-hmm. And that's where it's like, that would be helpful to get a little more insight. Yeah. What is that piece about that in crop circles? Like these things, you know, what, what are these kinds of things? Um, why does this, why does this happen? Yeah. And one thing a little about alien lore is it's just, if fr, cause there's not a lot to base it on. Yeah.

[01:11:28] You can just endlessly kind of talk about it and roll it around and what's going on. And it's just a fun conversation piece with folks. Like I was talking to somebody not too long ago on this and, you know, the kind of thing with the Templars supposedly, I don't know who knows, but it was an interesting conversation and it was kind of went down the line of, well, you know, I think what they're doing is they're taking, uh, the alien tissue and they're creating hybrids with your DNA.

[01:11:56] And why would they do this? Because if you have a DNA marker that's similar to the hybrid gray or whatever, they can talk to you a lot easier interdimensionally. And I'm like, that's probably total crap, but it's a fun conversation. That's an interesting theory. Yeah. I know. And he's like, oh man, this is what we all know. That's all the Templars. We all talk about this, that we all, you know, you gotta get the right. That's what we're always looking out for these people,

[01:12:19] these, these genetic markers and the species have hybrid DNA and they can communicate to those that have their own DNA much easier than somebody that can't resonate with. And I'm like, that's, that's wild. And this is a fun conversation. I, you know what? Uh, that's interesting too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. We carrying down, carrying down the generations, which kind of like, uh, opens up

[01:12:48] the whole can of worms. Uh, you know, I've heard a lot, especially recently. Um, been listening to a lot of podcasts with a lot of, uh, different interviewees who bring a different piece of the puzzle to the table, so to speak. And, um, again, it's so hard to know what's real, what's not. Um, you just have to take it all and kind of sift through it. And like I said before, I think as time goes by, you can sort of either dismiss or sort of like, uh, strengthen some of those,

[01:13:16] those arguments, you know, like, you know, you know, this would be a good way to, to, to kind of lead into S4 another documentary where I think, you know, as time has gone by, a lot of the claims that Bob Lazar has made seem to be corroborated by other whistleblowers. And suddenly he doesn't look like as much of a crackpot. Cause you know, I've gone back and forth myself over the years. He came out what 89, I think. And I've gone back and forth where I'm like, this guy's

[01:13:44] full of crap, uh, to, I think he's legit. And now, uh, more than ever with, with, uh, the Grush testimony, you know, with, with all these high ranking officials who have had some level of contact with, you know, the materials or the craft or other people who've worked on it. Um, you know, down to the hand scanners, he describes that nobody knew anything about for, for years and years and years. And now people are like, oh yeah, people that worked at S4, they had to scan in with these

[01:14:13] hand scanners that measure the bones in your hand and all this stuff, um, down to, and, and you can speak to this, you know, someone who, who, uh, used to work there for a time who confirmed, uh, a part of it, like where the hangar is located in the side of the mountain. Yeah.