Somewhere in the Skies - Nick Redfern: FLYING SAUCERS FROM THE KREMLIN

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

On episode 128 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan sits down face-to-face with Nick Redfern at the 2019 Michigan UFO Con. They discuss Redfern's thoughts on Area 51, Bob Lazar, and then an in-depth look at his latest book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin: UFOs, Russian Meddling, Soviet Spies & Cold War Secrets Russian meddling: they are two words that just about everyone has come to know very well in the last few years. Only a fool – or someone with an agenda of a sinister kind – would deny that such meddling occurred. But, who knew that for decades the Russians secretly used the UFO phenomenon as a means to try and destabilize the West? Why did the Russians try to recruit some of the most well-known UFO “Contactees” of the 1950s? What’s the connection between the KGB and the notorious Majestic 12 documents? Why did the Soviet Union fabricate tales of aliens and feed them to the Pentagon? Does the UFO meddling still continue to this day? This and much more.  Guest Bio: Nick Redfern is the author of more than forty books. They include Men in Black; Women in Black; The Roswell UFO Conspiracy; and 365 Days of UFOs. Nick has appeared on many TV shows, including the BBC’s Out of This World; the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive; the History Channel’s Monster Quest, America’s Book of Secrets and UFO Hunters; the National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural; and MSNBC’s Countdown. He can be contacted at: www.nickredfernfortean.blogspot.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 Watch Mysteries Decoded for free at www.CWseed.com Shop SAUCER BRAND now and use the promo code: SKIES for an exclusive discount: www.TheSaucerBrand.com 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: SOMEWHERE 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

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Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. This week on the show, live from Michigan UFOCon with Nick Redfern. That was really the kind of the start of it all, when US intelligence sort of started to get their head around, wow, you know, there are real UFOs up there, but there's a possibility using like psychological warfare and disinformation that the Russians are now using this real phenomenon as a means to kickstart communism within the UFO field,

which was important because at that time I said it was a huge movement. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. I recently attended the Michigan UFOCon in Houten Lake, Michigan. It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. I met some of the most amazing people over the weekend and made some awesome new friends. One of those friends turned colleague was Nick Redford. You've heard him on the show in the past, but this is a lot of the show in the past,

but this was personally my first time meeting him face to face, and I had the opportunity to sit down with him for an in-depth discussion about his new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin. The book is a study of how and why Russian intelligence used the UFO phenomenon as a means to try to create fear, hysteria, and paranoia in the United States and beyond. From the Roswell crash and MJ12 documents to Area 51 and the contactees of yesteryear were and are UFO researchers being monitored by foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.

And how far does the manipulation and meddling truly go with the UFO topic and beyond in today's internet age? We dig deep into how and why Russia use the UFO phenomenon and keen interest in it as an advantageous weapon of belief. It's all here in our Michigan UFOCon sit down with Nick Redfern. All right, guys, Ryan Sprague here once again for Somewhere in the Skies. Coming to you live from the Michigan UFO contact event. And with me right now is a gentleman that I have been dying to meet for years now. And finally it's happened. That is Nick Redfern.

Nick, how's it going, brother? Hey, Ryan, it's good. Thanks, having a good time. Yeah, it's been pretty cool so far. I didn't know what to expect coming here, but I saw that. you had spoken at this event last year. I saw you on the list this year with a couple other people that I've been dying to meet. So this is a big

one for me. Well, that's good. I mean, it's a good conference because, you know, it's well organized, which is always a, you know, sort of an important thing when you go to these events. Right. But also there's a good variation of subjects. It's not like everybody's doing similar stuff, you know. And I think

particularly for the audience, that's a good thing. You know, they get a lecture on. hoaxing and photographs, somebody else is doing a historical case, you know, somebody's talking about this or that. And I think that kind of keeps people intrigued, you know, and sort of just they're going to keep on listening because there's so many different things that people are talking about. So, yeah, it's always good and it's a nice venue. Oh, it's beautiful. How in Lake Michigan we're in right on the wall.

It's a perfect setting for any UFO setting, I would say. You bring up a good point, though, the variation of topics discussed within uphology here. I mean, you have people who are talking from Mufon. You have people who are here talking strictly about data and statistics with UFOs. And then you've got people talking about actual experiences. So kind of mixing and melding all that research together and working together instead of apart. you know there's so many different factions within these research communities and people not willing to share their information so it's pretty refreshing to see everyone on the same page of an event like this yeah and i think um you know it has like a sense of like community everybody sort of all we're all in it together you know somebody's lecturing um somebody's here for the first time and they want to know what's it all about um you know somebody may have haven't come along because they know that there's one of their favorite stories is going

to be discussed. So I think, you know, people have a lot of different motivations for coming to these events. Maybe somebody happened to see a UFO somewhere over Michigan last week, realized there was a UFO gig coming along. Oh my God, I've got to go and see that, you know. That's a good point, you know. You never know who's going to come out of the Woodward and have a story to tell. That's what I love about these events is when you're done talking, and someone comes up to you, and I got a story to tell you. So, you know, it's, it's refreshing to know that, you know, it's not just these old cases that we've gone over a million times.

Roswell, Rendellsham, blah, blah, blah. There's stuff still going on. And, you know, sort of the most recent thing in, I guess, the UFO field lately has been this Storm Area 51 event that happened yesterday. Have you heard any rumblings about how it was? I haven't, but I do have my... opinions on it all. Yeah. And I mean, everybody in uphology has heard of Area 51, but also everybody just about in the public has heard of Area 51, regardless of whether, you know, they're

interested in UFOs or not. People know that Area 51 is like this secret base out somewhere in the desert, and it's to connect with UFOs. Just about everybody knows that angle of it all. And and I understand why people want the answers because there have been strange lights over Area 51, people claim to work there and said they saw this, they saw that, flying sources, dead aliens, live aliens, whatever.

So it's developed this sort of pop culture, an angle, if you like, and it's also become almost like a piece of Americana, you know, in its own strange way. And I think for that reason, and it's become sort of a hotbed for people who go along to the base and sort of test the security personnel and say, you know, basically how close can I get before I get, you know, pulled away in handcuffs or whatever. And people have been arrested, you know, and fine and just thrown in the slumber for 24 hours to teach them a lesson. Now, for me, I think it's fine to sort of go up to the little.

alien, you know, and hang out with a bunch of people, talk about Area 51, get some pictures of the mountains and all that. But when people talk about storming the base, I mean, I draw the parallel. What would people say if a group of people got together and said, we're going to storm the Pentagon, you know, and they actually tried to do it? Well, that would be like a major national security issue if 500 people got together and tried to invade the Pentagon. And I take the view that it's no different. That in today's world, regardless of the fact that you want to find the answers to Area 51,

for me, breaking into a US military base is not the way to do it because it's reckless, it's dangerous, and in the state the world's in now, having people invade a military base could get your head blown off. Oh, absolutely. And there's also the fact, you know, little known fact that people may not be able to,

aware of or the possibility, not the fact, is that who's to say, you know, this keeps on happening and, you know, there's numerous people involved, well, who's to say that some of those aren't plants from somewhere else? Right. You know, Russia, who knows? I mean, that might sound a bit paranoid, but it would be the perfect place for those people to infiltrate like a UFO group. You have hundreds of people and take a bunch of pictures.

And if they're a question, you know, oh, you know, I'm Hank from North Dakota. When you're actually, you know, Ivan from Moscow or something. Right, right. You know, and I mean, we can look at the joking side on it. But for me, it comes down to it's almost like suggesting that people should break into an invade military bases on U.S. soil and I think that for me is crossing the line too far oh absolutely yeah we live in an age of social networking where people will do the dumbest things for clicks or a YouTube view or an Instagram like all these fake things that we've built up to be so much in our human existence

now so who's to say that one person isn't going to try to run over that gate just for a video Well, that's the thing. Yeah, that's the issue I have. You know, and they say, well, most people know that it's just a bit of fun. And most people are probably just going to sit on the desert floor, look at the stars and hope they see something weird. But there's always some guy who takes it too far, and that is the person who's going to make the news.

Yeah. You know, when they just keep running and running through the desert or whatever, that kind of thing. Yeah. And that's where the damage could occur. Right. So my view is that there's plenty of ways to sort of research and investigate the history of Barry 51. And if people come forward, claim to work for them, you know, deeply investigate their story.

And is it legitimate? Is it not? Is it somewhere in between? And I think the best way to approach it is, like a journalistic approach. The wrong approach is to try and haul yourself over a fence and just keep on going and going. until... What are you going to see? Let's be honest. Yeah. And I mean, people, a lot of people forget

that when you get to like the little alien and you get to the points where you've got the security person and they'll turn you around, a lot of people don't realize. You've still got like another eight, nine, ten miles or whatever it is before you actually get to what you would consider to be Area 51. You know, people think when they get stopped there, that's like the start of Area 51.

But what it really is, it's the grabbed land. and then you've still got to keep on going for miles and miles. So that's why it's almost impossible to get there. But, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's my view that's... Do an investigation from a journalistic perspective, because if you follow, you know, this sort of storming angle, not only could you get your head blown off,

but, you know, you follow it. People might find what I'm going to say now a bit controversial, but I think it's also true. If euthologists start breaking or into military bases or threatened to storm them, well, that could put euthologists unlike a national security watch list. Yeah, we all go down because of one.

Yeah, because somebody, some stupid guy, decided he was going to be, try and be the one who gets to the base and finds the dead aliens and all this, you know. But, yeah, I haven't actually heard anything. You know, as to what's gone down. I've heard rumblings, you know, the turnout was not that good. I've heard that there's more people at this event here in Michigan

then showed up to the face. You know, so maybe at the end of the day it was pretty anticlimactic, but that's the thing. This was all a joke to begin with. Well, it was, but the important thing is, you know, people make jokes and somebody acts on it now and again. Right. And you only need one person to act.

on it and people will remember that they won't remember it oh it was all a job they'll remember the thing that this one person did that's a really really good point well sort of transitioning you did mention planting people you know this idea of planting people

into certain groups or countries for information or to influence and that's kind of the the center of your talk here at the Michigan contact event and your new book flying saucers from the Kremlin.

So I'd like to discuss a little bit about that with you now, if you don't mind, Nick. What made you want to write this book in the first place? Well, over the years, you know, I've got snippets here and there, and sometimes far more than snippets, of how the Russians were perceived by U.S. intelligence in the Cold War as trying to infiltrate the United States and manipulating the mindset of the US population

and to try and sort of seed and indoctrinate communism into the US and find alternative ways to do it and some of those alternative ways actually involved flying saucers and UFOs in a really weird way. For example, in the early 1950s,

we had the whole contact team movement, the Space Brothers, you know, these peace, you know, sort of friendly, peaceful, long-haired aliens kind of looking pretty much like us with a few slight differences, you know. And typically they would meet people out in desert locations, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and so on.

And, you know, it's sort of typical debut of Stoodstil flying saucer comes down and, you know, this human-looking aliens come out and target certain people and say, you're going to help us on our on our road, if you like, to help your planet from destroying itself. And so it was very much like a peaceful kind of approach. It wasn't abductions, you know, where people are traumatized and the memories are wiped and so on.

And a lot of these people kind of went on that path, like probably the most famous one, George Adamski, whose first book came out, well, not his first book, but his first non-fiction book. if it was non-fiction. Yeah, that's a debate. It came out in 1953. Now, a lot of people don't know that Adamski, he was heavily involved in sort of spiritual mind-body spirit stuff, going way back to the 1930s

and actually had written a couple of books as well in that kind of theme. Now, when he started to get involved in the UFO subject, most people probably don't know that he had a deep interest in communism. And in some of his early lectures, he talked about how the aliens, the Space Brothers, were probably communists,

which sounds like really weird and crazy. But that's what he said. He said that they were probably were communist, and then people said, well, what do you think about that? And he said, well, he actually said communism is a good thing. And he said almost certainly,

Russia's going to rule the world for a thousand years, and there's going to be peace throughout that period. And they actually said that. That's actually recorded in the FBI's files on Adamski. Now, if Adamski was just someone lecturing to five people and somebody's dog, you know, on a Sunday afternoon in a local library, nobody would have cared if it was just him, you know, talking about this. But that's not what happened.

His first book, Flying Sources have landed. The first publication, the 125,000 copies were sold just about. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it was a huge seller. So you've got this guy who's selling his book in six figures of sales, and he's talking about how aliens are communists and communism is good. Yeah. And that's why the FBI got involved,

because their concern was that Adamski, whether his claims were real or not, the FBI began to suspect that Adamski was essentially, spreading communism but doing so under a UFO banner and so you know he could kind of go under the radar oh I'm just you know doing a UFO lecture if the FBI comes along

which they actually did several times they visited him oh wow and and so you know his argument was well I'm just a UFO researcher well no actually you're not you're a UFO researcher talking to hundreds of thousands of people

and spreading communism that was the FBI's approach you can understand. And they actually suspected that, although he obviously wasn't a Russian spy quote, they did suspect on many occasions that he was actually sort of hired or agreed to sort of further this communist angle and to target the UFO community, which was actually huge back then. because I mean some of the conferences like at a giant rock in California where George Van Tassel would put on these contact events

they had on weekend events of like 10 to 12,000 people which you know and today we get like 3 or 400 right yeah so back then you have to sort of look at it for that perspective that you know 12,000 people in say 1953 54 all of those people listening to communism's great you know, peace loving hippie types and all this kind of thing. And you can see had the big difference between today and now. Back then, euphology was seen not by euphologists,

but by the FBI and some of the agencies, as being a potential community that was ripe for manipulation by the Russians. And so the FBI watched Saddamski for a long, long time. in around about 1982 they declassified about 75 pages of

files of FBI files on Adamski and by probably I think about 2,000 I think it was about 150 pages the final file so as far as we know at least

was actually declassified about three months ago and that's just over 400 pages a surveillance paper documents on Adamski 400 pages long spanning about 1949 to about when the time of his death, 1967. So, you know, you can see how easily and why the FBI had these concerns.

Now, whether or not he actually was being used by the Russians as a means to try and spread communism, or was it just him saying it himself? We don't know. But the important thing is, the FI did recognize his ability to, if you like, real people in and say, this is good. That's bad. So that was really the kind of the start of it all. When US intelligence sort of started to get their head around, wow, you know, there are real UFOs up there. But there's a possibility using like psychological warfare and disinformation.

that the Russians are now using this real phenomenon as a means to kickstart communism within the UFO field, which was important because at that time it said it was a huge movement. Yeah. You know, it wasn't. And we're talking the Cold War quite a bit. Yeah. And they tried a lot of other different obscure ways as well.

You know, euphology was just one of us. Just one way. Yeah. Now, in terms of, you said, we're not just talking using psychological warfare in terms of false information or disinformation or just pure fantasy we're talking also actual events

I mean you even talk in the book about going back to Roswell being sort of in Kenneth Arnold even being a part of this manipulation that the Russians may have been doing on the US could you maybe touch on that yeah I mean there's this I mean

this very strange story concerning Roswell, you know, I mean, the idea that supposedly the Russians faked the Roswell event as a means to sort of create hysteria in the US. Now, it's a very bizarre and extremely controversial story and it comes from a woman named Annie Jacobson who wrote a book on Area 51 and various other books and also on like Operation Paperclip when they bought the German scientists over at the end of the Second World War. And her Area 51 book, it's actually a really good book. I mean, it's a really thick book, you know, long book.

And it's filled with a lot of fascinating secret material on Area 51. But it contains this bizarre story of how supposedly Joseph Stalin did a deal with Joseph Mengele, who was one of the most deranged evil men who ever lived. who did all these terrible experiments on people in the Second World War, the story is that supposedly Mengele had the ability to take a number of children and physically alter them to make them look like what we would call aliens today. As well as supposedly genetically or physically altering these children, the story is that the Horton brothers who were aviation,

people who designed a lot of futuristic looking aircraft. Supposedly they were brought in to design the craft. And the plan, allegedly, was that this particular craft with a strange-looking kids inside would be remotely piloted from Russia to the United States. And the stories, it was supposed to come down in like a highly populated part of the US. but as it was going over New Mexico something went wrong it may have been a storm or a lightning strike

and it came down in Lincoln County New Mexico not too far from the town of Roswell about an hour's drive or so and so in other words the plan to have the aircraft come down these altered kids come out and then everybody would say

oh my God the Martians are invading and it would sort of be like a parallel to the Orson Wells story of War of the Worlds, you know, and people who listened to Awesome Wells' radio recording of this in 1939, people who turned on the radio halfway through or whatever thought the Martians really were invading. They didn't realize it was a radio show. So that was this, supposedly, the inspiration for all this.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Now, the story gets sort of more controversial when, if you look at it, the idea of how, Having one futuristic aircraft being remotely flown all the way from Russia by another one, I don't think that kind of technology was around then, just to strap four kids in a weird-looking aircraft and then remotely piloted it all the way from Russia to the US. Now, on top of that, and this is actually in the book, it talks about how they found Russian writing inside.

And that's probably the stories, you know, that that inspired the tales of like hieroglyphics on the... Thad on the crowd left. But, I mean, but any kind of experts on Russia and Russian language would quickly see that it was Russian. And the idea that the Russians, you know, were in cahoots with the aliens. And, I mean, the idea that, just the idea that they would put, you know, Russian writing in the, in the country. craft makes no sense if you're trying to pull it off as being extraterrestrial so that doesn't make

much sense so my view on all of this is that if you read Annie Jacobson's book as I said it's a really good book and I would recommend it to everyone who wants to learn about Area 51 it's not like a sensationalised book it's a good solid non-fiction

book but it has this Roswell story inserted into it and I think possibly people out at Area 51 working there now thought well this book's got a lot of top secret stuff that we don't want getting out how about we insert a really sensational story and have the press

predominantly focusing on this controversial story about Roswell and the story that was about this you know this Russian Roswell thing was given to Annie Jacobson by a guy named Alfred O'Donnell who had ties to Area 51 and the military intelligence community

and he provided that story now my view is that it was done deliberately to because it was such a sensationalised story I think the hope was that the media would forget most of the good stuff on Area 51 that was in the book

and focus on Roswell and for the most part that's what happened a lot of the coverage and publicity for the book focused on Roswell and this Russian story. So I think it was designed to veer the book away and the media away from the legitimate real material. So if there was any truth to it, you know, that would be like a psychological warfare manipulation

involving a bogus story, but also creating, you know, you know, literally a craft and literally creating aliens in a very strange way. So I think, but again, that much of the story falls down. So I actually think, you know, it really probably was a fabrication designed to, as I said, steer people away from what's actually going in Area 51 and having, getting all excited about this Russian story. And I'm sure from the Russians perspective, they were probably quite happy.

and they probably still are to have people think or some people think that they were responsible for Roswell, you know, it kind of beefs up their image from their... Absolutely. From their perspective, you know. Right, you know, and, you know, you take, for instance, you know, I'm not comparing all of Russia to terrorists. I'm not that URA American to say something like that,

but, you know, a terrorist group will take any opportunity to take the response. for something. You know, say some pissed off kid in America does a pipe bomb in the middle of Times Square in New York. Of course, some terrorist group is going to say, we were responsible for that, you know. And again, just that idea of psychological warfare and fear. So, of course, the Russians are going to say, yeah, we totally concocted this genius plan and changed euthology, or not just ephology, national security in the United States forever.

Yeah, you're right. And I mean, one of the things about euphology and what I've found over the years and the decades is that a lot of people in the field are very susceptible to sensational stories and with leaked documents, things like that. And so many people view these documents as real because he's got a top secret stamp and the story sounds really cool. And my view is, well, how do you actually know this is real? Just because it's a photo. I mean, it's a photo. I mean, it's a photo. photocopy probably for the most part. And just because somebody got their hands on a 1950s typewriter put a stamp on doesn't mean it's real. It just means somebody has gone to a fairly good length to try and make something look like the real deal. But the problem is within uphology, so many people want these documents to be real.

I know they do. Because when people get disappointed in a fake UFO document, if they're disappointed by it, that means they wanted it to be real. Oh, yeah. Because you're not going to get disappointed if you're just blaze about it or whatever. Right. So, and that is a good pointer because it demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate UFO people.

Because that whole X-Files, I want to believe, factor just plays into it all. And we all get, you know, questionable stuff now and again and mystific. various characters you know, want to speak to you. And I always tell people, well, yeah, follow it. But don't go into it with your head thinking, okay, this is the real deal. Just see where it goes. Maybe it is the real deal. Maybe it's going to turn out to be garbage.

Maybe it's going to be hazy somewhere between the two. And then reveal your results. But don't get overly excited just because somebody says they once worked on an alien order. autopsy. Maybe they did. But then instead, getting all excited and telling everybody before you've done the investigation, get them to tell you the whole story, research it, or give me the name of the other doctors, you know, that kind of thing. And I think that's sometimes the problem. Uphology is so easily to mould and manipulate because so often people in the field jump the gun. And they put a story out before it's finished researched and everybody then jumps onto it and you've got

the hoaxers who said oh yeah I worked on that program as well and but they no one else had talked about it so you come out with it you know yeah the I think one of the things that really stuck out to me you and I were discussing this yesterday when UFO researchers we've we've all been there someone approaches you and says I've got this groundbreaking information that I want to share with you and only you. And you brought up something that I'd never really thought about either is not so much who is this person, what is the information they're giving you, but why? Why are they coming to you specifically?

And I found that really interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to sort of look at the bigger picture of things, you know, the why and when of how you got this story. And I mean, I always say to people, well, is there anything else that you're looking into at this particular time? And, you know, maybe the person was looking into, this is hypothetical now, but, you know, somebody's looking into the history of atomic energy in the US. And then some of the old guy comes along, hey, I've heard about you doing this research,

I can help you. But that old person may actually be inserted to actually find out, well, why is this person looking into this whole story, you know, of atomic energy history in the US. So sometimes, you know, again, the UFO subject can be used like that if somebody thinks you're doing something else. Yeah. Well, let's tease them and, you know, we'll learn what they actually really are doing. You know, it's kind of like the dangling carrots, you know, give me something. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you have all these stories of, you know, the Paul Benowitz is and the, you know, using people to see how the public will react. A lot of people think the story. of Bob Lazar were another attempt to throw a couple carrots out there, see how people react to the information. Well, I mean, on the issue of Bob Lazar, I mean, 30 years, well, more than 30 years, 31, 32 years now, since he came out and talked about all this, I mean, it's still debated. You know, it hasn't gone away regardless of whether you buy into it or don't. but again I mean for me

I think whatever the reason was that that whole plan if you like the whole program was initiated to achieve the end game but it has achieved

now why it was done I don't know now I don't believe Lazar was a liar like you know there are people in euphology who do think he's just an outright liar I remember Stan Freibran famously said

this is bunk, bunk, bunk. He said he three times like that, this is bunk, bunk, bunk. And he had no time for Bob Lazzar at all. But to me, Lazard doesn't come across like your average hoaxer. You know, I mean, you think about it, 88, when he came out under an alias

when he started in with a radio, 89, we got his name. And now, you know, it's almost 2020. And if, although he's bought a, biography's coming out very soon. The fact is, pretty much up until the last couple of years, he didn't do anything with that story. He told people

this is what happened, like it or not, and if you don't like it, whatever, you know. And so, you know, at that time, 80 to 8, 89, 90, when he was like really huge, he didn't write a book, he didn't have a movie,

he did a few lectures, but he wasn't like someone who was on like a, a 70 city tour of the US. No, I was doing it very underground. Yeah. Now, that isn't really how the average hoaxer comes across in uphology. I mean, I've met

unfortunately, you know, more than a few hoaxes out of the years. And, you know, money comes up almost immediately. A lot of stuff that can't be proved. And when the initial core story sort of goes

quiet after they finish their lecture circuit thing for three months, then they say, oh, you know, I've had some more experiences so they can get back on the lecture circuit. You know, that's how so many euphologists, excuse me, UFO witnesses, I mean, who may have fabricated something. That's how they work. But Lazar didn't work like that. It really was. Well, I've told you my story. If you don't like it and you don't believe me, there's the front door, you know. And that's not how, most hoaxes have worked and I mean if he was a hoaxer in that period 89 90 he could have you know sort of dominated uphology for years lectures

conferences TV shows movies the whole thing and I don't see what he gained back then for doing that because he didn't really gain anything other than notoriety and people saying you're full of crap you know so um so that's why i think he was part of it but he was like an innocent patsy used as a means to for whatever reason i think somebody probably in area 51 wanted to get the story out that yes there are aliens at area 51 now why somebody might do that that's a big question i think the the possibility could have been you know

this is hypothetical but maybe if there were sort of fears that there were Russian agents in the US and looking into our defence systems and or you know

pretending to be tourists that kind of thing well if you put a story out this there's something really weird and sensational is going on out of Area 51

and they get someone involved who can essentially vindicate it like Lazare and you've got all these Russian spies, you know, looking into it. And because it's so sensational, there's no way they're not going to invest,

the Russians aren't going to look into it. Well, maybe that's like, just like, you know, the fishermen reeling in the fish. But US intelligence reels in the Russian spies because they're all hovering around Area 51 because they've heard all these stories about sensational alien technology and weapons and, oh my God, the Americans have got this and we haven't.

We need to find out what's going on. Yeah. And if I recall, weren't some of our first images ever of Area 51 from Russian satellites? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So the Russians knew something was going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if they were trying to find out more and more, somebody in Area 51 might have said,

well, let's give them the ultimate fish in the river, you know, and they'll catch it. And then we'll catch them. Isn't it funny? Let's say for just a moment that the Russians were responsible for Roswell, whatever happened. their crash. Whatever was involved with that was brought to Area 51. And now, in return of them trying to create a hysteria in America, now we're creating a hysteria for Russia,

thinking we have this alien technology. Yeah. And I think so many people in uphology don't recognize those weird sides to the phenomenon or the subject. You know, they think it's black and white. It's aliens, it's government coverups. And that is, you know, that is a major part of it. But so many people don't recognize the full nature and the scope of how the subject and the people in it can be so easily manipulated and sent down this path and that path,

not even realizing that somebody's pulling their strings. And all they see is the excitement factor. And it is exciting. but you can't just focus on that factor. You've got to, you know, tackle every aspect of whatever it is you're doing. Right, right. Well, I knew we could connect Area 51 to Russia somewhere. So I'm glad we found our way around that one.

Sort of wrapping up this part of it, Nick, like the history of Russia and even America influencing its own people when it comes to the UFO topic. You brought up something in the book, this strategy. to diffuse the UFO hysteria using the Walt Disney Corporation. Oh yeah. That was a really interesting part of uphology that a lot of people don't really know about.

Could you maybe sort of wrapping this section up, talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, both sides recognize the way in which the UFO subject could be manipulated as a means to alter people's views on just about anything, really. But the Robertson panel

was this, prestigious panel set up in the early 1950s essentially to not so much investigate UFOs as sightings and encounters, but how predominantly the phenomenon could be used from psychological perspectives. And one of the fears was that the Russians would use psychological warfare.

And so the plan with the Robertson panel was to sort of try and diffuse the, hysteria and the mania and the interest that was developing in terms of UFOs. And they had a lot of strange plans. One of them was to sort of enlist the help of the Walt Disney Corporation and have them make sort of little movies kind of, you know, putting it in like a tongue-in-cheek perspective. But also, you know, making the point that, well, there's not much to this really at all. It's just a bit of entertainment and people like it and, you know,

pop culture and diffuse the idea that there are Russia or there are communist aliens coming or that there are just aliens coming period that the idea was to just try and lay this all to rest

and people will just go back to their regular lives before flying sources surfaced in 1947 but again the Robertson panel very quickly realized that you know just with a few tweaks and turns here and there,

they could actually alter the mindset to a degree. And I mean, if you think about it, whether this was due to the Robertson panel or not, but although the UFO subject definitely obviously continued after 1953, 54 when all this was going on, but the political side of it,

with like the Space Brothers, you know, the contactees, Adamski and the FBI watching all these people, that really did go away after like the late 50s. You know, and it was all just about aliens and UFOs. But if you go back to that 50s period, it was filled with politics and just about all the contactees had files opened on them.

George Van Tassel's file, who created the Integratron. Yeah. And lived out at Giant Rock. His files, his FBI file, more than 400 pages. Gray Barker, his was about 75 pages.

George Hunt Williamson, he's about 65 pages, and it goes on and on. So there was this period, for sure, of sort of 47 until about 59, 58, that politics and the Russians and all this stuff, you know, was going on. And then, to a large degree,

in terms of the FBI angle and the Russian angle, went away. So you know, you could make a case that part of it that may have been influenced by, you know, people like the Russian, excuse me, like the Robertson panel. But, you know, it obviously didn't take away the UFO subject. It just meant politics largely went out of it. Yeah. But although the politics side went out of it, you know, the disinformation and the counterintelligence programs against the Russians, that didn't go away. But the, you know, the idea. of people talking to communist aliens, that did kind of, you know, sort of go away, sort of turn of the 60s thereabouts. Okay. Yeah, it's fascinating to think of how you can use the UFO topic

to mold and manipulate a certain narrative. You could look at it now with this whole To the Stars Academy thing. You know, they've got all these former intelligence officers, counterterrorism people, military people, telling the public these things are being seen by our military, our Navy, our Air Force, and they pose a national security threat. So right now you've got the most visible UFO group out there to the Stars Academy hitting every major media news outlet,

reaching the biggest public platform we've really had in the UFO field for a while, saying these things are dangerous, we need our military to take care of this. And then boom, I'm sure our military budgets are just skyrocketing. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good point because I think, you know, if you look at the history of uphology in terms of the U.S. government, you have Project Sign, Project Brudge, Robertson Panel, and Blue Book. And, you know, we were told that after 69, it was all canned, you know, it was all over. And we learned, you know, at the end of 2017, it wasn't over.

and I think why that whole time frame late 2017 early 2018 was important was because the debunkers skeptics said well the government's not involved in euphology anymore but it actually was you know and I think well I don't think I know you know that the mainstream media in New York Times CNN everybody covered this story and they still cover it now when bits and pieces of new material comes out So I think Regardless of how much research is going on with this program I think another part of it is to see what the response is

Not just on the you know the five or six thousand people in uphology But also the general public and the media And see how all three communities if you like Respond to this And so I think that's part of it It's all I think it is legit in UFO investigations, but it's also like a psychological study of the mindset of what different people think about this program and is it affecting them or they're thinking about it. So there's way more to it, there's way more to it, I think. And although I'm not a big fan of disclosure, mainly because it's almost like the story of the boy who cried wolf you know he cried too many times and nobody came and i think that that's the main issue

i have with disclosure is not the the concept of disclosure i got tired of hearing certain people conferences saying i've i've got a high ranking source who told me you know that disclosure's coming next thursday at two 45 after whatever shows played out on the particular tv channel i'm in a big sarcastic there you know but i mean you get the point people In the disclosure movement, we're saying, I've got a contact and I think it's coming out this year, or it's coming out later this year. If not, it's the year after. And that's what sort of pissed me off with the whole disclosure movement. I was like, if you've got nothing to say that's solid, well, go away and come back when you're for sure know that disclosure's coming. So that is my issue. Now, could disclosure happen? Well, it could. But for me, it's been smeared with. with all these stories of, yeah, it's coming next week,

it's coming next month, it's coming next year. But in saying that, again, I mean, there could be legitimate disclosure, and we all finally get the truth. Or it could be like a fabricated, manipulated disclosure where, for example, you know, people believe that something has happened when it could have been kind of like with the War of the World. You know, that was just an entertainment,

but people bought in. to it. You know, I sometimes wonder if disclosure might be like a fabricated thing that would be a way to take away more of our rights. You know, somebody sees a fleet of UFOs over each city. Yeah. Who's to say they were created on that star system? Maybe they were created by us as a means to create fear. You know, we all get up one morning and let's say, you know, there's a 200-foot wide saucer over 20 US cities. That's all it would take

to put the country in a state of like national security issues were just sore. I mean, some people might think that sounds like really conspiratorial and paranoid, which to a degree it is. But, you know, it would not take any time

to, you know, create a few sophisticated, weird looking spaceship type things have them hovering each over a bunch of cities and you know the city the country being locked down within hours yeah it really would so so maybe disclosure you know and then you've got some

prominent figures saying yes the aliens have finally arrived we don't know what's going on they're just sitting there in the sky and we've got to do something about it So we're going to initiate new national security laws because we don't know what's going to happen. And before you know it, it's like, you know, more rights are gone. Right. More surveillance.

More surveillance. By doing nothing other than fly a few craft in the sky, which gets everybody in a state of whatever. It's really interesting the idea of just the psychological warfare that's been enacted probably on both ends, either America or Russia. And I think the book sort of encapsulates this idea, this, you bookend it so well in the beginning and the end, of going from one time in history when this could have happened, up until now where we have Russian meddling happening in our everyday elections here in America.

So I kind of want to ask you, closing this out, Nick, what is the internet done in this new age? to really show that it's so damn easy to influence people now. Well, one of the problems is with the Internet is that I think so many people just, you know, they read the headline or the first couple of paragraphs and, you know, it could be like a multi-page article, you know, done by a reputable news outlet.

But people say, oh, I haven't got time, but they just read the headline. whatever and so they don't sometimes that happens i think people do that all the time i can admit yeah yeah i mean that does happen and i think there's also this tendency when people read in uphology they read stuff on the internet i think what's on the internet so it's real you know that that does happen oh yeah i mean it does and so you know i think we need to be more careful and tentative about what we say and when we say it and that's like we've If I write a book like that one, you know, that took about 18 months from beginning to end

to get all the data, research, interview people, and then to be published. And in that period, I didn't tell anyone about the book. And I always do that, because something could happen in that period that could blow one of the cases completely in the different direction. You know, and if I start talking about it too soon, you know, then so that's why I think it's important. to do all the research and stay as quiet as you can. And then when you've made a case, then put it out. And I think if more people did that,

we would have a community that isn't unfortunately, we're not infiltrated, but filled with, you know, controversial people, hoaxes, somebody who we find out, you know, spent five years in the slammer or whatever for this, you know. Or they've got a background in this. You know, we could have, we could have wrapped some of these people up if somebody had, instead of following their story, follow their background,

and if it turns out to be legitimate, that's great. If it turns out, you know, they were busted for this and busted for that, there's a good chance their story's bogus. But, you know, we need to focus on the alternative sides, I think, of the euphology to get some of the answers, or why government agencies are looking into things, you know, and it's not always for the reasons that it isn't always because they're looking into aliens. Yeah.

Sometimes it's politics, it's mind manipulation of belief systems, and then it all comes into play. And sometimes I think people just don't realize the sheer depth that sometimes that, that that sort of connection of different things come to a connection. And it's sort of a fascinating aspect that actually tells us more about people and UFO and the UFO community

than it actually does the UFO phenomenon itself. Good point. Yeah, it's putting that mirror back on ourselves often, I think. That's a really good way to look at it. Well, can you tell us a little, Nick, about what comes now? for you and where we can find all your work. Well, yeah, the new book, Flying Sources from the Kremlin,

you can get that off the shelves in Barnes & Noble, or they can order it in in a couple of days. You can get it from Amazon as well. And the next book I've got coming out is a little bit of a departure. It comes out in April of next year, and it's called Assassinations, and it's like an A to Z of historical assassinations throughout history. So it actually goes back to like the,

Egyptian times, the Romans. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then through to, you know, English kings and queens in the Middle Ages. And then through to like Abraham Lincoln. And then through, of course, of the 20th century, J.F.K. R.F.K. Martin Luther King.

Things like that. So it's, there's about sort of 70 or 80 assassinations looked at. And there are different theories who may have been behind them and things like that. Oh, interesting. Yes. And there's actually some UFO stuff. in there, people in euphology, who've died under mysterious circumstances. And so it's all conspiracy stuff.

No, is this, all deaths. Probably the most morbid book. Is this part of the series that you do? Because I know you've done other books that are like, you know, 50 cases of this. Yeah, yeah, it's done by Visible Ink Press. Oh, cool. And the Flying Sources from the Kremlin, that's just written in. a regular style.

But visible ink press, they have their own way of doing all their books and they're all 400 pages long, 150,000 words. And sometimes they're done in A to Z style and sometimes it's chronological

and things like that. But they're sort of written from like an encyclopedia type perspective. Not where it's like dull and dusty to read, but it's the style is where, you know, you could, if it's A to Z,

you know, you could look up K for Kennedy, John F, you know. And then you can jump back to the start of the book for Julius Caesar, that kind of thing. So you're not forced, in other words, to go from page 1 to 400, which can be a bit daunting. You know, it's daunting for me sometimes. I'm reading a huge book. It's like, oh, my God, I'm going to get through this, you know. But I think people like it when, you know, just take the book to the beach or whatever,

and take the Kindle to the beach. and just dip into it here and there. You're not, you know, it's not like you've got to keep going from page 1 to 400. And I actually like that style. Me too. I mean, I remember reading your book where you recorded a UFO event from every day of the week for the year. And that was so cool because you literally could wake up every morning with their coffee and be like, what happened in uphology today?

So I think it's a really fascinating structure that anyway, one in the public, not just those interested in UFOs, can really digest, you know. Well, actually, with that book, the 365 days of UFOs, a few people actually said to me, they didn't know each other, but they said what the first one they did was actually to see what happened on their birthday. Oh, of course. Which makes sense. You know, everybody would probably do that. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to have to go back and look at what happened on August 8th. Nick, thank you so much for joining me today, man. That was an absolute pleasure. That's it for this week's episode.

be sure to check out the prolific Nick Redfern's collection of books at any bookstore or online. And be sure to get Flying Saucers in the Kremlin right now through Lisa Hagen Books and on Amazon. You may have seen me put a call out for this on Facebook or Twitter recently. That's right, it is time once again for another volume of witness accounts. If you have a compelling UFO sighting, encounter, or experience you'd like to share on the show, this is your chance. These episodes consist of only listener accounts, and they are by far some of the most popular episodes to date. So if you'd like to be a part of it and to discuss further and submit your account, reach out to me personally on Facebook, Twitter, or use the contact tab on the website, somewhere in the skies.com.

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