First Contact, Science & Skepticism: Becky Ferreira on Aliens, UAP & Human Obsession

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One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business. Whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. So you can focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Hi everyone, and welcome back to That UFO Podcast. My guest today is a science reporter interested in space, dinosaurs, ancient cultures, cool rocks, and lying motionless on couches. She is a contributor to the New York Times, Wired, and Nat Geo. Among others, she writes the abstract column for 404 Media, and she lives with humans and felines in Ithaca, New York. I'd like to welcome to the podcast, Becky Ferreira. Becky, welcome. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Good to have you on. And any slander within that bio is all from Becky's book that we're here to discuss. So I've not just said she's lazy and likes lying about on couches, but who doesn't? So yeah, Becky, your book, First Contact, the story of our obsession with aliens. You've got your copy there. I've got my copy here. There you go. Nice. All right. And if you're on the audio, that was a total waste of time holding those up. But everyone on YouTube got to see it. But yeah, we've got a good hour here to chat about the book. You're a science writer. As a total layman, as I am with most things in life, what's a science writer, as obvious as that may sound? Oh, yeah. It's trying to just communicate the kind of findings that are coming out of the scientific sphere in research or in experimentation and just trying to break them down. And oftentimes, they're very filled with this scientific vernacular that can be hard to parse. So I see my role as trying to help the public understand some of these findings, what their implications are, and also just kind of bring them into the debates that go on in science. I think that's really important to always be. Most scientific studies or topics are not monolithic in that there's a lot of argument on a lot of things. So I like to be able to remind people that it's a very bombastic kind of sphere a lot of the time. So bring them into the arguments that are happening in that sphere. So that's sort of what I see my role in. And, you know, science writers, science reporters, they have their own beats. I've been doing the Search for Life beat for about 10 or 15 years now and just astronomy in general for a long time. So I'm really excited to get into that with you. What's your background and speciality? Do you have one? Is it astronomy you've just mentioned there? I did. Well, I tried to be an astronomer, but I was very bad at data entry and calculus, which is kind of like a big, you know, that's a bottleneck for people trying to go in there. Yeah. But actually, you know, I always I always actually kind of my main passion was wanting to be a science fiction writer. One day I was always interested in the topic. So I ended up doing an English degree in a creative writing MFA to get into more of that track. And I think it worked out really well because that's much more my skill set. And it also means that I can kind of parachute down into everybody's unique little world and just kind of take their topics and write about them. And you don't have to ever choose. Right. It's it's a way to kind of see all of these cool stories from like stories about dinosaurs to stories about space. So so, yeah, I started that way and been reporting for for about 15 years in those different beats. And just it's a it's a wonderful job and a great, you know, gives you a rosy view of humanity a lot of the time because there's so much clever and ingenuity going on all over the place. So what's your earliest memory with the UFO topic that perhaps sparked an interest in it for you? Totally. Well, I was always kind of tangentially interested, but I was frankly intimidated because it's so it's so big. Right. Like I didn't want you know, it's hard to have a easy entry point. And because my skill set as a reporter is is adjudicating scientific results that tend to be from institutions that have already peer reviewed those results. It's more that's that's more of a niche skill set. Whereas like if you're in the UFOlogical community or the UFO community or whatever, that's like I think people who investigate that stuff have a different they have to go out and and meet these people, be on site, do ethnographic kind of reporting and things like that. So I always found it really interesting, but was just not my thing. And then I think the real, you know, like a lot of people, the Pentagon UAP videos coming out in 2017. Now, we can get into it later, but like I don't see convincing evidence. They're necessarily alien. However, no question that they're incredibly weird. And so I just and also, you know, kind of contributes to this. The fact that they were leaked and the fact that I think after that there was much more of a change in the US government's posture of being like, well, we can't just continue to shut this down all the time and we need to like talk about this topic and the fact that we have had active research into this topic for a long time. That's what really interests me. Um, and, uh, and, and that's still what, you know, in terms of like my, uh, you know, reporting when it does touch on UAP, it's like, what are these, how do we assess like the sources and possible, um, you know, explanations for these really, truly tantalizing sightings. Your approach then to this topic, because I have guests on here who people know are experiencers or they are witnesses or they are whistleblowers from the government or they've worked in programs or claim to have done these things. You're coming on here with none of that. What, what's Becky's kind of quick crash course thoughts on the UFO topic then? If someone was to ask you, what do you think about all this UFO stuff? I think it's all really interesting, but I don't see from my vantage point, like proof of extraterrestrial stuff. And I know that, you know, this is a snowballing subject. Obviously the age of disclosure just came out. I still want more than that. Like I, I, I kind of feel like there's a, do you know the term tickle true thing where it's like, there's just like a little bit of this kind of speculation. And I, and I, I, I would, I don't know what the process has to be for them to, if they're saying that there's been this giant coverup of, uh, alien visitation or something like that, then I, I, I think that we would need more proof of that. Um, I understand like it is a proof, like there, there is, um, you know, the fact that people are on the record now saying this kind of thing that's really tantalizing, but I want to see more than that. So for me, um, I still am like very agnostic towards it. Uh, and given the history of how, I think that the entire history of the, of the UFO community is amazing and interesting, um, going back to, you know, uh, Kenneth Arnold and, and the, the 1947 kind of flourishing of this whole community. Um, but you know, when you see in the nineties, a lot of these admissions that the U S government makes about Roswell, about the whole project mogul thing. And then also, um, that they were like lying to people that had seen things, right. But they were, they had seen these kinds of experimental spy craft and they would, you know, the government didn't want those secrets to be exposed. So they would say, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, you didn't see that. Right. So there is like, I do think an explanation that is plausible of, this is just more of the same thing. Like many of these really strange sightings, um, could be in, in 30 years, oh, we lied about that to be, but we knew what that was. Right. So that's the most parsimonious explanation for me right now that having been said, you know, there's been all of these interesting studies over the past couple of years, like NASA's UAP study where they will say, you know, there's a handful of these, uh, sightings that are just not, they don't have a good explanation for what that is, but I don't, I take that as there's lots of things in the universe that I report on that they don't know what it is. Right. Like that are just probably natural phenomenon. Right. So it's like, I can't make the jump next to the next step, um, that it's, uh, evidence of something supernatural, alien, anything. Um, so that's sort of where my vantage point is, but, um, I'm interested in your thoughts on it though. Oh God. Um, so yeah, that's the whole podcast, I suppose, that has been five and a half years of people listening to my thoughts for some reason, um, just before we get to your book then. So I, I agree with some of what you said, and I think there's a lot of logic in what you say and your approach to it. And I think it's what sometimes folks struggle to understand that the general public at large don't all just have a huge interest in this. And there are, there's a spectrum of opinion from, you could ask your average Joe in the street, you, what do you think of aliens? And you'll get them, people will say, do you know what? Yeah, probably walk amongst us and go on about their life. Yeah. And then you've got other folks who utter nonsense, total crap, don't believe it. And then you've got everything else in the middle of it. And I think that's all fair opinion. Um, I think that the subject is still massively stigmatized for lots of different reasons. Um, even with the whole UEP rebranding that happened recently to try and help reduce some of that stigma, perhaps. Um, I think there is perhaps of any sightings, stories, whatever, 90 to 95% of them misidentifications, nonsense, lies, coverups, et cetera. But I think there's 5% that are truly anomalous. Um, and really interestingly, I mean, in your book, and let's get into the book and this will kind of segue in, I think nicely. You, you have a new opening couple of pages. It mentions alien is from the Latin alias, which means other. And for me, that's how I try and get people I know in my day-to-day life to think about the topic. Don't dive in with, there are flying saucers coming from different planets. Cause actually for a lot of folks, that explanation doesn't wash anymore and is actually one of the more boring, believe it or not, explanations for what that could be going on. So I think if you take a step back and look at other, which is literally from, from your point, the definition of the word alien, let's take away the connotations of what alien means and just talk about something non-human or something else. I think that's a really good place to start the conversation. And for me, putting that to you then as a scientist, does that allow you to think a little bit more openly and colleagues of yours, perhaps on the topic when you can remove that, okay, I'm not talking about flying saucers and aliens I'm talking about, there might be something else. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and it's interesting because, um, you know, I, because I write about the subject, I get a lot of emails from people who have various theories and have had experiences, right. Where they believe that they've seen aliens where they, you know, so, uh, and it could be everything from, as you mentioned, like the classic definition we have now of like a life form from another planet. Um, or it could be interdimensional or some kind of quantum thing or a spiritual thing or some telepathic presence that you don't know where it's from. And so for me, I, it's not really, I don't think I have a closed mind to it. I just really don't think I can, it's just not my skillset to, to, to adjudicate it. Like it's, it's all interesting. And I don't take away, I don't think people like, I'm not going to call people liars, but I don't know how to, uh, verify that with the skillset I have. So, um, what I think is, you know, interesting to me is just that, um, aliens in however you want to kind of think of them, anything that's another, that is such a entry. People come to that and interest in that, uh, through so many entry points, right. You have, uh, I'm interested in it from the scientific search for life point of view. Um, and just because I think that would be a data point that we really need to fill in in our universe to understand ourselves and the universe. Right. Um, but you know, obviously this is a, this is probably one of the most universal topics of interest, not just today, but going back tens of thousands of years. I think every, every culture is really interested in, uh, what is out there in space, what, and tell stories about what might be there. So for me, it's, uh, I wanted to write this book partly to start getting people from different communities talking about it and sharing these ideas. And I, and I want to say also, I agree, uh, with your point that the stigmatization of it, uh, is, has been hugely damaging and there is certainly an effort to reverse that. But I think you're totally right that it's like, it's still kind of seen as fringe, even as the, as, uh, the topic gets more mainstream, it's still sort of got that, that stigma to it. And, um, I think that has been like incredibly damaging, uh, not just for the community that, that have these experiences and things, but you know, for a long time, science couldn't, couldn't get fun. Scientists couldn't get funding a lot in the late 20th century. Right. This was a big problem. If you wanted to study the scientific search for life and just try to think about how you would do that, that was not, that was seen as too fringe. Uh, so it really actually kind of, uh, you know, arrested and, and caused like a big, I'm trying to think of the word, like, yeah, just a slowdown. And that whole field, which I think is a, uh, was a loss for everybody. Um, so I don't know if that answered your question, but, um, yeah, yeah. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you're drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. And it starts to get into the book. And again, from a scientific point of view, before I started the podcast, I was quite a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I would quite often go to bed with StarTalk radio in the background because I listen to podcasts as I go to sleep. And I think as I got more and more interested, and no, I was already into the topic, but doing the podcast as things progressed, and I paid more attention to folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson and how we'd speak about the topic, I became really disappointed. You'll know Professor Brian Cox in the UK, who, again, really clever guy, really great speaker, very charismatic, again, can be rather detrimental about the UFO conversation. And even if we forget the UFO conversation, but just the idea about life being out there in the universe, there's almost an arrogance sometimes of how they come across that there's too many gaps that would explain why there could be something else out there or something visiting us. But I look at it and go, but I'm quite happy as a layman in the scientific field to hear phrases like dark matter, dark energy, black holes, what's inside a black hole, and it's all hypotheses, and it's all ideas, and they can't prove any of this right now. I imagine one day, perhaps we will. The scientific community seem really comfortable with making up what is the likeliest thing to fit a model. Even if you want to go back to the Big Bang and, you know, creationism, all that kind of stuff, the arguments there. Yet, when it comes to the idea that we're seeing something, and you've said this yourself, there's clearly something that people are seeing. A lot of folks are seeing the 2017 videos, whatever you want to call them, there's probably something strange in those videos and other videos we're not hearing about. Congressmen and women, senators are seeing things in behind closed doors briefings that they're coming out and going, I can't explain what I just saw. So when folks say this could be something else, it could be that settee, it could be that other life, the scientific community largely seem to struggle with that as one of those gaps. And I suppose that disappoints and confuses me slightly. Is that fair? Yeah. But if I may take the defense, you know, of the scientific community, I think it's certainly a very common posture. And one of the things I think with what you're saying with, you know, Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson, there, I just, I just think that even if you want to persuade people that, you know, you have this point of view that UFOs are not alien or whatever, and, and you want to really, you don't do that by like being condescending to people. And I think that's been one of the biggest problems. And that is very rife. I think that attitude, I think it's totally fair as a criticism of, of the scientific sector in general, that there is like a looking down and like brush that away. Um, and so I think you need, you, you have to use argument to do it. Now, when you, when you say things like, um, the scientists are just making up dark matter and dark energy and black holes and things like that, that's, they have observational evidence of these things. They just, uh, and I don't think any scientists would say that they're just trying to like make up concepts like with, with dark matter, it's, it's, it's clearly some kind of thing that doesn't interact with light, just makes it really hard to know what it is. Um, uh, but we can see that it's affecting, uh, you know, we can see that it's a massive thing that's affecting things. Um, and you know, this is sometimes like a topic of, of humor and jokes within science that, you know, something like dark energy, that's, we don't know what that is. We just slapped that term on there because it's just clearly something's making the universe expand. Right. So, um, so I don't, I don't think that most scientists, I don't think would claim that, um, that they're trying to just like make up stuff, but it's like things that things like black holes, we are beginning to get this amazing observational evidence from gravitational waves and things like that, which just recently, uh, confirmed some very like longstanding theories. But I, but I, I think, you know, if scientists are out there saying like that people, uh, people's experiences of what they consider to be alien or things like that, and they're brushing it off. And I just don't think that's a productive way to start the conversation because nobody is going to be like, Oh, I, I, that scientists told me I didn't see that or whatever. Right. That now I'm fine. Right. That just kind of engenders more of this feeling of like, uh, resentment over being stigma of the topic being stigmatized. So I hope that there's more of what we've seen. I think that, you know, um, it's, it's, it's hard when there's such a history of, uh, of covering up these topics and, and, and the government saying that they're not studying it when they are and things like that. So it's hard to like, just shift in posture and be like, okay, well, everything's all hunky dory. Right now that said, I think it is good that, you know, NASA has like made this independent study about UAP that they're trying to be like, okay, well, this should be in our realm of study as a serious scientific topic. And then you see, even, you know, like, you know, uh, there are, uh, scientists working on like anomalous materials from crafts, from, you know, things like that, where it's like, it is, I think, um, there's a loosening even in, uh, the scientific sphere about it. That said, there's, there's just still, there's still so much stigma. And I think it's a case by case basis. I think, you know, when you have things like the, um, the interstellar object conversation that has happened, I understand scientists points by about this, like, yes, it's good to speculate, but also I think because it's, everybody wants things to be alien. It is like, it's hard for a scientist who is trying to present a non-biological explanation for an interstellar object to get through the noise, even if that explanation is really good. You know what I mean? So I think it's, it's something that we're all kind of navigating together in a landscape where aliens are just, everybody's interested in them. If you, if you say it's aliens, everyone's going to want that to be the, the theory, right? So it's hard with that bias. Yeah. Yeah. Um, let me give you a, you said, uh, was speaking to Jim Harald, who's got a great podcast himself. Um, science as an institution can be led down false paths all the time. Very true. And I think that's my frustration that science for me, I remember being in school and having some really great science teachers. I was really interested in multiple different disciplines and it was all about wonder and excitement. And I remember, I can't remember the guy's name for the love of me, but he was always so excited about the subject and how it was like, you can find things and discover things and you test things and you're wrong and you're wrong and you're wrong. And eventually you can prove things either way potentially. And I feel that gets lost because it happens so often in science. That's the whole point, isn't it? You, you have a hypothesis, you test it and you prove it either way and you move on from there. And it seems like in the UFO, UFO topic is no different. I will say right now, you asked me earlier, Becky, about my, my thoughts. Here's one of them. If tomorrow the white, we'll do the old bait, the old dull white house lawn, they roll out the alien and the alien standing there next to the current US government as, as funny as that would look. Um, and they go, here's the aliens and we're chatting to them. I reckon a really high percentage of all the different hypotheses about aliens and UFOs and experiences would fall by the wayside because you find out actually none of that was true, but here's the percentage of things that are one of my favorite, do you watch Family Guy? Oh, it's been a while, but I know it. Yeah. One of the classic ones is, is it, um, is it Jesus or God comes down and basically says to the humans, okay, who was, uh, the Buddhists were right. It was the Buddhists. And it's like, yes. And everyone else is like, ah, and it's like, you don't know that that ends up being the case where, do you know what? You've all got all these different beliefs and your book does that really well, that it, it touches on religion and different, uh, it touches on interstellar objects and there's a whole who-hat around that just now. It feels very up to date and I know it's just been written, but it feels like something, it's very current and I really appreciated that, especially you mentioned those interstellar objects. And we had Oumuamua, which was the famous one that got Avi Loeb the attention. I've spoken to Avi on multiple occasions. Me too. And then this Theia Atlas situation has come around and for me, people want to see something that's not there. It's a comet. It's an interesting comet. Or actually I heard someone the other day say it's more of an asteroid than a comet, et cetera. But you know, it's a big rock in space. It is. Yeah. It's not being piloted by aliens. Probably not. But like you said, I would love to be wrong. I am really happy to have that egg on my face. Really happy for everything to be aliens, but they're not. But that's why I think it's so important that the real credible stuff when it comes to the UFO topic does get spotlighted. And the big issue there for me, and this will, you'll appreciate this even as a journalist, a writer, from a scientific point of view, is funding, it's so difficult for people to study and test. I've interviewed some of those very folks who have those anomalous materials, people like Professor Gary Nolan, and they'll tell you, it's not easy to just go, I've got this chunk of metal, I put it under a microscope, and oh, yep, it's alien. That's not how science works. I couldn't even tell you how to test an alloy or a metal or a piece of something. It's just, again, skill sets, wheelhouses, time, funding. So that's really important to me. But writing the book for you from beginning to end, was there anything for you that changed perhaps in your thinking around the UFO topic that, and it could go either way, maybe you had a positive spin on one aspect of it that changed to a negative or vice versa? That's such a great question. You know, I think it kind of, I wanted to do a primer of everything and of just to be really a short book that also introduces anyone who's come into this topic from one angle to all the other angles. So that was my mingle. I think what kind of surprised me was just like how universal it really is. And the more I looked into, you know, the history of writings about aliens and related topic, just the idea of anything that's out there, right? Aliens once were, the place they occupy now was once occupied by divinities and star gods and things like that, right? So that really kind of made me, I guess I was always kind of tangentially aware, but really confirmed that this is just some kind of basic human obsession that I don't really have the right, you know, I wrote the book and that's the title, but I don't really know why we are so uniquely on this planet. You know, there's lots of intelligent species on this planet, but we're the only one that really is so interested in that and seems to be universally interested in that. And, you know, humans, we're not universally interested in much, right? We've got a couple core interests like food, shelter and aliens. And so I think that was what really surprised me was just like the, you know, having had this very kind of small subset that I'm in and doing mostly like these astrobiology missions and things like that and the SETI searches. The more I looked into the fascinating history of UFO, I already had the expectation that there would be like, I didn't think that people were crazy. Like I already kind of had an expectation. I bet the government's lying about this a little bit. And then, so that was confirmed, but for the extent of it was interesting to me, the more I got into it, the more I was like, this was just such a series of bad moves. Um, and, uh, so I would say that was what really was, was so interesting to me was just to see that there's so many entry points to it and it really is like something that's common to us all. Yeah. Um, something that's kind of came around while you've been writing the book or even as it was probably sent to your publisher, final drafts. And again, having done a book myself, I can appreciate the process and everything that goes along with it. Um, uh, Beatrice Villarreal, who, uh, has kind of hit the headlines in the last couple of years, uh, has done some wonderful work on astronomical transients. And I'd love to get your take on this. Cause for me, it's one of those things, and I mean this in the nicest way, it's boring or dull enough, I think for scientists to look at it and perhaps be interested because it's a really basic idea that here are some pictures of stars and here are the same pictures a couple of months later, they should be the same things are missing. And I think that's a really easy concept for even your average members of the public like myself to, to pick up and go, Oh, something's moved. Something's disappeared. Stars shouldn't do that on mass. Like they have, what are your, what's your take on that work that's happening with Dr. Villarreal? It's so funny that you say that. So I haven't gone deep into it, but it's, I have it as my side tab. Like I want to do a story about this at some point. So I'm not, I'm not super well versed on it, but I thought, first of all, the experimental method was really interesting that she did. And, and I, like you say, the idea of comparing the post-Sputnik sky with the, with the earlier sky is just really an interesting way to look for techno signatures. I know that there are lots of scientists who have weighed in on what could be some natural explanation for that, but they, I haven't read deeply on it. So I can't, so I'm sorry. That's, but I, but I know that there's a couple, a space reporter, Jonathan Callahan is really good. He has written, he's written a piece about this that I recommend people just look up that kind of shows the debate playing out about it. I think that's like, one of the things I liked about her study though, just as like, that is such a new way to try to look for things. And I think because in the conversation about interstellar objects, you know, Oumuamua was genuinely weird. It's hard to explain anyway. Right. It's like, there's the natural explanations. I think the scientists who have put them up are still like, we think it's natural, but like this was a really strange object. So, um, I think over time, you know, we have just had the Vera Rubin observatory come online and that is going to be very specialized to seeing these objects. Uh, so, but in five years, I think we'll have a much bigger sample size of interstellar objects to make those kind of, uh, those kind of, uh, uh, judgments on whether you do yet, like, what if there is some, something that looks like an artifact, right? Yeah. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I, I don't want to spout off too much about it cause I haven't done the research into it, but I thought it was such an interesting idea. And I do think it's, it's great. It's another example of exactly what you're talking about, right? That like, this is a serious topic that can be looked at from scientific vantage point. Um, and, uh, we need more creative ways to try to do that. Uh, cause how, how crazy would it be if we found out that, you know, there's artifacts been floating through our solar system as a matter of course, right? So yeah. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you're drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. So you can focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. The Oumuamua stuff, right, really interesting. And again, for me, if you're asking me to put money on it, it's a rock floating through space. Yeah, me too, yeah. But it has interesting properties. Same with 3i Atlas. And I don't think I have to keep caveating it. And I'm sure you'd be the same, Becky. If everything turned out to be aliens and UFOs, phenomenal, excellent, brilliant. You know, maybe I become famous and a millionaire overnight and everyone starts watching UFO podcasts and stuff. And everyone picks up your book, right? Maybe that's what happens. And everyone listening to this and watching this, you can go and start your own shows. You'll be so well known amongst your friends who slated you for years for being involved in this topic. However, you know, that's blue sky thinking. But these objects are doing things that are strange and are getting people's attention. But a lot of that is down to the fact that they're the first ones we have seen. Oumuamua was the first. The second, was it the stuff that landed in the ocean? I can't remember the second one. I always get that. But I know Three-Eye Atlas has a three because it's the third. Yeah. Do you mean the interstellar? The second? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the two that Avi Loeb has said. There's been apparently some meteors that have hit Earth that are possibly matching. Avi was going under the water. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then he was looking for that. Yeah. I don't think they have been fully confirmed to be interstellar meteors. But the evidence for it was that they were going really, really fast. But yeah, my point being that we're finding this stuff for the first time. And we're now getting our heads around how do we study this stuff? It tends to be really far away given the nature of what we're looking at. You're looking at points of light. You're trying to find this stuff. You're trying to be proactive rather than reactive. But the early ones will always be reactive. The Eye Atlas is strange in that we've had such a long time comparatively to look at it from the others. And it's almost like a new, maybe not a new science, but we're looking at new approaches, new equipment, new sensors, new sets of data. So we're seeing things that we're going, wow, that's really odd or wow, that's really strange. Obviously, some folks want to jump on the alien bandwagon. Other scientists will have all different hypotheses. Are we starting to open the door that the public scientists may start allowing or entertaining more of those stranger conversations? Because we are starting to see into the universe, into the galaxy, into the solar system in more detail with better equipment. And it's opening up things we didn't know were there. We didn't know things would act this way. The supernatural becomes the natural. And I'm not necessarily saying ghosts, but just things that we were like, wow, that's totally unheard of, unseen. We start to understand more. Is that conversation starting to happen? Yeah, I would push back against the supernatural becoming natural because I think the supernatural is such a charged term that people tend to... So I think it's more that the natural is stranger than you expect. I don't think it's necessarily... Yeah, great way to put it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's certainly that the universe is always surprising, right? It's a really difficult one to pin down. Even I hurt my head when I think about the universe not having an end. Yeah, I know, I'm right. The idea that you get to a point where, oh, is that the last star that I've just gone past? And then it's nothing, but then what is nothing for infinity? Like, how does it keep going? That is just mind-blowing for me. And science hasn't answered those questions. Like, we don't know what the universe is, right? Like, a fundamental question. What is it? We don't know. So, yeah, I think that there is a opening, you know, but I'm not sure that's like a new thing. That's just kind of, as our instrumentation and our theory gets better, it always happens that way, right? That people discover, you know, it was a huge surprise when they discovered that the universe was expanding in the early 20th century, right? That was, everyone thought it was static. Einstein thought it was static. It was a really big revelation. So, it's, I think there's always, and then, you know, you get the quantum mechanics, kind of quantum physics thing in the mid-century. What? You know, that was like, how is this? It's still such a mind-bending idea that we have these two systems with quantum mechanics and, you know, Newtonian physics that, how are they coexisting? They're completely different, like, but they apparently coexist somehow. So, I think in that way, that's like, I hope that's like, I think that's what you're getting at is that, like, it's not supernatural in the sense of, like, a lot of these, a lot of people that email me have, are hooked into something that I just don't see in my regular life where they actually have these kind of experiences that I just, I think I told Jim Harreld too, like, I don't, the supernatural doesn't mess with me. I've never had that kind of experience. I'm not saying other people are wrong. I'm just like, it doesn't mess with me. But I think that there is more of an openness to certainly the idea that UFOs should be taken seriously, UAPs should be taken seriously. That is definitely, you know, a big thing. And then, yeah, and, you know, there's the whole, you know, universe coming through, like, this idea that we've got pieces of anything coming from other star systems is so novel. And, you know, people thinking that there might be a ninth planet in the solar system, you know, really far, like, all of this stuff is revolutionary. So, but I think it's just par for the course for science, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, of course. And I wonder then, you've touched on this, the government's involvement now in the UFO topic. And this is a big one for me when folks are maybe skeptical or perhaps even really debunkery with the topic will talk about the cover-up aspect of it, which is, you know, why would they be lying? Then they're just covering up X, Y, and Z. And it's funny, like, the Roswell cover-up, people forget the very first thing that the government put out was they had retrieved a flying saucer. That was them. They said, we've got a flying saucer. They then corrected themselves to say, oh, wait, no, it was a weather balloon, okay? So it wasn't like they came out initially with the cover-up. They had the story of, we found one thing. They went, oh, wait, no, actually it was something totally different. That raises an eyebrow immediately. But, of course, then from that, I think, personally, the U.S. government learned to cover this up, how to do it, how to do it well. And I think we're probably in an age of 20, 25. I always like to use the example of COVID. I think people naturally are happy to divide themselves these days into tribes. And you get folks who like to push back against the common threads. And people like to be anti-authoritarian. And, you know, I disagree. I won't do this. And, again, I think if COVID happened again tomorrow, for the love of God, please don't, although I did enjoy being stuck indoors, if COVID happened again tomorrow, I think you would get a real split of half the people would follow the rules and half wouldn't, at least. And I think that's the way the world goes. So, you've got the U.S. government now coming out and saying after decades, actually, we did have an interest in this whole UAP UFO thing. And we have been studying it and we have funded it. Now you've got whistleblowers coming out saying, actually, the programs go quite deep. There are such things as legacy crash retrieval programs. The Chinese have them. The Russians have them. A big reason. And this is something I never actually heard on the Jim Harald interview, but I heard you touch on. And I don't know. So apologies if you did. But the reason for covering these up would probably be the technology and the military industrial complex not wanting the Russians, the Chinese to have it. The U.S. want to have this for themselves. That, to me, makes sense. Frustrating as it is. So what's your take on this modern situation where we have congressional hearings, senators talking about this, Marco Rubio, who is now pretty high up in the Trump administration, talking about this subject really seriously. And these folks coming forward who are in pretty serious positions, talking about non-human biologics, recovered craft. How does that impact your thinking? Yeah. No, I think it's really, it's a good move. Like I said, I think it's still a bit awkward because people don't trust the government for good reasons. So it makes it the source, you know, and I have a little bit of that, too. Because as much as it's been great to see these hearings happen and to see the conversation be taken seriously, I don't like the term non-human biological material. I think that's incredibly vague and confusing. And I think it's salacious and inflammatory. That doesn't mean alien. And they say that as if they're winking that it's extraterrestrial or something that's supernatural or something like that. They know that that's a weird thing to say without telling us what that actually means. Like that could be anything that's earthly, right? Do you have, I know you've kind of touched on it. Why do you think they've said that? I don't know. Oh, I wish I could know. And, you know, I mostly, you know, my reporting is mostly scientists. I don't have deep sources in the government. So I do. I want to get better at doing freedom of information request acts and getting some of these things and trying to find workarounds for that kind of thing. But that's, again, you know, everybody's got their own beat. And there's some really good reporters who are who are great at getting those sources inside the government. And obviously now you have people saying things, but I don't know what the motivation is. I'm not saying it's it's necessarily malign. I just don't like that. It's like if you're going to dance around the topic, then you may as well not have the conversation at all because you're making everybody confused. And including me, like, I don't know what I can't report on non-biological, you know, material and spacecraft or non-human spacecraft. Like, what am I supposed to do with that? Like, you know, so I wish it would be like I hope that people who are interested in this topic coalesce around trying to get their governments to provide substantial proof to this. Now, I know, obviously, with the U.S. government, especially like that is very difficult. There are so many things that are top secret, even from the Apollo age that are not, you know, I have no hope that they're going to be declassified anytime soon. But that's I don't I don't think it's productive. A lot of these conversations. I think it's great that there are people in Congress and I'm not actually I'm not sure what the U.K. situation is like and or the, you know, the one that's very, very quiet. There should I think that it should be something that is taken seriously by by governments. Right. Like so and the interest in it is so immense. But, you know, the lesson from history is tread carefully on this. And I think, you know, you can see that in the conversations that scientists have as well. Like I touched on the book on the fact that, like, there's a lot of conversation to how you would actually communicate to the public a pretty unambiguous signal of alien life somewhere. If we got like a beacon or something like that, you know, you need to be transparent and clear. And that's a big thing that scientists believe. But I don't see that reflected in a lot of these hearings. I see dancing around this kind of topic that and it makes me feel like I can't report it responsibly because there's not enough information to tell people what's going on. Is that fair? Like what do you think about it? It's totally fair. You mentioned towards the end of the book, and I'll paraphrase around as much as the book's about aliens and obsession with aliens, it's about humanity and humans. And I think there's an element of human nature comes to play in this that I suppose, look at it this way. If I worked for NASA and we found something really interesting and let's forget the conspiracy stuff. I work for NASA. We're genuinely looking for, you know, extraterrestrial life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We find something, the James Webb, and you come to me one day across my desk and Becky and go, well, the James Webb's found something. And we're really excited. And, you know, I don't want to put a number on it, but, you know, 99.9% is we have something really cool here. But we're NDA'd for six months. Are you telling me that if you're at a party or with friends or family, you've got your NDA and you're hit with the national security stuff, all that kind of thing, you know. And, you know, in six months time, we're going to announce we've found technosignatures on another planet, okay, that you wouldn't be hinting or you would change how you speak. And you would probably try and talk about it while talking around it. I think I would. And I think that's human nature. So then I think you've got these folks in the government. And again, the government is an umbrella term because the government isn't an entity. It's not a thing. It's offices and buildings spread throughout all the states, different people with different narratives, agendas, and all that kind of stuff. So I always hate using the term the government. But you now have individuals in some departments and compartments who are starting to come out and talk about this. Maybe they're all bullshitting. That's always, you know, I'll always put my hands up to that. But a David Grush, I know you've spoken about him before with Jim and others, really interesting character, speaks incredibly well. And for me, the options there are he is lying. He believes what he's saying, but it's not true. Or he is potentially telling some kind of truth. And he's trying to talk about it in a way that he knows he can legally and personally. And I'm leaning towards that with David Grush for multiple reasons. But even just the fact, look at the pushback that's happened against him since he's came out. And surely if there's nothing there, if there is no there there, if you've heard that phrase, there being a there there. If there's nothing there, if there's nothing to this, then he's just a crazy guy who's come out from a really senior position at a relatively young age. He's like, I think he's the same age as me. He's like 39 years old, 40 years old. His whole career ahead of him. I imagine his salary was was decent. I'm guessing better than me and you get combined, probably at that level of U.S. government. You know, when you're briefing to come out and start talking about essentially aliens. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Well, is he talking about essentially aliens? Because he's one of the ones that I really can't figure out. And I didn't find that his hearing helpful from a reporting standpoint, because I felt like if he is risking his career and future to divulge these secrets, then that's a heroic thing to do. But I just I like I that was the one that really flummoxed me because I felt like it was hinting at something that it wouldn't provide proof to ground truth to. Right. And I don't know what position he's in. I don't know if he's under an NDA or what he can and can't do. You probably know better than me about about the back story there. But and I'm not going to like speak to his motivations or whether he's I don't think I doubt he's lying. But maybe he has seen something that he didn't see the depth of the research or something like that. I don't know. I just I just don't find it helpful. And I think, you know, in that that's one of the reasons why I brought up the plans from the scientific sphere. Their big thing is like, yeah, we need to make sure it's legit. But also, as soon as possible, this needs to be public. Like they are very clear in the guidelines if there is an alien beacon is very clearly artificial immediately. Like it wouldn't it might come out in a preprint. Right. Like they might not even wait for it to go through peer review or something like that in an institutional journal system. They might they really want to. And in that case, they would say, hey, this is preliminary. But the public needs to know this is like their best our best thing that we've ever found for alien life. Right. That's I understand the government is under more constraints. And in fact, like there are some ways that I kind of when I see things like Project Mogul with Roswell, I'm kind of like I understand where they're coming from. Like you don't want people to know that the Soviets are going to blow up nuclear bombs in the atmosphere. And that's but it's also like as a reporter, I think the public can take this kind of thing. And I think that, you know, I come down on the side that they should have been honest from the beginning about that, because I think people kind of underestimate what the public can take. But but but, you know, I I get that the government has to has these responsibilities to national security and things like that. I just I am I am just kind of waiting for them to try to, you know, to say something clear. And I can't report on stuff that is, you know, speculation or claims that are not that don't have documentation behind them. Well, I'm happy to have the egg on my face. I really am. I'm not I'm just not I'm just I just don't know how to educate this kind of information. That's all. Yeah, cool. So you get invited to the White House tomorrow and you're in the press room and you're kind of what we're here for. And they come out and say, Becky, what would help you? Obviously, we're not going to come out and say, do you want a tour of Area 51? OK, but for reporting this topic, they say we want to be more transparent. We want to help folks like you who are reporting to a general public, a mass audience who aren't necessarily all UFO fans, but you've got that reach. What would help you get that story out, which is realistic? Well, I mean, what is what is this non-human biological material? What does that mean? Like, be clear about your terms. What if there's people saying, as they do in Age of Disclosure, there's been a long cover up of alien visitation. When? Why? Examples like specific things. You don't have to divulge anything, everything, but I mean, I would like if they did, but you know what I mean? But like examples, you know, and things that can be that can have scientific teams that specialize in that kind of work to go like Gary Nolan or someone like that. Right. To go and like actually look at it and preferably scientific teams that already were looking at it, that they can release some preliminary results on. Right. So that's the kind of stuff that's like not been forthcoming and which is why I'm still very much, you know, agnostic toward the whole idea, because just like in the past, it has turned out to be a lot of these things have turned out to be human in origin. Um, so the not, yeah, I just, I just, um, I, I, I'm not happy about the tiptoeing around. Like, and you know what I could spend an hour just probably going back and forward, telling you either stuff I know, or some of those gaps you have talked about in your own skill set, your wheelhouse, that would probably fill in some of those. But as a very quick aside, I think the common understanding, and I know there's a few different competing things, the reason David Grush is saying things like non-human biologics is, and it's the same argument that why Arrow are saying they have no evidence of ET or extraterrestrial life, is because technically they don't. Because if they did have an alien body, they can look at it and go, this isn't human, because of obvious features, the way it looks, whatever it may be. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload. No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process, so you can focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. But unless they know exactly where it's came from, and they maybe actually don't, as in we don't know what planet this is from, or how to get where this is from, that's why he leads with non-human biologics. Because, and I think you even touched on this with Jim Harald, that they maybe don't know. I would probably put a good summation that that's correct, that whoever does within the U.S. government cover this up, a very small group of people, probably know less than everyone thinks. They do know there's something. They do know it's not human. They probably have a rough idea of our origin. But in terms of, can we go where it's from? Probably not. So that's perhaps where, again, Pentagon statements around, we have no evidence of ETE or extraterrestrial visitation. Because technically, they're not lying. But non-human, then even that goes down the route of, and this will be frustrating for you, okay, well, what's non-human? Is it native to the planet, but in the future, or the past, or it's actually native to the planet now, but is under the water? I know that's something Congressman Tim Burchett has been championing quite recently. He's been told that of various folks. And it goes into, probably for your second book, Becky, the idea of underwater bases and all that kind of stuff. Really interesting ideas. And I think that is one thing that would scare the public. If you told them, not that there are things out there, but there are things here. And they are much closer than, I think that would cause a panic. But, yeah, I think that's, for me, the reason behind the whole non-human biologics argument. Yeah, but in that case, why not then be even more specific about what it is? You know what I mean? I feel like he must know that that is going to be taken as a mission about aliens. Even if he's being careful with his words, right? Like, I just, and I think the same, I have the same problem with that as with everything. Well, if it's not human biological material, like, can you tell us anything else? Like, what is it? But that's where we get frustrated. That's where when I'm watching these and they follow up and they have to say, I can tell you that in a closed setting, or I can see that behind closed doors, because national security, you can see this much, but you can't see anymore. And I get those frustrations. I, yeah, I just, I think it's, if they're divulging as much as they can, then I'd rather have something than nothing. However, I do think it's needlessly confusing. And I see my role as trying to, you know, take scientific results that can often be very, like, murky and, like, intimidating sometimes, you know, and trying to communicate that clearly to the public. And, you know, I don't, I feel like this is, I'm not sure it's helpful, really, to get such a small amount. And it just, it just kind of excites everyone's imagination. But, you know, and, and I think, I think it kind of a little bit abuses the public interest on this topic a little bit. But that said, as I said, I would rather have a little bit than nothing. So. Yes. And I've said that. But I'd rather have everything than nothing or a little bit. But you've seen the famous meme from all of a sudden in Philadelphia, the Charlie Day, when you've got the spider diagram. That is the UFO topic where he's like, there's so many offshoots and so many of them are needless. I'll go back to the 3i Atlas stuff and I'm no harm to people. But I know there are multiple folks who have done daily shows updating on 3i Atlas being alien spaceship, different maneuvers who are in no way, shape or form scientists, and are literally just pulling anything they can for content. And for me, that's really disappointing because you're, you're pulling the subject in ways it doesn't need to go that are only going to disappoint ultimately. And for me, that's when maybe you do have, and let's just say David Grush is telling the truth. There's a really interesting path to go down there. But then someone like yourself is looking going, right, how do I cover this topic for a general populace? Experiencers, cattle mutilations, Nazca lines, who built the pyramids, energy fields under the pyramid. And I'm not saying I believe in all of this. I'm just stating all the different things that then come along with this topic. And that's where I appreciate any congressman, women, senator, anyone who's trying to get into this topic now. Where do you begin? And it's so difficult. And again, I suppose to close off, that's where I think your book is really helpful with that, where you can pick it up. You can look at different aspects of the topic. You can see where people fall down. It's not biased either way. And I love the fact that you do close off the book with, I love aliens. And you hope you make that clear. Because I often have to say that on the topic as well. I'm talking on a UFO podcast. I just try to be logical, sensible. I try and look at different points of view. I share my own. But ultimately, there's a lot of evidence out there. And it's up to the individuals to wade through that and try and find their own way. So if you've got someone, Becky, who's looking at the book and picks it up, what do you hope they get out of it by the end of the book? I hope they just get a grounding in the actual various communities that care about this, and particularly in the way that scientists are looking to try to reproducibly answer the question. And I hope that we didn't touch on this much, but I think the role of aliens in pop culture is a big part of this story. And that's one reason that I'm so interested in the topic, is that we've had so many interesting ideas about what aliens could be. And it's just like always going to be a very popular topic. People are just, there's engagement built in. So I have that in the book as well as a way to understand it. But, you know, I think, I hope that people come away with new perspectives on a topic that is very old and very charged. That's my main thing. And I hope that people talk to each other more about this, because I think you can, in my sphere, you can get siloed into the scientific kind of sector of it. And then in other spheres, you can get into whatever different theory. And that's all good. I think people should talk to like-minded people, but there's not a lot of cross-connection about it. And I think that that needs to start happening more, which is, you know, why I'm like really happy to be on this podcast and talking to someone who has much more subject expertise in the history of it and all of that. And that is a blind spot for me, totally. But that's why we need to start like talking to each other more, for sure. Absolutely. I always enjoy hearing other opinions and takes on the topic. And it's refreshing to speak to yourself, Becky. Copy of the book there, folks. First contact. And again, it's the story of our obsession with aliens. How can people get a hold of the book, Becky, if they want to pick it up? Yeah, it should be anywhere. Bookstores, any bookstore that you use near you, Amazon, all of that. And if you want to stay in touch with my work, I have a newsletter called The Bex Files that you can sign up for at beckyfrera.com. Cool name. Well done. Lovely speaking with you. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you. This is great. That's all for this episode of That UFO Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and watching. If you enjoyed the show, please follow, subscribe, and leave a rating or review. Wherever you get your podcasts, it really helps others find the show. If you're watching on YouTube, hit like, subscribe, and turn on notifications so you don't miss future episodes. You can also support the show directly and get early access, ad-free episodes, and bonus content on Patreon, or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube memberships. All the links are over at thatufopodcast.com or in the show description below, along with merchandise and more. Don't forget you can also pick up a copy of my book, Atlas of Unidentified Flying Objects, available now in all good bookstores and through online retailers, including Amazon. Big thank you again to all of you for listening and tuning in. Until next time, keep looking up. You never know what you might see. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process, so you can focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.