UAP Unidentified Alien Podcast - UAP Weekly 3/12/24 Discussing the New AARO Report with Nick Pope

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

After the release and subsequent blowback of the new AARO report on UAP's, Stephen Diener and Nick Pope from "Ancient Aliens" sit down to discuss what this all means and what it could lead to down the road. And Stephen lets his feelings on the report and Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick be known, in no uncertain terms...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Don't wait for a problem, prevent one. Go to GuardianHR.com. GuardianHR.com. Welcome in to another edition of UAP Weekly. Stephen Dean are back with you here for a new episode of the Unidentified Alien Podcast Weekly edition here today to go over, well, what dropped right before the weekend, right there on Friday afternoon when all the big news drops,

apparently, the Arrow report from Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the definitive government report on their findings of other life throughout the universe and whether or not reverse engineering programs exist within the United States with private companies with all the big names that we've spoken about before, you know, like Lockheed and Raytheon and names such as these. And while of course we know what that said, we know what their findings came to, which was basically nothing to see here. So kind of the same jargon that we've been fed for the past, oh, I don't know, 70 or 80 years,

which was no surprise. Everybody saw this coming. It was kind of Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick Patrick's final. salvo his final middle finger on his way out at the door of arrow. Now that's my opinion. I was pretty animated about this on social media on Friday and I'm still animated about it. And I know I don't really like to give too strong opinion on some things. You know, I always say I leave it up to you. But on this case, I couldn't help myself. I just felt like it was such an irredeemable act of defiance by Sean Kirkpatrick and the U.S. governments with, you know, the Arrow Division.

It's just so blatant. It's such a blatant lie. It's a slap in the face to us. It's slap in the face to any whistleblowers or witnesses out there who have risked their lives, their livelihood, the future of their families, you know, taking away retirements, things like that. There's a lot of the line for guys like Ryan Graves or Lou Elizando or any, or David Grush or any, or who comes out to speak about what they've seen or anybody who comes out as a whistleblower, you know, comes out from the shadows to say, hey, I was part of this secret government program and here's what I saw and here's what they were doing. You know, guys, I've spoken to like D.C. Long or Michael Herrera, all of these people who come

to mind that I've either had contact with or have spoken about and a report like that and a final word, so to say, from Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, like that, felt like a slap in the face to all those people and really just, you know, like a big screw you to everybody who has worked on this and who has risked a lot to come out and talk about this subject. So I was not happy about it, as you can tell. But I wanted to bring on Nick Pope because Nick Pope was somebody who I have a lot of respect for someone who has dealt with exact situations like these in England as the former head of the British Ministry of Defense.

He worked on cases like this. He basically, you know, it was his job basically to do what Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was doing. So I felt like he had a very unique perspective on all this. And I wanted to bring him on to discuss it all, which we did. It was a really great discussion. We cover a lot, a lot

of bases in this conversation, especially toward the end when we get into what catastrophic disclosure might look like. And it was really interesting, kind of a, you know, a little bit of an epiphany moment that I had myself when Nick Pope and I were talking about what catastrophic disclosure might look like. And it's not what you think. I'll say that because I've always thought about catastrophic disclosure in a different way than the way that Nick Pope spoke about what that would be. And the real plausibility that we could see it before the end of this year of 2024. So a lot to get to here in this interview with Nick Pope. It's kind of long,

but it's really worth it. I wanted to present it all to you here in one piece for this interview today, this conversation that had with Nick Pope, of course, from the ancient aliens. And like I said, former head of the British Ministry of Defense as we discuss and get his unique perspective on what this report from Arrow and Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick meant and his reaction to all that and what it means going forward. So without further ado, here is that conversation right now. Happy to have you back on here today to discuss all this. I guess first off, what was your first reaction? Were you, was there any surprise at all? Or was it like, yeah, this is pretty much what I expected? I don't want to kind of sound like you know it all, but this was exactly

what I expected. Exactly. I mean, having done this work for the, the British government before, I know that there's a playbook for this sort of thing. And I know exactly what that playbook says. And this was always going to be the Empire Strikes Back. This was always going to be halfway between, how should I describe it, the most skeptical U.S. government report that I can recall on this subject at one end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum, you know, you would almost describe this as as a hatchet job. And we get on to that, but the strategic aim is to kill off or certainly trim back dramatically congressional interest in and engagement on this issue. Yeah, no, I think you're dead on

when you talk about the strategic even language in this thing, right? Going way back, I mean, this was going back to the time of Roswell, and they just ripped apart everything. Like, how do they knowingly go after some of the most famous cases and all these witness reports and just say, not nothing to see here? I mean, how do you do that? Well, first off, I mean, for anyone watching who's wondering why they're even doing this, I think it's important to stress this was something that was congressionally mandated. the requirement to do this historical record review was in a previous National Defense Authorization Act.

So this wasn't something they chose to do. It was something they were forced to do. And obviously, one of the things Congress wanted to know was, look, we've heard a lot about modern UFO sightings, like the USS Nimitz Tick-Tac incident from 2004, like, some of the other incidents involving U.S. Navy assets and such like. But obviously, here's a story, here's a phenomenon with an 80 year, pretty much backstory. What is that backstory? That was the exam question. So Arrow, the Pentagon's unit with the lead on this, all domain anomaly resolution office, had to go back through the files. But here's the thing. It's kind of rules for for thee, but not for me. One really good example of that is basically they say, well, Roswell, that's just hearsay evidence, essentially. But when it comes to addressing, say,

one of the persistent allegations doing the rounds that legacy crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs have been moved out of government into the private sector, what did Arrow go and do? They went to speak to a few people at places like, Lockheed and Northrop and Boeing and all the usual suspects. And basically, their investigative methodology was they asked them if they had any of these programs, got told, no, we don't. And they said, oh, thanks very much for clearing that up. So they're allowed.

When it comes to where you set the evidence bar, everything that the pro-UFO lobby says is just hearsay evidence to be dismissed. but when they basically have nothing more than hearsay evidence, that's fine. And everyone's just supposed to take that and accept it. Yeah, that's a great point because it is. It's a double standard. It's contradictory to what, you know, to their own findings. You're right.

And it's, and I think that's what so many people find frustrating, which is you have basically, they're basically slapping guys in the face like David Grush and Ryan Graves and even going back to Robert Salas with the Malchum Air Force Base incident back in the 60s. and so many others who have, David Fravor, there are so many witnesses, high-level witnesses who have come out and testified in front of Congress and spoken about their stories. And they just say, nah, you know, you guys are just,

you're seeing things or you're seeing, you know, secret government programs and you're mistaking things. And some of that might be the case. Some of it might be that, you know, we've been witnessing, you know, secret government programs. You know, of course, the SR 71 Blackbird, people thought, that was a UFO, didn't know what they were seen in the sky all those years ago, because what could fly that high? And other things, we still can't explain. It feels like, it does,

it feels like a slap in the face to all those guys and to everybody else like them who's come out over the decades. Well, it's, it's worse than that, I think, because, well, I'll say why it's worse than that in a minute, but I just wanted to pick up on one final point about this, this rules for the, not for me, in relation to them going to, like Lockheed. The point is, the allegation is that these programs are either at worst, illegal, completely illegal, or at best in a very shady quasi-legal area. You know, you can have historical debates, for example, about things like Iran-Contra. And then you can say, well, if you have a presidential finding, for example, that's almost like a get-out-of-jail-free

card. I guess constitutional lawyers will, will argue this back and forward. But the point with these allegations is that the programs are either illegal or certainly been conducted without congressional oversight. And therefore, if Arrow go and ask Lockheed, do you have these sorts of programs, the chief executive officers or whoever it is they go in and speak to, probably just public affairs people, I don't know, they're not going to put their hands up and say, oh, yeah, you, okay, you've got us. Yeah, we have been running these illegal programs because they will be risking arrest and jail. So, of course, if these are illegal programs, the folks who Arrow ask are going to say, no, never heard of them. It's all complete nonsense. So that's one point. But when I said it's

worse than that in regard to the point that they're implying that people like David Fravar or Ryan Graves, Chris Underwood, Alex Dietrich, whoever it may be, are mistaken. What they're actually saying is that most of these people are mistaken. But the clear implication is that some of them are more than mistaken. They are actively lying or knowingly promoting a false narrative. there is this accusation. It's kind of stated but not stated. You can read it between the lines in the report that Congress has been duped by a small group of true believers either still serving in the intelligence community or formally serving in the intelligence community who have

deliberately created a false narrative and are deliberately keeping this going, teasing, everyone with little reveals, laying trails of breadcrumbs, and effectively creating all this. And the clue that this is the mindset is in the interviews that former Arrow director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick has given

because, of course, he's been on a little, let's call it a media tour. He's done CNN, well, he's done a podcast with Peter Burr, CNN. He's done a couple of op-eds for Scientific American. And he's basically, he's essentially articulated that accusation and said, Congress has been fooled. These people have been played. And so what, when I talked about the strategic aim of this report, the strategic aim, or one of the main ones, is clearly to embarrass the handful of people in Congress, Marco Rubio, Kirsten Gillibrand,

Tim Burchett, Anna Luna, these sorts of people, to embarrass them in basically saying you've been fooled and trying to persuade them to gracefully and gradually back out of this, disengage and get off our backs is what Arrow is effectively saying. Otherwise, we're going to double down on this and you're going to look like idiots. Actually, I'm glad you bring that up. because I was wondering, does this, and maybe this was the intention, does this send a bad message, a negative, I guess, you know, outlook to other would-be whistleblowers, maybe who haven't come out yet, or even ones like who testified, like, you know, Ryan Graves and David Grush, is this meant to say to them, you know what, it's really not worth your time to go and testify in front of Congress anymore

because we've given the report and now it's almost like a negative, you know, connotation to be involved with this again. Like they're trying to put the negative spin on all this again and create this bad image, so to speak. Is that what this does? Is that what they're trying to do for other witnesses who maybe we're thinking about coming on to another congressional testimony? That's one of the aims, yes, but I think it's important to make a distinction between witnesses and whistleblowers. And it can be a fine line on this. But essentially, I would say that most of the pilots, for example,

I would categorize them as straightforward witnesses. They saw something or with the radar operators, they tracked something. And they are simply telling that narrative. So Dave Fravor, Ryan Graves, Chris Underwood, Alex Dietrich. those sorts of people, Kevin Day, those are the witnesses. And yes, they are trying, I think, to dissuade even them with an implication that, look,

we're not going to support you. We'll probably imply that, you know, you made a mistake. You got duped by a secret program. Look, there's no shame in that. But the message is clear. We will say that this is either misidentification or censor. error or some combination of that. So there's there's no real incentive for these people to come forward. But with with the pure, I would say, whistleblowers like David Grush, I think it's,

it's a step further for them. And Sean Kirkpatrick has arguably directly, but at the very least indirectly, called him a liar. Let's not mince words about that. Because even on the, the factual issue of whether or not he has had an opportunity to come in and testify to Arrow, there is a dispute about this. And yes, you could argue that there's been a misunderstanding, but effectively, look, only one of the two parties is going to be telling the truth. But they've already set out their stall when it comes to what they're going to do with the whistleblowers, and what they're going to do is smear them. Because if people remember, there was this disgraceful incident where essentially elements in the intelligence community reached out to a journalist who was

on their contact list and suggested that if this particular journalist was to put in some Freedom of Information Act requests to a particular police department, a particular location geographically, for a particular period of time, they might find something interesting. And of course they did. And what did they find? The police reports that that have. had the call from Dave Grush's wife saying that she had concerns about his state of mind. And there was an intervention. And this was disgraceful because this was trying to smear him as some sort of nut job, whereas in fact, the reality of the situation is that he had been in Afghanistan.

He had seen some really horrendous things and he had PTSD. And as Congressional Representative Tim Burchett so rightly and eloquently said, In Tennessee, we don't smear veterans. We honor them and thank them for their service. But the message was clear. If you leak, you know, the message from Arrow from the Pentagon, if you leak on UAP, we will pull out the playbook and dirty tricks will, we will find something.

And there will be consequences. So yes, sorry, long answer to a fairly short question, but it's a very important one. They have absolutely set out, I think, to deter future witnesses and whistleblowers from coming forward and speaking out. Yeah, and I think it's well said. And you're right. It's important to get that out there because I feel like Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Death Wish Coffee, Brooke Linnon and Kylie.

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Hopefully this is more of a galvanizing response. Did we get some type of galvanized response from the witnesses or would-be whistleblowers and not the opposite? I don't want to see people shy away because this is a moment where really you don't want to let, you know, the quote-unquote bad guys, I hate to use that term. but, you know, let them kind of win to say, yeah, all right, you got us, you know, you scared us away. And even for those in Congress, like, I hope this turns into a galvanizing moment and makes the result even stronger to say, no, we're going to get this out there.

Yeah. This week is going to be very important. The government did what government often does, and I've done this myself. Again, I know the playbook here. They drop this sort of thing on a Friday. Right. And then they all go off for the weekend. And of course, what's happened over the weekend is everyone's sitting down and trying to figure out how they respond to this.

So I think this coming week is going to be a crucial time. And we've already seen a few responses pretty robust on social media. But I think obviously there's going to be a more kind of thought out strategic response from, if I can call it, the believer faction. certainly the open-minded faction, I'll call it. Then I think we're going to see it very soon. But here's the other thing, and this is what I think is going to be very interesting. We've been told for some time now that there are other whistleblowers waiting in the wings, waiting to come forward. So as we just discussed, one of Arrow's strategic games with this report is to scare these people into silence by saying, at the best, we're going to say you're mistaken, make you look like you've been fooled,

at the worst, there'll probably be some dirty tricks and we'll call you a liar. But the people, the whistleblowers, this is the thing I think that people forget. Some of those whistleblowers are themselves in or were in the intelligence community. They know that playbook. Some of them probably wrote it or parts of it. They're not going to be fooled by it. And here's, I think, the thing. some of them are going to be so irritated and or angered by this that it will actually strengthen their resolve

because they'll say, I know exactly what you're doing and it's not going to work with me. I'm not going to be dissuaded. I'm not going to have a combination of spin and dirty tricks used to kick me and my testimony into the touchline. So I think this might be counterproductive for the Pentagon. And I think it might blow it up in their faces because I think moving forward, some of these whistleblowers are now going to actually be encouraged to do the very opposite thing and come forward. And I think some of them are now going to be even more robust in what they say. And we've seen, for example, people like Carl Nell speaking out.

through the medium so far of things like the soul foundation. But I think we'll see more from him. And then there's the anonymous Jonathan Gray, who of course, Nell and Gray were the two people who when Dave Grush's story came out, basically said, yes, he is who he says he is. He did what he said he did. I think we'll see and hear more from them. But I think it's the unknown unknowns.

It's the people whose names the UFO community don't know, but who this week or next week or whenever it is, they'll be these people that like David Grush come suddenly and unexpectedly from left field. It will be these people that move things forward. And of course, don't forget Christopher Mellon, Luis Alizondo, whose book is probably coming out later this year. They have things to say to. Absolutely. And that's what I'm hoping for is exactly what you said, that it kind of backfires on Arrow and all those in the private sector who are using Arrow as basically their arm of misinformation. And now this all kind of backfires.

And you have this avalanche of supporters and witnesses and testimony kind of fall upon them. And then we continue to have that back and forth. But you got to kind of push back. And that's what I'm hoping to see. And was that the goal the whole time, Nick, when it comes to Arrow? You know, when this came out with Dr. Kirkpatrick and Arrow and everything like that, we all kind of got excited. We're like, oh, wow, the government's taking this seriously. And now here we are a few years later.

And it almost seems like this was same old, same old. They used Kirkpatrick as, forgive the term, kind of a useful idiot to put him out there and to say, you're going to, you're the guy, you're going to take all the heat. And you're going to make this official and say, here's what we found. And it just seems like they were all part of the plan. Am I off on that? Well, I'm going to say something unpopular now or certainly unpopular with the UFO community. I actually want to give Arrow the benefit of the doubt on this. And I know thus far in this conversation, it sounds like I'm slamming them.

And I am slamming them when they start slurring and casting aspersions at witnesses and whistleblowers. When those whistleblowers provided that they've used the appropriate choice. channels and are being lawful in their whistleblowing. There is a process, and I think people should follow that. I'm not advocating and never have and never will for anyone to break the law here. But having criticized them for that, I want now to give them the benefit of the doubt. I do think, and I know that a lot of people disagree with me on this, I do think they're being truthful when they say we haven't found yet verifiable evidence of extra-traiture. terrestrial visitation. But here's the key point in that statement. Just because you haven't found

something doesn't mean it isn't there. In other words, what I'm saying is that if these programs, these legacy intelligence program, intelligence community programs, looking at crash retrievals, reverse engineering, managing the situation, whatever you, however you define it, if those programs exist, I don't think Arrow has found them. And we can have, and we've had already debates about whether they had the right clearances. Look at, I mentioned earlier, Iran Contra. Look at, I know it's off topic here, but look at that shadowy group of individuals who were dubbed the Enterprise, Eric von Mabod, Theodore Shackley, Kleinz, all those people.

I mean, people can look up that story. It's not relevant to this conversation, except insofar as it's a precedent for how people can, people in and on the fringes of and having recently retired from the government can run programs which are either illegal or quasi legal in that gray area that they'll probably never get caught for, although some of those names were, by the way. But, you know, the point is that history tells us that these programs can exist. But I think giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't think Arrow has found those programs. And so I do think that Dr. Kirkpatrick, although he's been vilified here, and although he has, I think, maybe crossed a line or gotten very close to one with some of the aspersions, cast. I think he has been fundamentally truthful when he says we've not we've just not turned up that verifiable evidence. Now you can have a you can have a debate about what verifiable evidence is. Does it mean getting your hands on the craft or does it mean reliable testimony? That's that's

arguably a subjective judgment. But as I say, again, long answer to a short question, but I think it's important. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt when I served in the British government. 99.99% of people who you would come across were decent, honest, truthful, honorable people trying to do the best thing, trying genuinely to make the world a better place, trying to be open and accountable when they could within the confines of not wanting to disclose. information that if it got into the hands of an adversary would cause damage to the national interest. So I think it's quite possible that these programs are there, but even Arrow hasn't yet found them.

Well, it's interesting to consider because I feel like, well, you know, to play devil's advocate is always a good thing, right? Because we don't want to pile on everybody so much. But I think the frustration comes from where we see all the stories and we hear all the testimonies. And we look at back decades, right, of witness accounts. And you have the layperson say, well, how can they not find it? Right? Like there's so much there.

And there's, there's this from the 30s and this from the 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, and so on and so forth. And then they, are they just turning a blind eye or is it just, like you said, what do they deem verifiable, right? Is it's, are they just word crafting around things? Does that mean that they haven't shook the hand of a gray alien or they just, different categories for things. And I guess that's what it comes down to. And let me put it this way, actually, Nick.

If you could go to Arrow today and show them there and the new leadership and everything like that and everybody who works there who are in charge of verifiable, you know, evidence of other life, what would you show them of all the things you've come across in your career? What would you go up to them and say, you know what? This, I think, will help you in your investigation. What could you show them that might help to prove what they're looking for, which is verifiable evidence? Well, I might point them in the direction of some of the big UK cases, of course, the Rendlesham Forest incident, the Cossford incident, the Calvin photograph. I'm sure they've got some of this in their files already.

In fact, I know they do. Yeah. But I think it's not so much what I would show them, because. I haven't got a smoking gun. So in one sense, I could point them to some exceptionally compelling cases and indeed the declassified documentation. And, you know, obviously for every declassified file at the National Archives that has redactions, the Ministry of Defense has the original file. So I'm sure Arrow could get from the UK the unredacted files. and get some of the classified information declassified.

But that's not what I would tell them or show them. Actually, what I would urge them to do, because in one sense, you can show them case file after case file. But again, with your question in mind and the subjective nature of how you define verifiable proof, that's not going to push us over the line. what would push us over the line, I think, is finding these programs. So I would say to Arrow, rather than thinking of the whistleblowers as the bad guys and trying to silence them,

you know, make them feel a lot of the whistleblowers say we haven't even spoken to Arrow. And this is another reason why this report maybe doesn't tell the full story. Many of the whistleblowers, we know, have not gone to Arrow, but gone directly to some of the people in Congress who have been leading the charge on this, both in the Senate and the House, mainly in either the Armed Services Committees, the Intelligence Committees, and the Oversight Committees. But I would say to Arrow, instead of regarding these whistleblowers as the problem, you know, let's try and do. deter them, smear them, dissuade other ones from coming forward because it just adds to our workload. Instead of doing that, instead of trying to imply that people in Congress who are looking at this are fools because they've been duped by this small group of believers, instead of doing that, sit down in a room with them all and thrash this out. And so, for example, we've been going back and forward for months now on this question of can David Grum, testify everything that he knows to Congress. And we're being told, well, he no longer has a security

clearance. And even if he does get given one back, could we get him into a skiff? Let's, instead of putting obstacles in people's paths, let's take those obstacles away. Let's, let's arrow the whistleblowers Congress, sit down in a room together and say, What do you need to facilitate this? David Grush no longer has a security clearance. Let's fast track giving him it back, getting him into a skiff, and then in front of everyone disclosing three pieces of information, for example, the name of the program or programs, the director or directors of those programs, and the location in terms of what agency or corporation and specific even, what building, what office, where are these programs located?

Because Dave Grush says that he knows that information as a result of interviewing about 40 people within the system, and he's absolutely confident he knows where the bodies are buried. Well, with those three pieces of information, project names, direct, names, agency slash office leads. With that information, you could resolve this in a yes, no way, I think very quickly. But at the moment, it's all just hints and I'd like to get this information out, but I can't. If you get a complete, yes, you can, we can put this to bed in an instant because it's quite binary. Either this is. Either this is true or it isn't. Let's find out. Yeah, gosh, in an ideal world, I would love to see that, right?

I mean, that's the ideal situation. And I'm just wondering, though, will it, well, will it happen? It's maybe the wrong way to put it, but would it happen? Because if you look at this scenario, maybe I'm wrong about this, maybe I'm looking at the wrong way, but that's why I bring you on to get your opinion on it. Is it possible that arrow is basically being used to help essentially cover up decades of crimes, decades of secrecy of these secret government programs that have been hidden from Congress and hidden from oversight and the American people and they're using these, you know, these funds basically that's, you know, no one really knows about it. It's coming from, you know, who knows where.

And that's really the driving force behind the secrecy, right? Just in that hypothetical, if the driving force behind the secrecy is a lot of people are going to get in trouble if these, if they find out if it becomes public knowledge, if it becomes congressional knowledge that these, you know, clandestine programs have been going on, reverse engineering and things of that nature, then a lot of powerful people stand to lose a lot of money and get in a lot of trouble. I mean, is that a driving force here behind this whole secrecy to begin with? And is there all part of that? Well, it's possible, but let me give you two scenarios. Let's go back and I'm sorry, but again, for anyone watching, look up the enterprise because it's a

very good example of the sort of situation we might be dealing with here. But let's let's suppose, and I want to give, I want to give this sort of a hypothetical outing and see what you think and see what the viewers think. Let's suppose that there's something like the enterprise, but it's managing, instead of covert wars that the United States isn't really supposed to be doing by funding insurrections and channeling arms. Let's suppose that the enterprise or something like it is managing the UFO issue. You've got two options.

If you've not yet been discovered, you can either reach out to Arrow and say, hey guys, we're the secret program that you've been looking for, but we'd like you to continue to ignore us and and, you know, maybe here's some distractions that you can put out. Or do you keep your head down and continue to hide even from Arrow? And I would, I would suggest that you do the latter. I mean, why volunteer yourselves if you haven't yet been caught, particularly if you are either, A, illegal or B, at best, quasi legal. So I think, I don't, I think it's possible that

Arrow doesn't know about them and isn't being used in a direct sense, i.e. they're not complicit in this. But if Arrow does find this program, that's the point when they would sit down and have a conversation. That's really interesting. It's a great discussion, by the way. Thank you, Nick, for coming on here today to talk about this because there's so many layers to this.

and I'm glad we can go over it all and one of the layers that I'm really intrigued by Hey guys so before we get back into the conversation I just want to talk about something that affects all of us and it's scary starting something new right it's hard and it is kind of terrifying because you think about all the work that goes into it

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When you fly with Hawaiian Airlines, it's hard to tell where your flight ends and vacation begins. Relax with Free Starlink, the fastest Wi-Fi in the sky, thanks to T-Mobile. Go ahead, stream your movie. Book the couple's massage. Make a dinner reservation while we bring you to our island home. Hawaii starts here. It's more of, again, a hypothetical scenario here.

What if you have an adversary, Russia, China, whoever it may be at this point, when it comes to an adversary of the United States, And you have Russia, you have China who supposedly are investigating the UFO, the UAP issue, and have been for a long time. So what happens if they go the other way? If they come out and say, you know what, we are investigating these things and we have answers, not only do we have answers, but we actually have verifiable, right, verifiable proof that we have been visited, these programs exist and that we are not alone. What is the response at that point from a group like Arrow or the U.S. government if an adversary comes out with disclosure before them?

Well, it's a really interesting question. And I think it falls squarely under the definition of what Carl Nell has called. And I don't know whether he invented the term or whether he's using a term that he's heard within the system. but I think he was the first to publicize the term. This is catastrophic disclosure. Right. In other words, there is a theory that what we're seeing at the moment is controlled disclosure, that there is an acclimatization program that there's a very carefully set out, graduated step-by-step plan.

Like a slow drip, kind of. Exactly. so that there won't be this huge ontological shock, societal impact, however you define it. But the scenario that you've set out with your question is absolutely the dictionary definition of catastrophic disclosure, suddenly and unexpectedly just dumping it out into the public domain. Look, we've only got to look around the world today. to see a number of active war zones and places in which there is political and religious, and often those two are inextricably linked, tensions and conflicts that make the world a very dangerous and unstable place.

And catastrophic disclosure, given that the societal impact of finding, out that this is true, particularly if it comes with some unpleasant dark side facts, could be immense. And there's no stronger area where the impact might be felt, arguably, than religion. And take the already deep religious hatreds that exist and then throw something like this into the mix. It is a gift to an adversary who might want to cause trouble. to the United States. And here's something for people to consider. Here in the United States right now,

for a number of reasons, we are as politically and ideologically divided as we have ever been with degrees of anger on both sides that are, I think, unprecedented. And we are now moving, we are in, of course, an election. year, but we're moving ever closer to what will be undoubtedly the most contentious election,

presidential election in the history of the United States. Tensions will be at an all-time high. If catastrophic disclosure is a thing, and if an adversary ever wants to exploit that, there would be no better time to do that, then shall we? say September, October, early November, could this be the ultimate October surprise? Could this be something which will ignite a situation that is already a Tinder box waiting to go up? I don't know the answers to this, but if I was an adversary and if Catarrant, Disclosure is a thing, this is exactly what I would be thinking and planning to do, because there would be no better time than to cause the most catastrophic damage to an adversary. In this case, of course, the adversary is the United States. I'm putting myself in the mind's eye of China or maybe Russia. And if I wanted to cause problems without fighting a war, this is what I would do.

And we know, we know from the playbooks, the sort of asymmetric warfare, the non-war fighting wars, so to speak. We know that this is in the playbook. That guy has such a chilling scenario, but I think it's realistic. It is. And that's, you know, I'm,

I've gone further in this conversation with you than I've, I've gone with anyone else. before because in one sense I don't want to give anyone ideas but look if who am I kidding who are we kidding if this is real these ideas have already occurred to people and these plans will already being made will be being made now as we speak and indeed the early stages of any such plan is already unfolding it's just the hand grenade of catastrophic disclosure itself that has yet to have, I mean, it's like the pin has been pulled and they're just waiting to figure out exactly when and exactly where to throw it.

Do you think, I'll get you out of here in a few minutes, Nick, but I'm wondering, do you think that the United States is prepared for a scenario like that? I'm not sure we are. And I think we should be. And this is another reason why. instead of demonizing people like Lou Alizondo, for example, bring them back into the fold. I mean, of course, there are some conspiracy theories who say he's already in the fold, but let's suppose that's not true.

Bring him back into the fold. These people have valuable decades-long experience in things like counterintelligence operations. this, if the scenario that I've set out is true, this more than any other time in history, is when the United States needs its deep specialists in intelligence, counterintelligence, psychological operations with specific reference to this particular subject. And instead of regarding these people as the enemy, demonizing them, bring them back, work with them, and say, look, even if we don't know for sure whether this is true, if it is true, the societal consequences could be catastrophic.

So let's at least circle the wagons, do some really good contingency planning, and be ready if it does happen. We could be in for quite a year. And actually, that was my final question for you. If you take out Nick Pope's crystal ball and you look into it and you say, where do we see ourselves? Right. It's March, right? We got eight months.

You mentioned the election. Things are always very interesting during a presidential election here in the United States, really in any country, but especially here with the world watching. And then also nine months left of the year. Where do you see us in this discussion, say by the end of 2024 in the next nine months? Well, that will be interesting because by that time, we will know whether it's going to be President Biden or President Trump. And I think that's why I think that a nexus point comes earlier than that. And I think, you know, I use the phrase, the ultimate October surprise. I think it's October that we should really be looking at as opposed to the end of the year,

because I think that will be the time when all this comes to fruition. And the next week or two is going to be critical too, because this Arrow report is only going to go one of two ways. Either it is going to dissuade a lot of whistleblowers from not coming forward after all, and it is going to dissuade a lot of people in Congress who've been running with this from continuing to do so, and they will quietly extract themselves. Or, as I mentioned earlier, it will cause them to double down. And so that's the first decision point, nexus point, call it what you like. And that's going to be, we'll know within a week or two, which way that one's going.

And then get ready for the ultimate October surprise. And I think that will be interesting. So I can't call which way it will go, but I think we're in for a very interesting and potentially very bumpy ride. And I think one of the questions is, and it follows from what I said about which way this is going to go in the next week or two,

whether UFOs do or don't become an election issue. Right, right. And man, we are, and for quite a ride this year, I agree with you there. I was saying that I know you and I are in the same page with that. I was saying that at the end of 23 and at the start of 24 in some of my first episodes this year, that this is going to be a very interesting year.

And it has not disappointed so far. And I kind of wait on bated breath and a little bit of pins and needles of nervousness to see what else is coming up next year as the year goes on. One thing we do know that's going to happen, though, throughout this year, before we go, I wanted to bring this up, is ancient aliens live. You guys are going back on the road, right? Yes, absolutely. I know we've been talking about some things which are a little bit dark side. Ancient Aliens Live is perhaps a little bit of interest and fun in a midst of all this. It's not of fun for sure. And yes, we've done about 40 dates so far. This is a live show that tours all around the United States bringing this, not just the ancient mysteries, but exactly the kind of modern. up-to-date information that we've talked about on UAP, bringing it to audiences all around the United States.

The spring 2024 tour is about to start. We have, I think, 24 dates in the diary. So, Giorgio Succolos, David Childress, William Henry and myself will be back on the road. Nice. Ancient Aliens Tour. Ancient Aliens LiveTour.com. and I'm very much looking forward to it because in, I mean, we've talked about division. Actually, one of the refreshing things about UFOs, I think, is that it is or should be a bipartisan issue.

Right. And so actually, earlier on, I mentioned Marco Rubio and Kirsten Gillibrand. You could think, what other issue aside from UFOs, have you ever seen Tim Birchette and AOC sit down and discuss in a friendly way. So UFOs and ancient aliens live brings people together rather than driving them apart. And it's, yeah, I'm very much looking forward to going back on the road with that live show and bringing it to the people. And audiences, audiences love it. They're fascinated by it, but we have some fun with it too. Yeah, no, for sure. And I can say firsthand, I was fortunate enough to go as your guest this past

November when you guys were down here in Fort Lauderdale. And it was, it was a blast. You guys do a great job, the format of the show. You know, it's funny for me, because I kind of look at it differently where, you know, I'm used to doing shows, right? So I'm watching it kind of almost with like a critical eye. And I can say from that point of you guys do a great job, the way that it's presented, the flow of the show. It was, I thought it was top notch.

And then, you know, getting to kind of meet and hang out with you guys, you're all great, all super nice. So if anybody's wondering, nobody's a jerk on ancient aliens.

Everybody's really nice, friendly with all the fans who wanted to come out, take pictures and things like that. So it's, it was really cool. And you know, hopefully I get to go to another one.

But it's, if you haven't gone and you want to go, it was ancient alienslifetor.com, right? Yes. So take a look. see if they're coming to a town near you, I highly suggested. It's really good, like you said, conversation for everybody. Nothing partisan is just get into the conversation. Yes, and we're going to bring it completely up to date. I always make sure that in part of the show, I update people

on the very latest twists and turns, sometimes literally stories that have dropped the day of the show. If there's a breaking news story, I will make sure that it goes in the show when we talk about the modern aspects of this and what's happening and indeed things that are about to happen. If I'm able to give audiences a sneak peek into something that's coming, I will do that too. Keep it at current. That's what Nick Pope does. Are you going to be at any conventions coming up? Anybody where any place where people can see you? Sure. I'm going to be at the Ozark Mountain UFO in Eureka Springs in April. I'm going to be doing contact in the desert,

celebrating their 10th anniversary. That's Palm Springs at the end of May. And of course, how could I not go to Roswell in early July? The Roswell Daily Record, of course, that broke the story, are having a conference. The city always puts on a festival there. So I'm going to be doing that and a few other things too. But I think it's ancient aliens live that's keeping me most busy with 24, I think, dates in the diary and more to come.

Yeah, you're like the Rolling Stones out there. You get rock stars around the country you go. That's awesome. So definitely take a look at all that. I like to see Nick meet him in person, get some pictures. It's a lot of fun. Nick, thanks so much for coming on here today. Really appreciate it.

Where can everybody follow you at? My website is nick pope.net. And my ex formerly known as Twitter, which is the social media platform I use most, is my handle is at Nick Pope MOD, the MOD, of course, standing for Ministry of Defense at Nick Pope MOD. Perfect. Nick, thanks so much for coming back on here. I hope we get to speak again. sometime this year as things continue to develop and I look forward to it and all the best to you.

Thanks, Stephen. Good to talk to you as always. Yeah, appreciate it. So really great conversation. I really enjoy it. I always enjoy having him on Nick Pope. I think he's just, he's one of the, you know, really one of the brightest, smartest guys out there, my opinion, who can speak on a lot of these subjects because of all of his experience, real life experience, dealing with exact things like we've been seen over the past few days with this report from Arrow. And just a little bit of final word on that too just from my own point of view and perspective because i started off the episode of my introduction there is a little angry but i think it's it was on purpose because that's my real emotion with this i get really passionate when it comes to this discussion and

when people try to blatantly discount others who have risked a lot to talk about these things i mentioned all the names earlier in the beginning of the show and we mentioned some during the conversation there between Nick Pope and myself. And I think it's one thing to be skeptical, right? If you're just either a normal person, everyday life, you go about your day, you're paying bills, you're going to work, taking care of your family or your government employee who is legitimately investigating these things from a skeptical point of view. That's a different story.

Totally fine. Okay. That's your point of view. That's your opinion. That's the way you see things. But when you are, again, this is the way I see it here. when you are someone like Kirkpatrick or anybody else in the know who is, in my opinion, blatantly and purposefully lying or smearing somebody like David Grush, like David Fraber,

like Ryan Graves, Michael Herrera, or anybody else who has come out in the public eye to discuss what they've seen and to risk everything, to risk their livelihoods and their lives in some cases, to talk about the stuff in the public, out in the open, to come out from the shadows and say, here's what's going on. And when you are someone like a Kirkpatrick, who, in my opinion, is coming out and blatantly lying and slapping them in the face and saying, I don't care what you have to say, screw your risking everything because I was put here to put out this misinformation and disinformation and disinformation and to squash people like you down and to squash down other people who might be thinking about coming out like you. That is reprehensible. It is irredeemable.

and quite frankly, it is disgusting. And that's just the way, I know I'm coming out strong here, but I can't help it. I really am so passionate about this when you have so many people who are sacrificing so much to get this conversation out more in the forefront and to get these details out. And then you have something like this come out, this piece of garbage, this airway report that came out that just tries to discount all that and bury it back down into the ground, you know, to try to treat this like it's the 1950s. No, enough of that. We're past that.

We are not paying attention to your gross attempt at trying to bury all this again. This is 2024, not 1954. So we're moving forward. And I hope that many people out there will continue to push this discussion forward and not feel any shame or not feel any hesitation and coming out to discuss what they know or what they've seen. Because we got to really just push forward from something like that in this error report. that came out this past week. There you go. That is my final word on that.

And sorry to come out so strong. I don't want to be mean to anybody, but I can't help but to just say how I feel and call it like it is. That's something that I always want to do is kind of call it like it is in some cases. And I really felt like that needed to be said here today on this episode covering what we saw come out from this report from Arrow. Just unbelievable. But much more to come, obviously.

As we move forward, like you heard in that discussion there with Nick Pope and myself, really interesting to think about what could happen here over the next eight months moving into a presidential election. Will we see some type of disclosure come out from an adversary? That is wild to me to think about if they, you know, there's a wrench throwing in all this from an adversary as part of a, you know, a planned campaign to try to disable the nation or anything like that. it's an interesting aspect to think of and I'm not sure that the U.S. government is quite frankly ready for that. So that's one thing that kind of does unsettle me a little bit but hey

we're going to try to cover everything as it comes out and of course come out with new episodes and new conversations as time goes on. Make sure to continue to follow the show. Follow me on Twitter and all social media at UAP or I'm sorry at UAP Podcast 850. It's at UAP podcast 850 on Twitter, especially as where I post a lot of stuff, but on TikTok and YouTube as well, trying to put more out there. And if you like to email me directly, you can do that S-Diener-U-A-P at gmail.com.

That's S-D-I-E-N-E-R-U-A-P at Gmail.com. If you'd like to get a direct message over to me without using social media, you can feel free to do that as well. But for now, that'll do it here on this episode of UAP, the unidentifiedified alien pod. podcast weekly edition. Stephen Deiner here saying, I can't wait to speak to you again soon with anything new that comes out. I'll keep you updated on what is next right here on UAP. Until then, have a great day. Be well and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks.