Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast “In the Room with Peter Bergen.” 
He recently interviewed Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of the Pentagon UFO investigation office, AARO. 
We chat about UFOs, National Security, Self-licking ice cream cones, and aliens.

Alex Dietrich served a 20-year career as a Naval officer and fighter pilot with two combat deployments. She was also deployed to Afghanistan as an Infrastructure reconstruction engineer. 
She then transitioned to academia, serving as a Naval Science Instructor and then a Military professor, teaching, among other things, Critical Thinking, Leadership, and Ethics. 
Alex is best known to the public as one of the pilots who witnessed the famous Tic-Tac UFO when flying off the USS Nimitz in 2004. She’s appeared on 60-Minutes, CNN, and other shows to discuss her experience and its implication for flight safety and national security. 

Robert Bartholomew has a PhD in Medical Sociology, and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He’s an expert in Mass Psychogenic Illness and the co-author with Rober Baloh of the book “Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria”
Havana syndrome is a loose set of fairly generic symptoms that are being blamed on some kind of attack. It started with personnel at the US embassy in Havana, but has since spread around the world. Dr Bartholomew thinks it’s an example of Mass Psychogenic Illness – people are being asked to look for odd health events and strange sounds, and so of course they find them. But there really no good evidence of any kind of attack. Bartholomew thinks the intelligence community is largely aware of this, but an unbiased examination is being avoided for political reason.
Dr Bartholomew’s website – https://rebartholomew.com/

What is a University professor doing investigating UFOs?  Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University heads the Galileo Project, which seeks (in part) to identify the nature of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena by establishing a network of telescopes and instruments with the goal of obtaining the first unambiguous clear photos of UFOs.
We talk about the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the rationale for the project, the challenges it will face, and how it all fits into Professor Loeb’s personal philosophy.

The Galileo Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo
Transcript https://otter.ai/u/abtJtNRU8RbBdUeUu50j9pb7m7Q
 

Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia State University with a PhD in political science from Columbia University. Sophia Moskalenko is a research fellow at Georgia State University and a researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.  Together they wrote the book Pastels and Pedophiles – Inside the Mind of QAnon. 
We discuss how the book came about, the historic roots of the QAnon conspiracy theory, how QAnon has changed with the “Save the Children” narrative to attract more women, and what tangible steps can be taken to help individuals and to help improve the overall situation.

Jason Colavito is an author and journalist with a focus on “alternative archeology” and, more recently, the UFO cultural phenomenon. In May 2021, he wrote the article: “How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers” in the New Republic, describing how “a collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas.”
Jason’s historical research into the underpinnings of the current UFO/UAP flap is a vital component in understanding what is going on, and how we find ourselves in this situation. Going back to the 1960s and 70s, he traces a path from Jacque Vallée’s extradimensional hypothesis and Hal Puthoff’s paranormal research, through Robert Bigelow’s wide-ranging involvement via Harry Reid, to the current efforts of Luis Elizondo and Chris Mellon.
 
How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers – https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science
 

Luis Elizondo is a former senior intelligence official, a disclosure advocate,  a national security expert, and the former director of the Pentagon’s UFO/UAP Program (AATIP). We talk about his work in those capacities and also discuss the history and analysis of the three US Navy “UAP” videos.
Interview conducted on March 11, 2021
 
 
 

 

Michael is a “follower” of Q, in what is commonly known as the QAnon conspiracy theory. I first talked to him one year ago, February 2020. We met on Twitter discussing UFOs, but had a long discussion about QAnon. Michael thought for sure that Trump would win the election, and was quite hopeful about the prospects of a massive wave of arrests of the supposed child-abducting elites.
Since he made some predictions, we agreed to meet again, which we did on Feb 22, 2021. We discussed what did an did not happen, and Micahel good-naturedly tried to convince me (at some length) that there was actually something to Q. We also very briefly discuss UFOs.
Youtube version here

Alex was raised by conspiracy theorists. This makes him different from most people who end up down the rabbit hole in that assuming nefarious plots were going on was never a surprise to him. Indeed, it was the default.
We talk about growing up in a conspiracy theory family, how his perceptions shifted when he went out into the real world, and how he ended up going even deeper down the rabbit hole before he finally found his way out.
Alex also read my book, Escaping the Rabbit Hole, and his reaction to my 9/11 debunking was rather surprising.

QAnon is a very American conspiracy theory, focussing upon a supposed plan by a mysterious entity named ‘Q’ who was working with Donald Trump to rid the US of a corrupt elite.  But despite this American focus, it has adherents around the world. One of those adherents is a friend of this episode’s guest, Georgina.
Georgina and her friend were both fans of documentaries about cults, but despite what you right think of as inoculation against mind control, Georgina’s friend still fell deep down the QAnon rabbit hole.
This episode was recorded on Jan 5th, the day before the storming of the Capitol.

My guest this week thought all was well when she started dating a handsome intelligent man. But then a few things he said, particularly about “the Jews” started to seem like something more than just the jokes she initially took them for. Here she describes how her relationship with a conspiracy theorist got started, and how it turned out. Along the way, we discuss toxic masculinity, incels, and the importance of teaching history and critical thinking.
 
 

Sarah’s ex-partner seemed like a normal person, but a few years ago he discovered conspiracy theory videos. Starting with claims that the Moon Landing was fake he quickly progressed to Flat Earth and eventually ended up follow a cult-like group that was predicting the end of the world in 2018 in an event called “EMPCOE”. He began to prep for this, but the predictions never came to pass and new predictions were made. Despite this, he never lost faith in the people making the predictions and became increasingly angry with Sarah for not following his belief. This anger escalated into abuse.
Sarah tells her story in detail, a story that is shared by many conspiracy casualties who have lost their loved ones to cults and conspiracy theories.

Ryan became a conspiracy theorist at age 15. He spent five years solidly down the 9/11 conspiracy rabbit hole, believing that the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed with pre-planted explosives. As he grew older he eventually encountered other conspiracy theories that he recognized as being not well-grounded in evidence. Questioning these theories led him to question his own beliefs about 9/11, and eventually to escape from the rabbit hole.
We talk about the factors that led to his conspiracism, his experiences as a conspiracy theorist, and how he got out.

Brandon Fugal is a prominent business leader based in Utah and is the current owner of the mysterious Skinwalker Ranch, which is the focus of a wide variety of reported strange phenomena, from supernatural visitors to cattle mutilations and UFOs. The ranch is now the subject of a History channel show: The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.  I’ve been doing a little debunking of a few of the claims in the show. We talk about how he discovered the ranch, why he bought it, what he’s been doing with it. We also discuss some of the issues with the show – is it science or showmanship? Maybe a little of both.
 

* Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-45-brandon-fugal-the-owner-of-skinwalker-ranch/id1462120258?i=1000476228836
* Unofficial transcript by UfoJoe: http://www.ufojoe.net/skinwalker-fugal-west

 
 

Steven Hassan is an expert on cults. A former high ranking member of the Unification Church, aka the “Moonies”, he’s been helping people escape the rabbit hole since his own escape in 1976. Now he’s a mental health professional who’s the author of four books on cults and teaches at Harvard Medical School.
We discuss cults, the intersection between cults and conspiracy theories, and his controversial new book: The Cult of Trump.

* Freedom of Mind: https://freedomofmind.com/
* Steven on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultExpert
* Steven on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultexpert/
* Combating Cult Mind Control: https://www.amazon.com/Combating-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0967068827
* The Cult of Trump: https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Trump-Leading-Explains-President-ebook/dp/B07MGS7LZS/

Investigating UFOs presents a number of challenges, many of which are not immediately obvious, but swiftly rear up to impede progress. There are straightforward issues, like military secrecy and people being afraid to talk because of ridicule. But there’s also the issue of “UFOs” being things that are so far outside our common experiences that it’s difficult to establish a shared baseline for conversations, leading often contentious and frustrating outcomes. Especially on Twitter.
I talk to investigative Journalist TIm McMillan about these challenges, and in particular how they apply to the recent Navy UFO cases: FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST.

 
 

Does a Flat Earther react to world events differently to other people? When you think the world is flat, then you think that the mainstream view of the world is very wrong. Does this carry over to other topics?
I interview a Flat Earther who thinks she has good arguments for the Earth not being a spinning ball in space. She has some questions about Coronavirus but feels a little unable to get them answered, for a variety of reasons.
 

Johnny Orbital is a rare breed – a former genuine believer in the Flat Earth theory who is willing to talk about his experience. When I was writing my book Tales From the Rabbit Hole, I had to look far and wide for such a person. Even now, it’s rare to find people who once were flat-earth believers and now are not.
Johnny talks about how he got convinced of the Flat Earth, how he got out, and now, how (and why) he spends time helping people who are still down that particular rabbit hole.

Jeremy Rys has gone by “Alien Scientist” for over ten years. His primary interest is in independently researching exotic technology like anti-gravity and warp drives. Some people speculate that such technology exists and comes from visiting aliens. While Jeremy does not discount this theory, he thinks it’s more likely that if aliens were visiting us, they would not be leaving evidence.
Jeremy is also a long time member of the 9/11 Truth community and thinks that some explosives were used to destroy the World Trade Center, and the planes were probably flown into the towers by remote control. But he draws the line there and also spends some time in debunking the more extreme 9/11 conspiracy theories, and other things like chemtrails.

* Worcester University release on WTC7 corroded metal. Metal removal via slag attack of the steel from building 7 of the world trade center—Some observations
* Alien Scientist web site.
* Falcon Space
* Hover Brothers

DJ Thermal Detonator was heavily involved in the Los Angeles 9/11 Truth scene in the late 2000s. At that time, local activism centered around the We Are Change group. DJ attended meetings, helped out with a variety of things, and saw the shift of the organization into even more extreme theories, like Sandy Hook being faked, and chemtrails. He even helped Michael J. Murphy with his popular chemtrails film What In The World Are They Spraying” in 2010.
But the Shift into these more unusual theories in part led to both the disintegration of the local group, and to a change in DJ himself. Once going as far as totally believing the Chemtrail theory, as well as most of the mid-level 9/11 theories (controlled demolition, no plane hitting the Pentagon,) he eventually realized that most of them were without any foundation.
Now he focusses mostly on the people behind 9/11, working on a book exploring a complex web of connections, money, and related events.
We chat about the early days of 9/11 activism in Los Angeles, how it changed, and what he’s doing now.

* DJ on Twitter