1 00:00:18,769 --> 00:00:20,020 [soft music] 2 00:00:20,104 --> 00:00:22,565 [Hal Puthoff] Scientists are beginning to realize 3 00:00:22,648 --> 00:00:26,026 that there appears to be more to this than we thought. 4 00:00:26,110 --> 00:00:28,487 We have such excellent sensor systems 5 00:00:28,571 --> 00:00:29,905 that have been developed. 6 00:00:29,989 --> 00:00:32,031 You've got the pilots' tracking, 7 00:00:32,116 --> 00:00:36,162 the infrared radar system, the detection of the events. 8 00:00:36,245 --> 00:00:37,663 ♪ ♪ 9 00:00:37,747 --> 00:00:40,166 [Jacques Vallée] But what the military sees 10 00:00:40,249 --> 00:00:45,171 with their devices is only maybe 10% of the cases. 11 00:00:45,254 --> 00:00:47,047 ♪ ♪ 12 00:00:47,131 --> 00:00:49,383 What about what Whitley Strieber saw? 13 00:00:50,342 --> 00:00:52,094 [Whitley Strieber] What I wanted to do 14 00:00:52,178 --> 00:00:54,930 was to find out that there was some explanation for this, 15 00:00:55,014 --> 00:00:56,223 that was normal. 16 00:00:56,307 --> 00:00:58,350 A rational, rational explanation. 17 00:00:58,434 --> 00:01:00,227 ♪ ♪ 18 00:01:00,311 --> 00:01:02,938 Whatever it is, it's part of being human 19 00:01:03,022 --> 00:01:07,359 and part of our world that, for whatever reason, 20 00:01:07,443 --> 00:01:10,863 we are very reticent to face head-on. 21 00:01:10,946 --> 00:01:14,575 ♪ ♪ 22 00:01:14,658 --> 00:01:20,581 [theme music plays] 23 00:01:20,664 --> 00:01:26,504 ♪ ♪ 24 00:02:30,734 --> 00:02:31,986 [birds chirping] 25 00:02:32,069 --> 00:02:34,989 [tranquil music] 26 00:02:35,072 --> 00:02:41,328 ♪ ♪ 27 00:02:41,412 --> 00:02:44,373 [indistinct chatter] 28 00:02:47,459 --> 00:02:49,628 [Jeffrey J. Kripal] Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Rice. 29 00:02:49,712 --> 00:02:52,464 My name is Jeff Kripal, and this is 30 00:02:52,548 --> 00:02:57,011 our Archives of the Impossible 2 Conference Symposium mash-up. 31 00:02:57,094 --> 00:02:59,889 It's great to see you all here. I know a lot of you. 32 00:02:59,972 --> 00:03:04,226 So let me begin by saying that we are doomed... 33 00:03:04,310 --> 00:03:06,979 -[laughter] -...in a good sort of way. 34 00:03:07,062 --> 00:03:09,648 What I mean is that there is no way, 35 00:03:09,732 --> 00:03:11,734 no way at all we are going to wrap our heads 36 00:03:11,817 --> 00:03:13,527 around this thing. 37 00:03:13,611 --> 00:03:15,404 What some have called the phenomena 38 00:03:15,487 --> 00:03:17,698 and what I wanna call the impossible. 39 00:03:18,490 --> 00:03:21,827 Jeff Kripal's really one of the world's foremost thinkers 40 00:03:21,911 --> 00:03:24,914 on weirdness and the paranormal. 41 00:03:24,997 --> 00:03:28,417 His Archives of the Impossible conference was one of the first 42 00:03:28,500 --> 00:03:30,502 UFO conferences that I went to, 43 00:03:30,586 --> 00:03:32,588 and it was transformative for me. 44 00:03:32,671 --> 00:03:34,089 [camera clicks] 45 00:03:34,173 --> 00:03:36,675 I think that he's really created a space for people 46 00:03:36,759 --> 00:03:38,218 who have had strange experiences 47 00:03:38,302 --> 00:03:42,055 or who study kind of the outer fringes 48 00:03:42,139 --> 00:03:45,184 of human experience, and so as soon as I walked 49 00:03:45,267 --> 00:03:47,895 into Archives of the Impossible I was like, "Oh, my gosh, 50 00:03:47,978 --> 00:03:49,021 I found my people." 51 00:03:49,103 --> 00:03:51,774 [Greg Eghighian] Going first here, 52 00:03:51,857 --> 00:03:55,194 I feel a little bit like the opening band 53 00:03:55,277 --> 00:03:58,197 -for a weekend music festival. -[laughter] 54 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:00,741 You guys get the Beach Boys. 55 00:04:00,824 --> 00:04:02,952 You're really here to hear Janice Joplin, 56 00:04:03,035 --> 00:04:04,703 Jimmy Hendrix. 57 00:04:04,787 --> 00:04:07,373 And knowing a few of you, probably the Grateful Dead, 58 00:04:07,456 --> 00:04:10,459 but you got me. 59 00:04:10,542 --> 00:04:14,296 We've definitely undergone a kind of renaissance, 60 00:04:14,380 --> 00:04:16,423 if you will, over the last two to three years. 61 00:04:16,507 --> 00:04:18,216 ♪ ♪ 62 00:04:18,300 --> 00:04:21,387 Primarily because the U.S. government 63 00:04:21,470 --> 00:04:24,264 has shown a lot more interest in this topic, 64 00:04:24,348 --> 00:04:28,268 and that, I think, has kept things alive 65 00:04:28,352 --> 00:04:30,562 and kept people really interested. 66 00:04:30,646 --> 00:04:31,897 ♪ ♪ 67 00:04:31,981 --> 00:04:33,399 The second part of this, though, 68 00:04:33,482 --> 00:04:35,401 is that the academic world 69 00:04:35,484 --> 00:04:37,277 has really stood up and taken notice. 70 00:04:38,070 --> 00:04:40,906 This is something that we really haven't seen 71 00:04:40,990 --> 00:04:45,995 on this scale before, of mainstream academic science, 72 00:04:46,078 --> 00:04:49,748 mainstream academic scholars, saying, "This stuff needs to be 73 00:04:49,832 --> 00:04:51,834 looked at in university settings." 74 00:04:51,917 --> 00:04:54,962 ♪ ♪ 75 00:04:55,045 --> 00:04:59,174 Jeff Kripal is one of the chief forces 76 00:04:59,258 --> 00:05:02,428 within academia today fostering this change. 77 00:05:02,511 --> 00:05:04,263 ♪ ♪ 78 00:05:04,346 --> 00:05:07,599 His academic credentials are impeccable. 79 00:05:07,683 --> 00:05:10,602 Jeff was formally the chair 80 00:05:10,686 --> 00:05:14,106 of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice. 81 00:05:14,189 --> 00:05:17,317 Today, he's an associate dean. 82 00:05:17,401 --> 00:05:21,864 And Jeff has opened up a whole intellectual landscape 83 00:05:21,947 --> 00:05:26,035 within academia which previously was very, very limited. 84 00:05:26,118 --> 00:05:28,662 ♪ ♪ 85 00:05:28,746 --> 00:05:30,289 [Kripal] The first thing I want to say or claim 86 00:05:30,372 --> 00:05:32,207 is that the impossible constitutes 87 00:05:32,291 --> 00:05:35,544 the deepest secret of human creativity and culture. 88 00:05:35,627 --> 00:05:37,796 [music intensifies] 89 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:41,300 The Archives of the Impossible is named after a book 90 00:05:41,383 --> 00:05:43,469 I wrote called Authors of the Impossible. 91 00:05:43,552 --> 00:05:45,512 I was in Berkeley, California, 92 00:05:45,596 --> 00:05:48,015 with a gentleman named Jacques Vallée, 93 00:05:48,098 --> 00:05:51,477 and Jacques asked me to help him place his papers 94 00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:55,481 and case studies in the University archive 95 00:05:55,564 --> 00:05:58,525 because he was becoming concerned about their future. 96 00:05:59,068 --> 00:06:00,694 [Vallée] You know, we live in a world 97 00:06:00,778 --> 00:06:03,572 where all computer data is fungible. 98 00:06:03,655 --> 00:06:06,158 I have correspondence with a thousand people 99 00:06:06,241 --> 00:06:08,869 around the world studying this problem, 100 00:06:08,952 --> 00:06:11,997 going back over 50 years. 101 00:06:12,081 --> 00:06:13,707 Shouldn't we save it somewhere? 102 00:06:13,791 --> 00:06:17,169 [dramatic music] 103 00:06:17,252 --> 00:06:19,213 [Whitley Strieber] Jeff Kripal sent me a letter... 104 00:06:19,296 --> 00:06:22,341 I guess about 10 or 15 years ago, at least. 105 00:06:22,424 --> 00:06:24,927 And I thought, "How interesting, 106 00:06:25,010 --> 00:06:27,262 a professor from the big, prestigious University 107 00:06:27,346 --> 00:06:29,181 on the level of Harvard, 108 00:06:29,264 --> 00:06:31,934 and suddenly in there, there is the Archives of the Impossible?" 109 00:06:32,017 --> 00:06:34,019 ♪ ♪ 110 00:06:34,103 --> 00:06:35,270 [Jeff Kripal] Ed May donated a lot 111 00:06:35,354 --> 00:06:38,524 of the remote viewing material, 112 00:06:38,607 --> 00:06:42,569 and Whitley Strieber donated about 5,000 letters, 113 00:06:42,653 --> 00:06:44,238 and it just kind of sucked things in from there. 114 00:06:44,321 --> 00:06:47,699 ♪ ♪ 115 00:06:47,783 --> 00:06:53,205 Will this collection help future researchers connect the dots? 116 00:06:53,288 --> 00:06:57,334 ♪ ♪ 117 00:07:01,213 --> 00:07:02,756 Well, so, first of all, 118 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:04,424 the Invisible College is an old term. 119 00:07:04,508 --> 00:07:07,886 [upbeat music] 120 00:07:07,970 --> 00:07:09,721 It arises in the 17th century 121 00:07:09,805 --> 00:07:12,933 among British Protestant intellectuals 122 00:07:13,016 --> 00:07:15,477 who are studying science, 123 00:07:15,561 --> 00:07:18,772 and they know darn well that if they say out loud 124 00:07:18,856 --> 00:07:20,899 what they're thinking, they're gonna be in big trouble. 125 00:07:20,983 --> 00:07:23,610 ♪ ♪ 126 00:07:23,694 --> 00:07:25,779 Science as we know it 127 00:07:25,863 --> 00:07:30,742 really came out of a group of enlightened scientists, 128 00:07:30,826 --> 00:07:33,078 most of them noblemen, because they had 129 00:07:33,162 --> 00:07:35,956 the luxury of their own opinions 130 00:07:36,039 --> 00:07:39,084 and their own fortunes behind what they did... 131 00:07:39,168 --> 00:07:41,670 who essentially took a position 132 00:07:41,753 --> 00:07:45,174 that was somewhat antagonistic to the church position. 133 00:07:45,257 --> 00:07:47,593 ♪ ♪ 134 00:07:47,676 --> 00:07:51,263 The position of the church was that many of the phenomena 135 00:07:51,346 --> 00:07:55,017 of nature belonged to God, and you're not capable 136 00:07:55,100 --> 00:07:56,935 of understanding those phenomena. 137 00:07:57,019 --> 00:07:59,813 ♪ ♪ 138 00:07:59,897 --> 00:08:02,941 You're not supposed to open somebody's body 139 00:08:03,025 --> 00:08:04,985 to look at how their heart is beating, 140 00:08:05,068 --> 00:08:07,779 and you're not supposed to ask questions 141 00:08:07,863 --> 00:08:10,365 about the stars because the stars are a mystical thing. 142 00:08:10,449 --> 00:08:16,330 ♪ ♪ 143 00:08:18,749 --> 00:08:21,543 These physicists and biologists in England 144 00:08:21,627 --> 00:08:25,631 conspired to study those things together 145 00:08:25,714 --> 00:08:27,966 and to put money behind the research 146 00:08:28,050 --> 00:08:30,135 and to start publishing that research, 147 00:08:30,219 --> 00:08:32,179 independently of the church, 148 00:08:32,261 --> 00:08:35,390 and they call themselves The Invisible College. 149 00:08:35,474 --> 00:08:38,393 [suspenseful music] 150 00:08:38,477 --> 00:08:40,562 It was essentially a group of intellectuals 151 00:08:40,645 --> 00:08:43,815 who thought and studied things that were not supposed 152 00:08:43,899 --> 00:08:44,983 to be thought or studied. 153 00:08:45,067 --> 00:08:47,361 ♪ ♪ 154 00:08:47,444 --> 00:08:49,363 In the 1970s, Jacques wrote a book 155 00:08:49,446 --> 00:08:52,157 called The Invisible College, and it was about a group 156 00:08:52,241 --> 00:08:56,078 of intellectuals and scientists who were studying UFO topics 157 00:08:56,161 --> 00:08:57,496 and parapsychological topics. 158 00:08:57,579 --> 00:08:58,997 ♪ ♪ 159 00:08:59,081 --> 00:09:01,500 So that was the new Invisible College 160 00:09:01,583 --> 00:09:05,045 because they were a college of researchers 161 00:09:05,128 --> 00:09:09,216 that were not, uh... publicizing their work, 162 00:09:09,299 --> 00:09:12,344 and Dr. Hynek thought that by then they were... 163 00:09:12,427 --> 00:09:16,390 You know, maybe 12 or 15 of us in different countries, 164 00:09:16,473 --> 00:09:19,685 suddenly some of the leaders in French science, 165 00:09:19,768 --> 00:09:22,729 biologists like Dr. Chauvin, 166 00:09:22,813 --> 00:09:24,940 physicists like Gustavo Beauregard, 167 00:09:25,023 --> 00:09:27,943 who worked with Einstein, were vitally interested 168 00:09:28,026 --> 00:09:29,695 in the UFO reports, 169 00:09:29,778 --> 00:09:31,905 and we were discussing it together. 170 00:09:31,989 --> 00:09:35,701 Most of them would not admit publicly to a TV station, 171 00:09:35,784 --> 00:09:37,244 and so wouldn't come forward 172 00:09:37,327 --> 00:09:39,538 and say they were interested in UFOs. 173 00:09:39,621 --> 00:09:41,540 ♪ ♪ 174 00:09:41,623 --> 00:09:45,252 Invisibility is just a kind of code for, 175 00:09:45,335 --> 00:09:47,129 "We're gonna do this in a secret fashion 176 00:09:47,212 --> 00:09:48,880 because we can do more." 177 00:09:48,964 --> 00:09:51,800 These extreme anomalous experiences, 178 00:09:51,883 --> 00:09:54,303 which are not supposed to happen but do all the time, 179 00:09:54,386 --> 00:09:56,972 lie somewhere close to the well springs 180 00:09:57,055 --> 00:10:00,309 of human civilization in its various modes. 181 00:10:00,392 --> 00:10:05,147 [playful music] 182 00:10:05,230 --> 00:10:08,275 I consider the project here to be the Visible College. 183 00:10:08,358 --> 00:10:09,776 I want to make the invisible visible. 184 00:10:09,860 --> 00:10:11,903 I wanna mainstream it. I want to do it 185 00:10:11,987 --> 00:10:15,407 in a much more public and much more explicit way. 186 00:10:15,490 --> 00:10:17,993 Today more and more philosophers 187 00:10:18,076 --> 00:10:22,247 recognize that... [sighs] there are aspects of the mind 188 00:10:22,331 --> 00:10:24,249 that even if they are correlated 189 00:10:24,333 --> 00:10:26,293 with things that are happening in the body 190 00:10:26,376 --> 00:10:29,588 or happening in the brain that they're... 191 00:10:29,671 --> 00:10:31,506 They're not reducible to these things. 192 00:10:31,590 --> 00:10:32,924 There's something more. 193 00:10:33,008 --> 00:10:35,427 It's amazing to me, honestly, 194 00:10:35,510 --> 00:10:37,346 the way that academia has evolved 195 00:10:37,429 --> 00:10:40,015 in the last 10 or 15 years. 196 00:10:41,558 --> 00:10:43,769 This conference is setting the tone 197 00:10:43,852 --> 00:10:47,522 for how people engage with this. 198 00:10:47,606 --> 00:10:49,274 One of the really valuable things 199 00:10:49,358 --> 00:10:53,487 that Jeff Kripal is doing is providing this very safe place 200 00:10:53,570 --> 00:10:56,823 to explore further beyond the bounds 201 00:10:56,907 --> 00:10:58,950 of current science and current explanation 202 00:10:59,034 --> 00:11:02,621 and try to figure out what is going on. 203 00:11:02,704 --> 00:11:04,164 ♪ ♪ 204 00:11:04,247 --> 00:11:06,666 I'm very grateful that I am still alive 205 00:11:06,750 --> 00:11:11,129 at my advanced age to see a transition. 206 00:11:11,213 --> 00:11:14,674 ♪ ♪ 207 00:11:14,758 --> 00:11:17,844 You came on my radar when Oumuamua, 208 00:11:17,928 --> 00:11:21,139 which is an object that we detected in space 209 00:11:21,223 --> 00:11:25,310 that you believe could possibly have been extraterrestrial. 210 00:11:25,394 --> 00:11:28,313 We had a seminar, a lecture, about this object 211 00:11:28,397 --> 00:11:31,650 at Harvard, and a colleague of mine, 212 00:11:31,733 --> 00:11:35,695 after the lecture, said, "This object is really weird. 213 00:11:35,779 --> 00:11:37,906 I wish it never existed." You know, that... 214 00:11:37,989 --> 00:11:39,157 I was really appalled by this. 215 00:11:39,241 --> 00:11:40,909 How can you say something like that? 216 00:11:40,992 --> 00:11:43,161 You learn something new. It's a learning experience. 217 00:11:43,245 --> 00:11:45,747 We learn that we have to revise the way we think 218 00:11:45,831 --> 00:11:47,874 about reality, you know? That's a good thing. 219 00:11:47,958 --> 00:11:50,544 ♪ ♪ 220 00:11:50,627 --> 00:11:52,337 Yeah, as somebody who covered national security 221 00:11:52,421 --> 00:11:54,881 for so many years, it's fascinating to watch 222 00:11:54,965 --> 00:11:58,343 how this issue kind of moved off screen 223 00:11:58,427 --> 00:11:59,845 into the middle of the screen. 224 00:11:59,928 --> 00:12:02,264 A former military intelligence officer 225 00:12:02,347 --> 00:12:05,183 of 14 years, as well as two former fighter pilots, 226 00:12:05,267 --> 00:12:06,685 appeared before Congress this week 227 00:12:06,768 --> 00:12:08,186 to blow the whistle on UFOs. 228 00:12:08,270 --> 00:12:10,021 The question is, "Do I think we're up 229 00:12:10,105 --> 00:12:11,523 to the task of handling this 230 00:12:11,606 --> 00:12:13,358 based off of the hearing yesterday 231 00:12:13,442 --> 00:12:15,026 and the way it's been performed?" I think we are. 232 00:12:15,110 --> 00:12:16,570 ♪ ♪ 233 00:12:16,653 --> 00:12:18,196 [Bender] I think what's most remarkable is, 234 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:20,949 no matter what your viewpoint might be, 235 00:12:21,032 --> 00:12:24,369 if you believe the government is hiding aliens 236 00:12:24,453 --> 00:12:27,372 or you believe, you know, the government knows more 237 00:12:27,456 --> 00:12:30,792 than it's revealing, we now have U.S. senators 238 00:12:30,876 --> 00:12:34,921 stand up and talk about UFOs as a serious policy issue. 239 00:12:35,005 --> 00:12:37,215 Can you just give us some raw numbers 240 00:12:37,299 --> 00:12:41,219 of how many UAPs you've analyzed, 241 00:12:41,303 --> 00:12:43,805 how many have been resolved and sort of in what buckets, 242 00:12:43,889 --> 00:12:45,140 and then how many are still left to be resolved? 243 00:12:46,975 --> 00:12:49,561 [Bender] It's opened the floodgates for scientists 244 00:12:49,644 --> 00:12:52,439 and sort of, you know, the academy, so to speak, 245 00:12:52,522 --> 00:12:54,900 is to take this topic more seriously, 246 00:12:54,983 --> 00:12:56,735 and not just marginalize it 247 00:12:56,818 --> 00:12:59,404 as, you know, "Oh, that's... the tin foil hat crowd." 248 00:12:59,488 --> 00:13:02,991 You know, this is a real scientific question 249 00:13:03,074 --> 00:13:05,494 that maybe with all the technology we have today 250 00:13:05,577 --> 00:13:07,162 we can answer. 251 00:13:07,245 --> 00:13:08,997 Whether the government tells us what they know or not. 252 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,919 [tranquil music] 253 00:13:14,002 --> 00:13:16,755 [Kripal] I had no interest in this early in my career. 254 00:13:16,838 --> 00:13:18,924 I was interested in very typical things 255 00:13:19,007 --> 00:13:20,800 that historians and scholars of religion 256 00:13:20,884 --> 00:13:21,760 are interested in. 257 00:13:21,843 --> 00:13:23,803 ♪ ♪ 258 00:13:23,887 --> 00:13:25,472 In the early part of the millennium, 259 00:13:25,555 --> 00:13:28,600 I wrote a book on the California counterculture 260 00:13:28,683 --> 00:13:30,143 and a movement that focused at Big Sur 261 00:13:30,227 --> 00:13:33,188 around a place called Esalen Institute, 262 00:13:33,271 --> 00:13:36,274 and I met a lot of people and these people told me 263 00:13:36,358 --> 00:13:39,653 some really, really strange stories 264 00:13:39,736 --> 00:13:44,491 that I knew couldn't have happened, but I knew happened. 265 00:13:44,574 --> 00:13:47,953 Because I knew these people, and I knew they weren't lying. 266 00:13:48,036 --> 00:13:50,455 I knew they weren't doing this for any kind of ulterior reason. 267 00:13:50,539 --> 00:13:53,165 ♪ ♪ 268 00:13:53,250 --> 00:13:55,502 and I realized that we had no way of thinking 269 00:13:55,585 --> 00:13:57,045 about those stories. 270 00:13:57,128 --> 00:14:00,340 In the quiet Mississippi town of Pascagoula, 271 00:14:00,423 --> 00:14:01,967 two local men confronted authorities 272 00:14:02,050 --> 00:14:03,843 with a rather bizarre story. 273 00:14:03,927 --> 00:14:05,804 Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker 274 00:14:05,887 --> 00:14:08,723 told of a strange craft landing near their fishing site 275 00:14:08,807 --> 00:14:12,352 and of being taken aboard by three unearthly creatures. 276 00:14:12,435 --> 00:14:14,813 [Hickson] When they carried me inside, 277 00:14:14,896 --> 00:14:18,483 they seemed to... just leaned me back, you know, 278 00:14:18,567 --> 00:14:22,070 and, um, this eye, it moved up in front of me 279 00:14:22,153 --> 00:14:25,156 about this close, and it stared right at my eyes, 280 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:27,367 looking me right in the eye, and it seemed to have 281 00:14:27,450 --> 00:14:30,745 hesitated there for a few seconds 282 00:14:30,829 --> 00:14:33,081 and then it just started moving over my entire body. 283 00:14:33,164 --> 00:14:34,665 [reporter] Sheriff Diamond, can you tell me 284 00:14:34,749 --> 00:14:36,084 just what happened that night? 285 00:14:36,167 --> 00:14:38,336 No, sir, I can't. 286 00:14:38,420 --> 00:14:40,005 All I can tell you, it was two men 287 00:14:40,088 --> 00:14:42,924 came in the sheriff's department approximately 8:30 or 9:00. 288 00:14:43,008 --> 00:14:45,093 They were all excited and upset. 289 00:14:45,176 --> 00:14:47,053 [reporter] Tell me about the lie detector test. 290 00:14:47,137 --> 00:14:49,264 [man] These men, in my opinion, 291 00:14:49,347 --> 00:14:52,559 believe that they saw this, and that they were being honest 292 00:14:52,642 --> 00:14:54,227 in reporting what they have reported. 293 00:14:56,021 --> 00:14:57,606 [Kripal] Back then our only way of thinking 294 00:14:57,689 --> 00:14:59,733 about these stories was not thinking about them. 295 00:14:59,816 --> 00:15:03,445 "Oh, that's--that person drank too much alcohol" 296 00:15:03,528 --> 00:15:05,196 or "that person was on LSD" 297 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:07,073 or "that person was hallucinating." 298 00:15:07,157 --> 00:15:10,452 I mean, it's just this easy kind of explanations 299 00:15:10,535 --> 00:15:11,870 that actually explain nothing. 300 00:15:11,953 --> 00:15:13,538 [dramatic music] 301 00:15:13,622 --> 00:15:18,710 And so I got really interested in why intellectuals 302 00:15:18,793 --> 00:15:21,880 don't think about those experiences, 303 00:15:21,963 --> 00:15:24,382 which presumably lie at the core 304 00:15:24,466 --> 00:15:26,217 of a lot of basic religious beliefs. 305 00:15:26,301 --> 00:15:31,806 ♪ ♪ 306 00:15:31,890 --> 00:15:34,434 [Bender] I actually liken a lot of this topic 307 00:15:34,517 --> 00:15:37,896 to religion, because it is very similar to me. 308 00:15:37,979 --> 00:15:40,607 I mean, I think there's a lot of commonalities. 309 00:15:40,690 --> 00:15:43,777 For many people, the truth is out there, 310 00:15:43,860 --> 00:15:45,278 and it's very emotional, 311 00:15:45,362 --> 00:15:47,447 and it's part of their belief system, 312 00:15:47,530 --> 00:15:49,908 just like if you're Hindu or Christian 313 00:15:49,991 --> 00:15:51,951 or Jewish or Muslim, I mean, you have a belief system 314 00:15:52,035 --> 00:15:55,413 and I think some people have experienced things, 315 00:15:55,497 --> 00:15:58,917 and whether you and I think it's real, it's real to them, 316 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:01,336 in a real way, and so we can't just dismiss it, 317 00:16:01,419 --> 00:16:03,463 especially since it's not just like just a few people. 318 00:16:03,546 --> 00:16:04,673 You know, there's a lot of people... 319 00:16:04,756 --> 00:16:06,257 A lot more coming forward now. 320 00:16:06,341 --> 00:16:08,259 [Travis Craemer] It was right up there, 321 00:16:08,343 --> 00:16:12,013 and then it flew like, right across over and down that way. 322 00:16:12,097 --> 00:16:15,433 [Kripal] I think paranormal phenomena are essentially 323 00:16:15,517 --> 00:16:19,521 the building blocks of what become religion. 324 00:16:19,604 --> 00:16:23,525 So things like belief in a separable soul 325 00:16:23,608 --> 00:16:27,862 or immortality or divination or the ability to know 326 00:16:27,946 --> 00:16:29,531 what's going to happen before it happens. 327 00:16:29,614 --> 00:16:33,201 I mean, all these are kind of classical religious ideas, 328 00:16:33,284 --> 00:16:36,788 but they're also really common paranormal phenomena, 329 00:16:36,871 --> 00:16:39,457 and I think these beliefs developed because people 330 00:16:39,540 --> 00:16:41,459 have always had these experiences. 331 00:16:41,543 --> 00:16:43,837 I think that's really the bottom line. 332 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:47,632 Up there, I saw a UFO, and it went down the river, 333 00:16:47,716 --> 00:16:50,301 turned right at the United Nations, 334 00:16:50,385 --> 00:16:51,970 turned left and then down the river. 335 00:16:52,053 --> 00:16:53,304 [Interviewer] And you looked what sort of--? 336 00:16:53,388 --> 00:16:55,974 Silent and it looked dark, like... 337 00:16:56,057 --> 00:16:58,017 black or gray in the middle, and... 338 00:16:58,101 --> 00:16:59,477 it wasn't a helicopter and it wasn't a balloon 339 00:16:59,561 --> 00:17:01,354 and it was so near. 340 00:17:01,438 --> 00:17:03,523 ♪ ♪ 341 00:17:08,403 --> 00:17:09,654 [Kripal] I teach at Rice. 342 00:17:09,738 --> 00:17:12,240 Rice is a very STEM-oriented institution. 343 00:17:12,323 --> 00:17:15,827 Most of my undergraduates are gonna be engineers 344 00:17:15,910 --> 00:17:20,498 or chemists or maybe doctors. They're very science-oriented. 345 00:17:20,582 --> 00:17:23,167 And when I started to teach comparative religion here, 346 00:17:23,251 --> 00:17:26,755 I was using kind of classical religious texts, 347 00:17:26,838 --> 00:17:30,508 and I realized they were dismissing all of them, 348 00:17:30,592 --> 00:17:32,886 and they were dismissing them 349 00:17:32,969 --> 00:17:34,512 because they would say to themselves, 350 00:17:34,596 --> 00:17:37,182 "Oh, this person doesn't know science." 351 00:17:37,265 --> 00:17:40,727 Well, let's say this Twinkie 352 00:17:40,810 --> 00:17:43,229 represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy 353 00:17:43,313 --> 00:17:45,440 in the New York area. 354 00:17:45,523 --> 00:17:49,068 According to this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie 355 00:17:49,152 --> 00:17:52,238 35 feet long, weighing approximately 600 pounds. 356 00:17:52,322 --> 00:17:53,615 [coughs] 357 00:17:53,698 --> 00:17:56,075 That's a big Twinkie. 358 00:17:56,159 --> 00:18:00,038 So I shifted, and I started to use the anomalous experiences 359 00:18:00,121 --> 00:18:02,540 of scientists and engineers and medical professionals. 360 00:18:02,624 --> 00:18:08,755 ♪ ♪ 361 00:18:08,838 --> 00:18:09,923 Yeah. 362 00:18:12,300 --> 00:18:13,593 Yeah. 363 00:18:13,676 --> 00:18:15,970 A scientist or an engineer is trained 364 00:18:16,054 --> 00:18:18,598 in a very materialist worldview, 365 00:18:18,681 --> 00:18:22,060 where there's only matter and the mind or consciousness 366 00:18:22,143 --> 00:18:25,772 is some sort of accidental by-product of dead matter 367 00:18:25,855 --> 00:18:29,067 behaving in very complicated ways in our brain. 368 00:18:29,150 --> 00:18:33,404 So mind is essentially not real. 369 00:18:33,488 --> 00:18:36,407 What the flip is is when a scientist realizes 370 00:18:36,491 --> 00:18:40,620 that, "Oops. Actually, mind is fundamental, 371 00:18:40,703 --> 00:18:42,914 and matter is actually some kind of expression of mind 372 00:18:42,997 --> 00:18:45,083 or consciousness," and so they have 373 00:18:45,166 --> 00:18:47,293 this complete flip of orientation, 374 00:18:47,377 --> 00:18:49,587 usually from a near-death experience 375 00:18:49,671 --> 00:18:52,966 or a psychedelic experience or an illness. 376 00:18:53,049 --> 00:18:55,760 I mean, there's a lot of things that will flip 377 00:18:55,844 --> 00:18:57,679 an intellectual or scientist, but once they're flipped, 378 00:18:57,762 --> 00:18:59,013 they're flipped. 379 00:18:59,097 --> 00:19:00,515 It's hard to get them back 380 00:19:00,598 --> 00:19:02,684 to the earlier kind of materialist perspective. 381 00:19:02,767 --> 00:19:05,854 [dramatic music] 382 00:19:05,937 --> 00:19:07,689 ♪ ♪ 383 00:19:07,772 --> 00:19:11,609 My own flip I was living in Kolkata in 1989. 384 00:19:11,693 --> 00:19:12,485 It was the fall of '89. 385 00:19:14,696 --> 00:19:17,198 It was during a festival called Kali Puja, 386 00:19:17,282 --> 00:19:20,159 which occurs in late October around our own Halloween. 387 00:19:20,243 --> 00:19:22,161 [exotic music] 388 00:19:22,245 --> 00:19:24,956 You have this goddess with cutoff heads 389 00:19:25,039 --> 00:19:28,042 and cutoff hands and goat sacrifice. 390 00:19:28,126 --> 00:19:30,545 I mean, it's our Halloween, only way, way more. 391 00:19:30,628 --> 00:19:34,132 ♪ ♪ 392 00:19:34,215 --> 00:19:37,135 There's a whole elaborate kind of religious worldview 393 00:19:37,218 --> 00:19:39,304 wrapped around this as well, that I was very familiar with, 394 00:19:39,387 --> 00:19:41,556 and I was in fact studying. 395 00:19:47,395 --> 00:19:49,731 One night I came back late from visiting 396 00:19:49,814 --> 00:19:52,525 all these temporary temples in the city, 397 00:19:52,609 --> 00:19:55,528 and I fell asleep... 398 00:19:55,612 --> 00:19:57,322 and I woke up, 399 00:19:57,405 --> 00:19:58,865 but my body didn't wake up. 400 00:19:58,948 --> 00:20:00,867 It was what... You know I think a doctor 401 00:20:00,950 --> 00:20:03,703 would call a sleep paralysis event, 402 00:20:03,786 --> 00:20:07,665 and this energy just kind of came out of nowhere, 403 00:20:07,749 --> 00:20:10,084 came out of me, out of the room, 404 00:20:10,168 --> 00:20:12,545 out of somewhere, and started to interact with me 405 00:20:12,629 --> 00:20:15,840 in very conscious, very intentional ways 406 00:20:15,924 --> 00:20:18,217 that were not me. It was not me. 407 00:20:18,301 --> 00:20:20,887 And it was not subtle. 408 00:20:20,970 --> 00:20:24,849 I thought I was being electrocuted. 409 00:20:24,933 --> 00:20:29,020 I thought I was having a heart attack. Maybe I was. 410 00:20:29,103 --> 00:20:32,357 I mean--But it was-- it was powerful, 411 00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:35,693 and it resulted in the-- It kind of imploded 412 00:20:35,777 --> 00:20:37,570 into my chest region, and the experience was 413 00:20:37,654 --> 00:20:39,739 that I left my body and I floated to the top 414 00:20:39,822 --> 00:20:42,533 of the ceiling in a kind of dream landscape. 415 00:20:42,617 --> 00:20:48,456 ♪ ♪ 416 00:20:49,958 --> 00:20:51,918 I just felt like... 417 00:20:52,001 --> 00:20:55,630 to use a later language that did not exist in 1989, 418 00:20:55,713 --> 00:20:59,217 I felt like, you know, something had been downloaded into me. 419 00:20:59,300 --> 00:21:02,220 It was just like, "Oh, my God. There's something in me now." 420 00:21:02,303 --> 00:21:07,308 ♪ ♪ 421 00:21:15,483 --> 00:21:17,986 I grew up in a religious atmosphere as a child. 422 00:21:18,069 --> 00:21:20,947 I had an orthodox bar mitzvah. 423 00:21:21,030 --> 00:21:23,574 There was always an unspoken quality of faith 424 00:21:23,658 --> 00:21:26,911 in the household, and I think probably 425 00:21:26,995 --> 00:21:28,913 from a very young age, I had an instinct 426 00:21:28,997 --> 00:21:32,959 that there was reality in the extra physical. 427 00:21:33,042 --> 00:21:36,421 I had occasional experiences myself, 428 00:21:36,504 --> 00:21:38,965 involving things like prayer or astrology 429 00:21:39,048 --> 00:21:41,300 or tarot readings. 430 00:21:41,384 --> 00:21:45,304 And I suppose that my chief interest 431 00:21:45,388 --> 00:21:50,643 was in discovering how some of this ancient material 432 00:21:50,727 --> 00:21:55,189 had endured across centuries and even millennia. 433 00:21:55,273 --> 00:21:56,816 [upbeat music] 434 00:21:56,899 --> 00:21:59,610 The Neanderthals themselves quite literally 435 00:21:59,694 --> 00:22:01,988 had their own system of spirituality. 436 00:22:02,071 --> 00:22:04,782 They had talismans. They had figurines. 437 00:22:04,866 --> 00:22:07,493 They had devotional practices and paintings. 438 00:22:07,577 --> 00:22:11,831 And we're talking about the most primeval origins 439 00:22:11,914 --> 00:22:14,042 of humanity, so this is obviously something 440 00:22:14,125 --> 00:22:17,962 that goes far beyond what we today would call credulity. 441 00:22:18,046 --> 00:22:19,547 It's baked into the human experience. 442 00:22:19,630 --> 00:22:24,135 ♪ ♪ 443 00:22:24,218 --> 00:22:26,804 When people claim they know what this is about, 444 00:22:26,888 --> 00:22:29,974 whether it's some kind of fraud or it's some kind of mechanism, 445 00:22:30,058 --> 00:22:32,560 I'm like, my eyes just roll. 446 00:22:32,643 --> 00:22:34,854 I'm like, "You either don't know what you are talking about, 447 00:22:34,937 --> 00:22:36,022 or you're lying." 448 00:22:36,105 --> 00:22:38,149 [dramatic music] 449 00:22:38,232 --> 00:22:42,904 For me, Jacques Vallée is the barometer. 450 00:22:42,987 --> 00:22:46,991 I love Vallée's work because it combines 451 00:22:47,075 --> 00:22:49,077 the sciences and what I would call the humanities 452 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:50,828 in really effortless ways. 453 00:22:50,912 --> 00:22:53,039 ♪ ♪ 454 00:22:53,122 --> 00:22:55,500 [Puthoff] Jacques Vallée has a broader viewpoint 455 00:22:55,583 --> 00:22:57,001 that maybe it isn't just E.T.'s 456 00:22:57,085 --> 00:23:00,213 coming from some galaxy far away. 457 00:23:00,296 --> 00:23:03,841 The idea that, "Well, it's just a spacefarer 458 00:23:03,925 --> 00:23:05,510 "wandering around through the galaxy 459 00:23:05,593 --> 00:23:07,678 and happens to take a look at us." 460 00:23:07,762 --> 00:23:09,180 That doesn't really quite match the data. 461 00:23:09,263 --> 00:23:10,681 ♪ ♪ 462 00:23:10,765 --> 00:23:13,184 There are hundreds of sightings every year, 463 00:23:13,267 --> 00:23:16,687 going back millennia, which is a point 464 00:23:16,771 --> 00:23:18,356 that Jacques really goes out of his way to make. 465 00:23:18,439 --> 00:23:19,857 ♪ ♪ 466 00:23:19,941 --> 00:23:21,192 [Kripal] I think Jacques flipped 467 00:23:21,275 --> 00:23:23,528 somewhere in the late '60s. 468 00:23:23,611 --> 00:23:26,697 I think it actually happened in libraries in Paris, 469 00:23:26,781 --> 00:23:30,576 and he was reading folklore around fairies 470 00:23:30,660 --> 00:23:34,413 and demonology and sort of medieval folklore, 471 00:23:34,497 --> 00:23:37,083 and he realized that these stories 472 00:23:37,166 --> 00:23:39,710 were essentially about what we call UFOs today, 473 00:23:39,794 --> 00:23:41,921 that there was definitely a connection 474 00:23:42,004 --> 00:23:44,423 between the old folklore and occultism 475 00:23:44,507 --> 00:23:47,927 and the modern mythology that's really developed 476 00:23:48,010 --> 00:23:49,512 around the UFO in the modern world. 477 00:23:50,847 --> 00:23:52,223 [Vallée] Open your Bible. 478 00:23:52,306 --> 00:23:54,725 I mean, what is it that Ezekiel saw? 479 00:23:54,809 --> 00:24:00,231 [dramatic music] 480 00:24:00,314 --> 00:24:04,402 I mean, Ezekiel describes a craft, you know, 481 00:24:04,485 --> 00:24:08,072 a material craft with entities 482 00:24:08,156 --> 00:24:12,451 that made a tremendous impression on him 483 00:24:12,535 --> 00:24:13,911 and abducted him. 484 00:24:13,995 --> 00:24:17,081 He woke up on top of a mountain, you know, 485 00:24:17,165 --> 00:24:19,083 some miles away 486 00:24:19,167 --> 00:24:21,460 and he didn't know what had happened to him. 487 00:24:21,544 --> 00:24:24,630 And he described wheels within wheels. 488 00:24:25,923 --> 00:24:27,592 Ezekiel gives us this account 489 00:24:27,675 --> 00:24:30,094 of the engineering, the architect-tonics 490 00:24:30,178 --> 00:24:33,139 of this object are unfathomable 491 00:24:33,222 --> 00:24:36,976 and enigmatic, and suddenly we're required 492 00:24:37,059 --> 00:24:39,812 to interpret what the hell this means. 493 00:24:39,896 --> 00:24:43,274 The Bible has preserved it as a religious experience. 494 00:24:43,357 --> 00:24:45,651 ♪ ♪ 495 00:24:45,735 --> 00:24:48,446 Well, what was it? 496 00:24:48,529 --> 00:24:50,656 ♪ ♪ 497 00:24:50,740 --> 00:24:52,783 [Santos] In the early books of the Old Testament, 498 00:24:52,867 --> 00:24:55,328 that's really the critical first framing 499 00:24:55,411 --> 00:24:59,790 in terms of the story of imagining ourselves into a time 500 00:24:59,874 --> 00:25:03,294 when our ancestors understood 501 00:25:03,377 --> 00:25:06,631 extraordinary experiences as every day. 502 00:25:06,714 --> 00:25:09,842 ♪ ♪ 503 00:25:09,926 --> 00:25:13,471 And Jacques Vallée and his, um, Wonders in the Sky 504 00:25:13,554 --> 00:25:15,973 gives us a great chronicle, for instance, 505 00:25:16,057 --> 00:25:19,518 of aerial phenomena through the ages. 506 00:25:19,602 --> 00:25:21,354 ♪ ♪ 507 00:25:21,437 --> 00:25:25,024 [Puthoff] There's some excellent events from Egypt, 508 00:25:25,107 --> 00:25:28,361 millennia ago, where, you know, two armies are fighting, 509 00:25:28,444 --> 00:25:30,821 and sudd enly there's craftin the air 510 00:25:30,905 --> 00:25:33,366 that come down and help one side versus the other. 511 00:25:33,449 --> 00:25:35,201 [upbeat music] 512 00:25:35,284 --> 00:25:37,245 They imagined that they were the gods 513 00:25:37,328 --> 00:25:40,373 coming to save their skins. 514 00:25:40,456 --> 00:25:42,750 The evidence for that kind of thing is scattered 515 00:25:42,833 --> 00:25:45,836 throughout our literature in all different countries. 516 00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,047 So it isn't just a Western thing. 517 00:25:48,130 --> 00:25:49,840 ♪ ♪ 518 00:25:49,924 --> 00:25:52,426 [Vallée] We don't have the complete map, you know, 519 00:25:52,510 --> 00:25:56,389 but we have 19th-century observations by astronomers, 520 00:25:56,472 --> 00:26:00,017 and in those days there was no stigma attached to it. 521 00:26:00,101 --> 00:26:03,187 This was, you know, the waters of science, 522 00:26:03,271 --> 00:26:06,023 with everything documented, 523 00:26:06,107 --> 00:26:08,442 including some wonderful engravings 524 00:26:08,526 --> 00:26:12,530 from Germany and from England and from France and so on. 525 00:26:12,613 --> 00:26:13,698 Of tic tacs! 526 00:26:13,781 --> 00:26:16,367 ♪ ♪ 527 00:26:16,450 --> 00:26:18,744 You know, that's straight out of a fairy tale. 528 00:26:18,828 --> 00:26:21,789 I mean, if you read this without knowing the context, 529 00:26:21,872 --> 00:26:24,542 it's another fairy tale. 530 00:26:24,625 --> 00:26:28,879 It turns out fairy tales come from folklore, 531 00:26:28,963 --> 00:26:31,382 and they are based on real observations. 532 00:26:31,465 --> 00:26:33,467 ♪ ♪ 533 00:26:33,551 --> 00:26:35,428 In the 17th century, 534 00:26:35,511 --> 00:26:38,931 if you were to tell a story like that, 535 00:26:39,015 --> 00:26:42,727 the priest would say you are in contact with the devil. 536 00:26:42,810 --> 00:26:44,603 It could only have been the devil. 537 00:26:44,687 --> 00:26:46,564 ♪ ♪ 538 00:26:46,647 --> 00:26:50,401 And you would suffer the consequences. 539 00:26:50,484 --> 00:26:55,239 So people in those days would filter into folklore, 540 00:26:55,323 --> 00:26:58,492 into cute stories you tell the kids. 541 00:26:58,576 --> 00:27:02,747 This has been very deep in human history. 542 00:27:02,830 --> 00:27:04,915 We just don't pay attention to it. 543 00:27:04,999 --> 00:27:09,128 [dramatic music] 544 00:27:09,211 --> 00:27:10,671 [Santos] We're at the very beginning 545 00:27:10,755 --> 00:27:14,925 of a time where it's going to be feasible 546 00:27:15,009 --> 00:27:17,470 to ask these questions seriously, 547 00:27:17,553 --> 00:27:20,348 without the giggle factor, without the discomfort, 548 00:27:20,431 --> 00:27:25,519 without what must be, for some people, spiritually unsettling. 549 00:27:25,603 --> 00:27:29,940 The idea that some of these scenarios may defy 550 00:27:30,024 --> 00:27:33,110 our conventional understandings of our religious traditions. 551 00:27:33,194 --> 00:27:34,779 ♪ ♪ 552 00:27:34,862 --> 00:27:37,865 We have a bigger tool kit now than we ever had before, 553 00:27:37,948 --> 00:27:41,452 in terms of both the empirical end of the studies, 554 00:27:41,535 --> 00:27:43,537 the kinds of instruments we can use 555 00:27:43,621 --> 00:27:47,166 in terms of examination of the physical world. 556 00:27:47,249 --> 00:27:53,172 ♪ ♪ 557 00:27:58,594 --> 00:28:02,640 [Vallée] I also brought a few things, 558 00:28:02,723 --> 00:28:06,644 you know, in terms of what samples look like. 559 00:28:06,727 --> 00:28:12,817 Pieces of things people have picked up after a UFO case. 560 00:28:12,900 --> 00:28:14,652 ♪ ♪ 561 00:28:14,735 --> 00:28:16,862 Jacques, in discussing, 562 00:28:16,946 --> 00:28:19,824 he started talking about some of these materials 563 00:28:19,907 --> 00:28:21,200 that he had from UAP. 564 00:28:23,244 --> 00:28:25,162 Wait a second. I never knew about this. 565 00:28:25,246 --> 00:28:27,665 There's actual materials that people have? 566 00:28:27,748 --> 00:28:29,333 I can look at those. 567 00:28:29,417 --> 00:28:33,212 That's something that a scientist can do. 568 00:28:33,963 --> 00:28:36,924 These are materials that I have collected 569 00:28:37,007 --> 00:28:42,555 with different teams in Brazil, data from 50 years ago. 570 00:28:42,638 --> 00:28:47,893 ♪ ♪ 571 00:28:59,363 --> 00:29:01,365 The Ubatuba materials, 572 00:29:01,449 --> 00:29:05,744 those two vials that have Muestra A and Muestra B, 573 00:29:05,828 --> 00:29:08,205 "sample" in Spanish. 574 00:29:08,289 --> 00:29:10,040 What's good about these materials 575 00:29:10,124 --> 00:29:11,876 is that they have a chain of custody. 576 00:29:11,959 --> 00:29:14,712 ♪ ♪ 577 00:29:14,795 --> 00:29:17,548 So I said, "Okay, well, as it turns out, 578 00:29:17,631 --> 00:29:20,593 some of the instruments that I've developed 579 00:29:20,676 --> 00:29:23,429 in my laboratory for the biology that we do, 580 00:29:23,512 --> 00:29:25,389 are actually designed to look at metals." 581 00:29:25,473 --> 00:29:28,726 ♪ ♪ 582 00:29:28,809 --> 00:29:32,730 I had all this instrumentation available to do the work. 583 00:29:32,813 --> 00:29:34,398 And no, I'm not a metallurgist. 584 00:29:34,482 --> 00:29:36,984 I'm not gonna claim things about metal structure 585 00:29:37,067 --> 00:29:40,237 that I don't know, but I can at least tell you what's there. 586 00:29:40,321 --> 00:29:43,824 ♪ ♪ 587 00:29:43,908 --> 00:29:47,244 One of the samples showed isotope ratios 588 00:29:47,328 --> 00:29:49,622 of magnesium, which were way off Earth normal. 589 00:29:49,705 --> 00:29:52,791 Now, that doesn't mean it's from an E.T. 590 00:29:52,875 --> 00:29:55,586 It just means that somebody altered 591 00:29:55,669 --> 00:29:58,756 the isotope ratios, but at the time these things were found, 592 00:29:58,839 --> 00:30:02,134 that would have been a multimillion-dollar operation, 593 00:30:02,218 --> 00:30:03,594 and it doesn't sound like something you would go 594 00:30:03,677 --> 00:30:05,679 throwing around a beach in Brazil. 595 00:30:21,695 --> 00:30:24,823 I just admire Dr. Nolan and his work. 596 00:30:24,907 --> 00:30:28,619 I mean, obviously his work in biology and medicine 597 00:30:28,702 --> 00:30:30,287 is exceptional, 598 00:30:30,371 --> 00:30:33,999 but I admire his willingness to jump into this 599 00:30:34,083 --> 00:30:37,378 and assemble a new generation of scientists 600 00:30:37,461 --> 00:30:40,965 to look at the academic data. 601 00:30:41,048 --> 00:30:43,133 We've already published, as you may know, 602 00:30:43,217 --> 00:30:46,303 the sophisticated analysis of data 603 00:30:46,387 --> 00:30:49,473 from an unidentified UFO case. 604 00:30:49,557 --> 00:30:51,141 ♪ ♪ 605 00:30:51,225 --> 00:30:53,894 [Nolan] Council Bluffs, Iowa, '77. 606 00:30:53,978 --> 00:30:55,396 [reporter] At Council Bluffs 607 00:30:55,479 --> 00:30:58,649 on Saturday, December 17th at 7:45 p.m., 608 00:30:58,732 --> 00:31:01,360 three people traveling towards North 16th Street 609 00:31:01,443 --> 00:31:05,072 noticed a reddish object about 600 feet in the air, 610 00:31:05,155 --> 00:31:07,324 falling straight down. 611 00:31:07,408 --> 00:31:09,493 [Nolan] An object was seen hovering. 612 00:31:09,577 --> 00:31:13,872 Multiple people saw it from several different vantages. 613 00:31:15,958 --> 00:31:20,212 Something bright seemed to drop from it. 614 00:31:20,296 --> 00:31:21,589 [reporter] It disappeared behind the trees 615 00:31:21,672 --> 00:31:24,341 of Big Lake Park, followed by a huge flash 616 00:31:24,425 --> 00:31:27,845 of blue-white light, with two, quote, "arms of fire 617 00:31:27,928 --> 00:31:30,222 shooting into the air, as if it had crashed." 618 00:31:30,306 --> 00:31:32,057 They thought it was a plane crash. 619 00:31:32,141 --> 00:31:33,434 [reporter] One eyewitness said, quote, 620 00:31:33,517 --> 00:31:35,728 "It looked like a great big sparkler 621 00:31:35,811 --> 00:31:37,521 with lava-like material dripping, 622 00:31:37,605 --> 00:31:39,690 appearing to slow as it cooled." 623 00:31:39,773 --> 00:31:42,860 Now, another young couple saw, quote, "A big round thing 624 00:31:42,943 --> 00:31:44,903 hovering in the sky, below the tree tops," 625 00:31:44,987 --> 00:31:46,905 and they called the fire department. 626 00:31:46,989 --> 00:31:50,534 Upon arriving, they found a pool of liquid metal. 627 00:31:50,618 --> 00:31:55,247 The police arrived, took Polaroids, which I have. 628 00:31:55,331 --> 00:31:58,917 [camera clicks] 629 00:31:59,001 --> 00:32:01,879 And then large pieces of the material 630 00:32:01,962 --> 00:32:05,883 were recovered by some of the witnesses. 631 00:32:05,966 --> 00:32:08,886 There are a lot of potential explanations for it. 632 00:32:08,969 --> 00:32:10,971 You know, all reasonable things 633 00:32:11,055 --> 00:32:14,558 like thermite, et cetera, and they were all discounted 634 00:32:14,642 --> 00:32:16,894 based on the evidence. 635 00:32:16,977 --> 00:32:18,604 It wasn't a meteor crash because meteors 636 00:32:18,687 --> 00:32:20,564 don't leave pools of molten metal behind. 637 00:32:20,648 --> 00:32:22,941 They leave holes, you know. 638 00:32:23,025 --> 00:32:30,324 ♪ ♪ 639 00:32:30,407 --> 00:32:35,621 Again, there's a story, there's witnesses, 640 00:32:35,704 --> 00:32:38,499 there's police validation that at least the stories 641 00:32:38,582 --> 00:32:42,086 all comported, and then there's material evidence. 642 00:32:42,169 --> 00:32:44,588 [Vallée] As you can see, this one comes 643 00:32:44,672 --> 00:32:48,759 from Council Bluffs in Iowa, which is a paper we published. 644 00:32:48,842 --> 00:32:50,469 [Nolan] Jacques brought me the material evidence. 645 00:32:50,552 --> 00:32:52,763 Now, I analyzed it with one of my machines. 646 00:32:52,846 --> 00:32:54,598 We published a peer reviewed paper. 647 00:32:54,682 --> 00:32:59,186 The only thing we found about it was that it was inhomogeneous. 648 00:32:59,269 --> 00:33:01,355 It's a fancy way of saying incompletely mixed. 649 00:33:01,438 --> 00:33:04,441 The material shows no sign of technology. 650 00:33:04,525 --> 00:33:06,151 The material is clearly the result 651 00:33:06,235 --> 00:33:08,028 of an industrial process. 652 00:33:08,112 --> 00:33:09,530 And it was incompletely mixed. 653 00:33:09,613 --> 00:33:11,031 Okay, so why? 654 00:33:11,115 --> 00:33:13,951 Again, that's the question you ask all the time 655 00:33:14,034 --> 00:33:15,494 when you see data. It's like, "Why?" 656 00:33:15,577 --> 00:33:19,540 Why would you do it? What could have generated it? 657 00:33:19,623 --> 00:33:21,792 And why would you dump it in the middle of a field 658 00:33:21,875 --> 00:33:24,378 in a small farming town in Iowa? 659 00:33:26,714 --> 00:33:28,507 Yeah. 660 00:33:28,799 --> 00:33:30,509 Right. Well the purpose of the Sol Foundation 661 00:33:30,592 --> 00:33:33,137 is to legitimize the subject matter 662 00:33:33,220 --> 00:33:35,931 and to bring a level of discourse that's professional. 663 00:33:36,598 --> 00:33:40,894 Academics, for all of its flaws, has a methodology 664 00:33:40,978 --> 00:33:43,814 that it uses, which involves proving something 665 00:33:43,897 --> 00:33:47,317 to a level of acceptability through peer review. 666 00:33:47,401 --> 00:33:51,029 Now, peer review doesn't mean it's right. 667 00:33:51,113 --> 00:33:53,365 We're saying, "Here's the kinds of questions 668 00:33:53,449 --> 00:33:56,535 we need answers to. We need a white paper on this" 669 00:33:56,618 --> 00:33:58,829 or "we need something published in the literature 670 00:33:58,912 --> 00:34:01,081 that examines this problem." 671 00:34:01,165 --> 00:34:02,916 Just in the year and a half or so 672 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,168 that I have become active 673 00:34:04,251 --> 00:34:05,919 and have started interviewing people, 674 00:34:06,003 --> 00:34:08,505 I have met dozens of people who-- 675 00:34:08,589 --> 00:34:11,884 commercial, military, Coast Guard mariners 676 00:34:11,967 --> 00:34:14,344 and submariners who have had observations. 677 00:34:14,428 --> 00:34:17,889 This is several dozen people that have seen phenomena 678 00:34:17,973 --> 00:34:21,726 in our oceans in the tropical, Eastern, Western Pacific, 679 00:34:21,810 --> 00:34:23,687 the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, 680 00:34:23,771 --> 00:34:25,898 the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean 681 00:34:25,981 --> 00:34:28,108 and the North Atlantic and Eastern Seaboard. 682 00:34:28,192 --> 00:34:29,693 So... this is happening. 683 00:34:29,777 --> 00:34:35,157 ♪ ♪ 684 00:34:39,036 --> 00:34:42,039 I love my job in the Navy because every part of the Navy 685 00:34:42,121 --> 00:34:44,917 needs to know something about the physical environment. 686 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,587 The Marines or the Army, they use a term-- 687 00:34:48,670 --> 00:34:51,757 They talk about high ground and taking high ground, 688 00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,052 because high ground gives some advantage over-- 689 00:34:55,135 --> 00:34:58,722 tactical advantage over an opposing force. 690 00:34:58,806 --> 00:35:00,766 There is a high ground in the ocean, 691 00:35:00,849 --> 00:35:03,101 and that's what I gave the U.S. Navy. 692 00:35:03,185 --> 00:35:05,604 Having knowledge of the physical characteristics 693 00:35:05,687 --> 00:35:09,399 of the sea surface as well as the ocean volume 694 00:35:09,483 --> 00:35:11,735 will help determine how well your sensors perform, 695 00:35:11,819 --> 00:35:15,155 whether they be acoustic or optical or radar. 696 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,659 And so knowing where we can basically see the adversary 697 00:35:18,742 --> 00:35:21,578 and they could not see us, giving detailed information 698 00:35:21,662 --> 00:35:25,332 about the ocean structure was basically providing high ground 699 00:35:25,415 --> 00:35:27,292 to the Naval forces I supported. 700 00:35:27,376 --> 00:35:29,628 Do we have any sensors underwater, 701 00:35:29,711 --> 00:35:35,300 uh, to, um, detect on submerged UAPs, 702 00:35:35,384 --> 00:35:37,803 uh, anything that is in the ocean or in the seas? 703 00:35:37,886 --> 00:35:39,763 So I think, uh, that would be more appropriately 704 00:35:39,847 --> 00:35:41,682 -addressed in close sessions. -Okay. 705 00:35:41,765 --> 00:35:44,351 July 15th, this thing dipped into the water 706 00:35:44,434 --> 00:35:48,146 and that sent the crew into sort of a routine. 707 00:35:48,230 --> 00:35:49,690 They announced something to the effect 708 00:35:49,773 --> 00:35:51,650 of splash, splash, which marked the spot 709 00:35:51,733 --> 00:35:53,110 where the thing went in. 710 00:35:53,193 --> 00:35:54,486 They conducted a search, looking for wreckage. 711 00:35:54,570 --> 00:35:56,530 There was none there. It disappeared 712 00:35:56,613 --> 00:35:59,324 from sonar and radar and this thing was just gone. 713 00:35:59,408 --> 00:36:05,330 [tranquil music] 714 00:36:05,414 --> 00:36:09,334 ♪ ♪ 715 00:36:09,418 --> 00:36:12,129 That's a term people are using for UFOs in the water, 716 00:36:12,212 --> 00:36:15,007 that, uh, Unidentified Submerged Object. 717 00:36:16,884 --> 00:36:20,971 I think USOs have been observed since at least the '60s, 718 00:36:21,054 --> 00:36:23,307 and there are some books and reports 719 00:36:23,390 --> 00:36:26,310 that have been published since then, 720 00:36:26,393 --> 00:36:28,228 and now we're seeing more attention 721 00:36:28,312 --> 00:36:30,314 towards the topic. 722 00:36:30,397 --> 00:36:33,525 Carl Fint is one of those who has published a book on that, 723 00:36:33,609 --> 00:36:35,903 and now, more recently, Richard Dolan 724 00:36:35,986 --> 00:36:39,364 is publishing a compendium of all the reports of USOs. 725 00:36:39,448 --> 00:36:41,241 He's letting me review that for him. 726 00:36:41,325 --> 00:36:43,827 [dramatic music] 727 00:36:43,911 --> 00:36:47,664 We're seeing in the oceans the same kind of phenomena 728 00:36:47,748 --> 00:36:49,750 that's in the atmosphere, in our skies, 729 00:36:49,833 --> 00:36:51,919 where different types of craft 730 00:36:52,002 --> 00:36:55,088 in different shapes, like triangles and discs, 731 00:36:55,172 --> 00:36:57,716 and, uh, elongated cylinders. 732 00:36:57,799 --> 00:36:59,509 We're seeing different lighting configurations, 733 00:36:59,593 --> 00:37:01,762 like you see with UFOs, 734 00:37:01,845 --> 00:37:05,265 and we're seeing basically activity and characteristics 735 00:37:05,349 --> 00:37:08,018 that defy the laws of physics as we know them. 736 00:37:08,101 --> 00:37:10,354 And when I say we're seeing, these are the reports 737 00:37:10,437 --> 00:37:12,606 that eyewitnesses have come forward with. 738 00:37:12,689 --> 00:37:15,859 Multiple witnesses report seeing a large blue object 739 00:37:15,943 --> 00:37:18,445 fall out of the sky and into the ocean. 740 00:37:20,614 --> 00:37:22,407 [woman] Oh, it [bleep] went and landed in the water, 741 00:37:22,491 --> 00:37:23,909 whatever it is. 742 00:37:23,992 --> 00:37:25,452 [reporter] She described it as being larger 743 00:37:25,535 --> 00:37:27,245 than a telephone pole, 744 00:37:27,329 --> 00:37:30,207 and said she never heard it make any sound. 745 00:37:30,290 --> 00:37:33,418 [suspenseful music] 746 00:37:33,502 --> 00:37:38,256 The idea of the space and ocean comparison is interesting to me. 747 00:37:38,340 --> 00:37:41,093 There is a famous astronaut named Scott Carpenter, 748 00:37:41,176 --> 00:37:42,970 who I got to meet, and I asked him, 749 00:37:43,053 --> 00:37:44,304 "How do you compare the two?" 750 00:37:44,388 --> 00:37:46,932 And he said, "Oh, space is just glorious. 751 00:37:47,015 --> 00:37:48,725 It's bright, it's shiny. 752 00:37:48,809 --> 00:37:51,228 You go... You launch on the top of a rocket 753 00:37:51,311 --> 00:37:52,479 and it's, you know, it's very fast 754 00:37:52,562 --> 00:37:53,897 and you get these missions done quick, 755 00:37:53,981 --> 00:37:55,816 and they're brilliant," 756 00:37:55,899 --> 00:37:58,986 and then he kind of paused for, like, a dramatic effect 757 00:37:59,069 --> 00:38:02,739 and he said, "The ocean is cruel, it's cold, 758 00:38:02,823 --> 00:38:07,119 everything breaks in it, and it's just difficult." 759 00:38:07,202 --> 00:38:11,164 We've only explored about 5% of the ocean's volume. 760 00:38:11,248 --> 00:38:12,582 Think about that. 761 00:38:12,666 --> 00:38:16,420 95% of the ocean's never even been examined, 762 00:38:16,503 --> 00:38:18,588 and so when you think about it, 763 00:38:18,672 --> 00:38:20,757 if we're just seeing a little bit in the areas 764 00:38:20,841 --> 00:38:22,467 of the ocean we're looking at now 765 00:38:22,551 --> 00:38:25,971 in terms of USO activity, what might we be missing? 766 00:38:26,054 --> 00:38:27,347 Could be quite a bit. 767 00:38:27,431 --> 00:38:33,103 [dramatic music] 768 00:38:33,186 --> 00:38:35,105 We're gonna have to somehow wrap our minds 769 00:38:35,188 --> 00:38:38,358 around the fact that the scientific method 770 00:38:38,442 --> 00:38:43,321 that is directed toward the physical world 771 00:38:43,405 --> 00:38:44,698 isn't complete. 772 00:38:44,781 --> 00:38:49,119 [dramatic music] 773 00:38:49,202 --> 00:38:53,623 There has to be another level of methodology 774 00:38:53,707 --> 00:38:57,878 that somehow enables us 775 00:38:57,961 --> 00:39:06,053 to accurately address this numinous level of reality. 776 00:39:06,136 --> 00:39:08,889 And that is going to be a very interesting journey 777 00:39:08,972 --> 00:39:11,683 because I have a feeling it's not going to involve 778 00:39:11,767 --> 00:39:15,145 detection with instruments, as we now understand. 779 00:39:15,228 --> 00:39:18,565 ♪ ♪ 780 00:39:21,068 --> 00:39:27,324 I think that those instruments will be as much part of us 781 00:39:27,407 --> 00:39:30,827 as they are part of the world around us. 782 00:39:30,911 --> 00:39:32,913 And I don't want to speculate. 783 00:39:32,996 --> 00:39:37,334 I was a science-fiction author, but I'm not now. 784 00:39:37,417 --> 00:39:39,669 ♪ ♪ 785 00:39:39,753 --> 00:39:41,838 [Mitch Horowitz] The accounts of experiencers, 786 00:39:41,922 --> 00:39:45,258 from my perspective, are testimony. 787 00:39:45,342 --> 00:39:49,554 And, over time, testimony becomes a record. 788 00:39:49,638 --> 00:39:53,517 People will sometimes dismiss testimony as anecdote, 789 00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,394 which is actually a term that's intended to be disabling. 790 00:39:56,478 --> 00:39:58,271 But we use testimony all the time. 791 00:39:58,355 --> 00:40:01,399 We use it in medicine to try to understand 792 00:40:01,483 --> 00:40:04,277 under what conditions a person experiences pain 793 00:40:04,361 --> 00:40:07,697 or under what conditions is that pain alleviated. 794 00:40:07,781 --> 00:40:12,119 Therapists and patients use testimony commonly to prescribe 795 00:40:12,202 --> 00:40:14,454 psychopharmacological drugs and so forth. 796 00:40:14,538 --> 00:40:18,125 We use testimony to measure the efficacy of those drugs. 797 00:40:18,208 --> 00:40:22,420 So testimony is a common source of information in the sciences 798 00:40:22,504 --> 00:40:24,047 as it is elsewhere. 799 00:40:24,131 --> 00:40:26,883 Over time, testimony becomes record, 800 00:40:26,967 --> 00:40:29,636 and that's a part of what's happening in our time. 801 00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:35,183 ♪ ♪ 802 00:40:37,644 --> 00:40:39,980 Most people that have had anomalous experiences 803 00:40:40,063 --> 00:40:42,107 don't want to talk about them. 804 00:40:42,190 --> 00:40:44,568 They don't want to shout about it from the rooftops. 805 00:40:44,651 --> 00:40:46,778 They're not looking for publicity. 806 00:40:46,862 --> 00:40:48,905 They just want to talk with other people 807 00:40:48,989 --> 00:40:50,907 that have been in similar situations, 808 00:40:50,991 --> 00:40:53,952 and they want to do the research so that they can figure out 809 00:40:54,035 --> 00:40:55,912 some more clues to these enduring mysteries. 810 00:40:55,996 --> 00:40:57,414 ♪ ♪ 811 00:40:57,497 --> 00:40:59,916 The Experiencer Group is a community site 812 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,169 for people that have had anomalous experiences 813 00:41:02,252 --> 00:41:04,671 of any and all kinds. 814 00:41:04,754 --> 00:41:07,924 So that can mean people that have had UFO encounters, 815 00:41:08,008 --> 00:41:10,427 encounters with non-human intelligence. 816 00:41:10,510 --> 00:41:12,679 There are people that have had out-of-body experiences, 817 00:41:12,762 --> 00:41:16,099 near-death experiences, and precognition. 818 00:41:16,183 --> 00:41:19,436 We find that folks that have had one type of experience 819 00:41:19,519 --> 00:41:21,771 sometimes, you know, the quiet secret 820 00:41:21,855 --> 00:41:24,274 is that it's more than one modality 821 00:41:24,357 --> 00:41:26,276 that they have actually experienced. 822 00:41:26,359 --> 00:41:29,446 [Strieber] You sit down and you read letter after letter 823 00:41:29,529 --> 00:41:32,991 after letter, you realize that this is something marvelous 824 00:41:33,074 --> 00:41:35,952 that we've discovered about ourselves. 825 00:41:36,036 --> 00:41:41,541 People will sit down and write a detailed long letter 826 00:41:41,625 --> 00:41:46,296 about something that really happened to them 827 00:41:46,379 --> 00:41:48,673 that is the central question in their life. 828 00:41:48,757 --> 00:41:51,009 [dramatic music] 829 00:41:51,092 --> 00:41:52,844 [Jay Christopher King] There's a strong association 830 00:41:52,928 --> 00:41:57,474 with fear and the shame and the hiding 831 00:41:57,557 --> 00:42:01,353 that people feel when they can't talk about anomalous experiences 832 00:42:01,436 --> 00:42:03,230 and then it's also important to remember that there are 833 00:42:03,313 --> 00:42:06,191 other experiencers that seem to have lucked out, 834 00:42:06,274 --> 00:42:08,652 and it's just all cosmic high fives 835 00:42:08,735 --> 00:42:11,363 the entire time, right? 836 00:42:11,446 --> 00:42:12,822 Just in the last nine months alone, 837 00:42:12,906 --> 00:42:15,575 we organized three hybrid conferences 838 00:42:15,659 --> 00:42:18,161 that happened online and in New York City, 839 00:42:18,245 --> 00:42:20,413 featuring people like Garry Nolan, 840 00:42:20,497 --> 00:42:23,250 Leslie Kean, 841 00:42:23,333 --> 00:42:24,876 Ralph Blumenthal, 842 00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:26,670 Christopher Mellon. 843 00:42:26,753 --> 00:42:28,755 That has been incredibly fruitful 844 00:42:28,838 --> 00:42:33,093 for small group work to be able to have luminaries like that 845 00:42:33,176 --> 00:42:35,178 coming into the situation 846 00:42:35,262 --> 00:42:37,013 and engaging with other experiencers. 847 00:42:37,097 --> 00:42:42,060 ♪ ♪ 848 00:42:42,143 --> 00:42:44,896 One situation that I recall that really helped 849 00:42:44,980 --> 00:42:48,566 unlock recognizing that I needed to deal 850 00:42:48,650 --> 00:42:51,361 with my history with anomalous phenomena 851 00:42:51,444 --> 00:42:55,782 was a situation where I was in Miami 852 00:42:55,865 --> 00:42:58,285 for a wedding, with my ex-wife, 853 00:42:58,368 --> 00:43:01,121 and we had a shared experience 854 00:43:01,204 --> 00:43:03,873 where I was looking out the window of this high-rise 855 00:43:03,957 --> 00:43:06,876 that we were in and there's an illuminated swimming pool 856 00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,586 down below. 857 00:43:08,670 --> 00:43:11,881 I was looking at it, and for some reason 858 00:43:11,965 --> 00:43:13,717 about five or six stories down 859 00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:15,385 between where I was and the pool, 860 00:43:15,468 --> 00:43:18,388 there was this ball of electricity 861 00:43:18,471 --> 00:43:20,056 that just appeared out of nowhere 862 00:43:20,140 --> 00:43:22,225 exactly where I was looking, 863 00:43:22,309 --> 00:43:26,730 and I just thought, "Uh-uh, oh, this is not good," 864 00:43:26,813 --> 00:43:29,649 and, seemingly, this ball, 865 00:43:29,733 --> 00:43:32,777 maybe it was about the size of a basketball or so, 866 00:43:32,861 --> 00:43:36,906 it started slightly moving and growing in size 867 00:43:36,990 --> 00:43:38,950 towards where I was. 868 00:43:40,994 --> 00:43:46,583 I called my wife over and she saw it out the window, 869 00:43:46,666 --> 00:43:51,963 and right as she saw it, it moved very quickly 870 00:43:52,047 --> 00:43:54,299 towards our position, 871 00:43:54,382 --> 00:43:58,428 and she turned around to run away from it, 872 00:43:58,511 --> 00:44:02,932 and as she did, she was seemingly rendered unconscious, 873 00:44:03,016 --> 00:44:06,144 and I had to move to grab her head 874 00:44:06,227 --> 00:44:09,314 so it didn't hit the floor on her way down. 875 00:44:09,397 --> 00:44:11,149 And when I turned around, 876 00:44:11,232 --> 00:44:12,776 there were two non-human entities. 877 00:44:12,859 --> 00:44:15,862 [dramatic music] 878 00:44:15,945 --> 00:44:18,782 And strangely-- I know it sounds very weird-- 879 00:44:18,865 --> 00:44:25,288 they were standing outside the window in some way, 880 00:44:25,372 --> 00:44:27,665 as if there were some overlapping realm 881 00:44:27,749 --> 00:44:29,459 that they were on. 882 00:44:29,542 --> 00:44:34,506 And, as had happened at other times in the past, 883 00:44:34,589 --> 00:44:38,843 I was somehow moved over to kind of an operating theater, 884 00:44:38,927 --> 00:44:42,222 and I was-- I was laid down on a slab 885 00:44:42,305 --> 00:44:45,809 that was seemingly levitating, 886 00:44:45,892 --> 00:44:50,897 and there was some kind of medical procedure happening, 887 00:44:50,980 --> 00:44:56,319 and I woke up in the morning with part of my suit still on, 888 00:44:56,403 --> 00:44:58,905 on top of the covers in the bed 889 00:44:58,988 --> 00:45:02,242 and my then wife was just staring at my face. 890 00:45:02,325 --> 00:45:04,411 She had already woken up. 891 00:45:04,494 --> 00:45:08,915 And I was like, "Can we talk about this?" 892 00:45:08,998 --> 00:45:11,376 And she was like, "No, we can't talk about this." 893 00:45:11,459 --> 00:45:13,545 ♪ ♪ 894 00:45:13,628 --> 00:45:15,588 And I realized that that relationship 895 00:45:15,672 --> 00:45:17,924 was not going to work. 896 00:45:18,007 --> 00:45:20,927 And I realized that the way that I was handling this stuff 897 00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:23,263 was not going to work, 898 00:45:23,346 --> 00:45:25,515 because denying that it was happening 899 00:45:25,598 --> 00:45:28,518 or acting like I wasn't an experiencer 900 00:45:28,601 --> 00:45:30,687 didn't make it go away, 901 00:45:30,770 --> 00:45:33,273 and so I separated from my wife 902 00:45:33,356 --> 00:45:38,736 and I started researching these subjects, 903 00:45:38,820 --> 00:45:42,365 and now here I am about 12 years later. 904 00:45:42,449 --> 00:45:44,534 ♪ ♪ 905 00:45:44,617 --> 00:45:46,411 [Kripal] Here's the thing people don't understand. 906 00:45:46,494 --> 00:45:48,538 When I talk about revelation, for example, 907 00:45:48,621 --> 00:45:50,081 which is a religious notion, 908 00:45:50,165 --> 00:45:55,545 what I mean is the person doesn't make up the story. 909 00:45:55,628 --> 00:45:58,715 The story appears to the person. 910 00:45:58,798 --> 00:46:00,800 It's passive. 911 00:46:00,884 --> 00:46:02,802 The person is shown something. 912 00:46:02,886 --> 00:46:05,722 It's not--It's not the dreamer or the visionary 913 00:46:05,805 --> 00:46:08,475 or the near-death experiencer that's making some shit up. 914 00:46:08,558 --> 00:46:10,393 That's not what's happening. 915 00:46:10,477 --> 00:46:12,937 Something is happening to the experiencer, 916 00:46:13,021 --> 00:46:15,940 their person being shown to them, 917 00:46:16,024 --> 00:46:18,693 and that's why they'll say it was a revelation. 918 00:46:19,986 --> 00:46:21,946 They're not sitting around daydreaming, you know, 919 00:46:22,030 --> 00:46:25,408 making up something, you know, fantastic. 920 00:46:25,492 --> 00:46:26,618 That's not it at all. 921 00:46:26,701 --> 00:46:33,583 [dramatic music] 922 00:46:33,666 --> 00:46:35,084 The first time that I encountered 923 00:46:35,168 --> 00:46:37,420 Whitley Strieber's work was the film adaptation 924 00:46:37,504 --> 00:46:38,630 of Communion. 925 00:46:38,713 --> 00:46:40,173 I was probably 14 or 15 years old, 926 00:46:40,256 --> 00:46:41,925 flipping channels, 927 00:46:42,008 --> 00:46:45,678 and then shock and amazement 928 00:46:45,762 --> 00:46:49,265 that I saw a being on television that was-- 929 00:46:49,349 --> 00:46:51,935 that was close enough to what I had seen 930 00:46:52,018 --> 00:46:54,437 when--when I was younger. 931 00:46:54,521 --> 00:47:01,027 And I remember being perplexed, 932 00:47:01,110 --> 00:47:04,155 a sense of panic that I couldn't really identify 933 00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:08,952 the source of, and I remember the visual of seeing 934 00:47:09,035 --> 00:47:11,871 Christopher Walken playing Whitley Strieber 935 00:47:11,955 --> 00:47:15,875 and him being severely troubled, 936 00:47:15,959 --> 00:47:18,044 working with a therapist, 937 00:47:18,127 --> 00:47:21,881 and I remember turning off the television at that point. 938 00:47:23,967 --> 00:47:28,346 I think I wasn't ready to engage with the idea 939 00:47:28,429 --> 00:47:33,643 that, as an adult, I would have to be doing similar work 940 00:47:33,726 --> 00:47:36,187 as what I was seeing in that scene. 941 00:47:36,271 --> 00:47:37,730 I didn't want to engage with that yet. 942 00:47:37,814 --> 00:47:39,983 ♪ ♪ 943 00:47:40,066 --> 00:47:42,151 People really responded to that 944 00:47:42,235 --> 00:47:44,070 because they thought, "Well, wait a minute. 945 00:47:44,153 --> 00:47:46,322 This is very much like what happened to me." 946 00:47:46,406 --> 00:47:49,826 And the face on the cover, I sat beside the artist, 947 00:47:49,909 --> 00:47:52,662 Ted Jacobs, who drew that face, 948 00:47:52,745 --> 00:47:55,540 and described my memories in great detail, 949 00:47:55,623 --> 00:47:59,502 and that face is pretty much what I remembered. 950 00:47:59,586 --> 00:48:04,007 It's a very complex human experience, 951 00:48:04,090 --> 00:48:06,926 and like so many other people, couldn't let it go. 952 00:48:07,010 --> 00:48:08,344 ♪ ♪ 953 00:48:08,428 --> 00:48:11,931 What I remember is that through my wall 954 00:48:12,015 --> 00:48:14,267 came some beings around my bed, 955 00:48:14,350 --> 00:48:16,728 and I ran between them and ran out of the room 956 00:48:16,811 --> 00:48:19,522 into my mother's room to hide from them. 957 00:48:19,606 --> 00:48:22,525 And what happened is, um, they followed me in there, 958 00:48:22,609 --> 00:48:24,527 and that's the last I remember of it. 959 00:48:24,611 --> 00:48:28,531 Um, however, it's interesting because after that, 960 00:48:28,615 --> 00:48:31,743 uh, I never told anybody about that, 961 00:48:31,826 --> 00:48:34,912 and I just buried it in the back of my mind, 962 00:48:34,996 --> 00:48:37,415 and me and my brother, we never even spoke about it. 963 00:48:37,999 --> 00:48:40,043 [Strieber] The abduction process, 964 00:48:40,126 --> 00:48:43,880 which is what I experienced, is only a small part 965 00:48:43,963 --> 00:48:47,800 of our relationship with whatever they are. 966 00:48:47,884 --> 00:48:49,218 [dramatic music] 967 00:48:49,302 --> 00:48:51,638 [King] I think Whitley is a hero. 968 00:48:51,721 --> 00:48:56,434 I think Whitley Strieber is such a brave, courageous, 969 00:48:56,517 --> 00:48:58,561 and an important figure in this field. 970 00:48:58,645 --> 00:49:00,563 ♪ ♪ 971 00:49:00,647 --> 00:49:03,483 It can be hard to figure out how to approach Whitley Strieber. 972 00:49:03,566 --> 00:49:06,069 [camera clicks] 973 00:49:06,152 --> 00:49:10,448 The gravity around him in interpersonal situations 974 00:49:10,531 --> 00:49:12,408 is very strong. 975 00:49:12,492 --> 00:49:15,745 I remember meeting him for the first time 976 00:49:15,828 --> 00:49:18,831 and having to walk away... 977 00:49:18,915 --> 00:49:22,752 [clearing throat] 978 00:49:22,835 --> 00:49:25,838 [tranquil music] 979 00:49:25,922 --> 00:49:28,591 [sighs] 980 00:49:28,675 --> 00:49:31,177 ♪ ♪ 981 00:49:31,260 --> 00:49:32,845 [clears throat] 982 00:49:32,929 --> 00:49:35,682 ♪ ♪ 983 00:49:35,765 --> 00:49:38,101 I remember the first time in meeting Whitley 984 00:49:38,184 --> 00:49:40,103 that I actually had to walk away and go to the bathroom 985 00:49:40,186 --> 00:49:42,855 so that I could cry and come back. 986 00:49:42,939 --> 00:49:48,528 ♪ ♪ 987 00:49:48,611 --> 00:49:50,988 He's used to people saying "thank you" to him. 988 00:49:53,282 --> 00:49:55,368 But I can't thank him enough. 989 00:49:58,705 --> 00:50:00,206 [Strieber] Annie put it one day. 990 00:50:00,289 --> 00:50:02,667 She was reading all these thousands of letters 991 00:50:02,750 --> 00:50:05,837 we got pouring in, and she comes out of her office 992 00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:07,338 and says, "Whitley, this has something to do 993 00:50:07,422 --> 00:50:09,799 with what we call death." 994 00:50:09,882 --> 00:50:12,969 And, you know, we were way beyond 995 00:50:13,052 --> 00:50:15,012 the alien abduction idea at that point. 996 00:50:15,096 --> 00:50:17,306 [dramatic music] 997 00:50:17,390 --> 00:50:19,559 I can't tell you what's going on, 998 00:50:19,642 --> 00:50:21,686 but I can tell you this. 999 00:50:21,769 --> 00:50:25,189 If we ever figure it out, it's going to change the world. 1000 00:50:25,273 --> 00:50:27,150 ♪ ♪ 1001 00:50:27,233 --> 00:50:28,651 [Eben Alexander] Probably every two or three months, 1002 00:50:28,735 --> 00:50:31,362 I would hear fairly compelling stories 1003 00:50:31,446 --> 00:50:34,198 of near-death experiences or shared death 1004 00:50:34,282 --> 00:50:37,326 or after-death communications that should have gotten 1005 00:50:37,410 --> 00:50:40,496 my attention, but I kept dismissing them, 1006 00:50:40,580 --> 00:50:43,207 thinking, "No," you know, "That's wishful thinking." 1007 00:50:43,291 --> 00:50:44,834 "We don't have any way of proving that." 1008 00:50:44,917 --> 00:50:47,587 "No, we don't seem to have memories of past lives." 1009 00:50:47,670 --> 00:50:50,423 I don't know that I believe in reincarnation." 1010 00:50:50,506 --> 00:50:52,550 Certainly having my own personal experience 1011 00:50:52,633 --> 00:50:55,887 went light-years towards opening me up 1012 00:50:55,970 --> 00:50:59,223 to accepting and admitting this beautiful kind of expansion 1013 00:50:59,307 --> 00:51:01,684 in our knowledge of ourselves and the universe. 1014 00:51:01,768 --> 00:51:06,856 ♪ ♪ 1015 00:51:06,939 --> 00:51:10,234 There came a slowly spinning white light, 1016 00:51:10,318 --> 00:51:13,404 and this white light had fine silvery golden tendrils, 1017 00:51:13,488 --> 00:51:16,449 and it came towards me very slowly, spinning. 1018 00:51:16,532 --> 00:51:18,367 And as it did so, I realized that it came 1019 00:51:18,451 --> 00:51:21,120 with a perfect musical melody. 1020 00:51:21,204 --> 00:51:23,039 ♪ ♪ 1021 00:51:23,122 --> 00:51:24,624 Then in the Core realm I was told, 1022 00:51:24,707 --> 00:51:26,209 "You're not here to stay." "We'll teach you many things." 1023 00:51:26,292 --> 00:51:29,587 You'll be going back." 1024 00:51:29,670 --> 00:51:31,756 So why was it that I had the most profound, 1025 00:51:31,839 --> 00:51:34,050 rich, detailed spiritual experience 1026 00:51:34,133 --> 00:51:37,595 when my brain was most demonstrably off. 1027 00:51:37,678 --> 00:51:40,056 That was part of the mystery I was to answer 1028 00:51:40,139 --> 00:51:42,600 over these 15 years since that time. 1029 00:51:42,683 --> 00:51:44,602 ♪ ♪ 1030 00:51:44,685 --> 00:51:50,608 [closing theme song plays] 1031 00:51:50,691 --> 00:51:54,946 ♪ ♪