[Music]

thank you

[Music]

so I'm going to take a moment setting

this one up because if you've not been

following along until now then where we

are now is gonna seem really strange so

on June 5th an outlet called the debrief

published a story that more or less

broke the internet

in it a decorated former combat officer

and an intelligence officer named David

grush who had worked on the government's

unidentified aerial phenomena task force

said he had turned whistleblower and he

had testified under oath to Congress

that he has been told reliably and given

evidence of secret government programs

that have over a long period of time

recovered and definitively analyzed

crash materials that we have this stuff

and it is being kept from Congress it is

being hidden and if it were just him

maybe you would dismiss it but there

were others in the intelligence

Community who had served around him who

were themselves very highly credentialed

who backed him up on this

and so immediately you have these two

narratives emerge and take over a lot of

social media one was this is the biggest

news break of all time and it's being

published in the debrief because the

mainstream media just doesn't want you

to know about it Tucker Carlson in his

Twitter show said UFOs are actually real

and apparently so is extraterrestrial

life now we know in a normal country

this news would qualify as a bombshell

the story of the Millennium but in our

country it doesn't

keeping it from you

and then there's the other side of this

which thinks it is ridiculous to even be

talking about just media organizations

taking cranks seriously for the clicks

and every time I step anywhere near UFO

stories and I do because I think there

is something interesting here I get a

ton of emails saying this like how dare

you waste our time

and so to make a meta point about why I

want to do this conversation right now I

don't think it's good for these two

interpretations to be so distant from

each other

it feeds conspiracy theories

it makes it hard for people to know why

something that looks very legitimate to

them isn't being taken as legitimate

elsewhere

but also I don't think on the other side

it's good for stories and even if they

have problems in Holes

that do have something interesting

happening in them something intriguing

something that is a little bit hard to

explain that does deserve scrutiny to be

ignored

so I wanted to dig into this story both

for what's solid in it and what makes me

at least skeptical of it and I also want

to dig into some of the stories about

governmental investigations and UFOs had

preceded it because there have been a

bunch of these over the past couple of

years the biggest ones including this

one were co-authored by Leslie Kane a

long time journalist on this beat who's

published a number of them in the New

York Times my publication though as I

mentioned this particular story was in

the debrief

and so I asked her to join me on the

show so I could get my questions and

hopefully some of yours answered and My

Hope Is by the end of this you have more

of a sense of why I think it's

reasonable to be very curious at this

point about what is going on here to

have some real unanswered questions but

also to be pretty skeptical of some of

Russia's claims or or at least get a

sense of why I am

as always my email is recline show at

nytimes.com

thank you

[Music]

plus again welcome to the show thanks

for having me so let's go back to the

first piece that you co-authored in the

times back in 2017. give you a bit of

texture on how that story came about but

fundamentally what it was reporting

sure well the story came about because

of a meeting I was invited to with some

Associates of a man named Luis Elizondo

who was the person who headed up a

secret program at the Pentagon which is

what the story was about and I had an

introduction to him a couple of months

earlier because he was resigning from

his position as head of this program

so he wanted to try to carry on the work

he had been doing outside he was

concerned that there were not enough

resources being devoted to what he

thought was a very important issue after

all the years he had spent studying it

so that's why he left and and this

meeting was really a turning point for

me Ezra in my career as a journalist I

mean I I was just stunned by the fact

that that program existed by the fact

that I was meeting the former head of

the program and all the things that they

showed me at that meeting which

basically showed the reality of the

program and it showed Harry Reid's

involvement with it and we can talk more

about that because that all led to the

story but I just wanted to share that it

was a major moment for me to be invited

into a meeting like that

so what was the program

it was a very small basically unfunded

program called the advanced Aerospace

threat identification program we call it

atip there was another program that was

set up before this in the DIA and this

was kind of an offshoot of another

program that closed down and basically

it was just a small group of people

within the Pentagon and it was led by

this man named Luis Elizondo a former

counterintelligence operative and a very

highly cleared person who worked with a

lot of I mean he did a lot of other jobs

while he was at the Pentagon this was

just something he kept going even

without a lot of funding with a small

group of people and they were basically

studying cases that were presented to

them by a lot of them are from the Navy

cases that came through intelligence

agencies Air Force anybody that was

connected to the defense establishment

they were not taking cases from

commercial pilots or police officers or

anybody else and nobody even knew about

this program their focus was to try to

understand the technology basically how

do these things do you know what are

they doing and how are they doing it and

observe as much as they can and collect

as much data as they could and so that

was the nature of that program I mean it

was very small some people argue maybe

it shouldn't even be called a program

but uh for lack of a better word that's

so we've always referred to it

it's one of the interesting questions

about all of this that I think in to the

extent there's a public mind about this

you might think that if the government

is doing something on UFOs or now

they're called uaps or you know whatever

the acronym of the moment is and is

seeing things on videos and multi-sensor

data which is something that the

government later says these are not just

videos but it's being picked up by

multiple sensors then it might be a very

big deal big conspiracy but actually

what gets reported then and what I think

subsequent reporting also Bears out this

program is very small it's funded by

about 22 million dollars from Harry Reid

it's a little bit of a Backwater I think

sometimes people have in their heads and

maybe this will come back in later or

the idea of a big men and black

conspiracy but if anything it seems like

it was very hard for people to get the

Pentagon actually interested in this

yeah you're right I mean it was small

and that 22 million dollars was actually

it wasn't just for this program it's a

complicated situation because it was

actually provided to this Dia program

that preceded it but they were very

closely linked so we didn't go into a

lot of detail on that because it's just

confusing but but yes it was a small

program and the reason Elizondo resigned

was because of what you just said that

not enough resources were being devoted

to it and he felt that it was a national

security problem and that it was

extremely important and he was in a

position to know that because he was

paying attention to it which most of the

defense department was not paying

attention to it

so this program as I understand it is

investigating these reports which I've

always trickled in but are now getting a

little bit more collected of

unidentified flying objects what is a

program finding what discoveries are

made or conclusions are drawn I mean

what it when when you speak to Elizondo

and he's leaving what does he say has

been the result of this work

first of all some of the material a lot

of it was classified so he couldn't tell

me a lot of the details of what I really

wanted to know so even the fact that

those videos came out was kind of a

miracle because even though it was an

unclassified program actually the fact

that the program existed was not

classified but a lot of the information

they collected was you know they would

get case reports they would get data

from these sightings and they would have

their best analysts look at that data

and they would try to find correlations

between sightings and try to understand

what the various characteristics were of

these objects and how they behaved

but the specifics of that were not

revealed at the time

I'm always very careful with the word

classified because I think when people

hear it they think secret and true but

whatever this program is finding at that

point even though its findings are

classified it's not enough to get blown

up into a huge program Elizondo is not

getting promoted up through the ranks

but what it seems to do and tell me if I

am getting this wrong is I understand it

and through partially through your story

too is get Congress interested so this

is interesting tension again where

whatever it's finding isn't doing that

much inside the bureaucracy

but then the revelation of the program

begins to get real Congressional

sponsors and interests and things begin

to turn from there is that how you

understand that what happens absolutely

that's exactly right and that's why

Elizondo left because he wanted what you

just said to happen and it did what

happened it was because of the story I

mean the story started the ball rolling

in that in that direction and within a

year so later uh members of Congress

were asking to be briefed on this so

then they started to learn what the

program knew and what this whatever this

information was that was more specific

that could not be revealed to the public

was revealed to Congress and other

members of the intelligence world people

started to learn about it and that that

was good that's exactly what he was

hoping would happen

and so what happens next in Congress

mainly the House and Senate intelligence

committees were very interested in this

and the interest grew and more and more

of them were briefed over a period of

years by different people and

um eventually they actually authorized

the or set up this UAP task force which

was sort of an offshoot of this original

atip program that we were talking about

earlier but became a solidly established

and funded entity this entity was

instructed by Congress to study these

cases and come up with reports including

reports for the public

and to just investigate this and and

also members of Congress were more

public about speaking out about this

which you know none of this had happened

before as or it was like a sea change

from there's a line that you can draw in

the year 2017 and I studied this I was

doing this for 20 you know 17 years

before that so it just was radically

different that any member of Congress

would even speak about this issue and

they were doing that in various

interviews so it was just kind of

bubbling up and becoming much more of a

public issue and they're continuing to

be more and more engaged with it as time

goes on even today you know it just

things are escalating for them

what does uip stand for and why does

that become the preferred acronym here

when the acronym UAP was first

established it stood for unidentified

aerial phenomena and that was used

because of the term UFO had a lot of

baggage attached to it I mean people

think of UFOs as being flying saucers

from another planet or you know

something a vehicle driven by aliens and

something from a science fiction movie

it's just a loaded term and scientists

in particular wanted to avoid any

association with something called UFO so

they renamed it but it's been changed

even Beyond unidentified aerial

phenomena it has now been changed to

unidentified anomalous phenomena what's

interesting about that is the word

anomalous covers a much broader range of

phenomena of issues of possibilities

than the word aerial does because some

of these objects come out of the water

and are seen underwater and even outer

space so it gives a broader definition

for it

so one of the things that happens next

is in the 2019 National Defense

authorization act which actually passes

strangely in 2018

there is some language inserted into the

classified Annex of that bill pushing

the Pentagon to continue these

investigations and over this period of

time a couple things get inserted into

bills as I understand it that somewhat

shift the funding the structure of the

investigations whistleblower protections

Etc so can you tell me a bit about how

the governmental context changes here

yeah I mean if we go through starting

from where what you just mentioned and

go through to the ndaa the National

Defense authorization Act of 2023 we've

come a long way because that is the act

in which whistleblower protections were

offered specifically for individuals

whose security is prevented them from

talking about the knowledge they had of

these programs some of which may contain

physical materials and the legislation

also asks for reports on the acquisition

of any physical materials or crash

retrievals they actually mentioned that

and they write that in there also

medical effects on people from Close

Encounters psychological effects the

fact that Congress is legislating and

looking for information and a ruling or

was willing to state

something that seems as far out as

retrieve materials and then the

acknowledgment that whistleblowers may

have something to say which they're

prevented to say yet we want to hear

about it the Congress is saying so this

was a huge step forward the legislation

and it's been every year something new

gets added to the ndaa that takes it

further

[Music]

[Music]

thank you

that brings us in a way to your next set

of pieces published in 2019 and 2020

again with with co-authors that focuses

on reported encounters between Navy

pilots and flying objects so they

couldn't explain or identify so can you

tell me a bit about those pieces yeah so

you're talking about the one in 2019 uh

when that was the second one we did

after the original one which was with

Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper and

it focused on Pilots Navy Pilots off the

east coast of the United States who have

been encountering these objects for

starting in around 2014 2015 these very

small objects that sort of seemed like

drones but they didn't behave like

drones there were lots of them sometimes

they would see them every day two of the

pilots went on the record one of them

was Ryan Graves who has since become

very well known and talked to some

others off the Record but it was um the

numbers of incidents that they had were

just extraordinary and they were not

they could not explain Lane the behavior

of these objects that the fact that some

of them would hang around for 22 hours

or something like that with you know

which is longer than they believed any

drones could remain Aloft without going

back down so there are other occasions

of near misses where the objects would

go zooming between two aircraft when one

was described as a sphere with a cube

inside it

so you know these were different kinds

of things than we had been hearing about

for decades when people talk about UFOs

this is this was a different kind of an

object than we have heard much about

before

and this is a bit of your bread and

butter as a reporter on the subject you

wrote a book on this that came out in

2010 called UFOs generals pilots and

government officials go on the record uh

John podesta the former white house

chief of staff writes a forward to that

book and a lot of that book is reports

of Pilots of things they've seen and and

can't explain there's a a long history

and documentary record here so tell me a

bit about whether or not these reports

that end up in the 2019 and 2020 stories

or are they different are they something

new are they just a continuation of what

you've seen and reported on before how

do you how do you place that in context

what's interesting about the difference

between the book and what the kinds of

cases we that I wrote about in the book

and that others wrote about because I

had contributors to that book who wrote

their own chapters were that they were

the more kinds of classic sightings that

we've been hearing about for a long time

like gigantic triangular objects or disc

shaped objects were sort of the typical

ones

silent you know huge things that would

drift over Arizona for an hour and a

half and I think what's different about

particularly about the 2019 sightings

are just that they're small

none of he was reporting anything like

that in the earlier cases that I had in

my book and I also think what's changed

of course is that we have better

equipment now and much more

sophisticated sensors to capture data on

these objects and also we're paying more

attention and trying to capture data on

them which we weren't doing then I mean

we had one case of an object that was

hovering over O'Hare Airport for about

five minutes a disc shaped object in

2006 seen by all kinds of pilots and

Aviation people and there's no data on

that it wasn't in a position where the

radar could pick it up I imagine if

something like that happened today it

would be very different so I think part

of it is we have different kinds of

reports but we also have much better

ability to actually capture data on

these objects so therefore we know more

about them

this was one of the things that somebody

who's interested and skeptical in the

space I found interesting because

there's a lot of debunking you can go to

it on YouTube and find it of different

ways people could very reasonably see

something that isn't there or mistake

something they they do see uh when

they're flying a plane there's a lot on

your mind at that moment but there have

been government reports and hearings

where there is discussion of these

phenomena being picked up in multiple

sensors at once which is more

interesting to me because it would seem

to knock out at least some of the the

chance for error so can you talk a bit

about Beyond some of the visual reports

what else is seeing or sensing these

events

yeah I mean they do and the multiple

centers is very important and we don't I

mean I don't know much and I I think a

lot of people don't know much about what

those actual sensors are that is

information that we don't want to

release to our adversaries so even the

kinds of sensors that we use are

protected for instance the videos that

were released the whole video wasn't

released it was just a portion of the

incident particularly the one called the

gimbal video because apparently the rest

of the uh video revealed information

about our sensors that we didn't want

our adversaries to have access to so I

can't really speak to the types of

sensors and the types of Technology

that's used I just know that the idea of

having a multiple sensor you know a an

object that is captured through multiple

sensors is really important as you point

out and the visual component is

important too but probably not as

important as the others and when you

have the combination of multiple

Witnesses seeing it with their eyes and

multiple sensors also picking it up

you've got a pretty strong case and you

have a lot of data to work with and you

cannot analyze a case and come to any

conclusion about it unless you have an

adequate amount of data that's always a

big problem you're never going to be

able to resolve it without without

enough data to be able to rule out what

other conventional explanations might be

possible for it

so you have to have a lot of data and

that's again something that we have a

lot more of now than we did 10 15 years

ago so to add a little bit of data to

this so in June 2021 through a

congressional mandate there's a report

released by the office of the Director

of National Intelligence on unidentified

aerial phenomena I read this at the time

and a lot of it is just saying we don't

know much of this probably has totally

normal explanations maybe all of it does

but they do give a little bit of detail

in the sensors and it was a part that I

found most interesting so I'm going to

read a bit of it here so it says UAP

we're registered across multiple sensors

to include radar infrared Electro

Optical weapon Seekers and visual

observation and then it says of the 144

reports that get investigated here 80

involved observation with multiple

sensors so not all of them and they

don't say of those 80 what had which

sensors on it and that doesn't I really

want to note that that there could be a

lot of explanations here including

experimental craft from other countries

and so on but these are not all tricks

of the light this is not all just

eyewitness accounts so 80 having

multi-sensor observation struck me as

pretty notable

I would agree yeah and I I also think in

that report what was notable was they

did say that they did not have any

evidence that these were Russian or

Chinese objects and also that they did

not have any evidence that they were

American technology which you know

wasn't definitive but it was certainly

suggestive of the possibility that they

are explained unexplainable but you're

absolutely right too just having

something that's not explained doesn't

mean that it's from another world of

course uh we don't know what it is is

basically what it means but I but that

was a really notable part of that report

I don't know if you felt that way that

they did reference the China and Russia

and

American Technology American you know

sophisticated secret corporate

technology or something like that was

mentioned as well as not being very

likely explanation

so later in 2020 you reported on the

fact that the atip program

um that forms the basis of the 2017

story has been renamed and that was a

new name it has a little bit of a new I

think positioning within the the

bureaucracy or at least centrality tell

me about what happens to it

it was renamed the UAP Task Force if I

think that's what you're referring to

um and that was kind of you know as a

formally established I think it was

under the department of the Navy

particularly and it was going to it was

just tasked to investigate these objects

to investigate the sightings that were

coming in and basically to do the work

that the report you just referred to had

laid out and so this was the first time

that any official body was established

and that was known publicly Anyway by

the Congress within the defense

department since the 50s and 60s so it

was um a forward movement that was very

important but its job was to be the

focal point for these reports and to do

the work that was required to

investigate them and see if they could

be explained so in that piece you

describe quote a small group of former

government officials and scientists with

security clearances who without

presenting physical proof say they are

convinced that objects of undetermined

origin have crashed on Earth with the

materials retrieved for study

so who are you describing what kind of

evidence did you see there that made you

think those statements were credible

so a lot of conversations were off the

Record

um one of the individuals in that story

Eric Davis actually made the statement

that he had briefed members of Congress

on and he briefed some aerospace

companies as well on objects that were

otherworldly and who is Eric Davis he's

a physicist who had been an associate

with the atip program for a long time he

has clearances he's been involved with

this issue for many many years and he

was one of the people who had worked

with the atip program was very close to

Luis Elizondo and he was one of the

people that was conducting briefings a

lot of the people who we talked to of

course could not go on the record and

they could not provide anything specific

they could not provide proof or data on

these crashes if in fact they existed

which we did State clearly in the story

but I having been involved with this for

so long when I have talked to so many

people off the Record who I believe are

in a position to know about what's going

on behind the scenes and what who have

got connections to some of these

programs who have told me that these

materials do exist

I take it very seriously and in fact

Luis Elizondo did say publicly on an

interview he did with Tucker Carlson I

think it was in 2019 I actually made a

note of this it was in May of 2019. he

did say at that point and he he didn't

say that it was a fact but the question

was do you believe do you think that our

government is in possession of these

materials and he answered yes

so there have been suggestions of this

made publicly but it's a very hard thing

for anybody to go on the record about

because it's such a protected area you

can't talk about it and so this is where

I think you can also get into questions

about the people who do go on the record

so I remember that the times actually

got criticism for quoting Eric Davis he

said in other places that psychic

teleportation is quite real and that it

can be controlled and there's a

generalized concern that any kind of

task force tasked with studying a topic

that is often been understood and has

attracted people on The Fringe is going

to get Fringe people and they might be

people who have a basket of unusual

beliefs and as much as their part of

this you could have sort of correlated

problems in Who's involved in the sense

that the people who are attracted to it

may not be the the most sober in their

their analysis so how do you think about

that how do you think about some of that

blowback how do you think about who is

Credible here and who is who has things

that they come to this with a belief

that is already said and they're trying

to prove it

it's a very very tricky thing especially

as a reporter who wants to bring forward

credible people and yes some of them may

have you know long histories with

various CIA programs that study things

like remote viewing but and they might

seem very you might use the word fringy

but really these were programs run by

the CIA so people have a lot of ideas

about the ideas that other people have

and you know I can't control that when I

bring someone out I have a reason to

believe that specifically with

relationship to this they know what

they're talking about

and who's going to decide what's Fringe

and what isn't really I think that there

are people who have beliefs like that

many more of them than you would ever

imagine and most people just don't talk

about it and you don't know about it

so it's really a struggle Ezra because

this subject is sort of Tainted with all

that kind of stuff you come to the table

with people having preconceived ideas

about how strange it is and how they you

know how fringy it is so

I do the best I can with the sources

that I can bring forward and I

understand people's concerns

I want to pause on this because I think

it's actually an important space so on

the one hand something that preparing

for this conversation and and paying

attention to this for a while that I

often see is

people attempting to destroy the

credibility of somebody talking on it by

noting unusual ideas they have

and on the one hand

I think it is both very possible that

something like UFOs I mean it's clear

that something like you UFOs or uaps is

going to attract conspiratorial Minds

like anytime you marginalize a belief

you're going to get marginalized people

who are the ones who are speaking up on

that belief and you've you know often in

life and human history have people who

have some collection of ideas that are

weird and some of those weird ideas can

be true so another way of thinking about

this I've been doing a lot of reporting

on AI over the past year and on the one

hand a lot of very senior people in AI

believe AI is going to become super

intelligent very plausibly sentient or

something close to it and Destroy

Humanity

and that is either a very important view

that we need to be very concerned about

because a lot of people you know

involved in this Believe it or you could

just say that people get involved in AI

or people with a predilection to believe

AI super important and to believe

various kind of sci-fi speculation and

it's very hard to know which one you're

you're dealing with at which point the

popularity of beliefs in a subculture

where the subculture is expert on

whatever they're talking about can

either be a reason to take the belief

very seriously or a reason to just worry

you're getting involved or getting taken

in by just what has become culturally

normal to believe among this community

yeah I mean I think it's a really point

and I if you've got religious beliefs

those religious beliefs are not really

considered Fringe or they're not look

down upon but if you look at them with

the same lens you could think that some

of those were beliefs maybe were a

little bit strange and people even use

their religious beliefs to make a

determination about whether they should

study this national security problem or

not

I find that to be pretty uh strange even

though that's taking place within the

establishment and not outside the

establishment so I don't know I just

think it's problematic I wish everybody

was a hundred percent free of any kinds

of uh strangeness that people are going

to judge them for

but it just doesn't always work that way

everybody's got their quirks and so I

just do the best I can with with uh

handling that you know but I think

you're making a really good point

when you are moving through this world

because you're deep in it have been for

a long time and I'm sure you you're

constantly confronted with the question

of how to decide if somebody is credible

or somebody's a crank and I'm sure you

meet a certain number of people you

think or cranks or have some crankish

beliefs how do you make those judgments

yeah it's a good question I mean you

really spend a lot of time talking to

them there's usually red flags that come

up I can just tell by the way they're

talking to me by you know if if what

they're saying makes sense I mean I know

enough to know sort of a framework for

what's true and what isn't

if the person seems to be mentally

unstable and then there's also

documentation a person has to verify who

they are and show me their credentials

and show me whatever they can to justify

you know what they're saying I mean if

there's documents that back up the

points they're making to me all of those

things come into play and you just have

a sense after a while and you talk to

other people also who know that person

other people you trust who may have

talked to that person as well I might

get a colleague to speak to them as well

if I'm not sure you know but it takes a

lot of time to vet somebody and for some

people it's shorter some people it's

obvious others it's questionable and if

anybody's questionable I tend to just

keep spending time with that person but

I will not write a story with them

unless I get to a point where it's

completely clear and I think if

someone's questionable at the beginning

chances are it isn't going to happen for

them later on but you just don't know

and especially in the secretive

world full of stigma that we're living

in here it um it can take a lot of time

to get to know people and figure out who

they are

[Music]

foreign

so that I think brings us to the latest

Story You've published so who is David

grush and what is he claiming David

gresh is a former senior intelligence

officer who was with both the national

reconnaissance office and the National

geospatial Intelligence Agency he just

left the NGA in April of 2023. he was a

you know had a top secret compartment

information clearance and was involved

in a lot of different aspects of these

two agencies and one of them was uh he

was their kind of UAP

investigative person and he was involved

with the UAP task force on behalf of

both these agencies starting in 2019

through 2022 and he during that time I

mean there's more that I can tell you

about him but but I think we're more

interested to know that when he was

working at the task force he started to

look into this question of Crash

retrievals and what it involved was him

speaking to many people because he was

very well connected and very well

trusted within the intelligence

Community he was able to speak to many

people who have direct knowledge of

these programs people who are actually

involved with the programs and many of

them came forward to him and told him

about illegal activities that were going

on because there was no oversight there

were questions about the federal

acquisition regulations that should have

been governing these some of the

contracted programs and he just was able

to gather a lot of data from them over a

period of years which he eventually

brought to Congress and also

communicated to the intelligence

Community Inspector General in a

complaint that involved reprisals that

have been taken against him earlier I

mean it's a long and complicated story

but I think the key thing is that he is

making the statement that there are

craft in the possession of these

programs these government programs and

have been for decades that have been

shown to be of non-human origin

definitively

and he doesn't have direct access to the

programs he hasn't seen the stuff

himself he hasn't touched it or had any

exposure to it he has seen documentation

about it photographs as I understand it

and has spoken to many people directly

involved so that's where his information

comes from

so has he named any of these people to

you not to me uh these specific

individuals the locations of the

programs the names of the programs all

of those things are classified

so he's not in a position to present any

of that information to me but he has

presented that information to Congress

and he presented about 11 hours of oral

testimony to Congressional staffers

which was then transcribed into hundreds

of pages so all that kind of information

has been provided but not to me so

there's something weird here so we go

back to what we were talking about at

the beginning with the the program under

Elizondo and this is this small rump

program it's having trouble getting

funding having trouble getting any

notice

and now there's this allegation that I

guess somewhere else in the government

they have crash remains um Russia said

either to you or in subsequent

interviews that he believes they have

bodies there's a multi-decade race

between nations to retrieve and and hold

these things

and so there's been this unbelievable

level of I guess success right findings

um retrievals so on the one hand you

have this program that is supposedly the

pentagon's investigation into uaps which

is having trouble getting off the ground

or getting any notice and then on the

other hand this allegation that

somewhere in the government somewhere

else according to someone else there is

an incredibly powerful set of programs

that are doing this is that the sort of

shape of the story yeah I would say that

I mean these programs are completely

separate from the program that Elizondo

was involved with I mean nothing to do

with it they're deep black they call

them Legacy programs they've been around

for decades and they're much more

tightly controlled in terms of security

than the program he was involved with so

yeah they are completely separate so but

how do you understand what is being

alleged about I guess the pentagon's

organizational structure here right

somebody in theory at the top of the

government knows about the programs

right and knows what the Pentagon is

doing

and the secretary of defense is having

one sort of UAP program that that has no

attention and then other black programs

that do or is the allegation here the

Secretary of Defense wouldn't know about

this or the CIA I mean what what is

organizationally as you understand it

being alleged like how do you merge in

your mind the different programs you are

reporting on here

yeah it's a really fascinating question

Ezra because these programs that or

let's say one Central program that grush

is talking about and others have talked

to me about I don't have that kind of

specific information I mean I don't

really know who knows about these

programs and who doesn't it appears that

many high-level officials don't know

about them and that's why he has to be a

whistleblower and go to Congress about

them I mean the members of Congress

didn't know about them or they might

have heard about them but they haven't

had the data that he was able to provide

and the other whistleblowers that are

also coming forward to them and I know

there have been others they just haven't

come out with their names yet so it's

it's a fascinating question because

they're so hidden and they're so you

know there's so much information that is

not being brought forward publicly about

them that I cannot say this is how

they're structured this is who runs them

this is who knows and doesn't know maybe

this President is briefed and this one

hasn't you know that information is not

really clear or known I think that it

what is known is that it seems very

likely and even Harry Reid mentioned

this or alluded to this that aerospace

companies have been subcontracted by

government agencies to handle to to

house these objects and the work is done

outside of government in that sense

which makes them even harder to find

it's going to make it harder for

Congress to find them because

corporations can claim they have uh

jurisdiction over their own possession

so I do know that but to answer the rest

of your question I just don't know and I

don't think anyone knows except what

might be in information that's

classified and has been provided to

Congress

so until now we've been talking about

stories that had some kind of direct

evidence at their core right there was

this Pentagon program under Elizondo

there are these videos that can be

released

what makes you confident that crush's

internal investigation here

is turning up something real rather than

that he has ended up

believing things from people who maybe

themselves believe the wrong thing or

maybe they're lying or whatever people

believe including government all kinds

of weird things so so what makes you

confident in this given that it is

secondhand testimony and it is quite

explosive in its claims

yeah I mean what gives me confidence is

knowing him and knowing the reputation

that he has and having talked to other

people who know him and have worked with

him and a vouch for him I don't have any

reason to believe that he himself would

be making anything up and you ask about

the people who have spoken to him I

don't know a lot of those people so I

can't say that I've interviewed them or

anything but I think after spending

years involved with the investigation

that he conducted with the people that

he claims he spoke to I would believe

that those are the people that would

know I mean I don't think that the

numbers of people that he spoke to it's

hard to imagine that all of them are

coming forward and either lying or in

some conspiracy to deceive him I trust

his judgment on the people he spoke to

and the people that he knows Within

These programs and the other element for

me as that I have talked to other people

besides grush who has told me the same

thing and this has been going on for

years even before grush came forward

I've been able to gain access to people

who have clearances and who are in deep

insiders like this and who have told me

the same thing basically not the details

but just the very simple fact that these

objects are in the possession of our

government and they are not of human

origin that's the simple truth that

we're trying to get out here if indeed

it's true I believe it is I haven't just

heard that from grush I've heard it from

other people that I respect and Trust as

well for quite a while so for me

personally it's kind of an accumulation

of conversations I've had with very

highly respected people people that I

respect and trust that have given me

this kind of information for a long time

and it's my faith in in Russian who he

is and I've spent hours talking to him

he's provided me with documentation and

performance reviews of of his work he's

highly regarded uh so I know I'm willing

to put it out as a story I mean I think

the point of it is that Congress needs

to investigate and find out if what he

is saying is true or not and I think

it's up to Congress to take the next

step

one thing that is striking about the

piece you published in the debrief is

that it doesn't just have Rush quoted

there are a series of people who fairly

directly say that what he is saying is

in their view true so notably

Christopher Mellon Carl Nell it looked

to me like later on on Twitter Elizondo

was was backing him up but tell me a

little bit about what Nell and melon say

about crush and about his claims and who

they are

well Carl Nell is a recently retired

army colonel who knew who actually still

does he knows grush very well and he

worked with him on the UAP task force

and he you know has said a lot of things

I I've had hours of conversations with

Carnell he wasn't willing to go on the

record with a lot but he did make a

statement that he said that gresh was

beyond reproach I mean he he and then

later on said that he basically what

grush is saying is true I mean he said

that in his own words

so he's one person and then we have I

mean again there have been many others

off the Record but you mentioned

Christopher melon

um and Christopher melon began you know

he was involved with briefings on this

years ago he's been involved with

briefings where these topics were

covered anyway

and uh he knows grush very well too and

another person is Gary Nolan a scientist

from Stanford University who is highly

regarded uh he's a geneticist and has

been studying actually he's been

studying physical materials himself for

many years in his own lab also knows

David gresh very well and vouches for

him

so and then we have someone else on the

record named Jonathan gray who is with

nasic the National Air and Space

Intelligence Center and he is basically

he's not so much talking about grush but

he is basically telling us the same

things that gresh is telling us and he

has he knows these from his own work and

his own briefings at nasic so there is

support for this astonishing possibility

that we do possess these crashed objects

comes from many people not just from

grush

gray is a slightly strange figure in the

pieces as best I could read the piece

which is he's saying he has more

first-hand direct evidence of this and

he's being directly briefed on it not

just sort of finding it out through

people coming to him on the side but if

I understand the way the piece is

written correctly gray is speaking under

a pseudonym yeah he is it's sort of like

a legend name it's a name he uses within

his work what does that mean that he

uses a name in his work well I mean he

has never it's just like you might think

of a CIA agent I mean lots of times

people don't even tell you they're using

a different name like if you're talking

you know he's not an agent who's in the

field conducting clandestine operations

or anything like that but he is working

at such a sensitive level and the

knowledge that he has is and it's not

just about UAP but about other National

Security issues is so sensitive that he

does not use his real name in his work

and he would never go on the record with

his real name so the only option we had

was to use this other name for him when

you say in his work do you mean in his

work in the government he's not telling

the people he works with his name no he

his work at nasic he he's not telling

the people at nasik his name yeah I mean

I'm sure his immediate Superior who

knows him very well knows his birth name

but he never uses that name no he does

not use that name within his uh work at

nasic

what makes you confident he is who he

says he is or that he does have the

information he says yes because he in

some ways I think has more

far-ranging statements in the piece and

grush what he's really saying is that he

is in the briefings where the government

is saying to itself directly that you

know these are extraterrestrial Origins

etc etc but you know his situation seems

weirder to me yeah I mean I know exactly

what you mean um he has because he is he

hasn't again he hasn't been exposed

directly to the actual physical objects

but he has been briefed on them

by as you're saying by people within his

agency so that's why you know it was a

very uh difficult choice for him to make

to even come forward and the reason I

know who he is is because I know him

very well I've spent hours and hours and

hours of time with him both in person

and on the phone and I've been shown his

credentials so I am completely confident

to bring him forward he's just very

hesitant to reveal a lot about who he is

and I understand why that is and I

respect that and that's just how it is

so it's either he doesn't come forward

or he comes forward in the way that he

has and I thought he added a lot to the

story and since I know who he is it's

uncomfortable bringing him out like this

the other stories we've talked about

were published in the times I know the

story was looked at at least by Politico

in the post why did it end up in in the

debrief which is a less uh well-known

and established publication which is to

take nothing away from from them

the reason it came out in the debrief

Ezra was a kind of an odd situation that

doesn't usually come up but we were

working Ralph Blumenthal and I were

working with a reporter a well-known

reporter at the Washington Post and we'd

been with him for you know about a month

and a half and the post was very

interested in the story and they were

spending a lot of time doing background

and doing due diligence as the post

should and does

and also our reporter had other work he

had to do at the same time so it was

taking quite a while and what happened

was that grush's name leaked out first

of all it leaked that the Washington

Post was involved with the story then it

leaked uh his name leaked and he was

starting to get threatening phone calls

and he became we were worried about his

safety and I think he was too

because there's a there's a vicious

world out there and he's already had

face retaliations and and all kinds of

things as a result of coming forward so

it just seemed that we couldn't wait any

longer we'd waited quite a long time

already for the post to do its job and I

we totally respect their need to do that

but um it just became this moment of

intensity where we were concerned about

our protecting our source basically and

so we felt and he wanted it to come out

as well and we felt we had to just get

it out quickly and we did go to Politico

Politico was interested in it but they

couldn't get it out as quickly as we

felt it had to come out and so that's

why we went to this a publication called

the debrief because they were able to

turn the story around quickly

threatening phone calls from from whom

of what sort oh uh he didn't even know

who they were from he doesn't answer

them there were also hostile actors out

in the UFO Community who were calling

him and you know there's a nasty Twitter

verse out there I don't know if and if

you don't know about it Ezra you're

lucky

because uh there's just a it's a very

contentious Arena out there of people

who are involved with this topic and

they will sometimes try to cause harm to

people like grush and so I think it was

a legitimate concern when things start

to leak you don't even know how this

information is getting out

uh somebody's leaking it and so we

didn't know where it might go next we

also thought our story could be

undermined by somebody else writing

something else that you know that maybe

didn't have the legs we had

so we just felt a lot of pressure to do

it quickly that moment so what can be

verified first hand in the story so that

the grush is making these claims as I

understand it that he's applied for

whistleblower status that he's made

testimony under oath to Congress

but as best I know and tell me if this

is wrong that he and nobody else in the

story says they have seen any of this

firsthand nor has named to you or any of

the other reporters

who the people are who have given them

this information or where in the

government this is all supposed to to

sit is that sort of right that's right

except he has given that information to

Congress and to the icig so it's not

like he hasn't given it he just hasn't

made it public because it's protected by

National Security laws by classification

so I just want to make that distinction

it's not public but the Congress has the

very information that you're talking

about

so you note in the story that the

Pentagon cleared rush to make these

statements tell me what that means yeah

I mean that just means that they go

basically it doesn't mean that they're

endorsing what he's saying uh but every

employee has to go through a

pre-publication review and to make sure

that they're not revealing anything that

is classified basically or that might

threaten the National Security of the

United States so it just they just have

to that's what they're going on when

they review it they're not saying oh we

endorse this yes say it they're just

saying this there's nothing in here

that's illegal for you to say and so it

was cleared in that way so in a way this

is the thing that I got hung up on so I

have a little bit of experience I've

worked alongside a lot of National

Security reporters not doing that work

myself but I've been close to them doing

that work

and the Pentagon is very expansive in

its definition of what Revelation could

harm National Security I mean we just

saw Donald Trump um arraigned for

not protecting classified information

and what's being claimed here is that

grush came to them and said he's going

to reveal one of I guess the most

closely guarded secrets

in American defense history right that

America has under its possession foreign

craft and other interviews he said

foreign bodies and it is found that it

has come to this conclusion

and the Pentagon

is just going to say great yeah that

doesn't harm National Security

in some weird way that I feel like if

they thought this was true they would

not let him say it

I mean that's a very good point and you

could argue that maybe the reason they

let him say it was because it would help

dispel it I mean I think but the key

thing is though if he's not giving

anything away about it specifically I

don't think they under the law can

prevent him from saying it if he's just

making the general statement and whether

it's true or not you know what I'm

saying I don't think that they can

prevent it and I've heard other people

like Lou Elizondo as I said on Tucker

Carlson said that he believed that these

these crash retrievals existed he didn't

say he knew it as a fact that's the

difference but I was actually quite

stunned that they did approve it and I

have the documentation that states that

they approve these all the statements

that he wanted to make

so um I don't know what that means

exactly but I know that there was

nothing specific that he was stating

that that was revealed I mean I don't

think it's true in my knowledge of

classification procedure that because

he's not revealing something more

specific than that we have it that it

can't be classified if you reveal that

America has a weapon that we have not

revealed to the world we have which is

functionally what is being said here in

a way

the fact that you're not saying it's in

this space here doesn't mean they can't

classify it so I feel like this was my

interpretation you're left with one of

two interpretations either the Pentagon

doesn't believe the story to be true

because you can say a lot of things that

aren't true if you say I'm going to

reveal the Pentagon thinks you know that

flowers grow on Mars right I mean I

guess fine it's not an actual secret

they're trying to keep because they

don't believe it's true or they think

that to let him say it in some ways

protects that they're actually doing it

because it it seems right like you can

imagine interpretation that this is a

kind of reverse psychology psyop that

seems a little fanciful to me but but

this is a part that I was the most stuck

on on the one hand there are credible

people in this story backing up another

credible person all of whom served

around this task force so if somebody's

gonna find this out it seems like it

would be the set of people

and on the other hand for the Pentagon

to just say yeah go ahead tell the world

that we have crash remains and use the

fact that you worked here and have our

imprimature on you to give that

credibility

that's just not in my experience how the

Pentagon works with anything uh they're

very secretive and I don't imagine this

is how they would roll this information

out so so that's to me the part where I

can't seem to make my way forward in

this yeah I mean it would be yeah it's a

really interesting point I mean I think

it's conceivable that maybe the people

that made the decision about this don't

know about whether it's true or not

I don't know what the actual process of

the pre-publication review involves and

you know to what level does it go within

the Department of Defense is it just a

sort of a lower level person that's

looking for certain signs of classified

information I don't know what that

process is about and I think it'd be a

really interesting thing to try to find

out more about it but it is conceivable

that they didn't know if it was true or

not and maybe they just think well this

is kind of ridiculous yeah he can say it

what do we care you know I really don't

know Ezra

um I have to say though that the second

review which was made which was the one

that included the really important

statements that he made in the story

happened literally overnight

and that was I mean I don't know if I've

ever said that before publicly but it

did he submitted it and he got his

response the next day saying yes

so I can imagine that it went through

too much overnight

we were just stunned uh was it just a

clerk who just sort of signed off on it

that fast or did they just not bother to

read it or

I don't know how it worked I don't know

how the whole thing worked the other

place that that I wonder about is as we

were talking about a minute ago just

what's being alleged about the structure

of the government here so grush is

saying this has been going on for a long

time he talks about recoveries in a

subsequent interview recoveries under

Mussolini that the Vatican knew about

and there have been a lot of high up

government officials interested in this

I mean John podesta as I mentioned

before wrote the forward to your book he

was a very high government official he

was very interested in this as Chief of

Staff to Bill Clinton he worked under

Obama he's worked with Biden

uh we've heard people talk about it who

are CIA directors who seem very confused

about what's going on

and I I take them at their word that a

lot of people wanted to know what is

happening here and and you know seem

interested but also seem confused

and the idea that you have this very

long-running situation where there are

crashes and there are events and there's

some kind of U.S government team that

gets deployed to them that is then

hiding what they find from everybody

else in the US government or from large

portions of the US government such that

maybe you'd even have the Pentagon

clearing garage but not knowing that it

actually has somewhere in its own

you know governmental structure the very

things he's talking about

I guess it's not impossible but the US

government in my experience is very just

bad at keeping things secret for very

long periods of time this would have to

be happening in a lot of geographical

locations it would take a lot of

mobilization to do

that's again a place where my skepticism

comes in a bit that the the level of

conspiracy is not even the conspiracy

being alleged but the

competence

uh seems beyond what I tend to find

government capable of even within itself

yeah I mean that's I I kind of agree

with you on that Ezra I mean when you

when you just really think about it and

the way you just said it it's it's hard

to imagine uh as you said that people

going out in the field and hiding this

for decades I I mean there have been

people that have come out over the years

and talked about being witnesses to such

events

and nobody really takes them seriously

there have been people who've made

deathbed confessions you know about

these very programs

so it's not like nobody's ever talked

about it uh nobody at the level of a

David grush who has been to Congress has

ever talked about it that's what's

different here

and I know I do believe that Secrets can

be kept I mean I've I've been told by

people close to the program by one

person in particular that the cost of

maintaining the security for this

program was more than the money they

spent on actually doing the work to

study the material

they went to Great Lengths to keep this

under wraps as best they could and a

very very small number of people know

about it or had access to these programs

so I that's all I can say I mean maybe

after this is investigated it will come

to light that none of it is true I mean

I you know there's that we don't have

the proof the investigation that needs

to be done at least a public

investigation has not happened yet and

it is hard to come to terms with this I

I hear what you're saying so I'm I'm you

know I just want to see more

investigation happen and I wanted to

bring help gresh come forward because I

think he opens a door

to possibly others coming forward and

for us to learn more about what this is

all about I mean that's the goal

so I know this goes a bit beyond the

story but you know the as I mentioned I

have some real points of pretty deep

skepticism here and on the other hand

it is strange to me and curious and and

intriguing that you have a series of

people serving on this task force

who are coming to this task force as I

understand it from different directions

I mean my understanding is that Nell and

grush and Elizondo and so on don't all

know each other from 30 years back that

they kind of end up here together

and they're all hearing something from

someone who they find credible

such that they believe this is happening

I mean maybe you know more than you can

say or something but and I think you

believe this is at least plausible

enough that you're reporting it so given

the points of skepticism that you take a

serious

what do you think is going on here like

what's your mental model of what you're

hearing and and who is coming to them

that isn't just coming forward or why

are they working through Dave grosh like

how do you understand what you're

reporting here well I would say first of

all it's not just that they're hearing

something from someone but they're

hearing the same thing from multiple

people

multiple people with high clearances who

have shown them and and convince them

through whatever means they can and

sometimes this is through documentation

that they have this knowledge and they

have direct knowledge that they've been

involved with these programs and you

know you have to trust the ability of

these task force members and others who

who know of this and can't haven't

talked about it public to make that

discernment to say well enough people

are telling me this

and I have enough documentation that

I've seen that I take it seriously and

all we really have to rely on here is

the credibility of the people who are

giving us the information that's all we

have right now

so yes I mean I can understand

skepticism uh it's different when you're

in a position like I am of having talked

to them myself for so long and for and

having talked to so many other people

with the same kind of information that

gresh has so that's partly what

convinces me I can't bring a lot of it

forward but I think in terms of how to

think about it is you know spending a

few years talking to very high level

people because he is so trusted by them

and some of them come forward to him and

talk about illegal activities that

they're concerned about and enough of

them do that that he builds up hundreds

of pages of testimony about what he's

learned from them and takes it to

Congress so you know you're either going

to

accept that well maybe there's some

truth to that or you're not and as I

said I think it's just the beginning but

that's how I frame it I I think there's

enough people that he has spoken to

that it gives it a lot of weight I want

to add one thing Ezra and that is like

anything that came out in that interview

that happened after our story came out

which dealt with bodies and a lot of

strange questions that were asked about

the Vatican none of that was part of the

reporting that I or Ralph Blumenthal did

and none of that had we discussed with

grush before that interview was done so

I just um I want to make that clear that

that wasn't part of our reporting but I

do think it Bears I want to be careful

there because and we were talking about

this Dynamic earlier I don't want to

rule things out that Russia's saying

because he's saying some things I find

even weirder than some of the other

things but I mean it is all the same guy

so I recognize it's not a part of your

reporting but the fact that he's now

going out and saying well his theories

these are being sort of working on

Quantum Dimensions not you know sort of

operating with space-time not you know

it's a Vatican and so he there are

things he believes that I think are

obviously does not have a lot of

evidentiary backing for and then there

are things that you know he's hearing

from someone and it doesn't seem crazy

to me that once you if you are in the

position he is in and I take him as

sincere

and you are now serving on this task

force and you're seeing things that you

cannot explain under your old models of

the world then probably a lot of things

that you discounted before and sources

you discounted before become more

credible to you all at once and how do

you sort between them becomes very

difficult but you know the fact that

he's saying this in subsequent

interviews I mean he's still the The

Source at the center of of the story so

I feel like it's all relevant right I

agree I I understand your point

so there's another Oddity to this to me

because as you say there's been for a

long time stories that this has all been

recovered and that the government has it

in possession and sort of crush and some

of the other people named here are

basically saying listen people who are

involved in this are coming to us to

tell us about it

so on the one hand this thing is really

not that secret right people seem to

want to talk about it who have

first-hand knowledge of it

but why don't any of the people with

firsthand knowledge of it then come out

if they're if they're very concerned

right and they'd be very credible

because they could say look I was in the

room and I saw the thing and there are

these whistleblower protections what's

your theory of why they're working

through somebody like Rush well I think

that they're not they don't feel safe

coming out at this point now that could

change and I I think that's what we're

all hoping will change once Congress

because Congress can talk to these

people and maybe they will be safe feel

safe coming out but as it stands so far

as I understand it they don't want their

names out in the public domain they're

they may be working in in jobs which you

know that I know of one person who has

actually spoken to Congress he's not

yeah who was in one of these programs

for a short time and his current

employer has made it clear that they

don't want him talking about this there

are various risks that people take for

coming forward especially if they're

still in government and so for whatever

reasons each one of them has their own

reasons for being willing to talk to

Congress but they are not willing to go

public now I think that's going to

change Ezra as time goes on and I also

think if Congress holds a hearing they

may call some of these people and they

they may not have a choice but if they

can talk under oath in a protected

environment in which they are free to

say what they want without uh facing

reprisals that could change change

everything also because of the reprisals

and harassment that gresh faced over the

years I think a lot of these people are

afraid of that happening to them

so there's a little it's complicated why

they don't come forward but they all

have their own reasons for it

the other thing that I've wondered about

is we just live in this age when just

documents leak left and right because

it's so easy to send them through

you know much more Anonymous means right

you can work them through the dark web

they end up on Discord servers right

we've been through Wikileaks and Edward

Snowden and and and a lot of versions of

these and one thing that's always

interesting to me about the stories here

is they're very as I hear them told

they're very human to human right

somebody told me

instead of us getting or I think much

more to the point instead of you getting

an anonymous zip file that has a bunch

of documents a bunch of photographs

whatever it might be

and I don't know if you know if you know

if grush has supporting documentation

that he was able to turn over but can't

show you or did show you and you can't

you know it's not been reported but what

about documentation which in many ways

is easier to leak than people having to

come forward themselves

well apparently I mean what I understand

and what gracious said is that he has

provided some of that documentation at

some extent to Congress I don't know

exactly how much of it I have not seen

any of it because it's all classified uh

I don't think he is willing to and you

know you talk about things being leaked

I mean I I would love nothing more than

to get such a file but I would not also

want anyone to risk going to jail in

order to leak and I think nowadays it's

much harder for people to leak things

than it was and the people that I have

talked to who might in the be in a

position to do that are just not willing

to take the chance they don't want to

spend the rest of their lives in jail

that's what they're afraid would happen

so you never know maybe it will happen

but it hasn't happened yet and uh you

know maybe also even better that there

will be a way that some of the

documentation eventually can be

Declassified and can be released and

maybe the Congress will be able to

facilitate that happening I think we all

have to be patient I mean this is a slow

process and this got you know only came

out you know within the last two weeks

so we have to let it all unfold and

hopefully we're all going to learn more

and get more specific information

through whatever means that happens

so what does happen now so my

understanding is that the Pentagon has

denied the claims they've said they

don't have evidence of what grush is

saying but he did make this testimony to

Congress like who in Congress does have

this now and and what do they do with it

well the congresses they haven't been

that forthcoming about you know which

members have seen it and what they think

about it I mean they're not willing to

go on the record about any of that we do

know that he provided this information

to the general counsel for both the

house committee and unintelligence and

the senate committee and those staffers

transcribed it and it has circulated

around among these committee members

there are some names that have been

provided of people that should have seen

it or have seen it um if you call up the

Congressional offices they're not going

to go on the record and what what I've

been told and we put the statement in

our story

is that it's a matter of policy that

they cannot discuss ongoing

investigations or reveal the names of

people involved in these investigations

so Congress is not that forthcoming yet

about individuals coming forward

specifically on this investigation some

of the members have come forward and

said they want to hold a hearing on it

and these are members from other

committees

so there's stuff going on in Congress

but I can't like say well this member's

read it and this one hasn't I don't have

that kind of information

so in theory what could happen now so

this has been circulated among I would

assume senior members of the

intelligence committees

and they would have more of the names

and specific information Russia said

he's provided and they could if they

chose and found a credible follow-up on

it and go from there and and a number of

them are interested in this I mean Rubio

and gillibrand and others I mean there's

clearly members of Congress who are very

interested in this area and congress's

leaky in my experience and I know people

in the intelligence committee so is that

as you see what happens next that they

get what was not turned over to you and

the hope is that they take it from there

and if there's something to this we're

gonna we're gonna find out about it

through them

yeah I mean the hope is that perhaps

there will be another hearing in which

they will call gresh and maybe others to

talk about specifically about this

question of crash retrievals that they

will conduct an investigation first of

all and try to track some of these

things down and make this information

public I mean that's always a question

will they make it public to what extent

will they make it public we don't know

the answer to that but it's really in

their hands to follow up on this

information that's been provided to them

and uh see where it goes I mean the

hearings would be another great thing uh

whether they might declassify some

documentation but I think there is going

to be a demand on Congress Now to

respond to these allegations and come up

with something and address them in some

way and there's a lot of different ways

they can do that and hopefully they'll

do it in all those different ways as you

say there are members very interested in

this so I suspect that will happen I

just think um you know we're waiting

really to hear about some specific steps

that might be taken at this point

I think that's a good place to end so

then I appreciate you coming on and

walking us through this and always our

final question what are three books

you'd recommend to the audience yeah

that was a really hard one for me Ezra

because there's so many good ones but um

I I kind of chose three books that

represent different things and one of

them

is a book if you're interested in the

history of how this whole thing has

evolved way back starting in the 50s

it's a book called the UFO experience a

scientific inquiry by J Ellen heineck

and heineck was the Project Blue Book

scientists the Air Force scientist who

spent two decades basically debunking

UFOs and then once he left the program

was able to come out and acknowledge the

reality and uh put out a whole different

kind of perspective and show the

transformation that he went through so

it's a really really it's one of the

most important historical books that we

have on the topic another book I'd

recommend is called the UFO evidence a

30-year report by Richard H Hall h-a-l-l

published in 2001 and it's just a thick

volume of this a lot of case evidence

which is fascinating and he was a very

astute investigator and a third one is a

more recent book called American Cosmic

by Diana pasilka who's a professor of

religion at the University of North

Carolina it's a very unique book deals

with a technology and religion and

mythology and all the different ways

that she has explored

this topic from a unique perspective so

it's got nothing to do with the kind of

work I do but it's a very eye-opening

book so I would recommend that one as

well

Leslie Kane thank you very much thank

you editor

[Music]

this episode is produced by Roshe Karma

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