SYSK Live from SXSW: How UFOs Work

just enthusiasm? Yeah? Keep Austin weird. That's that's the motto. Is that right? So we're doing our best. I should probably say that those of you listening on your iPods Chucks talking to people who are watching this podcast right now. Yes, he's not insane. I think I got a laugh track three years. They got a laughter the Little Red Box after three years. Um. So, yes, we're doing a lot of podcasts. This is a little different for us. I'm

normally not so sweaty from being stared at when we record. Um, but I'm getting a little more used to it. I'm fine. Yeah, and um, I lost my coffee, So I'm gonna get really dry. Oh you don't have coffee, I'll be okay, boy, Chuck Josh, have you ever heard of the X files? Oh? Yeah, it turns out a lot of that was true. Really Yeah? Well okay, so not the um, not the whole child healer who may or may not be like killing people, like the the compartmentalized versions of the X files, but

the overarching thread with the aliens. Yeah, not not like the shape shifters. According to how UFOs work on how stuff works dot com, that's probably true. Well, you know I'm a believer, are you. I'm I'm in the Fox Smolder camp. I'm okay, although he's Hank Moody to me. Now to you, uh, it's the Californication. Okay. I thought you would always be Fox Molder and now right, I see nods, he's Hank Moody. Now that's a huge, huge changeover it is. Yeah. I thought he's had a lot

more fun on California. I'm sure. I'm sure there's a lot of brooding on X files and not so much dirty dirty Well okay, so, um, let me give you some examples. So the X files, Um, we're going kind of retro here, all right, because the UFOs very nineties, in very forties and even ancient ancient exactly. So, um,

have you heard of the ancient Indian sanscrit scriptures? Right, thank you very much, just pep, thank you very much, Justic, I got the first peep um okay In in these ancient Indian sanscript um writings, there is a description of an airship and it actually talks about how this airship can go forward and backward and vertically very quickly, and a man can travel by sky um and in a

very short time. And the weird thing is these texts were written like way before they were supposed to be airships, right yeah, it's called the them on us, and they describe things like a great flying bird made of light material. Um. They even describe a mercury engine with an iron heating apparatus underneath. So they get really specific about how it can move and how it operates. And this is not anything that should be happening oddly specific, right, yeah, allow

me to continue. In twelve eleven, uh, it was written that a group of people in England were at church one day and there was a loud crash from outside of the church and they all go outside. They're all very dirty, I'm sure. Um. They go outside and they look up and there's an airship. Again. You're gonna notice airships keep popping up in this how UFOs Work podcast. Um, and it's anchored, like an an er has has dropped into the the steeple above the church and it's stuck.

And so all the all the very very old timey medieval people are like, what is going on? Some guy comes down from the airship, tries to get the anchor out, is grabbed and they're about to be killed. And the bishops like, no, no, no no, just let this guy go. I don't know what his jam is. Um, so his jam sou? So they the the airship cuts rope and flies off, And I should point out it's weird, Rightah,

that's weird at any time, it's weird. So a folk a folkloreist named Katherine Briggs points, I think she puts it perfectly that this is one of those quote one of those strange, unmotivated and therefore rather convincing tales that are scattered throughout the early chronicles, like basically saying this this this chronicler had no reason to just make this up. And it's just so weird how specific it is. And then we can fast forward to the nineteenth century tons

of airship sightings. Nebras it was huge, Texas was huge, California. It was basically like that whole James West steampunk thing, but in the time right, so it wasn't retro. And then just this February in Jerusalem there's a big sighting.

There are several videos of I didn't hear about this one, well, there are three different videos, and the founder of the site, Marshall Brain, put it to bed or he tried to um, saying like this is how it was hoaxed, not entirely convincingly, but there's supposedly a UFO over the Dome Rock in Jerusalem. And this was February, And if you go into the Mutual UFO network website every day, there's still UFO reports

coming in. So the Mutual UFO Network move On. They made tons of appearances in the next file, you know, move on. They got nothing on the city who that's a little foreshadow and pomp up nice chuck um. So if you go on to the move on website, you'll see that there's still just dozens of sightings every day. So this is very much embedded in um our culture, which is why we're about to talk about it now, Chuck go that was my inge. All right, we're gonna

talk about UFOs. Let's start. Uh well that was sort of the beginning, I guess, But let's start in the mid twentie century. As everyone knows, UFOs were pretty big in the nineteen forties and fifties, got a lot of press, and in fact, that's when the term UFO as unidentified flying object was coined by the United States Air Force. I don't know if everyone knows that. Yeah, that's kind of that's a big one. At least some people in this room know that now. And uh, you know, unidentified

flying object, flying saucer, or flying disc. What we're really talking about is alien spacecraft, right, I mean, let's let's cut to the chase. That's what upologists have been talking about, right. Is that how that's pronounced? Yes, ufology Okay, because I kept saying ufo ologists, and that's that's like saying, uh, do you refer to the I R S as the herbs? Huh? I don't know, so a fologist? Uh yeah, No, it's

you fologist, not a fologist, you fologists. So the Air Force started investigating these things for real, um, and found out that five of UFO sightings are unaccounted for. The rest are explained away. You always hear weather, balloon, whatever the heck that is, or hoax, hoaxes, lightning, Yeah, lightning, any any kind of a natural weather phenomenon can be mistaken. And hoaxes is big people people like faking their photography

or crop circles. Yeah. Sure. Um, so that's a pretty significant point that you just brought up, that there are some cases of UFO sightings that are out there that are um unexplained. Right, Yeah, where's the uh? I did have a statin here on that it was five. No, I have numbers, uh, twelve thousand UFO side is the Air Force research between forty and sixty nine, So it's twenty one years if my math is correct, and all but seven hundred and one were explained away. But if

you ask me see that you can't explain. It's kind of a lot. That's a significant number for sure, and that's why I believe. And um, there's a guy named Jay Alan Heinek who kind of figures big into uphology. Um, he's the man or was he passed away down he's dead? Yes, he was the man um, but he's still he kind of lives on in this very long winded and detailed definition of what a UFO is. Right, you wanna you wanna take this one? Yeah? Should I read it? Can you do it in one breath? There's no way I

can do it in one breath. But this is the best definition we've got from doctor kinek or Is he's

an astronomers he doctor? Yeah, okay, oh yeah, the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky or upon the land, the appearance, trajectory, and general dynamic and luminescent behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation, and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients, but remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making

a common sense identification if one is possible. Period. And that's one sentence, So that yeah, that says at all. So basically what he's saying is like after you know, it's it's a sighting, and it's it seems weird and then after closer examination, it really is weird. That's a UFO sighting, right. That was his first draft. I think he's like, the Air Force is like, can you get a little more specific, and he's like, no, I'm in a stronomy check on my hair. I have no time

to write sentences. That makes sense to you idiots. But we say air Force because he was actually hired by the Air Force. He was a faculty member at the Ohio State University, which this article didn't say the no, but that's the right way to say. You're get really picked. Any buck eyes out there, all right? One's all unique? Yeah, and uh. In ninety eight they said, hey, dude, why don't you come work for us? We got all these weird things happening. We got a program called the Project Sign. Yeah,

it was originally Project Sign. Then it became Project Grudge, which I love, and then Project blue Book was what they landed on. That's that's not a that's not a good name for a scientific investigation, you know, things a little no grudge, you know, one blue Book, imagine was before the whole auto industry thing with used cars to call no no, Little No. In fact, it grew out of that airport investigation. Yeah, very cool. That's that's how your cars rated now. So Heinek was his deal was

he was a skeptic. He was hired by the Air Force not as someone to say, hey, these things are real, let's just investigate it. And he was a big time skeptic for quite a while. He was he was an astronomer. He didn't believe in extraterrestrial life anything. It's ninety eight,

so he hadn't really given much thought to it. But eventually he became kind of a defector because ufology, uh, if anything is this um huge clash of the titans between people who believe in UFOs and skeptics who for them for believing in UFOs, right um, And he Nick started out as a complete skeptic and then eventually, you know, um, they basically gave them all these files and said look through these and see if this was an asteroid, if

this was a comment. Basically just get rid of a big backlog to start with, right of his twelve thousand sightings, and you know, he he signed off on lots of them, and then he kept running across ones that made up the seven hundred and one inexplicable cases. Yeah. At first she called him puzzling, right, and then he he started calling him like, oh my god, this is real, and um, yeah, he became probably the most outspoken uh you faults. Uh

see that was weird. Yeah that that doesn't normally happen. Um, he became one of the most outspoken you fall it just people who said, yes, UFOs are real and uh he was a position to really kind of make that claim more than anybody else. Yeah, and he found himself at odds with the Air Force. They were, um, I don't think they knew what they were getting into when they hired the scientist who was originally skeptic, And all of a sudden he starts touting these things and the

Air Force is like, no, don't say these things. What was his line about skepticism not having any part in the scientific method or not? Ridicule? Ridicule. So there's another guy, if you go a little further back, the first you follogist is named Charles Fort and he was kind of a hero of mine. Um, he was a scientist. Yeah, if you if you read the Fort in Times, which

is one of the greatest magazines of all time. Um, it's based on this guy's philosophy that yes, science UM is the the proper approach to explaining the universe, but you have to investigate everything incredulously or else you're just kind of a jerk, right. You can't selectively say like, well, you know, science can't really explain this right now, so it doesn't exists. It's not possible exists, and we're gonna make fun of you for even thinking that. That's not

what science is about. And UM J Allen Heineck held the same views, basically that that UM, through Project Blue Book science was failing the public by not properly explaining, hey, this is a weather balloon like. You don't know what a weather balloon looks like. I don't know what a weather balloon looks like. I don't know what. They were failed at some point in time by science, and he was upset about that. And then the idea that they were keeping ridicule and scorn while not even carrying out

their duty irked him to say the least. So Heinek is the guy actually that came up with the Heinech scale, which you say, what is the Heinech scale? You might know a better wait on what is exactly so we should do this every totally love this. I don't know what so nervous about. Uh. You might know the Heineck scale better as the close encounters chart. So he's the dude who invented it. And the first kind is a citing if you see it close encounter of the first kind.

The second kind is a citing plus physical evidence. So like scat aliens scat uh crop circles. Sometimes they'll be like vegetation that is like disintegrated sometimes. And I didn't research this, But the spider web like things hanging from trees. What's that all about? Any idea? I couldn't find that either. Okay, apparently that happens the UFOs nearby. Well, the big palm with him is um like what they are, brittle to the touch and just disintegrate UFOs. No, the spider web

like strings, it's like um, silly string. But that's been left out for many many weeks. Got you? So that's the second kind. The third kind um is observation of an antimate uh animate being. It wasn't quite right according to Steven Spield for oh, is that the third encount? Well that's the third Yeah, they did see animate being but let's get forward. After Heineck they added fourth, fifth, six,

and seventh kinds. He wouldn't have at to that fourth kind is abduction, uh, and the fifth kind is bilateral contact event through voluntary human initiated cooperation. So that was really close. Encounters of the third kind should have been the fifth kind because Frands watch Ruffo in the movie, you know, sent out the he initiated attach and there was a sign for it too. He did, I don't remember what that is and did you know that was France watch Rufo I No, Rob probably did, famous director,

he was in that movie. And then the sixth kind is direct injury or death, which is the least fun kind, and the seventh kind is the best because that means you are knocking boots with an alien and creating a

star child. That's true. Close en counter of the seventh kind means you have sex with an alien and they get pregnant, and there is there's a There is traditionally a lot of sexiness involved with alien abductions, whether it's forced copulation at this day, neared, anal probe, whatever, there's some sort of sexuality associated with with abductions. You want to go over some of the abductions. Right, you always hear about prodding and poking and improbing, im probing, probing, Right,

where are we? Well, well, let's I guess let's talk a little more about some of the characteristics of UFOs um. We talked about the strange weblike disintegrating remains um crop circles, crop circles which may or may not have been led Zeppelin's dirigible. Who knows normal mutilation is sometimes they're associated with that, and that is when you find let's say, cattle with organs removed but no signs of humans being

anywhere around. We should do one on that. We should probably not um because I was looking this up and apparently some Sheriff's department in Arkansas, when this like the height of this cattle mutilation um scare um was going on, they took a cow and I imagine shot it in the head and left it where it lay, because for you know, to to really undertake this, you have to kind of kill a cow where it was and then

leave it alone. But they had a dead cow for forty eight hours in this field and filmed it and and said, hey, like all of the normal stuff that a dead cow's body undergoes auto license, puture faction, like all of this can explain. Like these mutilations you're talking about, everybody just settled down, And I think it was kind of like the same um, the same group of people who were worried about Satanists kind of put a lot of stock in the animal mutilation things. So I think

that one's kind of off the table. Radio and TV interference happens a lot. Car ignition failure, which of course happened. I keep looking at Rob for close and times of the third time because he's a movie nerd like me. But yeah, the car won't start, radio cuts out, lights flicker, you know, phones nearby. Yeah, there's a correlation sign. It's a correlation. Uh. And then I guess that's about it, right, Well, I got a couple of stats. Oh that's not it,

trust me, that's it for that part. Uh. I looked up UFO sidings by state because I was curious, what state do you think leads the way New Mexico's good guests about a good guests out now? Think about it? Crazy people cuckoo California. I hope there's no one from California in here. You know, they know they're crazy. Sorry, but uh, seven thousand and eighty one sidings and this is a very you know, this isn't high science. This

is from the Center for UFO Studies or CUPHOS. There's no move on, There're no move fine or SETI And uh number two is actually Washington State at thirty eight three. I did look up Texas because that's where we are three thousand, one seventy two. And I looked up Georgia. What do we have about a thousand? Kay and guess what state is the least? Now keep keep going. Yeah, you'll get to North Dakota, which I figure I forget they'd be lousy with it because all the I don't know,

desert space seems appealing to aliens. I think everyone in North Dakota is too depressed to look up. Well that maybe there's not a lot of people there, so that may actually, you know, I have something to do it. So only a hundred and sixteen in North Dakota, and we do have a pole in here that is so outdated that we would like to conduct a live pole. Since we have what about fifty people here, I would say, all right, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do this

by applause, but you're not rooting for it. So don't feel like you have to go crazy if you believe in it. We just want to get a little, a little thing. So if you believe the aliens have contacted humans, just some light golf clapping, Okay, CNN says, uh, if you believe alien to have abducted humans, no braves, zero zero because CNN of the people polled and then they said, believe the government is hiding something about aliens. Wait wait, wait,

let everybody come from them. Yeah, the government. I think more people think the government's hiding something and then believe a something. I don't think that works. It works. That's our first live pole. So um I found another poll in two thousand and eight, and the only thing I could find was, you know, do you believe that there's

intelligent life that's been to Earth and contacted humans? And it was down to like, which is probably about what we got here, but that's significantly less than the sixty I think it was y two k angst And you think that had everybody like there's something going on. We're gonna die, like everyone's our computers are gonna stop. I was one of the guys, and I was like, hey, people are stupid. Nothing's gonna happen. Well, you know that I have my van packed with water and shotguns because

you were living the right. Those are just my normal accouter mall so Uh, Project of Blue Book, Uh, the Air Force. Uh. Eventually in nineteen nine said you know what, We're gonna close up shop, or at least that's what they said. M hmm. Yeah, they said they were going to close up shop. Uh. And then they put out to me, what is some tricky wording with three statements. They said, no UFO reported, investigated and evaluated has ever

given any indication of threat to our national security. Doesn't mean that they didn't find anything, they just didn't deem it a threat. And then there's been no evidence submitted to the Air Force at sightings categorized as unidentified represent technical developments beyond the range of present day knowledge, and there's been no evidence indicating the sightings categories is under unidentified are extraterrestrial. So like bam, boom bam, we're closing

up shop by that, suckers. But that's tricky to me because all they said was classified as unidentified internally as soon as they found out, they might go, crap, let's change the They don't quantify the criteria for their categorization. No, but if they did find something right and kept it internal, they were still saying like, these were kind of so so aliens. If they're they weren't doing anything that we

couldn't already conceive of, you know. Um, And I guess they were friendly at least because they weren't a national security threat. Either that or they were easily like beat up with the elbows an alien. Yeah, it's how you go at everybody. But I think it's I think it's worth pointing out this is a Department of Defense um publication. You would be very hard pressed to find the d D print and release anything that's talking about aliens today.

But from nineteen to nineteen sixty nine they carried out this very famous investigation. Whether it was half hearted or not, like they were actually you know, spending tons of taxpayer money on this, and it was It's a significant moment in history where everyone believed in aliens right right now, everybody just believes that the government's hiding something, they're on something.

So it moved from the government to the private sector with set, which we've mentioned is the search for Extraterrestrial intelligence and to the Center for UFO Studies. So there's a lot of work still going on. And these aren't cracked pots. Uh. A lot of them are very scientific about their research. Jodie Foster works there, right, And what they want to do is, well, not they want to disprove, they want to get to the bottom of it. Well, yes,

studies very legitimate. They have funding from NASA and they're all very scientific scientists. Um and uh. They they admit their mistakes, right, Like in the late nineties, they they got um, they're the ones with the big radio telescopes, right, um and they uh, they got a signal it sounded just like that, um and uh. They it was about a million miles away from Earth and they said, well,

is this gotta be aliens and million miles away? Right, And then three hours later they're like, oh no, Um, it was a sun watching observatory that's a million miles away from But they admit their mistakes and um, and they're not very sensationalist. I get the impression. So study's pretty much carrying on the uh. The they're carrying the torch now that the government shut things down, right, that's right. Um, So everybody in here is suspicious of the government. We

can actually pinpoint the moment that happened. It took place in nine on July seven, there was a guy in New Mexico outside of a town called Roswell. His name is Mac Brazil, and he was a ranch foreman. Right. So, uh, he was going to check on the cattle, I guess um one day after some terrible thunderstorms the night before, and he found some weird debris and it was weird enough to breathe that he called the sheriff, and I'm sure they liked spit on the ground and talked about

it for a while. Along there were strange we should mention the night before there was a bunch of strange lights in the sky, yes, and terrible thunderstorms. So then he finds the debris, right, Okay, sorry, that's an important point. It is, um. And so they the sheriff comes out. They figured they should probably call the local military, which

kind of a weird step if you ask me. The military comes out, they take the debris, um, and they take it back to the Roswell Army Air Force Base and then to Dayton, Ohio, which is another weird thing to do if it's a weather balloon. Is the government eventually said it was in between. Then the guy who ran Roswell Army Air Force Base UM released a statement on July seven, saying, Um, we recovered the debris from a crashed disc and I'm making air quotes and you

guys can actually see it. I don't have to just say at this time, but a crash disc was found. And then about three hours later his boss in Dallas, I believe, released another press release saying that guys inn idiot, don't listen to anything he's ever said forgetting that whole crash disc thing. Exactly. It was a weather balloon and we've taken it and flown into right Air Force Base in Dayton for some reason. But just don't look behind

the curtain, everybody. And at that moment, that was when all of the seeds that have sprouted into us, going like this, when we see like a press released today, UM, that's when it happened that that first press release followed by the second one, started the the whole suspicion of the government that there was a cover up. Chuck, that's right, and there was some other hinking that's going on. There were eyewitnesses that say they saw bodies being removed from

the scene by the military. Some people said that they were actually present at an alien autopsy. Uh if you remember the Fox Network did that TV show a lee an autopsy a while ago, and then it turned out that that guy said, um actually shot all this stuff in the nineties. But I swear this is the footage I saw and I'm just recreating it, and that footage is is now destroyed, but this is a this is what I saw. Come on, you need you need by. It took me for a while. It looked kind of cool,

but yeah, that was a big disappointment. And um, Area fifty one, you know, is is the area now and they people believe some people believe that the government is uh still contacting aliens at Area fifty one, meeting with aliens on a regular basis, studying them. And that's why it's you know, got big fences around it. That's exactly what that's the only possible reason that it has offences

around it. But we're we're gonna do a podcast probably hopefully on Area fifty one one day because that's about all we're going to talk about with that offenses Men in Black. Yeah, that's another characteristic of the UFO phenomenon, right, And then actually came out of a guy him Gray Barker's book in nineteen fifty six. He wrote, They Knew too Much about Flying Saucers and the Men in Black

make their first appearance. Um. Well, Gray Barker pawned this thing off as a work of nonfiction, but it was actually fiction. Um, but that I guess came out long enough after that, the Men in Black entered kind of the the collective consciousness of Have you seen jose Chunks from outer Space? That one X Files episode where Jesse the Buddy Venture and Alex Trebek play the Men in Black. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. It's probably the best X Files episode ever. Really. Yeah,

And it's a good one, isn't it? Wait did you just say Charles Nelson Riley. Charles Nelson Riley plays this author who's interviewing Molder and Scully and trying to get to the bottom of this one incident that happened, And um, it was it was very cool, good. I highly recommend it to everybody. Let's get back to it, Chuck and abductions. I think this is this is if I may tee this one up please. Uh So, I think it's kind of one thing to see something in the sky and say, well,

I to UFO. But many people have done this. Ronald Reagan said he saw a UFO and as a governor of California, right yeah. Jackie Gleeson said he saw aliens because Richard Nixon took him there. That's a true story. Jackie Gleeson apparently was in Florida, married to his second wife at the time, and he came home all disheveled from something and his wife was like, what's going on, Jackie? You're not your usual sonny self. And he says, well, I can't talk about it, um wife. But later on

he said that she does have a name. I can't remember it, um, what's called her Betty? But ironically he did just call her wife, he did one of these days. Um So, then he says, you know what happened is uh I met Richard Nixon, My my buddy, Richard Nixon. Jackie Gleeson was way into UFOs apparently, and Richard Nixon said, would you like to go see some aliens? The my Richard Nixon that was so they've seen it. Well, apparently he took him and saw two little two foot aliens.

Little Paul said, don't tell anybody about this, Jackie Gleason, and uh he said, I will not never tell anyone. He told his wife that you can't tell anyone, and

then they got divorced and she started telling everyone. Yeah. Yeah, So supposedly he seen one, and he said Ronald Reagan saw one and he was on a small cessa flight and he was governor of California at the time, and he was talking about what he saw until he realized he was talking to a reporter from the Wall Street Journal and then he was like, maybe I shouldn't say anything about that, and um, yeah, So Jimmy Carter Carter saw one. Do you want to do your Carter? I

don't have a carter. He he did see one in Georgia, in rural Georgia, and he uh still talks about it to this day. Apparently ten or so years ago was the last time at Emory University Atlanta, where he teaches, he was actually still talking about it and said, dude, I saw ufo. Okay, so it's one thing to see you a foe and to talk about it at Emory or to show Jackie Glees and something weird. Right, But

it's an entirely other thing. And this kind of became this spinoff of the the UFO phenomenon, and that is abductions, right, that's the money the money shot. Basically, there's this whole group of people came forward over the years, starting after nineteen sixty five, Ish will say um and said, yes, I've been aboard the craft. I've been engaged in alien sexiness. This is horrible. My life is suffering because of this, right. So, um, the the first abduction story, it was Betty and Barney Hill.

Have you heard of them? Have you heard of them before? Then? Yes, okay, because I'm sort of into this stuff, okay, but they were the first in the early sixties, and you know they said they saw and we're not abducted initially, but then later through hypnosis started remembering these things that happened. Yeah, and there there, that was the first abduction case. It was written up in the ball Us in Globe and then there was a book called um the Interrupted Journey.

Because it had a really huge impact on their lives, they started suffering psychological diservices, they're they're big problems among them. After this UM and then it was made for TV movie. Mr James Earl Jones played Barney Hill, did a great job UM and from that moment on, this kind of

UM established checklist. Almost of UM traits of an abduction were generated UM things like you're you're being taken against your will, UM, you're being probed or experimented them the tractor beam tractor beam, UM, the UH, the the your noise, the the losing time was another big one, the Hills lost two hours UM and then having to deal with this, And there were actual studies of abductees in the nineties because it was such a such a weird significant thing

that people were saying, like, it's consistent, which is the weird thing. UM. So this guy UH named Richard McNally, who's a Harvard psychologist, conducted some physiological experiments on people who said they've been abducted, and they showed similar symptoms to people with post traumatic stress disorder. So there's definitely

something going on. But whether or not it was UM than being abducted, or if they were suffering from some other trauma is what was at the heart of the matter, right, Yeah, and there's been some pretty good explanations for what was behind this whole abduction phenomenon that's kind of died off now, which is weird if you think about it, right. Yeah. Susan Blackmore is a is a famous skeptic, and she did a little experiment in the mid nineteen nineties with

a man named Michael Persinger. He's a neuroscientist, and he claims that all kinds of weird phenomenon with the body can be explained by uh, excessive firing of the temporal lobes. And so the only thing that was missing, as no one had ever really tried to replicate this in an experiment. So Susan Blackmore said, dude, took me up to this stuff and fire away unless see what happened. She said, um that she had the sensation she was being pulled

stretched by her leg to the ceiling um. She was suddenly like very very angry, and then after that she's suddenly very fearful. So basically the guy proved to her, and then she went and told the world in this New Scientist article that yes, if you can mess with somebody's temporal lobe firing using magnets. Um, you you can

get them to think all sorts of crazy stuff. Well, she basically at the end of the experiment said, I was so out of myself that if someone would have told me you were inducted by an alien, she said, I probably would have believed it. Right, And she's a skeptic, so it probably that's a that's a good explanation. But then you you have to ask, well, what's what is exactly exerting this magnetism on people's brains to cause this temporal lobe firing. So it's okay, I explain, and probably

better than anything. Is um sleep paralysis? Right or false awakenings? Yeah? Sleep paralysis? You know, does anyone have that? Sleep paralysis? Your wife apparently that's what you wake up and your you can't move, Yeah, when you wake Your skeletal muscles are normally paralyzed while you're sleeping, but every once in a while you can wake up and your muscles don't kind of wake up first, so you can't move, but

you you don't really know what's going on. Your groggy hallucinations of a company too, right, yeah, usually and very stuff, yes, and um, so it's a very fearful thing. UM. And then if you are the type to dream about sex, right, that kind of adds that probing maybe idea because the whole thing, so sleep paralysis is a pretty good explanation, um. And then the false awakening is another good one, where you wait, you're dreaming that you've woken up, and it's

pretty common actually, UM. And that I think the thing that gives um gravity to this explanation is that the most extreme abduction reports UM always began with the people sleeping. Oh really yeah, so it's entirely possible if people were confused. Well. There's also correlation though between UFO sidings and what was he talking about seismic events? Is he said that, um, he believes earthquakes might trigger this magnetism and people wake

up in their bed they think they're being abducted. But what about the people in the cars and out in the fields. We're not gonna figure this out right now, I was gonna say, I think a good way to wrap this up is to say that we are wholly unqualified to offer any explanation of what was drawing on. UM. But at the very least, it was interesting, and it was a wild and crazy time. It was a good ride there, agreed, and I think this bears some follow up. We gotta hit area fifty one. We gotta get into

the abductions a little more too. Yeah, one day. That's it you anymore. I got nothing else on this one. That's it. That's the UFOs. We thank you very much. Thank you. Let's again so um. If any of you ever want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email. I want you to wrap it up spanking on the bottom and send it to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Thank you, yeah, and then uh, thanks for coming out to on a rainy Monday morning. For moral on this and thousands of

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