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June 6, 2004 - Art Bell

02:52:21

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Sir Charles Shults III - Martian Fossils

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	From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I've been John Mellencamp. I'm a
	good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be in the Earth's 25 time zones, there
	are no more.
	I'm John Mellencamp.
	I'm John Mellencamp.
	Every single one of them covered one way or the other by this program, Coast to Coast AM Weekend Edition.
	Honored to be with you this Sunday night, Monday morning.
	My honor, indeed.
	We're gonna do a lot.
	Next hour, we're gonna have on somebody that was a complete Utter surprise.
	Last time we had him on, Sir Charles Schultz.
	Really incredible interviewer.
	Amazing man.
	And you'll hear him next hour if you didn't get the honor to hear him a month or so ago.
	Well, of course, remaining the number one news item, the passing of our president, Ronald Reagan.
	He was remembered with jelly beans.
	He had a thing for those.
	You'll recall flowers, American flags on Sunday at memorials in his hometown outside the mortuary, where the former president's body lay, and all your hearts, I know.
	Or most of them, anyway.
	Reagan will be memorialized, and I say that because, believe it or not, I have some emails from people who rejoice at his death.
	That's incredible to me.
	Absolutely incredible.
	But they're out there.
	His remains are going to be flown to Washington on Wednesday to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
	The funeral, undoubtedly attended by world leaders, will be at Washington National Cathedral on Friday.
	President Bush will speak at the funeral.
	California wildfires are at it, 6,000 acres up Gavita.
	The wildfire in Southern California scorched more than 6,000 acres, forced evacuation of hundreds of people from a gated community nearby.
	The flames quickly then spread through a line of narrow canyons and steep hillsides, covered with dense old growth brush, burning on both sides of Highway 101, about 27 miles north of Santa Barbara.
	And here in the desert, over the next couple of days, Monday and Tuesday, The weatherman tells us we are in for it!
	We get winds here, and all day long, Monday and Tuesday, it looks like, well, Monday they're saying 40-mile-an-hour winds, and Tuesday they're saying, for a little change-up, 50-mile-an-hour winds!
	So, there you have it.
	In a moment, I want to address something that's brought a lot of emails my way.
	Stay right there.
	There are some conspiracies that I'm sure are going on.
	There are conspiracies.
	They do happen.
	However, there's a lot of people right now who are on board with this conspiracy that the United States was complicit in.
	Or even more than complicity in welcoming or participating in the attack on itself on 9-11.
	And this whole group of conspiracy folk can't believe that I'm just not on board with the fact that the United States attacked itself.
	Oh, please!
	I'm pretty cynical on a lot of things, but not that cynical.
	I mean, you can be so open-minded that your brains fall out, and it seems to me that short of evidence, I don't mean articles and I don't mean opinions, I mean evidence, that such a horrendous thing occurred, that the more likely and logical thing to believe is exactly what we saw.
	That a group of fundamentalists decided to do the West damage and flew into two large buildings in New York.
	And to imagine our own government officials.
	Our government involved in doing itself in in New York, ostensibly, usually, according to those who believe in this conspiracy theory, so they could initiate various actions here in the U.S.
	like, oh, I don't know, martial law, perhaps, or some great crackdown, or the Patriot Act, or whatever.
	Not that I'm all in love with that at all.
	The larger question is, would the United States and our elected officials be complicit in what happened on 9-11?
	No, I do not believe that.
	And I'm in wonderment that Americans, short of ironclad evidence that something like that actually happened, would be given to believe that.
	Just amazed.
	Here's something, though, that is happening.
	Mysterious virus killing wheat fields throughout West Kansas.
	And the person sending it says, Hey Art, remember last fall when Dr. Doom, Ed Dames, remote-viewed the Chinese developing some kind of virus or disease that would affect US crop production, particularly in the Midwest?
	Well, who knows whether this is that, but it certainly is suspicious.
	Wichita, Kansas, an unidentified wheat virus has agricultural scientists in Kansas scratching their heads.
	The pathogen causes wheat leaves to yellow and then just die.
	But it's not caused by weak, streak, mosaic, head death, or freeze, if you're familiar with any of that.
	We're pretty sure it's a virus, says wheat breeder Joe Martin, who works at the Kansas State University Research Station at Hays.
	It shows up early, and at first glance we thought it was what they call streak mosaic, but it's not.
	It kills the oldest leaves of the plant and then finally kills the head.
	Researchers have no idea what the virus is, where it came from, or how it spreads.
	Martin said he's seen evidence of the virus in almost every field he's checked in western Kansas.
	But it hasn't taken over the crop.
	He encouraged farmers to be on the lookout when checking their fields.
	So, something is loose in our wheat fields in America.
	Something that we cannot identify in any way.
	Looking at a little ufology for a moment, the UFO, a UFO at least, has put Portugal, the military in Portugal, on alert.
	The Portuguese press has announced that the Air Force is on alert since dozens of people apparently saw a UFO on Tuesday.
	So the Portuguese take their sightings very seriously, I guess.
	The newspaper Reports that military radar surveillance has increased.
	F-16 planes are ready for takeoff.
	Meanwhile, the UFO sighted in South Devon in the UK interests the media, but not the military.
	Now, isn't that interesting?
	You know, sit back and consider for a moment.
	In third world countries where this kind of thing happens, some of them with rather first world technology on the ground like the F-16, They respond by alerting their military, while in the United Kingdom and the United States, what do we do?
	Well, we don't alert the military, where the military doesn't appear to be alerted, do they?
	Now, one can imagine several reasons for that, and one of them would be the military is well aware of what they are!
	But there is something surely up there.
	Well, maybe that's it.
	The military not only knows what's up there, but they perhaps even put it there themselves.
	So, naturally, they would not respond.
	A lack of response is curious.
	I mean, any nation is supposed to be sovereign with respect to its skies.
	Everything right up to and including space, I suppose, we'll eventually argue, right?
	One of my listeners wrote to SETI.
	It was Michael from Dallas-Fort Worth who wrote to SETI and asked them a question.
	Basically, why, SETI, are you not transmitting to other life forms?
	And SETI wrote back in the form of, let me see, Michael Smith.
	Is that correct?
	I believe it is.
	At any rate, here we go.
	Project Phoenix, like all SETI efforts, is a passive experiment.
	Designed only to look for signals, not to send them.
	However, humankind has been unintentionally transmitting signals in space, primarily high frequency radio, television and radar now for more than 50 years.
	Our earliest TV broadcasts have reached several thousand nearby stars, although any alien viewing would have to build a very large antenna, thousands of acres in size, to even detect them.
	Until now, SETI researchers have not been very interested in broadcasting.
	The reasons for this are several to begin with.
	We are a technologically very young civilization.
	We've had radio for, what, a hundred years or so.
	But there are surely societies that have possessed the ability to send high-powered signals for tens or possibly thousands if not millions of years.
	Consequently, since we are basically the new kids on the technological block, it may behoove us to listen first.
	A lot of people would be well advised to take that advice.
	Some have also expressed concern that broadcasting just might be dangerous, literally Calling attention to our existence, however, the evidence of technologically sophisticated life on Earth is already on its way into space, and there is no bringing back these transmissions.
	Of greater import is the fact that sending signals entails a great deal of patience.
	If the nearest civilization is a hundred light years away, we're going to have to wait two hundred years to get an answer!
	Serious, deliberate broadcasting is a long-term endeavor, and one that so far humankind has not been willing to undertake.
	To date, only a few mostly symbolic, intentional messages have been sent.
	The simplest picture, that was transmitted in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory, described our solar system, the compounds important for life, the very structure of the DNA molecule, and the form of a human being.
	The message was transmitted in the direction of the globular star cluster M13, about 21,000 light years away, so clearly any answer will be a very long time in coming.
	Serious broadcasts require serious commitment.
	The occasional short messages that are currently being done as commercial demo projects do not substantially contribute to the existing leakage radiation already being pumped into space by TV and radar.
	Only when we are willing to commit the resources to build a powerful, long-lived radio beacon can we be said to be taking serious steps toward actively getting in touch.
	Thank you for your interest in SETI.
	I thought that was very, very good.
	So for quite a number of understandable reasons, we do not Transmit into space, one of them being, we might not like the answer we get.
	Or the landing that comes forth.
	Even the idea of sending basic information about humanity to include our genetic makeup might give a potential adversary Too much information about us.
	I mean, if they did turn out to be an adversary, one of the last things you would want to have would be to give them a complete blueprint of our genetic structure, which would also give them, if they were sufficiently technologically advanced, the perfect plan for getting rid of us like a bunch of infestations that some say we are.
	From the University of Toronto, a very interesting article.
	It seems a devastating meteorite collision caused part of the Earth's crust to flip inside out.
	Can you believe that?
	Inside out, billions of years ago, and left a dusting of a very rare metal scattered on top of the crater that was left.
	But I mean something hitting hard enough to turn the Earth's crust inside out.
	The study published, yikes, can you imagine something like that?
	Published in the June 3rd issue of Nature, it was just out, examines the devastating effects of meteorite impacts on the Earth's evolution.
	Researchers from the University of Toronto and the Geological Survey of Canada studied the remains of a 250 kilometer wide crater in Sudbury, Ontario, known as the Sudbury A complex caused by a collision with a Mount Everest-sized meteorite.
	Mount Everest-sized!
	That was 1.8 billion years ago.
	And when that baby hit, the crust of the Earth got turned inside out.
	Now that's something to contemplate, isn't it?
	All right, this is an open line radio program for the balance of this hour.
	So let us do what we do.
	East of the Rockies, you are on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Hello there.
	I'll tell you what, you prepare just a little more.
	I'm going to do the commercial break that I almost didn't.
	Well, no, I did do it, didn't I?
	So you are indeed on the air.
	Go ahead.
	Are you talking to me?
	Well, yes.
	OK, my name is Jennifer.
	Hi, Jen.
	This is Art Bell.
	Uh-huh.
	I'm so flattered to talk with you.
	I've been listening to you for about six years.
	This is the first time I've called in.
	The reason for my call is that my boyfriend and I take pictures on a frequent basis.
	Do you?
	And we like the sunsets and we like full moons.
	And on, I believe it was May 11th, we took a picture and we were taking pictures of the sunset.
	As we took a picture of the sunset, we didn't realize that we also photographed three crafts that were shooting down beams and Either putting something down or sucking something up.
	Oh, slow down.
	You've got a picture of three crayfish.
	Now, you couldn't see these with your own eyes.
	We couldn't see them with our own eyes.
	They're, like, interdimensional.
	But they showed up on film.
	Well, they didn't really show up on film until you made the picture big, and my girlfriend actually noticed it.
	You know, she said that Um, what is that?
	Because I was showing her the picture.
	Well, how big did you make?
	I mean, there is such thing as pixel, um... No, no, no, no.
	This was just taking the picture out of, like, one of the programs that you would have, like a Logitech QuickCam, uh, program.
	Yes.
	And when I enlarge it to fit the screen in my computer, you could see the craft.
	And they're actually green.
	When you enlarge it, how far?
	We only enlarged it to, um, is big enough to fit the computer screen, which is not even, what, 17 inches?
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Not that large.
	Right.
	So anyway, it looks like it could be one, I'm looking at it as, we've saved it as a screensaver, it looks like it could be either two or three craft and they have beams shooting down and you can actually physically see something being sucked up into the craft or either being put down on the ground.
	Well, that would be... It was in daylight.
	Alright, you've got my interest.
	Now, here's what you do.
	You immediately email that to me.
	Okay, and do I email it to you at just a regular email from your website?
	Well, no.
	I'm about to give you the information.
	Email it to Artbell, A-R-T-B-E-L-L, that's me, at mindspring.com or Artbell A-R-T-B-E-L-L at AOL.com.
	Either one.
	OK.
	You send it along to me, and if these are indeed three saucer-like craft, either picking something up or dropping something off, I can assure you it'll be posted for all to see.
	OK.
	Well, I'm also going to attach a little note.
	I don't want to speak about what my question was, because I wanted to ask it privately on the air.
	But before all that goes down, I'm going to add that to the email before you post it.
	Very good.
	OK?
	All right, thank you.
	Right, thank you, and take care.
	If anybody out there gets a photograph of that sort, those are the email addresses where you may send them.
	I'm very interested indeed.
	Unfortunately, of course, the majority of photographs we get of this sort of thing are insufficiently detailed to, you know, to really decide if you're seeing something truly anomalous or you're I mean, it's just insufficient.
	We'll see.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hey Eric, this is Bob in Portland, Oregon.
	Hi.
	Hi, how are you?
	Fine, what's up?
	Good.
	Well, I love your show.
	I really enjoy it.
	I like what you do.
	Thank you.
	But I'd like to disagree with you on the Iraq War and weapons of mass destruction.
	Alright, great.
	Turn your radio off and then you're welcome to proceed to disagree with me.
	In what way do you disagree with me on the Iraq War?
	Well, I'm not going to give the site address, but the U.N.
	has a website, and they have a 206-page letter that was dated January 29, 1999.
	Saddam had to list all the weapons of mass destruction he had.
	He had something like 13,000 tons.
	Saddam had to list all the weapons of mass destruction he had.
	He had something like 13,000 tons, that's tons, mustard gas, sarin gas, all these terrible things.
	I can't even pronounce half of them.
	They were so long.
	Yes.
	He said he destroyed some.
	The UN said, OK, we believe you.
	Then the others, he said, he doesn't know where they are.
	They lost them.
	So there really was weapons of mass destruction.
	I think the American people don't realize.
	Where do you think they are now?
	I don't know.
	They could be in people's backyards.
	They can be in Syria.
	It seems like the entire country is one big ammo dump.
	We really have been in Iraq for quite a while now.
	And in fact so long that even those in government who were pretty sure we'd find weapons of
	mass destruction are throwing up their hands and saying, well, maybe not.
	Maybe it was an intelligence goof.
	Even people in government are admitting that.
	Listen, you hold on and we'll do a little more of this after the break, alright?
	Okay.
	Stay right there.
	Break it shall be from the high desert in the middle of the night where we await the wicked winds coming from the southwest.
	I'm Art Bell.
	Just click through the orange type to the secure server.
	Click the green button to go to the secure server.
	♪♪♪ ♪♪♪
	Alright, everybody listen very carefully.
	We're about to give you the phone numbers.
	They're a little different on the weekend.
	And here they are.
	To talk with Art Bell, call the Wild Card Line at area code 775-727-1295.
	code 775-727-1295. The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222. To talk with Art
	Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-824-7275.
	From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
	International callers may reach Art by calling your in-country Sprint Access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll free, 800-893-0903.
	From coast to coast, and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM, with Art Bell.
	In fact, those are the numbers, and at the top of the hour, Sir Charles Schultz III will be here.
	What a guest he is, just wait.
	in between though if you've got anything you want to talk about unscreened
	uh... probably somewhat unsafe uh... and certainly surprising open lines are directly
	ahead all right back to the gentleman who was on hold most of the
	rockies we're I'm talking about the Iraq war and weapons of mass
	destruction, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So anyway, maybe they moved them all.
	But, you know, we've got these really good satellites now.
	Maybe they managed to move them at night without our satellites noticing.
	But boy, I'll tell you that that would have been an awful lot, according to figures, for example, that you just gave me.
	So that's why I think a lot of them are still in the country.
	Yeah, well, maybe they'll find them.
	You never know, but as of yet... You're driving over them every day, ten times a day, and don't realize... Could easily be true, I suppose.
	They're definitely there.
	But, sir, if I can change the subject, thanks for taking my call, and I love your show, but Sir Charles was great.
	You had him on last week, I think it was?
	No.
	No, no, it's been much longer than that.
	Oh, it has?
	Oh, yes.
	But he's great, you're right.
	He's a dynamite interview.
	Yeah, he is.
	All right.
	Well, anyway, there are weapons of mass destruction, and pray for their troops.
	All right, thank you very much.
	Well, maybe there are, but as of yet, we haven't located them.
	And, well, I'll tell you, we have interrogated, probably at great length and with great care, an awful lot of the very highest officials in Iraq.
	And you would think that we would know by now where they were, if it could be known.
	First time caller on the line, you are on the air!
	Good evening, Arpel.
	That's me.
	Hi, this is Mike.
	I'm calling from Santa Cruz, KSCO.
	Yes, sir.
	I wanted to know what you thought about Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9-11.
	I don't know a lot about it, but of course I'm familiar with the story, and it sure looks like it's going to be a good movie.
	Why does Disney not want to touch it?
	I don't know.
	Disney was, you know, just want to ever want to distribute the thing.
	I don't know.
	Are you familiar with the ties that Mr. Moore alleges between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family and the Carlisle group, and going way, way, way back?
	Well, here we go.
	I don't know.
	Maybe there's something to it, but again, just straight out, let me ask you straight out.
	Are you one of the ones who believes that the United States orchestrated the attack, or was complicit in the attack, against itself?
	I don't know.
	You don't know.
	Are you leaning in that direction?
	Lily Tomlin has a saying that it's difficult to be a cynic these days because it's hard to keep up.
	Well, you know, she's got a point.
	And that's my answer to you, Mr. Bell, is that it's hard to keep up with the cynicism.
	Well, I'm pretty cynical, I'll tell you.
	Over the years of doing a radio program like this, you get to be pretty darn cynical.
	Yes, sir.
	But I'm not that cynical, and I just don't believe it.
	I don't want to be that cynical.
	I don't want to be that cynical, but I have to say that your program has opened my mind to the possibility that it's not out of the question.
	Well, I'm sorry if we did that.
	Oh, it's a horrible, horrible thought, and the thing that... I love my country very, very much.
	I'm scared of a lot of the things that the government does, but I love my country very much, and I really hope with all my heart and soul that all of this stuff is wrong.
	Yeah, so do I, and you know what?
	I trust that it is.
	The first and most obvious thing is generally true, something about Occam's razor, right?
	And the first and most obvious thing seems like we were attacked.
	And it was a surprise attack, and there may have been, you know, intelligence failures, certainly, but that we orchestrated such an attack on ourselves, Boulder Dash.
	Boulder Dash.
	No, I am not that cynical.
	You can take that one to the bank.
	Not that cynical, and I hope I never get to be, and I would hope this program had no part in making you that cynical.
	Wild Card Line, you are on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	I have an interesting question for you.
	Alright, you're going to have to yell it at me because you're not too loud.
	This is kind of an opinion question for you.
	Okay.
	Do you believe the pyramid being built in India, the center building, I guess it could be called, would that coincide with the destruction of this society, in your opinion?
	What are you talking about?
	What pyramid?
	India is planning the building of a pyramid in India.
	With the stated purpose of what?
	Why are they doing it?
	See, that's what I'm confused about.
	I'm wondering if they have the same motives as the Egyptians and the lions.
	Well, you never know.
	Last night's program was really, really fascinating.
	You heard it, right?
	Well, you never know.
	I mean, depending on what you believe about pyramids and what other civilizations might have known and messages they might have left, I've been reeling since I heard last night's show or participated in it, I guess, and I thought it was incredibly well presented.
	I had one further question for you.
	Yes.
	Our perception of what media tells us ...is skewed in that we cannot find a common thread through what all of them are trying to portray.
	There's a bunch of different media groups that basically put off what they want to hear.
	What I'm driving at, I suppose, is who, at this point in our evolutionary state, are we supposed to be listening to?
	It's a good question, and I think there's only one answer to it, one that I've settled on anyway, and that is that you don't listen to any single source, period.
	My recommendation is that you get a shortwave radio.
	My recommendation is that you spend a lot of time on the internet.
	And about the only way you can hope to cut through the various media biases is to flood yourself with information and then be your own filter.
	Be your own filter.
	Decide for yourself what is true and what's BS.
	You've got to be your own BS filter.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi, this is Michael in Norfolk, Virginia.
	Hey, Michael.
	You're right about last night's show.
	Incredibly well presented.
	Thank you, and I didn't mean that as a compliment to myself, just well presented by the guest, just really well laid out.
	The British have a way, don't they?
	They do, and somebody sent me an email and said, you know, it's interesting, even if you're getting BS, if it comes with a British accent, it adds authenticity to it somehow, credibility, and I thought about it, that's really true, and it's not at all saying that it was BS, because I thought it was It was absolutely fascinating, the whole concept of civilizations eventually coming to an understanding that they're doomed, and then believing in reincarnation, leaving a message for themselves.
	God, fascinating stuff!
	Well, I thought it was too, and he is very well researched in what he does.
	Now, there is some criticism that could be offered from a philosophical standpoint.
	uh... his attempt to kind of blend together christianity and reincarnation uh... i mean just uh... just from a neutral position well wait wait just one moment here you know it's my understanding that uh... in the early days in early christian days that is to say uh... until uh... uh... the council of missio was it uh... that uh... why It was fully believed and understood that our souls did go round and round and round and round, and that was part of the early Christian religion, wasn't it?
	Well, actually, no.
	That came from the Greeks, but more to Maurice last night.
	Here are just a few technical things that you would have to look at.
	Christ himself said that all that came before him were robbers.
	And he said that there would be many false Christs coming after him.
	And so the whole central point, and I'm just looking at this neutrally now, the whole central point of the New Testament Christian message Is that this is the one man, the one body who incorporates the whole Godhead in him.
	Yeah, I know.
	And that resurrection is very different from reincarnation.
	Just the economy of it is different.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Because you're not dependent on this going around and around and around through lifetime after lifetime to try to earn your way Your earnings comes by this one door, this one way.
	I mean, they're completely incompatible.
	So, just from that standpoint is the criticism, but the positive side is he does bring a lot of technical assumption.
	I say assumption because we can only assume He's correct, since we don't have the world's largest computer at our disposal.
	Quite right, and that's where I too would have to say, look, if I really want to delve into this, I'm going to have to come meet with you, look at the questions that were posed to the computer and the very software itself, and decide If the whole thing has scientific legitimacy, so that's where I, too, I mean, there's no way I could ask on the radio and, you know, go into that kind of detailed explanation about what was behind it all, so you're right.
	One word of tribute on the 500th program of our good friend.
	I thought that was really well done, the way you all came out and supported him, and you know, We do owe him a great debt of gratitude, because if this program would have gone under in your absence, there would be a great intellectual hole in the universe right now.
	I thank you for that.
	Thank you very much.
	Well, that's right.
	This program is a voice that otherwise does not exist.
	It is a voice that looks into anything without, I hope, fear of any sort.
	It expresses opinions without cringing.
	And it makes you think.
	And there's very little of that in the national media these days.
	You know, as an earlier caller mentioned, you've got to sift through an awful lot to try and get to the truth.
	And we just give you another piece here to sift.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello, can you turn down the radio?
	Yes, turn it off actually, all the way.
	I've got a quick, quick question and then I would like to know if anybody else has experienced something that I experienced.
	My quick question was when the old space station came down, sorry I'm a little nervous, Um, came down, there was talk of a fungus that was on it that was eating away a lot of the electronics.
	That's right.
	It is a fungus that had formed in space.
	Right.
	And, uh, indeed it was eating the seals of the space station and, um, all sorts of things.
	And there was some concern as it plunged into the sea, because you don't know what sort of fungus or virus or whatever It is, and how it would react to the warm, moist Pacific or Atlantic waters.
	I've never heard another thing about it.
	Well, in the middle of the night, one night sir, something with large teeth will come and take a chunk out of your leg and then you'll know it's here.
	I don't know.
	I'm a musician and last night I was playing and three times through the night I noticed what was a little Almost seemed like a skip in time, you know, and the shadow people and all that kind of stuff, you know, that people see out of the corner of their eyes.
	I've noticed blinks, but last night it seemed to hit right at the time when we were playing, so I caught a little bit of a glitch, you know, like something skipped, but it couldn't have been electronic or anything else, and it was a almost as if time
	stopped and started again really really fast or I just happened
	to be aware of something.
	Well, maybe time did take a skip or a hop and that of course is one of my
	favorite things to investigate and that is time and the nature of time
	and perhaps its linear progressive movement is not precise and maybe very occasionally there's a little hitch
	in time.
	And something happens, or you get a glimpse of something you should not, or a vibratory rate changes, perhaps from nothing any more ominous than viewing a computer screen, which has a certain refresh rate, which then puts your brain in a slightly different gear, and all of a sudden you see something you would not otherwise have seen.
	East of the Rockies, you are on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi Art.
	This is Janie in Knoxville.
	Janie in Knoxville.
	All right.
	Hey there.
	I just started listening to Coast when you did your last few regular shows.
	Yes.
	And when George started doing his part full time.
	Yes.
	And I wondered, where did you live?
	Do you live where you do now?
	Or did you move there after you retired?
	Oh no, I've lived here for perhaps 13 years longer than you've been listening to me, so I've been here a long time, dear.
	Okay.
	And I wonder, do you know that all security clearances are not equal from agency to agency?
	No.
	For instance, I worked in security for a contractor to the Department of Energy.
	Yes.
	And when we hired people from the Department of Defense, retired military people, etc., And they came in with a top-secret clearance.
	Their top-secret clearance from DOD equals a secret clearance at the Department of Energy.
	Oh, isn't that interesting?
	Isn't that interesting?
	I would think... Well, actually, that does make some sense, doesn't it?
	Because your ability to know things, everything's on a need-to-know basis, right?
	So it may well be that you're cleared to a top secret level for, you know, one particular function, but it doesn't mean you're cleared to know everything about everything that has that classification.
	So that it would be compartmentalized in that fashion does make some sense to me.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Turn your radio off, please.
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	There's a delay there.
	I'm sorry.
	That's quite all right.
	What an honor to talk with you.
	Thank you.
	Fantastic.
	Okay, I want to run this by you.
	I heard this on the radio less than a month ago.
	I listen to talk radio quite a bit.
	Oh yeah, my name's Pete.
	I'm out of Snohomish in Washington.
	That's very good.
	You've got a coach there, huh?
	Yeah.
	We've been teaming together to try to get through.
	Wow, I can't believe it.
	I see.
	Okay, I want to run this by you and see if you've heard any information.
	This general was talking on this talk show and he said that The public will be soon to hear a recent, most recent national security threat will be that they have intelligence that he has heard, they have intelligence, our U.S.
	government has intelligence that Al Qaeda has been sending in feelers into the United States to see what gets through and that they're going to use container ships with nukes, 20 megaton nukes that have been missing from the Soviet stockpile.
	When the Soviet Union demised, OK, and that they were going to try to get them into our major ports.
	Seattle wasn't mentioned, but New York and California, I believe Chicago.
	Have you heard anything like that?
	Well, no, not directly regarding a specific plan, but I certainly have heard that there are missing nuclear weapons.
	And I do not have a security clearance in that area and I don't know the truth of that but the rumor of course is that there are missing nuclear weapons from the one-time Soviet arsenal and that they could be in the hands of Al-Qaeda.
	Well certainly they could be.
	You absolutely cannot rule that out that one of our cities or even many of our cities could come under some sort of nuclear attack I guess it's just a fact of modern day life and in a lot of ways it makes the use of a nuclear weapon by somebody in anger a much more likely, much more likely than it ever was during the Great Cold War that our beloved President Reagan definitely ended.
	That wall was torn down, but it had a few after effects.
	When that wall came down, a few things came leaking through that should not have.
	And so we're going to have to remain ever vigilant.
	Because, believe it, there are people out there who want nothing other than for us to be dead.
	Coming up in a moment, Sir Charles Schultz III.
	you're listening to coast to coast AM I'm
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	Art Bell.
	It is, and good day to you all.
	Coming up now, Sir Charles Schultz III.
	He worked at Martin Marietta Aerospace for 10 years on weapons systems and computer-based automated test equipment.
	He wrote, get this, the nuclear EMP test software for the Pershing II missile system, worked on the Patriot, The Copperhead Tank Killer and Advanced Attack Helicopter Systems.
	Charles has performed research under grant on nuclear fusion.
	He was knighted and received a long-term grant for his present research in robotics and artificial intelligence.
	He has written many technical publications and magazine articles on space, astronomy, the atmosphere.
	And space resource development.
	In addition, Charles has also appeared on several TV and radio programs, and his big consuming interest right now is Mars.
	He is a remarkable man, and of course we're going to talk about Mars, but there are many other questions that I have, as I did last time for Sir Charles.
	he's just a remarkable interview if you just stay right there it's coming right
	sir charles schultz the third welcome back to the program Well, thank you.
	I'm glad to be here, and I hope I can live up to your build-up.
	Oh, you will.
	Believe me, you will.
	And before we launch into Mars, I read a lot of, you know, like military action novels, you know, fiction, but based on current Military technological capabilities.
	You know, the Dale Browns and on and on and on.
	I just love that kind of stuff.
	I eat it up.
	In most of these newer novels that claim to be based on currently understood technology or technology that's just around the corner, It really seems like we're headed toward robot wars.
	We're headed toward a time when things that fly through the air and bomb or do whatever they're going to do or just spy, it's all going to be robotic.
	The human being is going to be eliminated from aerial warfare, if I'm reading these right.
	Is that where we're headed?
	Well, it certainly seems that way, because consider that a robotically piloted aircraft, for instance, can undergo maneuvers that a human being couldn't even survive.
	Right.
	So that, in one respect, right there, explains a lot of the developments and the direction they're going and why.
	Well, there's that, but there's also AI, and that's something I know you've worked heavily... Artificial Intelligence.
	You've worked heavily in that, and that figures into it, doesn't it?
	Yes, it does, because many times You have to make systems that, if something goes wrong, they have to be just sharp enough to be able to handle it on their own.
	Because in most of these circumstances, things are happening far faster than the human mind could even begin to digest the information.
	And a perfect example is, many of the planes today are fly-by-wire.
	The surfaces of the planes are being adjusted dynamically thousands of times per second, because the plane normally would be so unstable under manual flight that it'd be impossible to fly.
	But the payoff is, Adjusting the plane this way allows you to make maneuvers that are otherwise impossible with a very stable airplane.
	Yes.
	And G-forces that a human being couldn't survive.
	And then I even read that there will be people operating these planes, perhaps, from, I don't know, a mountain maybe under some, you know, mountain in Colorado where they'll be virtually on a joystick flying this plane on the other side of the world and killing people.
	I mean, armies of robots that Yes, and it's not inconceivable in the least.
	The whole thing is incredible to consider a war, perhaps against who knows what nation,
	where they've got people and guns and we've got robots.
	Yes, and it's not inconceivable in the least.
	I mean, think about how children are being raised on video games these days and how the
	reflexes that they develop under those circumstances are just phenomenal sometimes.
	And it makes a very natural coupling between man and machine when you can put an interface in that's as simple as point and click or like a video game.
	Yes.
	How far from that?
	I would imagine we're probably already testing some of the flight hardware now, and I would see possibly deployment, and this is just my opinion, but I would say within about five years.
	There are people, Sir Charles, who would complain about the morality of that.
	That our nation would have machines, not be risking flesh, and the other nation having to risk flesh.
	It's not moral!
	Well, you know, a lot of people argue that warfare itself is not moral, and they would say we're doing something to help protect the lives of our people, and so from that standpoint, all is fair in love and war.
	It can be argued anyway, I suppose.
	It really depends on what your ultimate goal is.
	Do you want to protect your family and your country, or do you feel that you need to send people out to do hand-to-hand combat?
	Well, it's sure going to be interesting to see where it's headed, and I suppose if you were to look very carefully into what happened in Iraq, it was probably a little bit of both, or a lot of both, perhaps, were used.
	Absolutely, yes.
	It was a mixture of both man and machine in that instance.
	I've heard we have done some incredible... I mean, for example, it really is possible to disable a city with some kind of generated electromagnetic pulse, right?
	I mean, virtually bring a city to its knees.
	Well, it is, but understand that the cities that are most vulnerable are first world cities that have a lot of technology and electronics in the first place.
	Like us.
	Like us, exactly.
	One of the things that people didn't realize is, and this became a very effective weapon accidentally, we release chaff sometimes from aircraft as a shield for attack.
	For instance, a missile may be homing in on a plane or radar tracking it, and recently the chaff has been made as fibers of carbon, for instance, or strings of metal tinsel.
	The carbon filaments that they have tried have turned out to have a secondary effect that became very useful, and that is that they will short out power wires and bring generators down.
	Oh, that's right!
	And we did some of that in Iraq 1, didn't we?
	Yes, we did.
	Yes, we did.
	And then in Iraq 2, I believe, we decided that we wanted their infrastructure to remain as much intact as possible, and so we didn't, if I recall.
	Right.
	We didn't want to bring the infrastructure down.
	The whole theory behind it was we wanted to do it as cleanly and fast as possible.
	In theory.
	Well, it must have been wild to work in the fields that you did.
	And having done so, I'm sure you can project Where they would be by now, and sort of have knowledge of where they would be by now, and you're saying we're pretty close.
	We could fight a war like that, say, in another... Oh yes, I would say, based on what I saw back then, and the things that I'm doing, and other people in the field are doing, I would say we're very close to it, yes.
	And of course, we also have to consider some of the no-go's, like the DARPA vehicle challenge, and that's going to have another run next year.
	But we will see where that goes.
	That was a very ambitious project, and I think a lot of the people who got into that really discovered how hard it is to make your wonderful idea fly in the real world.
	Why do you think DARPA funded that?
	I mean, do you really think they were looking for, you know, just fielding for new ideas because they ought to be far ahead of anything that was launched into that?
	Oh, sure.
	If you think about it, what did it cost them?
	They didn't have to pay off.
	Well, no.
	They published some documents.
	They wrote some reports up.
	They issued a challenge.
	Many other people spent their money developing this.
	I wonder how far along DARPA, in fact, knows we are.
	Well, I think it's interesting overall because the things that you try as solutions to your small technical problems sometimes turn out to have unexpected or radically different applications.
	And the space program is a perfect example of many, many spinoffs we generated Not even thinking about those things to start with.
	Does that justify the space program, in your opinion?
	That alone justifies the space program.
	I've seen estimates that say every dollar we put into space technology brings in from $10 to $15 in gross national product.
	And I don't know just how accurate that figure is, but it sounds very encouraging to me, and I know that we have many industries today That we would not happen to have if we didn't have space technology.
	Well, but even if that figure is close, even if it's close, then the think tanks would be telling the government elected people to go for it.
	And why aren't they?
	Well, of course, we have a couple of brick walls in our way.
	And one of those things is to go much further, we really need outside mineral resources and energy resources.
	And so if we really wanted to see development, we'd have to get out into space with industry, you know, heavy industry and development.
	And go from that angle, because that will be a self-funding effort once it gets underway.
	Is there, well I'm trying to think, is there anything valuable enough on the moon, or on Mars, or on any other planet we could conceivably get to, to make it worth our while?
	Well, yes there is, but it's in an indirect manner at first.
	And that is, we certainly wouldn't mine mineral resources and send them back to Earth.
	We wouldn't manufacture stuff and ship it to Earth.
	That would be prohibitive and ridiculous.
	But what we would do is we would use those resources to build systems that we need in space.
	And one example of that would be orbital power stations or manufacturing stations.
	And I can think of a very simple application we could use right away.
	One of the problems we have today is shielding satellites and spacecraft, for instance humans in orbit.
	most of our space stations that we put up in fact all of them have been in very
	low orbit because that close to the earth they gain a great deal of shielding
	from the earth magnetic field so that the radiation hazards are greatly
	reduced if we were to make let's say lunar sandbags and ship them
	back to low earth orbit
	we could shield stations there and people could stay in them for extended
	periods of time regardless of radiation hazards we could even move them to higher orbits
	and do research for much higher vantage points So it would be relatively very inexpensive to pick up virtual sandbags on the moon and bring them back to even low, well, not low Earth orbit.
	Moderate height, medium Earth orbit.
	And it would be so much cheaper doing it from the moon and back, not having to, you know, escape Earth's gravity.
	That would make it financially feasible.
	That alone would do it, and I'll tell you why.
	Right now we're spending in the thousands of dollars per pound on everything we put into space.
	Sure, I know.
	And by manufacturing it off the planet, we don't have that expenditure.
	We send up a starter factory that does the job, that's powered on sunlight, digs lunar materials, produces the goods, and ships them back to us.
	And now the cost becomes very reasonable, and it means that you can ship hardware into orbit, and you don't have to include a huge load of shielding.
	Now your payloads get lighter.
	Well, you shield them once you're up there.
	Okay.
	Alright then.
	I was, of course, alive and aware as we touched down, put foot on the moon, and then as we, I don't know, stopped at all, except for low Earth orbit, we have just sworn the rest of it off.
	No moon.
	We haven't gone back.
	No Mars.
	We haven't really gone there.
	We don't have any concrete plans to go there.
	They've talked about it.
	Do you have any theory on On why all of that happened, it's so illogical to go to the moon and then stop!
	It certainly does seem that way, and you know, I was one of the strongest proponents.
	I wanted to see us go on, build lunar colonies, build hotels in orbit, and just keep going from there.
	And I think that the biggest thing was, and I know there are a lot of people who dislike this thought, but the race to the moon was really a Cold War challenge.
	We wanted to get there first, and to show that we were the better man, It was a race, and it didn't have a practical payoff, and it is only because we had some people who were able to influence decisions to get some science done, and to get some real research done on the way, that we were able to actually pull something useful and beneficial out of it.
	So, even though we went in peace for all mankind, it was really a Cold War challenge.
	Once the money dried up and the challenge was met, that seemed to be the end of it.
	So that's the only reason we went to the moon, because we had someone to race with.
	That was it.
	At the time, that seems to be the largest reason behind the drive for the space program.
	Because it was argued that we who control space, if you control the high ground, you control the world.
	Well, the moon is sure the high ground.
	That's pretty high, that's right.
	Wouldn't there be strategic military reasons to be on the moon, in force?
	Yes, there would be some.
	Understand that you would have unlimited material, mineral resources, and energy resources to deal with.
	So, once established, you could build like mad and nobody could touch you.
	But, if you really want a quick response for a military reason, your biggest bet would be to put those defense stations in lower-medium-height orbit, because you can respond in minutes or hours, whereas something from the moon is going to take, if it's on a ballistic trajectory, three days to get here.
	Well, Sir Charles, maybe we just need competition now.
	The Chinese look like they're coming right along, so if those of you who hope for space travel, maybe when we get competition, we'll get back in the space business.
	And, of course, there are some other things that we can look at as well, and that's new technologies that make it cheaper, and I'm going to touch on some of that tonight as well.
	Uh, that's the whole thing.
	You know, that's the big argument, of course, against it, is that it's just too expensive and we have a lot of urgent things to do here on Earth, like spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq.
	Exactly.
	And we need to build a highway, basically.
	Imagine how difficult it would be to go across this country if we didn't have the interstate highway system.
	How about an elevator?
	There are space elevators on the drawing board, and they've been around for ages.
	And they are a viable concept, and we're now developing materials that would make them a viable method to literally hoist something off the planet with a cable.
	And there are numerous designs that can do this.
	And I don't know if any of the listeners are familiar with such things as rotavators or skyhooks.
	But there are probably a half dozen really good designs that could be carried out given slight advances in our material technology.
	Well, I've had a couple of guys discussing nanotechnology who said that there is some technology in the nano world now that would apply to perhaps building a real space elevator.
	Right, that's probably fullerene whiskers, which have a higher tensile strength than diamond.
	And if we could learn to bulk manufacture that and build cables out of it, A length of cable made out of fullerene whisker, which is a carbon product, would be able to support a 3,400 kilometer long length of itself before breaking.
	Wow.
	And that's the sort of stuff we need.
	And that could add up to an elevator to space.
	That's such an incredible thought.
	And so then the price per pound to get stuff to space, once you've got that kind of technology, goes about where?
	It could drop down to a few tens of dollars per pound at that rate.
	Boy, would we be in business.
	Absolutely, it'd be like buying an airline ticket.
	Well, is there any chance, do you think, that our government will embrace such an idea?
	Or even referring, you know, we talked a few moments ago about a power station in space, collect solar energy, send it by microwave back to Earth.
	You know, that's the thing right there.
	Whenever anybody says, well, why don't they do Yes, sir.
	Why don't they do that?
	The answer is almost always economics.
	Who's going to put money into it?
	How's it going to pay off?
	And so what we've got to do is establish a real good reason for being there, and I think we're right on the verge of a real good reason right now, and that comes down to energy.
	We need power, and we need power fast, and we need a lot of it.
	Yes, sir.
	We sure do.
	And if anybody who's bought gas within the last month knows exactly, Sir Charles, can you give me any technical details regarding how you would accomplish that?
	The collection aspect, certainly I understand.
	Wow, you can get a giant collection of energy in space.
	You can send it by microwave, I believe, and that's where I start to want some technical details about how you get giant amounts of power down through the atmosphere to a receiving station.
	Well, that actually is not as difficult as many have led us to believe, and over the last couple of years, in fact, investigations have led to the conclusion that it may be more feasible, technically right now, to use infrared laser light rather than microwave transmission.
	Now, either one could be used, and microwave is a wonderful venue because it's low-tech and it's easy to do, but we may end up using infrared lasers instead.
	And as long as our collectors are aligned in such a way that it cannot laze until it's aimed at the collector, then you've got an absolutely safe system.
	And the moving of the focus of your beam does not become an issue at that point.
	So if you make it so that your receiver on the ground is one half of the circuit, then you can't just aim the other half somewhere because it won't work.
	Half the hardware is gone.
	Right.
	And that's the ultimate safety measure right there.
	I wonder, any idea how much Energy could be sent down on a laser.
	Oh, absolutely.
	It just depends on the size and density of your beam.
	If we use a solar power station, and this is a typical figure, the size of Manhattan Island, that's about 24 square miles if I'm not mistaken.
	Right.
	The sunlight falling on something that size is equivalent to something like 85 billion watts, or 85 gigawatts.
	gigawatts. And if we were to convert that from sunlight into electricity and we got, let's say,
	70 percent of that as useful electrical power, now we're talking at almost 60 gigawatts of power.
	And that could be beamed down in the form of laser light and collected to the ground.
	And if ultimately at the end we only got 80 percent of that recovered, and that's a high figure.
	It may be considerably less.
	We'd be talking about 47 gigawatts.
	All right.
	Now, hold it right there, and we're going to come right back to this.
	This is so fascinating.
	As he points out, if you've been to the gas station lately, well, you know the importance of what we're discussing right now.
	Why not collect it in space and send it back to Earth?
	From the high desert in the middle of the night, I'm Art Bell.
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	From coast to coast, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM, with Art Bell.
	And Sir Charles Schultz III, and we're discussing right now the concept of collecting energy in space.
	And then beaming it back to Earth as a viable, profitable, even important thing to do in this current day and age.
	And when you think about it, a lot of times it seems like the government wants to keep the realm of space all to itself.
	doesn't it let's uh... think about it for a second i'll out
	Why are we in Iraq?
	Well, alright, weapons of mass destruction.
	But oil, right?
	It's really, it's oil.
	In a lot of your hearts, you know it's oil.
	I know it's oil.
	We all know it's oil.
	Been to the gas station lately?
	Right.
	It's oil.
	We fight wars, we send out our young people to die in wars because of oil.
	Well, we don't talk about it as the reason, but we all know it's the reason.
	I mean, it's like the biggest thing the world is facing right now is the energy problem.
	And so, Sir Charles, if it would be a profitable venture, And it would be so friendly to the Earth and it's something we actually have the technological capability to do right now.
	I'm talking about the power plants in space.
	Then why the heck aren't we doing it?
	Well, it's because of cost, mostly.
	And in a 1997 statement by John C. Mankins, who is the director of the Advanced Concepts Study Office of Spaceflight, and that's with NASA, what he basically boiled it down to was People would be willing to do it if it was under a billion dollars to get it started and operating.
	And that's what we really come to, the cost.
	I feel that we'd probably be a lot closer to the three billion dollar line right now, today, with the economics the way they are, and if it really became a priority for our nation, for power, we could find the money for it, and we'd find it fast.
	I mean, if you look at the defense budget in 93, it was estimated at 281 billion dollars, For 2005, the defense budget was estimated at about $347 billion.
	Some people put it much higher.
	But if you just took $5 billion of that, that's only 1.4%.
	But I just heard the other day that we've already spent $200 billion in Iraq.
	Something like that.
	$200 billion.
	I mean, that's real money.
	Right.
	It is real money.
	It adds up fast when you get into the billions.
	And it would take such a small portion of that sort of an expenditure For us to start an energy venture in space.
	And I think that what it really takes is to get people interested enough that they're going to make their government hear that this is what they want.
	It's friendly to the planet, it's cheap enough to get started with when you really come right down to how much we spend on other ventures, and it would pay off in the long run like you wouldn't believe.
	Once the starter hardware is in place, it can be used continually to build more systems.
	And we can sell that power to other nations just as well.
	Well, yes to all of the above, and so I can't imagine why we're not doing it, unless you want to imagine, as many people do, that they want to pump the last little bit of oil supporting the current infrastructure for its refinement and distribution, and profitably do it, and not do this space thing, or whatever other energy might come along, until they've squeezed the last drop of profit out of oil.
	Well, a wise leadership would see to it that it dovetailed with the development of another resource, such as solar in orbit.
	And you have to consider, the concept is, really, it's not a new concept.
	I mean, it was invented back in 1968 by a Dr. Peter Glaser, and since then, it's been touted as a solution to our problems many times, including by Gerard K. O'Neill from Princeton University, who developed the mass driver, which is an electromagnetic catapult of sorts, That launches things into space without the use of rockets.
	Now, it only works on places like the moon, without an atmosphere.
	But they would allow you to launch payloads without the use of rocket engines, and to get things into space very cheaply, and powered strictly by electricity.
	And this is an integral part of manufacturing orbital solar power stations.
	Alright, what is it?
	What's the real downside to orbital power?
	You know, I've thought about this, and I cannot see a downside.
	I have tried to imagine what could possibly be wrong with it.
	And for the life of me, I can't see a downside.
	You can't shoot any holes at all?
	Well, imagine if your collectors, and we're not talking about using solar cells as collectors, which are fragile and have a limited lifespan and efficiency.
	What are you talking about?
	In other words, we would replace it with mirrors.
	Collectors which are made of very thin plastic with an aluminum coating on it, such as mylar.
	And we would use those mirrors to focus the collected sunlight on heat exchangers.
	Let's say a closed cycle steam turbine, a water boiler.
	That's a known rock solid technology.
	It's dirt simple.
	The electronics are dirt simple.
	And it would take sunlight directly from a big collecting mirror and focus it on it.
	And if you shot holes in it, oh well, you got a couple of small holes in something the size of Manhattan.
	Right.
	And you would literally boil water?
	That's right.
	In fact, all of our electric technology of any magnitude uses boiling water.
	Even nuclear plants, they boil water.
	Okay, you've got to get... water is heavy, right?
	Yes, water does weigh quite a bit, and though our reaction fluid, our water, would be one of our points that we have to address, it is possible that there may be, and this is just an outside shot, there may be natural gas deposits on the Moon, and if so, we could manufacture our water from them directly, because they contain hydrogen.
	There also are deposits of polar lunar ice, which we could use as a starter.
	But realize, once we got this thing started, there's no reason why we couldn't use this same orbital power technology To provide power to lift payloads off the Earth, such as water as a working fluid, or to launch missions to recover water ice from other places in our solar system to fuel them.
	There certainly wouldn't be a great deal of danger in launching the needed parts and pieces for this.
	None of it would be toxic, would it?
	None of it would be toxic, that's correct.
	And the most interesting thing about that is they have a new chemical rocket which is based on paraffin wax, the same thing candles are made of.
	And a paraffin wax rocket is a solid fuel rocket, but it has the advantage of being able to be throttled and turned off and restarted again.
	It uses liquid oxygen, and it uses paraffin wax.
	And the results of the combustion are water vapor and carbon dioxide, completely harmless materials from the standpoint of your bystanders.
	If the rocket falls out of the sky, you have a lump of wax on the ground or in the ocean.
	Nothing explodes, nothing burns up.
	Your liquid oxygen will go But your paraffin wax, basically, is inert.
	You can give it to your kids.
	Everybody has candles.
	Is there any danger?
	I've talked to a number of scientists, and I've had people call and say, you know, every time we launch, for example, the shuttle, we do some sort of damage in the upper atmosphere.
	And I always said, oh, pwee, it couldn't be enough damage to really be meaningful.
	We're just blasting through.
	Is that myth or fact?
	Well, there's still a lot of debate about that, but understand that the engines, like the solid rocket boosters on the shuttle, have aluminum and a rubber-based sort of material, and perchlorate.
	And the aluminum and the chlorine in it is what people are concerned about.
	Should they be?
	Well, they should be.
	If we made a lot of launches, obviously there would be a detrimental effect.
	We don't make very many launches, so overall I think the effect is probably very negligible at this point.
	But if we get to the point where we're launching 5, 6, 10 missions a year, 20 missions a year, 50 missions, I would be very concerned about it.
	Really?
	Now, we are at the point where they're going to retire the shuttle, and there are much better systems.
	And if we were to go to, for instance, paraffin solid boosters, they have almost the same yield There have been many things suggested, but nobody has yet said, this is what we're going to do.
	larger to make up for the difference in energy well maybe i'm missing something
	here sir charles but uh... the shuttle about to retire you said uh... i don't
	see its replacement and that's one of the major stumbling blocks at this point
	there have been many things suggested but nobody has yet
	said this is what we're going to do uh... there have been projects for instance
	the shuttle c was proposed long ago and it was never carried out
	And it was basically a carrier.
	It was a heavy cargo carrier that would launch with no people on board, but just take heavy loads into orbit and leave them there.
	Realize every time we launch a shuttle, we're bringing back a huge piece of hardware.
	And if we were smart about it, we'd be leaving a huge piece of hardware in orbit for the cost of the launch, and bringing back just the people and experiments.
	I did a program with a man who thought that the external tanks, at a relatively small cost in additional fuel, could be, instead of dumped into the ocean or whatever, go ahead and take them up into space, and there are endless uses.
	In fact, you could build a space station out of the damn things if you wanted to.
	Yes, you can.
	Yes, you can.
	You agree with that?
	There are a couple of problems.
	I do agree with that, except for a couple of caveats.
	First of all, understand that when they When they separate the external tank, the pipes that run the lines, you know, the lines that run the fuel and oxidizer are about 17 inches in diameter, and they have something like 5,400 pounds of hydrogen and oxygen in them when they ditch it.
	I mean, that's a lot of fuel and oxygen.
	Right.
	There is often also quite a bit of hydrogen and oxygen still in the tank itself.
	If they were instead to build that, they could loft into a higher orbit and stabilize it.
	And so that really isn't a big issue.
	It can be done.
	But then the next thing is, different launches don't necessarily have orbits that coincide, and so you'd have to corral these things somehow and bring them together.
	So that's your first big obstacle, getting them all in the same orbit, or in two or three well-defined orbits and getting them to meet up.
	The second big obstacle is, the foam on the outside of the tank decays badly in solar ultraviolet.
	So you end up with a lot of trash in orbit, outgassing little particles of stuff, And they're all very hazardous if they strike another spacecraft at high velocity.
	Right.
	And so you'd need something, a coating or something that would keep that from happening.
	And then the next objection is, well, once it's there, you don't just rip out the bulkhead and throw bunk beds in it.
	You know, there's a lot of work that's necessary to convert it into a useful station.
	But again, we did that and it can be done.
	We did that with Skylab.
	Yes.
	It was basically a converted fuel tank.
	Well, again, the argument is you're launching so much weight and bulk so high that it's wasteful to drop it back.
	I agree with that, yes.
	You do basically agree with the premise.
	Absolutely with the premise, and it would take a little bit of work to get it, I think, to a workable state, and it could be done.
	But if we face the fact that we may not have the shuttle fleet for much longer, it becomes a moot point anyway.
	Well, this really then is my next question, going back to what I originally asked.
	You said we're about to retire the shuttle fleet.
	And I said, well, I don't see what's going to replace it.
	How can we retire the shuttle when we don't have any other ways to get into space right now?
	I mean, how can we even consider doing that since we have no other way right now?
	Or do you know more than you're saying?
	Well, there's a little more to it.
	They are designing, presently, capsules, just like the old-time space capsules, that can carry four, five, seven people, and some cargo.
	And this sort of capsule could be launched on a standard Atlas IV, or whatever's available, and taken into orbit, just like the old spacecraft were done.
	And you would send up on a different launch vehicle, a space lab module, or something to the space station, and this capsule would rendezvous with the station, And then come back down pretty much as other capsules have done in the past.
	There are also designs that include gliders that can come back in that are much smaller than a shuttle that carry basically just passengers and a small amount of supplies.
	Well, am I missing something?
	Well, see, there we are.
	Nothing has been built.
	Doesn't that worry you?
	I mean, the timetable seems all wrong.
	You've got to be designing long before you retire.
	Well, that's true, and one of the things that concerns me is I haven't seen any real proposals put forward at this point.
	Now, of course, we've got our commission report, the Aldrich Commission Report, which happens on June 10th at 11 a.m., and that should outline and address a lot of these issues.
	It should.
	We will see where it goes from there.
	We have to wait until Thursday to find out what they have to say.
	Well, all right, then let me leap ahead and ask you something way out on the edge, and I know it's going to be interesting to ask, and it is the following.
	Having just reviewed the fact that we haven't gone back after the moon, for whatever reason, that we're not even building anything to replace the shuttle, and that all of this is mostly in government, not private hands, at least at the moment, the ability to go to space, I mean.
	Um, there are a certain number of people out there who believe that there are artifacts possibly on the moon and artifacts on, certainly, Mars, that would tell the world's Public a story that a government doesn't want told that there are secrets being held that there is or was life on Mars Intelligent large life or something else.
	I'm not really sure how I'm trying to put this to you But there are secrets out there that they don't want the world to know about yet a lot of people believe this and with all the research you've done on Mars Do you wonder?
	I certainly have questions.
	It's not out of the question that some other race might have visited our solar system in the past, but it would speak volumes if they had, because it would mean that they had technologies beyond what we have, far beyond perhaps, in order to go from star to star, or it would mean they were very, very patient in order to take the long journey at light speed or slower, or it would mean that they were probably machines and it didn't matter how long it took.
	There are a lot of ways you can interpret it.
	I won't even put my foot into the arena about whether or not there are artifacts made by other intelligences on other bodies in our solar system.
	I know that the issue has been talked about extensively.
	And one of the earliest people to really address it seriously was Enrico Fermi, who basically did very, very early nuclear research and got us going on the right path back at the beginning of the Atomic Age.
	And it's called the Fermi Paradox, you know.
	If a civilization were to build spacecraft and send them from system to system and begin spreading out, Even if they only got there at one-tenth of the speed of light over the course of history, in just a million years or so, they would have covered the entire galaxy.
	And where are they?
	And we don't see any such artifacts, or at least we're not aware of them.
	Maybe they are there, maybe they aren't.
	I don't know.
	I think we would have to do a lot more looking, serious research and studying before we'd be able to say for certain.
	If they are there, it'd be a wonderful find.
	It would tell us a lot.
	And we would expect that such an artifact would probably be very, very old.
	On the other hand, like I said, I haven't seen any evidence of anything of the sort.
	I just know that theoretically it's possible.
	Would you agree that NASA is suspiciously slow to acknowledge what appear to be finds on Mars that are extremely suggestive of lots of things that most people don't believe to be true right now?
	Well, they are slow to make an acknowledgment in some cases, but you know, they have themselves in a precarious sort of situation.
	If they were to declare that a thing were so, and then found out later that it was not, they'd lose face and they'd lose funding.
	And if they were to declare that a thing were not so, and later it was found out not to be what they said, once again, they're going to lose face and funding.
	They find themselves really between a rock and a hard place in a lot of ways.
	On the other hand, a lot of the things that we have found lately, in particular the research I've been doing, indicates clearly that the conditions on Mars, for instance, are very different from what we've been told all along.
	And I expected before now to have heard some sort of positive response, and the only response I've gotten Basically has been from people who are not connected with NASA.
	They have given me verifications right and left.
	Well that's why I asked you the whole question.
	Because I figured by now you were running up against the Mars stone wall and perhaps beginning to get a little frustrated and I can see it starting to happen.
	Yes, but you know I have to say one thing as I said before.
	The facts are here and it will come out in the end.
	And some reckoning of it has to be made.
	And I don't know if that's going to be happening on the 10th with the Aldridge Report or not.
	I don't know if that's going to be happening later or at all.
	It seems that the best way to deal with an issue that's controversial these days is to ignore it to death.
	And I know that this is something That really shakes up a lot of people's fundamental beliefs about Mars.
	For instance, the findings of liquid water.
	Yes, yes.
	But it really isn't that controversial when you come right down to it, because Gil Levin, who did work on the labeled release experiment on Viking, and was sure that he had found signs of microbial activity on Mars back in 1975 or 76, 76, was doing some work on spacesuits in a vacuum chamber under Mars-like conditions, and he and his son were working on a project, and they discovered That liquid water could indeed exist in that vacuum chamber under Mars-type conditions.
	And what's interesting here is, no amount of theory, no matter how wonderful it is, can stand up to a single empirical observation.
	They could see water in the chamber at the pressures and temperatures that exist on the surface of Mars.
	And now, with these pictures of the geysers and other things that I've got on my webpage... How long a duration experiment was that?
	I'm not really familiar with too many of the details of it, except that they tested suits under various conditions for proposed Mars missions in the future.
	Remarkable.
	It is.
	All right.
	We're coming to the top of the hour, so we're going to pause here, but you do have a lot of specific information for us tonight on Mars, even since the last program, right?
	Absolutely.
	Hold it right there.
	on market the sea of heartbreak, trying to get myself ashore, for so
	long, for so long.
	Listening to the strangest stories, wondering where it all went wrong, for so long, for so long.
	Listening to the strangest stories, wondering where it all went wrong, for so long, for so long.
	For so long, for so long.
	This is Coast.
	Hold on, hold on, hold on to what you got.
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	And how she made it in With some velvet mornin' when I was crazy
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	From coast to coast and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	My guest is Sir Charles Schultz III.
	He's got a lot of news coming up for you in a moment on Mars.
	He decided, after all of this interesting work he's done in his life, to look to Mars.
	That in itself is a pretty good question, why he made that strange, seemingly strange, turn.
	In fact, we'll ask that in a moment.
	By the way, Sir Charles does have a website, right?
	Absolutely.
	And it is, well, we've got it linked on our site, so you can go up there and visit away, or just go ahead and mention it.
	A lot of people always want to mention.
	What is it?
	Okay, it's www.xenotechresearch.com, and that's X-E-N-O-T-E-C-H-R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H.
	And what's up there?
	A lot of support for what you're about to be talking about?
	A lot.
	Much more.
	A lot.
	All right.
	All right, so what's new on Mars and why should we care?
	Well, of course, we had more fossil findings, as we did before, and some of these are the clearest and best pictures we've had so far.
	Life on Mars, right?
	Life on Mars.
	Absolutely.
	Sir Charles, okay, fine.
	Life on Mars.
	Just before we launch, why would somebody with your background of, what, missiles, attack helicopters systems, artificial intelligence, it seems a million miles away from Mars.
	You know, the kind of Richard Hoagland work on Mars.
	And it's a strange jump for you to have made.
	How come?
	Well, actually, it is not so strange because our biggest proponents in space exploration these days Our robots, I mean, those are the things we use.
	We send robots into space, we send space probes out to do our analysis, and we're working on more advanced robots that will allow telepresence in space so that we on the ground can operate them remotely.
	It stands to reason that if we're going to be doing any serious exploration that takes months or years to get to your target world, you send a robot.
	Now, Mars is actually the most Earth-like planet in our solar system, and so it's a very valid target for interest in space colonization.
	Well, what got you hooked, I guess, is what I'm asking.
	Did you see suddenly some of the stripped photographs coming back from Mars, and something lit you on fire, or what?
	Oh, absolutely.
	As soon as the original lander data came in from the rover's spirit, it got me immediately.
	I had to see what they were seeing.
	I had to look at the microscopic images and see.
	And we're building a simulator here that would have a small rover on it that school kids can log into over the internet and run a simulated mission.
	So there was a lot of impetus to see just exactly what they were doing and how, because we wanted it as realistic as possible.
	Sure.
	February 15th was the day when I really knew from the opportunity data that these were fossils.
	The 14th I was almost convinced, the 15th I knew without a shadow of a doubt.
	And I recognized some of the forms that I had seen.
	And a lot of the forms are not things that you'll see every day because they're extinct life forms and some of them are not the way you expect them to look in life.
	A sea urchin has spines when it's alive and it's a bald little cue ball when it's dead with certain markings on it.
	And so examination of these markings and further images Absolutely convinced me in a very short period of time, and not just because of what they look like, but because they were all in context.
	Every fossil we found was a marine organism.
	And the information they were bringing back was that these were once watery environments.
	And if you got oceans and they go away, the salts don't necessarily go away.
	You should find salts in the soils, and indeed they did.
	So this helped to confirm that this was once a marine planet.
	In fact, Mars probably was covered with oceans at one point and now it's basically a fossil planet.
	Right, and you have shown us rocks with clear fossil imprints on them.
	May I ask this, is it possible to detect what kind of life, is there enough evidence at all from any of the fossils you've seen that you could put together and understand the nature of the life that you're sort of viewing the history of?
	Well sure, it's not so different from what happened to our world in times past.
	And the latest findings support that even more clearly.
	If you imagine our world three or four hundred million years ago, before there were dinosaurs, and before there were any really complicated organisms out there, you'd get a pretty good snapshot of what Mars was like.
	The most complex things we've found fossils of so far have been sharks' teeth and some squid.
	So, as far as development of intelligence goes, there's no reason to bet on that just yet.
	The squids and sharks aren't very smart.
	But we do have things that advanced, and that happened roughly 410 million years ago on the Earth.
	Okay.
	So it's a snapshot of our world from years ago.
	Okie dokie.
	Well, if you've got that much, that's still incredible.
	I mean, that means that there was early life on Mars, just like there was early life here.
	That's exactly what it means.
	Now, that means really a lot more, Sir Charles, because That news would rock lots and lots of very religious boats out there who think that the life created here on Earth is unique, singular.
	There is no life anywhere else.
	God only did it here, because it says that in the Bible, virtually.
	Well, you know, I really don't think it says that.
	I'm a Christian myself, and I don't see a dichotomy between science and religion.
	It depends greatly on your interpretation of what you read.
	I see that there's life, and I wouldn't argue with the fact.
	I'm just saying it's controversial, Sir Charles.
	Absolutely it's controversial, and that's what makes it so interesting, because people are going to be driven to find out the truth, or to completely run and scream and turn their back on it.
	I mean, there's basically not much middle ground if it comes to something that challenges your most fundamental beliefs.
	Yes, sir.
	That's a non-trivial matter.
	Absolutely.
	Challenging fundamental beliefs.
	I don't know how, you know, I don't know other religions well enough to know how it would challenge them.
	Perhaps some not so much as Christianity or some parts, oh please save me from the emails, some parts of Christianity.
	Well it's interesting you mention that because in many cultures in the world, in many religions, there is a firm belief that there are beings on other worlds.
	And we've been visited by them.
	So they'd be okay with this?
	Right.
	They don't have a problem with this at all.
	In fact, they expect it.
	So, you know, it really depends on who you talk to and what their beliefs are.
	And clearly you can see what it is.
	It doesn't take a rocket scientist, so to speak, to know that we're looking at seashells and squids and stromatolites.
	And that's very, very interesting.
	And the stromatolites are a point I need to touch on for just a moment.
	Sure.
	Spirit rover, which doesn't seem to have turned a lot of fossils in, It has a couple of really big hits and one of them is the stromatolite organism.
	And a stromatolite basically is an extremely primitive thing.
	It's the first multicellular organism that lived on the earth for instance.
	And it basically is a colony of blue-green algae.
	The difference is it grows in layers like the leaves of a cabbage and it precipitates calcium carbonate in itself.
	It grows a shell more or less just like a seashell.
	And so the remains of it look like concentric eggshells nested in each other and I've got some extremely clear full-color and three-dimensional images of the stromatolites that Spirit found on my web page and I also have images of terrestrial ones as well now what's interesting about it is this many stromatolites lived in hyper saline or very very salty brines and we know that the last water on Mars was hyper saline also the organism the stromatolite was often known to produce and some of them today do
	to produce a natural sun blocker that shields them from ultraviolet light and we expect that Mars really didn't have an ozone layer so this would have been a necessity.
	Right.
	So this is an organism that could very easily have survived under those conditions.
	Alright.
	And we have multiple, multiple copies of these things all over the Spirit site.
	Okay, a very basic question and I just want to challenge you on this because it's what everybody says and that's why I'm going to ask this question.
	Have you consulted with yourself very carefully to make sure that you're not the victim of seeing what you want to see?
	We all know you can look at clouds and you can see various pictures and things in them, and as you can look at the images from the rovers, close up and pretty soon begin to see things that your mind wants to see.
	In other words, you are convinced way beyond all of that, this is fact, this is not what the mind wants to see.
	Certainly, and I can tell you why.
	One of the first things that I would do is I would run the images by other people who had no clue what I was showing them.
	Right.
	And I would say, well, what do you think this is?
	What do you see?
	Right.
	And I showed it to a number of people who knew fossils, a number of people who didn't know fossils, and a number of people who were just run-of-the-mill people.
	And almost universally, I came up with the same answers that I had arrived at myself.
	And so, I had the ability to bounce this off other people and see what they saw.
	And, it was confirmed.
	So, number one right there, I know I'm not the only one seeing this.
	And that's a very important thing, because, you know, it's very easy for people to fall into the trap of thinking they're seeing something.
	We are wired to see patterns.
	Alright.
	Recognize.
	Alright.
	These photographs, folks, are up on coasttocoastam.com.
	I'm looking right now, for example, at a shriveled bite.
	Oh, a trilobite, yes.
	A trilobite, I'm sorry.
	A trilobite.
	In fact, a collection of trilobites.
	And I don't know here, Sir Charles, I might just see, well, I just might see rocks, or I don't know what I'm seeing.
	Convince me of otherwise.
	Well, first of all, Many of us don't even know what a trilobite is.
	I'm one of those people.
	I've seen them.
	They lived typically between about 500 million and 200 million years ago on the earth and they became extinct.
	There were over 10,000 different species of trilobite and they were a segmented animal with three lobes.
	A central lobe and a left and right lobe.
	They were considered like the butterflies of the sea.
	They were everywhere and their sizes were from as small as a pinhead to as large as a couple of feet long.
	They were basically arthropods.
	Jointed leg animals like a lobster or an insect.
	Right.
	Only much more primitive.
	And it's interesting because the forms on Mars, while somewhat different from terrestrial trilobites, and that's to be expected, are close enough that we can recognize them as being such.
	And the first sign is they have segments like a roach or an insect.
	And you can see the individual segments on some of them.
	Oh yeah?
	And second, they have a head in many cases.
	Call the Pagidium, and it is a... Oh, it's different shapes.
	Many of them are rounded, somewhat horseshoe-shaped or lozenge-shaped, but they have each a unique, and for each species, different shape of head.
	Many of them can roll up into a ball, just like a pill bug or a roly-poly that any kid is familiar with.
	And so, in times of stress, that was how they would respond.
	Now the bulk of the trilobites that we have found have been rolled up as if they were subjected to some sort of a shock such as being dumped out of the water or something.
	And some of them are clearly simply plastered on the surface of a rock and then worn away.
	And so it really depends on how familiar you are with a lot of these things because some of them are difficult to see unless you're familiar with fossils.
	I'm not big on trilobites for sure.
	It says apparent size 3 millimeters.
	Is that based on The known distance from the camera, or what?
	That's based on the image field.
	They publish the specifications for the imager on the NASA website.
	Right.
	And it says the field of view is so many millimeters or so many centimeters wide.
	And so based on the size of the image field, you make a measuring stick, and then you see how big the elements are inside it.
	Or you can even count pixels.
	We know the frame is 1,024 pixels wide.
	Right.
	And if something is so many pixels wide, then that dictates a certain size.
	OK.
	Are trilobites They're fairly common, actually, and most of them are very small.
	We found a couple of larger ones that would measure probably half an inch to a couple of inches in length.
	And the most prominent one is located on Bounce Rock.
	And many people have seen it and said, wow, that looks like a trilobite.
	Well, the interesting thing was NASA announced that Bounce Rock is an igneous rock, a volcanic rock.
	And so immediately they said, oh well, then it can't be a trilobite because that's an igneous rock and you can't make a fossil in molten lava.
	Well, I take issue with this.
	And that is, we've been told that it's an igneous rock based on the readings of their instrumentation.
	But my theory is, and it's very simple and it has gained support as well, bounce rock is not necessarily an igneous rock.
	There's two mechanisms that can put a fossil on that thing, very simply.
	Number one, The organism and the mud and the water it lived in could be splashed over an igneous rock and dry on it in the near vacuum.
	They could fossilize or mummify in the near vacuum.
	Right.
	And they would be sedimentary while the core of the rock itself would be igneous.
	Then when you go to grind it with a rock abrasion tool, you're taking off the sediment and you're reading the interior of the rock which might be igneous.
	And here is the other method.
	The rock itself could have been numerous small particles like sand that were igneous in origin ...deposited by water as a sediment, and then show up as a whole rock again.
	When you read the mineral content, it looks like a igneous rock.
	And the interesting thing about this is that after I had put this on my webpage and stated my theory about it, there's a scientist by the name of Professor Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, and he is the head, the lead scientist for the Mini-TES, or the Thermal Emission Spectroscopy Machine that they use to look at the emissions and identify minerals.
	Right.
	And this article that was published in the BBC News on May 18th supported my contention, and it is, and this is a quote from it, he said, the most exciting is the basalt signature in the layered cliffs, and he's talking about Endurance Crater.
	And he says, basalt is volcanic in origin, but the thinness of the layers visible in the cliffs suggests that they were in place some way other than as flow of lavas.
	Our working hypothesis is that volcanically erupted rock was broken down into particles that were then transported and re-deposited by wind or by
	liquid water.
	In other words, the igneous rock was broken down into little pieces,
	carried by wind or water, deposited as a sedimentary rock, and their instrument cannot tell the difference between
	an igneous rock or millions of little pieces of igneous rock
	laid down on a layer. They still read as an igneous rock.
	So the readings that bounce rock as igneous can be absolutely false. It's a
	matter of interpretation
	of the instruments. What are we going to have to get on Mars, or do with respect to Mars, to just put this away and
	prove it one way or the other?
	Well, right now they're still working on the sample return mission, and that would absolutely answer the question.
	If they brought back samples, they could examine them directly, and they could see if there was anything alive in it.
	But understand that I am still greatly concerned about the sample return, and there is actually an organization online The International Committee Against Mars Sample Return, and they're at icamsr.org.
	Oh, you're advertising them.
	Well, I think that it's worth looking at.
	Are you a member?
	No, I'm not, but I'm going to join them as soon as I get up in the morning.
	Really?
	I'm going to join them in the morning.
	Really?
	Are you really?
	Yes, I am.
	You feel that seriously about it?
	Absolutely, because we now have found liquid water on the surface of Mars, and we know that there was life in the past, and I absolutely doubt that everything died.
	And I do feel that there are still live organisms on the planet.
	After all, we know there's liquid water there now.
	And you can see the pictures of the geysers on my site as well.
	And this is the thing, anybody who's ever been to Yellowstone knows what a geyser or a fumarole looks like.
	And you can look at the images and you can see what is very clearly a wash area.
	I understand you live in the desert, right?
	And you've seen wash areas where it's rained and it's splashed over and it's sorted the materials and left the wash behind.
	And we can see these in many of the images very clearly.
	We also have What appears to be ice in the bottom of Endurance Crater, and that makes perfect sense if you assume that whatever impact created Endurance Crater broke open the aquifer.
	The water table flooded in and froze the ice block in the bottom of the crater.
	Well, Sir Charles, what do the biologists tell us about the relative danger of bringing something back from Mars?
	Is it more likely than not to be disagreeable to human or animal or plant life?
	Well, I don't know of any case where we've introduced a strange organism where it turned out to be beneficial.
	I mean, that's pretty obvious logic right there.
	You don't just bring something strange home and then hope it plays well with others.
	But you must have some reason to believe it could be catastrophic.
	I feel that the risks involved are great enough that we shouldn't take the risk.
	If we want to study this hardware, if we want to study anything we bring back, if we want to study organisms from Mars, there are two ways we can do it in safety.
	Number one, is to put a base on the moon and do it there, where it's in
	utter isolation.
	And the other is to send a biological laboratory to Mars, much like the rover, but far more advanced with the ability
	to work with biological materials
	and do some sort of an assay on them. That would be our safest
	method of handling this. Well that's a pretty giant-sized fear.
	For example, a base on the moon.
	They bring a sample back, open it up, and all of a sudden, you're not hearing from the moon base anymore.
	Well, it wouldn't be just like they're going to open it up and breathe the stuff in.
	We have high-containment facilities here on Earth for working with very dangerous or biohazardous materials.
	I would just like to see it isolated by that one more step of removal of the moon.
	I've got that.
	All right, Sir Charles.
	Stay right there.
	I'm just curious why that level of fear to only examine it on the moon or on Mars itself, but not to dare bring it back to Earth.
	That must mean that, you know, the possible risks are huge.
	We'll be right back.
	I'm going to be right back.
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	Who's going to love you?
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	It is indeed.
	Hi, everybody.
	Sir Charles Schultz III is here.
	We're talking about Mars right now.
	I'm not a real trilobite kind of guy, but the other fossils, I must tell you, Take a tour up to Costa Cosam.com.
	Do yourself a favor and then go through some of the close-up pictures of fossils that Sir Charles has found on Mars.
	I mean, clearly, clearly, this is life.
	It's definitely life.
	And so it is exciting.
	If you want to take that little journey up to the website, just take a look for yourself.
	I really recommend it.
	I know a lot of people don't do that, but if you're wondering about life on Mars, you can answer the question yourself.
	It's there on his website.
	It's a huge question, and I really do believe that it's answered by what you'll see.
	If you want to take that journey, go ahead.
	Otherwise, I'm again curious about this huge risk, so big that Sir Charles would have us unveil whatever it is on Mars or the Moon, but not dare to let it get to Earth.
	not dare by the way everybody we will be opening phone lines into
	the next hour or as the next hour begins you can ask about anything
	whether it be artificial intelligence this man is an expert in so much
	or robots or robotic warfare or ways to put power
	or collect our I should say in space and beam it back to earth or
	any other you know great territory that we have covered I'm
	I would appreciate those questions.
	In the meantime, we are talking about Mars, and if you want to satisfy yourself that there is life on Mars, go right ahead.
	The fossils should do it for the average person, would be my opinion.
	And I really am curious Sir Charles, you know it's a huge risk apparently because I hear so much caution in your voice and so much dedication to the probability that these things are dangerous.
	I'm curious about why they'd be so potentially dangerous.
	Is there some kind of special genetic concern about something from Mars or you know a concern that a I don't know, that a virus would land that we couldn't possibly battle?
	Where's the risk?
	Well, I wouldn't worry about a virus, because viruses depend on your genetic code in order to work.
	And we have no idea what the genetic code of something from Mars would be.
	So, no virus?
	It would probably be very different.
	So the virus isn't the problem.
	The things that do concern me are organisms like funguses or slime molds.
	And the reason they concern me is because we have an organism that, if it is alive, It has survived in a near vacuum for millions of years, and it doesn't seem to kill it.
	And hard ultraviolet from the sun is striking it, and that doesn't seem to kill it.
	It seems to have a defense for that.
	And it lives in temperatures of extreme cold and conditions of extreme salt.
	So, if that doesn't kill an organism, and it reaches the Earth, it might love this place.
	The conditions here might be ideal for it.
	It might flourish.
	And we have a very tough time with many fungus and organisms here on Earth, such as mildew.
	We can't control them.
	Alrighty then.
	Let me remind you, we were talking about this coincidentally in the first hour with a caller.
	Do you remember when the Russian space station re-entered?
	Yes, I do.
	The mirror.
	Yes.
	In fact, as a joke, I thought it would be fine to put up a website that had the mirror cam and showed the interior of an aquarium.
	Yes, well, at any rate, there was this fungus that had been growing on mirror.
	It literally had been eating the seals in the mirror away.
	Right.
	They were really concerned about it.
	You know, I thought about that when it re-entered and landed and popped into the ocean.
	Well, this is something that they speculate it might have come from the sweat of the astronauts, cosmonauts, while they were up there, or any number of things, but it was something new.
	Well, you know, most of the organisms on Earth we haven't identified yet.
	I mean, you can pick up a cup of dirt and find thousands of organisms that no one has ever seen or identified or characterized before.
	We are only scratching the surface of the organisms that are here on Earth.
	And also, be aware that When you're in a space station, the conditions are extremely different.
	The walls tend to sweat.
	There's a lot of moisture sometimes.
	Temperatures are different from what you'd find on the Earth.
	And some of those conditions are ideal for the growth of organisms, such as a mildew or a fungus.
	So, it probably wasn't something new.
	It was probably something we simply haven't recognized before.
	And it found itself very much at home up there and grew like mad.
	We may never know what it was, and it's probably common all over our planet.
	Or, conversely, it could be something that changes form, mutated.
	There is more radiation above the planet than on the planet.
	And perhaps it was something that was very common and it mutated into a different form.
	Were you concerned at all?
	No, I wasn't.
	I wasn't concerned at all about that because whatever it was surely had its origins here on Earth.
	Okay, but you are that concerned about Mars?
	Absolutely, because all bets are off.
	We have no idea.
	What a Martian organism would be like, or what conditions it would like.
	It may be that as soon as it hits the air, it'll shrivel up and die.
	We don't know.
	But we cannot take the chance, because it may find this a very wonderful place to be, and it may live very well on the Earth.
	And I wouldn't want to take the risk.
	I certainly wouldn't want to take my family through, let's say, a smallpox war 200 years ago, or through the bubonic plague in the Dark Ages.
	I mean, the exposure to those simple organisms wiped out millions of people, and now we're talking about something entirely new, and we don't know anything about it.
	Well, so it is that concerning.
	That'll be an awfully big issue if we get a manned mission to Mars, and they're talking it up!
	Yes, it will.
	And I would be extremely cautious about sending human beings to Mars.
	And understand that presently we're talking about travel times anywhere from seven months to two years to get there, depending on the method.
	Right.
	If they were infected with something, they would probably show up with it real fast.
	Yes.
	So we would know pretty easily what was going on, but it would be rather a grisly way to find out if they came down with something horrible and there was nothing we could do for them.
	And I certainly wouldn't want that sort of thing on my conscience.
	Oh, right.
	And what an ugly thing it could be.
	I mean, if they were infected with something, oh, they could not be allowed to come home at all, could they?
	Exactly.
	You know, if something like that were to break out on the earth, and once again, it's sheer speculation, but we dare not take the risk at this point.
	There's a lot of things that I would never open and look in, and, you know, and I'm not talking about just The Bachelor's refrigerator, but...
	You know, we have a whole planet here of unknowns, and we have to proceed very cautiously.
	We've had some near-scares just in some of the biological research areas.
	And just recently, a woman working in Russia was working on an Ebola strain, and she pricked her finger through the suit, and she was dead within a matter of days.
	And they know what they were dealing with, and the risks were very high, but they feel that the research may have payoffs, and so they continue with the research, so they take the risk.
	But Ebola is something we know, and it's something that we have at least some methods of dealing with.
	We try to keep it contained.
	Here, once again, we're talking about an organism from another world that may be radically different from anything we've ever seen before.
	And I do feel that it's such a great risk that we need to be extremely careful about how we proceed next.
	And, you know, access to something like Mars is the only thing that keeps us in isolation from it right now.
	And once we bridge that gap, It's a no turning back situation.
	You know, once we've inoculated the planet with this culture, there's no way to turn back.
	And our possible effect on Mars?
	Well, and that's another thing to be concerned about.
	I expect as soon as NASA makes their admission that, yes, there is life on Mars, there was life, there's water, there's fossils, as soon as that happens, you can expect that some sort of green movement will pop up that says, well, you know, we don't want to mess with Mars, we'll destroy its environment.
	And that's to be expected.
	People will, to a degree, rightly so, be concerned about preserving the Martian environment.
	And would you join that organization?
	I wouldn't join the organization.
	I support the concept behind it, but realize that we've already contaminated the planet with our spacecraft that have not been sterilized.
	Yes, I think we talked about that last time.
	I kind of found that a shocking thing to learn.
	You know, we only just recently began to sterilize what we send to Mars.
	I hadn't thought about it before that.
	That's right.
	And the reason is, everybody had always been told, well, the place is bone-dry desert vacuum.
	Nothing could ever possibly live there.
	And so there was no real serious consideration of the ramifications of sending an earthly organism to Mars.
	It's probably covered with Earthly bacteria that just managed to survive in the soil.
	We've discovered probably a dozen new strains within the last year that could live on Mars that are capable of consuming methane and can live in those cold conditions.
	Has anybody publicly asked somebody at NASA about that fact that we've already contaminated Mars and had they thought of that?
	I know the issue's been brought up and it's been labored over quite a bit, and in fact there was great concern about the Cassini space probe and the Huygens space probe, which is being sent to Saturn.
	In fact, it's there now.
	What they're going to be doing is dropping a space probe on Titan to explore it.
	The concerns are that with something the size of a spacecraft, the ability to sterilize it becomes very difficult.
	Doing so often produces conditions that can destroy the electronics or the sensors in the spacecraft, and so it becomes impractical.
	And so once again, you're at a point of trade-off.
	What is it going to cost?
	What do we think the damage could be?
	And somebody somewhere makes a decision, and with a stroke of a pen, it's a done deal.
	One of the things we must very carefully consider ...is a mission to Europa, because there's a great deal of speculation about whether there could be life under the ice of Europa.
	Now, Europa, of course, as you know, is the moon of Jupiter.
	Absolutely.
	And, in fact, this is one of the things that Richard Hoagland had mentioned, that, and as I understand it, he was the one who first theorized, seriously, that there could be life inside Europa.
	And that's one point with him that I do agree on.
	Richard, actually, listen, Richard has been ahead of the curve, at least on a lot, I can honestly say, on a lot of things.
	You know, he has his detractors, but I'll tell you, he's been there, and I've been around to document it.
	Sometimes he may go over the edge, but the man is a valuable resource.
	Yeah, and I wish him well.
	He and I do not share the same views on many things, but I don't have any ill will toward him, of course, you know.
	He's pursuing his interests and that's fine.
	I must point out one thing.
	I'm not soliciting funds or selling anything or running for office or anything, so I guess my presentation is going to be radically a bit different from what he has to present.
	And people have said, well, why don't you write a book about this and sell a book?
	And my feeling is If it gets to the point where I don't feel that we're getting enough response from NASA or some other credible agency about it... Oh, you'll get there pretty quickly.
	Right, and it may be that at that point a book would be the way to spread the information more fully and perhaps be able to finance a move to get something done.
	But I'm seriously not in this to make any money.
	My research, as you know, is funded already.
	You know, anything that comes of this is purely from the intellectual standpoint.
	I'm simply delivering the facts, and, you know, people may not like it, but don't kill the messenger.
	How is your Mars research funded?
	Uh, I get a grant from Dr. Nelson Ying, who is the Baron of Balkwaine, and he underwrites all of my research, and it's a long-term grant, and he takes care of all the expenses involved.
	So I'm basically free to do this and not worry about the day-to-day making a living, sort of.
	Boy, that's a good deal.
	That's a pretty good deal, all right.
	Yes it is, and I thank my lucky stars that the man came along and took care of my needs here and funded this work.
	It's been amazingly beneficial all around.
	It's been a wonderful experience for me.
	Well, you know then that it takes a fair amount of money even to keep one researcher full-time going.
	Yes it does.
	You have to be able to see that there's some sort of eventual benefit Or, you know, something's got to come out of it for the good overall.
	Either a profit or good for humanity or something.
	And his big push is for education and benefits for the human race.
	And I agree with that fully.
	To me, you've already proven there is life, or was life, on Mars.
	Probably is life on Mars.
	Where does your research, where do you go from here?
	Well, there's been a number of interesting discoveries along the way, some large and some small.
	A small bit of information, for instance, the Martian seashells we discovered, particularly in the Sol 9 images, are counterclockwise.
	They're backwards from terrestrial seashells, which are spinning clockwise.
	Meaning?
	They're just mirror images of them.
	It's a random thing.
	It could have happened either way, like a flip of a coin.
	But it's interesting to see that Martian seashells are backwards.
	Doesn't probably mean anything, but it's just an interesting observation.
	Another interesting thing.
	People have often wondered where the oceans came from.
	Where did all the water come from?
	There have been theories of how comets hit the Earth and so forth.
	I believe I found the answer to that question, and it has to do with the formation of the planets.
	I know you're familiar with Dr. Thomas Gold and the Gold Hypothesis.
	Yes.
	Petroleum formed due to methane inside the bulk of the Earth when the planet formed.
	Yes.
	Well, I've done the numbers and the chemistry on it, and it turns out that As the petroleum is forming, you evolve hydrogen, which reacts with the molten rock and produces water vapor.
	So, the process that produces petroleum and natural gas also produces water.
	And if the chemical reduction continues from very high temperatures, you even get deposits of carbon, from which you get graphite or diamond, depending on how it's formed.
	And you also can generate large quantities of carbon dioxide.
	So, the Gold Hypothesis, which is an excellent piece of work, shows also the origins of our atmosphere, which had large amounts of carbon dioxide, and our water and our oceans.
	If as little as one part per thousand methane existed in the original material, we'd have ten times the bulk of water we have in the oceans, if only a fourth of the hydrogen had reacted.
	So, it explains all the water, and it shows that it does come up out of the mantle of the Earth, and it's shot into the air with volcanoes, That's where our oceans came from, and it stands to reason that both Venus and Mars would have had the same sorts of circumstances.
	And your theory about what went wrong on Mars?
	I mean, where did it all go wrong?
	Well, three things consumed its atmosphere.
	Number one, it has a very low gravity, and that's not enough to hold an atmosphere for a significant period of time.
	Number two, its volcanic activity ended very early because it has a small core, and volcanoes ...replace our atmosphere and, to some degree, our oceans these days.
	And so without that, there was no way to replace the missing air.
	And the third process, which I've arrived at recently, is that the organisms in the ocean themselves, in forming their shells out of calcium carbonate, consumed the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thinned it out.
	In a sense, they actually led to the destruction of their own environment.
	Right.
	So the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere ends up laying on the ground in the form of carbonate minerals.
	So, they supported themselves to death?
	That's right.
	They consumed it all, just like the Easter Islanders.
	Well, you see, there is another very troubling finding.
	Very, very.
	I mean, that's so political.
	Because of it, it turns out that a life form consumed itself to death.
	Then that means we could do the same thing.
	We certainly could, yes.
	We could consume ourselves to death.
	And such a concept is heresy in many political circles.
	Heresy!
	Oh, there's one bit of credit I have to give.
	One fellow who sent me some fossil sand dollars and a wonderful book called Florida's Fossils.
	He's a Jacksonville, Florida fellow by the name of Pete Towner, and I have to thank him for the book and the fossils.
	They are excellent references, and I'm going to be posting images of those to use in comparison on my site as well.
	Uh-huh.
	So, through being able to get it on the air, you've come into contact with kindred spirits.
	Many people, many people.
	And many are PhDs in biology and astrobiology and uh... geology and paleontology and i have received many many emails from these people who have supported the decisions to expose the information and have also verified my findings and many of them have even volunteered to peer review whatever papers i publish on the subject how many days weeks months or years do you think it will be before there will be an official acknowledgement of what you know to be true well i hope in five minutes
	However, realistically... Realistically, I do expect to hear something by the time the Aldrich Commission makes its report, and if not, then no more than two to three months.
	Because we've reached a point now where enough people have seen the information, and it's very clear, and enough people know the facts at this point, that NASA's got to say something.
	Okay, hold it right there.
	We're going to come back and take calls from all of you.
	Questions in any of the categories.
	Any of the things we've discussed this night with Sir Charles Schultz.
	I'm Mark Bell.
	It's 2 AM, the fear is gone.
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	From coast to coast, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	It is, and we're about to go to the phone with Sir Charles Schultz, and he's a brilliant fellow.
	Those are the phone numbers.
	If you have questions about any of his areas of interest, you know, artificial intelligence, robotics, life on Mars, maybe even weapon systems, hell, you can ask.
	You never know, he probably won't give you the answer, but you can ask.
	He's worked in all of these areas.
	Space travel, any of these areas.
	So if you have questions in any of them, pick up the phone and join us.
	and with that we'll be right back once again sir charles schultz the third welcome back
	Thank you.
	This is that portion of the show where we begin to turn to the audience and see where their interest lies with respect to all you've said.
	And boy, you've said a lot.
	You really have been in a lot of fields of study, haven't you?
	I've probably got enough material for four or five more shows.
	I haven't even scratched the surface yet.
	Yeah, I bet.
	Well, believe it or not, this will help.
	Watch.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Hi Art.
	Hi Sir Charles.
	This is Kerry, KFI West Covina.
	Okay.
	This is a question I've been wanting to call you and ask for a long time, Art, and you've got the perfect guy to answer my question.
	Okay.
	I have been telling people for about 15 years my theory about oil.
	That is, that it is a radiator fluid, part of our planet's cooling system.
	Now, I told this to a blue-eyed German mad scientist friend of mine who thought I was absolutely insane thinking this.
	I'm asking you now, is there a possibility that I'm anywhere close?
	And my other question is, how much oil is there really on the planet?
	All right.
	I suppose both good.
	The cooling system first.
	Okay.
	First of all, most of the heat inside our planet reaches the outside through something called convection currents.
	The mantle is, it's like, it's magma.
	It's a plastic or flexible state of rock.
	And as the heat heats the magma, it rises in plumes, just like boiling water does in a pot, only very, very slowly.
	So the radiator system for our planet is really molten rock or magma.
	The bulk of oil in comparison to the bulk of rock is so extremely tiny that it wouldn't have any significant effect on the heating overall or the cooling.
	Okay.
	And as for your second question, how much oil is there?
	Right.
	There could be approximately as little as a tenth of the volume of our oceans, or as much as ten times the volume of our oceans.
	It's hard to say without direct evidence from the interior.
	What we recover is what we can reach easily, and even at that, it takes almost a quarter of our energy to get more oil.
	So for every four barrels of oil we recover, we burn a barrel of it just getting more oil.
	There are people who talk peak oil, and they say that in terms of what we can recover, we may already have peaked, and we're producing as much as we can produce, which would be, if true, extremely worrisome.
	Well, it would be, and the thing that really hobbles us is how deeply can we drill economically?
	That's our big question right now.
	How deeply can we drill How much investment can we make and expect to get a reasonable return?
	If the cost of recovering the energy goes much over what it is now, it now becomes unfeasible and the cost goes to the roof.
	Well, a little study of this would be certainly worthwhile when considering possible projects like collectors and space and that sort of thing.
	Exactly.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Okay, I'm going to have to cut that off.
	I didn't want a last name, so we'll start fresh with you.
	Okay, I'm going to have to cut that off.
	I didn't want a last name, so we'll start fresh with you, and we'll just call you JJ from El Paso, right?
	That's fine.
	Okay.
	Alright, and my question to Mr. Schultz is, you were talking earlier about the possible organism coming from Mars, would you find that more dangerous, that coming from Mars, or the human race dabbling in artificial intelligence and possibly making another competitive, sentient life form here on Earth?
	Well, the Terminator scenario.
	You know, it doesn't matter how dangerous something is if it kills you.
	If it's an organism, or if it's another person with a gun, or if it's a wild, rogue machine, I can't evaluate the dangers of a rogue artificial intelligence, or one that is out to kill all humans, because we don't yet have any examples to work with, but I do know that it could be something very difficult to stop.
	I would far rather have to deal with an organism than a machine, because a machine can transport its program somewhere else and you cannot see it, and it can happen by wire or at the speed of light by radio waves.
	That would be a very difficult thing to combat.
	Can you tell us how much concern you have for a rogue artificial intelligence, for even the possibility of it?
	I don't have a great deal of concern because I think as it stands right now, our entry into the artificial intelligence field is still very tentative at this point.
	We have so many pieces that we have to create to put in place to make a working artificial intelligence
	of any use at this point yeah um consider how many reflexes there on
	the human body consider how many drives and goals
	we're wired with genetically and those that we learn and you're just scratching the surface because those are
	the only ones you can think of right off the bat
	so then you're you're saying we're not close enough to worry about it
	I don't think we're close enough to worry about at this point in in five ten
	years then ask me again what do you
	imagine might be the key to that instant of artificial intelligence
	Any thoughts on that?
	The ability of a machine to examine what it's doing and why.
	Introspection.
	That's the key to it all.
	It's bound to be an interesting moment for mankind, isn't it, in a way?
	Absolutely.
	One of the most crucial, without doubt.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Hi, this is Chris.
	I'm calling from Charleston, West Virginia.
	Okay, Chris, you'll have to yell at us a little.
	You're not too loud.
	Oh, okay.
	Sorry about that.
	Fire away.
	The question I had was about the alternate energy source from space.
	I was wondering, maybe one of the reasons that we're not dabbing into this as much as we should, is especially with the current administration here in the U.S., high-level government officials, Might just be making too much profit from the current fossil fuel and nuclear energy systems to even consider alternatives.
	Is that something you've maybe come across?
	Well, we certainly asked about it earlier.
	I think we touched on that, didn't we?
	Every last drop of pumpable oil before we move on to something else, Sir Charles, or is that too conspiratorial?
	Well, I wouldn't say that it's too conspiratorial because there are a lot of people involved in money and they want to keep things the way they are and so you have to imagine that That human will being what it is, people are going to try and make as much as they can off of it.
	The other thing is, you know that the energy is there, it's how many people are willing to put the money up to get it started.
	And we're talking billions of dollars, you know, like building a few nuclear plants.
	But then there's another thing to consider.
	And it's not just really the economics of it.
	When you start bringing energy in from other places, You run the risk of making such huge social changes at a very fundamental level, but you're not really sure how the system is going to perform.
	Is it going to make it all come down like a house of cards?
	I think a lot of people are concerned about that.
	And finally, the U.N.
	Space Treaty, that is the one big stumbling block.
	We would have to break the U.N.
	Space Treaty in order to develop these energy resources, and I do think it's important enough.
	Well, what part of the treaty wouldn't allow us to bring power?
	Essentially, we cannot use any resources in space, such as mineral resources on the moon.
	And in order to make this work, we're going to have to use on-site materials.
	We cannot ever afford to launch all this stuff.
	Well, out of curiosity, why would we agree?
	What rationale would have us agreeing to such a stupid thing?
	I think that it was a bargain we made to keep the peace with the then Soviet Union.
	At the time, there were concerns that if we went uncontrolled into growth in space, that there would be a huge imbalance in global power.
	And I don't know if that's true, but it sounds at least plausible that we'd be willing to bargain such a thing away at the time, because we didn't really see at that moment that it was economically viable.
	But now today, it certainly is.
	Yes, but that's a treaty that is anti-exploration.
	It's exactly what it is, yes.
	That doesn't make sense to me.
	It's not in our character to sign something like that.
	Well, people will do a lot of things to keep the peace.
	And treaties can be broken.
	Well, right.
	What was to the Rockies?
	You're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hello.
	Good morning, Art.
	Good morning.
	And good morning, Sir Charles.
	Good morning.
	I hope my question is applicable to tonight.
	Back in January, I told Art that I was sure that I was buzzed by one of these bird-sized UAVs, and I was just wondering if you knew how far the technology has come along in that type of thing, and whether it is possible that I could have seen something like that.
	All right.
	It's actually a pretty good question.
	I remember I said I've been doing all this reading.
	It's a lot of it's UAV-oriented.
	Yes, it's an excellent question, and understand that anyone who understands RC or remote control airplanes, or RC hobbyists of any type, with a little bit of computer or electronic skill, could put one together.
	It's not something that costs thousands and thousands of dollars.
	For probably four or five hundred dollars, you could put a UAV together, and depending on your devotion and your knowledge of the technology, you could make it do pretty much anything you want.
	So it doesn't surprise me in the least.
	I'm sure there are UAVs of all types around under research and even under the hobbyists.
	Even little tiny things?
	They wouldn't have to be large.
	There are remote control cars the size of a quarter these days.
	Now just imagine putting that sort of technology with a battery inside an electric airplane or a small gas-powered airplane six or seven inches long.
	I know I've got video cameras here small as a dime.
	And of course, with our constellation of satellites, we can control anything like that.
	Just sort of joystick from thousands of miles away, if need be.
	If you can make a cell phone that's running off satellite and fits in your pocket, you could certainly make a UAV that size.
	So, it's only up to the imagination to speculate on what we might be doing right now.
	That's right.
	In fact, I taught robotics classes to children in middle school.
	...and had them producing machines with the ability to explore and send infrared data and work under command by remote.
	And this is not a difficult technology.
	Children can understand it.
	Sir Charles, what percentage of modern-day so-called UFO sightings do you suppose really, you know, it's from us, stuff we have of flying about?
	I would imagine that almost all of them are either misidentification of natural or hardware that we have.
	And it's a very common thing these days.
	There's such an ingrained belief in UFOs and in aliens That anything you see that's unusual, it's very easy to jump the gun and say, hey, this has got to be an alien craft or something.
	I would imagine 99% of it could be very easily explained as small remote vehicles, or radio-controlled vehicles, or even one of these remote-controlled helium balloons that they've got on the market now.
	You can go to the Sharper Imaging and buy one, and they're amazingly weird-looking.
	And you can fly them around under remote control on a still day, And they look exactly like a UFO.
	A little creative lighting and off you go.
	Having said all of that, there is that 1%.
	Do you wonder at all, or have you satisfied yourself intellectually that they ain't here?
	I do wonder, and personally I reserve my judgment on it because I don't have enough information either way, but I will admit that it certainly is possible.
	There are a number, I read an article at the beginning of the program, a number of SETI scientists, in fact, I believe it's the consensus at SETI, not to broadcast a signal out.
	One of the main reasons given is it might not be too bright to let whoever they are know we're out here.
	And that is a real concern, and it's something we should think about.
	But, once again, it depends on what's possible with physics.
	If it's possible to travel faster than light, then that would be a real concern there.
	Well, for a man who's just found life on another planet, you ought to be somewhat forward-thinking in this area.
	Well, that's a very good point, and I must concede that.
	However, I don't have enough information at this point to say one way or the other.
	I do know it's possible, and I'm not going to discount it.
	Okay.
	First time caller on the line, you are on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	My question has to do with RH negative blood.
	I'm sorry, with what?
	RH negative blood.
	Do you know anything about that and the connection to life on our planet?
	Well, I don't know what the connection would be.
	Basically, RH negative is named for something called the rhesus factor.
	And that's what the RH stands for.
	They used to do lab tests on rhesus monkeys.
	RH negative blood simply means that there's a certain protein present or absent in that blood.
	And I don't know what the connection to alien life would be, because we still have no biological samples of alien life to deal with.
	So I couldn't really say anything meaningful about that.
	And if we did have such samples, I'm sure you'd be really concerned.
	I'd be very concerned, yes.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hello.
	Hi, my name is Derek, calling from Seattle.
	Hi, Derek.
	My question, I have a degree in appropriate technologies like solar power and all that stuff.
	And I was very fascinated by his talk, or Sir Charles' talk, of collecting solar power from outer space and transmitting it down.
	I just recently started studying really heavily in the Tesla and, you know, Tesla's theories on transmission and stuff like that.
	Yes.
	And, I mean, we were still using those transmission technologies to this day, and we're talking like early 1900s.
	But I was wondering, you know, you were talking infrared laser and a couple other ways to get it down from outer space.
	Uh, the collectors up there, then, uh, you would have, if you had your solar collector, then you would have some kind of transmitter that would transmit it down to what kind of station down below.
	Well, that depends on the technology used.
	I'd mentioned two that were thought of as useful or possible.
	Microwaves?
	Right, microwaves.
	And the other one was infrared laser.
	The problem with what Tesla was doing is this.
	Every conductor, every piece of metal would act as an antenna on the way.
	And such a signal would tend to induce currents or heating or noise in all pieces of metal around you.
	So it's not a very practical method of doing it.
	It's kind of like waving big magnets around your computer and your TV.
	There's not going to be a real good effect from that.
	All right, technical question for you.
	What would the beam width of laser be at ground level?
	Well, that depends on the collector design.
	Most of the designs that I have seen specify a collector Roughly 75 meters across, say 220 feet.
	Pretty small.
	Pretty small, yes.
	And that can be very dense.
	And that's because you want all the energy you can in a small area for your heat exchanger on the ground.
	The transmission of an infrared laser beam would be used to directly heat your generator.
	And so that's why it would be that way.
	The higher density, the higher your temperature.
	Would something that, a beam with a small footprint that small on the ground, Be realistic in terms of control of the spacecraft.
	What we can do today, for example, we control spacecraft within windows, right?
	That's correct.
	And so I assume there'd be some technology for focusing it even as the satellite moved, right?
	There is.
	And part of that is known as active optics.
	Some people who are into astronomy may know what an active mirror is.
	You have a mirror or light collector that has dozens or hundreds of tiny actuators under it that dynamically adjust the shape of the mirror to perfect the focus.
	Right.
	And in this case, we would be using a number of mirrors to reflect and aim each of the individual laser beams.
	You would actually have many hundreds or thousands of lasers working in parallel, and all of their beams would be focused on your different receiving stations.
	And each of them would be locked onto the station with a specific fingerprint or signature, so it couldn't wander off target.
	That's remarkable, and you really imagine a transfer of sufficient amounts of power.
	Give me an idea, to power a city, two cities, ten cities, states, what?
	With our first collectors, we'll probably go for between one to five billion watts of power, and that's enough to power a couple of good-sized cities.
	On later versions, or as the thing grows, you'd be moving up to 30, 50, 100 gigawatts.
	And there's nothing that limits the technology to that.
	We literally could go into the trillions of watts very easily.
	Wow.
	I would envision that eventually we would replace almost all fossil fuels on Earth and use radiant power from space.
	Got it.
	All right.
	Hold it right there, Sir Charles.
	Eventually replace it all with that technology.
	think about it the
	the the
	card line at area codes The first time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
	To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll free at 800-825-5033.
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	From coast to coast and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	That would be the dimension of it all indeed, sir.
	Charles Schultz III is my guest.
	He's a very bright man.
	areas of artificial intelligence, weapons systems, space, space travel, Mars.
	Questions in those categories, if you please, and we'll continue in a moment.
	If you would simply like to satisfy yourself, and it's not very non-trivial
	question, that there is in fact life on Mars, that there is life on Mars, then I would say a review
	Of the material contained in the websites that we have linked right now on the site, to Sir Charles' websites, we'll do the trick for you.
	So it's really worth the effort to get out of bed, trudge over to the computer, go to coasttocoastam.com, and sort of make your way through some of the exhibited fossils.
	And I think you'll decide very quickly, wow, that is life.
	Sir Charles, Joel in Alberta, Canada, Asks the following, I've looked at your guest's pictures on his website and something that's bothering me about his geyser images, there's no scale there.
	For all we know, they could be microscopic features.
	How do you answer that?
	Okay, the scale is very easily seen from the fossils, the so-called blueberries.
	The largest of those is roughly five millimeters across.
	What I will do to satisfy that question is I'll put a scale up on the page myself.
	The slots that you see are roughly four inches or about 10 centimeters across at the largest.
	Okay.
	And that's just an estimate based on the scale of the features in the photo at this time.
	All right.
	I think that would be a great assistance to those making their way through this, you know, for the first time.
	I'll do that right away.
	Okay, good.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Hello?
	Hello.
	Yes, hello.
	Yes.
	Othering, have you happened to... Would you turn your radio off please?
	Alright, thanks.
	Okay, you have to have your everybody do that.
	It's confusing as heck.
	Yeah, okay.
	Okay.
	Othering, did you happen to think that like maybe life on Mars that existed like millions of years ago like human beings or just like marine life?
	Well, I haven't found any evidence of anything more advanced than marine life at this time.
	And considering the types of conditions that existed at that time, I don't imagine that very much ever would have gotten out of the oceans, because the air was extremely thin then.
	Sir Charles, then you sound very much as though you don't expect, if there had been any larger life on Mars than the marine life you've detected so far, you would have found it.
	No, I don't think that in the least.
	It's a huge planet and we've only looked at a couple of very small samples.
	There could be immense fossils, but we haven't turned them up yet.
	And it's going to take a lot of exploring to find them.
	If you were to look, let's say, at the beach, you'd probably find shells and shark's teeth, but you wouldn't find a whale.
	That's right.
	Unless you actually went where the whales would be.
	Well, sure, that's right.
	So you're not ruling out the possibility of large life yet to be located?
	Not at all, but I do believe it'll be aquatic life.
	All right, Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Sir Charles, hi.
	Yes, hello, Sir Charles.
	Sir Charles, you mentioned earlier the lunar-based magnetic launching system?
	Yes.
	I was wondering, I was thinking perhaps that that system might be expanded upon in that it could become more than just a launching system.
	Let's say you had, on the dark side of the moon, in the very center of it, Your initial launching platform where you would have similar polarity magnets repelling each other away from each other, but then at a distance straight up, perhaps at the vertex where the Earth's gravity and the Moon's gravity cut out altogether, you would have a more or less a receiving secondary, not a stop like a subway stop, but the opposite of a stop, an acceleration point.
	In other words, you want to stack a number of accelerators together.
	Yeah, a ring, more or less, like a giant, one of those, like in the fifties when they envisioned what space bases would look like.
	They had these ring satellites and things like that, with like outriggers on it, I guess, East, West, North, and South.
	Could be rotating, could change the direction of rotation when the ship went through it.
	You'd have to shut the magnetism off when the ship approached the point at which it would go through.
	But then you turn it back on again, you know, pushing it from the moon, pulling it towards the secondary receptor, and then once it goes through, likening the polarity once again, and essentially kicking it in the behind and sending it further and further and faster and faster.
	Pretty cool.
	I've got it, and I think he's got it too, Sir Charles.
	What about it?
	Yes, I do.
	There'd be a major drawback to that, and that is the station that you had in orbit above the moon, or located above the moon, Would move every time it pushed something action and reaction.
	So if you used it to thrust something, you would have to find some way of keeping that station that was doing the thrusting in place.
	And then you'd need another system to do that.
	So you're really best off by putting a series of linear launch rings or magnetic rings Anchored to the moon to fire the device out into space.
	So you like the idea, though?
	It's a nice idea, but you're not going to gain anything by having a free-floating station doing it, unless you're willing to keep moving that station back to where it belongs.
	Got you.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Good morning, Sir Charles.
	This is Nancy from Worcester, whose lineage goes back to a knight who's buried under a chapel in Normandy.
	I'd like to ask you about a propulsion system in outer space that would go between dark stars or black holes and white dwarfs.
	Okay.
	Do you have a theory on that?
	Well, we haven't any chance of getting anywhere near a black hole at this point, unless we make one, and they're trying that in some of the accelerator experiments now.
	Any black hole that we know of is many, many light years away.
	So, before we could even begin thinking about such a system, we'd have to find a way to get there first.
	Would it be easier to make one than travel to one?
	It surely would, yes.
	I've heard rumors that, oh, maybe out on Long Island somewhere, somewhere out there, they're working on exactly that.
	Are you at all concerned about somebody making a black hole?
	Actually, no.
	Believe it or not, The lifetime of such a tiny black hole would be so short that it would not have a chance of swallowing enough mass to become larger.
	A black hole can radiate away its own mass, and it's called Hawking radiation.
	That's named for Stephen Hawking, of course.
	And in doing so, it produces some very specific signatures.
	But the consequence of it is, the smaller the hole is, the more violently it flies apart, the more violently it destroys itself.
	The black holes that they're making are as small as they can possibly be and still be a black hole.
	And their lifetime is extremely, extremely short.
	So there's no danger involved in making them.
	Have they actually made them already?
	Not that I've been told, but there are things I'm sure I don't know.
	Uh-huh.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Hi.
	One time I heard that there is a large circular escarpment on one side of Mars That's like a crater.
	Do you think a large asteroid bashed away a big chunk of Mars and formed the 10-mile
	diameter moon Phobos, which orbits 3,700 miles above the surface one time every 7 hours and
	39 minutes?
	Actually, no.
	I think that Phobos is a captured asteroid, and that other asteroids have struck the surface.
	There's no doubt that asteroids and meteors have struck Mars in the past and left all the cratering that we see.
	We see a record of that on our own Moon, and in some places, even on our Earth.
	The only difference is, on the Earth, the erosion has erased most of these signs.
	On the Moon, that erosion doesn't occur.
	Mars has very little erosion compared to the Earth, and so many of its craters and basins that have been created by impacts are still very visible today.
	Remember the giant pummeling that, was it Jupiter took?
	Yes, just a few years back.
	Quite a pummeling.
	In fact, at the time, scientists said if Earth had even a portion of that sort of pummeling, we wouldn't be here at all.
	That's right.
	It would have destroyed us.
	The reason it didn't do any damage to Jupiter is because it's basically all fluid.
	There is no solid ground.
	It is a gaseous atmosphere that increases in density as you go toward the core of the planet, and it reaches a point where the transition between gas and liquid can't even be found.
	And so, once you reach that point, you're in a liquid, and then you go all the way down to a rocky core at its center.
	But if such a thing can happen to Jupiter?
	Oh, it certainly could to the Earth.
	But understand that Jupiter acts as our shield in the solar system.
	It deflects, or absorbs, most of the asteroids that otherwise would have struck the Earth, because of its immense gravity, its mass.
	Still, shouldn't there be a fair budget devoted to watching out for something like that?
	Yes, there should.
	And believe it or not, the budget that is devoted to Skywatch for asteroids is extremely tiny.
	I think it amounts to no more than about a million dollars worldwide.
	And in part, it's because People don't really feel as much we could do about it this time, and there are things we could do.
	There is a system that would allow us to deflect a meteor or an asteroid from striking the Earth, and it really is a very simple system.
	Imagine a solar collector shaped something like a parachute.
	You can change the collector's shape, and therefore its focus.
	So it acts just like a magnifying glass.
	You would use it to collect sunlight, and you'd place it near an asteroid heading for the Earth.
	And you would focus the light on the asteroid to create, effectively, a rocket exhaust.
	You'd evaporate some of the material off of it.
	Now you've got a solar-powered rocket engine on your asteroid, and you can literally speed it up or slow it down or change its angle.
	And if you do this, oh, a couple of months in advance or a year in advance, then you've eliminated the danger of impact.
	Okay, well your system could be used for anything, any sort of device.
	Alright, here's a question for you.
	How much notice Are we likely to get of something big enough to be more or less a planet killer, how much notice would we have that something of that magnitude was headed at Earth?
	Any guesses?
	Well, right now it's anywhere between two years and a month.
	It depends on where we happen to be looking at the time.
	I see.
	So, a month to two years notice.
	Assuming the very best, and we had two years full notice, are we now prepared to deflect whatever it would be?
	Right now, we are not.
	But there is a plan that we could put in place that would get us there pretty quickly.
	Two years?
	That is.
	Within two years, yes, we could.
	I think, you know, that a pilot system could be tested in a very cheap launch, like one of these surplus missiles they use as sounding rockets.
	We could probably test such a system for probably around five or six million dollars.
	And it would basically be a solar propulsion system, a solar thermal system.
	That sounds like such a good idea.
	It's a wonderful idea, and I'm wondering why it's not being done.
	And personally, I would love to work on a project such as that, because I've got a lot of ideas about how to do it, the way we could take it.
	First time caller on, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hello.
	Yes, hello.
	I have a very strange kind of question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
	And that question is, outside of atmospheric or environmental destruction, do we have the technology to so destabilize our planet as to lead to its destruction?
	And I guess I'm saying by somehow affecting its orbit, tearing it apart, making it blow up.
	I've had this debate ongoing.
	No, absolutely not.
	We don't even have a tiny fraction of the energy that would be necessary to do those things.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome and take care.
	So there are a number of areas where we really should be devoting, I don't know, some minimum of resources.
	Not that much when you talk about the 200 billion, the Iraq 200 billion or whatever.
	That's right.
	And it just wouldn't be that much to do things that could save the entire planet, potentially.
	That's correct, and the thing that really stands in my mind is that the things we learn trying to work these systems out are going to benefit us anyway.
	We're going to make new products and new discoveries along the way.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	This is Dottie in New Jersey, and I have one little bit of information for you first.
	I've heard that in Ocean City, New Jersey, there's a new bed and breakfast open called Somewhere in Time.
	And supposedly they have a ghost of a woman in... Okay, great piece of information for me.
	Yeah, I thought it would be.
	I thought you'd enjoy that.
	And for my guest.
	Right.
	And Charles, I heard at the beginning when Art gave your credentials that you worked at Martin Marietta on the computer systems and whatnot.
	Are you familiar with people in the area in New Jersey hearing a high-pitched whistling sound from these systems, and what is it that they're hearing?
	I've heard some stories, different stories, and based on the area you're in and the type of noise and what people thought it was, for instance, the roar some people hear out in the desert, and in other places they hear a high-pitched sound.
	In cases where you're hearing a high-pitched sound, It is possible what you're hearing is a radio frequency or microwave signal.
	Some people can actually hear the effects of it because it creates an effect known as cavitation.
	Tiny bubbles are created and collapse inside your head or inside your inner ear and you can interpret this as sound.
	So some people literally can hear a radio or microwave signal at the right intensity or frequency.
	Don Ho's tiny bubbles.
	These would be almost the tiny bubbles of the cold fusion thing, wouldn't they?
	Very close, yes.
	Cavitation.
	Cavitation is very much like that, right?
	That's correct.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Sir Charles.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Yes, hello.
	Howdy.
	This is Jim.
	I'm outside of Barstow, California.
	Hey, Jim.
	Hi, Sir Charles.
	Quick question for you.
	The infrared laser that you're talking about transferring energy To a receiving station?
	How would that affect our atmosphere?
	That much energy heading into our air, how would that affect our climate?
	That's an excellent question.
	And the answer is, we would select a frequency of light that passes easily through our atmosphere to minimize the interaction.
	So that, overall, let me give you an example.
	Did you know that the light reflected from the full moon, which is sunlight, raises the temperature of the atmosphere about one-hundredth of one degree centigrade?
	No, I didn't know that.
	The energy that we would transfer from these microwave stations would be about on that order of magnitude.
	Because we'd pick a frequency that the atmosphere is transparent to.
	And that would be the end of that.
	There'd be very little interaction of any sort.
	That's fascinating.
	Have we already begun to test what would be the optimal frequency to do that at?
	Well, actually, astronomers and cosmologists are very good places to start.
	They've researched the frequencies that we can see the universe at on the ground with telescopes.
	They already know many of these frequencies.
	They've already characterized the path bands and the blocking bands of our atmosphere.
	Well, again, the same question.
	You know, this technology seems to be ready.
	The knowledge seems to come right off the tip of your tongue, and yet we're not doing it.
	So do you suppose there is that last bit of oil thing, and using up all the current, and is there some logic to that?
	Do you understand using up what we've got before the next thing?
	No, because we need oil for other reasons, but I think that one of the problems is not that the technologies themselves are misunderstood, because most all of this is very well known and characterized already.
	I think the big issue is integrating all of it into one whole package, and it takes multidisciplinary people to do that.
	There are very few people who step very far out of their discipline, or have two or three disciplines that they're very comfortable in, and so it makes it difficult.
	It's like a committee designing A hat rack or something.
	You don't know what you're going to get.
	Well, where do you go from here with your research?
	Mars, for example.
	Have you recovered almost all you can from the rover missions?
	I would say I've gotten probably about fifty percent of what I can out of what they've got on their website at this point.
	So there will be more?
	There will be more, and I'm always behind the curve, but I'm running as fast as I can, so I don't imagine I'm going to run out of good material for quite a while yet, some number of months.
	However, if there is no response made at this point, I think it may be prudent for me to put packages of this information and all the linkages and references together and perhaps send them to some congressman to see if we can get some interest up to get some sort of a response.
	Well, I certainly wish you luck, Sir Charles.
	And again, thank you for being here tonight.
	And as you mentioned, we have material for any number of future shows.
	Thank you, my friend.
	Certainly, and you're welcome.
	Good night.
	Good night.
	Well, there you have it, folks.
	That's the weekend.
	Can you believe it went that... Just like that.
	So, see you next weekend from the high desert.
	Good night.
	Good night.
	This magical journey will take us on a ride.
	Filled with a longing, searching for the truth.
	We make it to tomorrow.
	Will the sun shine on you?
	Midnight in the desert, and we're listening

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