On this episode of Conspiracy Theories, host Alex Blumberg and co-host Lauren Tickner discuss the growing number of UFO sightings across the U.S. in recent years, and whether or not these sightings are the work of government cover-ups.
00:00:00.000You are saying to the human race, for the first time, an official intelligence representative is saying publicly, we are not alone.
00:00:11.760We're definitely not alone. Absolutely, the data points empirically that we're not alone, yeah.
00:00:17.040This is one of the things that the sci-fi writers and filmmakers of the past got wrong.
00:00:23.280I think they got a lot right, but one thing they got wrong is they always assumed that going through all these different hypothetical scenarios
00:00:28.920of when we make contact with aliens or when aliens come to the United States,
00:00:32.100they always assumed that no matter what else happened, it would be a big deal to the people on Earth.
00:00:38.040Like, it'd be the biggest deal of all.
00:00:42.320And they got that wrong because a lot of people don't care.
00:00:45.500You have a U.S. intelligence official that comes out on the record and says, yes, we have these vehicles, we have them.
00:00:53.540And everyone's like, I don't know, who cares?
00:01:00.240It doesn't mean that you, yeah, you can always find a reason to doubt anyone when they're making a claim of something you haven't seen for yourself.
00:01:06.240But when you're assessing the veracity of someone's claim, you look at a couple of things.
00:01:11.600You look at their resume, their own background to see if there's any reason they would know this.
00:01:19.180And this is not a credentialism thing.
00:01:20.600What I mean is, if someone's saying, oh, I have seen top secret classified documents proving this, well, now the credentials do matter because I want to know, are you the sort of person who would even have access to that?
00:01:31.420And if you aren't, then I'm not sure that I probably won't believe you.
00:01:34.840In this case, he is the kind of person who would have access to that information.
00:02:45.300I mean, what else could that blur on the screen be but aliens?
00:02:56.140I'm starting to destroy my own case here.
00:02:57.800Look, not all these sightings are created equal.
00:03:00.960But also, another thing to keep in mind is that there's also a question people are asking about why we're seeing more and more of these recently.
00:03:14.180It's just that now we actually have the capability to record this, which could also explain.
00:03:20.180Because the other question is, well, if the government was lying about this for decades, and now you've got some government officials coming out and saying, yeah, this might be real.
00:03:27.800And you've got even Congress doing hearings and investigations and taking it seriously.
00:03:37.560I think instead, first of all, you've got a few whistleblowers who are forcing their hand a little bit.
00:03:42.640And also, because of modern technology and the information age and video and social media, they're not able to lie about this stuff the way that they used to.
00:03:50.660It's almost like their hands are being forced because people have cameras now on their phones and they can capture these kinds of videos.