Somewhere in the Skies - Diana Walsh Pasulka: AMERICAN COSMIC

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

On episode 93 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan welcomes author and professor of religious studies, Diana Walsh Pasulka to the show to talk about her new book, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.  More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life and the enigmatic phenomena often connected to all this... UFOs. Listeners can get a 30% discount on the book right now by CLICKING HERE and using promo code: AAFLYG6 Guest Bio: Diana Walsh Pasulka is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her research focuses on religion and technology, including supernatural belief and its connections to digital technologies and environments. Her current projects include two edited volumes, Believing in Bits: New Media and the Supernatural, co-edited with Simone Natalie and forthcoming with Oxford University Press, and Post Humanism: The Future of Homo Sapiens, co-edited with Michael Bess and forthcoming with Palgrave MacMillan Reference. For more info, visit: www.AmericanCosmic.com Watch ROSWELL: MYSTERIES DECODED for free! Available now at www.cwseed.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening and Closing Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey y'all, Ryan Spreck here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume, but it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only growing. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a page.

To contribute and to learn more, visit www.patriot.com backslash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host Ryan Sprague. As I continue to navigate my way through the stories of so many individuals who've had a UFO experience in some way, shape, or form, I have to step back every now and again. and realize that I'm also navigating my own personal journey as well. No matter how objective I try to remain, my personal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs would undoubtedly impact my work and how I approached the UFO phenomenon and my study of it. And after reading a new book by today's guest,

I knew I wasn't alone in that journey. Diana Baselka is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her research focuses on religion and technology, including supernatural belief and its connections to digital technologies and environments. And she is the author of American Cosmic, UFOs, Religion, Technology,

published by Oxford University Press. More than half of American adults and more than 75% of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in ET life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions. Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, Diana interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals,

and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in ET intelligence. thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors, including their ubiquity in modern media, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences. and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life and the enigmatic phenomenon often connected to all of this.

UFOs. Here's my interview with Diana Pesoka. Diana, thank you so much for joining me today on Somewhere in the Skies. Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here, Ryan. Thank you. I mean, I got one of the advanced copies of your book, American Cosmic. UFO's religion and technology. And I had been waiting for this for almost a year. When I heard you were writing this thing, I was just so ready to look for something new to look at in the UFO field. It can get so stalled and stuffy at times. So to know someone was out there,

boots on the ground, bringing new perspectives to the forefront. First of all, I have to say congratulations on the book release. And second of all, thank you. Thank you for writing this. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I do remember when you got your copy, I don't even actually have a hard copy of it yet. So I thought that was really funny. I was like, Ryan got a copy and I haven't, I don't have a copy yet. Before the author. Yeah. I guess that's the perks of having a podcast. I don't know. I think it is. Well, I mean, there are so many avenues we could go down in this interview, but I want to sort of start with your origin story. I often do this with a lot of. my guests. So could you tell us a little bit about your dive into the world of academia? What made you want to focus on religion first and foremost in Catholicism to be specific? So I actually knew I wanted to become a professor of religion at the age of 11. And don't ask me why that is, but I was fascinated by religion and I was fascinated by all kinds of religions. So I was fascinated by Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism. And so I read everything I possibly could.

And I was, my mother is Jewish and my father's Catholic. So I did, my parents sent me to a Catholic school for, and this is in the day when those schools were run by sisters. And so these sisters were very socially conscious and they were part of going down to central. I lived in California. I grew up in California. So they going down to Central America and helping the poor. And this was in the day of Romero, the saint who was martyred. I believe it was, I think it was on Christmas Eve and he was in a hospice. I mean, so I was really struck by people who had this vision that was bigger than them to help people and would even risk their lives to do that. So the nuns and sisters at the school really made a giant impression on me. And so that's how and when I decided to become, to learn about religion.

And I also, I was struck by the beauty of a lot of religious language, like certain passages in the Bible are just, you know, they're sublime. I mean, you know, the sermon on the mount, you know, blessed are the lilies of the field. I mean, beautiful. So I wanted to actually, I read the Bible when I was young and I said, you know, this doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'd like to read it in its original language because I believe that it would make a lot more sense then. And I was right. So I decided to, you do have to focus when you go into an academic career. And I decided to focus on Catholicism because that's one of the oldest forms of Christianity. And I was interested in Christianity. I am a Catholic. And I focused on that tradition.

And, you know, and the early part of that tradition up through, really, I actually just, you know, I've, I've written about 18th century Catholicism and that kind of thing. So I'm familiar with the tradition, obviously. And that's really what caused me to focus on that. And I mean, growing up a Roman Catholic myself, when I was, when you reach that age where it's sort of, okay, you're on the edge of the cliff. It's either you keep going with it or you go the separate way. We all have that moment of struggle. Yes.

And for me, it was, okay. I was sort of conditioned to follow this religion for half of my adolescence. Now I have the power and decision if I want to continue. So it was so interesting to know that you took that leap and you wanted to learn about your religion. And I did the same thing. I started looking into the actual history behind the religion, how it came to be the original translations. And that's when you really make that decision if your belief is going to out. away, you know, all these things you're going to find out about your actual religion. So it's a very

interesting dynamic for sure. Wow. I didn't know that you, that happened to you, Ryan. That's a great revelation here. So you started to read the original, you know, ideas and everything behind it. What decision did you make? I decided that I was going to remain a practicing Catholic. I, do not, I will admit, I do not go as far into my faith as I think a lot of my family, which I think is another big part of, you know, the whole idea of religion is these people you grow up with, who've made you the person you are. When faith is involved in that, you almost feel this, this need to want to appease them over the God you believe in, you know? So for me, it was really more of wanting to make my family proud, you know, other than God. So, so it's, it's so interesting,

this whole idea of religion and the role it plays in one's life, which I'm sure we're going to get to throughout this conversation. So that was it for me. I still have that struggle and I still continue to follow my faith. I've had instances in my life where I can't see any other way other than a miracle or, you know, a greater power being involved. So that's where I sort of lay in terms of that. When you bring the whole UFO thing into it, that's a whole other level, which is why I was waiting for a book like this for so long. But I want to sort of shift gears here, not outside of Christianity, but we have the conjuring universe. So I am a huge fan of these movies. So I have to ask. I have to ask how, how in the hell did you become a part of this, being a consultant on these films?

Yeah, it was awesome. So, okay, so I, you know, the first conjuring is this, I think it's still the second. I don't know, it might even be the first now. I'm not sure. But it's the second grossing film of all time for the category of the supernatural. So it displaced the exorcist. And I think M. Knight-Sharmelon's The Sixth Sense is the first. So it was a huge, huge hit. And obviously, James Juan is an incredibly talented producer. And I worked with the screenwriters of Conjuring 1. And I worked with the screenwriters of Conjuring 2. But something happened. I worked with them on the screenplay for that. But it didn't actually make it into Conjuring 2. So I guess whatever, you know, whatever happens in Hollywood happened. And so their their screenplay actually didn't make it into Conjuring 2.

So I can't say that I'm the actual, although I consulted for it, I don't think any of my consulting got into Conjuring 2, but it's definitely in Conjuring 1. And so what happened was that I just happened to be in Wilmington, which is a place where films and TV shows are created and made. We have a studio here like Dawson's Creek and, you know, films like that. And so they were they were filming The Conjuring here, and they needed somebody. So Chad Hayes and Kerry Hayes are the screenwriters who are both Christian, but they're not Catholic. And so they, you know, the Catholic Church Ryan is like a brand, right? So, you know, so if you, if somebody calls me and they say, hey, we can't tell you what this is

about, but we need somebody to help us with Latin at the movie theater, I mean, at the movie studio. And I thought, oh, this is going to be a film about an exorcism. And I was right, right? So of course they're going to, you know, it's going to be a Catholic movie. And so who else is going to need Latin, you know? So I was hired to help them translate the Latin prayer of exorcism so that they could use that. And then when I got on set, I realized that they were talking about two traditionalist Catholics.

And that that happens to be part of my specialty is this type of Catholicism. So I said, oh, hey, did you know this or that? And they said, no, no, we don't know that. And in fact, what was really funny was that when they were translating the original prayer, which is a rite, the right of exorcism, they actually just translated the instructions. They actually didn't even know where the prayer started and ended. So they needed help. So I said, oh, well, you know, you can use this or this. And if you want, I can write you a little something about the Ed and Lorraine Warren and who, you know, what kind of perspective they're coming from. So I started working with them and I've been working with them ever since. They've done a couple movies. Some have actually made it to the, you know, to the screen and some have not. There was one I worked on with them called Seal Team 666, I believe, with Dwayne Johnson. And I don't, and I worked with them for a long time on that one, but that one never made it to the screen.

So, you know, Hollywood is this way. It's what I found was what I was interested in, though, was I am an academic. I was interested in religious, how people become, you know, when I, when I, when I, when I get my students in my classes, the first thing I tell them, if it's like a, you know, undergrad class, I say most of what you've learned comes from the movies about religion. I mean, just face it, right? You know, so you think Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and Jesus is white. And so they're like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you know, is this true?

I'm like, yeah, it's not true, guys. And so I go through a lot of demystification process and basically say, let's actually read the book. So that's what I do in class. I use, you know, I show how pop culture kind of changes what we think of religion. So I was really interested in this and that's my motivation for being involved. I also got paid and I also got my students involved in it and they were, you know, they was huge for them. But yeah, so I wanted to see exactly the process that media goes through, you know, like really popular media, mass media, basically, you know, what happens to to a movie in order to create religious belief? Because

The Conjuring did create a lot of religious belief. And I got to witness it firsthand. And that was my motivation for doing it. So it was almost like applied research for me. And I told you know, I didn't, I mean, I did tell the screenwriters I was going to do that. I said, you know, I'm going to write about this. And they were like, nobody reads academic articles anyway. So go ahead.

And I was like, cool. So we became friends. So they're friends of mine actually. And so I got to see James Juan and I just saw Aquaman. And I'm a fan of his. and he's just an incredible producer. So, yeah, it was really a cool, cool thing for me. Absolutely.

And I agree. Aquaman was, you know, one of my favorite movies of this past year. No matter what people thought of it, James Juan is a brilliant producer. And I think that's really interesting. Little did they know you'd be writing a book about all of this as well. So that's on them at this point. But, no, I completely understand that idea of Hollywood and mass media and how it influenced. our beliefs. I recently, you know, had my brush with Hollywood in terms of the Roswell case. And I was

invited to do a press junket with the Roswell New Mexico cast of this new CW drama, which is fiction. And they wanted me there to consult and to tell the press about the actual Roswell case. So again, I love when Hollywood takes these chances, gets academics involved, consultants. And wants to hear the real story and how they can implement that into their fictional versions of all this. And I will tell you this, after going to this event and explaining the actual Roswell event to everyone, I received so many cards and emails after that from the writers of Roswell, New Mexico. So clearly there's this hunger in need to want to know what the actual story is behind a lot of this. So, again, it's good to know that, you know, they're not out to change.

everything. I understand. You know, we have the Project Blue Book Show doing the same thing as well. So that struggle is always going to be there when it comes to Hollywood and in UFOs. But I have to ask you, how did your interest first come about in the UFO topic? So strangely enough, I was never really interested in UFOs at all. And what happened was that I wrote this book about purgatory. It was the first book I wrote. And purgatory, as you know, as a Catholic, or maybe you don't know, I don't no, is this place where souls go if they're not good enough to go to heaven after they die, right? So, and for like, you know, a long, long time, 1500 or so years, Catholics practiced devotions to souls in purgatory. And then after the 1960s, it just stopped. And people didn't really do that

anymore. And young Catholics don't do that. And so I thought, you know, that's really odd. I want to know why. So I did this, it took me about, I mean, academics take a long time to write books. So it took me about 10 years to write this book. So I, you know, read a lot of different languages of reports of Catholics from about 1,200 on up to about the 1800s and their reports of soul, what they would call souls in purgatory. And so a lot of this stuff was really weird, Ryan. I mean, we're talking about, you know, none hanging out in her cell. And then this, this, you know, light, luminous light comes through herself and each night and you know she tries to tell the people of her community and they don't believe her finally the mother superior comes in and sees it herself and they they're they interpret it as a

soul from purgatory well there were all there were so many of these really strange kinds of aerial phenomena things and and beams of light and luminous beams and things like that that i i kept a log of them and i didn't quite understand what the heck they were so i and they happened throughout history. So, and they had patterns that were similar. So what I did was they just kept a log of these things as I went along. And finally, at the end of my book, so I'm done with this book, okay? I finally get it into my editor. And I have this, you know, I only include one of those things in the book because they're just so weird. I don't really know where to put them. And so I show it to a friend of mine, and I say, what do you, what do you make of this stuff? And he looks through it and he goes,

oh, wow, it looks really Steven Spielbergish. And I go, I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, you know, this looks like UFOs. And I said, well, you're crazy. And I kind of like dismissed it entirely. And then synchronicity. The next week there was a, there was a UFO conference. And it was actually there that I, I didn't meet, but I first heard Chris Bledso talk. And so I realized when I went, I was listening to the same kind of thing that were, you know, that this, that in fact, my friend was right. that the stuff of my research looked very similar to experiencers' reports of aerial phenomena and luminous beings and stuff. And so that's when I started to get into looking at the patterns of historical aerial phenomena and current aerial phenomena. Interesting. So that was sort of the inception of American Cosmic, was this like chance off remark by someone that you were recording, you were. UFO event. That's so fascinating. Isn't that weird? Yeah, how these things come to be. Well, I have to ask, how did the

preface of your book come to be? You're in a car ride with Jacques Valet. This is like a fantasy dream for every euphologist out there. What was that experience? Like, what significance do you give this experience with Jacques sort of as the jumping off point for American Cosmic? Okay, so American Cosmic, first of all, is a ride, right? So you're like, you're going. through this, this, this, a crazy journey, and it was a crazy journey for me. And so, um, so after, when I first decided to look into the patterns with, you know, historical, Catholic things, aerial phenomena and, and current aerial phenomena, thankfully I read two books that were helpful. Um, I read Jacques Valet's passport to Magonia that he wrote in 1968, by the way,

which is amazing. And so he did the same thing. He basically made the same jump, the same that I made. So in a sense, he's like a proto-religious study scholar, and I tell him that all the time. And Relative study scholars love Jacques Valet. And, you know, they're like, oh, wow, this guy was so, you know, in the 1960s, he already knew what was going on. And so I, I was, to tell you the truth, Ryan, I was actually quite freaked out when I realized what I had, that the stuff I was looking at could still be going on, like with, you know, the Chris Bledso case looked similar. So it actually shocked me quite a bit and I was in kind of a um I would call it a stupor almost almost like a stupor like whoa how oh my mind is blown and um so I read Jacques valet's book recognize that here's a person

who's you know has a PhD and actually computer science but is you know and as an astronomer but actually is doing what I do and then I read Jeffrey Kreeple's book called Authors of the impossible and strangely enough another weird synchronicity was that I think it's either his third or his fifth chapter is on Jacques Valet. And it's called Future Folklore or something like that. And it is one of the most amazing short pieces ever. And anybody who's interested in Jacques Valet and Jeff Kreeple's work should read that. It's just get that book for that one chapter.

It's amazing. And so I, and strangely, this is another thing that happened that was weird, was that my editor contacted Jeff Kriple to blur my purgatory book. And so I was already in touch. So Jeff Kreppel then emailed me and said, hey, I'm going to blurb your purgatory book. And I said, wow, I just read your authors The Impossible. And so we started to talk and we knew a lot of people in common. And so we then became colleagues.

And then I had written Jacques an old-fashioned type letter. I saw his post office box on his website and I wrote him a letter and I introduced myself. And he said, you know, I have lots of, as you know, I grew up in California. So I have lots of family there. He said, next time you're in California, come by and, you know, his wife and he would take, would, you know, have me to dinner and stuff. So I met Jacques. And so I knew Jacques. So we started to collaborate and I collaborated with Jeff Kriple.

So the ride then. So I also got in touch with Robbie Graham, who's, as you know, a uphologist in England. And he was doing media and UFOs. and his work was really interesting. So I, Jeff and I invited him to a conference at Big Sur and Jacques was there. And so at the end of the conference, somehow Robbie and I didn't have rides back to San Francisco. And so Jacques offered to take us. And we were both like, you know, like awesome.

So we get in the car and Jacques drives us. First of all, Jacques wants to show us Silicon Valley. And I am just like, dude, I am taking notes, you know. I mean, this is going to be amazing. And I know Silicon Valley, like I grew up there, right? So, but all the things he showed us and through his eyes, I just saw it in such new ways. And so he's kind of a fast driver. So I was scared, but I was also like, I didn't care.

I was like, I'm going to die in this car maybe, but I'm okay with it because I am being given this opportunity. And at the end of it, he, so he showed us all around. We had lunch in Santa Cruz. and then when we were done, we had dropped Robbie off at his hotel, and then when we were done, my brother was picking me up. Jacques got out and he said,

I forgot to give you this book, and he gave me this book, and he said, you need to read this one first. And I, of course, I'm going to read it first. Okay, so, yeah, so that's how it went. So I, yeah, so Jacques is, like I said, you know,

Jacques is brilliant. He's brilliant, he's funny. I mean, he's probably one of the funniest people, that I've met and just really knows so much about this field and really has a lot of integrity. When you start to get into the meat of your book, you can see these traces of sort of everything Valet represents is his burst under the scene as a computer scientist, like a technologist almost, merging it with this folklore and religious aspects of what he would ultimately find was the UFO phenomenon. And that's, it's just so interesting how it sort of bled into what you would eventually journey into.

And that journey really caught my attention with this thriller-esque fashion of your first chapter. So we have you blindfolded in the middle of a desert. I mean, talk about Spielberg. Talk about like, you know, these action movies. Can you paint a picture for us as to why you are in the middle of the desert, with a blindfold, who you were with, and what you found there. Okay, so, all right. So when I first began the study, it was in 2012, and I didn't expect anything like what

actually happened. I thought this is going to be a pretty easy study because it's pretty easy to make these patterns and connections and talk about them. But what actually happened was that I found that, you know, actors that are household names and screenwriters, you know, and people affiliated with the government, you know, agents and people like that, we're all very interested in the topic. And in fact, I was unprepared for that.

So I took a back. I kind of stopped the study for a bit. And I thought, this is just maybe too weird for me. You know, like I'm just a normal professor for doing normal professorly stuff. And should I really be doing this type of thing? and Brenda Densler actually who wrote The Lure of the Edge and she has her PhD from Duke. She thought she was dying actually. She had cancer and she's thankfully alive and well, but she thought she was dying.

So she decided to give, I didn't know her, but she gave her library to me, which is this immense library. And this is when I decided I was going to stop because there were scientists who were falling around experiences, trying to do technology from this. And I thought, this is way out of my comfort zone. And so I went to her research and I started looking through everything that, you know, her library and I realized, no, I really have to do this

because it was so religious-like. You know, there were so many connections with religion that it, so that was, that's what pulled me back in. Now, what happened was that one of these scientists asked me to go to the desert to see this craft site. And I thought, in no way am I going to go, you know, myself. So I said, well, if I can take a person with me, I'll go.

And so, yeah. So he's like, it depends on who it is, you know, kind of thing. And maybe, maybe not. I have to get permission. And so then I asked Jeff Kriple if he'd go. And Jeff was like, Diana, that's just too weird for me. And I was like, it is weird, isn't it? And he goes, yeah.

And I said, maybe I shouldn't do it. And then I had just been introduced to James. And James was, is this amazing scientist. And he and I have similar ways of looking at the world in that we kind of accept the same code of ethics that academic except. We're both academic. So he's obsessed with the topic. And so I said, will you go with me here? And he's like, I'll go tomorrow.

Right. So, but the other scientist was said, you know, Tyler. He said, no, no, no, no. And I knew that he'd say yes and just given enough time. So I think two or three days later, he said he must have like Googled James. And then he said, okay, yeah, sounds good, let's go. So we went out there. So James and I got blindfolded.

We went out to New Mexico. We were both really, you know, we kind of bonded by this time, you know, like, okay, what's this going to be like and everything. And so, you know, we were told to where, you know, it was going to be really cold but sunny. so we might get a sunburn, and we were told to wear, like, high boots because of rattlesnakes and stuff. So, you know, we were going to this place. So we, it took about 40 minutes in this car, and we were both pretty nervous. And we got out there. And I went out there as just an academic, you know, like I'm studying something.

I'm studying these scientists' belief in a UFO crash site, right? That's what I'm studying. And so we get out there, and we take off our blindfolds, and I'm looking around, and I'm thinking, this somehow looks very familiar, but I don't, I don't quite know how it looks familiar. And I'm looking around and Tyler looks at me and says, does this look familiar to you?

And I said, oh, wait, this guy always freaks me out. And I go, yeah, it does. And he said, well, this was, you know, he said it was like on the episode of the X-Files. And I recognized it. And I said, oh, yeah, this is that sight. And so he said they, maybe they had an insider on their production,

and, you know, and I was like, whoa. So then I realized that I was in the right place because this is how belief is created, right, through media. And I thought, well, now we're talking. Now I can actually think through what this means. So we were there to find some parts. And we were there all day. And we had metal detectors.

And we did find some parts. And both James and I were like looking at each other, kind of saying, are these parts planted here? So, you know, I don't really know if they were or not, but we found parts. And that's how it opens. That's how it starts. Yeah. And, you know, eventually those parts would play a large role throughout the book.

The next thing I want to cover in terms of Tyler D, this very mysterious enigmatic character that bleeds throughout your book, he is kind of our introduction to The Invisibles, which is a fascinating sub-topic of the whole year. UFO study realm, a term that any student of LA should be familiar with at this point. If not, they fell miserably. But for those who may not know that term, Diana, could you maybe describe for us how Tyler fits into this quote-unquote invisible college of sorts? So one of the books that Jacques writes is called the Invisible College. And basically what he's doing is he's making reference to the scientists of Francis Bacon's time and a little bit of early modernity and they have to do their science and secret because if they do it openly they might get their heads chopped off. So basically, so valet and hynick basically, I think it may even be

Hynek who create, who coins, you know, who wants to use that term. We're the invisible college. And so it's basically these scientists who are secretive, but they talk to each other about their work and they study UFOs. But they don't, and I call it the John Maca effect. They're not out with their research because they all have careers. And if you study UFOs, like in John Max Day in the 1980s and 90s, your career comes under scrutiny and you could, you know, you could actually ruin your career if you're, say, an academic or scientist or something like that. So I use the term differently. So I understand there's the Invisible College. But what I'm trying to say here is that it's very different than in when, then in the 70s and 80s,

So the Invisible College is no longer a scientist talking to each other because it's more like Fight Club where the rule is you don't talk about Fight Club. So what I found was that once you get into, so there are these scientists that are out there studying, but then there's another group of these scientists. And they study it, but they don't actually talk to each other about it. They each have their thing that they do. And it's very compartmentalized. And so I tried to get a lot of information about it. And the deeper I got into it, I found that doors would shut. You know, like, you know, you know we can't talk about that.

Yeah. So I got that all the time. Oh, yeah, we don't talk about that. So I was like, okay, but that's what you study. So the thing that they study is the thing they don't actually talk about. So I called Tyler Tyler after Tyler Jordan. I love it. I love that's amazing.

And that idea of it is. You know, with Fight Club, I think if you've read the book or you see the movie, as soon as they start talking about it and inviting other people in, that's when it ultimately crumbles. So this idea of these invisibles, as you've sort of coined the term, not talking about it, not sharing their information with other scientists. It becomes such a personal journey for these scientists in academic. rather than this dark shadowy study between a group of them. So that's really interesting. And I know a lot of UFO researchers are the same way, holding their information close to the chest because they're afraid of losing it, of taking that journey on their own. So I can understand it in some senses.

So that's really interesting. Yes. So he was that. So Tyler D. was and is a very particular type of person. of which there are probably more, and I know there are, but there aren't many of them. And they are, you know, they're wiped off the internet too. So every couple, I guess, once a month, not once a month, but when they need to be, they get wiped off the internet. Yeah.

Well, not only that, when they go places, doors just open for them, which is a fascinating part in your book is wherever this dude goes, people are just willing to, give him information based solely on who he is. So I can't imagine what it's like being next to a person like that and just knowing the power he wields, but not no one ever knowing it. It's fascinating to me. It is. It was crazy for both James and I and people who do know him. Yeah. It's it's it's it's and like he said, it's part it's part of what was shocking to me, I think. In, you know, because when I studied Catholic history, I never met anybody like Tyler D. Yeah, and we'll get to his power when it comes to a little thing we call the Vatican in a little bit, but there's a quote that you've brought up in, I believe both the book and several interviews by Carl Young, and I love

this quote about flying saucers. They have become a living myth. We have here a golden opportunity of seeing how a legend is formed. This gave me chills when I first learned. it and heard about it because we had this opportunity, you know, Young was at the cusp of what could become a modern myth. And you have used this throughout your book. So what exactly did you extrapolate from this quote in reference to your own work? So basically, I see this as what I set out to do when I realized that a lot of people were interpreting their encounters and sightings as religious-like, right, or spiritual. I,

like Carl Jung, I said, wow, this is something unprecedented. This is a new type of religiosity. It has nothing to do

with old types of traditional religions. And so the thing I wanted to convey by this book for academics was that the digital infrastructure,

and this is what Jacques understood too, when he says that the phenomenon acts like a technology, the digital infrastructure has created a new form of spirituality, a new form of religion, really, whereas we have these old forms of

religion where we have basically guys who begin these religions, like, you know, the Buddha, or you have, you know, you have some religions started by women, but not many. And, you know, you have like a central figure, Muhammad, you know, and then they start the religion. But here what you have is you have a diffuse form of spiritual reality for people who talk amongst themselves, and it's communities of people, and there's no hierarchy here. I mean, you know, there are people who are experiencers, like Travis Walton, say, and, you know, has a movie made or something like that. But in, but, you know, with the contact movements that are springing up all over the globe right now, you have this diffuse form of religion and spirituality that is, you know, going everywhere.

It's kind of linky. It's like networking. And it really replicates the internet. It replicates technology. Even the synchronicities are technological. You know, people can have bought synchronicities. So, you know, I really wanted to show that to people. I also, that's why I kind of kept going back to 2001, a space odyssey.

I wanted to show that, well, for one thing, wow, Kubrick was insanely brilliant. I don't even know. I mean, how did you know all of this back then? I don't know. I love Robert Ayer's interpretation of the monolith as like the iPhone or the screen, you know, and that, you know, the monolith functions as this alien technology. And it's created a new form of religiosity. So Carl Jung, so I was trying to answer Carl Jung's challenge is what I was trying to do. Right.

And that comes in the form of, I think, technology, this merging. of the human and technology, this creation of a myth. And that really is a huge basis for the book. A good portion of it covers technology, contemporary media, probably being one of the biggest ones. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how technology plays into the global belief of UFOs. Yes. Okay. So the contemporary version of this religion, the, the way the way which transcendence is configured is through non-human intelligence, right? So, and it's this usually thought to be advanced non-human intelligence. And a lot of people have thought Susan Schneider at the University of Connecticut, she's a philosopher, and she's spoken to

NASA before. And she says, well, if we do meet the ET, we will meet ET's technology. We won't meet ET or ET will be technology, right? And so there's a push for us. I mean, look at what we do. We send technology out to Mars. You know, we're not sending people yet out to Mars. And so if there is such an advanced, I mean, yeah, if there is such an advanced civilization as to already be observing us or meeting us or encountering us, it's going to be, have some pretty advanced technology. And so we then, that's what Carl Jung called that. He called the, flying saucer or the technological angel. So that's how it begins. And a couple of people saw this, you know, like Martin Heidegger, which is a philosopher. I use him in my preface

to kind of frame what I'm going to be talking about. And that's this relationship to technology. You know, most people think we could just put technology down or we just use technology and put it down like a tool. But that's actually not the case. I mean, you can't get off the grid now. Like we're immersed in a sea of frequencies and radiation from technology. You know, there's no way we're putting technology down, you know, so we better understand it. And I thought Jacques was on to it too. So, you know, that's why I use a lot of his work. I use Martin Heidegger. And strangely enough, David Bowie. So if you ever look at David Bowie, some of his interviews where he talks about technology, I mean, David Bowie was incredibly brilliant about technology. So, you know,

I mean, he was also, you know, he was also, look at all his music about Starman and, you know, E.T. and stuff like that. I mean, he was a brilliant person who he's got such a great interview where he basically is talking about technology. And he says the same thing. You know, the interview he says, so you don't think technology is a tool. And David Boyce says, no, no, no, no, it's not a tool at all. He says, it's basically an alien life form. And it's beautiful. So, so I use that quote actually to. kind of open my book. That in the Nietzsche quote. Wow, that's so interesting. I can imagine like Bowie sipping like a martini with Martin Heidegger somewhere talking about all this. Well, it also bleeds into this whole idea of the, like you mentioned, the co-evolution, but also like the co-creation hypothesis that like our mutual colleague Greg Bishop talks about a lot. You know, this idea of the alien, the other, creating the phenomena with humans and our perception of what they are and their perception of us. It kind of bleeds into this idea that technology is us and we are technology.

It's fascinating that everyone is kind of trying to piece this puzzle together, that it isn't human tool, you know, and that we are always in control of it. And I never thought about that. Like, there is no way to escape technology anymore. And maybe there never was. I don't know. It's just, it blows my mind. to think about that. It does. It does. And so I needed to, I mean, it's kind of like, it's not

intuitive for us to think that way. You know, we're not, it's not intuitive. So I knew that. I knew that my book was going to be hard to convey that to, which is why I used characters, which is why I used valet, and I used Tyler, and I used James to kind of show that we've got people here who live this reality, and this is how we need to understand it. Right. And I think what the book does, well too, Diana, is it bridges the gap between the scientific world and the experiencers as well. I mean, they're so often so far apart that I don't know how to ever marry them together at times. Like, how do you bring to a scientist? This person was possibly taken aboard a craft and examined or this person found this piece of metal in a desert somewhere.

Can you have it tested? No, I know for a fact that trying to get a scientist to look at possible UFO material, it's not as easy as people think. Yeah, it might be exciting for a scientist, but their career could be on the line. And it was so hard for us to find a lab here in Los Angeles to look at possible alien materials for the investigation I was doing. So to bridge that gap is really interesting. And you do that so well, you do cover people like Ray Hernandez and his experience, or Chris, led so and merging that into the world of science and technology and belief. And I think that's what the book does so well. And in terms of books, you bring up another thing, this book

encounter, which is another thing I never have really thought about. Could you maybe describe that for us? Yes. Okay. This is a really interesting thing that happened to every person who was related to this book. And I described their book encounters, each one of them. So, okay, so this is a encounter. And by the way, the book encounter is also called by, I think it's Arthur, is his first name Kessler. And he's an academic from, you know, about 40 years ago. And he called it the library angel. And it's this idea that when you're thinking really hard about something and you have, you know, something that you're emotionally really, it's like a theoretical concept, but it's also emotional for you. It's like a spiritual dilemma or something. And you really want an answer.

Sometimes a book shows up and it gives you that answer. And you're like, that's exactly what I was thinking about. Or that's the answer. And today it's a movie that can, you know, you can see a movie that can really blow your mind or it could be a meme. You know, people have had meme encounters, right? And so, but, but the idea here is that it's a synchronicity. So it's just it pops out at you and it's the right thing for you to read at the right time and you know it. Okay, so, so I described everybody's book encounter and I also described one that I had with Frederick Nietzsche on New Year's E. And I hated, I honestly hated Nietzsche's work. Nietzsche is a philosopher who, in the early 20th century, he was a philosopher, very, very well-known guy, right? So Frederick Nietzsche, the death of God kind of guy, right, that's made that, he wasn't the first to say it, but he was the one to really make it well-known.

And he's kind of an existentialist philosopher. And unfortunately, has a lot of, like, you know, language that's sexist and racist, you know, he's coming from the 1800s and he's German and so there's a lot of this kind of going on. explains it all. But, you know, I'm, you know, so as a young person reading his stuff, I was really, I couldn't stand it. I put it down. And my friends would say, no, no, you got to get through that because his stuff is really good. And I said, how could it be good?

Let's look at what he says. And, you know, I was just, you very politically correct, right? And so I was not going to read it. So I was, it was New Year's Eve and somebody had given me another one of his books and I didn't really want it. And I put it on my bedstand. And it was called the gay science. And so I put it down, and it's a book of aphorisms. And so, you know, I'm kind of a geeky young person.

And so I don't really go out and celebrate New Year's Eve. And so I'm trying to go to bed. And then, you know, the midnight comes along and there's all kinds of revelry outside. And so I can't sleep. So I pick up the book. And I go, okay, I randomly open it. And I come to his aphorism, which is basically about New Year's Eve. And he basically says, here it is, New Year's Eve.

And he basically says, you know, and he references a saint, Saint Januarius, who's basically one of my favorite saints. And I'm like, wow. And so I was really hooked. You know, it was like, what a coincidence. And so I thought, wow, what's the likelihood of this happening? And he, you know, he said something that was really profound. He says, today I'll never say no again. I'm going to say yes to life. Today, my blood, just like St. St. Januarius is the saint whose blood every year. at the years turns, it turns liquid. I mean, he's dead. You know, he's been dead for hundreds of years. But they have a vial of his blood in this church in Italy. I think it's in Italy. And so, and then it turns blood-like again. And so I thought, wow, that's really, you know, that's a cool miracle.

And this is a really intense coincidence. And I turned the page and he talked about coincidences. And he basically says, ha-ha, you know, you've had these coincidences, but you're a a fool if you believe them kind of thing. And I'm like, what? And so I was like, you know, then he became a really intriguing author for me. And I consumed everything that he wrote. And now I'm a big fan of his. So that's the book encounter. The book encounter is this thing where a person maybe has an experience. They don't want to call a UFO experience. They don't want to be that person. And then they go on the internet or they pick up a book or something. And that book explains to them

what they've like Ray Hernandez had like a I think it was like a week long immersion book experience after he went through his encounters yeah so that's what that is and it sounds like you've probably had these two uh yeah for sure I mean when you're when your UFO library outweighs everything else in your life in terms of when you have to move it across the country you know you're going to have a book encounter at some point right that's hilarious it is and I think that's really interesting, this idea of the meaning we give to coincidence or synchronicity or even a UFO event. And meaning plays such a large role in a UFO event. That is what I do in terms of my personal research, this interpretation of a UFO encounter, how it will play a role in the rest of the observer's life. And I found this really interesting in your book. You call this an amplificatory interpretation. So could you sort of explain this. concept to us in terms of a UFO event? Yes.

So what I did in order to understand how people interpret, and you do such a great job, by the way, of focusing on people and how, what the meaning is for them. And I love that your books regarding that and your work regarding that. So when I went back to try to understand how people make these interpretations, I used, I used some cognitive science. So I used Antave's work, and she's a scholar of religion at Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara. And she has written a book called Religious Experience Revisited, I believe. And she basically talks about the processes involved in interpreting an experience.

And so she basically says this. She says, you have an experience, right? But it's not yet a religious experience or it's not yet an UFO experience. It becomes that. And she's interested in how it becomes that. And what I did is I went back to cognitive science, and I looked at neuroscientist Jeffrey Zach's work with media. And I tried to show that when people have these experiences, they're confused.

Like Chris Bledso was very confused because, you know, he'd been raised to Southern Baptist. And he had these experiences and it really shattered his reality, his religious reality. And he went to the internet and decided that this was probably a UFO experience, but he didn't quite understand how it was also religious for him. So then I got to actually see him up close go through that interpretive process of experiencing this as a religious UFO experience. And so so that's what that means. This is a Jungian term, you know, that we amplify some, some things over other things, you know, interpretation. So media primes us to when we, you know, oh, I'm going to give you some examples since you're Catholic, from Catholic history. So, you know,

St. Francis of Assisi, right? So, okay, so St. Francis of Assisi is with one of his friends, Brother Vio, and they're out, and it's the guardian angel, it's the feast of the guardian angels,

and they're on a mountain, and they're praying, and then a seraph shows up in the sky and comes down and gives St. Francis the wounds of Christ, which are called the stigbata. And for those

of your audience who are not Catholic, These are those holes in people's hands that look like they've been, you know, they have the wounds of Christ on their hands. And they're bloody and they look like they hurt a lot, right? So it looks like you've been nailed to a cross. Okay. So St. Francis is supposedly the first person to have the stigmata. So, okay, so it's called the stigmata. All right.

So there we have that story. Now, students of mine will go to the Vatican or will go to Italy. Florence and go to museums and see paintings, you know, there are so many paintings of that event. And they'll see a UFO. They'll see, you know, the seraph looking like a UFO, zapping St. Francis. And so, you know, like 50 years ago, Catholics were like, oh, this is an angel and this is the holy wounds of Christ. Whereas my students, even Catholic ones, they take a picture of it and they send it back to me invariably. This happens all the time. And they say, Dr. Bsulka, is this a UFO event? And I think it's really funny because, you know, they basically, their interpretation is different than their grandparents' interpretation.

But let me say more about this because I think it's interesting. When I first had the thought that my book on Purgatory was similar to some of this current stuff, I actually reread a lot of the primary sources in Catholic history that were really strange. And that was one of them. So I reread the St. Francis event, which was, written by Brother Leo. And I showed it to a friend who is a person who studies aerial phenomena, totally unfamiliar with Catholic tradition and totally unfamiliar even with St. Francis. And I showed it to him and I said, what do you think of this? And he said, oh, well, that definitely

looks like UAP, you know, like aerial phenomena coming down through the atmosphere, making a specific type of light in the sky. And these, you know, most likely hurt. hurting that person and these are radiation burns. And in fact, St. Francis dies from these burns. So that's something that we don't know. Yeah. So when you go back to the sources, you're like, wow, that's weird. Another one is Teresa of Avala. I don't know if you're familiar with her ecstasy of St. Teresa. She's, it's a very famous statue by Barini in Rome. And you look at it. And it's basically this woman who was a Catholic none and she's there's a little tiny angel beside her and it has a dart it looks like a dart okay and it's called the ecstasy of st. Teresa again I looked at that and I thought I'm going to read the source on that

one you know and she actually writes it in her book you can actually buy her autobiography and she actually tells you what happens during that time and what's interesting is that what she says doesn't it all look like the statute so what she says is and I actually have published a about this too. What she says is very odd. So she's, you know, she's a nun. She's not, you know, she's not at this point in her life particularly holy or anything like that. She's just, you know, she's a wealthy woman who's a nun. A lot of wealthy women became nuns. And so she says that if she ever did see angels, they were in her imagination, right? So, but this time an angel appears next to her. And it's really short. It's like, you know, about two and a half.

half or three feet tall and it's really, really shining. And in fact, she's not even sure it's an angel. She doesn't even know what it is. And then she decides, okay, maybe it's a cherub. So she doesn't even know what it is. Then it all of a sudden takes out this long stick thing with white at the end of it. And it basically does an examination of her. Okay. This sounds familiar to me. Yeah, exactly. So when I reread that, I thought, wow. So I'm going to tell this So I sent it to Jeff Kriple and Jeff said, well, I didn't actually send that yet to him. I said, Teresa basically had what looks like a UFO experience in the John Mack style. And he wrote me back and he said, that's ridiculous.

He said, no, no, I did my master's thesis on Teresa. In fact, I'm looking at a picture of her right now in my study. And so I said, okay, just wait. And so I translated it because I had found it in Spanish, I translated the document and sent it to him. And he was freaked out. He wrote me back and he said, wow. He said, okay. So basically we have to look at the whole Catholic tradition.

And I said, yeah, it's UFOs all the way down. All the way down to the Vatican. And that's sort of what I want to wrap up in terms of your journey. So we go from you blindfolded in a desert all the way up to going to the inner sanctums of the Vatican. So how did this come about? What did you find most important? about going to the Vatican, and how did that shape your book? So that's a really good question.

Actually, my Vatican research was, my book was actually done at that point, Ryan. So I thought my book was done. I gave it to my editor. It was all finished. And then I had, there was a Catholic philanthropist who was interested in levitating saints. And they had asked me to go to the Vatican to look at, you know, because not everybody can actually get into the Vatican archive. You have to have the credentials. You have to be a scholar of Catholicism. You have to have to have written a book. You have to be at a tent. You have to be tenured at a university, this kind of thing.

So I had those credentials. And so they said, can you go there and look at these manuscripts and tell us why some of these saints were canonized and some of them were not. And so, you know, so there were two saints we were going to look at. I was going to look at Joseph of Cupertino, who was said to have levitated, and Mary of Agrada, they were both from the same era, and white Italian, Cupertino, and the other Spanish. And so they asked me, just tell us, you know, if you can, you know, no pressure here. Why one's canonized and the other is not? And I said, yes, I can do that.

In the meantime, I had just finished this book, and I thought, of all people who could help me understand levitation and this kind of stuff, it would be Tyler. So I said to the people who funding the trip, I said, I want to take this guy. And I kind of showed his CV to them, you know, his resume. And they said, by all means. And so we went. And he got there before I did. We took different planes.

So he was there before me. Now, he's not Catholic. And we weren't even sure he could get into the archive to tell you the truth. So we had, and I had already spent a year telling them I was coming, what I needed, what I was looking for, you know, because it actually takes, the Vatican is pretty, darn old fashion, right? So it takes a long time to do all the paperwork. You go, you, if you go all the way over there, you want to see what you want to see. You know, they have miles of stuff, right? So anyway, and he's there first. So Tyler's there first and he's trying to get in through the various, you have to have, there's three stations to get in and he can't

get through the first station. And so he's texting me while I'm flying, he's saying, what do I do? you know, how, what do I do now? And I said, gosh, I'm not sure. Maybe wait till I get there. And he said, well, why don't I just show them, you know, my card, who I am? And I was like thinking, I don't think that's a good idea because we don't really want to create suspicion. And plus, it probably won't work. But he seemed convinced that it would work. So I said, go ahead. So he did. And he dropped something on the floor and he bent down. And he said when he looked up, he could see his face on their computer. So they instantly brought him up. And I guess what happened was that because the Vatican is an ally of the United States, he was accepted.

And so they said, okay, no problem. You're in. So he didn't even have to go through the other process. While he was there, he met this priest. And this priest was really helpful. He's an American guy. And he helped us while we were there. We had, you know, so we went to the Vatican Archive.

and we looked at those documents. And then we went to the space archive, which is not at the Vatican Secret Archive, but it's about an hour and a half up in the mountains at Castle Gandalfo. And it's the papal summer residence there. And they have, that's where Brother Guy Consumanyo resides mostly. There's also not an archive,

but there's an observatory in Arizona as well, owned by the Vatican. But the archive of all the space research is there, and I really wanted to look at that. So we went up there and we got to look at all kinds of stuff. I got to look at they have a whole section on extraterrestrial intelligent life and everything. And so, yeah, it was amazing. So we spent, that was the best time for me was not necessarily in Rome, but at the Space Archive and talking to the priests and brothers.

They're all astronomers, astrophysicists and stuff. And it was amazing. And while we were there, it was a weird. synchronicity. I was just doing some work and I realized that that one sister, Sister Mary of Agrada from Spain, she said that she had bi-located to New Mexico, right? And I thought, well, if it did happen or it didn't happen, that's not my question to answer, but it sure is a strange synchronicity. And I looked at Tyler and I said, you know, Sister Maria went to New Mexico and he kind of got this weird look on his face. And I said,

did she happen to go to the place where we went to? Oh my gosh. I didn't know where we went. And so he wasn't going to answer the question, but he looked pretty weird about it. And I think it both freaked us out. We were like, wow. And then I realized, too, that that was my last chapter of the book. And so I had to break the news to my editor.

So I took a really cool picture of Brother Guy with his large telescope. And I sent it to her and I said, hey, look at this picture. And she said, oh, I love that. And I said, hey, by the way, can I write the last chapter? It's just like, oh, okay. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carrano in the main event.

Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best have you wait in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lenz. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6. PM Pacific Time. Yeah, and I mean, thank God, literally thank God that this chapter came to be, because I think it really does kind of encompass everything you set out to do in terms of mixing religion with this belief in UFOs,

and that UFOs can be considered a new religion, and implementing technology into that as well. It's just this constant sphere of everything together, and everyone is going to interpret it differently. And I think that's the beauty of both the human mind and how it's influenced by everything around us. And that's my observation, at least, Anna, what is your observation of this book you've been working on for so long?

What do you want readers to take away from it? Well, for me, it was a surprising, I guess, you know, when you sit out to do something, you have an idea of what it should be. and if you're really lucky, it becomes alive and it teaches you. And that's what this book did to me. So this book became something apart from me. And I just basically tried to keep up with it. So like I said, I thought it was done at one point and it wasn't. And, you know, the book became its own entity almost and wrote itself. And I was basically there to kind of put it in place with all the tools of

my trade, which are religious studies or is religious studies. And so, um, What I want people to take away from it is that I want people to understand first that that UFO belief is not fringe, right? I mean, enough people believe in it now for it to be something that worthy of study. So I wanted to kind of bring it into the mainstream and say, it's, you know, listen, this happens so often that it's not weird. You know, you can see weird things and these things can happen and you're okay, you know. And so that's one thing. wanted people to know that there are top level scientists working on things that they believe are advanced technology from another world. I don't know what world that is. And they believe,

and they are actually making technology from it. So there's real technologies coming from these, whether it's true or not, Ryan, this is what they believe. And that, and I thought that was fascinating because that's part of the UFO culture that, to me, surprised me most, you know, because I was talking with people that were, you know, top-level Silicon Valley presences, you know, with companies and kind of everyday people that, you know, you want to hang out with. And this is their belief system. So I thought, you know, I wanted people to know about it. So that's what I wrote about.

Yes. The days of UFO cooks seem to be disappearing. Thank the Lord. Yeah, definitely. It's so amazing, Diana, that this is. coming around now because I do think that the UFO topic in general is becoming more normalized than ever, this to the star syndrome, as I've sort of coined it as of late. So I can't thank you enough for coming on, for giving us so much information about the book. So where can we find it?

And we will have a discount code for listeners of someone in the skies that I'm going to do after this interview. So stick around for that. But where can we find the book? And in what forms can we find it. Oh, sure. Okay. So, um, again, this was something I had no control over, but the book was scheduled to be out and then somehow it, it got postponed and then postponed again, but it's finally out. And your listeners can get it at Oxford University Press website. If they talk, type in Oxford University Press, American Cosmic in my name, it'll come up. And if they use that code, only at that website will they get that 30% off. But it's also available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

And there's a Kindle version as well. And the Kindle version is out. So I know people that have started reading it. And so I think it's just in the last two or three days it's come out. Awesome. Well, it has been highly anticipated by many UFO researchers as soon as we knew you were writing it. And it's for one reason, in my opinion, we want new perspectives and we want contributions to the UFO field that can, I guess, sort of enable a conversation that some are afraid to confront. And at the end of the day, this isn't about aliens or

God or possibly even UFOs. It's about us, you know, our future. And what that UFO, what it represents, you know, as we move forward. And I can't wait to see where your research propels you after the book comes out and people start reading it. So thank you so much for coming on for talking about all of this today on someone in the skies with me. Oh, my pleasure, Ryan. It was wonderful to be on your show. Thank you. That's it for this week's episode. Listeners can now receive a discount on American Cosmic by ordering directly through Oxford University Press. Be sure to follow the link in the show notes and use the promo code, A-A-A-F-L-Y-G-6 at checkout. The book is also available as an e-book and print copy on Amazon. To learn more about the book and all of Diana's work, be sure to visit

Americancosmic.com. take a few moments to subscribe, rate, and review Somewhere in the Skies on Apple Podcasts, the largest podcast platform in the world. Subscriptions bump us up in the search engines and can get us feature on the top lists. Thank you in advance. We're on Twitter at SummerSkies and Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod. The store is at T-Public.com. That's T-E-E-E-Public.com.

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One Podcast Network. To learn more, visit Entertainment One Podcast.com. In reality, UFOs are seen by people from all walks of life every day all around the world. They've also been officially investigated by the U.S. government and by governments of several other countries, too. That's just a small element of what makes the strange UFO topic so incredibly fascinating and fun to explore. That's what we do on the UFO podcast, Unknown. I'm Jason McClellan, and I invite you to explore the weird and wonderful world of UFOs with me and my friends and colleagues on Unknown. Unknown is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, IHeartRadio, Spotify, and all the usual podcast places.