590 segments
You know that there's a lot to know about UAPs that they're just not telling us, right?
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How do I know? I got somebody on the podcast who knows. Chris Cuomo here, welcome to the
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Chris Cuomo project. Christopher Mellon is as legit as you get, okay? He is a minted intelligence
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official from the United States government. He worked with Republicans and Democrats, okay?
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Not just as colleagues, but within administrations, okay? Bush and Obama. So he knows what there is to
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know and that's why he's been pushing so hard for transparency. So what does he make of what the
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Trump administration has done and not done? What does he believe about what is in the air
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around us and why it matters? What are his questions? What are his hopes? What are his beliefs?
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Christopher Mellon is ready to fill in the blanks for the rest of us. Are you ready? Let's get after it.
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Christopher Mellon, thank you so much for taking the opportunity. Appreciate you.
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Delighted to be here. Thank you for your interest in this topic.
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All right, so brother Mellon, take me to the moment. We are all waiting. The Trump administration
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has promised transparency. They've come in like a bunch of renegades that are going to buck the
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deep state and those of us who are desperate for transparency on this issue eagerly await and
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then comes the word and what we hear from the White House is, whop, wha, everything you guys saw in
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the air over New Jersey and everywhere else. Fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, commercial drones,
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nothing to see here. Same thing as the Biden administration. What was your reaction to that?
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I wasn't surprised. I mean, they are naturally going to want to try to
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soothe public concerns and prevent any kind of uproar panic. The fact is they don't really know.
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They don't know what's going on and it's very clear they don't know what's going on. So
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while it's true that many people were misreporting aircraft and things,
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there were clearly other cases. It's equally true that they could not identify the sources of
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the drones. For example, over Langley Air Force Base after weeks, they're moving an entire squad
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into the F-22s. They can't fly safely from the air combat command headquarters that is supposed
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to be protecting the nation's capital among other things. So if they can't control their own airspace,
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you know, what kind of a protection can we expect them to offer the capital and so forth. So
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deeply embarrassing situation for the administration, for the air force and it's hard to reassure
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the public when they really don't have any facts. And people understandably skeptical because
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they're not able to offer any definitive information about what's going on. So they default to
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nothing to see here because they don't have any good answers. Yeah, I think they default to,
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when I see any hostility or aggression and no reason to panic, which is about the best they can do
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because they really don't know. They didn't even have any video after weeks of overflates
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of the Langley Air Force Base, the military claimed the Air Force, they didn't even have a single
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video of these things. How can they not know what's flying around over an airbase? Right,
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right. It's and when you combine that with what we see going on in Ukraine, for example, it's
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horrifying. I mean, we're completely the Emperor's buck making when it comes to protecting America
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from these drones, which are now highly weaponized and precise. And of course, it leads into a larger
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question about what else is overflying America because our pilots, military pilots are seeing a lot
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of crazy stuff. It's currently not drones. We've had 35,000 feet going 500 miles an hour.
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That's that's not a hobbyist drone or anything of the sort.
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Weeks of drone formations operating in the American West and no ability to track them down or
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identify them. Drones overflying the most sensitive parts of our airbase and Guam and hovering over
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the ballistic missile defense pattern and shining lights down on it, like they're recording it
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and taking photographs of it. I can second it evenings. It goes on and on. Our bases overseas,
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this is happening in England. Nuclear power plants. It's very concerning pattern. And I think within
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the government, there's kind of shock and embarrassment or realization that we're in a very
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vulnerable situation. What is your best sense of what we're dealing with? I think we're dealing
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with a range of things. And in some cases, my guess would be a Guam, for example, that was probably
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Chinese drones. I think there was some other cases involving Navy ships where it was most likely
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Chinese drones. Recently, a young man was arrested. He was flying a drone over a naval shipyard
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in Virginia. Chinese visitor to this country of students. So there's that kind of traditional
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espionage that is being sort of accelerated with the implementation of drone technologies.
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But in addition, for years now, we've been seeing things that defy not only sort of our
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understanding of what they are where they're coming from, but how they even work. And you were
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seeing propulsion lists craft that are in some cases they spear six feet across with a cube inside
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that fly information that sometimes go supersonic speeds without breaking the sound barrier seemingly.
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They're utterly baffling. The Nimitz case, as you know, is a great example of that, but that's
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only one example. And there are great many more. It's actually becoming almost overwhelming when
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you look at the number of incidents that occur in places like Arizona where our F-35 and F-22 pilots
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are training and they're running in with single week. They might have three or four different encounters
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just in that one area with objects that are just baffling. And you have so much experience
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in this area and understanding how the government processes things and what it knows. And you know,
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you're one of the reasons I think you're so helpful in this transparency push is one, it's hard to
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dismiss you as a little green man fanatic. And you've worked for Republicans and Democrats in
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their administrations. What do you make of the pushback that someone like I've never been involved
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in the UFO UAP world in my life? It is not a point of personal fascination. I'm a transparency guy.
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And what is your read on how people want to dismiss that, wow, what's happened to Cuomo, man? He's
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gone full tin foil hat. Why is this so easy to dismiss for legitimate media when it's clearly just
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a transparency issue? How do you spend so much money, do so many operations, use special operators
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from the military if there's nothing for you to tell anybody? Yeah, I think you're on a really
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great point here. There are a lot of problems here. So you're raising sort of several different
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issues. One has to do with this issue of stigma. And many people are subliminally framed, if not
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terrified of this issue. It's very hard for a lot of people to process because it's so contrary to
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everything they've been taught and everything they believed. What we find though is, for example,
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there was a study of astronomers by an astronomer at Stanford. And what he found was that when
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astronomers who had been exposed to information about UAP, the more exposure they had, the more likely
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they were to support scientific research. So a lot of it is just plain ignorance. When you actually
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look at the historical record, it's overwhelming. So Sturick found, Professor Sturick, that if
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astronomers had had 50 hours of exposure to UAP, two thirds of them supported scientific
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involvement by the government and the scientific community. So ignorance is a huge factor. I
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would say cognitive dissonance is a huge factor. And this is sort of a circular argument because
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what happens is people who are skeptical, resist collecting the information or efforts to collect it
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and then therefore we don't have the information to show people which reinforces decepticism.
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And the government has been failing to release even unclassified information. And part of my message
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to Congressman is that there is a trove of information that should be unclassified,
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that is inappropriately classified or simply no one has made the effort to submit it to be released.
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I think I saw three videos that were unclassified to the press in 2018, 2017, as you know,
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New York Times was in the post. That was, I was investigated, the Air Force confirmed that
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they were truly unclassified. To me, years later, they created classification guide that tries
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to suggest that exactly the same kinds of videos are now suddenly a threat to national security.
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Well, how is that possible? It makes no sense whatsoever. And yet that's what they've done.
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If I may, I'd like to read a short excerpt from testimony before Congress of the Defense Department.
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So Mr. Brave in the Office of Naval Intelligence was asked if they have a clear and repeatable
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process for considering public release. And he says quote, when I will commit to at least for that
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material is under my authority as Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence,
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for information we have that does not involve sources or methods, etc. I commit to declassifying that.
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So I believe very much in the transparency of this and we worked very hard to balance that
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with national security. Well, to the best of my knowledge, they haven't declassified a single
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video since then. Yeah. Okay, that was three years ago. And we're now at over 1800
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official reports. You're telling me that none of those were unclassified. We know that
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a good number of them were people using iPhones. How is that a sensitive source of method
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is made in China? Some of them are guys using night vision goggles or handheld cam quarters on
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the decks of Navy ships. Same question arises. What about the same targeting pod that was used to
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collect the videos, gimbal and and flea is so forth that I shared with the press that actually
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helped national security. There probably a couple dozen at least of those in the system taken in
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the same areas that haven't been released. So I think that this pledge has not been acted on.
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I think they're in breach of that commitment. And my understanding from talking recently with
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government officials is part of the problem is there's nobody in the system is it advocate for
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doing this. So it comes in and sits on the computer and there's not a single person who thinks
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oh, the public has the right to see this or we should get this out or oh, by the way, didn't we
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talk Congress? We were going to do this. There are two problems. First one is the sources and methods
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boogie man. Once you bracket the disclosure and with all due respect to your intelligence
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background within the DOD and every other government agency. Once you guys say as long as it's not
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sources and methods, I know as a journalist, I'm not going to get what I want because you guys can
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talk anything you want under that category. So how much of a kind of an obstacle is that
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just automatically? Well, this is what I'm trying to say. I believe the current classification
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guy that you're referring to violates the executive president's executive order on classification.
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I think they have classified inappropriately in violation of that order a considerable amount
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of UAP material. And there are some wrinkles in here. Sometimes this information sits on a
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communication backbone that mixes classified and unclassified. And so they have to go through a
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process, but they're clearly not making good on this commitment. And at the time, I argued
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against this declassification guide. It was clear to me that it was greatly overstepping its
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bounds and unnecessarily and inappropriately doing so. I don't know how you can say that an iPhone
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video is a sources and methods issue. Right. Unless it's in a denied area or it's showing something
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of ours that is very secret. Of course, there are those kind of situations. Setting all that aside,
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there's no doubt in my mind that there is a pile of imagery that would be useful for educating
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the public. It would be useful to the scientific community. It would be useful to Congress.
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And remember that even the congressmen who have accessed the classified material theoretically,
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it's not often that it gets outside. It's not often that it's actually shared with them. And
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when it is, it's a limited number of committees. The best way to get this information to Congress
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is also through the press. And so the failure in that regard, I think, is huge.
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So as a result of the lack of transparency, it has fueled the fantastical notions, the paranoia,
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and how do you deal with the question of the unknown being explained as a function of the extra
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terrestrial? That if they won't tell us what it is, that's because it's from out of this world.
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Yeah, so it's possible some of these things are from out of this world. And that's a legitimate
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hypothesis. It's natural that in a case like the Nimitz case that people would go to that
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hypothesis because it actually works. I think they're failure to be more forthcoming. Obviously,
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supports all kinds of conspiracy theories and discontent and so forth. This administration has
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been good on the JFK issue for what I can see and they're moving to get MLK records out. They've
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got this declassification task force. Representative Burleson has said he's going to hold hearings.
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He's going to issue of subpoenas where necessary. So we may see some new information coming forward.
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I certainly hope so. I think there's an opportunity here to do that. And I think the public has a
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right, but not only is there a right in principle, there are actual utilitarian benefits from this.
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If the public didn't know about the Soviet Union putting a satellite in orbit, we wouldn't have had
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the space program and we wouldn't have gotten to the moon when we did. Thankfully, the intelligent
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community was not able to snuff that and they would have if they could have and kept it out in the
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public knowledge and domain. So I think it's really important where we can that we make this
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information available. It also makes the public more resilient in the event that something happens
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beyond our control. The more background knowledge, the information people have, the more resilient
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the population is. If they know this has been going on for decades, maybe hundreds of years,
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we haven't seen aggression. They're more likely in the event that something
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shocking happens to be able to accommodate it without, you know, overreacting.
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What do you make of the idea when you say, well, there's a hypothesis where you introduce
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the possibility that this comes from somewhere other than this planet that you immediately lose
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credibility. As soon as you say that three quarters, maybe seven-eighths of the media and any
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politician who aspires to higher office says, well, that's crazy sauce right there.
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Yeah, I've been careful. The problem is if you can't back up a plane like that,
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you know, I'm prepared to say that if I can back it up. I don't have anything that I can take
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present to the public right now. It says the TIGTAC was definitely an alien vehicle. And in the meantime,
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our government has not defined any criteria that would let us say, okay, this is so over the line,
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it can't be Russia or China or us, it's got to be somebody else. So they don't have
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any basis for they're deliberately leaving it fuzzy. It's a very hard issue for people,
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the TIGTAC on nobody wants to say the word alien or think about this for these exact reasons.
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It's still a lot of stigma and that's still a big issue.
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So a lot of this is about where we are also. One of the reasons I'm pushing it
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as much as I do is because we are at the bottom of a curve of trust right now. And I've always
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felt that this issue is a layup for restoring trust, okay? It's not like, you know, with all due respect
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to people who have more wild notions than I do. I don't believe the US government can keep
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a meaningful secret, frankly. So if there was, well, listen, we really have aliens in a lab
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and they're just starting to talk to us. So we don't want to blow this up, you know, or, you know,
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we got them right in a room next to Jesus and we don't want to freak people out. If even,
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with that kind of mythology in the air, I don't believe that that's the defense is that the
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government's protecting us from something that we just can't handle. I think it's more about
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giving people power and their desire to want to use it. And you need transparency right now
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because there's such a dearth of trust. And this to me is like a layup because unless you got
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Jesus in a room, unless you got little green men who are finally starting to talk, you can tell
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people about so much of this stuff and make them have growing levels of confidence in the men and
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women who they put in power. Yeah, I would disagree with you on the issue of the government not
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being able to keep secrets. And in fact, it's, you said meaningful secrets. So with that, by that,
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you need something that's politically loaded, that's explosive or something maybe. But I can tell you
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that people have such a lack of understanding of how much information we have secret
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that they don't appreciate the extent, the massive extent of government secrecy and the
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degree to which in some cases nobody even in Congress has a clue. So when I was involved in reviewing
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black programs of DOD, I won't state this precise number, but we're talking lots, hundreds,
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not a single one of those leaked. And the director of central intelligence was not cleared for those.
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I was not able to share some of that information with the advisors to the president and the
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national security council in some cases. The Department of Energy Black Programs, there is no
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oversight committee in Congress except for DOD approves and their black programs I think are
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completely off the radar. And they have tens of billions of dollars. There are tons of black
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programs out there that never leak over decades and decades, some of which are certainly newsworthy.
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Much as say the B2 bomber was what it came out, everybody was shocked. We had this incredible
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technology. There are other things like that today that we have quite a few of them and nobody
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has any idea. So I would challenge the idea, the other thing I would say when it comes to this
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particular issue, it's almost impossible to leak. You cannot go to any major media organization
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in this country. I can bring people in there who claim they worked on this program. They will not
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write a story about it. They won't publish it. They won't touch it. People have tried to leak this
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for years and years. And that same idea of this is incredible. We're going to be laughed at.
[0:23:39 - 0:23:45] ▶
The mainstream news organizations won't touch it. It's almost leak proof.
[0:23:46 - 0:23:49] ▶
Well, I took David Grasch and introduced him to some editors at one of the major outlets.
[0:23:50 - 0:23:58] ▶
And they didn't feel there was anything there worth publishing.
[0:23:58 - 0:24:00] ▶
Well, that's clearly changed. And I think news nation actually has had a good amount
[0:24:00 - 0:24:06] ▶
to do with that because it's obviously a legitimate organization. It's owned by the largest
[0:24:07 - 0:24:11] ▶
holder of local news stations in America next door. So if we're putting our name on it,
[0:24:11 - 0:24:18] ▶
same as me having it on my chest, it comes.
[0:24:19 - 0:24:22] ▶
I will concede you were a brave Chinese exception. But over the years, until the
[0:24:22 - 0:24:26] ▶
news news came along, it's very hard to find any place that would touch this.
[0:24:26 - 0:24:31] ▶
It's scary because having been an anchor at ABC News at CNN, even at Fox News before that.
[0:24:31 - 0:24:40] ▶
People think you're unseurious. You're unseurious. If you're talking about aliens, you're unseurious.
[0:24:41 - 0:24:47] ▶
Now, let's deal with something that's very, very sticky bit about that.
[0:24:48 - 0:24:53] ▶
There are so many people who call themselves Christians who think it's absurd to talk about
[0:24:53 - 0:24:58] ▶
the idea of life outside of earth. So you have billions of people like me who have chosen
[0:24:58 - 0:25:07] ▶
to have faith in something that I cannot demonstrate in any way. But I won't talk about
[0:25:08 - 0:25:14] ▶
the possibility that this is the only organic matter that has been able to use carbon the way
[0:25:14 - 0:25:20] ▶
has been used on earth anywhere in the universe, somewhat laughable when you look at it that way.
[0:25:20 - 0:25:26] ▶
But it's too deep for media and politics. I agree with what you said about secrets and that
[0:25:26 - 0:25:32] ▶
there are many things in the unknown, knowable space. I agree with you. I don't know what you know,
[0:25:32 - 0:25:38] ▶
but I agree with you. I'm talking about this that if there were aliens among us, I think that
[0:25:38 - 0:25:46] ▶
people would have a sense of it by now. I think that'd be too hard to keep. That's just my suspicion.
[0:25:47 - 0:25:54] ▶
But the most important and accessible part of this is that whatever the interest is in discretion
[0:25:54 - 0:26:03] ▶
by those with the information, it is backfiring. Nobody believes that things are being kept from the
[0:26:03 - 0:26:11] ▶
American people for their own good or for national security when it comes to this. They believe it's
[0:26:11 - 0:26:18] ▶
either deep state, elitism or it's nonsense. But the lack of transparency I think hurts. Nobody
[0:26:18 - 0:26:28] ▶
has confidence that it's being withheld for the right reasons. Yeah, I can't argue with you on that.
[0:26:28 - 0:26:34] ▶
And there's a lot of work to be done to restore faith in the government and restore trust.
[0:26:36 - 0:26:43] ▶
This issue in particular is one of the trying examples and it does lead to all manner of conspiracy
[0:26:43 - 0:26:53] ▶
theories and beliefs. And I think the best antidote is getting to ground truth to the extent we can.
[0:26:53 - 0:27:02] ▶
I know that there is some unclassified information right now in the hands of the government
[0:27:03 - 0:27:07] ▶
that is the kind of thing that would have some impact that would change some lines or at least
[0:27:08 - 0:27:15] ▶
open some to considering this issue. That information is available to make public. I can't imagine any
[0:27:15 - 0:27:25] ▶
legitimate argument for classification. And so I'm hoping that with this new pressure from Congress
[0:27:25 - 0:27:33] ▶
and from people like yourself raising this issue, that information will start to get to the
[0:27:33 - 0:27:40] ▶
public to help them better decide for themselves. And I think it wins them a particular point of view,
[0:27:40 - 0:27:44] ▶
but to help them better appreciate what people in the government are seeing, what the military
[0:27:44 - 0:27:50] ▶
is seeing and what the bottom line is. Right. And it's a double edge sort. So there's the you
[0:27:50 - 0:27:58] ▶
won't tell us anything. And then there's the you'll tell us some things. So that takes us to the
[0:27:58 - 0:28:06] ▶
JFK issue. My problem with the disclosure there is whatever you don't release becomes the most
[0:28:06 - 0:28:12] ▶
powerful aspect of the pursuit. So they dumped a bunch of JFK files. Everybody hires people
[0:28:12 - 0:28:19] ▶
in different AI tools for search engines to go through it. The collective response now other
[0:28:19 - 0:28:25] ▶
than a bullshit story that came out about John F. Kennedy Jr. sending a letter to someone he never
[0:28:25 - 0:28:31] ▶
sent to was fake. Nothing really came out that changed anybody's understanding. And so all it does
[0:28:31 - 0:28:40] ▶
is raise suspicions as to what they haven't released. And now I'm not as worried about it with JFK,
[0:28:40 - 0:28:47] ▶
frankly, as I am with Dr. King. And the obvious reason is because of the added layer of suspicion
[0:28:47 - 0:28:53] ▶
based on race and preference. So that I'm worried that when that story doesn't come out in full,
[0:28:53 - 0:28:59] ▶
it now has a really dark aspect, no pun intended, about well, why aren't they telling us this,
[0:29:00 - 0:29:07] ▶
what's being covered up in it? And there's going to be a whole new cottage industry of who killed Dr.
[0:29:07 - 0:29:12] ▶
King, which is not great for his family. And I don't think it's great for the country. So what is your
[0:29:12 - 0:29:18] ▶
best advice for the men and women doing the job when it comes to if you're going to disclose stuff,
[0:29:18 - 0:29:24] ▶
what should you keep in mind as government workers?
[0:29:24 - 0:29:28] ▶
Well, the executive order and classification tries to strike a reasonable going in position,
[0:29:29 - 0:29:39] ▶
which is when in doubt declassify it. That is what we're supposed to be doing under the executive
[0:29:39 - 0:29:45] ▶
order. If it's ambiguous at all, whether it's going to damage national screen, you should air on
[0:29:45 - 0:29:52] ▶
the side of releasing it. And we're not doing that. In the UAP area, where it's particularly
[0:29:52 - 0:29:59] ▶
different, difficult because there are clearly systems involved that are so intimately tied to
[0:29:59 - 0:30:06] ▶
supporting combat operations, military systems that there is a definitely legitimate argument for
[0:30:06 - 0:30:14] ▶
retaining classification of some of that data. So the government needs, but the government needs
[0:30:16 - 0:30:21] ▶
to lean forward and show that it's doing what they can consistent with national security and the
[0:30:21 - 0:30:28] ▶
best interest of the country. And they're not clearly not doing that. I think if you establish
[0:30:28 - 0:30:34] ▶
the baseline of credibility and we're putting out a lot of this data and seem to be trying to
[0:30:34 - 0:30:41] ▶
answer the mail, people might give you more of slack when they come when they at the point where
[0:30:41 - 0:30:46] ▶
they say, well, we're sorry that this particular satellite image we can't release because of X
[0:30:46 - 0:30:53] ▶
or Y. That would have more credibility. We're not there. We're lonely from that.
[0:30:53 - 0:30:57] ▶
Right. And look, part of the frustration with St. Grush is that to hear him say, look,
[0:30:57 - 0:31:07] ▶
I'm telling you, I'm not allowed to say, but I'm telling you, there are things here to be known.
[0:31:07 - 0:31:13] ▶
I don't want to get prosecuted for telling it when you guys won't protect me, but I'm telling you
[0:31:13 - 0:31:19] ▶
there's stuff to know that is very noble. But the American people hear it. And they're like,
[0:31:19 - 0:31:24] ▶
all right, this guy can't say it because he doesn't want to have the rest of his life ruined.
[0:31:24 - 0:31:27] ▶
This is ballsy enough for him to come out in the first place. And now all these people are going
[0:31:27 - 0:31:31] ▶
to say he's a nut job. But it just reinforces everything. I think the JFK disclosures did it. I mean,
[0:31:31 - 0:31:38] ▶
the Trump administration is trying to take a victory lap. I don't know why. And I think they're
[0:31:38 - 0:31:44] ▶
going to have the same problem with MLK that they had with UAPs. It's just not as many people cared
[0:31:44 - 0:31:49] ▶
about UAPs as they do about JFK and even more are going to care about Dr. King, depending on how it's
[0:31:49 - 0:31:55] ▶
spun. You know, you guys, not you, but the government gets a lot of break on UAP because people think
[0:31:55 - 0:32:00] ▶
it's silly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why there would be anything that couldn't be released
[0:32:00 - 0:32:07] ▶
regarding JFK and Martin Luther King. Right. I don't know. I mean, everybody's dead.
[0:32:07 - 0:32:13] ▶
Yeah. After this period of time, it's hard to imagine what sensitive source or method
[0:32:14 - 0:32:18] ▶
there could possibly be. So, and I do think that as you said correctly, the bits that you don't
[0:32:18 - 0:32:26] ▶
release, if you hold on to anything that immediately becomes the fills the vacuum of every
[0:32:26 - 0:32:32] ▶
conspiracy theorist that, you know, aha. Yeah. You know, they're not releasing that part because
[0:32:32 - 0:32:37] ▶
that's the part that says there's a second government or whatever. And it's weaponized. It's
[0:32:37 - 0:32:41] ▶
weaponized information based on a lack of disclosure and knowledge, like for instance,
[0:32:41 - 0:32:46] ▶
okay, on a very easy level to deal with. I still have people from Bush,
[0:32:46 - 0:32:53] ▶
Tuesday administration, George W. Bush telling me that there was yellow cake. They did find
[0:32:53 - 0:33:00] ▶
weapons in Iraq. There was stuff there that that wasn't, you know, that stuff wasn't all fake,
[0:33:00 - 0:33:05] ▶
that brought down Colin Powell, you know, that led us into war with Iraq that was completely
[0:33:05 - 0:33:10] ▶
full-gaze and people like me who went there in embed programs, there was never anything found
[0:33:10 - 0:33:15] ▶
like that. They still say it. Chris, they still say, oh no, there was, there was some stuff. See,
[0:33:15 - 0:33:22] ▶
that's part of the issue here. I hear R. E. Flaisher. Oh, no, no, no, there was stuff. I mean,
[0:33:22 - 0:33:26] ▶
we had real reason to believe it's all bullshit. But that's the right position.
[0:33:26 - 0:33:30] ▶
No shit. I was at the Pentagon and I was also the Senate Intelligence Committee during that time
[0:33:30 - 0:33:37] ▶
and they found absolutely nothing except for some forged documents. And it was outrageous and
[0:33:37 - 0:33:46] ▶
that is a whole subject unto itself. But, you know, they were blaming the intelligence community
[0:33:46 - 0:33:54] ▶
when, in fact, there were policymakers who were putting memos on top of the intelligence
[0:33:54 - 0:33:59] ▶
reports going forward saying, oh, this is bunk. Ignore the intelligence. We're telling you that
[0:33:59 - 0:34:05] ▶
Saddam really has links to terrorist groups and so forth and so on to advance the war effort. And,
[0:34:05 - 0:34:11] ▶
yeah, there's no question that he had no, no W of D program whatsoever.
[0:34:12 - 0:34:20] ▶
But that is, see, that's the power here that we're dealing with, right? No, you don't know Chris,
[0:34:20 - 0:34:27] ▶
but I know. And I'm telling you, just trust me. This is why we have to. And then fill in the blank,
[0:34:27 - 0:34:33] ▶
go to war, fear Russia. I now believe the same thing. And again, I'm not a conspiracist. And I'm
[0:34:33 - 0:34:39] ▶
not even cynical. I'm really not even 25 years into this business. I'm a hopeless optimist,
[0:34:39 - 0:34:44] ▶
which I know is a little bit of an oxymoron, but it's where my head is. I believe the Cold War
[0:34:45 - 0:34:52] ▶
was a complete fabrication. I believe that we decided to exaggerate Russia's potential.
[0:34:53 - 0:34:59] ▶
And it allowed the industrial military complex to build up and everybody's agenda was soothed
[0:35:00 - 0:35:05] ▶
here at home. And there was no real downside because nobody loved Russia to begin with ever
[0:35:05 - 0:35:10] ▶
since the Yalta conference and the suspicions that grew out of that. And it hit home for me.
[0:35:10 - 0:35:16] ▶
And again, I'm not, I'm not a conspiracist. I'm always open to being wrong. It just, it just
[0:35:16 - 0:35:22] ▶
fuels understanding. When Luger and Nun did that great program where they were trying to clean up
[0:35:22 - 0:35:27] ▶
Nukes, I went over to Russia as part of the Entre and that and they sent me out in the Siberia.
[0:35:27 - 0:35:32] ▶
We must go and then St. Petersburg, but eventually wound up in outer Siberia, a place called
[0:35:34 - 0:35:39] ▶
Sutscha. And one of the many places they kept, small biological and maybe potentially nuclear
[0:35:39 - 0:35:48] ▶
weapons. And they were keeping them in a barn, okay? And when we walked into the barn,
[0:35:48 - 0:35:56] ▶
we walked up to the barn. I noticed that all the Russian military I saw had mixed matched
[0:35:56 - 0:36:01] ▶
uniforms on and almost none of them had weapons. And I was like, I don't understand,
[0:36:01 - 0:36:05] ▶
they're guarding this. And the guys like, well, a lot of them sell the weapons. And then we
[0:36:05 - 0:36:11] ▶
get there and the door is locked with a string and a wax seal. And the guy says, well, if the wax
[0:36:11 - 0:36:19] ▶
seal is broken, we knew people came in. I was like, you mean like the Chechens that are like
[0:36:19 - 0:36:24] ▶
a 50 minute helicopter ride away. I want to kill all of you right now. And I realized,
[0:36:24 - 0:36:30] ▶
and then Ukraine, so right then, this was many years ago, I was like, these people are not us,
[0:36:31 - 0:36:37] ▶
okay? There's no way these guys can run with us, okay? And then, but they have nukes, I get it,
[0:36:37 - 0:36:43] ▶
you don't want to mess with them, they have nukes. Okay. Then Ukraine happens. And only in Trump
[0:36:43 - 0:36:49] ▶
land, is there any understanding that Russia is kicking Ukraine's ass, okay? And you live that,
[0:36:49 - 0:36:55] ▶
I lived it. Nobody thought that this was going to last more than a few days, right? They were
[0:36:55 - 0:37:01] ▶
going to roll right over an Indikiv. But it turns out that, and now the new answer is, oh,
[0:37:01 - 0:37:08] ▶
well, Russia doesn't want to use its citizens. Oh, that's why he just called up another 122,000
[0:37:08 - 0:37:12] ▶
of them, right? Oh, they're just using all the prisoners because he doesn't want to use the real
[0:37:12 - 0:37:16] ▶
military here. Like he just wants to use the farm team. I think it's all bullshit. And that's
[0:37:16 - 0:37:21] ▶
the need for transparency, Chris, is that if you start with something easy, when nobody gets hurt,
[0:37:21 - 0:37:28] ▶
which is like, what's in the air? Okay. Who's flying stuff around here that we have to figure out
[0:37:28 - 0:37:34] ▶
about? Who should be allowed? Who shouldn't be allowed? This is not geopolitical in a way that we
[0:37:34 - 0:37:40] ▶
see with like Russia and Ukraine. You're not going to scare anybody. We're not, it's not an army of
[0:37:40 - 0:37:45] ▶
Martians. I just believe it's a huge missed opportunity that has magnified the animus towards
[0:37:45 - 0:37:53] ▶
government. Well, you're, you're really right about that. And that's partly reflected in,
[0:37:53 - 0:37:59] ▶
in President Trump's election and support that he got from many people who are, who, you know,
[0:37:59 - 0:38:06] ▶
fed up with, with this kind of thing and suspicious of the government. But we have a, we have a huge
[0:38:06 - 0:38:13] ▶
issue here out two comments, briefly, one with regard to the Soviet Union. When I was responsible
[0:38:13 - 0:38:18] ▶
for reviewing counterintelligence security for the Secretary of Defense, one of the things I
[0:38:18 - 0:38:24] ▶
used to remind our officers was that we didn't defeat the Soviet Union because we were better
[0:38:24 - 0:38:30] ▶
at keeping secrets. We defeated them because we were better at sharing information in free
[0:38:30 - 0:38:37] ▶
markets and through the free press that made us more innovative, productive, efficient,
[0:38:37 - 0:38:43] ▶
and all those kinds of things. So, you know, it's, it's not about making, protecting information
[0:38:43 - 0:38:50] ▶
and generally as the top priority or the key to security. The second thing I would say is that
[0:38:50 - 0:38:57] ▶
in this winter information environment where people are getting their information from
[0:38:57 - 0:39:02] ▶
partisan sources and so forth, I don't know how we get back to the days once that we had with, you
[0:39:03 - 0:39:10] ▶
know, Walter Cronkite and people that were reasonably non-partisan and we had sort of a common
[0:39:10 - 0:39:16] ▶
information base. It's very hard to debate, discuss policy options when you can't even agree on
[0:39:16 - 0:39:21] ▶
the basic facts. And I don't know, I've often been thinking, you know, is there a possibility we could
[0:39:21 - 0:39:27] ▶
get some kind of a news information source? It's truly bipartisan where you have buy-in from,
[0:39:27 - 0:39:34] ▶
from, you know, maybe representatives from both parties or some kind of, or none of the people
[0:39:35 - 0:39:40] ▶
there are registered to either party or something. I don't think people have good options right now for
[0:39:40 - 0:39:47] ▶
sources they can rely on and feel are really independent. A rally or wrongly. You hear that from both
[0:39:48 - 0:39:55] ▶
sides. Yeah, look, I don't know, I mean, look, that's why I'm doing this, right? That's why I'm at
[0:39:55 - 0:40:01] ▶
news nation and yet and yet. One, no podcast can compete except on a one-off basis with a legitimate
[0:40:01 - 0:40:12] ▶
media organization. You don't have the resources, you don't have the sourcing, you don't have the
[0:40:12 - 0:40:18] ▶
reach, you don't have the layers, reporting is about layers. Not unlike, you know, your acumen within
[0:40:18 - 0:40:26] ▶
the intelligence world. It's layers, it's what ads, what subtracts, what qualifies, what contextualizes,
[0:40:26 - 0:40:32] ▶
that's why investigative reporting is both expensive, but more importantly, timely. And so I believe
[0:40:32 - 0:40:41] ▶
there's a little bit of player hating that goes on with independent versus legacy media on the
[0:40:41 - 0:40:45] ▶
basis of wanting market share, right? So Joe Rogan, don't trust anybody but me. I have everyone
[0:40:45 - 0:40:51] ▶
here on. Yeah, you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about and can't ask a critical
[0:40:51 - 0:40:55] ▶
question. So, you know, there, there's a little bit of that to me that's that's spacious on its face
[0:40:55 - 0:41:01] ▶
as an independent, you know, operator within it who's also been within the media. I know I can
[0:41:02 - 0:41:07] ▶
out report CNN or ABC news. They're going to beat me on a story. I may have you one day, right? I
[0:41:07 - 0:41:13] ▶
may have Chris and Chris told me something that they didn't have. And now I advance a story,
[0:41:13 - 0:41:17] ▶
but that's a one off over time, resources matter reporting matters. Walter Cronkite was good to me.
[0:41:17 - 0:41:26] ▶
He and his wife Betty were good to me. I enjoyed time with them socially. I enjoyed mentoring from Walter.
[0:41:26 - 0:41:32] ▶
Walter Cronkite may rest in peace would have been the first to say what follows. Walter Cronkite
[0:41:32 - 0:41:38] ▶
was never Walter Cronkite. What you had was three options. And for a while, you really only had two.
[0:41:38 - 0:41:46] ▶
At first, you really just had CBS. Then you had CBS and NBC. Then you had CBS NBC and ABC. Okay.
[0:41:46 - 0:41:52] ▶
So you really just had scarcity. So you had three guys and you had a different culture of what we
[0:41:52 - 0:42:02] ▶
now call democratization of media. Everybody's got a platform now. And you have media that has
[0:42:02 - 0:42:10] ▶
become not just multiplied, but has become much more competitive in terms of what works. And like
[0:42:10 - 0:42:19] ▶
every other market, you always go to what's easiest, right? And what's easiest? Provocativeness,
[0:42:19 - 0:42:24] ▶
salaciousness, sex, those kind of scandal, those things. So we just see more of what has always
[0:42:24 - 0:42:31] ▶
existed. Walter Cronkite took one big swing in his grand again. This I know Walter would absolutely
[0:42:31 - 0:42:39] ▶
endorse everything I'm saying right now. And probably his piss that I haven't talked about him more
[0:42:39 - 0:42:44] ▶
sooner about correcting this idea of an earlier perfect pest. He complained about the war.
[0:42:44 - 0:42:50] ▶
He cried because he what he knew was happening. He cried because he realized that
[0:42:51 - 0:42:56] ▶
as he explained to me that he had been so wrong in what he had relied on for so long.
[0:42:58 - 0:43:04] ▶
And that hurt his credibility. Now it's what we point to about Walter Cronkite. In that moment,
[0:43:06 - 0:43:14] ▶
it hurt Walter a lot and made him seem like a closet pinco and all this other stuff that they
[0:43:15 - 0:43:21] ▶
said about him. So it's very interesting how history, you know, reveals itself and heals itself.
[0:43:21 - 0:43:26] ▶
So where are we today? We are in a space of opportunity that is being used and abused
[0:43:27 - 0:43:34] ▶
on a nano scale that it's happening so fast and such small increments all the time that it's very
[0:43:35 - 0:43:43] ▶
tough to get a read. But within it is an opportunity, which is why I have such a value on you.
[0:43:43 - 0:43:49] ▶
And why I have a dual platform, right? Because when you're on TV, why would you also have a podcast?
[0:43:50 - 0:43:55] ▶
There are very few people who do it unless it's like a podcast on grief or a podcast on food,
[0:43:55 - 0:44:01] ▶
you know, or some shit like that where it's like your pet project. For me, the reason to do it is
[0:44:01 - 0:44:06] ▶
because of the opportunity for better. The bar, the feelings are so low. I don't know that you know
[0:44:06 - 0:44:13] ▶
or realize or appreciate what you, what grush, even what Corbell, even though he doesn't come
[0:44:13 - 0:44:20] ▶
from a government background, which makes you much more valuable. You've been so helpful
[0:44:20 - 0:44:25] ▶
to so many American people, not because they've got a shirt on that says I was abducted,
[0:44:25 - 0:44:30] ▶
meet my wife. But because they trust that you were somebody who did the job for us,
[0:44:31 - 0:44:38] ▶
who's telling us the truth about things and that you exist. Like there's only one thing that's
[0:44:38 - 0:44:45] ▶
more rare than a Martian is someone in government that you can trust, right? And that you grush
[0:44:45 - 0:44:52] ▶
a handful of others have helped restore that. So I see opportunity in it. Not that people don't
[0:44:52 - 0:44:56] ▶
know where to go. People are looking for echo chambers. They're looking for sucker,
[0:44:56 - 0:45:03] ▶
SUCCOR in terms of what they wanted to take in. But I also think that there's reaction formation
[0:45:03 - 0:45:11] ▶
to that. And what we see in our market testing at news nation is that we're overweighted independent
[0:45:11 - 0:45:16] ▶
critical thinkers who do not want to ascribe to any allegiance. Not that they're anti-America,
[0:45:16 - 0:45:23] ▶
but that they're I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm offended by them. I'm a
[0:45:23 - 0:45:28] ▶
critical thinker. I don't believe you. Don't tell me what to think. Just tell me why you think what
[0:45:28 - 0:45:33] ▶
you think. Let me deal with it. So I think that's growing also Chris. And I think that you probably
[0:45:33 - 0:45:39] ▶
see a lot of that with who's following you now and why that they're not just hobbyists.
[0:45:39 - 0:45:43] ▶
Well, thank you if you're kind words. I just the truth.
[0:45:44 - 0:45:50] ▶
Try to follow a simple dictum which is simply to to share what I can as I know it and not go
[0:45:51 - 0:45:58] ▶
beyond that. And it seems to keep me out of trouble most of the time. So I I feel passively about
[0:45:58 - 0:46:08] ▶
these issues. I think that again, one of the huge discrepancies between the perspective of some of
[0:46:08 - 0:46:15] ▶
this who are really seized with this issue and the general public is we're familiar with the huge
[0:46:15 - 0:46:23] ▶
cumulative volume of history associated with us. And we've had personal discussions interaction
[0:46:23 - 0:46:30] ▶
with the Navy pilots and with the radar operators and so forth. And that cannot help but have a
[0:46:30 - 0:46:36] ▶
powerful effect on you. So I'm really honored by your comments. I miss being in the government.
[0:46:36 - 0:46:46] ▶
I love serving the country. It was I have no regrets about my career. And if I can help in some
[0:46:46 - 0:46:54] ▶
way from out here in the past years of retirement, I'm delighted to do so.
[0:46:54 - 0:46:57] ▶
So what do you think the next couple of steps are in the search for truth and more importantly,
[0:46:58 - 0:47:08] ▶
more importantly, a strategy of what we need to do where UAPs are involved?
[0:47:08 - 0:47:15] ▶
Great questions. So we're in a bit of a we've lost some ground in the last couple of years
[0:47:16 - 0:47:23] ▶
with Senator Rubio going to the administration. For example, he was a strong supporter on the
[0:47:23 - 0:47:29] ▶
Senate Intelligence Committee. We don't enjoy the support of the chair or ranking of the
[0:47:29 - 0:47:36] ▶
committees that have jurisdiction over DOD and the intelligence committee. That's a huge problem
[0:47:36 - 0:47:41] ▶
and we had more support a few years ago. The actions on the house side are very helpful,
[0:47:41 - 0:47:48] ▶
but remember, they're not cleared for all of the information even in closed session
[0:47:49 - 0:47:55] ▶
because they don't serve on certain committees and they don't have necessarily the leverage,
[0:47:56 - 0:48:01] ▶
the ability to get language into the authorization bills and so forth. I think we need to
[0:48:02 - 0:48:08] ▶
to make a headway, we need to build more of a consensus on the Hill as part of it. And you do that
[0:48:09 - 0:48:15] ▶
in an incremental way. Some people are swinging for the fences in disclosure
[0:48:15 - 0:48:20] ▶
where they envision, I guess, a press conference where the president comes out and just
[0:48:21 - 0:48:25] ▶
bears everything. I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon. So I think in the meantime,
[0:48:25 - 0:48:31] ▶
the best approach is to try to produce more of this information that will help to inform
[0:48:33 - 0:48:40] ▶
the American people about what's really going on. Part of it is this declassification.
[0:48:41 - 0:48:45] ▶
Part of it is convincing the committees that do have a oversight and jurisdiction of DOD
[0:48:46 - 0:48:52] ▶
to ask more probing questions that will produce more information for all concerned. So, for example,
[0:48:53 - 0:49:01] ▶
and then that should engage other members and we start to build out the coalition
[0:49:02 - 0:49:07] ▶
and hopefully it becomes a virtuous circle leading to greater understanding for everyone. So,
[0:49:07 - 0:49:13] ▶
for example, if you ask the Air Force, there's a strange thing I've been pointing out for a number
[0:49:13 - 0:49:18] ▶
of years now, which is why is it that all the reports that we get are coming in from ships and
[0:49:18 - 0:49:22] ▶
aircraft and these huge radar systems that NORAD has are not reporting anything,
[0:49:22 - 0:49:29] ▶
even when they're looking at the save areas where all this activity is happening.
[0:49:29 - 0:49:33] ▶
So, is this a Chinese balloon problem where they don't have the filter set right or whatever it is,
[0:49:33 - 0:49:39] ▶
we need to fix it because we're dealing with a huge drone issue. If Congress puts language
[0:49:39 - 0:49:44] ▶
in their authorization, they'll require reports on this, which they should absolutely because
[0:49:44 - 0:49:49] ▶
we have a huge air defense issue. And ask the question, for example, how often did you launch jets
[0:49:49 - 0:49:55] ▶
from strip alert? And what happened in those circumstances? What did you find? Because they see,
[0:49:55 - 0:50:02] ▶
they tracked thousands of uncorrelated targets over North America every year. But there's a small
[0:50:02 - 0:50:07] ▶
and so they'll throw those statistics at you and it's kind of like, you know, where do you go from
[0:50:07 - 0:50:12] ▶
there? If you ask the question, tell us about the ones where you actually launched
[0:50:12 - 0:50:17] ▶
armed aircraft from strip alert, those are the ones where they really got excited about something.
[0:50:17 - 0:50:23] ▶
And I know there are cases that they haven't been telling Aero about where they've launched from
[0:50:24 - 0:50:28] ▶
strip alert. I've proven that with a specific case. I think there's a lot of data that's not even
[0:50:28 - 0:50:34] ▶
reaching Aero, much less Congress of the American people. And I think that kind of information,
[0:50:34 - 0:50:39] ▶
which doesn't require an appropriation, would help the taxpayer and the oversight committees better
[0:50:39 - 0:50:44] ▶
understand the effectiveness and the holes in our air defense system. And also it could be very
[0:50:44 - 0:50:50] ▶
informative with regard to UAP. So I think there are questions that can be asked that will help to
[0:50:50 - 0:50:57] ▶
produce additional information that will help to expand the consensus and the number of members
[0:50:58 - 0:51:05] ▶
who are interested and want to take action and better inform the public. And like the ink
[0:51:05 - 0:51:10] ▶
block strategy and counterinsurgency, you build out from the beach head, you know, you build out from that.
[0:51:10 - 0:51:15] ▶
What are your top three questions? Ah, so I guess my first question would be,
[0:51:17 - 0:51:24] ▶
what are these massive multi-million dollar air and space surveillance systems seeing with regard
[0:51:25 - 0:51:32] ▶
to UAP? We've been getting essentially no reporting. They cover immense areas, 367, I mean,
[0:51:32 - 0:51:40] ▶
365 by, you know, 24. And we're talking all the oceans, the Arctic, and everything else in space.
[0:51:40 - 0:51:48] ▶
And so I think we need to know how well those systems are working for a whole lot of reasons,
[0:51:49 - 0:51:55] ▶
and what they're seeing with regard to UAP. Are we seeing things in orbit, etc?
[0:51:55 - 0:52:00] ▶
So that would be a question that has, it serves a number of different audiences, I think,
[0:52:01 - 0:52:08] ▶
the UAP group as well as national security, etc. That would be the first. The second is,
[0:52:08 - 0:52:15] ▶
when are you going to revise those classification guides? And what are you going to do to a
[0:52:15 - 0:52:22] ▶
related problem is not just the classification guides, but nobody feels it's their job or their duty
[0:52:22 - 0:52:27] ▶
to submit this stuff into the process to get it out to the public, to do the paperwork.
[0:52:28 - 0:52:34] ▶
So who's going to be the advocate? Mr. Bray said in this hearing that he's going to do this for
[0:52:34 - 0:52:39] ▶
the Navy, but to the best of my knowledge, they haven't produced a single, released a single video,
[0:52:39 - 0:52:45] ▶
or photograph as a result of this. So who's going to be doing this if they're not?
[0:52:46 - 0:52:50] ▶
That's very doable and should be done. As we're going down the list,
[0:52:51 - 0:52:57] ▶
I think I would love to see a, again, doesn't even require an appropriation. They bungled the
[0:53:01 - 0:53:07] ▶
history report requirement in my view, completely bungled at Congress asked for the history of UAP
[0:53:07 - 0:53:12] ▶
and the US government. I wrote a 14,000 word article dissecting that it was appallingly bad in my view.
[0:53:12 - 0:53:19] ▶
I think they should ask for an oral history of the UAP issue and they could get,
[0:53:20 - 0:53:25] ▶
that we have military historians and others in the government who are official historians,
[0:53:26 - 0:53:31] ▶
they have clearances, they can do the interviews and skiffs, get in the former secretaries of the
[0:53:31 - 0:53:36] ▶
Air Force, get in the former heads of the National Security Council. You can even do, you know,
[0:53:36 - 0:53:42] ▶
talk to former presidents, former secretaries of the feds, and you wouldn't be able to release
[0:53:42 - 0:53:48] ▶
it all immediately. We have something that no one's ever done that would be an invaluable historical
[0:53:48 - 0:53:53] ▶
record for the future. And it might settle a lot of these questions once and for all, if not immediately,
[0:53:53 - 0:54:00] ▶
then down the road. I think that would be something that would have enduring historical value.
[0:54:00 - 0:54:06] ▶
They cost virtually nothing and would be original historical research as opposed to
[0:54:08 - 0:54:15] ▶
them just sort of regurgitating project blue book stuff and whatever. And let me give one quick
[0:54:16 - 0:54:21] ▶
example if I may have the kind of things that could be surfaced. So I was on the set of a documentary
[0:54:21 - 0:54:28] ▶
being filmed talking to former DNI Jim Clapper and he mentioned when he was director of Air Force
[0:54:28 - 0:54:36] ▶
Intelligence, a problem they were having with UAP flying over one of our most sensitive test
[0:54:36 - 0:54:41] ▶
pages. Well, this didn't come out of the history report. Nobody at Arrow, I think, has any idea about
[0:54:41 - 0:54:46] ▶
this. And what it demonstrates is how wrong the report was that they put out, which asserted that
[0:54:46 - 0:54:55] ▶
everybody's just seeing our stealth aircraft and stuff. Well, it turns out the people seeing our
[0:54:55 - 0:54:59] ▶
stealth aircraft were alarmed by the UFOs they were seeing. And they were actually, you know,
[0:54:59 - 0:55:06] ▶
putting in requests to have a security response to figure out where these UFOs were coming from.
[0:55:06 - 0:55:11] ▶
So that's the kind of thing if you had an oral history, how much of that kind of stuff would
[0:55:12 - 0:55:16] ▶
you surface? I don't know, but there'd be a lot of new information that's never been out there
[0:55:16 - 0:55:21] ▶
before and they could address a range of issues from heavily recovery crash materials to,
[0:55:21 - 0:55:27] ▶
you know, what's going on with these nuclear power plants and ICBM facilities and all that kind of
[0:55:29 - 0:55:34] ▶
stuff. Someone said to me and they really captured it perfectly that all you need to know about
[0:55:34 - 0:55:41] ▶
this subject is that the only meaningful disclosure or change that's happened in the last several
[0:55:41 - 0:55:49] ▶
years is changing vocabulary from UFO to UAP. And I hadn't really thought other than having some
[0:55:49 - 0:56:00] ▶
initial confusion as to why I had to change my vernacular, but then I never thought about it again
[0:56:00 - 0:56:06] ▶
because I just had to, how true is that that? Why did that change happen? And like, who made that
[0:56:06 - 0:56:13] ▶
happen? And how did it help anything? Well, the UFO term is so freighted with baggage and you say
[0:56:14 - 0:56:22] ▶
UFO people immediately think aliens. And so part of it was just an effort to get something that
[0:56:22 - 0:56:30] ▶
was a little more neutral, a little bit less loaded, that was part of it. Part of it also was
[0:56:31 - 0:56:36] ▶
looking for terminology that would try to express even that we're not just interested in
[0:56:37 - 0:56:43] ▶
Congress is not just interested in aerial phenomenon. It could be under the ocean, it could be in
[0:56:43 - 0:56:48] ▶
space. They're interested in anomalies wherever they occur. The Air Force and incidentally and
[0:56:48 - 0:56:55] ▶
typical sort of response initially the term was unidentified aerial phenomenon and they said,
[0:56:55 - 0:57:01] ▶
oh, we don't have to tell you about anything in space then. And you didn't actually say just an
[0:57:01 - 0:57:06] ▶
aerial. So that was partly why it became unidentified anomalous phenomenon. All domain anomalous,
[0:57:06 - 0:57:14] ▶
but I really wanted to hammer guys, we really mean wherever it is, if you see something that looks like
[0:57:14 - 0:57:20] ▶
it could be a breakthrough in technology that we don't have, we want to know about it because it's
[0:57:20 - 0:57:25] ▶
important. And I don't know, I had suggested originally a term, a anomaly resolution, an office
[0:57:25 - 0:57:36] ▶
that would take hard technical problems, anomalies and work them with from a lot of angles. And I
[0:57:36 - 0:57:43] ▶
don't know if that how that morphed or where this actually started, but I think largely it was
[0:57:43 - 0:57:51] ▶
an effort to get away from UFO, which was so loaded. I mean, you know, they just always say, oh, well,
[0:57:51 - 0:57:56] ▶
yeah, I came out of the Pentagon. And I always found that odd because they'd like want to talk about
[0:57:56 - 0:58:01] ▶
this the least. And yet the only thing that's really changed is what they did. Yeah, I don't know,
[0:58:01 - 0:58:09] ▶
I don't think it started in the Pentagon. I don't think that term, but I could be wrong. I think
[0:58:09 - 0:58:14] ▶
actually, I think maybe Jay Stroudin has said that he originated that that's possible. I'm not
[0:58:14 - 0:58:20] ▶
really certain. Perhaps it did come from over there. They say the Pentagon's unidentified aerial
[0:58:20 - 0:58:25] ▶
phenomena task force, UAPTF and its successor, the all-domain anomaly resolution office.
[0:58:25 - 0:58:32] ▶
I mean, I came from Congress. That term came from Congress. It's like, man, we just twist ourselves up.
[0:58:32 - 0:58:39] ▶
Did you see the term that DOD had before that? A-I-O-S-G, something or other that they were proposing
[0:58:40 - 0:58:48] ▶
to call the office? As awkward as it is, they had something that was even worse if you could believe
[0:58:48 - 0:58:54] ▶
that. I do. Because I think it goes to the desperation is probably the best word to control.
[0:58:54 - 0:59:03] ▶
I think ultimately the truth of this, of this frustration, of this difficulty, of this hand
[0:59:04 - 0:59:12] ▶
ringing is about control. And people being invested with power who believe that that means that
[0:59:12 - 0:59:19] ▶
they must control. And I'm sure you've seen that many, many different ways, many different times
[0:59:19 - 0:59:24] ▶
in your work in the government. And I've seen it myself is that it's about control, the JFK,
[0:59:24 - 0:59:32] ▶
the MLK. I remember the first time Trump was president. Everybody thought the JFK stuff was
[0:59:32 - 0:59:36] ▶
going to come out. Next thing I know, I'm hearing from one of his guys. It's not going to happen. Why?
[0:59:36 - 0:59:41] ▶
Because somebody made the case that you're going to embarrass parts of the government that you're
[0:59:41 - 0:59:46] ▶
now in control of and you need them to like you and you don't want people to think that they
[0:59:46 - 0:59:52] ▶
shouldn't trust you. It's not worth it. Leave it alone. And they were like, okay, if there's
[0:59:52 - 0:59:56] ▶
downside to this, why would we do it? And it was as simple as that, like, you know, I was going
[0:59:56 - 1:00:01] ▶
to do this because I thought it was a layup. If it's not a layup, if I might get some stink on me
[1:00:01 - 1:00:05] ▶
because of this, I'm not doing it. Who cares? Anyway, guys, dead. And that was it. And it was gone.
[1:00:05 - 1:00:10] ▶
So I really believe it all comes down to control. What is your, I'll leave on this. What is your
[1:00:10 - 1:00:18] ▶
best basis for hope that we get more and better in terms of transparency on this?
[1:00:18 - 1:00:28] ▶
Well, number one, we do have still some interested parties in Congress who are willing to shake
[1:00:28 - 1:00:35] ▶
the tree. That's extremely helpful. And I'm hoping that there's still some of the Senate side,
[1:00:35 - 1:00:40] ▶
although fewer than there were a couple of years ago. And I'm hoping that will
[1:00:40 - 1:00:45] ▶
build rather than then recede. Secondly, we have a lot of collection now that is being
[1:00:46 - 1:00:53] ▶
established and going on beyond the government's control. So the Galileo project, for example,
[1:00:53 - 1:00:58] ▶
is establishing its own sensor sites. There's an organization called the Nigma Labs that has
[1:00:58 - 1:01:05] ▶
got an app and people can report and take videos and submit them. And there's some other organizations
[1:01:05 - 1:01:11] ▶
like Mufon that are doing that. And I recently just saw an iPhone video that was very compelling.
[1:01:11 - 1:01:18] ▶
And I hope it will, it's in the government's hands. I hope it will soon be released.
[1:01:18 - 1:01:24] ▶
So I think those are probably the leading clauses for optimism. This administration
[1:01:26 - 1:01:31] ▶
with their, with this effort on the JFK records. So for us, seems to be leaning towards responding
[1:01:31 - 1:01:41] ▶
to this desire to declassify and get things out, the house task force. So there are some positive,
[1:01:41 - 1:01:48] ▶
some positive developments. There are still some whistleblowers coming forward.
[1:01:48 - 1:01:52] ▶
So there are an array of things that are going to continue that I think are going to incrementally
[1:01:54 - 1:01:59] ▶
produce more information. I think it's going to be increasingly difficult down the line for the
[1:01:59 - 1:02:05] ▶
government to pretend there's nothing there. There's no there there. And in fact, the current
[1:02:05 - 1:02:11] ▶
director, it's very refreshing change. Dr. Kuzlowski is admitted UAP are real,
[1:02:11 - 1:02:17] ▶
receiving things we don't understand. That alone is a big change from any, from his predecessor
[1:02:17 - 1:02:26] ▶
and any point in the past. US government's officially saying, yeah, UAP are real and receiving
[1:02:26 - 1:02:32] ▶
things we don't understand. Well, at least we're all on the same page, even if it's just page one.
[1:02:32 - 1:02:40] ▶
It would be good for something to change other than the acronyms. Christopher Mellon, I appreciate
[1:02:40 - 1:02:45] ▶
your contributions so much. Thank you for coming to us at news nation. Thank you for coming to us
[1:02:45 - 1:02:50] ▶
here at the Chris Cuomo project. I'm always a call away if you have anything to say to advance our
[1:02:50 - 1:02:55] ▶
understanding. Well, thank you very much for having me and thank you for interested in this topic.
[1:02:55 - 1:03:00] ▶
Really appreciate it.
[1:03:00 - 1:03:00] ▶
Christopher Mellon, you can't say he doesn't know. You can't say he doesn't get government.
[1:03:05 - 1:03:10] ▶
You can't say that this is too sophisticated for him. The reality is that trust comes from
[1:03:10 - 1:03:16] ▶
transparency. Transparency builds trust. You want people to feel differently about government,
[1:03:16 - 1:03:23] ▶
have government make them feel differently. The only thing we've changed is the acronyms.
[1:03:23 - 1:03:28] ▶
What do they know? What do we need to know? Christopher Mellon laid it all out and I appreciate you
[1:03:29 - 1:03:35] ▶
for being here with me to get after it. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following.
[1:03:35 - 1:03:41] ▶
Thank you for checking me out at news nation, 8 p 11 p every week day night.
[1:03:41 - 1:03:46] ▶
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