Oh What A Time... - #88 Space (Part 2)

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Space: the final frontier and indeed, the subject of this week’s episode. We’ll have early astronomy, we’ll take a trip to the moon and we’ll ask the fundamental question: are we alone in the universe and has anyone from another civilisation visited us on earth? (Outside of that one particular episode of Beadle’s About in the 80s).Elsewhere, we’ll be discussing the loneliest human in history and why leech-based healthcare was so big for so long. If you’ve got anything else to contribute, here’s where you need to send it: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello, welcome to Oh What A Time Part 2. And we are doing space as a Topic, a topic that's very kindly suggested to us by Lizzie Hoppley, a listener. So if you have a topic you think is suitable, something you'd like to hear us tackle, by all means send us an email to hello at owhatatime.com. We welcome all of your suggestions, but I think we should get cracking with my topic I'm going to be discussing visiting the moon. Now humans have been fascinated by the moon for millennia. You'll know this from part one

that Tom did and a colony on the lunar surface has been a staple of science fiction ever since the genre of science fiction was invented. Mike Bubbins from the Social Distance Sports Bar, another podcast I do, he bought a book, he might have had it from childhood, and it's like what the future will be. It's like the years born book of the future or something. And by 2025, they really did expect the Lunar Olympics to have happened. Right. No, no, no, not the Paris Olympics of Lunar Olympics to have happened. Right. Not the Paris Olympics of 2024, Olympics that was happening on the moon.

That's really good for the javelin, the high jump from the shop. Yeah, shop put. Less good for the 100 metre sprint where you have to wear a space suit. But can you imagine how frustrating the 100 metre sprint would be? Yeah. Sort of, you know, on the moon. Every footstep is like three times slower than it would be on... The basketball though, Ellis.

Oh my gosh. Get me down there. Courtside. Slum... Slumdunks would look fantastic, wouldn't they? Like NBA Jazz. Remember that game? Pod Ruple flip. Now, at least one major character from the Star Trek franchise,

Dr Beverly Crusher, was born on the moon. There have been to date 138 separate missions to the moon. First spacecraft sent from the Earth to the moon, there were the lunar probes put into space by the USSR at the end of the 1950s. Luna 1 launched in January 1959, flew past the moon, but Luna 2 was able to land on the surface, or rather, it crashed deliberately as a hard landing that September. There's something quite funny about Luna 1 just flying past the moon. Yeah, yeah.

Like missing it. It's just quite funny. It's like a close shave, isn't it? Yeah. A few weeks on, Luna 3 was launched. This time as a fly-by mission. It was able to take the first photographs of the far side of the moon.

Now three years later, in September 1962, the then US President, John F. Kennedy, delivered his famous speech at Rice University in Texas. On this occasion, he committed the US to putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. As he explained, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

That speech actually popped up on my Instagram the other day. Really? And I watched it and I just thought, what a big call to Mick. Yes, yeah. What an unnecessarily big call to Mick. What was the bigger call? Him saying that or Graham Potter saying that when he took over the Swans, we want to get into the Premier League in four years. Both equally mad and mad ambitious. Equally mad.

You're right though, Al. That is a real claim, isn't it? And the pressure that must have put on NASA. Because the Cold War, the space race was a prestige thing. So you're saying, you know, come on mate, I've made a speech now. You kind of need to sort this because the bloody Soviets will do it if we don't. So I don't know how hard you work at it, but you need to work harder because you've got less than eight years, right? You got seven years, three months. So fucking get on with it. One of my friends is a moon landing conspiracist and doesn't think it happens. And doesn't believe in it. I think it's a fact.

Is this one of your friends, Chris, or do you not feel confident enough to say on the podcast that it's you? It's one of my friends. Because it feels within the realms of possibility that you are that friend. No. I 1 billion percent believe the moon landing happened. But one of the things I trouble when I'm arguing with him about the fact the moon landings did happen was that you have to understand it was the space race between the Soviet Union and the USA was about who had the better system of governance, the better economic model, the best societal model, the best model for technology.

So it was an ideological battle. The reason the US wanted to win it, it was obviously to win that ideological battle. The reason the US wanted to win it was obviously to win that ideological battle, but the cost it took to win that moon race was astronomical. The amount of money it cost to land a man on the moon was insane. I don't understand if a moon landing conspiracy is like, where did that money go if you think it wasn't going on the moon? This is why JFK is saying that. It's such a big statement because it would require so much financial resource to make

it happen. But it did. It must have been such an exciting time, the 1960s, because you had all sorts of progress when it came to things like, you know, civil rights and so many things that were wrong. But I think it felt like progress was being made. I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney, he said, occasionally it feels like the 60s is ahead of me rather than behind me when I think about the progress we were making. It wasn't just progress happening on earth, it was progress happening in space. Yes. You must have thought, Christ, it sounds like I'm making a poor joke, but it's like the

sky is the limit. If you've got the President saying, no, no, don't worry about it, we look off to the moon by the end of the decade. You must have watched it on the news as you're having your tea thinking to yourself, Christ, what a country. I just looked up the cost of landing a man on the moon. The Apollo programme cost the US £25.4 billion in the 60s and early 70s. That's the modern equivalent of $260 billion. Gee whiz.

Got to be honest, I can think of better things to spend the money on. And considering Wallace and Gromit not one together in their garage, with rats running around it, if I remember all my... Kennedy obviously wouldn't live to see the success of the Apollo missions. And he was also acutely aware that the USSR was essentially in the lead of the space race at that point. Now most American missions to the moon had ended in some sort of technical failure so in fact the USSR went one stage further in February 1966 when it was able to successfully land the latest lunar probe, Luna 9, on the moon's surface. The first American soft landing was by the Surveyor 1 probe in early June 1966. Now meanwhile the American Apollo space program

was in full swing with its aim being to fulfill Kennedy's ambition with the Gemini missions providing additional facilitation and training of the Apollo astronauts. Both were preceded by Project Mercury launched in 1959. Now Apollo 7, the first crewed mission, fucking hell they had some bottle didn't they? Oh man. Yeah. You don't want to be the, in a weird way,

you don't want to be the, in a weird way, you don't want to be the first guy. You don't want to be anywhere near those first early numbers. No. You wouldn't be the first guy to test a rollercoaster. No no no no no. You want space travel to be as normal as it is getting off at Bristol Temple Meads. I had a friend who's just got back from LA and refused to use one of those driverless taxis and they've been going for like six months now as well and it's only taking you around the corner.

Yeah, my friend Matt used a driverless taxi and you're like, no thanks. Yeah, no, you're right. The bravery to do it. But they must have that urge that just they're desperate to do it. And a complete faith in your equipment. Yeah, absolutely. Apollo 7, the first crewed mission went into space as an Earth orbital in October 1968. You know, the Americans have got a year and two months left. Right, yeah.

And provided the world with their first television images of crewed space flight, ten minutes a day, for which the crew eventually won an Emmy. Two months later, on the 21st of December 1968, Apollo 8 set off for the moon. Apollo 8 orbited the moon ten times before returning to Earth. With their mission taking place over Christmas 1968, the crew took part in a remarkable Christmas Eve broadcast and read excerpts from the book of Genesis. I'm not sure you get that now. From in space? Yeah.

So they're up there and and they just, yeah. Maybe some terrible TikTok thing there. Rather than reading from the Bible. They did a vine of them dancing to Dua Lipa. Now the next Apollo missions were both in prep for the main event. So Apollo 9 in March 1969 proved the capacities of the life support system and Apollo 10 in May 1969 ran a full dress rehearsal bringing the lunar module, Chris and Snoopy to within 15 kilometers of the moon's surface when all proved successful. Green light was given for Apollo 11 to take off

on the 16th of July 1969. Now obviously everyone knows I'm next. Everyone knows the famous words delivered by Neil Armstrong as he stepped out onto the lunar surface. Richard Nixon was the president and had to prepare words in case of a mission failure. – Really? – Because the eyes of the world were on them, you know, a massive news story. – Wow. I'd be fascinated to know what Nixon was going to say in the event that I was asked. Well, the speech was published 30 years later, I think. I think it might have been to do with the 30-year rule. Because obviously everyone knew the risks involved. So this is the full text. Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon

to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery, but they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. Wow. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal, the search for truth and understanding.

They'll be mourned by their families and friends, they'll be mourned by their nation, they'll be mourned by the people of the world, they'll be mourned by Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they by the people of the world, they'll be mourned by a mother earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration they stirred the people of the world to feel as one, in their sacrifice they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others

will follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied, but these men were the first and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. Imagine that! Wow! What a speech! Having to deliver that speech! What a speech!

It's fantastic, isn't it? That's incredible! mankind. Imagine that. Wow. Having to deliver that speech. It's fantastic. That's incredible. I mean, I think, I'm glad he didn't have to deliver it, but it's beautifully written. Great bit of speech writing that. They must have agonised over that. Amazing. I wonder who wrote that. That is beautiful.

Yeah. Now in all, six of the Apollo missions landed on the moon's surface, bringing a total of 12 astronauts onto the soil of another celestial object, with Eugene Kernan being the last to leave his set of footprints. Humans are not the only animals from the Earth to have visited the moon. On board Zond 5, a Soviet mission launched in 1968, were two tortoises. Turtles were sent to fly by the moon on the next two Zond missions on 6 and Zond 7. Apollo 17, the last of the Apollo missions which went to the moon in 1972 had five mice on board called

Phi Phi, Phu Phu, Phum and Fui. Sadly no further manned missions to the moon since 1972. In fact humans have concentrated their efforts on building space stations set in orbit of the earth. and treated their efforts on building space stations set in orbit of the Earth. Commencing, of course, in the International Space Station, launched in November 1998, something I vividly remember. It's set to be decommissioned in 2031. But then, by then, it's hoped that Project Artemis will have fulfilled a long-standing ambition

to return to the moon, with Mars, of course, the next great challenge on the horizon. Artemis 3 is planned to launch in 2027, bringing humans back to the lunar surface after 55 years away. And with all of the technological possibilities of the 21st century including habitation. Imagine. Wow. Wow. There we go.

That's incredible. I know that this is very briefly in terms of the training. I think it's in the 70s or maybe, maybe for the first landings. Are you aware of tech types? You've heard of this. So one of the ways they used to train people for potential space mission is they have these,

they were like based down on the ocean bed. And people were going to live down there for months on end as a way of training for extended working, small space with other people basically. So they built these things called tech tights, which were down somewhere in like lake beds or down on ocean beds. And then people will be sent down there and just have to sort of spend months on end at the bottom of the ocean. Wow. To get used to it. And basically survive. A lot of it is the interaction, the social aspect of that, the sort of working with people,

because it's such a closed environment. I think that's a large part of the battle is being trapped with people for so long, where you don't have your own space and you're having to work and get along. And that feels like a silly thing, but it is incredibly important. It's not just knowing how to use the equipment, but having the mental strength, fortitude. Yes, but that is true. We've also all met wankers at work. Imagine being... But we've sent into outer space with one. It's how they test you. They put you in a tech tight with a wanker. There'd be one guy who's not going to go up to space.

He's just a wanker. He's employed to be a wanker. Yeah, exactly. And you're stuck in there. Two months. He's always saying pull my finger and stuff like that. Listening to music through his phone speaker with no headphones. Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine orbiting the earth with a wanker? Labelling all his food and stealing yours at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Okay, welcome to my section, which is on aliens. It's a question that has haunted humanity forever. Are we alone in the universe? Do you know this?

Just to interject very briefly, Chris, not to put too much pressure on your section. Ellis, where are you currently in terms of a future working in the world of space exploration? It all hangs in the balance. And it hangs in the balance of Chris's section, because he's talking about aliens. There's a great book called The David Enigma, because there was a sort of an alien sighting triangle in West Wales, very near where I grew up. There were lots of books written about these alien sightings that happened in sort of South Ceredigion, North Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire,

which is like my patch where all my family live. And there's a great bit in the book with this farmer, like he's walking home from the pub. I did material about this in my Welsh language stand-up show actually, and he was telling the author that he'd seen this alien land, it's sort of in the field next to the pub.

And the author's like, wow, what did you do? And he went, I fucking hit it. Pinched this alien, tried to knock it out. I fucking smacked it, didn't they? No welcoming the hillside. Did we? None of that. They fucking smacked it.

How do I know this? But didn't we talk about the episode of Beatles about where the alien lands in the garden? An old UK TV show. Oh yeah, yeah. It was an old prank show. An old prank show. I think we might have got an email about this. Someone said that she offers the alien who's landed in the garden a cup of tea.

But then I think somebody emailed in and said, I think it was someone who might have even worked on the show and said, the reason she did that is they were having to set the house up all day. So they're trying to get her out of the house. They took her to the pub. She was drunk by the time the Venus and Power episode was filmed. Hilarious. So she's like, what do you know?

I think there's something quite sweet about offering a cup of tea. A cup of tea is very British. Yeah, and also when you've done all that travelling, a cup of tea is lovely, isn't it? Oh yeah, lovely. Absolutely. Lovely. Well, I'm going to talk about aliens specifically on Earth, to see how this changes your mind about the natural world, Ellis.

So firstly, this is a fact that blows my mind when we think about the scale of the universe, right? Get this. For every grain of sand on Earth, there is one billion planets in the universe. Wrap your head around that. That's fantastic. Am I allowed to say I don't believe that? But I know it's right, but it feels so impossible, I don't believe it. That is thought to be the

minimum estimate. It's likely the real number is higher than that. When you are measuring things in grains of sand, it's big. Global grains of sand, it's very, very, very big. That's big. So if you were to say that the chances of life on another planet, intelligent life or a life, full stop, was one in 10 billion, that would mean for every 10 grains of sand you pick up, there's life on another planet. Wow. Think about that. That's amazing. Which brings me to a historical theory or a historical talking point, a paradox that

was posed by the physicist Enrico Fermi, who famously asked, well, if there's this many planets and the universe is this big, here's the quote, where is everybody? That's really funny. So Fermi, and this is like right in my wheelhouse when I think about it. Where is everybody? He thought there has to be a high probability of extraterrestrial life. Billions of galaxies, billions of stars, surely at least millions of habitable planets. Statistically, there should be other intelligent civilizations.

But then the second key point is, well, there's no evidence of anything, of anyone intelligent apart from ourselves. So what's the explanation? Here's some of the explanations that have been proposed. So is intelligent life really, really rare? Is it unique to Earth? Or is there a great filter? Do civilizations self-destruct before they reach interstellar communication or colonization?

Is there some sort of technological differences? Are advanced civilizations using different types of communication? We might be listening on AM, they're broadcasting on FM. Or there's, which is the one I'm idling towards, what's called Or there's, which is the one I lean towards, what's called the zoo hypothesis, which is that aliens are deliberately avoiding contact to let humanity grow and evolve from afar. So they're far more evolved than us and we just let them be. A lot like you might do with like an Amazonian tribe that hasn't contacted the rest of humanity for many years. We leave them alone.

We let them crack on. Or a scary block in a pub. You leave them be. Or the other explanation, they're scared of landing and accidentally landing in Wales outside a pub getting knocked out. The other thing is that there is lots of evidence, maybe unexplained phenomena, UFO sightings, that we are writing off as fake that is actually legit. That UFOs are actually here.

This is one of the explanations. Possibly maybe we aren't alone. Maybe many tales of UFO sightings are legit. One place you get a lot of UFO sightings is, of course, famously Area 51, a place synonymous with the X-Files, with advanced technology. It's a US air base located in the Nevada desert. The activities there are highly classified. Ostensibly, it acts as a testing and training base for all the latest technology.

But it's wrapped in secrecy, and that secrecy has led to a lot of questions and thoughts and ideas about what really goes on there. And there's a few people who pose as whistleblowers that I've been fascinated with for many years. The first one is a guy called Bob Lazar. Have you heard of Bob Lazar? No. There are hundreds of different podcasts, I would say. He's been on documentaries. He's a man who claims to have worked at Area 51, reverse engineering alien spacecrafts. He claims that people he was

working alongside died as they tried to put these aircrafts together and spacecraft together. There was different models of them and they'd all been retrieved from different crash sites. different models of them and they'd all been retrieved from different crash sites. He's an interesting guy to look up, but I would say very much at the conspiracy end of the... Yeah, it seems that way. Yeah. It is interesting stuff. It is interesting. You can get lost in it. Have either of you ever heard or listened to Danny Robbins' uncanny podcast on BBC Sounds?

No, I've heard it's very good though. Izzy is big into like the supernatural. And our son had fallen asleep in the car on the way to Cornwall. And Betty, my daughter was like, oh yeah, I'd love to listen to that. I listened to the first 10 minutes of an episode at random. And after 10 minutes, I fully and totally believed in ghosts. So I think 100% all in.

And I think if I got into the Roswell stuff I've got a horrible feeling I'd become a real Roswell guy. Well, my theory is, I'm going to pour some cold water on the Roswell stuff, I'll talk about that now. So what are the central components of UFO folklore in the States, specifically around Area 51 and elsewhere, relates to the supposed recovery of alien technology. One famous incident is, of course, as Ellis just mentioned, Roswell, New Mexico, 1947. What happened is the US were launching listening devices using weather balloons, a scheme known

as Project Mogul. What happened is one of these balloons fell to earth and was ultimately responsible for the debris found at Roswell. This is the prominent theory. Unsuspecting members of the public thought this is an alien UFO. What didn't help matters was that... It had an alien body in it, who spoke in an odd language. And he was green. And he had an eye on a stalk. And hover shoes.

And he's wearing a silver suit. And his eyes weren't eyes. And he used a speaking spell to phone his house. And he had a little label around his neck, like an evacuation said, his found return to space. That was the giveaway. The US government determined that this can't get out. The secrecy of Project Mogul, the listing devices, the spying on the USSR, so they covered

up the true story of Roswell, which only added to the folklore. By the 1990s, there was even a UFO museum in the town of Roswell and countless books and articles. Despite official disclosure of the Project Mogul balloons in 1994, the conspiracy theories had taken on a life of their own and no one was able to put the genie back in the bottle. Now UFOs are not just a thing within American culture, as Ellis said, there's been UFO sightings in Wales, but in 2008, a police helicopter in Wales made course corrections over the Bristol Channel to avoid

a flying saucer. And just the year before there'd been sightings of the Dudley Dorito, a triangle-shaped UFO that made the West Midlands its home. And there's been UFO sightings- The Dudley Dorito. ... in Brazil, France, Channel Islands, Peru, Spain, Italy and New Zealand, Australia, Poland, Iran, to name but a few. But Tom Crane cannot get over the Dudley Dorito. We can't. Well, you can't blame him, Al, for being slightly taken aback by the phrase the Dudley Dorito.

Of course I believe in aliens. Have you heard of the Dudley Dorito? And there are lots of famous people who claim to have seen a UFO. John Lennon famously in Manhattan he saw coloured lights changing in the night sky above his penthouse. The experience was the basis for his song Nobody Told Me that was released posthumously in 1984 and the line of note read, on the 23rd of August 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a UFO. That was John Lennon. And then recently Julian Lennon has just done an interview saying he also saw a UFO.

Other people to have seen a UFO include President Jimmy Carter who recently passed away, radio host Huey Green, and the astronaut Gordon Cooper. Huey Green? Yeah. Huey Green. My dad grew up in Stratford East London. He claims to have seen a spaceship when he was about 13 years old. He was on drugs, Chris.

Come on, man. The alien abduction story that most intrigues me, and if you want to read more on this subject, jump on Wikipedia and take a look at the case of Betty and Barney Hill. They're an American couple who in 1961 claim to have been abducted by aliens. They were driving home and they reported seeing a strange bright light in the sky that seemed to follow their car. Uneasy they stopped to observe it through binoculars and noticed it resembled a craft with humanoid figures inside. The couple claimed to get back in the car and carry on driving but nothing, basically a snap of the fingers and two hours have passed. A gap they

couldn't account for. Over the following weeks they both suffered anxiety and nightmares. Under hypnosis they recalled being taken aboard a spacecraft and being examined effectively by grey aliens and Betty claimed they conducted medical examinations but then showed her a star map allegedly depicting the Zeta Reticuli star system. And then the other thing is that I always think with UFO sightings people maybe they do it for publicity. Betty and Barney Hill never wanted to really talk about it. They were almost kind of embarrassed that this thing had happened to them. Thoughts?

I would hate to be probed. Yeah. Doesn't seem great, does it? No. And it always seems to happen. You don't get many alien abductions when they're not doing the probing. The probing seems to be the driving factor. If an alien landed in my suburban back garden, I wouldn't look at it and think to myself, right, let's look at his arsehole. I think that would be my deal, if I was taken up into an alien spacecraft and they were

going to probe me. I say, I'll let you probe me if you let me probe you first. And then if we're both in on it. You see, if you landed in my suburban back garden, I absolutely would look at your arse all. It would be the first thing I'd do. So. I ain't hoping to find out.

What's up there? Just ask me questions. You're not going to find the answers up there. Trust me. Just fucking Google it mate. Just ask me what I've eaten and I'll tell you. Here's a new t-shirt. You're not going to find the answers up there.

So what? But genuinely, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with you what I've eaten and I'll tell you. There's a new t-shirt, you're not gonna find the answers up there. So what? But genuinely, I'll tell you anything.

Especially with the threat of a probe hanging over me. Yeah. Netflix is a streaming surface. Yeah. My favourite food is, I like chicken burgers. Conductor 21, the 1987 FA Cup. Keith O'Chin scored a diving header. Tottenham had never lost a Wembley final.

Cat bin lady dropped two cats in a bin. Just keep on asking questions, I'll give you the answers. Nutella is nice but not a health food. For God's sake put that thing away. Please, let's just have a chat. Just be friends. Come on mate, let's have a chat. If we want this to be a long-term relationship where we are, there's a back and forth of information, there's a common respect. You can't shove that up our ass. Oh my god. At least warm it up.

We can't start with probing. Leading with an alien. Not on the way forward. I'll leave you a voice note. It's yours for good, then. It's... I don't care if you've got space cream, if it's nothing. You've been trying it on a human? You've got 15 arseholes.

See, we're different, bodily we're different. Space cream. Anyway. Just drop me off. Just take me back down. Just drop me off again, please., just take me down. Just drop me off again, please. Space cream. Actually, can you drop me off in town? That's what they always say. Don't worry, I've got some space cream for my space probe.

Where's that going? Up your space bum. No, thank you. Surely they're that advanced. They don't need to be sticking things up your bum. Yeah, yeah. It's like when you read sci-fi depictions of the future from, you know, from like 30, 40 years ago. And some things will be so futuristic, but it'll be like, you know,

video cassettes will be half the size. You're like, we won't be using videos. Come on. Yeah. We'll have a mini-disc player. We'll be sticking things on people's bums to figure out how they work. What was that last one? I think the probing is a power play on the part of the alien. That's all it is, it's trying to assert itself as the dominant one. You bloody sicko.

Once you've probed someone at the beginning of a conversation it's clear who's in charge. Yes, I agree. Absolutely. Do you reckon they make a little joke about Uranus before they do it? That feels like the perfect time. Do you reckon they make a little joke about Uranus before they do it? That feels like the perfect time. Maybe that's what it's for, just anyway to throw bar in their pun. And you're like, ha ha ha ha, yeah.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's good stuff Mr Alien, but honestly I will just tell you. Do you want one last UFO encounter that I actually think is the best one and the most credible one ever? This has been on my radar, so to speak, for a while, but the more I read about this, the more I hear about it, I'm like, whoa, whoa, okay, something's going on. Now if you're interested in this subject, you'll probably know about this one. It's called the Tic-Tac Incident, and it's a 2004 encounter involving US Navy pilots and an identified aerial object,

later declassified by the Pentagon. So during a training exercise off the coast of Southern California, the USS Princeton, part of the Nimitz carrier strike group, detected mysterious radar signals and you can see interviews on YouTube with the various kind of admirals and the commanders of these boats explaining what they were picking up. So basically they were seeing signals that revealed that were objects descending, multiple objects from 80,000 feet down to sea level in seconds, defying any known aerodynamics. There's a guy called Commander David Fravor. He was a pilot and his wingmen were dispatched to investigate. They flew out there and it's amazing to hear him interviewed about what he saw. They saw a white oblong object which resembled a tic-tac hovering just above the ocean.

They describe it as boiling the ocean immediately underneath it. They say that this object had no visible means of propulsion, wings or exhaust, but exhibited advanced maneuverability. So there's no engines, no jet, no water, no air getting blown apart. It is just existing and moving around. When they zoomed out, when they kind of went down to investigate further, it just darted away at incredible speed. And then, this is the thing that's really interesting

on their radars they could see it reappeared miles away almost in an instant. Attempts to track the object revealed it was capable of extraordinary acceleration and seemed to outmaneuver the Navy's most advanced aircraft. Footage from an FAA-18 Super Hornet targeting pod, later leaked and confirmed by the Pentagon, shows the object performing manoeuvres far beyond what humanity is capable of. The incident remains unexplained and has fuelled speculation about advanced foreign technology or extraterrestrial origins. It gained widespread attention following the Pentagon's 2020 acknowledgement of the footage and its inclusion in congressional UFO hearings, which are happening right now.

And it marks it out as a really pivotal modern UFO case. So perhaps we're not alone after all. Wow. There you go, El. Okay. I'm fully signed up. I believe in ghosts. Thank you to the Dunny Robbins and Canny podcast. And now I believe in aliens. Would you like to say anything in case there are any aliens listening? You never know, they might pick up a podcast. Any little message Ellis now that you're fully sold on them? I'd like to reiterate my opinion about the probing.

Wow. The TikTok alien. I'm going to watch that video. Here's how you do it, Al, by the way. I would say if you probe me, I will lie when you ask me questions. Yes, very good. If you don't probe me, you'll get the truth. Well what a great episode that was. Thank you very much to Vizzi Hoppley for writing in. I'm very glad we could, you know,

make your year. Let's say it's that. Let's say we've made your year. But also if you do have a topic for us by all means let us know at hello at owhatatime.com because we are fascinated in your suggestions. Anyway, thank you very much for downloading this week's episode. We'll be back with you next week. And don't forget, if you want even more Oh What A Time, you can become an Owhatatime full-timer, get bonus episodes. And in fact, we've talked a little bit on this episode about listening technology and I've been reading In fact, we've talked a little bit on this episode about listing technology and I've been reading Spycatcher and there's a lot of listing technology in that and we'll be doing a review of that as one of the bonus episodes this month.

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