Somewhere in the Skies - Inside the Black Vault with John Greenewald

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

On episode 106 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, John Greenewald returns to talk about his new book, Inside the Black Vault: The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed. The book includes declassified records that prove that UFOs are one of the most highly classified and most elusive subjects the U.S. Government has ever dealt with. He then gives his candid thoughts on Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Secret Pentagon UFO program, and the current work by To the Stars Academy, including the developing story of UFO reporting being implemented by the U.S. Navy. Guest Bio: John Greenewald, Jr. began researching the secret inner workings of the U.S. Government at the young age of fifteen. He targeted such groups as the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, Air Force, Army, Navy, NSA, DIA, and countless others. Greenewald utilized the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gain access to thousands of records. He accumulated an astonishing number of documents on topics related to UFOs, the JFK Assassination, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and top secret aircraft. Over two million pages later, and the Black Vault website was created. Greenewald has been featured on television networks such as The History Channel, Discovery Channel, A&E, and NBC. Visit: TheBlackVault.com Use Promo code: SKIES for discount tickets to ALIEN CON Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies To watch ROSWELL: MYSTERIES DECODED for free, CLICK HERE  Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne 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 www.HelloFresh.ca 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

What's up, saucerheads. This is Ryan Sprague from the Summer in the Skies podcast, and I have an exclusive offer for you to come join me at Alien Con Los Angeles. AlienCon brings together UFO researchers, the stars of ancient aliens, and science fiction fan favorites. But most importantly, it brings us all together as like-minded people to talk about these topics. I'll be giving lectures and taking part in numerous panel discussions with some of the most popular UFO and unexplained podcasts. out there today. And don't forget to check out live podcast recordings of Somewhere in the Skies and Unknown, hosted by Jason McClellan. It's going to be a jam-packed weekend you won't soon forget and you get to be a part of. The event is June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Tickets are on sale right now at thealiaccon.com. And if you use the promo code

Skies at checkout, you'll get an exclusive discount on all tickets. Again, use the promo code Skies. For guest info, special offers, full schedule, and tickets, visit thealiancon.com, and I'll see you there. There is a huge possibility that they don't know what the heck this is. There is no communication, not necessarily that aliens are out there. There's this phenomena that they cannot explain. The men and women that are flying the most powerful weapons in the most advanced technology around the globe, they are seeing things that they cannot identify. They report it and the upper

echelon can't identify it. That in itself is a huge threat to national security. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. And today, we welcome John Greenwald back to the show. In 1996, Greenwald began researching the secret inner workings of the U.S. government at the age of the age of of 15. He targeted such agencies as the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, Air Force, Army, Navy, NSA, DIA, and Countless others. He utilized the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to more than two million pages of documents. He took those pages and over the course of more than two decades has built an archive known around the world as the Black Vault. His book, inside the

Black Vault, the government's UFO secrets revealed, takes you on a journey within the secret world of unidentified aerial phenomenon that has plagued the military since at least the 1940s. Declassified records prove that the UFO topic is one of the most highly classified and most elusive subjects the U.S. government has ever dealt with. Today, we look at some of the most poignant documents he's come across, his thoughts onto the Stars Academy and the developing story of the U.S. Navy's brand new protocol on reporting UFOs. Here's our conversation with John Greenwald. So today we have back on one of my favorite guests, and his new book just came out.

It is called Inside the Black Vault, the government's UFO secrets revealed. The author is John Greenwald, and we're going to be talking all about the book today and some recent news about the Navy and UFOs. But before we do that, John, thank you so much for coming on to somewhere in the skies again. Hey, Ryan. It's my pleasure, man. It's good to be here again. I was so honored to get my signed copy of your book. I was so giddy. I ran to Times Square in New York and had to get that photo, man. That was very, very cool, by the way. And that remains on the top of my list as one of my favorites. That was very cool. Oh, awesome. It's so funny because, I mean, Times Square is the last place any New Yorker wants to be.

You know, it's just like that tourist attraction anywhere else in any other city. So I try to not go there like it's the plague, but I knew that how iconic it was. So I'm like, I got to do this. I got to do this. Yeah. That was very cool. My only experience in Times Square really quickly is as I went, I was doing a shoot in New York. I had never been to New York before and I got to walk the streets at night.

And it was very, very cool. So I'm in Times Square, right? You have to go there if you're, and I'm from L.A., right? So just to preface this, I'm used to crowds. And so I'm walking around. I'm like, wow, this is just, this is really crowded. And so somebody's pushing me from behind, right? And pushing like three, four, five times.

So finally I'm like, look, I don't want any problems here. I turn around, kid you not. This lady was probably in her 70s. You know, and she's just like, I'm not walking fast enough for her. And she's just pushing. And I can't. There's somebody in front of me. Man, I'll never forget that experience.

That was my New York moment. Like, oh, my God, this was cool to visit. I can't come back. There's no way. I get it, man. You know, I had my brief time in L.A. too. But, you know, I've been in New York City for almost 10 years, and that never gets easier. There will always be a 70-year-old woman behind you who's got to go somewhere and get there before you do.

So I know the feeling. Awesome. Well, we'll, we could talk bad about Times Square all day. But I really want to talk about your book, man. So how does it feel to finally have it out? I appreciate that. It feels awesome. It really does. It's obviously, as you know, being an author yourself, it's a labor of love. It's a lot of work. It's a lot more demanding than you might think. It's

not like you just whip it up and throw something and cobble something together. So it feels good to finally like hold it in my hands. And what's very neat is that the publishing company, Roman and Littlefield, has been very, very supportive. They're a huge outage of fit. They publish books all around the world. They've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of titles under their banner. But UFOs really just kind of isn't their forte. And I wasn't sure like, hey, is this something that they're just going to publish and, you know, not necessarily support and I'm going to sell 95% of the copies. And, you know, that's fine for them because they'll make a couple bucks on the back end. I didn't mean to be such a pessimist, but I wasn't sure. On the

contrary, they have been amazing when it comes to the support and the belief in the book. And for a house that big to believe in this is a good feeling. So it was awesome to hold the book, but I was not expecting such an amazing reaction from the publishing company and in turn, the public itself. And that resulted in the book coming out a week earlier, which was a great surprise to me. So I frantically had to start signing quite a few hundred copies of the initial load on my end that went out. And I thought I had like seven more days. And then they said, nope. So I didn't want anybody to be upset that I wasn't doing that. So I, you know, just started working night and day to try and get everything packaged up. But long-winded way of saying it's

overwhelming, but it's very, very cool to see and walk into a bookstore and, you know, see your book on the shelf. That was an amazing experience when I did that. So I guess we should sort of start, John, can you tell us a little about what the book is about and what you kind of set out to do with it? Sure. The book is really a culmination of, as you and I chat, and as the book is published, about 22 years of my life. I started when I was 15 years old and started using what's called the Freedom of Information Act and started hammering the government for answers. I started with UFOs, branched off into pretty much any government secret you could never imagine. But UFOs was the number one. And the book is really a culmination of that 22-year journey because it really

wasn't like over and done within six months. Some of these documents took literally years and years to get. other documents that I write about have been around in the UFO community for quite some time. I don't claim to have found everything. But what I did was, and what I did with the book, is try to bring all of those pieces of the puzzle together and ultimately tell not only my journey to get them, because I'm not trying to make it about me, but my whole point with that intent is to show people that this is the most easily provable cover-up that exists in my opinion. There is more evidence to the cover-up that exists,

not only in documentation form, but also the tactics that the government and the military really kind of launched my way to stop me from getting these documents. In some cases, blatant cover-up attempts of making documents just disappear, literally, just disappear. And so what I tried to do is bring all of those pieces of the puzzle,

together and ultimately make the case that you can try to explain away the UFO phenomena and the plural use of that is intended. Explain that away with all of these explanations. But towards the end of the book, I start tackling those explanations. And when you look at the government documents and you truly digest it with common sense and logic, all of a sudden none of those explanations make sense. You start leaning towards the fact that this is a more advanced civilization. probably not from here. And that's really the only one that actually makes sense. Now, of course,

can you prove that? Well, of course not. Because if you could, we'd have a totally different planet we'd be on. But I would, I would be very safe to say that the evidence there is so overwhelming to support that notion that you really, I think you're in denial if you don't, if you don't think that that's a possibility. I won't say this is going to make you a believer, because if any, any author says that, then turn around and don't, you know, don't read the, yeah, kind of run away because nobody's got that proof, at least not yet. But what I tried to do was bring verifiable evidence to make that notion a reality, at least the idea of it, a reality.

Absolutely. And, you know, what you do best is getting these documents. And even in the first chapter, you cover everyone's favorite, unsolvable case. That is Roswell. I recently had my brush with that. I still have no more answers than I did coming home and leaving. But can you tell us a little about when you first received documents on Roswell and what you found? Yeah, I think that anybody who approaches the topic, even those that don't, you walk up to anybody on the street, go to Times Square even, you know, ask them, hey, do you know what Roswell is all about?

They'll say yes. And so it's a very common, very pop culture like reference to the U.S. UFO field. Now, the reason why I brought it up in the book was it's part of what I call the company line. And I keep revisiting that company line in the book throughout because what I define as the company line is the military and the government's explanation for what the UFO phenomena is. And that is the fact that it is not a threat to national security. It is not alien aircraft or spacecraft, I should say. And there's nothing extraterrestrial about. it. So we did our due diligence and that's it. So that company line encompasses an overall

denial that the UFO phenomena is real and that it's there and it's worthy of investigation. But the other part of that company line is denouncing the Roswell incident and saying that it was nothing more than a project mogul balloon. And, you know, they try to explain away the debris as part of that. But in addition, all of those witnesses that have come forward, witnessing alien bodies, and this and that. They specifically address that too. And they try and explain that away. So what I do is I set up that the company line in the beginning of the book that if you listen to the government and you listen to the military, this is what they want you to believe. And Roswell was a natural place to start because the government commonly refers to it and again

really dismisses the entire project. But that's the surface story. Once you dig in, you really that they changed their story on Roswell, not ones, not twice, not three times, but ultimately they've had four versions of the Roswell incident explanation. So what I did was I took the most recent version, which was published in about 1996 with the Roswell report case closed and so on, and took every bullet point that they had to try to explain Roswell and completely destroy it. And the only thing that I use is their own documents and proven history. That's it. I mean, there's no whistleblower testimony. There's no, hey, this guy claimed to be at Roswell Army Airfield. Those stories are great, but I don't use any of that. I just use their own documents and show

why their explanation just can't be true. Does that prove it's alien? No. Does it prove that there's a cover up? Absolutely. So from 1947 to here we are in 2019, if we cannot explain with the government's explanation of what really happened in Roswell, then how are we supposed to believe that they have all the answers on UFOs? That part doesn't make sense to me. But that's what they want you to believe with the company line. So that's what I did in chapter one is just say, hey, look, this is what they want you to believe, and this is why it's bunk, because it just can't historically be accurate. My most fun point to finish the thought is their addressing of the alien bodies. The explanation for the witnesses that do come forward with the bodies, they say that they were crash test

dummies that were pushed out of Air Force aircraft testing, parachutes, and so on. And yet the problem was the very first crash test dummy was not invented until 1949, not even by the military's Alderson Research Labs. That was the earliest crash test dummy that is known and documented as existing. Roswell happened in 47. They also tried to explain the bodies in the hospital because obviously you don't take dummies to a hospital. So they said, well, those witnesses, they're seeing injured aircraft pilots.

A couple were injured, a couple were killed through two separate incidents. The problem with that where those two incidents were nine and 12 years after Roswell happened. Wow. That's a big gap. Yeah. So either Roswell, there's cover up. Or we've now discovered time traveling crash test dummies and time traveling injured or, God forbid, killed pilots that can travel back in time. That's how silly this becomes when you look below that surface story.

So on the surface, again, looks great, sounds great, and a lot of people might even believe it. But all you got to do is look at actual evidence and it tells a different story. So at the age of 15, 16, 17, as I was really kind of digging deep into this and looking for these answers and so on, I realized that that was not only true with Roswell, but pretty much anything else that I looked into. And that was the surface story was one thing, but evidence proved something else entirely. And, you know, that's not any more prevalent than with, you know, what we see on the history channel now, Project Blue Book. But we're going to talk about the real Project Blue Book. This bleeds over into Chapter 3 of your book. So what was the biggest dilemma you sort of came across in terms of Project Blue Book,

publicly what they have said and what the documents actually told you when you started looking into this? Yeah, and that's the other half of the company line. And with Project Blue Book is kind of the culmination of their trifecta of research programs, which involved Project Sign, Project Grudge, and ultimately Blue Book, Blue Book being the one that's more well known. So they investigated well over 12,000 cases from 1947, again collectively between those three projects, from 1947 and 1969. That effort ended at the very end of 1969, very early in 1970. And they, again, will tell you we researched it. only 701 of the cases remained unidentified.

We believe that the only reason they did remain unidentified is lack of facts or lack of appropriate evidence to give a proper identification. So we're not interested in this anymore. And their kind of final action with all of this is they created a fact sheet. And the fact sheet in most cases is a single page, typed page with all of the facts about Project Blue Book, sign and grudge, and the fact that there's absolutely nothing to the UFO phenomena. And that, to me, is kind of the overall synopsis of what the company line is all about.

And again, Surface Story sounds great. Okay, they did their due diligence. But when you start looking at the documents, especially with Project Blue Book, and I'll be honest with you, I believe Project Blue Book to be a little bit dry, but there are quite a few gems hidden within the Project Blue Book files. And I don't know how much you want to get into some of them. But what I will say as an overall note to this is I liken it to the scientific pursuit for the cure for cancer, right?

And the reason why I do that is when you do a scientific approach on something that you know is probably there but you're not sure yet because you haven't been able to prove it yet, you start testing your theories. You start testing. you start investigating, you start researching, you can do 12,000 plus tests on trying to find the cure for cancer. If only a select few show promise, if only 701 show promise, if only 200 show promise, if only 200 show probably 10, doesn't matter. Do you just give up and go, well, it was only a couple of couple, it was only a couple hundred? it. No, because scientifically, the moment you see evidence that you can get to the end of the tunnel,

that there is light there, that you can maybe make that discovery, you don't give up. The UFO phenomena research was supposed to be scientific by the United States military. In my opinion, it doesn't matter if it was 701, 101, or quite possibly even one. As long as you show promise that you cannot explain everything, scientifically, You can't just or shouldn't just give up. And that's what Project Blue Book did. And that leads to a theory that, you know, I'm not trying to take credit for this. There's a lot of people that hold this.

That, you know, Blue Book was not a scientific inquiry. It was not an investigation. But rather, it was an explanation. It was an effort to calm the nerves of the United States public to tell them, hey, look, you don't care about this topic. We can explain everything. there's no national security risk. So go away and stop asking questions.

Because keep in mind, in the beginning days of sign and grudge and even well into Blue Book up until about 1966, the Freedom of Information Act did not exist. So the public's right to access information was not there. And that's an important fact that many people don't remember when they're looking at government documents from the 50s, let's say, or the early 1960s. the people that wrote them never thought that the general public might ever see them. And I think that that's very important for understanding the approach that they can blatantly mislead the public with a explanation campaign like Project Blue Book was.

And so, again, back to your question and kind of how I explored Blue Book in my particular book was going in and exploring some of those cases and exploring the overall scope of what Blue Book was supposed to be, and then showing probably why it wasn't that. And that the answer was not that UFOs were solvable. In fact, the intelligence community, the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, you name the acronym. They all had documents that stretched far beyond the end. of the quote unquote investigation. And I think it's because they knew that there was no answer given. They were taking those threats very seriously. The UFO cases very seriously. The incursions on base,

very seriously. So my whole scope of 22 years of research, once I started kind of putting those pieces together about the company line, was to always go back to the company line as a reference point and continue to disprove it time and time again. Because for me, that shows the ludicrous nature of this cover-up and the lengths that they will go to to make sure that you and I don't know about it. And Blue Book, I think the intent was to make us go away, that here in 2019, somewhere in the skies podcast would not exist, that the Black Vault would not be around,

because nobody cares about UFOs, you know, that nobody cares because they're all explainable On the contrary, though, I think the general public wants more answers because we don't have them yet. Yeah, yeah, I think they only fuel the fire in terms of that. That's right. Well, John, you mentioned incursions on military bases, and that was a big part of Chapter 8 of your book where you covered UFOs in the military. And you cite the Rundlesham Forest incident. You know, many of our listeners may know a little about it.

But what other examples did you find in the documentation, you know, that this was going on? that not only were UFOs being seen by civilians, but like this was happening on a regular basis to our own military. Yeah. So what I did obviously, like you pointed out, Rendlesham is a big one we know of. But part of that, I don't want to beat a dead horse,

but part of that company line is the national security aspect to this. And they seemingly punched that quite a bit. And the national security aspect to this, to me, the evidence is so damning and overwhelming. it's hard for me to believe that they would even say this. But they claim that whatever this phenomena is, whatever UFOs are, it does not pose a threat to national security. So what I did was I just dug into the archive and looked for all of the military base incursions,

especially those with nuclear weapons and some really powerful weaponry, where UFOs were seemingly able to fly in and out whenever and wherever they wanted. inside loring Air Force Base, inside Wirtsmouth Air Force Base, where they store these incredibly powerful weapons and these incredibly sensitive areas, these UFOs are just flying in like, it ain't no thing, and then flying right back out, doing whatever they want, and they've never been able to catch them. They've never been able to identify them.

It wasn't Farmer Bob and his crop duster who veered off course because he was drinking too much. It literally were intelligently controlled craft doing maneuvers that the United States military on a sensitive installation could not ever identify. And that's just not one or two cases. And I've always wanted to stress that. There are multiple incursions, and I line them up in chapter eight and surrounding chapters. Of these cases where UFOs are seen in and around these military bases and they just can't identify them,

that's something that's big. And to me, by definition, that is a threat to national security. If it comes down that it's the Canadian military and, you know, they're able to like come in and snoop around. Cool, but we should investigate it and know that, right? I mean, as mundane as the explanation may be, we need to figure it out. And the government has been so adamant about saying we are not interested in this, that we don't care about it. To me, that's part of the alarming part of the story. Now, obviously, you know, in the last week or so, the military seemingly is starting to address this issue.

And quite possibly the Navy is generating guidelines. And I'm guessing you and I'll get into that later. But so there may be a shift. And I hope there is a shift. But for decades and decades after Project Blue Book, the government and military has been very adamant about saying, hey, we don't care. And yet on the contrary, you look at the government documents and you go, no, actually, they did care. and they couldn't do anything about it. And so the existence of those cases and the existence of those documents really puts the

nail in the coffin about a cover up on this very topic. The staggering amount of documents you found in terms of that when put together is it's hard to read, man, because it's like, are you kidding me? Like, how dumb can they think we are that this is opposing some sort of threat? I mean, it continued into Chapter 9, 2 of your book where you covered one of my favorite. topics within uphology, and that is the connection between UFO sightings in nuclear bases. And you were able to find so many of these that it absolutely terrified me. So which one of those really stood out for you most, John? Well, yeah, there are an overwhelming amount of incursion. Some are more

well known than others. The one that stood out to me, which was very telling, was when I did a FOIA request to the NRC or the nuclear regulatory commission. And they kind of oversee our nuclear installations. Now, what is the draw to some of these military bases? Is it the nuclear weapons there? Is it nuclear material at all? So I thought a couple years back, you know, I'd never hit the NRC with a FOIA request and why not do it? And sure enough, the NRC came back with UFO records. But one stood out and it was a security officer. officer at what was called a Cooper nuclear station. It wasn't a, uh, uh, a military base per se with, with nuclear weapons, but rather a place with nuclear material. And so I know this is

veering a little bit off of your topic, but again, it reinforces this overall scope that whatever UFOs are, they're seemingly attracted to either nuclear weapons or nuclear installations. And so this base security guard had seen a UFO in the nutshell version is, he's watching this UFO, he goes in, he tries to get his fellow security officers to come out and take a look. By the time that they came out and took a look, the UFO was gone. And so they literally laughed at him. And the report goes into detail about how the guy was laughed at and then they all didn't believe him.

They thought he was crazy. They went back inside and that was it. Now, fast forward to the next day, the next night, the UFOs came back. There were more than one. And so this time, the guy goes in, he's not going to get. laughed at. He says, come out now, the UFOs are back. And sure enough, that one witness now turned

into about a dozen. So they were watching these UFOs and Cooper Nuclear Station is in Nebraska, or Brownville, to be exact. And so they're watching this thing and, you know,

they can never really ultimately explain it. The objects are not supposed to be there. And that was kind of the end of the event. We don't really know what happened after that. Now, the documents were the fact that security guard never, or the security guards, all of them, never made a report. They never told their superiors, hey, while on duty, we saw these UFOs. They came in. They're in places you're not supposed to be in this nuclear station. So we got to do something about it. On the contrary, it's like that the guy that got laughed at it at first, and then everyone saw it. And they're like, uh, we can't

say anything. So let's just keep it to ourselves. And they did. And they never, they never file a report. Years later, that one initial security guard, it apparently was bugging him. And he made a report to the NRC about his experience and went into detail about what he saw and what he experienced over the two nights. And contrary to what you might think that they wouldn't care, the NRC took the report, made it official, sent it over to present-day Cooper Nuclear Station, gave them a need-to-know basis, meaning that they didn't ultimately classify it, but they kept it in secret. They said, only tell people that have a need to know about these security concerns, meaning, you know, be on the lookout for UFOs. Now, that's one that sticks out to me that, again, kind of proves that

there is something, there's something to nuclear facilities, nuclear weapons. What it is, I don't know. I struggle with it, but that is the reality of kind of what happened. And so that was one document that came out. That encounter had never been documented before. That was a brand new case, a brand new UFO case that had never been out before. So I know I veered a little bit away from the military itself. But it shows that whatever, again, this phenomenon is, there is an attraction that goes throughout the decades to military facilities or those military bases that store nuclear weapons.

And I think that it's something that we need to look at. What that means, I'm not sure. But it's definitely something that we would need to look at. The last thing I will say about that report is that it actually came years after. the government said that they were interested in UFOs. And then these came out in about 2010. That they took the guy's report seriously in 2010. So my point with that is that this is recent,

that people are coming out with stories that they have experienced in their past and the government is taking it seriously. The security guard, he didn't remember exactly the year, but he reported it to the NRC in 2010. And he didn't make any, you know, wild outlandish claims. I mean, there's really kind of no indication that there was any fabrication or anything like that with the story. It just had bugged him for that many years. And he says, I got to do something about this.

And that's what he did. He put in the report and they all made it official. Hey, man. The more people that come forward and do that, the more, you know, I'm willing to believe that there is. something to it. And we could hypothesize why there's all these connections to the nuclear bases. But at the end of the day, the amount of reports

is enough to be like something's going on. So, um, you did mention John's secrecy, which is another big part later in the book that I definitely wanted to touch on. There's many reasons why the government would handle UFO reports with some level of secrecy.

And I get that. I totally understand that. And you give your thoughts on this too in the book. So could you maybe run us through some of these reasons why you think there has to be secrecy when it comes to this in the government. Yeah, I think when it comes down to it, there's multiple level. That's why I use the plural version of phenomenon, where I believe there's multiple facets to the UFO phenomena. I believe that you can tackle the explanations behind secrecy in a couple different ways. I do believe that there are a high percentage of people that everyday people that are

walking around the streets or hanging out in their backyard or whatever they're doing that are seeing things that potentially are UFOs to them, but are testing of either top secret technology or, you know, something in development that we don't know about yet. So there has to be a level of secrecy and kind of an aura of a cover-up anyway, naturally, because of stuff like that. We know that. before the B-2 stilt bomber was announced, you know that that thing was probably the cause of a couple of the UFO sightings around the time frame when they were flying it. I mean,

you can't always keep these types of aircraft that are traveling at high speeds confined to Area 51. Granted, it's a big area, but when you're going away from the B-2 with this comment, but when you're going incredibly fast and you're testing that technology, I mean, you can't just fly around in a circle in your backyard. You know, you got to open it up a little bit, and you got to start traversing the United States. And as a result, people are going to see things.

But then all of a sudden, the government has the greatest tool that they can use, and that is the general public's fascination with UFOs. Because all of a sudden, a testing of a top secret aircraft, somebody thinks it's alien, and the story is just kind of mostly disregarded anyway. So not to be a pessimist about that, but I mean, that is a tool. We have to consider that. So there is a level of secrecy that I feel is warranted and it needs to be maintained. The other part of it, too, is when you talk about the military pilots themselves, the military bases that are experiencing these encounters, some of which we talked about, but they can't explain them.

Now you have a whole different facet on why you need that secrecy. And although this isn't popular with some circles, we have to consider. that the United States government and the military is not in collusion with aliens and they know all about this and they're all knowing. The general public who believes that have a very, in my opinion, inflated idea of the government intelligence that's really there, not to put them down. But what I mean by that is there is a huge possibility that they don't know what the heck this is. There is no communication. And that in itself is the threat to national security. Not necessarily that aliens are out there. There's this phenomenon that they cannot explain. The men and women that are flying the most powerful weapons in the most advanced technology around the globe, they are seeing things that they cannot identify. They report it and the upper echelon can't identify it. That in itself is a huge threat to national security.

Because jump ahead to a hypothetical. If they came out and they said, okay, look, UFOs are real, our military pilots are seeing them, and we've investigated them for decades, and we cannot determine what they are. Some we can figure out, but a lot of them we cannot. If you have the most powerful nation in the world telling their people, we have something above our heads that we cannot combat, we cannot communicate with, and we can't. do not understand that in itself is a threat to national security. I'm not saying that's exactly how it is. I'm saying that to me is probably the biggest possibility here. So you can approach the secrecy thing a few different ways. So now it's not the government is maliciously keeping a secret from you. They know everything. They have all the answers. It's quite possibly they have no

answers to give you. And the fact that they have no answers to give you is the threat to national security and that's what they have to avoid. So I wrestle with it. I struggle with it, but there's a few possibilities. That's just to kind of name a few for you. Absolutely. And I struggle with that too every day. One day I'm saying, government doesn't know shit. The next day I'm saying, oh, wait, but there's this one case where they, you know, they admitted this, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, it's so, you know, such a toxic relationship, as it were in terms of the secrecy and the threat that it could be. We are our greatest enemy possibly when it comes to how naive we are of what these things might be or represent. So it's terrifying both ways

you look at it in my opinion. No, it absolutely is terrifying. Yeah. So I'm, chapters 13 and 14, John, you really shed some light on the lengths in which the government sometimes will go when it comes to the secrecy in pertaining to releasing these documents. So could you tell us a little bit about service and what this entailed? This is one of the best stories that I've come across that you've told out there. So yeah, do you mind sharing that with our audience? Of course. Yeah. So throughout the years, there have been reporting procedures for UFOs through Project Blue Book. They have various Air Force manuals. Even after Blue Book closed, Janep 146, or a Joint Army Navy Air Force publication, was one that outlined how to report UFOs.

Now, I was always intrigued by this. It was rescinded and off the books, but remained for quite a long time after Project Blue Book closed. But the type of reports within Janup 146, so if you were a Navy pilot or an Air Force pilot or a Canadian pilot, because this actually applied to the Canadian forces as well, if you saw a UFO, they were called Service Reports, C-I-R-V-I-S. And that acronym stands for communication instructions. for reporting vital intelligence sightings. Yes, it gets very confusing with acronyms. So if anybody is scratching their heads, don't worry. I do this all the time and I scratch my head every day.

So it's very tough to sometimes read some of these documents that have 800 acronyms on it. But that being said, service reports I knew were the key to this. But Janop 146, I believe it was off the books at the time. When I started tackling this, this was probably in the late 90s. And I just wanted to kind of give some groundwork for a discovery that came late. later on, but that's what service was all about, and I started kind of sifting through trying to find where these documents were. The thing that always bothered me about this, even though it was interesting, was that

it applied to Canadian troops as well, as I already mentioned. So I was looking for the U.S. cover up, nothing against my friends in the North, but it was something that I wanted to focus in. It was an ability for the military to say, well, yeah, Janup 146 was around, but it was mostly for the Canadian guys. we didn't care and, you know, we didn't report anything and this and that. I'm always looking for ways to circumvent comments like that or reactions or explanations like that either by the military or the skeptics who love to attack people like me that come out with

actual evidence. And so they short circuit and they go, well, let's just make something up and try and make John look bad. So what I try and do is think ahead and look at every possible scenario. So that was what bothered me about Janet 146. So it was purely by accident that I couldn't believe it was this long ago, but in the year 2000, Google really wasn't a thing yet. It was Alta Vista was not to age myself, but the Alta Vista was the search engine of the day. And even then, you search UFOs and, you know, you come up with hundreds of thousands. Now it's like eight or ten million, if not more.

I forget what the exact number is now. But anyway, I was searching for surveys thinking, well, maybe someone's written something about it. And there was a couple references to Janep 146, nothing of relevance or nothing new, I should say. I mean, it was all just Janep 146 references, which I'd already kind of sifted through. And the last link, I still have the printout of it. I don't know why I printed it out on my, I think it was a bubble jet printer way back in the day. but I still have it. And the last result was a reference to an AF.m.l address, which is an Air Force server, referencing an Air Force instruction 10-206.

And I thought, what the heck is that? That's not an old Air Force. Why is it coming up with surveys? I clicked on the link. It was broken. So it didn't work. So I had to go through the FOIA to get it. After a couple months, I got it and realized that Chapter 5 of this Air Force manual,

was all about UFOs. And it was all about reporting these unidentified flying objects. Do you enjoy true stories of the supernatural from the people who experienced it? Well, then you might like my show, Jim Harold's Campfire. Hi, I'm Jim, and we've been doing the show since 2009. And we talk about ghosts, cryptic creatures, UFOs, head scratchers, you name it. And you tune in and you might hear a story like this one. And as he was driving home, he encountered a shadow person who seemed to be dressed like a monk.

I know that sounds very strange. But it was a solid black form. And it was wearing a hooded cloak tied at the waist with the cloak up. And it had glowing red eyes. He sees this thing coming out of a really teeny abandoned cemetery. If you haven't tuned in, I have. I hope you'll check us out. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are heard, it's Jim Herald's Campfire.

And you can find it at Jim Herald.com. Thanks so much. And stay spooky. Now, what's important about this? Well, it's the year 2000 when I first figured this out. Remember, that same agency, the United States Air Force, said in 1969, we just don't care anymore. They closed their investigation in January of 70. So from 1970 to 2000, they've never had an interest.

Yet here's a manual that outlines exactly how to report them. And I watched the progression of it. I've written about it and lectured about it. I had produced a couple of History Channel shows at this time. It was in two shows that I recall. But nothing really a major spotlight. I felt it was newsworthy, but it's not a breaking news type story. So it's not like it ended up on CNN.

and fast forward to about, I believe, 2008 or so. And Lee Spiegel from the Huffington Post had contacted me. I've been friends with Lee for many, many years. I have a lot of respect for him. He does his homework. And he says, hey, John, I want to do a story on the Black Vault. A very common question that's asked to me, and which is one he asked, was, you know, give me the five top documents that you would point out. So I gave him a couple, 10-206 was one of them.

What was interesting at this point was that 10-206 had been updated many times from 2000 to about 2008 or so when I was talking to Lee about doing the story. And the reason why I bring that up is it shows that it's an active publication because sometimes with the military, I know this comes as a shock, but sometimes they're just not thorough and they'll leave things on the books that aren't relevant and they don't officially rescind them or cancel them or take them off the book. until they, you know, it's brought to their attention or they remember or whatever. And with 10-206, it was updated quite a few times. So that showed that it was active in Chapter 5 with surveys and UFOs. And it specifically said UFOs. You know, there was no change of the acronym. No UAPs, no nothing.

It was unidentified flying objects, black and white. That always remained. So also by this time, I showed. that they could, that he could download it, anybody could download it from the Air Force's website, which is what I had him do. And he downloads it. And even though it's not like he doubted me, but when you download it from the military directly, it gives it a whole new aura of legitimacy.

Again, even though there were no doubts, it's like the military just put this on their server and sent it to my computer. That's, you know, fairly interesting. So a couple days later, he did what any. good investigative journalist would do. And I point this out every time I tell the story, even though we were friends and even though, you know, he had had my side and I wasn't lying, he turned around and called the Pentagon. And that's what I'm glad because they should respond to this. So he had to leave a message, but he was looking for a response to 10-206

and, you know, wanted to see what their reaction was. And days go by and a couple days go by and nothing. So it was late on a Friday night. I remember this because I was visiting my sister here in Southern California. She lives about two hours away from me. And I was driving back that night, which is why I kind of vividly remember the story. And he calls me and I'm out there not in front of a computer. He says, John, you're not going to believe this. Now it's late for me on the West Coast. And he's on the East Coast. I mean, it's really late for him. So this must be important. And he says, John, you're not going to believe this. You know, Air Force Manual 10-200, which at this point, I know this is confusing, because I said Air Force instruction earlier,

the instruction turned into a manual as the years went on. It's the same thing. I know it's strange with verbiage, but in the interest of accuracy, that's why I'm using a different term now. So he says, Air Force Manual 10-206. I said, yeah. He says, it's gone. I said, what are you talking about? And he says, well, chapter five, it's gone.

It's missing. He says, it's rewritten. And now it has something to do with hurricanes. I'm saying, okay, well, I just thought to my, you know, with no offense to Lee, that he clicked on the wrong link. He went and, and again, that's kind of why I brought up the manual versus instruction and the change. It is really confusing. So I thought, well, maybe you just stumbled on the wrong number or the wrong instruction or, you know, whatever. So I said, Lee, I'll be home in a couple hours. I said, let me get to a

computer and I'll, you know, we'll, we'll sort this out. I didn't really think much of it. I got home and sure enough, they rewrote the entire manual. Chapter 5 was omitted, completely gone, rewritten to something to do with hurricanes. It was Air Force Manual 10-206, and the publication date for this version was approximately 48 hours after Lee Spiegel's phone call. Oh, come on. So what are the odds?

Yeah, about 48 hours. What are the odds that they would, you know, just by coincidence, change it? Well, that's their explanation. They called Lee back the next week, apparently said, oh, yeah, that was just an old manual. We went ahead and changed it. And so what I did was I file, I'll make it quick to finish the story, but I filed a FOIA request for all documents relating to the change.

Because, again, I mean, you can learn some really cool tricks using the FOIA. So what I went after, what are called change log, so anytime a manual or guideline or instruction or whatever is changed, changed, those changes are documented in a change log. So I went after the change log, but also any notes pertaining to it. I got them back, and it was like riddled with, you know, spelling and grammatical errors. Now, I am not a grammar Nazi, but the reason why I point those things out is the speed and the hastiness of making that change. I think what happened was as they went, uh-oh, you know, Huffington Post is going to profile this. what? Let's cover it up, you know? And so they did. And hastily, they went in and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, now, now, what I tried to do is, is, is, is, is, is, I'm not a

blatant attempt at a cover-up, I'm not really sure what it is. And the reason why I've punched the multiple times of changes is that would be there out. If they had never touched that document from 2000 to 2008 when they changed it, I would say, you know what? Maybe it was just a forgotten publication. Who knows when it really started and UFOs just kind of remained, but they didn't care. No, it remained updated and frequently changed up until.

UFOs were going to be profiled and then poof, it's gone. So to me, that was an amazing, not to be long-winded, so sorry about that. But it was just a very cool, it was just a very cool story to kind of show the lengths that they will go to. And to me, that that's beyond blatant. I mean, you can't get any more cut and dry than that. No, no, it speaks volumes with what, you know, their actions spoke volumes when it comes to this. You know, they thought they were being sneaky and no one would ever notice, but there's not people like, they don't think there's people out there like you or even Lee Spiegel looking into this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's so glaring. It's almost ridiculous, but I love that story. I had to have you tell it. No problem. I remember hearing it one night.

I was walking home from work and I circled my block like 10 times just because I was like so, like, oh my God, wait, what? What? So thank you. Thank you for sure. No, that's no problem. Are you trying to say I'm long winded, though, that you can circle the block 10 times. Not, dude. I know I'm long-winded. No, no, I love it. I love hearing about this stuff because, you know, documents can be so dry and in statistics

and all this stuff, but no, you do a good job of making it very accessible to us because it goes over a lot of people's heads and that's what they want. They want you to get so entrenched in, you know, a 500-page report. Who's going to take the time to go through something like that? You look at that last Roswell one. It's like 400 pages long. No one's going to like go through that entire thing and be like, are you got to be kidding me. But they do it on purpose.

Yeah. I think that there's something. It's a great point. I think there's something to be said that part of the cover up, and we see this with the JFK assassination documents and quite a few other things as well, drown the public in information. So instead of keeping it from them, just drown them in it. and with the JFK assassination documents as a prime example, hundreds of thousands of documents were dumped from the National Archives. And it's like, you're right, who will go through it?

Now, as the years go on, of course, we'll all be going through it because we're interested in it. But there is something to be said that when you dump 100, 200,000, 300,000 documents onto the public, the Washington Post is not going to do an in-depth expose on those documents in a day. You know, and I think that that's part of, like, really think to the big picture that they can't do it that quick. So if they do it at all, it's, you know, a month or two later, to do it right anyway, a month or two later to sift through all that and write a cohesive article, at that point, the news cycle on that particular topic is done. Now, will you and I read an article like that?

Yeah, we'll eat it all up. But sadly, with the general public, they're very focused on what is happening today. Not necessarily what happened yesterday. So when you're past that news cycle, you have a fraction of a fraction of those still interested. And we see it with, I mean, again, I'm going off on a tangent here, but we see it throughout. And that's why, for those who may not have ever noticed, that's why you see document dumps on a Friday night or a holiday weekend. When did the Mueller report come out? on a holiday weekend.

So you look at the strategy behind that. It came out, I believe it was what, Thursday, but Friday was a holiday with Good Friday or holiday for most places anyway. And so when they dumped those things on an evening, on a Friday evening or on a holiday weekend, as silly as it sounds, because you and I would probably still be interested on that Monday. The majority of the general public would not be.

The news cycle is over. There's a whole new world, you know, for the newsmen and the newswomen on that Monday. And so all of a sudden it's not quite as newsworthy. So all of those, you know, all of those tactics definitely play a role in coverups. And for me, it's just a fascinating psychology behind it all. Sort of wrapping up with the book, John. What's kind of the biggest thing you learned by putting the book together? And what do you hope people will walk away with after reading it?

The biggest, biggest thing I learned, I have more stuff than I thought. Joking aside, putting the book together made me really dig back into documents that although I had them online and they've been online for 20 years, I haven't seen them in 20 years. You know, a lot of times I forget what I have. So for me, the biggest takeaway was not only that, but the amount of evidence to prove a cover up and constern. And again, using those pieces of the puzzle and putting them all together in book form, for me, was a heck of a lot different than running an archive. You know, I mean, I don't, I don't just take a 100-page document and then publish it online as a two-page, you know, editorial. My job, I feel is different. I don't claim to be a journalist I never have.

What I do is I take that raw information and put it online for the journalists. I feel like more of an archivist role and a researcher role making those tools available. So to be able to take all of those, you know, collectively tens of thousands of pages from all the various agencies and on UFOs, that is, and look at the most important pieces and then tell a cohesive story, it was a challenge. But it was something that showed me there is more evidence than even I thought. And I've been preaching about this for a long time. But there is more evidence than I thought.

And so that's what I personally took away from the book. In regards to, well, I don't know. Did you ask me, sorry, if I'm making stuff up here, do you ask what I want the general public to take away? Yeah, yeah. I did. You're not imagine. Sorry.

I don't know if I dreamt that or. It's early over there. I get up, I mean. Wow, I need more coffee. So that's, you know, the personal note. For me, when it comes to people reading this, I want people to challenge their beliefs. And I don't necessarily put in my book like, you're supposed to believe this is aliens. No, I do put forth that that sounds like the most plausible explanation and why many of the other explanations don't make sense.

But it's not me, it's not for me to tell you how to think. And so that's why, for fun, and it's more of a token, but I had minted a challenge coin for the release of this book. I only made 500 of them. And it's a token for people to challenge themselves. If you're a firm believer in UFOs, there's still a lot in this book that you'll get out of. If you're a skeptic about UFOs and you don't believe it at all, I believe you'll truly get a lot out of this book. If you're on the fence, I believe that you'll get a lot out of it. The reason why I say that is in each level, no matter what level you feel you fit into, that we have to challenge ourselves.

Should I be such a believer? Should I be such a skeptic? Or should I be in the middle? There's enough evidence here to throw me one way or the other. And that's what I mean by challenging our beliefs. And so that's what I want people to kind of take away from the book is that the tagline that ended up on Amazon, which I actually wasn't, I wrote it. But then I thought, oh, God, is this bad? Like, does this mean no one will buy the book?

And the tagline says the evidence in this book may not ultimately give you the smoking gun you are looking for on your journey. But I guarantee you it will give you a box of bullets when you find it. And I kind of cringed when I read my own writing that ended up on the top of Amazon and a couple other advertisements and stuff. Like, does that convey that the book is bad? I don't know. But where I write that and how I would address this. to again how people, how I intended people to walk away after reading the book is that each and every one of us, you, me, your listeners, people that are listening to you for the first time,

the smoking gun for them, for all of us is different. So you have a different smoking gun than I do. I have a different smoking gun than she does and so on and so forth. And so that's why I wrote that and said, look, the smoking gun is different for all of us, but these are the pieces of the puzzle. These are the bullets for the gun. So when you are convinced, this is the evidence that you need to really drive at home. And that's, that was my full intent is for people to walk away saying, hey, that evidence really is there. Anybody can get this information. There is nothing in the book that no one cannot get under the Freedom of Information Act that you can go after.

these records, you can see it on an official level that the military and the government is lying. I mean, there's no way around it. So now we have to figure out why. And then, and that's the intent with the book. The other part I had a lot of fun with that I hope people walk away with is what I did was I juxtaposed science and proven history versus what the documents were saying UFOs were capable of.

So what I did was I was researching air speeds of world records. and what the various X-planes were doing, these UFOs on more than one occasion, quite a few actually, were exhibiting technology that was 10, 15, 20-plus years ahead of where humans were. And so when you look at that, and again, this isn't some guy saying, I think it was going about 10,000 miles an hour. That's nothing to do with that.

What I relied on was proven documentation on radar data and stuff that was easily provable, not someone's opinion. And that's what I used to then juxtapose with science. And then you start really telling an amazing story. And you go, wow, that was 20 years more advanced than the U.S. military document in the 1950s. How is that even possible? And yet the United States military has that in their files. And so using all of those logical points on how to look at this,

You can't help but think, hey, this is a much more heavily advanced civilization than our own. Right. Right. And I mean, too, what you always say, too, is the documents don't lie. What's in the documents might not exactly be truthful, but the documents themselves don't lie. And I've always tried to keep that in mind when I'm going through this stuff. But moving away from the book a little bit, John, your recent findings went to the Stars Academy. You put together. the most extensive timeline of events with Luis Elizondo, the A-Tip program, and some issues that have arisen. So could you maybe run us through your concerns? Where you stand today on this entire affair? I know this is a very controversial thing right now in the UFO community, at least. Yeah. No, and it absolutely is. It's not popular to go against the company line. I'll be the first to admit. And, you know, I was, I said this the other day, and I'll say it again. I try. truly believe this, I am not in this field to be popular. I'm in this field to be accurate. And I think

that some people, they don't quite understand that and the fact that I'm going against the going story of ATIP, which comes through to the Stars Academy. The fact that I just don't buy it, hookline, and sinker, I think bothers a few people. But in the same respect, we have to ask very important questions. Now, I separate my thoughts on to the Stars Academy versus those thoughts on ATIP, or the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which in layman's terms is the quote-unquote secret Pentagon UFO study that broke in December of 2017. And so I kind of separate those answers. What I focused on in the timeline was using everything that Mr. Luis Elizondo had said publicly on various lecture circuits now that he's done a couple lectures.

I dug up, you know, those statements and news articles and so on. And tried to put it all on a timeline. But what I also put on the timeline, and again, just for research purposes to try and make sense, but what I also put on the timeline, because I believe that we have to look at this, are the other figures that are directly tied to the ATIP program, primarily Dr. Hal Putoff, who has also lectured. And then I also put on the timeline the media journalists that worked directly with Mr. Elizondo, Dr. Hal Putoff, and to the Stars Academy as a whole.

I did not include anybody or anything that did not have a direct connection to ATIP or a direct connection to the people of ATIP. So again, I used those big mainstream. media outlets and the key figures. I put it all on a timeline and it is a mess. So a lot of the heat that was thrown my way from, and it's a handful of people, but it's a very loud handful, the heat primarily comes with, well, Greenwald wants to believe that the government and the FOIA will give him all the answers.

So he's doubting to the stars and ATIP because the government said it's not true. So what I did on the timeline was actually really not use the government. at all. Like I only used the key players of ATIP. There are a select few exceptions. I mean, of course, the government plays a role in the story. So I do have the provable government documents on the timeline, and that connects back to the original posting, what's called a bid solicitation for ASAP, which another acronym, advanced aerospace weapons system applications program. That's a mouthful. but when they officially asked for bids. And again, put that on the timeline because that is apparently the going story is the precursor name of what ultimately became A-Tip.

And so when you look at it all on a timeline, I laugh because it is laughable that there are multiple start dates for when A-Tip came around. going to the original New York Times story, and this is meant to be no offense to Ralph Blumenthal, Helene Cooper, or Leslie Kane, they said ATIP started in 2007. Well, that contradicts what Mr. Elizondo has gone on the record saying. So the really weird thing is that the media, namely the New York Times, said that they saw ATIP contracts to prove what they were reporting, but they never showed them. The problem is there were no A-TIP contracts ever. It was an A-SAP contract.

They never actually mentioned that program names, not classified. So if they did see contracts, it would have a different name. Now, why is this important? Because it sounds like, oh, it's semantics. Who cares? In the interest of accuracy, we have to care. We have to care when the actual date was, 2007 or 2008 or 2009, depends on who you want to believe. what happened with this timeline and how did it go so awry?

So I put it together and of course, you know, controversy surrounds it, but it is 100% sourced, top to bottom. There's nothing in there that I made up or fabricated or can be refuted. It is all the words of, again, the players that I've named. So when you look at it in that form and you see those discrepancies, it's problematic. To some, it may be really tedious. To some, it's even boring. And I agree with you on all fronts. But sadly, in the interest of accuracy, in my opinion, this topic is just too important to blindly believe somebody who's giving out false information.

You can't have it both ways. Dr. Putoff directly contradicts Mr. Luis Elizondo. And they work together. They work together. Yeah. Yeah, you know, that's a huge issue. And again, and it's not like somebody misspeaking or something like that. When you look at how they could, because I left all that out, I tried to be incredibly

fair that if it seemed like maybe, because I do it too. I probably did it in this program. The human brain is not capable of being perfect. I don't claim to be. You don't claim to be. I don't think anybody should. So I left out what I felt were, you know, explainable, maybe a hiccup, maybe a, you know, just a brain spasm, who knows.

But I left those out. What I did were the hardcore facts that were being conveyed to the general public, which includes you and me, and giving quote unquote answers and behind the scenes look, and yet nothing coincides. So for me, that we have to look at it. Could there be easy explanations for all of it? I've always been open to that. I've never said otherwise.

And the attackers love to just say that I'm set and stuff. own here. No. And in fact, I made an open letter to the Stars Academy about a year ago. I forget the exact date. But inviting them. It was after I kind of had some of these red flags and was speaking publicly. And I'll say now what I told them in an open letter, which I published online. It's not fair for me to quote unquote trash them, which I don't feel I'm doing. But it's no fair for me to say all this without their side of the story. And they refused to talk to me. More than four months I was kind of given the runaround by their PR agent. No complaints seemed very, very sweet through email.

But that was it. After four months, they're like, no, no, we can't do, he's not doing, Mr. Luis Alizando is not doing any more interviews. We cannot secure an interview. And I respected that because I thought, well, maybe he just ran its course. You know, he doesn't want to do anymore. I respect that. And like the next week, he was on some podcast.

Yeah. And it's like, wait a minute. I thought you said he's not doing anything. I see. You just don't want to address these points. And nothing on the timeline would I would consider classified either. So he loves to hide behind that. And I don't mean that disrespectfully, but he admits it.

He says, I'm under security oaths and this and that. So I can't tell you. And I support that. I have no problem with that. But sadly, I think he's hiding behind that a little too much. I think there's some things that people have asked him that are very important questions that he goes, I can't tell you. Security oaths and all that. I just, I don't, I don't buy it.

And the other person I did put on the timeline, by the way, was Senator Harry Reid. So obviously he was the architect, arguably, with two other senators, both of which have passed away, sadly. So we only have his word to rely on. So I put him on the timeline as well, and that really screws things up. Here, let me say this about Senator Reid with no disrespect intended towards him, but I do find it kind of laughable that, you know, when all of a sudden do politicians start spewing gospel? Like, and some of these naysayers towards me being skeptical about this or asking questions are like the first to just jump ago. Well, well, a senator said it, so it has to be true. Well, no, not really, man.

I mean, if you look at Politifact, I think Reid has a 45% lying rate or something on what they, you know, what they researched. So like why all of a sudden is that our golden boy of honesty? He could be being 100% truthful here. I have no idea. And he is a very interesting role in all of this because it is a former majority leader. And he's talking about that this was a UFO program. The problem is, and I'd love to have somebody ask him this, nobody has. I would if I had the opportunity.

Somebody should ask them, what do you think about the government denying what you're talking about? Right? I mean, because they have. I'm not saying that they're being truthful. They could be lying. We just spent well over an hour

talking about government lies about UFOs. So I'm totally open to their lying, right? And the people that attack me on Twitter and, again, select handful, but noisy enough to be annoying, they never acknowledge the fact that I'm totally open to this being a UFO program. What I want to know is how is Mr. Elizando quote unquote approved to talk about it, which is what he has said, and then all of a sudden

he starts talking about it. They go, no, it's not a UFO program. Okay, well, wait a minute. What happened? I thought you were approved to talk about it. And so there's a lot of unanswered questions there. If they change their mind, we should know about that. But Mr. Elizondo doesn't quite address it. I'd love to see Senator Reid do the same because he's saying unidentified. objects and, you know, stuff like that. So pretty much alluding to this was a quote-unquote UFO research program. So that's great. The next follow-up question is, why is the United States government going 100% against what you say? That's it. It's a simple, straightforward question. There's nothing classified about that. So I hope one day, either I have the opportunity to ask him or somebody,

a journalist or somebody who gets lucky and sees him in a hotel lobby or something says, you know, and be respectful if anybody does come across them. I don't think it should be combative, but that is a very important question. One thing which I don't know if you even want to go down this route, but I inadvertently kind of reinforced the idea that it is quite possible that Bigelow Aerospace and ultimately Bass, which won the contract, may have been kind of chosen before the bid solicitation went up. I'm not making that claim, but Senator Reid has addressed that allegation publicly about it

being what they call a sweetheart deal. That, you know, I have never pushed that line, although as an investigator, I have to look at all angles. And I have put that on where Bigelow was a big donor to Senator Reid. And so, you know, you connect the lines. Reed starts pushing for this program, gets the funding. In the process of making this timeline, I spoke directly with the Defense Intelligence Agency. At this point, this is not refuted by anyone, but they said Bigelow Aerospace was the single sole and only bidder. Not a single

corporation ever tried to get the OSAP contract at all, ever. Now, in today's world, even back in 2008 when it was published, in this cutthroat environment, you would think that there would be a ton of people, some that weren't even qualified, that would try and get a multi-million dollar contract, right? I mean, that's just when you put a job posting, you don't get one reply. People want the job, even people that aren't qualified. So you get inundated by resumes and stuff like that. So it was a huge red flag for me. And the other thing that that has been reported, and this again is not a slide in any journalist out there, but it has been reported that Bass was created specifically for the OSAP slash ATIP contract. That sounds great until I went to the Nevada Secretary of State.

And I found out that Bass was actually registered in January of 2008. Osap was never publicly known until August of 2008. So how could he have, I don't know, the gut feeling to create an LLC eight months or so prior to actually winning the contract that, again, was reported to be created solely for that program? That does not make sense. So is the reporting wrong? Quite possibly. Not trying to take a slide at any journalist, but it's possible that they are mistaken. Was there for knowledge?

Well, if you look at the New York Magazine interview, this is not on the timeline, but just to throw it out there for your listeners, read Senator Harry Reid's interview with the New York Magazine. I think it was New York Magazine. And he talked about a conversation with Mr. Bigelow directly about a year or so before they even pushed for funding for what led to A-Tip. Why would he be having that conversation if this wasn't a sweetheart deal? Yeah. So, and that's not me saying it. So for the hate mail that I'm about to receive, please no, I did not say that. Senator Reid did.

So look in the New York Magazine article and pull that up, that he was having conversations prior to it coming to fruition. And then it came to fruition. Then the defense intelligence agency confirms there was no other bidder. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff that just it doesn't, it doesn't jive. Now, let's just say at the end of the day, it's a sweetheart deal. I'm not making the claim, but as an investigator, I haven't ruled it out. Let's just say, at the end of the day, it is, it doesn't change anything, but it does kind of throw into question like everything else. Yeah.

Because then it throws into question on Senator Reid's push to continue this research. Why? Well, who got the contract? So if that research continues and they fund it more, most likely that contract would go back to Bigelow Air. Aerospace. Exactly. Yeah. In the great state of Nevada.

So not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but all of that is documented. And even with that hypothetical, it all makes sense. So, you know, sometimes, again, it's not about being popular. It's about being accurate. And with research, with investigation, you've got to look at all possibilities and start ruling them out as the evidence comes in. I go back to that cure for cancer, right? You approach it in multiple different ways, figure out what.

works, figure out what doesn't, and focus on what's left. And that's what we have to do with UFOs. A certain percentage of people out there, those fans, very devoted. TTSA to the Stars has very devoted fans in some cases. They want to fall to their knees and go, this is disclosure, you know, Mr. Elizondo speaking gospel. The problem is that you have to ignore a lot. And that's the intent going back to the timeline. You have to ignore an awful lot in order to believe Mr. Elizondo. You can actually remove, this is, I wish I had the know how to do this, um, technologically to kind of like click a button and have certain sources disappear.

Um, but anyway, uh, in this timeline, which is all kind of static, if you just look at Mr. Elizondo's own statements and don't use anything else. Don't use Senator Reid. Don't use Dr. Putoff. Don't use the government. Don't use anything. He contradicts himself.

So if he can't get the story right. how are we supposed to believe that he has the story accurate? You know, like if he can't even give the same date, which there are multiple date discrepancies, why are we supposed to believe everything else? I just don't understand it. So there's no accusations with that long-winded way of addressing what you asked me to. I'm not making those accusations, but for me, as a field, as a whole, we need to address them. And if they have easy answers, cool.

I'm really okay with that. I rather that, to be honest with you, so we can move on. But until then, hey, research is research, and documents are documents. I mean, the documents and the statements by those that I put on the timeline, they all speak for themselves, literally. Well, and I'm glad you did it in timeline format because obviously dates mean everything when it comes to all this. And it falls apart the minute you start looking at it. And again, I'm not saying I'm a to the star, super. I'm super fan or I'm anti to the stars.

I think this is exciting. It's extremely exciting that UFOs are in the mainstream news that they're covering it, but it's how they're covering it, who's doing it, and how accurate it actually is. And that even connects to something that came out days ago, John. And you recently responded to the news about the Navy announced, and they were going to change their protocol in reporting UFOs. And again, you have people screaming, disclosure disclosure um i had a problem with that right off the pad because i mean of course

military branches have protocols when it comes to reporting UFOs so why is this any different i don't exactly know but um could you maybe tell us a little about what your thoughts are on all this and what you discovered literally minutes before we started for yeah and in fact i have another update for you uh because the email came in so yeah and the last week or so news broke that the Navy was going to be updating their guidelines, and the idea was that they were going to be taking UFO reports more seriously. Now, here's where I kind of wrestle with just jumping aboard going, oh, thank God, they're going back to reporting UFOs, in that if you look at the official statement, there's nothing

about UFOs. They call it unidentified aircraft, which is, you know, fine. Again, I'm not trying to be playing semantics with everything, but it is important because the media is very known to make flashy headlines out of things that aren't necessarily accurate. And so what I did was I immediately contacted some people over at the Navy and tried to get, number one, the full actual statement. Because sometimes with news agencies, they don't publish the entire statement. So I don't know if this is like a three page statement, one paragraph statement, one sentence. So what I did was I kind of cobbled it together from Politico and Washington Post.

And I was happy to see that it actually was the whole statement because two days after the story broke on the 26th, I received confirmation from the Navy of the statement. But something stuck out in the email. They said it was updated. So I thought, well, that's weird. It looks the same. took me a couple minutes. I went line for line, word for word. There was only one single line that was changed,

and that was what had been reported days prior as a draft that they were drafting these new guidelines, what they called guidelines, what the media called guidelines. That was changed. That line that read a new message to the fleet that will detail the steps were reporting it is in draft.

Okay. That changed to a message to the fleet details the steps for reporting each incident. The reason why that's important is that means it's no longer in draft. It's no longer an idea or a concept. It appears to be implemented. It's happening. Now, what's happening? Here's the update that as we were recording, I got an answer to the message.

of trying to get what went out to the fleet. Okay. This was with my contact in D.C. with the Navy. On my website, I do have the actual email. As a courtesy, I did blur their information. However, it is credited to somebody from the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare. So his name is Joseph Gradisher. Since they wanted me to credit him, I blurred the other information of the information of

the personnel that I talked to. You know, just in case anybody's wondering, like, why I'm hiding something. It's a courtesy. I don't publish those types of contacts that are irrelevant to the story just because I don't want them to get inundated with... Yeah, they're just doing their job. Yeah, exactly. So, but they did want the credit to Joseph Gratisher.

But that being said, they will not release the message. They said, we are unable to share the message with you due to the operational and aircraft-specific nature of these guidelines. security considerations preclude their disclosure. And they sign the message. So that's the update that came in, let me see, just minutes ago. So I really wanted to try and get that. Now there are other avenues for me to get that, which I have already done.

So obviously now we're getting into Freedom of Information Act territory, which is going to take time since public affairs, contacts and stuff like that will not release it, at least not yet. As you and I are chatting right now, they have not released it and obviously denied me directly. But from what I can tell, as you and I are talking, depending upon when people are actually listening, is a little different story. But as we're talking, nobody has reported that it's out of draft.

And I've searched all the headlines. Everything is in reference to a draft. And that is important because there are military protocols, regulations, manuals, instructions, you name it, that will remain a draft for quite some time. And I'll be honest with you, I was fearing that without saying it publicly. But I did fear that this thing would just stay in draft mode for, you know, five years. And then what happens?

News cycles over, interest level goes down. Nobody cares anymore. So it just kind of dies on the vine. But it's pretty encouraging to see that that statement was changed and that they, seemingly have implemented whatever guideline this is. So still a lot to the story here. There's still a lot to unfold, but at least we know part of it has unfolded even more

since the original reporting by Politico. Right, from Politico. And I got to ask you, John, in your personal opinion, I mean, Tom DeLong of to the Stars did take credit for this. Do you think that they had anything to do with this? I mean, it hasn't been publicly announced that the stars did. If they did, for me, it's kind of a capital IF. If they did, then kudos to them.

I will be the first to say thank you. I have given them publicly, and I'll say it again, kudos for bringing the ATIP story out. No matter what it is, I think it's just a cool thing to know about. So I've always given them kudos for that. And if they did play a role in this, great. I struggle with just believing that on the surface anyway because as we're recording this, even Politico, unless I misread something, didn't say this is all thanks to To the Stars Academy. They were saying that this is due to an increasing number of incidents.

Now, is that because to the Stars Academy brought that to their attention? I'll be honest with you. I would doubt that for any private level public. sector corporation, taking credit for bringing something to a military intelligence is, you know, of the forefront of their knowledge. So I have doubts, but not because it's TTSA. I just have doubts because that would, you know, circumvent every intelligence agency, military branch and so on, that they just don't know and that they're going to take credit for saying, hey, look, these pilots are seeing things. Is that a possibility? Absolutely. And again, I will, I will be more than happy to give kudos.

I think that it's fairly telling that Mr. Mellon, Christopher Mellon was interviewed, Mr. Luis Alizando was interviewed for Politico, and again, please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall anywhere in that saying to the Stars Academy was responsible for this. So are we going to doubt the reporting of Politico, or are we going to doubt Tom DeLong's Instagram post? You know, we can choose and argue that one. But at this point, I have my reservations that they were directly involved. Again, I'm with you. I'm still on the fence. It is interesting that, you know, the most vocal within to the stars and even what Luis

Alizondos telling us was one of the bigger cases investigated with Atip is Fravers' encounter, the Nimitz encounter. Yeah. Having been Navy, maybe that had something to do with this, that the Navy was the first military branch to announce this. Are we going to see the Air Force coming out with new protocol or, the army like i i wonder how far this is going to go and what sort of trickle effect it's going to have or if it's just going to die in the water you know yeah that's right i mean well pardon the pun that

was good i see what you did there right i didn't even mean to do that i swear to god i no i i i've always wanted to be opt uh an optimist when it comes to this uh i know i got a lot of heat for being skeptical about the atyp thing i you know i i i want this to be uh true and for the for your listeners that are curious what i did was i actually dug in to the phrasing of that statement that I just referenced. So beyond the breaking news that it's no longer in draft, although they didn't say UFOs, they said unidentified aircraft, that made me cringe a little bit because that is an out for a military agency to say, well, you know, that's an over-embellished headline.

We're just interested in the drones that are out there that people are flying and this and that. I mean, you know, again, looking for those outs, looking for skeptical responses to something. So I dug deep into various UFO documents, and I've found that that phrasing actually connects to flying saucers and UFOs going back at least 66 years. So it was kind of nice to see that there is a lineage to the phrasing. But again, to kind of paraphrase that article, I mean, I went into historical documents, but even United States Air Force regulations outlining aviation safety. in relation to reporting and investigating unidentified aircraft. So the Air Force took a lot of heat in the last couple days or so since the story broke

that they're behind the times and this and that. So what I did was actually brought out a lot of the Air Force instructions, not 10-206 that we were talking about earlier, but other ones that actually talk about unidentified aircraft. They're still on the books today that are dated 2015, 2016. there's even a FAA diagram on how to intercept a quote-unquote unidentified aircraft. And I even dug up an official definition of unidentified aircraft by the FAA after what was a UFO. It was quickly identified thereafter, but a UFO had encroached on the White House airspace.

Now, again, it ended up being a small commercial plane. But my whole point is that it was a quote-unquote unidentified aircraft at the time. And the director of the deputy administrator, I should say, of the FAA had done a press conference. And he, back in 2005, and he directly addressed unidentified aircraft in relation to that incident. So I broke down all of those documents. And, you know, I mean, I tried to maintain a fairly neutral point of view that I let the reader decide on whether or not, you know, this really is the UFO topic that we want or not. but at least we can tie it back to flying saucers and UFOs with a documented history. And that's what I love is just finding corroborating evidence to support something.

And hopefully this is what we want it to be. As the more of these stories break with to the stars, an ATIP in the Navy, maybe we're going to see an inside the Black Volt volume two in the making. I won't have any hair left by the time that one. I'll just pull it all out. I know, I know. Well, where can we find the book drawn and everything you're up to these days, man? I know it's got to feel good to have the book done, but your work is never done.

Yeah, no, it never is. Well, I'm continuing to go after documents. If you're interested in the book, you can order it online at Inside the Black Vault.com or, of course, any brick and mortar bookstore that's around you or Amazon or wherever you want to order it from. Hopefully, I'll have some exciting news in the coming next month or so. about something pretty big I'm excited about. So that that'll be a neat to kind of stay tuned for. But more than all else,

just kind of going after the documents and putting it all out there. So make sure you follow on Twitter and Facebook and stuff like that because that's where I post most of the stuff very, very quickly. And that's where you can hear from me first. Literally, you were posting something right before we hopped on. So I know you're always working. And that's what I love about you, man. And even for the detractors out there,

there's no doubting that your work is essential to this field. And I love having you on. And I got to thank you again for running us through all of this today on somewhere in the sky. So thank you. It's my pleasure in any time. That's it for this week's episode. Again, be sure to pick up the book Inside the Black Vault, available on Amazon at your local bookstores or directly from the author at inside the blackvalt.com. Please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Summer In The Skies on Apple Podcasts, your Android apps, or wherever you listen to the show. It helps us gain visibility and find new listeners. If you want to help the show continue and receive rewards in return, be sure to become a patron today.

To learn more and to contribute, visit patreon.com slash summer skies. We're on Twitter at SummerSkies and Instagram at Summer Skies Pod. For all past episodes, news, our topic. and contact information, visit the official website, somewhere in the skies.com. I'll see you here next week, and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching, somewhere in the skies. This is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network. To learn more, visit Entertainment Onepodcast.com.