The Cryptid Factor - 83: #083 The Dusty Old Brain Stairwell Issue

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Prepare yourself for this one. Not only is it packed full of all your usual Mammoth Meatballs, Ketchup Elvis hunters, Turkey Claus, Wolf-Tang Clams, Roast Beef Mothman, Bigfoot bathing, Mothership full of Alien Drones and a terrified son of Buttons... but we also get a rare peek inside Rhys' head to meet all the characters that live in there and try to make it work... and fail! Oh, and Harvard Astrophysicist AVI LOEB joins us for a quick Galileo update, to exponentially raise the IQ level and to give Dan a quick roasting. Enjoy! **This Ep is brought to you by Rax Roast Beef, Impossible Burgers, Beyond Burgers, Mammoth meatballs, Heinz Ketchup, BMW and Button's wife's App.

The Cryptid Factor with Rhys Darby and Dan Schreiber. Would you believe it? Would you even Adam and Eve it? That's right. Would you place two floppy creatures on this planet So they can mate and create a society of what we call humans that will then transcend into the true destiny makers of a world built by ourselves controlled by ourselves to the point where we are now beyond our own control by creating the next level of imagination. With artificial intelligence, ultimately destroying us. We're back. We got to record these more regularly to be less rusty, I think. That was my thought. I mean, you know, they're not working at full capacity. The speed. The speed is, but we can speed that up. You can actually speed that up if you want. Oh, yeah. That little bit with your technology.

Oh, that's a great. Yeah, I would do that. Let's let's hear that now. Would you believe it? Would you even Adam and Eve it? That's right. Would you place two floppy creatures on this planet so they can mate and create a society of what we call humans that will then transcend into the true destiny makers of a world built by ourselves controlled by ourselves to the point where we are now beyond our own control by creating the next level of imagination with artificial intelligence, ultimately destroying us. We're back. Wow. That's good. That's exactly how I imagined it coming out of my head. There we go.

But there's a lot of blockers in my head between my head and my voice box. You know, there's like a really old dusty stairwell. And there's a, yeah, there's a dude who's been in there for years who's like constantly dusting it. And I've told him my brain guys, look, don't worry about the dust. Don't worry about it. But he's in the way with his big broom and a lot of my ideas troopers like trying to come down. And there's this old guy. Oh, no, I've got to get the stairs dusted. Oh, I'm sorry about those guys. And it's like, no, no, we're going to come through. We're going to come through. We've got some great stuff coming through some vocals. Vocal team. One at a time. Eve, watch out. There's a bit of luck there. I haven't dusted the, oh God, that old guy. When are you going to die? Never. Oh, no, I'm not dying. Don't worry. Buttons will be able to speed you up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The leader of the team. I think one of Buttons's guys is in there. Buttons are there.

Okay, we're going to speed this one up. So that's where we're at. Emergency, emergency. We've got a blocker and stairwell number three. We've got an old blocker. An old blocker scooter in the dustbin. I can hear you. Oh, he's there in the background recently. Hi. And I also have Jarvis Kirkby. Why have you got one of Leon's kids? What's going on?

Wow, they're interchangeable. Jarvis, I hope you've been a good boy for Uncle Reese over there in Los Angeles. I'm picturing Jarvis sitting in the corner of the room there, subtly texting his mum. Mum, can I come back home? I'm getting a bit weird here. I've just got a weird hat on. Uncle Reese is getting really scary. I don't know what he's talking about. He's talking about brain blockers.

Wow, the blocker's clearly freed up, isn't it? Because look at those. Yeah. You're back on form now. Wow. That was quick. So many of those vocal troopers coming through that they pushed the old guy down. He always falls down the stairs, eventually, and the whole place is cleared. And then it's just like another alarm goes up. And then, basically, so many different idea troopers can come down,

and I've got to actually slow them down. So, for me, I've got to get the old boy back up again. Get up, mate. No, no, no, I'm not meeting them. They're coming. They're coming. There's too much coming down. Put your broom out. Trip a few of them over. Take their piece of...

And then my ideas are all jumbled. You're in the middle of your beatboxing whilst doing poetry and singing and reciting scripts from 60 years ago. It's amazing. Oh, my God. Can that get dangerous? You know, like in Austin Powers with the Fembots overload from the amount of... Oh, yeah.

Do you ever get that? You beatboxing, go... All those noises. Rappasodes? Reese just explodes. Oh, shit, that will happen one day. Yeah. I've got to be careful.

Yeah. Died of creativity. Yeah. That will be the official death certificate. Died of creativity. A cute creativity. All right, let's get into it. It's been a while.

We've got a great show. We have a guest this episode, which I'm very excited. Yeah, but it's our favourite. I've even worn his t-shirt. Wow, amazing. Just to give away the color. Galileo's on. Galileo's on.

You're getting Galileo. He's got a project. Galileo's got a project. Ladies' project. He's been quiet for a while. Yeah. Finally got a new project. That's good.

It's just selling t-shirts. But he's done very well with it. Avi Loeb is here. So he's going to tell us about the Galileo project later in the show. And because let's be honest, the extraterrestrial question is certainly in bold font these days with all the evidence and the Pentagon chatter. Did you guys hear the one about the idea that there's a mothership and that these little tic-tacs and things are possibly drones or, you know, being...

Old man on the stairwell. Old man dust. Get out. Just so I can just go back to my position. Get out of here. A lot of you guys have just come down. We've got the mothership news. We've got to get down quick.

We've got the mothership news. There's a mothership. I don't give a shit about your mothership news. Get the back out of here. Oh, the bread stack. Guys, I can't. You'll have to go down. Someone else go down.

No, we've lost it. The idea's gone. I'm going back up to headquarters. Good. Good. Good. God, this place is still dusty. Dusty's tear syndrome.

Still here in Jarvis. Mom, seriously, it's getting a bit scary now. No, you obviously don't... Listen, the Pentagon did... This came from the Pentagon. There was either them or NASA. One of them verbally farted and said, yeah, one of the theories is that there's a mothership up there.

It makes China sense as to where all these little tic-tac things are coming from, because they're clearly pilotless, and the way they move like a little squiggly pen and stuff means that what are they doing? Are they monitoring? Are they just spying? Are they... Certainly taking information from one thing or another.

Usually the military, what's happening there, what are our defences, what are we capable of, and then they sit back and then that information. The odd animal mutilation and anal probe and back up to the ship. Yeah, I mean, that's been going on for years. Exactly. How long has this mothership been up there? How long do they take to gather their data?

Well, that's the thing. If there are aliens that have a much longer life expectancy, say the aliens live for 600 years, them being here since the 1970s for them is just a couple of years, a few decades with nothing. So they're in no rush. Yeah, exactly. But is that a theory that they have?

Or is that verbal far? Or a leak? Yeah, or have they seen something? I don't think Pentagon just has press conferences for theories. They're like, guys, they should do. Bob has had an idea. Wow, I'd be able to get a job. And the Pentagon then.

I'd be like, I'd be great. Yeah, you'd be head. Head theorizer. Yeah. Absolutely. That is a good question, Bob. I'm sure one of our fans will tell us, or we can also Google it during,

maybe when Buttons is doing one of his articles. Yes, thank you. We should say, though, Abby Loeb. So he's obviously a friend of the podcast, but there will be people out there who might have missed previous episodes and don't realize who he is. But this is a serious physicist. He was the chair of astrophysics and cosmology at Harvard University.

I think he served the longest that anyone has as the chair for astronomy there ever in Harvard history. And he's now making waves because it was Umumu, which was this passing object in space that scientists couldn't work out what it was doing because it just didn't behave like a normal asteroid or comet or whatever it is that passes us in space. So he's put forward the idea,

well, what if it's an alien spaceship? Yeah. That makes as much sense as it being anything else. And he's really put himself out on the line there because it's a wild theory, but he is someone with so much credibility behind him. That's kind of what's exciting about where he's going with this. Yeah.

Guess what, guys? What? It was, waffling on. I was researching Pentagon Mother's Avenue. Well, you see, you've done it yourself so that we don't do it during your speech. Well, I'm glad that we did. I know how your mind works.

Well, no, but we've got an issue. I'm going to do it now. I'll do it. Well, he's still doing it. I'll do it. I'll do it. No, but it's very lucky I did because now is the time to reveal

that we actually have pre-recorded the interview with Avi Loeb. And it's important that I say that we've pre-recorded the interview with Avi Loeb because the one person who has said that there could be an alien mothership hovering around the solar system with the Pentagon is Avi Loeb. Are you serious? Whilst you were talking about Avi Loeb,

I was reading, alien mothership lurking in our solar system could be watching us with tiny probes, Pentagon official suggests. A draft paper by a Harvard scientist, Avi Loeb and the head of Pentagon's UFOs new office. And I'm like, oh man.

And then so if we went from talking about that, which only came out four days ago, and we recorded with Avi a couple of weeks ago, people would be sitting there going, any moment now they're going to ask him about the mothership. Oh yeah, good point. And we never ask him. And now we've got the problem,

we're going to play this old interview knowing that the real question we want to ask him is, what about the mothership? Oh man. You know what we'll do? We'll put that on at the end. So we'll play the interview. And then right at the end,

we'll go, we'll come back to us and we'll go, one of us, or maybe you buttons can ask, oh yeah, but what about this whole mothership thing? Yeah. This idea that there's, you know, and then I'll just do the noise of a, do, do, do, do, do.

Oh, great. Damn it. Hang up. It's the Pentagon have shut it down. They've like, they don't know, they just make it that we can't talk about the Pentagon news because it's all top secret, apart from the fact that it's in space.com.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm quite nervous about this interview going out actually because there were moments where I really was sort of praising Avi for being so amazing. So sort of like artistically brilliant in his language. And I don't think I've been slammed so hard by anyone. That's so beautiful.

Including my kids. That's my favorite part of the interview. Oh my God. He just attacks me with his, I mean, and again, beautifully, his words are beautiful, but he's just like, oh, I hate it when people talk about this stuff.

Yeah. And I kept going back for more, like some sort of abuse thing. I was just trying to praise it. So anyway, if the Pentagon is listening, if you could, if you could sort of hang up that bit of the interview as well, it doesn't go out.

That's it. I'd appreciate that. I got roasted. I was roasted by Avi Lo. It was so good. Painful. Well, we've got that to look forward to. Yeah.

A poetic roasting of Dan Shriver. Yeah. He's really getting into it though. He's really. Yeah. Doubling down on, on alien contact. And because there's,

there's other theories that have come out about Omar, heavily suggesting that it isn't an extraterrestrial thing because scientists have now, have you seen these, the latest articles that I think I flipped it over to, one of you, I'd have to find it because my guy in the stairs is really

heavily working now. But He's going to sleep in the stairs. There's no, nobody's getting down to rest of the show. It's another theory. I can easily, I've got it in my,

in my notes here and I will pull it up. But in the meantime, let's kick into everyone's favorite segment because, hey, let's be honest, it's been a few months. Yeah. Weekly world,

weird news. Crazy. Freaky. Watch out. So I've got a piece of news to kick off with, if that's okay. Yes. Yeah, go for it.

Okay. This one comes from space.com. It's titled as alien mothership lurking in our solar system could be watching us with tiny probes. Pentagon and Harvard scientists. Have you guys heard about this? Wait a minute. My guy in the stairwell is just waking up.

What's going on? Hey, how did that guy get through? What the, I just got an extra proven. He hit some, oh, Reese,

some guys come through and he's stolen your idea. My, my stairwell is so not dusty today. Oh, you got to watch out, man. I had a spring clean crew come through last night, my back stairwell.

Yeah. Cause I'm slightly wondering if, when you weren't listening to me and you were Googling that story, when you then started talking about that story, were you also then Googling and not listening to yourself and finding that story? Wow.

Is this like a hit of himself? Honestly, it's, it's hard. It's hard meeting him. With clean stairwells, I don't even know what's going on. The shit's coming out.

No, I don't even know what's coming out. It's so fast. So fast. It's, it's crazy. Do you want me to send my old guy over? Yeah,

that'll be great. It's like a slippery slope now. It's so polished. He's like, I don't want to get on that guy's stairwell. Oh God. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

with dust on it, that he just spreads this too, buddy. Oh my God, this is gonna be painful. Now, you push him through the side door and let us know. Okay, well, here's my real news then, if you really want- Oh, you got an actual one, okay. I've got an actual one. All right. Woolly mammoth meatballs could be the next item

on your plate. Beautiful. There you go. So, if you're into woolly mammoths and meatballs. So, what's the story? Because we don't have any woolly mammoth. Whoa, this is the whole story. Australia is looking to bring the woolly mammoth back

just to turn it into meatballs. What? Good old Australia, doing it again. So, yeah. Aussie. So, that's my headline anyway. Again, sorry, doing it again. What was the first?

What came back first? Oh no, they- The dodo- Wow. Dodo sarnies. Wow. That's all in my news story, guys. We got away.

We've got to do a little bit of dusting first. And then I'll be able to give you the guts of it. I've got to read the article first. Okay. Dan, what's your headline? Oh, okay. Well, I've got a headline and then a thing I'd like to mention, just as an acknowledgement.

So, the headline is Heinz Ketchup, search for a lost man to give him a boat because miraculously, he survived being lost out on a boat by eating nothing but Heinz Ketchup. Oh my God. That's amazing. Ooh and wow. Ooh and wow.

I mean, Heinz Ketchup only. Yeah. He was lost on a boat, he had nothing, but he had apparently quite a lot of ketchup and he was able to survive. And so, they've been looking, he's called Elvis. Heinz went on a search for Elvis. Elvis.

The story gets weird. To reward him and give him his own boat now so he can go back out there and go shipping. But we'll get into the story in a bit. And then I also just want to quickly acknowledge the passing of one of the greats of the sort of occulti esoteric weirdness world, which is England lost Mystic Meg recently.

Oh no. Yeah, Mystic Meg, she was the astrologer in the newspapers here. She famously sort of spent 30 odd years or more basically predicting daily horoscopes. And she was massive and she was really cool. Even as a kid, I remember her in the newspapers and stuff from in New Zealand.

So the whole, I'm guessing the Commonwealth knew of this very famous figure. I mean, alliteration goes a long way. Yeah. If her name was not Meg, I mean, things would be different, but it would be different. So Mystic, oh, that's sad. So she passed away, she was quite old.

She didn't have any kids. She had seven dogs or cats. I can't quite remember which one. Someone said that they discovered in her house that every single room had a naked picture of her. She just had a naked picture of herself in all over the room. But who doesn't?

Who doesn't, good point, good point. But my favorite story of her is that she was, used to do a thing, the national lottery here, used to have her on to try and predict what the balls were gonna be that night. So every night as they were doing live and they were picking the balls, she would stand there and say,

my prediction this week is, and then she would say down the line. And so people could either use the prediction, I think maybe she was saying it for the week after or whatever, and they could use her predictions as part of it. And one only anecdote I could find about the time was while she was live on TV,

predicting the balls for the national lottery, a man started running towards her, completely naked to join her on camera. And fortunately, they were able to grab him just before he got to her and got on camera. But she noticed out of the corner of her eyes as they turned him around and pulled him away off from the set that painted on his back.

He just had three words that said, pick my balls. And that was the only great anecdote of stick Meg from her time there. Yeah, but she's gone, RIP. RIP. That's a really, really extensive way to do a dick joke. Creative streaking. You can imagine that person sitting there

for months and months and months going, she's talking about balls and balls are also part of my anatomy and wouldn't it be funny if like she picked my balls? Ah, how can I play this joke out? This is too good. Yeah, the meeting he must have had with himself over that. His dusty staircase was clear.

Like those thoughts, that's a thought that shouldn't have gotten through. That's the old man should have been like, no, sorry, mate. Terrible idea. Turn around. He wasn't blocking enough. Yeah. Tarps, what do you got?

Well, I mean, we're in an age of anything can happen and anything can be believable now. Thanks to AI and chat GP8. What is it called? Chat GPT. GPT. There's so many more. GPT.

I can't keep up. It's like trying to keep up with all the different models of BMWs that are coming out. I mean, I just... Is this a paid ad? Are you... He's not even... The one, my favorite one, though, that I ate,

it's just fantastic on its mileage, you know, leather interior. I would just say, all I'll say is over 300 miles, I've only had to charge it twice since having it. And it's a hell of a smooth ride. Meanwhile, all butters could get a sponsorship as Willie Mammoth Meatballs, it is paddling. But guys, have you tasted them? Oh my God, just honestly, they're so velvety smooth

in your mouth. But what you'd need for them is to dip them in Heinz ketchup, which is the finest boat sustenance food. I knew we'd make money from this bloody podcast one day. Oh my God, that's great. Someone's making money. Okay, but get this one. Futurist predicts that we will achieve immortality

within just eight years. Oh. Yeah. Let's just come out. I didn't read the article, but I saw it. So basically, that's to me is the holy grail of what humans are trying to strive for, because we're stuck in a prison,

we've got a time limit, we've only got 80 plus years. And I think with all the advances that we're having in technology at the moment, and particularly with artificial intelligence, it's, we're coming to a very dangerous point where we're creating stuff that's gonna be better than us. And so we're becoming, the better we are, we're actually becoming less, less existent and less in use.

A lot of us now are getting letters in the mail of asking us as to whether we'd like to become stairwell cleaners. I'm so glad you've got a backup stairwell cleaner. Even though you're main guys with me, that does go on, guys, the stairwell cleaner's gone. Quick, get Barry. Get Barry from down, he's currently cleaning the pipes

down near the balls. Quick, get him up. Can you, can you speed that last couple of years up by me as well? Thanks, man. That's awesome, dude. Well, it is funny though, because right at the point that the world is turning literally to shit and there's storms and devastation

and it's becoming a planet that is like not so great to live on if we look into the future. It's gonna be a hard place to live on. We're at the same time, we're making ourselves immortal. So we're gonna be having to live for it for three, so like, God, tell her, why couldn't we figure this out earlier when the world was still nice? I'll tell you what though, we had an episode a while ago

where we talked about chat GBT and we did all the stuff of the script being written for us. So here's some hot goss. I met with someone who is a scientist who has been called in by the British government to discuss, which is what's happening globally, this very, very scary danger of chat GBT, because what's happening now is chat GBT is evolving

as an AI in order to comb the internet, in order to create the funny script for the cryptid factor, right? Like that's how it's evolving to that. What's really happening though, is that you could now have a kid, so this was the example I was told, you can have a kid who says, chat GBT,

I wanna hack into all the Teslas in America and I wanna be able to make every single one of them do this right now. And it will comb the internet for hacks. It will comb the internet for every little bit of dark information and then can actively do it. And they're really worried that this is something

that's unprecedented in kind of global intelligence where it's using the globe of intelligence to do whatever it wants. Some 14 year old kid in a room is asking it to do and they don't know how to curb it yet. So it's suddenly gone from innocent cryptid factor scripts to very quickly- But to Teslas is really doing dancing.

The end of the world. Driving in circles. And like really fast. Yeah, really, really fast. Which brings me to this point, which is an article I just pulled up today from the BBC, Elon Musk among experts urging a halt to AI training.

So basically they've signed an open letter warning of potential risks and say the race to develop AI systems is out of control. And these are the big weeks. Twitter chief Elon Musk is among those who want training of AI's above a certain capacity to be halted for at least six months. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak

and some researchers at DeepMind also signed. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting that Wozniak's on there. That's the guy we saw. Reese, you and I saw in Edinburgh. Remember we went to a talk of the co-founder of Apple, Wozniak.

That's who we saw talking when we were in Edinburgh. He invented the personal computer, basically. Yeah, he's one of the big weeks. These are the guys that are at the leading edge of invention of the technological advancements that are happening. It says here, advanced AI's need to be developed with care, the letter says.

But instead, recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out of control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can understand, predict, or reliably control. Yeah, see, this is the thing. And I don't know, even since we did that, the chat GPT episode at the start of the year,

the amount of apps and software and services that have been launched using AI isn't out of control. It's insane because if you're a entrepreneur and you're developing an app or something, if it doesn't have AI, people are now kind of going, well, if it doesn't have AI, I mean, you know, what's it? So it's expected now, even Michelle, my wife, she's launched a sports coaching app called Coachmate.

You can get it now on Android and iOS, available in great countries. Here we go, here we go, here we go. Great countries, great countries. Is that gonna be downloadable on the new BMW i40? It is, funnily enough. You get a free pack of six meatballs every download, so it's good.

You better let Heinz know, Dan. But this is the thing, she's like, it's a parent coaching app for sports and stuff. They've put AI in it so that if somebody asks a question about how do I coach kids? It's the AI answering rather than a human because people want an answer. They don't want to wait for somebody to reply to an email.

So it's now gonna, and that's a sports coaching app. It's like, it's crazy how it's just gone like Walfa. But I don't know about you, but I hear that story about Tesla's all being taken over around the world and stuff, and instantly, I don't know about you, but my brain goes, I just want to move to the bush. I just want a little shack. I just want to raise my family away from all technology.

And so I think what it's gonna do, technology is gonna push us away from the desire to actually want it because it's gonna be too scary. But at the same time, it's a good point, but in New Zealand, the dream is still to have that quarter acre, isn't it? And to move out from the city.

And a lot of people have done it over the last few years, particularly during the COVID period, where they've bought some land and they've either put a tiny house on it, or they've bought a shack on it, or they've actually been able to get a house, and they're kind of living off the land because people are seeing the way things are going,

and the only logical path forward if you disregard technology is to use nature to keep you alive. How about that sound by it, Dan? It was sped up, that's- Can you speed that up? Can you speed it up just a tiny bit? Buttons.

I'll see what I can do. You've used all your edits now for the next four podcasts, so you're using- Nah, it's worth it. I mean, let's be honest, there might not be another podcast to come back and I'll desert the way we're going this year. That's a good point, a very good point.

Is that a- Should we make that? We can't make that announcement yet though, but there's a hope that we may... Can you speed this bit up? Actually, can you put in some Benny Hill music now? Because my old Dusty Man is halfway through zipping back to me.

Ah, God, I hate these rings! It didn't take long for him to clean my stairwell. It was very, very good. Yeah. Shhh! Go! Oh, God! Just get the sound out of your head, please.

Quickly get through. Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Oh, that was sweet. No.

Barry can go back down to the balls. They can go back to the balls? No, no, no, no! They go down to the balls and smell it down there. OK! How have you been, Barry? I've been up on the stairwell. Oh, the brain stairwell.

Yeah, I got a little chance. So I'm not that happy with the smarties. Yeah, I've been sitting back down to the balls. Well, then you come quickly. Could be the rub. No, I don't know why I've been rubbing the balls. Oh, no, no, no, no. Mom, seriously, it's getting twisted now.

Please come pick me up. Uncle Reese has a little man that rubs his balls. Come back! He's got a wife, but I don't know what she's doing. All right, what are we up to? I don't know. I don't know where we are now. No, catch up.

Did you do a news headline? Yeah, we just did Reese's, yeah. Catch up story. Yeah, good. The whole thing. Reese's story. All right, so just very quickly, this is my headline about Heinz Ketchup.

There was the Colombian Navy managed to rescue a man who was from Dominica who says, and this was 24 days after he first went adrift, that he survived completely by eating ketchup. There was a bit of a side of garlic powder, some seasoning cubes, but largely ketchup that kept him alive. His name's Elvis Francois, 47 years old,

and his sailboat was spotted 120 nautical miles northwest of the Guajira Peninsula. Ooh, where's Guajira? I haven't heard of that, but I'm sure that's a very famous place, but so apologies to Guajira. Anyway, so he gets found. They find out that he's been surviving on ketchup.

The word gets through to Heinz, and Heinz then decide that they'd love to give him a new boat because he'd given such a good name for Heinz Ketchup, having eaten for nearly a month its product. So they set up this major campaign, which was titled hashtag find the ketchup boat guy, because they didn't even know he was called Elvis at this point, I don't think,

or possibly they did, but he just kind of disappeared. And so thousands of people around the world globally were trying to hunt down Elvis, and they found him. They found him. So Heinz has been reunited with Elvis, and they've given him a boat. Oh, it's so cute. It's quite nice.

That's a cool story. How bizarre. What sort of boat did they give him, do you know? No, I'm not sure. Tell me, please tell me, it's not a gravy boat. Ah! Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

everyone come up to the celebration area. Yep, you may. Oh, I'm gonna go, look. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, old man in the stairs, you can come down and drop your boom. Oh, God, thank God, look what's happening, he's done something great, he's done something great. Woo, dancing girls.

He's done it again, he's done it again, he's done it again. He's a genius, he's a genius, he's done it again. He said something crazy funny, just out of the blue. Come on, you two, Steve. I'm working on his eyeballs, no, they're gone, man. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

Everyone back to your stations, thank you. Oh, did it? Yeah, that's it for now. We're gonna re-get a badge, you get a badge each. Oh, man, click those on the way out, shoot. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh my God. How was it, Barry?

Yeah, hey dude, I can't remember what it was about, but we got a badge, oh, don't put it in there. Ah, a botanical, Jesus! I mean, I've gotta say, that was a great joke. I mean, gravy boat and ketchup and all that kind of stuff. But it wasn't a fantastic joke, but it was a pretty massive celebration for that little joke. I just want to know what happens

when you say really great jokes, when you drop something really big on stage. Man, there must be champagne flowing, people just like all over each other. Congolones. Congolones! It's a done it again. It's Riz.

Yeah. Oh, 100%. It's like New Year's Eve and Wolf of Wall Street all joined up together of some weird, wacky celebration with a lot of drugs and nudity. And I've just got to get out of there, guys. Get back to your stations, all right? I've got to do another joke, I can't think.

You've got another one coming up. Can I just join the celebration area? You've got another one on the way. You know, I'm not sure whether the land, you can feel. And when a joke doesn't land, there's just one dude there with one of those blow things. Guys?

Guys? I've got a box full of badges ready to hand out. Nobody's here. Could Barry go back to the balls? Barry, return to the balls. But I thought it was a great joke. I mean, pick my balls. What's wrong with that?

OK, well, we're speaking of balls. Oh, it's a meatball. Oh, my God, yeah. Woolly mammoth meatballs. This is the greatest show we've ever done. I know. OK, so this is this is from Sky News. Woolly mammoth meatballs coming to a plate near you soon.

So there's an Australian company which is actually aiming to keep people eating meat but to move away from actually farming meat and actually create it in laboratories. So there's a few of these things. And obviously, there's the vegan and vegetarian options with impossible meats and those type of companies that are that are creating a meat like substance.

Beyond as well. Beyond meat. Yeah, that's right. Is that the other one you were sponsored by? I'm sponsored by Impossible. I don't know. I don't know anything because I wasn't supposed to mention beyond. I was just. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry.

Canceled each other out there. Yeah, same thing with me. That's why I think. Good to know. So that but this is an Australian company which is looking to take DNA strands from extinct animals and then grow the meat of those animals in a laboratory for the purpose of people.

Just purely for eating. Yeah, but without creating the whole animal. And so they've done it. But really? Already. They've taken the DNA strands from frozen DNA from woolly mammoths that have been found in ice sheets around the world and they have cultivated the animal protein into an edible meat product.

No. Yeah. Get out. And so yeah. And so there's this future buttons talking here. Yes, I'm eating a burger right now. Guys, if you can't wait, I'm immortal and eating mammoth burgers. It's amazing. Wow. Yeah. OK. It's really great.

Anyway, obviously, the woolly mammoth people have talked in the past about actually bringing the woolly mammoth back and using elephant DNA and integrating that with woolly mammoth DNA and bringing it back. But obviously, that's a massive ethical question as to whether or not what's the purpose of bringing back if they went extinct and do we need more animals? And, you know, if we can bring back extinct animals,

which ones do we bring back and which ones don't we? So this, they're not bringing the whole animal back. Just the burger patty. Well, he is talking about ethical. I mean, one thing I thought of there, I don't want to start another celebration, but was the the ecosystem versus the ego system. OK. So, right.

Nice to the berry to stay where you are. It's very easy. He's working his way up. Oh, he's so bored down there. All right, just like OK, basically. He's in there. No, too early, too early. Can I have a badge?

Just wait. I think it's like because we are capable of doing this as humans, right, because we're so smart and it's our ego. But then you look at the actual ecosystem and it's like you were saying, what's the point of bringing a woolly mammoth back? Is it going to help the animal kingdom? Is it going to help nature or is it going to hinder it by the fact that they're going to need food?

Is it going to put into a flux the actual the world where the animals exist at the moment because new ones will be getting eaten, other ones won't get food, et cetera, et cetera. So and then you're saying, OK, no, we're only going to bring them back. Then maybe the thought of that will just bring them back as as paddies. And that's just like that is kind of a horrendous idea. We're bringing something back from the past just so we can eat.

Well, this company is called Val, right? And they are saying the reason why they want to bring back the woolly mammoth as well as the other species they're looking to bring back for patties is alpaca, but alpacas aren't extinct, but they're looking to grow alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, peacocks and different types of protein. They're going to make all those proteins. Yeah, that's with their idea.

They should do a big foot one because then when you call it a patty, then that's a perfect guy. Guys, get up the stairs, patty, patty, patty, patty. Does your body respond to other people's gags? It's claiming it. It's claiming it. I helped set that up. I helped set that up. Everybody upstairs for a party. So what did he say?

No, somebody else said it, but he kind of was in the room. Well, we allowed to party this one. Yeah, I think so. There's definitely a link. I'm too scared. I'm staying on the stairs. I'm sorry. That was definitely Dan's work. Barry. Well, come on, give us a badge.

The patty, patty. I do like that. But anyway, Tim Noakesmith, who co-founded Val, told the Guardian, we chose the woolly mammoth because it's a symbol of diversity loss and a symbol of climate change. So and the truth is, is that they're not even eating the birds. So they've done it. They worked with a professor, Ernst Wolfertang at the Australian. What was that one mean?

Wolfertang? Wolff? They're really weird names for Australia. You expect something like Smith or Jones in Australia, but this is Ernst Wolvytang from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland. And they used him to help recreate the mammoth protein. And he said Wolvytang.

He said their team took the DNA sequence and he said it was easier than they thought to create the burger patty using the DNA from an elephant and the DNA from the mammoth. He said it was really easy. He said it was ridiculously easy and fast. We did this in a couple of weeks. Are you suggesting that these things are going to it's going to go through

and these things are going to be for sale at some point? We're going to go to the supermarket and it's going to be. And here's my other question that's leading beyond my my current statement. Yeah, I'll put it in now and then I'll come back to the statement. How big are these fucking patties going to be? No, I know mammoth is a big animal. Well, if that's really printing them, they just print them as big as they want. OK, because wouldn't that be hilarious?

Yeah, you're in the supermarket in the meat section of the beyond meat section. And then there's a massive patty there and it's got and it says on. I mean, we were definitely going to buy it, right? The woolly mammoth. Yeah, people are going to have to get bigger barbecues, bigger buns. Be funds. If Ernest Wolf Tang is doing food of all sorts, I really hope that he includes as part of this some sort of clam product.

Because here we go. Your party, ready? Get the doors open because you're ready, you're ready. I can feel it. Here we go. I can feel it coming. Then he would be able to market the Wolf Tang plan. Come on, come down from the stairs. Ah, fuck, what's this one?

Oh, I never even heard of that band. Oh, thank you. Hey, people are zipping across from Dengs. Hey, don't bring all those books in here. Hey, patty, patty, patty. Oh, I'm dance guys. Ah, dance guys, come in. Oh, look there, dance guys, right here.

Oh, stop bringing all those books out, it's just dance. Oh, I don't like parties. Oh, I'm so sorry. Me whilst, I feel all the dudes in my head going, fuck. He never says anything good that you start a party. We haven't had a party in years. I can't even zip line over to him because we haven't seen anything good for ages.

Somebody quick, somebody from the writing department, right? Something that's going to start a party, please, please. Oh, they're on strike. The writing department. No one's found him in years. They're tucked away. Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. The mystery to find Button's writing department, men.

That's an episode for the Crypton Factor. Where are they? Has everybody checked the elbows? Could be down in the elbows. Anyways, but the funny thing is with these patties, the final part of it, is that despite all the work that's gone into it, nobody has yet had the honor of being the first person

to taste the mammoth meatball. Because Ernst says, we haven't seen this protein for thousands of years. So we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies.

Imagine if this is the thing that kills us off. Oh, my God. This is what wipes out human species. This is how. Literally, we're too clever for our own good. Yeah. What took him out, woolly mammoth meatball? Yeah, just guys, it's an ultimate case of the ecosystem

versus the ego system. Barry's back up there. Oh, did he do that one already? I'm just going to stay up here. How much longer have they got to record? I'm just going to stay here and I'll just make myself comfortable on this couch. Sick of going up and down.

He's like, I'm going to pick him fast today, aren't I? Yeah, I'll stay up here. Thank you. Make myself comfortable. Anyway, I'm just going to say as well that story, I didn't find all by myself one of our lovely cryptid knights on our Patreon page. The Patreon page, Sarah sent that through.

Oh, lovely. Thank you, Sarah. Great story. Perfect. Well, speaking of that, let's link again. Let's get into some cryptid buzz before our big, heavy interview. And oh, he's waiting, isn't he?

He's there. He's in the waiting room of time. Attention, all personnel, it's time for this week's cryptid. Oh, help me. Well, mystery as claw, resembling that of a velociraptor, shows up in someone's garden. What? Yeah.

As in, not like a fossil, an actual claw. Yep, absolutely real, OK? Wow. A woman from the UK couldn't believe her eyes when she came across the peculiar disembodied appendage. Laura Moorcroft, who hails from Buckley in England, described the unusual discovery as like something out of Jurassic Park.

When she spotted it in her front garden recently, sporting several sharp talons and scaly skin, the appendage looked like it came from some kind of reptile. Despite the fact that there are no wild animals in the UK that would fit the bill. Keen to find the answers, she posted up the image of the claw and social media. While some users suggested that it

belonged to something exotic, like a crocodile or an alligator, others were quick to point out that it was most likely the foot of some sort of large bird. Big, though. Eventually, the precise culprit was identified. We just thought instantly it was something out of Jurassic Park. But it turns out it could be from a turkey. Yeah.

How do you think it's true? Like, this is a big turkey. If you like, how big is a turkey foot that you accidentally think that it might be from a dinosaur? Yeah. Well, have you guys seen the photo? Do you want me to show you the photo so that you can really see this? You'll be like, oh, wow.

And you would think exactly like she thought. OK, so and it just goes to show how we all know that birds are related to dinosaurs, that they came from them. But when you see something like this, you go, it does freak you out. And they're bigger than you might think when it comes to turkey claws. Because yeah, because you don't how many turkeys have you grabbed and had a decent look at in the foot department. Not many.

But just you saying the word turkey claws makes me just. I just love the idea of Christmas time having turkey claws. Is Santa Claus come, daddy? No, but turkey claws certainly has. That'd be a great dad joke. That's funny. Although Barry hasn't moved. There's no party going on up here.

Barry started going down to me again. It's just that I've dried up. What do you think of that? Listeners, we're just looking at a photo here. We're missing the classic. Yeah, something else in shot. We need the box of matches. That's exactly the scale.

An astute observer would notice the thickness of the blades of grass and the length of the grass. We just good point. But it could be massive grass, could be like ginormous grass, in which case it's a ginormous claw. I don't think so. When you think about the UK and the grass situation there, that looks like just standard grass to me.

Yeah, true. Yeah, which means that claw is quite small. Yeah, looks big on a photo because you're looking at a photo. But when you think about this, that's probably the actual life size size of it, which is. Yeah, it is probably about that size. In which case, how could you not see it and go that's from like a big chicken or a small turkey?

I think it's a slow news day in whatever town that was. My high-pitched team are coming through now. I think you can find there that it looks very, very ancient. I mean, look at the scumfuls on it. The high-pitched team. The high-pitched team have come through. They're particularly helpful. The high-pitched team are particularly helpful on Christmas

or birthdays when you get a present that you don't really like at all. Oh, thank you. I mean, we're the high-pitched team. I've just been waiting to come down and like fake it for a while for you. The high-pitched team will fake it for a while for you. Thanks, guys. Upper registers. You're breaking up.

You have you had had views? No. No, guys, the guy in the stairs is getting in the mic. Get out of here. Trying to say something about let's go before it gets gets to us. I have gone. The high pitches are all trying to run back up the stairs at the same time as the next guy's coming down.

This is just traffic jam. It's like, what are you high pitches doing down here? Oh, no, no, it's time to defend this really shitty article that he found. They were just down there trying to mop that up. If any of you high pitches have got croaky voices or can't maintain the highness of your tone, you'll be fired. In fact, Barry needs some help down down below so you can go down and help him down there.

OK, let's move on to another cryptid article because times are ticking. Yeah, Dan, what have you got? Well, I saw there's just always enjoyable seeing a bit of footage where you think what is actually in this photo. And there's a story that Bigfoot has been caught having a bath in a Vancouver little river. And I mean, a lot of people say that it might be a bear or that it might be a tree stump, but I don't know bears and tree stumps

well enough from a distance to be able to tell. So I'll show you the video here. So here we go. Oh, yes. Hello. What is that? It looks quite ape like. So it's not moving at all. What have they done? Have they suddenly ran away?

Or have they did they? Where's the rest of the footage? So that's the most suspicious thing with all of these kind of videos whereby it's like looks like something decent. Someone's creeping up and filming something, but then it cuts off. And you think, well, OK, so that's it. So why wouldn't you just sit there with the camera waiting? You're at a safe distance, zoom in and sit and wait until Sasquatch

hops out of the bath. It's a bit creepy, granted, watching somebody hop out of the bath. I think in this case, it's kind of warranted to be because he turns around and sees you and he could then if he was angry and he'd storm out of that water body, the body of water, I mean, not his own body made of water. And then he would be able to catch you. I think that's because they stormed because I know that gorillas, despite 200 pounds plus of weight, are actually faster than us,

especially through their own terrain. OK, it was just nice to have. I love the ever building catalog of video that we constantly get to see of people who claim something. And it's getting harder now because everyone's actually doing proper fake videos. It's quite nice to see something that might actually just be a log, which is a bit old school. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I think that's exactly what it was.

I sort of had quite a dark log. It was, wasn't it? Yeah. OK, what do you have buttons? Well, I have for my cryptid news is actually more of an eyewitness account. Oh, brilliant, which is great. So we get to play that sting quickly. OK. Oh, what have you got there? Oh, great. Another eyewitness account.

Account. Account. One of my favourite sightings and eyewitness accounts is of Mothman. Yes. And I wore the hat. Yes, exactly. Reese is wearing a beautifully made Mothman hat from one of one of his many fans, which is keeping all of the party goers warm today, which is Andy. And this is from only two days ago, so it's fresh hot off the news. And it's from Joliet in Illinois, which is near Chicago.

And this person has a very close encounter with Mothman. Now, Mothman has been spotted a great deal in Chicago of late of the last few years. And one of our news articles from just last episode, wasn't it? Was it Reese? You were reporting it was spotted at Chicago O'Hare Airport. That's right. Yeah. So here it is again. The guy's name is Phineas Conrad Endicott, and this is his account.

He says, greetings all I write to you from my humble basement. Not a great start. To inform you from my parents' basement. I'm out. No. To inform you that I've recently experienced a rather hairy and scary encounter. He says, I was cruising down Jefferson Street in my mint 1982 Huffy suite style. Oh, it must be a car. I'm sure. Interesting.

At approximately 9 30 p.m. I was en route to the delicious Rex Roast Beef store where I planned on enjoying a famous roast beef sandwich. Sorry, is our eye witness account promoting adverts? The next sentence. That's the first. Even our listeners are trying to get on the promotional bandwagon because the next part of it about Rex roast beef,

where I plan to enjoy a famous roast beef sandwich with exceptional customer service. Come on. Come on, hang on a second. I think we'll just then lend that there, right? Exactly. He says, however, however, I forgot that it was Sunday and that the store was actually closed.

So they're letting customers know that it's not open on Sundays. Yep. Rex roast beef, man. God, now I feel like one. I feel like a roast beef sandwich now. God damn it, it's working. I do. I do too. Thank God, it's not Sunday.

He said at 9.45 p.m. The exactly when he arrived there and it was closed, I began to hear loud banging and thuds across the street. Oh, here we go. Instinctively, my investigative and peculiar mind. Wait, you better put some music underneath this now. It's getting to the good part. Well, no, no, you guys know you have to make the spooky music.

The way is the new system. DIY spooky music. Here we go. Don't do it too good because I'll get distracted. And it's very hard to read for me. Subtle. Yeah, I'll send my subtle team through. OK, here is. You've got a subtle team. Well, I know when you see them, I've been apparently

hanging out with your writing team. I'm just trying to send them through and knock them through. Come on. Oh, mate. Oh, it's been years. Yeah, come on. Subtle. Be subtle. Do your job. You've got to do some music now.

Subtle music. Get out of town. All right. Jeez. All right, he's working it. OK, here we go. Here we go. Oh, so I began to hear loud banging and thuds across the street. Instinctively, my investigative and peculiar mind caused me

to navigate towards the frightening sounds. The sounds led me behind Napa Auto parts where I was greeted with an outrageous and pungent smell. In my 62 years on God's green earth, I have never smelled anything like it. I began to retch and salivate from the horrid scent. My vision had gone blurry. However, I noticed a relatively humongous and hairy silhouette

dawdling towards me. After gaining back 60% of my vision, I knew that it was him, the Mothman, the smell, the scent, the silhouette. It had to be him. He flew away before I could snap a photo or question him on his identity. Excuse me, Mr. Mothman, your identity.

Can I just question you on that for one? Well, just one moment, please. No, God. Oh, the Mothman has been cited numerous times all throughout the Chicago land area, and I never thought that I would see him myself, too. So, that's the eyewitness account. Pony!

No, Barry, Barry, come on. No, this is not... Oh, cool. I've been up here for ages. I decided to stay up here, but nothing's... Nothing's... I should have gone next year. I should have gone... I saw... If somebody had said it was Button's turn to do a story, I would have gone back down and kept polishing.

So, who sent that in? Phineas Conrad Endicott. Oh, wow. I love the names this episode. Joliet. They're off the hook. Great names. Great names. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I think some of them are made up. OK. I just love that he's driving around in a 1982 Huffy suite style. Yeah, all I took from that story was the type of car and the awesome sandwich shop he went to and that they're not open on Sundays. So, that... Rags, roast beef. Not open Sundays.

On an advertising level, that eyewitness account was fantastic. Exactly. Make sure you say that Phineas Endicott Conrad sent him and you get 10% off. That's good. Well, we've got to wrap things up now because we do have our big interview,

which we're going to open the door to right now. And, yeah, enjoy this. This is the intellectual part of the show. Expert interview. These experts, OK? Oh, here he is. Hi, everyone. Hey.

Hello. Avi. Yes. Good to see you. Except Leon, I see him very cloudy. It looks like the internet is not great. Oh, we're in New Zealand. It's very cloudy in New Zealand at the moment, Avi.

Just actual clouds. It's actual fog mixed with brain fog. I think that's what you're going to get with Leon. Yeah, you don't need to wear your makeup. You look good. Oh, thank you. That's how I look good. I just walk around with a fog around me.

Nobody sees my actual face. Yeah. I agree. Oh, by the way, look at my t-shirt. Oh, look at that. Yeah. That's beautiful. I wear it with pride.

I'm glad that it still fits. It means that you didn't gain much weight since they saw you. No, no. I've got to stay fit. If anything, he was actually coming on to ask you for a smaller size because he's actually lost a lot of weight. So it's your last word. All right, let's not go down that road.

Let's stick to antennas poking out into the sky. OK. So, Avi, we want to talk about both your projects. But briefly, can you give us an update on the Galileo project? Yes, actually, we made a lot of progress. And over the past month, we started collecting data. So there is a suite of instruments that is assembled on Harvard University property.

And we're basically looking at the sky 24-7 in the optical band, in the infrared, in the radio, and in audio. So we are taking a movie of the entire sky at that location. And we transfer the data through an edge computer to the cloud. And from there, we start analyzing it using artificial intelligence algorithms. And the idea is that we will train these computer codes

to identify familiar objects, like a bird or a bug, a lightning. Really? So it gets things that small, though? Well, yeah, if they are close enough. So it all depends on the distance. So they are more common. And therefore, the nearest one will be closer than an airplane. Right.

Potentially, you know, unidentified objects in the past. Some of them were bugs, probably. And the way to tell is, if you look at multiple cameras at the sky, you would see it only over one of them and not the others. And you can tell the distance if you have multiple cameras by triangulation. But what we are doing is we're getting this data to the cloud

and then training the model also on human-made objects, like planes, drones, satellites. And we want to figure out whether there is anything extraterrestrial out there. And because the US government claims that it cannot figure out the nature of some of the objects in the sky. There was a recent report, a second report,

from the Director of National Intelligence. So even though they may identify half of the object or a substantial fraction as being human-made, what you need as a scientist is just one object that behaves in ways that you cannot explain, that cannot be reproduced by human-made technologies and is not a natural object. Because you can tell how it maneuvers.

You can tell the distance. You potentially can resolve it and say that it has bolts and screws on it. So it's artificial. So if it looks extraterrestrial and if we have good enough evidence, that would be amazing. But we might not find it. We are not assuming in advance what we would find.

It's a fishing expedition in the sky. Can I ask the process itself at the moment, collecting data, is it basically a process of elimination? Exactly. So we are trying to identify the familiar object and whatever looks unfamiliar, either in the way it looks in the image or in the way it moves, we want to get more data on it.

That's the way science works. It's not based on prejudice. For example, I was brought into this subject from the first interstellar object that was reported, Oumuamua. And just a few months ago, a colleague of mine said, I just finished a review paper, writing a review paper on the comet Oumuamua.

And I wrote back to him and I said, what do you mean by the comet Oumuamua? We both know that it was not a comet. There was no cometary tail. How can you call it a comet in an authoritative review? And he said, well, I have this theory that it was a comet when we didn't look at it and it didn't have a cometary tail when we did look at it.

And I said, well, that's just like going to the zoo and looking at an elephant and claiming that it's a zebra and it shows its stripes when you look away. That makes no sense. And for this to be suggested by the mainstream, someone that writes a review on an object we had seen tells you a lot about the way scientists want to confirm the facts to their familiar territory.

And what I say is, if we have good enough evidence that it doesn't look like anything familiar, there will be no way out. It will be beyond the reasonable doubt that this is something strange. And as of now, the government keeps the most detailed data close to its chest. It's classified.

We don't see it. They have data also from satellites that was mentioned by John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence. We've never seen a satellite image of an unidentified object. So what I'm saying is the sky is not classified. The Galileo project can look at the sky

and figure it out if there is anything unusual. So that's one major branch of the Galileo project. A second one is to study interstellar objects. And then we found with my student, Amir Siraj, that one of them exploded about 100 miles of the coast of Papua New Guinea. And we are planning an expedition to figure out what it was made of

because we can tell from the data that it was tougher than iron, tougher than all the other meteors in the catalog. Abby, you're a professor of astrophysics at Harvard University. How on earth have you gotten such an institution to approve the project of trying to effectively look for proof of alien life?

Well, you have to understand, first of all, that I still maintain my childhood curiosity. I don't care how many likes I have on Twitter. And the only reason I work on this subject is because there was tantalizing evidence that interstellar objects look different than space rocks that we had seen before. So in a way, I'm just like the kid

in Hans Christian Andersen's story who said the emperor has no clothes. In this case, Omuomua has no cometary tail. And then the Dalts in the room tell me, oh no, it's a comet. And I said, no, it's not a comet, look. And so it's basically, I'm basically maintaining my curiosity and innocence

without pretending to know more than I know. Because if you look at academia right now, in the mainstream of physics, you have speculations that are far greater than I'm talking about, people are talking about extra dimensions, the multiverse, things that we have no chance of observing in the near future.

Here I'm talking about objects that are observed, that look intriguing. And so why should we ignore that? I just want to figure out the truth about nature and just imagine that we are not alone, that there is a smarter kid on our block. It will change everything. So in the long run, that's much more satisfying

than getting my colleagues to approve right now. Who cares? We will collect data. And it just shows you that the general public is extremely excited about it. So if the public is excited, the government is interested, how can academia refuse to discuss it? Can I ask, I often find,

whenever I hear a cosmologist speak or an astrophysicist, it verges on, for me, sort of poetry. There's such beautiful eloquence and you're absolutely an example of it. But you come from a sort of a very inspiring field where people like Carl Sagan absolutely did that or Frank Drake did that as well.

And I often wonder if the creativity of language that you're able to conjure is because you are dealing with one of the most sci-fi of all the areas of science, which is, it's a place where you have to build the imagination so beautifully to get other people interested in and to fund things that you end up bringing out the best in science, I often find.

And the basic question I wanna ask is, I feel one of the greatest public speakers of recent years was Frank Drake. I think he was just an extraordinary mind. He passed away very sadly in September. He's the founder of SETI, which I guess is the greatest institution next to what you're now doing.

Did you, as cosmologists, did you ever meet? Did you know Frank Drake? Yeah, I actually sat next to him for four hours at dinner when the Breakthrough Listing Initiative, which is the most recently funded project, was inaugurated and he was a very nice person. But I should tell you cosmologists are not poetic at all. If you look at what Steven Weinberg,

one of the most celebrated cosmologists, said in the first three minutes, his book, he said, the more the universe is comprehensible to us, the more pointless it looks. And I say to Steven Weinberg, even though he's not alive anymore, that the universe looked pointless to you because you focused on dead objects.

Sorry to say that, but it's just like Halloween. Cosmologists are thinking only about dead objects. They think about stars. They think about dark matter. They think about atoms. They just think about dead objects. Yeah, wow, that's a great way to put it. We're missing life in the universe.

It may be teeming with life. And most importantly, it may be teeming with intelligence. And once you have a partner, it gives meaning to your life. So if you think about Enrico Fermi, who was a physicist that had lunch about 70 years ago at Los Alamos, and they were talking about extraterrestrials,

and he said, where is everybody? Now, this is a question that a lazy single person would ask at home and saying, where are my dates? I don't see anyone. I don't have a partner. Obviously, if you don't go to the street, and you don't search or you don't look through your window, you would never find a partner.

How come you were looking at me then? No, it was not personal. So, I mean, it was personal for Fermi and for Weinberg, because I think they missed an important point. With Fermi, it was the fact that he didn't build telescopes to look anywhere. And what Seti did as much as we can celebrate it for 70 years since Frank Drake started this effort

was to look for radio signals. Okay, that was his approach as soon as we developed radio communication. And that's just like staying at home and waiting for a phone call. You need someone to call you. You need someone to be active and to call you at the time that you're waiting for it.

And that could be a small likelihood because they are not around anymore. They send the signal a billion years ago, and now it's far away. Okay, so there is a different approach, which is the one that I'm talking about. You can go out and check your mailbox for any packages that accumulated over time.

And that means spacecraft that were launched by other civilizations, if they are propelled by chemical fuel, they would move slower than the escape speed from the Milky Way. So they will keep accumulating in our mailbox. And all we need to do is look out. And only over the past decade,

we started finding objects from interstellar space. The first two in 2014, 2017, March 2017, were meteors. Were discovered by me and my student, Tamir Siraj. The third one was Oumuamua. So the first three interstellar objects appeared weird. They didn't look like space rocks of the type we had seen before from the solar system. So I say, look,

you're looking at the first interstellar objects and they don't seem like things you have seen before. They look unfamiliar. So instead of calling them comets and moving on, like one of my colleagues is doing, instead of that, let's get more data on them. And that's what brought me to this subject. It's not poetry, it's data.

I forget about poetry. I don't care about the human impression, and we can get into issues of consciousness and how important are humans. But in my view, we should express modesty. We are not that important. We came to the play just a few million years ago to the cosmic play.

And we are not at the center of the stage. You know, the play started 13.8 billion years ago since the Big Bang. So if you come late to the play and you are not at the center of the stage, Rhys will tell you, the play is not about you. I don't think Rhys will ever admit to that. I will not tell you that.

Yeah. But we can make the play about us. Yeah, we can. But Abby, can I just say that last statement was very poetic. That's the problem. I'm doing a whole argument. He's a poet and he doesn't even know. Glory, it comes naturally.

The only thing I would say is, I agree, cosmologists generally, as you say, they're looking at dead things. But I do think part of what you're doing, what Sagan did and what Drake did, was by exciting us by the search. You know, with Sagan, when he had Voyager turn around to take a picture of the pale blue dot,

I mean, that one single image probably has done more for raising our consciousness about the absolute infinite size of the universe in our place in it than anything else. Well, but it was just like looking at the mirror. It was nothing new. And I'm talking about new evidence, about interstellar objects that appear to be different.

Oh, of course, yeah. So it's very different. I mean, I'm talking about clues that come from the sky. I mean, we have some data that is intriguing. My colleagues are saying, it's not intriguing. Let's move on. It's a rock. It's a comet.

It's something familiar. I say, well, look at the data. When adults want to pretend that they're adults, they show off. And they just never admit that they're ignorant. Never. I refuse to abide by this approach. So even though I will not get prizes, honours,

as a result, I don't care. But I am not willing to be the so-called adult in the room because actually the kid that said the emperor has no clothes, that kid was the adult. Because that kid was sincere. Whereas the adults are cheating. They're behaving like kids. So it's a reversal of roles.

I think that's one of my greatest qualities, Abby, is that I am fully aware of how ignorant I am. Ignorance is huge. It's quite amazing. Rhys, do you agree with that? I think all three of us are willing to say we don't know. We don't know things. But that is so right.

The intellectuals, especially other ones who find it the most difficult to say, I don't know. They will make something up. Why do you think that is? I think it's just because of their touch to them, their ego too much. I think that is the fundamental reason. And they've also been told their whole life that they're smart.

Yeah, yeah. That certainly hasn't happened to me. That's why I'm sorry. Nobody's ever told me I'm smart. So, hey, Abby, just while we're on the subject, can you give us an update of the expedition to Papua New Guinea? I'm really excited about this. I hear you've got funding and you're on your way.

Yeah, so that was a development of the past week. We have the green light. We also have a team of experts, very experienced people that went on many expeditions before. And we have a design of the machinery. We don't know what it's made of, but we calculated, for example, what would happen for an iron meteorite or what would happen if it's stainless steel,

if it's some artificial alloy, if it was a spacecraft from another civilization, which is an intriguing possibility. And what we plan to do is if it's made of metal or like iron or any magnetic particles, then we'll pick it up with a sled that has magnets attached to it and they will separate the magnetic particles from the muck on the ocean floor.

And on the other hand, if it's not magnetic, it will be more challenging, but we are developing some instruments that could identify the fragments based on their size or their density relative to water and muck. If we find a gadget, I already promised the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that I'll bring it for display

because it represents modernity for us. For the standard, it's ancient history. By the way, I should tell you that I got an email a month ago from someone that said, if you find a button, please don't press the button because it will affect all of us. I said, don't worry. Yeah, they're worried there's some sort of explosive device.

Exactly. But also, Abby, finding something that proves that there is life in another world or another time in the future, what does that mean? Like, what happens then once we prove that? Can you give some kind of idea of what the impact will be, not only for science, but for everyday life? If you ask me, I think it will have a huge impact

on the future of humanity. Because so far, if you look around at human history, it was shaped by groups of people trying to feel superior relative to other people. You see it everywhere. And we fight over territories and that's on the surface, the two-dimensional surface of a rock.

It's really ridiculous because just think about the third dimension going away from Earth. It's so much bigger volume, there is so much going on and we still fight over territory on the surface of this rock. That's ridiculous. So once we find evidence for someone else,

perhaps smarter than we are, we would realize that all the differences among us humans are insignificant and we should treat each other as equal members of the human species, especially because there is someone smarter than all of us. And perhaps we should learn from that someone. So a sense of modesty is in place. So people in academia should not be so proud of themselves.

That's a really good point. Well, that's exciting. And I do remember last time we talked, I remember that with the project of Papua New Guinea, you had promised that I would be one of the first people that you called and told about the existence of extraterrestrials. We will have Wi-Fi connection through a Starlink antenna

that we just purchased. And I will be glad to keep in touch. Even during the expedition, we don't have the exact dates finalized, but I'll be glad to appear actually on your show from the boat if you want. Amazing. Expedition update.

Avi, can I just super quickly ask, so the object that you might find, there are so many options of what that could be, right? So I loved reading about directed panspermia. I thought, that's an interesting speculative idea. Why travel across the universe to spread seed when you can send a canister with the elements of life in? And Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA,

he wrote a whole book about that, that speculation about. Yeah, and just a comment about that. So when Stephen Weinberg said the universe appears to be pointless, I would say that if we find, for example, that life was seeded here on earth, it's just like orphans finding their parents for the first time and then gives meaning to their life actually.

So saying the universe is pointless doesn't make sense if we find, for example, that there was an interstellar gardener that planted the seeds. Look at it, interstellar gardener. You can't stop it. It's poetry carried out. I'm not trying. And of course, for those that don't know,

Panspermia is the concept that life is transmitted. Well, it's the idea that life didn't originate on earth. It was seeded, carried on a comet or whatever that crashed into earth. And yeah. Or it could be artificially planted by some device. So that's called directed panspermia. And the other one is indirect.

Yeah, accidental. For example, Martian rock. We may be all Martians. Maybe life started on Mars first and came to earth afterwards, say from rocks. That's possible. Thank you so much for your time, Avi. Very conscious that you've given us

a lot of your very valuable time. And we wish you all the best for the expedition. So great meeting you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. Wow. How was that, guys? As always, absolutely fantastic.

Love chatting to Avi. He's such an awesome man. I think he really liked me. I think he really liked you. He loved you. But what happened to that question? We had one more question for him, didn't we? There's that question about.

So, Avi, we just have one more question. Buttons? What was it we were going to ask? We were just going to ask you the mothership concept that you have that there's a mothership up and circling the world and sending down dandelion seeds that you call the tic-tacs. What's the story with that?

Can you tell us about that? Yeah. Avi. Avi. Avi. He's gone. Oh, bugger. Damn it.

Yeah, because that is so prevalent, that one. That's a shame. That's a shame. What is that? But, wow. These live interviews are real tough, man. Real tough. They just hang up on you.

Go. He's a busy guy. We should pre-record. And let's be honest, I think Dan offended him a few times. Are you okay? I think he was ready to get out of there. Yeah. It's hard to be slammed by someone of that brain size.

Oh, wow. I mean, Dan had his comeuppance coming, and he got it there, which was nice. So you can add that to one of your new books. Well, that's it for the show. It's been a fantastic return after a number of months. Love you guys. Love you too.

Yeah, you too, guys. Hey, please thank Barry and the old dust man and all of the high pitches. The high pitch team. All the gang. The subtle team came out to please thank all of them. They really contributed in a big way to the show. And hashtag release Jarvis.

Get him out of there. Free Jarvis Kirkback. Free Jarvis. I think he's on his way home soon. All right, then. See you next time. Okay, see you next time. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye for Barry. Bye. I am the card, and I've finished doing the dusting man now. Bye.

Bye, everyone. And I have his wife, and I have a high-pitched team! Get back in there, he's never got time to serve. Can I go back? Am I so subtle enough? You were actually, it was quite good. I mean, it's a little over the top. But yeah, say hello to Buttons' writers, will you?

Oh, fuck, I'm never gonna find them again.