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March 18, 2006 - Art Bell

02:29:15

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Nick Pope - UFO Sightings

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	And so that's going to be obviously going to be good.
	I mean, he was up at the top there, so he's the guy.
	Find out what the Brits know.
	Now, after this weekend, I'm going to be gone for a couple of weekends.
	I'm going to get a bit of a change of scenery.
	I'll be gone for a couple weekends.
	Let's look at the world news.
	The French are once again rioting.
	They seem to do a lot of rioting in France.
	They have a lot of time on their hands.
	Police loosed water cannons and tear gas on rioting students and activists who rampaged through a McDonald's.
	Figures, right?
	They'd hit a McDonald's.
	And attacked storefronts in the capital Saturday as demonstrations against a plan to relax job protection.
	Oh, that's what it is, you see.
	The French are guaranteed their jobs.
	They have, like, I don't know, five or six weeks vacation every year.
	They've got it really good, and so they want to relax the job protections.
	And, of course, they're rioting about that.
	And my kitty cats are batting their heads.
	If I turned up the audio... Now he's not doing it.
	Little head was hitting the door pretty hard there.
	All right.
	Anti-war rallies mark Iraq anniversary.
	Thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets around the world on Saturday, making the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with demands that coalition troops leave right now.
	The Arab Muslim League Federation had addressed more than a thousand people who gathered in Times Square near a military recruiting station, which was guarded by the police.
	Anybody out there remember, why did we start that war?
	What the hell was it?
	Why'd we go to war in Iraq?
	Something about weapons of mass, mass, mass destruction.
	There we go.
	I guess I just can't hear it.
	Mike won't pick it up.
	Little pause and let me, let me try here.
	Let's see if I can get over by the door and I'll talk more about the war here.
	See if you can actually hear anything.
	Yeti, is that you?
	Now she won't do a thing.
	Because I'm talking to her.
	That is so funny.
	Let me get everything back together here.
	Okay, back to the war.
	Let me turn that down.
	Back to the war.
	Why did we start that war?
	Why did we go to war in Iraq?
	Weapons of mass destruction.
	I guess they're not there, so it couldn't have been it.
	Now, because Saddam was being so mean to his people, that one doesn't exactly hold up, because there's mean dictators all over the world, and they're mean to their people.
	If that was the reason, we'd been at war in Cambodia a long time ago.
	Stopped the killing fields.
	Much worse than anything that went on in Iraq.
	And then there was oil.
	It probably was oil, right?
	But we didn't say that, and we don't say that.
	We dare not speak the word oil.
	I'd have a lot more respect.
	I hear that door.
	I'm going to have to give it up.
	I've got a loose wire under there, and if I let the cats in, they will... Well, hell, there's no choice.
	Fine.
	Come on in.
	What the hell?
	There's a little wire under there, and if a cat hits it, it'll start humming.
	But there's obviously, I'm not going to keep them out.
	So I'd have had a lot more respect for our government if, you know, if we'd said, well, it's the oil.
	We have, we run, our country runs on oil.
	We've had a bad policy of not pursuing other alternative methods of energy, and so we need oil, and so we're gonna go Invade Iraq.
	Had more respect for him.
	Louisiana, it seems, wants, you know, coastal folk.
	I mean, they just love that bayou country.
	Trouble is now, they're leaving since the storms.
	They're leaving just in droves.
	Actually leaving the place forever.
	By the way, today's score is Navy 1, Pirates 0.
	Our Navy... United Arab Emirates is where the story comes from.
	Two U.S.
	Navy warships, two of them, mind you, exchanged gunfire with a suspected pirate ship off the coast of Somalia.
	Now, you've got to see this ship.
	It's sort of like a rowboat plus.
	So, I'm sure that probably the pirates fired first, which was really stupid.
	Firing on a U.S.
	Navy ship is just, under any circumstances, stupid.
	But being in a rowboat and having, you know, maybe a grenade launcher or something like that... Really, really stupid.
	So, two U.S.
	Navy ships opened up on them.
	Pirates, mind you.
	And I think we killed one and captured five, and they were not happy at all.
	So, Navy 1, Pirate 0.
	Oh, here, you're going to love this.
	Then we'll do a break.
	It's tempting to blame big food companies for America's big obesity problem.
	After all, they're the folks who super-sized our fries, family-portioned our potato chips, and big-gulped our sodas, right?
	There's also the billions they've spent keeping their products ever on our minds and in our mouths, likened by some to the way tobacco companies seduced smokers.
	Such practices have made the food industry the target of lawsuits and legislation seeking to yank junk food from schools and curb advertising to children.
	That's how it begins, right?
	It began that way with cigarettes.
	They stopped advertising to children, aiming it at young people, and then pretty soon TV ads were illegal, and then I think billboards became illegal, and now it's going to be food.
	So they will rip that Big Mac from your hands.
	Soon, not just smokers will be, well, how are we thought of these days, smokers, as we're pariahs.
	Let's just say it.
	Pariahs.
	And so now it's going to be, you know, if you're seen with a Big Mac or maybe some McNuggets or, I don't know, something from Wendy's, Dripping and you've got it in your hand and somebody, some food cop will come up and I don't know what they'll do.
	Probably eventually arrest you, make you eat it out on the street, not near any young people who might be influenced by seeing you down a Big Mac.
	Oh, America, America.
	we'll be right back we're going to open line shortly but uh... you know the
	news goes downhill from there
	there.
	you The first story is a headline from the Independent in Great Britain.
	That's where you get these things, you see, from Great Britain.
	We don't publish them.
	It says, Climate change irreversible as Arctic Sea ice fails to reform.
	See, that's got to catch your attention right away.
	Think about it.
	Climate change irreversible, that's in little quotations, as Arctic sea ice fails to reform.
	Now that should get your attention.
	Sea ice in the Arctic has failed to reform for the second consecutive winter, raising fears that global warming may have tipped the polar regions into irreversible climate change far sooner than predicted.
	Now that's a big word, irreversible.
	Irreversible, meaning the poles are gone and you can't stop it.
	Satellite measurements of the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice show that for every month this winter, the ice failed to return even to its long-term average rate of decline.
	It is the second consecutive winter that sea ice has not managed to reform enough to compensate for the unprecedented melting during the summers.
	Scientists are now convinced the Arctic sea ice is showing signs of both a winter and a summer decline that could indicate a major acceleration in its long-term rate of disappearance.
	The greatest fear is that an environmental positive feedback has now already kicked in where global warming melts ice, which in itself then causes the seas to get warmer further as more sunlight is absorbed by the darker ocean rather than reflected by the white ice, less white ice.
	Less reflection, more dark water, more absorption, more melting, and the whole thing becomes a runaway feedback cycle.
	Mark Syrens, a sea ice specialist at the U.S.
	National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, said in September 2005, the Arctic sea ice cover was at its lowest extent since satellite monitoring began, for a satellite we had to do that in 1979, probably the lowest in the last hundred years.
	And he said, well, we can't be certain.
	It sure does look like 2006 is more of the same.
	Unless conditions turn colder, much colder, we may be headed for another year of big sea ice losses rivaling or even perhaps exceeding what we saw in September of 2005.
	We are, of course, monitoring the situation closely.
	But again, The headline is Climate Change Irreversible as Arctic Sea Ice Fails to Reform.
	Now, from there we go on to even better stuff like bird flu to hit the U.S.
	within three weeks.
	I'll cover the details tomorrow night.
	Or is Siberian thaw the beginning of climate tipping point?
	That also from Great Britain, so much coming from... and then from BBC.
	I see U.S.
	climate scientists have recorded a significant rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, pushing it to a record new level.
	BBC News has learned the latest data shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million,
	100 parts per million above the pre-industrial average.
	Oh, by the way, by the way, by the way, tomorrow night, I think it's tomorrow night on 60 Minutes,
	there's going to be a very, very interesting segment in which the man that we
	have not heard from on the climate is going to speak.
	We're going to hear something tomorrow night I urge you not to miss.
	60 minutes tomorrow night.
	One of the segments will have that climate scientist on.
	First time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hi, Art.
	I have a possible solution to your cat problem in your radio room.
	There is no solution.
	But let's hear it.
	I read a couple articles where people have built shelf ledges around the upper part of their room because cats love sitting up high where it's warmer.
	That's true.
	And the other thing about cats, when you're on the telephone, So what are you saying, build little perches for them?
	Well, they built a shelf that went all the way around the room in like a little, little steps, like a little, like it'd be like a knick-knack shelf, kind of.
	But it was for the cats.
	And anyway, when you're on the telephone, cats don't know what a phone is, they hear you talking, they think you're talking to them, and why aren't you paying attention to them?
	That's why they're always bugging you when you're on the phone.
	I have five of them, so close your eyes and try and imagine what it's like to have five cats.
	Every one of them a darling.
	But, there is something about a closed door that causes alarms to go off in a little cat brain.
	Inside that little furry head, alarm bells go off and doors must not be closed and whatever's going on on the other side of that closed door is obviously more interesting than where they are.
	So even though they have the entire house to roam and trouble to get in, It is that one room they must get in.
	In that case, my studio.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hey, Art.
	Hey.
	I want to know, there's a lot of things I'd love to know about, but I want to know, if you were to talk to somebody from the future, let's just say that's me, what would be the one science question you would absolutely want to know, first and foremost?
	By what date the planet becomes uninhabitable for man?
	That's a science question?
	It certainly is, yes.
	I thought you were a time travel guy.
	I was hoping you'd go that way.
	The date itself is one that is not absolute.
	You're looking for something that's absolute, and that's never going to be the case.
	Well, unless you're a time traveler, and then you can look ahead and you can see bodies all over the place, people not being able to breathe, gasping for breath, you know, the climate changing.
	You can see, if you're a time traveler, all these things and tell me roughly by what day or what year it becomes uninhabitable.
	Well, you're speaking of some gross circumstance, and there's never a gross circumstance.
	Are you reading the headlines?
	I am.
	In fact, I'm aware of the climatology situation, not only in the past, but the present, and... Well, let me tell you, sir, when you start seeing headlines like, climate change irreversible as Arctic sea ice fails to reform, that's important.
	Yes, but Art, there's also an argument that What kind of arguments left?
	Oh, I know you want to sensationalize the... No, no, no, no, no, no.
	No, no, no.
	That's a real headline.
	That's from Britain now.
	Hey, I know.
	I'm not arguing the headline here with you, brother.
	You're not?
	Okay.
	I'm not.
	All right, then, then, then... There's interesting things.
	Let me just take one.
	You want to go climate?
	Let's go climate.
	There's people who are saying, oh my God, Greenland is melting.
	Yes.
	Blah, blah, blah, but there's various climatologists that have said to us, hey, the Vikings were gardening on Greenland.
	You know that, don't you?
	Look, sir, most climatologists now have gone off the bandwagon of trying to unsell this because they can't, because the truth is now in front of us.
	And so I would urge you, I'll tell you what, buddy, you get out and you talk to some of the people that you respect.
	in climatology these days and see what kind of opinion you get.
	See how many dissenters you still find to the obvious fact that our climate is in very, very fast change.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Thank you for taking my call this morning.
	Thank you for making it.
	Well, I'm sorry, your name?
	My name is Jeff and I'm listening on KTRS in St.
	Louis, Missouri.
	Yes, sir.
	I have a quick comment about the Iraq war.
	Oh yes, you know why we went to war?
	Well, it was all the deal about weapons of mass destruction and all that stuff.
	Yeah, but they weren't there.
	Yeah, but then I guess if they weren't there, why did Bill Clinton attack Iraq in December of 98?
	Well, because there was this threat to our president that we traced back there.
	But the question is, why did we go to war this time?
	What was it?
	Of the weapons of mass destruction.
	The ones that weren't there?
	That supposedly were not there.
	But one of the recent stories in the New York Times said that he lied to his generals saying that they were there.
	That he had them.
	You mean Saddam was lying to his own military?
	Yes.
	How he couldn't do that?
	Because see, the generals were in charge of that kind of stuff if it was even there.
	According to the New York Times story.
	I see.
	But my main comment was... Boy, if you were a general, you'd be really ticked, you know?
	Yeah.
	I mean, here come half a million Americans, you know, and the generals go, hey, okay, so where's our big weapons?
	And he'd do what?
	He'd say, well, you know, there's something about that that I was going to mention to you.
	Yeah.
	We don't have them.
	Well, this, what he, I think this Iran, now I'm not old, I am, it was way before my time.
	Oh, that's a good question, Iran.
	Yeah.
	Do you think we're going to go to war with Iran?
	I think there's a little bit more of a world consensus with Iran than there was with Iraq.
	Because even France and Germany is on board with Iran, and they were in consensus with Iraq.
	And you think they're on board, why?
	Because there's obviously a more threat.
	Now see, the French are like on board now.
	But if it actually comes down to war, the French aren't going to go to war.
	There's no chance of it.
	They'll riot about their guaranteed jobs.
	There's no way we can...
	Invade Iran like we did Iraq, there's no way.
	Not without a really good reason.
	No.
	Very large weapons of mass destruction.
	Yeah, and I think there could be a limited campaign to set their programs back a few years.
	Who else do you think we ought to go to war against?
	I don't know, but I do know Iran, but what my main comment was, Iran is the... Who do we really dislike?
	Hello?
	Hello?
	Who do we really dislike?
	Who don't we dislike, I guess, is the question.
	Well, but it's a matter of degree.
	Who do we dislike the most?
	Well, right now it seems like we're focusing our attention on Iran.
	In other words, where do you cross the war threshold of dislike?
	Uh, Iran?
	Well, I know no one really wants war, but what's better, trying to prevent the spread of these weapons, or allow the spread of these weapons, or they may eventually be used one day?
	Yeah.
	You know, I mean, it's like a lose-lose situation.
	I'll say this, if we attack Iran, and invade Iran, and then we get there and like they don't have any nukes, or at least, you know... They're flaunting the stuff that they have.
	Most of the way toward the nukes.
	They are, they're flaunting the stuff that they have, so they're not hiding it.
	Well, I mean they said that about Saddam too.
	But then, of course they're not having... They absolutely assured the President, yes sir, there are some terrible weapons there.
	But I think at this point it's a lose-lose with Iran.
	Think so?
	Yeah, because right now I'm not old enough to remember that I wasn't even born during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
	How about Korea?
	I know we're not happy with Korea.
	We're having a lot of earthquakes on the moon now.
	Wait a minute.
	Earthquakes on the moon?
	Earthquakes on the moon?
	There's four kinds of actually deep moonquakes, 700 kilometers below the surface, vibrations from the impact of meteorites, well that figures, right?
	A thermal quakes caused by the expansion of the frigid crust were first illuminated by the morning sun after two weeks of deep freeze night.
	Okay, well that makes sense.
	Shallow moon quakes only 20 or 30 kilometers below surface.
	Okay, well, the one that doesn't make sense is that it's seismically active at 700 kilometers below the surface.
	Now that means there's a whole lot more going on the moon in the moon than we suspected by a long shot.
	Once again, and don't forget tomorrow, you're going to hear from the NASA scientist on 60 Minutes who tried to warn Americans about global warming.
	He says the White House won't let him.
	And Correspondent Scott Pelley has obtained documents that show just how much editing White House officials are doing that lessens and sometimes changes the very findings the scientists reported.
	The very findings.
	So, in other words, they're saying the White House is actually altering the results of
	what NASA is saying to them so that you won't have to be bothered by hearing that kind of
	thing.
	Remember the RFID that everybody was so freaked out about?
	RFID, oh, big brother.
	Researchers have discovered a way to infect RFID tags, that's radio frequency identification tags, with a computer worm, raising the disturbing prospect that products, ID cards, even pets, could be used to spread malicious code.
	So, your little ankle-biting dog could be a virus spreader.
	And it would spread from one RFID tag to another like the plague.
	I shouldn't laugh.
	You know, they come out... Inevitably, man comes up with some sort of absolutely unsinkable... That's a great word, unsinkable, right?
	They don't say that about any ship anymore.
	They did try that on Singapore, of course.
	And so, you know, with regard to code and RFID tags and all the rest of it, it cannot be broken, cannot be tampered with, absolutely safe, and then here we go.
	It's a never-ending battle, you know, but it has to be like Navy One, Pirate Zero.
	First time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi there.
	How are you doing, Mr. Bell?
	I'm okay.
	It's an honor to talk to you.
	I just want to throw out a rhetorical question for people to ponder regarding what probably most of the people in this world are thinking and have been for a very long time.
	Okay.
	If America and a few, a little handful of countries can and are allowed to have nuclear weapons, why the bleep can't anybody else?
	And I'm not supporting what any other country does or regime, but isn't it pretty obvious that these people You have a right to look at us with a very skeptical eye.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, your argument has merit.
	But, look, think of it this way.
	Nuclear weapons are endgame things.
	They're, you know, for mankind.
	They're endgame things.
	You know, we got them, the Russians got them, now what, the Pakistanis, we think they have the Israelis, they have those ones that they don't have in the desert.
	Right.
	And on and on.
	So I guess the nations realized that they're so horrible that if they really do have to stop proliferation, and if they don't, it'll be the end of all mankind.
	So if you're in charge of whether to try and stop nations from getting them or not, knowing that if you didn't, it would be the end of mankind, What would you do?
	Exactly.
	Well, yeah.
	Exactly.
	Well, thank you for taking the call.
	You're very welcome.
	Take care.
	I think the answer is you'd realize the power of these things to eliminate all.
	I mean, what if the pirates out there had had nuclear weapons?
	Then it would have been Pirates 1, Navy 0.
	And it could have been the beginning of World War III and the end of mankind.
	So, I don't know.
	If you've got nuclear weapons and you know how bad they are, I guess you have to try to stop proliferation or else.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air.
	Good morning.
	Hey, Art Kim from L.A.
	Yes, sir.
	I've got a question.
	I've seen your movies, and now you brought up the story about... Not plural.
	I only had one.
	Yeah, well, I saw that movie.
	Plus, you're talking about global warming.
	So is the next progression then a deep freeze?
	It's certainly entirely possible.
	The premise in the movie, sir, is also not only possible, but actually more or less underway right now.
	The current that keeps England and Europe, most of Europe, temperate is beginning to splinter and stop.
	So will it affect just the North Pole or North and South?
	Uh, just the North Pole.
	We're talking about all of Europe here.
	Right, right, right.
	So there wouldn't be like a deep freeze on the Southern Hemisphere then.
	Now, if you're talking about... See, we're talking of several different things.
	The ocean current is what, for example, would freeze Europe.
	The fact that the North Pole is melting, and what ultimate consequences that'll have for man, we're not really sure yet.
	But, you know, if all the ice at the north part of the world is suddenly gone, you just know it's going to have some effect.
	Right.
	Definitely.
	What do you think?
	I'm just scared.
	You've seen a lot of pictures of the world, right?
	And there's always all that ice cap up there?
	Right.
	And if that's gone, that's probably important.
	Very.
	But I was wondering also, will the same thing happen in the Antarctic?
	So that means that the safest place to be on Earth then is Well, we've already lost several ice sheets in the Antarctic, and some of the big ones are considered to be unstable.
	Now, when I say big ones, I mean the ones that are on land.
	The ones that are already in water.
	There's no big deals like ice cubes in water, you know.
	You don't get more.
	But when the big ones on land begin to melt, that also, sir, is very important.
	Because I have relatives in Japan, so I guess they're in trouble then, huh?
	Well, people in Miami would be in trouble.
	You know, I mean, New Orleans, for example, would be in trouble, even without a hurricane.
	God, this is scary.
	Well, thank you very much for having me on the air.
	It does seem scary, doesn't it?
	Thank you very much.
	And what's even scarier to me, or just as scary, is that... And I'm not a bush basher.
	Honest to God, I'm not.
	But the administration's attitude about what's going on with our climate is reprehensible.
	I mean, it's absolutely reprehensible.
	I understand why they have the attitude that he's an oil guy, but I mean, really, these headlines are getting very disturbing.
	Very.
	When they begin using words like irreversible, it should be getting your attention and theirs.
	Instead, they're editing stuff.
	Again, watch 60 Minutes tomorrow night.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hey, how are you?
	I'm okay, sir.
	I just wanted to say, regarding your cats, I've discovered something with my cats that keep them very occupied, and it was something that I never would have expected, but me and my girlfriend just recently bought a Russian tortoise, a baby Russian tortoise, and we have her in a tank, and they are fascinated.
	It's just like their nature channel.
	Well, that's because the tortoise moves slowly, but surely.
	I think they forget it's a real living thing.
	Oh, but you don't want to let them get at that tortoise?
	Oh, well, they don't have claws.
	Oh, well, yeah, but they do have teeth.
	And trust me, they would torture that tortoise.
	Just wanted to say, Art, I want to thank you for staying on this subject here the last few weeks.
	I think it's a very important subject.
	Well, somebody in this country has got to be talking about it.
	And that's the thing.
	There's not enough discussion about it.
	To me, I don't see what there really could be done.
	I don't know what you could do.
	That's not my field by any means.
	Nor is it mine, sir.
	I admit, I have no idea what to do.
	And I don't even know that if we were to stop burning all oil right now that it would have any effect whatsoever on the changing weather.
	Well, I think you and George both do a great service by covering this quite a bit, but the reason I called tonight is I'm in Dayton, Ohio.
	My name is Brad, by the way.
	Yes, Brad.
	And I've not been here long.
	I visited a lot when I was a child, but I've only been here maybe two years.
	And I am right down the street from Wrightpad.
	As a matter of fact, above my home is all military airspace.
	And I've heard stories.
	You know, I know a lot of the things that I guess have allegedly went on.
	As far as maybe, you know, like Roswell and them transporting the crap to who?
	Right.
	Is there a lot of, you know, talk that goes on in your area about what's going on at Right Pat?
	That's the point.
	There's really hardly any there.
	Sometimes you will, you know, talk to somebody and, you know, oh, well, I heard they've got, you know, underground hangars and all this.
	But for the most part, there's really not much of a discussion.
	And you see a lot of MPs, you see A lot of different military craft overhead, and, you know, you can see all of that, but, you know, I've listened to your show for a little while now, and I've heard, you know, quite a bit of mention of Right Pat on your show, and my question to you was, just based on your knowledge, what do you think they've got going on there?
	And I'll take your answer off the air.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	Alright, well, what I see is a small cell, and I see a creature with large Twenty years, restlessly moving about the cell.
	This creature's probably about middle age now for an alien.
	And yeah, we're still keeping him.
	Hell, sir, the answer is I have no idea what they've got there, any more than I know what's right next to me here at Area 51.
	And strangely here, not a lot of people talk about it.
	I mean, we have, you know, Area 51 fireworks.
	There's a firework shop named after Area 51, and we're right adjacent to this infamous site, and I don't have the slightest idea what's there, any more than I do what's at Bright Pat.
	Probably something, though.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Yeah, Art, this is Adam from San Juan Islands, Washington.
	Yes, sir.
	Speaking of facilities, I didn't know how much you knew about the Southwest Regional Spaceport they're putting down in Upham, New Mexico.
	This is a project sort of gone through Richard Branson, Sir Richard Branson.
	Who also has gotten together with the state of New Mexico and the XPRIZE Foundation to build this facility, kind of through Virgin Galactic.
	I'm not sure exactly how all the groups have put this together, but the state of New Mexico signed off an agreement for $250 million in December, and they're going to do space tourism down there, including rocket races and other things.
	Well, I'm jealous.
	I wish they'd done it here in Nevada.
	Well, they chose, I guess they were shooting between somewhere back east, New Mexico and California, and they picked New Mexico for the clear weather and clear airspace.
	I don't blame them at all.
	I'd like to have to launch something up through LA.
	Plus, you know, the Californians are so, I mean, you just, you'd never get authorization for something like that.
	But you come here to the sensible, what I call the sensible West.
	Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, now you're talking.
	Yeah, too much air traffic.
	Yeah.
	And clear space out there.
	Now, one other thing I was going to ask you too, I haven't heard a show about the Spaceship One project at all.
	But I was curious, and I know you like contact information, if you could ever get a hold of Burt Rutan, the designer of Spacecraft One.
	Love to interview him.
	And right now they're building five of these things that can hold, I believe, six or seven passengers, one pilot and five or six passengers apiece.
	Hey, I'm curious, how much would you pay to take a ride in that thing?
	Well, for my income, it's going to be a while.
	I mean, I'm 22, by the way.
	I haven't been listening to your shows since I was about 11 years old.
	So, you know, I've got a shot at it, of course, and I'm going to definitely go down to Upham.
	We've got a place down there in New Mexico, in Tejeras area, pretty close to Richard Hoagland, actually.
	But when we do go back down south, I'm definitely going to go check that out.
	I think I'd do it.
	Yeah.
	Well, he's got a really good safety record.
	Burt Rutan's designs are very interesting.
	They have extra wing space on everything.
	They're very efficient.
	And so far, he's got a really great safety record.
	Well, I hope it's going to be affordable.
	Thank you.
	Would I take a ride to the edge of space?
	And what would I pay?
	That's an interesting question.
	I suppose it would vary.
	How about you?
	How interested would you be in taking a ride to the edge of space?
	I have the honor of riding in the Concorde.
	That's as close as I've been, about 65,000 feet.
	Now, it's pretty cool up there, I'll tell you that.
	In more ways than one.
	But you can see the curvature of the Earth at 65,000 feet.
	You can see the very, very black above you and the purple beside you.
	And that's near the edge of the edge.
	And I thought that was pretty cool.
	But going all the way up to the edge... First time caller line, you're on the air.
	Good morning.
	Hi, Art.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	My name's Robert.
	Yes, Robert.
	Where are you?
	I'm calling from the East Coast.
	Boston.
	Boston?
	Yeah.
	I just wanted to take you on with the war.
	Home of Denny Crane.
	The war, yes.
	Who?
	Denny Crane.
	Who's Denny Crane?
	Don't ever ask that.
	Doesn't matter, sir.
	Go ahead, take me on about the war.
	Well, you tell me where you stand.
	I don't know where you stand.
	I stand confused.
	Confused about why we did it.
	Now, you said before, why did we start the war?
	I puzzled about why.
	Why do you think?
	No, no.
	You said, why did we start the war?
	Well, yeah, why?
	We didn't start the war.
	We started in 1981, sir.
	No, this one, though.
	No, no.
	This is a continuation.
	You forget there's a beginning, a middle, and an end.
	No, you can't sell that one here.
	Come on, you can't sell that.
	Give me a break, come on.
	We declared victory and we left.
	Sir, the facts are we left.
	War was over, we left.
	No, the United Nations.
	Oh yeah, remember them.
	Alright, let's talk about the United Nations.
	Do you like them?
	Let's talk about them.
	Let's talk about them.
	Alright, now the weapons of mass destruction.
	Yes, go ahead.
	What about those?
	They're there.
	I guarantee you.
	And we'll find them.
	But we actually found Saddam himself.
	He was a little hole in the ground.
	And we found him.
	And we've had much longer now.
	And these weapons of mass destruction by their very nature are big.
	If I give you seven months to do something, I guarantee you, you could hide it in the state of Nevada.
	If I gave you a seven month start, Oh yeah.
	I guarantee you.
	So let's assume... But wait a minute, sir.
	There's this big open question.
	Go ahead.
	If you're Saddam Hussein, and you've got half a million U.S.
	troops coming at you, right?
	And the biggest air show, shock and awe, and all the rest of it coming at you.
	See, if you're not... if you have those weapons, That's when you're going to use them, because otherwise you know you're dead meat.
	How do you know that?
	Because we're the United States, sir, and we're going to kick his butt, which of course we did.
	And who started this porno?
	This one?
	No.
	We did.
	See, you can't... Yes, I can.
	No, sir, I can.
	This war is not... Sir, you are the one bending history here.
	Brother, we had our war.
	We left.
	We won.
	We kicked them out of Kuwait.
	We did exactly what we said we did.
	out of i don't want to go to stars as a jury you are the one bending history
	here probably we had our war we left or not we won we got them out of the way we did exactly what we
	said we got to go and that you're forgetting a component
	and there is a there was a component why we left
	They had to follow certain things, right?
	Yes and no.
	What now?
	1991, Art.
	1991.
	What about it?
	When the war stopped in 1991.
	Okay, why did we go to war back then?
	It was because of the invasion of Kuwait and probable invasion of Saudi Arabia, right?
	It's about oil, Art.
	Oh, yes, I'm not afraid.
	Did I hear you correctly?
	Would you repeat that, please?
	I'm not afraid of him.
	All right, did you walk to work today?
	Say it again.
	Did you walk to work today?
	It's about oil.
	Are you telling me that you want the people with a mindset to kill themselves like they do in control of the oil?
	If it comes rolling off your lips so easily, then how come it can't come rolling off the lips of our president?
	It's about oil.
	You're not going to do anything.
	You want it both ways.
	You're not against the war.
	You're just against Bush.
	No, I'm not against Bush.
	And you know what else?
	I'm not even against the war, sir.
	As a matter of fact, if they'd come out and they'd actually said something like, I don't know, yeah, we need oil.
	We absolutely have got to have oil.
	In Iraq, but we didn't.
	Hey, Corporal, look, a nuke.
	Weapon of mass destruction.
	But we didn't do that.
	That's to our benefit.
	Listen again, I want to remind you after this weekend, I'm going to jump for a brief change of scenery, so I'll be gone for a couple of weekends.
	Oh, while we're on that subject, if you're listening out there, Ms.
	Producer, how about rerunning one of the early, maybe even the first interview with Colonel Philip Corso?
	I think that was one of the more important interviews that I ever did.
	Top ten for sure.
	And Colonel Corso knew he was at the end of his life, and he told us the story of what he did.
	You know, he exchanged alien technology.
	He slowly integrated it into the modern-day world.
	And if you believe Colonel Corso, and I tend to, then a lot of the things we have today, we can thank Roswell for.
	That was an important interview, and I think if you're going to rerun an interview during my change of scenery here, why, that'd be certainly one hint, hint, hint to rerun.
	Coming up now in a moment, Nick Pope.
	That's ought to be good.
	I mean, he used to run the British government's UFO project at the Ministry of Defense.
	He was initially skeptical, as I'm sure he should have been to do this.
	His investigation of newly reported UFO incidents and access to government files on the subject soon convinced him that the phenomenon raised very important national security issues.
	I love that one.
	Especially when the witnesses were military pilots or where UFOs were actually tracked on radar.
	Nick also looked into other mysteries such as alien abductions, crop circles, We'll ask about all of this.
	He now continues his research in a private capacity, is recognized as leading authority, of course, on UFOs and the unexplained.
	He's done extensive media work, has lectured all around the world, has acted as consultant on several TV documentaries.
	Now, I've always wondered, the U.S.
	has always said, whatever they are, They're not a threat to national security and I've always wondered how the US government defines national security.
	If an object racing at 25,000 miles an hour traverses your atmosphere and the fastest gun you have will not shoot it down and the fastest airplane you have can't possibly catch Then, how is it that our government, or any government, defines national security in the first place?
	So, Nick Pope coming up to answer that question, I'm sure, in a moment.
	So what it boils down to, I think, is Nick Pope essentially ran...
	The equivalent of Project Blue Book in Great Britain.
	And as a matter of fact, that's where he is right now.
	Great Britain, somewhere or another.
	Where are you, Nick?
	I am indeed.
	I'm in London.
	So it's 7.15 in the morning here.
	7.15 in the morning?
	Yes, Sunday morning.
	Thank you for getting up early on a Sunday morning.
	That's very nice of you.
	Saturday night still here at about 11.14.
	So is that a fair statement, first of all, Nick, that you essentially ran the program in Great Britain that was equivalent to our Blue Book That's absolutely correct.
	I mean, the terms of reference for the British government's UFO project are really identical to the old United States Air Force project.
	It was basically as simple as, look at all the UFO sightings reported to the department, be they by public or military sources, evaluate them, investigate to the best of your ability, and see whether you think there's evidence of any threat to the defense of the country, anything, as it were, of any defense significance.
	Yeah, it always comes down to that, Nick, and that leads me right back to what I was saying before I came to you, and that is, the United States has sort of always laid back in the end and said, well, whatever they are, they're not a threat to national security.
	And, you know, that's so cool that they would say that.
	If an object's doing 25,000 miles an hour through the atmosphere, and we can't shoot it down, we can't figure out who it is, and we can't stop them, And that doesn't constitute a threat to national security, then what does?
	Well, when you said that in your introduction, I kind of Winced a little bit here, because I thought, how can I actually go any better than the answer you've just given?
	There's really not much I can do except agree with the assessment you've just made.
	Yes, yes, yes, yes.
	So, maybe what they mean is, yeah, there's objects going 25,000 miles an hour, no we can't catch them, no we can't shoot them down, but on the other hand, they haven't shot at us, yet.
	Yes.
	Therefore, they're not a threat.
	It's a sort of negative assumption, isn't it?
	Sort of.
	In a sense, it's rather disturbing, because if somebody rather more powerful than you just hasn't done anything so far, but you don't really know what their intentions are, then it's a fairly big assumption for any intelligence analyst to make.
	It sure is.
	It's not an assumption, for example, that I was comfortable with when I was running the UFO project here in the UK.
	It was called M.O.D.S., is that correct?
	Pardon me?
	M.O.D.S.
	Oh, well, M.O.D.
	is just Ministry of Defense.
	Ministry of Defense UFO Project.
	So what did they actually call it?
	They called it that?
	No, the odd thing is it didn't actually have a formal title at all.
	Back in 1950, the project has its roots in something called the Flying Saucer Working Party.
	Now that's very interesting.
	If you're interested in a little bit of history and about how one of the greatest figures in the British establishment got involved in this and started the whole thing off, it was the great World War II radar scientist, Sir Henry Tizard.
	who actually said that UFO sightings shouldn't be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study.
	And he said this in 1950. Winston Churchill had brought him back into government after the Second World War,
	in the difficult post-war years. And he was a chief scientific advisor.
	So when the Ministry of Defense's chief scientific advisor is the one setting up your UFO project,
	I think that's quite interesting. I should say. So that's where it has its roots.
	And the odd thing is, unlike Blue Book, where you could say it was Project Blue Book before that, Project Grudge before that, Project Sign, we never gave ours a name.
	So when I'm talking about the British government's UFO project, I'm just sort of saying what it did, really.
	Well, what's the matter with you people that you wouldn't give it a name?
	How can a project not have a name?
	I know.
	Slightly odd, because to me, every kind of project should have a name, it should have terms of reference, and it should have detailed outputs that are required, so that any project manager will tell you that you've got to have output deliverables, and then you get assessed on how well you do against them.
	Okay.
	Actually, I want to take you off course for just a moment.
	Maybe it's not really off course, but I'm very concerned with our climate change over here.
	Over here, I mean, we're all experiencing the same possible climate change.
	In fact, Europe could be victim of an ocean current change that would freeze you guys.
	Anyway, what I'm getting at is, whether you agree or disagree with any of that, So much of the news that I'm getting, Nick, comes from your country, actually, from various publications in Great Britain, and all of these climate change things, as a matter of fact, are coming from Great Britain, and they're not being published here, Nick, and I wonder why Great Britain, which really, in our way of thinking as Americans, isn't supposed to be that open, but you guys are publishing all this stuff and we're not here.
	I don't get it.
	I have to say, it's not my area of expertise, but I share your concerns, as do most people here.
	I just think we are a very open society, and we have one or two figures, and I'd better not name names, but some senior figures who are concerned about this and who are prepared to speak out and start the debate, and I think that's a major thing.
	Well, that's what I'm saying.
	It is happening in Britain, and it's being published, but here, Not so much.
	And we're the great, open, free America.
	But I've got to read these articles from Britain to get anything out.
	It's odd.
	And really, it may relate to the UFO topic as well.
	I mean, many countries seem more open about it than does America.
	Even France.
	My God, France, of all countries.
	France is quite open.
	Italy is quite open.
	I went to a conference a couple of years back, and the Italian Air Force Center delegation in full uniform to give a presentation.
	Now, you don't see that in many countries.
	No, you don't.
	Even Brazil, of course.
	Even the Vatican.
	Yeah, there's a lot of openness there and I think, to a certain extent, I think the Internet and the increasingly global nature of our societies is pushing this in the right direction and giving us a more global mindset.
	All right.
	First of all, I guess we ought to have a base of operations here, and that would be in the years, Nick, that you ran this operation.
	I mean, the obvious, very important question is, what were the more interesting things that you investigated?
	And can you tell us a few stories from those years and how they really turned out?
	Certainly.
	I received about two or three hundred UFO reports each year whilst I was doing the job in the early nineties.
	And, of course, like any other UFO researcher, like a civilian UFO researcher, and like my predecessors both in Britain and America, most of them turned out to be misidentifications.
	The figures that I would say are most accurate is to say about eighty percent I could explain Um, very well, as aircraft lights, weather balloons, satellites, meteors, all the usual things.
	Another 15% probably went into the insufficient data category, leaving a 5% of extremely interesting cases.
	Um, pardon me, one case that we were looking at, and it happened just before my watch, but I saw the report from the pilot, was on 5th of November 1990, uh... off quadrant of
	well-off force off jet
	were crossing the north and they were overtaken by ufo
	and uh...
	they were talking to uh... dutch military air traffic control about that
	mhm they described a a sort of large
	uh... metallic object of some sort and they actually have to take a break to
	action it's interesting talking
	what what you mentioned in your introduction about defense significance
	yes that the whole subset of ufology
	which we could get into about the flight safety implications of of this
	And I've seen files with our Civil Aviation Authority talking about some terrifying near-misses between aircraft, both civil and military.
	I've heard the same stuff, Nick, out of Mexico, that Mexican authorities have talked about.
	Not only near-misses, but maybe even one collision with a civilian airliner in Mexico.
	I mean, just, you know, not a fatal collision, but with some damage.
	I mean, so this stuff is incredible.
	Yes, there was a case from 1995, a passenger airliner was coming into Manchester Airport here in England, and a UFO suddenly effectively crossed the front of the aircraft, and the pilot instinctively grabbed for the control Of course.
	Had he made that sharp, evasive maneuver, the UFO actually went before he could complete it, but his instinct was to throw the stick violently to the side because he feared a collision.
	As I say, if he'd actually made that maneuver, he could have crashed the aircraft.
	And a friend of mine, who sadly died last year, but there was a man called Graham Shepard, A senior British Airways pilot, and he lobbied the Civil Aviation Authority here in Britain to include in the pilot's training syllabus some material about UFOs so that aircrew were at least ready for these things to occur.
	I'm curious, did he ever get that in?
	I'm not sure that's something that I'm trying to follow up.
	Or more interestingly even perhaps would be what would the recommendations be if you encounter a UFO do the following?
	Yeah, I think the first thing is almost before you get to the UFO encounter to make sure that air traffic control is properly looking out for uncorrelated targets and again it disturbed me.
	I spoke obviously predominantly to military Radar experts.
	Yes.
	And very often these were people that I would enlist in my investigations, of course, because one of the first questions in any UFO investigation in the military is, was it tracked on radar?
	And I would have radar tapes impounded and sent to me.
	But you know, I heard many times people say, well, we get these fireballs on our radars from time to time.
	Really?
	they do speeds of say twenty thousand miles an hour and then they just
	disappear and i said
	how do you know that they're fireballs
	and the answer was well because they go very far that was it huh?
	there was a fundamental mindset there which is
	you know it couldn't possibly be anything else but there's no proof
	There's no way of knowing what it was.
	No, you're quite right.
	I mean, unless they find an impact point, and then they can say, oh gee, look, a meteorite.
	Otherwise, something going that fast, you know, is automatically said to be a meteorite or whatever.
	And I've always said, how do you know it's a meteorite?
	You know, that stops people cold.
	They go, well, you know, actually, I don't.
	Sure, but going back to your question, I think what I would tell pilots is, generally speaking, if you see a UFO, it's probably got greater speed and maneuverability than you, and I'm sure it doesn't want to crash.
	In a sense, the advice is probably, do nothing.
	Very good.
	Yeah, the risk is making a violently evasive maneuver that's going to actually endanger the aircraft.
	Oh no, you're absolutely right.
	And from a UFO's point of view, I suppose, we must be dangerous because when they get near us we do violent maneuvers.
	Yes.
	I guess it's sort of human nature, as you point out, to grab the stick and try to avoid what otherwise is going to happen, and eventually that's going to result in some sort of collision.
	Yeah, but I'm going to...
	It's on my list of extremely urgent things to do to check that this material that Graham Shepard was wanting incorporated has been incorporated somewhere because, of course, pilots... I've spoken to many, many civil and military pilots and, you know, they see UFOs a lot, but there are huge under-reporting issues here.
	Many, many pilots, particularly Air Force pilots, took me aside and said to me, you know, I've seen these
	things and I've heard some fascinating accounts, not of lights in the sky, I mean I'm talking
	about metallic craft doing speeds and manoeuvres we can't possibly approach. And I say, where's
	the report? And very often they'll say, well I didn't really make one because I wouldn't
	have known what to have said, I would possibly have been questioned as to whether I'd
	been seeing things.
	Yeah, you know that that part of it's really got to stop I mean the intimidation that goes with I mean pilots after all These are good careers whether they're military or civilian they're either very prestigious or they're very high-paying and Who wants to report one of those things?
	I mean that's career-ending or at least career limiting.
	Yeah, I had I One person say to me, and he made a joke of it, but it's a comment that sticks in my mind all these years later.
	An Air Force pilot said to me, I didn't want to be known as Flying Saucer Fred in the officer's mess.
	So when you've got that mindset, it's difficult.
	because of course those are probably the best sorts of UFO reports you could
	could have got from trained observers such as pilot if you're just tuning in what the hell's wrong with you
	This is important stuff.
	You should have been here some time ago.
	We've got Nick Pope here.
	He's the guy who ran the equivalent of Project Blue Book in Great Britain, and that's where we've got him on the phone from right now, is Great Britain.
	And he mentioned metal, and you know that?
	That's an important one for me.
	If you get a pilot reporting a metallic UFO, in other words, you didn't just see a light, baby.
	You saw something big.
	You saw a disc or whatever, and you really saw it in your pilot, and you reported that.
	Serious stuff.
	What kind of reports in that category, Nick, have you had?
	Well, several, and one that stands out in my mind, and this goes back to your question about Interesting UFO incidents that happened on my watch is that in March 1993, we had a massive wave of UFO sightings in the UK, particularly on the 30th and the 31st of March, and UFOs were seen all around the country, and the descriptions were fairly common.
	We were talking about our old friend, the triangular-shaped craft, which of course, well, is very much A feature in our skies, so it seems.
	Is it?
	And this UFO was seen, as I say, all around the country, but it was particularly noteworthy that it flew directly over two military bases in the Midlands.
	Yes.
	RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury.
	And it was seen by a patrol of Air Force police officers at the first military base.
	They made an official report to me afterwards, and the interesting thing is then it headed towards the other base, which was just a few miles away.
	And the meteorological officer there took a phone call to say, there's a UFO coming your way.
	And the base was pretty much shut down at night.
	It was just skeleton crew.
	So he walked out of his office and looked across the field.
	And sure enough, he saw a bright light.
	In the distance.
	And this thing got closer and closer, until he saw that it wasn't a light, but it was the lights on the underside of a massive, triangular-shaped craft.
	I asked him to estimate the size, and with typical military precision, he picked two aircraft.
	He said midway in size between a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
	I think in my initial notes, I just wrote big.
	Here's the reason I'm laughing, Nick, because I saw one of them.
	Oh, wow.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, real close, Nick.
	Well, I'm extremely envious of you.
	Real close, Nick.
	I mean, my wife and I were on the way home from Las Vegas one night and she turned around and said, what the hell's that?
	And I stopped the car in the desert where you could hear crickets at a quarter mile and this thing flew straight over our head and out toward Area 51, Nick, and it made no sound.
	The moon and the stars went away above us.
	It was that big.
	I felt like I could have thrown a rock at it, Nick.
	It made no noise whatsoever.
	Absolutely silent.
	And we stood and just watched it sail.
	And that's the word I'd use, sail, because it wasn't flying.
	It wasn't supported by aerodynamic flight.
	It was floating, either because of anti-gravity or lighter than air.
	I have no way of knowing, but it didn't look at all earthly to me, and that's how close it was.
	That's why I was laughing, because I was as close as you can get to one.
	Well, the meteorological officer, he said this thing was about 200 feet above the ground, maybe another 200 feet to the side, so it didn't come directly over his head.
	And a really interesting feature of this case is he said how slow This craft was going.
	There you go.
	To start with.
	But I'm going to tell you the story, and you may laugh again, because I think these are things that you'll recognize, maybe from your own sighting, but certainly from descriptions that some of your other guests have given.
	But this is from a military report made to the government's UFO project.
	Here, he said this thing was going maybe no more than 20 or 30 miles an hour.
	There was a narrow beam of light He said, firing down from this craft and just sweeping across the field.
	That I didn't see.
	Well, he said it was almost as if the thing was looking for something.
	Uh-huh.
	He said there was a faint sound.
	He didn't hear it at first, but it was a low-frequency humming sound.
	He said it was one of those sounds that you could feel as well as hear, and he said it was quite disturbing.
	And suddenly, the beam just flicked off, And the craft shot away, he said, suddenly, from just 20 or 30 miles an hour.
	It accelerated away to the horizon.
	Now, this guy is in the Air Force.
	And he said, well, significantly faster than a fast jet.
	And that was the story of what happened.
	Well, that's one hell of a story.
	And there's an extremely interesting little postscript about that.
	I could talk for the rest of the show about the investigation.
	No, no, no.
	Rock on.
	Go ahead.
	I launched a full investigation, of course.
	I enlisted the Defence Intelligence staff here in the UK, who we worked with on investigations.
	We couldn't come up with anything that could explain this.
	We pushed it up the chain of command, of course.
	It ended up on the desk of the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff, a two-star Air Force officer.
	He, again, had no explanation.
	Everyone was extremely interested, but totally puzzled.
	But you know, the interesting little postscript to this is that something about this kind of, you know, niggled at the back of my mind.
	There was something that I was struggling to remember about all this that I thought might be important.
	And then suddenly I remembered.
	It was the same night, 30th and 31st of March, but 1990.
	That the UFOs had famously flown over Belgium, and the F-16s had been scrambled.
	Okay.
	So this thing had come back, you know, three years later, on exactly the same night.
	Oh, isn't that interesting?
	I don't know why, but, you know, it's certainly a coincidence.
	Well, I had a little theory, which I never put in the official report.
	Oh?
	My theory was that, I don't know what you call it in the States, but, First of April, we call April Fool's Day.
	Yes.
	And it's a day when sometimes everyone, you know, plays jokes on each other.
	We have that.
	We have that too, Nick.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	Well, these UFO sightings happened too late on the 30th to get into the papers on the 31st.
	So if the story had run, it would have run on the 1st of April.
	And who would pay attention to a UFO story running on the 1st of April?
	Nobody.
	So perhaps it's the one night That you can really get away with flying so obviously, blatantly, over someone's military facilities and get away with it.
	That was my theory.
	Well, it's as good as any, Nick.
	As good as any.
	But, you know this thing that I saw, Nick?
	There's no way that it was ours.
	There's no way that it was earthly.
	It just wasn't.
	No, I think... I knew it when I saw it.
	Yeah.
	If we had those sorts of things for real, well, you know, we wouldn't be driving motor cars and taking seven or eight hours to fly across the Atlantic.
	uh... quite correct uh... we would have a new i mean beyond that we'd have a new power source certainly the uh... earth is starved for some sort of uh... alternative to oil and a drive that can do with that apparently was doing would probably solve that problem as well so this is big stuff very very important stuff is it your feeling nick that your government and my government no about all of this that we have encountered and made some kind of deal with these beings, whoever it is, or what do you think the state of knowledge is in our governments?
	My honest answer to the question about the American government is I have no idea.
	I could never get any access Even I could never get anything other than the party line, which is, we're not in this game anymore and haven't been since Blue Book was shut down in 1969.
	In my own government, where I can speak, I hope, with some degree of authority, my view, my feeling is that there is not a cover-up, that there's not any knowledge that these things are real.
	I think we're Searching for answers there are certainly many people in government in the military who are prepared to look at this with an open mind, but it's not my
	I have a feeling that somewhere there's someone here that knows about it.
	Alright, let me ask you this then.
	Is it your view, and the view of a lot of Brits, that the American government does know about it, has made contact, and does know a hell of a lot more than it's saying?
	I mean, do the British suspect the American government of knowing what they don't?
	A lot of people do, but I'd better not answer that question.
	Oh, why not, Nick?
	Because of course I still work for the Ministry of Defense.
	Oh, then maybe you better not.
	I just can't answer or speculate on that.
	Just whisper it in my ear, Nick.
	Do you think that a lot of people in Great Britain do, I mean you can answer it this way, do you think they suspect the American government knows much more than anybody's been told?
	That's a fairly widely held belief, yes.
	As to whether it's a belief within government here, I would say probably not.
	But that said, don't let me imply in any way that many, many people in government, in the military, in intelligence, don't actually believe this.
	They do.
	They certainly believe, even in the possibilities of an extraterrestrial reality, it's just that it's a difficult subject to talk about.
	But you know, this is one of the things that I think, with all of this, You know, a lot of listeners may be saying, well, so what?
	Well, I mean, I just heard you get very cautious, Nick, and so I guess I want to ask, how many things are there that you would react just that way, too, if I were to ask about them?
	Things that you just cannot talk about that's in some way related to ufology?
	There are several such things, but I promise you there's nothing that, if I said it, you would say, well, he I've seen one of these things in a hanger somewhere or seen a file that explains what it's all about.
	To the best of my knowledge, we don't have anything like that in the UK.
	But isn't that what you'd have to say?
	No, I would probably say no comment.
	So I'm giving you a definitive answer and saying I have not seen these things.
	Well, so then if I were to ask you, does Great Britain have an ET at some secret location captured?
	You wouldn't say no comment.
	I would not say no comment.
	No, I would answer your question and say to the absolute best of my knowledge, no.
	Now, of course, people might say, well, maybe Nick was out of the loop.
	People might say, maybe the United Kingdom was out of the loop.
	And of course I can't, I really can't...
	Prove a negative on that.
	Did you ever have a feeling when you were doing your job heading up, essentially, Blue Book in Britain, that you were being a patsy, Nick?
	Did you ever have that feeling that you were just sort of a, you know, a store dressing?
	That you were there to do what we think Blue Book did, which was to just sort of wash the whole thing away.
	Did you ever feel like you were being assigned to do that, Nick?
	I didn't, because I was receiving military reports as well as public reports, and I worked very, very closely with the Defense Intelligence staff and the sorts of people who conspiracy theorists here say must have been doing the real UFO job.
	Well, in fact, we were in and out of each other's offices all the time.
	Let's talk about the triangle for a second.
	Yeah.
	Was there ever any indication from your military or from intelligence people in Great Britain, and you're never going to be able to answer this, even if you know the answer to it, but that these triangular craft could be our own?
	Well, Britain, like America, of course, has Prototype aircraft and UAVs being developed and being test flown.
	But the bottom line is we know where we fly our own bits of kit.
	But there is an interesting postscript to the story, which I think will answer your question.
	Part of my investigation into these 1993 sightings did involve our contacting the American government through the embassies.
	And we put the question to them, look, we've had this sighting.
	Do you have a vast, triangular-shaped, hypersonic craft that can do these things?
	And the American government said, no.
	Do you?
	And they got...
	Did they really?
	Did they come back and say, no, we don't?
	Yeah.
	And this was the interesting thing.
	The reason they were asking, of course, is because in places like Hudson Valley, they'd had sightings of these things as well.
	They were asking, they took the opportunity to ask if the Royal Air Force had such a craft.
	And we just smiled and said, well, we wish we did.
	Is that exchange public anywhere?
	I think I have one half of it.
	I'll try and post it on my website.
	Really?
	It has been released under Freedom of Information.
	I think there's one paper that we're still waiting for.
	Do you know offhand who in the American government responded to that particular, you say it was done at the embassy level?
	I don't have the names, no, but I can check my own notes and see.
	That's fascinating.
	So, no, we don't, do you, was honestly was a response.
	That's paraphrasing it, but that's certainly what was relayed to me.
	I don't think so.
	Having seen it personally, I do believe that the odds are very heavily that it was an extraterrestrial craft.
	And by the way, the newspaper reports with regard to the object that I saw, Nick, Oh, I don't know, about a week later in our newspaper, many people, not just myself and my wife had seen this, but many people here in the Valley, and they contacted the military, and the military's response was really funny.
	The newspaper article said, yes, the military said there had been a secret mission which may have overflown the Pahrump Valley where I live here.
	And that the aircraft involved was a C-130.
	And I laughed and laughed and laughed.
	I flew in C-130s, and of course, if it was that far over your head, it would rattle your teeth with the noise.
	Yeah, it's quiet.
	But that's what they said.
	It was a C-130 on a secret mission, Nick.
	That's embarrassing.
	Well, it's almost as strange as suggesting that the Rendlesham Forest UFO was a lighthouse.
	Yes.
	And it's those kind of responses by government agencies that make us all so suspicious that they do have knowledge, because that's just stupid.
	I mean, it's just ignorant.
	It's an ignorant response, Nick.
	It's embarrassingly ignorant.
	I'd better not comment on the specific, but what I can tell you is that I've been trying in Britain to raise awareness of these issues, not just with the public and the media, but within government and the military.
	And I just had an article published in the Ministry of Defence's magazine called Focus about the UFO project and about the Rendlesham Forest UFO, and one of the things we did is we got published The sketches of the Rendlesham UFO that Jim Peniston made, really to nail the lie that this was lights.
	It wasn't lights, it was a craft.
	You know, the drawing from the official United States Air Force witness statement makes it quite clear this is a craft, right down to symbols seen on the side of it.
	Oh, no kidding.
	And of course, the British government has released under the freedom of information act now our act has only
	been and on the statute book for just over a year
	but we've already released the file on the rendlesham forest issue
	including the fact that the defense intelligence staff assessed the radiation readings taken from the landing site
	and well i don't know
	the ufo in the forest that sounds like it was a big story of the war
	Wembleton is it?
	Wendlesham.
	Wendlesham, thank you.
	The Wendlesham with an R. I got it.
	Alright.
	Talk about it.
	Okay, well this is without doubt Britain's most famous UFO case.
	It's certainly the most compelling evidence for an exotic explanation and we've just got through the 25th anniversary
	of this fascinating incident and it made a lot of media coverage
	here and which is interesting in itself. Not here Nick. Well you know that's
	a great shame but I had been working very hard to promote this anniversary and in
	fact I was commissioned by one of the national newspapers here in
	Britain, the Daily Express, to write a full-page feature on this.
	And that was very successful.
	There was also a lot of radio coverage, some television coverage, too.
	Well, then obviously you're in a unique position to tell us all about it.
	Yeah.
	The story is that in December 1980, effectively on Christmas night, a patrol of United States Air Force security officers at the twin bases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge in Suffolk saw lights in the forest and they thought that an aircraft from these bases, these were American Air Force bases in Britain, they thought that maybe one of the aircraft had crashed.
	Went out to investigate and to initiate a search-and-rescue operation.
	They didn't find a crashed aircraft.
	They found a landed UFO.
	A small, triangular-shaped craft, which was maneuvering through the trees.
	And at one point, this thing actually touched down in a clearing.
	And this is hugely important because this is where some of the best evidence came.
	Effectively, one of them, Jim Penniston, there were three people in the patrol, Jim Penniston got close enough to touch the side of this craft.
	So, you know, this is for all the people who say, well, it was a meteor or just the lights of the lighthouse.
	No, this was something that you could reach up and touch the side of.
	And there are sketches in the official witness statement, the United States Air Force documentation, showing the craft.
	And showing some symbols on the side of it, which I can only...
	likened to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
	Very much like the symbols, and of course I actually have heard this story before, Nick, but I'm kind of comparing notes here on what I heard and what I'm hearing now, and it's very much the same, but hieroglyphic type things?
	Yes, again, they're widely available on the internet.
	I just posted them on my own site.
	How similar in nature to the hieroglyphics described from Roswell?
	I'd have to do a comparative analysis.
	I'm just trying to recall, and I haven't got the Roswell material in front of me.
	Actually, there isn't Roswell material.
	I interviewed Jesse Marcel Jr.
	Yeah, I'm just trying to think of that I-beam.
	The I-beam, yes.
	He described them actually as hieroglyphic-like.
	Yes.
	I have seen the representation of that, but I'm afraid I can't recall the details well enough to say how much it has in common.
	How specifically are what's on the side of the craft there in Great Britain, the one you're talking about, how specifically accurate are the representations we have of what was written on that craft?
	I believe they're accurate, because Jim Penniston had his police notebook with him at the time, and he was actually able to sketch the thing contemporaneously.
	When he then got back to the base, he took his notebook, and of course, frankly, his hand had been shaking, I think.
	and make the drawings in his uh... notebook a little bit wobbly but he
	he uh... immediately wrote up a better version and uh... so i think given that this was
	and sketched at the time by a security policeman i think i think there is a fairly high degree of certainty
	that he got it pretty close
	I could not agree more, and I sure would like to see a copy of that shown to Jesse Marcel.
	Yes, that would be interesting.
	Wouldn't it ever.
	I wonder if it is the same.
	I wonder if you'd say, yeah, that's it.
	Well, as I say, I've posted it on my website in the photographic section.
	So he can have a look.
	So he could just go in.
	It's nickpope.net.
	It's as simple as that.
	And the Rendlesham sketches are there.
	OK.
	All right.
	So this thing actually came down and then its relative size was small.
	How big?
	Pretty small.
	Nothing like the craft that we were talking about in the previous hour.
	This thing was probably no more than maybe Four or five feet across and maybe nine or ten feet tall.
	Kind of almost like, dare I say, a lunar landing module, something like that.
	Or perhaps a robotic craft of some sort.
	Yeah, very possibly.
	And as I say, this thing actually touched down and the indentations where this thing had landed were We're still there the following morning, when they re-investigated the landing site.
	And they plotted it out, and it formed the shape of an equilateral triangle, suggesting that the thing had been on some sort of tripod-like landing leg.
	The quality of the witnesses, there were three total witnesses to it, is that correct?
	Actually seeing it on the ground?
	Yes, Jim Penniston, John Burroughs, and Ed Kvanasag.
	Now, were these military men?
	They were, yes.
	All United States Air Force from, I think, the 81st Security Police Squadron.
	My God.
	So these were the sort of security law enforcement cops, basically.
	Yes.
	I mean, something of this magnitude obviously can't be just brushed away.
	Did they actually do radiation readings?
	They did, yes.
	They took a Geiger counter out to the landing site and they got higher than than average readings, and the readings peaked, it won't
	surprise you to learn, in the three holes where this thing had come down. Now, these readings
	were then sent to the Ministry of Defense, and again, the Defense Intelligence staff looked at them
	and their assessments, and again, this is now a matter of public knowledge. This is in no way me
	telling a story that can't be backed up by the officially released papers.
	They're all out there.
	The Defense Intelligence staff said that the readings taken were, quote, significantly higher than background, unquote.
	And it goes on to talk about the figures, and it's higher by a factor of about seven.
	Now, this wasn't high enough to pose a danger to Any of the people there.
	Got it.
	It's evidentially significant, of course.
	Of course it is.
	Since you know the details of the story, one obvious question is, when you see something of this magnitude, you see a craft on the ground, my God, don't you immediately call in the cavalry?
	These people, almost like a lot of witnesses that I've spoken to, and I've spoken to hundreds of UFO witnesses, Not just members of the public, but police and military.
	Although the military are generally, of course, pretty good witnesses, they're human beings and I think they react in exactly the same way.
	They were kind of in a state of almost shock.
	I'm sure that's true.
	I won't say they froze.
	They were certainly just mesmerized by this.
	Is there any indication at all, Nick, that they were actually, perhaps, directly affected in some manner?
	Anything like that?
	There are some hints and clues, and certainly I've subsequently seen some interviews with Jim Penniston, and it's quite clear it's affected him Quite deeply.
	But, you know, the interesting thing about all this is this wasn't just these three people that saw it, because it came back on the following night.
	And on that occasion, there were many, many more witnesses, including a man who I'm sure you and your listeners have heard a lot about, Colonel Charles Holt.
	And what happened was Holt, of course, knew about these UFO sightings, and it was he who had The witness statements drawn up, the sketches formally recorded, and he was at a function the following evening.
	The door burst open and a young airman rushed up to him and he said, sir, it's back.
	And Holt looked a bit confused and he said, what?
	What's back?
	And the person said, the UFO.
	The UFO is back, sir.
	So Holt threw together a small team of about half a dozen people and they went out into the woods.
	He took, again, a guide encounter with him.
	He took a tape recorder and he's recorded his progress through the crime scene, if I can call it almost the crime scene, because that's almost the mentality.
	So, with a recorder?
	Yes.
	Where are these recordings?
	Again, they're all in the public domain.
	Oh, you're kidding.
	They're fairly widely available, and the genuine tape recording, I think sometimes, you know, I've seen documentaries on this case, and in America, this case is sometimes known as the Bentwaters case.
	Yes.
	That's the name of one of the two military establishments.
	This tape recording is played, but I think sometimes people don't stress enough, this is not a reconstruction.
	This is actually the real thing that was recorded on that night way back in 1980.
	And he talks about the craft coming their way.
	How long is the recording?
	It's about 17 minutes, but he was hitting the stop button every now and then.
	Do you have that recording?
	Yes, yes I do.
	You do?
	You don't have the capacity to play it on the phone, do you?
	I'm afraid not, no.
	What a shame.
	But it's widely available on the internet.
	If any of your listeners, after the show... Oh, they will.
	Where would... What would you suggest?
	Where do they go?
	Just... Oh, I know.
	There's a site, I think it's rendlesham-incident.co.uk and you can listen to the tape recording there.
	You want to spell that for us, please?
	It's R-E-N-D L-E-S-H-A-M dot, sorry, hyphen incident dot co dot UK.
	So Rendlesham hyphen incident dot co dot UK.
	Alternatively, if you just go on to Google and search on something like Charles Holt, and that's H-A-L-T, and tape recording.
	Something like that.
	Okay.
	And you'll find it.
	Alright.
	It talks about light beams coming down.
	It ends up talking about the UFO directly over the base, firing light beams down at one of the special storage areas.
	Was there any direct military response?
	No, there wasn't.
	Not as far as I'm aware.
	See, no one tried to engage this craft.
	Why not?
	Well, I don't know the answer to that, but knowing the technology of these things, it's probably a good job that they didn't.
	Well, maybe so, Nick, but you know, somewhere there's a commander, who's commander of that base, and he's got an unknown I think there were two problems.
	for a young object above a military base so to not respond it seems to me somewhere along the chain of command if you
	could get it from the military somebody said no
	i think the work two problems
	the first problem with that for most of the encounter the ufo was
	actually out in the forest and
	uh... carol halt who was the senior officer on duty of course was there
	and they had uh... coms problems Their radios kept cutting out, so it's doubtful that they would have been able to radio back to base.
	That was the first problem.
	The second issue is interesting in itself.
	Because this happened over the Christmas period, and that night, there was a fairly limited number of people.
	A lot of the key players were on leave.
	A lot of the key commanders would have probably had to have gotten up.
	And again, as I say, I didn't want to inadvertently mislead anyone.
	The UFO being directly over the base, it only happened very briefly, right at the end of the incident.
	What about radar?
	Inconclusive.
	The Ministry of Defense looked at the radar tapes for the night.
	Yes.
	yes question but again radar with systems were not switched on
	and some of the film some of the radar
	uh... did seem to be faulty that night now i know conspiracy theorists have
	read a lot into that and
	whether it's a well just hearing you say it i don't know
	It's kind of like in this country when they went digging at a very high level for records of the Roswell incident.
	Doggone it, Nick!
	Don't you know those records were, I think the words were, inadvertently destroyed or something like that.
	Yes.
	Well, at least we have our records, but again, one of the records does say Uh, that not all the radar equipment was functioning, and some of the equipment that was functioning was not functioning properly.
	So, the best thing I can say about that is inconclusive, but you know, recently, I was, uh, able to speak with a radar operator at a nearby Air Force base.
	Oh?
	And he said, and again this is now on the public record, um, he said that he had received a telephone call from the military base to say that they had an uncorrelated target over the establishment.
	Was there anything on radar?
	He said he looked down at his screen and just for about 30 seconds, maybe about three sweeps of the radar, he said there was something there and then it just faded away.
	Well, I've always had two thoughts about this, Nick.
	One, Here in the U.S., why we already have a craft that can pretty much evade radar.
	Yes.
	So if they're that far ahead of us and they don't want to be seen on radar, they're not going to be seen.
	And because we already have that technology, if they travel to God knows where, they don't have to be seen.
	So if they're seen, that means... They want to be seen.
	That's the only thing I can come to.
	I would agree with you on that, and it's interesting again, looking back at some of the things we've spoken about in the earlier part of the show, of course the Belgium UFO from 1990, that was tracked on radar, and of course the fact that it was tracked on radar is what caused them to launch the two F-16 fighter interceptors.
	The 1993 sightings that I spoke about, Weren't tracked on radar, although when I really dug down into it, I did find one or two inconclusive returns.
	I actually looked at the radar data myself, together with an Air Force officer for that.
	No kidding.
	We had it downloaded onto VHS video cassettes, sent to us, and we sat in front of a TV looking at these little dots fade in and out.
	But it was, as I say, it was inconclusive.
	It was nothing like Belgium.
	Where it was solid enough that a fighter controller instantly said, we've got an uncorrelated target in our airspace.
	Launch.
	Launch?
	Launch the aircraft.
	Oh, this brings us to another important topic, and that is shooting at UFOs.
	uh... nicole tight will be right back well i'm sure this is going to be uh... troublesome
	question but as one we've dealt with uh... here in the u s and uh...
	people are very differing views of it all
	There is actually a view out there, kind of like Bigfoot, that, you know, we should shoot one of them down.
	And then, you know, learn about it, and maybe we've already done it.
	At any rate, there is some evidence, certainly, that we have been shooting At UFOs.
	Perhaps even using Star Wars magnitude stuff to shoot at them.
	I mean, there's all kinds of stuff floating around out there.
	STS pictures and some of the rest of the stuff.
	What's your view, just sort of generally, Nick, on shooting at these things?
	Okay, well firstly, I should say that I've got nothing to add to this particular debate by way of first-hand knowledge.
	I've seen nothing In the Ministry of Defense, that leads me to suggest that Britain has been engaged in any kind of hostile action against UFOs, any attempt to engage them.
	Although, of course, over the years, if we've detected UFOs on radar, we have scrambled aircraft, but these have been generally armed with gun cameras, and the only shooting that we've tried to do is with film.
	But my own view, I mean just as a human being, is that violence should be the last resort and really we should only shoot if we're shot at.
	I think trying to shoot down a UFO out of curiosity or anything like that is Criminal and suicidal, and probably both.
	Well, in America we used to have that.
	We used to go by that.
	Only shoot when, you know, fired upon.
	Yeah.
	But you see, if you're dealing with a civilization that's more advanced than our own, and if you're really dealing with a civilization, as many believe, that is capable of interstellar travel, then shooting at them, however good we think, Our technology is probably not a very good idea because they can probably shoot back with bigger and nastier things.
	Yeah, I certainly follow that line of thinking, but I do think that... Also, just on a wider basis than that, we shouldn't be shooting at these people, we should be talking to them.
	Well, I wouldn't for a second disagree.
	It's just that the military, I mean, that's what they do.
	They shoot.
	And they particularly shoot things that they think might be a threat.
	And I'm convinced that, well, when they're over in military bases or, for example, missile silos here in this country or in You may be right.
	I think it would come down almost to an individual decision from the chain of command.
	be absolutely irresistible and that the military probably would do that uh... best in
	the middle i follow your line of reasoning that he would be stupid i just don't
	think that would stop them
	you may be right i think it would come down almost to an individual
	decision from from the uh...
	at the chain of command and rules of engagement is a whole
	area which i better not get into and
	just on their own rules of engagement and i'm...
	I'm not talking about any special rules of engagement with UFOs.
	I just mean sort of judgmental shoot-don't-shoot situations.
	Yes.
	It's a difficult area.
	It's a very difficult area, but my view is that if any of these UFOs really are craft belonging to extraterrestrial civilizations.
	We should be reaching out with the hand of friendship and trying to establish a dialogue and let's see what we can learn from each other.
	Nick, out of curiosity, if you were in charge of doing exactly that, reaching out with a hand of friendship, something very un-military like, but nevertheless you were in charge of trying to do that, how would you go about it?
	I think what I would start with is Just information.
	There was an article, and I'm afraid it escapes my memory, who it was, but somebody wrote an article, I believe in Scientific American some years ago, suggesting that SETI, if SETI detects signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, because of the light speed problem, the radio signals won't go any faster, so we won't be having two-way conversations, but there'll be a kind of galactic internet, a kind of cosmic internet, where civilizations effectively, you know, they put information about themselves out there.
	And I think, to answer your question, that's what I would do.
	I would say, this is our art, this is our mathematics, this is our Poetry.
	This is, now, a lot of that may not translate at all, but our understanding of mathematics would translate, of course.
	That's the truly universal language.
	So I would just put up all the information and say, look, this is us.
	Now tell us something about yourselves.
	Well, okay.
	If, this will drag you off point a little bit, but if a I don't know, intergalactic civilization were monitoring us, and we have every reason to believe that they probably are.
	I mean, that's what these craft are all about, is some sort of monitoring.
	They would be able to look down on our world, and look at what's going on, and make certain judgments, even from relatively afar, Nick.
	They could come to some conclusions, and you know, not all of them Would necessarily have favorable results for us.
	They wouldn't.
	I think Stanton Friedman characterized us as a primitive civilization whose primary activity is tribal warfare.
	We do seem to have a lot of that, yes.
	I think that stands quite... We have a lot of that, yes.
	No question about it.
	Yeah, but for every Hitler there's a Shakespeare, and for every person Who's doing some questionable things.
	There are people doing charitable works and people concerned about the environment and people concerned about animal welfare and such like.
	So I think if someone was truly looking at us.
	Um, they would see that, well, there's good and bad.
	Well, do you know, I hope you're right, Nick, but, uh, somebody like Dr. Michio Kaku, who I interview frequently, thinks that, uh, the kind of civilization that would produce the craft that would get here, that would be monitoring us right now, might perhaps not regard us any more than we would regard an anthill.
	Uh, some of the ants, uh, having come into our kitchen.
	I accept that there is probably going to be a gulf of technology and that they'll be more advanced, but I don't agree with that, because I think that we do display things that would set us apart.
	You think the good qualities would shine through, Nick?
	I think they would, and I think the curiosity as well, the fact that we're doing things like sending space probes to nearby planets and indeed out of the solar system, the fact that we have a SETI program listening, I think it shows that the human spirit is ultimately one of questing, one of adventure, one of trying to reach out for answers.
	Even if they're more advanced than us by a big factor, there's something about that that would say, well, you know, they're explorers, too.
	They're adventurers.
	Let's talk a little bit about reaction.
	Now, you mentioned SETI, and I've always been fascinated by that, and of course you're right.
	If we got a signal, in all likelihood it would be so many light years away that in our lifetimes we would not have an opportunity to respond.
	Nick, what if instead we had the equivalent of a 50,000 watt broadcast from low orbit saying, Earthlings, look up.
	We're here.
	Now, what kind of reaction do you think that would provoke?
	Well, I'm not a psychologist, but I think what I could say is that the world would change forever on that day.
	and people would look back and they would characterize this as there being a time before
	we knew for sure and there being a time after we knew for sure that we're not alone.
	Yes.
	But further than that, not being a psychologist, I really don't know.
	I've heard all the theories, of course.
	But Brooks did even more than theories.
	They sort of studied the whole thing.
	And, you know, a faraway signal, oh, that'd be great.
	Fascinating.
	We'd all have a blast with it.
	There'd be no threat.
	But if it were that 50,000 watt from low Earth orbit with an obvious ship attached to it, Um, you know, I think institutions would crumble.
	I think religions would stumble.
	I think that infrastructure would come to a halt.
	I think that all kinds of things would happen, because then it would be immediate.
	It wouldn't be something that you'd academically study for the next hundred years and try to decode.
	It would be, oh my God, look, there it is.
	Yes, I agree with you on that.
	It's the immediacy that would certainly provoke a reaction.
	At risk of sounding glib, I think that reaction would depend what the message was.
	If it was, uh, prepare to be invaded, then, you know, I take your point, but if it's, uh, something like, you're not alone, and we have technology to share with you, and we have a welcoming hand to extend, um... Which do you think is the more likely, Nicky?
	Obviously, the latter.
	Yes, I like to think so.
	You're an optimist.
	Maybe that's the optimist in me.
	You are an optimist.
	There are others who write of the other and you've got to admit that there is the possibility that perhaps Earth is pretty rare after all in so many ways.
	We're a green oasis as we look at different planets and different systems.
	We are quite rare and perhaps we have a place that would be coveted by others.
	I can't dispute that.
	It's a possibility.
	And of course, if we were judging by our own pretty dire record, instances of contact between technologically advanced and less technologically advanced civilizations have not played out very well for the underdog.
	Not historically.
	Not historically.
	We're back to optimism.
	Let's hope they're better than we are.
	Morally.
	Well yes, let's hope.
	At any rate, eventually you left this official project and the obvious question is why?
	I'd just come to the end of my tour of duty.
	There was nothing unusual.
	I'd just served three years and actually at the end of it I was promoted.
	Oh really?
	But I would have been moved on a level transfer anyway.
	Was that for saying something like, well, whatever these are, they're not a threat to national security.
	I couldn't possibly comment.
	Oh, wait a minute, your answer was, I couldn't possibly comment on that?
	No, I'm joking.
	There was nothing untoward or sinister, it was just It's just the regular cycle of postings that you get in government all the time.
	A lot of people in the audience would certainly like to know that during your tour of duty doing this, was there ever an instance where somebody in greater authority than yourself said, don't report that?
	Don't?
	No.
	No, there wasn't.
	There never was?
	No.
	Nor even subtle pressure?
	Like, do you like your job?
	There were some comments along the lines of, I think you've probably spent as much time on that investigation as productive.
	But I don't read that, before you react, I don't read that as anything other than effectively good line management.
	Just saying, look, there comes a point in any UFO investigation where if you're not going to crack it, you're not going to crack it.
	There are other things.
	It wasn't at all sinister.
	Okay.
	Of course, there'd be no way of knowing whether that person who had just made that comment to you, which is sort of a suggestion, might have known that you were about to stumble into something gigantic.
	Yes.
	I mean, I can't prove that, but I suspect that had that been the case, I wouldn't have been allowed to start the investigation at all, because you never know, in an investigation, when you are going to stumble across the solution.
	And I was never really obstructed in any way.
	I had other things to be doing, and resources were limited.
	Well, you said you got a promotion when you left.
	Yes.
	Did you issue an official conclusion?
	No.
	Effectively, the conclusions were almost done on a case-by-case basis.
	In other words, they were either explained as whatever it was that we tracked down that in all probability had been seen, or they were unexplained.
	Now, of course, I took my job as being to try and have as few unexplained as possible.
	If I was doing a good investigation, I figured I should be able to get a solution to most of these UFO sightings.
	Of course, I began to realize, and my conclusion, although it wasn't an official one at the end of the project, was that there are always going to be ones that we can't explain.
	And there is some intriguing evidence that some of these UFOs really are craft.
	They're displaying speeds and maneuvers way ahead of anything that we've got.
	Nick, that's wonderful.
	If you had actually given that to them as an official sort of wrap-up explanation, do you think you would have been promoted?
	I don't know.
	Because that wouldn't quite have been the party line.
	Although, to be fair, the party line, which you can read on the Ministry of Defense website, is that the department is open-minded about the possibilities.
	Well, that's not bad.
	It's an encouraging statement.
	It is.
	The official statement also says we are aware of no evidence that would support an extraterrestrial conclusion.
	The way I characterize it personally now is there is some evidence, but there isn't proof.
	I think that's a subtle distinction which is often not made.
	Yes, quite right.
	I think we've been talking about some of the things that I would constitute as evidence.
	Sightings by trained observers, radiation readings.
	See, it's so compelling that I wonder why it didn't force some kind of You know, conclusion statement on your part that, oh God, I don't know, hinted at something so gigantic.
	Nick, how could you avoid making such a statement?
	Yeah, well, we didn't really do end of tour reports.
	Just like you didn't have a name.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Maybe we should have done, but we never did.
	It was not the Uh, the process.
	You just simply, I took over from someone who'd been doing that job, and I handed over to someone who carried on doing that job.
	Oh.
	Um, is there any body of stories to be had, uh, about your predecessor or he who followed you?
	Um, not really.
	Very few of them have spoken out in public.
	One of my predecessors, um, in fact the head of the division, was a man called Ralph Noyce.
	And he went on, after his retirement from government service, to take a great interest in UFOs, crop circles, and psychic matters.
	Well, you certainly have spoken out.
	Were you concerned when you began speaking publicly, as you are tonight, about all of this, that maybe there'd be repercussions?
	Well, I did wonder whether it would affect my career.
	But I think, looking back over the years, and again, I've written about this quite widely, but looking back, Even right at the heart of the British establishment, there's been almost a skeptic versus believer debate raging for many years about the UFO phenomenon.
	Many, many senior figures in Britain, great figures like Lord Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten, Lord Dowding, great establishment heroes have spoken out as to their belief In an extraterrestrial reality.
	It's just the nature of the connection with Great Britain now.
	Beyond that, obviously don't call and say, Nick, my Uncle Fred saw a light back in Ohio somewhere.
	Can you tell me what it was?
	Because obviously he's not going to be able to.
	Here we have the man who ran the equivalent of Project Blue Book in Britain.
	So if you have something to ask about his career, or about what he's encountered, or something that would make sense to ask Nick, Then please bring it on.
	We just gave the numbers, the portals to get in and be part of all this.
	It should be a very interesting hour.
	It all depends on the nature of your questions.
	coming up once again nick
	pope and just for we are the phones on that guy i wanna ask something on
	Most of our world is water, not land, right?
	Sure.
	There have been all these reports, Nick, that we've sort of heard rumors about here in the U.S.
	About these fast walkers, these things that are tracked by national security agencies, whether it be from the ground or satellite, that actually they've seen many of these things traversing the atmosphere, like 25,000 miles an hour, the higher atmosphere, and I wonder what you've got from Britain on that sort of thing.
	Have you looked into any of that?
	Well, certainly we've had all sorts of uncorrelated targets on the radar, and I was saying earlier about the mindset sometimes, is that whether you're looking at a conventional air traffic control radar, whether you're looking at a military radar, or even if you're using, say, the ballistic missile early warning center space tracking radar, all sorts of strange things, as you say, do turn up, but if the mindset is that anything that moves incredibly fast must be a fireball, then it's the mindset that you really need to challenge.
	Yes, we do get these things, but until the training manuals say, don't assume, please don't assume that just because it goes that fast, it's a meteor or a fireball, until that change is made, we won't get any answers.
	All right, let's go to the phones.
	First time caller line.
	You're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Hi.
	Good evening, gentlemen.
	This is Carmen near Cleveland in the great state of Ohio.
	Yes, sir.
	Mr. Pope, pardon me for being particularly inquisitive.
	It's rare stage to ask a person of such stature and establishment with questions in the search for truth and clarity.
	But I make a couple assumptions here.
	I assume there are aspects of your distinguished career or your previous career that You're not privy to freely discuss with the public.
	I sort of asked him that.
	He said, well, Nick?
	Yeah, that's entirely correct, yes.
	There are various things that I can't go into.
	There's nothing that's going to turn anything that I've said on its head.
	Correct.
	There's no implication through that.
	I assume you were never briefed at any time during your tenure about the existence or even the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence?
	Outside of our Earth, through physical or tangible or communicative evidence?
	No.
	I never had a briefing that said, we know these things are real.
	I never was shown any artifact and was told this came from a craft.
	Now, I did have a briefing where certainly some people in the Defense Intelligence staff spoke quite openly about the possibilities of these things.
	Being extraterrestrial, but they didn't, that briefing was not given from a point of view of, we know, but it was more a speculative, look, what else could it be with some of these things?
	Well you said there was somebody in your position previous to yourself, right?
	Oh yes, dating back, there are many, many people have held the job dating right back to the 50s.
	Is there somebody holding that job now?
	There is, but the slightly, depending on your view, disheartening thing is that we have been a victim of our own openness, if I can say it that way.
	You can say it that way.
	I mentioned earlier our Freedom of Information Act, which only came fully into force just over a year ago.
	Now, it won't surprise you to learn that in terms of The requests made under the Freedom of Information Act to the Ministry of Defense, requests for information about UFOs are right up there in about the top three, alongside things like the Iraq War and various other situations.
	How about answers?
	I mean, what kind of answers are people getting?
	People are getting documents.
	There has been a steady program of These documents are requested here in America.
	We get an awful lot of redaction.
	You know, the big black stuff.
	You get that over there?
	website and increasing number of
	ufo document on mail steadily being published
	or a lot of money with these documents requested here in america we get uh...
	an awful lot of reduction uh... you know the big black uh...
	stuff from you get that over there
	uh... the same rules apply yes information to be redacted but
	so far the documents that have been released
	uh... have pretty much been released in
	Um, the.
	The decision seems to be either release or don't release.
	The sorts of things that are redacted are generally only the names of officials.
	And indeed the names of the witnesses.
	Oh, we've got a lot more than that redacted.
	Oh yes, I've seen the sorts of documents that again, researchers like Stan Friedman show around from the NSA.
	But generally speaking, there's a limited, very, very limited redaction in the British documents.
	But going back to the original question, what this has meant is that the The section that is involved in the UFO phenomenon is now having to devote virtually all of its time to dealing with these FOI requests, and I do not believe that they are really even in the business of research and investigation of the phenomenon anymore.
	Well, maybe the staff needed to answer these requests will grow larger than the staff looking into the problem.
	I think that's That may well be the case, yes.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Morning, gentlemen.
	Morning.
	Yes, this is Bob from Sherman Oaks, California, and I've been researching UFO phenomena for over 25 years, and a case I was going to tell you about, I'm actually a strong supporter in the government keeping UFO phenomena away from the general public, classifying it, because... Because?
	Because after what I've seen, it would turn our civilization upside down.
	Well, why don't you enlarge on that a little bit, then.
	What do you mean, it would turn civilization upside down?
	What have you seen?
	Number one, I've worked with people in the investigative community, and I've investigated this information UFO phenomenon for about 25 years, like I said.
	Now, you've said that already.
	What have you seen that would turn civilization upside down?
	The general population, the military, they have a lot of good thinkers.
	And the general population couldn't have the ability to investigate the phenomena of what's going on.
	The surveillance we're under with these, you call them ETs or whatever, what have you, what's going on is beyond our comprehension in a lot of scientific areas.
	How they're getting here, how they're moving about.
	Just do the best you can with words and try and answer that question, sir.
	What is it you have seen that would turn civilization upside down?
	First of all, if the government were to tell people that there's another existence, be it a biological robot or an extraterrestrial that were conducting surveillance, monitoring us, doing medical research on us, Cataloging us, manipulating our events of history, and doing things like securing military bases so they can't perform certain technologies that they're developing, interfering with cities and technologies and so on.
	But the main reason, actually, I called it was basically that in the early 50s, our scientists We're investigating a UFO phenomenon, and we did actually have one crash that we intentionally used.
	We figured out, our scientists, our physicists figured out how they're operating, and we used an oscillated microwave frequency to de-orbit one of these things.
	All right.
	To de-orbit one of these things.
	Okay, well, who knows?
	Who knows?
	I mean, you get a call like that, Nick, and I don't know what you do with it.
	Well, there's an old saying in The intelligence community.
	Interesting, if true.
	I think that's how I characterize that call.
	I can't evaluate.
	I can't either.
	But you know, the first part of what he was saying was kind of interesting, and that was that, you know, there could be knowledge out there that simply couldn't be given to the general public.
	And if it was given to the general public, it would have such a horrible impact on all of our social structures that You know, as he said, if we were being examined medically and sort of dissected every now and then and watched, we'd just... Yes.
	I guess I'd agree with that.
	I guess I'd agree with that.
	All I'd say is that I don't really have any information that would support that hypothesis.
	I mean, I agreed with what your caller said about there being some great thinkers in the military, but there are great thinkers in all sorts of other fields, too, and I think it's It's arrogant to assume that only the military would have a take on this.
	I think the civilian scientific community would be able to contribute.
	You know, I come back to the point, I think if we had some of these technologies and had figured out how to use them, I don't know why we'd be doing space shuttles and rockets anymore at all.
	Nor do I. East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Nick Pope in Great Britain.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Yeah, hi, Art.
	You're going to have to yell at us.
	You're not very loud.
	Okay.
	Art, Nick, thank you very much for taking my call.
	Nick, I have a question to ask you about that large triangular craft you saw.
	Yeah.
	The one I saw was up in Franconia Notch up in New Hampshire back in 1994 in October.
	I was up there looking at the Milky Way.
	You could actually read a book up in Franconia Notch by the Milky Way.
	That's how bright it is.
	The stars are at night.
	And it was a totally, you know, cold, clear night.
	And this craft, it blotted out the stars.
	There were no running lights.
	It was easily 300 feet on the side, equilateral triangle, and it appeared to have some type of hemispheric dome on its belly.
	But the curious thing about this, and I really I appreciate talking to somebody who's actually an official with some government about this.
	And you mentioned that you saw one?
	And your question, sir, is?
	My question is, did he notice any type of engines firing on this thing?
	I noticed nine engines on the side of it, probably 100 feet across on the 300 foot side.
	And when these bright blue engines, or whatever they are, flashed, it took off like a bat out of hell.
	It was unbelievable.
	Okay, well that's a new one.
	I haven't heard that described before.
	Okay, well, I should just clarify the situation.
	I haven't seen this thing myself.
	I think I was describing an RAF officer at a base called RAF Shawbury, and he was relaying this to me and then of course art you with
	thing about your own you know i i i think you've never personally uh...
	i've never seen a ufo myself sadly and
	well-liked i do live in a hurry and i think it's
	hugely unfair that all you guys have these fantastic sightings and
	i got it one that
	government ufo project and i am haven't been one
	i wonder if i wonder i wonder nick if you had seen one and you had become
	public about it whether you would still have the job i i don't know but uh... of course i'm not doing that job
	now so you know it would be interesting to
	to see do you think you could have if you had seen something for example as
	that color has seen and i have seen you know that close so that you're really see
	Bleh.
	Yes.
	Could you do the job then from that point forward could you really do the job?
	I probably could not have done the job because I think I could only really do that job effectively if I was coming to each and every case Really, with an open mind and a blank sheet of paper, if I had believed in any of this, or had seen something, I don't think I could have been even-handed in my investigations.
	Very interesting.
	And with great reluctance, because of course it was a fantastic job.
	I think if I'd have seen something, I would have had to have placed an official report on the record.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Ask one of my colleagues to investigate, and then I think I would have had to have asked for a transfer to other duties.
	I think I would have been compromised.
	It was not very many years, Nick, after I started doing this kind of program that I had my sighting, and I struggled terribly.
	With whether or not to make it public.
	And then when I finally did, I dragged my poor wife in front of the microphone as well and made her confirm everything that I was saying.
	But I, prior to that, I struggled with it terribly because I discussed this kind of subject matter and I wasn't sure what it would do to me.
	Sure.
	And it has affected me.
	There's no way not to be affected.
	Once you've actually seen it close up, your life is never quite the same.
	Ever.
	That's certainly what I understand from my dealings with witnesses, but I'm conscious I haven't answered your call of the original question, which is about the lights and the potential engines, power source or whatever.
	Just to describe what was seen in this particular UFO sighting in 1993, and this is a description that I've heard before, is essentially People viewing this from almost directly underneath and seeing an equilateral triangle or in some cases a slightly more elongated triangle and seeing three lights in each of the corners and one larger but dimmer light in the middle.
	That's effectively the description that I received.
	Wow.
	And this craft was, again, just to go back to the point that Cora made, I sort of talk about a flat triangle, almost like a, at risk of trivializing it, a slice of pizza or something, but that kind of shape.
	That definitely trivializes it a bit, because it was just monstrous and silent and amazing.
	I'm just trying to really characterize something flat and triangular.
	No, I've got it.
	Some of the other descriptions did suggest at a little bit more height and depth, so there were some indications that we were dealing, in some of these cases at least, not with something flat and triangular, but something more diamond shaped.
	Right.
	Let me squeeze a call in.
	Willis to the Rockies.
	You're on the air with Nick Pope in Great Britain.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	This is Roger from Washington State.
	Yes, sir.
	And two years ago, I think it was about two years ago, and I can't remember whether it was a magazine article.
	It seems to me that it was actually a newspaper article.
	I read that Israel was developing a craft.
	With a light alloy exostructure which would be filled with a helium or a lighter than air gas and it would be parked in a geosynchronous orbit, sub-orbit, above their country.
	And I was wondering if Nick had maybe heard anything about anything like that?
	I'm afraid the very short answer to that is I haven't.
	I know that I saw this article, and have you ever heard anything like that, Art?
	No, and it was going to be parked where?
	it would be it would be that the the the structure would be filled with this gas
	and and so that it would be a lighter than in basically not lighter than air
	but it was needed to elevate up to a suborbit you know tomorrow night's going to be really interesting
	James McCanney's going to be here.
	He's a physicist and he's had decades in promoting, among other things, and we're going to talk many things, his view of what comets are.
	Not the dirty snowballs that NASA has been always saying they, you know, they thought they were, knew they were, really.
	And now, Project Stardust is done.
	We have obtained material from a comet tail.
	We have it back.
	We've analyzed it.
	And so it's going to be a hell of a night to have McKinney on the air.
	And that'll be tomorrow night.
	Tonight, Nick Pope in Great Britain.
	And Nick, welcome back.
	Hello, yeah.
	The caller, you're also back.
	I cut you off, so anything else?
	Well, no.
	I've always thought that that would be a logical uh... type of uh... crafted develop you know something with
	it with a lighter than and air i'd gas in it
	and uh... i don't like you know i can't remember if it was an article but i've
	always watch for some follow-up on that article and i've never seen anything
	i must admit i haven't either uh... and so nick uh... you know he's right in a
	way i don't know that would go to help kids he was talking about you
	synchronous but uh... certainly some kind of
	i mean we didn't really abandon the whole project after uh... the
	hindenburg right
	No, that's correct, and certainly I've seen some more generic material about airship technology and such like, but I guess A bit of Googling may well be the answer to this one.
	There you have it, International Line.
	Good morning, you're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Good morning.
	Hi, gentlemen.
	Yes.
	It's a pleasure to be on your show, Art.
	I've been a long-time listener, first-time caller from Winnipeg, Canada.
	Yes, sir.
	Listening on the Superstation, CJOB, and we're glad to have it.
	Just a question for your guest.
	Basically, I'm like Art has mentioned, I've spotted a couple UFOs up here in Canada.
	I spent a good deal of time up north, and I saw a documentary a number of months ago, for the second or third time, on orbs, that you have a tremendous amount of crop circles over in the UK, and there was a number of amateur, I would imagine them to be amateur, photographers up on a hillside.
	They had a beautiful view of the valley, and this huge Cornfield, I guess it was, perhaps.
	Nick has seen the video, haven't you, Nick?
	I bet she has.
	Now, there are two videos that people often mention.
	One is where you actually see a formation appear, and I think most of the reports that I've heard suggest that that is a fake.
	But the one, do you mean the one with the little ball of light moving quite fast and very low through the fields and then coming close to a tractor?
	Is that the one?
	Absolutely.
	That is the one I had in mind.
	That's the one.
	Yes.
	Now that is an intriguing piece of film footage, not least because I believe that Colin Andrews subsequently tracked down the driver of the tractor who, quite independently, from the people taking the film was able to corroborate the story.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	I'm virtually certain that's something that Colin Andrews has published.
	Yes, that is an extremely intriguing piece of film footage.
	I've seen it.
	Of course, it was never sent to me at the Ministry of Defence.
	I can't recall quite when it was taken, so it's not a piece of footage that I was able to get any experts to look at and analyze.
	Nick, maybe I should ask you, did your agency, your no-named agency, investigate crop circles, mutilations, that kind of thing?
	We had a watching brief, certainly on crop circles.
	I think the best way I can answer your question is to say that certainly in my experience it was impossible To run a UFO project without finding yourself on the receiving end of any reports that don't really kind of fit the pattern.
	So crop circles, animal mutilations, ghosts seen on military bases, alien abductions, anything weird and wonderful was reported to me.
	I had people phone up and ask if they could remote view for their country and become psychic spies.
	I had people ask me what plans the Ministry of Defence was developing to develop technologies to engage road comets or asteroids on collision course with the Earth.
	So yeah, the UFO project, although its terms of reference didn't cover these things, inevitably the reports had to go somewhere and they came to us.
	Do you have any comment at all?
	I mean, since you're a Brit, you know, Britain seems to attract crop circles like iron filings to a magnet, Nick.
	Why is that?
	Well, I'm going to say something which probably won't be too popular with some of your listeners, but I think that most, if not all, of the complex patterns, I believe, are probably made by people.
	That's all right.
	But I think that There is a genuine phenomenon in terms of the very simple circles.
	And that, you know, it hasn't gone away.
	It's just that it's not being reported when there are all these much more newsworthy crop circles which make much better pictures in the newspapers.
	And I think the answer there, frankly, is likely to be some form of meteorological phenomenon.
	But I don't buy into the theory that these are being caused by UFOs, either landing in some way and swirling these patterns or creating them with some sort of directed energy weapon.
	I just haven't seen anything that would support that hypothesis.
	Well, maybe you could explain to us how these intricate, amazing formations get done over acres and acres and acres of land without people getting caught in that sort of thing.
	I just... we all wonder about that.
	I think the first point is to stress that Although people have this image of Doug and Dave as being the kind of archetypal crop circle hoaxes, I think that firstly the answer is there are much larger teams of people out, so there's just more or less work for the individuals to do, and everyone has their little piece to do.
	Answer to your question, and I'm going to have to choose my words extremely carefully here for legal reasons and not mention any names, is that, of course, some farmers might find it quite lucrative to have a pattern on their crop.
	No!
	Because the value of the lost and trampled corn pales into insignificance when you add up the fact that once word gets around, as long as you Put a couple of people at the gate and take a pound at a time for someone to come in and lurk.
	Over the course of a long summer's weekend, certain farmers could stand to make several thousand pounds.
	Because the interest, of course, is that big.
	So again, choosing my words carefully.
	The issue about not being discovered and things like that, well, they might have some inside help or even inside sponsorship to produce these patents.
	Well, I mean, you've certainly seen them.
	Some of them are gigantic, complex beyond all reason for a bunch of kids with boards or whatever.
	Well, I think it's more sophisticated than that.
	Oh, it must be.
	I suspect people are doing computer programs I suspect there are artists and designers engaged on this.
	Let's say that I buy all of that.
	Shouldn't we by now caught some people or had some people come up and admit they were part of a very complex scheme and then laid out for us how they've done it because looking at some of them it just doesn't seem humanly possible particularly for them to have formed in such relatively short periods of time.
	There is a legitimate Perhaps criminal mystery here.
	Yes.
	Two answers to your question.
	Firstly, at least one person has been caught making crop circles and was actually charged and convicted of criminal damage.
	Good.
	The second answer is as to why the people engaged in really complex patterns wouldn't come out and say so.
	I think it would be like, you know, killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
	Part of their motivation is to keep the mystery going.
	Well, they're doing a damn good job of it, for the most part.
	I think of these formations as being art, and in a sense, I think, to understand it, one has to look at the mindset of the conceptual artist, where, for a conceptual artist, the effect of the artwork Sure.
	the population is as much part of what they're creating as the pattern itself.
	And part of the conceptual art is, I think, getting these things in the papers,
	getting them discussed at news conferences, UFO conferences, and
	wherever. Now, I know there's a very deep-held belief in the minds of many
	people that there's more to it than that.
	I know I've just upset a big bunch of people and I apologize for that.
	Not tell you what I think, and that's what I think.
	Okay, well, I just, you know, I'm willing to follow that path with you, but it just seems the size and the quickness with which some of these are laid down, and then of course you mentioned the lights, right, that were captured on video.
	I mean, there is something, I'm sure that a lot of it is, I don't know, physics students maybe out having a blast at night, a lot of them, or something, but not all of them.
	I guess the last point that I would make on that is that, of course, I might be wrong, and I keep an open mind.
	Well, again, they're doing a good job.
	First time caller line, you're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, gentlemen.
	I'm interested to know what information you can share with us, of Mr. Belt's audience, about UFOs in regard to either war games or other types of battle and you know, say in the Falkland Islands or in the Middle East or wherever and I'll be glad to take your comments off the air.
	Okay, war gaming.
	Has there been any interference or any observation made at war games?
	Not as far, well no, hang on, let me correct that.
	Yes, of course there's been a A long history of close association between UFO sightings and military bases.
	In terms of military exercises, yes, I guess the story of Operation Main Brace in the 50s is fairly well known, that UFOs were detected in a big NATO exercise.
	And I'm aware of a case more recently involving a British Navy ship, HMS Manchester.
	Uh, which was again on a NATO exercise up, I think, with the Norwegians and some other nations on what's called a JMC, a Joint Maritime Course, the regular naval exercise that NATO does.
	And again, there were sightings of UFOs there.
	As to any interference, I'm not aware of that.
	And as for an actual war zone, Of course, I've seen reports in the literature, but I haven't seen any official reports relating to Iraq or the Falklands or anything like that.
	I mean, I guess the point I would make is, of course, there are an awful lot of things flying around, everything from aircraft to missiles, AAA, so there's kind of a lot of things in the sky anyway.
	All right, good enough.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Good morning.
	Good evening, gentlemen.
	Jim in Baltimore.
	Yes, sir.
	I think we all made some interesting inferences about that exchange that your government had with the U.S.
	Yes.
	I was wondering if you had any other examples of that.
	I think the last caller might have diluted this question a bit, but, you know, the proximity you have with other European nations, I was wondering if you had any other examples such as that.
	No, there are very few examples.
	My brief, when I was doing the job, was really just to look at sightings in the United Kingdom.
	Inevitably, I did try to make some contacts a little bit wider.
	For example, where we got questions, as we did still, about the Belgian sightings.
	When you say brief, Nick, you mean your orders, your directives?
	Yes, effectively the terms of reference of the project, which is just To look at UFO sightings reported to me in the UK to see if there was evidence of a threat.
	My brief did not say go and start investigating UFO reports that you might have read occurred in China or anything like that.
	At any time, to your knowledge, with the man who had the job previous to you and or the ones subsequent, has there been an assessment of threat?
	Not a formal one, no.
	Not in the sense that a military intelligence officer would understand the concept of threat assessment.
	Now that doesn't mean that people haven't speculated more informally over the years, and I think I mentioned some fairly big establishment figures who did, and in fact someone who I didn't mention, Lord Hill Norton, the former Chief of our Defence Staff, Uh, coming out and speaking about his belief in an extraterrestrial reality.
	Now, the Chief of the Defense Staff, that's kind of the equivalent of, um, your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
	That's big.
	Or rather, a former Chairman of someone like Colin Powell suddenly coming out and talking about an extraterrestrial reality.
	You're right, that's big.
	When people of that caliber speak out, I think, uh, I think people should listen.
	I agree.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Nick Pope.
	Good morning.
	Yes, am I on the air?
	You are.
	Yes, going back a couple of calls, I wanted to comment on the crop circles.
	I think you perceive a substance to them, Art, because say the Tibetans, they make very intricate, they call them mandala symbols, and a mandala symbolism is a reflection, a psychic reflection of a person's mind.
	And these Tibetans, they meditate on these people.
	Okay, we're very short on time, so your point is, your question?
	That was just a comment that that's what you might be saying.
	My actual question is, it's not, are these people hallucinating, but it is, what is the psychological aspect to this entire subject of seeing UFOs, because certainly there's got to be a great portion of it.
	Alright, I think we've got it.
	So how much of it is, I don't know, can be attributed to some sort of psychological maladjustment on the part of the people claiming these stories?
	I think a very small percentage, but it would be irresponsible to pretend that it wasn't there, and I think one could say the same of the abduction reports, that certainly there may well be psychological explanations to some, but not all of those points.
	Picking up on your caller's first point, there's some very interesting potential research to be done, I guess, between linkages in crop circle patterns, symbols The title of your book is a good way to wrap it up.
	The title of your book is Open Skies, Closed Minds.
	Open Skies, Closed Minds.
	I love the title.
	symbology as it were, a science of symbology and some of the ancient patterns drawn.
	Alright, well the title of your book is a good way to wrap it up. The title of your
	book is Open Skies, Closed Minds. Open Skies, Closed Minds.
	I love the title. Buddy, we're out of time.
	Okay, well it's been great to be on the show.
	It's been great to have you on the program and you can bet we're going to have you on again.
	Nick, thanks a million.
	Thank you.
	Have a good night.

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