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Sept. 25, 2009 - Art Bell

02:27:43

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Economic Meltdown and Spiricom Fraud - Stephen Rorke - Joe Meyer

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	From the Southeast Asian capital city of the Philippines, presently inundated by a big tropical storm, I bid you good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world, and welcome to yet another edition of Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm Art Bell, filling in for George Norrie, who's taking a well-deserved night off.
	This is quite a storm we're having over here, folks.
	I'm in some ways surprised that I'm on the air.
	And I would like to direct you to the website, coasttocoastam.com.
	I've got some photographs up that I think you'd be interested in.
	It's really amazing what's going on here right now.
	Reminding you, I'm here on the 19th floor.
	of a condo building in uh... metro manila uh... actually off to the side of metro manila a little bit but nevertheless in metro manila and uh... as of yesterday we had a what was a tropical depression out there and we knew it was going to cause us trouble kind of headed in our direction and uh... I guess overnight it decided to become a full-blown tropical storm And head a little more in our direction and I've got a storm track up there and that storm track has changed according to the discussion on the website so that it's now not tracking north of us but tracking right toward us.
	You'll see that it's supposed to track a little north of Manila.
	But it's tracking right toward us at the moment.
	You never know what it'll do, but oh my goodness gracious!
	I've got some photographs up there, again, zoomed in a little bit, of course, from the 19th floor, and you can't see the rain coming down, because for some reason the camera won't catch the rain.
	It just catches a kind of fog, but the rain is coming down sideways.
	And the wind is howling and, let's see how to put this, we're kind of in an area of Manila that is, if you were to see it, it's more like any American street.
	You know, it's paved and two sides and well maintained and we've got storm drains and all that kind of stuff here.
	It's virtually the Park Avenue of Manila.
	And so we don't get flooding usually.
	But this has been so incredible that if you look carefully at the photographs I put up there, one of them I took, two of them actually, were taken an hour apart.
	And the flooding an hour ago was looking pretty worrisome.
	And then an hour later, it was looking downright terrifying, beginning to be concerned for our cars in the parking garage.
	And I was watching people wade through the street, which was waist deep.
	In fact, if you're able to blow up that larger picture, I think I've got a cash problem here, so I'm not seeing it the way I think you are.
	But if you're able to blow up that larger picture, this was now about an hour ago.
	And you will see people down in the streets surrounding a car.
	There's always some idiot, right, who'll drive right into floodwaters, and here is no exception.
	And he drove right in, so there's a whole group around trying to help him get out of there.
	And that's directly below our condominium, and that is serious, serious flooding.
	It's good, waist-deep stuff.
	So, that's what's going on in Manila.
	Now, let me warn you, if we will probably remain on the air, But if we have a power failure, which frankly I've expected to occur before now, the emergency generators will come on and we will be back on the air in about 30 seconds or less.
	So just sort of be expecting that.
	I mean, it's howling over here.
	You have no idea.
	And that storm is still at sea.
	It hasn't made landfall yet.
	So it's going to get a lot worse.
	And it's going to get a lot worse during the course of the program.
	So if we go off the air, bear with us, something else will come on, you know, and you'll hear some past show for about 30 seconds and then we'll be back.
	Anyway, that's the state of affairs.
	We are getting slammed by what is a increasing in strength tropical storm here in Manila, Philippines.
	Aside from that, what do you have to look forward to tonight?
	A really, really, really good show.
	As you know, the In the first hour, the G20 meeting is going on, or was going on, right?
	In Pittsburgh?
	I think the President said that he averted, or we have averted, you know, a catastrophe economically.
	That remains to be seen, in my opinion.
	But it was a good pronouncement at the G20.
	Now, I'm going to have, in the first hour, a 1G meeting.
	That means one guy.
	The one guy is very interesting though.
	His name is Joe Meyer and I had him on the air May 1st of 2004.
	I want you to kind of want you to listen very carefully for a moment.
	Back on May 1st of 2004, Joe Meyer came on the program with me and said some of the following.
	Joe Meyer is an arbitrator and mediator for the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange.
	He discussed the probability on that day of a worldwide financial meltdown looming in our future.
	It's back in 2004, right?
	What could be some of the contributing factors of the coming economic Armageddon, his words?
	Consumer debt is a big problem, said Meyer on my program.
	Currently, we now have an outstanding consumer credit of $9.3 trillion, according to Meyer.
	The average debt load per household is about $18,700.
	That's for each house, each family, and 18% of a household's net income is used to pay down the debt.
	The total debt of America is $31 trillion, despite this huge debt load.
	Back then it was huge, right?
	Foreign countries continue to invest in U.S. Treasury bonds.
	However, Meyer warned, if foreigners stop purchasing our bonds, it would be literally
	impossible to finance our budgetary deficits.
	Bond prices would be significantly hindered, which would in turn panic equity and housing
	markets.
	This could, in Meyer's opinion, cause banks to call in mortgage house loans.
	Ta-da!
	Would have to be paid off immediately or face foreclosure.
	The tough job market is also a source of concern for Meyer.
	He went on to explain that the U.S.
	has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs in the last three years, said that only 10% of the American workforce is in manufacturing at all, a sharp decrease from 25% during the 50s and 60s.
	Many of these jobs Going to China and other parts of the world.
	Then he went on to talk about China.
	Cited some pretty interesting stats.
	China, he said, then consumes 40% of the world's cement.
	I didn't know that.
	Well, I guess I did.
	I did the show.
	27% of its steel, 7% of oil production.
	That'd be a lot more now.
	Meyer said oil consumption in China increased by 30% in one year alone.
	So look.
	That's what he said on May 1st of 2004.
	So, when somebody hits it on the nail, hits the nail on the head like that, you better damn well listen to them when they come back to talk to you after what they predicted would occur, occurs.
	And that's what you're going to hear in a moment.
	So, in a moment, ladies and gentlemen, a return of the great master predictor, Joe Meyer.
	We'll be right back.
	This is funny.
	Ted in Michigan, Matawan, Michigan, never heard of it.
	Anyway, Ted says, oh my, referring to the picture of the two gals on the website, my wife and our au pair, if you will.
	Yeah, yeah, they're called here.
	She takes care of Asian queens here.
	Ted says, Oh my, that daughter of yours is really growing up.
	Wow.
	It seems like only yesterday she was just a baby.
	She's going to be a real heartbreaker, aren't?
	That is our Yaya.
	That's our live-in Yaya.
	And her name is Anna Lynn.
	And by the way, guys, she's single.
	So just a word to the interested.
	All right, now turning to my 1G guy, we're going to find out, I mean, he did predict exactly what happened, virtually exactly what happened.
	It may have been even a little worse.
	So I have a million questions for Joe Meyer.
	Joe, welcome back to Coast to Coast AM.
	Good evening, Art.
	Thank you and Coast to Coast for having me.
	It's always a pleasure to visit with you and your listening audience.
	Thank you.
	How do you feel about having called what happened?
	Well, I'm somewhat saddened to think that I was so accurate in what I foresaw in the years ahead.
	And you and I talked about many things that night, May 1st, 2004, and people thought we were crazy.
	But you and I outlined, I think at that time, the issues that were confronting the country.
	I think we targeted pretty much right on the things that we thought were going to be a problem as we move forward.
	Unfortunately, a lot of the things we did talk about turned out the way we said.
	Okay, so everybody knows it happened, Joe.
	It was a very, very serious recession, even the President admitting we damn near fell off the cliff.
	You know, historically, here's question number one, I have so many.
	Historically, looking back, Joe, at the Great Depression in America, The first crash came and then, and then, and not a lot of people really know this, the market made a recovery.
	You had people out there talking about green shoots or whatever it was they spoke about in those days and everybody thought it was over and then the second one came, kind of like the second wave of a tsunami.
	Yes.
	And kaboom, down it went.
	Now, the obvious big question right now is, to me, the first one is, are we waiting for another wave of the tsunami?
	I think we are waiting for another wave of the tsunami, and I think you're absolutely right when you draw the comparison between what we witnessed in the crash of 1929, the crash, as you know, took place in October, And then the market rallied from November 1929 through April of 1930, and it recovered over 50% of the prior decline.
	And ironically, the rally lasted, Art, about seven months.
	And if you look at the rally we have here, we started the rally from around 6470, and we're right around 9600 as of the close tonight in the Dow.
	So we have rallied about 64% from the previous lows, and very coincidentally, the rally now is six months old.
	So I think there are some very eerie similarities between what we witnessed in 1929 through April 1930, and more importantly, what we're witnessing here with this current rally.
	I believe once this rally is complete, This market at an absolute minimum will go all the way back down and retest 6470.
	I tend to believe 6470 will be violated, and I have two bear market targets that I'd like to share with your listening audience that I think have a very high probability of occurring.
	If we violate 6470 in the Dow, The next meaningful support would be 41-23, and then if that were to give way, I would then be looking at a final panic bottom around 24-50 in the Dow.
	Oh my God, you know, oh my God, nobody even wants to think about that.
	You really think?
	I'll tell you what, Joe, that's so disconcerting.
	If you would attach some probability numbers to a second tsunami wave hitting it all and then your various scenarios, what are the probabilities of that so we understand?
	Well, I think the probabilities, when you take a look at the Green Shoot thesis that's being put forth in the economy, we're still continuing to lose jobs massively all around the country.
	Even though job losses now have slowed considerably, we have not seen one corporation at this point announce a hiring program.
	More importantly, Art, we have ten states that have unemployment 10% or higher, and I'll name them quickly for your listening audience.
	We have Michigan, Rhode Island, Oregon, South Carolina, Nevada, California, Ohio, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Washington.
	But I think what's very meaningful here is the recession has failed to take hold in the Northeast up until about 90 days ago.
	New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania had been somewhat immune.
	And I had told people, Art, in the Northeast two years ago that they were going to face a similar situation that we were witnessing in California and they didn't want to believe it.
	And we have witnessed in the month of August now in the Northeast the largest single month of job losses and layoffs.
	And we now have unemployment in New York State at 10.3%.
	And it's literally double where it was about two years ago.
	So this crisis is worsening.
	It's now worsening in the Northeast.
	And I have to tell you, I think we're a long way before this economy even begins to turn around.
	All right.
	Regarding the possibility of a second tsunami, 50 percent, 60 percent, 40 percent, 30?
	I would say it's probably upwards of 60% because I don't believe we've seen the final washout in housing.
	I don't believe we're going to see any time too soon an end to these bankruptcy filings and more importantly these continuing massive mortgage foreclosures.
	So I think there's plenty of pain ahead of us.
	I know the consensus on Wall Street and in the media is the worst is behind us.
	I'm going to go on record and tell you tonight, I believe the worst is still in front of us.
	Okay.
	Unemployment.
	It is bad.
	I mean, I'm from one of the states you named, Nevada, and I'm getting a lot of, you know, words from home that, oh my God, you know, you're seeing stores closed and boarded up, that kind of stuff.
	Really scary.
	And of course, Nevada's had some of the highest foreclosures, I think, in the whole U.S.
	Very true.
	It's awful.
	Absolutely awful in Las Vegas, I know.
	If you look at the market, the stock market, it does look pretty good.
	I mean, it does look like green shoots, but for some reason, the jobs aren't yet really coming with it in a lot of places.
	And is that because of a lack of a manufacturing base, Joe, or why?
	Well, we've decimated our manufacturing base, and the last decent-paying jobs that we had in America were in the automotive sector, and I don't have to tell you what has gone on in automotive.
	People fail to understand General Motors was the fourth largest bankruptcy on record.
	You had, number one, Lehman Brothers, number two, I believe, was Washington Mutual, and then Worldcom.
	So, we've witnessed, Art, three of the largest bankruptcies in history, and they've occurred within the last year.
	And to me, that's very disconcerting, and it tells me there's a lot more pain ahead of us.
	I think when you take a look at the amount of debt that's built up in the system, I think when you talk about corporate debt and you talk about consumer debt, and more importantly, the very low least savings rate that we've had for a number of years, And then you take a look at unemployment and the statistics that tell us how long people have been out of work and more importantly what's the true unemployment number if we count all the people that have given up looking for a job.
	I tend to believe it's around 16 or 17 percent.
	It probably is because I know it was there was always sort of a hidden number anyway and so it's got to be bigger right now people have given up that kind of thing.
	All right, what about foreclosures?
	If this second wave comes, already the pain has been very, very deep.
	So many people have lost value in their homes, and then other people have just plain lost their homes altogether.
	If a second wave comes, what to expect?
	Well, I think when you talk about mortgage foreclosures, we have five states that have the highest mortgage foreclosures, and I'll name them very quickly for your listening audience.
	They would be number one, California, number two, Florida, number three, Arizona, number four, Nevada, and number five, the state of Illinois.
	But when you take a look at 60% of all mortgage foreclosures are centered in those five states.
	And then when you talk about the highest number of adjustable rate mortgages, those would be in the state of California.
	And the reason I believe we have a second Kissami wave ahead of us Is there $350 billion in adjustable rate mortgages in the state of California that are going to reset in 2010 and 2011?
	Wow.
	So when those mortgages reset and people default and the banks have to step up and take back this property, that's going to be the second wave of mortgage defaults that's going to take real estate a lot lower.
	Well, Joe, we, as you know, have pumped just a few bucks into the economy.
	Yes.
	Now, everybody's expecting a wave of inflation to be somewhere ahead of us.
	If that should occur, how will that affect those arms that are going to be suddenly Well, I think the biggest surprise moving forward, Art, is not only how long interest rates have stayed at these very low levels, but more importantly, when interest rates start to move up, I think the surprise is going to be how quickly rates rise, and more importantly, how high they go on this cycle.
	I think we'll very easily go over 10% on the prime rate and possibly even higher.
	So I believe with all the money that's been pumped into the system, and you're absolutely right, it's trillions of dollars, very little of that has trickled down to the consumer.
	The trillions of dollars went into the banking system, it went into Wall Street, and what is ironic, banks are refusing to lend even to creditworthy borrowers.
	But more importantly, when we talk about, quickly, job losses, where are they continuing and worsening?
	There's three sectors of the economy that continue to be in trouble.
	That's construction, manufacturing, and banking.
	Now, couple that with, we've had 125 banks fail in the United States since the crisis began.
	We had three in 2007.
	I think we had 26 more in 2008.
	And so far we've had 95 in 2009.
	So we're continuing to see banks fail on a regular basis, Art.
	This is not over.
	No.
	All right.
	Joe Meyer is my guest.
	Scary stuff, as scary as it gets, anything we cover, frankly.
	I'm Art Bell from Manila, Philippines.
	Storm ravaged Manila, Philippines.
	It's incredible here.
	If you get an opportunity to go to coastcoastam.com, take a look at the photographs I've put up, taken from my 19th floor window of the streets below us.
	Waste high water.
	Unbelievable.
	We've been through typhoons here and we've never seen anything like it.
	All right, listen, coming up, Saturday night, is Ian Punnett, and he's here to tell us what's coming.
	I saw the pictures taken from the Philippines, but I was more curious about who that woman was with your wife in the photograph.
	Did you already explain that?
	Yes, I did.
	That's Anna Lynn, our Yaya.
	She lives here and has been, I think, living with us for six months and takes care of Asia and cleans and all that kind of stuff.
	I totally get that now.
	OK, well, either way, you have a nice view and it's good to see her again.
	And coming up tomorrow night, the Antikythera Mechanism.
	It's the latest research on this 2,000-year-old computer found about 100 years ago in a shipwreck, and we're still not entirely sure what it's capable of, and there seems to be some controversy about this research, so we'll hear the latest about the world's original computer and what it can do in helping us to decode the heavens coming up tomorrow night on Coast to Coast.
	So that would have been before my Commodore 64, right?
	Yeah, well, it was faster than your Commodore 64.
	And that's true, and we'll talk about that too tomorrow night.
	Actually, it was a Vic 20.
	All right, buddy.
	Tomorrow night, huh?
	Sounds good.
	Always a pleasure.
	Thank you very much.
	And we will be back with Joe, who called it a few years ago, called it, called it, called it, what happened, this horrible economic disaster we're having.
	My 1G show with Joe in a moment.
	All right, well, because of I guess the storm.
	I'll blame it on that.
	And because I've got so much on this night's program, coming up at the top of the hour, or probably a little past, I'm going to bump him a little bit.
	I've got Dr. Rourke.
	Now he's going to be actually talking about two things.
	Spiricom, which is one of the most interesting topics I've ever covered on the program.
	And he's got some new recordings.
	And the moon hoax.
	The grand old, did we or did we not go to the moon debate.
	So, that'll be coming up.
	I may push it just a little bit, but it's coming up.
	It's ahead of us, so just hang in there.
	Right now, Joe Meyer is talking to us about the economy.
	And Joe, as I do a program like this, I get messages fast, blast messages on my computer.
	And I'm getting all kinds of people saying, please ask you, what's going to happen To the dollar.
	I'm also concerned about that.
	I have dollars, Joe, and I convert them to Philippine pesos.
	Good idea!
	I was afraid that you were going to say that.
	What's going to happen to the dollar, Joe?
	Well, I think at some point the dollar will become totally worthless, and it will cease to be a world reserve currency.
	I think when you understand the role of the dollar, and certainly the role that it's played in globalization, I have to believe at some point we will see a new world reserve currency.
	But I have to believe, Art, that when we do form the new world reserve currency, it will be backed by two hard asset components.
	One of them will be gold, and the other one will be oil.
	And that's the primary factor, as I've always said, for owning the metals in the energy sectors of the market.
	But more importantly, one quick point.
	People forget, in 1980, gold was $8.50, and the Dow Jones was $8.50.
	One ounce of gold bought the Dow in 1980.
	And I believe we will see that phenomenon one more time in our lifetime.
	One ounce of gold will buy the Dow.
	At what level?
	I think it will be somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000.
	Attach some timelines to some of this, if you would.
	In other words, there's a lot of people with capital sitting in money markets right now because they're scared the hell and back of equities, and I don't blame them.
	Absolutely.
	So, you know, these people want to know some sort of timeline regarding the value of the dollar, obviously.
	Well, let me say this.
	Commodity bull markets typically are at last 18 to 20 years.
	So we have at an absolute minimum another 10 years of rising commodity prices.
	We are in the sixth mega bull market in commodities in history.
	And I'll name very quickly for your listeners the five previous bull markets that we've had.
	The first one was the War of 1812, the second one was the Civil War, the third one was World War I, the fourth one was World War II in Korea, the fifth one was the Cold War, and now we're in the sixth one, which is the War on Terror.
	So this bull in commodities has at least another decade to run, and people think $1,000 gold is ridiculous.
	You have to remember, $1,000 gold today is the same as buying a Mercedes-Benz at 1980 prices.
	So it's not too late to buy gold.
	It's not too late to buy silver.
	Silver has only sold twice in history at 1% the value of gold.
	It did it first in 1940, and it did it again in 1990.
	in 1940 and it did it again in 1990.
	Silver is currently selling for 1.6% the price of gold.
	It is dirt cheap, Art.
	It's the most undervalued sector of the precious metals, and people should buy it and put it away.
	Okay.
	So many places to go.
	Let's go to oil for a moment.
	Okay.
	Oil was at 150.
	A lot of people would say that, and Lehman Brothers are what took us down.
	Then oil fell, I think it got down to 30 something, 40 bucks, whatever it was.
	Yes, it did.
	Way down.
	And now it's what, hovering in the 70s somewhere?
	It's hovering right around $66 a barrel.
	66, okay.
	Where are we headed with that?
	I suppose it'll track in this area until the second tsunami?
	Well, I believe we will see higher prices, we will see a second tsunami, people have to realize.
	Oil follows a 30-year cycle.
	We had highs $18.60, $18.90, $19.20, $19.50, $19.80, and we have another new high projected for oil in 2010.
	And I do believe it will exceed the previous high of $150 a barrel.
	Gasoline lines in America?
	All across America?
	I don't think we could ever rule that out.
	I think we're more dependent on foreign oil than ever before.
	I think we have to keep in mind that China now imports over a billion barrels of oil a year.
	In the United States, every American uses about six barrels of oil per year.
	In China, they're currently using two barrels per person, and in India, they're only using one.
	As you know, the Saudis produce about 88 million barrels of oil a day.
	So if we ever see the infrastructures continue to broaden out, which I believe they will in the next decade, certainly in China and India, we're going to have oil shortages and very long gasoline lines once again, Art.
	Well, that was going to be my next question.
	What about China?
	You know, this part of the world is going absolutely nuts.
	Interestingly enough, for some reason, Joe, even where I am here, real estate prices are going up.
	The recession really did not hit here.
	Everybody thought it would.
	There's a little dip in remittances from overseas workers.
	Yes.
	But even that number is up.
	So, you know, the building, the cranes are going crazy.
	New buildings everywhere here.
	And the recession, I guess, didn't hit Asia the way it hit the rest of the world.
	I don't know why.
	No, it did not.
	And I think people fail to understand China is now in the second decade.
	of building out their infrastructure. India is in the first decade. But to make a comparison,
	you'd have to go back and take a look at how Japan developed, how they built out their
	infrastructure starting in 1970 and then finishing out the development of that infrastructure in the
	1980s. So we're witnessing now with China and India a repeat of what we had witnessed with Japan.
	Actually, Joe, I made a mistake.
	I'm sorry.
	I shouldn't have broadened it to Asia because Japan has its own problems right now with employment, for example, which I didn't mention.
	But other sectors of Asia are doing very well indeed, like China, for example.
	And what's going on with Japan?
	That's an interesting story also because they do have unemployment.
	I mean, they used to have jobs for life.
	Yes, they did.
	Well, again, I think you have to go back.
	You have to understand history.
	Their markets were very strong in the 80s.
	First, we had housing top out in 1989, and then their stock market followed in 1990.
	We followed very similarly here in the United States.
	We had housing top out in 2006, and then the stock market followed in 2007.
	But I think when you take a look at the comparisons, The Japanese government, as you know, Art, has pumped trillions of Japanese yen into the economy, and they have yet to be able to revitalize the markets.
	At the peak in 1990, we had the Nikkei market at 38,000.
	It's currently less than 10,000.
	And they have yet to have the banks write off all the bad loans and we have yet to see a meaningful recovery in real estate.
	So I tend to believe that the U.S.
	will follow very closely to what took place in Japan over 20 years ago.
	Okay, back to the U.S.
	right now.
	Okay.
	The residential crisis, the housing market, the residential aspect of it is kind of what, I don't know, tipped everything over.
	And I've been hearing for a long time that the commercial real estate market is the shoe yet to fall.
	You're absolutely right.
	I am?
	You are absolutely right.
	I think when we look at the problems that are ahead of us in commercial real estate, they could very easily be three and four times what we're facing currently in residential.
	There's four areas when you talk about commercial real estate that are in trouble.
	Number one, you've got apartment dwellings.
	Number two, retail outlets.
	Number three, office buildings.
	And then lastly, industrial facilities.
	But when you talk about retail office space, and this is something that's very concerning to me, they're projecting 125,000 retail stores to close in 2009.
	And if they are anywhere near right, we are going to create even a worse unemployment picture into year-end, and probably the worst holiday season on record since the Great Depression.
	Joe, if you go back to the September crash, you know, when you look at what the central bank did and what everybody did, in reflection, at least at the moment with the little green shoots and so forth, it looks like they, I don't know, they must have done okay because we don't have bread lines and soup lines right now, at least not So, if you were in charge of the world, or at least the U.S., the central bank, let's say, I want you to comment on their policy.
	Would you have done anything differently, faced with what they were faced with?
	Well, I think you had spoken earlier about the G20 countries, and I just want to touch very quickly on the role that I think they did play in stabilizing the financial panic we had here in our markets.
	I think if it had not been for the G20 countries coordinating, certainly with the Federal Reserve and the administration, I'd hate to think of what would have happened.
	But I think they had to pump in massive liquidity.
	I think they're still adding certainly liquidity to the system.
	My concern is when do we start creating decent paying jobs?
	And we're still seeing these layoffs and people are telling me they continue to cut my hours in lieu now of laying me off.
	So people that are even employed are working less and less and earning less in which to service their debt.
	And that's a big concern moving forward.
	Okay.
	Are there any areas of employment that are better than others?
	In other words, if you were, let's say, at the point where you were considering what to study in college right now, what course would you take?
	In other words, what's going to be good going forward?
	Well, I tend to believe engineering, and I'll tell you why.
	I think when we look at the infrastructure of America, it is very aged, and I think if we were going to talk about putting a massive number of people to work, we could certainly put them to work in the public works sector.
	I outlined for your listeners some areas, and I'd like to share them with you, and you certainly tell me what you think of them, where we could create massive jobs immediately And employ people for a number of years.
	Number one, I think we could repair and update the nation's roads.
	Most highways, as you know, were built in the 1950s and 1960s and they're obsolete.
	Number two, we could rebuild and repair the nation's bridges.
	Our bridges are falling down and they need repair.
	Number three, we could improve and update and modernize our ports of entry for improved commerce.
	Number four, we could update and improve our levies.
	As you know, New Orleans was a wake-up call for us all.
	Number five, we could update and make engineering improvements to our water and sewer systems.
	Number six, we could rebuild our public transit systems.
	They're outdated and they're inefficient.
	Number seven, we could increase and upgrade our electricity grid nationally to be able to handle the 21st century for power demands from our growing cities.
	And then eighth and lastly, Build new energy efficient schools and renovate our universities.
	You know, you said America's infrastructure is aging, and that hit me right between the eyes because you're exactly right.
	If you travel to an Asian country like, I don't know, it doesn't matter, Japan, or even better, Hong Kong, go to Hong Kong now, you will be shocked.
	It's like a new and shiny place compared to so many of America's cities.
	It's true.
	We think of America as so young and so new, and yet, as you point out, the infrastructure is really getting old.
	Yes, it is.
	In Europe, everything is kind of stone and brick.
	I don't know.
	It's old, but it's well-maintained old.
	In America, we have old but not as well-maintained.
	You've got to travel to know some of this stuff.
	Anyway, so gold and silver you recommend, obviously.
	Silver, certainly, is just a fraction of gold right now.
	What is it going to be, Joe, if you can tell me, that's going to drive the price of silver up?
	It's not used as it was in photography.
	It remains, of course, a precious metal.
	But a lot of people wonder, what's going to really drive up silver?
	Well, as you know, silver in the Latin American countries is looked upon as being money.
	And I think when you look at silver, it's always been called the poor man's gold.
	And I think when you talk about the monetary system and you talk about the role of gold, I think silver has a role as well.
	And I think when you look at silver having been down to $3 an ounce from the high of $50 in 1980, And we already had it up to 21 and it's currently 16.
	Silver is extremely undervalued and I think people have to understand it will have a place in the monetary system as we move forward.
	Okay.
	And again, for those who watch the market, coming back to that, when are we going to see it with this tsunami wave coming?
	When are we going to see the market turn south?
	Can you come up with what you think is a fairly solid date?
	Well, I think, Art, to answer that question, the biggest declines historically in the market have occurred in two months.
	They've either been May or October.
	So I tend to believe the market could very well stay up through the month of October.
	I think we could very well possibly trade to $10,000 or somewhat higher.
	But I think once the rally is exhausted, I think we will see a reversal of prices.
	I tend to believe the first meaningful day down, the Dow will fall 1,000 points.
	I think when we see that, it will be too late to get out.
	I think people have to sell into the rally, they have to raise some cash, and they have to reduce their exposure in this bear market.
	This is a generational bear market.
	Few will survive this without a meaningful plan.
	Joe, we have done it in an hour.
	Do you have a website or a book you'd like to sell?
	Well, my website is StraightMoneyAnalysis.com.
	It's a monthly business newsletter where we talk about things that are going on in the domestic and international markets.
	And we give an update every month on the economy, the stock market, the precious metals and energy sectors.
	And we also give a conclusion on what we believe is ahead of us.
	StraightMoneyAnalysis.com.
	Okay.
	Twelve monthly issues are for $99.95 a year.
	There you go.
	That's how you make your dollar.
	Wonderful.
	Joe, I appreciate your having come on the air.
	I'm astounded at how you hit it on the mark all the way back in 2004, and I pray you're wrong about what's coming, but I'm afraid common sense tells me you're correct.
	Thank you for being here.
	I want to thank you so much for having me.
	It's an extreme pleasure to visit with you and your listening audience.
	Have a great night, Joseph.
	All right, folks, there you go.
	Ghosts and goblins are scary, but the kind of stuff Joseph is talking about is downright terrifying.
	From storm-ravaged Manila, with little kids jumping into the water off the back of Jeeps right now, I'm Art Bell.
	Hey there.
	From the storm-ravaged capital of the Philippines, Manila, I'm Mark Bell.
	And we're going to split what remains of the show into kind of two parts, and both are fascinating.
	Both are absolutely fascinating.
	Coming, Dr. Stephen Rourke.
	Now, he has experience as a professor instructing masters of science courses at the university level, has undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees, and uses disciplined inquiry and critical thinking to articulate his message that the role of science should be to investigate the unexplained.
	Not explain the uninvestigated.
	Dr. Rourke has been a guest on Coast to Coast AM before regarding electronic voice phenomena and the strange, strange case of Spiricom.
	In addition to having an interest in the paranormal, Dr. Rourke has always had an interest in the esoterica of para-politics, if you will, or what lies beneath of overt politics and events like the moon landings, Or should I rephrase it to the alleged moon landings?
	This interest led Rourke to collaborate with Ralph Rene, who tragically took his life back in December of 08.
	is the appointed representative of the research and publications of Ralph Rene, the famous or, if you will, infamous author of NASA, Mooned America.
	That's kind of like the Bible for the people who say we never went to the moon by the way I'm not one of those.
	Dr. Rourke's legitimate connection to Rene can be verified on the only official website of Ralph Rene, that would be www.ralphrene.com.
	The Lunar Landing Hoax Theory is as relevant as ever as a social phenomena and question of scientific legitimacy.
	Not my words, but the words.
	So this is going to be fascinating stuff.
	I think we're going to start it off with Spiracom.
	So in a moment, Dr. Rourke.
	It's always difficult to make assumptions about an audience, but this audience I know has had a very great deal of experience with EVP, electronic voice phenomena.
	We've had an array of guests, actually, who have presented these Alleged voices from the grave.
	Voices recorded on tape recorders are now for the more modern day practitioners.
	The digital recorders they use, these voices show up on all of them.
	And, you know, I've done programs about ghosts, goblins, and other things that go bump in the night for all the time I've been on the air.
	And the one thing that I've never been able to knock a hole into is EVP, electronic voice phenomena.
	It appears to me to be real.
	The people involved in gathering EVP, for the most part, have no motivation, unless it's 15 minutes of fame, to hoax up anything.
	Moreover, there are people all across America, the world in fact, doing EVP.
	Now, that said, The jump to something that's called Spiracom from EVP is a light-year jump.
	I mean, it's gigantic.
	What happened with Spiracom is one of the most astounding stories you'll ever hear.
	Several years ago, Dr. Stephen Rourke and I got together on some audio that came from the Spiracom experiments, and it wasn't very good.
	You know, it was hard to hear.
	Oh, it raised the hairs on the back of your neck.
	It was a long term experiment, not to just capture the occasional word or even sentence from the other side, but to capture an ongoing, and I don't want to mess this up, I hope I don't get it wrong, but an ongoing conversation with somebody who had gone to the other side and they did it.
	That's my description.
	Dr. Stephen Rourke, welcome back to Coast to Coast AM.
	Thanks for having me, Art.
	You bet.
	Doctor, I'm turning things around on you because I know you wanted to do or had planned the moon hoax thing first, but Spiracom captured me in a way that nothing else in this field has ever, ever done.
	And since the time that we got that first audio from Spiracom, what year was it?
	Do you recall?
	I believe it was played 2004 and you had a great deal to do with popularizing it, playing I think an almost 45 minute uninterrupted segment of the Spiracom promotional table.
	That's right, that's right.
	Would you please, a lot of the audience now will not have heard that, they don't know what Spiracom was, so can you give us the history please of Spiracom?
	Sure, actually it dates back To about from the mid-1960s all the way up to the early 1980s, research on the development of a technological means of communication with the dead was conducted by MetaScience Foundation, who's essentially, the two main players we'll be discussing are George W. Meek, who is the president, and William J. O'Neill, a self-described psychic electronics engineer.
	Now, these two In conjunction, supposedly developed a device that facilitated, as you described, two-way conversation with the dead.
	They called it SpiritComm, short for Spirit Communication.
	And the project was officially defined as, and I quote, an electromagnetic etheric systems approach to communications with other levels of human consciousness.
	So, they were focused upon the survivability of personality after death.
	As you can tell from that lengthy title.
	Alright, breaking that down into something that at least some of the people will be able to understand.
	Or maybe I'll just give you my take on it.
	EVP is very tough to get.
	You let a recorder go and maybe if you're lucky you get a word, maybe if you're really lucky you get two or three words or a sentence.
	That appears to come from the other side.
	Clearly, it seems to come from the other side, but it's always very difficult to get.
	Now, what they seem to do with Spiracom was to create this electronic device that, I guess, manufactured some kind of noise, perhaps something like white noise or a variation of it, and that would allow the spirit to modulate It made it easier for the Spirit.
	The Spirit could then modulate a sound that was already there and make it come out loud.
	I mean, it's a gross simplification, but that's kind of what they did, right?
	Well, that's one method.
	That's more of the route of a method, and I have to state at the outright that that is just one take on it.
	I personally don't subscribe to, let's say, that.
	The research, you're correct, of Meek and O'Neill was predicated upon electronic voice phenomenon.
	I mean, the whole point of studying something like Spiricom would be because of its importance in the forming of a kind of mythos of electronic voice phenomenon.
	It literally underwrites the subtext of everything that came after it.
	It is the foundational story on which modern-day contemporary EVP is built.
	The assumptions of a group of technicians on, you know, the other side in a place called
	TimeStream and all of these very elaborate stories built up around this all have their
	roots in the Spiracom story and the main players born out of Spiracom.
	I remember hearing a recording of the voice on the other side, they were speaking with
	And by the way, who was that mainly on the other side that they were in contact with?
	Ah, well, William J. O'Neill reportedly first made contact with a supposedly discarnate being, a deceased NASA scientist named George J. Mueller, Dr. George J. Mueller.
	I remember hearing, as they were developing the electronics to make this communication, More effective.
	I remember hearing Dr. Mueller, was it?
	Yes.
	Dr. Mueller actually telling them some electronic component changes they could make to facilitate better communication.
	Do you remember that?
	Oh yes, certainly.
	And this is in part what made it so compelling to the paranormal enthusiasts of its day and even up to today.
	And what I've done is conducted such an extensive study of Spiricom, I've come to a conclusion that it is not what it appears to be.
	And not to deflate the balloon, but ultimately, I think there was some fraud at play.
	And I don't mean to state that as an obvious type of, you know, fraud like someone was hoaxing quite intentionally.
	It's much more complicated.
	Let's hear it.
	If you think there was hoaxing going on, even unintentional, I'd like to know how it happened.
	Yes.
	And how you reached that conclusion.
	Yes.
	Well, from a really extensive investigation dealing with the primary source materials, what it did was track back the MetaScience Foundation all the way to its modern-day president, who was left in charge of the foundation by George Meek before he passed away.
	This person, Thomas Pratt, he's in Florida.
	He possesses all of the old Spiricom technology, all of the meta-science files, reel-to-reel videotapes, audio cassettes, and I've had unfettered access to all of this.
	And in the process of having access to all of this, I've come across a couple of key details regarding William O'Neill.
	This is, again, An important part of the story because he was the operator of the Spiracom device, the one who essentially developed it.
	Okay, so William O'Neill, as it turns out, I'll cut to the quick for you, William O'Neill, I have it documented, he was a schizophrenic who had a ventriloquist's skill set.
	He was also in possession of an electrolarynx device, Which I have on authority of the equipment manifest that came by way of O'Neill's belongings being packed up and sent to the MetaScience Foundation storage.
	So what you'll, what we'll do, I suppose, is reflect upon some of the sound clips, noting how close they do, in fact, sound to an ElectroLarynx device, albeit one that's being misused.
	And it's quite interesting.
	That the two voices never speak at the same time.
	Do you have any proof beyond that, that in fact was what was going on?
	No, this is circumstantial because the videotapes from the MetaScience archives are all filmed from behind with O'Neill standing at the equipment.
	We don't see O'Neill's mouth moving, we see hand gestures, we hear sounds.
	It is kind of compelling to note, though, that on the one-inch broadcast reels that I have transferred, it's interesting to note that when the sound and visuals are precisely linked up instead of some of this very generationally distant stuff available on the web, sometimes O'Neill's hand gestures Don't match his speech.
	He's actually making hand gestures when Dr. Mueller speaking, which is a little bit odd.
	It only happens once or twice.
	But again, the issue of technological opacity, in other words, it's like a black box technology.
	O'Neill didn't let folks know really what was in the Spiricom.
	He released block diagrams, which you know is very different from schematics.
	It's a whole other level Of detail you'd get with schematics, so no one can reproduce it.
	O'Neill claimed himself to be this almost like a person completing a circuit psychically to make this machine work, thereby making himself indispensable to the process.
	O'Neill was receiving payment from Meek.
	This was his only source of income, by the way.
	And if people look at spiricomstudy.com, They can see all the documentation I'm talking about, up to and including images of O'Neal in a cowboy hat with a puppet from his television days when he did a children's show.
	So using his ventriloquist skills, the electro-larynx, the equipment, the fact that it's black box type of technology, technologically not transparent, all of this came into play Along with the psychology of what I've been studying recently, the most fascinating part of Spiricom, as it turns out, is not really that O'Neill, let's say, hoaxed something.
	It's really, to me, it's about the motivation to hoax it, and how a story like this continues to be perpetuated, and how it becomes a foundational mythos.
	You've had people on the air about what's called a meme, this type of infectious idea.
	Let me stop you and ask you, you mentioned motivation to hoax it.
	Is there an apparent motivation to hoax it on this part that you have found?
	Yeah, well besides the very mundane obvious reason that if he's receiving monies for results on reel-to-reel and videotape that he would continue to produce these because it's his only source of income.
	And, uh, there was a one-to-one correlation for, you know, how prolifically he was producing these conversations and how much money he was receiving.
	Um, so, I mean, beyond, beyond that.
	That's hard.
	No, you don't have to go beyond that.
	Money is always a motivator.
	Well, no, I think, but we can go beyond it because, um, the psychology of O'Neal comes into play where, you know, at some level he may not be entirely responsible for what he did.
	And I, I, I don't think I'm showing too much sympathy if the person was mentally ill I think that has to be taken into account.
	You know, there are plenty of psychiatric symptoms like O'Neal's.
	It's led to interesting research on the cognitive nature of delusions.
	Was there any diagnosis that you're aware of, actual diagnosis?
	Oh yeah, O'Neal died in care at the Torrance State Hospital.
	Mental Hospital in Pennsylvania.
	His diagnosis was that of schizophrenia.
	And I have that on the death certificate indicated that other conditions besides the one that led to his death were schizophrenia and a couple of other Boy, this is pretty heavy stuff.
	You're blowing this wide open.
	Question.
	How many times, if at all, were other people present while this communication was going on?
	Because even though we get camera shots showing the rear of, not showing the mouth or the throat or anything else, were there other people present when this occurred?
	No.
	In short, there are tapes in the MetaScience files.
	Some of them, you know, quite disappointing, where we have Meek visiting O'Neal in his burnt-out husk of a home, sitting for hours on tape, just waiting with this, you know, the 13-tone droning occurring in the background, hoping for some communication, but no.
	So when Meek was there, it never happened?
	You're correct.
	And in fact, Spiracom was Duplicated at some level, you know, as Sarah Estep received like a desktop version, Alexander McRae was offered to experiment with one, and no one had really gotten the results that O'Neill had.
	And, in fact, in 1983, even those results dried up and MetaScience had essentially given up on the Mark IV version and moved on to some other kind of, you know, Dr. Rourke, when did you begin to conclude the things that you have obviously concluded about all this?
	Well, it really came together in a kind of synthesis when I just saw this undeniable chain of evidence.
	I mean, consider it, Art, that we have a schizophrenic with the skills of a ventriloquist who's in possession I'm with you all the way.
	Was this a year ago, two years ago?
	When?
	Yeah, this was at least three years ago began to suspect it, two years ago locked it in, published it on Spearcomstudy.com and appeared on Coast to Coast November of last year and essentially No, I didn't state it so emphatically.
	Now more than ever after some confirmation, I've essentially triangulated the data.
	I keep finding more and more that seems to confirm exactly what I'm telling you, rather than disconfirm it.
	I mean, you know, this is really a blow to the whole EVP field.
	It doesn't, I don't know, I guess for me, it doesn't ruin the whole concept of EVP because I still, well, let me ask you about that.
	We don't have a lot of time, we're coming up on a break here, but do you think that EVP is the real McCoy, generally, that there really are messages that come across, or do you think the whole thing is a hoax?
	No, I don't think the whole thing is a hoax.
	All right.
	Stay right where you are, Dr. Rourke.
	My goodness.
	Surprise, surprise.
	Well, that's the way the world works.
	From Manila, I'm Art Bell.
	Dr. Stephen Rourke is blowing Spiracom wide open.
	Says, hoax. There'll be more.
	Listen, I want to get this on the air because I'm going to forget it otherwise.
	I'd love to get an email from you.
	I'm doing my very, very best to answer the emails that I get.
	If I don't answer yours, sorry, but I'm trying.
	I've got a little extra time these days being semi-retired.
	So, if you want to fire me an email, I am Art Bell at MindSpring.com.
	That's Art Bell, A-R-T.
	B-E-L-L at Minespring, M-I-N-D-E-S-P-R-I-N-G dot com.
	Art Bell at Minespring dot com.
	Love to hear from you.
	Dr. Rourke, back in a moment.
	All right.
	Dr. Stephen Warwick is my guest.
	Blowing Spiricom wide open and his word, hoax.
	Doctor, I got a kind of an interesting email from David in Alexandria, Virginia, who says, look, there are many, many ways that an artificial larynx voice box could be used as a very useful component for a project like the one they were in without in any way having it be involving fraud.
	And that's a fair comment, isn't it?
	Well, I think if we were to play a track where perhaps... Hold on, before you play a track, just consider this intellectually.
	An artificial larynx, if you were trying to communicate with the dead and you were getting a response, channeling that response through an artificial larynx would be, I don't know, it seems like an obvious thing you would attempt or experiment with.
	Is that a fair comment?
	Well, yes, and that's why MetaScience was in possession of it, and ultimately O'Neill came to be in possession of it.
	However, it needs to be noted that O'Neill did not include this in any way in any of his block drawings.
	He never conceded to having it.
	The only reason I know this is because having unfettered access to the primary source materials, I find old manuals Where on page 32 it used to say, the Spiricom manual, which I know you have, the original manual, first edition, stated plainly that the equipment involved, I should say, MetaScience was in possession of this ElectroLarynx device.
	The manifest, in other words, the list of all the technologies that were packed up from O'Neill's home when he was instituted, that list also includes This electrolarynx.
	So there appears to be O'Neill attempting to hide the fact he had it when documents show he did.
	And of course, the Spiricom tapes sound exactly like an electrolarynx.
	So I know that doesn't exactly mean case closed, and I don't mean to make this out to be anticlimactic.
	I still study the Spiricom case.
	In fact, I've decided to do so really based on the fact that there are so many potential psychological operation models.
	I'm willing to consider, because of the background of William O'Neill, I'm willing to consider, you know, was this a man who was insane and drawn to this?
	Or was he a man who came to it sane and this drove him mad?
	Could it be a psychological operation, something on the level of You know, the Paul Benewitz incident, as you know, with Richard Doty conspiring to drive this man insane because he had some knowledge about a secret test occurring.
	Did O'Neill, prior to his death, ever admit, even when institutionalized, that he had faked any of this?
	No, absolutely not.
	Nope.
	No.
	And yeah, he maintained it was, you know, real all the time.
	There are some interesting hints at this psychological operations angle, as far as intelligence ties go.
	You know, the fingerprints of an individual named Puharich are all over this Spiricom story.
	In fact, it's all over the story of EVP, Andrea Puharich.
	I'll give a little background, and I'll do it in a way I think the Coast audience can identify with it.
	Just as the UFO community Uh, is heavily influenced by disinformation, uh, kind of sent out by well-known authors and lecturers who turned out to be members of an intelligence organization called the, uh, the Avery.
	Uh, so the belief structure of thousands of new agers, uh, was manipulated and continues to be by individuals claiming to channel information in some different ways.
	Uh, this started with, um, The channeled information emanating from the nine principles of God, or, you know, the nine.
	And even if we ignore the blatant historical inaccuracies and, like, thinly veiled racism that came out of this group of the nine, this supposed group of celestial beings sending bizarre messages about population reduction, The military and intelligence background of Dr. Andrea Puharich, the founder of the Nine Cult, it should be sufficient to question the veracity of any channeled comments that came from this guy.
	Well, Puharich was actually an individual who visited Konstantin Radovich shortly before he released his book, Breakthrough.
	Here's Puharich visiting the man who Ended up popularizing at the world level what we consider to be EVP.
	You know, the Latvian psychologist with literally hundreds of thousands of EVP examples, Pujaric spent a day with him.
	And whereas the Latvian psychologist was initially kind of skeptical of his own findings after being, after spending some time with Pujaric, like almost everyone who does spend some time with Pujaric, They end up becoming converted to his exact views.
	This is the case with Yuri Geller and many others.
	Pujars has got his fingerprints on the trip that Meek took to visit Arrigo, the rusty knife surgeon in Brazil.
	And this is where some of the NASA military intelligence ties come in.
	And this is why I continue to study it, because I'm not entirely certain it's as simple as O'Neal doing this all on his own, because the motivations are kind of thin, and there is the chicken or the egg question, isn't there?
	Was he driven insane, or was he insane and drawn to it?
	That's a big one, alright.
	I can imagine that actually being in communication with the dead at any level could tip somebody leaning in that direction all the way over very easily, couldn't it?
	Oh, yeah, I would think so.
	And especially, I mean, even if someone was, of course, you know, creating a situation where you would think that, that in and of itself could really strain the sanity of anyone.
	And there's one other possibility, Dr. O'Rourke, and that would be that at some level there was, you know, some reality to what happened with this whole case, and then perhaps at some later date or midway through or a quarter way through, he decided to Begin enhancing the material for if you will the money motivation or whatever motivation he had So he could be a mixture some of it could have been real and then he could have decided.
	Hey, what a nice income Let's really do it up here.
	So who knows?
	Yes, all all possibilities.
	And in fact, that is exactly why I continue to find it interesting is this notion of a kind of aberrant organizational psychology where People who, you know, apparently, we would look at this and say, no ordinary person has anything to gain by sharing these bizarre experiences, right?
	I mean, it's counterintuitive to think a person claiming to have these experiences would want to do so.
	This is the same notion behind, let's say, again, to make a comparison, a Coastal audience can understand, like, why would someone who has an alien abduction, you know, come out and talk about this?
	It's so counterintuitive.
	It's almost evidence That it happened, right?
	Because no one would really talk about this unless it did.
	Well, the inverse is in fact true regarding the sharing of paranormal experiences in small groups with a population of, you know, let's say paranormal enthusiasts.
	And the notion that people have nothing to gain is really belied by two empirical observations.
	One, the compulsion of the people to constantly share it.
	And two, The confabulation of the story that you just talked about, the one-upsmanship, sometimes with themselves, and sometimes, again, in aberrant group psychology, where they're one-upping each other with more fantastic tales.
	And we saw this in, again, parallel, we saw this in the UFO movement.
	Oh yeah, not only disinformation in ufology, but consistent hoaxes.
	I mean, hoax after hoax after hoax after hoax.
	It gets very difficult to delineate between them.
	It just ruins ufology.
	That's not even to mention the infighting that goes on, not as a result necessarily of disinformation, just people's egos getting involved.
	Not as much of that in EVP.
	Well, you'd be surprised.
	No, I wouldn't.
	No, you probably wouldn't be.
	But really, there was a power grab at the end of Meek's life for who was going to take over control of the MetaScience Foundation because of really this coveted position of president of the organization that was responsible for the Spiricom.
	Again, Spiricom, you cannot underestimate the The role it played as the foundational ethos of the entire technological paranormal mediumship movement.
	This Frank Box, this telephone to the dead Chris Moon is running around charging people by the hour.
	All of these things are predicated upon the Spiricom.
	Well, you could go further back, I guess, if you look at the birth of ITC with that Scientific American article.
	Regarding Edison's attempt to communicate with the dead, but really it's anchored more in the contemporary story of Spirit Comm.
	All right, let's go ahead and I know you've got a couple of clips and you know they'll I think play them at the network for us.
	So if you would tell them what you would like, what are we going to be playing?
	Well, I think for the sake of The audience, because if they heard anything online that wasn't at Spiricom Study, they've heard probably audio that was degraded, thrice removed, and generationally distant, and it's really grating and difficult to listen to as it is.
	But the newly discovered Spiricom audio is a level of clarity I know you'll be excited about, and I'd be pleased to share the entirety of the new audio with you, and perhaps see what you find in it.
	But track 3 is about 50 seconds long and it shows the quality of the newly discovered Spiricom audio from the MetaScience archives.
	I know some of the audience is going to recall the night that I played that 40 minutes, which was pretty hard to listen to, but I couldn't avoid it, it was so fascinating.
	So, track 3 you say, back at the network, go ahead and cue up and let's play track 3.
	No, I... I just turned the camera... TV camera on, sir.
	What did you say with him?
	I said I just turned the TV camera on.
	Oh, very well.
	You never know, Doctor.
	Yes, I understand with him.
	All right, now, very well.
	Now, let's get on with this.
	What I suggest with him is that we use the car for this audio project.
	Audio project.
	Audio project?
	Yes, in your words.
	Spare him and get on with the job.
	Yeah, I see.
	Yeah, I understand.
	Just a minute, sir.
	but you're speaking, but you're visualizing the subject, and we're speaking to you, and you understand, right?
	Yeah, I understand.
	Just a minute, sir.
	Just a minute.
	My God.
	God.
	Much clearer, isn't it?
	You know, if I didn't hear everything that you... Much clearer, yes.
	If I had not heard everything that you just said in the first part of the hour here, you know, the hair would be standing up on the back of my neck like it did the first time I heard it without any clarity like we just heard.
	That was incredible.
	Now again, you're telling us that never was there an overlap in the speech.
	That's correct.
	In fact, there are there are moments when O'Neill quite dramatically points out that, oh, we were talking at the same time.
	But upon critical analysis, you know, just it's very it's a saleable at the evidential level.
	You just if you if you parse it through a simple program like Audacity, if someone spends the time, there is no actual overlap.
	What there is is an occasional Bleed that occurs between what I theorize to be O'Neill's voice and when he puts his oral cavity in proximity to the grinding electrolarynx, you clearly hear when the audio is not generationally distant, that was not just the 13 tones in the far distance.
	What you heard was primarily now, primarily the electrolarynx buzzing away.
	And this is a problem, of course, for the Spiricom story, because if it's the case that the clearer the audio gets, the more it sounds like an electrolarynx, that's kind of a problem for the adherents, the paranormal enthusiasts, who no doubt will continue to write maddening emails.
	And, you know, the hate mail I got after the November show was incredible.
	The loonies come out of the woodwork.
	But I can't come on and misrepresent it to appease people.
	This is my conclusion.
	I'm not attempting to make anyone's mind up for them.
	But I do have the clearest audio by way of the actual archives.
	No, look, you have no idea how I appreciate what you are doing now.
	And it kind of takes guts in a different sort of way to come back and say, look, I've been looking at this for years now, and here's what's wrong with it.
	I think there's a problem.
	That takes guts, and I appreciate it.
	I don't buy into everything automatically, but EVP, Dr. Rourke, was one of the things that I bought into, and frankly, I still buy into it.
	I've got a couple up in Oregon with no motivation whatsoever.
	To be faking what they're doing.
	None whatsoever.
	Very nice people.
	And I don't believe for one second they're faking it.
	So there's something real on those tapes.
	There is something apparently to EVP.
	I can understand the motivation or the alleged motivation of somebody like O'Neal to possibly, I don't know, enhance it, if you will.
	Well, I completely agree.
	And this is the point.
	This is why investigating the psychological operations angle behind Spiracom is important because, think about it, if Spiracom is held out as the best evidence standard, you know, like EVP on steroids, this isn't just little truncated bits, this is real-time communication.
	It is the ultimate extension of EVP experimentation.
	If that's held out there as the best evidence, and then it's undermined so easily, so assailable at the evidential level, maybe someone had this in mind.
	If there is something to EVP, someone who wanted to control the fact that people did or did not believe in EVP.
	In one of the psychological operations models, I point specifically, let's say, at a large church organization.
	Take, for example, the involvement of—and I'm not pointing fingers, this is just one of the models, to be clear.
	Take, for example, the Catholic Church, their involvement in early EVP.
	In the book called The Voices from the Taste by Peter Bender, a goodly half the book is dedicated to his involvement with Vatican context, their great interest in it.
	Their permissibility of it, really, in stark contrast to saying, let's face it, they're saying, the Catholic Church got a mixed message when it came to EVP.
	They were saying Ouija boards, no good, but mediumship of the tape recorder was good.
	Now, that doesn't continue to be the Catholic Church's message.
	But it could be an instance where, you know, the fox lures the chickens into feeling comfortable enough to have the story turn their way.
	And it did.
	I can assure you I wasn't fed anything, but I can also assure you that for a long time I was disinformed and led down a rabbit hole.
	I spent about a year investigating what I thought was a tie between an entirely separate George Mueller You know, there was a real NASA Mueller, and there was also this other Mueller who did, in fact, exist, who worked at Orange Coast Community College and also had some space program and rocketry ties.
	Very bizarre.
	These two guys with the same name having resume overlaps.
	And I spent the longest time establishing the case that these people were one in the same and that he might have been still alive up until 2001.
	That turned out to be totally untrue.
	But there's no way I could have come up with so many ties that are presented on spiritcomstudy.com to establish that without, I think, someone going out of the way to make it appear this way.
	In other words, like a rabbit hole to send someone down, the classic muddying of the waters, you know.
	Doctor, our hour is evaporating.
	Is there any evidence the tapes were tampered with in any way?
	No, as you see, when they get more and more clear, it's really evident what's happening on the tapes in my mind.
	And, you know, to speak to EVP, if we consider EVP kind of collectively to describe anomalously recorded sounds approximating vocal utterances as perceived by the listener, I think there's an expansive data set that needs to be looked at.
	All right, hold it right there.
	We're at the end of the hour.
	We'll come back and do a little more of this and then move on to the moon, if you will.
	My guest is Dr. Stephen Rourke.
	We're talking about Spiracom and he's probably blowing the whole thing wide open.
	I'm Mark Bell.
	Once again, Richard C. Hoagland.
	Here he is, Richard.
	Hi there.
	Hi, and let us now add to the mix Mike Heiser.
	Mike, are you there?
	I'm here.
	Hello, Art.
	Hi, Richard.
	Hi, Mike.
	Oh, good.
	All right.
	Mike, you're going to have to be very careful to kind of breathe away from the phone.
	Otherwise, it kind of comes through like... So anyway, here we gather to sort of give people, I guess, a little bit of a preview of God, Man, and E.T.
	Is that fair?
	I would say that's fair.
	Now, when you all do this conference, you're going to have members of the clergy available in there to be part of it?
	Well, there's one... I think Hugh Ross is technically a clergyman right now, but he would be the only one I think that's... Well, he'll fit.
	Believe me, he'll fit.
	He'll be your guy.
	You have to realize, we actually have quite a mix here.
	It's kind of an interesting setup.
	This all started, actually, this was initiated by a listener of yours.
	Yeah, two years ago, actually.
	Someone at the University of Wisconsin at the Parkside Campus heard our show, the one I did with you almost two years ago now.
	And she told me, when I heard that show, I said, if I'm ever the head of this organization that I'm in now, I'm going to invite Mike Heiser to campus.
	And lo and behold, she became head of something called the Parkside Adult Student Alliance.
	And six or seven months ago, she sent me an email and invited me, and I thought that was great.
	You know, I accepted.
	But in the meantime, Richard and I started, we met over email, started corresponding a lot and wound up in In Roswell, and we were sitting there at dinner the last night of Ancient of Days, and Richard said, boy, wouldn't it be nice if we had a sort of a university context to sort of take this show on the road?
	And I thought of her right away, so when I came back from Roswell, I got an email from her and actually called her on the phone, and her name's Donna.
	And I said, well, Donna, I'd love to come, it's a wonderful offer, but What would you say to this idea?
	And I said, what if we could get Richard Hoagland here and a few other people, and here's the issue, the whole thing about intersecting religion with these questions, and she just...
	She went for it immediately.
	Well, she's a very smart lady, Mike, because this is, I think, the central core issue.
	We were discussing, prior to your arrival, the possibility that we've already been to Mars, for example.
	Not suggesting we have evidence that we have, but just, you know, perhaps, perhaps so, and done in a clandestine way.
	Now, why?
	And why don't we know about it?
	Because of this very reason we're about to discuss.
	I think it's a central, core question that's going to have to be answered and resolved.
	Mike, let me ask you just straight out.
	Do you think that there exists evidence of extraterrestrial presence, whether it's abductions, or crop formations, or other hard physical evidence, or maybe crashed alien bodies we still have from Roswell?
	In other words, do you think extraterrestrial presence is a reality?
	The way I would answer that is I think that what Richard is doing Is the best, most scientific way to go at that issue.
	I know to the Coast audience, Richard Hoagland and Mike Heiser, we seem like the odd couple.
	Then that's a no, isn't it?
	I mean, is that a no?
	It's an I'm not sure.
	Okay, that's fair.
	I need to be persuaded, but I think it would be really neat.
	Alright, then let me try this approach.
	Well, can I interrupt for a sec?
	Well, you may.
	Hold on one second, Richard.
	With what you know about religion, you've studied it, you write, you translate, you must know, Mike, the deep, deep, deep trouble that religion would be in if ET presence was a reality.
	Don't you, do you agree with that or not?
	Well, I think it depends on a couple things.
	I think it depends... I don't want this to sound superficial, but it might, but that's not the intention.
	I think it depends on how it's packaged and what the claims actually are.
	I mean, to me, theologically, and this isn't new with me, this goes all the way back into the Middle Ages, the idea that there could be other worlds and other inhabitants of those worlds is an old question that You know, that the church was divided on, but the mere fact that it was divided means that a lot of people within the church had no problem with it.
	And there have been some significant theologians along the way that said, wow, this would be neat.
	You know, this would be great.
	Well, I don't know a lot of them that say it would be neat, but I do know a lot of them who get really angry.
	They send me emails, and oh boy, I'm telling you, we are toying with concepts given directly by Lucifer.
	Well, here, I've always come on the show and called myself the equal opportunity offender, so here we go.
	That's because I agree with you, and I do think that the scenario painted in Brookings Is real.
	Me too.
	But I think it's because, again, I said how it's packaged, and let's divide it into points A and B. Part of the problem with the need for packaging, even bringing that up, is that people, in my estimation, have a superficial knowledge, religious people have a superficial knowledge of theology and the Bible.
	I mean, they don't really read very far into it and actually think Very broadly.
	But we're not talking about how well you wish they were educated.
	We have to talk about what they do know.
	Right, and that's point B. And that's why I do think that Brookings does paint a realistic scenario.
	And what it's going to take is it's going to take the whole, the real crux of the issue for many people, and I'm going to put Christian, Muslim, Jew here in one category, and educated and non-educated in one category.
	The real crux of the issue is this issue of human origins.
	Now, that question is actually separable from the question of, is there intelligent extraterrestrial life?
	And we tend to connect them, but there's no necessary logical connection.
	Well, let me interrupt.
	Yeah, go ahead, Richard.
	Your time.
	If you claim that we're doing the most scientific stuff in this area, The central thing we have been looking at for 20 years on Mars is an effigy, a statue, a memorial, an icon, which is human or humanoid in a place where it has no business being.
	This is why the mainstream crowd, from planetologists to biologists, basically have given a short shrift because by everything that they think they know about independent evolution of life, Finding a human face on another planet, even the one next door, is impossible.
	Mysterious.
	Mike, this is real trouble for you.
	Which means?
	I don't think so.
	In having these things separated, yes it is too, it is... Which means, if you extend the logic, if it isn't independent, if the face on Mars is not the Martians, if it really refers to the human species on this planet... Here it comes.
	Big letters, Hollywood sign size, intervention by someone, some alien presence.
	And that's the third rail of the theological debate.
	There you are, Mike.
	Alright, well there's a large difference between human and humanoid.
	Richard, you used both terms.
	Because if you actually look at the numbers and the biology people and their independent evolutionary statistics, even humanoid is impossible.
	Unless it's related.
	Well, that would be like saying... I mean, to me, that's a logical jump.
	That would be like saying, because... That's where they are.
	You were saying where theologians are?
	That's where they are.
	Oh, yeah.
	I would agree that a number of people make that connection.
	Well, I'm talking fairly like George Gaylord Simpson, who was a huge, big biologist back in the 50s and 60s at Harvard.
	He basically coined the phrase, if you threw the dice again, You might get intelligence, but it wouldn't look anything like us.
	And that has been the canonical standard.
	Finding a human face on Mars means it's humanity somewhere involved, and that would be the theological no-no, a la Mr. Bell.
	Right, it would be, that's accurately stated, it would be the theological no-no, but what I'm saying is there's a logical disconnect there.
	Well, disconnect of course.
	Let me just give you the disconnect.
	We resemble apes.
	Does that mean they created us or we created them?
	No, we're related.
	We're part of the same family.
	We're genetically related.
	See, that's a whole different question.
	No, it isn't.
	We evolved from, or they evolved from, that kind of relatedness.
	I thought we evolved from.
	Well, but I'm saying if you didn't know, you didn't have the genetics.
	If we're all related.
	And again, I don't see a problem with that here.
	If we're all related.
	Hold on now.
	Hold on, you guys.
	One at a time.
	If we're all related, then that speaks to common origin, which, in a theistic model, and again, theologians have been here and done that, in a theistic model, that's what you would expect.
	You would expect God to have created both, and you would expect there to be similarity, you would expect there to be relationship, using the family metaphor.
	Again, this is nothing new in the realm of theology, but the jump that's being made is the displacement of a common creator for both, in sort of, from like an umbrella creation to a sort of lineal, I create you, then you create something else, and then he creates something else.
	That's where the logical disconnect is.
	Okay, but here, see where I've got a problem.
	If there's a relationship, then What about that whole big important part of Genesis, where, you know, the world got created, and then man, and Adam and Eve, and then all the... You know, it's so specific in the way it all occurred, that if it turns out we were seeded from Mars, that's a really big problem!
	Well, let me put it this way.
	It looks specific.
	Yeah.
	Okay?
	But there are lots of ways... You're going to tell me it's metaphorical?
	No.
	No.
	Not at all.
	There are lots of ways I mean, I'm a text person, okay?
	Yes.
	But the question I ask myself, you know, in this issue or whatever issue, is what can the text sustain?
	What does the text allow?
	There are lots of ways, you know, to look at Genesis and not see grammatically, and I'm not just making it up, I'm saying grammatically, that There is a lineal progression from a specific point in time.
	My own view, actually, is that Genesis 1-1 does not speak of the original creation event.
	I think it refers to a subsequent creation event, to the original point of origin, big bang, whatever you want to call it.
	Grammatically, you can have great stretches of time in which, and again, this is all theoretical, I wasn't there, so I don't know, In which, you can have lots of things happening.
	So again, the only people... I'm not sure what you just said.
	I mean... Okay, what I'm saying is... See, I'm with literal people, Mike.
	Let me illustrate it with the first verse of the Bible.
	Day by day, it said what he did.
	Okay, let me illustrate it with the first verse.
	It says, In the beginning God created... Now, in Hebrew, the very first word of the Bible is Bereshit.
	Okay?
	That word does not have The word THE in Hebrew in it.
	So you should translate the verse without using the word THE, which is really difficult.
	What it means is it's indefinite.
	It is an indefinite time.
	The verse could be translated like this.
	Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike.
	I understand technically how you can go and make this case, but my point is, and we already talked about this, that isn't what people believe, Mike.
	What people believe is written quite clearly, and they take it quite literally.
	In the King James Version.
	You better believe it.
	That's part of the problem.
	So we're talking about a political reality as opposed to an academic or scholarly reality.
	Yes.
	Yes, and who is the guy here on the panel who has done more politics on this than anybody else over the last 20 years?
	One of my most interesting and surprising results, data folks, real data, is when I was asked to do a piece on CBN, Christian Broadcast Network, for Pat Robertson.
	This was back, oh I'm trying to remember, it was right after Monuments was published, which means it would have been in the summer, fall of 87, Yeah.
	of 88, somewhere around there.
	The other thing that happened is that I got called, before you and I hitched up, Art,
	I got called by Christian radio networks, including one very bright guy out there in
	Southern California.
	And what astonished me, I had been on Good Morning America, I'd been on, what's the one
	on ABC, not that, Good Morning America, I'd been on with Charlie, I'd been on all the
	mainstream shows, the most penetrating, the most careful, thoughtful presentation of our
	data, and I've got the tape, to date, then, was done by CBN, by the Christian Broadcast
	Network, by Pat Robertson, 700-737-8000.
	What do you make of that, Art?
	I was astonished at how thoughtful and how probing and how big they thought, and how they weren't afraid to ask The unthinkable questions that the mainstream guys, like my old friend Morton Dean, he just snickered and giggled when I was on Good Morning America.
	You know, and I worked with him at CBS and he couldn't look me in the eye.
	Well, they snicker and giggle a lot on those morning shows.
	But not on CBN.
	And then the radio experience, I was invited back several times, I found listeners.
	Now we're talking about the rank and file.
	The people that you're so worried about.
	The people who would tune in, and this was steeped in fundamental Christianity. These people, again, asked really
	good questions, and wherever I wanted to go in terms of speculating or posing
	of this or looking at it like a bat, they would follow, and there didn't seem
	to be the castigation and the shame on you for thinking those
	outrageous thoughts.
	But Richard, did you... And that's data!
	We must factor that into this question.
	But did you really talk about the possibility that everything that they believe to be true, sorry Mike, because that's what they believe to be true, is wrong?
	Did you hit them in the nose with that?
	Alright, how well do you know me?
	What do you think?
	I don't really know you.
	Would I have pulled my punches if I could support it?
	In front of a bunch of fundamentalists?
	I'd sure pull one of mine.
	Well, I didn't.
	You didn't.
	So you hit him right in the nose with, look, everything you believe may be incorrect.
	Incorrectly interpreted.
	That was my out.
	We're not talking about there not being God, and there not being a plan.
	We're just talking that we're not smart enough to really have figured it out yet, and we need more data, and that data is on Mars.
	The purpose of the conference is to do just what Richard described, in front of people.
	It is to confront the Church with what I think is good work that needs to be pursued and followed.
	And we all know that Richard's work is going to get criticized, it's been criticized, people don't like it, whatever, but it's something that I think should be looked at.
	and on the other hand just as richard's trying to educate
	that will be for the the late naturalist materialist public even though his
	audience is much wider than that of his described
	i'm what i'm thinking the church side of his walk
	you need to think more broadly and
	by the way mike i i don't mean to uh... to cut you short on uh... your
	interpretations of why the you know what's written in genesis may have an
	alternative meaning i I simply think if this panel, God, Man, and E.T., is to be effective, it has to deal with what people believe and probably won't have a chance to teach them something else.
	And Richard, R.G.
	in Rockville, Maryland says, why is C.B.N.
	receptive to Richard H.?
	Because they put a human face on God and Satan, why not Mars too?
	In other words, it's still, they're still just saying, sure, God could do something of that magnitude.
	That's man!
	You know, and they're pretty, pretty... But isn't that what we've been saying for a while now?
	That the data indicates that Cydonia and Mars is somehow part of the family, the human family.
	And this is what, with all this other, see look, when Mike and I met and actually did this panel at Roswell, it was clear to me from the discussions we had with the religious and theological people that we met there, some pretty neat people, that this is an issue whose time has come.
	In fact, it's well overdue.
	We have now assembled a body of evidence, apart from the whole EET UFO question, which stands still.
	We've got official government imagery, which even blows Art Bell's mind.
	All of that's true, but the issue... And so we put it together, and we present it to these people, and we say, okay, given that this is testable, given that this is the information we've assembled in 20 years, and the research that's been done, our conclusion is probably that it's real.
	What do you make of it, and when will we discuss the implications?
	And what Mike and I are hoping I'll lay out tonight exactly for the country what we're hoping.
	It's basically a grassroots campaign to put this question front and center, whose time has come.
	If this is real, what the heck does it mean?
	All right.
	I can play a part here, Richard, very easily.
	You say, I look at this, you put all of this in front of me, and as a fundamentalist, what do I think?
	I think it's the devil's work.
	I think you're being led down the path you're being lied to because that is what Lucifer does!
	That's what he does.
	And you're going to be led down the path into worshipping false gods.
	You're led away from God's path.
	It's the devil's work.
	You know what, Art?
	When you came back on the air, you were expressed little concern about us using the conference time to teach people something different.
	That isn't actually what's going to take place at the conference.
	Well, no, I was just saying that... We have an old earth creationist, we have a young earth creationist, I'm actually both, and we have Richard... How can you be both?
	It's real simple.
	Either man and the... No, there's a prior creation in Genesis 1.1, I can justify that grammatically.
	After which, there was a recreation in literal 24-hour days.
	I'm amazed that the people, especially grammarians, people who do Hebrew, just haven't seen... Boy, talk about having your cake and eating it, too.
	Ay yi yi.
	In other words, we were here with the dinosaurs, Mike, we were here with the dinosaurs, created, boom, just down there like that, 6,000 years ago?
	Mike, honest to God.
	We don't care.
	We don't care about the people who will not go beyond the English Bible, who will not think outside the box.
	You have to take them into consideration.
	They might even be close to the majority in this country.
	You guys, if you could only be in my seat when we do some of the programs we do and get some of the emails that I get, you'd have a better understanding.
	I've heard a lot of the shows.
	I have my Art Bell hat here.
	I have my Art Bell mug.
	I'm a dedicated listener.
	I get a lot of faxes, particularly after we do a show, of very dedicated, serious, honest folks trying to convert me.
	Well, of course.
	Why do you two think the Brookings Institution concluded that it would be basically a social disaster if E.T., if contact was made, if it was imminent?
	It was 40 years ago.
	So what?
	We're not saying, you know, I'll speak for myself, I think Richard would agree, but we're not saying that the group that would be upset by this has gone away.
	What we are saying is that it's smaller.
	What about the fundamentalist outlook has changed 40 years ago to now?
	I would say very little.
	Damn right.
	Very little.
	And so, what would be changing?
	I think you're overestimating the percentage of the Christian world that is fundamentalist.
	I mean, I live... You're underestimating them.
	No, I live in this world.
	And even within Christianity, Fundamentalism, I mean, if it's defined historically, is a very small percentage of the evangelical, the believing, Christian world.
	Well, they sure like to write email.
	See, to me, this is the fun and important part of this.
	We're all basically speaking kind of theoretically.
	Art has one database, which is the email that he gets.
	But most people, Art, you will agree, who write email, particularly nasty, negative email, ...are predisposed against what they're writing about.
	You get far less positive, supportive email than you get, you know, hoots and catcalls if they think you've done something wrong.
	I was on CBN.
	I have been asked on Christian Radio many times.
	The response I got, my database is that the people who are interested, who show up, are very curious and very open And they're willing to see where this leads.
	But you know, Richard, see, this person is right.
	Why is CBN receptive to Richard?
	Because they put a human face on God and Satan.
	Why not Mars too?
	So from their perspective, they allow you to fit in only as far as they want you to fit in, Richard.
	If it's a human face, it's because They're human-centric, and humans are the only thing, and if it's on Mars, it's because God put the human face there as a dedication to the work he did here on Earth.
	Which is the only work he did!
	And how is this any different than the Sega Knights?
	Those people who think we're unique, or the nearest ETs are light years away, and can never come here because they don't know how to build spaceships.
	Or anybody who just would oppose even looking I have found that the most religious, dogmatic, knee-jerk reaction, to use the common cliches, have come not from religious people, but from sectarians, from so-called scientists.
	I would agree with that, by the way.
	You know, those are the people who are dogmatic and fundamentally...
	Well, that was another finding of the Brookings report, was it not?
	Scientists...
	The group most threatened would be the scientists.
	Yes, yes sir.
	Well, I feel, and Mike and I put this together because it's time to again test the model.
	Well, Mike, I want to know something about this, the way people are when they write something,
	they put the careers on the line.
	Scientists do that, they write papers, publish or perish, right?
	They write papers saying it's this way, and if it's some other way, they're in deep doo-doo, right?
	Given that we've got a scientifically defensible data set, the stuff from NASA, This extraordinary stuff on Mars that screams for answers, and given that the centerpiece of it looks hauntingly like us, and by both the religious perspective and the scientific perspective in the 21st century, it shouldn't be there.
	We thought it would be a heck of a thing to get a discussion going around, and this is going to be a test model.
	Well, it may be the first year, really, because until this gets settled, or dealt with, in some way or another, it potentially is stopping everything, Richard.
	Admissions to Mars, and a lot of other things that I can think about.
	I think another thing we're trying to offer, just from my perspective, is that, look, we don't want to create the impression that Richard and I, or anybody else, I agree in toto.
	We do agree, I think, in principle that, hey, we want to know, we want the truth to be known.
	People do have a right to know.
	From my side, I'm thinking, look, this can, theism can bear the weight of this.
	Alright?
	On the one hand, you're correct, Art, that there will be a lot of people who will not bother to think.
	Well, welcome to the world of theology.
	I mean, this is just the way it is.
	You know, Richard's accustomed to uphill battles, trying to get people to think about these things, you know, in his line of work.
	It's not just the world of theology, Mike.
	It's the world.
	Yeah.
	Most people would prefer not to think.
	What makes this audience and art different, what he's created with this venue, is an audience of people from sea to shining sea who stay up night to think, to think about the unthinkable.
	Yes.
	Yes, and many of them, when I take the positions I'm taking, and I am taking a position here because I want you guys to know what you're up against, so I'm taking a pretty rough position, but a lot of people just go berserk out there and they say, oh no, I'm as Christian as you can get, I have no problem with this at all.
	I do have a very open-minded audience, Richard.
	You're right.
	But it's atypical.
	It's not the general population, and it sure as heck not the Bible Belt.
	Look, given my proclivities for the political side of this, which I came into the hard way because initially I thought it would just be science, it would just be data, it would just be testing it, and I found there's this huge impediment.
	The elephant in the room, the 800-pound elephant that nobody wants to talk about.
	Although I think elephants weigh a bit more than that.
	Whatever the agenda is to keep it down on the farm, I think it goes back to Brookings.
	The difference between me and Mike is that Mike, I think, believes that Brookings was an honest effort to assess the state of the country in the 50s on these issues.
	You don't think so?
	I think it was a politically spun document To seal the deal before any real evidence was in.
	I think that the fix was in before Brookings was ever written.
	For those who are not familiar with Brookings, would somebody... Richard, why don't you do it?
	Just give a very brief... Well, Brookings basically was this NASA study commissioned in 1959, just as NASA was being formed, of the Brookings Institution, the most famed think tank in Washington.
	To basically study the impact of the space program on all different facets of American society.
	A few what-ifs.
	Meteorology.
	Meteorological satellites.
	Seeding of hurricanes.
	Urban development is monitored by satellites from space.
	Teflon.
	New materials.
	New energy sources.
	The whole gamut.
	It's a 400-page book, which I've got one copy of.
	But as part of it.
	As part of it, there's a section on NASA and the subject of extraterrestrial life.
	And it did two things that were stunning.
	It predicted that NASA in the next 20 years, which remember from 59, 69, that's 79, 1979, would find evidence of ruins elsewhere in the solar system, either on the moon, Mars, or Venus.
	It didn't say May, it said would.
	And then it said that the implications of this were that serious consideration should be given to the role of the discovering scientists in making this information known.
	I believe that Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clarke's film, 2001, was written as a response to Brookings.
	Well, I'm not sure if you covered this well enough exactly.
	I mean, it predicted Uh, that it would have extremely serious impact on... Oh yeah, the bottom line was that civilization could be destroyed.
	Thank you.
	I mean, you don't want to leave these things out.
	If this information was improperly handled, and by improperly, they then question the role of scientists who are involved in discovery, In making it public.
	Which is an official public document through NASA which questions whether something will be ever made public.
	So did it suggest that such a discovery would perhaps better not be made public?
	Yes!
	It did.
	So it set a kind of a policy...
	Groups in society.
	Religiously minded people.
	It's at a kind of a policy baseline, right?
	And it recommended further studies, which we can't find.
	But if you look at the shape of what's happened on the Sedonia question for the last 20, 30 years, since 1976, it has all the hallmarks of a Brookings response.
	Namely, keep it covered, keep it secret, keep it dissembled.
	Keep it deflected, don't deal with it seriously, so the culture never has to grapple with the fundamental question.
	Well, speaking of fundamentals, I asked, do you think fundamentalism has changed much in, say, 40 years since Brookings?
	No, it hasn't.
	But it's still, it's a marginalized thing within the Christian world.
	It's a very small percentage.
	Well, you know, We're not shooting for the periphery, we're shooting for the middle.
	You want the Episcopals, you want the Methodists, you want the Baptists, you want the Catholics.
	You don't need the so-called marginal groups at the edges of the bell curve, like what happened in Waco with what's-his-name, David Koresh.
	Also, small, marginalized groups of fundamentalists can do a lot of things, like knock down buildings in New York City.
	Well, what's interesting is that the Brookings Report was far more worried in its handling of theology and a theological response to this by Buddhists than they were of American fundamentalist Christians.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Now that, that alone will generate a reason for people to come back.
	Once again, Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Heiser.
	I'm Art Veld.
	All right.
	Richard, you mentioned Buddhists.
	I have got Brookings.
	I went to my vast library and found my Brookings document.
	I am sitting here, open to page 225.
	This is a fascinating paragraph, Art.
	And it says?
	It says, the fundamentalist and anti-science sects are growing apace around the world.
	Remember, this was written in 1959.
	Yeah.
	And, as missionary enterprises, may have schools and a good deal of literature attached to them.
	One of the important things is that, where they are active, they appeal to the illiterate and semi-illiterate, including, as missions, the preachers as well as the congregation, and can pile up a very influential following in terms of numbers.
	Let's see where they're coming from.
	I know that if someone actually said that on this program, they'd get a lot of really nasty emails.
	This is a government document circa 1959.
	Let me emphasize that.
	Here's the part that's really intriguing.
	For them, meaning these fundamentalist anti-science exes by NASA, the discovery of other life, rather than any other space product, would be electrifying, since the main ones Among these sects are broadly international in their scope and are in some places a news source, the principal distributors of mass media materials, an important source of value interpretation, a central social institution, an educational institution, and so on.
	Some scattered studies need to be made both in their home centers and churches and their missions In relation to attitudes about space activities and extraterrestrial life.
	Additionally, we're not getting to the good part.
	Additionally, because of the international effects of space activities, and in the event of its happening, of the discovery of extraterrestrial life, even though space activities are not internationalized, it is very important to take account of other major religions.
	So, for example, Buddhist priests are heavily politically engaged in Ceylon.
	So too in Burma, many politically active men, including U Nu, I think he was a member of the UN, are professionally active Buddhists.
	The Burmese convoked the Sixth Great Buddhist Council, which brought together a huge international group of Buddhist lay and ecclesiastical leaders And it seems likely that, at least in the case of Theravada Buddhism, with the wide participation of modern, educated, politically active men, Buddhist beliefs and principles are being reinterpreted.
	We need, and we do not have, good observations or interpretive statements about the possible repercussions of space activities, etc., for these Buddhists.
	Well, that's saying they don't know, it didn't say... They were astonished!
	Well, they didn't say it would go further, it'd be worse than... What they were worried about was political activism.
	Yeah, okay, well... And they were most concerned not about domestic American fundamental political activism, but in this context of 59, they were worried about Buddhists as an example of a coherent religious political response in the international community.
	Now, let me leapfrog here.
	When they wrote this, remember how they said that these missions overseas were the centers of education, publications, literacy, etc.?
	Yes, yes.
	We now live in the internet-satellite-television era.
	So the fears that they had that the fundamentalist anti-science doctrine as they saw it would have a monopoly on their followers, on their parishioners, no longer obtains.
	There's a wide spectrum of communications now to these people, the same people we want to talk to.
	And what Mike and I are trying to do with this first conference is to get a groundswell going so people will engage in the conversation.
	And frankly, I think there's going to be an extraordinary conversation to engage in.
	Lou in Phoenix, Arizona says, um, hey Art, you know, you missed the biggest fundamentalist threat.
	What will the Muslims do?
	This would drive them insane.
	They'd want to start a jihad against the rest of the galaxy.
	Absolutely wrong.
	Not so.
	Absolutely.
	Mike, do you want to tell them why?
	The Koran, of all the three major book religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Koran is probably the clearest in allowing for other worlds.
	It allows for ETs, Art, right?
	In the Koran.
	Alright, well then Lou's wrong.
	Well, he's looking at the terrorist spin-doctoring of a tiny, tiny percentage.
	Of the Muslims of the world.
	Well, again... That would be like taking out a tiny percentage of fundamentalist Christians and making them the problem.
	Right.
	Well, you're saying, you keep saying, of every religion, that the only problems are going to be a tiny, tiny percentage.
	But gosh darn it, you guys, I'm telling you right now, this tiny percentage, first of all, I'm not so sure it's so tiny, and secondly, they're definitely not quiet.
	They are the most Aggressive, verbose, active people that you're ever going to want to meet your whole life.
	And you can't marginalize these people, I'm telling you right now.
	We're not marginalizing, we're talking to them.
	But by your very statements about how small their numbers are, and I'm not even sure you're right about that.
	Well, I'm quite confident in that.
	I mean, that is the environment I initially religiously speaking, came from.
	When I use the word marginalized, I'm referring to their numbers, I'm not referring to them as people or anything like that.
	My concern is with the broader evangelical world.
	The resistance is going to be there if, as I said, depending on how it's packaged, The Christian community, the academic Christian community, and there is a very large active academic Christian community within the evangelical spectrum, has always adapted to things like this.
	Let me just give you an example.
	The whole quantum model, the whole quantum physics thing.
	Initially, when that came out, it was like, oh, this is just the boogeyman, this is just a tremendous threat.
	I mean, once people started thinking about it, They realize, wow, you know, this can really give us a lot of insight onto a number of theological issues.
	And once again, and I think the E.T.
	thing, if Richard's right, I mean, if this actually pans out into reality someday, once again, I think theism can sustain this.
	It has sustained many things.
	From a theistic perspective, we believe that God is the Creator, He knows how the universe ticks.
	We discover it.
	And we go on.
	Well, a lot of this, though, gentlemen, is going to depend on how this occurs, and many qualified guests have said to me, OK, Art, fine, if we get a signal from 10,000 light years away, and that's announced to the world, the world will handle that reasonably well.
	Yes, there'll be a lot of speculation and nervousness and all that, but it'll be handled pretty well because it's 10,000 light years away, And we'll just have lots of questions about it, like we do about religion anyway now.
	However, if there's something really traumatic, like a real-time landing in Atlanta, for example, you know, something really serious, And we're presented with the fact, for example, that we've been authored and tampered with for some time now, and that our genetic fathers just walked down that corrugated, unknown, metallic thing there from the saucer.
	And these are our fathers, these are our creators.
	That would not be handled so well.
	Well, the first question of thinking Christian is going to ask is, how do we know that?
	How do you prove that?
	And what I usually get is, oh, well, there's the genetic similarity.
	Oh, well, there's a visual similarity.
	Oh, well, there's this.
	Oh, well, there's... Well, hey, we got that on the planet Earth, and again, there's a logical disconnect to it.
	So what if there's a genetic similarity?
	That doesn't mean that one species created another.
	There is a significant disconnect here.
	But again, I have to agree with you, Art, that people aren't going to... I understand what you're saying, but a lot of people aren't going to even ask the question, is there a disconnect?
	They're going to just react.
	Now, I don't minimize what you guys are doing because it is my belief that the Brookings Report governs what we do now.
	It governs what we're not told right now.
	It certainly allows for secrecy and top secrecy and levels a million times above that of things that we're never going to know about.
	It laid the groundwork for that.
	It was the baseline for all of that.
	And they like to keep secrets anyway, so they just will cite that forevermore and maybe they're not wrong.
	Just below the religious paragraph I read before, there's another line that I really had not read until this moment, carefully.
	And it says?
	Well, remember my spin on this, is that Brookings is a political document designed to keep The in-crowd in line is designed to keep honest scientists and bureaucrats and civil servants from blowing the whistle by laying out that the stakes are all of civilization and, you know, cats and dogs living together and all the other terrible things that could happen versus keeping the secret careful until the appropriate time.
	And they decide the appropriate time.
	Listen to this line.
	If plant life or some sub-human intelligence ...were found on Mars or Venus, for example, there is, on the face of it, there is, on the face of it, no good reason to suppose these discoveries, after the original novelty had been exploited to the fullest and worn off, would result in substantial changes in perspectives or philosophy in large parts of the American public, at least any more than, let us say,
	Did the discovery of the coelacanth or the panda.
	I wonder how they reached that conclusion.
	Well, one wonders a lot about this document because all the supporting studies they call for... Well, one doesn't more than wonder about it.
	It said some things about fundamentalists, Richard, that were just downright insulting.
	Yeah, but think of the... I mean, fundamentalists does not automatically, unless you're an intellectual stuck way up there somewhere kind of person, it called them Sort of backwoodsy and not too intelligent, and I forget what it was they said in there, but wasn't good.
	Mark, remember the culture of the 1950s, what was happening in the South?
	Yes.
	We were lynching human beings.
	Oh yes.
	People were running around in sheets.
	We just defeated a guy over on the other side of the world that slaughtered six million of a particular race.
	That's right.
	So we've come light years.
	I really agree with Mike.
	We are not the culture ...that spawned this document regardless of its honesty, and we need to engage in the conversation now.
	Not tomorrow, not next week, but now.
	But you see, I don't think that their basic conclusions were as true today as they were then, and I don't... You can't say that!
	When I refer to that, I refer to the fact that society couldn't handle it any better today than it could then.
	I don't see what's changed that's going to allow... Nothing's changed!
	Look, I have always argued, from the moment I got into this and realized that these ruins on Mars could be real, might be real, possibly could be real, that the safest way to back down from the Brookings position, to educate the middle of the bell curve, ...was to start dealing with the most unthreatening aspect, which to me is ruins lying on another world.
	Not guys landing on the White House lawn, but ruins, boys and girls.
	Libraries, technology, wonders, medical advances.
	Do you realize that if we set an expedition, even a robotic expedition that could bring samples back, and we went into laboratories at Cydonia, And simply took the bottles off the shelf and sent them home, we might find the most astonishing cures for the top 50 diseases of humankind in the world, particularly if those folks were related and more advanced than us.
	The benefits so far outweigh not knowing.
	And if the impediment to not knowing is a political hang-up... Okay, you know what else we might find out, Richard?
	I mean, I'm glad you said that.
	But suppose, for example, we found out that what killed Mars, and killed all the previous residents of Mars, is soon going to kill us.
	That might be something that you might not want to put on tomorrow's Daily News headline.
	Unless there's something you can do about it.
	Unless there's something you can do about it.
	And I have argued strongly based on the physics, remember?
	That's all their whole show, the hyperdimensional model.
	That what we are being shown, even in the layout of what they built, is an extraordinary, empowering science of energy, information, and new physics that allows us to do almost magical things.
	One might ask, though, that if all that's true, then how come they're dead?
	Ah, because in the In the theological plan, in the flaw of the human condition, there is the awful, awful conundrum that men and women, for reasons that border on the insane, in fact they are insane, go to war with each other again and again and again.
	Who is to say, in terms of Mike's perspective of the gap between Genesis 1 and Genesis 1-1, That somewhere in that gap, Mars falls, and it in fact is after a fall.
	It's after a decrease of enlightenment.
	It's after a proximity to the Godhead.
	And that our problems can be looked at from a totally new perspective, with totally new solutions, based on greater insight, if we only encompass the insight.
	We should bring in Dave Flynn's work here.
	Well, do we want to really give it away?
	Because that's a really cool... Oh, yeah, we do want to give it away.
	What is it?
	What is it?
	Well, what... Are you desperate?
	Go ahead.
	No, we want to give anything away on the show, so... What Dave is doing is exploring Mars-Cydonia connections in Old World mythology.
	And, I'll just leave it at this, he would say, That what Richard just said about the fall of Mars, so on and so forth, that ancient mythology and megalithic structures on Earth actually reflect a belief that that happened.
	Really?
	We'll just leave it there.
	Remember I had a section in Monuments, or I have a section called the Search for the Terrestrial Connection?
	Yes.
	What Flynn has done, and he's really done a hell of a good job, and I don't say that about a lot of people, because you know, I'm really, really, really Persnickety about good research.
	But David Flynn has done some really cool stuff, and he's on the panel.
	What he has thought is a solid documentation of the Mars echo in terrestrial mythology, ranging from the Christian fundamental story laid out in Genesis, all the way through the Middle Eastern, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, etc.
	and he's got the most astonishing surprise once again richard c hoagland and my cousin
	Richard and Mike, if Brookings, just for the sake of discussion, if Brookings was right then, and they're right now, and you wanted to change that, how would you do it?
	Mike, you want me to do something, or do you want to do it?
	Well, I'll speak for the Christian community.
	Sure.
	I think that the Christian community needs to be exposed again to what Richard's doing.
	And I don't want to misrepresent Dr. Ross or Paul Nelson, our other speaker.
	I mean, they're going to be skeptical about extraterrestrial life from a scientific perspective.
	But if Richard's model is correct, especially the hyperdimensional, the mathematics and all that, that screams intelligent design.
	And the Church needs to be confronted with that, with reality.
	If this is reality, The Church needs to be confronted with that, and I think slowly it will acclimate.
	The mind will become open.
	God will come out of the box, as God has done many times within the Church, and people will start to think about it and see.
	Theologians, pastors, whatnot, will start wrestling with this and articulating for the laity that theism can sustain this, and this is just one of those things.
	It's exciting.
	It means something.
	But theism can sustain this.
	So I think it's just a gradual educational process and thinking through the issues.
	But again, there are some non-negotiables.
	The whole creative aspect.
	Yes, it's the non-negotiables.
	The fact that there is a non-negotiable does not damage the pursuit of what Richard is trying to do.
	In other words, does everyone have to agree 100% with Richard Hoagland to say, yes, you're onto something and this matters?
	But the larger issue here is not whether Richard is precisely right or wrong.
	It's even a larger issue.
	It's, well, there probably are aliens.
	If it didn't bother Aquinas, it shouldn't bother us.
	People just need to go back.
	They need to start thinking about their theology again.
	But what if, you know, I mean the panel has to deal with what if we run head-on
	into a non-negotiable. If it didn't bother Aquinas.
	I'll give you another name.
	C.S.
	Lewis.
	Very common name, very familiar across Christian and non-Christian perspectives.
	He actually wrote a trilogy.
	Prelandria Out of the Silent Planet?
	Prelandria Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength, where he dealt with this.
	I mean, this is old stuff that Christian theologians have tackled.
	Is our origin negotiable?
	Well, theism is not negotiable.
	As far as What God did, when He did it, how He did it, the mechanism.
	These are all the things that, you know, within the scientific and the philosophical world as we know it now, you know, quantum physics, all these other different views, this is why there is diversity even within the Christian community on this issue.
	The non-negotiable is theism, that God created.
	The mechanism of creation, some Christians embrace evolution.
	So that's more or less a no, right?
	Excuse me again?
	I mean, it's a non-negotiable.
	As far as God... As far as our creation... Yes, our creation is concerned.
	That's not negotiable.
	So that if we were to go to... The mechanism is negotiable.
	The mechanism is.
	Let's see how negotiable you think it is.
	If we went to Mars and we found out that indeed it had been populated and there was substantial, extremely strong evidence that we are Martians, for example.
	Is it that negotiable?
	What does the phrase, we are Martians, mean?
	That we're common ancestry?
	It means that we both descended from the same creator?
	No, not necessarily.
	What it means is that we came from Mars.
	We came from Mars.
	Mars was dying somehow.
	You haven't answered the question of how we came from Mars.
	All you've done with that question is to move the, who is the human species, back one planet.
	It's the same question, which is historically been with us.
	It's just been moved one planet over.
	So we had a migration.
	So we had a California gold rush to Earth.
	That doesn't change the fundamentals.
	What does change the fundamentals... But it said something about Earth being created.
	Yeah, but Earth is an ill-defined term!
	And Genesis says that God created everything in the heavenly host.
	I mean, you have to realize, Art, that, again, this is not a road that theology has not been down.
	The laity doesn't realize that because the laity, quite frankly, is complacent.
	And the negative way of saying it is they're smug.
	They're theologically smug.
	And I just think that if this is reality, and again, I'm not omniscient.
	I don't know if Richard's right.
	I look at what he's doing as a credible attempt to try to establish this.
	And I'm not going to compare him to people I don't think are credible that I've dealt with before.
	But this is not a road that theology has not been down, and if he's right, this is part of general revelation.
	It's part of the creation.
	It's part of what God did, and we need to understand it.
	You want to hear something really freaky, gentlemen?
	When Mike and I planned this, you know, and discussed it, and he finally got the go-ahead from the university, I had no idea that the lead story in Atlantic Monthly, which is a main, mainstream publication... Indeed.
	They bill themselves as the smartest magazine on the rack?
	Yes.
	Here's an article by Paul Davies.
	Now, Mr. Davies, Dr. Davies, is a professor of natural philosophy at the Australian Center for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney.
	He's written something like 25 books.
	Anyway, his lead article in the Atlantic Monthly was ET and God.
	Could earthly religion survive the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe?
	And what fascinated me by the article, which of course I carefully saved as part of my arsenal when I go up against Mr. Ross and others, are the number of mainstream theologians who, as Mike has been saying all night, have grappled with this successfully and want to know.
	If all of this is true, then Brookings was wrong then, and is wrong now.
	I don't think that much has changed.
	It's a matter of degree.
	I mean, Brookings, it's not an either-or.
	This is the either-or fallacy.
	Either Brookings is right or it's wrong.
	Why can't the answer be yes, okay?
	Yeah, there are people who would react the way Brookings does.
	I mean, that is a no-brainer.
	They're going to be that way.
	The question is how much.
	If the world hasn't changed since 1950, what the heck are we doing here?
	If you are our government, it's hard to be that, but if you're somebody very high up in government, and you're reading the Brookings Report, and you're considering what your policy is going to be, or in fact maybe is... Now you're getting close to what I think is the real issue.
	Well, sure.
	I read you that paragraph so that you could all out there listen to the overwhelming political fears inspired by Brookings.
	They're not concerned about Christians believing this or believing that.
	They're concerned about fundamentally religious people of many different stripes enacting their beliefs at the ballot box.
	Well, let me tell you something, brother.
	In our Constitution, religion and the state are separated.
	But in reality, in politics, there is nothing at all separated.
	And politicians have to act all the time with religious belief in mind.
	Oh, you bet.
	What Brookings did not forecast, which I found interesting in hindsight, is the rise of the fundamentalist Christian political perspective in the central mainstream American body politic, particularly in the 1980 election.
	Fundamentalist Christians helped Ronald Reagan get elected.
	You betcha.
	They then helped George Bush get elected.
	You betcha.
	They did not help Bill Clinton get elected.
	Right.
	They were incredibly, shall we say, put off by Mr. Clinton.
	Part of the backlash, part of the political war that we have, which is called the Cultural Divide, by people like Bill Bennett, is between the The state of values as held by that constituency versus what they perceive to be the liberals, the Hollywood left, etc.
	You're seeing it again reflected in the last tortured days of the California recall campaign.
	That divide on cultural values, I have believed for quite a while, is politically what's holding up the train here.
	And the only way to get past this station is to directly confront it, show mainstream Christians this is not against their religion, and in fact it could enhance their religion, but we're not going to know unless we go!
	So, you're going to try and demonstrate this, in essence, to the political powers that be, that they need not be afraid of this.
	It's going to be your goal, right?
	That's our goal, and what will be the criteria of success will be if other universities pick up on this conference, if they invite us to take this show on the road, to Georgetown, to UCLA, to Podunk U in Iowa, wherever.
	We will know we've got something by the tail that the interest of the body politic is bigger than the fear.
	Well, I certainly agree that is your goal.
	I'm just thinking, though, that you're going to run into a brick wall and, you know, I could be wrong.
	I could be, but I don't think I am.
	Hey, you've got a front row seat, my friend.
	One of the things that, you know, Richard has had a lot of experience, like you said, with CBN and so on and so forth, but one of the things I think that Richard took from Roswell, and he's alluded to it tonight, is, again, being in this environment where you have, you know, Christians discussing these issues and seeing the openness.
	Do you have that email handy from, what's his name, Mike?
	You have to give me the contents a little.
	One of our panelists in Roswell.
	wrote this really affirming post-conference email.
	Well, that was Chris.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I bet I have it somewhere.
	If you could quickly find it, because that would tell Art a lot about how the straws are blowing in the dust.
	Well, I'd like to invite Art to the next one, AOD 204.
	I know Art doesn't... You might not... I know you don't do too many things, but you're welcome.
	I don't, but you might not want to have me there, because I really do have certain beliefs that Art, we had Richard Hoagland there.
	Let that sink in.
	You know, and along those lines, what we wanted to show... The only ungodly thing, Art, is they made me get up at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
	As I said, I've never been anywhere on a Sunday morning talking about God for many years.
	What we wanted to show, look, it's not the Christians who have this interest that are shutting the You know, the non-Christians-out or the non-evangelicals or whatever label you want, it usually works the other way around.
	I mean, we don't get invited to a lot of things.
	I've said before on the air, and I'll say it again, and I'll stand by it, Coast to Coast is one of the few shows that will even have me on.
	It is the other side that tends to be closed-minded, and I appreciated what Richard said earlier about there is a significant section of Christianity that's used to thinking Cosmically, the big picture kind of thing.
	I'm inviting you right now, come to 2004, be a spectator, be a speaker, I think you'll be surprised.
	Even though this, and we covered this earlier, is a very open-minded audience, probably 10, 20 times more open-minded than the average audience for, you know, a talk radio program.
	But even this audience has a high percentage of people who would just utterly... I can't even... If you could sit in my seat and read the emails, you would know these people believe what you're discussing is Absolutely the work of the devil.
	That's why we're devoting three hours to an interchange, questions and answers, panelists responding.
	I think a lot of that that you see in your email, Art, if I may be so bold, from this open-minded audience, is from the perspective of frustration.
	There's a conversation they have not been even invited to join.
	What we're trying to do is invite people to join a crucial conversation Which I think is the imperative of the entire species.
	It's got to be thrashed out.
	It has to be thrashed out before we know, before officialdom deigns to tell us.
	And the upside could be that if we get a groundswell going here of people who are thinking on their feet about these cosmological and theological issues, and we can create a political visibility for that, It could help advance the day when they'll finally get around to telling it.
	These people would say to you, though, I don't go anywhere to negotiate my faith.
	But no one's asking anyone to negotiate their faith.
	I don't think they need to go any further than their Bible.
	I understand.
	I'm just telling you how hard a mission you have in front of you.
	Not that you're not used to hard ones.
	Richard's used to uphill battles.
	The nonsense has been thrown at us for the questions we have raised.
	Yes.
	It's time we raise serious questions so we get serious answers from serious people.
	Well, one thing it will not be is boring.
	I guarantee you that.
	Well, I am preparing a special paper.
	I've never done this before in this because I've never had... It has not been the time for the critical mass that I think we've now achieved.
	Yes.
	So I have titled my talk very provocatively.
	For certain people, the Gods of Cydonia.
	Knowing that... I see you didn't look at my page.
	And we shall go from there.
	And that is an updated title too.
	You just threw that in to totally plaster somebody.
	Oh my.
	Well, all right.
	It has been a pleasure having you both on.
	All right, you two, good night.
	Good night, Mr. Dell.
	Thank you, Art.
	Yes, good night.
	Well, what an intriguing, intriguing night, and a little taste of what I guess they're going to try to do.
	It's probably the question to be answered, and that is, of course, How the religious world, not just the Christians, but the entire religious world would handle the news of, and I mean the hard news, of an E.T.
	presence and perhaps something even a little further that has to do with our roots and our beginnings and all of that.

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