Skeptoid - Skeptoid #800: To the Stars
Aired: 2021-10-05
Duration: 12:47


=== Music From A Spaceship (10:11) ===

[00:00:03]  Once again, it is a hundredth episode of Skeptoid, this one being number 800.
[00:00:09]  And longtime fans know what that means.
[00:00:11]  It's a musical episode.
[00:00:13]  But today's is a little bit different in that it may be the first piece of music you've ever heard that was not produced on Earth.
[00:00:20]  Today, with special cooperation from our friends at NASA, we're bringing you a Skeptoid song from a spaceship.
[00:00:27]  One that is, even as we speak, rapidly accelerating away from this planet.
[00:00:33]  That's today on Skeptoid.
[00:00:42]  A quick reminder for everyone, you're listening to Skeptoid, revealing the true science and true history behind urban legends every week since 2006.
[00:00:53]  With over a thousand episodes, we're celebrating 20 years of keeping it focused and keeping it brief.
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[00:01:41]  You're listening to Skeptoid.
[00:01:43]  I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
[00:01:46]  To the stars.
[00:01:52]  We have some breaking news to report.
[00:01:54]  I'm sure you've all heard that what appears to have been an alien flying saucer spent several days landed on the U.S. Capitol lawn.
[00:02:02]  Today, that craft seems to have taken off.
[00:02:04]  When news crews arrived this morning, it was nowhere to be found, only three shallow depressions in the ground from its footpads.
[00:02:11]  The question everyone has been asking is, where did it go?
[00:02:16]  Today we have that answer.
[00:02:18]  Reports are that within the span of only a few minutes, the craft dashed around the nation, visiting several U.S. cities.
[00:02:25]  According to military radar, it then flew straight up, left our atmosphere, and has for the past few hours been on a direct vector toward the star Zeta Reticuli.
[00:02:36]  But even that's not the very latest news.
[00:02:39]  NASA is currently giving a press briefing, and we've just had an incredible report that we are actually receiving a radio transmission from that spaceship.
[00:02:48]  Let's listen in.
[00:02:49]  A very famous astronomer is in fact confirming that for us right now.
[00:02:53]  I am a famous astronomer, and I can confirm that this radio signal is coming from an alien spaceship.
[00:03:00]  I'm sorry, we have to break away from that, as there's a new report just in from some of those cities the spaceship visited before leaving Earth.
[00:03:07]  It appears that at least five people have been abducted and taken away.
[00:03:12]  We're now getting the identities of the abductees.
[00:03:15]  And oh my goodness, running my eye down the list, it appears that they include many prominent members of the UFO community.
[00:03:23]  Now we're cutting back to the press briefing where they've just announced they're now going to play the audio from that radio transmission.
[00:03:30]  Let's listen in.
[00:03:34]  Man, this is some kind of wild trip.
[00:03:38]  That sounded like Tom DeLong, the former guitarist of Blink 182 who became a UFO conspiracy theorist and founded To the Stars Academy to produce comic books, music, and TV shows promoting his belief in alien visitation.
[00:03:53]  Oh, and I think we're hearing someone else.
[00:03:55]  Oh, I didn't think a Tic Tac had this much room inside.
[00:03:59]  That, I believe, was Luis Elizondo, who worked for a time for billionaire Robert Bigelow, promoting three Navy UFO videos, but describes it to the press as having worked for a secret Pentagon UFO program.
[00:04:13]  Are there seatbelts in this thing?
[00:04:15]  That sounds like Leslie Keene, longtime author and promoter of Alien Visitation and the Afterlife, who co-authored the famous New York Times article with her colleagues to promote Bigelow and Elizondo's claim of a Pentagon UFO program in an apparent effort to make belief in aliens more mainstream.
[00:04:34]  Notably, Keene and Elizondo are reportedly the main characters in a new dramatization of their life story on HBO, which will, no doubt, portray them as courageous whistleblowers who, quote, uncover the government's covert UFO program.
[00:04:51]  Apparently, this craft uses a gravity drive system, so without inertia, we shouldn't need any seatbelts.
[00:04:58]  And that must have been Hal Putoff, a parapsychologist best known as the lead researcher looking for ghosts and interdimensional beings at Bigelow's Skinwalker Ranch.
[00:05:09]  Yes, the one from TV.
[00:05:11]  And I think we're hearing one more voice coming through.
[00:05:14]  Write down the specs, Hal.
[00:05:16]  I'll call up Harry Reed and have the Air Force build us one just like it.
[00:05:22]  I recognize the voice.
[00:05:24]  That was the big man himself, Robert Bigelow, the bankroll behind this whole group and their decades-long quest to persuade the public that UFOs are not only real, but are also the same interdimensional phenomenon as poltergeists.
[00:05:39]  And now I think we're getting something else.
[00:05:42]  It sounds like, could that be a concertina?
[00:05:45]  If I'm hearing this right, it sounds like these accidental shipmates might be starting to sing a sea shanty.
[00:05:52]  Oh, how awful.
[00:05:53]  The poor deers must be out of their minds with fear.
[00:05:58]  My name is Tom, and I am the Habom, and I'm also a space out bro.
[00:06:06]  I quits my band just to understand what they don't want us to know.
[00:06:14]  It's that aliens live among us now, you can bet Tiger.
[00:06:22]  So I'm fighting back with my website called To the Stars Ahokahami.
[00:06:30]  To the stars we go on this UFO to a galaxy brightly aglobe.
[00:06:38]  They're taking us to space to alien base.
[00:06:42]  To the stars on a UFO.
[00:06:46]  They call me Lou and I'm in the news cause I worked at the Pentagon.
[00:06:54]  Or so I say, it's kind of vague, but over me the networks fawn.
[00:07:02]  I am known for three UFO videos.
[00:07:06]  They're debunked, but that's only a snag.
[00:07:10]  Just don't double check, cause my story's a wreck.
[00:07:14]  If my lips move, it's a red flag.
[00:07:18]  To the stars we go on this UFO, to a galaxy brightly aglobe.
[00:07:26]  They're taking us to space to alien base.
[00:07:30]  To the stars on a UFO.
[00:07:34]  I'm Leslie Keene.
[00:07:36]  I'm a writing machine.
[00:07:38]  Got my story in the New York Times.
[00:07:42]  Now the whole world knows about Lou's videos.
[00:07:46]  And you'll see us on Amazon Prime.
[00:07:50]  I have written a book about the afterlife and some more about UFOs.
[00:07:59]  Cause it's all real, as I'll reveal in a movie on HBO.
[00:08:06]  To the stars we go on this UFO to a galaxy brightly aglow.
[00:08:14]  They're taking us to space to their alien base.
[00:08:18]  To the stars on a UFO.
[00:08:23]  My name is Hal, and I'm your pal.
[00:08:27]  If you claim to be a psychokinetic, I'll believe whatever, and I'm yours forever.
[00:08:35]  If you say you're electromagnetic, bring on aliens, poltergeists, ghosts, and greys, for my mind is open so wide.
[00:08:47]  I'll write a paper to prove them all.
[00:08:51]  My degree makes them bona fide.
[00:08:55]  To the stars we go on this UFO to a galaxy brightly aglo.
[00:09:03]  They're taking us to space to an alien base.
[00:09:07]  To the stars on a UFO.
[00:09:11]  I'm big alo, spending lots of dough, like a kid in a candy store.
[00:09:18]  At my skinwalker ranch, I give carte blanche to find aliens, demons, and more.
[00:09:26]  Then I got my hands on some federal funds, paid my guys to find UFOs.
[00:09:34]  My latest search is the afterlife, coming soon now, I suppose.
[00:09:43]  To the stars, we are this UFO, to a galaxy brightly aglo.
[00:09:51]  They're taking us to space to their alien base.
[00:09:55]  To the stars on a UFO.
[00:10:04]  It sounds like we're losing the signal.
[00:10:06]  Yes, the NASA spokesperson has just announced that the spaceship is no longer transmitting.
[00:10:12]  Well, that was certainly something you don't hear every day.

=== Feeding The Rational Trolls (02:32) ===

[00:10:14]  But if we heard it a little more often, the world might get slightly more rational each time.
[00:10:20]  But that's not where we are now.
[00:10:22]  The newspapers and cable channels continue to produce fictional crack pottery in order to garner more clicks and eyeballs under the guise of honest reporting.
[00:10:31]  And they will continue to do so as long as we all keep clicking and watching.
[00:10:36]  Clicking the clickbait is still just another way of feeding the trolls, interdimensional though they may be.
[00:10:47]  But some trolls that we should always feed are Skeptoid's premium members, like Sean Gill, Paolo Ripamonte, Big G, and Billy T. Let me give you a shout out too.
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[00:11:31]  I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
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[00:12:34]  Next to giggling, of course.
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