David Marler: Denial to Disclosure

It's tax time, y'all. If you want to file free, this next one's for you. This is David Marler, UFO researcher, and you're listening to That UFO Podcast. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to That UFO Podcast. My name is Andy, and joining me on today's show, a returning guest who last appeared with me in February 2021, which I could not believe, and neither could he. He is a historian, researcher, author of the incredible Triangular UFOs, an estimate of the situation, and I thoroughly recommend folks pick that up. And most recently, as the Executive Director of the National UFO Historical Records Center, welcome back to the podcast, Mr. David Marler. Andy, thank you very much. And I want to thank you on two fronts before we get started. Thank you for your patience in trying to line up this interview. I know I've put you off for at least a year because of all the work we're doing here at the Archive. So I want to thank you for your patience, but I also want to thank you for your hard work and dedication. I know, I can't believe it's been since 2021, but your podcast has just exploded as far as popularity and widespread acceptance. And I want to thank you for the hard work. I know a lot of work goes into these things. It's not just people listening in. There's a lot of work behind the scenes to put these together. I just want to congratulate you on your success. No, thanks. And if people didn't listen or watch, then it's just me and you sitting chatting, which I'm sure would be fun anyway. But you know, for the greater good and all that stuff. And yeah, we did talk back, I think it was like my 29th episode when I done it. And there's been over 670 at this point now, David. So hopefully this one is a little bit more polished. I do have a mild ear infection, folks. So apologies if I sound a bit ropey at any point. But yeah, I'm surviving. And I didn't want to pass this one up because like I say, David's been a hard man to track down, but he's an incredibly busy man. That's why. And people will have seen that online with the work you've been doing. What I want to do first then is start with just a little bit of a background from you, David, because you know yourself better than anyone, I'm sure. You know, who is David Marler and kind of what's brought him to the UFO dance? Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. Kind of the origin story, right, Andy? And really, my interest began at five years old is the first time I consciously remember hearing the term UFO. My father was interested in UFOs, paranormal, Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, all of those things. And so I dedicated my book to him because I really think he was my initial inspiration. But in 1973, I was five years old. There was a series of UFO sightings in a small town called Piedmont, Missouri, just south of St. Louis, Missouri, where I was born and raised. And it had garnered a lot of media attention, both in newspaper as well as TV news. And many people down there were reporting UFOs. And I remember at the time and then in subsequent years when my father and I would reflect back on it, the initial adult witness was a basketball coach coming back with the basketball team to Piedmont, Missouri. And his name was Reggie Bone. And I remember my father saying, if Reggie said he saw something, you could take that to the bank. And what I didn't realize until later in life, they were best friends growing up. My father originated from the Piedmont area, a small town called Millspring, Missouri, right next door to Piedmont. And I remember my father saying that. And then like many people from the St. Louis area, he and my sister and my older brothers, I was the youngest in the family, were piling in the Chevy with binoculars and thermoses of coffee to go down on weekends during the spring and summer of 73 to look for UFOs. And I had to stay home because I was only five years old and I stayed home with my mother. They never saw anything, but they came back with stories of police officers, teachers, general public that had seen unusual lights and objects, including my father's aunt and uncle who lived down there at the time. So that was my initial exposure to the UFO subject. That was in 73. Fast forward in time, 1977, my sister had a close encounter, which I describe in my book with a UFO, literally out of close encounters. Her and her husband were driving home from St. Louis to Kansas City, Missouri. They left around seven in the evening during the summertime. They knew they'd be getting in around 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock midnight. And my sister fell asleep in the passenger seat. They were getting very close to home. They were only about five, six miles from their home in Kansas City, Missouri. My sister woke up to her husband screaming her name and literally punching her in the arm saying, Cheryl, wake up, wake up, wake up. And her first conscious recollection was as she opened her eyes, why is it daylight outside? She could see home. She could see the street. She could see the street line illuminated like it was daylight. Now she knew when they left, she knew when they would be getting home. It should not be daylight when she's opening her eyes. It should be dark. And he was continuing to scream, there's something above the car. There's something above the car. There was no noise. There was no wind displacement. It wasn't a helicopter with a spotlight over their vehicle, dead silent. And within a matter of just seconds, after she woke up and realized what was going on, the light went out like a light switch was flipped. And the interesting thing was not necessarily the event itself, but the behavior subsequent to the event. They never said one word to each other. They drove the remainder of the way home. They left the luggage in the car, which my sister was a creature of habit. She would always at least get the luggage out of the car when they got home. They left the luggage in the car, went home, went upstairs, changed to dress into what they were going to sleep in. They will tell you to this day, Andy, that we got in bed, we still didn't exchange one word, and we both pulled the covers up over our head. The next morning they woke up and everything was back to normal. And it was only then that they said, so what was that light? What was that all about? But they literally had no exchange in the wake of this sighting, which is typical now, looking at other cases that I've investigated where very similar behaviors play out or lack of behaviors. And so then I was exposed to that. And that was a story that was only shared with family, Thanksgiving, Christmas, holidays. They never went public with it. They never officially reported the sighting. And my sister never drank, never did drugs. I love her to death, but she's one of the most unimaginative people you could meet. She's not one to come up with a story like this. And then one year after that, in 1978, there was a series of UFO sightings and cattle mutilations in a town called Ellsbury, Missouri. And much like Piedmont in 73, it had garnered a lot of media attention. And so, as I like to say, I didn't have a sighting. I can't say I had a sighting that was really a catalyst for my interest in the subject. It was just a successive series of events that I had either direct or indirect exposure to that really kind of opened my mind to the subject of UFOs. And then in 1990, when I was much older, I heard about the MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, decided, hey, I want to investigate this subject. I want to be boots in the field. And that's what really kind of launched my active interest back in 1990. That's really interesting. And even thinking back to my original sighting in the mid-90s, I was nine or ten years old. Even though we had just seen something quite incredible, I don't remember any conversation afterwards. And I am not hinting at missing time or anything like that. Right, right. But you've just seen something absolutely incredible. And then we all kind of went, OK, well, let's head home and walked in the direction home, which would be kind of diagonal to where we were going. If you had just seen, witnessed a huge fight or an awful car crash or some kind of incredible scene, you'd be talking about it. It just, it happened, bang. And then it's like something clicks to go, oh, well, and you carry on home. And that's something you're seeing so common in this topic. And I and my sister herself will tell you she's not suggesting missing time either. But I think if we're honest, that we have to acknowledge that that is very atypical behavior for a situation like that. You know, why didn't you pull the car over? Why didn't you immediately start start having a conversation? What was that? What were your thoughts or what did you see? Nothing. No words were exchanged. And it's interesting. I didn't appreciate it when I first heard about this at the time. But once I got involved in UFO investigation, I can't tell you, Andy, how many people I've interviewed, much like yourself and your family, where they described the exact same thing. We never talked about it. It wasn't until the next day, we're like, huh, what was that? It was, it's like an afterthought. And so, you know, is that psychological? Is that self-induced? Or is there some type of effect being in close proximity to a UFO that impacts your reason or your rationale for having what would arguably be a logical conversation? What did we just see? Yeah, there's almost like an apathy. I don't know if I could say that for myself. I don't say it was a long time ago. I've been making it up now to say otherwise. But I remember getting home and I lived in a high rise tower block. And forgive me, folks, if you've heard this one before, but I lived in a high rise tower block. So there was 19 floors, six flats in each floor. And it would overlook the area where the object would have been because it was low down. It wasn't high up. And I was too scared to go and look. So I at least remember getting home and just thinking if I go out the door to my right, where you've got the kind of back stairwell, you know, fire back, I would see down to that area and it would be there or it wouldn't. And I didn't want to go and look because I was too scared to do so. And I always think, oh, if I just went and looked, I also think if we just maybe walked towards the object, given it was half a mile away still. Right. You know, but we didn't. And for it's one thing being a child, but the adults, the two adults that were there had no interest. And even now I've said, David, if I asked my mum about it and I have recently again, she can't remember exactly what she saw. She knows we saw something strange. If I asked her to write it or draw it down, she couldn't. She just remembers it was something weird, but she's not into the whole UFO aliens subject outside of knowing that I've got this little thing that I do. So yeah, she's just not into it and doesn't know what to say about it. And I just wonder again, I think I spoke to my friend's mum, my friend about it and what his mum remembers, don't remember much. I asked him via a Facebook messenger years ago. Now, before I started the podcast, do you remember that thing we saw? And he was like, yeah, I was like, what did it look like? And he's like, I don't remember. My sister doesn't remember. So I'm the only one that, and yeah, oh, isn't that convenient hosting a UFO podcast, but I'm the only one that's got this really clear memory of what it even looked like at the time. And that's, that's it. Unbelievable. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know what to make of it, but like I said, my sister, she was already open to the UFO subject, but that definitely really solidified her interest in the subject after that. And to this day, they will tell you they don't know what they saw. It's a genuine UFO. I mean, they're not saying alien spacecraft. They're not saying they were abducted. And again, it's, it's one thing if a stranger tells you a story, but it's another thing if it's a family member who, you know, who you trust, who, you know, is not psychologically imbalanced or prone to make up stories. So yeah, just, just one of a number of things that really captured my interest when I, at a very early age. Do you feel there's almost a freedom given what you do to not having had your own sighting? Yeah, I, to some degree, I think it helps maintain objectivity. If you've had your own sighting, you could argue, although I don't think it's a given that it might skew your objectivity just simply because you have that personal attachment to your own experience. Not to say people can't divorce themselves from their own personal experience and still objectively look at another case. But yeah, I will tell you though, it's equally frustrating because I would love to say I've had a personal experience. I've interviewed, as you know, hundreds of people that have had triangular UFO experiences as well as others. And I always state that I'm envious. I wish I could have seen and experienced what you did. My interest is purely academic, reading other people's accounts and collecting those reports. I hear from people quite often who say they listen to this and other podcasts or watch them and they've not had their own sighting, but they would love to. And I often think the only thing it really helps me with in any way, shape or form is when something happens in the topic or there's a a massive debunking or a person or a group lets you down with information or disinformation, whatever you want to call it. It's something that I can kind of hold on to as my, my reset point of, but I know what I saw. I had that sighting. Absolutely. It's almost like a safety blanket of, yeah, but even if this turns out to be BS or this is nonsense, or I don't like the way this is going, I've had that experience. Thousands and thousands of other folks have had similar. Absolutely. That kind of helps. Yeah. I always, I always say there's personal proof. It's enough for you to know what you experienced. And now that may not matter to a scientist, but you know, that's, that's scientific proof. That's a whole other category, but you know what you experienced, you were there, you were rational at the time. You clearly vividly remember it as, as you remember what you saw more than, than the adults or the older witnesses in that particular case. But, but yeah, you know, people come up to me all the time saying I've had this experience or I was abducted. Okay. That's great. I mean, you can't prove it in a court of law. You can't prove it to scientists, but you know what happened to you and you're you yourself, personal proof. You don't need anything else to back that up. You know what happened. Well, I'm doing this interview, David, a little bit backwards because if folks want to hear about the, the book, you know, your work on triangular UFOs, which is seminal, people should go and check out that first interview folks. It's longer form. Um, there's a lot to get into here. I'm going to start with a question then I would normally ask at the end, but what are your views right now on the UFO topic? And from the perspective of, if you have a student, a friend, a colleague, or someone comes up to you and says, you know, David, this whole UFO thing, you know, what's actually going on? What would you say to them? It's a great question. And I, I, I'm going, I'm going to try to give you a multifaceted answer to that because it's a complex question. It seems simple. Um, what I would say is that compared to when I first got involved in the subject where it was ridicule and official denials, uh, the United States government, at least, you know, here has acknowledged that there is a phenomenon, whatever it is. So there is official acknowledgement. I know the band word, uh, that's being kicked around right now is disclosure. Everyone's advocating for disclosure. I take a slightly different approach. Uh, everyone's expecting and wanting disclosure. My attitude is disclosure has already happened with a lowercase d compared to 1990. When I got involved in the subject where it was official denials or public, you know, official disinterest on the part of official agencies, uh, they have acknowledged there is a phenomenon. Now, what I'm finding is being involved in the UFO subject, those that are advocating for disclosure, it's really code word for show us the crash saucers and dead aliens. And, you know, I don't think that's going to happen either a because they don't have crash discs and dead aliens or B going on social media and creating the social awareness platforms is not going to force the United States government or any government to release what they have. I think that's naive in the extreme. You're pushing a boulder uphill. Um, but, and I also think it's interesting that you have people that are so focused on disclosure. They're wanting the, the government quote unquote, I hate that term because it's so all inclusive, even though it's a much more complicated situation with military and intelligence agencies, you, you, you have people wanting the government to disclose all their information, but you're asking this collective of organizations and agencies who you fundamentally distrust for decades to now tell you the truth, even if they give you information, can you readily accept it at face value? Because historically, as you know, Andy, most people in the UFO community distrust government and officials, but yet that they're hanging all their hopes on disclosure with a capital D. And I think it's rather naive. I think it's, I think it's well placed. Don't get me wrong. I don't, I don't disparage people pursuing the disclosure movement or pursuing disclosure, but my attitude is disclosures already happened with a lowercase D they have acknowledged. If you look at the reports from the office of director of national intelligence over the last few years, there is a phenomenon that definitely poses a flight risk to air safety, but could potentially be a threat to national security. Now you don't talk about things in that context if you're not acknowledging that there's legitimacy to it. So we acknowledge that there is a phenomenon. I feel that we need to steer the focus, in my opinion, more on actual research. As you know, I'm very data driven. I I'll give you opinions, but they're not just pulled out of the air. It's based on analyzing hundreds, if not thousands of case files and looking at the history of the subject. So I would caution people that are getting interested or asking me about the subject. You know, you can pursue disclosure, but I think it's already happened to some degree. The other thing I would also state is we're now existing in this post 2017 world, right? Since the New York times article has come out and there's a whole new crop of individuals that are interested legitimately. So in the UFO subject, unfortunately with that new found appreciation for the UFO subject, you have a lot of grifters coming in to the field, people that are trying to make a buck. And I won't mention names. I think the more educated, astute audience members of yours will know who I'm referencing. You know, some journalists, some pseudo journalists that are out there promoting and sensationalizing the subject, throwing out videos with no provenance or with no analysis prior to releasing those. And I have to tell you, there's a trend now that we see with these journalists and pseudo journalists that are making a career out of throwing out these bombshell revelations and videos. I like to call it UFO pornography. It's images that tantalize and seize upon your emotions. But when you actually try to objectively and analytically look at these videos or analyze, what is the backstory? What is the context for this video? Where did it originate? What is the provenance? Most often, I think you'll agree, Andy, you fall flat on all fronts. You really have a hard time. Well, I can't divulge my source. Well, an anonymous source provided this information. You really can't pursue it. And analytically, using the brain, in addition to the emotional response, approach it and analyze it and try to properly vet it. Because there's a lot of BS out there in the field, as you and your audience members know. And I always want to separate the wheat from the chaff. And, you know, most recently, we had a video shown at the hearings. And a lot of people are excited about that. But again, where did it originate? Do we have any metadata? And, you know, what is the background? What's the context for what we're viewing? Because it could be any number of things. Yeah, okay, let's go there first, then. So we'll deal with the hearings and the kind of what's going on. And we'll work our way to talk about the archives. So I'm happy with that. February 2021 was the last time we spoke. So four and a half years, if my maths is correct. We've had multiple hearings at this point. We have had official government groups have come and gone. Academic groups have came up, like the Sol Foundation, scientific groups, Avi Loeb's Galileo Project. We have got Beatrice Villareal and her colleagues working on transient objects, you know. So there is a lot of progress in a lot of different ways. Whistleblowers coming and going. Yes. You have given a kind of generalization of where you are with the UFO topic. The hearings, you brought up the video. And for me, the hearings have to be separated now at this point. The hearing from 2025, folks. Oh. The video and the testimony. So if we start with the video, David, give us your take. Did you have a reaction when you first saw it? And then did that change? Or has it been the same? Oh, I think when I first saw it again, I was, you know, it was exciting to see new purported video of a UFO or a UAP. But again, there's no detail. I'm not seeing any detail as far as what are we seeing flying through the air. And I know it looks like it was shot at by something. And then there were projectiles or objects that emerged or were maybe torn apart from the parent object. Again, it's very hard. It's not a high definition image by any means. And again, how long in duration is that actual video? It's extremely short in the grand scheme of things. What was occurring before? What occurred after? Where was it shot? When was it shot? And by whom? These are all questions that we don't have. So initially you get that, oh, wow, this is exciting. I've never seen this before. But immediately, hopefully the critical faculty start kicking in and we start intellectually trying to dissect and back engineer. Okay. What did we just look at? What do we know versus what we don't know? And the sad reality, at least at this point, because it's relatively new, Andy, is we don't really know a lot. Yeah. I won't spend all day talking about it. You can, David, if you like, you're the guest and, you know, that's what you're here for. And I shared my opinion at the time. If folks hadn't heard, some folk didn't like it. And it was just my opinion. And listen, I would love for that video to show an anomalous object deflecting a missile and orbs appearing behind it. For the love of God, if that happens and people want to come and say, ah, Andy, we told you so. You got that one wrong. Absolutely. Phenomenal. I am over the moon to be proven wrong with that and have it shoved down my throat. Absolutely. Andy, I completely agree. And I'll go one step further. I get videos and photographs sent to me all the time. And I politely thank everyone for sharing what they have with me. I immediately respond in the same fashion with all of these individuals, though. Thank you for sending me the photo. Thank you for sending me the video. And I'm just being 100% honest, Andy. I'm not a video expert. I'm not a photographic expert. I can get you in touch with people I know that are video and photographic experts. But my opinion doesn't matter much because that's just not my wheelhouse. And so what I recommend is for anyone that has UFO photos or videos, try to find a professional video analyst because their opinion matters. They can provide an educated opinion versus an uneducated opinion, which admittedly mine would be. Yeah, and mine. And this was the gentleman I had on the podcast anonymously. And it's the first time I've ever done that. And it's not something I do lately. Has an expertise in the British ammunition technician in the British army. And he sent me over his credentials. And I said, look, I don't really know what I'm looking at in terms of credentials. It all looks official. It looks like what I would expect, you know, various certifications and everything else. And it was him in the chat that pointed out really quickly when we all got really excited. This looks like that missile, which caught his attention, the Hellfire missile is something he's very, very aware of. And he's no video expert. He's very quick to say that. It looks like it passes through the object, which then is either debris that comes off it. And or you remember when the Chinese balloon gets shot down, we've seen some of these balloons that aren't just balloons you would buy for a party. OK, they're made with various different materials. Correct. But they've got payloads underneath them. Absolutely. And people pointed out, multiple people online, this could literally be the payload underneath swinging backwards. We don't know the angle the thing's at, the speed it's at, the height is moving. Again, unanswered questions. Yeah. And this isn't me saying what it is. It's just, it could be. And this is my point, I think, from everyone. No one can tell you what it is. They can just say what they think it is or what it could be. And it just made sense to me that if that's a deflating balloon or target balloon, little bits come off the back of it. And to your point, David, when we see those three objects appear, you can tell people all you like, those are exactly the same size. They are doing this. You're just telling people what you want them to hear. And in a way, I suppose we're all doing the same because we don't know. We physically don't know. We don't know. It lasts for about a second, two seconds at most before the video then cuts really frustratingly. And for me, that video just has to be filed away again, like every other video almost as really interesting. Would love to see more. But I think there's better videos already out there, such as the gimbal video where we see the object rotate. I would much rather see more of that than the rest of this. I agree. And I would even argue using the gimbal as a comparison. The gimbal does appear. And again, I'm sure there'll be skeptics out there that'll criticize what I'm saying here. It does appear to show a structured object. This thing that we're seeing, I can't even say it's an object because it has that diffused glow. Is it a light source, a heat source? Is it metallic? We just don't know. And again, like you said, that video is abruptly cut off. And I think in any UFO sighting, in any UFO video, UFO photograph, we need context. We need more than what you're providing before it can weigh in one way or the other. It's anomalous or it's not anomalous. And so I hope that information like that would be forthcoming in this particular situation. But I think we need to be very cautious. I think you'll agree, Andy, to prove or disprove it as being anomalous. We can exist in this space in the middle where we just have, to use the Air Force term, insufficient information to draw a conclusion at this point. And just one more thing. And this is the realms of speculation, folks. And I'm just saying what several folks have reported or mentioned to me that it was part of a hearing that was labeled as transparency, restoring public faith. Okay. And the word transparency was in there. We weren't told till after the hearing that it was a dead drop and there was no time to vet or analyze the video. Okay. I've then heard from multiple people that isn't strictly true. And I would love for folks to come out and clear that up. But my impression could be that actually they did have a bit more information on it. They perhaps did have some more time on it and it's just not being presented that way. That for me is an issue. Whether that's true or not, there's too much around this when it was the wrong time and place. I'll always say, David, show me a cool video anytime, but don't present it in the middle of a UFO hearing, which takes away from some wonderful testimony. Along that same theme, I completely agree with what you just said, Andy. It should not have been entered in unless they had properly vetted it instead of just rushing to throw it out there to the general public. But equally so, this is a trend that really frustrates me, as I mentioned, with some of these journalists and pseudo journalists out there that are just making a career off throwing out these videos with no background, no context. I can't give you my source. And they really present it or they tantalize their audiences and then throw it out there. My attitude is this. If I did receive a video, as I mentioned, I get videos and photographs all the time. And I did think, okay, this is highly significant. This is definitely a cut above the rest of the videos and photographs I've seen. Do you know what I would not do with that, Andy? Release it to the general public, at least immediately. What I would do is sit on it, contact those video photographic experts I've mentioned, let them analyze it, ideally get two to three different people to independently analyze it. Once I have their professional assessment of the video or photograph, then and only then would I release that to the general public with these professional assessments. The problem is there's this rush to get clickbait for their channels, to get viewers for their news agencies. And they just throw it out there with, in my opinion, casual disregard for the truth. They just want to get it out there just so they can remain relevant in the UFO dialogue. I made the point, David, that selfishly, if I wanted to have got more clicks, more views and made some pounds. It would have been better for me to lean really heavily into the UAP, look at the orbs flying off the back of it, viral videos and all that kind of stuff. But we'll see. For me, it has got to be filled away for now. But the testimony, David, was there anything for you that really stood out in terms of what was said? Well, obviously, no surprise to you, Andy, or some of your audience, the references to triangles triangles obviously caught my attention. And it's interesting because I've been talking to people that have connections in D.C. that have told me there's a lot of interest in triangles right now. And in fact, I can mention now, I've not mentioned it publicly, in the last year, I've been contacted by agencies in DOD and DOJ who have contacted me directly in reference to the archives that we have here. We've become a blip on the radar, you might say. We've caught the attention of some of these official agencies with the material that we've gathered. And they have not only expressed interest in my dialogue with them, with the archives in general, but the agency with the DOJ and the agency with DOD independently told me two things. We have current cases involving triangles that we cannot resolve. We are still trying to figure out what these involve, but they involve credible witnesses. And we are currently investigating those cases. And interestingly enough, and it was really an honor to hear this, they said, by the way, we're reading your book right now. And we're using that to look at the patterns and the correlations and the trends in the reports that we're receiving now and the historical record. So that was extremely validating to hear that from two separate agencies. Sorry, folks, I'm just pulling the book out. So if you're on YouTube, I've got, it's in my, it's in my file folder, whatever you want to call it back there, my book tree. But yeah, wonderful book from David, Triangular UFOs, an estimate of the situation. It's well worth picking up a copy of it. I've always been a huge advocate of that particular book, David. And it's one of the few that I've read start to finish. You know, I like to, I've got a lot of cool books there that I've flicked through, read, audio booked, but yeah, it was, it was fantastic. And Andy, I've got to share this with you and your audience. Something dawned on me after the DOD and DOJ had reached out to me and talked about triangles and they couldn't go into detail, obviously, about the cases they're looking at. Just some of it may be classified or just, you know, sensitive in nature, but, you know, they were simply stating that we do have triangles that we cannot explain. We cannot resolve these things. And, and then of course, Tim Phillips from Arrow, you know, recently also came out and referenced triangles. So I'm hearing a common theme most recently with, with the hearings as well, hearing about these triangles. They seem to be a recurring theme in the individuals I'm hearing coming forward and people that are contacting me with, with official ties. But what, what reminded me weeks after some of these conversations I had was, cause I don't read my own book. I wrote it and it's out there. I don't reread my own book, but I remembered that at the very end, if you recall, and some of your audience that have read it, I wrote the end as if it was an intelligence assessment of what are the triangles and what, what are the implications? And what I remembered was, and this is back in 2012, I wrote this book, mind you, I stated that it is my sincere hope. And I'm paraphrasing that this book will not only be read by the general public, but by key members of the military and intelligence community. And here we are now, I'm getting contacted by DOD and DOJ saying, we're reading your book. So it was almost prophetic in nature because again, this was, I wrote that five years prior to the New York times, 2017 article, which changed everything with regard to the subject. So it was really validating. It just dawned on me that it was an afterthought. I'm like, wait a minute, I wrote something about military and intelligence community reviewing this book. And then here we are, they're actually using it. If you asked me for a list of a short list of names of Andy, you can have any guest on the podcast in the next week on the subject that you've not spoken to yet. One of those names would be Christopher Mellon. And I always remember, he's very politely declined me on multiple occasions on LinkedIn. So thank you, Mr. Mellon. I'll reach out again and pester you, but he's a, he's a busy guy. He is. And I'll be honest with you, I consider him a good friend. Chris and I have kept in touch over the years. We, most, most people probably who have seen the show, we did an episode for unidentified. It was, uh, in season two on that's where I'm going yet. Yeah. And, uh, but we actually had, uh, had conversations prior to that. Uh, I think it was two or three years before that. Uh, I was driving home from El Paso on a business trip and I got a call from the then international director for MUFON, Jan Harzan. And he stated, you know, David, do you know, Chris Mellon? And at this point, Chris really wasn't that prominent in the field like he is today. And I said, well, I, I've heard the name. I'm familiar with Chris Mellon. I said, but I don't know him. And the response I had was, well, he wants to know you. And I said, why? And he said, well, he, he asked me who, who's our expert on triangles. And I said, well, the person you have to talk to would be Dave Marler, who I know. And he said, I'm calling you only because I won't share your, your contact information without your permission. Do I have your permission to share it with him? And of course I said, certainly, I'd love to chat with Chris. It would be wonderful to meet him or talk to him. And so I think three or four weeks went by before we could align our schedules. And we had a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. And I think we had about an hour, hour and a half long initial conversation on triangles. And Chris at that time was extremely interested in that subset of reports in much the similar vein as I wrote in my book, because I consider these triangles to be unambiguous UFO reports. It's not that I saw a point of light in the sky a mile away, as you know, Andy, and your listeners, your viewers know. These things are oftentimes extremely close, extremely low. Details can be discerned on these objects, in addition to lighting characteristics and structural details. And I just consider them a category unto themselves in that respect. And so Chris agreed that, you know, he found the detailed narratives extremely compelling. And he had read my book. And we basically continued dialogue until we finally met in person on camera with that episode of Unidentified. And I'm sure I brought this up with you at the time when we recorded in 2021. But it always stayed with me when you spoke with Chris Mellon. And he surmised that triangular UFOs are surveying or mapping the earth. And I wonder, like, in the time since then, is that something that you agree with? And what kind of brings you around to that assessment? I'll be honest with you, I'd never really thought about it until Chris pitched that to me. And we've discussed it since then. I think if you're going to take a data-driven approach towards a subject, which, Andy, as you know, I do, we can't go in with arbitrary beliefs or interpretations. Look at the data, look at the information, and from that, try to draw an intellectual conclusion. And I think that there's logic behind what Chris, you know, postulated, that the fact that these things are low, the fact that these things are slow, would lend to the fact that, in fact, they could be related to some type of survey or reconnaissance or intelligence gathering. I think it's as plausible an explanation as I've heard thus far. Yeah. What always interests me is if these things are genuinely there, given the size is often described as being particularly large as well, and how frequent they are, and how well documented the time, the place, the location, the speed of movement, like you say, the length of time they can be there. You would imagine geospatial intelligence agencies wouldn't have much difficulty in pulling up some decent quality footage to say, oh, there was a triangle over this location at this time. Let's just rewind that back a couple of hours, and was there or was there not? And that must be some incredible data to siphon. I agree with you on that, and I've thought about that myself. In fact, with one of the agencies I talked to, we were talking about signatures that they might look for in detecting these things, and I had just simply suggested that, you know, some of these things apparently have some type of cloaking, where when you're looking at it from underneath, it's projecting the star field above, below, arguably, because if there's someone else's technology and they're aware of geospatial intelligence and satellite imagery, arguably, you could reverse that, and you could project the terrain of the ground above the object. However, what I had suggested was, I think one of the signatures you could look for, and again, this is based on looking at hundreds of triangular UFO reports, I suggested looking for ionization of air, ionization trails associated with these objects. I think that's a signature or an imprint in the atmosphere that cannot be cloaked, and I only say that because witnesses have described a diffused light glow around the object. Some people have described like an ozone smell, an electrified or electrical field sometimes when they've gotten close to these objects, so it's plausible that there's an ionization field around these objects, which I would postulate or put forth that it's probably a secondary effect of the propulsion technology that's creating this ionization field as it moves through the atmosphere, and arguably, one might even say through water or in space, but I would suggest that that might be something we could look for in trying to detect these objects as they move through our atmosphere. And it's funny that Dylan Borland, who was speaking at the hearing, he talked about that electricity in the air, like a tingling, he mentioned the smell of a storm that seemed to be there, and he also worked in geospatial intelligence, which, you know, he's got all, he's taken a lot of boxes there. Absolutely, yeah, when he said that, when he talked about it, it's like after a thunderstorm, I was shouting to the TV, ozone, ozone. Yeah, it just wasn't quite coming to him. So on that then, coming away from government for a moment, I mentioned we've got organizations such as the Sol Foundation, led by Gary Nolan, Peter Scaffish, Jonathan Baird, the Galileo Project with Avi Loeb, Beatrice Villarreal, colleagues working on the transient objects. What's your view on the work being done in those last couple of years by organizations outside of government? I think it's outstanding. I think, again, it's showing a shift in the dialogue where now we have academics coming together publicly. Hynek and Jacques Vallée always used to talk about the invisible college. Well, now we have a visible college. We have people coming together, the Sol Foundation, with their events, where colleagues within academia from various disciplines are coming together to have open dialogue and scientific papers being written on the subject, peer-reviewed papers. I've always said for years, Andy, you know, I'm not a scientist. I should not be the one looking at these cases. We need the academics to be weighing in, and now they are. Anyone that is applying logic and reason to the subject, devoid of belief, if you come in with belief, I think you're tainted from the very beginning. We need to think of ourselves as jurors in a criminal case. You don't look at the person being tried for murder and say, oh, he looks like a criminal. He looks like a murderer. No. You go based on the evidence. You don't do just a knee-jerk response in judging an individual, nor do you do a knee-jerk response in evaluating any any one UFO case. So let's look at the data. Let's weigh the data. One of the things that we're doing here with the archives is trying to centralize and collect this data here in the United States so it can be made available to academics. Because I've said in other interviews over the years, it's great the academics are weighing in, but you just can't come into the UFO field with a degree. You need to look at the data that we have. And the data that we have are hundreds of thousands of case files worldwide involving not just visual sightings, as you know, but visual radar sightings, sightings involving physical trace evidence. And these are the files that we're amassing and that we're centralizing. And arguably, we have the largest collection of UFO case files ever assembled in the history of the United States. I always like to say that's not hyperbole. That's fact. And we're honored that we now have individuals, academics coming here. We have researchers coming here, not just domestic, but foreign researchers and individuals. We had a couple from Spain that were touring the United States. They heard about our archive and they came here and they were going through a lot of our Spanish material. On the archives then, let's let's get into that because there's some wonderful work. Oh, and just want to remind folks, I'm attending the Sol Foundation in Milan at the end of October. So, if any listeners are going along or folks, it'd be nice to hear from you and meet you there. David, I don't take it you're making it yourself? I unfortunately can't afford a trip. And right now, my time commitments here at the archives really prohibit me from doing any conferences right now at this time. I really had to stay close to home to work with our incredible team of volunteers. Do you know, it's not been cheap for me. I paid for a ticket like everyone else did in the hotel and the flights, but given it's in Europe rather than the US, it's the opposite for me. That's wonderful. If it's ever going to be cheaper, then this was the time to do it. So yeah, I had to take the opportunity. But again, Jacques Vallée, Carl Nell, Gary Nolan, Beatrice Villarreal, all speaking at the event, really looking forward to hearing those different voices, lend their kind of names to the conversation and hopefully get to have some of those chats alongside them too. I've got a question I'm going to ask you on another organisation, but I'm going to keep that to the end. And if you've got a few minutes, we'll leave that for a bonus for the listeners who pay for the podcast just to get your thoughts on something else. But the archives, so in many ways for me, the archives are like stepping back in time, especially when so much of today's discussion is centred on 2025, the political landscape, what's going on right here and now. For you, are they providing a continuity, a living record of how UFOs have been talked about, investigated, engaged with and kind of understood across generations? Absolutely. It's just incredible when you immerse yourselves in the actual case files themselves. And again, not just United States case files. Admittedly, this is a global phenomenon. And the files like right behind me here, which are part of the APRO case file collection, which had been locked away for 35 years. That was like opening a time capsule, Andy, I can't tell you the excitement and joy of finally having access to the lost APRO files. The international, there's a map behind me, and they have pins up there of all their investigators and consultants that they had in the United States and worldwide. Numerous South American reports, numerous Canadian reports, European reports that had been locked away. And many of these are not only the original investigators notes and interviews. Many of them are also bolstered by local contemporaneous newspapers, which just document some incredible cases. And I always like to say with all of these case files that we have, and this is something I've conveyed to the agencies that I've talked to, official agencies. These are not just case files. This is not just history. It's not like going to a World War II museum and you see a mortar shell from World War II or a rifle. These are data points. This is not just obscure history. These are data points when we're looking at what could potentially be a fundamental reality of the UFO phenomenon as it exists today. So taking the contemporaneous reports that we're receiving now and looking and comparing those to the data points we have, and again, arguably 100,000 or more, we're looking for trends, patterns, correlations, changes in the data, to your point, over decades. What are we seeing that's similar? What are we seeing that's changed? And even rewriting some of the history. And I brought a couple examples here next to my desk. I was hoping we could talk about this. We hear about Vandenberg Air Force Base a lot, and I'd love to share a couple little stories with you and your audience. Yeah, please do. Jan Aldridge, one of the leading historians of the UFO subject here in the United States, will be moving here in one week to live the rest of his retirement years working in the archives. He's dreamed of having a facility like this where he could be surrounded by the history. We have, of course, the NICAP historical case files, the Center for UFO Study case files, the APRO case files. We just received an incredible cache of UK UFO reports going back to the late 70s, early 90s from Andy Roberts. We have arguably 100 to 200 case files stacked that we have to systematically go through. We have another cache we received from Australia and New Zealand of UFO case files from the late 60s, early 70s. So just to give you a flavor of what we have. And then my friend and colleague, Philip Mantle, sent all of his UFO case files out. So multiple collections of case files. We also have the Cleveland Ufology Project case files from the 50s, 60s, the UFO Research Committee of Akron, Ohio, just to give you a flavor that it's the large collections, but also these smaller collections that collected collectively being brought together is an incredible amount of history. But Jan had come out in 2020, 2021, around the time we last talked Andy, along with Barry Greenwood, who's one of my board members of our organization. And he was going through a box that we had received from the Center for UFO Studies. And it was a box of just miscellaneous papers that over the decades were just thrown into this box. And it's almost like if you can imagine archaeology, archaeologists with their little brush kind of just going page by page digging down this pile. And my back was to Jan, and I was digitizing some reel-to-reels like we have here. We have hundreds of these going back to the 1950s of recordings. And just for anyone listening, Davis has held up one of the old school kind of film reels that you would, yeah, you would put in like a projector or a microphone. Well, we have film. This is actually audio. This is actually audio, but we do have 16 millimeter and 18 millimeter UFO footage as well. But I'm digitizing this, and Jan, who is to my back, says, oh, this is interesting. And for Jan to say that, it had to be something good. And so I took my headphones off, but I didn't turn around. He was still behind me. I said, what do you have? And he goes, original log sheets from Vandenberg Air Force Base. And I stopped and I said, what year? And he said, 1967. And I turned around and I looked at him. I said, what month? He goes, October. And I looked at him with a real serious look. I said, what date? And he kind of did one of these. He goes, October 6th. And I just froze, Andy, because I said, 20 minutes ago, going through these audio tapes, I just digitized radio transmissions between radar operators at Vandenberg Air Force Base from October 6th, 1967. We had the audio of the radar operators communicating with each other who were tracking multiple UFOs at the time. And then we have now the original log sheets, handwritten log sheets from Vandenberg Air Force Base that, again, going back to provenance, was received by Ida Bell Epperson with the NICAP LA subcommittee in the 60s. And we have the resume and letter from the individual who worked at Martin Marietta aircraft that released the log sheets. So we know who released the log sheets to NICAP. And it describes numerous UFO sightings reported at Vandenberg, both radar and visual. In addition, we had the local newspaper clippings that described civilians seeing UFOs at the time. And then I went to J. Allen Hynek. We have Dr. Hynek's original files here. Here's an original military teletype by Hynek with his red writing. He would always usually write in red felt marker. And the official explanation was birds that were being tracked on radar. And Hynek writes here, birds, question mark. And he has it underlined a few times. These were radar visual sightings. But what's interesting is the official explanation was birds, yet the log sheets describe lights that were being seen. And the radar operators are describing formations of lights being seen. So I think just to agree with Hynek, either these were birds with lights affixed to them somehow that were being tracked on radar or we had genuine unidentified objects. But the point I use in illustrating that is we have disparate bits of information coming from different collections. And now we're bringing them together to get a more holistic view of some of these cases. And in fact, another one that we have, most of your audience is familiar with the famous Socorro, New Mexico incident from April 24, 1964, which just occurred south of me here about an hour and 15 minutes away from where our archive is located. There was another case that occurred 36 hours after that in a little area called La Madeira, New Mexico, small rural community up heading north in New Mexico. The Air Force officially investigated it, ostensibly officially investigated it. If you go to Blue Book, the investigation consisted of two half pages, essentially one page where they surmised that the UFO witness was drunk and the burned area, the landing site was just a trash fire dump. And that's all we've had to go on for decades. I always felt Andy was one of those that the military just summarily discounted. Well, when we got the APRO files, this is one of their original files. This is the La Madeira file that APRO investigated in 64. Even though the Air Force wasn't forthcoming with information, I was shocked and surprised to find an original envelope from the New Mexico State Police. And they provided information to APRO that the Air Force was not forthcoming with. This is the official letter by David Kingsbury with the New Mexico State Police. They went on the scene and interviewed the witness prior to the Air Force showing up. In the letter, in no way, shape, or form do they indicate the witness was drunk. They didn't deem him that he wasn't credible. They deemed him credible. More importantly, and this is something that literally had been locked away for 35 years, we have an original sketch, detailed sketch of the landing site and burned area. And you can see arrows on the diagram there with numbers. The numbers correspond with, and I couldn't believe this after all these years, Andy, that we had this information. Original color photos taken of the landing site by the New Mexico State Police. So this is information that the general public has never seen before. But it's giving us new information on that case and one that I would argue is extremely credible. And then I was also contacted by Mr. Lee Williams, who was a KOB-TV newscaster in the 1980s who did a series on UFOs. And he interviewed Martin Vigil, who was another officer involved with La Madeira, who talked about the investigation. And then in that actual interview, he interviewed another witness by the name of James Cardassini, who is now deceased. He, along with Dr. J. Allen Hynek in the 80s, went to this location where witnesses described in Golden, New Mexico, which is on the east side of the Sandia Mountains, an area where an object apparently similar to Socorro landed, burned and fused the sand into glass and then took off. And purportedly investigators from Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force came out and dug up all the fused glass and sand and took it away. So most people think of Socorro as an isolated case. But I'm here to tell you, it looks like as we're gathering this historical data, there were at least three separate incidents all within a week of each other involving a very similar object landing and burning the surrounding ground and vegetation. So is this potentially the and you may be offended at this suggestion, but almost almost the future direction of the archives that that digitization is a huge piece. And unfortunately, folks, we are in an age of AI and LLMs. And once all of this information is digitized, you're you're having to kind of either have a little bit of a synchronicity or a bit of luck, whatever you want to call it, where you've just listened to some audio, Jan pulls up a file, you can quickly go, Oh, wait, we've got this, this and this. Yes, you've got an LLM or an AI that can take all that information. How many of those little bits and pieces that we don't yet have the dots connected? Do you think genuinely pop up across all of those files? Tons. And you're reading my mind because I was hoping we would get to this. What we're working on currently, we're very close to securing a partnership with a third party that's willing to invest serious money into helping us with this. Our mantra here within the archives is centralization and digitization. We can't digitize until we centralize the data. We've done that. And we're continuing to do that. In fact, Jan Aldrich just shipped out roughly 180 boxes of his collection, which we're in the process of sorting through. And collections are continuing to pour in some big names, which I won't mention because it's not official yet, have already reached out to us wanting to eventually donate their collections. So this is an organic collection that is only going to continue to grow. But exactly to your point, Andy, this is where we're going with all of this. Centralizing it in a secure facility, which the public school system, who is our partner, have helped us with in providing incredible facilities here. We now have been approached by several different individuals and groups that want to employ AI in analyzing all of this data. We can't do that. And they said, we can't do that until it's digitized, to your point. It has to be manageable, right, electronically. So we're hoping between now and the end of this year, we will start a high level digitization effort to digitize all the files behind me and in the rest of this room. And we're hoping we can we can conclude that project within a two year period. This will be a highly aggressive project. Again, if we get the funding, we can pay some of our workers to actually get this work done in a very timely fashion. Once that's done, then exactly to your point, let's let AI look at it. Because as you pointed out, these are just anecdotal episodes that like you said, serendipity, through serendipity, it just happened, we connected the dots on some of these. And so we're extremely excited. And I truly feel we're at a moment in history, where all of the historical preservation work that's surrounding me here by APRO, NICAP, CUFOS, all these independent investigators and smaller groups worldwide, historical preservation has served its purpose. And now we've centralized all this under one roof. But now we have to interpret this data. And with AI being where it is today, I truly feel like we're at an inflection point, where technology and historical preservation are coming together. And we're for the first time going to find true trends, patterns, correlations in the data. I'm not arrogant enough to say we're going to solve the UFO mystery, I would never go there. But I would argue, because we have so many data points. And because the AI technology is so advanced at this point, in the stage of the game, I really feel we are going to find true themes, patterns, trends, correlations, that can arguably serve as stepping stones towards eventual answers. So I take it, unfortunately, folks seem to hope, and we all do, that there's a smoking gun one day piece of evidence, whether it's a photo, a video, a document, and it's bang, there you go, that's the proof. That seems unlikely. But it's the strength of the archives, the volume and the quantity of data. Yeah, I completely agree. And I don't want to beat a dead horse. But to go back to what I was alluding to earlier, everyone's about bombshell videos, bombshell whistleblower testimony. I think if you look at any other field of study in science, there very rarely is an aha moment. It is systematic research and development and incremental stages of learning that get us to major points in history as it relates to technological development or revelations. And I would argue that, you know, don't hold your breath for whistleblower testimony. Don't hold your breath like you said, Andy, for that one photo, that one video. I'm much more impressed with, let's just say, we've identified 2,500 witnesses over an 80-year period of time from various countries that are describing a similar object that had similar geographic characteristics and had similar atmospheric conditions that were demonstrating very detailed activity and maneuvering. That, to me, speaks volumes. Because if you have one video, one photo, one case, it's predicated oftentimes on one individual and one individual's credibility. I like to look at the totality of information. I think that is where the weight of evidence resides. Not on one video, one witness, one this, one that. And when we start to see trends, patterns, correlations in the data, as we have in many cases, anecdotally, but now, like you said, on a much larger scale. Is that physical evidence? No. But in absence of physical evidence, that is the best argument we can have in a court of law or a court of public opinion to bring more scientists, bring more academics into looking at this subject. But again, it has to be data driven. It has to be based on the data that we have and that data that's here that's surrounding me. Quite often, I'll get messages from folks who will say, how do I or how do I recommend they deal with a malaise they're feeling with the topic or a little bit kind of burnt out tends to be UFO burnout. And I think a lot of that seems to come from some things let them down in the here and now. And there's been a whether it's been a bad photo has been released, or someone's made a statement that's disappointed them, or the political, and very much the political side of things isn't going the way they want it to. And they feel like, you know, what's keeping you going and all that kind of stuff. And quite often, I'll say the same thing of, you know what, either have a little bit of a break, or I like to look back at the history of the topic. And I'll get someone who's had an experience, or I'll go check out an audio book, or on a podcast, or there's loads of great YouTube shows like UAP, Gerb, and folks like that, Eyes on Cinema, have got wonderful old documentaries. They're doing incredible work. Yeah, brilliant. And they're so well put together and so polished, and you can find out about cases you forgot about. And it just makes me go, do you know what, forget right now, if nothing had happened from 2017, what got me into the topic outside of my own interest? What are the older cases? And again, it's that volume, the quantity, the weight of evidence. And it's just like, look at all this stuff. And you always find something you didn't know you'd forgot or something. Yes. And just an addendum to your list, I think you provided a great list of why people become disillusioned or that they have that general malaise regarding the subject. I often talk to people who realize they had misplaced trust in one individual as the source of information. And, you know, again, I won't mention names. I think your audience can think of some names that have been highly popular in this field, highly prolific, high profile, that continually throw out information that's quite often very quickly debunked. But a lot of those people keep going back to the well to drink. And if that individual has given you false information or information that has been later disproven, why do you continue to go back to that individual as a credible source? And so I find that sometimes people put too much faith in one person or one source. And I would just caution people, try not to do that, just like the news. You know, I'm sure your audience is very skeptical of the news as I am, regardless of what country you're in. What I try to do is channel surf. I like to look at different channels, different news networks. And I always like to think that each news network has some kernel of truth. And like a Venn diagram, where they intersect is probably the truth. But to take that one source, that one channel as the truth, I think, you know, you got to be very, very careful. But I think looking at the totality of evidence, and I would even take it one step further. And this is just the old man in me coming out. Get off the internet, get off social media. It's extremely toxic. To your point, Andy, get a book from the 1950s or 60s, and open that book up and disconnect from the internet, disconnect from the dialogue. Because, you know, I'm here to tell you, there's a lot of people, as I mentioned, and some good people, let me preface, there's some very good people that have entered the field since 2017. But equally so, there's a lot of people that are just trying to make a buck and make a name for themselves. And quite often, I think people conflate popularity with credibility. And I'm here to tell you, some of the most credible people I know in this field are names that most people have never even heard of, that are quietly in the shadows, collecting information, collecting data, and they've been doing it for decades. And so, you know, and I have people ask me, well, you know, tell us who some of the credible people are, who do you suggest I start with, and I'll throw some names out there. But at the end of the day, we each have to decide, you know, who do I determine? Who do I judge as credible? And, you know, I think the people that claim they have the answers or bombshell testimony or whistleblowers, that's going to blow the lid open. The larger the claim, I think the less credible in many cases, it turns out to be. I was just looking up as you were speaking there, David, I've just bought Timothy Good's alien base book. Yes, yes. On Vinted, I've discovered Vinted. I don't know if that's a thing in the US, but it is in the UK. Yeah. Basically, people sell all their secondhand crap. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not that it's all crap, but you know, you get a lot of crap on there. And I've been buying some like old wrestling t-shirts and books, and I found quite a lot of UFO stuff on there. And yeah, I picked, I saw some really old stuff, and I thought, I'm going to pick that up and just dive into it, because you see a lot of similarities and some differences to what's happening now, what's being said with just a slightly different take on it. And a lot of what you've said that I completely agree with, especially around never just listen to one person. And for the love of God, I know there's people who listen to or watch this for some reason, and they'll say, I'm the only one they listen to or watch for UFO updates news. Thank you so much. However, don't just take my word for something or my opinion and conflate that as that's what you should believe. And Andy, I say that in lectures all the time. These are my conclusions, but formulate your own opinion. You know, and one of the compliments I've received over the years, I'll share this with you. And this is, I think, a red flag for other researchers. I've had a number of people come up to me at conferences over the decades, and they say, I love your research for a number of reasons, but one in particular, at the bottom of every one of your slides, when you're talking about these cases, you cite your source. And my attitude is, that's just Research 101 from my college days, you do that. And then those same people will say, I know. But a lot of these people at these UFO conferences are throwing things out there, and you don't know where they're deriving it from. And it's literally, you have to take it at faith. You have to take it at face value. My attitude is, okay, here's a case, I'm going to tell you about it from my perspective. Here's the original documentation. You know, here's the case report you can look at. But here's the source, you read it, you interpret it, and I hope you use it as a springboard to even continue further researching it. It's difficult to cite a source when it's a blue avian from the Pallades that's driven a TR3B here. Yes, exactly. And just real quick, I had this report here I wanted to mention for anybody that that is familiar with my triangle research, one of the things that I hope to do with the APRO files, which I have not had the luxury of time yet to do, which I did with the NICAP files after my book, is looking for triangle reports. This is one from London, Ontario, Canada, August 1967. And just as an illustration, this is one that just shows you that triangles did predate stealth technology. We do have cases from the 40s, 50s, 60s of triangles. And this is when I just stumbled across about a week or so ago. I'll need to get some images off you if you've got any handy for the thumbnails and whatnot. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Is there any one piece, you mentioned the situation, I love that, sitting with Jan and, oh, I've just heard this and you've just seen this. Is there anything maybe in the last six months or so you've come across that you've went, wow, like yourself? Well, not within the last six months, but arguably within the last year. Going through the APRO files, again, huge untapped resource behind me here of case files, foreign and domestic. Jim and Coral Lorenzen, for those that have read their books, familiar with their APRO bulletins from back in the day, Jim and Coral, when they were at Holloman Air Force Base in the mid to late 1950s, had referenced that because we're working at Holloman, because we're civilian contractors, we talked to engineers, we talked to military personnel, and they would get a lot of inside track on UFO sightings, many that were occurring around White Sands at that time in Holloman. And I fully expected maybe going through the files, I would find reference to that. What I did not expect to find is going through the case files, I found an original radar track report from Kirtland Air Force Base here in Albuquerque, where we're at, from 1959, September 13, 1959, original report, along with the letter, with the name, rank, serial number of the person that provided it. So again, we have the provenance. And I've shown this to a number of military people here locally that are retired, they were really intrigued by it. Arguably, we have a lot of radar visual reports over the years. Many of these, just like visual reports, can be explained away. Temperature inversion, you know, a technical issue with the equipment, etc. This one was really intriguing, Andy. It not only had a summary on the front of the report, which stated, due to the speeds course and so many stations picking it up, a total of four radar stations tracked this UFO. They actually had that typed on the cover of the report. On the back of the report was a hand-drawn radar track showing where the four stations were located in New Mexico and showing the inbound track of this object that was tracked on four radars. The object executed six to seven angular turns and the handwritten documents that came with the report stated the object was moving between, I believe, 1,950 miles per hour and 2,200 miles per hour. And I presented this to a group of retired Los Alamos Sandia scientists that I presented to you the last couple of years here in Albuquerque. And I stated, just for a point of comparison, this object was moving between 1,950-2,200 miles per hour in September of 1959. And as a matter of historical record, your audience and you can go and look this up. We set a new airspeed record in December of 1959 with, I believe it was an F-106 Convair aircraft, straight line course, 11 mile course. It achieved a new airspeed record of 1,525 miles per hour. Three months after this UFO incident, where this object was moving 400 to 900 miles in excess of that airspeed record that would be set and executing maneuvers at those high velocities. Not tracked on one, two or three radars, but four radar stations. I consider that highly compelling. Yeah. And again, that's the stuff, not to flog the dead horse, as you mentioned, that if you could hear more of that in these hearings and pull some of that evidence forward, show radar tracks, or if you can get those witnesses and that stuff that could really capture the imagination for people. I agree. And Andy, if I can just add to that, we had the hearings recently. We had, I thought, some pretty compelling testimony by these military witnesses. But let's be honest, and this is coming from the triangle guy here. Fairly recent case, triangle scene, military base. Arguably, that could be our technology. But one of the reasons I love the historical cases, and I think you and a lot of your audience will agree, when we look at a case from 1959, I would put forth to you, we know with a pretty fair degree of certainty what state-of-the-art technology was in 1959. So these historical cases are important. Yes, they occurred decades ago, but we can look at those, I think, with a little bit more clarity than cases that maybe occurred in the last 10-15 years, where unless you're sworn into top-secret programs, you really don't know what state-of-the-art technology is. We don't know, you know, what we're capable of as far as airspeed. We don't know maneuverability. We don't know if we have triangles today. But when you look at cases like the Canadian case from 1969, I don't think we had that technology back then. And many of these cases that we have in the historical record, I think it's really intriguing when you can look at those and compare it to what was state-of-the-art technology at that time. I'll just mention a friend and colleague of ours, a researcher, Graham Rendell. Oh, yes. Yeah, people should really go and check out Graham's work, especially from a historical aspect. Graham writes ridiculously titled UFO books like March the 7th, 1949, over East Germany UFO sightings, and it's 900 pages long. They're so meticulously researched. I love Graham's research. And you mentioned earlier about, you know, when I get contacted, you know, who would you recommend as a researcher or someone whose books I should read? Graham would be top five, for sure. Yeah, hands down. Graham and myself are doing an appearance in a library in Dumbarton on the 23rd of September. So in a week and a half from this, it's free. So folks want to go along, they can book the tickets online completely free. Graham's chatting about his work, and I'm chatting about my new book that may or may not be coming out in the next couple of days. This is online? No, it's just an in-person event. Oh, darn. I'd love to listen in. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that presentation. Listen, the ticket's free. So if you want to fly yourself over to Glasgow. So yeah, but no, if anyone's in the area, they can come and check that out. But you'll hear kind of two very different conversations because I am me and Graham is very straight-laced. Well, and if I might, just while we're talking about Graham, he illustrates, as I was alluding to with what I try to illustrate with my research, if you want to know where Graham got the information, he's more than willing to provide copies of the documents. Here's the government documents. Here's the record group from the air ministry that the files came from. Verify it for yourself. And again, I use that as a point of contrast for some of the popular voices out there in the UFO field that are throwing you all the sensational material, but we can't tell you our source. We can't tell you where we got it from. Be very wary of those people. But when you have researchers that say, I'm more than happy to share copies of the documents. I'll tell you where you can look it up in the government files. I think that stands as a testament to true research and verifiable research. The old phrase, you know, people trust some of these sources, but I love the phrase trust, but verify. Yeah. And for me, something that goes a long way as anyone commentator, whether it's a journalist or YouTuber, podcaster, ex military official, Nobel nominee, if they can say, I don't know quite often. I like that because you don't hear it often enough. And there's no, you don't. Yeah, there's, there's so much we don't know in this field and people always, you know, I've been referenced as a UFO expert and I just, I just, I have a visceral reaction to that. How can I be an expert in something that I don't even know what I'm researching? Yeah, I have lots of data. I have lots of information. You can say I'm an information gatherer, but I, I, I, I just shun at the, when people use that term for myself or anyone else, UFO expert, because none of us are experts. All we were expert at asking questions because we all have questions collectively, but those answers still remain elusive. I will say, David, it's narrowly better than UFO hunter, which is the bottom of the battle when it comes to titles in this subject. That's the one that I really have to correct people. Um, but listen, a couple of listener questions to finish off. If you don't mind, David, you've been really great with your time. And we had 20 minutes of technical problems before we even hit record. Yeah, I apologize for that. No, no, listen, who knows if this even has been recorded. We could have literally spent 80 minutes having a great chat between us. Um, but yeah, uh, some of these are statements. Some of them are questions. We'll get your thoughts. Long Knife says, with the new study out from Beatrice Villareal, is he, is David aware of any other information about us efforts in 1952 to 1953 timeframe to observe and characterize orbiting objects? Thinking of the story, Richard Dolan and others have related of a few mountain sized objects observed in orbit that were never spoken of again. And then Menzel destroying Harvard sky survey plates. Right. Yeah. I'm familiar with that. Uh, I can't think of any cases off the top of my head, other than the fact, uh, I believe it was in the early APRO bulletins. And I think even NICAP may have touched on this, that there was one or two objects that were orbiting the earth. Uh, it was a recurring theme, I think in some of the APRO bulletins where purportedly, uh, they were observing one or two objects that had been orbiting the earth. And then the story eventually went away. I don't know if it was ever verified, but that's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head related to objects. Uh, you know, uh, outside the atmosphere of the earth orbiting or close orbit. What's your, quickly, what's your take on that sort of thing now? I think the most famous example would be the Black Knight satellite that often gets perpetuated by folks over at Gaia. Um, no offense. Um, but the idea that you've got arbitrary objects, we now have thousands upon thousands of satellites and junk up there that would we not have, God, I sound like a debunker or skeptic now, don't I? But it's one of those where could there be all these objects in orbit from another civilization? I mean, I'm not going to lie, David, I, I think, and this will go conspiratorial us, Russia, China will have stuff in orbit, potentially manned stuff in orbit. That isn't the space station that we don't know about. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think it's naive in the extreme to think we know what China and Russia are doing all the time. I mean, I mean, this is what keeps our national defense analysts up at night, right? Not knowing what they might be doing. Um, but yeah, no, I think, I think it's legitimate to have skeptical questions as it relates to that. But I always say, and I'm putting together a lecture for the local astronomical society where I talk about this. Um, I think we need to be skeptical, but we also have to enter into it with a certain level of humility that if the big if, right, IF, capital IF, if we're dealing with an advanced technology a thousand years ahead of us, say, arguably in technology, what could they be capable of? You know, and I hate to use trite terms like cloaking from Star Trek, but could they have an object in orbit that's cloaked? It's impervious to any type of visual sensors, infrared sensors. And, you know, I give myself license to at least, you know, think that there is the possibility that if something's conservatively a thousand years ahead of us in technology, who knows what that looks like? I love the quote from Isaac Asimov, you know, any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic to us. Yeah. So should we be skeptical? Yes. But should we also have a certain level of humility as we look at these cases or these, these ideas or these themes that are thrown out there? Yes. But again, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You know, we can be skeptical and skepticism should be the default position, but if Gaia or anyone else, individual or group is out there making claims, okay, now it is incumbent upon you to provide factual information to back up that. Yeah. I think there's so much of this topic where, and this is where I fall in it personally, I find really interesting, but I'm able to say past a certain point, I don't know, or it could be nonsense or there could be something to it. Like the big one for me just now that the Nazca mummies, I go back and forward on that because it's still there and there's still enough folks going, do you know what? There may be something here that it's at least of an interest still. Yeah, absolutely. But it needs to be opened up to academia. Multiple universities need to have access to that material. Again, we shouldn't be deriving information from just one or two or three sources. It needs to be open sourced to where the academic scientific community can weigh in at large and with anything, you know, whether it's UFOs or any other subject. I mean, I'm not here to chase fantasies or fiction. I want facts and I want verifiable facts when possible. Well, here's one that's a little bit more speculative then from Greg. So Greg asks, what is the truth about human slash earth built craft and the truth about alien or human joint projects? So what's your take on that idea of these hybrid projects between us and ET races? Yeah, I, again, I don't know, you know, I'll, I'll enter into it with that. I think they're interesting stories. There's, I don't think been any verifiable information to back up any of those stories. And I have a, I kind of, again, take more of a conservative approach. And again, I will preface, I could be completely wrong, Andy, but these joint ventures with aliens and humans, uh, and one could even go back into the cattle mutilation arena. You know, the, the common belief or theme within UFO believers is, well, the aliens entered into a pact with humans, so they can abduct all the people they want and abduct and mutilate cattle. And we'll let them do that. And in exchange, they're going to give us technology. Yep. If these things are so advanced, why do they need to work out an arrangement with us? They can fly, just using as an example, the Tic Tac in 2004. If contrary to some opinions now that are being floated out there, that that's not our technology, it's flying rings around our most advanced fighter aircraft. If you have that power, if you have that technology, that's like the equivalent of you and I, Andy, we're going to fix a crack in the sidewalk, but we see the anthill sitting next to the sidewalk. We're going to sit down with the ants and say, hey, do you mind if we fix this sidewalk? We can do it. They're not going to stop us. We have, you know, the superiority over the anthill. I just don't see why any alien would have to enter into an agreement or a contract with us if they're advanced in technology. So I think just the fundamental premise, I think I just have an issue with that. Yeah. Like being able to steal candy from a baby, but giving it a toy to, you know, I'm really sorry I took this off you, but you're going to just sit down and have negotiations with the baby, you know? Look, I am going to take your rollipop, but what can I, can I, you know, here's a bluey teddy. I just, I just, again, instinctively, and I, and I even, you know, not to go too deep in the woods here, but I even have a fundamental issue with crash retrieval stories for that very same reason. If, and again, big if, if these things are extraterrestrial in nature and they have the technology to travel vast distances, light years from other star systems. And again, they may not be extraterrestrial in origin. That's just one hypothesis, but that's obviously been the predominant one over the decades. If they have mitigated all of the issues to travel those distances and survive and continue to thrive as they travel here, and then they enter our atmosphere and lightning brings them down or things that we've mastered in our early years of aviation, you know, mitigating lightning strikes with aircraft. I just, it seems like, okay, one crash maybe, but as you know, there's a plethora of crash retrieval stories out there now. Are they really that inferior in technology where they're crashing with the prevalence of like a DC-6 back in the 1950s? I just, I have a fundamental issue with the general concept. For me, a conversation for a different day, but even with that kind of stuff, I'm quite open to the opinion that it's maybe more disposable. Some of these craft and I talk, I look at and go at one of the peaks of our civilization, or maybe it was maybe 10 years ago, would be the Mars rover. And you look at that's a multi-million dollar piece of equipment that we have gone at great lengths to fly to another planet and do science. Let's just say science is shut out of it as a t-shirt I just brought it said recently. Right. But we, we're not getting that back. That's disposable. It's going to do a job and then it'll be defunct. And you mentioned earlier, if a race, a civilization, an entity was a hundred years or a thousand years more advancing us, they could just have disposable craft that has done its job one and done. Like Kodak cameras, done. Don't need it back. Let them play about with it. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I mean, that's a great idea. And I think it's a plausible one. I think the only issue I would have with that, not, not, not negating that as a possibility, but like the Mars rover, why wouldn't it just be robotic in nature? Why would we have to have biological entities inside these things? They are robotic though. They could be, they could be. I suppose that's where you have to separate though. And that's what I love. That's kind of chat. You have to separate folks saying, oh, the, these beings from the Pleiades came to visit me and they took me across the galaxy to visit this theme park on a different planet and brought me back. That's one thing. But then if you are sending third generation AI clones that were not non-human, but kind of weird looking aliens, as we know them, they are disposable as well. That's still biological in a way. That's that's where we could be going in the next kind of 50 years with some of the robotics we're seeing online. Again, I don't see that as a massive issue that that's some of what's being retrieved. No, absolutely. And I mean, and this is great conversation, right? I mean, at some point in absence of conclusive information, we need to speculate. And you know, where I have issue with the UFO community in general though, is where people confuse speculation with fact. I believe this, therefore that's what it is. And again, I think we have to enter into this subject with a certain level of humility that we don't have all the answers and we may have theories or ideas that we want to maybe pursue or consider. But I think we always, it's kind of like the, the ufological two step, you know, one step forward, two steps back. Yes. I think maybe this, but wait a minute, I got to pull back because I just don't have verifiable information to support that. I'll use that as a working hypothesis, but as with any hypothesis, it has to be proven. Yeah. I'll often change my opinion based on things I hear from people and I'll add bits and go, actually, David, 95% of what you've just said, complete nonsense, completely disagree. However, you did see this one thing and that made me think of this. And then I'll add that into my own hypotheses and opinion. And yeah. So thank you, Greg, for the question. Bad aliens info made a statement, but just to what you kind of mentioned before that are triangular, triangular sightings going back to 1952, highly unlikely to be manmade. And I think that's the beauty of a lot of the early stuff. Yes, I completely agree. And I appreciate the comment. One thing that I think we have to consider, and again, this is me now being humble. We have a history of triangles that I would argue, suggest they're not ours global in nature reported around, you know, the decades. But that does not negate the possibility that we have very similar looking advanced technology today that are military in nature. So I always say, you know, there's three, there's three sides to the triangle. I think there's three possible answers to what people are seeing today. Is it extraterrestrial or someone else's technology? Possibly. Is it military, DOD, Black Project? Possibly. I think it might be the third option, a combination of both. Well, there's a fourth and it's something else I've not even thought of, which is a whole other conversation. We always have to have that as an address. Yeah, there's always, always got to be a possibility we've never even considered. Secret option D. Shelley says, I want to know from David's long time perspective, what does he think about what's happening now in UFO world as compared to what's gone on before? That's a really good question. I'm trying to think how best to, how best to answer that. I still, I still think we have to adhere to basic principles in looking at the subject. Again, as I said, trust but verify. We need to be going out, we need to be interviewing witnesses, we need to continue to be collecting that data and organizations like MUFON and others, both larger groups as well as smaller groups are doing that. We still need to be collecting the data. These are continuing data points as we look at the evolution of the phenomenon. We also have a new era, right? Post internet, now that we're into the internet world, a lot of people are more reliant on just emails and Googling things. I always say with technology, we have such incredible research tools at our disposal now, but technology is a double-edged sword. Do we have iPhones now, right? That can capture things. If we had these March 13th, 1997, when the Phoenix lights happen, we'd have arguably thousands of photos, thousands of videos with metadata that could all be cross-referenced. We need a Phoenix lights incident today with the technology that's now at our disposal. But because we have this technology though, we also have the ability for people to easily fabricate with AI, videos, photographs, documents that can be photographed readily. So I think we still need to have traditional methodologies when we approach photos, videos, documents. I know everybody likes PDFs. One of the reasons we have the record center here is we retain the original documents because arguably, if I digitize this and I upload this, Andy, 20 years from now, someone could logically ask, or even five years from now, okay, I found this document purporting to be a government document, but is it really? How do I know someone didn't create this? Well, the beautiful thing with the original documents from the 50s, 60s, 40s, you can come here and you can test the paper. You can hold it up and look at the watermark on the paper. You can test the ink. Any other number of earmarks, forensic document experts can analyze that and look at that. And there's so many false documents out there, as you know, flooding the field, starting with MJ-12 and just going from there, that we've never even had the original documents. There are photos of purported documents. So I think we need to be very careful. But I think today, as well as decades ago, researchers and enthusiasts need to take a step back and ask themselves some basic fundamental questions, as I do. What is my criteria for assessing UFO data and UFO information? And you should create a list. This is the list that I use as my litmus test for gauging something as being legitimate versus questionable. And questionable doesn't mean it's refuted. It's just it goes into that gray basket. But I think whether it was decades ago or today, regardless of the tools that we're employing, you have to have a fundamental set of criteria for what you deem credible information. And use that as your compass as you wander through this forest we call ufology. And final question from Danny. He says, looking across all the files you've studied and archived, is there a particular time period or region where the reports stand out? That's a really good question, because admittedly, there's hundreds of thousands, like I said. I think, I won't say region, because again, I think we, sometimes we all respectively, from whatever country we're coming from, we kind of take a parochial view of looking at cases in our area. And admittedly, we often have access to more cases in our area than maybe something across the globe. But the things that I really like to look at are, I would say from the 1940s, 50s and 60s, again, because we have that lens of history, and we know what we had at the time as far as military technology. I love the visual radar reports we have from military sources. Those are particularly interesting because, Andy, I've said this for years. If it was just people saying they saw things in the sky, I don't think I'd be here right now. I don't think I would have devoted almost 36 years of my life to the UFO subject. It's because there are objective measures, radar, which even radar can be, as we know, giving you false readings. But the case that I illustrated from Kirtland back in 59, I think is a great one for radar stations tracking something. You have visual sightings as well that might correlate with that. Those are cases that I think really stand very high on the pedestal as far as credibility. And again, looking through the lens of history, 40s, 50s, 60s, you know, you get into the 70s and 80s, the have blue projects, stealth technology, some of that's been declassified. But you could make an argument some of that has not yet been fully declassified. But I really love the 40s, 50s, 60s, as I know our mutual friend Graham Rendell likes those as well. But from military sources with radar confirmation and also visual sightings, not just by civilians, but obviously by trained pilots. We had Alex Dietrich here back in April, of course, one of the pilots with the Tic Tac incident from 2004. And she was here helping represent and promote our archives, but also lecture to the school kids, which we do here as well. And we thought she was really the the definition, the epitome, you might say, of a credible witness in a UFO sighting. And she stated during her presentations to the students and later for the adult audience that we had here with local politicians and school officials. We are trained in a matter of a second or two to identify the profile of an enemy aircraft, to identify the insignia, to identify the profile of any given aircraft, whether it's ours or a foreign adversary's. And we have to do that and assess that in a matter of a second or two, because that second or two could be your life in a real world situation. And so these are individuals highly trained to look for that. But more importantly, one of the adults had asked her, she said, you know, you said that this Tic Tac defied physics. What do you mean by that? And she said, well, as a pilot, we're trained in aerodynamics. We know you have to have a certain amount of air underneath a wing to create lift. You have to have vertical structures to stabilize the aircraft in flight. You have to have thrust. You have to have some type of propulsion. In seeing the object, there was no visible signs of propulsion. There were no wings. There were no stabilizers. Yet this object could make acute high angular moves with no visible form of support based on aerodynamic principles. And even later with the infrared that was recorded, no visible heat signature suggesting afterburners or some type of thrust behind the object. So she said, based on those things, it defied aerodynamic physics as we know it. Yeah. And I think some of those real basics of a case can be forgotten and lost in the need for more, a better video, more testimony, more this. Yeah, but we've got and like you've got right behind you and in multiple boxes all over the place in various locations, there's a lot of evidence. There's a lot of data all saying this already. And at what point is the breaking point of that? And Andy, if I may, I'm just going to turn my camera here. I just want to kind of let you realize that's not just what's behind me. It's what's all the way down this side. And I'll just kind of give you a panoramic here. Just these are all the APRO files. And then on the next wall here, we have all of the Center for UFO Studies, APRO and Heineck files as well. So I just just to give you an appreciation and boxes and boxes of others that we're going to be incorporating into those existing case files and data sets. As I mentioned, what percentage of the archives are in that room with you right now? What percentage of of the overall archives are in that room right now? This is just a one fourth. We have four other large rooms filled with history, books, periodicals, publications. We have an AV room with, as I mentioned, eight millimeter films, 16 millimeter films, photographs, CDs, audio recordings, the reel-to-reels that I mentioned earlier that we're digitizing and digitally remastering. And then we have our sorting room, which, as I said, has about 180 boxes just from Jan Aldridge's collection, but also Antonio Junius' collection, the Timothy Green Beckley collection. We're in the process of finally sorting out. And we're making room because we literally got to organize these, remove any redundant material, because more boxes are going to be coming in. Well, I'm going to ask you to stay another couple of minutes, David, just for folks who pay for the podcast for a little bit of a treat for them. But if anyone's leaving us now on the free feeds, thank you so much. How can people find you, David, and access the content and support what you're doing? Absolutely. Well, first, our organization's website is nufohrc, nationalufohistoricalrecordcenter.org. And that has our website with our mission statement. You can see the team members that are associated with us. Also, and I know this is the shameless pitch, as everyone's always asked, we're a nonprofit. We basically exist and reside based on donations. So if people believe in preserving the history and making it available, if that's something that is near and dear to your heart, then please consider donating a few dollars to help us with our effort. And then I have my personal website, davidmarlarufo.com, where I have some of my own media interviews and other interesting information related to triangular UFOs and other information that I've researched over the years. And I would encourage folks, if they've not already picked up your book, David, estimate of, Christ, where are we? That's an estimate of the situation. Yes, triangular UFOs, an estimate of the situation is the word I was trying to get in there. And they should certainly do so because it's a really good one. And my copy of it is pristine because I've looked after it so well, much like David is doing with those files over there. So if you're leaving us, thank you, folks. Otherwise, stick around for another couple of minutes. That is all for this episode. Thank you very much for tuning in. Don't forget to leave the podcast a review on your chosen platform. Apple and Spotify do make a huge difference to the algorithm. If you're checking the show on YouTube, please don't forget to like and leave a comment on here as well. Any sharing you do is very much appreciated on any social media platform. And finally, you can listen to shows ad-free and sponsor-free in their glorious full versions by subscribing for less than the price of a coffee on Apple, Spotify, just search That UFO Podcast Premium. YouTube, you can sign up and be a member or you can do that through patreon.com. Thank you very much for listening, folks.