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Feb. 25, 2021 - The Joe Rogan Experience
03:07:54
Joe Rogan Experience #1612 - Robert Bigelow
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joe rogan
01:17:30
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robert bigelow
01:45:02
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jamie vernon
00:17
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The Joe Rogan Experience.
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Hello, Mr. Bigelow.
robert bigelow
Hello, good morning.
Good afternoon.
joe rogan
Yeah, pleasure to meet you.
Pleasure to get to talk to you, and I really appreciate you coming on here.
My pleasure.
You and I have some shared interests, clearly, in the world of UFOs, but I want to talk.
Most people know of you because of Bigelow Aerospace.
They know that you're this billionaire investor, and you're a very successful businessman, but you have a deep fascination with UFOs.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Yeah, sure do.
joe rogan
How did this all get started?
robert bigelow
Back when I was about three years old, which would be about 1947, Actually, in May of that year, my grandparents had a very close encounter that was dramatic.
They were taking an evening drive in the late afternoon up into the mountains and coming on back down to Las Vegas.
And they saw what appeared to be at first an airplane on fire.
And the object became closer and closer to them and they pulled off to the side of the road.
And at one point then it filled up the windshield and they thought they were going to die.
And at the last second it shot off and disappeared.
And I learned of this story when I was probably Ten years old, because I was three at the time, and my mother had told me this story.
So I approached my grandfather, and he wouldn't talk about it.
Now, after all these years, like seven years have gone by, because I was intrigued with it.
And so I went to my grandmother, and she only would say a few words, but she wouldn't talk.
So I got the story from my mom, and they...
My grandfather had to sit on the side of the road there in the car for a while to recompose himself because they thought they were going to die.
And then he finally was able to drive back to Las Vegas.
So that was the beginning for me.
joe rogan
Did he ever describe what...
You said it looked like a plane on fire, but what was the shape of it as it got closer?
robert bigelow
I don't recall any kind of shape that my mother described.
I don't recall that.
joe rogan
But they just knew it wasn't a plane.
They knew it was something crazy.
robert bigelow
That's right.
So in the family, the family had an event.
I lived right next door to my grandparents.
And the family had an event that kind of started things at that date.
For me, other personal things came later.
But for the family, that was a big deal.
joe rogan
So this was, you said 47?
47. And 47 was the time of the Roswell crash.
47 was a time there was a lot of UFO activity being observed worldwide.
And the speculation is that this had to do with the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the tests that United States had done and Russia had done and that there was a lot of interest.
Well, actually Russia hadn't dropped any bombs by that time, right?
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
It was after that.
But there was interest in our species by extraterrestrials because they were like, oh, these crazy assholes are detonating nukes.
Like, let's go take a look at them.
robert bigelow
Right.
Well, you had so-called Foo Fighters during the war.
These lights that were following bombers and the tail gunners were the ones that saw them most often, of course.
And that happened through the war.
And then, of course, Roswell, but before that was Kent Arnold, right, in about June, June-ish.
And then in July 8th was Roswell.
joe rogan
And there's a direct uptick, though, from the Trinity experiments, right?
robert bigelow
I think, yeah, I gather my feeling simply is that without any kind of other evidence or proof that that was a huge stimulus.
Yeah.
joe rogan
So this was around that time, and you had heard about this as a part of, you know, family discussions.
Right.
And so that sort of ignited the fire initially.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
And I started asking my friends, as I say, when I was about 10, you know, have you...
Any reports in your family of anything?
And by golly, a couple of my close friends told me things that they had never told me before.
So, you know, that wasn't necessarily an exclusive event, is what I'm saying.
Other people in Las Vegas had seen things at close proximity as well.
joe rogan
Now, your relationship to this is obviously something that you've carried for so long.
It's been an obsession of yours for so long.
It started with this, but what personal experiences, if any, have you had?
robert bigelow
Well, when I was probably seven or so, seven or eight, I used to have what I chalked up all my life to just being silly dreams.
And I had maybe five or six of these dreams and I could never make sense of them.
And I would be laying in bed on my side, and a typical dream, always the same.
There would be three short somebody, somethings, in a kind of monk robe, and so I couldn't see any face, couldn't see any appendages.
And these three whatevers were standing there, and they were not too far from my eye level, as far as the heights and so forth.
joe rogan
So these, like, child size?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so there was nothing in the...
I was an avid comic book reader, but there was nothing in the whole genre of comic books that related to that or movies.
And we didn't have television in Las Vegas until 53 or 54. And even after that, it was terrible broadcasting, you know, at first.
But so it made no sense to me.
And so over my lifetime, I never mentioned it to anybody, including my wife.
It's funny how you keep things secret and just kind of for no good reason.
Maybe I would be embarrassed to talk about it.
But I finally thought, well, you know, maybe it was just dreams.
Maybe it was something else.
And so that was the first event personally that I had at that time in the subject.
joe rogan
When did you start to connect the idea of these tiny people or human-like things with extraterrestrials?
robert bigelow
Well, years later, when I began to start my process as a researcher and as a student in the subject and began to talk with people who were Who made it their business to be experts in abductions.
And the more I got into the field and sat writing out questions for the researcher, for the therapist who would be asking the questions, and I'd be sitting there watching the process.
And just over time, I thought, well, you know, maybe there was something more to it.
But I'm better off not knowing anything, so I'll just block it off and forget about it.
joe rogan
Yeah, we talked last night about John Mack a little bit, the Harvard...
robert bigelow
A great guy.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And he did a lot of these sort of hypnotic regression sessions with people where they described very similar scenarios.
robert bigelow
Well, yeah, a multitude of different situations.
The abduction phenomena was very proliferate in the population, it seemed like.
Even we did a survey called the Roper Poll.
And we repeated it three times so that the margin of error was really reduced to like one, one and a half percent.
And abduction researchers came up with the ten questions.
And so we distributed that and the conclusion was a fairly A relatively sizable percentage of the population had some kind of experiences according to them, according to the researchers, and according to the poll.
I am not qualified to speak to the accuracy of whether the questions were that relevant to the conclusions or not, but that's what they said.
And I had, in my own research, found people that I put them through a regression.
Not personally, but I found a hypnotherapist that could do that.
And I found a number of people just here, there, scattered around.
Maybe somebody in my own staff.
And they would come up with these stories and these events.
joe rogan
One of the criticisms of John Mack and hypnotic regression in general is that the idea that you can put a memory into someone's head.
That you could suggest things and you could create false memories.
And this was something that I've read in the criticism of his work.
That this style of hypnotic regression and bringing up these very specific scenarios to a bunch of different people, you can sort of help create, especially in people that are easily influenced or people that are open to suggestion, you could put these false memories in their head.
And so, you know, especially when you're dealing with something as fantastic, As a UFO or alien abduction or visitation or something like that.
robert bigelow
That's definitely possible.
There's also something called screen memory, but dealing with the first power suggestion.
That's absolutely true.
But my experience was with different hypnotherapists, they went out of their way.
In fact, if they did make a suggestion, it was just the opposite.
They might say, okay, you're on board this craft.
You know, where's the lighting coming from?
Is it coming from the corner of the room that you're in?
Well, there were no corners.
They'd be corrected right away by the person being...
So they went just the opposite direction on purpose to make suggestions to maybe coax the person to come that direction and they wouldn't do it.
The person wouldn't do it.
Now screen memory is different supposedly if somebody has a very close encounter With supposedly somebody that's ET, you leave that the memory turns out to be entirely different and that's put into you consciously and you recall something entirely different than what actually happened.
Maybe you saw two deer on the road or something of that sort or maybe there were owls or whatever.
So that's what's purported to be.
joe rogan
What's crazy to me is if you go back to Betty and Barney Hill, if you go to Travis Walton, if you go to a lot of these abduction experiences, people that did not know each other, and particularly we're talking about before social media, before any of this stuff, they have very similar stories.
Similar to a disturbing extent.
robert bigelow
Yeah, well, Betty and Barney Hill was accidental.
I think somebody had, Betty or Barney had a sleep problem, and they went to try to get some therapy for a sleeping disorder.
I think there was some kind of connection like that, but it didn't have to do with, oh my gosh, we have this recollection.
The story evolved through the therapy.
And in order to try to fix this other problem, all of a sudden this story starts just to flow out.
And so I don't know whether it was Betty first and then Barney later.
And I think Barney resisted going under hypnosis, I believe.
And then everything just started pouring out.
joe rogan
There's a woman named Angela Hill.
She's a top UFC fighter, and she's actually the granddaughter of Betty and Barney.
robert bigelow
No kidding.
joe rogan
It's crazy.
And I didn't know about it until after we did a conversation.
I was interviewing her, just talking to her about her fighting career.
And at the end of the conversation, when we were done wrapping up and about to leave, she's like, oh, I forgot to tell you.
And then she tells me that her grandparents were Betty and Barney Hill.
I'm like, what?
robert bigelow
That's amazing.
joe rogan
That was her grandfather.
robert bigelow
Did you inquire or Did you ask her?
joe rogan
Yeah, we talked about it.
She didn't have much of a memory of him, but her parents recalled the scenes that he described, and obviously it became this huge national story.
I remember hearing about it when I was a kid.
It was in the 1950s, right?
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
There was no archetype that you would sort of model You know your memories after I would wonder like if I ever did hypnotic regression today I would I would be very skeptical of my own memories Because I've heard so many stories right of these spaceship encounters I've talked to people like Travis Walton I've talked to people like Bob Lazar I've talked to these people that have had these experiences with these things I would want I would think that my
memory is Might be tainted by my expectations.
But you can't say that about Betty and Barney Hill.
These people, there was no stories like that before then.
This is not some pop culture thing that they were latching onto.
And even the way they described these creatures, the similarities between their descriptions and Travis Walton's descriptions, you know, 20 plus years later, it's very eerie.
robert bigelow
Right, right, right.
And the same thing with Ken Arnold's sightings.
That was virgin territory back then in 1947. Can you explain that to people?
Well, so Ken Arnold was a pilot.
joe rogan
That's in that movie Phenomenon, right?
Isn't it described in that?
robert bigelow
Maybe so.
joe rogan
The Phenomenon?
robert bigelow
Maybe so.
And so he was flying over Mount Shasta or somewhere in Washington there.
And saw these objects, nine objects, kind of skipping along in formation.
And he, being a professional pilot, was able to estimate their speed, calculate that.
They were traveling way too fast for conventional aircraft.
And the shape that he described was, I've always thought of them a little bit of a manta ray shape without the tail, kind of a little bit of a curved boomerang kind of shape to the craft.
And that got an awful lot of attention because he was a very credible fellow, as were other people that later revealed their own sightings, military backgrounds, people that had major rank or captain rank.
So they had stories you would listen to about their experiences because they were professional observers in the military.
joe rogan
And actually, while we were out eating dinner last night, Dan Crenshaw sent me a text, and I shared it with everybody at the table, and it's from American Airlines pilots that saw some spectacular sighting over the last couple of days, and they're trying to figure out what the hell these people saw, but something that sped by them at some insane rates of speed, and there's a recording of them discussing it.
robert bigelow
Whether it's...
Abnormal or conventional, that should never have happened in that proximity to that aircraft.
So if it were an accident, that's a really bad accident to come that close.
And if it were flying in the line of flight and it sped that fast over its head, it was really moving.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, it was a conventional commercial aircraft go 400 plus miles an hour.
American Airlines pilot reports seeing UFO. An American Airlines pilot reported seeing a long cylindrical object flying right over the top of the plane as he was flying.
Sunday's American Airlines flight AA2292 was operating from Cincinnati to Phoenix using an Airbus A320 aircraft over the northeast portion of New Mexico at 37,000 feet during what was otherwise a routine flight.
One of the pilots contacted air traffic control at Albuquerque Center.
He said, do you have any targets up here?
We just had something go right over the top of us.
I hate to say this, but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast right over the top of us.
robert bigelow
So what's missing is propulsion signature, right?
So that should have been evident that it had some kind of propulsion, exhaust.
Some kind of exhaust was going on, right, you would think.
That they could detect that if it were in the line of sight, if they were behind it?
joe rogan
Well, that's a very short description, though.
I mean, maybe it did have some sort of propulsion that they saw.
That's all we saw.
I mean, maybe there's a report that'll come out where they describe it in detail.
That's just them calling it in, right?
robert bigelow
Yeah, if it's not super unique, then it was one hell of a mistake, right?
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, but it's just, yeah, there's a lot of those.
That's the problem.
There's a lot of these.
And there's video of them, like the one, what is it, the one that's on the East Coast that's moving over the surface of the water at insane rates of speed.
And you see it.
Also, no heat signature, no obvious method of propulsion.
And doesn't exhibit...
Because that one was done, I believe it was infrared, the camera.
So you should have been able to see some exhaust or some heat signature that was showing how it was being propelled at that insane rate of speed.
And you hear these pilots who are used to flying.
They're flying fighter jets.
And they're like, holy shit, look at this thing.
And they're kind of freaking out.
robert bigelow
Well, the good news is there are so many more people with cameras than with cell phones these days.
And so you have a much more aware public than you did, what, 25 years ago.
In 1997 was the so-called Phoenix Lights.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
And they weren't just lights because that craft started from northern Arizona, some say maybe Clark County, Nevada area, and proceeded down south toward Phoenix.
In the twilight of the evening where thousands of people saw structure.
It wasn't just lights.
It wasn't just, could it be confused with flares, aircraft dropping flares, and no such things had occurred anyway at that time of that day.
And so people saw structure, and the structure was estimated, what, a quarter mile maybe from tip to tip, boomerang kind of shape, kind of craft.
And yet, that should have been a really big deal, news-wise.
Right over a major city, so many observers, but it wasn't.
joe rogan
But it was, though, right?
Because we all know about it.
robert bigelow
Well, but then, of course, the governor at the time was Fyfe Syrington.
And we know now that he didn't know what to do because he was an actual witness that he admitted to 10 years later of actually being a witness.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
But he didn't know how to address that.
joe rogan
Well, that was the famous press conference.
robert bigelow
That was the famous press conference.
joe rogan
He had a guy dress up like an alien and made a mockery of it.
robert bigelow
Exactly.
unidentified
Yeah.
robert bigelow
If he had done just the opposite, what might have happened on that with his testimony as being a witness, a governor of a state?
Other people then might have come forth more and more volume of folks saying, yeah, me too.
I saw it.
I saw it.
joe rogan
With your understanding of the way the government sort of processes this kind of information, that it's not...
It's not available to everybody.
And the information in terms of what these things are, what they aren't, whether or not they're some sort of top secret aircraft that the government is working on, or whatever it is.
Unless they're making press conferences about these things, they don't necessarily want to broadcast what it is.
And they certainly don't want to broadcast it if it's not available.
Do you think that they contacted the governor and informed him that he needed to make a mockery of this?
Or do you think it was his own personal decision?
robert bigelow
My feeling is it was his personal decision.
And my feeling is that the government is not that organized anymore.
Maybe it was back some quite a while back.
But I don't think that...
I think...
That denial is able to be carried forth without government encouragement.
joe rogan
So he probably did it just to calm everybody down.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
He probably felt tremendous pressure, right?
Because I remember this was an enormous story.
I mean, it was going all across the United States.
People were talking about it.
And then there was all sorts of...
Sort of semi-reasonable explanations about dropping flares.
The thing about the dropping flares, though, were that they hovered in the sky for a long time.
Like, it didn't make any sense.
Are they defying gravity?
Because there's video footage of it from multiple sources, home footage where people are filming these things, where there's these red lights that are just hovering in the sky.
But the red lights coincided with these triangular-shaped vehicles or boomerang-shaped vehicles that other people were seeing.
robert bigelow
Well, there were people living on Camelback Mountain, and this is how low this craft was to the surface.
They got an edge-on view, coming practically at them, just slightly over the mountain.
joe rogan
But there's no video of that, right?
robert bigelow
Not that I, I don't know.
There could be, I don't, I've never seen them.
joe rogan
This was 97. 97. Yeah.
Yeah, see that's, you know, phones back then, not everybody had a phone and they didn't have good cameras.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
The thing about even today, you know, with cameras and Most cell phone cameras aren't capable of seeing things at a zoom.
With the exception of the Samsung Galaxy series, the new ones, they actually have a setting where you can take photographs of the moon because they have some pretty spectacular zoom capabilities.
It's pretty interesting stuff.
If you got one of those and you saw something in the sky, maybe you could zoom in on it and get a good shot of it.
But you're talking about things traveling at insane rates of speed.
It's very far away.
You're really not going to get much anyway.
robert bigelow
No.
It's got to be much closer to really have definition of what it is you're looking at.
joe rogan
Now there was a story quite recently of a pilot in a fighter jet that took a photograph of some similar shaped object, some triangular shaped object and apparently it was a very clear image.
It was a very clear image and there was some speculation about people releasing this and that they were going to release it and there was hesitation about releasing it.
Do you know about this?
robert bigelow
Well, is that the one off the East Coast?
joe rogan
Real recently?
robert bigelow
No.
I'm not familiar with that.
joe rogan
Do you know what I'm talking about, Jamie?
I think we discussed it with...
jamie vernon
The picture that you can see, they zoomed in on it?
joe rogan
The picture apparently is bullshit.
That picture apparently is not real.
robert bigelow
But there was one taken by a pilot in the plane a couple, two, three years ago sometime.
joe rogan
Oh, a different one?
See, this is the Pentagon response to release a photo taken from Navy pilots showing unidentified objects.
I heard that this was nonsense.
I heard from people that are in the know that this is not the image that they're talking about.
The one they have...
This is according to people that are in the military.
The one they have is much clearer than this.
robert bigelow
There's more than one image, right?
joe rogan
I don't know.
robert bigelow
We may be talking about different ones.
joe rogan
Maybe.
I don't know.
Okay, sorry, breaking.
Debrief Media has learned the leak of an unclassified photo said to have been widely distributed in the intelligence community, which purportedly shows what the DOD has characterized as unidentified aerial phenomenon.
I don't know if that's...
Look, obviously I'm just talking out of my ass, but what I had heard was that that was not the image in question, that there was a much, much clearer image in question that was pretty stunning, that they were debating on whether or not to release.
Because once the New York Times in 2017 published that front page article that showed some of those images that had been captured from the video cameras and the fighter jets experiences and talked about Commander David Fravor's experience with the Tic Tac UFO off the coast of San Diego...
That sort of released a lot of pressure on the concept of if you discuss these things, you're a foolish person.
For a long time, and I'm sure you must have experienced this because you've been in the game for a long time.
Discussing UFOs in 1970 or in 1980, people would look at you like you're probably crazy or something, right?
robert bigelow
I was too busy being in business in those years.
joe rogan
You didn't care?
robert bigelow
I had a little plan I was following that I had put together when I was a kid, and I was on a mission to be in business, to acquire resources so that I could someday have fun chasing this stuff.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's one of the more interesting things about you.
Like, you became like a hotel tycoon and a real estate tycoon, gathered up all this money so that you could study UFOs.
robert bigelow
And do fun things maybe in space.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, you've also been involved in creating shelters and structures that people can actually live in in space.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
There's the genesis and the genesis...
robert bigelow
Well, we call it a B330. What we have on our plant right now is engineering units, which are flight units, as far as hull and bulkheads are concerned, and longerons.
And so we had to shut down because of the COVID, but we have very advanced structures.
joe rogan
Yeah, and these have been implemented too.
Some of them have actually been, you've actually put these things...
robert bigelow
We have a TRL-9 because we have a structure, scale structure, that's on the ISS now.
joe rogan
Yeah, so your dream in a lot of ways of getting involved in aerospace and in space travel, like you're, this is real, like you're a guy who actually has contracts with You know, big government.
robert bigelow
Not that I've ever made money back, you know.
It's been a bottomless pit.
joe rogan
Has it been?
robert bigelow
Yeah, sure.
joe rogan
So you've just done it as a passion.
robert bigelow
Maybe a hope and a prayer, you know, kind of thing.
Hail Marys.
joe rogan
And part of it is because of your obsession with extraterrestrials.
robert bigelow
I don't know.
There probably is a connection there because you're made aware that there's a whole lot more out there than what we know and what people think.
There probably is a connection.
It always was.
joe rogan
Do you have any images of that?
Let's pull it up so people can see what we're talking about, the stuff that you've created.
Yeah, so this one, can you explain this?
robert bigelow
That's an older version that we did quite a long time ago.
We have a full scale.
That's just a one-third scale.
Basic architectural features and accommodations for living.
joe rogan
Space habitat.
robert bigelow
Yeah, I think those are full-scale architectural renderings.
Now down at the bottom, okay, so that's full scale.
joe rogan
That one right there?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
That's an old version, but that's a full scale.
That's 330 cubic meters, and it's a more crude mock-up than what we have now.
And the standard volume on a module for the ISS is about 120, or the largest is around 120 cubic meters.
So 330 is about, you know, almost three times that.
joe rogan
So when you design one of these things or when you go into business to create one of these things, what's the steps that you're taking?
Do you contact engineers?
How do you decide that you want to go into business to make these things and how do you go about implementing it?
robert bigelow
So, you know, it's been a 20-year process.
And first you try to engineer.
In fact, nothing about the origination was original with me because I became incredulous about what NASA had done in the early 90s with something called the Transhab.
And it was a vehicle to take people to Mars.
And Congress cut the funding for that.
And, oh my God, how could they do such a thing?
Because it was very apparent, apparent that that craft was really cool for a lot of reasons.
And so I started the company, started putting money in it, and started going after that.
And then after about three years acquired a license, exclusive license, to use their patent just for the enclosure.
No book of instructions came with it.
There wasn't a manual saying, here's how you do this.
And so we started from scratch.
And we had no assistance from NASA whatsoever.
In arranging the architectures and engineering.
And then through a process of trial and error and testing and testing and testing.
Destructive testing, long duration leak tests.
Destructive because you had to try to quantify the strength of Of the materials.
And we were using factors much more demanding than the factors for metallics.
Factors of four, instead of metallics maybe one and a quarter or something.
And we finally engineered envelopes that were...
Very durable.
Ballistically, we did a lot of what's called hypervelocity impacts tests where you shoot a particle at about seven kilometers a second, six to seven, depending on the type of gas gun you're using, and seeing how well the structure can defend against something going that fast.
Actually, the defense on something going fast is easier than a particle going slower, like a bullet, for example.
Kind of crazy, but for some reason that...
joe rogan
And when you mean defense, you mean something like micrometeors or space junk?
robert bigelow
Yeah, actually, smaller than that.
You know, maybe the size of a centimeter.
Which is actually a big particle, historically, to hit something, you know, like the station or whatever.
I think maybe some of the solar rays have been hit by something that large.
So you're defending against also radiation.
Aluminum structures are not what you want to be inside, especially for deep space missions outside of LEO, low Earth orbit.
And there's something called secondary radiation that propagates.
So in the background, galactic radiation has heavy protons and it's more lethal.
joe rogan
So, what did you do to shield your habitats from radiation?
robert bigelow
Well, the hull has no aluminum structure.
And the hull is a matrix of many layers of different kinds of materials.
And those materials are like Kevlar or Vectran.
We use Vectran for a couple of reasons, but it's like Kevlar.
And so through a series of other materials in addition to that type of material, you start to evolve a shield.
And the shield on a B330 overall is about 15 to 18 inches thick.
And there are spaces in between Layers.
So it's not as though you compress it and it's going to be a foot and a half thick.
But it's those spaces that make a difference and how debris breaks up and finally just becomes dust.
Or if it's too fast and too large, it's not dust.
It's going to succeed on going through.
joe rogan
And when it does, is there a patch method?
Yeah.
robert bigelow
First of all, you have to maybe locate.
There could be things on the hull that are in the way, because you use the hull as an attaching surface, and so that volume is very useful.
And so assuming you've located it now, and it depends on the size of the particle.
If it actually was significantly large, it'd blow off whatever was attached to the hole, maybe just put another hole right through whatever was attached.
So it'd be easier to find the hole.
That's the good news.
Bad news, the gas is, you know, your gas is escaping a lot faster.
So you do have some time though in a large volume for that gas to totally escape.
So then you have to make a judgment as to do you have time to create the patch?
And it's actually a fairly simple process because anything you put there wants to stick to the wall, right?
But depending on a basketball size something, there's not an explosion.
It doesn't go boom like a balloon.
It just loses gas.
You know, your air.
And so you'd probably have time to go to the airlock unless you were on the potty or something.
So you'd have to escape.
You'd have time to escape.
joe rogan
But that would be the move.
You really wouldn't be able to pick up a big hole.
robert bigelow
Yeah, you'd want to be able to go someplace else.
You know, hopefully you're attached to something that can accommodate whoever's on board.
joe rogan
Why did this become your area of specialty when it comes to aerospace?
Like, why did you invest in this?
Why did you invest in habitats?
robert bigelow
Well, at first I played around with some other companies.
I invested in two or three other companies in the late 90s.
They were rocket plane type companies.
I came very close to investing in what Burt Rutan was creating before Virgin came along.
And so I was looking for some place to go, to put capital, money, and energy and passion into something.
And so I did these investments in these different companies, and then I stumbled on the TransHab.
joe rogan
So your initial idea was maybe some sort of commercial space travel type investment, something like Virgin Galactic or something like?
robert bigelow
Yeah, I really didn't know.
I think the most enticing thing was what Bert was working on.
And the financial model for that was very attractive.
And I think he was, of course, he's a...
Aircraft design genius.
He has so many awards, you hardly can count them.
As you walk down the hallway to his office, it's like floor-to-ceiling plaques, you know.
You got a couple extra just for souvenirs, you know, something, you know.
And so he's a total genius.
And he, by the way, had his own UFO sighting.
joe rogan
I don't know.
robert bigelow
You'll have to get that story from him, but it's worth listening to.
So many people have.
So anyway, that's how I started in that, and I fell in love with the concept of expandable systems, launching something with a finite Fairing diameter and length and being able to triple the size of that volume once it's ejected and it's launched, you know, and the fairing opens up and now you start to expand and inflate and, wow, all that you can do with that volume is really cool.
joe rogan
And so this allowed you to, I mean, these contracts, if you're doing it with the ISS, are they with NASA? Is that who you work with?
robert bigelow
Yeah, NASA basically has been the only game in town for us and for most folks.
Most folks in the rocket business, other than for the Air Force who buys launches for satellites, NASA is the game still.
And when NASA's financially hurting, everybody hurts.
Depending upon who is providing the leadership, both in Congress and in NASA and in the White House, you can do fantastic things.
So it's all a combination of whether or not people can all work together.
If they're fighting in Congress and going on, you're not going to go places like you could.
joe rogan
So with you being involved in this and creating these habitats and your long-standing obsession with UFOs and potential alien life, getting involved with NASA must have been pretty exciting.
You're like, well, maybe I'm going to learn something now.
robert bigelow
Oh, definitely.
You're definitely going to learn.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
They have a lot of good people and very expert people.
So you're going to learn a lot.
It's a great place to sponge all that you can.
joe rogan
I mean learn things about UFOs and alien life.
robert bigelow
Oh, that!
Oh, that.
Oh, no, I was back.
I was back about, you know, space, conventional space travel.
joe rogan
Well, that too.
What better way to learn?
robert bigelow
Basically, you're not going to learn anything about UFOs and ET from the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of the scientific community.
And that includes NASA and everybody else.
joe rogan
Are they not interested?
robert bigelow
No.
I think it's a combination of things.
I think the reason for that is not because they're not interested.
And a lot of people are.
Because I'm asked things all the time.
A lot of people are.
I think there's always the concern of embarrassment.
I think they're not in a position to be an investigator.
They might have a passion and want to do that, but it takes time.
It takes time and effort to go do those things.
And usually you want to stick to what your career is, right?
So...
And maybe they've had somebody in their family that has had a tremendous story, and so they'll carry that with them.
And they might buy the books they keep at home.
They might brown bag it, you know, not bring it to the lunch at commissary where other people can see what you're reading.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
You know, so it's all different kinds of things.
So everybody's different.
joe rogan
So there's kind of maybe a shame or something along that line involved in pursuing extraterrestrial ideas.
robert bigelow
Not as much as it used to be.
Now, it was much worse 20, 30 years ago.
joe rogan
What was it like then?
robert bigelow
Well, as I could speak to, you know, just the general science population was much more reticent to talk about UFOs 30 years ago, I think, than today.
There's been so much more exposure.
media so um because you have regular television program now on aliens et's ancient aliens whatever doesn't matter it's all over the place compared to 25 years ago so it's a different kind of world
but um the thing about the ufo et subject as you continue to do research and and work in that whole community is um a kind of a strange frustration about acquiring a little bit of a taste of understanding about the possibilities of locomotion and
of movement, and where we are.
We're still working with fire engines.
And thank God for people like Elon and Jeff Bezos.
I really respect those guys, including Elon's secret weapon, Gwen, you know, his president.
The country is so lucky to have them.
But the dynamicism of UFOs and ETs is so overwhelming as to what that world is like.
And if it's all true, or even some of it true, it's more than just a holy cow.
It's, oh my God.
So it's like night and day comparison.
And here we are still in 2021 and still waiting to get back to the moon.
joe rogan
Well, I think when we were talking earlier about the New York Times article, I think that was a real pivotal moment in the culture's acceptance of the concept of these things.
Because when you see something printed on the front page of the New York Times, when you see people like Commander Fravor, very well respected, all...
Full respect.
No one thinks that guy's a kook.
You read about his experiences and you go, okay, there's something to this.
robert bigelow
And Leslie Keen, the journalist that did that article, did a terrific job.
Fantastic job.
Just fantastic.
joe rogan
And it's a dangerous subject for someone.
Yeah, it is.
You're open to ridicule.
But the preponderance of evidence had gotten to the point where there was enough out there where you could say, listen, this is not something to be mocked anymore.
There's something to this.
robert bigelow
Right.
That's right.
When you have Commander Faber, and we hired Doug, one of the pilots there.
We learned about that in 2008. The event happened in 2004. So you have really credible people seeing something that's totally anomalous and has no business doing what it's doing.
unidentified
Right.
robert bigelow
So you've got to take it really seriously.
joe rogan
Not only that, things that have been tracked by instrumentation, things that have gone from 80,000 feet above sea level to one foot in less than a second, and then traveled to the agreed-upon destination where the plane was going to go later.
They knew where they were traveling to.
It was able to travel at an insane rate of speed that's not even...
It doesn't make any sense with any technology that we've ever even theorized.
robert bigelow
No.
No.
joe rogan
So these are things that were tracked by instrumentation.
So it's not, this is the best instrumentation.
This is instrumentation that's used by the United States military to protect the borders.
It's all the real shit.
So when you read things like that in the New York Times, everybody has to kind of go, huh?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
And you couple that with hundreds of thousands or millions of other events and stories that have happened over the last 50, 60, 70 years.
You think, oh my god, we're so far behind.
You know, of what else is going on.
joe rogan
Right.
Because we've been so afraid of ridicule for so long.
robert bigelow
How long is it going to take us to get to that point?
Yeah.
unidentified
Right.
robert bigelow
You know, and do we even understand the beginnings of the physics of it?
Because what if their consciousness operated?
You know, that's it.
You don't have the right mental signature.
It isn't going anywhere.
Nothing is coming on.
No, there's no lights.
The dash didn't light up.
joe rogan
Right.
Sort of like when you walk up to your car, like I have a Ford F-150.
When I get near it, it knows I'm there because my key fob.
robert bigelow
Sure.
joe rogan
And when I touch the handle.
Or like a Tesla is a better example.
robert bigelow
If somebody else has your key fob, it's going to light up.
joe rogan
But instead of it being like a Tesla key fob, when you get to it, the handle opens up so you can open the door.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
Like as you get close to it, it's pretty cool.
robert bigelow
Yeah, sure.
joe rogan
But instead of that, it's actually your consciousness.
unidentified
Yeah.
robert bigelow
And what if you're not even close to it?
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
What if you're on the other side of the planet and you want it to start?
joe rogan
Like you can with a car with an application.
Like if you have a Tesla, you could roll your windows up with the app.
You could lock it with the app, right?
It operates through Wi-Fi.
Who's to say they can't do something like that with consciousness?
robert bigelow
Yeah, we have no idea.
joe rogan
I mean, that's not even outside of what makes sense.
If you followed the technology and the technological improvements over the last 15, 20 years and you explored the possibility of what could be done in the next 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 years, I'd go, yeah, that's not even crazy.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Well, physics is incomplete, in my humble opinion, because it doesn't provide answers for all the paranormal baskets.
Not just what we're talking about with AT UFOs, but all the other kinds of stuff that has been done in laboratories for many, many years on camera.
By people that have performed really strange things.
joe rogan
You mean like quantum mechanics?
robert bigelow
No, no, like micro-macro-PK. Just take something simple.
joe rogan
What is that?
robert bigelow
Micro-macro-PK? Just manipulating material objects, whether they're electrons or a bottle cap.
Let's say you've got a screen computer, and it's hooked up to a random event generator, which is flipping a coin many, many hundreds of thousands of times a second, and it's establishing a firm, even line, this 50-50 across your screen.
And then there's another line.
Coming along.
And your challenge is to have the two lines deviate.
So you're, and I don't know, it's been so many years since I was in the pair lab with Bob John and Brenda Dunn.
I forget the exact details on this, but the point was, there was a line that was created, a second line that you were to think about and try to deviate that line.
And you should not be able to do that at all.
So they had maybe a one flat line on the screen, and then you had this random event generator that should be 50-50 right alongside that same line.
But it's not.
You're causing it to go up or you're causing it to go down.
And they had a lot of people successful on this.
Many, many, many.
And they did just a huge number of trials that were successful.
So that's in the smallest context.
You had that Russian woman, Kalignia, something like that was her name, that worked with objects in a bell jar.
And she would be able to manipulate them, cause them to spin, cause them to lift.
joe rogan
Objects.
What kind of objects?
robert bigelow
Small objects.
You know, something small.
joe rogan
Microscopic?
robert bigelow
No, no, no.
Like a bottle cap.
You know, something that size.
joe rogan
So some sort of telekinesis?
robert bigelow
Macro-PK. So it's some kind of a consciousness connection that is causing the effect, that effect on that object.
joe rogan
This is something that's been filmed?
robert bigelow
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
So this woman is doing what?
robert bigelow
And she died at a relatively young age.
Her heart, they said, would go up to like 180 beats or 90 beats a minute.
joe rogan
While she was doing this?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
So this is this lady?
robert bigelow
Oh, your guy is good.
joe rogan
He's the best.
robert bigelow
He is the best.
joe rogan
So what is she doing here?
robert bigelow
Well, she's...
joe rogan
Oh, this is like really old stuff, huh?
robert bigelow
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
What are those matches?
joe rogan
Yeah.
But she's also moving that piece of metal.
robert bigelow
Right.
And there's other ones where she would do this and these things would be in a bell jar, I believe.
joe rogan
So she's not touching it.
She's making it move.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
And I think they literally wore her out.
joe rogan
What year is this?
Yeah, but here's my problem.
This is something that's on the table.
I can't see below the table.
I can't see if there's a magnet.
I can't see what's underneath this deck of cards.
There's a piece of metal.
You can move things around with fuckery.
I don't know if this is real.
And those matches were moving because that piece of metal was moving the matches.
So the piece of metal was plowing the matches and she's got it moving around.
I'm not buying into this.
robert bigelow
But on its face.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
It's really intriguing.
joe rogan
It's intriguing, but it's a party trick.
I don't even like the way it's set up.
The way it's set up on a table, and she's doing this with her hand, and her lap is right there, and anything could be happening there.
It's cool if it was real.
And that looks really old.
What year is that?
robert bigelow
I don't know, probably 50s.
I don't know.
So the point really is, if you were to make it a job to accumulate this kind of information from as many sources as possible, you'd really have a large volume of stuff and then you'd have a lot of material to look at and analyze, not just one case.
I think it's easy to look at one case and have doubts because it is just one.
It is one situation.
joe rogan
Do you think that things like psychic powers or an understanding of other people's thoughts and ideas, these are maybe possibly emerging aspects of human beings?
Like as a human evolves, as we go from being a tree-dwelling primate To being what we are today, where people are intuitive and we can sort of read social cues and we understand each other and we can talk and communicate using sounds and noises that as the human animal evolves, they'll eventually develop some sort of a psychic power.
robert bigelow
So that, in a way that's connected to supposing that those psychic powers already exist to some degree.
joe rogan
Maybe in some people more than others.
unidentified
Right.
robert bigelow
So that means there are white crows, like we talked about last night.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
Okay.
joe rogan
Can you explain that concept to people?
robert bigelow
Well, there shouldn't be any white crows.
White crows aren't white.
So there shouldn't be any anomalies like that.
So if you come up against a white crow, you've really found an anomaly.
So now the question is, why?
How did this happen?
joe rogan
Well, it's an albino, right?
It's just a genetic aberration.
robert bigelow
So it's a metaphor.
Right.
So it's a metaphor saying you've really come across something that shouldn't be.
It shouldn't be.
unidentified
Right.
robert bigelow
There's no way this should happen.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
Right?
And oh my gosh, here's another one.
And it's a cousin.
It's different.
It's in a different area of the whole sigh basket.
What's going on here?
joe rogan
Well, we already know that there are extreme variations in intelligence.
We know that there's people that are just not that bright, and then there's people like Elon Musk.
And these people like this have existed forever.
robert bigelow
Well, he's not from here.
We know that.
He's not from here anyway.
joe rogan
Yeah, most likely.
If there's an alien amongst us, that's him.
But I mean, if you go back to Nikola Tesla, it's sort of the same sort of situation, right?
He was clearly of not just superior intelligence, but superior vision.
He had this ability to look at things that didn't exist and figure out a way to create them.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
And that's a very unique thing.
And what is causing that?
What firing of neurons, what personal experiences combined with education, combined with innate creativity, makes a person create something?
robert bigelow
But that's not as paranormal.
joe rogan
No, it's not, but it's a different aspect of being a human being.
Now, we all know that some people are more intuitive than others.
Some people are more sensitive than others.
Some people are better at understanding.
Some people are really good at picking out liars.
Some people are really good at picking out talent.
They understand people better, right?
As the human animal evolves, We could only surmise that those types of skills and those types of qualities that a human being can possess could possibly get better.
If you get two very intuitive people, they have a child and the child is even more intuitive than them.
And that some aspects, unprovable, unmeasurable aspects of psychic power could be something that's emerging out of the human animal.
robert bigelow
I would never say never.
I think a lot is possible.
I think what may more likely would happen, because we're shifting now to taking normal human physiology, which is a separate situation from being able to perform things that Are more unique than just being creative.
So I think that you might have small circuitry and small things that are added to the human brain to enhance its capabilities.
joe rogan
Like neural link.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
And that's much more likely in terms of human evolution than that future generations are going to become enormously psychic and enormously cause and effect using consciousness.
So whether it's clairvoyance or telepathy or psychometry, micro, macro, PK, remote viewing, the whole basket, those are all real and they're all world-class performers in every one of those things.
Remote viewing is a great example of this because we know for 20 years the CIA and the Army had programs in this and so did the Russians.
joe rogan
Right.
And we talked about remote viewing last night, too.
I'd done an experiment on a show that I had and it wasn't effective at all.
But that could have been that the person that was doing the remote viewing was a fraud.
That maybe there are people that do have that ability.
Now, has it ever been clearly demonstrated that someone can do that?
Have you seen it personally?
robert bigelow
Well, I've hired somebody to do it twice for me, but I've also...
joe rogan
And what do they do?
robert bigelow
...have friends that ran the programs.
joe rogan
What did they do?
The people that you hired?
robert bigelow
I tasked them to describe a longitude-latitude location and describe what was the surface, what was underground, those kinds of things.
joe rogan
And they were accurate?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
How accurate?
robert bigelow
Very accurate and give me information that, to this day, I don't know if it's true or not because it was underground information that I don't even know.
That came as a, here's a bonus.
I'll tell you what's underneath.
joe rogan
So the government had these programs, these secret programs that they were studying remote viewing.
But their official conclusion was that it was horseshit, right?
robert bigelow
Oh, no.
joe rogan
Wasn't it?
robert bigelow
Oh, gosh, gosh, no.
joe rogan
Public?
robert bigelow
No, that was never concluded in that way.
joe rogan
What did they say publicly about remote viewing?
Did they ever say it's 100% effective and real?
robert bigelow
I think...
There would probably be at a point in time it was classified for a long time.
And then it became more public eventually as a program aged and so forth, as things usually do.
To be 100%, you could acquire by having more than one viewer.
Have the same target.
You increases the likelihood of the accuracy of the information.
100% is a lot to ask for.
Because you're getting a drawing at the same time you're getting conversation.
And sometimes the drawings revealed more than the conversations did.
So the remote viewer would also be in a position as an experiencer.
So if his or her target was at a certain location and the person was eating an orange, for example, A remote viewer could almost taste it, could almost hear the gravel that the person was walking on, feel it under their shoes that they're walking.
joe rogan
Now, what was the methodology?
How would they go about doing this?
robert bigelow
So, first of all, the aspect of this is though you're over the person's head that you're...
So we have to go back and say there are different kinds of remote viewing, first of all.
So I'm just taking one type, where maybe your target is a person, and the person is at a location, and maybe the location is a wharf, a boat dock.
There are a lot of boats.
And maybe the gravel pathway is getting there.
Maybe they're having a fruit in their hands, an orange, apple, whatever.
And so the remote viewer is back above the head, kind of like an out-of-body experience is the way that those are reported.
And you're watching yourself going down, we can talk about that later, going down a hallway.
But you're above yourself.
Same way with remote viewing sometimes.
They would be in that kind of a position.
And so Did you describe everything in your drawing?
Maybe not.
Well, then you didn't get 100%, did you?
But you were spot on as to where they were.
You could go find that location.
And that's actually where they were at that point in time.
That was true.
That's exactly where they were.
joe rogan
So they were able to figure out where people were and they were able to get a sort of an understanding of what they were doing and how they were doing it and what their surroundings look like.
robert bigelow
That's the tip of the iceberg.
joe rogan
The tip of the iceberg.
But what was the methodology?
How would a person remote view?
Would they be alone in a room?
Did they have to achieve a certain state of meditation?
Like what did they do to do this?
robert bigelow
So they would be in a room with a control per controller.
I forget the terminology now that they used.
So the remote viewer would be there at a desk and pad and paper and there would be the person sitting across as a controller.
And then at the point in time, and it depends on how these remote viewing sessions were constructed, I think.
The real people that you should talk to are the guys that ran the programs.
I talked to Ed Daines.
joe rogan
That's the guy that I talked to.
The only guy.
robert bigelow
I would recommend people like Hal Puthoff.
He would be a very, very good person to talk to on this.
joe rogan
So how would someone learn how to do this and who figured it out initially?
robert bigelow
Don't know who was necessarily the first.
You have early players like Pat Price, Ingo Swann, I think Helen Hammond, Joe Montego, those kinds of folks.
And I'm not sure the genesis of how it began.
A lot of times things happen by accident, right?
And you stumble on something and say, oh, wow, what just happened?
joe rogan
Right.
But it has to be some sort of a repeatable skill, like something that you could teach someone how to do, right?
robert bigelow
Yeah, and I believe what I've been told is that most people have Some degree of abilities that are beyond the five senses.
And some have more of those abilities than other people.
And so it can be taught and built up and developed, but some people are more predisposed to certain kinds of stuff than other people are.
joe rogan
And so how would they train people to do something like this?
Who was the first person to figure out that they could do it, and then how do they train other people to do it?
robert bigelow
Joel McMonago has a book.
I think he authored it back in 1993. And he had, I believe, a near-death experience about 1970-ish.
And, I mean, there's a lot of literature out there on the shelves that people can buy.
They can get a hold of this stuff without having to talk to these fellows and these people.
And the stories are amazing as to what they can do.
Purportedly, distance is irrelevant.
I mean, you could do something thousands of miles away and that could be the target.
And you can describe that target.
It doesn't have to be on the surface.
It can be a building.
It can be inside a building.
It can be inside a room.
I mean, it just really gets strange.
joe rogan
And so you have actually experienced this, and you are 100% on board with remote viewing.
You think it's real.
robert bigelow
Well, I've experienced it to a we extent.
I hired a fellow to do it twice.
joe rogan
But he did it.
robert bigelow
He did it.
joe rogan
That's not we.
That's pretty big.
If the guy did it, he did it.
robert bigelow
And I sat once.
I got to sit behind a screen on a computer to play around a little bit.
So I don't have any real experience with this.
I just have a lot of admiration for the people who manage the programs and who can function that exercise.
It's really amazing.
There's an old story about Ingo Swann.
He's passed over.
joe rogan
How can I say that?
robert bigelow
He's passed over.
joe rogan
You don't say he's passed.
He's passed over.
robert bigelow
Well, now you know where my thought is about things.
joe rogan
Well, I do know where your thought is about things, but I'm going to get to that, too.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
But the way you describe it, he passed over.
robert bigelow
Well, there's a story I love about Ingo.
He's being tested.
As always happens, you're trying to verify, verify, verify, right?
Trust, but verify, verify, always.
And like, you're doing exactly what you should be doing, is questioning.
Always questioning.
And so he's being tested by officials.
And they have a submarine that...
What is his target?
He doesn't know what his target is, of course.
And it might even have been a blind or double blind situation.
I don't know.
But they go to a lot of effort so that maybe even the person that's with you doesn't know what the target is.
That's usually the kind of protocols.
And he identifies the sub.
He identifies the sub accurately.
And this is an advanced sub that he's identifying.
So, it's underwater.
It's deep, and he's able to see this thing and describe it.
So it makes them pretty uneasy, and they're impressed.
This is like, wow, this is a big deal, this guy.
So it's not like, just how is he doing this?
It's like, he did this.
So they're calling the meeting kind of to a close.
He says, well, don't you want to know what's following it?
Duh!
Right?
See, then he starts describing this other craft that's following behind the sub.
Ingo was an amazing guy.
joe rogan
What was the other craft?
robert bigelow
I guess it was some kind of UFO, something else that wasn't another sub, you know, of ours or Russians or anybody's.
joe rogan
That's one of the speculations about unidentified flying objects is that they're not just flying, that some of them actually exist underwater.
There's been many sightings of things that went into the ocean.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
What do you think of that?
robert bigelow
Well, I mean, you know, supposedly, aren't there stories even about Christopher Columbus crew and so forth seeing things going back for centuries, things coming in and out of the water?
joe rogan
Well, that was part of the Tic Tac, the Commander David Fravor's encounter, that there was something below the surface of the water that was creating a wake, almost like rocks.
Yeah, it was churning.
It was a very large thing and that it went under as they approached and the Tic Tac craft faced them.
And that, you know, they don't know to this day what that thing was that was under the surface, but that's what led them to go and investigate in the first place.
And as they were going towards it, that's when they realized that there's this thing like, you know, roughly the size of this room.
robert bigelow
Yeah, well in that carrier group was a ship or two that was bristling with electronic equipment.
And it's the first thing that sensed something out there.
And that's when my understanding was, and I'm going back a long time now, was that that's when they were launched to go check it out.
Because what was out there shouldn't be out there and behaving the way it was behaving according to all the electronics on this ship that was part of the battle group.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
You know, with the aircraft carrier, I think a couple of subs, it was a battle group.
And so, and then they had eyes on the target now.
joe rogan
Yes.
robert bigelow
Right?
So they're able to see firsthand for themselves what's going on.
Yeah.
joe rogan
And when they were speaking over the mic, they had found out that they had been encountering these things.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because when Commander Fravor was inquiring, like, what the hell is this thing?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
The other one was saying, like, we've been seeing these things over the last few weeks.
No one knows what it is.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
But, like, what do you do about that?
robert bigelow
I think sometimes better left alone, if you know they're really behaving fantastically, and they're not the Russians or Chinese or whatever, Go have a sandwich.
Forget about it.
joe rogan
Well, I don't think they have a choice.
I mean, you can't catch it.
It's literally jamming your radar.
You have images of it, and you know you're tracking it, and they're moving in a way that is literally impossible with our technology.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
And what do you do?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
You can't do anything.
What, are you going to go to war with it?
What are you going to do?
robert bigelow
You're going to try to grab it?
And it's not like it's offensive.
It hasn't tried to attack you or do anything.
joe rogan
They've done nothing.
Yeah.
It's a very strange situation to be in, to be a fighter pilot with the most sophisticated military equipment and to encounter something that is beyond the scope of even imagination of what's possible.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah.
You had encounters with Bob Lazar.
You know Bob, and you were around when Bob Lazar first came.
robert bigelow
Now, is this going to be all about the Mylar balloon event?
joe rogan
What's the Mylar balloon event?
robert bigelow
Oh, you don't know that one?
joe rogan
No.
robert bigelow
So, we all jump in my car to go out to the Alien Inn area out there.
joe rogan
The Alien Inn is that...
robert bigelow
Out there.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's like a bar or something.
robert bigelow
North of that area.
And so, Bob Lazar, George Knapp, myself, and I think Gene Huff, who is Bob's friend, we all go out there.
Well, unbeknownst to me, Bob has a Mylar balloon, which really bounces their radar signature a lot for its size, and a bottle of gas.
Helium.
So we find our way back out in the desert, out there.
I'm thinking we're on a UFO watch, which is always fun.
Sometimes the best thing is the food you take along, right?
And you're out there under the stars, and it's nice, and you have a good time just watching.
But there's a rustle of things going on here, and next thing I know, there's a balloon, this mylar balloon's inflated, And there's a slight breeze, and Bob lets it go.
And we're on the opposite side of the mountain range from supposedly S4. And he wants to go that way.
Thank God the wind was going in the opposite direction.
It was traveling north instead of south.
And it went the wrong way.
So I'm thinking, my life's just passed before my eyes.
joe rogan
Why do you think your life passed before your eyes?
Because if the balloon goes towards area S4... It's going to get picked up, yeah.
And then they're going to go find out where it came from.
robert bigelow
And Wackenhut security is going to come get us, and I'm going to spend the night in jail.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
So, you know, it all just unraveled real quick.
joe rogan
And was this before Bob had gotten in trouble for bringing people to the observation point to watch?
Let's tell the story about Bob real quick.
Bob said he worked for Area S4 and he was hired to back engineer what they believe were alien crafts.
Along the lines, he had this top secret clearance, and along the lines of all this happening, they're monitoring his phone calls.
Turns out Bob's wife is having an affair.
Bob doesn't know about this.
They remove him from the project because they believe he'll be emotionally unstable.
So he's freaking out, not knowing, A, that his wife is having an affair, not knowing why he's pulled from this project.
Doesn't totally understand.
So he starts telling people about what he's doing and telling people, listen, I can take you to a place where once a week they do these tests.
So he starts bringing people to this area.
They see these objects flying in these spectacular ways that we really can't do with any of our conventional aircrafts.
And then Bob gets in trouble for that.
Then Bob goes on the George Knapp show and starts explaining all these different things, presumably for self-preservation.
Because the best way to probably protect your own life is to go public with this and explain everything that's happening.
And they can discredit you and make you look like a nut, but if they kill you, then it leads credence to your story.
robert bigelow
Yeah, it gives you a very huge hardship.
joe rogan
So when do you fall into this story?
robert bigelow
Well, you've just given me an overload of information now that I'm pretty much aware of.
But I don't know exactly when.
I don't think, as I recall it, everybody was pretty much at ease.
And it wasn't part of...
joe rogan
When year is this that this is all going on?
robert bigelow
Oh, God.
I don't know.
Ninety-one?
joe rogan
So this is around that time.
This is around, when was he on George Knapp's show?
robert bigelow
Yeah, somewhere in that time frame.
But I wasn't aware of a lot until much, until, I don't think at that time I was aware of him taking people out on, you know, Wednesday nights to go see something out there.
I kind of missed out on that or whatever.
And I don't think this was anything connected to that.
joe rogan
I think that was before this.
robert bigelow
Yeah, probably.
joe rogan
That was...
I think you're dealing with him after he had met George and after he had told his story.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because George is with you.
robert bigelow
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, so obviously they had already met.
Oh, sure.
So...
What was your initial...
Obviously, you're a person that has a deep fascination with UFOs.
Now, here you are talking to this guy who's clearly a genius, brilliant guy, Bob Lazar, and he's telling you this fucking banana story.
He's out there back-engineering spacecrafts that came from another land that are using this element 115, this stuff that's just a theoretical element that wasn't even proven by Particle Collider until, what, 2013?
Somewhere along that line.
It was just theoretical up to that point.
So he's telling you about all this stuff.
What did you think?
robert bigelow
I wanted to reserve judgment until I knew a lot more.
And the more he talked, the more interesting it became.
The more research that George did, things that he uncovered, it became more interesting.
And And so, as I said a while back, I think George was doing an interview with me, and I said, I wouldn't bet against Bob's, the truth of the majority of everything that Bob has said.
I wouldn't bet against it.
Could they be errors and omissions for different reasons?
Yeah, sure they could.
But I would tend to say Bob is legitimate.
And, you know, there's certain aspects of things that are parts of stories that you wonder, well, how could this happen and so forth?
But I think if you take all of the collective information and the work that George Knapp has done to validate things, it's awfully damn impressive.
joe rogan
George is such an important part of it because he's a legitimate investigative journalist, and that was his career.
And so he...
Poured himself into this.
Oh, yeah.
And exposed all the different aspects of this story that seemed to indicate that he's telling the truth.
robert bigelow
Oh, yes.
joe rogan
And that's where it's crazy about it.
robert bigelow
And George is not any normal journalist.
He's like what?
He has like six Peabody's?
joe rogan
Yes, he's fantastic.
So he's diving into this.
And the more he uncovers, the more it seems like Bob Lazar's story is legitimate.
robert bigelow
Right.
Right.
So I like the philosophy of reserving judgment until you have a preponderance of evidence that really moves you one way or another.
You don't have to have 100%.
I go by reasonable doubt.
joe rogan
But what was it like for you to be this guy who's had this deep fascination with flying saucers?
And here you are, let me tell you my experience with Bob.
Doing this podcast with Bob, I wanted one of two things.
I wanted to go, oh this guy's full of shit.
Or I wanted, whoa, this guy's It seems like he's not full of shit.
I think he's telling the truth.
I think this guy really did encounter these aircrafts and really did work on these spaceships, whatever they are.
That's where I'm at right now.
My experience with him, my communication with him, he didn't seem like he's full of shit at all.
He's clearly a brilliant guy.
His story has not changed at all over the 30 plus years that he's been saying it.
It's a crazy story.
But when you are a person like yourself, you saw me even more than I, who is obsessed with this subject, the possibility of alien life that's visited this earth, and maybe even left crafts behind, and maybe these crafts are in the possession of some secret government agencies that are trying to Observe them and back-engineer them.
What is it like to talk to this guy?
Because this guy has seen the thing you're looking for.
You're searching and all of your wondering and staring out into the heavens.
And here's a guy that has actually touched it.
Actually worked on it.
Been inside one.
Tried to figure out how they work.
Can't do it.
Doesn't understand it.
He's talking to these people.
Everything's compartmentalized.
You got the metallurgist people that are working on what kind of alloy this thing is made of.
You got him, who's a part of the people that are trying to understand the propulsion system.
And then you've got people that are giving you this information that, like, maybe they have been here forever.
Maybe this is a part of an archaeological dig.
Maybe they've been trying to study these things for decades with no advancement at all.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
So we came across or myself and a couple other people came across folks who could collaborate some of the things going on out there.
Such as silent craft actually lifting off at nighttime.
Not looking as though the control was very good.
But actually lifting off, maneuvering like a real small trial kind of thing.
And that fellow observed it from a distance where he wasn't supposed to be.
George has come up with collaboration, I think, from two or three other sources also, besides what Bob said, about certain aspects of things out there.
It's just that Bob's story is so much more in-depth, so much more detailed, like that book, That he talked about years ago, coming across.
Amazing things.
joe rogan
Tell people about the book?
robert bigelow
Well, there was a book, as I remember, there was some kind of a book that Bob was allowed to look through, or he actually seized the opportunity to do it when he was in a room where the book was, but I think that was by design.
And it was some kind of a holographic book that as you opened up the pages, whatever the stories were became a hologram.
That's my recollection of a conversation that's decades old now.
So, you know, if I got it wrong, fire me.
You know, you'll have to talk to Bob about that, would you?
Or talk to George.
Because I remember something like that.
I mean, that was like, wow!
What an amazing way to portray information in some kind of a book and actually have holographic images coming forth out of the, you know, I don't know.
It just was...
So that I haven't ever heard of being repeated any place in terms of something else like that happening.
And so much that happened to Bob, it was so unique.
joe rogan
There was also some very strange summary of what they understand or what they believe to be true about the origins of human beings.
And that they believed that what these visitations were about was that human beings are the product of accelerated evolution.
And that these species from wherever had been coming here and doing genetic experiments with primates and created human beings.
Which is the ultimate, like, who knows, like, wow, that's fun to think about, but...
We were talking about this last night, like how bizarre humans are, that out of all these things on Earth, we're the only ones with shoes.
Out of all these things, we're the only ones that have to wear clothes, we're the only ones that jump into metal boxes with rubber tires and roll around these hard surfaces that we created, or fly in planes, or send video through your phone to other people that are on the other side of the continent.
We're weird.
We're real weird.
We're way weirder than anything else that exists.
And if we are really a product of some sort of accelerated process like that, this is how they get the party started on these planets.
They find semi-intelligent, curious animals that are using tools or using, you know, opposable thumbs.
And they do some things to them.
robert bigelow
Yeah, they...
There's a large variety of potential beginnings.
More evidence for some than others, right?
So that's always the trick.
joe rogan
Have you considered that?
Is this like a subject that you've deeply considered and thought about?
robert bigelow
Not really.
unidentified
Really?
joe rogan
Really?
robert bigelow
I'm here.
I don't want to look a gift horse in the face.
I'll take it for what it is, you know.
joe rogan
Really?
I think about it a lot.
robert bigelow
I don't know.
I think I need more evidence to be more curious about.
I'm more concerned about other kinds of things that are now than where do the human species come from particularly.
I'm more driven by other kinds of things that could make a difference today going forward.
joe rogan
So getting back to the Bob Lazar thing, when you first got to know him and you first were considering this story and how crazy it was, what was it like to meet a guy who, at least by his own accounts, had encountered this thing that you were seeking?
robert bigelow
Well, Bob's a likable guy.
As you said, he's very smart.
And so he's interesting to talk to, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
robert bigelow
And so that's more than just entertaining.
To listen to his story is profound, right?
And so it gives you an awful lot to think about and to try to position as to how can you measure future information you might get against that story.
How can you verify different kinds of things?
And so I've heard a lot more silly things, I think, than what Bob was talking about.
It didn't seem all that ridiculous.
And then the more you get to talk to him, the more you get to know him, and people like George, who's an investigative journalist, it gets more and more, wow.
joe rogan
Yeah.
If there's one thing that I could know about on this earth involving human beings, I think that's the thing.
There's a lot of things I'd like to know who killed Kennedy.
There's a lot of things I'd like to know, but whether or not that's real.
To be in that hangar and see that ship and to go walk through it with him and to really understand that this is not from here.
I think that would be the one.
robert bigelow
And have crashes been intentional?
joe rogan
Yeah, that's a weird one to me.
We were discussing that last night.
The problem with that is there's also this discussion of alien bodies.
If crashes have been intentional, what do you have?
Suicide bombers?
Just for our own edification?
That seems silly.
And that's really disheartening to think that someone could come here from another galaxy and still get tripped up by lightning.
robert bigelow
Yeah, but maybe they're just anthropomorphic.
Maybe they're more robotic.
joe rogan
Maybe that's our future, right?
robert bigelow
At what point does a species have a spirit or a soul?
Could a machine, even if it's very advanced and can think better than we can think and calculate faster and actually understands fear, love, passions?
Would it ever evolve to having a soul or a spirit?
joe rogan
That's a good question.
robert bigelow
Yeah, it's a different kind of question.
joe rogan
It's also a good question as to are those things imperative for life?
When we think of ego, when we think of our mating instincts and all the various pleasant and unpleasant aspects of being a human being, how many of them are impediments to growth and progress?
What is growth and progress, right?
What are we trying to achieve?
Mastery of the elements and of life.
Are we trying to keep peace?
Are we trying to make things better but stay human?
Like, what are we trying to do?
Because when we talk about artificial life, It's just artificial in terms of the fact that another life form has created it.
But if they figure out a way to...
You've seen Ex Machina, that movie?
robert bigelow
No.
joe rogan
You haven't?
robert bigelow
No.
joe rogan
How dare you?
How dare you?
Go out and see it right now.
robert bigelow
Hey, I live in the desert.
joe rogan
Well, listen, they have movies in the desert.
I've been to the desert.
It's a great movie.
Fantastic movie.
One of my favorites ever.
And it is about this super genius guy who develops these artificially intelligent humanoids.
And it's...
There's a lot of suspension of disbelief when you're watching a science fiction movie that takes place in modern era that has robots that look exactly like people and have emotions and thoughts and stuff.
But it makes you wonder, how far away are we from something like that?
Some super intelligent thing that we create ourselves, and then it can create other super intelligent things.
Are we 50 years?
Are we 100 years?
When is that going to happen?
Or are we going to become some sort of symbiotic creation?
Are we going to merge with technology instead of create some sort of technological being?
Are we going to become one?
And that's one of the things that I've always been very curious about when it comes to these aliens.
Iconic aliens that people experience, they always seem like what we will look like in the future.
If you look at a chimpanzee or a gorilla, they're much more muscular than human beings, they're much stronger, they're covered in hair, they have smaller heads.
And then our heads are bigger, our bodies are smaller, we're weaker and softer.
And then if you continue to move forward and we advance and evolve and eliminate a lot of the problems that human beings experience, whether it's because of war or crime or all these different things that trip us up as a society and as a culture, these things are all connected to tribalism and biology and emotions and the desire to sexually procreate.
If they eliminate all of those things with technology over time, and you get these genital-less aliens that have these enormous heads and that don't communicate with mouth noises anymore, they communicate with thoughts, and they don't have the need for physical strength anymore, so their bodies are these tiny childlike things, but they have godlike powers.
Is that our future?
robert bigelow
So is there a prerequisite And all of that for the reptilian brainstem to be eliminated.
Is there the potential for either inanimate objects or combination biological material android type of objects to have consciousness?
And what is it to be human in the first place?
Well, if you have bred out or artificially created Something that is close to whatever perfect might be, as opposed to a human being that's very imperfect.
A human being has all kinds of imperfections, all kinds of emotional imperfections and capabilities that go from here to here.
And so that is what it's like to be a human being.
We are very imperfect.
And so we're in a class by ourselves.
Now you introduce something else.
Maybe our consciousness is unique to being a human being.
And it's not possible to actually evolve consciousness in an artificial mechanism.
So, consciousness and thought are two different kinds of things, like mind and brain are two different kinds of things.
So consciousness, to me, is a force.
Like we just saw, colignia, whether you think it's real or not, but there are many other demonstrations of being able to use consciousness, attention, as a force upon something.
To either gather information you shouldn't be gathering from remote viewing, or moving an object, you know, it's a different kind of force.
Thought is a creative mechanism.
And thought can come to promoting the force.
In other words, to channel the conscious effort.
I don't mean to be getting off the topic, but I think...
joe rogan
No, I don't think it's off the topic at all.
robert bigelow
Okay.
So then it comes down to, even if you did create those kinds of advanced...
Beings, whatever, why did you do it?
Why?
You know, is perfection that important?
I mean, does everything have to be perfect, or isn't there some beauty in having some imperfections?
joe rogan
Well, here's the question.
All of the human elements that we talked about, whether they're emotions or the desire to procreate sexually or jealousy and rage and territorial behavior, tribalism, all the awful and great things about human beings' ego.
All those things lead people to want to do things, to get recognized, to get attention.
And they also want to get recognized for their achievements.
And they also want to push things past the boundaries that have been established by other people that are in the same business or the same creative venture as them.
Whether it's artificial intelligence or whether it's art or creativity or music or anything that people do.
They're always piggybacking on the work of the people that came before them.
It's part of being a person.
With everything.
With architecture.
With technology.
Everything is piggybacking on the work before it.
And these things are motivated by these very imperfect aspects of being a person.
By ego.
By the desire to be loved.
By all these...
And even by the positive things.
By curiosity.
By creativity.
All these...
Soup of influences are all making people advance technology and innovate.
That, if you just extrapolate, if you just look at what technology is, and if you look at what we're doing.
If you were from another planet and you had no idea about human culture, you had no idea, and you had no...
No familiarity to the human form and to what our life is like down here.
And you looked at us.
You would say, well, what is this species doing?
What are they doing?
Well, I'll tell you what they're doing.
They're making stuff.
And they're making better stuff every year.
That's what the species does.
What do bees do?
They make beehives.
They make honey.
But they do the same shit every year.
Human beings don't.
They need a new goddamn phone every year.
The TVs get bigger.
The cars get faster.
Everything they do is better.
The computers have more terabytes of hard drive.
Their processors work quicker.
The video cards are better.
Everything's better.
No one's settling for less good.
Everybody wants better and they want better constantly.
And they want to show their friends.
It's part of being attractive.
Look, look at Johnny.
He's got the new car.
He's got the new phone.
She's got the new watch.
You've got the new Oculus Rift headsets.
You got this and that.
We make technology.
It's our primary thing.
We work, we get ourselves together like human batteries, and we generate income and revenue, and we're all obsessed with making or buying better stuff.
That's what we do.
Now, what does that mean, ultimately?
Well, it means technology.
Technology is the pinnacle of human achievement.
It's the stuff that puts us into space.
It's the stuff that allows us to videotape things.
It's stuff that allows us to essentially capture time.
You can capture time on a phone and play it back to people.
This is when I showed Jeremy this thing and we both laughed.
unidentified
Ha ha ha!
joe rogan
Look, you can laugh too.
You can laugh at our memory.
That's what it's doing.
Well, we're gonna get better at that.
It's gonna keep getting better and better and better.
Well, where does that lead to?
It leads to some sort of singularity.
It leads to some sort of paradigm-shifting invention where all of these technologies piggyback onto themselves until we reach some sort of pinnacle of human achievement.
And I think that's probably going to be some kind of artificial life or some sort of a symbiotic relationship I don't think it's enough, and I don't think it's altogether better.
I don't think it's altogether better either, but I think it's going that way.
robert bigelow
I think you've got half the coin.
joe rogan
Half the coin?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
You're missing the other side.
joe rogan
What's the other side?
robert bigelow
Okay.
So you've built this societal empire of technological achievements, right?
joe rogan
That's what we have right now, right?
robert bigelow
Well, and who knows in 50 years or 150 years, whatever.
Okay.
I think you've just described an infrastructure for a serious problem coming.
Yeah.
What if you were to create a graph and on the graph were just two things, two lines, and you were tracking over the last 150 years spiritual maturity among the species.
The 20th century was the worst annihilation of people, 60 million people ever, in terms of numbers.
Wars, right?
What if you were to track in that same graph the progress of technology?
Well, you'd have one vertical line, the technological line, in the 20th century and now.
And it would probably be segmented, which I mean it's jumping.
It's going faster than arithmetic progression or any normal progression.
It's jumping.
So it might be at a 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 situation.
Now you look at the spirituality line.
It's practically flatlined.
So what's the consequences of that eventually?
joe rogan
What do you mean by the spirituality?
robert bigelow
I think species needs to have grounding spiritually.
I think a species have to have an essence of spirituality.
Something that in their being, to their bones, says it makes a difference what you do.
It makes a difference how you behave.
For your overall good and the good of others, and it makes a difference.
joe rogan
So an intelligent species like us, not just all species.
robert bigelow
Correct.
joe rogan
Sure, us.
The most intelligent?
robert bigelow
Yes, right.
So if you don't have a grounding, though, in a solid spiritual philosophy in a species like us, like humans, then you're rolling the dice on handing A species that might be immature spiritually.
Some very advanced, dangerous stuff that can be used as weaponry or just misused and abused in other kinds of ways.
And maybe the species thinks it knows it all, and it's cavalier, it's careless about the disposition of the technologies.
But more than likely, it's hostile, because things tend to be weaponized.
So you wind up with a species that's more like the Klingons than you want.
So you wouldn't want to be on some other planet and having these discover you, right?
So I think those two lines are really important to try to harmonize.
The problem is, there's no intersection in sight.
In our lifetimes and other lifetimes, there's no intersections in sight.
We haven't even begun to create a homogeneity of spirituality in the human species compared to the proliferation of technologies.
So that incongruity can be a really serious problem someday.
Maybe.
joe rogan
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, if we continue to concentrate only on things and on improving technology, but not improving the way we communicate with each other and love each other.
robert bigelow
Exactly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
Exactly.
joe rogan
So what's the solution?
robert bigelow
Wow.
I mean, that's the big, you know, that's the $64,000 question that they used to say.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
Old television program.
Yeah, I mean, that's what is a solution, you know?
But who ponders that?
Who ever ponders this?
joe rogan
Only people with a lot of free time.
robert bigelow
Yeah, I suppose so.
Yeah.
Some monks on the mountainside somewhere.
Some Buddhists someplace.
joe rogan
That's the problem with the way we live our lives.
We're very, very busy with things that aren't exactly spiritually satisfying, right?
robert bigelow
Yeah, yeah.
There's a tremendous amount of Of noise for attention.
And so, when do you get the time to just to think?
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
When do you?
robert bigelow
Who, me?
joe rogan
Yeah, when do you?
robert bigelow
I'm too busy running in circles.
joe rogan
But I know you think about these things, and I know you've thought a lot about consciousness, and this is one of the things that you've studied.
One of the things you're involved in is the concept of whether or not consciousness extends beyond death.
robert bigelow
Right.
Yeah.
joe rogan
And what do you think?
robert bigelow
I think it's a really important subject.
So we have two Holy Grails.
And the second Holy Grail is, are we alone?
As you've said, and everybody kind of is attracted to that question.
The other is, do aspects of your consciousness survive your bodily death?
So, is there a difference between mind and brain?
So, is brain the generator and mind is a reservoir and actually more causal than the brain is, in a sense?
So, in theory, the question relates to, gosh, you are doing away with the brain if the container decomposes and dies and is permanently offline.
Are there any aspects of your mind that continues?
Does your consciousness continue?
That is a question that has been attempted to answer since maybe the dawn of man.
A loved one has just died.
Is there any way to recapture that?
Any way at all?
Well, no.
It's written off.
It's gone.
And that is just a relevant question today as ever because you have a lot of...
Desparate kinds of folks' beliefs, and you have religions that are against that notion altogether, and so you have a huge amount of differences in people's philosophy, driven by religious beliefs or just the way they've arrived at their own conclusions or whatever.
So you have to be respectful of all these different kinds of beliefs and try to yet approach that subject in a way that is somehow determinable.
Try to arrive at something that maybe is not 100%, but can you find answers in different ways that drive you into the high levels, 80, 85, 90, 95%, that you're leaning towards that?
That would be really good news if you could legitimately do that for yourself and know that you have something else in addition to this.
joe rogan
That's always been what religions have strived for, right?
To show people that there's something more than this life.
robert bigelow
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
There's something beyond.
robert bigelow
It's their backyard.
joe rogan
There's something waiting.
robert bigelow
Yeah, for the majority of religions.
It's their backyard, and there's all kinds of promises about what our backyard contains if you're a follower of our religions.
joe rogan
Yeah, and the cynical people would always say, well, they're just trying to promise you that to get you to behave in this life, but there's really no evidence whatsoever that anything happens once you die.
But then you have people that have had near-death experiences, and those are the weird ones, because they've had these near-death experiences, and they almost always come back saying it's going to be okay.
They almost always come back going, there's something more to this.
And we don't know what those near-death experiences are.
We know that certain aspects of them can be recreated with psychedelic drugs.
And we do know that the brain produces psychedelic drugs.
Particularly DMT. And people that have had experiences on psychedelics have had these moments.
Like Larry Haggard, the guy from Dallas.
Remember that?
robert bigelow
Oh yeah.
joe rogan
He famously was on CNN once, and I watched this interview where he was talking about how he had a high-dose LSD experience once.
He never worried about death ever again.
And he was talking about it, and the CNN anchor was clearly a little rattled.
Because I believe what they were talking about was his...
Green home.
He had this home that operated off the grid and he had it all set up so it was really well insulated and solar powered and all this stuff so that he could not have a heavy carbon footprint.
So they're talking about this and along the line they get to talking about his LSD experience and death.
It was pretty trippy to see him say that and to see them going, oh.
But many people that have had intense psychedelic experiences have had this thing happen to them where they believe they've gone to another dimension.
They've gone to this other place that seems more real.
From my own personal experiences, I've had these.
Where you go to these realms that seem more real than the realm that you're living in and you encounter something.
Whether this something is an imaginary or whether it's actually, you could put it on a scale and measure it.
I'm not sure if it matters because it's still a thing you experience.
robert bigelow
Did you have, after these experiences, did you have any kind of evidence afterwards that you could draw a connection between what you saw in the visions and actually now what you discovered?
I mean, was there anything that popped up later on that connected the two?
joe rogan
No.
No, there's no evidence.
Even the memory is shaky.
Your memories are shaky just like the memories of a dream are shaky.
But when it happens, and I've done it a bunch of times, every time it happens you're like, oh yeah, I remember this.
Because it's so intense.
robert bigelow
And each time that you do it, is it more vivid?
joe rogan
No, it's always vivid.
You can't get more vivid.
It doesn't get any more vivid.
It's just, it's way more vivid than life.
robert bigelow
What do you learn as you've been doing this multiple times?
What's the lessons learned?
joe rogan
Abandonment of the ego is a big one.
That's the big one.
That your ego and your desire to protect yourself from failing or from reality, that those things are ultimately very detrimental to your consciousness, very detrimental to the way you communicate with other people.
And that it's a battle, a constant battle to abandon these monkey instincts that we all have.
And that these things have protected us and gotten us to this stage, but they can ultimately trip you up as you try to sort of understand yourself better.
robert bigelow
You know, you're just hitting on something in the literature of survival of consciousness, of which there's hundreds or thousands of books that you could actually access and people to talk to.
The message seems to be in the literature, abandonment of the ego is a very important thing to do.
It's a very important thing as you've passed over.
That's one of the things that happens, is to try to remove the ego and shove it aside.
joe rogan
Yeah, it seems to be...
That's an impediment to learning in a lot of different ways.
It's an impediment to learning art.
It's an impediment to learning because you think you're better than you are if you let your ego lie to you.
robert bigelow
Oh, sure.
joe rogan
Same with technical skills, physical skills.
You can lie to yourself.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
A lot of that is the ego.
But the ego is also what keeps you alive.
It's the thing that makes you want to be successful.
It's the thing that makes you want to progress.
It's the thing that makes you want to accomplish things.
One of the keys to an actualized life is to Progress, move your motivation away from ego to the fascination in problem solving and acquiring skills and getting better at tasks.
Is that there's something interesting in it.
And especially if you're doing something that benefits other people.
When it benefits other people that you get better at these things because these other people get to enjoy these things on a higher level.
Then you get this cool feeling of actually...
It's benefiting people, actually helping people with your fascination with these things.
And the more you concentrate on the ego, the more it'll taint whatever progress you're making.
It'll taint whatever thing you're creating.
robert bigelow
So back to the near-death experiences, so let's suppose that You just look at the ones that come along naturally.
Somebody has flatlined on an operating table, they've fallen through the ice, whatever.
There are so many near-death experiencers.
I've heard numbers that are ridiculous in the millions of people in this country, not just in the world.
And so there's a hell of a lot of smoke.
There must be an awful lot of heat somewhere in terms of the probability that this is real.
Because other explanations are really tough.
Now, you can have out-of-body experiences, and you can validate conversations in a room.
You should have no way of understanding where tools were taken from what drawers or anything like that, what people look like, because you're gone.
You're under anesthesia, right?
There's no way.
And yet, the literature is replete with stories, thousands of stories like that.
And same thing with near-death stories.
You know, huge volume of information.
Every example you can possibly imagine.
And so then you wonder, well, how can you correlate that?
How can you correlate anything to do with did the person have an experience, not just through the tunnel, but what they saw afterwards in that period of time after they exited the tunnel into wherever they were?
And how do we verify that what they actually saw was the other side?
joe rogan
Not only that, you have different human beings with a different understanding of language.
So they have limited vocabulary or limited ability to describe things or limited ability to express themselves.
And maybe they're not so good at relaying what it was.
robert bigelow
And does it fit with their religions?
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
And their philosophies?
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
Yeah.
And how much of it do you distort when you get back to make yourself feel better?
How much do you actually share with people?
I mean, remember, you were talking about your childhood experience.
You didn't even want to share with your wife.
When people have a near-death experience, maybe some of it's unpleasant.
robert bigelow
I didn't want to share it with her.
She might have said, go sleep in the other room.
I don't want you around me.
Why take the chance?
joe rogan
People have a real fear of being ridiculed.
To be ridiculed for a near-death experience is probably similar to being ridiculed for a UFO encounter or ridiculed for any other super spectacular thing that most people are never going to experience.
robert bigelow
Right, right.
joe rogan
So when you have talked about this the ability to measure whether consciousness exists outside of life how can that be measured and what steps can be made to try to quantify and to try to validate whether or not this is a real thing You don't want to hear this I do want to hear this All right.
How can you say I don't want to hear this?
robert bigelow
Well, I don't know.
joe rogan
I'm just guessing.
unidentified
Anybody wants to hear this.
robert bigelow
I'm just guessing.
I'm sitting here with a reptilian brainstem trying to keep up.
All right.
So how do you verify a near-death experience?
It might be that there's some kind of messaging that can happen.
From whoever greeted you temporarily on the other side because you are coming back.
And maybe that message can be verified in some way.
Maybe it's something that doesn't make sense to you.
Okay?
So you do come back.
You snap back into this reality.
You're alive.
And sure enough, what was conveyed to you from the other side actually happens.
And it wasn't something that was expected.
It was profound in some way.
And so that might be a way of verifying through this message that you had no other way of knowing or predicting that this was going to happen.
There's also the subject of psychic mediums.
Alright.
I can see stone face right now.
You're not buying it.
Alright.
joe rogan
I didn't say anything.
robert bigelow
I know.
joe rogan
I always give stone face.
robert bigelow
I'm looking at you.
joe rogan
I give stone face when people talk.
robert bigelow
Okay.
Alright.
joe rogan
But yeah, most psychic mediums I think are full of shit.
robert bigelow
Yeah, I know.
So, okay.
joe rogan
Doesn't mean they're all.
robert bigelow
Well, okay.
No, say that again.
joe rogan
It doesn't mean they're all bullshit.
robert bigelow
Okay.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
Good.
All right.
Yeah.
And some are a whole lot better than others.
joe rogan
Yes.
Look, it's like everything else.
There's con artists out there.
robert bigelow
Yes.
joe rogan
And then there's people that are genuinely unique.
robert bigelow
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
World-class performers.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
And so, of course, you can't help yourself but try to get information that falls in the categories that they should have no way of knowing.
In fact, you might not even know the information yourself at that moment in time.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
You know, you'll say no.
Or it's only later after you've listened to the recording or whatever that, oh my gosh, they were right.
And this and this and that.
So that is a very important source of information, assuming you're talking to ones that have been legitimatized, right?
And they've been bona fide.
joe rogan
Do you know any?
robert bigelow
I know a very good one.
joe rogan
You know a really good psychic medium.
Can I meet that person?
robert bigelow
I don't see why not.
I mean, it's up to them too, right?
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
But I think that would be...
Yeah, I would...
I'll ask.
joe rogan
What does this person do professionally?
Are they a psychic medium professionally?
So they make money doing it?
robert bigelow
This person...
Isn't motivated by, as far as my understanding is, by just doing these things as a business.
This person will do readings pro bono.
Without a fee.
Without charging.
joe rogan
That's promising.
robert bigelow
Uh-huh.
And...
joe rogan
That helps.
That helps believe you.
Or helps you believe them, rather.
robert bigelow
They have a family.
The person has a family and so on.
joe rogan
It's always a woman.
Why is it always a woman that's really good at it?
robert bigelow
What did I do?
joe rogan
Is it a woman?
robert bigelow
What did I say?
joe rogan
Is it a woman?
robert bigelow
Actually, yes.
Well, it is interesting.
Why...
Psychic mediums tend to be women.
joe rogan
I think because women have to be worried about men because men are fucking crazy.
And, you know, men are more violent and women are probably more intuitive because they got to pay more attention to these assholes.
robert bigelow
Well, you know, pound for pound, they're the best astronaut there is.
joe rogan
Women?
robert bigelow
Of course.
joe rogan
Yeah?
robert bigelow
Of course.
You get all that brain power.
In a package that doesn't weigh as much.
joe rogan
Oh, that makes sense.
robert bigelow
Yeah, you're launching less weight, so there you go.
But all kidding aside, yeah, psychic mediums are a really good legitimate source of getting alternate information that helps to collaborate things maybe that have happened other ways or information that's come maybe from a near-death experiencer, you know, for example.
joe rogan
But outside of psychic mediums, when you're talking about measuring whether or not consciousness exists outside of life, whether or not your consciousness somehow or another transcends your physical body.
robert bigelow
Right.
So you've heard of automatic writing?
joe rogan
Yes.
robert bigelow
Can you explain it to people's sake?
It has nothing to do with your wife automatically going into your checkbook.
It's got nothing to do with that.
joe rogan
Do people write checks anymore?
robert bigelow
That's automatic writing.
Oh, okay.
joe rogan
They don't do that anymore.
robert bigelow
I'm old-fashioned.
joe rogan
They bank online.
robert bigelow
I write a check.
unidentified
I understand.
joe rogan
I write a check.
Explain automatic writing to people.
unidentified
All right.
robert bigelow
So, apparently, it's something that has occurred for many, many years, especially back when the study of spiritualism and the whole...
Investigations of psychics was very, very strong from about 1835 or 40 to 1930-ish.
And then it has continued in some ways up until recent times.
So you have somebody who is writing and they are being controlled by a spirit.
joe rogan
Or they're in a trance.
robert bigelow
Or maybe they're in a trance.
But they could be lucid.
It doesn't have to be in a non-lucid trance.
They could be lucid in the writing or they could be in a trance.
And maybe they're not writing in the vernacular and language that they're used to.
Maybe they have a six or seven year education.
And they're writing very sophisticated information.
joe rogan
Have you experienced this?
robert bigelow
No.
I'm an explorer, a researcher, investigator, a student, so I'm trying to gather information through other ways.
And I've had personal experiences, but nothing of automatic writing.
So anyway, again, the literature is huge on this subject of automatic writing.
And it's easy to dismiss because it just seems very strange.
You're being possessed.
You're actually being controlled.
joe rogan
But has anybody ever verified any of this automatic writing stuff?
robert bigelow
In the literature, yeah.
You have a lot of information.
The writer isn't aware of, shouldn't be, doesn't know.
It's outside of their world.
So there has been different kinds of cross-correspondence and other kinds of ways of verifying that this didn't come from this person.
Something else is going on here.
It didn't come all from this person.
It's not right.
It's completely illogical.
So that's one means of adding something to the menu.
joe rogan
But when you're trying to measure whether or not consciousness exists outside of life, just because someone's automatically writing, they could be receiving some signal from someone that's still alive.
If there is some sort of psychic communication, if there is a possibility of remote viewing and you can transmit information from person to person without words, and this is one of the ultimate goals of Neuralink.
Elon Musk actually said You're going to be able to talk without using words.
I mean, if human beings, if it's possible to do something along those lines, this could be a live person that's somehow or another projecting these thoughts and someone else is tuning into them in the same way you would tune into a radio signal.
robert bigelow
Okay, so the way you would test that is probably it's going to be What's the nature of the entire subject matter?
How extensive is the subject matter?
Because at some point you're adding on so much weight and so many different variables that it stretches the credibility of that theory working.
It's kind of like using ball lightning as an excuse for all kinds of things.
When it has a very short life, usually travels in one direction, and it's very, very, very rare.
So everybody uses Occam's razor as this is what you do.
You want to go to what is the simplest solution instead of trying to find swamp gas to describe the craft that just landed.
So, you know, I would say, hmm, that's probably testable.
You could probably create the methodologies to do some laboratory-type tests on that.
But my guess is that would fail as a solution.
joe rogan
See, we're talking right now in these weird terms, because I don't know if that stuff's real.
I could describe what I think would be wrong with these scenarios, but I don't know if any of this remote writing or automatic writing has been verified.
You do.
robert bigelow
Through the literature.
joe rogan
Yeah, but what does that mean, though?
It's through literature.
People are full of shit.
They write things down that aren't true.
robert bigelow
It just means that we haven't set up experiments ourselves to verify it ourselves and actually watching, implementing it under controlled conditions, double-blind conditions.
Right.
So what else do you have to resort to?
It's what's in the literature thoroughly digest and pros and cons and everything from a lot of sources and people who have engaged in this And maybe they have film.
Maybe they actually have film of the writing.
And you compare the handwriting, maybe it's different handwriting altogether.
Maybe it's in a different language completely.
In fact, there are stories, a lot of accounts of exactly that.
joe rogan
But this subject of consciousness and whether or not consciousness exists beyond life, this is something that's important to you.
So I'd assume that you've looked into it further than just this idea of automatic writing being the only piece of evidence.
robert bigelow
Actually, that area is the least I've looked into.
joe rogan
What's the area the most you've looked into?
robert bigelow
Well now, first of all, I have kind of recaptured this survival of consciousness inquiry that I was into in the 1980s and I have now formed an institute called BICS that started in June of last year.
joe rogan
What does BICS stand for?
robert bigelow
Bigelow Institution for Survival of Consciousness and For Conscious Survival.
Bigelow Institute for Conscious Survival of Consciousness.
This organization is very new, and so we're in a method of trying to stimulate research and investigate and catch up on the literature.
And we have a unique situation where we have people around us That have ongoing things happening.
joe rogan
Ongoing things?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
What does that mean?
robert bigelow
Different kinds of events that are being reported by family, staff, friends.
joe rogan
Like?
robert bigelow
Apparitions.
joe rogan
Ghosts.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
You believe in ghosts?
robert bigelow
I have...
joe rogan
It's fun.
robert bigelow
My experience is...
joe rogan
It's fun to believe in ghosts.
robert bigelow
Well, there's a difference in terms of...
What causes you to believe in something the most?
Personal experiences?
Probably.
So my personal experiences are not having ever seen an apparition.
My wife did.
I have had poltergeist, a very demonstrative poltergeist event.
unidentified
What was that?
robert bigelow
Decades ago.
joe rogan
What happened?
robert bigelow
Probably, I don't know, 25 years ago.
Or more.
11 o'clock at night.
My wife and I are laying in bed.
Halloween Eve.
This is appropriate.
Halloween Eve.
Okay.
Hardwood floors downstairs in the entrance hall.
On which tables are all set up with lots and lots of candies, bags.
Because bags are being given out.
Large, very large candy bars and bags and bags of everything piled up.
Hundreds of kids having to be taken care of.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
Halloween, big deal.
joe rogan
Big deal.
robert bigelow
Ghosts in the trees.
And this is a family thing that was a big deal every year.
joe rogan
Decorations.
robert bigelow
Oh, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
The whole nine yards.
robert bigelow
The full Monty.
joe rogan
Got it.
robert bigelow
All right.
unidentified
So we're laying there.
robert bigelow
And there's this crash, bang, boom, crash, crash, crash, like a thousand malt balls just dropped to the hardwood floor.
Made all this noise.
The sound, I estimated, seemed to last forever, probably about three and a half, four seconds, which is a long time for noise to continue.
And I said, oh geez, stay here.
I'll go take care of it.
Whatever.
I'll go take care of it.
The mess.
So I go downstairs.
Nothing's wrong.
Nothing's wrong.
She doesn't believe me.
She comes downstairs and she says, Oh my God.
I said, Yeah.
I don't have to do anything.
Everything's perfect.
I didn't touch it.
It's just like we set it up.
So, that was a really interesting event.
And poltergeist, a lot of times...
joe rogan
So it's just a sound that you heard.
robert bigelow
Yeah, just a sound.
joe rogan
A sound like something crashed.
robert bigelow
Like everything on all those tables piled all up, had all crashed to the floor and bags broken open.
Right.
joe rogan
But nothing did.
robert bigelow
Nothing.
joe rogan
You had children at the time?
robert bigelow
I had teenagers and they were gone.
They were out of the house.
They were gone.
joe rogan
You sure they weren't fucking with you?
robert bigelow
The teenagers?
joe rogan
No.
robert bigelow
But what would they have to do?
Have a recording?
unidentified
Make a loud noise?
robert bigelow
Yeah, they would have to crash all this and record it, wouldn't they?
joe rogan
Isn't that more likely than a ghost?
robert bigelow
And spend hundreds of dollars doing this.
Well, that's how much we always spent.
joe rogan
On recordings?
robert bigelow
No, on the candy.
joe rogan
I mean...
I mean, just sounds.
It sounded like mothballs, you said, right?
Or like malt balls hitting the floor, right?
Is that what you said?
robert bigelow
Jawbreakers, whatever.
Candies, hard things.
Whatever.
joe rogan
But that was it?
Just a sound?
robert bigelow
That's a lot.
joe rogan
But it's not necessarily a ghost.
robert bigelow
When nothing has happened, well, no, we're talking about poltergeists.
Poltergeists don't have to be anything manifested as a ghost.
It can be an audible sound.
joe rogan
But was there anything more to the experience than just a loud sound that turned out to be nothing?
robert bigelow
No, that was pretty good.
joe rogan
That's not enough.
robert bigelow
For a starter, that's pretty good.
You know, I was probably like, okay, what's going to happen tomorrow night?
joe rogan
Did something happen tomorrow night?
unidentified
No.
joe rogan
That was it?
Just one loud noise and that's it?
robert bigelow
To me it was a big deal.
You know, it was like, wow.
joe rogan
Imagine if that was that whole movie, Poltergeist, just a loud noise.
robert bigelow
Well, wouldn't that be that entertaining?
joe rogan
Wouldn't be a good movie.
robert bigelow
No, you have to have chandelier swinging and crashing and all that kind of stuff.
joe rogan
That's what I was expecting.
I wasn't expecting just like candy hit the floor, but no candy actually hit the floor.
robert bigelow
Well, I never said that my life was that exciting.
You know, it hasn't been that great.
joe rogan
But I want to get to this idea that you're trying to pursue of measuring consciousness or trying to figure out whether or not consciousness survives death.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
What do you want to do and how do you want to do it?
You can't just do it through remote writing or automatic writing or psychic mediums.
There's got to be a way to figure this out.
robert bigelow
Yeah, so we started the Institute and I said, okay, let's stir the pot up.
And, in fact, we thought we would join an organization and they didn't want us.
So we got rejected.
So we got rejected and then crawled off and conjured up a contest.
So the contest says you have to have some credentials to enter this contest.
joe rogan
What kind of credentials do you have to have as a psychic?
robert bigelow
No, no, no, no.
You have to have background in the topic of And you could be a priest, a minister, a rabbi.
You have to have background in the topic of studying and understanding, potentially, does the other side even exist?
We're not asking you to tell us what it's all about.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
Just does it friggin' exist, right?
So, you might be a producer or director of a television show for years, and you've got more stuff on film than you can imagine of different kinds of weird things happening that you have no explanation for any of that, and you've made a study of this for a long time.
You could be a good candidate.
You could be a detective.
And maybe you're solving murder cases by using psychic mediums.
joe rogan
So you'd have to have something you bring to the table.
robert bigelow
So you have to have something you bring to the table.
And you can't send us an essay.
You're going to write an essay.
To present your case.
And it can be more than 25,000 words, which is about 50 pages.
joe rogan
So you're just essentially going to allow people to come up with some convincing argument and bring it to you.
So you have a contest to do this?
Is that what it is?
robert bigelow
Yeah, that's what it is.
So we say, okay...
There's a deadline to get all your applications in.
And then you have many months.
The deadline is actually the end of this month, the 28th of February.
And then you have...
joe rogan
Jamie's got it up here.
BICS Essay Competition, Best Evidence for Afterlife.
Essays will be judged by five renowned experts.
robert bigelow
That's up to six now.
We have another judge, which is a good thing because...
joe rogan
The winning essay gets a half a milli.
Is that too much?
No, it's perfect.
It's good.
Second place gets 300, third place gets 150 grand.
So if you have a semi-shitty near-death experience story, you get 150. It's an interesting way to do it, but I would hope there would be some better way to measure it.
You know the expression extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
robert bigelow
Yeah, true.
But you've got to remember that, well, first of all, we're causing conversation and thought about the subject.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
And we're stirring the pot.
And this kind of contest has never been done before.
joe rogan
What if they're all terrible?
Do you still give first place to someone who's terrible?
robert bigelow
Worse than that, what if there were only three applicants?
joe rogan
Right.
Even worse.
robert bigelow
First, second, third price.
joe rogan
They all suck.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Well, the good news is, we have some really good people.
joe rogan
Jamie's thinking about writing one right now.
robert bigelow
We have some...
joe rogan
Half a million bucks.
robert bigelow
We have some very good people who are entering this contest.
Their credentials are terrific.
They're very good.
They're authors of many books.
There's extensive background of these kinds of folks.
So we're excited about that.
The response has been favorable.
joe rogan
Well, there's a lot of money on the table.
robert bigelow
Well, they have until August the 1st to do this.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
robert bigelow
And then the judges...
joe rogan
So here we are.
What is it?
The 24th?
What is it?
24th of February.
robert bigelow
Yeah, sure.
All right.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
So then the judges start.
And we just added a physicist to this group.
He's the sixth one.
And so he understands judging things and being a critical thinker.
And so he really rounds out the group very well.
And so the judges start August 1st, August, September, October, and then are supposed to be finished by November 1st and have made decisions.
So then we announce the winners.
And we want to post all the three winners.
And I suspect the judges are going to have a problem.
It's going to be damn hard to pick three out of the group because this has generated a lot of interest and we have some really good folks into this.
So we are going to get permissions as an applicant.
They have to give us permission We don't own anything.
We just want to put it on our website so people can read all the essays.
So maybe we have 20, 25 essays, not just the three winners.
So it's going to give people a chance to really read a lot of different kinds of arguments.
joe rogan
By what metrics are you going to accept evidence of the afterlife?
robert bigelow
Good question.
Okay.
So we patterned this after the legal system of the Western world.
And the Western world says two things.
That you can convict, providing you have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
It doesn't say 100%.
It says beyond a reasonable doubt.
Number two, witnesses really matter.
The veracity and the quality of the witnesses matter.
And how many did you have?
What is it that is being claimed here?
And what is the cross-correlation collaboration in whatever it is that you're trying to relate here?
joe rogan
So when you're talking about convicting someone for a crime, here's the problem with that analogy.
Crimes are real.
Like, if you're talking about convicting someone for a murder, the murder's real.
The person's dead.
And you want to catch someone.
So you have eyewitness encounters, you have evidence, you have all these things, and you can convict someone on that evidence.
There's no evidence that ghosts are real.
There's no evidence that the afterlife is real.
So you're guessing.
robert bigelow
Wrong.
joe rogan
How's it wrong?
robert bigelow
Wrong.
joe rogan
But murders are real, right?
You would say murders are way more real than the afterlife?
robert bigelow
What you said is wrong in this context.
joe rogan
In what way?
robert bigelow
An applicant.
joe rogan
An applicant.
robert bigelow
Who's a detective?
Who's been using?
joe rogan
Dick Tracy?
robert bigelow
Psychic?
No.
joe rogan
What?
robert bigelow
In fact, I got my watch right here.
I'll talk.
joe rogan
You talked to that watch.
That turned out to be real, right?
robert bigelow
Remember when we were kids?
unidentified
It is.
joe rogan
Dick Tracy used to talk to his watch.
We'd be like, that's crazy.
robert bigelow
The time didn't fast forward.
Two hours.
I come from the Pacific time.
joe rogan
Oh, it didn't?
robert bigelow
No.
joe rogan
That's weird.
robert bigelow
No.
And so I haven't been using my cell phone, and I forgot to bring my charger.
unidentified
What are you on?
joe rogan
Some shitty service?
Mine changes everywhere I go.
unidentified
I don't know.
joe rogan
Isn't yours?
robert bigelow
I'm going to talk to my granddaughter, because she gave it to me as a gift.
joe rogan
But you understand what I'm saying, though?
Because we actually talked about this.
robert bigelow
Well, wait a minute, though.
This guy's a detective solving murder cases using mediums.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
Isn't this like, wow?
joe rogan
Yeah, but when they solve murder cases using mediums, if that has ever been real, and I've talked to some detectives that say that's all horseshit, because I did have a long discussion with someone who is, he's an investigative detective and he solves crimes, and he's like, there's no evidence that any psychics have ever given you any real information.
robert bigelow
Now, he hasn't investigated the subject.
He has had probably one experience, maybe two, in this.
joe rogan
This is his personal opinion on cases that he's been involved in, and maybe he's wrong.
But this is just what he said.
He said, people are desperate.
They hire psychics.
But my point is, murder is real.
The difference is, you're convicting someone for something that absolutely happened.
When you're talking about trying to figure out whether or not there's an afterlife based on the kind of evidence that would be used to convict someone of a murder, that doesn't necessarily work because we know for a fact that murder is real.
We know for a fact that human beings are real and that if you kill them, you're a murderer.
This is all fact.
We don't know whether or not there's an afterlife.
So to use the same...
Obligation or the same preponderance of evidence that would convict someone of a crime for something that you don't even know is real.
They don't necessarily...
They're not comparable.
robert bigelow
No, I wouldn't say...
unidentified
Don't...
robert bigelow
Put the seriousness of an event in terms of the harm it caused as being more legitimate than an event that actually produces information that you should have no way of acquiring.
joe rogan
Well, let's not say that then.
Let's talk about it in terms of something different than a murder.
Let's talk about it in terms of vandalism.
Just someone spray painting some building somewhere, right?
Let's talk about that.
No one gets hurt.
Just physical stuff.
robert bigelow
Okay, so let's take that example.
And suppose you went to a psychic medium.
And she says, what I'm hearing is that your house is going to get spray painted with a message on the backside of your house.
joe rogan
I'd go to that lady.
She probably fucking did it.
She knew it was coming.
unidentified
You're impossible.
joe rogan
That's how she knew it was coming.
unidentified
You're impossible.
joe rogan
No, I'm possible.
I'm very possible.
But this is all nonsense.
robert bigelow
Well, wait a minute.
No, wait a minute.
So there is a predictability in events, however.
joe rogan
Only if someone actually can prove that they've done that and no one's ever done that.
No one's ever said someone's going to spray paint your building and it wasn't them that did it.
unidentified
How do you know?
robert bigelow
How do you know?
joe rogan
Prove it.
Prove it.
Show it to me.
Do you see what I'm saying?
People have definitely spray painted people's buildings.
robert bigelow
I do.
joe rogan
No one has definitely showed you that there's real evidence that consciousness survives death and you can talk to someone from beyond the grave.
robert bigelow
There have been a mountain of readings for sitters where the information comes that says something is going to happen.
And it happens.
It's prognostication that's a day or two or a week away and it happens.
joe rogan
Maybe.
Maybe.
robert bigelow
No, no, it is.
You just have to read them.
joe rogan
But you've got to show me specifics if we're going to have this conversation.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, for you to be so convinced, you should have things that you could pull out of the top of your head right now and tell me specifically that this event was predicted by this person and this is how it happened and there was no way they could have known about it otherwise.
Otherwise, you shouldn't be convinced.
robert bigelow
The stories are in the tens of thousands.
joe rogan
But that doesn't mean anything.
When they're written down after the fact, that doesn't mean jack shit.
robert bigelow
No, but there are actual accounts of things.
You have to say, well, the authors are all fraud.
joe rogan
Maybe.
robert bigelow
The authors are all fraud.
Their sources are fraud.
joe rogan
The problem is you want to believe.
That's the problem.
robert bigelow
Maybe it's true.
joe rogan
Maybe it's true.
I got the solution for you.
But here's the thing.
Robert, I love you.
You don't know.
robert bigelow
I got the solution.
joe rogan
What's the solution?
robert bigelow
The solution is for you to have a sitting, for Christ's sake.
joe rogan
Maybe that is not even good enough.
robert bigelow
Wait a minute.
Earlier it was.
joe rogan
No, never.
It was never good enough.
It was never good enough.
It was interesting.
Interesting to have a sitting.
robert bigelow
You could have both chocolate and vanilla ice cream and you wouldn't be happy.
joe rogan
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Look, there is no proof ever that someone has been able to accurately perform some sort of psychic demonstration.
That's the whole James Randi thing.
robert bigelow
You need a sitting badly.
joe rogan
I don't need a sitting man.
robert bigelow
Yes, you do.
joe rogan
You have a belief in these things that may or may not be founded.
But the problem is, you don't have any evidence.
You're not saying.
You're not saying specific.
Like, I can tell you specific things that I know are true.
And I'll talk to you about them because I was there or I know about them.
I can talk to you about martial arts events.
I can talk to you about stand-up comedy events.
I know things that absolutely did happen.
unidentified
Right.
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
And therefore, if you argued with me and said, there has never been a UFC fight, I go, well, that's not true, because I could tell you specific dates, I can tell you what happened, what the result was, I can show you a videotape of it.
You don't have that same knowledge of these things, but you have the same conviction that I have when I'm talking about things that are hardcore facts, like a mixed martial arts event, Or, you know, whatever.
Fill in the blank with whatever the event you want it to be.
You have the same sort of conviction that these things are real, but you don't have the same kind of hardcore evidence.
Not only do you not have the same kind of hardcore evidence...
Well, give me an example.
Give me an example.
robert bigelow
An example is any kind of information coming from the other side that maybe you don't even know about.
Okay?
So it can't be explained away as telepathy or clairvoyance because you don't even know about it yourself.
joe rogan
Give me an example of that.
robert bigelow
Well, pick anything.
That something's going to happen or that something did happen.
joe rogan
Give me an example of someone actually doing this.
robert bigelow
Okay.
So that Aunt Martha just died.
joe rogan
Who the fuck is Aunt Martha?
Is this a real person?
robert bigelow
Well, you said give me an example.
No, no, no.
joe rogan
I want an example of a real psychic prediction that turned out to be true that you can tell me.
robert bigelow
I can fill this table up with examples, with literature.
joe rogan
I just want one.
You don't have to do that.
Just give me one that you know about.
Listen, like I'm saying, I have the same conviction in things that I know are real as you have when you're arguing that psychic ability is real.
I just want you to tell me one.
robert bigelow
Okay, my own sitting.
Okay, my own sitting.
unidentified
Okay.
robert bigelow
My father came across in the sitting.
And my father was killed in a private plane crash when I was 18. And it wasn't his plane.
It was his partner's plane.
And so she tells this to me.
And I hadn't thought about anything to do with his partner for decades.
joe rogan
How long ago was this sitting?
robert bigelow
How long ago?
joe rogan
How long ago did you have this sitting?
robert bigelow
A few days ago.
joe rogan
You're a famous public person, and your history is available.
Someone could find this out about you.
robert bigelow
That's maybe true about the plane crash, but not the first name of the pilot.
joe rogan
Not the first name of your father's partner?
Why couldn't someone find that out?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Why couldn't someone find out the pilot?
robert bigelow
I think because this is over half a century old.
I think it's like 60...
joe rogan
I'm 76. Right, but there was probably a record...
robert bigelow
I think that's stretching it.
joe rogan
I don't think that's stretching it at all.
You were telling me about UFO encounters from 1947. You were telling me about people that have seen things.
You were telling me about events that happened that are in the historical record.
robert bigelow
Okay.
So let's shift to something else that could not have been written down.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
Okay.
So...
In my own setting.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
So, my wife passed February 19th, last year, and she was in and out of hospitals a lot for a long time.
I was kind of the nurse at home for a couple years.
And...
So toward the end, she was in the hospital about three days before.
She wanted to pass at home.
So the challenge was how to get her out of an area in the hospital that was basically a waiting area for people to go to die.
It was an area that that's where people were that weren't expected to leave.
Okay, alive.
And so there was a day there where my son and my granddaughter and I were playing a lot of loud music.
In the room for my wife.
And the medium said to me, and I'm recording this, and the medium said, thank you, your wife wants to thank you for all the music that was played for her before she passed, all the music.
And I said, well, I don't know about any music.
I don't remember anything.
joe rogan
Why did you say that?
robert bigelow
Because I didn't.
joe rogan
You didn't remember playing loud music?
robert bigelow
No, I didn't remember.
joe rogan
But you remember it now.
robert bigelow
What is she talking about?
joe rogan
How do you remember it now?
robert bigelow
Because of my granddaughter.
Because I had recorded it, and we listened to the recording together after I had done the sitting, and my granddaughter says to me, Pop, don't you remember?
Oh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
unidentified
I said, oh, God, that's right.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I forgot.
I completely forgot it.
joe rogan
Well, that's certainly interesting and unusual.
robert bigelow
So what I would, I don't know if she would do it, but I think she probably would be very interested since it's you, and because you are a big figure, that And you're easy to learn about.
You'd go into this assuming, which she's a very, very honest person.
But you would have to go into this assuming that everything about you is so public, you can find out a lot of things.
joe rogan
Well, that's the problem that I always have with psychics.
Don't tell me something that I already know.
robert bigelow
That's the challenge for her, is to tell you something that nobody else could possibly know.
joe rogan
But even that, well, nobody else could possibly know is a stretch, right?
But tell me something that I don't know.
Whenever I've had friends that have gone and had psychic readings, I always say, well, how did they structure the questions?
How did this go?
What did they say?
Were they fishing around?
Did they accurately get to it or did they give you probing questions first?
It's almost always probing questions.
And they told me about my grandfather.
How could they know?
I go, you know!
You know about your grandfather.
Why don't they tell you some shit you don't know?
Everybody tells you things you already know.
Tell me something I don't know.
robert bigelow
So that'll be the challenge for her, wouldn't it?
Is to be able to tell you, to tell Joe Rogan, things that essentially only Joe knows.
joe rogan
No, don't tell me things I know.
robert bigelow
Okay.
joe rogan
Tell me things I don't know.
Tell me reality that I'm not aware of that has nothing to do with me.
robert bigelow
Or that may happen soon.
joe rogan
Well, something along those lines.
Yeah, something where, you know, don't say you're going to spray paint my house and then go do it.
robert bigelow
But it's supposed to be a sitting for Joe.
joe rogan
Yes.
robert bigelow
It's supposed to be for you.
I understand.
joe rogan
It's just the problem is they tell you things you already know.
And I'm like, this is just, I guess there's something to that, right?
There's some sort of clairvoyance to that if it's real.
robert bigelow
You're saying, well, then that's only relevant because they're reading my mind.
Which is a holy cow.
joe rogan
That's not what I'm saying.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying they're telling you, they're giving you these questions in a way like, I have a friend who does this.
He's a mentalist.
He does it out of Las Vegas and he tells me it's all bullshit.
He tells me how he does it.
He tells me how he structures these questions and probes people and gets people to give up information.
Then he makes these educated guesses and then they start saying, oh my god, I can't believe you know that.
robert bigelow
You are not supposed to say anything more than yes or no.
You don't talk.
During the sitting.
You're supposed to say yes or no.
That's it.
Or say nothing.
That's it.
You're not supposed to talk.
joe rogan
Okay, well listen, I haven't experienced this before.
I try to keep an open mind.
If someone actually can do this, that's pretty spectacular.
But to my understanding, and I've spent a lot of time reading about these things and reading about skeptics and the James Randi challenge and all these different people that have tried to attempt to demonstrate psychic ability that no one has ever successfully done that.
robert bigelow
Okay, let's go back earlier.
joe rogan
Am I wrong, Jamie?
Well, wait a second.
The James Randi challenge.
robert bigelow
Oh, he was a fraud.
Forget about it.
joe rogan
James Randi was a fraud?
robert bigelow
Yeah, he was.
He wouldn't have ever paid out anything if somebody had been successful.
People all know that.
No, he would not have paid it out.
Because he disputed, arbitrarily disputed, everything that would have been attempted.
And finally people quit.
Because he was not going to be fair in his judgment.
joe rogan
What is fair, though, in terms of psychic ability?
If you could prove psychic ability beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But what was his rules?
What did he want you to establish?
robert bigelow
I don't care about James Randi.
I care about Joe Rogan and my premise is this.
I wish we never talked about this.
joe rogan
We just stuck with aliens.
robert bigelow
Okay, but wait a second.
Wait a second.
Earlier, correct me if I'm wrong, You actually said, yes, there could be legitimate mediums.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's possible.
robert bigelow
And there can be better ones and really terrific ones and different capabilities.
joe rogan
Yeah, maybe.
My problem is your conviction, your belief in this is so strong.
robert bigelow
Well, no, but what happened to the Joe of just a little while ago that says, yeah, there can be legitimate mediums, as opposed to saying, they're all fraud because I know a magician.
joe rogan
No, that show's open-minded.
I'm willing to believe that it's possible.
But I don't understand why you're so convinced by just one story about music in a room.
Maybe that's what happened.
Maybe this lady tuned in to the Akashic Records and figured out that there's some music in the room when your wife is dying.
robert bigelow
I would argue, start with, and time is precious...
For a busy guy like yourself, but you have to start with reading good literature, reading good books.
joe rogan
Okay, tell me a good book on psychics.
robert bigelow
I'll have to send you a list.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
I'll send you a list of things to read, and I'll do that.
You've got to give me how I do this.
joe rogan
Okay, we'll talk afterwards.
But you understand that most skeptics...
Believe that this is all bullshit, right?
robert bigelow
Well, they would or they wouldn't be skeptics.
joe rogan
But I mean, that's what they do.
They study things that are extraordinary.
Okay.
robert bigelow
There's open-minded skeptics, too.
You can be skeptical, but still be open-minded, right?
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
Right?
And I don't immediately buy off on anything I'm told just because I hear something.
I like to get to a point where Where I stay open-minded, and then I may start to shift into saying there's more and more maybe to this.
Let me investigate more.
I'm not going to let go until I investigate more.
So just because I had one sitting here with this particular person, I've had others years ago.
joe rogan
But you seem particularly convinced.
robert bigelow
Well, this particular person was very good.
It was three and a half hours long.
joe rogan
Okay, so was there another example besides just the music?
robert bigelow
Yeah, there were a number of other examples.
I'd have to stop and regurgitate everything.
joe rogan
Okay.
It was enough to convince you.
robert bigelow
I'm all pumped up for questions about space, cosmology, ETs, survival of consciousness, and what kind of car is the most fun to drive.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
What kind of car is the most fun to drive?
robert bigelow
The Lamberdoodle.
joe rogan
The Lamberdoodle?
What is that?
robert bigelow
It's a name I gave a car I just bought.
What is it?
It's an orange Lamborghini called a Ursa?
joe rogan
Ursis.
robert bigelow
Yeah, the truck, the SUV. Yeah, it's an SUV. 640 horsepower, four-wheel drive, Eight speeds forward.
It's the most fun car I've ever had in my life.
joe rogan
It's a cool car.
My friend Russell Peters has that exact same car.
robert bigelow
Who does?
joe rogan
Russell Peters.
Hilarious stand-up comedian from Toronto, Canada.
robert bigelow
It's an exciting car.
joe rogan
Yeah, he loves it.
He's got the same color, too.
robert bigelow
In fact, I bought two, and one's going to be given away at the Larry Ruvo Cleveland Clinic Gala in October in Las Vegas.
It's going to be auctioned off.
joe rogan
Oh, really?
robert bigelow
And the price of that car is $286,000.
I think it's more than that.
Altidore, that's taxing everything, and he's going to auction that car off come October.
joe rogan
I think they're lining.
I think it's more than that.
robert bigelow
You should be...
joe rogan
I think that car's like $300 and something, isn't it?
That's an expensive car.
jamie vernon
It says MSRP base is $200,000.
joe rogan
Oh, the base.
$280,000 for the base.
Yeah, Russell's was like super loaded up.
robert bigelow
You ought to be at the gala.
To bid?
joe rogan
No.
robert bigelow
Why not?
joe rogan
I got things to do.
robert bigelow
Why not?
joe rogan
I'm busy.
I'm going to be talking to a psychic.
It's a lot of fun.
robert bigelow
Larry Rubio puts on a hell of a show every year for these galas, and they're fantastic.
joe rogan
I'm sure.
Sounds like a good time.
So that's the most fun car to drive?
robert bigelow
For me, it has been.
joe rogan
What other cars have you driven that are like contenders?
robert bigelow
I have a Corvette my wife bought me when I was turning 70, and I can't control it.
joe rogan
Which one?
Is it a ZR1 or something?
robert bigelow
I don't know.
It's a Stingray.
It's too much car.
It's goosey on the rear end.
It's too squirrel.
joe rogan
Yeah, I get it.
robert bigelow
And I can't predict where it's going to go.
joe rogan
Well, you just need to learn how to handle it.
The new Corvettes are better for that.
They're mid-engine now.
robert bigelow
I can't see out of them.
joe rogan
The new ones?
robert bigelow
The rear window.
There's no rear window.
It's like four inches high.
joe rogan
Yeah, it is a little smaller.
robert bigelow
And an 18-wheeler is up behind you.
What do you do?
joe rogan
Hit the gas.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Don't let them be behind you.
robert bigelow
They make me too nervous.
joe rogan
I understand.
Yeah, the new ones are pretty sweet, though.
And it's much better traction with the mid-engine design.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Let's get back to aliens.
We've been talking for a long time, but I really want to talk to you about this.
What evidence do you think is the best evidence in terms of what physical evidence?
Is it just video?
Is it just photographs?
Or do you think there's physical evidence that either our government or some other government has somewhere that could show beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Because I know Jacques Vallée who was on the podcast before discussed that we were talking about specific metals that have been examined that these alloys that if they had been produced In mass, it would be billions and billions of dollars for these alloys.
And that this was, although not evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, seemed to indicate that because of the examination of these alloys, that this is not something that's mass produced in this country right now, or in any country right now.
That this is something that if it was done, it would cost an insane amount of money to create, but yet here it is.
robert bigelow
Right.
Yeah, so people have pieces of things that are like that, that have been, I assume they've gone through electron microscope for a look-see, but they are very unique in how thin they are,
how many layers of material they have, and the view The opinions are that we can't make them.
joe rogan
And that these things have been recovered from crash sites?
Apparently.
Apparently.
But that is part of the problem, right?
Is that there's so little, real, concrete information.
Like, there's no consortium of scientists that's...
A line together that's saying, this is 100% from another planet.
We've all examined this.
We've got together with the people at Stanford, and we've done these tests, and this is what we know, and here's the press conference, right?
But that's never happened yet.
robert bigelow
Well, so far there have been investigations on these materials, and they're anomalous.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Do you think that's the...
robert bigelow
They could be...
Something that's part of the kitchen of the UFO. Some bowl that they ate out of.
Who knows?
How can you tell about a craft just because of one little piece?
joe rogan
Right.
Other than Bob Lazar's experiences, which he has, of course, the most spectacular experience.
I actually haven't been there at S4. You know, I wish there was a way we could convince whoever is in charge of that to allow people to film this, to allow people to examine this, to bring in the scientific community, if it is a real thing.
But the other thing about the Lazar story was that Element 115. What are your thoughts on that?
This was the idea that there was some super spectacular element that was a new version of propulsion.
So instead of shooting something out of the back end, it was literally bending gravity.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
I don't know enough about it to really comment.
I mean, I'm not saying about anything to do with...
Disparagingly with Bob Lazar at all.
I'm just talking about the element 115. I have no understanding of its properties and what it can do or not.
I don't have any information like I do on these other subjects, survival of consciousness.
I don't have any information about element 115. Did you talk to Bob about it?
Oh, no.
No, the conversations about it were somebody had taken his and he was I'm kind of regretful that he had let go of it in some way and he wanted to get it back.
joe rogan
And this was when he was at S4? Yeah.
robert bigelow
But I don't remember much about conversations about how much, what all of its properties were and that kind of thing.
Did you bounce a ping-pong ball and it didn't come back to you straight?
It took off in a different direction or something?
Or a candle flame?
I don't know about those things.
I don't know.
But I think that...
Oh, I had something else I was going to say and I forget now on that 115. Oh, well.
I forget what I was going to say.
joe rogan
His diagrams of the UFO. Oh, I know what it was.
robert bigelow
Okay, getting back to these kinds of treasure.
You were talking earlier that really what ought to happen is there ought to be a major program Where you're gathering all the best scientists to analyze the hell out of all these materials that have been retrieved.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
But the problem is, you know, a lot of this stuff purportedly is in corporate hands.
joe rogan
Corporate hands?
robert bigelow
And some in government hands.
Okay?
And it's come to be kind of corporate treasure.
And national treasure at the same time, because there's a relationship between a company and the government that has this kind of treasure.
It's a national kind of treasure.
No pun intended there, but I mean, in a sense, it's a national treasure, right?
And so it's also A phenomenal treasure that isn't understood.
And so the problem is, it may be the most precious thing around.
You don't have diamonds that are more valuable.
Right.
joe rogan
Especially if it really is from an extraterrestrial craft.
robert bigelow
Exactly.
And so it's drug out every 10 years, looked at to see if there's anything that has improved in 10 years on the understanding of X, Y, and Z that makes sense or has something else shifted?
Has something else happened in the last 10 years that could make a difference on trying to understand the material?
Or craft or whatever.
joe rogan
So you think that's what they do with it?
They drag it out when technology is advanced and say, what do you think now?
robert bigelow
Right.
joe rogan
And allow people to examine it.
robert bigelow
And then it goes back in.
Storage.
Because not enough has changed.
Not enough has changed.
You know, we were talking about the speed of technology, but it's all relative, right?
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
So, this technology is so much more advanced.
You could do 10 years for 100 years and still be way short.
joe rogan
Now, how do you know that this stuff is in corporate hands?
Is this just hearsay?
Is this the discussions you've had?
I would imagine because you're so open about your interests.
That in your conversations with other people, whether it's at NASA, there's got to be other folks that also have similar interests that come to you and want to talk to you about these things.
robert bigelow
Yeah, so there's a community of people, not necessarily NASA people, but that...
Have been trailing this for years.
George Knapp, for example.
And so it's not poorly known that certain corporations are involved.
joe rogan
It's not poorly known.
So it's kind of common knowledge?
Among certain folks.
That corporations are involved because they recovered it or they acquired it and that if they were able to mass produce whatever these alloys are, whatever these particular properties of these metals are, there would be obviously some amazing commercial value for this stuff.
robert bigelow
It may be too precious for that.
joe rogan
What about bodies?
robert bigelow
Now, are you talking about the Las Vegas desert or what?
joe rogan
I'm talking about alien bodies.
No, not like Sinatra's enemies.
robert bigelow
Splashes in Lake Mead at one o'clock in the morning?
joe rogan
No.
robert bigelow
Off of a cliff?
joe rogan
I'm talking about like alien bodies.
That was one of the weirder stories about Roswell, was that they had not just recovered a crashed UFO, but they had recovered these alien bodies.
robert bigelow
What do you think about Jackie Gleason's wife's story about he and Richard Nixon?
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
Nixon taking him to the base and showing Jackie.
joe rogan
Yeah, I remember that story.
I had a friend who knew Jackie Gleason, and he said that Jackie Gleason had recreated in his backyard what he saw, what Nixon showed him.
robert bigelow
Oh, wow.
joe rogan
Yeah, that apparently he was so blown away by Nixon...
I guess they were drinking.
This is the legend.
robert bigelow
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Nixon and Jackie Gleason were drinking.
Jackie Gleason's a fucking hilarious guy.
Probably love to drink.
I mean, definitely love to drink and probably so fun to drink with.
Him and Nixon are talking and Nixon says, you want to see a UFO? And takes Jackie Gleason to wherever it was, Hangar 18 or wherever it was where they had this UFO and shows him.
And it apparently changed Jackie Gleason's life and he couldn't stop talking about it.
And what I had heard was that he had it recreated in his backyard.
This thing.
See if there's a story about that.
robert bigelow
That's a powerful impact, isn't it?
jamie vernon
That's a story I'm looking through.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
robert bigelow
So he saw something.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Listen, I'd be friends with Nixon just for that.
robert bigelow
It wasn't because of the booze, right?
joe rogan
No, no.
I don't think it was because of the booze.
I mean, look, I am as ridiculous as it sounds for someone who doesn't believe in psychics.
I'm a believer.
I want to believe, you know?
That's probably part of my problem, is that I want to believe.
And also, there's so many planets.
There's so many stars.
I mean, the universe is littered with planets.
And the idea that this is it, that you and me, this is as good as it gets?
robert bigelow
Well, the odds of that are a trillion to one.
joe rogan
Yeah, they're not that good.
robert bigelow
It's off the table.
The odds are so unlikely.
joe rogan
And then when you take into account people like Commander David Fravor, who I've had the pleasure of sitting down talking to and listening to his explanation, and then when you realize that the way his vehicle, the vehicle that he observed, moved Mirrors what Bob Lazar talked about from 1990. Now we're talking, we're in this weird realm of like, huh.
So I'm a believer.
So if the government has it, I mean, shit, in the 1960s, when Nixon was president, and him and Jackie Gleason are partying, that's a credible story.
Or at least a fun one.
robert bigelow
I always thought it was.
joe rogan
You find anything?
jamie vernon
I can't find the thing about the backyard, because it just keeps bringing up his UFO house he had in New York, which is like a UFO-shaped house and a bunch of interesting cool shit inside of it.
joe rogan
Oh, whoa.
Maybe that's part of it.
Okay.
On his arrival, armed guards took Gleason to a building in a remote location on the site.
There, Gleason, who harbored an intense interest in UFOs, saw the embalmed bodies of four alien beings two feet long with small bald heads and big ears.
He was told nothing about the circumstances of their recovery.
He swore his wife to secrecy, but after their divorce, Beverly freely discussed the story.
That bitch!
He swore to secrecy!
That's what happens when you divorce them!
In the mid-1980s, when ufologist Larry Bryant sued the US government to get it to reveal its UFO secrets, he tried without success to subpoena Gleason.
Holy shit.
So that's the thing in his house.
That's his backyard.
That's his UFO house.
So he built a house.
So that was what they were talking about.
It wasn't that he just built a UFO. He built a fucking house shaped like a UFO. Where is that?
jamie vernon
New York.
joe rogan
Is that still there?
robert bigelow
You ought to buy it, bro.
joe rogan
That's what I'm talking about, bro.
That's what I'm talking about.
It was for sale?
jamie vernon
Well, here's the reality.com thing for it.
robert bigelow
$12 million.
joe rogan
$12 million.
unidentified
Oh, that's a little steep for a fucking goof in a circle house.
Yeah, it's probably negotiable.
joe rogan
It must be negotiable.
But it's Jackie Gleason's.
It's probably worth it just because it's Jackie Gleason's.
Listen, The Hustler is one of my all-time favorite movies.
I'm a pool player.
And so that movie, I've seen that movie literally probably a hundred times.
Because they used to put it on in the executive billiards in White Plains, New York.
They would play it late at night all the time.
So we would be playing pool.
They'd put The Hustler on.
Everybody loved it.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Such a great movie.
And Jackie Gleason was amazing in it.
And a serious role, too.
Not a comedic role at all.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
He was great in The Honeymooners, wasn't he?
joe rogan
He was great in everything.
Jackie Gleason was great in Smoky and the Bandit.
He was just great.
I love that guy.
But I love him even more because he's a UFO freak.
Do you think that they have some sort of body somewhere?
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
You do?
robert bigelow
I do.
joe rogan
What makes you think that?
robert bigelow
Um...
I think...
Why do I think that?
I'm trying to narrow it down.
Well, I think that...
I'm trying to not get into conversations.
So I think that because it's in the...
I think there are enough different kinds of sources in the media about people seeing things.
I did an interview years ago with Safro Henderson and Stan Friedman and Kevin Randall went to her house in California Because her husband was Pappy Henderson.
And Pappy Henderson was one of the pilots that flew material, flew stuff out of Wright-Patt.
And she said, he said, they were in a grocery store one day, and the Enquirer had a big article.
Aliens revealed, so on and so forth.
And there's the checkout stand.
And she said he took the story seriously.
And after they checked out, he said, well, I guess I can tell you now.
Because it's out.
So he told her...
joe rogan
He thought the Inquirer was serious?
robert bigelow
He thought it was...
Whatever it was.
Inquirer, I think it was.
Could have been some other one.
But I just used that as a...
joe rogan
One of those tabloids.
robert bigelow
As one.
Yeah, magazine.
And he said, well, I guess the story's out.
I can tell you now.
About...
I flew...
Crates and wreckage out of...
And you told her about the whole UFO thing.
joe rogan
and I believe that she said that he said to her there were bodies now this was part of the story that went with the whole Roswell crash was that there was a local mortuary that was told to make small coffins right and that people had said that they had seen these bodies and that the wreckage was flown in three in two separate planes To Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
And that if they really thought it was just a balloon, why would they fly it in two separate planes to Wright-Patterson?
And that Truman, it was Truman, right?
robert bigelow
How was it they couldn't recognize balloon material from something else?
And you had a debris field that was a quarter mile wide, half a mile long.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's all pretty fantastic stuff.
But again, part of my problem is I want to believe.
That's part of my problem.
Is that I'm willing to bullshit myself.
robert bigelow
Well, do you believe in a God force?
joe rogan
A God force?
robert bigelow
A God or God or a God force?
Do you believe there is such a thing?
joe rogan
Can you define it?
robert bigelow
Well, do you have any belief that there is a supreme being of the universe or a God force of some kind?
joe rogan
I don't think it's impossible.
I don't know.
I don't know.
What creates a Big Bang?
Like, what starts this whole process?
What causes nature?
What causes all these elements to fuse and create carbon-based life?
What causes planets to exist in a Goldilocks range around the sun?
Is it just happenstance?
Is it coincidence?
robert bigelow
Is it just...
So, the Big Bang, you know, is on its way out.
joe rogan
The Big Bang's on its way out?
robert bigelow
It's on its way out.
joe rogan
Oh.
Okay.
So it's like fossil fuels?
robert bigelow
So string theory is on its way out.
joe rogan
Is it?
robert bigelow
Yep.
joe rogan
What about all those guys that have been scribbling shit on legal pads for years?
robert bigelow
So like a physicist friend of mine said very recently that perhaps an entire generation has wasted its time.
We've lost an entire generation of people, maybe longer than that, in my opinion.
joe rogan
So what do they think now?
robert bigelow
The thinking is, first of all, it's a little bit bogus to think that the universe extends only as far as you can see, 13.5 billion light-years.
joe rogan
I think they don't believe that, though.
They think that's just as far as we can measure it, right?
robert bigelow
Well, they assume that the universe is expanding and they're judging that based on 13 and a half billion light years of sight.
That may be a very, very small neighborhood.
But that's as far as the cave wall is and you're not seeing beyond the cave wall.
You're also telling me that you know a lot about the cosmos and you want me to believe you.
Right.
96% of the cosmos is of the energy.
You have no idea.
Dark energy, dark matter.
You haven't a clue.
And you're telling me that you know all this stuff about the cosmos and you're missing 96% of the information.
Really?
joe rogan
I think what they're trying to tell us is this is what we know so far.
I think that's what they're trying to tell us.
I think they're as perplexed about dark matter and dark energy as we are, but they have a lot of information about background radiation, about the signals that seem to indicate...
robert bigelow
In a neighborhood.
joe rogan
In a neighborhood.
Yeah, in a neighborhood.
robert bigelow
In our neighborhood.
joe rogan
Well, if the universe is infinite, 13.5 billion years is nothing.
It's like literally this block.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
joe rogan
Not even.
robert bigelow
And then, of course, what singularity?
You know, Big Bang started from what?
joe rogan
From what?
robert bigelow
From what?
And so string theory is a series of what?
11-12 theories and hypotheses stand on top of each other and they all have to be perfect.
They all have to fit.
Then you wind up with this other conclusion that basically everything started from nothing.
joe rogan
Well, they don't think it starts from nothing.
They think it started from an infinitely small point that exploded in an instant and created all the matter that we see in the universe today.
unidentified
Okay.
robert bigelow
So I concede the head of a pin as not being nothing.
unidentified
Okay.
robert bigelow
I concede that.
joe rogan
Well, better concede it because it's got more matter than anything in our solar system or galaxy.
Okay, right.
robert bigelow
It's just a theory.
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
So it's just an opinion.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
Right, but it's an opinion by people that have been studying this their whole lives.
robert bigelow
And now it's going out the door.
joe rogan
It is?
robert bigelow
That's what I've been told.
joe rogan
Who told you that?
The psychic?
robert bigelow
No.
Now, if I correlate the physicist that told me that, along with the psychic, you really have something here.
joe rogan
No.
I think there's been a bunch of different ideas about the Big Bang, whether or not it's a constant cycle of expansion and contraction.
And then there's been...
robert bigelow
I kind of actually like that one.
joe rogan
Yeah.
robert bigelow
I like that.
A certain kind of steady state of elasticity, expansion and contraction that continues to go on and on with the orderly force Being whatever dark energy and dark matter is to maintain organization, to maintain harmony and everything.
So you reach maximum elasticity and then it starts to retract again.
To your density is maximum density and you do this all over.
joe rogan
That is a theory that I've heard.
robert bigelow
I like that one.
joe rogan
Another theory that I think is pretty fascinating is the theory that inside of every black hole might be another universe.
That the idea of inside every galaxy apparently is a supermassive black hole that's exactly one half.
I think it's one half of 1% of the mass of the entire galaxy.
So this intense...
Massive black hole at the center of every galaxy.
And the theory, at least the one that I had read, was that if you could go through that black hole, you would enter into another universe.
And that each of these galaxies has infinite, like, there's infinite number of galaxies essentially, right?
There's hundreds and hundreds of billions of galaxies.
And each galaxy has a black hole inside of it.
A supermassive black hole.
And that through that, you would go into another universe.
And that there's infinite universes.
Because there's just all these portals and inside each one of them, there's hundreds of millions of galaxies or hundreds of billions of galaxies.
Each one of them has a black hole.
Go through that, you reach more universes with hundreds of billions of galaxies.
And it's just, that's true infinity.
robert bigelow
And you can have the same effect if you have infinite bubbles.
So you have multiverses that are these bubbles.
Maybe the bubbles are 100 or 200 billion light years in diameter.
I don't buy that space is finite.
I think it's endless.
I don't think there ever was a beginning.
I don't think there was an end to the universe.
And so I think time is only relevant when it's connected to some kind of matter or electrical energy or like electrons or protons or something.
Like that.
And otherwise there's no time.
Because what are you measuring it against?
joe rogan
Right.
robert bigelow
So that means that, okay, time could be infinite.
joe rogan
Okay.
robert bigelow
And so is distance.
There was no beginning and there is no end.
joe rogan
Yeah, that freaks us out.
But so should 13 and a half billion years.
13 and a half billion light years.
That should freak you out too.
All of it is beyond our possibility of understanding.
Because it's just so massive.
Like when you see the number 13 billion, it's like, okay, I see it.
I know how many zeros there are.
But my brain's not ready for that.
It doesn't really compute.
But what does that have to do with the concept of God though?
robert bigelow
So I was asking you, do you believe in a God force?
And you said, yes, you think so.
joe rogan
I said it's certainly possible.
robert bigelow
Okay, now why do you think it's possible?
joe rogan
Because the universe is so spectacular that the idea that there's some force that's created it doesn't make it any less spectacular.
It's so insane.
Just what you're looking at on a night sky, on a clear night sky, if you're in a place with no light pollution, is so insane.
The idea that there's some God force as well that makes all these things happen and creates all these things and there's actually like a good path and a bad path for at least sentient life forms and that there's some sort of ultimate goal for this matter coalescing.
Like, it's possible.
robert bigelow
So if you think there's a God force that's omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, what role does thought play in that?
joe rogan
It's a good question.
The thought could be what we were talking about earlier, that this could be how this human animal creates, how this human animal innovates, and how it interacts with other animals and gives it motivation to create and innovate, and this is what creates this new form of life.
I've often said that I think that human beings might be some sort of biological caterpillar that gives birth to an electronic butterfly.
That we create something because of our desire for innovation and for material possessions.
There's a lot of weird instincts that people have.
You've got to wonder, how are these serving us?
How is it serving us to live your whole life to try to buy a new house on a Lexus?
What is it?
What is it about that?
Well, there's something about the pursuit of material possessions that encourages innovation and encourages the production of things.
That's what people do.
They make things.
And if this is what our goal is, just like a bee makes a beehive and we make things, what's the ultimate expression of those things?
Well, the ultimate expression would be a new form of life.
And it seems there's a lot of work being pushed in that direction.
There's a lot of work being pushed in the direction of artificial intelligence, of robotics.
I mean, there's so much Research that's going on right now to try to create these autonomous things that move around on their own.
Whether it's autonomous soldiers for the battlefield, or whether it's drones that can fly themselves and operate on artificial intelligence.
This direction is going to eventually, if you talk to people far smarter than me, like Elon Musk is terrified of it because he thinks it's unchecked and that it's going to lead to something that's super potent, sentient, far smarter than us and has no use for us.
Not a good thought.
Not a good thought.
robert bigelow
Yeah.
So...
So then you keep it open that God can be a creator and can respond to the power of prayer.
If you are praying for somebody, and there are a lot of studies that say the power of prayer works more than just a placebo kind of effect, that it actually works if you have a control group and a group that you're praying for and a group that's in a lot of tests like this that are double-blind tests.
And it works in a laboratory kind of context.
What is it that's responding to the request for prayer?
Is it a God force?
What is it that's responding?
joe rogan
I don't know that that's true.
I don't know that it's true that prayer works like that.
I do know that the placebo effect works and I do know that the mind has extraordinary properties that we haven't harnessed.
I do know that people have the ability to change their state of mind and it'll change their physical well-being.
I do know that people have the ability to boost their immune system through breathing exercises and meditation and that we don't totally understand how they're doing that or why they're doing that or why we can't recreate that without that kind of discipline.
There's a fellow who's written some good books.
robert bigelow
He's an MD, retired and I guess he left the hospital world because he was intrigued with the anomalies he found among his patients.
And one of his books, I think, has something to do with the title of The Power of Prayer.
His name is Larry Dossie.
Dr. Larry Dawsey.
And it's a really book that's worth reading.
He authored it quite a few years ago.
joe rogan
And he talks about the power of prayer?
robert bigelow
The power of prayer.
And I think it gets into the investigation of the power of prayer that works.
joe rogan
So that like, well, you know, I think that's also probably works in a negative way, too, right?
This is what the concept of voodoo was.
The concept of voodoo was that someone puts a curse on you and they let you know they put a curse on you and then your life is fucked and then you get it in your head that your life is fucked and then you have this self-fulfilling prophecy.
robert bigelow
Well, supposedly the results under legitimate test conditions are that the results are greater than you can explain Otherwise, you may not even know that you're being prayed for.
It's a controlled situation, so you don't even know that you're part of the group that's being prayed for.
joe rogan
How would you measure that, though, when you're talking about response from illness?
Everybody varies depending upon your immune system.
There's a lot of different things.
Nutrition, youth, health.
robert bigelow
I think that gets into how the tests are set up in order to make sure that they're balanced in the group, the sample group that's being prayed for, or the person.
Maybe it's an individual.
joe rogan
I think if someone knew you were praying for them, it would help.
That seems to make a lot of sense.
If you know you're being loved, it'd make you feel better.
It'd make you energized.
When you're loved, there's a feeling, a reaction.
robert bigelow
According to the literature, not just his book, but others, that it helps also the number of people that are praying for you and how committed everybody is to that, how earnest they are in the effort.
So, apparently, that matters.
joe rogan
What do you think about all that, Jamie?
It's a lot.
It's a lot to think of.
Listen, Robert, we've had a long conversation here.
I think we're at three hours in?
Yeah.
Three hours.
robert bigelow
With no restroom break and I'm just fine.
joe rogan
You're amazing.
A lot of people, they tap out early to run out to pee.
You handle it like a champ.
But thank you for all your work.
Thank you for all the things you're interested in investigating.
And thank you for your time to come here and sit down and talk to me.
robert bigelow
Well, I tell you, this is my pleasure.
This is for me that it's a great honor to be able to be on your show.
joe rogan
Thank you.
It's an honor to have you.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
unidentified
Thank you.
joe rogan
All right.
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