Host radio. Welcome to Open Minds Radio with Alejandro Roja. Open Minds Radio is the UFO news authority presenting evidence and the latest news regarding the UFO phenomenon. Here's your host, Alejandro Roja. Hello and welcome once again to Open Minds Radio. Just enjoying a cup of coffee while a haboobi goes overhead. Well, actually it's not that bad. It's a big dust storm out here in the desert of Phoenix where it's hot and when it gets windy. That
is no releaef. That's like a blow dryer blowing on your face. And then sometimes, like right now, that blow dryer that's blowing the heat in your face is carrying a lot of dust. And one of the things that they said is in this dust is a lot of bug parts. There's lots of bugs in the forest, so we're breathing in these parts of scorpions and beetles and grasshoppers. I think there's a little bug parts in most everything in life. Yeah, I think you're I always do those reports during Valentine's Day
about how many bug parts there are in chocolate. Oh really, that's scary. Lots of bugs all over the place, but not on the radio. This is pure digital where we're able to filter out any bug parts, so you just get information. And that's what we've got for you today. We have a wonderful guest today and that is Ted Peters. And this is a subject that I am really into, which is religion and UFO disclosure, religion and extraterrestrials. And you know, you guys know that we're into this because
we've had some guests on lately talking about it. In particular, it was not quite a year ago, but we had Paul Davids on, which is a big score for the show because he works at ASU and he is a world renowned astrophysicists, and he had been speaking a lot about religion and how religions, for the most part don't struggle too much with the extraterrestrial idea, except for the Roman Catholics. Their philosophies have a harder time with that.
And so we've talked about those philosophies and things with different guests that we've had on. But what Ted Peters done is actually put to task what especially he talks about SETI and SETI scientists, saying that the world would really have world's religions would have a real problem if they knew extraterrestrial visitation was really happening, and people would freak out and run them the streets and it'd be mayhem.
Well, what Ted Peters has done is actually done a scientific study. He is he teaches seminary at the Theological Union in Berkeley, he's a professor, and he got together with the psychologist and put together a survey to figure out how people really would react. And really what he found is quite interesting. Some of you will probably agree with it because you'll see that it makes a lot of sense. So this is a great study that he did. Really
it needs to have more attention. And luckily he is going to be speaking at the move On Symposium coming up here the week after next July twenty ninth to the thirty first, So if you want to hear more about him after you hear him tonight, check out the symposium. But yeah, it's I think his work is great so and he's a lot of fun, So we'll be talking to him in a minute. Well, so, he also has some of it in a book called UFO's Gods and Chariots Flying Saucers in Politics,
Science, and religion, so good stuff. I really like talking to him, So I think you're going to find this great. As I mentioned at MoveOn, we will be there, Jason and Maureena and I will be signing magazines. Uh, if you bring in your iPhone, because Maureene is now kind of a and Jason are YouTube superstars, they'll sign your iPhone or your iPad, or just bring in your laptop or if you want to haul in your desktop computer and they can sign it because they're get signed by UFO
YouTube superstars. And if you want to know what I'm talking about, go to the Open Minds TV YouTube page and see all of the cool stuff. And that our latest magazine that we're going to have there is out and about Hollywood. So we're going to be in Irvine, California. That's where the
move On Symposium is not too far from Hollywood. So those of you Hollywood stars that are listening and you know you've read Jason's article and you want Sammy Hagar or Dan Ackrolloyd, Steven Spielberg, some of the guys were if you want to come see us and talk to us about your article, feel free to come because I know they're all listening to the show right now, so they've been dying to meet us, I know it. So this is your
opportunity, Stevie. We'll talk about some of your latest movies and definitely have some suggestions on how to improve them. Falling Skies, I'm sorry, is awful, and the whole alien invasion stuff is getting a little old, Buddy Super eight Rock though. Anyway, let us get on to some of the other exciting things that you can find at open Minds dot tv, and that is the daily UFO headlines, headlines from around the world, and we are
always very fortunate to have Jason McClellan here to talk news with us. Jason, talk some news to us. Hi, I am ready to talk news. Hello all one hundred one Greetings everyone out in radio land and in video land. This is your open Wise news brief for Monday, July eighteenth, twenty eleven. US Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, broke ground last
week on a new launch pad. The company's CEO, Elon Musk, as well as state and local officials, were on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony that took place at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Los Angeles. California. SpaceX is renovating an old launch pad from the nineteen sixties at the base to be able to accommodate their mammoth Falcon Heavy rocket. Falcon Heavy is still being constructed by the company and will reportedly be the world's most powerful rocket, capable
of sending cargo and possibly even people into space. According to the Huffington Post, the renovations of the launch pad are expected to cost between twenty and thirty million dollars and will take eighteen months to complete. The company's goal is to
launch Falcon Heavy from the new launch pad in twenty thirteen. With NASA's Space Shuttle program coming to a close, companies like SpaceX will likely fill the void, and as Huffington Huffington Post points out, SpaceX already has a contract with NASA to supply the International Space Station with cargo using its smaller Falcon nine rocket, and the company hopes to secure additional contracts with NASA and other customers,
which could include taking satellites into space as well as humans on future man's exploration missions. We talk a lot about SpaceX. They're one of the more exciting companies right now with their propulsion systems, anyway, well, and this whole I mean, it's just very fascinating to watch this revolution, this change in
our whole space bearing initiatives changing to their privatization. It's kind of scary because the private sector moves a little slower because they have to see realize some profit in their ventures. And of course safety is always kind of scary with those
type of things, since NASA's been doing this for so long. But I think people would agree, you know, we need to cut and I would rather see I'm a space fanatic, but I'd rather see, you know, maybe a few less rocket launches than to see Medicare or Medicaid cut, I mean, or Social Security people who really need that money. It's a lot
of big time bucks spent on this stuff. Yeah, I mean, we talk about this a lot, but I mean even this, and I pointed this out to you during last week, that this just renovating a launch pad. The launch pad's already there. They're not starting to scratch. This is already a base, already a launch pad. They're renovating it to be able to handle this bigger rocket. But just that renovational loans costing thirty million dollars.
Yeah, and you know, the problem. And it comes back to defense, which of course UFO people are always talking about, because defense costs so much. Those contractors, those companies charge so much for everything that they do that those same technologies which they want to use in space programs, these costs are inflated because they're using them to build missiles, and so everything is
very expensive in that whole endy. So of course I'd much rather see a few less missiles being built and rockets than and jet fighters or other things that are absolutely and that's why we need to do the Grielberg and the like to stop making these television shows and movies about invading aliens. Quit scaring the hell out of everybody. That's right. We want to go meet the aliens and yeah, shake their hands, need to shoot them. Yeah, yeah,
But I will disagree with you. I think that, you know, with the private sector, I think things will will move more quickly maybe, you know. I think with NASA, we look at a lot of the same technology being used that's been around since the sixties, I hope so. But then look at Spaceship one, Spaceship two, how long I mean two years ago they did their test flight, and there's still a year or two out to doing, you know, their regular fights, although they've already broken ground
and they're building their spaceport in New Mexico. That's exciting, very exciting. But I hope you're right. Yeah, the private space industry is definitely exciting, and you know, it's certainly all new to everybody, so it's exciting to watch how it develops well. Earlier this month, fireball UFOs were filmed in both Georgia and Mexico. Now another fireball UFO video has surfaced. The
video shows a Russian rocket transforming during different stages of the initial launch. Then strange, flickering balls of light appear near the object, causing some to speculate that UFOs were disarming the rocket. The Epic Times describes this video, stating several tiny white lights are flashing around the object and its tail, both glowing with a whitish light, probably due to the effect of filming a computer screen,
as the core becomes semi translucent with a striped appearance. However, the rocket captured here is most likely that Soyer's two, the rocket carrying six satellites from Kazakhstan, launched early in the morning the same day the videos were uploaded. The Soyer's two rocket is a three stage carrier type rocket designed for delivering payloads into lower orbit, and the strange transformation seen in the video is most likely caused by the different stage as a burn, but we don't know.
Debunking another one of my favorite videos. Oh I'm not debunking at all. In fact, I get credit to the debunking on this one to Maureen. But oh really, but that video is one of those video, Yeah, most interesting videos we've seen in a long time, and it reminded me a lot of something out of the movie The Abyss, who's sort of organic like weird. Yeah, but you're right. I mean also, you know when
it's a small object and then it explodes and gets big. But it does look like on TV when the stage is you know, right on stage moving to the next where it's flowing. It's a very cool video though, I highly recommend watching it, and we have that on our website open Minds dot tv. Excellent. A thirty six year old bus driver was watching television last Monday night when she noticed a light hovering above the trees behind her home.
She was startled by the light because she lives in a very rural part of town, and the area behind her house is undeveloped from miles. She described the hovering object as having red, blue, and white twinkling lights. She grabbed her camera and took a few photos of the object. She watched the object for approximately thirty minutes, and she noted how eerily silent it was when
the object was hovering. Living near a swamp, the night is normally filled with sounds of frogs, crickets, and other swamp creatures, but it was quiet. The next morning, she went to explore the area beneath where the object had been hovering, and she discovered an eight foot by ten foot area of tall grass that had been flattened. Interesting story. Yeah, that is a weird I don't remember reading that one. I think we read it together, Alejandro. This was a UFO and killing Lee. Oh okay okay,
so ann And another interesting fact about the story is this woman. Though she her current occupation as a bus driver, she was formerly an Air Force policewoman, So I would assume that an Air Force policewoman is trained in observation. Mm hmm. Wow. That is so. Her story is interesting and it has a lot of other things other than just a sighting of a light in the sky. You know, she's got the silence of everything, not just the silence of the craft, no noise coming from the craft, but everything
was silent. And then this flattening of the tall grass in the area. Was this one of those stories? Though they didn't show the picture. I think it was. No showed the picture. Oh it did, yep, because I know we've ran a couple of cross a couple of those right where it says even in the title of UFO, and then they don't include Yeah, lots of interesting sighting stories lightly but yeah, no photo with the story,
yeah, which is unfortunate. This one does have a photo and it shows this this weird light kind of above the trees killing I remember that, yeap. Just a quick cross circle story here. A huge two hundred foot crop circle appeared in Wiltshare, England, last week, just across the street from Stonehenge. The circle is extremely large and contains what some have interpreted as three half moons. And I always kind of laugh at some people those interpretations
of crop circles, because you know, they could be anything. It's just like consolations to look in the sky or clouds go. There was an elephant. Yeah, interesting, did you see that one? It's it's literally across the street from Stone Yeah, And I think what's cool about the Stonehenge ones. This is a big one. It's another elaborate, very pretty one. And you know Stonehench has a lot of tourists, right, so they have
tourists all day long. And I remember even last year one happened across the street from Stonehenge and they actually interviewed the security guard and he said, you know, I'm here all day and I came in, I left last night, there was nothing across the street, came in in the morning and it's there. So he's like, I don't you know these people have to make these things overnight and that's so huge. I don't I don't know how they
could do it. So this one didn't have an interview with the security guard, but the same thing applies. It's it's pretty incredible, right. I feel bad for the farmers in that area though. Yeah, the crops always get trashed. Yeah they don't. I mean if I were a farmer there, I would definitely be setting up a ticket booth and charging admission. Well, they do it, Yeah, to recuperate. But and people argue, oh, maybe it's a farmer doing it to make money. But the farmers
point out they don't make money. They recuperate a little bit of their losses from that, they don't make money off of that. And on top of it, when people are trapesing all over the crops, they even destroy more. Yeah, yep, feel bad for those farmers yep. And they can't catch the suckers, right well, security guards need to wake up. Yeah well yeah, well, hopefully we here's a story we can hopefully now put
to bed and never mentioned again. But the UFO like silver helium balloon that grabbed the nation's at tension back in two thousand and nine has been sold. I'm talking, of course, about the infamous balloon created by Richard Heene in the Balloon Boy hoax, where a Colorado couple said that their son had floated away in the balloon. He's put the balloon up for auction earlier this month in an anonymous man who paid more than twenty five hundred dollars is the new
owner of this worthless balloon. That's twenty five hundred dollars. We'll fortunately go to a more worthwhile cause than going to the Heenes, the money is reportedly being given to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief funds. Yeah, his wife is Japanese, correct, So I don't think this is the last we're going to hear a heen though. I mean, he did this as a marketing stunt. He's kind of a marketing he's a ham and he tries to get into
the spotlight and he wanted out with this. He wanted his own reality show. Yeah. Well when he put this balloon up for sale first, he put it up for like two million dollars and he got news then. So yeah, we're gonna hear about this joke Stris some more. And I think probably the reason that they're giving the money to charity is because he didn't get as much as he thought he would. He thought he had some sort of
gold mine here. And it's funny because this twenty five hundred dollars doesn't even come close to covering his legal that the fees that he had to pay for tricking everybody for the the fraud that was something like thirty six thousand dollars they had to pay. Well, he's lucky he didn't go to prison. I mean, that's such an awful thing to do. These guys are busy, you know, chasing this balloon when they could have been out saving other people's
lives. Hopefully nobody else got hurt. A lot of yeah, a lot of resources were used with that. And you remember every every single news station was live feeding that, showing the balloon in the sky saying, oh, there's a boy in a balloon. That went on. Lots of local authorities were trying to chase the balloon down and yep, so thirty six thousand dollars you got off easy. Character. Oh yeah, and Alejandro, here's something
that made me think of you. A local news website in Pennsylvania posted an article last week and in the article, they highlighted ten things you should do if you see a UFO, something they quoted directly from Moufon. And I'm sure, Alejandro, you can probably recite these from heart, being that you were you are a field investigator, and you were the public education director for Moufon. Yeah, what is it? Run number one to crawl under the bed. Three, try not to cry too loud. That was you skipped
one. Oh okay, actually you're not far off but let's start with number one. Number one, Alejandro, the most important thing you need to do run off the bat is remain calm, but protect yourself from any hazards, real or perceived. I think that's a little pessimistic there. Yeah, when I say UFO, I get excited. I don't think about protecting myself.
I don't feel threatened by UFOs. Well, the perceived part is a dangerous part, because of course people can mistake a plane for upon they're running inside. But I guess also you should look up for the hazards if there's a fireball UFO coming and it's actually a plane that's crashing or a meteor coming and it's going to hit you. Yeah, you're wow UFO. Yeah all right, so remain calm. And then number two is be objective. Not every
UFO's extraterrestrial. That's a very good point, like that one. Number three, Use a camcorder or camera to record the event. That's also a great one. However, they don't mention anything about a tripod which is on mend that one tripod or if you have a tape recorder, record your descriptions of the event as it happens. And that's really good too, because in the
heat of the moment, you know, the adrenaline running and everything. Even hours later, you forget details that could be important, which is probably the next one. If other witnesses are present, ask them to also write or
record their observations. Yeah, that thing is write down, and that every time you get a call or an email, write down your experience immediately as much detail as you can, because your memory starts to fade, and once your memory fades, your brain has a funny habit of putting things in their necks and filling in the gaps. Yep. And with other witnesses, it's it's good to have the corroborating of it, to see names, names and
phone numbers too. Yeah. Oh, let's see number six. If the UFO left some trace, if it's present behind, do not disturb the area around it? And why is that all hudro Just like in any criminal case. So you don't disturb any evidence where things are lying. And of course there's some danger possibly, But what if you found the trace s evidence would would you then go in the area and do your investigation? Yeah for sure. Okay, but these are guys for non certified investigators and there's even some
move fine investigators, I wouldn't want tray person around number seven. If the sighting is from a distance at an arm's length, what would it take to cover up the object? A quarter a penny, Yeah, that's the most common one. So when you reach out your arm and you know what we're interesting the moon. I mean what they say is a tail and all. If you hold out your hand holding til it'll cover the moon. And even for supposedly, for that effect where on the horizon the moon looks really big
it is when it's above you. Supposedly, if you hold out a tile and all, it'll cover up the moon even when it's at the horizon. But tilen al comes in different shapes and sizes. Not in the old days. Not in the old days, things are much simpler back then. I have to liquid caps and yeah, let's see. Try to judge the distance from you to the object, the object's altitude and its speed. That's always
a tough one. Yeah, that's nearly impossible. But people can take the best stab otherwise, I mean someone if you read like Bruce mccabee's analysis, that's the first thing he does is he relates it to and which it should
be said in pictures or in video. Get some sort of establishing shot where you have a tree or something with the object, because someone like Bruce mccabee can figure out the height of the tree and then the angle from you to the top of the tree and start to try to figure out a general idea of the heights. Right. Yeah, I mean with things in the sky, it's difficult. You know, we've got very little to compare. But you know, some things we see in the sky a lot are birds and
airplanes. So with speed, you can sort of use those as a comparison. You can say it moved about as fast as an airplane usually does. Where we get the height of an airplane that an airplane usually flies one. The cool thing with a thing like what Brews does is then you can at least tell, okay, if that thing was a mile away, then it was twenty feet, you know, if it was two miles away, it was one hundred feet. So that least that gives you kind of an idea.
And then the same with speed Number nine is, should you encounter some type of extraterrestrial being associated with the craft, be prepared to take evasive action to protect yourself. Again. Yeah, I don't think that's necessary. Well, yeah, I mean it's lose lose. You can like try to talk to it or you can run, but if it wants to catch you, I don't think you're getting away. I think I'm beat. Yeah, you've got as much lick. Yeah, I think if I if I take a
swing at it'll just piss them off. Yeah, and number ten immediately report the event to Openminds dot TV. Is that number ten? That's number ten? Wow? Great or any other UFO research organization. But those out of ten, did you have those memorized? Yeah? No, I didn't have this memory. Oh I'm sure you presented those many times, mister education, not in those ten, but in a different way. Oh okay, although see a couple of them. Like if you meet any t be prepared to
defend yourself. I mean I wouldn't have something like that. I can imagine you presenting those in acting them out at the same time, doing all sorts of karate chops and things there. You take a picture, yeah, absolutely, take a picture, take a video, have sign a release that says I certify, I testify that I am from another planet other than Earth. So then you know it's extra treastral, so at least then you have a legal document, so if he's lying and he is from Earth, you can
sue him at a later date for pain and effort. Well, and I think this goes back up to number five or whatever it was. I mean, if there's an extra trestraill there, that's someone else there at the sighting, so you need to get his account as well. Yeah, yeah, take the tape recorder it is. I fought this weird looking earthling. Yep, that will help Alejandro. That is it for the news. Remember to check out these stories and more at open minds dot tv, your source for
UFO related news. I'm Jason McClellan, your Open Minds News correspondent, and you've been briefed. And do make sure to bug Alejandro and wish him a happy birthday yesterday. But don't do it yesterday because you'd have the time travel for that. But do feel free to send him a message today wishing him a happy birthday. Thank you, You're welcome, Alejandro. All right, Well, thanks again for the great news, and there's definitely good points there.
Please people tripod. There are so many times and we've talked about this that people don't have a tripod, they try to lean up against something and it's impossible. Your hand cannot say steady. So when there's so many times we receive these videos and people say that it was flying this way and flying that way, and it's impossible to tell, especially if it's a single light
in the sky, you know, and you're holding the camera. There's no way for a researcher to say that's not a star because your hand is moving, and so the moving of the object in the screen is probably due to your hand movement. Now, if you have a tripod that your camera's on and you're filming a light and it's the light is moving, then we know something about the movement, and we know that the movement didn't have to do a handshake or anything like that. Sopod. That's important. Video and filming
is important. Binoculars if you have them, are important, and then recording exactly what you saw afterwards is really important, and recording the time because like
that first thing said, a lot of things are not UFOs. And you can go to a site such as Heaven's Above, which is a great site, Heavens Dash Above, and you can go there and go look at your area at the time that you had your sighting, and it will show you if there are any satellites or iridium flares, and it will show you how intense the light is, so you'll be able to see if it's a really bright object because there are oftentimes if you haven't seen an iridium flair, that's
a really cool thing to see because you'll see all of a sudden, it's like it really bright and then dim out. And that is actually these iridium satellites I think there is their Russian and they're tumbling through space and they've they know exactly when the sun's going to hit it right where it's going to light up in the sky. So that's something fun to go watch. Go to Heavens above right now and go see when there's going to be in a ridium
flare in your area, and go check that out. It'll tell you when the space shuttles above all of these type of things. Now, if you don't see something there, then you've got something very interesting, and certainly report it. Report it to open minds. And you know, I like to say reporting to move on too, because it's better to report it to more places than less because that makes everybody's data better, so we can see correlations
between sightings. Other stories that you can read on Open Minds. Well, our story from last week has gotten a lot of attention, and that was the one with Frank Kimbler, our last guest, who did some isotopic research on some metals and material that he found out in the desert and Roswell where the crash is. There was a question about the error and the there's always error in a test, and uh, the where the isotopes I guess landed on this test is close to the error. H And as Frank says,
you know, that's why he needs to do more tests. He says, it would be rare that this uh you know would hit somewhere you know, off the chart like it did n be error, But it's entirely possible. So that's why the the other tests need to be done just to answer that question. More tests need to be done to figure that out. Like Jason said, we have the fireball stuff. We also have an interesting story about UFOs over Wisconsin and this comes from the Wendell Stevens archives and really you know,
collecting decades of UFO pictures. He has some very interesting stuff there, and we always try to get as many of these pictures into the magazine and onto the website as possible. This was a situation where fortunately we had multiple pictures and we had an analysis of those pictures, so those are all online. Some of these, of course, look highly dubious, but some of them not so much. And I mean it seems, especially in the seventies,
a lot of discs and we're being seen in some extraordinary photographs. So go and check that out on our website in our article section. All of those things that Jason had talked about are up there as well. And another
story I talked a little bit about this. It's doing very well, as our Vietnam story, where somebody at the National Archives had written a blog about a UFO incident that he had found in some logs at a base in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and had found that so he wrote a story on that, and that's also a really interesting one. The base was called Chuly and we don't know who the person was that submitted it, but you can read
that account. Otherwise, we're keeping on top of all the fireball UFO videos that keep appearing. It's interesting in the last couple of weeks that there's been so many. And it's also interesting that the Epic Times has been covering all of these stories, narrow paper out of Washington, DC. And I think it's partially Jason's fault that they're so interested because they had posted a video he had put up on YouTube and they've been posting a lot of UFO videos ever
since. So very interesting stuff there. So that's some of what you'll find on our website. We also actually have some new YouTube videos up. Like I've talked about. You know, we have some UFO news the stories that you get here, but you have Maureen talking about them, and some videos are showing if they're associated. We have a little more video with pictures about the roswell UFO material that I had talked about and we always put up.
We'll take those window pictures that I was talking about and put them on video as well so people can watch them on YouTube. And one of those is from Cumberland, Rhode Island is up right now and this is kind of a photo of a strange kind of long cylindrical type UFO photograph and Jason I put that together on a video as well, so our YouTube is something very cool
to check out. In fact, if you go to Openminds dot tv and scroll to the under the stories, you'll see our video section and we have a very cool new video player up there where you can scroll through our videos and check those out and watch them on the page, or click on the video and it'll take you to YouTube. You can also easily share it to your Twitter and your Facebook, and right there you can subscribe to our YouTube
so you're up to date whenever we put a new video out. And our videos are just so incredible that you're going to want to be the first to know what's going down, so go subscribe there. However, let us go ahead and get Ted Peters on because I'm very interested in this subject. His study was incredible. I mean, I love when people go and take these ideas missed or something like that and go apply them and do some real studies
to figure out whether they're real or not. And that's what mister Peters has done. And so let's get him on and hear what he has to say about this. All right, Very happy to have Ted Peters on the phone. Are you there, I'm here, Elijandro. Good, it's wonderful to talk to you, and I'm really excited to talk about this subject because I just I find not only the I think you when we talked before you had mentioned about that you know more of the discussion than whether or not they're just
here, but the whole social aspect of it and is really interesting. Yes, I look at UFOs as a phenomenon, and when you look at a phenomenon, you don't talk just about what's there the UFO itself, but also the person who is perceiving it or thinking about it, and it's supposed to the viewer and what gets viewed, and things such as the psychological impact or the sociological impact of the person who perceives in UFOs, who believes in UFOs.
It's just as important to me as what they themselves might be in themselves. What originally got you interested in looking at the subject or dealing with extraterrestural life. Well, when I was a kid, my mother and father were avid UFO book readers, and I can still remember a day when they went to hear Georgia Dampski to the Great California Contact Key to hear him speak. I was re funk at the time. I had to sail with a babysitter, but I couldn't wait for them to get home so I could hear well
what it was that Dampski was saying. And there was a lot of excitement, and I collected newspaper clippings and magazine clippings for decades to follow the phenomenon. Later on, when I grew up became university professor, I went back. Boy, so both find information to look at. So you should say,
I'm almost say cradled great ul full OFFICIONO. Yeah, And so then I mean, one of the things that you've done and I think is really interesting, you kind of tackled this whole concept with that religions because a lot of people say this over and over again that religions will be greatly affected should the extra threastural truth come out or should there be you know people they come
and visited outwardly and disclosure happened. And that's one of the things that's great is you actually did a survey to get together a lot of people figure out. I was prompted to pursue this question because it seemed to me that religious people that say, someone affiliated with the church for organization were just as interested in UFOs as anybody else was, especially the extra trust hypothesis. Yeah, it seemed to be these assumptions and religion was frangile, and it was just
great if we made contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence. One year, I received four invitations to be interviewed to the National Enquirer, each one writing one to each journalists wanting to write a story on this, and I remember arguing with one, well, don't you think that if we meet E T that our religion will crumble? I said, no, of course not, So why
do you think that it would? Then the interviewer said, well, because Christianity teaches that man is the highest being, right, but there were angels of God who quitted higher than and so each one of those ended in frustration. And later on, now I've become very involved in the dialogue between science and religion, especially currently astro biology and those scientists who are really looking at what's happening in outer space. And I noticed that these scientists seem to make
the same assumption that actual contact with ET will be destructive to religion. It will cause a crisis and belief wholson will fall apart. I thought, not true. At least, well, let's test it and see. And with that in mind, I launched into the peers ETI Religious christ Survey, and it survey, for the most part, confirms what I induitably had bought, and certainly not what the skeptics have thought. So you were at your professor
at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary when you started this survey. Did your colleagues know what you were up to? No? And in general, in general, this is a topic that's relatively new. I plunge ahead on frontiers of my own from the high at the time, since I did conduct the survey that yes, it's generated quite a bit of interest. I teach hear it.
As you mentioned that Pacific Lucan Theological Seminary. But this is also part of a larger group called the Grants of Theological Union, which conducts theological studies and religious studies for a wide variety of groups Christians, book Protestant and Catholic. We have a center for Jewish Studies, an institute from Buddhist studies,
an institute for Islamic studies, et cetera. And so this was a good place to carry on that kind of conversation, and individuals here and there are interested, but I can't say this a ground flow of interested in this particular topics. So I pursue it with connections in the scholarly world and in the non scholarly world wherever people might be. Just sure, quickly, when was it that you put together the survey and then started getting, you know,
sending it out two thousand and eight. I had read one or two surveys that had attempted to get at this and felt that I could construct a slightly more complex one, which we did. I'm not going to brag that was as high a quality a survey as as one might expect by professional surveyors. Yet I do think that out of thirteen hundred and twenty five in our sample, that enough in the way of patterns merge, so I can have a fairly high degree of confidence that it does tell us quite a bit. That's
important. Yeah, I think that's great. One of the surveys that you said that you kind of had looked at that was similar was a Victoria Alexander, who's instantly John Alexander's wife, who is someone well known in this field, and so she was it looked like the first in this area to kind of take a stab at this yes, And when I read her survey, I tuitively thought, well, of course that's right. And she had had gained information from clergy, and the clergy didn't seem to have a lot of
well or only include positive. The clergy seem to have a very positive or welcoming posture towards the prospect of ETI. I think what I did that added to it was greater discrimination between religious groups themselves. And what I was hoping for is that I could actually begin to look theologically at what people might be saying about this particular topic. We didn't sharply distinguish between clergy, lay, and religious, but we did make some attempt to discriminate between those three some
categories, and for the most part, it didn't make a difference. I say, a clergy person in a lay person in the same religious group are
likely to think the same way. And then you know, and then when you get to it, I mean that what like guts, question three is kind of the big question already hear the official confirmation of the discovery of a civilization of intelligent beings living on other planets would so undertone my beliefs, that my beliefs would face a crisis, and the three things they can answer with agree strongly agree, neither agree nor disagree, or disagree strongly disagree. And
the overwhelming response was in the disagree overwhelmingly. And that applies to Roman Catholics, who applies to Evangelical Christians, which includes fundamentalists. We did not break that into two subgroups. It includes mainline Protestants, it includes with us. We got a large enough sample on us to have some confidence. Our samples for some groups turned out to be too small to render a judgment that it goes for people of Jewish and Muslim traditions. However, the very small samples
that came in were consistent with all the other groups. And then the comments we did ask for spontaneous comments were consistent across the board. You could find a Muslim will put us and the evangelical Christian all saying this universe is so big and so much could happen there, that there very well could be extraterrestrial life, intelligent life, and if so, this is part of God's plan.
Whether you call God God or Allah or in the case of with us, in all my religious understanding of the universe would not be negatively affected and sometimes with some consistency, would it be arrogant for us to think that we here on Earth are the only sentient beings or only intelligent beings that God would
make so that was consistent? Were there anybody as an individual disagree? Well, yes, of course so, But we're just talking about how large the numbers are ratively seek Yeah, I you know, looking at the survey, I would fit in the Buddhist or the non religious. But I my answers to your question spent more along the Buddhist line, which I thought was interesting. But some of the answers that you've got in your comments, we're pretty
funny, pretty interesting. I like the one in this question someone said I'd share a few with extraterrestrials any day. I just love that most Yeah, I'd share a few with an extraterrestrial any day. And I think that person was in the mainline Protestant category who added that one. Yeah, I loved it, And you know what it shows this question. First of all, right off the bat, like you said, it disproved this idea that you
know, religions probably would be majorly affected. And it also kind of disproves another idea that which is what I was getting at with a non religious kind of thing, is that you were demonstrating that the non religious kind of have a perspective that the religious are more closed minded. But that's another reason I love this comment to the religious person who's obviously not closed minded and say, share a few with an extraterrestrial any day. Yes, I think you're right.
A phrase such open minded or close bunded that came up frequently in the comments, and those people who are worried that religion might be tragile and suffer a crisis tend to be the non religious, and the self of self identified non religious people in the survey frequently described themselves as open minded and described religious people as closed minded. And so a non religious person can say, I welcome UFOs, but those other religious people over there, those close minded,
doctor dogmatic religious people, they're going to suffer at this particular point. And it appeared clear from a survey that the only group that has this worry about the fragility of religion are the non religious. Now pointing out that we didn't divide or try to discriminate between nonreligious people who are atheistic on the one hand, and non religious people who are spiritual but not religious on the other. And in that second category there would be a number of new agers, and
so there were among the non religious theists as well as atheists. If we were to do the survey again, or if somebody else would like to follow it up for the more refined instrument, it would be good to distinguish that those two different components within the non religious and to see if they come out
the same or if they come out differently. Right. And one of the interesting part is that because I mean you had mentioned how doctor Jill Carter with that steady and some of the comments she had made about religious having a problem with sort of one of the inspirations or an example of the belief that's out there that you're trying to test, and the non religious, the very scientific, hard line scientists would probably fit more in that atheist category as opposed to
that kind of like you said, yes, I work with that image. Two of your heart knows scientists gets up in the morning, leads day ols for breakfast, you know, facts that kind of person. And it's also the case with many scientists. And I do not want to say every scientist, for sure, But there are many scientists who feel that a naturalistic picture of the world is a superior one, and that religious thinking is primitive and
outdated, and that we could render judgment us that way. Religion is closed minded and doctrinaire and dogmatic, and science is open minded, and it would follow them that a scientifically trained person is more likely to accept extraterrestrial life than
a religious dolt. But with regard to Jill Tarter, and I've had an opportunity in recent years to spend a paramount of time at SETI with SETI people, and Jill has hurt me on this topic a couple of times, and on one occasion she that I just find it hard to believe the results of your survey because fundamentalists and evangelical Christians that she's acquainted with new register a negative
reaction to the prospect of ET contact. And to see them in my survey standing next to liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics and others not showing much difference, well, that was just a surprise to her. Well, maybe it's a surprise everybody. I'm not certain, but I think that Jill, and perhaps others in this category operate with the image well, fundamentals and evangelicals are so
narrow that they could not absorb radically new things. Maybe that's an image of the stereotype around scientific circles, and at least on the question of whether or not we could live with ETI in our neighborhood. Maybe the results of the
survey are a little bit surprising. Yeah, Now, I was not surprised by your findings that I think it makes sense, and you answered some questions as to why this persist, and we'll get into that later this idea, but I was a little bit surprised at how much, you know, how strongly people felt their beliefs would not be affected. And I love question four because question four also shows something interesting because question three was will your personal beliefs
be affected or face a crisis? Question four is will your religious tradition face a crisis? And there was a slight difference, even though it is the only slight where a few more agreed that their religious tradition may be affected. But if I were a Roman Catholic lay person, I would say, oh, my faith won't be hurt it all. But you know what, I'm going to worry about the bishop and the archbishop right, they would get a
shot. And that's the only way I could read that result. But I find it interesting that there is a noticeable change that significant overall, but certainly within that group. So many individuals indicated that my faith won't be undercut, but the other person sitting next to me in the pew or the one in the chancel, they're going to have a problem. Yeah, So I think that's an interesting answer. And of course, you know, personal beliefs,
people can be more flexible than large organizations. But it also kind of gets to because you had some answers in this you know, such as most people like Mormons, for instance, saying you know, we already believe in an extraterrestrial Buddhist saying we already believed in other planets and things like that, and the only religion and Paul Davids, who you refer to in this document, you know, he talked about how Roman Catholics might have an issue because philosophically
there's some things there, but Roman Catholics are the ones who are really wrapping their arms around trying to resolve that issue, and they're you know, having astrobiological or astrobiology conferences and things like that. Yes, I think it's a surprised frequently for people in the media to learn that the Vatican has sponsored its all observatory for pushing forceies. Now, they might not have liked Galileo, but they certainly took that into the telescope when and I've had an opportunity now
since nineteen eighty seven to work with back in the observatory. Astronomers and looking for extraterrestrial life has been part of their agenda, at least for the current generation of astronomers and astrophysicists, and maybe they inherited it. I don't know how far it goes back. So once in a while you'll see a news clipping where someone will have interviewed somebody from the Vatican Observatory and then they're flabbergast, Oh, my goodness, Church is actually looking for ET And I want
to say, that's really old news. Yeah, it will be news when they find ET, but right now all it's old news that they're looking and obviously they're not going to have any theological difficulties if they're lucky, just as you know many other secular spiders, and that's the physicists are lucky. Now, this philosophical issue that the Roman Catholics have that called David brings up hasn't necessarily I don't know, and you would have more insight been resolved amongst the
scholars and the philosophers and the theologians and the Roman Catholicism. We are talking about it. But Bunez, who's in charge of the observatory, has come out and that it's okay to believe in extraterrestrials and they would be our brothers. Do you think the philosophical differences will be an issue that they will resolve
that or what are your insights into that whole aspect? Well? With regard to who and the other Jesuits, who are the researchers as the bat Conservatory, George Point, Bill Staker and scientists such as that they're just interested in finding them, they would they would give them a good day, you know, to actually cover et. With regard to what comes next, there isn't really a lot of philosophical speculation, at least as I hang around with that
particular group. I'm sure that philosophical questions will come up, but right now, at this particular point, they don't invest a lot of time and energy in them. I could add, however, and this is a concern with Paul Davies, who we just mentioned, that a theological issue having to do with the incarnation of God in Christ will come up and has come up amongst
theologians for quite a while. And that question is, when we think of God and partied in Jesus Christ in human history here on earth, would it be well that suffice for the whole universe, or are we likely to see similar incarnations and other species on other planets? And you can find theological muscle picking up one or another of those two alternatives and Jesuit sitting around having their
share in the late afternoon as after our day's work. Of course, we have to say this before a hard night's work, because they were in a nice guy over the day's guy to be looking at the start. That's the kind of conversation you'll hear. And as far as I know, there's no one dominant point of view, either for Catholics or Protestants to deal with that question of a single incarnation versus multiple incarnations. Is it a Protestant issue to
add? And if so, or if not, why not? I do think that a Protestant would have to confront this in exactly the same way. I just think that there are more Catholics busy at work on this question than Protestants. Mm hm, so yeah, so people aren't worrying about that too much. Then, no, they're not worrying. And what the interesting things about critics such as called Davies and others. He says that or assumes that this is what makes Christianity so fragile and so subject to crisis, is that
they could not resolve this question of single poltical incarnations. Well, to me, the evidence is clear that it will not precipitate a crisis. Yes, the debate will go on, but a debate shows that people are pretty comfortable with discussing both sides of the question. So that's that's what makes me think. You know, it's not going to provide a crisis. It will provide an opportunity for theological debate. But we've had theological debates going all the way
back to the Bible. This is nothing new here, and the theological debate does not suggest a crisis at all. Well. I grew up Roman Catholic, and it seems like there are a lot of theologians who get excited when it comes to having something to debate. Yes. Yes. In fact, our understanding of the rules for debate, for the most part, are drawn from the nidd medieval Catholic process of having a dialogue, where one person puts down a thesis and argues for it to someone puts down a counter thesis and
argues for the bad. So that's part of the whole tradition. In fact, eulogians become eulogians at large part because they want to argue right. So this moves us on then to question five. And I think this is a big key because you thus far have pretty much disproven the idea that religions for the base a crisis. But then you ask, even though my religious viewpoint
won't face a crisis, what about those other religions? And there was a pretty decent response that, oh, yeah, my religion's going to be fine, but those other religions they're in trouble. Yeah. I don't know how to explain that, but I find it humans very humorous that people would think that. One of the things that puzzles me. And you'll notice that we have almost seventy percent of the non religious affirming agree or stroggly agreed about that.
So that means a person will say, I am not religious, but I believe that all those Hindus and Muslims and Christians over there, they're going to have a problem that I won't have. It puzzles me because I suspect that some of those people in the non religious category grew up religious. How many times could you find a story such as Gil Wilson and others. I grew up in evjelt, but I gave up my faith when I learned about
evolution or something like that. So now as a mature person perhaps embracio agnosticism or atheism, they remember what religion was like as a kid, and now they don't have religion anymore, and then they're going to say that religion is fragile and subject to a crisis. I'd just like to know more about what goes on in a person's mind there, because it's not as though they're like
ignorance of religion. I mean, if they have some knowledge to the child's knowledge, and it would be good to test again and try if we find that and just see what what the thinking is. A maybe you have some speculation there is just how are not religious persons buying the works when the really
relis well, I think that you just said. I mean a lot of non religious people also are rebellious of their religion, and unfortunately, I think, are overly critical of the religion they used to belong to, and then make the assumption that others. I think you hit a point too, is the ignorance that not only are the non religious ignorant of the other religion,
every religions ignorant of the others. I think a paper like yours sheds light on the extraterrestrial discussions that are going on in a lot of the different religions. You know, and I think you know, a Roman Catholic thinks, well, we're so smart, we're figuring this out and we're having conferences. But you know, the Protestants over there, they better start figuring it out, or the Mormons. They're probably in trouble. Without even knowing that the
Mormons are like, hey, we already figured this out. I would imagine that might be an issue. I wonder, as you talk that way, I wonder if it could be just our group versus another group. I wonder if you were to test Democrats and Republicans, and maybe the Republicans would say, ETI would cause a crisis amongst the temies. That's a great question, and I bet you're right. I bet you they would. I bet you,
Yeah, that would be so interesting, that's funny. But I think you know what else this question reveals is why this mythology or yeah, this idea that religions are going to have a problem persists because if you have, you know a lot of people thinking I'm going to be okay, but they're
not. It demonstrates how, of course then most people think, oh, religions are going to have a trouble, but with the sidebar there which you'd never here, which is luckily ours will be okay and everybody else is going to be in trouble right right. So I think this is the key to why that whole idea for sit And you know, to your answer with Jill
Tarter on her thing about being so surprised, it's another example. I think of a non religious person, I'm not so surprised because I'm in this field and I pay attention to all the different people discussing extra thresh rules, and I realized that a lot of religions and groups are discussing this or okay with
it, whereas someone like her may not be aware of that. Yes, it's maybe if we make up our mind what religious people are like, we don't really want to invest the energy friend out whether what we have thought was
really on the mark or not. I'm getting back to try to read the mind of a person who is scientifically educated, who feels that religion was something we enjoyed as a child, that when being mature, we give it up and we replace it with what science that if you were to then extrapolate, extrapolate to the evolutionary history of the human race or something like that, you might want to say, well, religion was primitive, and we who believe
in the scientific understanding of reality, we are the advanced ones. I see that assumption at work in what I call the ETI myth. And yes, people in the contemporary age the scientific aide just as capable of thinking mythologically as others. Included in this myth would be the idea that science is highly evolved and religion is less highly evolved. And those of us who were scientists were
the ones who are going to actually make contact with ET. And maybe ET is more highly evolved than we are, and perhaps on their planet in their evolutionary development, they were religious wants, but they gave it up for science.
And eventually we're building a picture here in which those of us who are scientists are top fogs, were the most highly evolved, were the most advanced, and the scientists on Earth then could develop a fraternity with a scientists on Zeta two particular, and just sitting around feeling superior to those are your religious
people. I'm just trying to read the mind, or to put it in another way, to look at the thought structure of people for whom it will be important thing that religion is tragile and unprepared, unprepared to deal with easy contact. Yeah, it's kind of funny. It reminds me. It makes me think of, you know, maybe Joe Carter comic with her shaking an alien's hand and the alien going, oh, it's nice to meet you scientists.
What's with those crazy religious people on their planet? Yes, I think that's right to the point kind of this idea, So and which you is a question that you tackled also later on in this thing. But I think that's what's great. You kind of answered the questions, and I mean, finally did it in a way with like you said, over thirteen hundred people
that you talked to to Finally, but's that myth like the MythBusters? Yeah, I think it's a we busted a myth in the sense of putting an assumption to challenge and revealing what perhaps many people will find as a surprise, and to go on and impress the analysis. Maybe a number of people that be disappointed if they have this belief that religion is primitive and out of date
and science is modern and up to date. I want to go ahead and then a couple of other analytical perspectives, one of which is, see how religion doesn't really go away, It just changes its form, and in a non religious or anti religious period of our culture, which we've had now since
the Enlightenment, religion comes back. But it comes back subtly in belief systems, not as an organized church, but as a set of beliefs that we seem to have to work with this assumption, for example, that life evolves from something simple to something complex, from something stupid to something very intelligent.
We export then to another planet and we think that life light is started there and follows this progressive channel of evolutionary development until the equivalent of Homo sapiens fears it continues to cultivate intelligence. Intelligence must be reproductively adaptable on other planets as well as it is here, and eventually intelligent people may have religion, but
then they go on then they become scientific. And when they're scientific, they create technology, and they create radios to send signals to us here in space. And if they've been at this longer there three point three point eight billion years we have on Earth, then they're more intelligence than we are. They're brighter than we are. And then you say, oh, my goodness, they must have had achievements already in medicine as to how people from disease,
maybe even established ever lasting life. Maybe they have put an end to war, and they've achieved economic justice. And the image rows that I'm not making this up because you can actually see it work in SETI scientists as well as many UFO believers. And we have here there more highly evolved society that has
all kinds of qualities and traits that are superior to hours. And you know what, if we could have contact with them, we would figit it from this and they would share their medicine and longevity with us, they would share peace and justice with us, and all these types of things. Well, there is not a shred of empirical evidence at all from the scientific point of view, that such a civilization persists. But the boy, we want to believe in it, and it just looks like heavens. It looks like angels
coming with sheets instead of on gossiper. And so what picking is is that any religious beliefs has just sort of going underground, and now they pop up again in belief systems surrounding ETI, which would include some UFO believers, but clearly in the case of SETI and others, those who are strictly it would think of themselves as being strictly scientific characters. Now, I don't want to impugne the science that has been done here, all right, As I said,
I know Sadi scientists. They do produce the knowledge there, it's what do The framework in which they work has these mythological consumptions with which they work. So this is not something you can test for in survey, but it is part of my analysis of what makes a contemporary secular society work, and that is that we have these supplemented religious beliefs that are given different labels such
as, you know, evolutional or something like that. Well, one thing that I'm you know, because I'm not you know, definitely some total SETI passure, but certainly am critical of there are because these are scientists. But they certainly have very strong opinions that are purely based off of speculation, such as this one that you actually did the work to discover was not necessarily true.
But a lot of those, and you know, especially in astronomy, when they're finding new things that they never could have imagined existed on a regular basis. What was one of the latest where planets that didn't have a not attached to sun just floating out there in places, I mean on a monthly basis. It seems they find these amazing discoveries they never thought possible. I think this is a very good point, and it's a subtle point that belief
in the ETI mith is a prop or a heuristy. It's something that gets the scientists going in order to pursue for research. You know, the last I observed a list of Excel planets was somewhere around fifteen hundreds and it is the assumptions that we may that turned asun get us excited and lead us to construct research programs to go after them and find them. And there's no question
in my mind that this new knowledge is very valuable to us. And if it starts out with speculation and if it ends up with new knowledge, I want to say, hello, it's a good point. That's a really good point. It's very possible then the etach that Well found to be true. It is just that we need to distinguish between speculative assumptions that look mythological on the one hand, with the actual data that we gain from pursuing the research
on the other. And set he really has produced a lot of interesting knowledge, as other astrobiologists have produced for us. Yeah. Well, and you know, the majority of the astrobiologists, at least a lot of the big way I know, Mitschia, Kaku and Sagan and David, they all have the idea you're talking about that they're more involved in everything. And personally, I'll admit that I have that feeling, although I understand that it's certainly not
empirically provable. In fact, you know, democracy, which is a very advanced way of governance. It's been and around for a long time. It's gone away and come back, you know. But it certainly inspires me because if I had the philosophical belief that they're probably bad guys out there, I wouldn't be as enthusiastic about finding them. These are good observations. I had
not thought about the democracy anology. I mean, it is true that twenty four hundred years ago we had the democracy of each Greece and it went away came back. I think with regard to belief in the ETI myth, I know, as a kid, I wanted it to be true, and now as it grown up, I kind of wanted to be true in the fact of appointed that we have a proven it true after all of these decades.
And I think keeping the myth alive is probably not a problem as long as we recognize what it is, that it is myth, or it is a framework, or it is a set of as yet unprovement assumptions, and recognize that only when we get the dating in do we have something that merits forward the science. But in the meantime, it's where the excitement and asking the question times. Yeah, yep, yeah, I would even say, you know, even maybe uh irrationally at times I fanticize and lean on it like
a crutch. And maybe it's because I think of, you know, things like Star Trek, whether they have these wonderful futuristic adventures and and humanity, and they're also nice to each other and everything, which is great kind of vision. Yes, I noticed Stephen Hawking about this term. A year ago.
British physicists had cited that for the spacelings out there on other planets are probably a lot like us, and they probably rape and pillage and destroy, and maybe we should not be sending them signals because then they could find us and they'll come here and lay our planets to destruction. And his analogy was the way the Europeans treated the Native Americans in North America, then that's the way they're going to treat us on Earth. So the conclusion would be,
don't let them know we're here behinde. Well, that's anopolists. I mean there's a certain launching to that as well. And if we made that assumption, then we probably would just color here in our own darkness. So we have to have some positive motives, some positive gimmings that gives us the enthusiasm to pursue research in our space, and if Stephen Hawky were in charge, we probably would have no motive to do so. Yeah. So I guess often this research, which I love so much, but kind of into your
own personal beliefs. Do you believe that visitation is happening? I actually bracket that out as a scientific question, like many in the field of ufology, After you have feared away all the ifos that identified objects and you have this ten percent residual of still unidentified flying objects, that becomes the most interesting,
and then you look for continuities and discontinuities. And as I mentioned, I would like to believe they are extraterrestrials, just like plot who was in the movie, that they there but still coming, prefer and providing a catalyst for Earth's betterment. I would like to believe that, But as yet the compilation really good UFO antecdotes of reports does not give us a high degree of confidents
in this. And if they are flying machines with UFHO nots in them, which I hope they are, let me just say we're not ready yet to say that with a high degree of confident. Now, if I were one of the individual contact kees, then I would say, well, I know, I know for sure I'm not in that particular category, and so that's why I say I brackt it out. I would like to call the existence or non existence of et on Earth as a scientific question yet to be answered.
In the meantime, having done a large number of UFOs, I need investigations myself and talk with people whom I must judge to be both saved and having integrity. Who are you, gopule witnesses? I want to say there's something going on there that genuinely is But like spinning wheels in the slush in late winter, we've been spinning wheels for six years now and still haven't got
traction. I've not given up by any means, but I still am looking forward to the day when we get some traction we have to go on. So, of course, in a group who's been spinnings and wheels are the main guys out there trying to look for some traction, move on, you're going to be speaking with them. Is this like the first UFO oriented conference
that you've spoken to? No, In fact, I gave it bread like this in nineteen seventy nine move On meeting, and in the days when Walter Andres was the head of move On, I did stay in continuous communication with Walter and visited him a couple of times, and his had a research center in his garage. I have that was the Louisiana State investigator to move On
for a period of time and did some firsthand interviewing. I was far more involved in the nineteen seventies with the UFO phenomenon than I am now, and that just happens to be because of my professional situation that I've given my time to other things. So I continue to like the idea of investigating UFOs to get the data and see if we can have a breakthrough of some kind or
another. But I'm sometimes hot and sometimes cold, and there was a period there in which I was cold because I was busy doing out the papers. So yeah, so is this uh? Is it exciting you to come back? It is? It is. I was at a move On conference just a few years ago and assawsable friends there, Sin is very downing and others. So I'm at anxious this year to do this. Yes, and even though many people are interested in UFOs who do not adhere to the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
I do think that the et hypothesis is what spark's most interest, and I am hoping that people will find interesting what it is that I'll have to say, I think so. I mean, I was very excited to see your name on the list, and very excited when they sent me, uh some contact information to have you on the show, and uh, I was excited to be able to talk to you. And this interview has turned out
to surpassed my expectations. It's been fatialing and fun and wonderful. So I think, Alie Handro, this is the topic which continues to fascinate me as well as you and so many So the more discussion the better. Yeah. So, I think that people who go to your your talk there at the symposium are going to have a good time too. And luckily it's not too far for you to travel. Yes, that's right. I'm the California and uh I'll be actually going to fly after run out to another meeting afterward,
but I'm looking forward to be there. I've got some new copies of my book Full Chariots question Mark have created ut make those available and hopefully people will want to engage in the kind of conversation that you and I have just had and see if it takes us anywhere. Where can they get your book? You oppose Gods and Amazon shortly, okay, so that would be the easiest place to track it down. Does it Is it essentially about the chariots?
Is it essentially about the topics we've just discussed. Yeah, I wrote it long before the survey, but it deals with this secularization of religious impulses. And I look at a large number of cases in which this is administrated the extraterrestrial myth or the eti myth at work, where people are feeling heavy religious feelings trying to express them what appears to be scientific you're naturalistic language. And I look at a number of cases and analyze them with that in mind.
Right, and just to repeat it so people know, UFO's God's Chariots question mark and then the subtitle is Flying Saucers and Politics, Science and Religion. Yes, that's what sounds very interesting, So I look forward to that. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, and hopefully we'll have you again sometime and I definitely look forward to meeting you
in California. Okay, Alijandro, thanks so much for your time. All right, you can go and download his survey, which I suggest people do and read all the details. Very interesting. You just google Peter's ETI Survey or Peter's ETI Religious Crisis Survey. The title is pretty interes stink that is. Oh, thank you so much for listening to Open Minds Radio, and don't forget to visit openminds dot tv for more UFO news. Talk to you next week.